Where is the Money Going?

We know the connection between Halliburton and all of its subsidiaries to Republicans and those connections have ensured that Dick Cheney's former employer is getting a large share of the dollars spent in hurricane relief efforts. But who at Carnival Cruise Lines is a major contributor? What else could explain the latest twist to the deal to rent two of Carnival's ships to house refugees in New Orleans (which are mostly empty, by the way)?

Two senators on Thursday asked federal officials to explain their decision to sign a $236 million deal with Carnival Cruise Lines for Hurricane Katrina housing, saying Greece was ready to provide two ships for free.

And it's not just big ticket items like ships and shipping (see previous post) that FEMA is overpaying for. Even for something so simple as the now-ubiquitous blue tarps that cover so many damaged roofs in the South FEMA has managed to overpay.

The blue sheeting - a godsend to residents whose homes are threatened by rain - is rapidly becoming the largest roofing project in the nation's history.

It isn't coming cheap.

Knight Ridder has found that a lack of oversight, generous contracting deals and poor planning mean that government agencies are shelling out as much as 10 times what the temporary fix would normally cost.

The government is paying contractors an average of $2,480 for less than two hours of work to cover each damaged roof - even though it's also giving them endless supplies of blue sheeting for free.

Oback Barama (D. IL) is doing yeoman's work along with Tom Coburn (R. OK) to get Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff to explain what's going on and to control spending in the relief efforts. So far, their efforts are to no avail.

I have no problem with spending the money it will take to help our fellow citizens in their time of need. I'd just like to know that we're getting the most for our money and that it's not going to line the pockets of the already wealthy and well-connected. It seems I'm hoping against hope.

FEMA Fiscal Responsibility

No bid contracts, little accountability. Yep, FEMA is spending our money responsibly.

In response to reports that FEMA may be paying up to $4-$6 per mile and taking equipment out of the available carrier base, IARW [International Association of Refrigerated Warehouses] conducted a quick survey of members to see just how serious and widespread the problem might be.

One member, who contacted all his major carriers to inquire about the FEMA issue, found that over half of them were called by FEMA and asked to commit resources. As of five days ago, none of that equipment had been diverted to the FEMA program. He reported, however, that brokers with whom he regularly works are having difficulty, as their carrier base, the owner-operators, were accepting FEMA offers.

An East Coast member reported hearing the pay is $4/mile, plus hefty layover pay. They have been finding it difficult to hire owner-operators on a regular basis, especially in the past few weeks, and especially in Florida and the mid-Atlantic. He thinks carriers may have been pulling ice to the hurricane areas and in some cases paid to layover until the ice could be distributed.

After Katrina and just prior to Rita, another member reported that carriers were already at a premium in both the Southeast and Midwest. This member said that over 100 trucks had been sitting at an Air Force base outside of Montgomery, AL waiting for directions. It was said that they were being paid $600 a day to sit and wait.

Another member who is feeling the hurricane impact agrees that FEMA and others are paying considerably more in freight rates to secure trucks, particularly in the South. This member heard that FEMA may be paying up to $1,500 per load, when a normal rate would be $600. He is seeing truck shortages throughout the industry and is unsure when the carrier base will return to normal.

At Least He Has Body Armor

A recent story detailed how some of the bullet-proof vests sold to the Presidential detail, including those for the President and First Lady, were potentially defective. That also means that some of those used by the Secret Service detail were defective. Not a good thing. But at least they had them.

Unlike - still - our soldiers in Iraq.

Oh, you thought that problem had been solved? Please.

DeLay Shoots the Messenger, But...

Who will be the first rat to bail on this sinking ship?

At an earlier point, Bush could have provided political cover for scandals that touched one or another Republican elected official. But with his approval ratings in the low 40s, there is little to prop up the party's image when congressional leaders are under investigation. Already there have been signs that Bush's influence with members of his own party was beginning to wane as House Republicans look to 2006. Without DeLay in power, the prospects of further splintering increase, adding to perceptions of a party in growing disarray.

Can you say schadenfreude?

DeLay Indicted!

When do the rest of the dominoes fall?

Death Porn

The liberal blogosphere is abuzz over a story that it seems the main-stream media are ignoring: soldiers in the Mid-East theater of operations are trading photos of themselves with dead Iraqis or pieces thereof for access to an amateur porn site (no link from me). The military has given some rather wishy-washy answers about whether or not this is legal. Two blogs that I read frequently have some excellent posts: Blonde Sense and AmericaBlog. Lots of others are writing about it as well.

My interest in this subject has a very different tack than these other bloggers. As an ex-soldier, I have some insight into at least part of what's going on here.

It's a well known phenomenon in military history that governments, societies and military leaders take great pains to dehumanize their enemies. This is a necessary psychological step prior to and during wars; citizen-soldiers have to be given a reason to overcome their ingrained aversion to killing fellow humans. Without this important step armies could not function during wartime. With the rise of what some term the "professional army," taken from volunteers as opposed to draftees, and the expansion of our "national interests" to far corners of the globe for extended periods we see the rise of a perpetual dehumanization of the enemy-of-the-day. It's not too hard to imagine this animus extending to everyone "not us," to all non-Americans. Everyone outside our borders has become "them."

What we're seeing in events like Abu Graib, the developing story on more abuses by the 82nd Airborne Division and this story are all a result of the dehumanization of our current foes.

Are any of these things "right," whatever that means? No. I don't think anyone would claim that they are (except a few extreme-right-wingnuts). But perhaps instead of "is it right?" we should be asking another question. It's not an easy question to ask and it's even harder to answer - in fact, no answer will be completely satisfactory to anyone. And perhaps that ambiguity itself has a lesson to teach us about the things we do as humans, as a society. The answer could help illuminate our path forward in the post-Cold War era.

So what is that question?

Are we willing to accept the results of the necessary dehumanization of our "enemies" in order to effect our national policies?

I'll be very interested to read your responses.

Is Your Shoe Ringing?

Maxwell Smart
Tennessee Tuxedo
Inspector Gadget

I can't beleive Don Adams is gone. I grew up watching him in the first two roles and I watched him (well, listened to his voice) in the last role with my daughter as she grew up.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Bids!

This took much less time than I thought to come out...

More than 80 percent of the $1.5 billion in contracts signed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to clean up after Hurricane Katrina were awarded without bidding or with limited competition, the New York Times reported Monday.

There are some very familiar names in the list of contractors cited; I'm sure you can name most of them without even reading the article.

Navy Assisted CIA in "Rendition" Operations

This is very disturbing:

A branch of the Navy secretly contracted for a 33-plane fleet that included two Gulfstream jets reportedly used to fly terror suspects to countries known to practice torture, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press.

It was one of these planes that was used to fly suspects from Italy to Egypt; a case in which Italy has issued arrest warrants for several suspected CIA agents. Can you imagine the uproar if some country were to kidnapp US residents and send them to Syria for "interrogation?"

Iraq Disintegrating

Even Bush's closest allies are moving off the reservation on Iraq:

Iraq is heading towards disintegration, raising fears of a wider regional conflict, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal warned on Thursday.

And then there's this:

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister says the Bush administration did not heed some Saudi warnings on occupying Iraq and that he doesn't believe a new constitution and elections will solve the emerging nation's problems.

Miscellanea

I took today off; it's a beautiful, early fall day, we have company coming this afternoon and I just couldn't stand the thought of sitting in my office all day today. I could live like this...

We're watching the appraoch of Rita on The Weather Channel and CNN, hoping that friends we have in Houston, who couldn't get out due to the traffic, are going to be safe. Seems that as prepared as Texas thought it was, the exodus didn't go nearly as well as they thought it would. Anyone know why it took them so long to make all lanes on the evacuation routes one-way?

Enjoy the end of your week and have a great weekend. I'll try to get another post or two up for the weekend, but no promises.

Brilliant Bit of Flying

This had to have been one of the most intense things I've ever watched on TV (since 9/11). It also has to be one of the most incredible bits of flying I've ever witnessed in all my years of flying.

What Have They Really Learned? Part II

After all these years of BushCo. you'd think I'd learn. You'd think more of us would have learned the answer to that question. But no. It took a trip over to Paperwight's Fair Shot to get the answer to my question.

What have they really learned? Nothing; they don't want to learn anything.

...the Bush people and the modern Republican Party just don't give a tinker's damn about actually governing. It's not that they're too dumb or that every single one of them is incapable of competence (though there are clearly a lot of complete stumblebums with a lot of power in the party), it's that competence is entirely irrelevant to their practices, either with regard to policy or personnel. They're operating with a completely different set of priorities.

Make sure to go read the rest. It was an eye-opener for me.

What Have They Really Learned?

With another major hurricane bearing down on the Gulf Coast, every level of government from the smallest town to the Federal level is in a flurry of activity. Nobody wants to be the one responsible for a second Katrina-style response.

But the preemptive declarations of states of emergency, the pre-staging of response teams and supplies, the readying of airplanes and busses for the evacuees; all of that is easy with the images of New Orleans and Gulfport still fresh, still raw. And for FEMA and the rest of BushCo. it's easy given the administration's tanking poll numbers.

The real question is when next year's first "monster storm" threatens, or when a category 4 or 5 storm rages into the Gulf in 2007 how will everyone react? What have they really learned and what - for now - is just the tendency to react, even to over react, after the last debacle? The first hints of an answer to that question at the federal level is not encouraging with the appointment of Karl Rove to lead the rebuilding efforts on the Gulf Coast.

It would not be overstating the case to say there's an ill wind blowing...

Iraq is Making a Difference in the Middle East

Oh is it ever!

"I'm explaining to my fighters every day the lessons I learned and my experience in Iraq," he tells a NEWSWEEK correspondent. "I want to copy in Afghanistan the tactics and spirit of the glorious Iraqi resistance."

Mohammed Daud, commander of the biggest Taliban force in Ghazni province, roughly 100 miles southwest of Kabul

Forsooth Fareed!

Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria lays it out in stark terms - and gets it exactly right:

For all its virtues, the private sector cannot accomplish all this. Wal-Mart and Federal Express cannot devise a national energy policy for the United States. For that and for much else, we need government. We already pay for it. Can somebody help us get our money's worth?

The column is well worth reading - and passing on.

Going Home to New Orleans

The conflict - so far pretty low key - between New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Vice Admiral Thad Allen bears watching. It's too soon to say if there are reasons other than those advanced by Allen for people not to return to the city. All indications are that for now, there really aren't the basic services needed to support those who would return.

However, we saw the disregard for the ability of the elderly and poor to evacuate, and there have already been calls for the poor neighborhoods of the area to be returned to wetlands and swamp. And of course there have been various politicians who've questioned whether to even spend the money to rebuild the city at all.

Some of the important questions are:

1. How will those displaced by the storm return to New Orleans?

Will FEMA again run convoys of busses to reverse the diaspora? Who will want to return and who will not?

2. What will they return to?

Mini-cities of mobile homes and pre-fab buildings are supposed to spring up all around the Gulf Coast. Will the displaced want to move into these homes or will they demand to return to their old neighborhoods? What services will be available and what will they have to do without - and for how long?

3. What will the EPA have to say on the safety of the areas hardest hit?

How well will these areas be cleaned and what systems will be put in place to monitor the continuing clean up and long-term health effects of residents who return?

4. What areas will be subject to eminent domain?

Refinery capacity is badly needed in the country and other industrial areas have long needed room to expand along the Gulf Coast. Will government, at all levels, be able to resist allowing such expansion at the expense of poorer neighborhoods? Should they resist?

5. How quickly and how diligently will FEMA and other agencies work to get people out of the "FEMAvilles" they'll be moved to?

Will these people be conveniently "forgotten" in their new ghettos, with no means to return home? If so, how long will the sharks wait before moving into their old neighborhoods claiming that they've been abandoned?

I'm sure I've missed plenty of other questions to be asked but I think these are enough to get some people to pay attention. We shouldn't let the flurry of Rove's PR blitz blind us to what's really going on.

Bush on Cost of Recovery: "I Can Sh*t $20 Bills!"

I'm not sure what else he had in mind...

“We got to maintain economic growth, and therefore we should not raise taxes,” Bush said, noting Americans were already paying “a tax in essence” because of higher gasoline prices. “And we don’t need to be taking more money out of their pocket.

In the original quote I'm pretty sure that he said that he didn't want to increase the taxes that "working Americans" pay. It was all I could do to not throw something and yell at the computer. "You don't have to raise taxes on the working stiffs! Raise them on the rich! Raise them on corporations!"

But no, Shrubby-boy says that the rest of the federal budget will have to absorb these costs with further cuts. And I could swear I heard Grover Norquist laughing in the background over the sound of water running into a bathtub.

Potemkin on the Mississippi - Redux

If you thought that my invocation of a facade villiage in yesterday's post on Bush's choice of a location for his speech last night was a stretch, consider this:

The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions.

Disasters 'R Us

The problems that allowed 9/11 to happen have not been fixed.

Bin Laden is still on the loose.

Afghanistan is falling back into a Taliban theocracy.

Iraq has spun violently out of control.

The slowness of FEMA's response to Hurrican Katrina killed more people than the storm itself.

Now, just because Shrubby-boy gave another of his written-in-crayon speeches to an empty square, we're supposed to believe that he can organize the biggest reconstruction effort since the end of the Civil War? And we're supposed to be happy that the soon-to-be indicted traitor Karl Rove can be trusted with an open-ended $200-plus billion reconstruction fund?

Please.

New Orleans: Potemkin City

If you have the stomach to watch Shrubby-boy's speech tonight - which I don't - remember this: according an anonymous White House source, there will be no live audience in Jackson Square where he'll be yapping. And the press won't be allowed out of their news trucks. The square, long a forum for all manor of truly public speech will be as empty as Bush's head.

Remember: Karl Rove has been put in charge of the BushCo. post-Katrina operation. Not someone with experience in recovery from a catastrophe of historical proportions. Much like "Drownie" Brownie, Bush has once again placed cronyism and the good of the party above the good of the American people.

Remember: the recovery effort will be as fake as the speech.

Remember.

What Bush Should Say Tonight

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid has sent out a press release ahead of Shrubby-boy's attempt at recapturing that bullhorn moment of long ago. Reid says what Bush really ought to say but that you know he won't. John at AmericaBlog has the entire text. Go check it out.

It's the strongest thing I've heard from a Democrat in a long time.

Drownie Learned His Lesson

Michael Brown seems to have learned one lesson very well from his stint at BushCo.'s FEMA:

The former FEMA director who became a lightning rod for the sluggish federal response to Hurricane Katrina put the blame on state officials in an interview with the New York Times newspaper.

The lesson? The buck stops everywhere but here.

Empty Streets

New Orleans continues to be mostly a ghost town while the press, Congress and the public slowly come to grips with the fact that BushCo. was responsible for the deaths of thousands by a myriad of acts of commission and omission. As usual, so far only one relatively low-ranking individual has taken the fall for this catastrophe - Michael "Drownie" Brown.

Tuesday, Shrubby-boy declared (despite all evidence to the contrary) that he could do more than one thing at a time. And so it seems he was telling the truth.

He's also responsible for this continuing debacle:

Two suicide car bombers struck within a minute of each other just a half mile apart in south Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least seven policemen and raising the day's bombing death toll in the capital to at least 31, police said.

Earlier Thursday, a suicide car bombing killed 16 policemen and five civilians in the same neighborhood, signaling a new round of violence one day after residents suffered through Baghdad's bloodiest day of the war.

At least 160 were killed and 570 wounded Wednesday in more than a dozen bombings, for which the terror group Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility. Many of the victims were day laborers lured by a suicide attacker posing as an employer. There was no immediate claim for the Thursday bombings.

The results of this entirely one-man-made disaster? Another empty city:

The U.S. military and Iraqi police drove through Baghdad's Dora neighborhood, where the bombings were concentrated Thursday, warning residents to stay indoors because of a report that five more car bombers were ready to attack, police Capt. Ali Abdul Hamza said. Streets in the southern neighborhood were empty.

Katrina vs Khanun

Have you heard about the Category 4 typhoon that hit one of the most populous areas of China's southeast coast? Nearly as powerful as Katrina and the strongest storm to come ashore in China this year, Khanun leveled huge swathes of the coastline before heading inland to dump massive amounts of rain on the interior.

The destruction of property is massive. But the Chinese government managed to evacuate nearly one million people and only 14 are confirmed dead (although it's still too soon to know the final tally).

Perhaps in tomorrow's meeting with Hu Jintao, Bush could ask what the Chinese government did right.

Just a thought.

The Blame Game

In case anyone wants to know which way to point their fingers, I've provided a convenient, all-in-one-place target. Only one finger required - I'll leave the choice of which finger up to you:



Bush, Brown and Chertoff ponder their fate...

Memories of The Big Easy

All of my memories of New Orleans are good ones. Seeing the city now is painful; sad. Like watching the final, awful days of a close friend. If, as it seems likely to be, the old New Orleans is gone I'd rather remember her as she was. I'd rather remember the good times.

I traveled all around the South on business for several years and I was always glad when I could schedule a trip to New Orleans. Despite growing up in Florida and doing a fair bit of traveling as a child and young adult I had never made my way there until around 1993. I'd read the history of the place, seen pictures and knew the names of the famous streets and areas of the city. I'd heard the jazz and the blues. But as I found out on my first visit, I didn't know New Orleans; it's not a place you can learn about from a distance. You have to experience it, you have to breathe it in.

There is no heat like the damp, sweltering heat of the delta in July. It weighs down the air so that it's hard to breath, it slows everything down as though the atmosphere were more water than air. Even early in the morning when the city and all of its revellers are mostly still asleep, the heat can be oppressive. But somehow, even in that heat, the smell of hot coffee and deep fried beignets always drew me to the green and white awnings of Cafe du Monde. With my tie loosened and my coat left in the car, I'd make my way down towards the river, rolling up my sleeves as I walked, for the coffee, dark as bayou mud and earthy with the taste of roasted chicory and the donuts, hot out of the oil, piled on a too small plate and dusted with powdered sugar. As I sat down with my treasures and unfolded my paper - the now famous, but then unknown, Times-Picayune - New Orleans would slowly come to life around me.

It may seem cliche, but it's true that there is always music in New Orleans. No matter how early I managed to sit down by the black, wrought iron railing surrounding the Cafe du Monde, I never managed to beat the first street musician. Usually it was some old, weather-beaten guy with a saxophone softly blowing the blues like the breeze off the Mississippi. But sometimes it was a young kid with a couple of old plastic painters buckets and a pair of drumsticks beating out a more modern tattoo. Other times it was a guitar or a trumpet. Sometimes they were near enough to watch the first beads of sweat trickle down their faces and sometimes I could only catch the faint strains of a song just out of reach like the memory of a dream from the night before.

I have been down Bourbon Street and through its bars and restaurants many times. I've been to some of the famous places and to some nobody's ever heard of. I never got the chance to be there for Mardi Gras and now I wonder if there will ever be another Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I've drunk Hurricanes at Pat O'Brien's and now I wonder if they'll ever serve another one. I've eaten several kinds of etouffee but the kind made with crawfish - mud bugs to the locals - will always be my favorite. I've watched the freighters moving slowly up the river channel while standing at the bottom of a levee, my mind boggling at the sight of giant ships seeming to fly overhead.

These memories are all part of my New Orleans. But my favorite memories, the ones I always tell to anyone who asks whether I've been there, are all about starting my day in that little bit of shade under a green and white awning between the Mississippi and Jackson Square. I remember best the Big Easy waking up with me as I drank my coffee and watched her people starting another day in their wonderful city.

**************************

I hope that when the city is dry again but before they start the rebuilding they let one of the old funeral bands march down the center of the French Quarter, moving in their slow, stilted gait. And I hope they blow one of the old, sad songs... once more for old New Orleans.

Thomas Friedman: Asshole

This will make you sick.

This is the sentence that really got me:

Hell hath no fury like journalists with a compelling TV story where they get to be the heroes and the government the fools.

Yeah, Friedman, that's the whole story, right there. Journalists are the culprits.

Fuck you.

BushCo. Not Just Incompetent; Evil

When news broke that the FEMA debit cards promised to all dislocated families were to only be given to those who wound up in Houston - and then only to those at the Astrodome - I assumed it was just the bungled work of the gang of incompetents I outlined in the previous post. The continued delay delivering them seemed to be just part of the whole, cruel situation.

I may have been mistaken.

Steve Bates, over at the Yellow Doggerel Democrat, thinks there may be a more malign reason for the delay. He notes that the numbers of refugees in the covered sites are quickly falling as they find other places to stay:

Somebody's gotta do it, so I'll connect the dots: FEMA is slow-walking delivery of the debit cards to reduce the number of displaced families that actually get them. It's the latest instance in a long tradition by the Bush administration of making a big public splash about providing money approved by Congress for use in a catastrophe, but never actually delivering it. Think of New York City after 9/11/2001... much of the promised federal money was never spent. Think of the FEMA money authorized for relief from several hurricanes in Florida over the last few years... many people approved to receive it never got it. And right here in Houston, think of Tropical Storm Allison, back in 2001. FEMA promised to reimburse the city for many of its expenditures that legally should have been covered by the agency. According to a segment by Wayne Dolcefino on the ABC 13 evening news earlier this week, most of that money has still not been reimbursed, 4-1/2 years later; FEMA is allegedly still investigating whether the city's claim is legitimate.

If you think you've seen the worst from this band of incompetent, thieving bastards, you're probably wrong.

What Went Wrong?

While there is surely plenty of blame to go around for the disaster after the disaster of Katrina, even our SCLM is getting the clue that the buck really ought to stop at a certain desk in the Oval Office. The story teaser under the image below on MSNBC this morning was "Agency's top leaders have ties to Bush White House; critics say ability to respond to emergencies weakened."



The story that went with the picture is pretty damning.

Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

FEMA's top three leaders -- Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler -- arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative.

Is it any wonder then that much of the initial - and continuing - response has been photo ops for the empty flight suit and his missing-in-action side kick?

FEMA's response has only been the most visible and talked about mistake of BushCo. since the hurricane, but you can bet that the administration will try to sack "Brownie" and foist that off on all of us as the solution to the problem. We can't let them get away with that. There's a reason why inexperienced political hacks are in such important jobs, there's a reason why the National Guard troops needed in Louisiana and Mississippi were unavailable to help, there's a reason why there's no money in the Federal budget to pay for this disaster: and that reason is sitting in the White House.

Humbling

In January, my father-in-law died after an extended fight with liver cancer. When my wife and I returned from his funeral in Canada, there was seemingly an entire grocery store on our front porch. Our friends, knowing what we'd been through over the holidays, had called to make sure they knew when we were coming home and made sure that there was nearly a month's worth of groceries and prepared foods waiting for us when we arrived.

It was one of the most humbling things that has ever happened to either of us. To know that friends would care so much, would think of nearly everything we could need, would do so much of us... To this day I can't think about what they did without choking up.

In the same vein, I've been humbled by the response of the world community to the disaster on our Gulf Coast. You won't hear much about it on the news - you have to go to the blogs and the "unofficial" media to learn about who's given what - but the response has been similarly humbling. One in particular that I remember hearing about was from Bangladesh. Typically we only hear about Bangladesh when the latest typhoon sweeps seemingly half its population away in the storm surge. In this instance, they pledged to send food aid and over a million dollars; an amount probably equal to a fair percentage of their GDP.

It's such a shame that the media chooses to ignore this response; it makes the rest of the world seem so far away rather than the integral part of our neighborhood that it really is. Even worse is the federal red tape delaying the deployment of this aid...

Offers of foreign aid worth tens of millions of dollars -- including a Swedish water purification system, a German cellular telephone network and two Canadian rescue ships -- have been delayed for days awaiting review by backlogged federal agencies, according to European diplomats and information collected by the State Department.
Since Hurricane Katrina, more than 90 countries and international organizations offered to assist in recovery efforts, but nearly all endeavors remained mired Tuesday in bureaucratic entanglements, in most cases at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

So when you hear some mouth breather on the networks or talk radio asking where the aid from the rest of the world is, you'll know.

Republicans Have Pillaged, Now Comes the Raping

We've seen, in the slow, uncoordinated and sometimes ineffectual response to Katrina, the results of the Republican pillaging of our federal government: tax cuts to the richest, huge and uncontrolled spending on the illegal Iraq war and nearly lethal cuts to social programs for the poorest among us. These have left the government nearly, but not quite small enough to "drown in a bathtub."

Now comes the final raping of America.

While Democrats and a few moderate Republicans try to figure out how to help those who've been devastated by Katrina and her aftermath, those furthest to the Right are using this catastrophe as an excuse to flay the last bit of flesh from the federal government so that it can finally be drowned.

If you think I'm kidding, here's what Republicans are saying in response to Hillary Clinton's musings on perhaps needing to raise some peoples' taxes to pay for all of this:

So how will Congress pay for the new spending needs due to Katrina? Part of Clinton’s answer was to raise taxes. “We should be prepared to ask for sacrifice particularly from the richest people in America,” she argued.

But DeLay rejected any such notion. “The worst thing we could do in response to a recovery like this is to attack the economy,” he told reporters. “The worst thing we could do… is a windfall profits tax on the oil corporations, so that they won’t have the money to reinvest in developing more oil and more gas. The worst thing we could do is to increase taxes on the economy, an economy that now has to be a major part of the recovery.”

Some congressional Republicans indicated the hurricane recovery may point to an “era of smaller government” — requiring a suspension of regulations that slow down re-building of highways and more urgently needed gasoline refineries.

Even in wake of this appalling natural disaster, this band of thugs - no better than the looters in the darkest hours of New Orleans' misery - they can only think of how to benefit themselves and their largest contributors. All at the expense of the poorest and most miserable of American citizens. Instead of a helping hand, Republicans - again - are telling all of us to bend over.

They disgust me.

Outrage Fatigue?

With work and the fast pace of the news I can't even begin to keep up with all the incompetence and lies of BushCo. in the aftermath of Katrina. Every news story I read about the bungled response from all levels of government, but most especially from the federal level raises my blood pressure. The way the press is largely letting Bush and his cronies off the hook threatens to make my head explode.

Invaluable in keeping me up-to-date and pointing me to some of the good reporting out there, to other blogs and resources is John Aravosis and friends over at AmericaBlog. I can't recommend their blog enough.

Go.

Read.

Speaking Truth

I've been amazed at the number of times I've heard reporters asking some hard questions and not accepting the pat answers of those in power. It's not as often as it really should be, and some - most notably Michael Chertoff - have gotten away with the most blatant of lies. But perhaps the press is finding its voice; finding their collective cojones. Perhaps.

But more than even the press, I've been impressed with Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans. I don't know much else that the man has done prior to the disaster that's destroyed his city, but I know that he has been singularly disinclined to take any bullshit answers from other politicians when it comes to the rescue/relief efforts. From local and state officials all the way up to our so-called president, he's held no punches.

When Pelley suggests that bureaucracy might be the cause of the confusion, Nagin replies bluntly, "Bull-crap. When people are dying, bureaucracy should be thrown out of the water."

Asked if he thought people died because of the delays, Nagin says, "There is no doubt about it. I watched a guy jump from the Superdome yesterday, just couldn't take it anymore. We have two police officers that have committed suicide. They couldn't take it anymore. This is, this is hell. And to have this happen in the United States of America in the state of Louisiana, and to not have immediate, immediate response regardless of the laws, is tragic."

Nagin is someone to keep an eye on.

Impeach Bush Now!

I was going to write that Bush must fire Michael Chertoff for his incompetence and the constant stream of bald-faced lies he's been spouting on national TV for days.

But the whole crew must be held accountable.

Read the details of how BushCo. is making this disaster much worse than it ever had to be at AmericaBlog. But beware, your blood pressure will skyrocket...

Impeachment proceedings need to start now.

Give

I'm off to give blood this afternoon. After I look through my checkbook hopefully I'll have something in there to give as well.

Give. Give 'till it hurts:

Red Cross: 1-800-HELP-NOW

Quagmire Part 2?

Seems that BushCo. just doesn't know how to respond to situations that require a military response. They didn't send enough troops or equipment to do the job they started in Iraq; now they've done the same thing in New Orleans. Had Shrubby boy cut short his vacation by just a couple of more days, he could have had emergency responders and more National Guard standing buy to help out the Gulf Coast. Instead he went to a couple of fund raisers and kept trying to sell his dead-in-the-water Social Security reform.

Now the streets of the Big Easy are nearly as dangerous as those in Baghdad - minus the suicide bombers - for now.

Last night the evacuation of the refugees from the Super Dome was suspended because some of the roving gangs of armed thugs who've been looting the city decided it would be fun to take pot-shots at the Chinook helicopters taking them out and to carjack the busses they were riding in. It's only today that armored National Guardsmen are making their way into the city. An inexcusable delay.

But we couldn't have Bush's vacation shortened by too much, now could we?

Post Script: In situations like this, police and National Guardsmen should only be required to issue one verbal warning to looters, carjackers and other armed, lawless thugs. Then they should be able to shoot them in the street like the animals they are.

Wishing Doesn't Make It So

One in a recent series of articles on the so-called Evolution - Creationism conflict in the NYT, this article really disturbs me. Here's the gist of it:

In a finding that is likely to intensify the debate over what to teach students about the origins of life, a poll released yesterday found that nearly two-thirds of Americans say that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools.

The article goes on to detail how many of our deluded citizens think various things about creationism; all of which are too depressing to go into.

I've stayed mostly out of this "debate" because I get so angry that I can't be sure if I'll get my point across or, indeed, make any sense at all. But this most recent article has just been one too many. Here's my take: It doesn't matter what you want. There is no debate among real biologists: evolution is fact. None. Hell, I wish that Thermofluid Dynamics had been a little easier when I was in college; all of my classmates did. But that didn't make it so. In the same way, it doesn't matter to scientists what stupid people want or wish or believe. In science class, science should be taught. Not religion. And no matter how pretty a face the IDiots put on Intelligent Design or whatever the current euphemism is, it's still religion.

Period.

If we think that our schools are graduating a crop of morons now, just wait and see what happens to our technological standing in the world if these people have their way.

Now excuse me while I bang my head on my desk some more...

***********

To see what other people are saying about this, start with Steve at the Yellow Doggerel and also read several entries at Americablog. You can also search the NYT (registration required) archives for their previous articles.

BushCo Allergic to the Truth

Last week it was the Justice Department statistician who dared to tell the truth about the differential treatment of minorities received during traffic stops. This week it's a contracting official for the Army Corps of Engineers who raised questions about non-competitive bids awarded to Halliburton subsidiary KBR in Iraq. From the NYT:

A top Army contracting official who criticized a large, noncompetitive contract with the Halliburton Company for work in Iraq was demoted Saturday for what the Army called poor job performance.

The official, Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, has worked in military procurement for 20 years and for the past several years had been the chief overseer of contracts at the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that has managed much of the reconstruction work in Iraq.

[snip]

Ms. Greenhouse's lawyer, Michael Kohn, called the action an "obvious reprisal" for the strong objections she raised in 2003 to a series of corps decisions involving the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, which has garnered more than $10 billion for work in Iraq.

[snip

Known as a stickler for the rules on competition, Ms. Greenhouse initially received stellar performance ratings, Mr. Kohn said. But her reviews became negative at roughly the time she began objecting to decisions she saw as improperly favoring Kellogg Brown & Root, he said. Often she hand-wrote her concerns on the contract documents, a practice that corps leaders called unprofessional and confusing.

The lesson should be clear to everyone now; do not, under any circumstances, bring this administration news that doesn't conform to its predetermined world-view. It's a good way to get your head handed to you...

What's On Your Bookshelf?

The FBI wants to know.

BushCo. has repeatedly stated that it has never used the section of the USA Patriot Act to peek at what Americans are reading. But we all knew it would only be a matter of time.

Using its expanded power under the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, the F.B.I. is demanding library records from a Connecticut institution as part of an intelligence investigation, the American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday.

The demand is the first confirmed instance in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation has used the law in this way, federal officials and the A.C.L.U. said. The government's power to demand access to library borrowing records and other material showing reading habits has been the single most divisive issue in the debate over whether Congress should extend key elements of the act after this year.

Not only was this request made without judicial review, as allowed by the Patriot Act, the "institution" served with this request (we're not even allowed to know whether this is a library or a book store) is not allowed to tell anyone that it happened.

The best thing we can do, other than making sure to voice your displeasure with such unconstitutional intrusions into our freedom of speech, is to make sure that your book shelf contains at least one copy of everything on the FBI's trigger list. Of course that list is also classified, so we'll have to guess. I'm thinking things like "The Anarchist Cookbook," but I'm sure my readers can come up with others. Leave your recommedations for the "FBI's Most Wanted Reading List" in the comments. I'll make sure to publish the list in a future post.

Failure at the CIA?

A report this morning on MSNBC states that the CIA's inspector general has recommended that current and former high-ranking officials at the agency be disciplined for failures leading up to 9/11. There are some doubts about whether Director Porter Goss will follow through with the recommendation.

In this case, I have to agree with Goss.

Here's the problem - not only will such a disciplinary undertaking target officials once and still popular within the CIA and not only will it pull people away from important work - but wasn't it the CIA who produced a memo, ignored by its intended audience titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack inside the United States?"

I think there are others who should be disciplined...

Innocent in GITMO

Everyone in BushCo. involved in GITMO, no matter how tangentially are war criminals. If you have any doubt, read this article on MSNBC (from the Washington Post).

Although our supposedly-democratic government admits that the men in this story are innocent, they have refused to tell them so for months on end, have refused them legal counsel for years, and finally have just refused to let them go. This little bit of the story only hints at the criminality involved:

In the meantime, the men are still treated as prisoners. Sabin P. Willett, a Boston lawyer who volunteered to take the cases of two Uighurs in March, finally met with them last month, after he and his team went through their own FBI clearances. One of the Uighurs was "chained to the floor" in a "box with no windows," Willett said in an Aug. 1 court hearing.

"You're not talking about your client?" asked Judge James Robertson of the U.S. District Court in Washington.

"I'm talking about my client," Willett said.

"He was chained to a floor?" Robertson asked again.

"He had a leg shackle that was chained to a bolt in the floor," Willett replied.

Remember, BushCo. has admitted - in court - that these men are innocent.

This is what our country has become. This is what BushCo. has made of us. Despite the protestations of the right the last time the comparison was made, our country, the "beacon of democracy" in the world, is running its own gulag.

This is a crime. Morally and legally.

WWJD?

Pat Robertson, so-called Christian, has gone off the deep end.

Okay, I know this guy's been a nut-case for years; but a televangelist calling for the assassination of a foreign head of state? It will be very interesting to see how BushCo. and the rest of Robertson's audience of mouth-breathers will react.

Really, Pat... what would your invisible sky fairy do?

You Don't Speak For Me!

The thing I find most galling - in a long, long list - about the chicken-hawks and their supporters in this mis-administration is their predilection to put words in my mouth (and the mouths of other veterans and service members). Those who were just too busy to serve in the armed forces of our country or who served under mysterious circumstances (yeah, I'm talking to you, W), have no moral stand whatsoever to say what actions might "dishonor" service members or veterans. They have no right to declare that one action or another would make our sacrifices be "in vain."

As an ex-soldier and a veteran, I can tell you that nothing dishonors a soldier more than to waste his time or to risk his life or the lives of his buddies for no good reason. Nothing could be more in vain than to give up life or limb in the prosecution of a war sold to the American people as a lie.

Listen up, all of you who support this continuing disaster in Iraq, unless you've served, unless you're a veteran, you have no idea what you are talking about. You have no right to make claims on our honor. Keep your goddamn words out of our mouths; we can speak for ourselves.

You do not speak for me.

We All Have Questions

I haven't blogged about Cindy Sheehan since so many others are doing such a great job of it. But two events conspired to get me to write this post. Last night's candlelight vigils around the country in support of Cindy and an e-mail that I got earlier this week.

The vigils held all around the US and in several countries around the world have only increased the public and media focus on all of the false reasons we were given for invading Iraq and the resulting mayhem and deaths of our soldiers. You can read about them here. Finally, perhaps, the press and the country are waking up to what's really going on in Iraq; sometimes it takes something to hit you in the heart rather than in the head.

The second event that inspired this post had to do with a friend I mentioned in an earlier post who had been killed in Iraq; Colonel Ted Westhusing. On Monday, I received an e-mail from Ted's oldest brother thanking me for the kind words I'd written in the above post and in a letter that was published on Eric Alterman's Altercation blog on MSNBC.

This was a wonderful gesture on the part of Ted's brother. It was also a harsh reminder that despite the lack of real sacrifice asked of the rest of us, there are many among us, not just the Cindy Sheehans who get on TV, that have lost something in this neocon misadventure. So as the right-wing spin machine begins its knee-jerk sliming of everyone involved in the vigils and as the amnesiac media moves on to the "next big story," we should all remember and mourn with the mothers, fathers, spouses and children - and big brothers - who have lost a loved one in a war of choice and a war of lies.

Cindy Sheehan is just one reminder of this; a reminder, it appears, that this country sorely needs.

Tip-of-the-tongue-ism

Thanks to Michael at Musing's Musings, I now know that the word I was looking for in yesterday's post was "Panglossian". Here's what the Merriam-Webster has to say about that word:

Main Entry: Pan·gloss·ian
Pronunciation: pan-'glä-sE-&n, pa[ng]-, -'glo-
Function: adjective
Etymology: Pangloss, optimistic tutor in Voltaire's Candide (1759)
: marked by the view that all is for the best in this best of possible worlds : excessively optimistic

It's no wonder I couldn't remember it, I hadn't read Candide since high school. Yet as soon as I saw the title I remembered it like it was yesterday. (Well, maybe more like the day before yesterday, it was nearly 30 years ago...)

And for a hint at a possible reason why BushCo's outlook remains so panglossian check out this post from Joseph's blog, Corpus Callosum.

It's no wonder these guys can't stop grinning like the cat that ate the bird...

It's On the Tip of My Tongue...

What do you call someone who, despite all evidence to the contrary, continues to see things in only the rosiest of light? I know there's a word for that affliction...

While Bush remained on a monthlong vacation at his Texas ranch, he issued a statement saying, “I applaud the heroic efforts of Iraqi negotiators and appreciate their work to resolve remaining issues through continued negotiation and dialogue. Their efforts are a tribute to democracy and an example that difficult problems can be solved peacefully through debate, negotiation and compromise.”

If only I could remember that word!

Anyone out there got an idea?

"Scaling Back Expectations"

Why does BushCo. want our soldiers' sacrifices to be for nothing?

Eric Alterman at Altercation points out this on MSNBC's site (from the Washington Post):

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society where the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

"Never realistic..." haven't we read that somewhere before?

"Shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning." Really? An unreality that so many of us warned of at various times from the beginning right through to yesterday?

And all that stuff in the first paragraph; right after Weapons of Mass Distraction, wasn't all of that BushCo's primary excuse for starting this whole damned thing?

If the media - and more importantly - the American public lets these idiots get away with all of this: thousands of lives lost, the creation of more terrorists and billions in our money wasted, I swear my head is going to blow up. And then, finally, I'll be moving to Canada.

And then you red-state, republican-voting, bible-thumpin', intelligent-design-believing morons can all go screw yourselves.

Apple Season

It's actually still much too early here in upstate New York for any kind of apples. But I'm typing this on the sweetest looking Apple ever. If you haven't seen the new iMac you're in for a sweet treat:

That's the whole computer. All of it except the keyboard and mouse. It comes with built in wireless networking, Bluetooth and a CD and DVD burning Superdrive. Of course the entire suite of Apple's digital lifestyle programs comes with it as well: iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie HD, iDVD, GarageBand and lots of others. This means that, unlike most Windows machines, there's nothing else to buy to immediately begin creating amazing digital content. It's blazingly fast with a 2.0 GHz G5 processor and 1 GB of RAM. It was easy to set up and easy to work with and - like all Apples - beautifully designed.

The new operating system, OS X v10.4 is more beautiful than the machines it runs and makes Windows look and feel like an awkward kludge. It works. All the time, every time.

The combination is an absolute joy to work on.

Now I'll stop gloating.

Too Disgusted to Blog...

There's so much going on right now that disgusts me, worries me, angers me that I can't settle on a subject. So I thought I'd let someone else do the blogging for me. So here comes my first Liberal Coalition Blogabout in a long, long time...

Mustang Bobby at BBWW gets a little riled up over NARAL's ad taking probably future SCOTUS member John Roberts to task.

Over at Dohiyi Mir, NTodd's getting an early start on Friday Dog Blogging.

Liberty Street's Kathy decries the conditions in Baghdad - so bad that soon the entire professional class will have fled. To where is not clear, but who'll be running things when the last engineer heads for the hills?

Norbizness takes on Rumsfeld's September 11th March and Country Jamboree with his usual subtle and dry wit here.

Friday... Baby Blogging? Now Rivka at Respectful of Otters has gone too far, no?

And finally, Steve our resident Yellow Doggerel Democrat, tells it like it is about Cindy Sheehan's little camping adventure in Crawford, TX.

When you're done checking out these folks, doing the blogging so I don't have to, go through the rest of the blogs on the Liberal Coalition blogroll. You won't be disappointed. Honest.

Peter Jennings; Signing Off

Last night, succumbing to lung cancer, Peter Jennings died after a much too short fight.

You can read the details at ABC's site, but this was a guy who earned his news chops the hard way; despite an early appointment to the anchor desk. In the retrospective shown on ABC this morning, I recognized his reporting from all the major news events of my life. Most vividly, his was the calming voice and focused manner that I remember during the confusing and horrific days immediately after 9/11 in contrast to the shrill and sometimes ugly reporting at other networks.

It is a sad commentary on the times that the message boards at ABC are already being peppered with comments from people you just know were sent there by right-wing bloggers and followers of that "network which must not be named." They are repeating the lie of a liberal bias in the news while damning him for his idealism, his reporting and his Canadian background.

If you enjoyed his reporting or you care at all about common human decency, if you value the independent voices of the news networks, already mostly gone, leave your message of condolences to the ABC family and help to balance the shrill voices of the right.

Priorities

I wonder if the word even has any meanings for our Congress members. Given recent events, I'd have to say, "no."

A couple of days ago they put off deliberation on the Defense Authorization Bill so that they could give the NRA a pre-summer gift of legal immunity. And now this:

The leaders of a Congressional panel wrote to Major League Baseball yesterday to ask for a broad set of records related to Rafael Palmeiro's steroids suspension.

[snip]

...the Congressional committee wanted to determine whether Palmeiro might have committed perjury when he testified that he had never used steroids.

Nevermind that Bush and numerous other administration members lied to Congress, the public, the UN and the world about Iraq. Nevermind that those lies resulted in a war that has killed over 1,800 soldiers and uncounted thousands of Iraqis.

Nope. Pay all of that no mind.

We're talking important stuff here... You know; a grown man, playing a kids' game, for millions of dollars, who just might have taken steroids.

What's Another Thousand?

Twenty today, seven yesterday; the count is now about 1,815.

If you're like most Americans, which you're not because you're reading this, you might not know what those numbers above refer to. The few of us who are really paying attention know that the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq is too rapidly approaching 2,000.

As in wars past, those who die are predominantly young; for argument's sake let's say that these soldiers averaged 20 years old. When today's average 20 year-old can look forward to living to at least 85, that's 65 years gone in an instant. 130,000 combined years of experiences never to be known; love never found, adventures never had.

With so few people having a stake in what goes on in Iraq, especially those counseling us all to "stay the course," it's no wonder that the loss of those fine soldiers elicits so little reaction. Hundreds of hours of television and radio time were taken up this week discussing the small lies and the even smaller consequences of a baseball player who claims never to have "knowingly" taken steroids. The loss of 1,815 lives merits only a mention in the headlines.

"Bread and circuses," my friends... and our own Nero fiddles, blind to the flames around him.

Republican Priorities

This administration and its Republican supporters in Congress have always been about playing up their strong "support the troops" message and their chest thumping brand of national security. But their actions - as always - speak louder than words ever could their real intentions.

My post from yesterday ended with a leading question that plays into this same theme. Today, the Washington Post, via MSNBC, gives us another peek at Republicans real priorities. If the Iraq fiasco was, at least in part, a sop to BushCo's oil company supporters, then this story reveals even more of their toady obeisance to special interests.

The nation's gun lobby is close to realizing a long-sought goal of protecting firearms manufacturers and dealers from being held legally responsible for violent crimes committed with their handguns and automatic weapons.

Supporters believe they have the votes in the Senate to pass as early as today a bill making it virtually impossible for victims of gun violence to file civil suits against the industry -- a testimony to the political clout of gun manufacturers, which have become increasingly vulnerable to civil lawsuits in the District and several states.

What is more disturbing is that twelve Democrats, including the Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid are going along with the Republicans to support the legislation. Worst of all?

Democrats also criticized Frist for pulling a defense authorization bill from the floor this week to ensure that the gun bill would be considered before the summer recess, which is scheduled to begin this weekend.

That's right; the saber rattling, tough on defense, Iraq invading Rethugs are ignoring one of the most important pieces of business they have to give the equivalent of a legislative blow job to the gun industry.

No leading questions required today.

Terror Arrests

British police, working amid a public with stiff upper lips much in display, have made nine additional arrests related to the recent London bombings. Combined with the identification of the first set of bombers and other arrests, the total number of suspects arrested in less than a month far exceeds the total 9/11 arrests publicly known after nearly four years in the US.

Are the Brits just luckier? Or perhaps their terrorists were less fastidious than those in this country?

What the hell is going on? Why won't the American public hold BushCo accountable?

Alive and Kickin'

Those of you who continue to drop by my little corner of the blogosphere may be familiar with some of the - there's no other word for it - crap that's been going on in my life. It seems that, just maybe, things are starting to turn around.

I won't bore you now with all the details, if you're really interested you can search through the archives, but maybe, just maybe, I might return to more regular blogging. I haven't completely lost touch with the world and there are way too many things going on right now to really catch up on here. I will, however, likely write about several of them in the upcoming days and weeks; depending on how relevent they remain.

As I figure out the best way to get back into the blogging game, I urge you to check out the many fine bloggers linked to on the left sidebar; most especially the outstanding folks in the Liberal Coalition. In their fine blogs you'll get your fill of the continuing saga of Karl Rove, the Supreme Court, the fiasco in Iraq and all things relating to the disaster of an administration currently befouling the capitol of this otherwise wonderful country.

***

Finally, in the non-political world, I highly recommend that you go see the following movies if you haven't already: Star Wars Episode III, War of the Worlds and Batman Begins. For various and assorted reasons, they all blew me away.

Now It's Personal

As horrific as it's been to see the list of casualties from Afghanistan and Iraq growing day by day, I found out yesterday that it's worse when one of those names belongs to a friend.

Last week, Colonel Ted Westhusing became the most senior officer to be killed in Iraq. There are still no details about how Ted died - the Army is only saying that it was from non-combat related injuries, which could mean just about anything. I read about his death at Eric Alterman's Altercation (read through Maj. Bateman's letter from Iraq). When I got to Ted's name I froze.

Ted and I graduated in the same class at West Point: 1983. We spent many hours together; most of them studying for and in Russian Language courses over the four years. But there were also the times we spent "out in the field" during our summer exercises and the times we spent drinking beer and laughing.

When I read that my friend had died I could immediately see his face although we hadn't spoken since graduation.

Ted was a brilliant man. I read that during the intervening years he'd gotten a Masters in Russian, philosophy and military history. But he was also - and my memory is sharp on this - a very kind person. In the highly charged and competitive atmosphere at West Point, Ted was always ready to lend a hand, to help someone through a difficult lesson - whether the kind in a classroom or in life. And it was just that spirit that drove Ted to volunteer, from his rather comfortable position as an English professor at West Point, to help train Iraqis to help themselves. It is more a shame that such a life would be wasted on a misadventure such as this; one entirely avoidable and unneccessary.

His family and friends are not the only ones missing something from their lives now. The whole world is a poorer place without Ted Westhusing.

Job

Think either the Robert Heinlein novel or the book in the Old Testament.

Either way - he's got nothing on us.

Stuck in Low Gear

Have you been feeling a little stuck in a rut lately? A financial rut?

It's not surprising, really. Those of us making less than the top 10% of earners are having a harder and harder time making any headway, much less can the bottom 10% live up to the old American dream of class mobility.

In today's New York Times, Bob Herbert puts together many of the things I've thought about and read about over the past several years into a powerful opinion piece. There's no doubt that my wife and I are firmly ensconced in the middle class, but it seems that we can never get ahead - never get comfortable. Herbert lays it all out there; stagnant wages, a jobs market full of more fear than jobs and a plutocracy that's determined to take it all with them. Or at least leave it to their kids.

The privileged classes, with the Bush administration's iron cloak of protection, avoid their fair share of taxes, are reluctant to pay an honest dollar for an honest day's work (the federal minimum wage is still a scandalous $5.15 an hour), refuse to fight in their nation's wars, and laugh all the way to their yachts.

I'm not laughing. And many of our compatriots in that lower 90% are crying and those who are "fighting our nation's wars" are dying.

Bush in Rochester

Ho-hum.

Peddling lies about Social Security to a hand-picked audience.

No excitement here, move along.

Confluence

That's where two rivers or streams flow together. A confluence is often known for its turbidity and, according to chaos theory, the effects of two rivers flowing together can be orders of magnitude larger than you'd expect.

Two things in the news made me think of the above.

The first was North Korea's continued and - perhaps more serious - saber rattling. While the news was all abuzz about a missile test and large holes being dug, perhaps in preparation for an underground nuclear device test, there was little substance. There wasn't much "news" in the news. Nothing much was said about the missile being a short range variety that could only carry a relatively advanced (light-weight) nuclear weapon. And there were only scattered inferences that perhaps the North Koreans were only posturing with their big dig.

The second was this article about the Army and the Marines missing their recruiting goals for the third and fourth months in a row, respectively.

While worrisome on its own, the North Korea situation seems even more ominous in light of the military having trouble with keeping manpower levels up. Despite repeated assurances from BushCo. officials, it's generally accepted that the military is stretched mighty thin around the world and may not be able to handle another crisis (N. Korea) well.

Here's where chaos theory comes in. What happens at the confluence of these two events? Will Kim Jung Il be "emboldened" by our military's preoccupation and staffing problems? Will BushCo. use Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea as an excuse to finally implement a draft (limited or universal)? Will the military let itself be distracted by multiple missions and staffing problems and allow the situation in the Middle East to spiral out of control?

From our vantage point, just before entering the whirlpool at the confluence of these large-scale world events, it's difficult to say where we might end up. But the roar of the water is thundering, the spray is blinding, and I've sure got a bad feeling about this...

War on the Cheap - Part 378

Humvee armor, Halliburton food, KBR gasoline, too few soldiers. It's all a part of BushCo's attempt to do Iraq on the cheap. Now it's body armor.

The Marine Corps is recalling more than 5,000 combat vests issued to troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and Djibouti after a published report raised concerns that the vests failed a test to determine whether they could stop a bullet.

Things like this usually catch up with you. Unfortunately, it's the soldiers who are paying for BushCo's short-sighted attempt at a Wal-Mart War.

Alice in Fallujah-Land

Self defense.

Self defense? I'm speechless...

What the fuck?

The Italian Side of the Story

How sad, especially for me - I consider myself a real patriot - that upon hearing today that the US and Italians could not come to agreement over what happened during the rescue mission of Giuliana Sgrena I immediately sided with the Italians.

After years of being lied to about everything that goes on in Iraq, who could believe anything that BushCo says about it now?

The death of agent Nicola Calipari became a national tragedy in Italy. Sgrena became a heroine. The US won't even admit the possibility that our soldiers at that check point might have panicked. I don't buy into the conspiracy theories that say Sgrena's car was fired on because the US doesn't think that the Italians should have paid any kind of ransom for her. But it saddens me to think that I immediately discount any announcement from this administration.

How sad is that?

Friday... At Last

Is there anything better than to get to Friday knowing that you have nothing that has to be done over the weekend?

For one of the few times I can remember over the past year, there's nothing that I have to do this weekend. No where to go. Maybe we'll go out for dinner tomorrow. Perhaps we'll actually get to a movie.

Ahhh...

So what are you all doing this weekend?

Support the Goddamn Troops Already!

For all the yellow ribbons and stickers I see everywhere, it seems that Republicans - and BushCo., especially - still can't seem to grasp that "support" means more than just a bumper sticker.

Republicans seem to be more and more ignorant of history as time goes on. If they would only look to the examples set during World War II, they would find examples galore about what it really means to support our troops in combat. Far from retreating from their earlier entreaties to "keep shopping," BushCo. have continued to talk out of both sides of their mouths when it comes to getting the equipment our soldiers need to them. Despite congressional hearings and plenty of press - for as long as our press can pay attention to any one thing - about the need for more armored Humvees, soldiers are still dying in Iraq because of a lack of these sturdy vehicles.

Even the US Marine Corps has marines breaking ranks to complain about the lack of armored vehicles and what that has meant in terms of dead marines. The "brass" is not happy about this turn of events and some are paying the price - check out the details in this New York Times article. It seems that there is still only one, small, contractor up-armoring Humvees for the military. Imagine if the president were just to ask one of The Big-Three auto makers to produce armor kits for military vehicles. The press coverage alone would be worth a couple of points of market share for the winning contractor.

But like the rest of Bush's dirty little war, this is being run on the cheap - or at least being sold to the American people on the cheap. No sacrifices, no tax increases to pay for it, no pictures of the dead.

Dead that would still be alive but for a few pieces of armor.

Cornyn Bares Republicans' Fangs

John Cornyn (R - TX), perhaps intentionally, revealed the Republicans' real reason for wanting to "nuke" the nomination filibuster rule in the Senate. In an interview on NPR this afternoon, Cornyn said something to the effect that they wanted to get this "cleared up now" because there was a Supreme Court nomination "coming up."

Now, to my knowledge, there has been no definitive statement that any of the Supremes is stepping down and I'm pretty sure that Cornyn has no inside line to know which one of them might nod off permanently in the near future. But it's revealing that he would move so quickly to steer the discussion from BushCo's federal judge nominations to a seat on the Supreme Court.

Do democracy a favor. Call your Congress-critter, balance out the fundamentalist, right-wing whack-jobs that are doing the same. Tell them that then nuclear option is no option. Perhaps, just maybe, they'll do the right thing.

Mining a Previous Post

I was finally able to view the landmine video I mentioned in the last post.

Even knowing what was coming - in a general way - did not keep it from being shocking. It's not gory, but it is wrenching. And the tag line is a stroke of genius.

If there were landmines here, would you stand for them anywhere?

Visit StopLandMines.Org, watch the video and then tell someone about it.

Tell lots of people about it.

Two Minds About Mines

We all know that the mainstream media (MSM) are running scared from conservatives. They've been reduced to cowering, blithering idiots by the constant pounding of the "liberal media" meme. Hell, the media haven't been liberal since sometime in the 1980s.

Don't believe that? Go ahead, look up the real owners of your favorite network.

Their latest cowardly deed was this. Refusing to run a public service announcement about the threat of land mines. I haven't watched the video of the ad since my work computer won't let me download the latest Microsoft viewer and MSNBC doesn't support Macs. But the description in the accompanying article makes it clear that the ad was disturbing for good reason. The problem itself is disturbing and most people in the West are ignoring it.

As an ex-military officer, I have to say I'm of two minds about land mines. I know that leftover mines extract an horrible price from the civilian population after a war. But I also know the utility of mines whether placed by hand or scattered by bombs, artillery or rockets. They protect flanks and areas that are too nasty to cover with soldiers or that can't be observed directly. And if somebody has intent to do me or my soldiers harm, I want every tool in the arsenal to keep us safe.

There you have it. I'm of two minds when it comes to land mines. But I'm of one mind when it comes to wanting to do something to mitigate the effects; and cowardly network executives do nothing but piss me off.

The Power of Prayer

Considering the world's population, the portion of that population that's Catholic (estimated at around 6 billion) and the widespread knowledge of the former Pope's failing health, he must have been the most prayed-for person in all of history.

If you consider that there were probably millions, perhaps billions of non-Catholics praying for his recovery from the illness that eventually claimed his life, I would conservatively estimate that some 7 billion people prayed - at one time or another - for his health.

And yet... he's dead.

Think that changed anyone's mind?

Me neither.

The Readers' Digest Version

Before I begin, thank you to everyone who expressed their kind wishes via the comments or via e-mail. You can't begin to know how much they meant.

I have started this post many times over the past week or so. I've been trying to figure out how to tell the story of what's gone on for the past weeks and months and years that has brought me and my wife to near the point of exhaustion; physically and mentally. But rather than go through the whole story - and it would take several posts - I thought I'd give you the short version and let the details flesh themselves out in your minds.

So... how to do this...

A list:

An eating disorder. The longest-lasting problem. One that nearly killed my daughter. At least twice. She is doing wonderfully now. At times I "walk on egg-shells" fearing a relapse. But she is nearly her old, wonderful, silly, incredibly smart self.

Liver cancer. My father-in-law was diagnosed about a year and half ago. I posted about his decline and death just after Christmas.

Breast cancer. My mother was diagnosed last year. The resulting operation has left her with permanent lymph-edema. Fortunately, it seems that will be the worst of it.

Uterine Fibroid Cysts. My sister was diagnosed last year. She is currently undergoing a new procedure that seems to be working well. If only she were working as hard to take care of herself...

Breast cancer. Again. A wonderful friend at work was diagnosed last year and appears to - thankfully - be fully recovered.

Alcoholism. My mother-in-law has had a long-standing problem which her husband was lovingly and tragically enabling until the very end. This has nearly driven my wonderfully sensitive wife over the edge. Which has nearly done the same to me. This past weekend we were able to get her checked into a resident rehabilitation program. We're keeping our fingers crossed...

Work Problems. All of the above has, I think inevitably, caused me to have some problems doing my work well. Now I'm under extra scrutiny at work. I'm making my way through their archaic and somewhat punitive process pretty well. But of course, there are things in that list above that still weigh heavily on my head and my heart.

Hard to believe that's the short version, isn't it? But there you have it. The whole list of things that have occupied me over the past couple of years and in the past several months have occupied me to the point of distraction. I'm glad that there are still those of you out there that come by to read what little I can get posted. I hope, perhaps soon, that things will begin to settle down and I can get back to a more normal life.

Perhaps soon.

Thank you again for all your kind wishes. I'm still here, still interested in all the things that go on in our wonderful, horrible world. I'm just a little distracted.

Just When You Think it Can't Get Any Worse

It does.

Never, ever, ever say "it can't get any worse." Never.

The universe has a very wicked sense of humor; as soon as you say something like that the feces will impact the air motivating device in a totally unexpected way.

Take my word for it.

Tie a Green Ribbon Around...

Tie one around just about anything. If you're tired of the mindless "support the troops" yellow ribbons, maybe this campaign will be more to your liking.

The Wilderness Society, in an effort to remind people about the plight of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), have started the Green Ribbon Campaign. Tell Congress and the public that you support keeping ANWR pristine and a true Refuge by sporting a green ribbon.

Check out the campaign's web site here.

Give them a little support. Save ANWR for your children or grandchildren or somebody else's children. Help keep BushCo.'s and the oil companies' greedy mitts off of ANWR.

Peace Denied

I've not blogged about the Terri Schiavo case in the past. Others have done so much more eloquently than I ever could. But today, as she is finally allowed her wish to die with a little dignity - whatever dignity might remain after being used as a political and religious football for a decade - I thought it appropriate to weigh in. Briefly.

This case touches on two things very important to me, and I think to many people: dignity in death and the autonomy of an adult. Terri was no child when she collapsed and died in all but body. Not only was she fully an adult, but she had entered into an adult "contract" called marriage. In such a case only Terri's wishes and her husband's matter. The apron strings had been completely severed. They could offer their sympathy and their help - and surely they could make their wishes known to her husband - but that's it.

As for the dignity aspect, while it may be too late to restore the dignity she lost during the many circuses cum court battles in the interim, she and her husband, Michael surely showed more dignity and quiet strength - each in their own way - than all the politicians and so-called religious leaders who interfered. Republicans' attempts to subpoena the brain-dead woman herself this week were particularly reprehensible.

But enough of that - it's all been said before.

Rest in peace, Terri; in the peace you could not find at the end of your short life.

R.I.P. A.N.W.R.?

The optimist in me thinks it's too early to mourn the demise of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The realist in me - who knows the power Republicans hold to ramrod legislation through Congress - is starting to come to grips with the fact that the time to mourn may not be too far off.

Perhaps it's just a matter of something so simple as a definition; perhaps Republicans, who despise public education and disdain anything that smacks of intellectualism, are ignorant of the definition of "refuge." Maybe this will help:

1. An area set aside for the purpose of conserving species and their habitat.

2. A place that offers protection or shelter. (This from the Fish & Wildlife Service)

More likely, this is just another Republican sop to their sugar-daddies in the oil industry. The paltry amount of oil available in ANWR (6 billion barrels - or less than 21 months at January's consumption rate), and the amount of time it would take to get commercial quantities flowing (I've seen estimates from 2 years to 10 years) can in no way compensate for the amount of damage this pristine wilderness area will suffer.

In other words, like much else that Republicans have done or would like to do, they are doing this because they can, for spite, for plain meanness.

Farewell, Scooter...

If you've never read Scooter's Freakin' Wicked Weblog, you've missed some great writing - along with a heaping helping of wicked sharp humor. And now, it's too late. Scooter's shutting down his blog for good.

Before it disappears forever and before he stops reading his comments, go tell him goodbye.

The blogosphere is a bit poorer now.

Who's Arming Terrorists Now?

Just when you think that you expect only the worst from BushCo., they do something that makes you think that perhaps, before, they were just pikers. Even after more than four years of hypocrisy, this still amazes me. Sort of.

More than 40 terror suspects were able to buy firearms in the United States last year because background checks showed they had no felony convictions and weren't illegal immigrants, according to a government report released Tuesday.

Okay, you're thinking, just close the loophole and keep these nutjobs from buying a gun, right? If it were anyone but this administration, you'd probably be correct. But for the Bushies, who's a more powerful lobbying group than even the anti-choice folks? C'mon, I know you know the answer to that one...

FBI Director Robert Mueller told a House subcommittee Tuesday that perhaps the law could be altered.

[snip]

But the National Rifle Association says the law is protecting Americans from terrorists while allowing citizens the freedom to own guns. Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's chief executive, said under current law, if the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System gets a hit that someone applying for a gun permit is on a terror watch list, the government official who put that person on the list - along with other counterterrorism personnel - is notified.

All of you out there who guessed the NRA before reading the above, raise your hands... yeah... I thought so.

Honestly, I give up. There is no low these guys won't stoop to.

You Want the Truth?!?

Seems MSNBC thinks we "can't handle the truth..."

The last link in my post below now goes to the MSNBC "we can't find that link" page. It was a story about how the Afghans are faced with growing violence from resurgent warlords and how Afghanistan now provides something on the order of 80% of the worlds opium. Which is exactly, I'm sure, what BushCo. had in mind.

But then again... they've got religion pushing it's way more and more into the public sphere and if religion is the opiate of the masses, why not push the real thing as well?

I wasn't able to find that article anywhere on MSNBC's site.

Thanks to CmdrSue for pointing out that the link was broken. Thanks to MSNBC for pointing out that we're just not ready for the truth.

One Thousand Five Hundred

With barely a notice from the White House the continuing misadventure in Iraq has passed yet another grim milestone. The deaths of three American soldiers on Thursday, pushed the total deaths over 1,500.

With no end in sight.

Remember all of the big events that were supposed to presage a decrease in violence and deaths? Remember how they've all gone by with no decrease - in fact - remember how they've all gone by accompanied by only an increase in violence? You remember if you've kept track of it yourself; you certainly won't remember if you're depending on either the White House, Department of Defense or the mainstream media to keep you up-to-date. According to them, everything's just fine.

Oh, and if you thought the deafening silence about Afghanistan means everything is going great there, well... not so much.

Pot, Meet Kettle...

It's official - if it were ever true, it is no longer - irony is not dead.

The State Department on Monday detailed an array of human rights abuses last year by the Iraqi government, including torture, rape and illegal detentions by police officers and functionaries of the interim administration that took power in June.

In the Bush administration's bluntest description of human rights transgressions by the American-supported government, the report said the Iraqis "generally respected human rights, but serious problems remained" as the government and American-led foreign forces fought a violent insurgency. It cited "reports of arbitrary deprivation of life, torture, impunity, poor prison conditions - particularly in pretrial detention facilities - and arbitrary arrest and detention."

If this were any administration but the second coming of BushCo., nobody would have the gonads to release this report. For our friends at State, now lead by Miss Dominatrix Rice, it's just another bogus report.

Seems that the press' description of Condi's attire in Germany as "Matrix-like" were spot on. Either she's living in a computer generated world where reality is whatever they say it is or the rest of us are.

Either way, it scares the hell out of me.

They Just Look Better Than Hobnails

This week the press was all atwitter over Condi's so-called "Matrix-style" dress in Germany. Her black, cassock style long coat, over a black dress and nearly knee-high black stiletto-heeled boots gave her the look of a demure dominatrix. I can only imagine the drooling of right-wing journalists and bloggers feverishly typing with one hand...

I thought it rather ironic that Condi chose Germany to strut her sartorial stuff. To me her outfit looked more military than sexy; with the high, closed collar and the multiple buttons and loops. There is very little feminine about our new Secretary of State and her stride is not among those few traits. She marched out in her boots with a purposeful, domineering step. If you listened closely, you could almost hear the sharp crack of hobnails on cobble.

Can there be any doubt that somewhere in the right side of the blogosphere somebody put together - in the most horrible of juxtapositions - Condi and "fuck-me-shoes?" Knowing her slavish devotion to her "husband," W and his disdain for the rest of the world (and most of their own country) they should more accurately be called "fuck you" shoes.

Slick

After one of the largest fuel oil spills in recent history in Alaska, comes word that oil lobbyists and their paid-for friends in Congress just haven't learned their lesson. From the Wilderness Society comes word that the oil cabal are going to attach authorization to drill in ANWR to the federal budget bill:

Right now, the oil industry's allies in Congress are plotting a sneak attack on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In the next two weeks, oil industry allies in the House and Senate will try a backdoor trick to pass the controversial proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic Refuge by inserting it into the federal budget bill.

The Wilderness Society needs your help to stop this sneaky maneuver and save the Arctic Refuge! Click here send a free message to your members of Congress urging them to do everything they can to stop drilling in the Arctic!

The more noise we can make, the better our chances of thwarting the sneak attack and saving the Arctic Refuge from oil drilling will be.

Click through the link above to give the Wilderness Society a hand.

Bush Blows Off Northern Nukes

While to most realists the news that North Korea has nuclear weapons was no surprise, even less of a surprise was the Bush Administration reaction:

"Nukes, huh? 'Magine that... Did you see Condi in Europe?"

If imaginary nukes could trigger a real war, why can't real nukes trigger an imaginary war? Can anyone really accuse BushCo. of being consistent on any issue? Why start now?

Of course the fact that Kim's secretive country is entirely capable and sociopathic enough to actually launch a nuclear weapon just to make a point seems to have had little effect on Bush's plans. Or lack thereof.

Meanwhile, administration flunkies continue to make scary faces at Iran.

I'm glad 51% of us feel safer with this loose cannon in the White House. Me? I think I'll start digging a small shelter in my back yard...

"Reports of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated"

For my readers who get my RSS feed, or for those that continue to drop by on occasion, I just wanted to let you know that I'm still here.

Family crises and work continue to conspire to keep my free time to a minimum and while I do check in on most of my favorite bloggers from time to time - thanks to Thunderbird's built-in RSS reader - I've had precious little time to keep up with the news to the extent needed to do justice to my own blog. Hopefully I'll find the time and the energy to devote to The Fulcrum; in the past this effort has not only kept me informed and energized, but it has helped me to feel less isolated from other liberals and progressives. And, in truth, many of you had started to feel more like friends than just blog acquaintances.

So it's in that light that I take the time tonight - and I promise to take time where I can - to let everyone know that "Charles2" has not disappeared.

As usual, Mark Twain said it best...