It's Like X-mas and my Birthday and Columbus Day, all rolled into one!!

Allow me to add to the chorus of giddy cheerleading that has sprung up far and wide across Left Blogtopia today. Today may well be the most joyus day for the last 5 years. Indeed, at this moment it seems that the chickens have come home to roost, the other shoe has dropped and "that" has been inserted into pipes and smoked. After years of shameless, undisguised corruption and cronyism, the wheels seem to be coming off the republican graft-mobile.

Let's review some of the fine events of this momentous day:

1. House Majority Leader Tom Delay has been indicted by a Texas Grand Jury on a conspiracy charge related to his campaign finance activities for TRMPAC. He has stepped down as majority leader, and is claiming this is all partisan politics.

2. On the other side of the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is being investigated by the SEC due to his apparent insider trading of his family's company HCA Inc. earlier this summer.

3. And crossing back over once again, a House panel was hearing pledges from government auditors that they will closely examine millions of dollars in contracts the Bush administration awarded to politically connected companies for Hurricane Katrina relief.

Lord knows I'm trying hard not to get too excited, here, but damn if right now I am not (to steal from atrios and The Editors) singing the "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy" song while doing the Snoopy dance. After all these years of watching this go on, seeing some form of censure being levelled against these crooks is the best present anyone can give. Sigh.....!

Tom Delay Indicted

In a confirmation that there is still some justice in this world, the AP is reporting that Tom Delay has been indicted for the Campaign Finance probe.

Gorillaz - Demon Days Live

Your humble author was recently notified of the details regarding the planned Gorillaz live show at the Manchester Opera House, Nov 1st-5th. As of right now, there is no ability to purchase tickets, but the link is labelled "coming soon".

The timing of this event truly blows, since my schedule for the week is fairly well booked. However, I pass the information on to my readers since it's one of the few interesting scoops I have.

Enjoy.

In a world first, Gorillaz' smash hit second album Demon Days will be performed in its entirety across five consecutive nights (November 1st - 5th) at the Opera House, Manchester - as part of a series of trailblazing events ahead of the inaugural Manchester International Festival in late June and early July 2007.

The album's guest musicians will descend on Manchester to take on the task of recreating the three-million selling Demon Days live onstage. The two-dimensional band members will take a back seat as their musical collaborators are brought together for the first time ever, in five remarkable and unrepeatable performances. Guest musicians will include Happy Mondays front-man Shaun Ryder and UK hip hop artist Roots Manuva, with further names to be announced in the run-up to the event.

"I mean this event is the one and only time this is ever gonna happen, where we'll be able to bring together the 'Demon Days' guest performers along with these other musicians. So it's a definite one-off."Russel

***Update*** (3:15pm) From the official gorillaz site, we learn that tickets go on sale Oct. 3rd.

PeakOil - IMF Chimes in

In this kos diary, Jerome a Paris notes that the IMF has weighed in on the impending global oil peak.

IMF warns investment in oil production and refining is too low to reduce prices

In a draft of the main chapter of its World Economic Outlook, the IMF writes: "Based on current investment plans, production capacity is unlikely to grow enough to outpace future growth in consumption and create adequate spare capacity." (...)

The IMF's report, which will be published on Wednesday, says Opec's ability to lower prices is limited because its cushion of spare oil capacity has shrunk due to high demand, mainly from the US and China. The report predicts that the situation is unlikely to improve in the next five years.

As he points out: "Okay. so we now have the following companies and institutions on record about Peak oil: Chevron, ExxonMobil, the International Energy Agency, and the IMF." Peak Oil isn't just for Tinfoil Hatters anymore. And there are some major forces here, domestic and international, who are making some noise here. It's only a matter of time before the message finally gets some serious legs.

Technorati tag: peak oil

FSM - Interview with His Prophet

via eschaton, an interview with the One True Prophet of the Flying Spaghetti monster.

GM: When did you know you were the chosen Prophet for the great Flying Spaghetti Monster? Does He still speak to you?

BH: I had of course seen spaghetti several times throughout my life, but it wasn't until He revealed Himself to me and touched me with His Noodly Appendage that I knew I was Chosen. Does He still speak to me? If by that you mean "Do I hear voices in my head?" the answer is yes. Further evidence that He is near me abounds. I oftentimes find that I have made mistakes in my day-to-day activities. These, clearly, are the work of a mischievous Flying Spaghetti Monster, tampering with my work with His Noodly Appendage, purely for his own amusement.
...
GM: Is there any sort of structured ranking within Pastafarianism (i.e., other than The Prophet, are there any levels within the religion that parallel church official rankings)?

BH: There are rankings in the church, yes. Structured rankings, no. I have been told by Him that I am to procure a pirate ship of immense proportions and engage on a mission to spread his Word. The most endeared members of the church will be accompanying me. And in the case of female members, by "endeared" I of course mean "endowed".

Go. Read.

Peace be with you...ramen.

Bush using Katrina to push School Vouchers

It comes as no surprise, of course, but the BushAdmin is now attempting to use the Katrina relief efforts to push the classic republican wet dream of School Vouchers.

From the WaPo:

In proposing $1.9 billion in aid for kindergartners through 12th-graders whose schools were ruined by the storm, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings originally said the administration was setting aside $488 million for private-school tuition and other help, to re-create as normal an environment as possible for the uncommonly large segment of children from New Orleans who had attended Catholic schools.

Yesterday, however, as new fine print of the proposal emerged, White House and Education Department spokesmen confirmed that the government payment -- as much as $7,500 per child -- would be given for a year to any displaced family that now prefers an alternative to public schools. "Parents may choose to send children to private schools. They may not. But this is their choice," said Susan Aspey, the Education Department's spokeswoman.

Yes, let's please take the money out of our public schools and divert it to private schools. That's a surefire way to ensure that education in America is top-notch.

This subject has always held it's own particular place of hatred in my heart. If people who choose to send their children to private schools can have their tax dollars diverted away from the public education system since they're not using it, it only logically follows that childless people like myself should then have their school district taxes refunded, due to the fact that I'm not utilizing the services, no?

No, bitches! Shared sacrifice for the public good is how the system works. If you as a parent don't like the education available through public education, then work to make it better. If you still feel that you need to send your children off to a private school, fine, but don't expect to get pity from me about how much money you're spending.

Iraq - Ugliness in Basra

Earlier today, several news sources were reporting that two Britons were arrested in the Basra area for allegedly shooting two Iraqi policemen. This was quite a bit of a shocking news item, since the British-occupied Basra region has been much quieter than the....well...entire rest of the country.

So, just now, I decided to check and see what the updates on this story were. Apparently, according to MSNBC, there's a bit of some disagreement on exactly what happened, but it sounds like the two Britons have been released. According to the British government: "the two men were released as a result of negotiations." Ah, good. Glad to hear that's all settled up.

Oh, but the disagreement? Ah, yes:

British soldiers used 10 armored vehicles to break down the walls of the central jail in this southern city Monday and freed two Britons, allegedly undercover commandos arrested on charges of shooting two Iraqi policemen, witnesses said.

Well, sure...I mean really...."released after negotiations" versus "liberated by the use of military mechanized force storming and destroying the prison"..."po-TAY-toh", "po-TAH-toh."



There ain't a whole lot in the rest of the article that makes the British government's story sound terribly credible. And the pictures in the article aren't too pretty either.

I imagine now that there's some hard evidence showing exactly how sovereign the Iraqis' sovereignty really is, things are only likely to get more interesting.

***UPDATE(10:12pm)**** The Independent has a bit more info.

Saturday News Roundup

Since I seem to have less to say than usual, here's some of the more interesting news items today, from the nytimes:

1. Toyota is stating that they plan, for some not yet concrete future date, to eventually be making all of their vehicles as gas-electric hybrids. They say the key to achieving this goal will be halving the current $3000-5000 premium brought on by the cost of the hybrid technologies. Though they can't yet come up with a target date, they're only shooting for one million hybrids by 2010, so presumably it's going to be significantly past that date. If that stated goal correctly sums up their position, it sounds like they're not expending too much energy examining hydrogen power technologies.

2. Some senior republican congresscritters are joining in the calls for CIA Director Porter Goss to release an internal report which "criticizes his predecessor, George J. Tenet, and others for lapses on terrorism in advance of the Sept. 11 attacks." The article seems to indicate that this report is fairly damning of the Tenet-led CIA, and that Goss is reluctant to release it because of concerns that the release "could be damaging to the agency's morale." I find it interesting that there is now some bi-partisan support for the public release of the report.

3. Four years on, the search for the Anthrax mailer appears to be stalled. The article discusses the lengths to which investigators have gone in order to try and track down the origins of the anthrax bacteria, paper, and photocopiers used by the mailer. The point is also made that many of the people involved in the search are highly committed to catch the culprit, because, without an eventual arrest, it certainly seems like it would embolden others to try a similar tactic. Hell, frankly, I'm a little surprised that we haven't heard of some well-connected wacko who tried something similar.

4. Finally, the White House has approved NASA's plan for the next generation of space exploration vehicles which would be desinged using exiting technologies currently in place on the shuttles. Re-use of the existing technologies will clearly allow for a quicker, cheaper transition to the new vehicles. Let's hope NASA has a sense of which technologies merit re-use, as opposed to the ones that tend to blow shit up.

Musicblogging - Spookie Daly Pride

Since we didn't have anything planned last night, my girlfriend mentioned that she had seen in the local weekly entertainment paper that Spookie Daly Pride was playing at a nearby club. I had not heard of them, but a google search returned a page from jambase.com, and that fact piqued my interest sufficiently. "What the hell?" I figured,"I'm always up for seeing a good jammy band. Even if they suck, it should still be worth checking out."

Yeah, so they blew me away. They had a pretty ecclectic sound that mostly centers on a 70s-groove/funk kind of aesthetic. On their website, they mentioned that they're frequently compared to the Muppet Show Band, and I'll agree that there's some merit to that. They're a foursome with standard guitar, bass, drums, and Mr. Spooky Daly, himself, on piano, vocals, and general frontman zaniness.

The key thing about their show, which is going to sound totally cliche, was that they performed with serious infectious energy. I was dancing like a fool on my barstool for most of the show. And they played with a healthy dose of "wacky" which rounded the experience out nicely.

I'm not sure if the alcohol kicked in as the night went on, but they definitely sounded sloppy for the first half of the show, but then tightened up proper! I'm listening to their "Marshmallow Pie" CD right now, and as with any recording, it doesn't begin to capture the spirit of the live show, but it does give a good overview of the music and songwriting.

Mergenow's overall rating: These guys kick ass, check them out if you get a chance.

Google blogsearch

I may be a little behind on this one, but google has finally launched their blogs-only search engine.... http://blogsearch.google.com

It searches all blog platforms, not just blogger/blogspot-based weblogs. You'll also notice a new "search all blogs" button in the blogger toolbar, which is a feature that is not a moment too late.

...and as a bonus for exitramp, google finally returns more than one or two results for searches on our content!! w00t!!

Life Imitates the Onion - Gillette

It almost ceases to be interesting, but I'm going to refer back to a classic opinion article from The Onion on Feb 18, 2004.

Well, f#ck it. We're going to five blades.
By James M. Kilts
CEO and President,
The Gillette Company

Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the f#cking vanguard of shaving in this country. The Gillette Mach3 was the razor to own. Then the other guy came out with a three-blade razor. Were we scared? Hell, no.

Today, MSNBC is reporting that:
Gillette ups the ante, unveils 5-blade razor

I guess I should keep in mind all of The Onion articles that didn't come to pass in a year or two, and be grateful.

Guantanamo Lifers:"The Caf Sucks!"

In order to make sure this one doesn't get swept under the carpet, I wanted to remind all four of my gentle readers that a bunch of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay are on hunger strike. Since August 8th, CNN reports 128 of the more than 500 prisoners are now on hunger strike.

Ignoring the personal opinions that creep into a situation in which the U.S. Government imprisons people without due process, and restricted access to legal counsel, the article has two key quotes:

But Bush administration officials have defended Guantanamo Bay. Vice President Dick Cheney said in June that the U.S. Guantanamo policy "is the correct one" and that all detainees are "treated with respect and dignity."

I'm sure all of the prisoners applaud this arrangement, including the inevitable random "wrong-place-at-the-wrong-timers" who have yet to have yet to be charged.

However, the key quote from the article has to be:

"Regulations are the same at Guantanamo as they are in the U.S. prison system, and prisoners will not be allowed to kill themselves by starving themselves," a Pentagon official said.

Thank Heavens, we've got some working regulations over there. It's comforting to know that people stuck in a prison camp without formal charges or any apparent hope of getting out anytime soon will not be allowed to run amok and kill themselves via starvation. It brings me a certain amount of assurance to know the ChimpAdmin has something under control.

If only we could apply the same standards to the victims of Katrina that we do to detainees in our disturbing extra-legal prison camps....then we'd seriously be on to something.

NEPAblogging - Local Politics Goes all Springer

Just when I thought local politics was getting completely boring, today we discover that there's some serious "You ain't gonna get my man, girl!" action happening in Scranton City government.

Two city agencies Monday delivered nine boxes of documents copied for over $3,000 to City Council in response to a subpoena sought by Councilwoman Janet Evans for information on the foreclosed Hilton Scranton and Conference Center.

In a letter to Mrs. Evans, first assistant city solicitor Eugene Hickey maintained the subpoena was issued illegally, but he said the city’s economic development office agreed to comply “to appease you and to avoid further conflict.”

He said the office sent eight boxes of documents because the subpoena request was so broad. The Scranton Parking Authority sent one box.

“Quite simply, the subpoena issuance was a waste of time and apparently done solely for political purposes rather than legitimate city business,” Mr. Hickey said.

D00dz!! When did reading the Times-Tribune get as interesting as watching Elimidate?

City Solicitor Hickey:"Take that, bee-yotch!! You think you all that, but you ain't shit, girl!"
Councilwoman Evans:"Nuh-uh, girl...you ain't nuthin' but a dirty Ho, y'all!"

If only this wasn't all being played out at the expense of my tax dollars, I'd be completely stoked!! I can hardly wait for the "Winner Takes Her Man" no-holds-barred Mud Wrestling cage match that is sure to follow!!

The Poor Man Funnies

I'm in class all week, so the posting will likely be extra-super light. However, I couldn't resist pointing out for everyone the sublime comedy with which The Editors have graced us:

Q: What’s George Bush’s position on Roe v. Wade?

A: He really doesn’t care how people get out of New Orleans.

Enjoy!

NEPA Blogging - County Courthouse Plans Scrapped

Pretend for a moment that you are a County Commissioner who won election on a promise to reduce taxes by 25%, but after much review and auditing, you find yourself in a situation in which you have to instead increase taxes by nearly 50%. As should be expected, that announcment is treated with much criticism and complaint. When it comes time to come up with a plan for much-needed renovations to the county courthouse, one of your key stated objectives, do you:

a.) Embark on a modest rehabilitation project, with an eye towards keeping those costs under control.
b.) Utilize any of the many vacant offices which sit across the street from the courthouse square as temporary office space for departments displaced during construction.
c.) Plan a $48.5 Million dollar project (amounting to approx. 50% of the county's total budgeted outlay for the current year) which includes two brand new wings, and meantime enter into what appears to be an uncompetitive sweetheart deal with the owner of a landmark building downtown, who also happens to owe almost $270,000 in back taxes on said building.

If you said (c.) you might be the current Lackawanna County Commissioners. You'd get along well with them, at the very least.


Crazy-ass plans notwithstanding, the County Commissioners relented today, in face of much criticism (mine here) over the plans, and have opted to go with a less-ambitious $15 million dollar plan. For some reason, however, the one element of the original plan which they've retained is the intent to move the main entrance away from the architecturally-implied main entrance, and over to Linden Street, where the soon-to-be-demolised 60s-era annex currently is. They've got some sort of serious obsession with having the main entrance on the side of the building, I tell ya.

No Bad News

Via atrios, we learn:

At a news conference, Pelosi, D-Calif., said Bush's choice for head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency had ''absolutely no credentials.''

She related that she had urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to fire Michael Brown.

''He said 'Why would I do that?''' Pelosi said.

'''I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week.' And he said 'What didn't go right?'''

''Oblivious, in denial, dangerous,'' she added.

Absolutely amazing.

Iraq - Didn't We Turn This Corner, Already?

Admittedly, for the last few weeks, with the situation in the Gulf Coast, I haven't been able to keep up with the situation in Iraq. However, I have to admit that I was a bit shocked when I read this article which states:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - U.S. Marine jets Tuesday attacked two bridges across the Euphrates River near the Syrian border to prevent insurgents from moving foreign fighters and munitions toward Baghdad and other cities, the U.S. command said.

The fact that we need to blow up bridges to limit the insurgents' mobility does not exactly speak well for the amount of control we have over there. More succinctly, WHAT THE F#CK?!?!?!?

This was the kind of shit that would be understandable one or two years ago. Am I wrong in thinking that if we have to cripple transportation infrastructure to limit insurgent mobility, that it sounds like we have no meaningful control of the situation down there?

Katrina's Aftermath - Call for Public Works

I hate to write posts that amount to nothing more than:"Yeah, what he said!!!," but I think Athenae (and everyone else in the link-to chain) is right on in what she says here, regarding the role of government and the call for a massive WPA-style public works program to rebuild the Gulf Coast. And I figure, getting the idea out in front of as many eyeballs as possible ain't gonna hurt, either.

CHICAGO (AP) - The C-E-O of the global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas says the government should launch a public works program to deal with the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

John Challenger says a program similar to the Work Projects Administration created by President Roosevelt during the Depression would give hope to the unemployed through jobs.

The W-P-A put thousands of Americans to work building schools, bridges, roads and other infrastructure. Challenger says the thousands of jobless and homeless in the Southeast could be employed to rebuild their cities under a similar program.

This is exactly what needs to happen to rebuild, to keep the economy from stalling and to help rebuild the lives of the hundreds of thousands (millions?)of people whose lives were shattered by Katrina.

IWT Update - Survey Results

I just received a new email update from the potential Independent World Television network people. Not much to report, at this time, but I found the results of their survey interesting.

A note on the sample
Of the survey's 6,039 respondents:

76% live in the U.S., with 17% from Canada and 7% from other countries
63% are male
84% call themselves “progressive,” with 56% “very progressive”
Most are middle aged— 49% from 40-59; with 17% 30-39 yrs old; 17% under 30; and 15% 60 and over

Not sure what to make of the results, but the fact that the overwhelming majority of the respondents are U.S. Males aged 40-59, and over 85% say they will "probably" or "definitely" consider contributing financial support, it seems like we've got a supporting demographic with the benjamins who are behind this venture.

...more updates as they arrive.

(previous post on IWT)

Homeland Security - WTF?

Frankly, I'm willing to put aside my own partisan wailing for a moment and just raise what I feel is a truly non-partisan point: What exactly has the Department of Homeland Security been preparing for?

I know this point (and very likely, this very quote) has been made elsewhere, but in this WaPo article, we are told:

Federal authorities say there is blame enough to go around. In a news conference yesterday, Chertoff cautioned against "finger-pointing" and said no one had been equipped to handle what amounted to two simultaneous disasters -- the hurricane and subsequent levee break.

Okay, I'm going to avoid calling "bullshit", and just point out that FEMA themselves advised that this very problem was likely, and just point out that: 1. It's a hurricane in an area that is known to be subject to hurricanes and 2. It's a flood situation. These are basic problems that local, state and federal authorities have been preparing for since....hell, without researching it, we can safely say for well over half a century.

More importantly, let's just look at which activities DHS and/or FEMA failed miserably. A disaster hit a major US city, and we did not have Federal-level support on the ground at disaster-center for 5 days. Never mind evacuations, because we can almost understand the logistical constraints around that. There were no airdrops of food and water, no National Guard troops to stabilize and secure, and no official boats/aircraft to perform search and rescue.

According to the DHS website FAQ, one of their three primary responsibilities is to "minimize the damage from potential attacks and natural disasters." Given that it was known that a 40-year-record massive hurricane was headed towards the Gulf Coast two days in advance, wouldn't one think we should have been prepared to get security and rescue forces, and emergency food/water/medical supplies into the afflicted people sooner than 5 days?

As has been said many times before, if this is the reaction to a problem that was known in advance, what's going to happen if some organization does manage to set off a dirty bomb in Manhattan, or LA, or wherever? Are we going to have to listen to Chertoff explaining that nobody foresaw this happening in Minneapolis?

In my job, one of my major objectives is to deal with planning for what happens to a complicated system if a foreseeable problem happens, and to try to mitigate the impact of unforseeable problems. And we all know that it's inevitable that shit will happen. But shit people...we sure as hell don't have a $40 billion annual budget, but we're expected to triage a problem way quicker than 5 frigging days. So again I ask: What, exactly, has the DHS been preparing for?

In a previous post, a commenter suggested that withdrawing from Iraq would embolden our terrorist enemies, as it would be a sign of our weakness. Would not this completely ineffectual response to a known problem, which results in the prolonged suffering of hundreds and thousands of our own citizens, for no good reason, embolden them just as much?

FEMA and the Stage-Managed Cavalry Arrival

If this turns out to be substantially true and correct, it wouldn't surprise me, but this needs to be front-page headline news. From Sadly, No!...

Update: From this and other info (more later), FEMA clearly wasn't letting any aid into New Orleans until the gates suddenly flew open for Bush's media event. The Red Cross now claims that withholding food and water was a FEMA policy to ensure that people would evacuate the city instead of hanging around eating food.

Still reading up on this one...

Unholy Demons of Apathy and Cynicism Fail Me

In his post today, The Rude Pundit concludes with the statement:

Bush is visiting the affected areas as this is written. You can bet he's gonna hug some negro, maybe two, maybe he'll feed a negro child. It's the way of black people in New Orleans, you know, to always be the props and the set dressing to make the white people feel powerful.

And as if by magic, the current headline pic on cnn.com right now is the following:

National Preparedness Month

As irony spins like a dynamo in it's grave, the Department of Homeland Security sent out their press release yesterday announcing National Preparedness Month, in case you didn't know. Yesindeed, the organization tasked with preventing wholesale destruction of our cities (At home, of course. Remember, we destroy cities abroad, so they don't have to be destroyed here.) and taking control of the situation when disasters do happen, went ahead with it's formal announcement of National Preparedness Month.

From the press release, we are told:"National Preparedness Month is a nationwide coordinated effort held each September to encourage Americans to take simple steps to prepare for emergencies in their homes, businesses and schools."

Huh! There's a novel idea. Pity the DHS doesn't follow it's own advice.

As an added bonus, I decided to take a look at the DHS's Six Point Agenda which was announced on 7/13/2005:

The six-point agenda will guide the department in the near term and result in changes that will:

1. Increase overall preparedness, particularly for catastrophic events

2. Create better transportation security systems to move people and cargo more securely and efficiently

3. Strengthen border security and interior enforcement and reform immigration processes;

4. Enhance information sharing with our partners

5. Improve DHS financial management, human resource development, procurement and information technology

6. Realign the DHS organization to maximize mission performance.

Looking at the performance we're seeing in Katrina's wake, I think it's safe to say that they're failing on points 1, 2, 4 and 6.

Foreign Aid Offers and the Bush Administration

This shit is getting weird, people.

The Post, here, has a story about how Condi stated:"no offer that can help alleviate the suffering of the people in the afflicted area will be refused," Okay, cool. I can't imagine why we'd be refusing an offer to help, but at least we've got official recognition of the fact that we wont mind some help, right?

Wrong, bitches! In the very next paragraph we are told:However, in Moscow, a Russian official said the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency had rejected a Russian offer to dispatch rescue teams and other aid

Okay, so that's weird, no? Especially since we've previously heard how Canadian rescue groups are ready to help, but are being prevented from entering the country by the Feds.

Now, even at this point, I'd have to explain this as the sheer incompetence typically practiced by the current administration. Hell, "incompetence" almost doesn't capture the situation...it's more like "strategic anti-competence", as near as I can tell.

But getting back to the original WaPo article (here, to save you some scrolling effort) we learn:

Offers have been received from Russia, Japan, Canada, France, Honduras, Germany, Venezuela, Jamaica, Australia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece, Hungary, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, China, South Korea, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, NATO and the Organization of American States, the spokesman said.

Hell, the whole article is about all the different offers we've been receiving from foreign nations. So what did Bush have to say about this outpouring of help from foreign nations?

Still, Bush told ABC-TV: "I'm not expecting much from foreign nations because we hadn't asked for it. I do expect a lot of sympathy and perhaps some will send cash dollars. But this country's going to rise up and take care of it."


"You know," he said, "we would love help, but we're going to take care of our own business as well, and there's no doubt in my mind we'll succeed. And there's no doubt in my mind, as I sit here talking to you, that New Orleans is going to rise up again as a great city."

Ahem. NOT IF IT TAKES DAYS TO GET FOOD, WATER, SUPPLIES AND SOME NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS OUT THERE, AND WE'RE REFUSING ASSISTANCE, ASSH@LE!! Sorry...I really needed to let that out.

Now, seriously, I hate to start aping the standard wingnut talking point of "liberals hate America", but...dude!! Even if I give Chimpy the benefit of the doubt and assume that he's so insulated and out of touch and uninformed that he's saying these things out of pure ignorance, that's still freaking scary! Shouldn't the Preznit know that we have all these offers of assistance from other countries, and that we appear to be blowing them off? At the very least, before he goes on air for a big interview?

It's getting really hard to not at least consider the idea that these people are intentionally trying to manipulate the public perception of things, to make us 'mericans believe that the rest of the world is basically telling us "tough shit", when in fact there's some serious attempts to offer aid, but we're giving them the big ol' middle finger.

Anticipating Katrina

Chimpy today on Good Morning America: (from Kevin Drum)

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

What's with the Administration and these post-disaster "nobody could have foreseen" explanations? I recall thinking, after Sept 11th, when Condi was talking about how nobody would have conceived of using planes as missles; "Uh...Kamikaze?"

Well, not only did FEMA declare in 2001 that New Orleans getting hit by a hurricane was one of the "likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country", but, as I just found out from TheOilDrum, FX had a movie earlier this summer which started out with exactly this premise; Oil Storm.

Read the plot synopsis, it's good. I think I need to see if this movie is available on DVD.