Evacuation Overload!

My dad and stepmom turned around and are going to ride the hurricane out because the roads are pretty much parking lots. Not just the highways, most all the roads. My cousin and his parents are going to ride it out in freaking Winnie! This is BS. The DPS and local law enforcement should be opening up lanes of traffic, shoulders, whatever it takes to get people moving! I'm sure thousands upon thousands are turning back because of this. Rick Perry needs to order this shit now! NOW!

Hurricane Rita Targets Texas

I have family over in Beaumont and Winnie. My close cousin, who's more like a brother, is in Beaumont and still hasn't made up his mind about whether to come stay with me here in Austin. The projected path of the storm keeps creeping up closer and closer to the Beaumont area, and right now it's pretty much assured that even if Rita's eye doesn't go directly over Beaumont, that Beaumont is definitely going to feel it. From Alvin, my dad and stepmom (more like a mother than my bio mother) are on there way up here but will be staying with my grandmother. My sister and her family, also from Alvin, left yesterday and is going to stay with my other grandmother in Arkansas. My best friend, blood brother, is leaving today and will be staying with me over the weekend, the rest of his family will be staying with some relatives near Temple.

So, all that I have to worry about is my cousin and his mother and father (my aunt and uncle) now, and it's looking more and more like he's in an area that will suffer the most... and he's actually considering trying to ride it out! I've bugged him over and over... he's pretty hard-headed. He actually told me that maybe if it gets bad that he'll go to Winnie and ride it out there... HELLO... Winnie is in an even worse spot since it's closer to the water than where he's at already. He mentioned the house being really tough... so I sarcastically asked him if he saw what Katrina did, levelling whole towns. Not sure what more I can do aside from driving down to him, hog tie him, and take him away.

I really don't want to tell people that my cousin died in a hurricane... that's just stupid these days with as much advance warning and calls for evacuation that we have. But perhaps this is just natural selection at work. Unlike some in New Orleans, my cousin has a vehicle, he can buy gas for it, and he has a place to go. He has every opportunity to avoid this huge force, and he's twiddling his thumbs. There's still time right now, and all I can do is hope and pray that he opens his eyes to this situation before it's too late.

Renee Zellweger: Chesney's Distaste For Children Reason For Split

Sexy Renee Zellweger. What makes her sexy, in my opinion, is the way she talks. I saw her on the Tonight Show (Jay Leno) and that really impressed the hell outa me. I had never really been a fan or anything, well I thought she looked really good in Jerry Maguire, but that was about it. But you can tell she's probably a really cool person "in real life."

Be that as it may... marrying someone before knowing how they feel about children, raising them, having a family etc., is pretty stupid. I'm sure that's at least one reason why she's being tight lipped about this, because she knows how dumb it appears. However, she did claim fraud, so maybe the guy lied to her, or otherwise wasn't very forthright about his feelings on establishing a family. Since Renee doesn't seem that stupid, I'm leaning on believing that Chesney was a bit deceptive. But who knows, maybe all this is a ruse for Chesney's erectile dysfunction. haha

Grandmother Fired for Katrina Absences

Positronic Industries, where people with compassion and ability to think outside the box need not apply. Positronic makes electrical connections, not human ones.

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Grandmother Fired for Katrina Absences

By BILL DRAPER Associated Press Writer

(AP) - KANSAS CITY, Mo.-When forced to decide between caring for her 18-month-old granddaughter while her parents were stranded in New Orleans or showing up for her job, Barbara Roberts chose to be a grandma. And for that, she was fired.

Roberts, 54, had driven 200 miles from her home in Mount Vernon to Columbia on Aug. 27, the Saturday before Hurricane Katrina came ashore, to care for granddaughter Trisana for a couple of days. Her daughter, Tina Roberts, and son-in-law, Chris Hardin, were in New Orleans.
Click here to find out more!

It was supposed to be a weekend business trip for the couple, and Roberts, who had used up her allotted time off in her assembly line job at Positronic Industries, had planned to be back to work on Monday. Her daughter had even arranged for another baby sitter to spend Sunday night with Trisana so Roberts could get home in time.

But when her son-in-law tried to schedule the flight home on the afternoon of Aug. 27, he was told all flights had been canceled because of the approaching hurricane.

"There was a Category 5 hurricane with a bull's-eye on our butts, so we called Barb and said we didn't know when we would be coming home," said Hardin, a professor at the University of Missouri School of Medicine. "We truly didn't know what would happen down there."

With no other relatives in the area to take care of the child, Roberts said she had no choice but to call work on Aug. 29, the day the hurricane hit, and tell her boss that she would be missing a few days.

"There was no decision to make - it was already made," Roberts said. "My daughter could have died down there. This was family. You don't walk out on a child - especially my grandbaby."

Hardin and his wife spent several days locked down in a hotel - safe from the chaos that befell most of New Orleans after the levees broke - and finally made it back to Columbia on Thursday, Sept. 1. Shaken up, they asked Roberts to stay one more day.

She says she was told on the phone that she was going to be fired. And on Sept. 6, she was.

"All I know for sure is that I had missed so many hours, and then this came up," Roberts said. "Usually you have a certain amount of vacation time, and I had used it up. You're also allowed so many unpaid days off, and I'd used them up, too. Fact is, I missed the allotted time and I got fired."

In response to questions about Roberts' termination, Positronic Industries President John Gentry said the company had made cash donations to relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina victims, but he declined to talk about Roberts. The company manufactures electrical connectors.

Hardin said his mother-in-law's firing was "absolutely unethical."

"People speak of family values, and I don't see what's a more central family value than a grandmother stepping up in this sort of situation," he said.

"I sit here trying to imagine what kind of world it would be if grandmothers didn't make that decision."

US grants Iranian president visa for U.N

Maybe heads of state who are known terrorists ought to be an exception to any practices or obligations regarding visits to the USA. Giving the guy permission to come here is really stupid.
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US grants Iranian president visa for U.N

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Wednesday it had granted a visa to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend U.N. meetings in New York but was still looking into his role in the 1979 U.S. Embassy storming in Tehran.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States had issued a U.S. travel visa to Ahmadinejad on Tuesday in Bern, Switzerland, which would allow him to attend U.N. meetings along with other heads of state next week.

'The decision to allow President Ahmadinejad, as Iranian head of government, to travel to the U.N., is in keeping with past practice and in accordance with our obligations under the U.N. headquarters agreement,' said McCormack.

However, he stressed the issuing of the visa in no way indicated a change of U.S. policy toward
Iran's government. In addition, the United States was still looking into the Iranian president's alleged involvement in the 1979 hostage crisis that lasted 444 days.

The United States says Ahmadinejad was a leader in the student movement behind the embassy takeover and is trying to determine whether he was a hostage-taker, which he and those who took part deny.

'There are still unresolved questions concerning his activities surrounding the taking of the American embassy in Tehran and his activities in that subsequent period in which American citizens were held for 444 days. We have not forgotten that.'"

THANKS!

I would like to recognize the following countries for helping in the ongoing relief effort from the damage caused by hurricane Katrina:

...uhh ...well umm ...maybe they didn't hear about it?

Evacuation Halted As Order Breaks Down

People shooting at helicopters that are trying to help in the relief effort. Sounds like a ghetto is still ghetto even when flooded. Let them rot.