Typhoon Parma is headed for Taiwan Sunday after cutting a destructive path across the northern Philippines -- the second storm there in eight days.

PHOTO

Houses destroyed by flooding after Typhoon Ketsana passed through Marikina City, east of the Philippines capital Manila. [ABC]

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(Post by CAAI News Media)

Philippine officials are blaming poor urban planning for the extreme flooding caused by two recent typhoons that killed nearly 300 people.

President Gloria Arroyo's spokesman, Cerge Remonde says lapses in urban planning saw housing estates and shantytowns spring up near reservoirs and lakes.

He says widespread devastation by Tropical Storm Ketsana and Typhoon Parma shows the urgency of re-planning Metro Manila.

Mr Remonde says problems that need solving include insufficient drainage, clogged waterways, uncontrolled housing development, and the proliferation of slums along riverbanks.

Ketsana dumped a month's worth of rain over Manila within a few hours on September 26, triggering the country's heaviest flooding in 40 years.

Flood water has been slow to recede in the capital.

Parma, hit Luzon eight days later, boosting the stagnant flood waters and ruining vast areas of rice fields.

Relief effort

Meanwhile, the American military says hundreds of its troops are involved in the flood relief effort in the Philippines.

Officials say marines and sailors posted in the Manila area have been helping to clear roads, deliver supplies and provide basic medical care.

Gwendoline Pang, of the Philippine Red Cross, says continuing bad weather is hampering progress.

"In the evacuation centres, it's so congested, and they've been there for more than a week already, almost two weeks. Also the clean-up effort is becoming very challenging, because before we can clean up the area, another typhoon is coming again," said Ms Pang.

Cambodia death toll

The death toll in Cambodia is at least 17 after Typhoon Ketsana swept through the country.

But the National Committee for Disaster Management believes that number is likely to increase still further.

Ketsana caused widespread flooding in Cambodia, destroying homes and crops, and displacing thousands of families.

It passed through after earlier battering Vietnam and the Philippines, where hundreds of people died.

Took me long enough to post this because it was a great week last week and I finally got some time to post my weekly review. Last week I only had to work three day since I took two extra days off to be able to head out to the Hailey Autocross event on Saturday in of course Hailey, ID. Lots of fun was had during the Autocross event weekend and now I'm patiently working on editing the photos and videos and will be making that post later this week.

While the week up to Thursday was pretty much entirely uneventful, on Thursday my roommate got an official invite to SEMA (the bastard) and we changed the oil in the RX8. It was a fun chore since it took three hours and several extra dollars more than it should have. That wasn't the worst part though, the worst part was losing the just purchased swivel and socket that we needed down inside the engine compartment where it was impossible to retrieve them from. At least it's not interfering with the car any, other than just a bit of extra added weight.

Friday was a nice trip up to Hailey, ID, met up with a few other autocrossers and caravan-ed up to Hailey together it was a nice fall day with no major weather issues. Stopped at my Roommate's parent's house and dropped off our stuffed picked up his sister and met up with the other people in the caravan again and went out to Ketchum to do some parting. I was one of the DDs since I was poor as piss and didn't feel like drinking anyways. It was fun although I still suck at billiards and wholy hell I almost got to see an old "gay" man get his face caved in by one of the people we were with when the old dude grabbed one of girls in our groups ass. We were all shocked at first when we say it we honestly thought the guy had to know her and when we figured out that sure wasn't the case it was too late. The bouncers told the boyfriend that the guy who did it was just the harmless gay old man that everyone knew and that he did it all the girls...like that's a fucking excuse.

Also I saw something just hilarious while there when I saw a lil' Asian lady walking around with this skirt on but the skirt was more like a slip, actually I think it was and it only really covered about half her ass (half was sold the other half was sheer) and she had her white granny panties hanging out the bottom. Drove home and went to bed.

Saturday was the autocross event and I'll get into that in a later post but after the autocross event and a quick little nap my roommate, his sister and I went out and saw Zombieland which was awesome and probably my new favorite zombie movie at the moment and Emma Stone is freaking awesome and a hottie. Also Bill Murray's cameo was just awesome as well.

Then came Sunday and after sleeping in and having a nice brunch with the roommate's parents we headed back home in the RX8 only to hit snow about thirty minutes into our drive. We turned back around and headed back the way we came and traded cars with his parents and drove back the rest of the way home in their Explorer encounter at least a good half a foot or more of snow on the way home. It was an interesting drive to say the least and it was a fun little mini vacation that ended with me sitting at the computer for several hours editing photos and videos to be posted later this week.

If you haven't seen Zombieland you really should here is the trailer for it...