True facts about Ed Blakely

According to ABC News Australia, former New Orleans "recovery czar" Ed Blakely is "Bringing Brooklyn's urban cool" to a shopping mall fountain in Sydney. Gambit explains.

Dr. Ed Blakely watchers know that former Mayor Ray Nagin's "recovery czar" declared mission accomplished on the rebuilding of New Orleans in 2009 and took his metaphorical "cranes in the sky" to Australia, where he now works with the University of Sydney's United States Study Centre (bless their hearts).

But now Blakely has a new challenge. He's teaming up with "urban designer" Ethan Kent to revitalize a shopping mall in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta.


That revitalization seems to center on restoring a fountain built in 1986 in the midst of the mall, a rather different task than rebuilding New Orleans. But certainly Blakely is the man for the job; as a report on ABC News Australia stated this morning, he was appointed to fix New Orleans by none other than President George W. Bush:

Professor Blakely was called in by then president George W Bush as "recovery tsar" after Katrina and has now been commissioned by Parramatta City Council to rebuild its central square, Church Street Mall.

He says the task in New Orleans was massive.

"The city fell down. 80 per cent of it was ruined," Professor Blakely said.

"We had to build it from the ground up and that's what we did.

"But I worked on a lot of other cities around the world: San Francisco, some in New York, Moscow, Paris."

There once was a time (I think this was just after the "Chocolate City" speech) when we were fond of pointing out the similarities between Mayor Ray Nagin and President Bush.  But we were pretty certain at the time that Nagin and not Bush hired Ed Blakely.  But if ABC says differently, then I suppose there's a lot we didn't know about Ed Blakely.

And that's why I did some checking.  You might be surprised at the Ed Blakely facts I found. I would like to share these facts with you now.  Not many people know these facts so you are likely learning them for the first time.  If you find them shocking please consider the feelings of others you may share them with before you do.

• Ed Blakely was hatched in a secret laboratory operated by Monsanto in Anaheim, California at Disneyland's original Tomorrowland exhibit. In the basement.


• Ed Blakely trained  in the meditative arts by walking a topiary labyrinth for 20 years uninterrupted while he communed with the infinite.. or possibly the ghost of Robert Moses.


• Ed Blakely was appointed by President Rutherford Hayes to re-crack the Liberty Bell after it was repaired by well-meaning locals who didn't want to wait around for the damn gub'mint to solve their bell problem for them.


• Ed Blakely once escaped from Liliput shouting defiantly at its inhabitants, "I don't have time to talk to little people."


• Ed Blakely personally administered the neighborhood charrette that produced Adrien de Pauger's original plan of New Orleans.


• Ed Blakely restored power to Superbowl XLVII by smiling brightly at a newborn child.


• Ed Blakely once bike toured all the way from Cuba to Florida.
   

This afternoon, we received word that the Voyager 1 Spacecraft is believed to have finally exited the solar system and sailed  on into interstellar space. But Ed Blakely was already there so it turned around and came home.

Obviously we should privatize what's left of the space program

NYT: 

WASHINGTON — The United States is facing a year or more without crucial satellites that provide invaluable data for predicting storm tracks, a result of years of mismanagement, lack of financing and delays in launching replacements, according to several recent official reviews.

The looming gap in satellite coverage, which some experts now view as almost certain to occur within the next few years, could result in shaky forecasts about storms like Hurricane Sandy, which is now expected to hit the Northeastern Seaboard early next week. 

In the future, we will just ask Red Bull to send some guy up in a balloon to jump through the hurricanes from space to tell us where they are. 

Rockets' Red Glare

Surely there must be an easier way to do this.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military likely will make its first effort to shoot down a crippled spy satellite that's approaching Earth's atmosphere sometime after 9:30 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, the Pentagon announced Tuesday, in what will be a major, if unplanned, test of America's anti-ballistic missile program.

Um... they are planning to do this, right? So it isn't exactly "unplanned" is it? "Whoops, we seem to have accidentally tested our ABM program. Our bad."

The USS Lake Erie, an Aegis class missile cruiser, will launch an SM-3 tactical missile toward the satellite from somewhere west of Hawaii, the Pentagon said. If that missile misses, the Navy has two other missiles on standby to launch, most likely on Thursday or Friday, the Pentagon said.

Three missiles. Well I like a good fireworks show. Are you sure three will be enough?

Firing the first missile will cost roughly $40 million, the Pentagon said, including the $10 million cost of the missile.

Never mind, carry on then.

The plan, however, is controversial. Some experts have suggested that the attempt is really an effort to expand the capabilities of the anti-ballistic missile system to include satellites and to counter China's destruction of an aged weather satellite last year. The United States denounced that Chinese test.

Oh I see. So this is really just some sort of hi-tech pissing contest, isn't it. Well, I guess boys will be boys.... just as long as they play safe.

U.S. officials announced last week that the Navy would try to down the satellite out of concern that a tank carrying 1,000 pounds of hydrazine, an ammonia-like chemical used in rocket fuel, would survive re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere and land in a populated area. Hydrazine can be toxic if swallowed or inhaled.

.....

The shoot-down isn't a sure thing. The missiles that will be used to strike the satellite were designed to bring down ballistic missiles, and their software had to be rewritten so they could target the satellite, which moves faster than a ballistic missile.

The missiles also will find tracking the satellite difficult because, without power, it will be cooler than a ballistic missile. A senior Navy official, who couldn't be quoted by name under Pentagon press rules, said that the timing of the shoot-down was chosen partly so that the afternoon sun over the Pacific could warm the satellite, making it more likely that the missile would be able to find it 150 miles above the Earth's surface.

If the missile misses the satellite, it will keep traveling into outer space, the Navy said. The satellite will continue approaching Earth.

A successful hit by the missile may not, however, destroy the satellite's hydrazine tank, Pentagon officials said. If another missile strike is needed, that launch most likely would take place on Thursday.

Oh shit. I'll be sure to keep my umbrella handy. It has an American Flag pattern on it, you know.

Note: Yes, I cut up and rearranged that article a good deal. I don't think it obscures the meaning, though.