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September 30, 2005

The Kid Doesn't Have a Leg to Stand On

...so they won't let him play.

It's halftime of a game in Dayton on Sept. 16 -- Colonel White High against Mount Healthy. After Colonel White leaves the locker room, the refs approach the coaches on the sideline. Crew chief Dennis Daly announces, "Number 99 cannot play in this game anymore. He's not wearing shoes, knee pads or thigh pads."

Head coach Earl White just stares at him.

"But he doesn't have any legs!" White says.

"Sorry," Daly says. "It's the rule."


Not anymore, it's not.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:22 PM

A Program Note ~ Kolchak is Back

...ain't it ain't half bad. We were all pleasantly surprised by the premiere episode of "The Night Stalker". Hard to believe they could come close to the quirkiness of the original in this day and age, but they did. It was also beautifully filmed, like they took time with it.

Ever since Fox got too full of themselves, straying from the X-Files, Millenium and Brimstone that made us Fox fans to begin with, TV just hasn't been as creepy...or as fun. Maybe there's hope for the ghouls among us.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:14 PM | Comments (6)

"This Country is Not Worth Dying For."

Mayor Koch begs to differ.

Many Americans, myself included, now see her as a person who has come to enjoy the celebratory status accorded to her by the radicals on the extreme left who see America as the outlaw of the world. These radicals are not content to be constructive critics. They are bent on destroying this country.

Some of them want to turn America into a radical socialist state. Others hope to create a utopia. But regardless of their agendas, how can Cindy Sheehan's supporters defend her shameful statement, "This country is not worth dying for."


He points out that America's not buying the 'died for a lie'.
Those who rail against the United States have simply failed to sell their message to the public at large. They keep losing elections, local as well as national. Rather than broadening their appeal, they have narrowed it.


I supported and still support the war in Iraq, because our Congress and President had every right to rely on the advice of the CIA that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. On Sunday, September 25, 2005, Tim Russert of Meet The Press, summed up the situation prevailing before the war, saying, "…post September 11th, there was a fear of terrorism, an inability to know whether there were weapons of mass destruction by the public or by the media. George W. Bush said there were. Bill and Hillary Clinton said there were. The Russians, French and Germans, who opposed the war, said there were. Hans Blix of the UN said there were."

...Of course, Sheehan has the right to state her opinion in a country she believes shouldn't be defended. We who disagree with her statements, we who believe this country deserves our thanks, love and willingness to defend it, also have the right to express our views. Speak up, America.


We're certainly glad you did, Your Honor.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 07:50 PM | Comments (3)

Here Comes the Sun, Doot n Doo Doo

Scientists clueless? When Leonardo was on top of it all those centuries ago?

Amazingly, one of the best techniques for measuring Earth's albedo is to watch the Moon, which acts like a giant mirror. Sunlight that reflects of Earth in turn reflects off the Moon and can be measured from here. The phenomenon, called earthshine, was first noted by Leonardo da Vinci.

They are still working up the definitive paper on moonshine and it's effects. You should have seen the grant request for that one! (Well, actually, Harry Reid did, but that's a whole 'nuther post. I'd provide a link, but it hasn't made MSNBC'S radar yet. Go figure.)
Anyway, these two Duke rocket scientists have upset the Kyoto Cabal by publishing a paper online, which has the begonias and kumquats to suggest that that big, old hot (for non-rocket scientists, that would be a surface temp of 6,000°C (11,000°F).), flaming ball of molten goo on the horizon might have something to do with Global Warming! Horse puckey, you say? They beg to differ, even going so far as to infer that maybe there hadn't been enough measuring over a long enough period.
The new study is based in part on Columbia University research from 2003 in which scientists found errors in how data on solar brightness is interpreted. A gap in data, owing to satellites not being deployed after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, were filled by less accurate data from other satellites, Scafetta says.

The Duke analyses examined solar changes over 22 years versus 11 years used in previous studies. The cooling effect of volcanoes and cyclical shifts in ocean currents can have a greater negative impact on the accuracy of shorter data periods.


The conservative impact?
"The Sun may have minimally contributed about 10 to 30 percent of the 1980-2002 global surface warming," the researchers said in a statement today.

There are enterprising folks out there, wracking their brains for fixes, everything from a "space ring" around the earth made of particles, to the Big Lots version called "Ring of Tiny Space Craft";
Deploying tiny spacecraft would come at a relative bargain: a mere $500 billion tops.

Well, thank God someone's on top of it. I can't wait to hear the howls, if this angle ever makes it to, oh, say...MSNBC or somebody.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 05:39 PM | Comments (3)

Driving Into the Sunset

Ford bids adieu to gas-guzzling Excursion

Ford Motor bade farewell on Friday to one of America's most infamous gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles, just days after committing to a sharp increase in more fuel-efficient hybrid and ethanol-powered vehicles.

The last 19 ft-long Excursion, equipped with a V-10 engine – nicknamed the Ford Valdez by environmentalists after the supertanker that ran aground in Alaska in 1989 – rolled off a Ford assembly line in Louisville, Kentucky, after six years on the market.


I'll bet they weren't quite as popular anymore. It's not so much the cost of a tank of gas, though...
Filling the Excursion's 44-gallon fuel tank cost about $133 in southern California this week, $41 more than a year ago.

...as how often you have to fork over the cash to fill said tank. Years ago, I remember listening to the Car Talk guys yakking about an info feature they had on their website. It's not there anymore, but it used to be an unvarnished Tom and Ray opinion about almost any make or model. When we popped in the Excursion, what verdict popped up as the very first sentence?
There is no reason on earth for anybody to own this car.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:03 PM | Comments (15)

HAH! Not ONLY is Lileks NOT a Journalist

...he is also not a scientist!

No, Hugh, I think you're absolutely right. And it's fascinating to me to see how the pride and the chest thumping that went on after Katrina, the media had finally grown their kumquats back, and they were going to stick it to the administration. Now it seems to have been replaced by sort of a muttered coughing and a looking away, and saying oh my.

::sniff:: Here at the Swilling, we walk the walk and talk the anatomically correct talk.

Kumquats. Pffft.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 02:13 PM | Comments (20)

Resistance

...is futile.


Wal-Mart takes control of Japanese retailer

Move will turn 400-store Seiyu into subsidiary

Welcome to the hive.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:34 AM | Comments (4)

Evolution at Work, Episode III

Bingley Goes to Home Depot.
For the first time, biologists have documented gorillas in the wild using simple tools, such as poking a stick in a swampy pool of water to check its depth or to scrape out earwax*...

...Mbeli Baia located in Nouabale-Ndoki National Park...

Say Mbeli Baia, Nouabale-Ndoki three times fast.

*(Okay, busted. Yes, we added that.)

Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:15 AM | Comments (2)

Happy Birthday Sweet Daughter

I Love You!

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 08:35 AM | Comments (11)

September 29, 2005

I Guess the Contractor's Off the Hook

Remember Bob Livingstone saying whoever the contractor was who built the 17th Street levee had a big problem?
Not so fast.

They reveal that when the floodwall on the 17th Street Canal was built a decade ago, there were major construction problems — problems brought to the attention of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

A 1998 ruling, by an administrative judge for the Corps' Board of Contract Appeals, shows that the contractor, Pittman Construction, told the Corps that the soil and the foundation for the walls were “not of sufficient strength, rigidity and stability” to build on.

...Pittman won the contract in 1993. There already was an earthen levee made of soil. Embedded in that was a thin metal wall called sheet piling. The contractor was hired to pour concrete on top of all that to form the flood wall.

But the 1998 documents — filed as part of a legal dispute over costs — indicate the contractor complained about “weakness” of the soil and “the lack of structural integrity of the existing sheet pile around which the concrete was poured.” The ruling also referenced the “flimsiness” of the sheet piling.

...The construction company said as a result of these problems the walls were shifting and “out of tolerance,” meaning they did not meet some design specifications. Nevertheless, the Army Corps of Engineers accepted the work.


Wow. This 'government stuff' is turning out to be quite a racket! You basically get to wear a bullet proof 'Bite Me' T-shirt. I can do this awfully with my eyes closed. Where do I sign up?

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:02 PM | Comments (13)

The Daily Howler Via The Governor Blameco School of Tap-Dance

New Orleans finest never, ever cease to astonish and amaze. Now they've turned Pet Psychic and are channeling...wait...wait...it's getting clearer...Bill Clinton!
[cue: unearthly voice with southern twange]"Depends what your definition of looting is."

New Orleans police launch investigation into reports officers looted

...Police spokesman Marlon Defillo said police are looking into the possibility that up to 12 officers were involved in misconduct.

The Police Department has 1,750 officers.

He rejected the use of the term "looting" but said authorities were investigating "the possibility of appropriation of non-essential items during the height of Katrina, from businesses."


A Swill Salute to Michelle Malkin, while Blackfive has thoughtfully linked to the instructional video.


Posted by tree hugging sister at 04:38 PM

First Place in the AL East


...one game ahead.
A-Rod, in the meantime...

A-Rod's historic HR gives Yankees lead
47th blast in victory over Orioles breaks DiMaggio’s team record

...is a God.

UPDATE: In the words of Phil Collins, "Tonight, tonight, tonight, whoa oh!"

Aaron Small took a one-hitter into the seventh inning to improve to 10-0, and the Yankees got homers from Jason Giambi and Hideki Matsui in cruising past the Orioles 8-4 on Thursday night.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:56 AM | Comments (26)

Minivans Have Friends In High Places

The Minivan Manly Men Club gets a new member.
UPDATE: At least he's got a job now.

The vote was 78-22.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 10:24 AM | Comments (20)

Governor Blameco Goes to Washington

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, blamed by the former leader of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin for many of the city's post-hurricane problems, was given no questions about her response to Hurricane Katrina when she appeared before a Senate committee to plead for more federal money.

She asked not to be questioned about it and the senators agreed.


Like I said below ~ a free pass.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:30 AM | Comments (11)

September 28, 2005

Shall I Sing The Glory Of The Can?

I have tried to rein in my disappointment, I truly have, for those canned recipes below. Oh, sure, Suzette's cheddar cheese soup pie is exciting, a thing of beauty in fact, but all of these recipes contain one fatal flaw: something not out of a can. Now, I admit that Keith's recipe comes closest to what I'm looking for, to what I truly expect from such a distinquished group of contributers, but to raise the level of the discourse I must present my bride's world famous


5 Can Casserole


1 can tuna
1 small can evaporated milk
1 can chicken noodle soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can chow mein noodles

Mix all the cans in 1 1/2 qt casserole (open them first, Ken), and bake uncovered at 350º for 45 minutes uncovered. Let it sit for a few minutes after taking it out, as the temp is still nukular.

Now eat it.

This, my friends, is the highest pinnacle of mid-western cuisine.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 05:55 PM | Comments (10)

Turn the Fan On

The excrement's already starting to fly. Woof! Didn't take those weasely wasscally Dems but an hour to put out a schmear on Dreier. Of course, if he is gay, he's a dummy for just not saying so. Who cares? But it begs the question; how far up someone's butt do you get to climb to try to make/find your point? Like looking into the adoptions of Judge Roberts' kids. The whole thing's disgusting, the whole dirt scraping, all means necessary thing. If he went to teas run by the Chinese and took M.O.N.E.Y., then do something about it. Or if he's an axe murderer, perjurist, congressional intern philanderer, an 'I dare you to catch me' Gary Hart type, or Kiwi Squid pornographer, then DO something about it. Otherwise, leave people to be judged on their merits A.L.O.N.E.. And to be able to expect some amount of peace in a public life.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 05:34 PM | Comments (2)

Another Norf Cacklelackey Friend of Crusader's

Police Find Missing Man Driving Dead Deer In Ambulance

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A man reported missing from a Florida hospital was found in North Carolina dressed like a doctor and driving a stolen ambulance with a dead deer wedged in the back, authorities said...

..."I don't know how the man got it up in there," said Sgt. Robert Pearson. "It was a six point buck."

Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:08 PM | Comments (9)

It was awesome!

Serenity was really a fun movie. Even the CAG was impressed. I would give it 4 1/2 out of 5 Stars, due to a weak initial chase scene (cheesy) and the first song in the movie was way to loud and fast for the rest of the soundtrack. Lots of Mummy/Indiana Jones-type ironic humor, and they did a great job of not showing you much of the Reapers(Thanks Mike!) Reivers, making them more menacing with the mystery. I may even pay to see it again.

Posted by Crusader at 01:22 PM | Comments (14)

Minister: "France Is Not An Ass to Kiss!"

WHOOPS! Typo. Heh. Goofy me.

Minister rejects 'Asterix' image of France

Gérard Larcher, France's employment minister, said on Monday that US and UK investors were unfairly writing off France as "an Asterix village" for its outspoken state intervention, even though it was the world's third biggest destination for foreign investment.

HP said "piss-off" to negotiations earlier by virtue of their €700m ($839m, £475m) paid in taxes in France. Never fear, the French have leapt into the competitive fray.
The French government is planning to spend €1.5bn over three years to develop 67 "poles of competitiveness" across the country, as well as a further €3bn for high-technology companies from the newly created agency for innovation. These plans are intended to attract more foreign investment.

Ooooh, very nice. Soon they'll have a Ministry of Silly Walks, too.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:20 PM | Comments (6)

Delay Indicted

If he's convicted, boot his butt.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 01:12 PM | Comments (10)

In Honor of Hep Cats, Cool Daddios and Maxwell Smart: Regrettable Recipes

In a horrible confluence of epic proportions, the Fates have seen fit to gather Get Smart, Mr. Summers' Maynardisms and the arrival of two canned soup recipe cards, all in one two-day period. These events, in turn, call to mind the ghastly pictures in Mr. Lileks book. Having been thusly traumatized (and one who never ignores edicts from outside our earthly realm), I have declared today shall be henceforth know as:

The Official Canned Condensed Cream Soup Recipes Day

I shall start by sharing the two questionable treasures sent to me from the remote mountainous region of New Jersey, then encourage you to add those Citadels of Sodium and Titans of Tin culled from your memory/recipe banks.

Saucy Chicken

4 boneless, skinless breast halves (3-3 1/2 lbs)
1/2 t salt
1/4 t pepper
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup, undiluted
1/2 C Miracle Whip
1 t lemon juice
1/2 t onion powder
1 C (4 oz.) shredded cheddar cheese (white)
cooked noodles

Brown chicken in skillet on med. heat. Arrange chicken in 9x12 baking dish. Mix salt, pepper, soup, lemon juice, onion powder and Miracle Whip. Pour over chicken, sprinkle cheese over it.
Bake 375°, 40 minutes. Serve over noodles.


No Peek Chicken

Cut up chicken breasts
1 can condensed chicken soup (cream)
1 can condensed celery soup (cream)
1 1/2 C milk
1 1/2 C long grain rice
1 pkg dry onion soup mix

Mix well together. Put in baking dish. Push chicken down*, sprinkle with onion soup mix. Cover with foil and bake at 325° for 2 hours.
Don't Peek!


*I'm assuming you have to force the chicken into the mixture because it struggles to escape if not immediately subdued.

There you have it. American culinary classics and I know, KNOW, that there are thousands of others out there, just waiting to be shared. If the comments section gives you fits, email them to moi (recipes-at-beegewelborn-dot-com). I'll transcribe and credit you for them in this post. (Oh, yeah baby, your name goes on it. For everybody to see.)

UPDATE: Intrepid Bingley (sacrificing himself for fellow Swillers, mind you) Blogs Baking Cheddar Cheese Canned Soup Cheesecake ~ Film Way Before 11!!!

Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:58 AM | Comments (25)

Some People Have Too Much Time on Their Hands

In 2003, New Zealand marine biologists laid a sex trap.

They ground up some squid gonads, believing that the scent would drive male giant squids wild as the creatures migrated through New Zealand waters.

The hope was that a camera would squirt out the pureed genitals and a passing squid, driven into a sexual frenzy, would then mate with the lens -- a project that, some may be relieved to hear, never came to fruition.


I don't have to say any more, other than be amazed to see the word 'gonads' used in an news agency release. Pretty technical stuff, that.

Gonads...sheesh.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:06 AM | Comments (17)

September 27, 2005

What An Amazing Statement From a Member of Congress

"We don't spend a million dollars so we can have an excercise. We spend a million dollars so we can learn."
Chris Shays grandstanding to Michael Brown on C-Span just now (no transcripts or video link yet). What a despicable bunch, but I have to give Brown credit. He's not taking it sitting down, he's giving it back. They are raking him over the coals right now
"That's less than 24 hours before the storm. How are people supposed to evacuate then?"
Shays is asking the wrong frickin' person. Free pass to Mayor Noggin and Governor Blameco.
"That's why I'm glad you left. That look of deer in the headlights...I want to know what you did to co-ordinate?"
The same Mayor who gets to stay Mayor of New Orleans, mind you, even though he has already purchased a home, moved his family to his primary residence and enrolled his daughter in school in Dallas. The same Mayor whose cell phone rings during a press conference and he checks to see who's calling. As Radioblogger asks:
What do you suppose people would have said if Rudy Giuliani had "Cleveland Rocks" as his ringtone as they were still cleaning up the mess at Ground Zero?
Indeed. A class act all around.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:05 PM | Comments (1)

Jeez, I Hope We Had Something to Do With This

Today's warm fuzzy.

New Orleans police chief resigning

Move follows disclosure that many officers left posts during Katrina

UPDATE: The Gateway Pundit has put the 'oh, SO did NOT happen' events noted below, Katrina BS-wise, in order. (He's so much more organized than I am.)

UPDATE DEUX: The Times-Picayune weighs in.

Unfortunately, during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, some of the most lurid rumors of violence in the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center came from those in charge: Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Superintendent Eddie Compass. And now it appears they were mostly false.
Do tell, do tell...

Posted by tree hugging sister at 04:08 PM | Comments (1)

Aside From Your Bartender, Who Has...

Absolute Moral Authority?

(not counting Ken, of course)

Ken has the answer.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 03:36 PM | Comments (4)

And The Good News Just Keeps A' Comin'

A tropical wave sweeping WNW through the central Caribbean is being monitored for further development. Convection with the system diminished last night, but redeveloped rapidly this morning. Conditions are becoming more favorable for additional strengthening of the system as it pushes toward the northwest Caribbean, so an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft may be dispatched to check out the disturbance tomorrow.

Another disturbance being watched is moving westward in the central Atlantic about halfway between Africa and South America near 10 degrees north. Convection is beginning to develop around a low pressure center associated with the system, so further development is possible.


We've only got four terrific name choices left...
Stan ~ Tammy ~ Vince ~ Wilma

...and they're all getting on my last nerve.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:05 PM | Comments (19)

Let Me See If I Understand...

Karl Rove is Evuul Incarnate, and it is a Bad Thing that he is pulling all the strings in Washington. This is a given, no?

So why is my glorious Senator Laughenberg upset that he was not in DC when Rita arrived?

WASHINGTON (AP) — A senator from New Jersey is criticizing White House adviser Karl Rove for planning to attend a North Dakota fundraiser the same day Hurricane Rita is expected to hit Texas.

Democrat Frank Lautenberg sent a letter to President Bush Friday saying "it would be expected that Mr. Rove would be at his post '24/7' during this crisis."

You would think they'd be rejoicing that Sauron was off to inspect the Gulags in North Dakota.

Heck, even the Democrats think he's swell:

"Rove is putting politics over people," said Rick Gion, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party. "What is he doing politicking in North Dakota when the people of the Gulf Region need his help?"

Heh.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 02:52 PM | Comments (1)

I Knew There Had to Be An Explanation

Facial bone loss contributes to aging
Study: CAT scans show shrinking volume to blame for wrinkled skin
Whew! I thought it was bad surgery.

UPDATE: We've identified the source of the disturbing model for this story...


...and have reminded her firmly that's it's not safe to come out until after dark.
The lack of mirrors in her digs is self explanatory.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 02:46 PM | Comments (5)

Why Did I Think She Was Bra Shopping...

When I saw this headline:

Pamela Anderson seeks restraining order

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 01:05 PM | Comments (8)

It's Good to Keep Abreast of SCOTUS Matters

Top court to review Anne Nicole Smith's case
Stripper-turned-reality TV star is appealing ruling on late husband's fortune
Ah, the law.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:56 PM | Comments (3)

Katrina Chaos Redux

Updating our Katrina coverage: The LA Times, of all publications, is jumping into this. Are they channeling Pete King? Other stories that didn't get out...

Louisiana National Guard Col. Thomas Beron, who headed security at the Superdome, said that for every complaint, "49 other people said, 'Thank you, God bless you.' "

Now, how sad is that? And the money quote of the day?
My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional,” Brown told a special congressional panel set up by House Republican leaders to investigate the catastrophe.
-Former FEMA director Michael Brown

Somebody should have asked us. We could have told him so, free of charge.
ADDENDUM UPDATE: Lest anyone think Pete King and Mr. Brown are overstating the utter DISGRACE that is the New Orleans Police Department...
NOPD says 249 officers were AWOL after Katrina

Compass plans tribunal to judge each case

Missing officers were nearly 15% of force
The New Orleans Police Department has identified 249 officers who left their posts without permission during Hurricane Katrina and the storm's chaotic aftermath, and is now trying to distinguish out-and-out deserters from those who had compelling reasons to be AWOL.


And there's this comforting tid-bit...
Mayor Ray Nagin said the city attorney's office will review Compass' plan to ensure that it falls within Civil Service regulations that cover all classified city employees.

Privately, they're worried, because not much of anyone wanted to be a New Orleans cop to begin with.
ADDENDUM REDUX: Thank God Newsweek found someone to explain whose fault it was.
In your opinion, what went wrong with the response to Katrina?
In terms of the preparedness, a lot of the key issues or aspects of disaster preparedness could have been implemented much better [at] all levels, from the top to individuals. At the top we had a president who, in knowing one of major cities in the country was going to take a big hit, elected to continue on vacation.

And Mayor Noggin, Governor Blameco, et al's culpability quotient ?
How do you think the response to Katrina was handled on the state and local levels?
The blame does not just rest with the federal administration. Louisiana had an emergency response plan and New Orleans had an emergency office. And a lot of lessons and issues that were known could have been implemented better…
I'd call that insightful analysis a get out of jail free card. And Mr. Kelman has one more swipe at the administration in him...
Several Bangladeshi experts said, “If you bring me over I will help.” As far as I know, the U.S. did not take them up on that.
WTF is that? Oh my God,::GASP::, we turned down the Bangladeshis, bless their hearts?!! That's important enough to mention why? Cheap shot 'why', that's WHY. But I'm equally as sure we thanked them for their kind offer, so I can sleep tonight, even knowing what I do now.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:52 PM | Comments (1)

Oh how I love....

battleships!

Posted by Crusader at 11:29 AM | Comments (21)

Mr. Summers, Your Dancin' Shoes Are Ready


That'll be $385.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:20 AM | Comments (11)

Peter King is a GOD

...the president had no way of knowing that the New Orleans Police and Fire Departments were going to disappear, that the governor wasn't going to adequately use the National Guard, and that the mayor had not put sufficient water and food into the Superdome.
Chris Matthews lets the wrong guy answer his questions. Aw, jeez, the interview is a thing of beauty. Read it and weep.

A Swill Salute to our good friend, The Radio Blogger.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:06 AM | Comments (6)

September 26, 2005

You Knew It Was Coming...

...but it doesn't make it any easier to swallow.

WASHINGTON - Whatever the reasons, residents of heavily Republican Texas seemed to get better treatment from the government during Hurricane Rita than the mostly black, poor and Democratic victims of Katrina in Louisiana. The issue of race is likely to linger in the aftermath of the two big storms.

Government mistakes in the first storm, including failure to provide a means of evacuation for tens of thousands of New Orleans residents stranded in flooding low-lying areas, exposed racial and social fault lines.

These divides may be reinforced, rather than diminished, by the government's far more robust response to Hurricane Rita.

Texas is the president's home state, has a Republican governor and is the home of big oil. New Orleans before Katrina was heavily populated by poor blacks who vote Democratic.


I wish I could find the link to the article I was reading this afternoon that headlined with how much wealthier that portion of LA and TX were compared to New Orleans. Buried a couple paragraphs down was a 'not really wealthier, just better off, because these folks owned cars and boats, etc.' backpedal. It was pretty disgusting. The folks in New Orleans are already pulling a Cindy Sheehan 'because of Rita, they've already forgotten about us!', with the implied meaning 'because all them rich Republican Houston socialites are white'. As far as homes and new lives and a chance to put food on the table, I've got a couple forgotten names for you. Charlie, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne. There's quite a few folks in Florida who would consider themselves to be well ahead of New Orleans in line. And quite a few county governments still waiting on FEMA payments for services they were supposed to be partially reimbursed for. Stuff had to get hauled away. Those contractors had to get paid when they did it. We're one of the poorest counties in the state and we're still waiting. This ain't Palm Beach, New Orleans, beaches or no beaches. And you ain't the Queen of France. Get in line.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:48 PM | Comments (3)

We're #5!!!

It's an honor to appear on the same page as the "Coalition of Immokalee Workers"!

Hahahaha!

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 09:07 PM | Comments (1)

Peggy Noonan takes W..

to task, rightfully so. So much for conservatism......

I for one feel we need to go back to conservatism 101. We can start with a quote from Gerald Ford, if he isn't too much of a crabbed and reactionary old Republican to quote. He said, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have."

Posted by Crusader at 05:19 PM | Comments (5)

Barry Diller, Literary Archivist

...The genteel butler that has been Ask Jeeves Inc.'s face for nearly a decade is getting ousted in a corporate takeover. Jeeves, the slightly chubby and balding English butler based on P.G. Wodehouse's eponymous and ever-resourceful manservant, isn't the kind of image that e-commerce conglomerate InterActiveCorp wants representing the Ask Jeeves search engine, according to IAC Chairman Barry Diller...

...Diller announced that his company intends to drop Jeeves as a mascot and shorten the search site's name to Ask or Ask.com. "Not that I don't like that fat butler," Diller said


Nor we the fat cat, classless corporate executive.

Oh, who am I kidding? What's the percentage of Ask Jeeves users who even know who Wodehouse is to begin with? All gentle things coarsen these days or fade away completely.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 04:42 PM | Comments (3)

Man! What Is It With Scotties?!

I have one of these bad bears. Ebola got it for me when he was working at Best Buy and it is the pride and joy of my life. It can suck the dust out of a pyramid through a roachhole.

Mine in covered in teethmarks. Earned while in use. The Dyson has fared considerably better than the Oreck; that whole headlight/faceplate thing came off in one chomp. But damn. Why can't I ever get anything that stays shiny and new for longer than the first three days I have it? Check 'victim' in the dictionary. It'll say "see: sister, tree hugging".

Posted by tree hugging sister at 04:23 PM | Comments (5)

Another One of Life's

...odd juxtapositions. Two adjacent stories on MSNBC.com.

• Jury weighs conflicting portrayals of Lynndie England
• Lawyers lay out arguments in key evolution trial

Could they both be talking about the same thing?

Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:20 PM | Comments (8)

"Missed It By That Much"

Actor Don Adams dead at 82
Played secret agent Maxwell Smart in ‘Get Smart’
And we'll miss you by T H I S much.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:14 PM | Comments (14)

And It Wasn't The LabraDork!

PLANTATION, Florida (AP) -- The veterinarian thought the X-ray was a joke.

Jon-Paul Carew has seen strange items get into the stomachs of dogs before, things like kebab skewers and small utensils. But a 13-inch serrated knife in a 6-month-old puppy?

That was a new one.

"I was just flabbergasted," said Carew, of Imperial Point Animal Hospital in Fort Lauderdale.

The knife was removed this week from Elsie, a Saint Bernard puppy.

But I bet the Labradork was the one who first tried to chew on it:

She thinks one of her six other dogs -- four Saint Bernards, a German shepherd and a Labrador -- somehow got the knife off a counter and it eventually made its way to Elsie.

These are all in her house?

OMG.


Posted by Mr. Bingley at 12:21 PM | Comments (4)

'Katrina' Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry

Rumors of deaths greatly exaggerated

Widely reported attacks false or unsubstantiated

6 bodies found at Dome; 4 at Convention Center

In interviews with Oprah Winfrey, Compass reported rapes of "babies," and Mayor Ray Nagin spoke of "hundreds of armed gang members" killing and raping people inside the Dome...

Four weeks after the storm, few of the widely reported atrocities have been backed with evidence. The piles of bodies never materialized, and soldiers, police officers and rescue personnel on the front lines say that although anarchy reigned at times and people suffered unimaginable indignities, most of the worst crimes reported at the time never happened.


It's much easier to cover your incompetent, lackluster a$$, when you pump up the story to include firefights, rampaging natives, Swift boats under attack, heroic rescues, bodies in the wat...wait...that was Kerry. No wonder I was confused! Same sh$tty story, just different storytellers.
More Katrina above.

Some of the more egregious New Orleans officials' quotes I've moved off the front to conserve space.

...Police, according to their chief, Eddie Compass, found themselves in multiple shootouts inside both shelters...and were forced to race toward muzzle flashes through the dark to disarm the criminals; snipers supposedly fired at doctors and soldiers from downtown high-rises...

...Unidentified evacuees told of children stepping over so many bodies, "we couldn't count."

...The picture that emerged was one of the impoverished, masses of flood victims resorting to utter depravity, randomly attacking each other, as well as the police trying to protect them and the rescue workers trying to save them. ....Nagin told Winfrey the crowd has descended to an "almost animalistic state."

Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:11 AM | Comments (6)

A Marine's Message To The "Minute Men"

Swill Salute to the wondrous Florida Cracker, who doesn't like ragout.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 09:06 AM | Comments (4)

Bushy McChimphitler Has Destroyed Our Society!

Which is why crime is at a 30 year low:

The nation's crime rate was unchanged last year, holding at the lowest levels since the government began surveying crime victims in 1973, the Justice Department reported Sunday.

Because, as we all know, Rove has gathered his minions about him in the super-secret lair where they perform their own, unreported crimes! Muwhahahahahaah!

Oh, in case you were wondering which crime victims were surveyed:

Murder is not counted because the bureau's study is based on statements by crime victims...

Mother Sheehan speaks for them, natch.

...In a separate report based on preliminary police data, the FBI found a 3.6 percent drop between 2003 and 2004 -- from 16,500 to 15,910. Chicago was largely responsible for the decrease.

So murders have dropped quite a bit in Chicago, as have the resultant voter registrations.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 08:30 AM

You Know, I Hate Excuse Makers

But in light of self congratulatory headlines like these:

Defenders of Iraq war counter-rally
Smaller-than-expected gathering follows anti-war protest

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Support for U.S. troops fighting abroad mixed with anger toward anti-war demonstrators at home as hundreds of people, far fewer than organizers had expected, rallied Sunday on the National Mall just a day after tens of thousands protested against the war in Iraq.


...I'm given to ponder if there's, perhaps, a disconnect between the Cindy Sheehans of the world and the Un-Cindys.

You know ~ the folks in the neighborhood who have a son, or daughter, or grandson, or niece or best friend's kid ~ in uniform somewhere they send letters and cookies to. Emails and Vienna Snausages. Baby wipes and stupid birthday packages. Those Un-Cindy folks work. They go to church and volunteer afterward for Sunday school, or just sit home watching football games until it's time to help a neighbor with his fence. Maybe even watch their 2 year old so neighbor and the missus (who also has a job) can go be a 'couple' for a few hours. (While you get to enjoy a baby and THEN give him back. Now, that's Heaven.)

I don't know. It seems to me that 'protestors' live in a different world than I do. I know that, for all the money and free MSM coverage they were getting, not too many 'protestors' showed up compared to what they expected. That had to be a bummer, but I'm sure they found a way to spin it. Kinda like the 'Million Man March' wound up being a hundred and fifty thousand or so. I just don't think your average American has time to wisk on down to D.C. He says what he has to say by the flag hanging off his brickwork, the ribbon on his Toyota, his voter registration card, just the time he spends being a good citizen. I feel strongly about a bunch of stuff, but think my time is better served by actions, not activism. The blog here is a vanity project ~ you all are subjected to my opinion in spite of Bingley and Crusader's best efforts and I am proudly the bleeding heart liberal of the bunch. But it's also a community, a neighborhood. We've all got 'stuff' we're doing that feeds the fabric of the nation. Lisa's D is off to Iraq, New Orleans; wherever they need him. Wherever we need him. JeffS wears tacky Sod Off T-shirts in one of the God forsaken armpits of earth, alongside intrepid fellows like Skylar Rentner and Cpl. Tim. Mr. Summers goes to work everyday and does his best to keep things honest. Bingley counts beans (literally!), Crusader is a bean counter, I'm a has bean and Major Dad is a 'bean there, done that' veteran, like Sharps. Cullen watches the parade of human beans through the front gates, Kraut wonders about what has bean and what's to come, while Diptera strings beans and sees the mystery in God's order. We're all busy, we all have stuff to do, we're all on the crusade of living LIFE. And if you live life to it's fullest, the best you can, that takes work. And dedication. There's a conviction there that doesn't need your photo in Newsweek for validation. Or a hand lettered, dork-ass 'F@ck Capitalism' sign for proof of commitment. WTF is that? No one understands that. So who are these people talking to? Each other, I guess. Not to anybody I know, that's for sure, because we don't have time for 'out there'. We're all busy. We're all working on life.

That's the disconnect, I think. I see these 'protestors' on Gateway Pundit, etc., and all I see is Clare, from 'Six Feet Under'. A caricature. Written to be so clever and tortured and privileged and cutting edge; and so far from anything remotely connected to real life, that it renders serious consideration moot. I don't mean to sound like an apologist for the lack of sign wavers for, um...my side. But I think I know why there weren't huge red, white and blue crowds. We're busy. We've got things to do, friends to support and a way of life ~ of living ~ we cherish and defend. Who we are doesn't need a rally, a parade or a public face. I'm not rushing to buy a bus ticket to D.C. because Mother Sheehan's in town. That happenstance doesn't begin to meet the threshhold of galvanization ~ of a call to action. She and her buddies are hardly worth notice, less mind airfare and an ulcer. We're busy with better things to do. And are better for it.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:15 AM | Comments (5)

September 25, 2005

May be getting to see a movie on Tuesday...

Movie website here.

Joss Whedon, the Oscar® - and Emmy - nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE, ANGEL and FIREFLY, now applies his trademark compassion and wit to a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future in his feature film directorial debut, Serenity. The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family –squabbling, insubordinate and undyingly loyal.

Never saw the series on TV it is derived from, but it sounds interesting.

I'll try to give my thoughts on it once I've seen it, but be warned, my tastes in movies is...um...odd.

Posted by Crusader at 03:17 PM | Comments (5)

Today's 'Lose Your Lunch, Barf Your Buffet' Entry


I will never, ever forgive The Gateway Pundit for this horrific vision.

Some things were never meant to be seen.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 02:14 PM | Comments (10)

September 24, 2005

Rita and Perdido Key

Kidnapped Major Dad and forced him to drive the car while I snapped.

With the dunes all lost during Ivan, the sand has it's way with the main drag.

The Perdido section of Gulf Islands National Seashore was open...

...but the sand was moving at face shredding speed...

...and the water was churned brown and dangerous.
There used to be 15 foot high dunes here and you couldn't see the Gulf from the park road.
Now you can sit in the car and snap away, it's been that flattened.

And no matter where you look...

~ from the chunks missing out of buildings and blue roofs in the first picture, to this sentinel at the gates of the park ~

...everywhere are reminders of Ivan.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:37 PM | Comments (4)

When the Sharks Are Busy

...you call in the reserve.

Gator found tied to palm tree at Pensacola Beach
PENSACOLA BEACH, Fla. — John Jackson didn't panic when he saw a six-foot alligator between his home and his neighbor's house Friday in this barrier island community.

"I wasn't worried," said Jackson. "It was tied up."


We're non-discriminating animal lovers here. Dog, shark, gator ~ as long as you curb your animal and use a pooper scooper, we could care less.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:31 AM

September 23, 2005

BREAKING NEWS

New Orleans Mayor Trapped in Rising Floodwaters
New Orleans, LA - After claiming victory in a pitched battle for control of the city with fascist, unelected federal officials, Mayor R.A. Noggin has found himself trapped on the last short bus out of town. In a move worthy of Moses, he had stubbornly gathered his scattered citizens unto him to repopulate the Crescent City, only to find himself rapidly agreeing that buses should be used before they get wet, not after.

"I'll be hot-damned", Hizzoner said. "That sh$t comes up quick! And it stanks, too. Now, somebody needs to call that fat little Coast Guard admiral and tell him send a helicopter."

General Russell Honore, when queried about the dire situation, was quoted as saying "I called in the Stupid Street address where they're stuck. That's as much as we can do. Stanky flood water makes it a Coast Guard show."

Vice Admiral Thad Allen was unavailable for comment.


©2005 TOWACA PRESS INTERNATIONAL

And YES, that COPYRIGHT means we're the f@cking idiots who wrote it and it ALL BELONGS TO ONLY US. Use it without a link or a thank you and we'll sic Aztec Gods on you.

Bhuwahahahahaa!!!!

Thank you for your support.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:24 PM | Comments (16)

Reporter Fired For Refusing To, Er, Report

So of course he's suing:

A former ABC News correspondent accused the network of dropping his contract because he refused to go to Iraq and other war zones, and he sought $4.2 million in lost earnings at an employment tribunal Friday...

While he had frequently covered conflicts, including those in Bosnia and Chechnya, earlier in his career, Gizbert said he became increasingly reluctant to do so as his children grew up.

"A lot of people stop doing it when their kids come along," he said. "I stopped doing it a little later than that, when my kids started asking me why I was doing it and I really couldn't come up with a good answer."

Here's one: it's your goddammed job. If you don't want to do your job, then you tend to lose it (note: this does not apply to politics or baseball commissioners).

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 12:26 PM | Comments (7)

A Constant Wind

But pretty benign, considering our recent standards.

Thank goodness.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:46 AM

Interesting Chart

We've had four Cat 5's already this decade. That looks like a lot, until you go back forty years. Music wasn't the only thing rockin' in the 60's...

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:28 AM

Personally, in Normal Circumstances

...I think Wayne LaPierre is a complete jack-ass. But boy, oh boy, whatever it takes to shut this bullsh$t down, I'm with him.

The police superintendent's comments were echoed by the city's Deputy Police Chief Warren Riley, who told ABC News: "No one will be able to be armed. We are going to take all the weapons."

Yes, that's the second in command of New Orleans' finest. The same finest who should be around protecting folks?
"Things are worse at night, and people say their gun is the only source of comfort they have, the one thing they can depend on to save themselves and their families," Mr. LaPierre said, noting that a "third of the New Orleans Police Department walked off their jobs" during the Katrina emergency.

Oh yeah. That's them. When they're not at Wal-Mart.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:12 AM | Comments (5)

Glub, Glub

That would be breaking news in New Orleans.

Dozens of blocks in New Orleans now under water. Details to come

UPDATE: If only more people were like this guy...
Glynn Stevenson, who swam out of his New Orleans house with belongings taped to his body, had just gotten settled into a trailer provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency when the call came for him to uproot again.

It’s nothing to get mad about,” he said. “Just keep a cool attitude and help your brothers.


Don't get mad. Help somebody. What a concept.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:54 AM | Comments (5)

If I Might Add My Two Cents

Beldar is holding down the fort in Houston and his traffic snafu analysis, along with snippets from other Houston bloggers, has been pretty fascinating. Something in his post caught my storm weary eye, however, and I wanted to mention my take on this:

Katrina + news media hysteria = lots of folks in non-flood-prone areas of Houston, who otherwise would have hunkered down altogether or at least waited until tomorrow to evac, instead hitting the road yesterday afternoon, last night, and today = avoidable degree of gridlock.

IMHO, local media have done a very bad job of distinguishing between "mandatory evacuation" areas (truly coastal counties, storm-surge areas) and elsewhere. Some of the adjacent coastal county officials are already bitching (publicly and unproductively) at Houston/Harris County officials for "ignoring the plan," which was to get the coastal zones evac'd first. Since so many Houstonians are also on the road ("early," in the view of those adjacent county folks), congestion is much worse for everyone. But I think the "fault" for that, if fault there be, can be laid more at the feet of the breathless media rather than Houston/Harris County officials. And ordinary folks are hyper-receptive to the hype because of Katrina.


While that's true to a certain extent because of the 'flooding', I think a fair amount of those folks might well have seen the pictures of what 140mph+ sustained WINDS can do to a house and lack the confidence in their homes' construction. Hysteria perhaps, but it would be a crap shoot to stay around and then have the walls come down around your ears. Too late to reconsider then. I'm not sure what the building codes are in the Houston area as far as wind mitigation, but I'll bet they're nowhere near what they are even in the Florida panhandle (and ours are considerably lax compared to South Florida). Or, if you're not sure your engineer/contractor even built to code. One word. Andrew. That was no storm surge. That was howling winds, pure and simple, flattening those homes. If Casa Sister hadn't been new construction (read: hurricane strapping, braced facades, rebar reinforced brickwork, 140 mph rated garage door, etc.), we would have had to seriously consider leaving Banglacola before Ivan. The houses here ten years and older took a sincere beating, with many of them completely destroyed. So it could well be that these folks aren't even thinking 'water', they're thinking
"when the garage door blows in, which then blows my roof off, which collapses the exterior brick/clapboard/sheetrock walls inward...do I really need to be here?"

If you've the means to leave? Probably not.

Via Instapundit.
UPDATE: Found this pertinent addition to my argument, courtesy of Bingley's link in a previous post...

Meanwhile, as the storm moved over western Harris County, its most dangerous winds, well in excess of 120 mph even inland, would lash the Interstate 45 corridor, including Clear Lake, the Texas Medical Center and downtown.

Many older buildings could not withstand such winds.


Like I said, it's not just the water.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:13 AM | Comments (1)

The Mobile/Pensacola Radar Loop

Yeesh. Kinda creepy when it sits just off-frame.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:00 AM | Comments (4)

Oh These Poor Poor Folks

20 elderly folks killed when the bus they were in caught fire.

Tragic.

UPDATE: Oh man, it seems the situation went from fire to explosion by virtue of the oxygen tanks exploding that the seniors had with them.

Early indications were that the bus caught fire because of mechanical problems, possibly overheated brakes, then passengers' oxygen tanks started exploding, he said.

Via Major Dad.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 08:56 AM | Comments (3)

September 22, 2005

Oh, Act Like a Man, For God's Sake

Palmeiro reportedly blames teammate for ’roid
Orioles star tells arbitration panel name of player who gave him substance

Baltimore Orioles slugger Rafael Palmeiro, who was suspended earlier this season for a positive steroid test, told a baseball arbitration panel that a teammate gave him an unknown substance, the Baltimore Sun reported Thursday, citing two unnamed sources.

Palmeiro named the teammate to the arbitration panel, the Sun reported, citing one of the sources, but apparently did not link the substance to his positive steroid test.


"HE made me do it!" doesn't begin to cut it when you're 41 years old and a gazillionaire, who made his fame and fortune playing a game. We should all be so blessed. I talked to the guy that hooked him up. He says it was cough medicine and I've no reason to doubt him, not being an 'ulterior motive' kinda guy. So act like a man and STFU already, you whiney cheater.
UPDATE: Pffft. The Orioles finally say SEE YA!!
BALTIMORE - Rafael Palmeiro’s tumultuous season came to an end Friday when the Baltimore Orioles, tired of the distraction stemming from his suspension for steroids, told him he was no longer welcome on the team.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 05:23 PM | Comments (5)

Ritalin Makes Life Easier

...and just might keep you out of jail if you're a thief with ADD. Always helps if you can remember where you stole the car from to begin with.

Gas station employee Pam Pease recognized her car Tuesday night when it pulled up to the fuel pump as she swept up cigarette butts.

It was the same beloved blue 1994 Ford Escort station wagon. The one with a missing hub cap. The one with the Missouri license plate that she had reported stolen less than an hour earlier at the Parade gas station at 3050 North W Street.

And there it was, pulling up to pump No. 7.

"It just blew my mind, but there they were," Pease, 49, said of the two suspects in the theft. "Maybe they forgot where they stole it from. I'm glad it was low on gas."


(Continued in the extended section as the local fishwrap is being pissy about loading.)

After a brief foot chase near the gas station, Escambia County sheriff's deputies arrested Artemio Castillo, 49, and Ernesto Garcia, 41. Both men, who had no known address, face charges of grand theft auto and resisting arrest. They are being held in the Escambia County Jail on $7,500 bond each.

After the initial report of the theft, deputies were entering the stolen vehicle data into the computer when they received the second call from Parade employees that the car had reappeared.

"That's a new one. Maybe they were lost," Sgt. Ted Roy, Sheriff's Office spokesman, said Wednesday. "Crimes like that are good for our job security."

Parade employee Vince Nguyen told deputies the two men matched the description of a pair who asked him for a ride to Mississippi just before 7 p.m. as he was arriving for work. Nguyen realized Pease's car was missing about 7:30 p.m. Pease still had the keys.

Pease was sweeping up the parking lot about 8 p.m. when she saw the Escort stop at the pump.

Nguyen, who speaks Spanish, asked the men why they returned.

"They told him they needed gas," Pease said.

Nguyen shut off the vehicle and offered the men water while co-workers called 911. The men fled, but Nguyen followed them through a back alley, Pease said.

One of the men ran into heavy brush, but was apprehended by a deputy with the assistance of Oden, a K-9. Another sheriff's deputy apprehended the second suspect across the street from the gas station.

Pease and her husband, Robert, had just moved to Pensacola from Missouri two months ago and are staying with his parents.

"We were just trying to get back on our feet," Pease said. "That car's not much, but it's all I own."

Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:24 PM

Public Servants...

Serving themselves:

BATON ROUGE, La. — Police found cases of food, clothing and tools intended for hurricane victims at the home of the chief administrative officer for a New Orleans suburb, authorities said Wednesday.

Officers searched Cedric Floyd's home because of complaints that city workers were helping themselves to donations for hurricane victims. Floyd, who runs the day-to-day operations in the suburb of Kenner, was in charge of distributing the goods.

I'm sure he's the victim of a misunderstanding.

Kind of an interesting fellow, though:

CAO Floyd was the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Data Center, a national demographics information system company specializing in Redistricting of Election Districts.

Hmm, there's something about that line of work that just screams corruption.

But maybe I'm just cynical.

It seems he liked to use his city credit card though:

Sparks began flying as McMyne set up displays showing dozens of credit card bills from Mayor Capitano and CAO Floyd - expenses that did not include information on the business purpose of the bills.

Seems like he's got some more explaining to do now.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 01:23 PM | Comments (7)

I wish more of the elected folks in the US Govt...

would understand this concept, but I am not holding my breath.

Posted by Crusader at 12:20 PM | Comments (2)

Kate, Stick With The Coke. Trust Me On This One.

Coke is much better for your health and finances than these idjits:

“Scientology has become quite proactive in reaching out to people,” says the source. “Kate is a woman who needs help {and her bank accoount is still flush - Ed.} and Scientology feels that they can steer her in the right direction.”

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 12:08 PM | Comments (6)

Little Bits of Rita Overhead


You can see the breezes picking up, too.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:15 AM | Comments (3)

All Eight Lanes of I-45 Now Heading North


And not a moment too soon. Getting out of Houston is a very, very good idea.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:09 AM | Comments (7)

The A320s nose wheel problem is not new...

as this report indicates.

Documents from Airbus indicated there have been three similar incidents in which A320 airplanes landed with the nose wheels rotated about 90 degrees. Examination of the steering control modules on two of the airplanes revealed extrusion of the selector valve's external seals similar to that found on N628AW. Airbus had attributed the extrusion failures to the lack of a backup seal or the effects of aging on the seals. As a result of these incidents, Airbus issued Service Bulletin (SB) A320-32-1197 on October 8, 1998, to recommend replacement of the external seals on the steering control module's selector valve on A320 and A321 airplanes within 18 months of the SB's issuance.

At the time of the incident, neither the French Direction General de l'Aviation Civile (DGAC), or the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), had adopted the service bulletin as an airworthiness directive. The operator was not required to comply with the service bulletin, and had not complied with it.

On March 24, 1999, the DGAC issued Airworthiness Directive (AD) 1999-124-129(B) to require compliance with the SB. On December 17, 1999, the FAA issued AD 99-23-09 which was based upon the French AD, with a 12 month time of compliance for modification of the nose wheel steering control valve.


Makes you wonder if the fix did not fix it, or if the fix was ever applied. I also wonder if they ever improved the design? I would think the French taxpayers would want to get their francs....er...um...euros worth.

Posted by Crusader at 10:39 AM | Comments (7)

Interesting Marine article....

about the future USMC. Long and somewhat geeky, but gives you an idea of the Future the Corps sees.

Posted by Crusader at 08:31 AM | Comments (1)

September 21, 2005

Hurricane Porn

Rita be Cat 4 now.


UPDATE: Possibly Cat 5. 140 knot winds are, what, 160 mph? Wow.
UPDATE: The 10 p.m. CST reading has her at 175 mph and 897MB. Good Lord. What a monster.

Updated update: Bush new in February! Why wasn't FEMA there then?!?!?!?!?

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 11:56 PM | Comments (2)

Jet Blue

My god, no airline ever had a better advertisement than watching the pilot just land that thing perfectly at LAX.

Fantastic job!!!

The pilot floated it down the runway and killed speed perfectly.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 09:23 PM | Comments (10)

A Good Way to Start

...the most wonderful time of the year. So speakers up and boogie down. I about died laughing, make no bones about it.

A WARM Swill Salute to Mr. Summers for the site.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:18 AM | Comments (13)

Sopranos Psychosis Kicks In

Oh man. Got a call via the ad in the paper for the Little Red Truck of Death and he wants to come see it. He said his name is Tony and he drives a white Lincoln...should I be worried?

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:41 AM | Comments (3)

There Is No Such Thing As "The Slippery Slope"

It does not happen in the real world.

Really.


(please note I avoided all references to jokes in this post. This I humbly leave to the endless wit of our commentators)

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 09:39 AM | Comments (11)

September 20, 2005

"You Are Stuck On Stupid"

Gen. Honore sums up the MSM in one sentence.

Go to Radio Blogger and listen. It's beautiful

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 07:37 PM | Comments (8)

I Didn't Want to Start a Panic 'er Nuthin'

...but I noticed I got the last two boxes of Zatarain's Red Beans and Rice at the commissary an hour ago. I know Bingley and Cruella have both been stealth hoarding just...in case the unTHINKable happened. Whew. I'm breathing a little easier after reading this. Just a little...

Hurricane Katrina has forced Zatarain’s to implement its Disaster Recovery Plan. While there is much suffering and disruption for our employees and our communities we are focused on continuing our operations and satisfying your needs. Our production, warehouse and office facilities in Gretna, Louisiana are in good condition. Our issues are electricity, access roads, other city services, and the ability to mobilize employees in Gretna. As a result we have set up temporary headquarter functions and operations in Dallas, Texas. We have a tremendous amount of resources available to us. These include the McCormick Dallas facilities as well as a number of co-packers in the immediate area and elsewhere. Our raw material suppliers are being contacted to redirect our needs to a variety of locations for continued production and distribution. And we have the resources of all of McCormick available to us.

Now, the question begs to be asked...if even the Red Beans and Rice folks have a "Disaster Recovery Plan"...Mayor Noggin? Wanna step in here? (Or have you stepped in enough already?)

Posted by tree hugging sister at 05:27 PM | Comments (5)

Let the Frogs never again say...

that we are ignorant.

Posted by Crusader at 03:40 PM | Comments (10)

A Sign From the God of Posts

In the entry below, I note that the NHC discussion correction looked like Haiku. My brain being what it is, I then thought "What fun ~ a Hurricane Haiku Hullabaloo!" Googling proper haiku format to set ground rules, I immediately came across this informative page containing THIS timely, hurricane related GEM:

kono dote-ni(5) noboru-bekarazu(7) keishichou(5) :
"Do Not Climb This Levee - The Police Department"

Seems the auguries
are clear for poetry here.
Have a whack at it.

(This site can also be handy.)

Posted by tree hugging sister at 02:15 PM | Comments (15)

Fear Not, Crawdads!

Nagin's Noggin' is working overtime for your benefit:

"I am hopeful that people have seen the effect of Katrina and they understand the threat of a Category 3 coming right behind Katrina," he said, "and that we won't have the struggles in getting people out like we had the last time."

Due to the fact that your useless 'we' won't be involved.

Either that or he's channeling Queen Victoria...

"We are not amused."

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 12:54 PM | Comments (3)

Oh, the wonder of...

managing your cash flow. Of course this will be Chimpy McHitlerburtons doing.

Posted by Crusader at 11:37 AM | Comments (16)

Schweet Mac Daddy


Respect your elders!

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 11:07 AM | Comments (13)

That Would Be

...Hurricane Rita now.
UPDATE: I just love the personal touches on the National Hurricane Center discussion page. The previous one cleaned "up some sloppy writing", while the current one notes:

FOR THOSE WHO FOLLOW
JUST THE SKINNY BLACK LINE...IT IS ALWAYS GOOD TO REMIND THEM THAT
3 TO 5 DAY FORECAST ERRORS CAN BE LARGE.

UPDATE: Houston, you have a problem. Cat 2.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:37 AM | Comments (4)

A Teeny, Tiny Step

Intel thinks they have a winner.

"Test chips made on Intel's ultra-low power 65nm process technology have shown transistor leakage reduction roughly 1,000 times from our standard processes. This translates into significant power savings for people who will use devices based on this technology."

While the technology will reduce the drain on batteries in notebook PCs, Jim McGregor, principle analyst at the In-Stat research firm, says the advance will be a major boost for Intel's efforts to get its processors into mobile phones.

"If they can get this down to a product for handheld devices then the opportunities are huge."


Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:33 AM

Chili Today

...hot tamale, especially for peesed off Mexican chili farmers. Not only are the Chinese flooding our markets with cut rate goods, they've taken to growing and processing traditional Mexican chilis and exporting them in vast, cheap quantities...to Mexico.

Mexico's farmers are fuming over its country's prided chili peppers. Peppers are the everyday spice of Mexican cuisine. But increasingly, Mexico's hot peppers are being grown in China.

An audio Chili Pepper Report from PRI's "The World".

Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:22 AM | Comments (9)

September 19, 2005

The More It Looks Changed

...the more it stays the same.

KENNER, La. - Officials are responding to complaints that city workers helped themselves to cases of Gatorade, brand-new clothing and other donated items that were intended for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Philip Ramon, chief of staff to Kenner Mayor Philip Capitano, said the city has removed the official who had presided over the distribution.

...Each evening, after the site closed to the public, city employees browsed the pallets and took supplies, said Robert Shumate, a trucker from Union City, Tenn., who dropped off a load of ice last week and stayed to help distribute the goods.

“I saw it every day,” he said. “It’s like community property over there.”


So why not give them billions of dollars in rebuilding funds? We do it for every other tin-pot dictatorship.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:33 PM | Comments (2)

This

...is called 'evacuating'.

And THIS is called 'someone with my kinda luck'.

Let's review.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:40 PM | Comments (2)

I Think Mayor Nagin

...needs to scurry back to his cot in Dick Cheney's Secret Location. You know, like where he hid out as the city flooded?

NEW ORLEANS - Residents began trickling back Monday as part of a plan by the mayor to reopen New Orleans one ZIP code at a time, despite repeated warnings from the top federal official on the scene — and President Bush himself — that the city is not ready.

Mayor Ray Nagin defended his decision to let people back in, and suggested that the federal official in charge in New Orleans, Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, had made himself “the new crowned federal mayor of New Orleans.


Because every time he pops his little bald head out of the hobbit hole, he stuffs his foot in it. And, surprise! People could start dying again. I sense an ugly trend here.
UPDATE: The man just doesn't get it.
After backing off on his call for some residents to return to New Orleans, the city's mayor ripped into the top U.S. government relief official on Tuesday,...

...The mayor reversed course even as residents began trickling back to the first neighborhood opened as part of his plan, the lightly damaged Algiers section.


"You're in", "you're out", "come back", "run away"...SOMEbody please eat the Mayor. I'm so confused.
I'm tired of men always coming and going, going and coming and always too soon.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:31 AM | Comments (16)

We Left the House Boarded Up

...for a reason.

UPDATE: Great weather blog from the Palm Beach Post folks. Maybe I should send it to Mayor Nagin before he shoots his mouth off again, ya think?

Nah.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:21 AM

Whatever You Think of the Idea

...it makes for some interesting reading.

Via Instapundit.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:51 AM | Comments (3)

September 16, 2005

Bless Her Heart!

She doesn't bite.

A warm Swill Salute to The Political Teen.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:19 PM

These F@ckin' People Should Be SHOT

Via Crusader, an abomination chronicled in print.

No one has been able to say how many people died inside the convention center; police, military and center officials estimate the number is about 10. Nor has there been any attempt to document the number of assaults, robberies and rapes that eyewitnesses said occurred from the time the first people broke into the convention center seeking shelter on the afternoon of Monday, Aug. 29, and when units of the Arkansas National Guard moved into the center on Friday, Sept. 2.

But even without those numbers, what happened in the convention center stands as a harsh indictment of government's failure to help its citizens when they needed it most. That futility was symbolized by the presence in the convention center for three of the most chaotic days of at least 250 armed troops from the Louisiana National Guard. They were camped out in a huge exhibition hall separated from the crowd by a wall, and used their trucks as a barricade when they were afraid the crowd would break in.

The troops were never deployed to restore order and eventually withdrew, despite the pleas of the convention center's management. Louisiana Guard commanders said their units' mission was not to secure the facility, and soldiers on the scene feared inciting further bloodshed if they had intervened. "We didn't want another Kent State," said Army Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honore, commander of the active-duty military forces responding to Katrina. "They weren't trained for crowd control."


My God.

My GOD!

And I just started reading.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:48 PM | Comments (19)

One Year Ago, This Morning



Ivan



Pensacola in the Perpetual Bullseye



I can think of more cheerful reasons for a Commemorative Edition, but here it is.


Major Dad says New Mexico is looking better all the time. I'd argue, but...well...sometimes it does.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 07:38 PM | Comments (4)

This news from Australia is....

shocking. I think I would change my taste in fashion.

Posted by Crusader at 05:06 PM | Comments (5)

Powerful Words

Favorite lines from favorite works that make you smile.

þæt wæs god cyning!
That was one good king!
-Beowulf
Seamus Heaney new Verse Translation

Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:23 PM | Comments (11)

Time Stood Still


Peering closely, I noted that the clock was stopped at about 6:35 . . . and indeed it didn't move at all. Then I remembered why that time looked familiar . . . two blocks to the rear of St. Louis Cathedral sits Cats Meow, at the corner of Bourbon and St. Peter. Our webcams there - Bourbocam and Beadcam - sent their last images on the morning of Aug. 29, 2005, as Katrina's rising wind blew out the electricity in the Quarter . . . 6:34:51 a.m. . . . that's when the clocks stopped.

Jon Donley, Bourbon Street Journal

Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:43 PM | Comments (6)

Sir Rob of Apple Lane, Crabbeton

...has some Crab Apple Lane Katrina before and afters. Which means he can post which means...WOO HOO!

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:23 AM | Comments (4)

Hold Your Hand Out, Hold Your Hand High!

Isn't that, like, an Argent song or something? NO, it's NOT...

Surprise!!! It's the Governor of Louisiana!!

In her address Wednesday night, Louisiana Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco (search) said, “…in order to rebuild this state, ALL levels of government must work together, as never before, with one purpose — the well-being of our people." Then she said, "I have asked the federal government to cover 100 percent of what Louisiana will spend on this disaster."

As for the subsequent contracts for rebuilding, will they go to the lowest bidder? Not necessarily. Blanco said she told the Federal Emergency Management Agency to give top priority to Louisiana companies.


Has she said 'sorry' yet? I missed that part.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:41 AM | Comments (10)

"Don't Sweat the Fiscal Stuff" Says Le Grande Frommage

Mr. Spierenburg, the author of the Bush-Chirac/Louisiana Purchase piece (BSNews.org) we had posted here, has apologised quite handsomely for his comment meltdown. That takes intestinal mettle of a good sort and we thank him for it. We also want to reiterate that, had we known the source of the article, it most assuredly would have be attributed, for we are as scrupulous as humanly possible with links and 'atta boys'. And his piece was very clever. "Shuba-pie!"* back at you, Ben.

*Ben Spierenburg wrote that. {8^P

Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:25 AM | Comments (15)

More efforts...

to save us from ourselves...

God Forbid parents actually feed their kids decent stuff at home, in whivh case the one meal of crap at school would be of little consequence. Nope, easier to let someone else fix it for you.

Posted by Crusader at 08:53 AM | Comments (17)

September 15, 2005

No, It's Christmas in

...well, you know.


Moments later, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., criticized Bush, saying
"Leadership isn't a speech or a toll-free number."


[offstage]I'm the Orifice of Oration, the Guru of Gotcha!
Who's your Daddy??
BHUUWAhahahahahaha!! BHUUWAhahahahahaha!!


Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:55 PM | Comments (5)

One Step

...forward...

Saudi women to get first taste of polls
RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi businesswomen will be able to stand for election to a local trade and industry chamber in the first vote of its kind for women in the conservative Muslim monarchy, a top executive said on Thursday.

Saudi authorities allowed businesswomen to take part in a November election of 18 board members of the Red Sea city of Jeddah's Trade and Industry Chamber (JTIC), the chamber's chairman Ghassan al-Suleiman said.


...and two steps back.
NEW YORK (AP) -- A Muslim organization has demanded that India's Sania Mirza wear more than her tennis attire during her matches, calling her short shirts and sleeveless shirts "un-Islamic."

A top cleric of the little-known Sunni Ulema Board said he has issued a fatwa against the 18-year-old because of her "indecent dressing" on the court and in advertisements, the Hindustan Times reported Friday...

...He said Islam did not permit women to wear skirts, shorts and sleeveless tops in public, and that she should follow the example of Iranian women who wore long tunics and headscarves while playing in the Asian Badminton Championship in Hyderabad earlier in the week.


If you didn't have to worry about some fanatic doing his duty and executing your a$$ for wearing a TANK TOP, more of these girls and their families would have the courage to say "Fatwa THIS, a$$hole!" But no, we have to respect their 'peaceful' death edicts.

Sania, maybe Salman Rushdie has a room over the garage he can spare.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:10 PM | Comments (7)

On a Lighter Note..Is Mr. Summers Busy?

The always politically correct, religion of peace types at CAIR (Council on Islamic-American Relations) have gotten caught with their hajib down. Or up, as the case may be. It looks as if a three year old was put to work with a Sharpie, retouching an unswathed woman in a press shot into a model of Islamic modesty. JihadWatch has the before and afters. The best part of the entire despicable incident is the response of PhotoShoppers around the world, who have rallied to show CAIR just how a retouching is really done. One shining example from the efforts at Protest Warrior's forum (Swill Salute to LenaWarriorPrincess):

Here's the original, if anyone wants a whack at it. Send me the links and we'll post them in the extended section. Best entry gets Sir Rob's jelly donut. Modestly iced, of course.
UPDATE: Mr. Summers IS a genius jelly donut! I am tickled to present the maestro's entry, entitled:

"Say that again, you f@cking misogynist r@ghead BASTARD?"

I wouldn't mess with that chick. She'll kick your ass.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 04:28 PM | Comments (10)

Hmmm...

"Why didn't they put Tom Bombadil in the movies? One time I asked my brother what he thinks Tom Bombadil looked like, and he said he thinks he looked like a hobbit or a dwarf. But who knows...

I wonder who is more powerful, Tom Bombadil or Sauron?"

"Tom Bombadil by far."

Posted by tree hugging sister at 02:37 PM | Comments (15)

Good thing they are not...

Mormons. No wonder the feminists raise such a furor over this policy!


[crickets chirping]

Posted by Crusader at 01:52 PM | Comments (7)

The Emasculation Of History

The recent outrage at the Islamo-friendly memorial for Flight 93 is just a continuence of the trend. Hell, look at the other 'finalists', if you have the stomach. Any of those designs bring to mind the glory and strength of those wonderful souls who so bravely fought back against the bastards in the cockpit, knowing full well that they were in all likelyhood doomed? Or do they bring to mind the kind of posters one can buy in a catalogue on an airplane, the blurry-pictured ones that say things like 'vision'? How does staring wistfully out across a meadow show any respect or appreciation of the valor shown by those wonderful folks? Why are we so ashamed of acts of valor that we have to tone the story of them down for future generations?

And it's not just here in the States. How the hell did England go from this to this? I just read Seize the Fire : Heroism, Duty, and the Battle of Trafalgar over the weekend, which, in addition to merely reciting the order of the battle, goes into great detail on the state of British society at the time to show how they were able to produce men with the fire in their bellies needed to sail at 2 knots across the French and Spanish battle lines to close and attack? My god, and now we 'honor' their sacrifice by talking timidly about "Red" and "Blue" fleets? We 'honor' the memory of the poor souls slaughtered in the WTC by having a "Freedom Center" that equates horrors from around the world?

Where has our society's courage gone? Where is the fire in our bellies? What kind of memorial is worthy of what they accomplished? A quiet glade with rustling leaves...or a world free of the bastards that murdered them?

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 11:12 AM | Comments (19)

Hugely Helpful New Orleans News

Operation Blue Roof: The Army Corps of Engineers is running a program that allows homeowners to have their roof temporarily covered while they're waiting to have it permanently repaired. If your roof is damaged 50% or less, they will make the temporary repairs at no cost to you. For more information on Operation Blue Roof, call the Corps at (888)766-3258.

Steve Scalise's Hurricane Katrina Update for Wednesday, September 14, 2005 In my last update I mentioned that I asked Mayor Nagin to establish a timeline to allow people to begin returning to New Orleans, and he committed to do so by the end of this week. Yesterday he did just that. If the health and environmental reports show that it is safe (early reports are very positive), the Mayor will begin allowing people to return to dry areas of the City on Monday, September 19th. The dry areas include Downtown, the French Quarter, Uptown, and Algiers. The Mayor estimates about 150,000 people could return by Monday. He was quoted as saying, "I'm tired of hearing helicopters overhead, I want to hear some jazz." More details on this will follow once the health and environmental reports come in.
Jefferson Parish announced the opening of three cities. Beginning this morning, residents can now return to Gretna, Westwego, and Lafitte. Power is restored to about 90% of these cities, and the sewer and water systems are working. When you return you should run your water for about 10 minutes to clean out the system, but it is safe to drink. Meetings will be held today between Parish President Broussard and the Mayors of Kenner and Harahan to set timelines for their residents to return home.

Last night I attended a meeting of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Here are the items they discussed about the status of the Catholic school system:
- St. Tammany schools will likely open the week of September 19th.
- St. Charles and St. John are now open
- Jefferson schools are set to open on October 3rd
- Returning dates for Orleans and St. Bernard are still to be determined
- * They are asking parents who live in Parishes that will be opening by October 3rd not to enroll their children in other schools. They are readjusting the school year so that those students returning by October will complete the entire year. The Baton Rouge Archdiocese is still accepting students who cannot return by early October. Detailed information on the Archdiocese can be found on their web site at http://www.archdiocese-no.org/ or by calling them at (888)366-5024.

I just got out of a meeting with the Department of Environmental Quality. Officials reported that minimal air pollutants have been found and they do not believe they pose any health risks. The floodwaters still pose a health hazard with high levels of bacteria, so they are encouraging people to avoid contact with standing water. These results are based on samples taken in New Orleans on September 4th & 6th. Air and water monitoring will continue. They are also continuing inspections and searches for oil and chemical leaks. The most volatile area is limited to the portion of St. Bernard near the Murphy Refinery oil spill. They have already inspected roughly 75% of the facilities that handle radioactive material and they have all been found to be safe and secure. Debris disposal is going to be a huge task. Early estimates are that there will be 22 million tons of debris to be disposed. In addition 350,000 vehicles and 50,000 boats will likely need to be disposed. They will continue to meet to determine the best ways to safely dispose of this debris. The good news is that air levels in the New Orleans area are safe.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:34 AM

A Note to Our Katrina Evacuees

We're ever so grateful you got here safely. Understanding exactly what you've gone through, we've welcomed you into our community, thrown open our schools, volunteered by the hundreds to see you get all the assistance you need; done our darndest to try make it better for you the best we can. But, when you have the time to take a deep breath, I want you to know that you've landed in a community that is still wounded. A small community still trying after a year, a YEAR, to find housing and work for it's people, but who still had the heart and the love and the compassion for your need to say 'C'mon on in', instead of 'move along'. Please cut us a husk when things don't move at big city speed. I know it's hard. Some of the newly christened volunteers helping you out still are living in trailers or with friends themselves. Homeless, like you. But they answered the call. And no, sometimes they don't have all the answers, but please, please realize the Herculean effort put forth before you complain and castigate them to print and TV journalists. It's so disheartening and demotivating. After all, they're volunteers. We have been listening to your complaints. As we hope you can tell, we've tried to make things better as quickly as we could. And your appreciation gladdens our hearts.


Outside the church, Red Cross volunteers handed out water and snacks every 10 minutes to the hundreds waiting in line. Inside the church's air-conditioned gym, 450 seats were available for those near the front of the line.

Rows of 30 applicants at a time were called in to see case managers. The rest of those seated cheered and clapped every time a row was called. Several applicants whose row was called would do a little dance of joy for the amused crowd or pump their fists in the air.

"I'm starting to feel relieved," said Katara Sellers, 26, of Gautier, Miss. "This is the best place I've been so far to get help. I actually expected the line to be longer."

Eva Kemp, 27, and her cousin, Susie Foreman, 66, both tried to get help three times in Mobile, where they reside. They either were turned away despite getting in line at 2:30 a.m., or they would find out after being in line for hours that the facility would help only Louisiana or Mississippi residents.

"Here, they give us water and treats," Kemp said. "They watch out for us. There's no chaos here."


It's such a shame, the practice we've had this year. How many times we've gotten a chance to try to make it perfect. A little bit of a break would be good for all of us about now.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:25 AM | Comments (2)

Hel-lo!!! This has GOT To Be Squashed.

I would hope even European Diplomats would be able to see through this:

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Iran's president has told Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that his country is ready and willing to give peaceful nuclear technology to Islamic states, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported Thursday.

"The Islamic Republic never seeks weapons of mass destruction and with respect to the needs of Islamic countries, we are ready to transfer nuclear know-how to these countries," said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a meeting with Erdogan during this week's U.N. World Summit.

Do we really need to even think about it? I'm sorry, but there is NO reason that these countries that are sitting on top of the world's oil need nuclear plants, none, as in noney-none-none-NONE...except one.

And it makes a really loud boom that will slaughter millions of infidels.*

*for those of you playing along at home, that's you and me.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 09:03 AM | Comments (4)

Would Somebody Please Eat This Person? Part Deux

What a surprise. Carol Mosely Braun is a pathetic race-baiter.

The Rhodes' business has to operate at capacity now, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the stunning failure of government to provide for the welfare of the people. No one knows yet how many people have died in Louisiana or Mississippi, but everyone knows that the death toll is tragic and horrendous. Those who survive will have stories no less chilling than the stories passed down the generations from survivors who fled the night riders in the late 1800s. The failure this time of the government to respond will be seen as symptomatic of the same kind of fatal neglect that made post-Reconstruction a time of infamy in U.S. history.

The common denominator between tragedies may almost certainly be found in the nuances and realities of race, class and poverty. Assumptions were made in government that can only be explained in context of the demographics most affected by the hurricane. No rational person sincerely believes our government would have had such a laissez-faire attitude if the majority of the population had not been poor and black. No provisions were made to avert disaster. No thought was given to how people without cars or money could leave.

No thought given to how the poor would get out of the city? That might play in Chicago, Ms. EX-Senator-for-a-REASON, but it won't play here. Nor with the tens of millions of lily white and otherwise Americans who have opened their hearts, homes and wallets to help in any way they can. Your part in the relief effort has been what, exactly? I mean, besides baleful babblings and photo ops.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:59 AM | Comments (2)

September 14, 2005

And You Thought the Demented Pink Bunny Suit

...in A Christmas Story was excruciating. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...

Stitch

Holy crap. The horrible stuff we do to our kids.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:48 PM | Comments (12)

Oh Do, DO Tell...

Is the Orleans Levee Board doing its job?
Critics allege corruption, charge the board with wasteful spending

The unveiling of the Mardi Gras Fountain was celebrated this year in typical New Orleans style. The cost of $2.4 million was paid by the Orleans Levee Board, the state agency whose main job is to protect the levees surrounding New Orleans — the same levees that failed after Katrina hit.

"They misspent the money," says Billy Nungesser, a former top Republican official who was briefly president of the Levee Board. "Any dollar they wasted was a dollar that could have went in the levees."


And...
Beyond the fountain, there's the $15 million spent on two overpasses that helped gamblers get to Bally's riverboat casino. Critics tried and failed to put some of that money into flood protection.

There was also $45,000 for private investigators to dig up dirt on radio host and board critic Robert Namer.


Well, hush my puppy! There was never no such thing of the kind! And this is another example of Chimpy churlishness, trying to put the blame on the locals.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:29 PM | Comments (1)

That Old Man River Keeps Rolling Along

Port of New Orleans reopens
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The Port of New Orleans resumed commercial operations Wednesday, with the first vessel loaded with general merchandise heading out since it was closed by Hurricane Katrina more than two weeks ago.

"The ship is leaving as we speak," Paul Zimmermann, the port's director of operations, told Reuters by telephone.


Well, alright!
UPDATE: I bumped this up because, after another check of all the usual MSM suspects, this story STILL hasn't made an appearance. Don't you find that...well, ODD?? It IS good news, n'est pas?

Posted by tree hugging sister at 05:17 PM | Comments (5)

For THS

Two blondes were reading their daily newspapers and one of them sees a headline that says:

"TWO BRAZILIAN SOLDIERS KILLED"

She thinks for a minute, and then whispers to her friend...

"Psssst.....how many is a brazilian?"

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 04:14 PM | Comments (4)

This NOLA Ex-Mayor...

Calling Katrina a "national tragedy," former New Orleans Mayor Marc H. Morial put the primary responsibility for disaster response squarely on the federal government's shoulders. Morial, president of the National Urban League, was New Orleans' mayor from 1994 to 2004.
...is certainly qualified to criticize the uneven federal response. If anybody knows what a smooth operator is, it would be him. Now, these teasing little snippets are from an excellent investigative series in 2001, and NOLA would say 'bah, old news' or worse, 'BAU'. But they're pretty new names to the rest of us, popping out alongside quotes castigating the federal response, bolstered by post-'01 job titles bestowing gravitas on the speaker. "Oooh, URban League President. Must be somebody, huh?" Not so fast. When these reports were published, Marc Morial was Mayor of New Orleans.
...By contrast, Mayor Marc Morial said there is no reason to keep the wealthy from participating in programs that predominantly help minority- and woman-owned companies.

"Fundamentally, I don't believe that success should be penalized," Morial said...

...The city's policy of no revenue limits has helped one of New Orleans' biggest construction contractors, a company that one agency rejected for DBE status on the ground that the woman-owned business appeared to be a front for male operators.

During the past five years, Gootee Construction has received more than $10 million in work as a woman-owned business through the city's Open Access Plan...


...Gootee wouldn't have qualified for the program if Marc Morial hadn't removed many of the restrictions that were imposed in 1989 by Mayor Sidney Barthelemy and the City Council. But in 1995, less than a year after taking office, Morial issued an executive order that replaced the city's race- and gender-neutral plan with a program in which minority- and woman-owned businesses automatically were granted certification. Morial dumped the existing revenue limits, as well as restrictions on net worth and household income.

Barthelemy said recently that Gootee is a "perfect example of how you can abuse" a program without such limits...

...Morial didn't specifically address Gootee, but he said he removed the revenue restrictions because he didn't think they made sense.

"The assumption behind revenue limitations is that companies reach a point where they don't need the program," Morial said. "The doors to the private sector in this city are closed. A lot of these companies, if they weren't doing business in the government sector, would be out of business tomorrow."

Patrick Gootee would argue with that.

It all seems to boil down to "one hand washes the other" if you wanted one of these contracts. Take the story of the Stanleys...


Audrey Stanley, 66, raised her three sons and two daughters alone. The family spent about 20 years in the St. Bernard public housing development before moving out in the late 1970s.

Stanley juggled jobs as a private sitter and a nursing assistant, but a faltering economy saw one of her employers, a nursing home, close. She picked up work as an aide with a visiting nursing program, but it was getting harder for her to lift patients. In 1993, she decided she wanted a job that would keep her closer to home.

Herman, her eldest son, also was struggling. After returning from a stint in the Air Force, he earned money as a cook at local restaurants. But after he lost a job, he started looking for a new line of work.

The idea of going into the security business came from Audrey Stanley's husband, who was working for another small security firm. The couple had reunited after many years apart, and before Herman Stanley Sr. died in 1993, he and the rest of the family tried to get Stanley Security off the ground. First, Audrey passed a state licensing exam for owners of private security companies. Then, she, her husband and two of their sons enrolled in state-mandated courses on private security, costing them $130 per person for 16 hours of classroom instruction and firearms training.

For $50, the firm was able to get its name on a state vendor list, a vital step for fledgling businesses because it provides notice of bidding opportunities. Audrey Stanley took what was left of her savings and bought a half-dozen uniforms...

...and the Pierres, for instance.


...Before starting the business in 1993, Crescent Guardian's African-American owner, Marian H. Pierre, had spent 25 years working at City Hall, including 14 years as a deputy city assessor and another six as legislative aide to City Councilman Joe Giarusso. Although her résumé listed no experience in the security industry, Pierre's company won the water board contract in 1994 when no other bidders emerged for the work.

Her company lacked some of the key items needed to satisfy the bidding specifications, but friends stepped in to help her out, she said in a 1995 interview with New Orleans CityBusiness. One of them helped her borrow $70,000 in working capital, which she needed to satisfy the water board. Another friend helped her finance uniforms and radios for 70 security guards.

The article didn't identify the friends, and Pierre declined requests for an interview for this article.

As anywhere, having friends is an all around good thing.

...Campaign finance reports show that Pierre of Crescent Guardian has contributed at least $2,500 to Mayor Marc Morial, who approved the contract, and $1,200 to City Councilman Jim Singleton, who serves on the water board committee that recommended that the board rehire Crescent Guardian.

By contrast, neither Stanley nor United Protection has made any local political contributions, records show.

When asked why he approved the hiring of Crescent over two firms that were recommended by the water board's staff, Singleton said: "You got me there. I was under the impression that she was the low bidder and the person who was recommended by the staff for this job. I must not have been doing as good a job as I should have in checking into this one."

Singleton said Pierre's contribution did not sway him. "$1,200 ain't enough for me to make that kind of decision," he said.

Morial also said he did not intervene on behalf of a supporter. "Let me be honest: Marian Pierre came from somebody else's politics," he said.

Morial said he can't explain why the agency gave the job to the worst-rated bidder. "I'm not going to defend the decision one way or another," he said. "You can't sit there in every Sewerage & Water Board meeting and look at the specifics of 100 procurement decisions. We pretty much affirm the decisions of the committee."


Rubberstamp, baby, and just as smooth as silk. Told ya. The man knows smooth operating.

Laissez les bons temps rouler, n'est pas?


Posted by tree hugging sister at 02:56 PM | Comments (7)

America Declared Unconstitutional

CNN has a headline saying that a Federal judge in San Francisco has declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional.

A$$hat.
Update: Here.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 02:19 PM | Comments (26)

File Under: I'm So Mad, I'm Molting

You know, when the Swilling was mentioned on CNN, people had to Google to find us. But THIS classless anal orifice...

The heckler who cursed Vice-President Dick Cheney on live television has become a bit of a hero among foes of the Bush administration.

The man, who had just visited his hurricane-destroyed home at the time he told the veep to “Go [bleep] yourself Mr. Cheney,” has been identified as Dr. Ben Marble, a young emergency-room physician who plays in alternative rock bands.

He has been lauded on various Web sites and blogs, has set up his own Web site that discusses the incident, has been attempting to sell a tape of the incident on eBay, and even links to a line of “Go [Bleep] Yourself Mr. Cheney” merchandise — including T-shirts, bumper stickers, coffee mugs, a baby bib, and a dog shirt, emblazoned with the now-infamous line.


...gets a LIVE LINK to his CafePress site?!! What, so everyone has a chance to buy his clever, clever T-Shirts? They didn't even try to spell our name right in the transcript, for gawd's sake! Talk about BIAS in the media! Gorezilla in Sod Off stuff runs rings around this loser and tastefully.

Sniff.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:58 AM | Comments (4)

Never, EVER Buy a Bag

...of these.


Twice as big means it takes only half the time...to eat the whole bag.

Congress should require warning labels.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:36 AM

What Happened in His Childhood...

...to make this LOser so cranky? I mean, everyone knows I despise the Red Cross, but come on!

Maybe he was one of Bingley's cage kids. If so, someone should shoot the SOB that let him out.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:06 AM | Comments (9)

September 13, 2005

Kinda the Pot Calling the Kettle...

...names.

La. nursing home owners charged in deaths
Two face 34 counts of negligent homicide for refusing evacuation bus

NEW ORLEANS - The owners of a nursing home where 34 people were found dead after Hurricane Katrina have been arrested and charged with 34 counts of negligent homicide for not evacuating their patients, the Louisiana attorney general's office said Tuesday...

... The owners of St. Rita's Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish "were asked if they wanted to move (the patients). They did not. They were warned repeatedly that this storm was coming. In effect, their inaction resulted in the deaths of these patients," Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti said.


Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco haven't weighed in on this one yet. If there's any justice in this world, they oughta be shaking in their boots and talking to their lawyers.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 06:09 PM | Comments (4)

Hugely Helpful New Orleans Links

All sorts of information, or where to find it.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 05:20 PM

Chitty-Chitty Kid Cage

Here's a novel child-rearing method:

WAKEMAN, Ohio - Sheriff’s deputies found 11 children locked in cages less than 3½ feet high inside a home, but a couple denied they had abused or neglected the children.

Nope, no abuse here, move right along folks. Heck, they even found the obligatory relative to say the kids liked it:

A woman who identified herself as Sharen Gravelle’s mother but would not give her name said the children were happy in their new home.

“This year they have played and had fun and laughed like no other children have, which they have never been able to do,” she said.

Being locked in a 40-inch cage is so liberating!

I wonder if they fed them treacle tarts?

UPDATE: Oh fine. Let the record show that Mr. Smartypants Wunderkraut posted on this story several hours before I did. I'm not bitter, as I'm not the one who got the number of kids wrong and I'm certainly not the one who forgot to mention the key HUGE BEADY MATTED BUNNIES angle of the story.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 03:19 PM | Comments (5)

You Don't Pooh Pooh VooDoo..

..if you're a local.

But you can't visit the old Girod Cemetery. Abandoned for years, its iron caskets and bones were tossed up by excavation gear in the early 1970s as the crews moved in to build . . . the Superdome. Beneath the now-shredded roof and the fetid stinking mess of excrement and blood where tens of thousands huddled in storm and flood . .. and some died . . . likely lie even more unexcavated bones.

And local lore is that the Superdome was cursed . . . a punishment for desecrating this City of the Dead. Exorcists and voodoo priestesses have been here to dispel the curse. That lore will no doubt expand into an even more gruesome story for buggy drivers in the Quarter to enchant their passengers.



Anytime I'm in St. Louis No. 1, without fail, I make sure to stop by Marie Laveau and say hi.

Never hurts to be polite.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:22 PM | Comments (11)

Good News

London bomb suspect extradition approved
Italy's highest appeals court on Tuesday upheld the extradition to the UK of Hamdi Issac, the Ethiopian-born Briton who is suspected of involvement in an attempted attack on July 21 on London's transport system.

Mr Issac, also known as Osman Hussain, cannot challenge the Court of Cassation's ruling. Legal experts expect him to be transferred to the UK in the next 10 days.


As long as the British legal system has a chance to actually try to hold him accountable.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:06 PM | Comments (2)

Sigh. If Only Insta Read The Coalition...

He wouldn't be so embarrassingly behind on the news:

RICK STUART:


So far incredible news from Katrina, the dead body count is really low compared to the numbers in the thousands we heard about.

...reader Ryan Israelsen emails: "Don't you know why the body count in NO is so low? It is because of cannibalism

Faithful Swillers knew all about this yesterday at lunchtime.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 11:13 AM | Comments (5)

Other Than 'Because I LOVE The Place'...

...it really is hard to come up with a persuasive argument for rebuilding New Orleans. Yes, yes, we need the port and the French Quarter's fun and intact, but the truth is there's a whole lot of that city that was figuratively razed generations ago. By poverty and ignorance, crime and neglect. A fair amount of the folks who got on those buses won't be coming back, because this is their ticket O. U. T., out. If you are determined to live on public assistance, or have known nothing else in your entire existence, you can as easily collect a check in Houston as in New Orleans. But if you've been trapped in that squalorous cycle, with big dreams that haven't been ground out of you yet, that bus ticket to Houston and points beyond is your chance to grab at a new life. Don't think those folks won't. Here in Pensa/Bangla-cola, we've already got people saying "We're staying." If I had a house in the Garden District, I'd be back in a flash. Most probably, I'd also have means independant of the local economy to keep my lights on. But if you live in a 'Ward', why return? If you have a completely flooded upper middle class development home that has to be leveled and your job was underwater, I'll bet you're already casting around for opportunities in situ. You'll get your insurance money, so why not see what's happening at the local level where you've landed? After all, everything in every direction radial from New Orleans is high ground, and I'll bet that sounds pretty damn good right about now.

I think the next few months will be illuminating not in terms of who's rebuilding, but who's willing to come back.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:37 AM | Comments (5)

Word of the Day

assay \a-SAY\ verb
Example sentence: Ah say, sir, ah say I have HAD it up to HERE with these Chicken Soup for the Soul Books! They are about as common as French hookers on Bastille Day, but raise less of a stench.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:03 AM | Comments (3)

Oh Damn: Chrenkoff's Last Call

Chrenkoff's last post is up. He's been an important voice showing us what the Coalition troops were accomplishing these past 18 months, and he will be missed.

Best of luck Arthur, and thanks.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 08:07 AM

September 12, 2005

History Channel Tonight

Right now. Programs on Katrina (now) and other Gulf Coast storms.

UPDATE: Factoids, CG and footage great so far. It would be better if we could drop the "Bush administration cut the funding for the levees" bull$hit.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:12 PM

Oh Well, Pooh

On January 5, 2005, 3,719 acres of the former MCAS El Toro property were officially made available for sale to the public via an online auction process. After six weeks of active bidding (with very little activity during the first five weeks - similar to behavior in online auctions at EBay), the auction was closed on February 16, 2005, with a joint venture partnership between Lennar Communities and LNR Property Corporation as the sole successful bidder on the entire property. The sale closed on July 12, 2005 for $649.5 million. As such, the sale of MCAS El Toro has been hailed as the most successful Base Re-Alignment and Closure (BRAC) installation sale/transfer to date. The proceeds realized from the sale will be used to fund further BRAC project activities nationwide, and will also be utilized to offset costs associated with all ongoing environmental stewardship activities at El Toro and other BRAC installations.
And it's not gonna be an airport either. How sad is that? Vaya con Dios, El Toro.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:42 PM | Comments (1)

Quick Katrina Comparisons and Reference Points

Courtesy of Jack Kelly.

1.

Exhibit A on the bill of indictment of federal sluggishness is that it took four days before most people were evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome.

The levee broke Tuesday morning. Buses had to be rounded up and driven from Houston to New Orleans across debris-strewn roads. The first ones arrived Wednesday evening. That seems pretty fast to me.

Pretty fast to us, too.

2.

"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."

For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 2002. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.

3.

Journalists...have no idea what is involved in moving hundreds of tons of relief supplies into an area the size of England in which power lines are down, telecommunications are out, no gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airports are covered with debris, and apparently have little interest in finding out.

So they libel as a "national disgrace" the most monumental and successful disaster relief operation in world history.

4.

...a week and a day after the main levee protecting New Orleans breached:

~ More than 32,000 people have been rescued, many plucked from rooftops by Coast Guard helicopters.

~ The Army Corps of Engineers has all but repaired the breaches and begun pumping water out of New Orleans.

~ Shelter, food and medical care have been provided to more than 180,000 refugees.


Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:10 PM | Comments (3)

Canada Just Says NO

McGuinty rejects Ontario's use of Shariah law and all religious arbitrations
TORONTO (CP) - Ontario will not become the first Western jurisdiction to allow the use of a set of centuries' old religious rules called Shariah law to settle Muslim family disputes, and will ban all religious arbitrations in the province, Premier Dalton McGuinty told The Canadian Press on Sunday.

In a telephone interview with the national news agency, McGuinty announced his government would move quickly to outlaw existing religious tribunals used for years by Christians and Jews under Ontario's Arbitration Act.

"I've come to the conclusion that the debate has gone on long enough," he said.

"There will be no Shariah law in Ontario. There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians."


Thank God.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 02:48 PM | Comments (3)

Drudge Headline Asks, We Answer

WHERE DID ALL THE DEAD BODIES GO? OFFICIAL LOUISIANA TOLL AT 197


They ate them. They said so.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:11 PM | Comments (5)

Major Dad Sends

The French Have Landed
In Pensacola,
with a C-130 crew and have been flying their derrieres off in the relief effort.
Merci beaucoups, mon freres!

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:40 AM | Comments (4)

Word of the Day

apophasis \uh-PAH-fuh-sis\ noun

: the raising of an issue by claiming not to mention it

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:28 AM | Comments (6)

CNN Won't Give Up

"After 2 weeks, Bush hits ground" reads the headline. Beat that meme! The blood of all those thousands of people who didn't die in NOLA is on Bush's hands!

Katrina is blamed for killing 426 people in five states. Most of the deaths were in Mississippi.

[cough-cough] Where Bush was on the ground over a week ago.

Damn that Chimpy.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 09:40 AM | Comments (6)

Mary, Mary, Quite to the Contrary...Part Deux

The Senator continues her Sunday talk show rounds.

Chris Wallace: But senator there were hundreds of buses sitting in that parking lot...we're looking at the picture. There were hundreds of buses sitting in parking lots.

Mary Landrieu: That is underwater.

Chris Wallace: It wasn't underwater before the evacua...before the...

Mary Landrieu: Those buses were underwater. Those buses were underwater.

Chris Wallace: They weren't underwater on Saturday. They weren't on Sunday.


All because 'this administration doesn't understand mass trasnportation'.

I couldn't make up stuff this good if I tried.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 04:29 AM | Comments (14)

September 11, 2005

Mary, Mary, Quite to the Contrary

On Face the Nation this morning.

(Bob Schieffer)Of course, Senator Landrieu, let me ask you the question that a lot of people are asking: Do you think that some of these casualties could have been averted had control been turned over
to the federal government sooner?

Sen. MARY LANDRIEU (Democrat, Louisiana): Well, that is a very important question, but I can tell you on the ground in Louisiana that the local elected officials, governor, local parish president and mayors, did everything they could to save lives, to issue a strong evacuation plan¹. That was carried out. An emergency declaration was issued, Bob, before the storm, asking for full federal resources². Why those resources didn't come, why they were stopped in Washington, I don't know, but what I do know is that we will all be held accountable, from the White House down, and blaming local elected officials is not the way to get the rebuilding
process under way.


Let's take a look at this impressive opening salvo from the senator.
¹ "Get out, you're on your own" does not constitute 'a strong evacuation plan'. NOLA/LA officials completely blew it during Ivan and didn't learn a thing. Although, to give them credit, they did pen a very spiffy Disaster Plan, complete with bitchin' website. It's just that no one implemented the plan. Then again, maybe they did...
But the most recent Louisiana emergency operations plan doesn't address how to evacuate in the case of flooding from storm surge, saying simply that "The Greater New Orleans Metropolitan Area represents a difficult evacuation problem due to the large population and its unique layout."

It continues, "The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating."

Buses were unable to transport New Orleans citizens for days following Katrina's landfall. The plan acknowledges that, in the event of a catastrophic hurricane, "the evacuation of over a million people from the Southeast Region could overwhelm normally available shelter resources." But it doesn't include a solution to the shelter issue.


²President Bush declared a State of Emergency for Louisiana prior to landfall, to facilitate the federal response, and 'have stocked supplies and emergency rescue crews in areas expected to be affected'. Then he had to call and beg your Governor for God's sake to get those people out of there. She did, but on September 1st. That was helpful. You all sure do a lot of declaring, but you just as surely don't do anything.

SCHIEFFER: Do you think the White House is trying to put the blame on local officials?

Sen. LANDRIEU: I am unfortunately aware that, yes, they are. While the president is saying he wants to work together as a team, I think the White House operatives have a full-court press on to blame state and local officials, whether they're Republicans or Democrats, whether it's Haley Barbour or Kathleen Blanco, whether it's Mayor Nagin or a Republican mayor from Mississippi³. And it's very unfortunate. This federal government has an obligation to support our local and state officials particularly in times of tragedy and distress, not to pile on them, not to make their suffering worse, but to lighten their load, and I hope the federal government will do that. It's been years of neglect from not investing*, and as Susan Collins will tell you, one of the big lack of investments is in a communications system that would allow locals to communicate with each other, and that's a lesson that we should have learned after 9/11 and we will learn again, unfortunately, this week.

³ Well, no. It's mostly just you LA types. But it's not just the Whitehouse, Senator. The State of Florida thinks you're all pretty sorry, too:

Florida emergency planners criticized and even rebuked their counterparts -- or what passes for emergency planners -- in those states for their handling of Hurricane Katrina. Gov. Jeb Bush, the head of Florida AHCA and the head of Florida wildlife (which is responsible for all search and rescue) all said they made offers of aid to Mississippi and Louisiana the day before Katrina hit but were rebuffed. After the storm, they said they've had to not only help provide people to those states but also have had to develop search and rescue plans for them. "They were completely unprepared -- as bad off as we were before Andrew," one Florida official said.

* About that NOT investing thing...um, NOT.

But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large.

As far as Homeland Security ~ funding, radios, FEMA funds,stuff like that ~ maybe if you'd answered the survey they sent you...
Survey Methodology
The survey requested information on funding provided to states through the Office for Domestic Preparedness for fiscal years 1999-2002. Thirty-seven states** and 2 territories provided data.
The survey also requested information on funding provided to states through the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the fiscal year 2002 Supplemental. These funds were made available in recent months and states are at varying stages of the grant application/approval process. Consequently, not all states provided data on the FEMA funding. Responses were received from 33 states and 2 territories. The survey analysis attempts to place the FEMA funding information in the appropriate context.
It is important to note that funds provided through HHS for Bioterrorism Preparedness are not included in this survey. Also, the FEMA Assistance to Firefighters is a separate grant program that provides funds directly to local fire departments.
Terminology
For the purposes of this survey, the term “expended” means actual money spent. The term “obligated” means sub-awards made to local governments, contracts executed, funds earmarked for state use, etc. The combined use of the two terms expended and obligated represents the states’ commitment of the funds for a specific purpose and actions underway or completed to spend the funds in accordance with federal guidelines
.

** I guess the folks in charge of Louisiana were busy that day, since they're NOT on the list of respondant states.

Bob Schieffer then asks the good Senator for PROOF. Wait. Not even proof; for a simple, single EXAMPLE bolstering her claims.

SCHIEFFER: That's a very strong charge you've just leveled. What are some examples of that?

Sen. LANDRIEU: Well, I think that there are journalists throughout town that can give you those examples, and I'll be happy to provide more detail as the week unfolds.

Once again, lobbing Molotov Cocktails, with nothing to back it up. She has to wait to get details?? In the meantime, ask a reporter?? All this suffering, black-eye, punch in the nose threatening death and diss-truction, and you can't think of a single thing off the top of your HEAD??

How about you keep your mouth shut unless you have the goods at hand.

You know, I'm really familiar with this strategy. You probably are, too. It's the

"out-all-night-drinkin'-she's-gonna-be-pissed-so-I-start-a-fight-right-when-I-git-in-the-front-door-so-she-fergits-I-f@cked-up"
...method of blame shifting. Works evey time.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 05:01 PM | Comments (13)

Jersey Carnival Is Up

Hosted by our dear friend Nightfly.

Go!

Read!

Enjoy!

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 08:16 AM

September 10, 2005

Buddy, Can You Spare a Chicken?

A Swilling All Points Bulletin

Watch out for Big Bull. He and all his friends are on the prowl.

Big Bull is more than 15 feet long and he could be running with his buddies, Whitey, a near-albino, and another named One Eye Willie.

They're escapees from the Gulf Coast Gator Ranch & Tours, who hot four footed it out when Katrina's storm surge flooded their enclosures. Not being your 'swamp' kinda gator, who're used to finding their own edible critters, they could be hungry.

Gary Casper, a nuisance alligator control agent...said the ranch alligators associate food with people because Adams fed them, and the animals may approach humans for a handout.

If there's a knock at your door, use the peephole.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:54 PM | Comments (7)

September 09, 2005

A Blackout on Communications 12-1530 CST Tomorrow

We got a date with Touch Down Jesus.

Go Irish!

UPDATE:
THAT"S the GAME !!

Notre Dame 17 UM 10

Posted by tree hugging sister at 07:41 PM | Comments (20)

Technical Difficulties

If anyone is having trouble leaving comments or sending us trackbacks(ha!) please send me an email (with a copy of the error message, if possible, por favor). It seems MT Blacklist has gotten rather jackbooted of late and it's giving some folks fits. Hopefully this will allow your faithful servant to track down the problem.

Thanks!

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 06:14 PM | Comments (1)

A BRAC Smack

I realize there are painful decisions to be made and that copious caterwauling will ensue when the fickle finger of fate points at your base. For instance; when they closed MCAS El Toro and MCAS Tustin. Beyond the historic significance of the bases, we'd spent so much combined time there (Lt. Grinch mid 50's, Major Dad/SSgt THS '80-'92), it seemed the orange grove perfume smothering a hot, pre-dawn flightline would forever coat our lungs. Sadly not. In a masterful bit of offensive maneuvering, the Marine Corps offered up it's two jewels of the West. They knew a sacrifice somewhere would be called for and chose to name the poison themselves, rather than let the commission pick them to pieces. We ~ all Aviation Marines far and wide ~ were outraged, spewing venom and threats and tears. But, once the noise died down, we were philosophic and resigned. (Also, to be honest, secretly delighted.*) We've watched BRACs come and go since, sometimes thinking 'yeah, I always wondered why they needed 8 of those' or scratching our head in bemusement at the commission of the day's reasoning. NAS Pensacola has been targeted for one of those head scratchers this go 'round. Remember Navy OCS in 'Officer and a Gentleman'? That's been in balmy Pensacola for some years now. I mean, the candidates are outside marching, running, formations, inspections; you know, you all saw the movie. They spend a good part of their day outside. In their wisdom, this year's BRAC has seen a need to move OCS out of Pensacola. WHICH we could handle under normal circumstances. But they've chosen to move it to:

Rhode Island.

::scratchscratchscratch::

*Nobody told me there was an AIRPORT here!
For years the encroachment around the base had rendered flight ops more and more difficult. There had to be weeks worth of notices in the paper if night carrier practices were to be held. God help the pilot who touched down 2 seconds after the posted 1 a.m. ( or whatever) landing time. Even during the day "ACK! He was SO LOW he took my expensive custom terra cotta roof tiles off!" The phones on base would light up, invective would take over the airwaves and letters to the editor pages...gads. Ridiculous stuff. Blahblahblah. (So BAD, in fact, that I once had to keep Major Dad from questioning/crushing the manhood of a fellow diner whose wife, noting the distinctive Jarhead coif, proceeded to hold forth in a LOUD MANNER about the nasty helicopters and who needed them and why were Marines in ritzy Orange County anyway and, anyway, who needed THEM...you get it. Her husband spent the evening ineffectually asking her to lower the tone, trying to distract her with breadsticks. She would just keep glancing over to make sure Major Dad was getting the whole thing. He was. A lovely shade of purple told me so.)

Anyway, that was the general state of affairs as the Marine Corps said hasta la vista to Orange County. The same Orange County who desperately needed another international airport to lessen the impact on overwhelmed John Wayne International. It struck us that the most wonderful outcome possible ~ the most fitting payback for years of harrassment ~ from the crushing blow of losing our home ~ would be for that very thing to come about. El Toro International. A fervent wish for all the pissy anti-Marine-Corps-and-their-3-jets-at-night-once-every-6- weeks yuppie monkeys, with all their pretensions, to have to deal with the Continental 3 a.m. from Bangkok, the AirLanka 1:30 a.m. from Columbo, the Delta 2:35 from Paris, etc and so forth, and 10 minutes apart. On approach.

OVERHEAD.

Every.

Single.

Day.

If there's a God, that'll happen. And how sweet it will be.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:51 AM | Comments (9)

September 08, 2005

Self Nullifying News

Breitbart had these two headlines one after the other tonight.

Genes Show Signs Brain Still Evolving

Followed by...
'Survivor' Winner Indicted on Tax Charges

Pffft.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:25 PM | Comments (2)

Note: to Sh$thole Iraqi Border Towns

Major Dad says you're fixin' to get whacked.

Pity, that.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:21 PM

Interesting tidbit from...

Major Garrett.
Ouch.

THS UPDATE (BUMP): Major Garett was at it again this evening, only he had a Greek chorus behind him; the national director of the Red Cross, Maj. George Brooke from the Salvation Army and the field grades ('Thibodeux' was one lovely Cajun name) from the Louisiana National Guard, in as close to a smack-down as I've ever heard from the military. I'll check the Radio Blogger and see if I can beat my pukey brother to a transcript.
Okay, Hugh Hewitt had him on (it's there) and I'm sure the Special Report broadcast will shortly follow.

Posted by Crusader at 06:31 PM | Comments (3)

On the Upside...

Oil eases on small stockpile drain

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil eased on Thursday after data showed U.S. crude oil and gasoline stockpiles had not drained as much as expected after Hurricane Katrina.

U.S. light crude was off 82 cents at $63.55 a barrel by 1730 GMT, after dropping more than $1 to $63.10. The market has fallen more than 10 percent from a record $70.85 last week, after industrialized nations began to tap emergency reserves to ease the U.S. supply crunch.


"Stockpiles had not drained as much as expected" because NO ONE in BANGLA-COLA could buy gas! It's not rocket science, people. Although we'd settle for rocket fuel, right about now. You guys owe us. BIG time.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:16 PM | Comments (2)

I...

...have a roof. I will remember our FEMA blue tarp fondly, but I shall not miss it.


Whence cometh the cooler months, I will have a new roof that is firmly construction cemented to the trusses.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 02:35 PM | Comments (15)

You Got to Have a Plan

Is this a miserable piece of cartography, or what?

(I'd point out Bangla-cola, only we're COVERED in the 'OVER 30X's' BLACK!!) You know where I found it? On the Escambia County (FL) Department of Emergency Preparedness Hurricane Info page. You'll notice the entire right hand side of the page is devoted to links with everything you'd ever want to know about getting ready and staying safe. The left hand side is how the public officials are going to handle seeing you stay that way. They even note that you might want to print out the salient points as there's no electricity after a hurricane. Imagine that! At the beginning of every season this is all printed out in booklet form. It's tucked into the local fishwraps, left for free at newsstands and public places, plus tips, directions and resources on every TV/radio broadcast ~ it's all over town and county. The best part is that all our public officials, clean up to the JEB, know what's in the Escambia plan. And they act on it without hesitation.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:51 PM | Comments (16)

Maintaining His Can-Do Posture...

...as a former Vice-Presidential candidate and U.S. Senator, John Edwards unleashes inspired rhetoric...

...Edwards said the destruction caused by Katrina in New Orleans accentuates the differences between those who fled the city and those who lacked the means to do so.

He said it reflects "a harsher example of the two different Americas," repeating a familiar theme from his presidential campaign.


(Maybe I should have called it "I'm tired of his rhetoric".)

Posted by tree hugging sister at 01:11 PM | Comments (3)

A Katrina Fundraiser I'm Sure Bingley Knew About...

...but was keeping to himself, the sneaky BASTARD !!!
September 12

Cities raising glasses to help Big Easy

NEW YORK — The Big Apple will raise its glasses to the Big Easy - not for toasts, but to collect money for more than 80,000 hospitality workers from the hurricane-ravaged city.

In addition to New York, bars around the country also have promised to mix cocktails to help the Louisiana bartenders and hotel, casino and restaurant workers facing unemployment.

Four New York-based cocktail experts are spurring the "Save New Orleans Cocktail Hour" - a two-hour nationwide drinking session scheduled for Sept. 12 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Each $10 drink - Big Easy classics like the sazerac, the ramos gin fizz, the Pimm's cup, and even the hurricane - will be served with a set of free Mardi Gras beads.


Hey, I've got the beads if you've got the gas. Fire up the chariot, Major Dad. We're goin' out to dinner!

New York bartenders stepped forward first, with dozens of establishments from Soho's tony new Pegu Club to the Central Park's Tavern on the Green and the lively Havana Central, agreeing to participate in the fundraiser.

Organizers said the effort is spreading quickly and now includes the Sierra Gold tavern in Las Vegas, a half dozen businesses in Washington, D.C., and more in Arlington, Va., and Silver Spring, Md.

The New Orleans concoctions will also flow at watering holes in Cherry Hill, N.J., and various locales around Pennsylvania

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:54 AM

Almost There...

Maybe even finished today, woo hoo! I was laughing while telling Crusader last night about another way Ivan has changed Bangla-cola. It used to be a bride being asked about her 'theme' or a new home-owner, her interior 'colors'. Polite conversation here now centers around, "Have you picked your roof colors yet?" And yes, those ARE boarded windows you see and they ARE staying up.


'Til at least Christmas.

I have and I'm pretty pleased. The architectural shingles (close-up in extended section), for those of you who've never seen them, mimic shakes and look pretty damn snazzy. They also have the distinct advantage of being stronger because they are 2-3 layers per sheet, as opposed to your typical flat shingle. Howling winds have to pick up twice as much to get flapping.
What a lovely feature that is.



The Squid Terrorist's report upon his return from Biloxi contained the heartening news that, in the midst of all that destruction, brick homes, hip roofs and architectural shingles held up beautifully. Both of us have all three.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:56 AM | Comments (2)

September 07, 2005

Glad We're All On the Same Page

Mayor, Governor at Odds Over Evacuation

NEW ORLEANS —Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco (search) seemed at odds with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (search ) Wednesday, hours after the mayor ordered the mandatory evacuation of the crippled Crescent City by force if necessary...

...But in a Wednesday interview with FOX News, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco (search) said she had not signed off on the decision.

"The mayor certainly has ordered that but the governor, and that would be me, would have to enforce it or implement it. We are trying to determine whether there is an absolute justification for that," she told FOX News.


Damn. Their dithering has been killing people, not just plain stupid. But why anyone would expect them to start talking to each other by now is beyond me.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:02 PM | Comments (10)

September In NY

Man, the weather is gorgeous here right now. There is no finer place on earth than New York City in early September: deep, cloudless sapphire blue skies smile down upon a city basking in warm, radiant sunshine, gently shining with a temperature in the mid-to-upper 70s and virtually no humidity, and there is always a slight breeze out of the west/northwest that bears just the barest hint of a chill; a teasing promise of the Fall to come that is so refreshing after the oppressive, moisture-laden air of July and August. You can always feel the carefree joy in the people when the weather's like this. Oh sure, Summer is officially over, the kids are back in school and there're only 113 shopping days left until Christmas, but this weather causes everyone to feel refreshed, to wear a smile, and to be beautiful. It's a scientific fact: all women are beautiful in New York during the first half of September.

As I was opening up a bottle of wine for dinner tonight (I guess this is how those slanderous rumors began: let me amend that by saying "a bottle of wine to go with dinner) my bride (who is beautiful on non-September days, as well) summed it up perfectly by remarking "It's September 11th weather."

She's exactly right. It was the most glorious day of the year: not a cloud, bright laughing sunshine that you could just taste and worship in but not so hot as to raise even the slightest hint of a sweat.. A dear friend from Brazil was in town, having just flown in from Oregon where he had dropped off his 15 year old son to spend a year in school in America on an exchange program.

I picked him up at his hotel at 7:30 or so and we caught the 7:55 ferry out of Highlands, which is tucked in behind Sandy Hook, bound for Manhattan. Gosh, did I mention it was a glorious day? We sat on the roof of the ferry, laughing and joking on the cell phone with friends in Brazil as we sped along at 35 knots, the breeze rippling across our clothes. As we neared going under the Verrazano Bridge my friend said "That plane is awfully low."

And so indeed it was, crossing the mouth of the harbor from west to east at a slow, leisurely pace and turning up the East river. But then we saw another jet follow it a few minutes later and I thought, well, if there were two planes then the controllers must be routing them that way because of the wind. One can rationalize anything, at least then. And yes, I've seen all the diagrams and maps of how the various experts say the planes flew that day and none of them mention this, but that's what I saw.

We got to my office on the very end of Maiden Lane around 8:45 or so. I started looking through my emails and the first one I always read was from my friend Sylvia San Pio, who was a coffee broker at Carr Futures. Her husband, John Resta, also worked at Carr. They had gotten married in August of 2000, and man did we have a blast at their wedding. Sylvia was seven months pregnant with their first child, a boy they were going to name Dylan. I would always kid her that she was condemning him to a life of whiskey drinking, and she would laugh and say that at least they'd get some good poetry out of him.

Carr Futures was on the 92nd floor of the North Tower.

Flight 11 hit the 94th floor.

A few minutes after the first plane hit word came out that a plane had crashed into the WTC. That's all we heard. Since the weather was so perfect we knew it wasn't an accident; I figured some guy in a Piper Cub had committed suicide, as none of the initial reports said 'airliner'.

I remember when the Mets (yes, the Mets) won the World Series in 1986. I worked in an office on Lower Broadway at the time, so I got to see the ticker tape parade from our windows. And at that late date, as the computer era was just starting to take hold it was still ticker tape; that, and all those millions of tiny paper dots that that all the multitudinous Telex machines that were in every office had produced. Fine, fine particles of paper cascading slowly down, like the crystalline snow you get on a January day when the temperature is in the low teens.

As I looked out the window on September 11th I saw it snowing again.

Except this time instead of small paper bits it was entire sheets of paper, whole sheets of deals and agreements and lives fluttering about like the first fat flakes on a Fall day.

We turned on the small portable tv in the office and saw pictures of the smoke pouring out of the towers just a few block away. I had tried to call Sylvia but had gotten only a busy signal, which for some reason I took as a positive sign. Then the tv signal went blank, and we got word that a second plane had hit the South Tower. One of the oddities of that day is that the huge tv antenna was on the North Tower, but we only lost the signal when the South Tower was hit.

Anyhow, by this point the phone lines were a mess and the internet had gotten extremely overloaded, piggish and slow; the only way I was able to get any outside information (aside from the radio) was when I could get a line to Tree Hugging Sister in Pensacola, who would then tell me what the tv was saying. No one had any idea what was going on. Obviously, there had been multible hijackings, but whether it was 3 or 30 no one, least of all the media, knew. I truly want unedited transcripts of the broadcasts of, say, CNN and Newsradio88 from 8 am until, oh, 5 pm or so from that day. I think it is a critical piece of our history, to show the evolution from bliss to fear to resolve.

I leaned out my window and looked up Maiden Lane at the two beautiful smoking towers that had always seemed so strong and sure. The paper continued to flutter down.

I called my wife in her car and got a hold of her on the Garden State Parkway as she was driving to work. I said "Honey, don't worry; I'm ok". I could tell by the tone of her "Uh, ok, I'm glad" reply that she had no ideas what was going on (the KC and the Sunshine Band I heard blaring in the backround was another clue that I picked up upon). "Turn on the radio," I said, "Planes have crashed into the World Trade Center."

I really can't recall when we started using the word "terrorist" that day, much as I can't recall a day since when I haven't used it, but it certainly gained prominence early on in the many reports, many of which were false, that were broadcast during the day of explosions and crashes about the country.

We sat in our office wondering what to do. Obviously no work was possible, as our market was in the WTC and had been evacuated. Thousands of people were milling about in the street below staring mutely at the glorious towers as they burned and belched out thick columns of black smoke and rained paper down upon everyone and everything.

What could we do? What should we do? As we nervously looked at the tall green skyscraper across the street we hadn't a clue. How would we get home? Hell, would we get home? We had no idea.

And then I heard incredibly high pitched screams of terror from the street. I ran to the open window and looked up the street. I saw people sprinting frantically towards the river, running a desperate race to escape this huge roiling khaki-colored cloud that was bursting down the street between the Federal Reserve Castle and the Chase building. I shouted for everyone in the office to close the windows, and they did so just in time, for immediately the cloud enveloped us in its dark dusty shroud of fear. Where seconds before one could literally have seen for miles one could now not see a foot through a mantle barely illumined by a diffuse gray/green/khaki glow that eliminated all reference points. We were isolated. Alone.

The radio crackled that the South Tower had collapsed. Dear God. And just as the air was clearing it happened again as the North Tower fell. Shock and numbness doesn't begin to describe how we were or whay we felt. We assumed that thousands were dead, and we saw thousands more shuffling about in the street, ash covered and heading ever north and east like so many souls on Judgement Day.

There seemed little point in leaving just then: where would we go? So we waited. Eventually the air cleared and we could see that the ferries were loading people for the trip back to the Highlands, so I grabbed a pack of coffee filters and handed them out to people to use as a mask (my only useful act of the day. Well, that and the many bottles of wine I opened that night at home).

I can't say I've ever been sadder than on that ride home, retracing our happy path of the morning, only this time the brilliant blue sky was marred by an enormous black cloud that headed up and south east out over the harbor.

The usual crowd from the morning was missing many members, lost in the ruins, and they had been replaced by scores of people, many ash-covered from head to toe, all dazed and uncomprehending, who had gotten on the boat simply to get away.

My Brazilian friend ended up staying an extra week until he was able to get a flight back home.

With regard to Sylvia, John and Dylan...

all that was ever recovered were a few of John's teeth.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 11:00 PM | Comments (5)

Yeah

What we've said, for days now. I'm not bitter. Just feeling our little blog has been validated and vindicated. (As walkie-talkie size operations go.)

UPDATE (BUMP):

He's joined by Jesse Jackson, who said the squalor in New Orleans "looks like the hull of a slave ship." Oh, please.

Damn! This is a good one. The truth is soooo ugly. That may account for the mayor's recent reticence in incendiary fault finding. Now that a week has passed and people have had time to look closely, the refuse thrown into the wind is all being blown right back on the local/state government, where it belongs. Even, to our eternal amazement, by the ABC Evening News last night. In their 'A Closer Look' ('Who's to Blame for Delayed Response to Katrina') segment, they started off with the rote anti-govt/Bush line but, in an absolutely stunning admission, followed that with...
But experts say when natural disasters strike, it is the primary responsibility of state and local governments — not the federal government — to respond.

New Orleans' own comprehensive emergency plan raises the specter of "having large numbers of people … stranded" and promises "the city … will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas."

"Special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves," the plan states.

When Hurricane Katrina hit, however, that plan was not followed completely.

Instead of sending city buses to evacuate those who could not make it out on their own, people in New Orleans were told to go to the Superdome and the Convention Center, where no one provided sufficient sustenance or security...

...Shortly before Katrina hit, she (Gov. Blanco) sent President Bush a request asking for shelter and provisions, but didn't specifically ask for help with evacuations. One aide to the governor told ABC News today Blanco thought city officials were taking care of the evacuation...


Wowsahs. I mean, WOWSAHS!!

A NOTE :The Bob Williams* named in the ABC News piece.
*In extended section, for those w/o WSJOJ subscriptions.

AFTER THE STORM

Blame Amid the Tragedy
Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin failed their constituents.

BY BOB WILLIAMS
Wednesday, September 7, 2005 12:01 a.m.

As the devastation of Hurricane Katrina continues to shock and sadden the nation, the question on many lips is, Who is to blame for the inadequate response?
As a former state legislator who represented the legislative district most impacted by the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, I can fully understand and empathize with the people and public officials over the loss of life and property.

Many in the media are turning their eyes toward the federal government, rather than considering the culpability of city and state officials. I am fully aware of the challenges of having a quick and responsive emergency response to a major disaster. And there is definitely a time for accountability; but what isn't fair is to dump on the federal officials and avoid those most responsible--local and state officials who failed to do their job as the first responders. The plain fact is, lives were needlessly lost in New Orleans due to the failure of Louisiana's governor, Kathleen Blanco, and the city's mayor, Ray Nagin.

The primary responsibility for dealing with emergencies does not belong to the federal government. It belongs to local and state officials who are charged by law with the management of the crucial first response to disasters. First response should be carried out by local and state emergency personnel under the supervision of the state governor and his emergency operations center.

The actions and inactions of Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin are a national disgrace due to their failure to implement the previously established evacuation plans of the state and city. Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin cannot claim that they were surprised by the extent of the damage and the need to evacuate so many people. Detailed written plans were already in place to evacuate more than a million people. The plans projected that 300,000 people would need transportation in the event of a hurricane like Katrina. If the plans had been implemented, thousands of lives would likely have been saved.

In addition to the plans, local, state and federal officials held a simulated hurricane drill 13 months ago, in which widespread flooding supposedly trapped 300,000 people inside New Orleans. The exercise simulated the evacuation of more than a million residents. The problems identified in the simulation apparently were not solved.

A year ago, as Hurricane Ivan approached, New Orleans ordered an evacuation but did not use city or school buses to help people evacuate. As a result many of the poorest citizens were unable to evacuate. Fortunately, the hurricane changed course and did not hit New Orleans, but both Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin acknowledged the need for a better evacuation plan. Again, they did not take corrective actions. In 1998, during a threat by Hurricane George, 14,000 people were sent to the Superdome and theft and vandalism were rampant due to inadequate security. Again, these problems were not corrected.
The New Orleans contingency plan is still, as of this writing, on the city's Web site, and states: "The safe evacuation of threatened populations is one of the principle [sic] reasons for developing a Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan." But the plan was apparently ignored.

Mayor Nagin was responsible for giving the order for mandatory evacuation and supervising the actual evacuation: His Office of Emergency Preparedness (not the federal government) must coordinate with the state on elements of evacuation and assist in directing the transportation of evacuees to staging areas. Mayor Nagin had to be encouraged by the governor to contact the National Hurricane Center before he finally, belatedly, issued the order for mandatory evacuation. And sadly, it apparently took a personal call from the president to urge the governor to order the mandatory evacuation.

The city's evacuation plan states: "The city of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas." But even though the city has enough school and transit buses to evacuate 12,000 citizens per fleet run, the mayor did not use them. To compound the problem, the buses were not moved to high ground and were flooded. The plan also states that "special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific lifesaving assistance. Additional personnel will be recruited to assist in evacuation procedures as needed." This was not done.

The evacuation plan warned that "if an evacuation order is issued without the mechanisms needed to disseminate the information to the affected persons, then we face the possibility of having large numbers of people either stranded and left to the mercy of a storm, or left in an area impacted by toxic materials." That is precisely what happened because of the mayor's failure.

Instead of evacuating the people, the mayor ordered the refugees to the Superdome and Convention Center without adequate security and no provisions for food, water and sanitary conditions. As a result people died, and there was even rape committed, in these facilities. Mayor Nagin failed in his responsibility to provide public safety and to manage the orderly evacuation of the citizens of New Orleans. Now he wants to blame Gov. Blanco and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In an emergency the first requirement is for the city's emergency center to be linked to the state emergency operations center. This was not done.

The federal government does not have the authority to intervene in a state emergency without the request of a governor. President Bush declared an emergency prior to Katrina hitting New Orleans, so the only action needed for federal assistance was for Gov. Blanco to request the specific type of assistance she needed. She failed to send a timely request for specific aid.
In addition, unlike the governors of New York, Oklahoma and California in past disasters, Gov. Blanco failed to take charge of the situation and ensure that the state emergency operation facility was in constant contact with Mayor Nagin and FEMA. It is likely that thousands of people died because of the failure of Gov. Blanco to implement the state plan, which mentions the possible need to evacuate up to one million people. The plan clearly gives the governor the authority for declaring an emergency, sending in state resources to the disaster area and requesting necessary federal assistance.

State legislators and governors nationwide need to update their contingency plans and the operation procedures for state emergency centers. Hurricane Katrina had been forecast for days, but that will not always be the case with a disaster (think of terrorist attacks). It must be made clear that the governor and locally elected officials are in charge of the "first response."

I am not attempting to excuse some of the delays in FEMA's response. Congress and the president need to take corrective action there, also. However, if citizens expect FEMA to be a first responder to terrorist attacks or other local emergencies (earthquakes, forest fires, volcanoes), they will be disappointed. The federal government's role is to offer aid upon request.

The Louisiana Legislature should conduct an immediate investigation into the failures of state and local officials to implement the written emergency plans. The tragedy is not over, and real leadership in the state and local government are essential in the months to come. More importantly, the hurricane season is still upon us, and local and state officials must stay focused on the jobs for which they were elected--and not on the deadly game of passing the emergency buck.

Mr. Williams is president of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a free market public policy research organization in Olympia, Wash.


Copyright © 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:58 AM | Comments (24)

How to reach a human...

when the menus just don't do much is right here. Lord knows I work for one of the banks listed, and I hate the friggin menus I have to swim through on a daily basis.


*Swill salute to Evangelical Outpost.

Posted by Crusader at 11:30 AM | Comments (2)

But the Christian Kids Don't Get to Have a Bible Circle?

Color me Druid (which is not hard), but even I see a huge inequity in this. If it's lunchtime and okay for her, why can't the Born Agains gather, the Buddhists chant, the Native Americans do peyote? And she gets her own room?? Look, say your little prayer over your bologna sandwich like everyone else has to and save the good stuff for when school's out. Or try homeschooling.

CLIFFSIDE PARK, New Jersey (AP) -- Yasmeen Elsamra had a simple request: While her classmates were eating lunch, she wanted to go off by herself for a few moments to pray.

The 14-year-old was told she couldn't, and went home distraught that afternoon in October 2003. Praying five times a day is a cornerstone of her Muslim faith.

"If I wasn't allowed to pray my second prayer at school, I couldn't do it at home," she said. "When school finishes, the third prayer begins."

Her family contacted a Muslim advocacy group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which asked the school district to reconsider. Eventually, the district acknowledged it had no policy preventing a student from praying on his or her own during free time, and allowed Yasmeen to use an empty classroom to unfurl her prayer rug, face Mecca and touch her head to the floor in a few moments of worship...


Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:37 AM | Comments (16)

The Difference Between the Guy in the Red Shirt...

...and the other castaways in the picture?

I never wanted HIM to get off the island.
Sweet Mother of Mercy, will somebody please send a boat for these other losers?

Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:10 AM | Comments (6)

Word of the Day

bib·u·lous /'bi-by&-l&s/ adjective
Etymology: Latin bibulus, from bibere to drink

1 : highly absorbent*
2 a : fond of alcoholic beverages b : of, relating to, or marked by the consumption of alcoholic beverages
*See
: Bingley

Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:52 AM

Denver May Be Dry, Believers...


But

NOT SANTA ROSA COUNTY !!

Not ANY MORE, not after last night...
Santa Rosa ends dry spell

County votes to allow liquor sales in eighth vote since Prohibition

Santa Rosa County voters made history Tuesday when 57.7 percent voted to approve the sale of liquor and wine. The final count showed 29,353 voting in favor of the measure and 21,507 against.


I'll drink to that!

Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:37 AM | Comments (2)

September 06, 2005

A Global Warming Observation

It is the first week of September, in normally sweltering, semi-tropical
Bangla-cola, Florida and...

I have had the windows OPEN and the A/C off the entire day.


"Again, thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. I look forward to working with you for the future of our planet."

You're welcome, El Niño. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 05:05 PM | Comments (8)

Pretty Hateful

Rehnquist’s judicial philosophy was result-oriented, activist, and authoritarian. He sometimes moderated his views for prudential or pragmatic reasons, but his vote could almost always be predicted based on who the parties were, not what the legal issues happened to be. He generally opposed the rights of gays, women, blacks, aliens, and religious minorities. He was a friend of corporations, polluters, right wing Republicans, religious fundamentalists, homophobes, and other bigots.
But pretty predictable, too.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 04:55 PM | Comments (3)

Just...

the beginning, I fear.

Swill salute, QandO.

Posted by Crusader at 03:59 PM | Comments (1)

Major Dad

Swears I drew this. I didn't, but now he's back to mouthing the "Hey look! You knew I was a non-working breed when you married me!" Far Side line.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:29 PM

A THS Sponsored Nature Moment

Today's installment:

Trees Get Confused by Hurricanes


The thing about being on the east side of the storm; it puts the worst whompin' on everything further from the eye than those on the west side and does so for hours. That's how we managed to get hammered so completely by Ivan, who came ashore 20 miles west of our house. We had gusts well over 100mph here as Katrina came onshore 130 miles to our west. What trees still have leaves are an amazing sight to behold. On the side that took the worst of the winds for the longest, the leaves are shriveled and brown. On many trees the opposing half, especially those sheltered on one side by a fence or building, it's as if a storm never happened. Half green, half gone/brown, like a Steak 'n Shake
Side by Side. The trees are stressed and in shock, though and will soon prematurely drop their foliage altogether. In our yard, the River Birch and Drake Elm stood tall, while the affectionately monikered 'Hybrid' lost all but a few (below). Here in semi-tropical Bangla-cola, it's not such a big deal. But when Bertha and Fran whacked us in N.C. ('96), it became a desperate situation for the few trees that had made it through. They'd all started 'spring' blooming in late September. It can get frosty quick in Coastal Carolina, so killing off the tender, new leaves could have well meant the end (and did for many) of the tree itself.
POSTNOTE: Buy your seafood, crabs and crawdads NOW, and freeze 'em. It'll be awhile before anything they'd catch that side of the Gulf will be edible.
BATON ROUGE, La. - The brew of chemicals and human waste in the New Orleans floodwaters will have to be pumped into the Mississippi River or Lake Pontchartrain, raising the specter of an environmental disaster on the heels of Hurricane Katrina, experts say.

...State and federal agencies have just begun water-quality testing but environmental experts say the vile, stagnant chemical soup that sits in the streets of the city known as The Big Easy will contain traces of everything imaginable.

Yeesh.

The Hybrid
Eye crossing close-up of the River Birch

Posted by tree hugging sister at 02:48 PM | Comments (2)

Oh Well, F@ck Me...

...and us, in general. That's what I get for whoopin' about my new roof. Didn't Ophelia kill herself? In that case, here's hopin' for hurricane hari-kari.
UPDATE: You know it's bad when my roofer, after being told about the new depression, just said "I don't ever want to see another hurricane and they're our bread and butter!"

Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:24 PM | Comments (16)

Woo Hoo! Sir Rob Posts in the Comments!

I had to bump it here, for all his friends.

Thanks, everyone. All good wishes had to help. I firmly believe that.

Posted by: Rob at September 6, 2005 11:24 AM


That's what friends do, n'est pas? Now, keep us posted, and let us know if there's something we can DO.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:54 AM

Bangla-cola, FL

Yup, that's been us since Ivan. No gas has been a problem for ages, especially before and after storms, as everyone's learned to top off. But now it's exacerbated by the poor folks from Biloxi/Gulfport looking to fill up their vehicles and whatever else they can stuff petrol into, to take back with them. You sure as hell can't begrudge them fuel, but no denying it's got us teetering even more on the edge here. Our gasoline arrives via trucks or barge, so it's slow boat to China time for replenishment. To make matters worse, Ebola reports from his side of town that they had to hit two grocery stores yesterday just to get eggs and essentials for the holiday communal breakfast at their apartment. The shelves were stripped. That hasn't happened on the west side yet. His apt. mate reports that her little eatery is short of fresh veggies and salad fixin's. The delivery trucks have enough petrol to get here, but none to go back with. No end in sight to any of this, according to the local Lords of the County. If you've never had to place Bangla-cola (known, in it's former halcyonic life, as Pensacola) on a map (back the zoom out), we're the biggest thing in the middle of nowhere. The favorite saying of us locals, concerning evacuation routes or civilization itself is;

"You can't get there from here."

And now there is having a rough time getting here. Pffft. Welcome to the Third World.

Damn, I say that alot anymore.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:30 AM | Comments (5)

Follow the Bouncing Ball (To the Tune of 'Oh, What a Beautiful Day')

Oh! What a bee-yoo-ti-ful morning!
Oh! What a bee-yoo-ti-ful day.
I'll have a new roof by week's end,
For anything heading our way, hey...
¡Gracias! Juan ý José.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:49 AM | Comments (9)

Email From New Orleans - There's Hope

The following is an email I received from a guy who own a bunch of warehouses in NOLA. I thought you might be interested in a non-MSM view of the state of things (I have edited out various personal information):

Oh what a day! Thursday, September 1, 2005 Day 3 since Hurricane Katrina hit on August 29, 2005

Fox News calls it America’s Challenge. It is the greatest Natural Disaster to hit the United States. The damage is bad, the flooding is incredible, and the civil disobedience is horrible, but the news media is blowing everything out of proportion. I would like this letter to give my viewpoint of the situation we are in, and to give the facts, without rumors or hearsay.

It may seem crazy to you that I am endangering myself by going to New Orleans, but I want to see for myself how things are, so that I know the future for me and my employees. I had several employees, who are good friends; call me yesterday to find out if they still have a job. I found this odd, but the number who asked was surprising and then I asked others, and they feared the answer. I thought maybe I was too much an optimist, and that I needed to see for myself, so that I can answer honestly. During times like this, many fear that they won’t have a paycheck this week, next week, next month, or next year. The employees need to know whether they should leave New Orleans and make a career change, or stick it out here though the rebuilding.

(My) Construction Manager and I began the day at about 9 AM ... about 50 miles outside of New Orleans. ... He is in charge of all construction, restoration, renovation, and maintenance of all properties. He knows he will be busy for the next six months in rebuilding or repairing the properties. He joined me to see which properties have the greatest priorities.

On our drive to the City, we discussed the stories we would tell the police so that we could get entry. We decided to say that our parents are at their homes, are frightened, and asked us to help them evacuate. We arrived in St. Charles Parish, where there was much damage and entered without being questioned. There were no police. We simply had to drive a circuitous route, because there are downed trees and power lines and flooded streets. Our journey took us through the spillway on a road that is normally flooded. The spillway is a very wide shallow river, which allows flood waters from the Mississippi River to flow into the lake, thereby saving New Orleans from flooding. The river is at an historic low, and helped to save the City in this Hurricane.

Our first stop was at a warehouse that up until last year stored coffee. The address is 10057 Airline Drive and is a 285,000 square foot warehouse. To our surprise, the building had not damage. It is over twice the size of the largest Wal-Mart Superstore and had 155 MPH winds and had absolutely no damage. Later during the day, the Lessee, who is a warehousemen, notified me that there was no damage and no leaks. He said it was Amazing. I agree.

We then wandered through the blockage in the roadways and went to (his) house in River Ridge. A tree had fallen and damaged a gutter pan, and he lost a couple of shingles, but basically no damage. As we were leaving he brought out a rather large hand gun, in holster, and gave it to me and said I might need it. I have never touched a gun before, but felt reassured that if I needed it, it was there. (He) had a large rifle, and bags of ammunition and we proceeded to Elmwood Industrial Park.

Our first stop was at 6040 Beven Street, a 213,600 square foot warehouse used to store coffee. As we approached the building, it was raining, and we noticed gutter pans missing. When we entered, the warehouse, we saw water running down the wall and about a 1 to 2 inch gap on the wall, where it meets the roof, and could see the light coming through. The coffee is stored about 40 feet from the front wall and none of the coffee had gotten wet. There was some ponding on the floor, where the water ran to the lowest point, but none of the water was deeper than 1 inch. I considered myself lucky, since the damage was minimal and can be repaired rather quickly, once roofers are available. In the meantime, the coffee is safe, since it can not get wet.

We then drove several blocks to my brother’s business, Beads by the Dozen ( A Mardi Gras Beads Company ), and found the nearly 200,000 square foot, three building complex. One building was perfectly fine, one building had a blown out door with 5 skylights broken, yet nothing wet. I walked throughout the building and everything was fine. The third building which is only 30 feet from the other space was destroyed. A 20,000 square foot building with about 15 truck doors blown out, part of the roof removed, and the front brick wall lying on the ground. I doubt if it can be saved.

We continued to drive down Edwards Ave, and came across TCI warehouse at the intersection of Mounes and Edwards and there was a large roof lying on the ground. When I say large, I am talking about a 70,000 square foot roof lying on the ground. We then went next door to one of my warehouses, which is 80,000 square feet and is leased to an auto parts distributor. The doors all blew in and about 1/3 of the roof is missing. All of the items on the shelving in the warehouse space is stacked perfectly like nothing happened. The concrete building next to it has 1/3 of the walls missing and the roof collapsed. Water from the fire sprinklers was spewing out of the pipes. It appeared as though a tornado hit this spot.

Two blocks away is my 5725 Powell Street warehouse, which is 89,000 square feet, leased to the US Postal Service, and it did not have a scratch. We then went to 1401 Clearview, one of my coffee warehouses, with 160,000 square feet of space. One truck door was blown in, but all of the coffee was fine, and there was no water in the warehouse. This was the final inspection of coffee warehouses and all our coffee is in good shape.

We then drove through Uptown New Orleans and the University Section. There were tree branches everywhere, but not too many downed trees. The media would make you think that there is not a tree left. That is far from the truth. New Orleans has always been known for its trees, and I feel it always will be.

We passed many warehouses that are owned or operated by Metro warehouses and the Louisiana Warehouse had about 12 blown in doors, their Market Street Warehouse had several doors blown out and a section of the roof, about 50’ by 30’ was missing. There were further damages to the walls.

We went to our Josephine warehouses, and there were 4 doors blown open. And one of the 4 buildings had roof damage, but the product inside the buildings is fine and not wet.

The next stop is a recently restored historic warehouse that was previously a cotton warehouse and is now a copper warehouse located at 1899 Josephine Street, and there is damage to one door, but everything else was fine.

Then we went to the 105,000 square foot Market Street / Waterworks Building which is Leased to Disney Studios. Everything was fine, but the building across the street totally collapsed. The building that collapse was about 40,000 square feet.

Our next stop was at our warehouse at 5200 Coffee Drive, and the only damage was some flashing on the Northern side. No water entered the building and the only loss was the canopy over the outside break area. Next door is Silocaf, and everything seemed fine there.

Next stop was to check my house at St Charles Place and I was pleasantly surprised to see there was not damage and especially happy to see there had been no looting in the area. It was quite depressing to see the Downtown area with about 20,000 homeless people walking with all their belongings in grocery carts walking the neighborhood. These were primarily those who lost everything in St. Bernard Parish and Plaquemines Parish. Many of them swam miles to get to high ground in New Orleans. They thought there would be food and drink, but there is none. Hopefully today, the National Guard will start bringing food and drink to people who have had none since Monday.

We did see remnants of looting that had taken place at grocery stores. But homes and businesses other than food or electronic stores were untouched. The stories of the crimes in New Orleans were not seen on Thursday. Please believe me when I say that New Orleans will be back in business soon. Once the electricity comes back on, we will function once again. In the past, we would have been in operation without the electricity, but because of computers, it is hard to operate. Perhaps we will need to go back to previous used forms of communication until power is resumed.

I am so pleased that I visited New Orleans. It is not lost. Our historic structures remain, our French Quarter will be opening again, Bourbon Street will be partying, and business will be opening soon. There will be huge amounts of money coming into the area to pay for the damages, those monies will be spent rapidly, and we may see a boom in business and tourism. People from all over the world will be anxious to see what happened the day Katrina hit New Orleans.

The news media, as it usually does, has created a scenario that is not true. On Thursday, I saw a City that was taking its first steps for a future of great growth. I am being positive, but I think we all must be positive at this time. If the news media is not showing the full story, perhaps you should not watch the one sided stories.

Oh, most importantly, I felt safe and did not need to have a gun nearby. Next time, I will not bring one. I refuse to believe it will take 6 months to get back to business. Expect some of us to be in business in a week or two.

The Media lives for the floating body and the pictures of chaos and looting. There's no screaming headline to be found in "areas dry and undamaged." Let's all hope and pray that there are more folks willing and able to go back and start life anew, that the horrific damage from the water is more confined than we've been led to believe from the views that the MSM have shown us.

And let's hope that the folks in Mississippi and Alabama start getting the help and attention they need.

*dang blockquotes fixed.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 08:01 AM | Comments (3)

September 05, 2005

Ya Think?

Mississippi could consider land-based casinos
Devastation of gulf coast gambling industry could sway legislators

...Mississippi requires casinos to float, either along the Gulf Coast or on the Mississippi River. A state law that took effect earlier this year allows the floating casinos to build permanent pilings to stabilize the barges...

...Some lawmakers, particularly religious conservatives, have opposed land-based casinos along the coast or the Mississippi River because they fear other, inland counties would push for gambling house, too.


One important point missing from this article is that a gazillion ton casino barge washed ashore and landing on your historic waterfront Victorian, local motel or humble 50's home makes it damn difficult to survive a hurricane, too. If I owned one of those houses in Biloxi that's underneath, I'd be suing the state legislature. I mean, since I have nothing but time now, anyway.

UPDATE: The fall out from this is going to enormous for the state.

...Now, the Magnolia State is fighting to keep the lucrative travel industry alive.

Larry Gregory, executive director of the Mississippi Gaming Commission (MGC), hopes to do that, although he's not fully confident that the gaming companies are willing to come back and rebuild their businesses. And there are now some indications that his task is daunting -- particularly if there's no change in the state's 12-year-old gambling law that mandates casinos operate only on water in floating barges...

...Harrah's spokesman Alberto Lopez said Monday the company's decision whether or not to return was reflected in "comments made by our CEO Gary Loveman that Harrah's will return to the Gulf Coast bigger and better," Lopez said. "But the state's legislature has to revisit the current laws." ...

...All 13 of the region's casinos in Biloxi, Gulfport and Bay St. Louis are closed and more than half were "completely destroyed" by the storm. The state is losing $500,000 in gambling tax every day as a result, Gregory said.

"The other challenge is that insurance companies won't want to cover them if they operate on water,"...

..."We have a very serious situation facing the future of our casino industry," Gregory said, important enough for the governor to possibly call a special summit of the state's legislature to completely overhaul the gambling law and allow inland gambling options, similar to those in neighboring Louisiana...


Posted by tree hugging sister at 05:40 PM | Comments (2)

Is It Just Me?

Or has someone else noticed that Jimmy Dean Sausage has no flavor anymore? Pi!
There's also something fundamentally wrong with a sausage that doesn't require grease being spooned off as it cooks. I'm seriously disillusioned. And desperate for sausage that tastes like sausage to make biscuits and gravy.

Damn! Why do they have to jack with everything?

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:34 AM | Comments (10)

It's Up to the Fates...

...who's in the chair when the going gets tough. While we're on the subject, seems Mayor Nagin had some problems before the Big Easy Big One.

As Nagin enters the last year of his first term and begins his bid for re-election, the No. 1 issue of his campaign is already clearly defined: crime. New Orleans saw a significant drop in its murder rate during the tenure of Nagin's predecessor, Marc Morial (who brought in Nagin's 2002 mayoral opponent, former Police Chief Richard Pennington, to lead NOPD). Now, under Nagin and Police Chief Eddie Compass, we are regaining the ignoble title of the nation's murder capital.

In recent months, spats with various other elected officials -- particularly some on the City Council -- seem to have distracted the mayor and underscored his inability to grasp even the fundamentals of politics. If he's not careful, his sour relations with some City Council members (and other elected officials as well) could make him look like a guy who can't get along well enough to get things done. Above all, if he doesn't do something soon to get a handle on the city's crime problem, all his other efforts won't matter.


Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:28 AM | Comments (2)

Been There, Done That...

Badly.

Residents with cars took to the highways. Others wondered what to do.

"They say evacuate, but they don't say how I'm supposed to do that," Latonya Hill, 57, said at the time. "If I can't walk it or get there on the bus, I don't go. I don't got a car. My daughter don't either."

Advocates for the poor were indignant.

"If the government asks people to evacuate, the government has some responsibility to provide an option for those people who can't evacuate and are at the whim of Mother Nature," said Joe Cook of the New Orleans ACLU...

...Mayor Ray Nagin's spokeswoman, Tanzie Jones, insisted that there was no reluctance at City Hall to open the Superdome, but said the evacuation was the top priority.

"Our main focus is to get the people out of the city," she said.

Callers to talk radio complained about the late decision to open up the dome, but the mayor said he would do nothing different.

"We did the compassionate thing by opening the shelter," Nagin said. "We wanted to make sure we didn't have a repeat performance of what happened before. We didn't want to see people cooped up in the Superdome for days."...

...Col. Henry Whitehorn, head of state police, said he believes his agency acted appropriately, but also acknowledged he never expected a seven-hour-long crawl for the 60 miles between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

It was so bad that some broadcasters were telling people to stay home, that they had missed their window of opportunity to leave. They claimed the interstates had turned into parking lots where trapped people could die in a storm surge...

...Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Nagin both acknowledged the need to improve traffic flow and said state police should consider reversing highway lanes earlier. They also promised meetings with governments in neighboring localities and state transportation officials to improve evacuation plans.

But Blanco and other state officials stressed that, while irritating, the clogged escape routes got people out of the most vulnerable areas.

"We were able to get people out," state Commissioner of Administration Jerry Luke LeBlanc said. "It was successful. There was frustration, yes. But we got people out of harm's way."


Sound familiar, n'est pas? But the storm was Ivan and this report was filed last year. Check out their self congratulatory 'it was successful'. They've been living in LA-La-Lay-the-Blame Land for quite a while and pretty much have the act down pat. The New Orleans disaster plan seems to have been a sham document, compiled only to comply with Federal requirements for funding. It certainly wasn't a working document, as I understand them. A pretty point paper to get that hand out from the Feds again, so NOLA officials could take the money...and run away.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:23 AM | Comments (2)

Good Sunday Morning

And let the games begin.

Bush taps Roberts to succeed Rehnquist

Move would promote a man still being considered as an associate justice

Yup, sure would. Honestly, who didn't see this coming?

Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:36 AM

September 04, 2005

Pffft. From Our Little Local Weekend Weather Girl...

...on the 10 o'clock news tonight.

"In the next couple of days we could be watching three or more tropical depressions. Kinda makes you sick to your stomach."

Amen, Kathryn. Amen.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:27 PM

One of the Foghorns Speaks Up

Stuff us walkie-talkie types have been saying for days.

Another take that I nod as I read:

...Scapegoating the federal government misses the point. No president can stop a hurricane, or keep people from looting, rioting or shooting at government aircraft. Nor, for that matter, can a president know all that's needed, and how much, in an emergency.

Indeed, the federal government's response is almost always elephantine, and inadequate to local needs. That's why we elect local officials and have local government.

Unfortunately, many of those affected by Katrina have, in one way or another, been crying, "Where's the federal government?" all their lives. And their lives are more miserable for it....

...As far as we can tell, it didn't have one. Certainly not one that worked. Maybe years of political and police corruption in Louisiana and New Orleans matter today more than people think...

And Tim Russert actually asked the tough one. Of course, the loser local official ran him over, but hey! He did ask...

(Jefferson Parish President MR. BROUSSARD:) It's not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans here. Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now. It's so obvious. FEMA needs more congressional funding. It needs more presidential support. It needs to be a Cabinet-level director. It needs to be an independent agency that will be able to fulfill its mission to work in partnership with state and local governments around America. FEMA needs to be empowered to do the things it was created to do. It needs to come somewhere, like New Orleans, with all of its force immediately, without red tape, without bureaucracy, act immediately with common sense and leadership, and save lives. Forget about the property. We can rebuild the property. It's got to be able to come in and save lives.

We need strong leadership at the top of America right now in order to accomplish this and to-- reconstructing FEMA.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Broussard, let me ask--I want to ask--should...

MR. BROUSSARD: You know, just some quick examples...

MR. RUSSERT: Hold on. Hold on, sir. Shouldn't the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of New Orleans bear some responsibility? Couldn't they have been much more forceful, much more effective and much more organized in evacuating the area?

MR. BROUSSARD: Sir, they were told like me, every single day, "The cavalry's coming," on a federal level, "The cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming." I have just begun to hear the hoofs of the cavalry. The cavalry's still not here yet, but I've begun to hear the hoofs, and we're almost a week out.


STFU, you miserable, carbon-based puddle. He asked YOU what YOU had done to prepare and protect YOUR PEOPLE. And, just like the Mayor, you no speaka de Anglish. And haffa no dee answer.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:19 PM | Comments (3)

Sixty Minutes Has Found the Mayor

The little snippet at the beginning sounds like he's in rare form. And CBS has a reputation for fair and balanced reporting to protect, as we all know...
UPDATE: I will now confess to being a lousy correspondant. I couldn't watch more than the first 5 minutes of it. Turned my stomach. If there is any point-counterpoint at all, I won't be the one to bring it to you. I have failed miserably.


No living soul has yet to ask this guy, to his face and on camera, "what did you, YOU the Mayor, do to prepare your city and it's people?"
UPDATE: The Guard is hitting back, even though the article talks about them 'playing cards' as Rome burns. Or drowns. They're tired of being beat up by the Mayor and the City. And, I dare say, the national press.

The National Guard commander, Lieutenant General Steven Blum, said the reservist force was slow to move troops into New Orleans because it did not anticipate the collapse of the city's police force...

The National Guard commander said the city police force was left with only a third of its pre-storm strength.

"The real issue, particularly in New Orleans, is that no one anticipated the disintegration or the erosion of the civilian police force in New Orleans," Blum told reporters in Washington.

"Once that assessment was made ... then the requirement became obvious," he said. "And that's when we started flowing military police into the theatre."...

...Blum said that since Thursday some 7,000 National Guard and military police had moved into the city. President George W. Bush on Saturday ordered an additional 7,000 active duty and reserve ground troops.

Blum said any suggestion that the National Guard had not performed well or was late was a "low blow".

The initial priority of the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard forces was disaster relief, not law enforcement, because they expected the police to handle that, he said.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 09:08 PM | Comments (7)

More LA Info...

...from our Bywater friends.

Also, in case you haven't done it yet (glued to the tv like most of us), don't forget to call your mortgage companies, start your insurance claim even though you don't know the status, call all your credit card companies, loans, etc. They're ALL doing payment deferrments for 30-90 days or more! Hibernia has frozen ALL credit card and loan payments until January 1 2006!

Blake

Posted by tree hugging sister at 08:29 PM | Comments (4)

Breaking News

Police Shoot 8 on New Orleans Bridge

NEW ORLEANS - Police shot eight people carrying guns on a New Orleans bridge Sunday, killing five or six of them, a deputy chief said.

Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said the shootings took place on the Danziger Bridge, which connects Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.

He said he had no other details.


Ho boy. Hope this isn't a case of a Brazilian kid in a overcoat.
UPDATE: Oh dear God, it's looking like it was. The Army Corps of Engineers is saying it was 6 of their personnel.
UPDATE 2: AP is reporting that the ACoE had contractors working on the bridge who were shot at by snipers, then that the NOPD shot and killed the snipers. AP reporting the contractors were not shot.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 06:23 PM | Comments (2)

"This is not our first rodeo."

Moody says Riley appears "at his best" after a hurricane. Moody thinks people have a reasonably favorable impression of how he's handled this. Before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Riley had been planning a Labor Day barbecue at the Governor's Mansion, where many of his supporters expected him to announce plans to seek a second term as governor. Once Katrina hit, Riley canceled the event to focus on recovery efforts and plans to help serve the barbecue Monday to evacuees at a Y-M-C-A soccer complex in Montgomery. Riley has been highly visible in recent days. He's held a news conference at the state's Emergency Management headquarters in Clanton to talk about relief efforts, visited hurricane victims on the coast. He's toured old Army buildings in Anniston to see if they could be used for temporary housing, and talked with President Bush upon his arrival in Mobile. Riley has had plenty of practice dealing with hurricanes, beginning with Hurricane Ivan in September and Dennis in July. As he told reporters in Clanton, --quoting-- "This is not our first rodeo." David Lanoue, chairman of the political science department at the University of Alabama, said citizens want their leaders to be visible and appear in charge after a natural disaster. And in his view, Riley has done that.
Imagine! The folks want to see their leaders. A study in contrast.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 05:26 PM | Comments (2)

Poll For Thought

Sept. 4, 2005 — Americans are broadly critical of government preparedness in the Hurricane Katrina disaster — but far fewer take George W. Bush personally to task for the problems, and public anger about the response is less widespread than some critics would suggest.
The American people have proven time and time again they can see through the BS flying as soon as there's an opening for attack. There have been inexcusable lapses of judgement, preparation and response that have increased the suffering of thousands. But the magnitude of the disaster dwarfs anything the United States has ever seen and Americans know that. Thank God for the common sense that courses through this country even as media mouthpieces are fanning the flames of hate and blame, irrespective of the facts. They just want all the folks from Alabama to Louisiana safe, fed and warm. The reckoning will come later.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 04:56 PM | Comments (5)

September 03, 2005

Rehnquist Has Died

May he rest in peace.

And boy hasn't this been a hell of a week.

THS: If I might add Bless his heart and God rest his soul. Our sincere sympathies to his family and all who loved him.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 11:07 PM | Comments (3)

The Squid Terrorist...

...is back from Biloxi. With pictures. And they're horrible. He and his Pensacola crew (Plus one from Savannah they'd worked with during Ivan) left on Tuesday to clear the runways, taxiways and get a functional space running at the airport. He got back late last night and steady relief flights are coming in. I'll have a gallery of his pictures set up later.
UPDATE: Those poor folks in Mississippi are feeling neglected and unloved. Not sure as I can blame them ~ I remember how we felt after Ivan. We'd gotten hammered and all anyone heard was Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.

Richard Gibbs was disgusted by reports of looting in New Orleans and upset at the lack of attention hurricane victims in his state were getting.

“I say burn the bridges and let ’em all rot there,” he said. “We’re suffering over here too, but we’re not killing each other. We’ve got to help each other. We need gas and food and water and medical supplies.”...

...In poverty-stricken north Gulfport, Grover Chapman was angry at the lack of aid.

“Something should’ve been on this corner three days ago,” Chapman, 60, said Saturday as he whipped up dinner for his neighbors.

He used wood from his demolished produce stand to cook fish, rabbit, okra and butter beans he’d been keeping in his freezer. Although many houses here, about five miles inland, are still standing, they are severely damaged. Corrugated tin roofs lie scattered on the ground.

“I’m just doing what I can do,” Chapman said. “These people support me with my produce stand every day. Now it’s time to pay them back.”


Posted by tree hugging sister at 06:16 PM

It's Been Four Days

Has anyone SEEN this man?

Call 1-888-TUF-LUCK the second you do.
People are lookin' for him.
UPDATE: Well, the loser just surfaced in a CNN interview about 2 minutes ago. He was explaining how he'd sat on Air Force One with the President and Governor and tried to straighten them out. How things needed to be done and he was the only one to see it. Completely and totally revolting performance. Go back to your cave, little man.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 11:01 AM | Comments (9)

Who's the Brains of the Operation? And Who's the Heart?

Surely not the mayor and governor. I guess they were gonna leave everybody black, white, orange, green and Venusian there while they lit out.

The mayor called the order unprecedented and said anyone who could leave the city should. He exempted hotels from the evacuation order because airlines had already cancelled all flights.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.


Swill Salute to Free Will via the Blog Faddah.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:58 AM

September 02, 2005

Sign Him Up For $'s For Jesse's Next Campaign

Jackson questioned why Bush has not named blacks to top positions in the federal response to the disaster, particularly when the majority of victims remaining stranded in New Orleans are black: "How can blacks be locked out of the leadership, and trapped in the suffering?"

"It is that lack of sensitivity and compassion that represents a kind of incompetence."


Whoops!
U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Russell Honore, head of the military task force overseeing operations in the three states, is black. His task force is providing search and rescue, medical help and sending supplies to the three states in support of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

And I hope, when he retires, he goes lookin' to kick some Reverend a$$. But I KNOW he's too much the gentleman. Pity, that.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:11 PM | Comments (5)

Hey! Did Ya Happen to See the Most Beautiful Guy in the World?

I did. Yesterday afternoon.

He had the shingles. And not the disease, baby...
For my NEW ROOF!!
*sigh*
I just adore hunks driving flatbeds full of roofing supplies.

Careful! Careful now! Gently from the truck. Okay. We're good. NOW...

Come to Momma!

Guys with ladders, hammers and nails? Tuesday
Aloha!

Posted by tree hugging sister at 10:00 PM | Comments (3)

Will Someone Please Eat This Man And Shut Him Up

This has got to be the most disgusting, vile, and scurilous post yet about the horror that is New Orleans:


It is reported that black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive. Four days after the storm, thousands of blacks in New Orleans are dying like dogs. No-one has come to help them.

I am a sixty-four year old African-American.
New Orleans marks the end of the America I strove for.

I am hopeless. I am sad. I am angry against my country for doing nothing when it mattered.

This is what we have come to. This defining watershed moment in America’s racial history. For all the world to witness. For those who’ve been caused to listen for a lifetime to America’s ceaseless hollow bleats about democracy. For Christians, Jews and Muslims at home and abroad. For rich and poor. For African-American soldiers fighting in Iraq. For African-Americans inside the halls of officialdom and out.

My hand shakes with anger as I write. I, the formerly un-jaundiced human rights advocate, have finally come to see my country for what it really is. A monstrous fraud.

But what can I do but write about how I feel. How millions, black like me, must feel at this, the lowest moment in my country’s story.

Randall Robinson is a social
justice advocate and author
whose works include The Debt –
What America Owes to Blacks

What a complete asshole, who is inciting the most vile racial hate.

For shame, sir. For shame.

And use your head, asshat: go kill a cow, let it sit in 95º weather for 4 days, and see if you're tempted by the cowpaccio.

(hat-tip to the Blogfaddah)

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 06:21 PM | Comments (1)

New Orleans Satellite...

...before and afters.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 06:13 PM

This just seems an appropriate thing to repeat at this point.

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt
"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Posted by Crusader at 05:21 PM

"I need 500 buses, man."

So said our favorite mayor today.

Hmmm. Why didn't you take these

which were sitting in your city on Friday and could have been used in your 'mandatory' evacuation.

You know, last week when they weren't flooded.

Damn that Federal Government.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 03:55 PM | Comments (4)

A Little Organization Pays Off

A Swill Salute of the Highest Order to These Guys.

Even as its employees sleep on the office floor, breathing diesel fumes from a generator and watching looters from their windows, a Web company in New Orleans vows it won't let the hurricane shut it down...

...Employees haven't been lacking food. The company has routinely supplied its employees with lunch up to twice a week, and chief executive Sigmund Solares was storing food "just to keep ahead," Barnett said via instant messaging.

"Sigmund Solares is the most organized, stockpiling human being on earth, and we all love him for it," Barnett said.

The accommodations, however, leave something to be desired: "I've been sleeping on the carpet, and that's a very thin layer covering the hard concrete. It takes about 3 days to get accustomed to sleeping on concrete," Barnett, a former soldier, wrote on his blog.

Barnett started the blog last week. One of his first entries: "Hmm. This could actually be a nasty storm."

(Sir Rob ~ When you get power, we're gonna need that jelly donut back...Sorry. Console yourself with "All Glory is fleeting.")

Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:31 PM

FYI ~ LA Residents Unemployment, FEMA & Welfare Info

Here. If you can't get into it, email us and I'll send the text.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 02:32 PM

Yup

Here it starts.

But he began facing questions about his leadership in the crisis almost immediately. New Orleans officials, in particular, were enraged about what they said was a slow federal response.

Because of the magnitude of the ineptitude that exasperated the disaster, the New Orleans/LA officials will escape completely unscathed and the Administration will be completely culpable. And I'm sure racist, on top of it all.
UPDATE: Please bear with me bumping this, but I just came across something so egregiously wrong, that all my good intentions to focus on the relief efforts flew out the window. It has to do with the gist of my statement above. From the BBC:
The situation has been made worse by a lack of trust between the mainly poor, African-American population left behind in New Orleans and the predominately white police force, our correspondent adds.

He doesn't say military, he says police. On the assumption he's referring to the NOPD, he couldn't be more wrong, nor more inflammatory. The NOPD has it's problem, but white guys running the show are not it, by a long stretch. From a paper titled "Understanding the Recruitment and Retention Needs and Challenges of the New Orleans Police Department", pages 14-16. (I had to type these, as it's an HTML PDF read and I can't cut and paste.)
The race and ethnic breakdown of the NOPD demonstrates a Department that is becoming more similar in composition to the city it serves. This reflects a commitment by the Department to bringing minorities on the force to ensure the NOPD is representative of the community it serves.
NOPD and City of New Orleans Racial and Ethnic Composition

City NOPD NOPD

2000 2002 2000
Blacks 67.3% 54.9% 52.1%
Whites 28.1% 41.5% 45.1%
(Non-hispanic)
Other 4.6% 3.4% 2.8%

This was research done at the behest of the NOPD, which has been suffering (what has become) an astonishing 8% attrition rate in the number of officers every year since 2000. Read and understand the tremendous challenges this police department has been facing, even without a catastrophe of this magnitude. They were a sinking ship desperately trying to right itself before the waters started to rise. But they are NOT a predominantly white police force. The city administration has been predominantly black for almost 30 YEARS. (The last white mayor was named Landrieu ~ yes, their father ~ and his last year in office was 1978.) On top of the horror of watching our fellow Americans in such horrific and unGodly circumstances, fanning the flames of a racist conflict with LIES is unconscionable and disgusting. The BBC should be ashamed ~ which is, I know, something impossible to hope for. But the point is: The damage is already done in that one incredibly stupid and irresponsible statement. It's all over blogs already like it was gospel. No one f@cking thinks to check for the truth because it's just too damn easy to believe it, right? Damn, I wish we were bigger, not that I don't love all our Swillers. But there are times like this when you wish you had a foghorn instead of a walkie-talkie.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 02:12 PM | Comments (10)

Also...

There were plans to make Nawlins secured against a Cat 5, but they were still not sure they would have worked. More here. They were caboshed in 1977 due to the enviro-types, and at other times due to $$$.

Posted by Crusader at 12:31 PM | Comments (2)

More Nawlins BS....

taken apart at QandO.
Poor Paul...(yeah, right....)

Posted by Crusader at 12:18 PM

A Wonderful Moment of Good Cheer!!

Rob of Crab Apple Lane and his family made it through!!

We just got word that Rob, Patsy & Aunt Ginnie are ok. Haven't heard anything else, just that they're ok. Maybe now my butterflies will settle down.


Posted by Rob's cousin Laura in MN on September 1, 2005 10:16 AM


Oh, HOT damn, that's great!
UPDATE: Why doesn't everyone go over and wish Rob the best on his blog!! Use the last entry and drop a happy hello in the comments.
Crab Apple Lane

Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:03 PM | Comments (4)

The folks running Nawlins...

need to read this and think.
But I am not holding my breath.

*Swill salute to Donald Sensing.*

Posted by Crusader at 11:29 AM | Comments (3)

Yeah, This Is A Leader

Nagin blamed the outbreak of crime and violence on drug addicts who are cut off from their drug supplies and wandering the city "looking to take the edge off their jones."
On Thursday, Nagin's frustration was palpable.

"I've been out there man. I flew in these helicopters, been in the crowds talking to people crying, don't know where their relatives are. I've done it all man, and I'll tell you man, I keep hearing that it's coming. This is coming, that is coming. And my answer to that today is BS, where is the beef? Because there is no beef in this city. "

There is a lot of bull, though.

Look, obviously this has just exploded far worse than anyone expected, but he and the Governor got to take a goodly portion of the blame; this is a state issue before it's a federal one.

"Get off your asses and let's do something."

Where were your police? Why didn't you order them to enforce the law?

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 09:18 AM | Comments (9)

Call the Louisiana State/Local Government Response What It Was

Pathetic. Incompetent. Ineffectual. Woefully unprepared. Sorry, weak ass, finger pointing losers.

MSM is seeing a chance to whack away at the Bush administration, while ignoring the responsibilities the Mayor of New Orleans and Governor of LA had to their citizens. Major Dad just fired off an email to ABCNews in the middle of a Prime Time slap at the U.S. military and the Federal government in general. I see Mark in Mexico has found another instance.

Barbour: I really don't. And I think it's very unfair for the federal government, for you to say we knew this was a great powerful storm. This was a category 1 hurricane when it hit Florida. Now that's the truth.

O'Brien: Governor, it was a category 5 storm.

Barbour: The federal government ...

O'Brien: A category 5 storm when it was ...

Barbour: No, it was a category 1 - it was a category 1 storm when it hit Florida. It was a category 5 storm a few hours before it came ashore.

O'Brien: No, no, Governor Barbour...


The National Guard, whatever it's title, is under the control of the Governor. Not the President. The governor. For all Bush haters directing all this twisted, wasted energy at Washington, the square fact of the matter is that the complete responsibility for prepositioning Guard troops and law enforcement, and the first response in the immediate aftermath of the disaster rests solely with the local and state authorities. As should the blame, if prior planning and proper precautions/predispositioning were not taken. In the case of Louisiana, it is most abundantly clear they were not.

File this under: The Mayor Belied, The Governor Cried, People Died. And no, sir. YOU are the disgrace.

City official laments 'national disgrace'
Meantime, Terry Ebbert, head of the city’s emergency operations, warned that the evacuation at the Superdome had become an “incredibly explosive situation,” and he bitterly complained that FEMA was not offering enough help.

“This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace,” he said. “FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control.

You were charged with the care and protection of your people. Now, get out of the way. There's a job to do and better people than you and yours to do it.
UPDATE:
"They don't have a clue what's going on down there," Mayor Ray Nagin told WWL-AM Thursday night.
Excuse me, but you haven't had a clue from the beginning. Does this man ever show his face anymore? Has anyone seen the mayor of New Orleans in New Orleans?

Barbour: The federal government has been a tremendous partner in this. They have helped ...

O'Brien: Governor Barbour, surely there was enough knowledge in advance that this was a huge killer storm a matter of days, not hours, before it ever struck landfall. And it seems to me the military ...

Barbour: Now, Miles, if this is an interview or an argument, I don't care. But if you want to let me tell you what I think, I will.

O'Brien: OK, go ahead.

Barbour: And what I think is this storm strengthened in the Gulf. We begged the people to leave, and thousands of people left. Thousands of people left New Orleans. The federal government came in here from the first minute - in fact, in advance. They have been tremendously helpful, whether it's the Coast Guard, the Corps of Engineers, FEMA.

O'Brien: But ...

Barbour: I don't think it's at all fair ...

O'Brien: But ...

Barbour: ... and I'm not going to agree to that, because I don't believe it's true.

O'Brien: But conspicuously absent from that short list you just gave us was the military, the Pentagon. This is a type of situation that cries out for the kind of support, the kind of logistics, the kind of coordination the military is ideally suited for. Why weren't more military assets prepositioned and ready for the possibility here?

Barbour: We prepositioned more than 1,000 National Guard, 175 on the coastal counties, 1,000 more 60 miles inland, so that they wouldn't be swept away in the storm. And as soon as it became clear where the storm was going to hit, even Alabama had sent us National Guard. Pennsylvania has offered us and is sending us 2,500 National Guard.

O'Brien: But ...

Barbour: Would I have liked to have had 5,000 National Guard on the ground on Tuesday morning? Yes, that's not - other states are not going to give up their National Guard until they see what's happening to them. I don't blame them.

O'Brien: But I'm talking about assets, like, you know, amphibious vehicles that the Navy has. It has helicopter support, hospital support, the ability to generate power, that sort of thing. We haven't seen that kind of thing, the kind of thing we saw, incidentally, in the wake of the tsunami.

Barbour: Well, I'm not going to be critical of what the federal government has done. We're very grateful for it. You know, it's easy to go back and pick the bones, but we feel like they have tried very hard.

This is the worst natural disaster that's ever struck the United States. Everybody down here is trying hard. Everybody is tired and fractious. So, I don't want to argue with you about it. But a lot of people from all over the country are helping us, and we really appreciate them, because we're making progress. And we're going to recover from what has been a grievous blow to our state, not just the coast. And we're going to rebuild, and it's going to be bigger and better than ever. But we're not going to do it by nitpicking.

O'Brien: Governor Haley Barbour, Mississippi. Thank you for your time, sir.

Barbour: Thank you, Miles.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:35 AM | Comments (7)

September 01, 2005

Heartening News!!

From our friends IN the Bywater:

Hey guys,

hope all of you got out safely...

I'm going to continue forwarding information that may be of help to you.

In case you haven't heard, for those of you who live in the neighborhood, Bywater and the Marigny, Algiers point and alot of Uptown on the river side, and Old Metairie seemed to have fared quite well with no flooding...

Best of luck to us all!

Blake

Posted by tree hugging sister at 06:04 PM | Comments (1)

Pensacola is Set to Get Humming

Helicopters from both coasts, helo carriers and support/hospital ships, support personnel, evacuated military families from Pascagoula and the smaller installations scattered all along the Gulf and air ops commence 24/7 0700 tomorrow. I wish the folks down the road could know what's coming together for them. They could hang on and hang in, knowing we're coming. Because we ARE. It will be an amazing, motivating, awe-inspiring display of American can-do and we here are privileged to be ground zero for the Navy/Marine Corps relief effort.

DAMN! It's great to be able to do something.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 05:32 PM | Comments (10)

That Sucking Sound You Hear...

...isn't New Orleans underwater. It's the Louisiana leadership vacuum, sucking the life out of one of the most vibrant places on EARTH. The mayor is a ghostly voice on radio and TV interviews. When was the last time you saw the man downtown. When was the last time you saw him at all?? Shep Smith is right this moment showing video of bodies on the I-10 pilgrimage trail to the Superdome. People who fell along the bridgeway, unable to go any further. The governor is still wringing her hands, being furious, safe in her command bunker. There is no public face for the people to look to. No answers getting to those in the cesspool of that city. No leaders. No one you can point to. "Oh yeah. He/She's in charge and no doubt about it."

There are two words that clarify the difference between Katrina and 9/11. Two words.

Rudy

Giuliani.

Someone needs to grow a pair and fast.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 03:11 PM | Comments (14)

Overheard on the Radio

Wir (as in all of Pensacola) haben kein Benzin. Nicht eine Scheiβgallone.

Verdammt und zugenäht!!
UPDATE: I don't think 'unnerved' covers it...

"In short, the U.S. is facing a major gasoline crisis and is starting from a nearly empty tank," said a Barclays Capital report.

Europe was unnerved by how ill-prepared the world's biggest economy was for Hurricane Katrina's rampage...

The U.S. oil industry remained shaken after Hurricane Katrina, with most offshore production from the Gulf of Mexico down, about 10 percent of U.S. refining capacity paralyzed, and pipelines struggling to restart. At least 20 rigs or platforms were adrift, listing, sunk or missing.

The U.S. Department of Energy said some of the eight refineries shut by Katrina could take months to restart, with reports that floodwaters swamped at least three in Louisiana.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 02:44 PM | Comments (3)

Order Must Be Restored

We can not let an american city become Port au Prince or Abidjan or Baghdad. Looters must be shot.

Sorry. It's ugly and harsh and unbelieveable that this could happen, but it can not be allowed to go unchecked and spread. We are in for an extremely long and difficult time, and order must be re-established now.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 02:32 PM | Comments (2)

What Is The Problem?

Drudge has the following blurb up:

Eyewitness: Sec of State Condi Rice laughs it up at 'Spamalot' while Gulf Coast lays in tatters. Theater goers on New York' City's Great White Way were shocked to see the President's former National Security Advisor at the Monty Python farce last night -- as the rest of the cabinet responds to Hurricane Katrina...

I'm sorry, but is she supposed to sit at home and rub her rosary beads? Her portfolio is foreign affairs, anyway. This ridiculous hyper-criticism is assinine.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 01:00 PM | Comments (6)

Pretty much...

nails it.

Which brings us to the other issue: People can't live there. There are, incredibly, still people insisting they won't leave, but they're as out of their minds as they surely had to be to stay in the city in the first place. As was mentioned earlier, the vast scale of the flooded area and the completely destroyed infrastructure means that effective relief is impossible. Even if the capability did exist to somehow bypass the massive logistical challenges and try to feed and supply these people, they would die there. The place is a deathtrap, filled with desperate predators, swarming pests, and rotting corpses. The floodwater is so laden with chemicals that it could actually burst into flames, like the old Cuyahoga River. Plagues that we have not thought about for generations may rage down there. There's nothing we can bring these people that will make it safe for them to stay in there in the coming months, and a lot of people don't seem to understand that. Bush can't fly down, wave his hands and part Lake Pontchartrain like Moses through the Red Sea. The situation is simply too vast to be effectively relieved.

Read the whole thing.

Posted by Crusader at 10:30 AM | Comments (6)

The Horror Of Last Year

As the unending natural tragedy in Louisiana and Mississippi continues to unfold, I would like to take a moment to look back on the man-made tragedy of last year:

May the bastards who did this burn eternally in what ever hells they fear most.

Thanks to Sheila for the poignant reminder.

Posted by Mr. Bingley at 09:24 AM | Comments (4)

It's Not Just Getting the Refineries Back Open

Initial reports vary as to the extent of damage to Gulf Coast refining. But a longer term problem may not be refining infrastructure but providing shelter for refinery workers. “One of our refineries is scheduled to be back up soon but our real problem is finding housing for our workers. Most of their homes are destroyed or under water. Unless we can solve the housing problem we will not be fully operational for some time,” said one major oil company representative.
One needle with many threads unraveling.

Posted by tree hugging sister at 12:02 AM | Comments (1)