Good News / Bad News Friday Roundup

I'm going to try something new on Fridays (at least this Friday): compiling links with minimal commentary to stories of all types, adding to the list during the day (I hope), keeping it at the top of the pile, and categorizing each as "good news" or "bad news". Yeah, I know the world is grayscale. Today it's not. It's my blog.

GOOD NEWS
Air (Hate)-America Continues to Tank - Blue State Conservative notes AA's loss of the nation's 6th largest market (Philadelphia) where it was attempting to make inroads on a station with African-American programming.
Terrorist-Sympathy Museum Removed from NYC WTC 9-11 Memorial Plan - Blackfive has the story. The dead are resting easier tonight.
Democrats Split Over Roberts - The Wall Street Journal (subcription) today notes that virtually all of the Democratic Senators facing re-election next year, those in red states, plus a few others voted to confirm John Roberts. 'Advise and consent' is starting to look like pontificate and flee.
Democrats Demoralized - Vodkapundit notes a piece by Howard Fineman in Newsweek, in which the latter remarks: "...in a roomful of well-connected Democrats the other night, I was struck by how gloomy they [Democratic leaders] were. They... didn’t have much faith in their own party’s prospects." I wonder why. One could argue (as Vodkapundit does, and I have) that having a party this weak only makes the other party sloppy and stupid. True. But what may be best for the Democrats and the country longer term is for the current crop of ideologues to be Daschled on the rocks of the next two elections to make way for the Trumans, JFKs and Daniel Patrick Moynihans of the next generation.
Iraq and Afghanistan Steadily Rebuilding - I'm two weeks late to the blogging retirement of Arthur Chrenkoff (due to a change in his employment status), and his handoff to group blog "Good News From the Front".
Ronnie Earle - The Movie - Byron York notes over at NRO: "For the last two years, as he pursued the investigation that led to Wednesday's indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Travis County, Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle has given a film crew 'extraordinary access' to make a motion picture about his work on the case." Why is this good news? Because context is coming to light (albeit slowly). And context is a good thing.

BAD NEWS
First Polygamist Marriage in the Netherlands - Oh that will never happen. It's just a right wing strawman argument designed to deny people their basic rights. It has. Mrs. Maru's comment: filing their taxes is going to be pretty complicated.
Elian Gonzalez Calls Castro 'Father'; Repudiates Mother's Escape Attempt - This is beyond sad. "Gonzalez, 11, is a hero in Cuba after what happened to him when he was just 6 years old... Gonzalez gave a patriotic speech in front of Castro and cameras on the fifth anniversary of the day U.S. law enforcement officers raided his Miami relatives' house and removed him at gunpoint to be repatriated." The story will air on 60 Minutes Sunday night.
Cuba, Syria, Belarus Join IAEA Board, Boosting Iran - That would be the International Atomic Energy Agency. Yes, that Syria. Yes, that Cuba. Unbelievable. H/T: Babalu Blog.

How to Editorialize With Photojournalism

Absolutely fascinating: a careful visual deconstruction of how the MSM used photos from the San Francisco rallies over the weekend to paint a grossly misleading picture of what was really going on. H/T: Anchoress

See You in Court

The MSM hounds are braying. Nancy Pelosi is posturing. And Tom DeLay smells a skunk. However this turns out, it's a good thing citizens are guaranteed their day in court.

"In an act of blatant political partisanship, a rogue district attorney charged me with one count of conspiracy... a reckless charge wholly unsupported by the facts. This is one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history and Mr. Earle knows it," DeLay said. Calling Earle a "partisan fanatic," DeLay said Earle has a vendetta against DeLay and said he "is abusing the power of his office to exact personal revenge."

Hannity had much more this afternoon on DA Earle's past shenanigans against Republican politicians, including a review of a chilling set of Earle tactics in a case involving Kay Bailey Hutchison in the early '90s. Earle went to court, refused to present evidence (on the theory that the judge would throw it out), but later presented the same evidence to a mock jury proceeding to which the press was invited. Now tell me again why this is the only news today while Chuck Schumer's thing died on the vine earlier this week?

UPDATE I: DeLay was on Hannity and Colmes this evening taking a very aggressive and confident stance, accusing prosecutor Earle of extortion(!) and other ethics violations, and outlining how prosecutor Earle has used this same approach (indict, tarnish, then back off in court) on a long list of conservative political enemies, dating back to before there were any Republicans in power in Texas. DeLay: "this is politics, not law". Nasty. On both sides.

UPDATE II: Michelle Malkin has much more... pages and pages of firsthand stuff... if you have the stomach for it. Does this woman ever sleep?

UPDATE III: Is it any coincidence that all this comes very shortly after the president has been bloodied politically (if unfairly) by Hurricane Katrina? The indictment has been brewing for almost two years - during which btw, time Congressman DeLay was never called to testify. Why now? Do the voters of Texas really support spending money on this? And while we're at it, wouldn't it be a whole lot simpler to dispense with the illusion that campaign finance can be reformed or managed, much less 'cleaned up'? Money is money. It is fungible. Voters can listen to millions of dollars of ads and still vote for the other guy. As I've thought all along: Let the money flow where it may. Make transparency mandatory. And let the bloggers and media have at it. People aren't stupid. That's why we have a democracy.

NASA Admits 30 Years in the Wilderness

In another example of monopolistic government bloat, overspending and hubris finally being identified for what they are, NASA chief Michael Griffin told USAToday on Tuesday that the agency had lost its way after Apollo and that the space shuttle and space station were mistakes. And the lost Mars landers weren't? Seems like we've got enough places to spend money down here. H/T: Drudge.

Two Great Nat-Sec Blogs

Calling these national security blogs hardly does them justice, but a quick perusal tells me that readers here will find them well worth a look, with lot's of good, meaty analysis:

"The Adventurs of Chester" - a Marine who's seen recent action in the Middle East and who blogs cogently on military and foreign affairs.

"ZenPundit" - a prolific if mysterious blogger out of Chicago who writes on a similar range of subjects, plus some 'meta' ones (e.g., horizontal vs. vertical strategic thinking)

(Of course all of this is just a clever way of avoiding writing a real blog post. I'm jammed with work the next few days, so blogging will be light... until I need a break and go off on a long tirade. :)

UPDATE: And just one more while I finish this cup of coffee: "Blue State Conservatives". How could I not bite on that kind of title? I especially liked this short, factual evisceration of Air America's track record and future prospects.

Liberal Racism in the Media

There's not much I can add to what Matt Heidt has laid down over at Froggy Ruminations:

Shep Smith, Anderson Cooper, Geraldo et al... gleefully reported the completely false stories of gangrapes, throat slitting of children, bodies stacked like cordwood, and any other tale of grisly, inhuman activities. Why? Because they really think that the poor blacks of New Orleans and elsewhere are savages, capable of unspeakable acts of gore and only one missed welfare check away from total devolution to an underclass of genocidal maniacs. As it turns out, only a handful of people died in the Superdome by natural causes, and the murder rate in New Orleans (which is admittedly too high) remained essentially flat during the week of Katrina...

Since these stories already fit nicely into the worldview and mindset of elite liberals and victim-identity hustlers, they are reported as a matter of fact without compunction or remorse. The theme that black people are incapable of acting humanely to each other under stressful conditions is not an actual news story, it is a script written long ago by patronizing liberals who sought to tame and care for these “unfortunate savages”. Treating blacks like animals in a Zoo is actually a perfect analogy to what liberal elites think of them. In a Zoo, animals are fed, housed, and protected from each other and more importantly the visitors, by benevolent zookeepers so that they can be observed and studied in an artificial habitat. Great Society anyone?

Fired FEMA Head Goes Down Fighting

Listening to the radio in my car today, I had a chance to hear some of former FEMA head Michael Brown's testimony in front of the House Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation and Response to Hurricane Katrina. (Could they make the committee name just a little longer maybe?)

As soon as I heard the political posturing of those grilling him (on NPR's version at least), I wanted to puke - and cheer for Brown's gutsy truth-telling performance. There's no doubt in my mind that his public service career is over. One does not get away with that stuff in Washington. There's also no doubt in my mind that he has a bright future in the private sector.

He made three points that have been lost or buried in the MSM headlines:

1) It is not the role of the federal government to order evacuations. If it were, we would no doubt be hearing even more about how 'Bush' has taken our civil rights away. Brown:

"FEMA doesn't evacuate communities. FEMA does not do law enforcement. FEMA does not do communications... Many may be surprised to learn that, guess what, FEMA doesn't own fire trucks. We don't own ambulances. We don't own search and rescue equipment..."

2) Mississippi, Alabama and Florida have had no problem working with FEMA. Doesn't that give some credence to the hypothesis that local and state governments in Louisiana were a major factor here? Brown:

"I didn't have a problem with the evacuations in Mississippi or Alabama. They were doing it. (Florida Governor) Jeb Bush had already ordered evacuations through the (Florida) Keys as Katrina was making its way through that area."

3) Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco were utterly feckless in not responding to a clear and present danger. (Sort of like the UN vis a vis Saddam, but we won't go there today.) Last weekend, NPR played excerpts of the original pre-hurricane conference calls. Nagin and Blanco can clearly be heard wringing their hands about how a mandatory evacuation order might cause gridlock. We wouldn't want that. Mandatory is bad. We wouldn't want to impose on anyone. They can then be heard posturing about involving churches in spreading the word at the 11th hour. No real decisions were made. I had the impression that I was listening to people discussing an action movie, not a real event for which they had responsibility. Brown:

My mistake was in recognizing that, for whatever reason that we might want to discuss later, but for whatever reason, (New Orleans) Mayor Nagin and (Louisiana) Governor Blanco were reticent to order a mandatory evacuation. And if I, Mike Brown, as an individual could have done something to convince them that this was the big one, and they needed to order a mandatory evacuation, I would have done it... My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday (two days before the storm hit) that Louisiana was dysfunctional.

A partial compilation of Brown quotes can be found in (of all places) the BBC website. In contrast to these three vital points, the MSM condenses it all into headlines like this:

ABC News: Ex-FEMA Director Brown Blames Others
NY Times: Former FEMA Chief Blames Local Officials For Failures
LA Times: Former FEMA Head Blames Others for Hurricane Response Problems

Yes he did blame them. Perhaps that's because they were at fault.

ANSWER Rallies Answer Little

I've been browsing some excellent reports from the "peace" marches last weekend in DC and San Fran can be found here, here and here. Sadly, with Cindy Sheehan's continued enjoyment of the limelight alongside her communist pals, Al Jazeera is just lovin' it. As the Kremlin folks used to say during the Cold War: "useful idiots" (if well-intentioned in their own minds.)

Maybe it's just me, but looking at the pictures I've been thinking...

• With all of those epithets, the sign writers aren't exactly inspiring in the peace department. When did juvenile, omni-directional threats replace principled non-violence?
• The protestors version of 'peace' seems to be narrowly limited to the concept of standing armies with guns. Silent armies of Baathist or Taliban gestapo that come in the night to torture women and children, or ragtag armies of cowardly truck bombers that know no creed of restraint don't seem to fall under the same set of rules or expectations.
• When did peace start to mean rolling up the proverbial drawbridge of U.S. magnanimity and ignorning the plight of oppressed peoples around the world? Did I miss something, or has the far left wrapped around and come into complete synch with the far right on this issue? Where was the skepticism on Bosnia, Somalia and Haiti?
• With six months to plan and sympathetic saturation media coverage, why was the DC rally no bigger than in 2003, and considerably smaller than some biased estimates (when the action in Iraq was more like a war and less like the myriad mopping-up police actions that the Clintonites loved when he was in office)? Why was the SFO rally considerably smaller?
• Why is it that each generation must learn anew the awful lessons of totalitarianism that our grandparents witnessed firsthand? Fortunately we have a few, like this intellectually honest if disillusioned anti-war observer who recognized what has really been going on at these 'peace' rallies: "A parade of speakers, one right after the other, coming up to the stage and ranting... about the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the valiant freedom fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, last but not least, constant expressions of solidarity with "our socialist working brothers in Cuba." ...what A.N.S.W.E.R. did in the DC rally is not an aberration--it is part of a systematic bait-and-switch strategy on their part to organize a large group of people for one purpose and then launch into their anti-Israeli, anti-American socialist agenda--and then lie to make sure that as many people as possible stick around to listen to them."
• Cindy Sheehan is it: the anti-war movement's Ace. A lot of bluster and media spin is creating the impression that there's a royal flush hiding in there somewhere - a massive 1960's style grassroots, draft-inspired "why bother?" peace movement. Yet the more I ponder this, the more I come to realize (to continue the poker analogy): she's their high card - beatable by a pair of twos. She's a convenient symbol for... nothing. She's a grieving mother who can't acknowledge that her child made his own choices. The pain of her loss must be immense. I feel for her. It is being temporarily salved by the false love of folks like Jesse Jackson. I can't imagine the crash she's in for when those who are using her eventually move on.
• And finally: Has anyone in this movement ever offered a detailed, credible scenario for what they would have done differently in March, 2003, including the consequences that would have ensued - knowing what was known at the time after twelve years of Security Council yammering? And while they're at it: What do you think would happen to the Iraqi people (not to mention Islamofascism) if we were to pull out now? I've asked this question before. I've never received a remotely credible answer in the positive. I.e., "here's what I would have done as president to deal with this problem; here are the trade-offs I would have made; here are the results that would have ensued; here is where it is leading." It's easy to be a critic.

UPDATE: Christopher Hitchens also casts a skeptical eye on the rallies. Hat tip: Baldilocks.

Atlas Shrugged Comes Alive at Amtrak

Sometimes a fictional situation turns out to be so utterly prescient it's hard to imagine that the real life participants aren't working directly from the script. Such is the case with the pitiful pork-barrel rat-hole called Amtrak and its fictional twin, the Taggart Transcontinental Railroad (a mainstay of Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged'). Joseph Vranich (who describes himself on his blog as "one of the people who worked to create Amtrak in 1970-71"), has penned this stinging piece over at Capitalism Magazine, drawing from his book, 'The End of the Line':

Taggart Transcontinental Railroad ran nearly empty trains on rural routes as a matter of "public equality." If one state had trains then, by gosh, another had to have them, too, no matter how much money they lost. Today, Amtrak runs trains like the Southwest Chief between Chicago and Los Angeles whose financial loss is so great that it requires a federal subsidy of $420 per passenger. It's cheaper for taxpayers to buy airline tickets and give them to these Amtrak passengers than to preserve the train...

In Atlas Shrugged, "good-hearted" politicians financed the continuation of lightly used trains by shortchanging maintenance on heavily used infrastructure. When such policies contributed to the collapse of the Taggart Tunnel, a key link, the Taggart Transcontinental Railroad came to a halt. Similarly, Amtrak allocates capital to frivolous projects while being painfully slow over three decades in correcting safety shortcomings in its Manhattan tunnels, the busiest in the country. U.S. DOT Inspector General Ken Mead concluded that it's unacceptable for Amtrak to budget millions of dollars to repair sleeper cars for long-distance trains while under-investing in strategic fixed assets.

In her novel, Taggart Transcontinental Railroad employees believed they had a "right" to jobs regardless of the economic insignificance of their work. Again life imitates fiction at Amtrak. If train service is discontinued completely on a route, a severance package provides many employees with full salary for five years. Amtrak's job-protection absurdity is unparalleled in other industries. [emphasis added]

Who cares? How about every man, woman and child in America, very few of whom have ever ridden Amtrak yet each of whom has subsidized Amtrak to the tune of $100 - so far. Twenty nine billion dollars in total, and growing daily.

Colleagues who prefer trains have led me to take Amtrak more regularly than I otherwise might. What goads me about those trips is well... just about everything. Let's start with the notion of "high speed" (i.e., Amtrak's 'Acela Service'.) Though it's definitely more expensive to fly to New York, it's been significantly faster door-to-door 95% of the time that I've had a chance to compare the two side by side on a given day. That has remained true even with extended security procedures at airports and even in bad weather. When the comparison is made on a longer route - say Boston to Washington, there is no comparison. Four hours door-to-door by plane for $84 by air versus nearly ten hours and $179 by rail.

Then there are the trains themselves. Let's start with an amalgam of several recent trips I've taken from New York's Penn Station up to Boston.

I enter Penn Station with a free one-class upgrade coupon in hand. It's the middle of a weekday afternoon. The line snakes back through almost two dozen people. Behind the glass, roughly as many bored-looking Amtrak employees are sitting behind glass doing nothing as are serving customers. As I observe more closely, it becomes apparent that some agents are playing the system so as to avoid serving any customers at all. The lights over their windows go on briefly to serve one customer, then stay off for five minutes, then ten, then fifteen. As I approach the window, I realize I have only ten minutes until my train is scheduled to leave. I hadn't counted on spending nearly 20 minutes in line for such a simple thing at this time of day. Should be enough, I'd thought. It's just an upgrade, right? Wrong.

It takes almost the full ten minutes I have to upgrade my ticket. I watch the agent go through a process that could be compared to witchcraft. He scrawls lengthy code numbers on at least three different slips of paper five different times. Error seems a near certainty. The computer beside him seems to serve mainly as a prop. He checks the figures with his calculator, charges me the wrong amount, then corrects himself, then corrects himself again as we hand cash back and forth. Fortunately, my train is late, avoiding the need to abort the entire transaction. Throughout it, the agent seems skittish - paranoid and distracted, like a slave who's been beaten by a cruel master. The most basic tenets of customer service 101 (heck, of humanity 101) are entirely absent. I am the enemy. I am customer. I am to be feared and avoided.

I board the train. The carpet is old and dirty. The light over my seat doesn't work. Someone's leftover meal is strewn all over the seat nearby. The trash is overflowing. The bathrooms stink. The fixtures are desperately old. It is impossible to turn on both hot and cold water at the same time to wash my hands without scalding myself. The conductor is friendly but resigned when he's asked about the delays. "It's Amtrak" he remarks, rolling his eyes.

The food in the cafe car is acceptable but only when compared with what the airlines have been serving lately. I.e., there is some. It takes the woman behind the counter more than three minutes per transaction - even when the transaction is as simple as: "Coffee. Black." Some people walk away in disgust after twenty minutes. I get back to my seat and find I'm lucky to still have one. The "guaranteed seats" that Amtrak has sold are overbooked. Some will have to stand for the entire trip. Do they get compensated for the inconvenience? Not a chance. The train grinds to a halt. The air conditioning goes off. (The outside air temperature is in the '90s.) Two hours later a spare part arrives and we're on our way again. We arrive three hours late.

I understand the need for diverse infrastructure. I understand the role that passenger rail transport plays in Europe. I understand - all too well - the fact that Amtrak won't go out of business. What I don't understand is why anyone thinks this can be fixed with more of the same taxpayer subsidized distortions. It needs to be carved up, sold off and opened up to competition.

The kind of service Amtrak offers today was bad in the 1950's. It's absolutely insane when held up to the daylight of organizations like Southwest Airlines, Starbucks Coffee, Fedex and countless others. All of them manage to run complex low-margin far-flung businesses with massive capital requirements, ultra-demanding customers and poorly skilled workforces and yet still make it a pleasant, high-value experience for everyone - employees, investors and the competitiveness of the U.S. economy included.

Someone needs to give that poor customer service agent I encountered in the bowels of Penn Station a chance to live the rest of his life. Someone please release him from the fearful bondage of a demeaning and incompetent relic - a communist-inspired 'business' that should have stayed between the pages of a dark work of fiction, published over sixty years ago.

My past Amtrak rants can be found here, here and here.

Full disclosure: I have no relationship - financial or otherwise - with author Joe Vranich. I have no financial interest (short or otherwise) in any transport company related to Amtrak. I am not a lobbyist or lawyer, much less one with any direct interest in this subject.

UPDATE I: Just found this by Vranich in a February edition of NRO. Scary.

"Amtrak's poor stewardship of property means its Manhattan tunnels present great passenger risks during an accident, fire, or terrorist attack — so much so that I tell my family not to ride Amtrak to or through New York. Flying is safer."

UPDATE II: And this in Vranich's September 26th, 2000 testimony before Congress (pdf). (Has anything changed in five years?)

On April 15, [2000] Amtrak began running the Lake Country Limited, which takes 3 hours and 20 minutes to travel from Janesville, Wisconsin, to Chicago. The Chicago & North Western train in 1952 connecting Janesville with Chicago was an hour-and-a-half faster. The media reports traffic on the train has averaged 11 people per day in each direction. Amtrak plans to add a train from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, to Chicago on a 3 hour, 39 minute schedule. Its 1952 predecessor was an hour faster.

Celebrities Behaving Vapidly

Barbara Streisand to Diane Sawyer last week:

"We are in a global warming emergency state, and these storms are going to become more frequent, more intense... There could be more droughts, dust bowls. You know, it's amazing to hear these facts."

Notes to Ms. Streisand:

1) Stick with the singing thing, or as Redstate.org puts it: "Shut up and sing songs, Babs"
2) These are not 'facts'. They are fantasies.

If the head of the National Hurricane Center were to share his/her musical tastes would anyone care?

The Sacred Becomes Secular, Cynical, Then Clinical

I find this tremendously cold and sad.

Women are increasingly seeking inappropriate IVF treatment because they do not have the time or inclination for a sex life and want to "diarise" their busy lives... Michael Dooley, a gynaecologist, obstetrician and fertility expert, said that in the past five years he has seen a 20 per cent increase in the number of patients seeking "inappropriate or premature" IVF treatment. "Many of these couples are simply not having sex or not having enough sex," he said. "Conception has become medicalised. It's too clinical. There has been a trend away from having sex and loving relationships towards medicalised conception. People want everything now. If they can't have a baby now, they want IVF. They think it's no different from putting your name down for a handbag... It's usually when you have two professionals who are based in the city and are very busy... People are increasingly trying to control it [conception]... Many people in their late 30s or early 40s without children are completely absorbed in their professional lives... Many couples I see have one of them working abroad and the most they see each other is at weekends."

Call me a hopeless throwback, but the whole process was meant to be out of control. It's practically designed that way. For what purpose? I don't know. The development of a nurturing environment for children perhaps? (It's never meant to be convenient for the parents - as any parent knows.) The development of empathy for God's relationship to us? Take your pick.

The presumption that the procreative process can (and moreover should) be tamed, scheduled clinicalized and tailored to our specifications is frightening if only because it starts to feel and sound a lot like eugenics. The article limits itself to couples, but I know of more and more singles for whom this has also become just another lifestyle option - like botox or a pedicure. That's sad.

Separated at Birth?: Gore and Schroder

What do these two men have in common? (aside from a vacuous expression and a face that betrays the effects of a few too many corn dogs and schnitzels)












They're both has-beens who think they can wish away the results of an election in which the conservative candidate took the most votes.

The Great Kyoto Count-Up - Some Troubling Stats

Junkscience.com is running a 'counter' (like those counting up the national debt), except that this one is counting the estimated cost and alleged benefits of the Kyoto accord on global climate change. Alas, I am a coding moron so you'll have to go to the site to get the latest running tally.

Since coming into effect February 16, 2005, the Kyoto Protocol has cost the world about [$91B and counting] while the potential temperature saving by the year 2050 so far achieved by Kyoto is [less than 0.001 °C]... that means for the bargain price of just $100 trillion we could theoretically lower global mean temperature by about 1 °C... [except that] we don't even know the absolute mean surface temperature of the planet within ±0.7 °C...

A detailed explanation of these figures can be found on the site. Short summary: the estimates of Kyoto proponents themselves. Let's see, for $100 trillion might it be worth at least thinking about say, curing cancer, ending poverty and infant mortality, providing a college education to everyone on the planet, or turning Africa into the next Silicon Valley? Aren't those the kinds of goals liberals used to support? Instead, we've got vast sums being poured down the toilet, chasing a fantasy masquerading as a theory masquerading as scientific 'consensus'.

Hat tip: Luboš Motl's reference frame

Is This Really a High Priority?

As a former dog owner, I understand the impulse for this legislation, but is there really a role for this level of micro-management - for the federal government for goodness sakes?

Barney Frank, D-Massaschusetts, [is co-sponsoring] a bill that would require that state and local disaster preparedness plans required for Federal Emergency Management Agency funding include provisions for household pets and service animals... Holly Hazard, executive director of the Doris Day Animal League, said there are 4,000 outstanding requests to rescue pets more than three weeks after Katrina hit.

And even if it is a practical idea to be sure that pets are cared for, why is it a good idea to saddle FEMA with even more complexity and bureaucracy?

If analysts agree on anything when it comes to the federal agency responsible for handling disasters, it's that it lacks the money to prepare for calamities that are not literally on the horizon. Much else about the budget of the Federal Emergency Management Agency defies consensus -- or even comprehension.

Can't we agree that people are a higher priority and more importantly, act that way? Congressman Frank is a neighbor of mine. He's a really smart guy. He means well. But c'mon. If this is what passes for Democratic leadership these days, it's no wonder they're off in the political wilderness.

Why We Have a Second Amendment

I don't own a gun. I don't plan to. I know how to fire one, having attained sharp-shooter status with a .22 rifle at summer camp in Maine when I was a kid. Where I live in the suburbs though, I just don't see the need. I could work myself into a frenzy of paranoia about burglaries and self protection but none of those scenarios outweigh the risks of my having a gun in the house - in my estimation; in my situation; at this moment.

Others' perceptions of that need may differ and that's fine with me. I appreciate their choice. I appreciate having the choice myself - however I decide to exercise it (or not). As economists and environmentalists like to argue about ANWR or others often argue about abortion, simply knowing the option is there has value.

Our founders lived in a more chaotic time. 9-11 (the emergency service, not the terrorist incident) didn't exist. The idea of an effective public monopoly on safety services was laughable. That Wild West state of existence has unfortunately been characteristic of New Orleans for the past few weeks. My purpose here is not to lay blame for that - an entirely different discussion. The simple facts on the ground however, are that the police have not been an effective force. Various reports indicate that 30% of the force was AWOL during the worst of the well-documented mayhem. Other reports indicate that protection is still sporadic. Heck, protection was sporadic there before the hurricane.

Thus it irks me that the government would seek to enforce its monopoly on armed force at precisely the time when it is doing its job least effectively, on the premise that this will make its job easier and make citizens safer... at least the former anyway.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) and the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, seeking a temporary restraining order to halt the seizures of guns from law-abiding citizens. They described the confiscations as "arbitrary," "without warrant or probable cause" and thus "illegal." New Orleans Police Superintendent P. Edwin Compass III "completely overstepped his bounds ... when he announced two weeks ago in the New York Times that only law-enforcement personnel are allowed to have weapons," Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the 3-million member NRA said in an interview yesterday. The police superintendent's comments were echoed by the city's Deputy Police Chief Warren Riley, who told ABC News: "No one will be able to be armed. We are going to take all the weapons."

SAF founder Alan Gottlieb called the gun seizures "outrageous" and "illegal." He said New Orleans officials have refused to tell gun rights groups why they are now leaving citizens, already devastated by the Category 4 hurricane, "defenseless against lingering bands of looters and thugs." ...Mr. LaPierre noted TV news coverage showing law-enforcement personnel going door-to-door to seize guns from New Orleans-area residents -- an action he said is unprecedented in U.S. history... Given the lawlessness in New Orleans, residents who remain in the storm-ravaged area there need their guns for protection, said Mr. LaPierre. "Things are worse at night, and people say their gun is the only source of comfort they have, the one thing they can depend on to save themselves and their families," Mr. LaPierre said, noting that a "third of the New Orleans Police Department walked off their jobs" during the Katrina emergency.

Ninety nine percent of the time I couldn't care a whit about the Second Amendment. This kind of incident though, puts it into sharp focus. Ah ha!, one thinks. That's what the founders were thinking. That's the kind of situation in which the Second Amendment all of a sudden makes tons of sense. The impulse for a blanket solution - sweeping up guns from law-abiding citizens instead of focusing on criminals - is not a new thing. It is baked into the nature of how governments work when not otherwise restrained by law.

Middle-of-the-road Boston Herald columnist Margery Eagan - also a mild-mannered suburban mom and former-non-gun-owner - turned the same corner two weeks ago after surveying the mayhem in New Orleans. (Unfortunately the full text of the piece is available only in the paid archives now.) In her 9-11 column (irony not lost on this reader), she described her surprise at concluding that having a gun was not such an abhorrent idea after all. I suspect that others have drawn similar conclusions. I suspect NRA memberships are way up. Being reminded why the constitution is tremendously wise as written is not such a bad thing right now.

Corruption in New Orleans

I know it's a "dog bites man" headline, but this report is outrageous:

Police found cases of food, clothing and tools intended for hurricane victims at the home of [Cedric Floyd - a Democrat] the chief administrative officer for [Kenner], a New Orleans suburb... The donations filled a large pickup truck four times... Floyd, who runs the day-to-day operations in the suburb of Kenner, was in charge of distributing the goods... "We have lots of families that are begging for these supplies," said Attorney General Charles Foti, whose office assisted in the investigation... Philip Ramon, chief of staff to Kenner Mayor Philip Capitano... added that many employees were themselves hurricane victims.

Read that last line again. The mayor's office is making excuses for massive theft (well beyond what one person could use), by an official whose duty it is to distribute that very relief. There must be a special place in hell for such people. Yeah, it's all Bush's fault.

HT: New England Republican.

More at the Daily Pundit.

California Conservative has the scoop on Mr. Floyd's response: racism!

NoKo Leaves Its People Hanging - Again

Not unlike the famines that the Kims deliberately allowed to happen in the 1990's, killing millions, North Korea on Thursday told the UN to stop food aid. The reason?

The country’s Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su-Hon, who is in New York to attend the UN General Assembly... said the country had "good farming" this year, but more relevant was the way countries led by the U.S. were trying to "politicize humanitarian assistance, linking it to the human rights issue." ...Reuters quoted UN officials as saying North Korea would not be able to feed those who need it most -- children, pregnant women, the urban poor, and the elderly -- without food aid.

Well, yes. Starving and torturing your own people is inherently political. When the credibility test is between the UN and Kim Jong-il, it's not hard to side with the former - despite their many other foibles.

Washes Her Hands and Seals Her Fate

Hillary - after what was no doubt some intensely difficult reflection - has announced that she'll side with Dianne Feinstein, Joe Biden, Teddy Kennedy, Charles Schumer and Dick Durbin (of the Senate Judiciary Committee), against the nomination of John Roberts when the vote goes to the Senate floor. What a surprise. Can we now dispense with the notion that this woman is tacking to the right on some politically sophisticated strategy to win the middle? Does anyone honestly believe that she can turn any red states with buddies like this? Does she think we'll forget?

UPDATE I: Michelle Malkin has the goods on Chuck Schumer:

Two of Schumer's staffers, including a former researcher for David Brock's Media Matters, obtained Steele's credit report by using his Social Security number, which they got from public documents. Under federal law, it is illegal to knowingly and willfully obtain a credit report under false pretenses.

There has been no outcry from privacy advocates, the ACLU, the champions of clean campaigns, or any major MSM editorial board. Needless to say, if it had been Republicans involved in this outrageous scheme and the target had been a liberal minority politician, it would be a front-page NYTimes scandal. The Times (surprise, surprise) has yet to cover the story...

UPDATE II: Daily Pundit concurs with our take on Hillary's vote: a big political blunder.

One More Time With Feeling: Hurricane Trends

Before the leftie greens get in a lather (again), about Republican SUV's causing Cat 5 hurricanes, I repost the chart I put up just after Katrina. The data is taken from this table at the National Hurricane Center. This year is what statisticians call an anamoly. It is not what economists call a good reason to spend several trillion $$ re-structuring the world economy.

UPDATE: Then there are other theories on the hurricanes...

Voter Identification - The Left Finally Comes Clean

Another great piece in today's WSJ (subscription required):

After five months of studying problems with America's electoral system, a bipartisan commission has concluded that voters should be required to present photo identification at the polls. Press reports are calling the recommendation "controversial," yet polls consistently show that well over 80% of voters favor the idea. If photo-ID requirements are a controversy, how do we define a consensus? The Commission on Federal Election Reform, headed by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker, issued 87 recommendations... The voter-ID recommendations are particularly noteworthy, however, because for decades the left has maintained that voter fraud isn't a problem. In fact, it's increased in recent years. Former New York Congresswoman Susan Molinari [R], who served on the commission, notes bluntly in the report that, "In 2004, elections in Washington state and Wisconsin were decided by illegal votes." She continues, "In other states, notably the states of Ohio and New York, voter rolls are filled with fictional voters like Elmer Fudd and Mary Poppins." Just three of the 21 commissioners dissented over this recommendation, and one was former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle. He likened the ID requirements to a "poll tax," perhaps because it would stop Democrats from winning elections with last-minute turnout on Indian reservations in South Dakota. Just a guess.

Ouch. Before anyone gets all in a lather about unfairness or racism, the rest of the article notes commission findings to the effect that FREE voter ID's will put a stop to last-minute registration 'problems' that for decades were the bane of minority participation. When Jimmy Carter and 80% of the electorate agree, it's hard to see objections as anything but a last-ditch desperate desire to win elections at any cost. (Note to Tom Daschle: find a new career my friend.) I certainly would not want to be the sitting official in Washington State or Wisconsin after this stinging rebuke came out. They're no longer lame ducks. They're more like roast ducks.

Fooling Ourselves: Iran, North Korea and Nukes

As I noted yesterday, the nuclear plants that North Korea claims are for peaceful purposes have never been connected to any electrical grid. It turns out the same sleight-of-hand is true in Iran, as the foreign ministers for France and Germany, the EU High Representative, and Britain's foreign secretary point out in a commentary in today's WSJ (subscription required):

There is no economic logic to the facilities at the center of the dispute -- at Isfahan and Natanz -- if they are, as Iran claims, solely to produce fuel for nuclear reactors. Iran does not have any nuclear power station in which the fuel it says it wants to produce could be used. It has only one under construction, for which Russia is contracted to supply fuel for 10 years and has offered to supply fuel for the lifetime of the reactor, which can only work safely with Russian fuel. Iran has no license to make the fuel itself, nor is there any economic rationale. [emphasis added]

The rest of the piece is verbally and logically hard-hitting but too late and too polite. Example: "At the U.N. last week, we publicly and privately restated our willingness to work with Iran in political, economic, scientific and technological areas, and our readiness to explore ways to continue negotiations."

Ooh! Please! Don't do that! Not... the UN!

The authors themselves acknowledge that words have done nothing to stop what is clearly a long series of violations of the NPT by Iran, aimed at arming the mullahs. Iranian intent cannot possibly be more clear.

The options? All bad. As I noted yesterday: "Soldiers are useful when one needs to break things and kill people. Negotiators are useful when one is content to kick the big problem down the street to the next guy." Much as I wish it were not so, it may be time for the former. Once the nukes are armed and aimed, any options - even bad ones - effectively disappear. This would not be a good time to buy real estate in Tel Aviv - or Seoul.

Mayoring 101: Houston vs. New Orleans

GOP Bloggers has two pictures worth at least 2000 words.

On the left: Ray Nagin of New Orleans.
On the right: Bill White of Houston.

Leahy Learns a Lesson From Daschle......

...as do Senators Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Max Baucus of Montana (the latter a rather gutsy ultramarathon runner - a passion in which I've been known to indulge.) Several other red-state Dems are weighing home state self-preservation against a cold stare from Teddy Kennedy, Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer.

The Senate Judiciary Committee's senior Democrat, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, announced his endorsement [of Supreme Courte nominee John Roberts] shortly after leaving the White House. That guaranteed bipartisan backing for Roberts in Thursday's scheduled vote by the committee... Roberts "is a man of integrity," said Leahy, who told Roberts over the telephone about his decision. "I can only take him at his word that he does not have an ideological agenda."

Yes, there is another Democratic party of intellectual honesty and fairness. Occasionally they show themselves.

Flawed Logic: Reduce Air Travel

Flowing straight from the flawed logic of Kyoto, and the contradictory reasoning that seeks 'solutions' to global warming even as scientists say it's too late to do anything about it, this latest out of Britain should come as no surprise.

Britain should drastically reduce the growth of air travel to bring greenhouse gas emissions within levels that will avoid dangerous climate change, a report by leading environmental scientists said Wednesday. Air travel has boomed in recent years thanks largely to cheaper flights, and the government predicts that the number of air passengers in Britain will more than double by 2020. But aviation is a major source of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, because planes burn huge amounts of fossil fuels at high altitudes.

Now that the poor have access to what once was a luxury item, it's time to slam the door. Nice.

North Korea - Devious and Persistent

North Korea has mastered the art of playing to negotiators' strong needs to have their efforts be seen by their respective leaders and publics, as 'productive' - yielding agreement (any agreement), rather than a standoff or confrontation. That's what negotiators do for a living. As a profession, they're an almost perfect mirror image of the military. Soldiers are useful when one needs to break things and kill people. Negotiators are useful when one is content to kick the big problem down the street to the next guy. Clinton was a master at this. It is therefore deeply disappointing to this Bush supporter that the president is falling into the same trap. Someone someday will have to face down this demon of a 'leader' (Kim Jong-il), and the hell-on-earth he has systematically created for his people.

Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute concurs in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required). The editorial is republished here on the AEI site. (Side note: a fascinating interview with Eberstadt on North Korea can be found here.) Eberstadt:

All that is necessary to "get to yes" with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is to concede every important point demanded by the North Korean side while sacrificing vital interests of one's own. Monday's "breakthrough" at the six-party talks in Beijing... is being celebrated by diplomatic sophisticates in Seoul, Beijing, Moscow, Tokyo and Washington... A careful reading of the Sept. 19 joint statement suggests instead that North Korean negotiators have just achieved a stunning advance in their government's quest to "normalize" its nuclear weapons program. There's also been equally momentous progress in Pyongyang's longstanding campaign to sunder the U.S.-South Korean military alliance. Wittingly or otherwise, the U.S. negotiating team has executed an apparent cave-in -- embracing precepts crucial to North Korean objectives but inimical to Washington's own.

The reactors at Yongbyon... were never hooked up to the country's electrical energy grid, nor are they today. They have been exclusively used for harvesting weapons-grade plutonium.

...North Korea's nuclear record is unique... [as] the only state ever to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty...

The Beijing joint statement of "common understanding" is being described as a defeat for Bush administration hardliners (who favor regime-change in North Korea) and a victory for administration moderates (who prefer diplomatic engagement). In fact, it is a loss for both camps. After all, the cause of engagement with North Korea is undermined -- not promoted -- by uncritically embracing a flawed schema for a diplomatic resolution of the nuclear crisis. [emphasis added]

As I noted yesterday, Kim Jong-il (for all intents and purposes synonymous with North Korea itself), is akin to a spoiled three-year-old who's had fifty years to observe and practice manipulating his 'parents' weaknesses. By 'parents', I mean the rest of the civilized world who would like to see this man-child and the nation he controls behave like a semi-responsible nation-state. None of those leaders has had as much experience in the international arena as he has.

This result is like a tired parent leaning over the back seat and handing the screaming child the ice cream cone he's been begging for. Great solution... until he throws it at the back of her head and demands more.

UPDATE: Well that didn't take long.

North Korea "is fully ready to decisively control a pre-emptive nuclear attack with a strong retaliatory blow," the communist nation's Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in an English-language commentary carried by the state Korean Central News Agency [on Thursday].

No Means No

Is it just me, or is it easy as a parent to see through North Korea's continuing shenanigans?

North Korea said Tuesday it would not dismantle its nuclear weapons program until the United States first provides an atomic energy reactor, casting doubt on its commitment to a breakthrough agreement reached at international arms talks [that ended yesterday].

Three-year-old children will push and push and manipulate (e.g., "I want a hot dog! Give me a hot dog! I'm going to scream if you don't!"), until one of two things happens: a) the parents' patience wears thin and the child gets what he wants (at which point the next demand comes even quicker, e.g., "I want an ice cream!", or b) it is made absolutely clear to the child beyond the shadow of any doubt that they are not going to get what they want.

Option 'b' is infinitely harder in the short term. It tends to have the side effect of temporarily escalating the conflict and annoying those within earshot. It is also infinitely more effective in raising a balanced child who can be a peaceful and productive member of society. Negotiating is tempting but futile since the child's side is in bad faith almost by definition.

No, this is not a perfect analogy. But it's close - especially so if one studies the life history of Kim Jong-il. North Korea is not a 'state' or a society any more than was Nazi Germany or Cambodia under Pol Pot or the Soviet Union under Stalin. It is the plaything of one utterly evil, self-centered, ruthless and willful man-child who's never been spanked by life. Why U.S. special forces haven't popped him long ago is beyond me.

Celebrating Women in Afghanistan and Germany

One would think that on the day after women voted in an historic election in Afghanistan and a woman (Angela Merkel, a conservative who opposes Turkish membership in the EU), received the most votes in German elections, that organizations like NOW would be celebrating at the progress achieved by their sisters overseas. Think again. And again. Instead what we get from this bastion of womens' rights is series of links and press releases railing against President Bush and his efforts to rout the Taliban - those fine fellows in beards who murdered women and girls in any number of ways for the crime of being fully human. Tip to NOW: bitterness is not a way to build a coalition and win elections.

In Fairness - Sean Penn in N.O.

My Sean Penn post last week generated a 20X spike in traffic here when Glenn Reynolds picked it up. With that comes responsibility. Alas, it is only partly true. The New York Daily News quotes presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, in the boat with Penn on assignment to Rolling Stone as saying:

"I witnessed him rescuing up to 40 people. He was up to his waist in toxic muck .... I'm not going to comment on Sean's trips to Iraq or Iran, but in this case, he was an American hero."

I'm not sure I'd go that far. He was trying to be a hero, and good for him for doing that. Volunteerism (celebrity or not), is to be encouraged (a thousand points of light and all that.)

One reader points us to Rolling Stone photographer Matt Taibbi's comments on Blogcritics.org where it appears to have originated. (See comment #39 - scroll down.) Taibbi points to a motive for the original 'inept mariner' story that seemed (inexplicably at the time), to have originated in Australia:

"I was on the boat with Sean Penn this weekend. That's me in the background of the above photo. (he saw the boat bailing photo) The article you (spoke about) is completely mistaken. He did not bring a personal photographer. He came with me and his friend, a New Orleans writer named Douglas Brinkley, and the reason he came was because a friend of his had asked him to help him find a family member still stuck in her house. He did not consent to any photographs taken. The boat did spring a leak, but only at the end of the trip, after one of the people we pulled out of the water kicked the plug out by accident. The articles you read probably based reports on came from an Australian writer who was angry that Sean had declined an interview..."

The Taibbi quote appears to genuine. Some may paint this as a blogosphere overreaction, but it's not that clearcut. As I noted in an update the afternoon I blogged the story: "A story like this breaking in a foreign paper gives us pause..."

Any actor makes a good target when they enter the political fray after having built their public reputation based on nothing more than reflected fantasy. (Didn't Reagan get slammed for that? Doesn't Arnold - on a regular basis?)

After Penn's escapades in Iraq and Iran, plus his comments to the press, he's made himself a particularly juicy target whatever he does, even if the motives are pure. When that happens, an entirely different kind of toxic muck tends to spatter. No fair whining about it. Reader beware either way. The truth in this case may be a bit more nuanced but at least the blogosphere is offering corrections. I'm not seeing the same kind of fairness (e.g., about the N.O. school busses) in the MSM.

Catching Up

Greetings to those readers still left after the past week's absence. I was away on one of those business trips where, as a friend put it, the only personal time I had was in bed or in the shower (with precious little time in the former.) Later in the week, the same could be said, except for the bed and shower. (More on that amazing adventure in another post.) Now, I'm sitting in a hotel room in Manhattan with my head spinning and bags under my eyes, on yet another business trip. This one offers all kinds of possibilities for melding my previously unconnected business and political lives. More on that as an when it evolves.

Meanwhile the really really big news is that my brother's bone marrow shows no cancer at all. None. One month ago, they were giving him 5% odds, telling us to start shopping hospices, and noting that most patients in his condition did not elect to do another round of chemo. In one sense, we've been on pins and needles ever since, but in another I've been pervaded by a sense of calm, knowing that larger forces were, (and remain) at work through these trials. Miracles really do happen, and if this isn't one, I don't know what is. He will still need to get through the next couple of weeks without a sudden relapse, and then he'll need a stem cell transplant, but those hurdles can be cleared.

Longtime readers know that my brother and I were nominally raised as Protestants. I say nominally because we stopped going to church when I was about ten, and skipped around to several different denominations since. Neither of us ever felt terribly committed to any church. That changed for me about three years ago. It's been a more gradual process for my brother.

About ten days ago, he told me that he had decided to convert to Catholicism. (His wife of nearly 14 years is Catholic. They've been raising their daughter Catholic and my brother has been attending Mass with them.) Not only am I overjoyed at his commitment, but I see an interconnectedness between this decision and his miraculous return from death's door.

And that will be the subject of many future posts.

Running, God and Crisis

Friends who know me as an endurance athlete know that I'm a big fan and student of the idea that the marathon, (or ultramarathon, or even triathlon) are rich with analogies and lessons for life and for our personal spiritual journeys. Thus I enjoyed this passage from this morning's teaching in Oswald Chambers' classic devotional, "My Utmost for His Highest"

We have to go the "second mile" with God. Some of us get played out in the first ten yards, because God compels us to go where we cannot see the way, and we say--"I will wait till I get nearer the big crisis." If we do not do the running steadily in the little ways, we shall do nothing in the crisis."

Which is reminiscent of this passage from Hebrews 12:11-13:

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

Iraq Seals Syrian Border

It's about time. Or maybe 14 years too late...

The Iraqi prime minister sealed the northern border crossing into Syria on Saturday after complaints the neighboring country was not doing enough to stop crossings by foreign fighters, and he imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in the area near the Rabiaa frontier post. The order went out as Iraqi forces, backed by American soldiers, swept into Tal Afar, an insurgent stronghold about 60 miles to the east, conducting house-to-house searches and battering down walls with armored vehicles in a second bid to clean the city of militant fighters.

Something the MSM buried last Spring when the final report was issued on Iraq and WMD was the uncertainty remaining about what may have been shipped across the Syrian border before March, 2003 or in the early stages of the war. As the Associated Press noted in April, (buried deep down by most MSM outlets):

...a group formed to investigate whether WMD-related material was shipped out of Iraq before the invasion wasn't able to reach firm conclusions because the security situation halted its work. Investigators were focusing on transfers from Iraq to Syria... The Iraq Survey Group... was unable to rule out unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials." [emphasis added]

Definitely a little late. It seems likely to me that Syria has all along been a big source of the Islamofascist and Baathist dead-ender carnage we've been witnessing in Iraq.

Nancy Pelosi and Econ 101

Jayson over at PoliPundit has this to say about a recent press release from one of the left coast's most left Dems who insists on business-as-usual in cleaning up after Katrina. Why? Because it's the only position in opposition to the president. And being in opposition to the president virtually defines the Democratic party these days.

...when someone like President Bush provides building contractors in the Katrina zones with relief from prevailing wage laws, i.e., the Executive Order to which your latest screed pertains, that means more freakin’ people will get hired to {ding!} fix and rebuild stuff in places that were damaged or destroyed. Ergo, more people than otherwise will get jobs down there. And the rebuilding phase of the recovery period will be shorter than it otherwise would have been.

With unemployment at historic lows, (despite what her colleagues may think), her comparison to the Great Depression, (and therefore the negative effects of suspending prevailing wage laws) is fantastic... in the classical sense of that word. I.e., a complete fantasy. Mr. Bush's grades at Yale may have been only slightly better than his opponents last fall, but apparently he didn't fall asleep during Econ 101 like some pastel-dressed California congresspeople we know.

Explosive! Louisiana Blocked Red Cross Aide

This is absolutely incredible.

Red Cross is confirming... that it had prepositioned water, food, blankets and hygiene products for delivery to the Superdome and the Convention Center in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, but were blocked from delivering those supplies by orders of the Louisiana state government... Red Cross was told not to provide aid at the Superdome by the Louisiana, not U.S., Department of Homeland Security... At the very moment that Ray Nagin, the Mayor of New Orleans was screaming where’s the food, where’s the water, it was over the overpass, and state officials were saying you can’t come in.

Go read the whole piece over at The Anchoress. She has assembled a nice set of links to several other bloggers who broke the story and are continuing to follow it. No, you will not hear this on CNN. Maybe this is the reason. Yep. It's Bush's fault.

Comments and Perceptions - The Bushitler Left Shows Up

Periodically some angry, radical-left-wing person sees fit to vent here, going well beyond rational argument. Some bloggers choose to remove such comments to the extent that they venture into profanity and personal attacks. I have been sorely tempted on several occasions.

Yet in each case, without fail, the attacks prove my case better than anything I could possibly say in response. Emotion-filled, fact-free, slogan-shouting, paranoid, Bushitler-hating wack-left people who seem to have their identity all tied up in believing that all conservatives are horrendous, greedy, uncaring, sub-human corporate pigs don't need to be conjured up by my imagination. They just show up.

I don't care if you agree with me, but bring facts, arguments, and civility. Or be banned. It's my blog.

P.S. Halliburton is spelled with two 'l's, not one. And their stock is up only ~25% since Mssrs. Bush and Cheney first took office... not a very good conspiracy if that's what they're after.

P.P.S. Homelessness will always be with us, but since 1973, the U.S. unemployment rate has only been as low as it is now (4.7%) during 47 months. (WSJ subscription required... a good investment for any reader as the paper was recently voted the #2 best newspaper int the world - behind the Financial Times - "according to a survey of 1,000 executives, politicians, university lecturers, journalists and advertising professionals across 50 countries") I digress.

Most of those months occurred during the late 1990's when a Democrat, (albeit an impeached one) was president. At the time, everyone seemed to agree that the economy was "great", or at worst "a bubble". Other economic numbers (household income, interest rates, GDP growth, etc.) show similar patterns. A certain wooden vice president ran on that record and a little less than half the electoral college members thought he was absolutely divine.

Yet when this administration achieves an economy that strong, it is scorned for having "driven the country into the ground." Where I come from, they call that moving the goal posts.

Chernobyl: Case Study in Victim Culture

I noted with serendipitous interest this piece ("Aftereffects of Chernobyl seen as more mental than physical") in a discarded copy of the Boston Globe I found on the train this morning. (I refuse to spend money on that paper.)

Nearly 20 years after the huge nuclear accident in Chernobyl, a new scientific report has found that its aftereffects on health and the environment have proved not as dire as scientists had previously predicted. The report was compiled by a panel of more than 100 specialists convened by UN agencies. In light of the findings, it concludes, compensation programs for Chernobyl victims should be scaled back to end the pervasive culture of "dependency" in the affected areas of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, which it calls "a major barrier to the region's recovery." [emphasis added]

...Defying previous forecasts, there has been no observed rise in the incidence of leukemia, a blood cancer widely associated with radiation exposure -- except, perhaps, a small rise among workers who were in the contaminated plant. Nor has there been any detectable decrease in fertility or increase in birth defects, concluded the expert panel, called the Chernobyl Forum. The report concludes that "the largest public health problem unleashed by the accident" is "the mental health impact": Residents of the region, who view themselves as victims of a tragedy they poorly understand, are still beset by anxiety that has prevented them from restarting their lives. "People have developed a paralyzing fatalism because they think they are at much higher risk than they are, so that leads to things like drug and alcohol use, and unprotected sex and unemployment," said Dr. Fred A. Mettler, health effect team leader of the Chernobyl Forum. [emphasis added]

Whoa! The Boston Globe? It's harder to imagine the MSM, much less the Globe applying the same logic domestically. Wait twenty years and see if the aftermath of Katrina is talked about as candidly. Chernobyl is harder to ignore though, in part because:

"...we have the eight UN agencies and the three governments involved coming to a consensus about the effects and what needs to be done." [said Mettler]

I particularly liked these numbers that chronicle how fear, plus a victim-hood mentality and welfare-dependent culture can easily grow malignant over time to the detriment of an economy:

Despite the relatively low level of actual risk, 7 million people in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus still receive some kind of Chernobyl benefits, from monthly stipends to university entrance preference to free therapeutic yearly holidays. In Ukraine, the number of people (and their children) designated as permanently disabled by the Chernobyl accident increased from 200 in 1991 to 64,500 in 1997 and 91,219 in 2001 -- even though the effects of radiation decline over time, the report noted. Both Ukraine and Belarus still spend about 5 percent of their annual budget on Chernobyl victims. Although 5 million people live in areas classified as contaminated by Chernobyl, the vast majority are exposed to very low doses of radiation, with levels no higher than citizens in areas of China, Brazil, or Great Britain, where naturally occurring background radiation in soil is relatively high. "People were evacuated from areas that now have dose levels lower than where I live in New Mexico", said Mettler, a specialist on the health effects of nuclear radiation. [emphasis added]

Can we now please get down to unemotionally connecting the dots between a desire for cleaner air, a reduction in greenhouse gasses, (if you believe in that stuff), and the real risks involved in non-CO2-producing nuclear power? I'm not sure I'm totally on the nuke bandwagon yet, (on the assumption that humans are fallible, things always go wrong, and that Homer Simpson's place of fictional employment is only partially made-up.) But it deserves to be looked at with clear empirical data in view. And Chernobyl is one of the best sources of that data.

Cuban Docs - Thanks Anyway

Cuba offered last week to send 1,500 doctors to help with post-Katrina care. How thoughtful. Here's the equation as I see it: If we accept, then maybe in some marginal way, some U.S. docs won't have to work as hard for a few weeks. Maybe. (Stick with me, readers. I'm being generous here to make a point. I'm not aware of any critical shortage of doctors in the area.)

But in doing so, we would also legitimize a brutal dictator whose regime and policies have substantially harmed the health (and life) of millions over decades. Not to mention depriving Cuba of doctors it surely needs given the state of its own 'free' system. (Pop quiz: how many people in say, Europe or the U.S. or Canada travel to Cuba to get a knee replacement or advanced cancer therapy? Riiight.)

All of which means that the choice (in theory), boils down to favoring Americans at the expense of poor people in foreign countries. Isn't that the kind of trade-off the liberal establishment is usually against?

Val over at Babalu Blog raises several more issues in this righteous, rockin' post, (e.g., medical credentials, language proficiency, the burden of defections, and the never-ending whine of "useful idiots" stateside who naturally jump at this kind of bogus PR bait.) While you're over there, (Babalu is the source for all things Cuban), check out this bumper sticker. I want one!!

It's Official - UN Oil-For-Food Was Desperately Corrupt

Are we surprised? Correcting for the usual diplomatic teflon-talk, the final Volcker report is like a 2X4 to Kofi's head.

The Independent Inquiry Committee's comprehensive report, released Wednesday, exposed failures across the U.N. system, from Secretary-General Kofi Annan, to his deputy to the U.N. Security Council. They allowed corruption to flourish and stood by as Saddam Hussein bilked about $10.2 billion... but many developing nations object [to reforms] because they think doing so could strip them of coveted power. "It would be unfortunate for the U.N. in my opinion, if faced by all this evidence, they don't do enough," Volcker told The Associated Press. "I think you're forced to the conclusion that if they don't, the world has lost a potentially important resource when problems of this sort arise. And if they don't reform, they shouldn't undertake any programs of this sort." [emphasis added]

Yes of course it would strip them of power - the power to funnel $billions into their own pockets. I'm not counting the UN out. The MSM and liberal cranks will find ways, (as they have before) to support a corrupt institution as a foil to U.S. leadership they hate with utter blindness. They will find ways to wait out the news cycle and brush this under the rug as a one-time issue. The left's only hope to return from the political wilderness is to listen to their few sane members who recognize that the UN is a moral tarpit. Nice idea. It didn't work. Time to try something else.

Federal Priorities

Digging further into this excellent article, the following jumps out at this Bostonian blogger:

Congress has a $14 billion proposal designed to reverse this process [of Louisiana land being lost to the sea], to restore the wetlands that provide buffers against storms. This would also help keep the city of New Orleans from continually sinking further below sea level. But Congress has chosen other big projects as worthier of its attention. The Big Dig, a $15 billion project to bury two miles of a highway in central Boston was the favored public works project that President Clinton awarded Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy.

The Big Dig certainly makes my life easier. But it sure wasn't worth $15B. Not even close. Politics works both ways.

Looting Mania: 'Til There Are No Rich No More

I find the bizarre ravings of folks like Celine Dion and Randi Rhodes (of Air America) - encouraging indiscriminate looting - absolutely breathtaking. Neither one draws a distinction between stealing essential food and water and stealing designer jeans, wide-screen televisions or other goodies in roving gangs while shooting at contractors trying to repair a levee. Do they understand what they're advocating? Do they understand the impact this is likely to have on ordinary law-abiding, ghetto dwellers well into the future? Those folk know - far better than these rich, liberal prognosticators apparently - that encouraging criminal behavior is the last thing that's going to benefit them.

Not only will this kind of irresponsible pandering to rich, guilt-plagued liberal listeners perpetuate stereotypes, but it will embolden an already bold predator class more likely to rob a neighborhood grandmother of her welfare check than to venture into an upscale area.

This article over at American Thinker puts it well. (It's a long article, chock full of facts and highly sane - well worth reading as an antidote to the increasing drone of the MSM):

The lawlessness in New Orleans was more of the same for a city that has always had a very high crime rate. Start with the widespread looting, which the media tended to ignore or apologize for as acts of desperation. This was not entirely simply desperation. Desperation may lead people to steal milk, water, diapers, and medicines. Under similar circumstances as occurred this week, many of us might steal the things needed to feed and care for our families and ourselves. But Nikes, flat screen TVs, and guns are bit different.

Since the debate around all of this is feeling more sixties like with each passing day, we're reminded of the vapid lyrics to that classic Ten Years After song ("I'd Love to Change the World"):

Tax the rich, feed the poor
Till there are no rich no more

[Not "'til there are no poor no more", but "If I can't have what I want, then by rights you ought to be as miserable as I am."]

I’d love to change the world
But I don’t know what to do
So I’ll leave it up to you

Not knowing what to do and leaving it up to someone else is almost perfectly reflective of the amoral dependency culture the welfare state has produced. I makes great music. It makes lousy public policy.

HT: California Conservative.

Crisis of Leadership

I caught my own governor, Mitt Romney, about an hour ago on talk radio opining that what's gone on down south was primarily a failure of leadership. And while the guv was extremely polite as always, it was clear he was talking about his counterpart and the New Orleans mayor - not Mr. Bush. Refrain: why were the buses never released? Why did the president have to urge that the evacuation be made mandatory?

UPDATE: Somehow I missed this tale of true leadership. Not hard when the MSM failed to pick it up late last week after the Houston Chronicle broke it. Synopsis: twenty year-old Jabbar Gibson managed to find and start a school bus and drive 70 people to safety in Houston.

Root Causes II - Thomas Sowell Weighs In

Thomas Sowell never disappoints.

The physical devastation caused by hurricane Katrina has painfully revealed the moral devastation of our times... Why are people angry? And at whom?... When all is said and done, government is ultimately just human beings -- politicians, judges, bureaucrats. Maybe the reason we are so often disappointed with them is that they have over-promised and we have been gullible enough to believe them. Government cannot solve all our problems, even in normal times, much less during a catastrophe of nature that reminds man how little he is, despite all his big talk. The most basic function of government, maintaining law and order, breaks down when floods or blackouts paralyze the system. During good times or bad, the police cannot police everybody. They can at best control a small segment of society. The vast majority of people have to control themselves. That is where the great moral traditions of a society come in...[emphasis added]

Read it.

Actors Behaving Badly, Part III

Now James Bond is in on the Bush-bashing act. Dateline: France. Need we say more?

"This man called President Bush has a lot to answer for... I don't know if this man is really taking care of America. This government has been shameful."

Tell ya' what, Pierce. You go pretend to save the free world and we'll pretend to care. HT: Drudge.

I just have one question for the Bush-bashers in the wake of Katrina:

Did you actually read the AP wire on August 28th?

Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.

Presumably, the evacuation would otherwise have been voluntary. And this is the evil character that Hollywood is out to get? C'mon.

Root Causes - Digging Deeper

Robert Tracinski has a theory about New Orleans, which also helps to explain the relative dearth of chaos and mayhem stories out of Mississippi. Damage and death and heartache? Yes. But not the breakdown of social order.

...events [in New Orleans] make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster. If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild. Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency... But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster... The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over four days last week. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view. The man-made disaster is the welfare state. [emphasis added]

Tracinski goes on to talk about how the NOPD completely fell apart. (Is duty there so much harder than Bed Stuy in the '70's or Ground Zero duty after 9-11 that it explains a collapse of the effectiveness of the force?) He also cites rumors - as yet unsubstantiated - that prisoners were released from jails in N.O. because nobody had the resources to deal with them. That alone would explain a lot. I'm looking for sources. Again, rumor at this point. Hat tip on the Tracinski piece: Uber-Trekkie Kschlenker, who knows whereof she speaks:

For about 18 months in the mid '90s I worked as a caseworker for foodstamps, Medicaid, and AFDC (now called TANF). That job was torture; I remember one 13 year old coming in to apply for a TP40 (Medicaid for pregnancy) who was still being claimed as a dependent by her mother, who was on AFDC, and the grandmother also came in, and she was another one of my AFDC clients. The girl wouldn't say who the father was, and we aren't given a lot of resources to find out who had sex with a girl who would have been 12 at the time the pregnancy started. In fact, the girl said she didn't know who the father was, because she had been with several boys. After the girl left to go to the bathroom, I lit into the mother and asked her where she was when her daughter was out screwing around. She said she did it when she was a kid, and she didn't think it was a big deal. Sick, just plain sick....

A client who was 27 and had nine kids by seven men; none of whom lived with her as it turned out (most of them lived with their paternal grandparents and two with her mother) that no one had caught on to--she was getting AFDC, foodstamps and Medicaid for 10 people and selling everything for drugs. It was the third time she was arrested for welfare fraud. I never found out if she went to prison or not.

I had a few clients who were simply good people who had a streak of bad luck... BTW, only the 27 year old was a minority. The rest of these people were white...

I would add that the four decade failure in New Orleans also includes failure to invest in common-sense disaster preparedness, (e.g., that pesky school bus plan that never got implemented; evacuation drills; planning; stockpiles of food and water... those things are not Washington's fault.) That does not lessen our compassion for those caught in the crossfire, but it does increase our skepticism that local citizens (whatever their wealth or race) are well served by their local and state government.

The welfare state isn't just about the state making individuals dependent. It's also about the states inducing the federal government to make them dependent - providing permanent solutions where temporary ones would do just fine. Didn't we learn from the 1980's S&L crisis and the federal flood insurance program that carte blanche federal risk protection creates exactly the behaviors society seeks to avoid? I.e., a climate in which outsize risks get taken, (building in flood-prone areas, making risky investments), precisely because its known that 'daddy' will step in to fix things if they break.

UPDATE: Local eyewitnesses cite examples like these in support of the notion that some NOPD officers were part of the problem, not part of the solution.

"I couldn't describe how bad the authorities were. Just little things like taking photographs of us, as we are standing on the roof waving for help, for their own little snapshot albums. At one point, there were a load of girls on the roof of the hotel saying 'Can you help us?' and the policemen said 'Show us what you've got' and made signs for them to lift their T-shirts. When the girls refused, they said 'Fine' and motored off down the road in their boat."

Hillary vs. Rudy - Katrina Shifts the Focus

When I visited him in the hospital this morning, my brother, (amazingly sharp despite months of chemo), remarked that Katrina will be a boon for Rudy Giuliani's presidential candidacy. Good call. I suspect he's right, (a theme Peggy Noonan touched on last week in her WSJ column.)

Without having to do anything overtly, the question is poised in many peoples' minds: "who would have made this much better in a big hurry?" Like him or don't, Rudy G occupies what marketers would call a clear, common brand position in virtually every voter's mind. This disaster - arguably of greater scope than 9-11, (all the data isn't in, so it's hard to call) - makes Rudy a natural to step strongly onto the national stage. It doesn't even have to be right away. If he's smart, it won't be.

Even a year from now, it will be a lot easier for Rudy to simply raise his hand and expect to rise to the top. The common response: "Oh, of course... Katrina... 9-11... Rudy... makes sense... let's hire him." None of the other Republican's have that.

That said, someone else figured all this out looong ago, and already has her angle:

Sen. Hillary Clinton called yesterday for a 9/11-style probe into how the federal government responded to the crisis. "It has become increasingly evident that our nation was not prepared," Clinton (D-N.Y.) said in a letter to Bush asking him to set up a "Katrina Commission."

All of which sounds fine as far as it goes. I.e., big crisis deserves study. Except for two things:

1) She's defining this from the outset as a purely national problem - subtly taking the spotlight off local Democrats who screwed up both tactically, (the 250 school buses not deployed that the MSM doesn't want to talk about), and strategically, (i.e., refusing over many decades to invest in measures that would have mitigated some of the effects of the well known hurricane risk.)

2) She's already decided what to do, begging the question of why she needs a commission - other than to gain attention for herself.

Clinton has decided at least one thing without waiting for any commission reports. She said she plans to introduce legislation to split the Federal Emergency Management Agency out of the Department of Homeland Security and give it back a cabinet-level director like it had in her husband's administration.

Ann Rice: "We Are Americans. We Are You."

New Orleans writer Ann Rice on the recent debacle:

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs. Well, we are a lot more than all that. And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you.

I'm not so sure that "we" failed New Orleans, as much as it was the case that expectations for outside help were turned up to high volume by local officials and the media. One thing vastly different from 9-11 (aside from the origin of the disaster), was that the proverbial political pump had already been primed by other events to frame the story as all about an incompetent, culpable, uncaring president. I'm not sure where Rice is getting the "sin city" bit. Some may have called it that in the wake of the storm, but no more than did so for New York after 9-11. I.e., a radical fringe. Yes, we are all Americans. We are also all sinners.

'Hurricane' Building Codes: Rock?... or Sand?

I couldn't help making a connection between these two stories:

1) "Some evacuees see religious message in Katrina"

...some bristled at the role of religion in helping the afflicted. "We're getting reports of how some religion-based 'aid' groups are trying to fly evangelists into the stricken areas and how U.S. Army chaplains are carrying bibles -- not food or water -- to 'comfort' people," Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheist, said in a statement. "People need material aid, medical care and economic support -- not prayers and preaching." [emphasis added]

2) "Amid horror, 2 officers commit suicide"

Sergeant Paul Accardo was the public face of the New Orleans Police Department, a spokesman who went in front of the TV camera on a regular basis... "He lost everything he owned... He just could not find a way to wrap his mind around what had happened. There was despair in his eyes and sorrow. All I can say is it is more than he could handle." ...Accardo and his wife had separated a few months back, and Accardo was in a "fragile" state. [emphasis added]

Sad. Very sad. No, people need a lot more than material aid, medical care and economic support. A lot more. Clean water to drink is essential, but it will never rival the other kind, (Matt 7:24-28):

"...everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash." When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching.

Please pray that troubled NOPD officers Lawrence Celestine and Paul Accardo may rest in peace, and that their families may be comforted in their loss.

The Good Stories (Finally) Come Out

It's nice to see some positives finally emerging amidst the utterly disingenuous drumbeat of "Bush waivered and po' folks suffered."

In the absence of information and outside assistance, groups of rich and poor banded together in the French Quarter, forming "tribes" and dividing up the labor. As some went down to the river to do the wash, others remained behind to protect property. In a bar, a bartender put near-perfect stitches into the torn ear of a robbery victim. While mold and contagion grew in the muck that engulfed most of the city, something else sprouted in this most decadent of American neighborhoods - humanity.

Sean Penn to the Rescue

I'm LMAO over this one. I thought Sean Penn was in Iran.

Efforts by Hollywood actor Sean Penn to aid New Orleans victims stranded by Hurricane Katrina foundered badly overnight, when the boat he was piloting to launch a rescue attempt... began taking water within seconds of its launch. The actor, known for his political activism, was seen wearing what appeared to be a white flak jacket and frantically bailing water out of the sinking vessel with a red plastic cup. When the boat's motor failed to start, those aboard were forced to use paddles to propel themselves down the flooded New Orleans street. With the boat loaded with members of Penn's entourage, including a personal photographer, one bystander taunted the actor: "How are you going to get any people in that thing?" [emphasis added]

Bob Hope at least knew that his role was entertaining the troops. Perhaps in a round-about way, that's what Penn is after with these antics. HT: Drudge.

UPDATE I: Welcome Instapundit readers! (Thanks Glenn.) Check out the eclectic archives (e.g., this and this), as well as these two sad but telling stories as of 2:50PM Monday, Labor Day.

UPDATE II: A story like this breaking in a foreign paper gives us pause, but so far nothing on Snopes, and more and more reputable outlets are picking it up. (Not the U.S. MSM however. That would be bad.) Truth can be stranger than fiction. Especially in Hollywood. One blog is referencing a CNN interview with Penn by Soldad O'Brien around the time of the incident.

UPDATE III: I love this take on the Penn mission over at Blogcritics: "...if your goal was just to put on an act for the cameras and convince everyone that you're a HERO, this deal makes more sense. You can easily imagine the photo that he was hoping for. Imagine Sean Penn standing in a boat with a Jesus look on his face, cradling a freshly rescued dirty, wet and miserable child lovingly in his arms- preferably a brown or black one."

UPDATE IV: Since everyone else is carrying the pic-worth-1000 words, here 'tis:

UPDATE V: Performer-stupidity disease apparently isn't limited to acting. Celine Dion on Larry King Live: "You know, some people are stealing and they're making a big deal out of it... Oh, they're stealing 20 pair of jeans or they're stealing television sets. Who cares?" The aid workers they're shooting at. That's who. Gimme a break.

UPDATE VI: California Conservative has one of the most succinct takes on this that I've seen to date, (along with some creative Photoshops of the larger scene as he imagines it):

Don’t try anything stupid. Please make a donation to the American Red Cross today, and leave the rescue and aid efforts to people who know what they’re doing.

UPDATE VII: A couple of people I've talked to in the last 24 hours have asked, "why isn't this in the major media outlets?" Uh, because it's impossible to talk about the buffoonery of Sean Penn in a boat in New Orleans without casting doubt Sean Penn's poorly timed trips Iraq and Iran. Pull that thread and the whole anti-war sweater unravels. Yes, there really is a grossly biased liberal media establishment.

UPDATE VIII: Oh puhhlease. "Sean Penn, who has been assisting rescue efforts in New Orleans, said the US government did not 'seem to be inclined to help'." Uh, except for tens of thousands of National Guard troops who managed to reach what is now a largely inaccessible area within days despite it being a virtual war zone due to local corruption and incompetence. As Austin Bay noted on NPR this morning, it is not the federal response that has been insufficient, but popular expectations that are way way out of proportion to the realistic capabilities of any government faced with such wide-scale a crisis. Penn and his ilk can criticize all they want, but name one other nation whose response would have been nearly as fast under such circumstances.

UPDATE IX: Sean Penn to the BBC: "There are people dying and (the US government is) not putting the boats in the water. I think that's criminal negligence. I don't think anybody ever anticipated the criminal negligence of the Bush administration in this situation." No Sean. You anticipated criminal negligence so blindly that you could not see anything else. If you're sincere, turn off the cameras, skip the interviews and give to the folks who know what they're doing.

UPDATE X: (The last one... really.) The story gets a little more nuanced with eyewitness testimony from two sources working for Rolling Stone who accompanied Penn on the cruise.

About Time

What kind of fool would still be roving around in an armed gang taking shots at aide workers now that the cavalry has moved in to New Orleans? Dead fools, that's who.

Police shot and killed at least five people Sunday after [eight] gunmen opened fire on a group of contractors traveling across a bridge on their way to make repairs, authorities said.

I'm just waiting for the MSM to come out decrying 'police brutality' and seeking to play the race card. Just waiting. Mark my words. Ten, nine, eight...

John 17:16-17

I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.

You've GOT to be Kidding

Nice. Very nice. The liberal moral high ground just got submerged. From a poster at the Democratic Underground:

I saw a mini-van on the side of the road. There was a lady standing next to the van and in her arms she held her child. I can only assume her mini-van had broken down... I slowed down and started to pull over to offer her a ride. At the very last second I noticed a "W" sticker on the back of her vehicle and I sped up and drove off... I never did go back. I was so upset with that sticker and with the fact that someone would support an idiot who is so clearly running our country into the ground.

Hat tip: Carl, over at No Oil for Pacificsts has much more. Take a look.

(Hurricane) Data Will Set You Free

Take a look at the chart at left, sourced from the National Hurricane Center. Then read this piece by James Glassman over at Tech Central Station. Excerpt:

For the North Atlantic as a whole, according to the United Nations Environment Programme of the World Meteorological Organization: "Reliable data…since the 1940s indicate that the peak strength of the strongest hurricanes has not changed, and the mean maximum intensity of all hurricanes has decreased." Yes, decreased. Not only has the intensity of hurricanes fallen, but, as George H. Taylor, the state climatologist of Oregon has pointed out, so has the frequency of hailstorms in the U.S. (see Changnon and Changnon) and cyclones throughout the world (Gulev, et al.).

Let's see: NHC, UNEP, peer-reviewed studies... or layman's "common sense" experience sticking one's head out the window and reading the MSM? There isn't a lot more to be said... though you might take a look at my previous posts on the subject, e.g., here and here, (with links to many others.)

NOTE: The NHC data from which the chart was derived can be found here.

Hat tip: Right Nation via NY Girl

What Would We Do Without Young Actors?...

...to sagely point out flaws in U.S. policy that the rest of us might have missed.

"The federal government's response must be dramatically increased in order to prevent a further loss of life." (Angelina Jolie, yesterday, in a statement)

So helpful. So very very helpful. John Bolton conveying U.S. policy to the UN gets criticized but when "Lara Croft" spouts platitudes back at us on behalf of the UN, the media laps it up.

Katrina Anarchy - Root Causes

I've been holding off opining on the anarchy unfolding in New Orleans. There's been too much to absorb - too much yelling; too many isolated tidbits; not a whole lot of analysis beyond the pure shock of it all. That's beginning to change.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal (subscription required), provided historical synopses of four natural (or semi-natural) catastrophes in U.S. history: the great Chicago fire, (1871), the Johnstown flood, (1889), the Galveston hurricane (1900) and the San Francisco earthquake and fire, (1906). What these have in common are:

• Near-total physical devastation
• Massive loss of life (proportionally and absolutely)
  
• Strong action-biased local leadership, and
• A rebound to something much greater than before

...cities are resilient and usually bounce back from the worst natural or man-made devastation... People don't abandon their cities, and indeed industries don't abandon the cities they're in... Americans are loath to surrender their cities despite the threat of an array of biblical plagues.

In contrast, much of editorializing about New Orleans - from both left and right - seems to assume the worst and also assume that the federal government, and particularly the president has the ability and primary responsibility to act as deus ex machina, miraculously making everything OK overnight from Washington. As if that were possible.

The reasoning is all over the political map: We did it in Iraq and for the tsunami, why not here?, We're the world's superpower, so why aren't we supermen? These are poor people of color, what do you expect? We pay lots of taxes and this is all we get? We have a Homeland Security department - what have they been up to? We were supposed to be prepared for a terrorist attack, etc. All are valid to some degree; but all seem to miss the point that centralized bureaucracy - whomever is in office - is inherently poor at handling local crises, especially when time is of the essence. When armed gangs are roving the streets raping and firing at will, it's not a problem of more food and water. It's a problem of who's going to stop these folks from causing chaos?

The century-old historical examples instead all highlight local leadership, e.g., trade unions, block associations, churches, benevolent associations, major employers, and just plain civic-minded folk taking charge to fix what broke. Only long after the fact did those four cities rely on funds they'd solicited in Washington and elsewhere. They certainly didn't wait for them.

I get the sense that many in the media and even the blogosphere wish that there were a magic solution to all this - that the president or Congress or even state officials should make it all OK because they're the government. There's a kernel of truth in that. Some of this requires out-and-out rescue from outside. But I find it ironic and disappointing that in New Orleans - which by reputation at least, I've always thought of as right up there with Chicago and Boston in terms of hyper-local (block/ward) politics - there's a sense of simply waiting for the cavalry to arrive, (which thankfully they seem to have done today.) We've been conditioned to think that 9-1-1 (the dialing kind, not the terrorist strike) will solve everything - that we can outsource our security to forces unseen.

Ordinary citizens almost across the board have been trained and pacified by 70 years of the welfare state to expect a remote solution. Tell that to an early 20th century resident of San Francisco, (probably well armed), and s/he won't know what you're talking about. (Very different story for early 21st century SFO, but we won't go there today.) When the solution must emerge locally, leadership and ingenuity - and necessary, responsible force - have a way of coming out of the proverbial woodwork.

Neal Boortz also makes the connection with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, asking what would have happened if someone - anyone - had taken a firmer stand against mayhem early on in New Orleans:

Aren't we all a bit tired of hearing the Governor of Louisiana tells us all how she is now ready to crack down on the lawlessness in New Orleans. She's been ready to crack down for days. Have you seen it on TV? Police say that they weren't arresting people because they didn't have any place to put them. One of the first responsibilities of government in times of disaster is to restore order. This means that you stop people from preying on other people. If some looters had been shot and killed on day one -- not at grocery stores, but at clothing, appliance or jewelry stores, or in the casinos or at an ATM -- if a looter had been shot the first day, we would have seen a lot less violence.

Maybe things are changing .. finally. Now we have the Louisiana governor saying of the newly arrived National Guard troops: "They have M-16s, and they're locked and loaded ... I have one message for these hoodlums: These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary, and I expect they will."

In 1906 a devastating earthquake hit San Francisco. The mayor at that time was one E.E. Schmitz. Mayor Schmitz issued a proclamation. Perhaps you would like to read it: "...[police] have been authorized by me to KILL any and all persons found to be engaged in looting or any other crime." [emphasis added]

[The rest of the Boortz pieces on that page are interesting too - scroll down.] I'm not ordinarily a fan of capital punishment for a variety of reasons, not least its lack of a deterrent effect and its cost, but in a rare crisis like this, immediate frontier justice would have been useful to get peoples' attention. Otherwise, isolated anarchy begets widespread anarchy as those on the margin of the social fabric ask 'why not?' As Victor Davis Hanson likes to point out, human nature has not changed in millennia. Some will always be absolute beasts given the opportunity. Without order, nothing about resupply, rescue or rebuilding is possible. We've seen that in Iraq.

Having not established it locally and very early, we see it in New Orleans now too. Local frontier justice may not have saved the ill and elderly, but it sure would have prevented some rapes and murders. It would also have enabled some of those helicopters to land safely and made it less risky and cumbersome to plan relief convoys. Instead, we have to waste time thinking about who's going to ride shotgun as if this were Somalia. Hesitation and a defensive posture there were immensely costly. Had local authorities and even civic-minded individuals gone on offense in New Orleans very early on, at least some of the breakdown in order surely could have been avoided.

UPDATE: An astute reader points us to this LA Times article, (free registration required), noting that complaints about federal response are not unique to the 21st century. I'd add that while mindless dependence on government also has long roots, it has gotten worse. It still isn't serving anyone terribly well - least of all the poor in this country who've been trained by liberal elites to sit up and beg for handouts. To imply that all of those stuck in N.O. had no choice, (and I readily acknowledge that some did not), is to insult the intelligence of many who remained on assurances that they'd somehow be saved if they followed the mayor's and governor's orders. That they were not then protected from mayhem by those officials is a travesty. That's job one of government - before we get to any debates about other roles it should or should not play. That is not the president's job. That is not the president's fault. That is why we have mayors and governors whom the public trusts with long-term planning. George Bush is not uber-mayor. He has other jobs to do. Poor people could have driven buses too - probably much better than rich people. Local government officials didn't let them.

Hazardous Materials Explosion in N.O.?

As if they didn't have enough troubles already. CNN reports:

Adding to the uncertainty Friday morning was a large explosion in the city's railroad district, possibly from a rail car. Authorities were trying to get a hazardous materials team to the area... "several cars blew up," but it was not known what they were carrying.

Local television is reporting that:

The explosions appeared to come from an area on the east bank of the Mississippi River, near a residential area and railroad tracks. At least two police boats were at the scene. The first explosion sent flames shooting into the pre-dawn sky. A series of smaller blasts followed and then acrid, black smoke that could be seen even in the dark. The vibrations were felt all the way downtown.

What a mess. Be thankful for clean water from your tap. Be thankful for a dry place to sleep. Be thankful for your local police. Be thankful for the supermarket down the street. Be thankful for electricity and transportation and air that smells sweet. Be thankful for your loved ones by your side - or at the other end of a phone call. Be thankful for the beauty of your life in this moment. It is a fragile thing.

Al Qaeda Takes Credit for Katrina

Truth is stranger than fiction.

...how strange it is that after all the tremendous American achievements for the sake of humanity, these mighty winds come and evilly rip [America's] cities to shreds? Have the storms joined the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization? ...By Allah, this is not schadenfreude.

Yes, actually, it is. And that makes all the difference.

Katrina Relief

I can't add much to this excellent summary by Michelle Malkin of ways to help Katrina's victims.

UPDATE I: A vision of hell on earth.

"There are thousands of people lying in the street. We saw mothers holding babies, some of them just three, four and five months old, living in horrible conditions. Diapers littered the ground. Feces were on the ground. Sewage was spilled all around... We saw dead bodies... a grandmother in a wheelchair pushed up to the wall and covered with a sheet. Right next to her was another dead body wrapped in a white sheet. Right in front of us a man went into a seizure on the ground. No one here has medical training. There is nowhere to evacuate these people to... People have been sitting there without food and water and waiting... They are saying, 'Don't leave us here to die... Are they going to leave us here to die?'"

UPDATE II: The lower reaches of hell.

...storm victims are being raped and beaten inside the New Orleans Convention Center... Police Chief Eddie Compass says he sent in 88 officers to quell the situation at the building, but they were quickly beaten back by an angry mob.

Miscellaneous Round-up

I just visited with my brother who seems to be back on track with his treatment. It's apparent now in hindsight that he dodged a bullet this past Sunday. The bug that got into his immunosuppressed system was a truly dangerous one that often kills people quickly by collapsing their blood pressure. (His dipped to 75/40 before rebounding.) He survived due to the alertness of my sister-in-law and her speeding-ticket avoidance skills getting to the ER, plus, (the doctors said), his strong system, conditioned by years of regular gym work and cycling.

Driving home from the hospital, I listened to the BBC World Service. That usually drives my blood pressure up. Hmm... maybe my bro could listen too. :) A couple of things stood out.

First, Owen Bennett Jones was asking a reporter in Iraq about the Shiia bridge scare catastrophe that I wrote about yesterday. The BBC has a knack for asking the most unbelievably leading questions. "Isn't there fear reprisals [between Sunni and Shiia]?" Jones asked, (always in the passive voice; always negative; always a yes/no question). "Uh, no," came the reply. The Sunnis and Shiia are actually quite compatible on the ground and in the neighborhoods, he continued. (I'm paraphrasing here.) Many Sunni waded into the river to rescue Shiia victims. Many Sunni are giving blood to support Shiia survivors. The main conflict is rhetorical - at the level of political 'leadership'. (The reporter's response reminded me of this Peggy Noonan editorial from back in June.) But Jones did not let up after that matter-of-fact things are OK and getting better among ordinary people answer.

But rumors of a suicide bomber were unfounded, weren't they?, he insisted, (as if that excused the climate of fear that other suicide bombers have instilled). There was no exploration of what I should think is a very basic equation: terrorists' main goal is to instill a general sense of terror which can easily induce a stampede, killing over 1000 with no explosives used. This was not a natural disaster in the Katrina sense.

Finally, does anyone else find it more than coincidental that, as Sigmund, Carl & Alfred have noted, (among others, i.e., about Katrina perversely fueling a Bush-hating frenzy), that military helicopters are being fired on outside the Superdome? (Another story that the BBC reported on somewhat more matter-of-factly than I'd think was warranted given how much similar incidents cause media feeding frenzies when they happen in Iraq.) Is there no connection whatsoever? I'd certainly like to hope so. But with the rhetoric of the anti-war anti-military subculture boiling over regularly, it's hard to completely dismiss the possibility.