September 2005 Archives

From The Onion.

Laugh out loud hilarious.

Some guy just set a new Guinness world record for T.V. watching after watching television for 69 hours and 48 minutes.

All I have to say is, THAT'S IT? Are you kidding me? Had I any idea whatsoever that acheiving a world record was so easy, I would have done it a long time ago. That's not even three straight days. Hell, I could do that with my eyes clo..... well, you know what I mean.

Hell, all I'd need is an Alias marathon, all four seasons strung together back to back, and I could watch TV for 88 hours without even blinking.

But really, I don't need that. As my wife can attest, plop me down in front of this glorious beast, and I can watch anything for 72 hours, easy.

My prediction: that this was a world record capable of achieving came as a surprise to many people. This record will be broken before the year is out. (And I can't promise it won't be me.)

General Honore is my hero.

I got myself one of these.

Can't stop looking at it.

Ergo, no blogging.

Sorry.

I mean, come on. The O.C. in high definition? Please. Can you blame me?

No, you can not.

I love the new "Bush doesn't care about black people" t-shirt. An instant classic! I think that is one of those things that will be taken up by both sides.

For example, when I was a wee freshman in college in 1987, I had a poster of a map of the world on my wall entitled "The World According to Ronald Reagan." To give you a flavor for the map, my favorite part was a designation for a group of islands in the New Zealand neighborhood that said, "Palestinian Homeland.")

I had it hanging because I thought it was hilarious in its absurdity. I don't think I realized that I was mocking people who actually believed in it until I saw it hanging in the dorm room of a flaming liberal lefty Geraldine Ferraro wannabe. (She was the perfect caricature of her type - she decried elitism while living in the "honors" dorm. Cute, though. But I digress.)

So too, I think, will W supporters and Air America denizens alike be sporting this t-shirt.

Hat tip: Jonah.

From the Washington Post:

In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large.

Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon.

Read the whole thing.

Just try to wrap your brain around these two paragraphs:

Milling about the Reliant entrance, Sheila Nathan, 38, told her teary-eyed toddler that she was too tired to hold him.

"I'm trying to make it a fairy tale so they won't panic," said Nathan, who had four grandchildren in tow. "I have to be strong for them."

Mind-boggling, no? They come from an otherwise great story of perseverence and self-reliance in the face of official ineptitude.

You may have heard that the first refugees to arrive at the Astrodome were aboard a comandeered school bus. It's a true story.

Jonah Goldberg just posted an e-mail that I sent to him regarding an earlier post.

Here's my e-mail to Jonah.

Jonah -

I can't believe that you posted your "Navy Commander" reader's
comments without comment. A few of his assertions defy commonsense.

"Yes, things went wrong but, believe it or not, many more things
went right. "

What things? What single thing on a local level went right? The
decision to evacuate the city? It was a day late. The ability to
evacuate those who had no means to do so themselves? No existent.
The ability to maintain control of looting? Nope.

"The First Responders moved in and did their job."

They did? By what measure? What discernible effect did the job of
the first responders (I assume he means the local authorities) have on
the current situation? For instance, would it be safe right now to
drop in food and water to the convention center, with no stabilizing
federal force pre-positioned to control the crowd? If not why not?
And whose fault would that be?

The fact is that the the scene on the ground is a total and
complete failure of the local and state authorities having any
foresight and ability to protect and defend their own constituents.
The fact that the federal government has been caught flat-footed by
the local authorities complete inability to maintain any kind of
order is not that surprising. I don't think anybody could have
anticipated the utter chaos the local authorities are not only
complicit in, but completely responsible for. The failure here is on
a local level, plain and simple. Simply put, it is not unreasonable
for the federal goverment to expect the locals to hold down the fort
for a few days until the cavalry can arrive.

And of course the federal cavalry will arrive. And of course, I
and all my friends in all 50 states will be paying for the bail out
and the clean up and the rebuilding. Something that could have been
prevented if the local planners in a city built several feet below
sea level had had the incredible forsight required to prevent or at
the very least prepare for the aftermath of a massive flood. Gosh,
who could possibly have foretold the possibility of a hurricane that
causes massive flooding in N.O.? I mean, what are the chances?

I was responding to this.

Captain Ed has the transcript of a great exchange with President Clinton explaining why the complainers (outside of New Orleans) need to shut the hell up.

“They don't have a clue what's going on down there,” Mayor Ray Nagin told WWL-AM Thursday night. "Excuse my French everybody in America but I am pissed.”

You know, Mr. Mayor, it's your damn city. It's built on ground several feet below sea level. It is riddled with levees, but not one of them is redundent, and not one of them is built to withstand a category 4 hurricane. Whose fault is that?

What the hell kind of civic planning is that? Why in the hell would a city on the Gulf of Mexico, whose very life depends on the levees that hold back the river, Lake P., and ultimately, the Gulf, not build levees that can handle a Category 4 hurricane? Why the hell wouldn't they be prepared for a Category 5 hurricane?

What's the civic planning there? Just a wing and a prayer? If you aren't going to at least build levees capable of withstanding the worst hurricane possible, wouldn't you at least build a couple of redundent levees in some of the more critical spots. No? Why not?

And if you are going to take these basic - very elementary steps -- how can you not be prepared for the aftermath when the inevitable happens? How can the city itself not have some contingency plans in place for this occurrence? Where's the civic planning?

Everyone is talking about the national guard, etc. not having enough pre-positioned supplies and provisions. Well where the hell is the city's pre-positioned provisions? If they city won't provide sufficient protection from the inevitable, the least it could do is be somewhat prepared for the aftermath.

Forgive me, Mr. Mayor, but you and your entire infrastructure are completely incompetent to run a major American city. That the City of New Orleans was caught completely off guard by this tragedy, so much so that you couldn't even hold the place together for at least a couple of days before the feds could come in for relief,is unforgivable. What you did, or failed to do, by your inept planning and forsight is what has caused this human tragedy. It's not the federal government's fault, no matter how much you'd like to pin the blame on them.

The people who are suffering in New Orleans don't deserve what's happening to them. It's a tragedy on a scale that this country never imagined would happen within its own borders. And it will be your legacy, Mr. Mayor. Not the federal government's, and not George Bush's.