Glenn Hauman: View From Above

I officially take back every mocking thought I’ve ever had about the SCA.:

–“orangemike” reports:

I’ve just gotten news on HordeNet that there are relief convoys of members of the Society for Creative Anachronism from all over driving into the South to do what they can; and looks like as well organized as the FEMA seems to be right now. Guess all that time recreating the Middle Ages may come to some good use after all!

Say what you will about the SCA, but they do know something about dealing with large events that take place in a sea of mud.

(Via Making Light.)

If you want to help them out, go here.

CNN anchors break down:

I’m watching Anderson Cooper lose it right now. He just went bananas on Mary L. Landrieu, the Senator from Louisiana – she was talking a lot of wishy-washy policy and Andy just totally faced her by telling a story about watching rats eating a woman’s corpse in the middle of the street. And Anderson’s not even in New Orleans, but in Waveland, a ravaged area of Mississippi. After returning from commercial break, he had to take a second on camera to compose himself, and then choked back tears throughout a long interview with a couple who had just found their baby after being forced to leave her in a hospital four days before. “Reporters are suppossed to remain distanced,” Cooper said. “There’s just no distance in Waveland anymore.” In general, it seems like the anchors on CNN are starting to get not only emotional, but angry. Earlier today, both Kyra Phillips and Aaron Brown were openly, aggressively critiquing the Bush administration’s handling of the situation. It always feels good to see anchors break out of their shells in times of crisis, and admit to being real human beings with passions and opinions. This kind of anger on CNN is almost as shocking as the images that are spawning it.

(Via TV Squad.)

New Orleans Died for Bush’s Sins:

No, this is the time for politics, none better, because I can tell you just from being out of NY a few days that a lot of people in this country are shocked and sobered by New Orleans, but they’re also worried and pissed off. They’re making the connection between the money, manpower, and resources expended in Iraq and how raggedy-ass the rescue effort has been in the Gulf. If you don’t say it now when people’s nerves are raw and they’re paying full attention, it’ll be too late once the waters receded and the media-emoting “healing process” begins.

[…]

Look at 9/11. There were tough questions about the breakdown of communications at Ground Zero, the lateness in scrambling fighter jets once the hijacked planes were heading toward NY and DC, Bush’s strange behavior on that day, etc., and in the aftermath those questions were considered inappropriate, “divisive.” We needed to grieve first, heal; and then the tough questions could be raised.

But they weren’t. As months passed, the focus was on overthrowing the Taliban and avenging 9/11, and tough questions were taken off the table as the drumbeat was about the Nation Moving Forward. The media fell into zombie lockstep behind the invigorated Bush agenda. It took the 9/11 widows and esp the “Jersey Girls” to push and shame the Congress, the media, and the administration into launching a proper investigation, otherwise it would have all slid into the memory hole apart from the iconic images of the smoking towers before their collapse.

(Via James Wolcott.)

If you want really angry people, here are some of the people still in New Orleans. In the richest country in the world, this is disgraceful. (Via Oliver Willis.)

And one final quote, but this one’s from a while back:

“I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” — Grover Norquist

Congratulations, Grover. You’ve starved government to the size where you’ve facilitated thousands of drownings.

Or rather, let John Rogers (writer of The Core, Exec Producer of Global Frequency, and noted fan of Jon Sable Freelance) double it for you:

John Rogers, the Kung Fu Monkey has volunteered to match donations to the Red Cross for hurricane/flood relief:

I will continue the tradition of personally matching your donations done through the Paypal button (with all due respect, linking to a bunch of charities is one thing. We put our damn money where our mouth is here.)

Money slammed through the Kung Fu Monkey hut will be doubled.

And if you disagree with crazy liberal Bush haters, here’s your chance to try and bankrupt one of them. (No, not me, him.)

A few folks have asked that question in comments and emails. Why are you so angry about this?

Here’s why.

A row of school buses sits in floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005 east of New Orleans. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

68, count them, 68 school buses. Under water. Unused.

By a rough guess, that’s four thousand people that could have gotten out of the city.

Four thousand people.

For something that people saw coming.

This, in microcosm, is the story of the tragedy.

And instead, we get crap like this:

The Lickspittle Sycophant Responds:

As a bedtime gift for you, the angry and stupid left:

The absence of large portions of the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama National Guards is dismissed as unimportant, because after all, 3,500 guards are available in LA, 1600 in MS, and 750 in ALthose numbers are perfectly sufficient! Or maybe not. Oh, and what about their equipment, trucks, helicopters, halftracks, and etc?

But even more, Trevino states “Show me, please, that the funds were diverted specifically for the war; and that they would have averted the present disaster.”…

So, Trevino, Cole, Erick, and the rest of you shameless, heartless, blind idiots, here’s the data

So, Trevino, Cole, Erick, and other lickspittle, lapdog, sycophantic propagandiststhem’s the facts.

A city is destroyed, and in large part this disaster was eminently preventablebut the money, planning, coordination, and people necessary to accomplish that prevention and mitigation were diverted from already identified urgent needs and projects and sunk into the bloody sands of the Iraqi desert and siphoned into the bulging pockets of your campaign contributors and rich beneficiaries of your stupid tax cuts.

Happy now?

I am sure the other ‘lickspittle, lapdog, sycophantic propagandists’ will respond tomorrow to the ‘facts’ as outlined by this impenetrable fool, but just so you haven’t missed the premise, I will restate it for you:

“Bush is to blame for the levee breaking because if just a few more million had been spent the Category 4-5 hurricane would have been stopped in its tracks by a decades old levee project designed at best to stop Category 3 hurricanes.”

And there you have the angry left in all their incomprehensible glory.

Incomprehensible?

New Orleans is gone. It will cost 30 billion dollars to repair, if it can be repaired at all. (Personally, I’m not sanguine about that. With all the toxic gumbo now floating around down there, between gasoline, sewage, corpses and disease carrying bugs, it ain’t likely.)

And that’s not counting the loss of revenue and impact on the economy that the city represented. Let’s Fermi it out: 1.3 million people, average income $10K each (yes, it’s low) and that’s a billion dollars gone in annual federal income tax alone.

From there, it gets worse. The Port of New Orleans was the fifth largest port in the world, by tonnage.

Gas shortages are already showing up in the Carolinas. Atlanta is reporting $5/gallon (that was quick). Ten additional airports may have to close because there’s no fuel for the planes– Lisa, if you’re reading this, head for the airport NOW.

And that’s this week. Next month, we’re really going to be in trouble. The largest port in the western hemisphere is closed for import/export business for the foreseeable future. Nothing comes in country, nothing goes out. 20 states lose their Mississippi River shipping access. Minneapolis, Davenport, St. Louis, Memphis, Baton Rouge, Pittsburgh, Omaha, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Wheeling, and Louisville, all lose water access– unless they want to go up through the Great Lakes. Harvests will have no way to get out. Goods will have no way to get in. Oh hell, read more here.

This was predictable. And it was.

This was preventable. And it wasn’t.

20 million dollars to shore up the levees seems cheap now, doesn’t it? And that was slightly more than half of the tax cut Bill Gates received in 2003. But no, Bush felt Bill needed the money, as well as everybody else who benefitted from his ridiculous tax cuts. And then he set us to war in Iraq, costing nearly 200 Billion and counting, not to mention thousands of National Guardsmen who could have been used to, oh, I don’t know, drive school buses to get people out of town.

To have one 9/11 sized disaster on your watch, well, you can say you weren’t ready. But two looks like you just don’t give a damn.

You didn’t plan for this, Bush? Are you that dense? Are you surrounded by that many fools?

Do you comprehend why we’re angry? Hell, why aren’t you?

What is the next big thing that Bush and/or his administration is going to fail to see coming?

He failed to prepare for 9/11. He failed to prepare for the Iraq insurgency. He failed to prepare for Hurricane Katrina. He failed to prepare for gas prices going up, unemployment staying high, the recession and slow recovery of the last few years, and global warming. He certainly didn’t expect Cindy Sheehan, and he certainly didn’t prepare for what to do if his poll numbers tanked as badly as they did. Heck, this is the guy famous for trading away Sammy Sosa.

So what’s next?

Avian flu? Indictments from Plamegate hitting unexpected people and places? Oil cutoff from Venezuela? Dollar cratering? Mad cow disease in Montana? Housing bubble popping? Somebody involved in the 2004 election turning state’s evidence? Sabotage of US refineries? Earthquake in California?

What’s the next thing Bush skipped over so he could clear brush and strum guitar that will come back to bite him on the ass?

Leave your ideas in comments. First one to happen gets– well, I’ll come up with something.

With all the prattle on Intelligent Design, Creationism and the like, if you’re just getting more and more depressed from reading the stuff coming from PZ Myers and Daniel Dennett and thinking that maybe Darwin got it wrong, at least in the case of the proponents of these cock and bull fables, it seems time for a bit of Fry and Laurie:

Stephen, a headmaster, is sitting behind a desk. Hugh enters with Michael, a small boy.

Stephen: Ah good morning Michael, good morning
Mr Smear.

Hugh: Yes, we’ll dispense with the good mornings if you
don’t mind. I haven’t got time for good mornings.

Stephen: As you wish. You wanted to discuss something, I
believe?

Hugh: I think you know why I’m here.

Stephen: I don’t think I do.

Hugh: (To Michael) Tell him.

Michael looks embarrassed.

Stephen: Tell me what?

Hugh: Tell him what you told your mother last night.

Michael: Sexual intercourse can often bring about
pregnancy in the adult female.

Stephen: Yes?

Hugh: You heard that, did you?

Stephen: Yes?

Hugh: Well I’d like an explanation, if it’s not too much
trouble.

Stephen: An explanation of what?

Hugh: An explanation of how my son came to be using
language like that in front of his mother.

Stephen: Well I imagine that this is something that Michael
learnt in his biology class, isn’t that right?

Michael: Yes, sir.

Stephen: Yes I thought so. With Mr Hent. Glad to see
some of it’s sinking in, Michael.

Michael: Thank you sir.

Hugh: Well I must say this is a turn-up and no mistake.

Stephen: What is?

Hugh: I didn’t imagine that you’d be quite so barefaced
about it.

Stephen: About what?

Hugh: I came here today to make a complaint about
my son being exposed to gutter language in the
playground. I am frankly staggered to find that this
is something that he’s actually been taught in a
classroom. I mean what is going on here?

Stephen: We’re trying to teach your son …

Hugh: Oh are you? Are you indeed?

Stephen: Yes.

Hugh: What? How to embarrass his parents? How to
smack himself with heroin?

Stephen: I assure you Mr Smear, we have no intention …

Hugh: Call yourself a school?

Stephen: I don’t actually call myself a school, no.

Hugh: You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Filling a
young lad’s head with filth like that. Well let me
tell you something. About the real world. You’re
here to provide a service.

Stephen: Quite right.

Hugh: Quite right, yes, well I’m not happy with it. I’m
not happy with the service you’re providing.

Stephen: Would you rather that Michael didn’t attend the
biology course?

Hugh: Certainly I would, if those are the kind of lies I
can expect to hear repeated at the dinner table.

Stephen: They’re not lies, Mr Smear.

Hugh: Oh aren’t they? Pregnancy is brought about by
sexual intercourse?

Stephen: Yes?

Hugh: Oh Lord save us. So you agree with that?

Stephen: Of course. It’s true.

Hugh: True my arse. It’s nothing more than a disgusting
rumour put about by trendy young people in
the sixties.

Stephen: Trendy young people in their sixties?

Hugh: The sixties. In the sixties. That’s when it all started.
People like you.

Stephen: Mr Smear, sexual reproduction has been part of
the biology syllabus for many years.

Hugh: I don’t care about your blasted syllabus. What
good is a blasted syllabus out there?

Stephen: Out where?

Hugh: There!

Stephen: The Arkwright Road?

Hugh: Arkwright Jungle, I call it.

Stephen: Well, what would you rather we taught your son,
Mr Smear?

Hugh: I would rather … I would rather you taught him
values, Mr …

Stephen: Casilingua.

Hugh: Casilingua. Values. Respect. Standards. That’s
what you’re here for. You’re not here to poison my
son with a lot of randy sextalk.

Stephen: So Michael is definitely your son, is he, Mr
Smear?

Hugh: Certainly he’s my son.

Stephen: Then it’s safe to assume that at some stage you
and your wife have had sexual intercourse?

Hugh: (Pause) Right. (Hugh starts to take off his jacket)
That’s it. I’m going to knock some sense into
you myself.

Stephen: You’re going to fight me now, are you?

Hugh: Yes I bloody well am. I’m not going to stand
for this.

Stephen: Do you mind if I do? (Rises to his feet)

Hugh: Talking like that in front of the boy. You’re a
bloody disgrace.

Stephen: Mr Smear, let me ask you this. How could
Michael be your son, if you haven’t had sexual
intercourse?

Hugh: Michael …

Stephen: Yes?

Hugh: Michael is my son in the normal way.

Stephen: In the normal way?

Hugh: Yes.

Stephen: And what is the normal way to have a son, in your
opinion?

Hugh: If you’re trying to trick me into sexy talk …

Stephen: I’m not.

Hugh: The normal way to have a son is … to get
married.

Stephen: Yes?

Hugh: Buy a house and get properly settled in.

Stephen: Yes.

Hugh: Furniture and so on, and then … wait for a bit.

Stephen: Ah.

Hugh: Make sure you eat properly. Three hot meals a
day.

Stephen: So Michael just sort of turned up, did he?

Hugh: Er … well of course it’s a few years ago now, but
yes I think one day he was just there.

Stephen: And you and your wife have never enjoyed sexual
intimacy of any kind?

Hugh: Yes, it’s very hard for you to believe isn’t it, that
there are still some people left who can bring a
son into this world without recourse to cannabis
and government handouts?

Stephen: Well, I really don’t know what to say.

Hugh: I bet you don’t: It’s not every day a consumer
stands up to you and makes demands is it?

Stephen: Not of this nature, no.

Hugh: Yes, well. Welcome to the harsh realities of the
market-place, Mr Casilingua.

Stephen: OK. Well, what would you like me to do?

Hugh: It’s obvious isn’t it? If I go into Littlewoods and
tell them I’m not satisfied with a cardigan, say,
they’ll change it for me. And gladly.

Stephen: You want another son?

Hugh: Certainly I do. Mine is soiled now.

Stephen: Well I’m afraid we haven’t got any spare sons
here, just at the moment.

Hugh: Well what have you got of equal value?

Stephen: Um – there are some locusts in the biology lab.

Hugh: Locusts, hmm. Do I have your assurance that one
of these locusts will not embarrass Mrs Smear at
table with foul language?

Stephen: I think I can go that far.

Hugh: Well that’s something. How many of them
are there?

Stephen: Two … at the moment.

Hugh: What d’you mean, “at the moment”?

Stephen: Well, it’s just that these locusts are married,
they’ve bought the cage, and some furniture, and
they’re having three meals a day.

Hugh: Hot meals?

Stephen: Warmish.

Hugh: So Mrs Smear might be a grandmother one day?

Stephen: Very possibly.

Hugh: (Pleased) She’d like that.

PZ’s right, by the way. If we start throwing sex education into the coverage mix, we’ll really have the anti-science people pissed off. Sounds good to me.

This is how Dubya spent his day:

President Bush plays a guitar presented to him by Country Singer Mark Wills, right, backstage following his visit to Naval Base Coronado, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Bush visited the base to deliver remarks on V-J Commemoration Day. (AP Photo/ABC News, Martha Raddatz)

(Via AmericaBlog.)

Nero fiddled while Rome burned. George strummed while New Orleans drowned.

Un-fricking-believable.

Five weeks of vacation, and he doesn’t interrupt it until three days after the storm hits. And it’s not like there wasn’t warning in advance to get things set up.

But hey– save $20 million in not funding preparations, pay $20 BILLION in repairs after the fact. Who could have foreseen it? Planning for things going wrong is just so uncool. Now watch me play this lick.

…that some yo-yo is going to claim that George W. Bush couldn’t come back to Washington immediately to deal with the mess of Katrina because Cindy Sheehan kept him cornered inside his ranch?

(Yes, another nutcase who thinks he’s Jesus with a bunch of people inside with automatic weapons pinned down in a compound outside Waco, feeling persecuted by the Clinton administration. Really, what are the odds? Must be something in the educational system in Texas or something.)

WayLay:

Darwin or lose.

(Via Salon.)

Protesters on both sides of Iraq war follow Bush – Yahoo! News:

By Jeremy Pelofsky Mon Aug 29,10:18 PM ET

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, California (Reuters) –
President George W. Bush was greeted by Iraq war supporters and protesters on Monday as he interrupted his Texas vacation to promote a new Medicare prescription drug program.

Hundreds of demonstrators for and against the Iraq war staged protests near Rancho Cucamonga, California, where Bush wove comments on Iraq into a Medicare speech to a group of senior citizens.

Okay. Worst storm to hit America in a decade, possibly a generation. Huge loss of life. Economic impact in the billions. A major city that could be underwater by the end of the day. And Bush decides to take time out and talk about Medicare?