Via The Morning News, check out what is allegedly the "formula" behind the cartoons from the New Yorker.

There's lots of discussion recently about the use of a wiki to "edit" an article by Esquire's A.J. Jacobs, much of it pointing out the amount of interest it gathered from those who wanted to contribute. Very cool story, you must admit - that said, Ed Cone points to a fantastic Onion brief that's so on topic it's not funny. Er, is funny. Whatever - just go read it.

"Congress Abandons WikiConstitution."

If you've ever wondered what it was like to watch television with a bunch of chatty people in a chatroom and keep track of what was said, then you might want to drop over to TVSquad. Last night, we posted yet another "chatcast" between Ryan Budke, Jen Segrest, and myself while we watched CSI. It's totally goofy, but well worth the read, even if you didn't watch the show.

Check out the chatcast category on the site, too, as you'll see where it's going.

It's Friday Random Ten time, so hit shuffle, listen to some morning tune-age, and post 'em up here. Check out Rox's list while you're at it.

• "99 Problems" - Jay-Z
• "Shoot to Thrill" - AC/DC
• "Stella 99" - Jam & Spoon
• "Built This City" - Diplomats
• "I Want You" - Massive Attack (featuring Madonna)
• "Error Free" - Crude Infinity
• "25" - Veruca Salt
• "Ego Trippin' 99" - Kool Keith & Motion
• "Tonight Is the Night" - La Bouche
• "Ravers = Burnouts" - Loop Machine

[ed: and for those of you who haven't seen them before, the hyperlinked songs are those which exist in the iTunes music store, and those are affiliate links that earn some coin (pronounced kwan, natch) for TMD]

TVWeek.com's Jay Sherman is reporting Thursday that the satellite television provider will be adding 72 XM stations over its service, with the number of stations each customer getting being based on the level of package s/he subscribes to.

As a SIRIUS subscriber who enjoys the service a lot, it's great to see the innovations that the company has been putting together with regard to hardware and programming. That said, the programming is becoming more and more competitive between SIRIUS and XM, with some exclusive sports contracts moving back and forth between them. While I prefer SIRIUS overall, that's not to say that XM doesn't have some things I'd like to have. Now, as a DirecTV subscriber, I will - well, if what I'm looking for is included in the distribution.

Now, if I could only get some more high definition channels...

The AP's David Bauder covers the way that the television morning shows have gone all out when it comes to Katrina victims, specifically working with charities and other positive efforts towards the relief process. Like anything else they do, it's a competition of sorts.

If anyone's been wondering whether bloggers are being taken seriously by members of the media, then the answer is yes - well, sort of. At least one reporter from Money thought enough of a San Diego-area blogger's commentary about a real estate boom in that market to call him for background in a magazine article, the San Diego Union-Tribune's Mike Freeman reports. Now while this isn't chapter and verse that "bloggers are experts, consider them for your Rolodex," it does lend a bit of creedence to the opinion and research value that they bring to the table being important.

On Wednesday afternoon, Reuters' Barry Moody wrote about the news organization's contention that the military on the ground in Iraq has been "limiting the ability of independent journalists to operate." In a letter to Virginia senator John Warner, head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, managing editor David Schlesinger expressed his concerns, asking that Warner convey these issues to his colleagues.

Recently, a much ballyhooed topic floating around on blogs is that of iPodSubwayMaps.com's use of maps of NYC and San Francisco subway systems. Fred Wilson calls the situation "ridiculous," and is right in pointing out that the service being provided does make the use of the subways in those cities "easier" for those who use the service - being that it can be placed on a device that a lot of people are using already. However, I think Fred is off base when he (along with Jeff Jarvis) are stating that this isn't a copyright issue.

Sure, the subway system "belongs" to the people in the way that it is there for the public's use. But the physical maps are "owned" by whomever created them. Those maps are images, or artwork, and someone spent the time to put them together - whether by hand, mouse, or some other technique. The simple solution - and the one that the proprietor of the website has taken - is to just re-do the maps himself. Sure, the logic of the MTA and BART to go after the site might be off base - and I think it's awful shortsighted, but that doesn't mean that the previous works shouldn't belong to the individual or entity that created them, for as long as the copyright lasts.

I don't know about you, but I'm beginning to sense a bit of logic-loss when it comes to people going after anything "big business" or "big government" these days. Just because you can do things doesn't mean that you should do so in the first method that pops into your mind. Companies are opening their eyes to the new way of doing things, and perhaps this was a chance for those of us who hold some of the cards (read: bloggers, iPodSubwayMaps' William Bright, and those who are on the Cluetrain). The triumphalism and chest beating isn't all it's cracked up to be, and is the reason that many people have a problem with the new world of media.

Is the fact that the National Weather Service lets you create and aim a hurricane at sections of the United States a good thing? In any case, it's definitely educational and of interest - how long before the petitions to yank this from the site begin to fly?

[via Liz Donovan]

Earlier today, Gallup released poll results about people's trust and confidence in the media. The good news is that it's higher than it was at this time last year - though only slightly. The bad news is that it's still a few percentage points lower than it had been for the previous couple of years.

Frankly, the results don't surprise me at all, and as the media evolves at the speed of light, the definition will either need to be updated by those giving the surveys, or the figures will stay where they are. The public holds a grudge, of course.

In what might be the most amusing thing I've seen this week (last week's is here), it looks like self-publishing firm Lulu.com has created something very novel - though a bit pricey - to do with the rejection letters that pretty much anyone attempting to get their works printed has gotten at some point. That's right, now you can have your very own toilet paper, covered with the rejection letters you so want to set ablaze.

Sure, it's $90 for four rolls, including setup - but when you re-order, at least it'll be cheaper.

About a month ago, TMD learned about a segment about U.S. nuclear facilities that was supposed to run earlier this month on ABC News' "20/20" program - part of a story that allegedly included interns from the network's news division who attended various tours at nuclear plants, without ever disclosing that they were there as members of the media. A few days ago, Eric McErlain (who originally picked up the story for the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) back on August 24) published an update, which pointed out that the show was being delayed because of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, and that it was actually part of a longer series about nuclear energy and its potential for harm.

In McErlain's item, he cites Inside NRC, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission publication, which carried a story about one intern who was effectively "called out" by a researcher at Ohio State University, Earl Holland. Holland startled an intern who was trying to follow up on her original story - catching her off guard when Holland told her what she looked like, what she was wearing, and what her car's license plate number was during a phone conversation containing the same questions asked while on a tour. She obviously didn't think Holland would put two and two together. Oops.

Most staggering to me in the piece is what Inside NRC's Jenny Weil uncovered next about Holland's involvement. Apparently, when Holland would ultimately speak with ABC News directly, he found that the network "was ready to run with the story that the interns had been let inside the reactor building by a gardener." Tabloid journalism, indeed. Fortunately, it turned out that it wasn't your garden variety gardener (sorry, had to do it), but "the former director of the facility" - who happened to be outside, taking care some plants. That former director is retired, but Holland told Wiel that the man is "still an active licensed reactor operator."

Since the previous story here, ABC News has not responded for our request for information about the segments or made any comment about the interns' place in this project.

Last week, Joe Jaffe wrote about how ESPN's television programming might be reaching the end of the line - in line extension, that is. You know, like when you're in the grocery store, and you see the "new innovation" by your favorite pickle maker, and wonder what the heck they were thinking. It's more akin to "jumping the shark" but in a business model sort of sense.

I've got to say that I love ESPN, watch it for hours a week, but realize that even the SportsCenter flagship has changed - with the catchphrases becoming the important thing, rather than being thrown in for fun here and there. Sometimes I feel like as a sports fanatic who enjoys everything from golf to tennis to college football to hockey to, well, pretty much everything, I might not be the target audience the network(s) are aiming for all the time. Like, who cares if I'm the person watching 15 hours of college football per week, plus SportsCenter once per day, and so on, as there are people watching these new "entertainment"-based shows that must get better ad rates or are targeted at people who miss John Tesh on Entertainment Tonight.

I'm a sports fan - I watch basically every game on Sunday during the NFL season through DirecTV, I sit through 400 laps at Dover Downs on days like yesterday, catch probably 150 baseball games a season on television between my beloved Yankees and any other important games I feel like checking out - I could go on, but that's not the point. When does the stupidity in programming end? Because ESPN's new "Hollywood" programming certainly put me off the cliff - I liked having Chris Connelly do a thing here and there, and totally love Outside the Lines - but enough is enough.

Just read over at Lost Remote that PR Newswire has (finally) gotten up to speed with regard to its RSS feeds. Intead of just one fire hydrant-hookup RSS feed with the last (n) press releases, you can now subscribe to a number of nifty feeds broken up by news type, industry, or drill down within an industry.

Of course, this page also includes a subscription option to PRN's "podcast" of press releases, (they're calling them ANRs - audio news releases) through MultiVu, wherein the wire service is also distributing much more multimedia content, from audio soundbites to video clips and more.

Okay, so our pals over at Pegasus News are about to get the ball rolling on their news service, which will roll out in Dallas-Fort Worth on February 14, 2006. If you're interested in what kind of service this will be, and would like to see it pop up in your market - or one near you - then why not drop by and sign up for a lifetime subscription to the service - which will cost anywhere from $12-$75/year. However, if you sign up now (well, until October 3, 2005), you can get all that for $1.

Now obviously none of us knows what Pegasus News will ultimately end up being, or how huge it could become. But if you've ever wanted to get in on the ground floor of something without dropping $120/share at an IPO you don't have access to anyway, then this is probably one of those moments. Plus, it's like....$1.

[via A Little Pollyanna]

If anyone was wondering what would happen to the "rest of us" who aren't paying for the behind the wall op-eds and such at the NYT, this is probably a good example. People will end up not linking to the original works, but linking to the people who have digested and commented on those works, adding their own voices to the mix.

And you thought "telephone" was fun when you were six years old...

On Tuesday, a memorial service was held at New York City's Carnegie Hall for ABC News anchor Peter Jennings, who passed away in early August from lung cancer - an event that allowed for the public to attend if they were able to get one of the 800-someodd tickets that were made available. By checking out some of the coverage over on TVNewser, it looks like it was all done very well, and that hearing from Peter's friends and colleagues was very touching to all in attendance.

However, it seems that ABC News had put some significant restrictions on those in the media who were to attend the event and looked to cover it for their own outlets. Most interestingly, exactly zero television or radio crews were allowed to attend the event - kind of peculiar, considering the role in broadcast journalism that Jennings had, but perhaps there was a space issue to be concerned about. Some highlights from the memo sent to TV and Radio Assignment desks:

• Excerpts of no more than three (3:00) minutes total of actualities from the program may be incorporated in your regularly scheduled domestic network news programs broadcast within the forty-eight hour period commencing at 3:30 PM E.T. on Tuesday, September 20 ending 3:30 PM E.T. on Thursday, September 22.


• No part of the Memorial Service may be catalogued for future use.


• No use of the memorial service is permitted in promos, teases, or bumpers.


• No part of the Memorial Service may be used on the Internet.


• A video credit reading "COURTESY: ABC News" must be aired for the duration over the actualities you broadcast.


• With regard to any possible excerpting by your network Memorial Service, please note that ABC News expressly forbids the use of logos over any of the above footage. If it is not possible for you to excerpt the program without showing a logo, then there may be no excerpting.

A veteran journalist who spoke with TMD and provided a copy of the memo compared this to the types of rules put around high profile award shows such as the Emmys and Grammys - and that the memorial being "promoted" as the opportunity for Jennings' family and close friends - you know, with ABC cameras, a slew of print journalists (who were allowed in with no such restrictions), and 800 folks from the general population in the room - to mourn Jennings' passing seemed a little curious. I mean, there's no reason that a station can't put restrictions on their own footage, but this seemed a bit over the top to some.

Even if the intentions were in the right place, this almost comes off as ABC trying to control any coverage of the event in what seems a bit obnoxious, considering that there are many people sitting at home who would love to have seen what happened, in its entirety, on Tuesday.

Full memo after the jump.

From: Levine, Cathie [email redacted]
To: [redacted]
Subject: ABC NEWS/ Peter Jennings Memorial Service

TO: TELEVISION AND RADIO ASSIGNMENT DESKS

RE: ABC NEWS/ Peter Jennings Memorial Service

There will be a memorial service to celebrate the life of Peter Jennings on Tuesday, September 20th at 11:00am at Carnegie Hall in New York. No television or radio crews will be permitted inside the service.

At 3:00pm ET on September 20th ABC News will feed excerpts of the service on:

Please note the following usage restrictions:

* Excerpts of no more than three (3:00) minutes total of actualities from the program may be incorporated in your regularly scheduled domestic network news programs broadcast within the forty-eight hour period commencing at 3:30 PM E.T. on Tuesday, September 20 ending 3:30 PM E.T. on Thursday, September 22.
* No part of the Memorial Service may be catalogued for future use.
* No use of the memorial service is permitted in promos, teases, or bumpers.
* No part of the Memorial Service may be used on the Internet.
* A video credit reading "COURTESY: ABC News� must be aired for the duration over the actualities you broadcast.
* With regard to any possible excerpting by your network Memorial Service, please note that ABC News expressly forbids the use of logos over any of the above footage. If it is not possible for you to excerpt the program without showing a logo, then there may be no excerpting.

ABC News reserves all of its rights and remedies in the event of any violation of its rights.

ABC News Media Relations: Cathie Levine [email / telephone redacted]

-- ABC --

The Los Angeles Times' Cynthia Cho writes about how the world of politics has entered the world of podcasting - perhaps in a big way. Between columnists and commentarists doing their thing, and politicians themselves putting out their opinions and speeches, they've taken advantage of reaching out to a population that doesn't necessarily have the time or inkling to listen otherwise - and a population that is probably most likely to spread the word to their fellow technological evangelists.

I don't know how I managed to miss the fact that you could get your Google News alerts through RSS instead, but I did. Needless to say, I did it with the date-specific option on (relevance is fine and all, but dates are much more important when reading), and have since dropped them all from my email box. Life, as we know it, has since changed.

Back in May, when the New York Times announced that its columnists would be going behind a paid wall through a product called TimesSelect, it wasn't highly thought of. Shortly afterward, the Times' Martin Nisenholtz discussed the decision and what was involved. Still, most didn't take very well to it.

This morning, at least one user is having some trouble using the service - and it's someone with a print subscription, to boot. It'll be fascinating to see how this works, as the paper's columnists are probably some of the most-linked-to articles on the Web right now - or, they were, at least. On Friday, Matt Sheffield gave the gasface to the Times' plan, making the point that those potential NYT readers who have no idea who the columnists were before might never know now, if they don't ever pay for a sub online.

Finally, PaidContent's Staci Kramer has all kinds of good stuff on the service's launch, including the fact that advertising will be sold on the columnist pages, according to a spokesperson for the publication - a 180 from what was originally believed.

Yeah, yeah, it's been awhile, but it's time to do this anyway. Here's my random ten from this morning. Make sure you check out Rox's, and post your own.

• "Strawberry Fields Forever" - John Lennon
• "Tryin' To See Another Day" - The Isley Brothers
• "Don't Stop '99" - ATB
• "Overnight Celebrity" - Twista
• "Just Like This" - Limp Bizkit
• "Say Goodbye" - Dave Matthews Band
• "Fury" - Baby Anne
• "What Up Wit It" - Chingy
• "Sunshine (Take U There)" - Kay Cee
• "Fight Fire With Fire" - Kansas
Posted by Tom at 12:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Last week, I had a conversation with Rex Hammock about an effort related to Hurricane Katrina relief, and he informed me very briefly about a conversation he was having with the publisher of a magazine out of Louisiana who was in a tough spot in the aftermath of the regional disaster. Yesterday, he wrote about the conversations he had with Romney and Charley Richard, owners and publishers of Louisiana Cookin' Magazine - and possible plans for how to keep the publication up and running by any means necessary.

For the blogger in all of us, it's great to see that they did easy task #1 - started a blog. Additionally, they're working with Rex and others to figure out how best to get the next issue written, compiled, edited, printed, and out the door to the loyal readers of the magazine. While there are obviously life and death-related things going on in New Orleans and thereabouts, seeing a positive story come out of the devastation can be fruitful for us all.

My kudos go out to Rex, the Richards and all the other people who have stepped to the plate to make this work and keep the publication alive and well.

The Associated Press is reporting Tuesday that Richard Wayne O'Bryant, the managing editor of the University of North Florida's student newspaper, the Spinnaker, was found dead on Monday. His death is believed to be a suicide.

In case you happen to be looking for me later on this evening, I'll be participating in a panel discussion called "The Power of Blogs" given by BrandTrainers. The event is taking place at The Support Center, 305 7th Avenue at 27th Street in NYC. It looks like you can still register online, where it's $35, or $50 at the door.

The moderator for the event is B.L. Ochman, and Jason Calacanis, Stonyfield Farms' Christine Halvorson and IBM's Sher Taton will also be there. Expect to see a great variety of responses, as the backgrounds of the panelists are very different. I'm psyched to be participating, and hope to see you there!

Big news this afternoon for hockey fans, especially those who are satellite radio customers. Turns out that XM will also be carrying the NHL's season this fall, ultimately taking on the games exclusively in the 2007-08 season. It'll be interesting to see if the continued "exclusivity" contracts that both XM and SIRIUS have been working up will have the same effect that DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket have on the industry.

Oh my - in what seemed to be a never-ending saga of personal problems and on-air issues, WFAN talk show host Sid Rosenberg has resigned from the station, "effective immediately." His former co-host Joe Benigno made the announcement just as the 10am-1pm midday show opened up this morning. No further details were discussed, and WFAN's "Joe & Sid" page wasn't updated on the station's Website.

More details if and when they become available.

[update 9/13] The New York Post (r/r) has more on the story, which looks like it ended badly over the weekend with Rosenberg's attendance at an event in Atlantic City.

Alright, I think I'm up for a site redesign, and am welcoming all comers, bids, and ideas. My only requests up front is that I'd like to continue using Movable Type, like having PHP includes for each of the little sections of the site, and need to have some space for advertising, sort of like what I currently have.

I'm not averse to three column or two column, whatever is interesting, and I am not married to right or left side menus. One thing I'd like to be able to do is have a secondary blog to do remaindered links somewhere on the page, and perhaps move some of the main navigation to the top.

If you're like to take a crack at it, please drop me an email at themediadrop (at) gmail.com and let me know what kind of timing you would need and how much you're looking for, money-wise, to do the job. If you know someone who does great work on web design, please send them my way. Oh, and if there's a logo involved, that's cool too, as I like the one I have, but I'm in the mood to switch things up, I think.

This week, FEMA had stated its policy about the media not photographing the dead found as the Southeastern U.S. was drained of floodwaters and the relief efforts and cleanup ensued. Tonight, Taegan Goddard informs, that policy has been reversed in light of a lawsuit filed by CNN, herein "opening the door" for the press to photograph any bodies that are recovered.

In what is the ultimate testament to the intersection of Internet usage and television watching, I present the Saturday, September 10, 2005 Site Meter statistics, through 8:01pm Eastern time, for The Media Drop.

This is probably a bit light for the site for most of the day, but a nice Saturday in September is probably good for sending at least a few folks outside, or at least getting them to stow the laptop. Well, that is, until ESPN mentioned the death of former sideline reporter Adrian Karsten, which I posted about earlier in the week. Both Yahoo! and Google have this site ranked pretty highly for Karsten's name, hence a staggering number of people who hit the site in a short period of time - about 350 in just a couple moments around 7:25pm. While that's not staggering in Internet numbers overall, it's a lot more than this site normally gets at a moment's notice. Additionally, this is traffic that is 100% search engine originated, and this site wasn't mentioned on-air.

So what does this mean? Well, based on the widely-dispersed locations of the persons visiting the site, it means that ESPN's college football has a pretty big audience that is literally all over the country. Second, it means that when people are looking for more backstory on something they see or hear, the Internet is clearly readily available to much of the masses. If you don't think this is where television providers are looking to improve upon their interactivity, then you might want to reconsider your position.

Nick Madigan details the concern that has arisen across the mass media about the use of certain terms, such as "refugee," when describing those who have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Some of the problems are with terms considered possibly racist in nature, or, more specifically, the context of how those words are used, whether describing white people, black people, or others. I've shared my thoughts on this situation, at least regarding "refugee" as a term, but I'm certainly not surprised with any outrage by Americans about certain usage of terms to describe various groups of people.

The Herald-Tribune's Lauren Mayk writes about an offer by Verizon of digital television service to the customers in an area of Texas where the telecom provider's new FiOS fiber optic services are available. Right now, Verizon and other telecoms face serious pressure from cable companies and other phone service providers, let alone mobile phone providers, for the voice minutes that used to be all theirs in the markets served by the company. The only way to get back in good light with customers in those markets is to bring them something they don't have - which an unprecedented (for most) level of speed on the Internet, reasonably priced phone services, perhaps in the VoIP manner, and television. Once again, this would all be on the same bill, but the provider would have total control over the various costs, unlike other Internet/phone/television combinations where partnerships are involved.

Reuters informs on Saturday that Jay-Z is looking to create a new sub-label within the Def Jam family. The "code name" for the project is "Def Jam Left," according to Billboard.

For those of us who commented on FEMA's website where victims of Katrina could apply for aid was allowing for the use of the Internet Explorer browser only, it's good to hear that the organization is beginning to address the issue. TechWeb's Gregg Keizer reports that the landing page for this section is now stating that they are aware of the problem and are working to correct it.

Last month, Miami Herald columnist Jim DeFede was fired from his position at the newspaper after recording a phone conversation with a troubled former city executive. In Saturday's New York Times, Terry Aguayo reports that DeFede will not be charged by Miami or Florida officials for his actions, which violate a state law that telephone conversations cannot be recorded without all parties being aware of it.

Earlier today, the Detroit Free Press announced that Caesar Andrews, formerly a Gannett News Service editor, will be taking on the executive editor role at that publication.

I'd been hearing for the last day (maybe longer, who can keep track at this point) that there were some problems with users who didn't use Internet Explorer 6 or weren't running Windows-based machines were having some problems filing a claim in FEMA's "Disaster Aid" Website, but passed it off as a problem here or there by a few people who might have just had difficulties in certain situations. Then, this morning, I read about it yet again over at TechnoFlak, so I thought I'd check it out.

Sure enough, if you use Firefox the system doesn't work for you, and it tells you so. [Screenshot here] While I definitely don't have the same fiery retort to this as some who are choosing to make political charges here, I do think that if anyone needs to be considerate of technical issues that "divide" Americans, it might be the government. Plus, there are many a library (like my own in Bloomfield, NJ) that use Firefox as a browser - it's the only choice on the *nix-based machines. Think about it - many of the people who might be filing claims may not have the ability to go get new software or find another computer to log into - although calling in on the telephone to register might be a solid idea, I can't say how much of a delay might be involved in trying to do so, as I'm obviously not going to call on the line and hold up the service from someone else who might need help.

And this doesn't even begin to scrape any potential issues with Section 508, which includes any accessibility needs for persons with disabilities. [Thanks, Jason!]

In other college football news today (seems to be a trend, for some reason), I'm sorry to point out that former ESPN college football personality Adrian Karsten was found dead at his home Friday, in what appears to be a suicide. If you're not familiar with his name, you can see a photo of Karsten here at the Snyder News Network.

[Thanks, Jerry]

MediaPost's Shankar Gupta informs about an effort by College Sports TV (CSTV) to bring live footage of sporting events (basketball games, in this case) directly to mobile phones via SmartVideo, which offers a pay-to-play service to phone users.

If at first this seems unnecessary to you, that's fine. What's important here is the wireless aspect of serious content being delivered. It's not recorded, it's live - something our Dick Tracy watches promised in the comic strips, but isn't exactly the easiest thing to do. Additionally, these viewers will see the same advertising pods that those watching television would see - further expanding the reach of those spots for the network.

SI.com's John Walters has the skinny on the departure of college football analyst Trev Alberts from ESPN's programming this week. Turns out that Alberts was displeased with how he was regarded as a personality on the network, which by viewing his presence on screen once or twice you could tell he wasn't the top banana.

[Thanks, David

Nashua, New Hampshire's Telegraph has a story this week by Eileen Kennedy that celebrates Yankee magazine's longevity - and adaptation. Kennedy points out that the publication is now podcasting a column by its editor, and that it hasn't succumbed to so-called "big media," existing as a standalone magazine with a wide distribution

I can't be the first person to stop by Ticketmaster.com looking for access to the New Orleans Saints vs. New York Giants game that has been moved to Giants Stadium on September 19, right? I don't know about you, but I think it's kind of embarrassing that they still have the tickets available for the original date of September 18, in the Superdome, considering the gravity of the situation in New Orleans. Now perhaps the huge amount of events listed on Ticketmaster's site make these things feasible to be left in - but I most certainly should not be able to go all the way through the purchase process, and was able to select very good tickets for $90.00.

After reading this alert over at Lost Remote that the National Weather Service had put out last Sunday, prior to Katrina's slamming of Louisiana and other points surrounding it, I have to say that the jokes about the weather being completely off base for daily forecasts will probably be left alone for a while. Additionally, this is just another point against all of the involved agencies, local or otherwis