David does any of this matter for the Bush loyalists? I doubt it. Once a Bush lover always a Bush lover! I find it difficult to comment on certain areas. With our rigged elections and spineless Democrats, the repugnants will always be under control in Congress. America is a divided country and only God can save us. But, He has given us a free will and we have to deal with the problems. Hatred, killing and endless wars are America's legacy for at least five generations.

Drowning New Orleans

October 2001 issue

A major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands. Human activities along the Mississippi River have dramatically increased the risk, and now only massive reengineering of southeastern Louisiana can save the city

By Mark Fischetti

New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen. The city lies below sea level, in a bowl bordered by levees that fend off Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to the south and west. And because of a damning confluence of factors, the city is sinking further, putting it at increasing flood risk after even minor storms. The low-lying Mississippi Delta, which buffers the city from the gulf, is also rapidly disappearing. A year from now another 25 to 30 square miles of delta marsh--an area the size of Manhattan--will have vanished. An acre disappears every 24 minutes. Each loss gives a storm surge a clearer path to wash over the delta and pour into the bowl, trapping one million people inside and another million in surrounding communities. Extensive evacuation would be impossible because the surging water would cut off the few escape routes. Scientists at Louisiana State University (L.S.U.), who have modeled hundreds of possible storm tracks on advanced computers, predict that more than 100,000 people could die. The body bags wouldn't go very far.

A direct hit is inevitable. Large hurricanes come close every year. In 1965 Hurricane Betsy put parts of the city under eight feet of water. In 1992 monstrous Hurricane Andrew missed the city by only 100 miles. In 1998 Hurricane Georges veered east at the last moment but still caused billions of dollars of damage. At fault are natural processes that have been artificially accelerated by human tinkering--levying rivers, draining wetlands, dredging channels and cutting canals through marshes. Ironically, scientists and engineers say the only hope is more manipulation, although they don't necessarily agree on which proposed projects to pursue. Without intervention, experts at L.S.U. warn, the protective delta will be gone by 2090. The sunken city would sit directly on the sea--at best a troubled Venice, at worst a modern-day Atlantis.

*****end of clip*****

How could Bunnypants have ever thought of such a thing? He does not read so unless Karen Huge or Neocondi Rice read to him from Scientific American he would be just as feckless as always.

Not to mention the article is written by some silly sissy fancy-pants nancy-boy scientist, Bunnypants thinks all scientists are French and he only listens to God anyway.

I wonder why God would tell Bunnypants that there were WMD’s in Iraq or why God failed to warn him about the devastation in store for New Orleans? Wait a minute, Orleans is French, no wonder. Bunnypants is SURE God hates the French.

I wonder why God is not telling Bunnypants the truth? Hmmm.

I guess God must want Bunnypants to be the biggest failure of a president this country has ever seen. Worse than Nixon. Maybe the Reich-wing should quit spouting off, using the lords name for their evil Kkkristo-fascist crap. I think it is pissing God off.

capt

So I'm wondering what the radicals think: Is the government really the problem now?

Know any songs about "Pet Goats?"

-T

media girl,
read this and then you tell me if the govt. is really the problem or not...

Can we recall a President...??? I am not joking, perhaps we cannot impeach him for dereliction of duty,(or maybe we can, he is the Commander in Cheif) but why not recall this incompetent boob and his entire administration before they do serious damage to this nation? Where is the Federal response to this disaster? Is it any coincidence that response is slow in a predomiminantly black, economically poor disaster area??
Jonnyboy

Speaking of "Media Girls"

Jill was interviewed today for WYFF Channel 4 today re: DMAT deployment. Should be on the 6pm newscast. I haven't seen it on the 5 o'clock edition, yet.

I'm checking into taking a leave of absence, or using vacation time, to go and support Jill's DMAT team, when she's deployed. I've still got enought EMT skills and I can tell a pretty good joke, have 2 hands to hold, etc...

I'm also an EXCELLENT campfire COOK!!!

-T

"All of us have heard this term 'preventive war' since the earliest days of Hitler. I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing: Dwight Eisenhower - Source: Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, Bush and America's Willing Executioners would be Guilty at Nuremberg, The Free Press (Columbus, Ohio), 3/2/03

=

A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reforms. It does not haggle over expenditures for armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain: Anatole France, pseudonym for Jacques Anatole Thibault (1844-1924)

===

From the ICH newletter

Thanks ICH

capt

I like the subtle accident (or _is_ it?) whereby Bush's finger position on the fretboard allows him to flip off the watching media. Shades of JiveTurkey's infamous LiveJournal posting.

FEMA's actually restricted on what they can spend until congress re-convenens to vote for additonal funding for disaster relief?

Where, exactly, are all those "Culture of Life" motherfuckers doing the "hard work" of creating legislation for the "president" to sign?

"Oh, wait, all those people are already BORN? Call me when there's a "persistive vegatative" one to save!"

-Senator Frist, et al

JC,

I think he's got the "G" down pat...when he gets that pesky "W" chord, he'll be playing the saddest song I've ever heard!

-T

George Bush is a great president. he's just lucky he got a free minute! if you think you can run a country, go for it idiot.

David Corn is a total asshat. Think you could be a better president? By all means, go ahead and run for office. Face the scrutiny, and see how far you get.

Why does Capt call Bush 'Bunnypants'?

You think he has a free minute? Try a free 1/3 of the year. He needs to get off his ass and do something, realizing that there is more to this country than foreign policy. There are real people who exist here who need help. Why should we spend money to fight terrorism when poverty and un-education are undermining the very system that George W. Bush exploits. And yes exploit is the right word for his war mongering and his political facade for profiteering.

that is the "G" chord form, often referred to as the "flipping you off" chord - ha - unfortunately, he's playing it at the wrong position, which probably explains why that other dweeb is about to snatch it out of his hands - ha

Accidental?

Bush gives the finger

Bush Flips off here

Bush fly’≥ the bird here

Bush shares the one finger salute

Here is one for Bush

Bush communicates by a single middle finger?

Bush gets. . well I have no comment

Bush with fireworks and his favorite digit

Bush handles diplomacy with one finger

Bush with his best finger forward saying the pledge

capt

I voted for "W" twiced!

He changed my life, beyond my wildest dreams!

-Pedro

Uhm, maybe he's just playing....

"freeBIRD!"

HA!

I crack me up!
-T

16 - Not only is it the wrong position, but somebody should tell the dummy that when fingering chords, it's rather important NOT to finger directly over the fret.

Of course, it could be that George apreciates the buzz...

Condi sees a Broadway musical and buys shoes while NO burns...

No joke...it's all over the news NY Post has an article. I don't have a link but today a woman yelled at Condi for buying expensive shoes in a NYC fancy shoe store and Condi had her physically removed.

She also want to see Spamalot last night. Gee, she really doesn't care what is going on in NO, does she?

I just saw the first segment of NBC's 1-hour Nightly News special...

I'll NOT be making any more jokes, there's too many of those coming out of Washington.

-sorry

T

Condi...

I wonder how her oil-stock legacy's doing with gas (locally) at $3.49?

-t

Gas prices have now more than tripled since Bush took office.

So instead of being concerned about the devastation "I can't find the words to describe" he wants us to be sure that the oil will flow.

Think about this. I distribute helium, kind of like a 'gas' station that delivers. My supplier has half his fleet idled by drivers that have broken arms, taken sick leaves, quit, etc. I asked him why they don't just raise the price to the customers.

You and I can't raise prices whenever business is slow, but if the oil companies have a delivery problem and its another excuse to raise the prices.

The government has no energy management plan? What about the one that says I get played the "G" chord in the **s everytime there's a fart in the system.

Give to the red cross? Screw them, Mobil Oil just took in an extra $2.5 billion dollars, not counting the $23.5 billion they raked in since June in price scams. $25 billion since the middle of June in increases? Let them rebuild the gulf, they own it anyway.

Who gives a flying f**k how much time Bush takes off. My real concern is he might be back on the job by Tuesday and that my friends is something to be afraid of.

For you who said "You think you can run this country?" In my sleep I could do a better job than dubya.

Don't you want to tie the idiot in the White House to a lie detector? He has the gall to publicly claim that no one could have predicted any breach in the levees of NO. That's an outrageous lie...

Just like they had no clue that terrorists would use commercial planes to hit the WTC. Lie, lie, lie.;Here's a delicious fantasy of Bush having to answer the questions he's never been asked....while strapped to a polygraph.

Hey George, How About Taking a Polygraph?

CLICK HERE

George Bush is a great president. he's just lucky he got a free minute! if you think you can run a country, go for it idiot.

Do you mean go for the idiot?

Because it kind of sounds as if you already did.

Reg, the guy believes everything they tell him to say. He would pass a polygraph. He would then tell another lie on the way out. "I passed with flying colors".

Anybody else call their worthless "Reprehensatives" today to tell them to get the FUCK to DC and get on the goddam job so we can go and help these people?

I got a recording...worthless MF's!

-T

I saw a chart in the newspaper this am.

Gas prices in 1999 were $1.18 per gallon.

One year ago gas was $1.88

Condi buys a new pair of shoes? She has used more oil since becoming the secretary of state than youy whole family will use in a lifetime, and you can include your first cousins, step cousins and last cousins in that count.

At least they're sending the refugees in the right direction. I always thought Palestine, Texas would be a good spot for s free palestine state. Crawford and Waco could open up 100 new gas stations and stop&rob stores.

Mediagirl - this government is criminally negligent. 30 million in poverty, the Big Easy in the can, Rove driving the family pickup truck, and George playing the guitar.

And why not? Where was Nero when Rome burned?

http://bushspeaks.com/home.asp

A collection of cartoons.

capt

Somebody at NBC must've made an executive decision to report the truth, no matter how ugly, for a change.

Anybody have any takes on the REST of McMedia? I only get the 4 Networks and PBS...

-T

More than 20 nations have offered boats,money, manpower, tents, food, logistics and everything imaginable.

So far all offers have been refused...

We were, in NO WAY, ready for any kind of real disaster, regardless of all the money and resources Washington has stolen from us over the years.

Look on it all and take it to heart.

I am pissed, I am trembling, I am crying.

-T

No matter how much the trillion dollar right-wing media machine spins this in the week's ahead, always remember... Bush thought it was MORE important to play guitar and play GOLF earlier that morning! "Watch this drive!" PS. On a side note, Sen. Landrieu is making a complete ass out of herself on Anderson Cooper 360 right now, to his credit, Anderson is spanking her good for her doublespeak "I want to thank the president" talking points. Pathetic. Once again, timid Dem's can't stand up to Bush.

How can anyone still blindly support this evil idiot? Is this enough for America to wake up?

My cat, after a lobotomy, could do a better job of running this country.

At least I never voted for this demonic administration, but I should have worked harder to prevent them from stealing our country from us.

And then he has the nerve to say "there is zero tolerance for looting". A culture of life my ass.

Hajji,

You are not the only one crying.

Oh by the way, what do you think Bush is singing while he flips the bird with his "g string"?

If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break,
When The Levee Breaks I'll have no place to stay.
Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,
Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home,
Oh, well, oh, well, oh, well.
Don't it make you feel bad When you're tryin' to find your way home, You don't know which way to go?
If you're goin' down South They go no work to do, If you don't know about Chicago.
Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
Now, cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.
All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
Thinkin' about me baby and my happy home.
Going, going to Chicago... Going to Chicago... Sorry but I can't take you...
Going down... going down now... going down....

Jill just called.

Dr. Pace called to say that his DMAT team had been shifted from Hattiesburg to NO. They're being held up from going in to set up a mobile ER in the city because of "security concerns". He said if they they don't send them in by daylight, tomorrow, they're going in, anyway.

There's apparently so much confusion, no coordination on the national level that of the more than 30 teams sent, only 10 have actually set up...

Did I say we're in no way ready?

Has anything good or right happened since Bunnypants was assigned the (p)residency in 2000?

I mean anything good for the non-millionaires?

capt

Hajji,

I've often said that the U.S. Government is the most inefficient run "business" in the United States,regardless of who is in charge. The only reason the military enjoys any success at all is most commanders focus on the mission and not the bureaucatic bickering and red tape that goes on inside the beltway. I wish Jill success in her mission and you as well should you go.

Brad's blog has a photo op session with Karl Rove. He snuck out on Tuesday to meet with Bush Supporters at the Crawford Ranch. Really nice to know he was more concerned about his supporters than working on relief efforts. These people are clueless.

"We can rebuild Iraq. We can rebuild Indonesia. We can build democracies for chrissake. We can rebuild them levees, and get that oil moving again, then find shelter for those that lost so much on Bourbon Street."

Where's my guitar.

This is how the "you are on your own-ership society" works. I encourage everybody to make preparations, store food and water,etc. You can't expect Bush to take care of you when the shit hits the fan. You will be forgotten, and if you go to Walmart to loot some food and water, you will be greated by a "zero tolerance" level of understanding.

He's a cowboy Corky.
When my husband was laid off as a programmer and there were no jobs to be had I felt like my family was disappearing from the landscape of America. We were no longer needed. I knew Bush didn't care. The only way these people are going to get through this is knowing that the nations is there to help. They have to know that Bush cares about them. Unfortunately I don't think he knows how to care.
And the offers to help from other nations should be accepted. The people of the area need to know the world cares.

How about this as a way to pay for fixing this mess?:

Since the oil companies have been nice enough to charge us $3 per gallon for oil they bought at ~ $35 per barrel six months ago (the daily price is a spot market, THEY have long-term contracts), I propose that Congress pass a special 100% windfall profits tax for every penny they make over and above their adjusted five-year net profit average. Take that money and build some REALLY BIG dikes around New Orleans, buy them some pumps that work and backup generators to power them, and put the remainder into setting up algae-based (or crop-based) biodiesel production across the US corn belt.

Eliminate tarriffs on sugar so that we don't need all that high-fructose corn syrup (that's giving us all diabetes anyway) and buy natural sugar cane from Central America and Hawaii instead. This will free up millions of acres of land that is currently in corn production solely to produce this unhealthy sugar substitute. Natural sugar tastes better and you don't need as much of it. The folks in C.A. will have a cash crop other than coca, and that might just help them raise their standard of living.

Terminate the asinine ethanol from corn program the feds set up (it takes more than a gallon of fossil fuel to extract and deliver the ethanol equivalent of one gallon of gasoline), and convert that land to algae farms (some species are up to 60% oil by weight). Recover that oil using supercritical water extraction, then convert it to fuel oil via transesterification. This process yields 100% renewable, clean burning, non-polluting biodiesel. This fuel will run in any existing diesel engine once you change out the fuel lines and filters, and all the little gaskets and o-rings, with the type that like this fuel. Newer trucks and cars are already so prepared.

These processes will yield oil and vegetable residue. The solid by-products can be 'cooked' in parabolic-trough solar ovens. Like that experiment you did in grade school with the wood slivers in the test tube, fuel gases and other chemicals will be driven out. Condense and collect them. They will form something resembling turpentine. Use that for something too, like formulating a gasoline replacement. At the end of the line you will be left with nothing but some residual carbon. Compact that into managable chunks, collect it up, send it to, say, Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, and pay some unemployed coal miners to stick it back into the ground. (Talk about your basic ironic situation)

And while we're at it, tear down all the levees that the Corps of Engineers has built since 1950 to "protect" corn fields lining the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio river basins. The channelization of these rivers led directly to the erosion of about 80% of the Mississippi River Delta, whose buffering effects had long protected New Orleans from major storm surges. The silt no longer flows slowly enough to be deposited in the Delta, and there is not nearly as much of it since the river is basically just a canal now. The majority of the flow goes into the dredged channel, and as a result the Big Muddy is not muddy enough anymore. The lack of sediment has allowed the Delta to slowly disappear, and it is no longer able to soak up and buffer the storm surges. The effects of that should be pretty apparent at this point. Look at the hybrid map of New Orleans and the Delta over at Google Maps. A picture says a thousand words. Just look at all those roads that are now under water.

What would all this do?

1. Eliminate US oil imports within 10 years, 5 if we really bust our butts. (and we should!)

2. Eliminate all current US petro-fuel CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. Allow existing crude oil supplies to remain in the ground where they belong.

3. Allow conversion of coal-burning power plants into biodiesel-burning plants. Coal stays in the ground, its carbon remaining safely sequestered.

4. Sequester the residual carbon, sending in a highly stable form right back into the Earth from whence it came. (ashes to ashes...)

5. Allow us to sign the Kyoto treaty and stop acting like spoiled children. We'll never be as good as the French at that anyway, and who likes to be second-best at anything? (Especially to the French)

6. Eliminate support and funding for the Islamists that would so dearly like to see us all dead or in a permanent state of subjugation. ("dhimmitude")

7. Allow the Mississippi Delta to begin reforming the natural buffer that has protected New Orleans for all the years it has been there.

8. Well and truly screw the oil companies that have gotten us into the mess.

Whew, I feel better now!

An oldie but a goodie and always timely it seems.

Jackson Browne

LIVES IN THE BALANCE

I've been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear
You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that you've seen it before
Where a government lies to a people
And a country is drifting to war

And there's a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interest runs

On the radio talk shows and the T.V.
You hear one thing again and again
How the U.S.A. stands for freedom
And we come to the aid of a friend
But who are the ones that we call our friends--
These governments killing their own?
Or the people who finally can't take any more
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone
There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

There's a shadow on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
Of the wars that are fought in places
Where we can't even say the names

They sell us the President the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us every thing from youth to religion
The same time they sell us our wars
I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they're never the ones to fight or to die
And there are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

A friend works at a fuel storage facility in a small town south of us. From the horses mouth the facility could not store more gasoline. They are at capacity and have been for some time.

The facility is just storage for ConocoPhillips66.

Gas has gone over $3 per gallon from $2.25 two or three days ago.

We are being scrood by the oil/gas companies. The disaster has given them an opportunity to gouge and the preznit does nothing to stop them.

Add one more crime to the list.

capt

Article about how the Bush Administration's actions have a direct link to the devastation that is going on right now in New Orleans...

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_09/007023.php

Fats among the flood missing

September 2, 2005 - 9:25AM

Rock 'n' roll legend Fats Domino is among the thousands unaccounted for in flooded New Orleans after rebuffing friends' pleas to flee as Hurricane Katrina bore down on the city he celebrated in song, his manager said.

The 77-year-old musician, beloved for his boogie-woogie piano style and such hits as Ain't That a Shame, Walking to New Orleans and Blueberry Hill, has not been heard from since Sunday night, hours before Katrina slammed into the US Gulf Coast, manager Al Embry said.

Embry said he spoke to Domino by telephone twice on Sunday, trying to persuade the singer to evacuate, but the musician insisted he was "going to try to ride out" the storm at home with his wife, Rosemary, and his youngest daughter.

Embry, who is based in Nashville, Tennessee, said friend and onetime country music star Mickey Gilley, a cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis, got on the phone with him at one point on Sunday and "tried to beg (Domino) to leave."

Domino lives in New Orleans' 9th Ward, which Embry said was believed to be underwater.

Embry said he had received reports that Domino "might have been picked up on Tuesday night" and that he had been seen trying to flag down a passing boat near his house, but none of those accounts could be confirmed.

Checquoline Davis, Domino's niece, posted a message on Craigslist.com pleading for information. Davis wrote that Domino, his wife, their children and grandchildren "didn't get out" of the second floor.

Getting information on possible missing persons has been nearly impossible as phone lines for hospitals and police haven't been working.

Domino has sold more than 110 million records in his long career.

His 1950 recording of The Fat Man is sometimes called the first real rock 'n' roll record. He was among the first honorees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

*****end of clip*****

Talk about an oldie but a goodie?

capt

Flan, read the article. Devastating. It is so heartwrenching to know that there was so little compassion for the city of New Orleans. The Bush administration knew a disaster would strike that city. They had to have known how important FEMA is for emergencies. Bush was a govenor for God's sakes. And he gives the job to a friend. What did he think, he was a mayor of a itty bitty city? He's the president. What did he think? Lives hung in the balance with every one of these decisions. It's just gross. It's just gross.

'We are out here like pure animals'

September 2, 2005 - 9:25AM

Storm victims were raped and beaten, fights and fires broke out, corpses lay out in the open, and rescue helicopters and law enforcement officers were shot at as hurricane-flooded New Orleans descended into anarchy.

"This is a desperate SOS," Mayor Ray Nagin said.

Anger mounted across the ruined city, with thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims increasingly hungry, desperate and tired of waiting for buses to take them out.

"We are out here like pure animals. We don't have help," the Rev Issac Clark, 68, said outside the New Orleans Convention Centre, where corpses lay in the open and the and other evacuees complained that they were dropped off and given nothing - no food, no water, no medicine.

About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at the convention centre to await buses grew increasingly hostile.

Police Chief Eddie Compass said he sent in 88 officers to quell the situation at the building, but they were quickly beaten back by an angry mob.

"We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten," Compass said.

"Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon."

In hopes of defusing the unrest at the convention centre, Nagin gave the refugees permission to march across a bridge to the city's unflooded west bank for whatever relief they can find. But the bedlam at the convention centre appeared to make leaving difficult.

*****end of clip*****

So very sad, this mess. Any of you heartless Bush apologists need to get in the mind set that it is Americans that are suffering in this disaster. They are family members in the greater family of United States citizens.

Find a little compassion for your fellow countrymen or you can go play a guitar, buy some shoes, see a Broadway show like your Neochronic misleadership.

Talk about un-patriotic, un-American heartless bastards. How can they form the words they spew with no regard for the lives lost, wrecked, damaged beyond repair?

capt

http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/01/katrina.fats.domino/index.html One good piece of news, anyway. Fats made it out.

I just read the article in the NY Times. It's hell on earth in New Orleans. People are trapped in buildings with no food or water. They can't leave because they don't know where to go. They don't know where safe is.

With the billions, upon billions, being spent for; weapons, rockets, missiles, tanks, guns, prison camps, gas, clubs, barbed wire, tsar guns, bunker busters, scanners, ships, planes, spy satellites, fact finding missions to Bermuda, concrete barriers, cameras, Ninja outfits, obscene political pensions/full health care, fleets of SUVs, [armored-unlike Iraq vehicles], a Foggy Bottom Visitor's Center, exorbitant salaries, et al; one would think that somewhere in all this, someone might have thought about protecting the citizens [one of the few real jobs of government-duh]. And now we have anarchy because of; ineptness, stupidity and a legion of bureaucrats with their dumb ass volumes of policies, procedures and agendas!

Capt,
Don't forget, attend a barbeque like our friend KKKarl Rove.

THE SHIP OF STATE IS SUNK

September 2, 2005

by Mark Kato

If anyone has had any doubts about George W. Bush’s utter lack of leadership, the disaster now visiting New Orleans and Biloxi should provide ample proof that this man who many believe illegally inhabits the White House is unfit to be President of the United States of America. Indeed, George W. Bush is unfit to be dogcatcher, and it would be an insult to the canine world if he held such a modest office. In equal measure, but infinitely more serious, his tenure as president is no less an insult to the American people.

Here is a man playing at being president, the most powerful public position on this planet. And, with the exception of a handful of his business cronies, all Americans are suffering, even his hapless followers and supporters, who are, to put it in the frankest terms possible, just too stupid to know better.

George W. Bush, for reasons that are now all too obvious, has taken this country into a disastrous war in Iraq, shifting away and wasting taxpayer money on it. In unleashing the awesome might of the U.S. military machine, he has brought death and destruction to that defenseless country for reasons that have now crystallized down to one thing - OIL. And, what have the American people gotten for this effort, besides 1,880+ dead soldiers, tens of thousands other soldiers wounded and an astronomical deficit? We have gotten nothing but grieving families, a divided nation and $6 a gallon gasoline in Atlanta. If a man can be called "a natural disaster," his name is George W. Bush.

Appointed by the Supreme Court to secure his first term in office, and "winning" again by a slim margin under circumstances that called into question the fidelity of Ohio’s Board of Elections, George W. Bush has been an absentee president, having spent 20% of his time "at the helm" of the Ship of State on his "ranch" in Crawford, Texas, cutting brush, driving his pickup truck and riding that infernal bicycle. But, this is the least of his many deficiencies. In fact, if it were not for his equally incompetent administration, who "run things" in his absence, this proficiency at avoiding his workplace in Washington D.C. would be a blessing.

According to a recent FOX News opinion poll of 900 registered voters nationwide, George W. Bush’s overall approval rating has dropped to 45%, his lowest approval rating.

*****end of clip*****

Can you imagine how bad it would be if there was a major "terrorist" attack?"

Like Bush has done anything to make us safer? With all of his 911 "I’ll keep you safer" bulls**t this disaster response should be running like a well oiled machine.

How many billions has been spent to "prepare?" How much warning did they need? A few more years? Maybe they could not get really ready until the loser is no longer calling himself fearless (read:feckless) leader? We have FEMA, Homeland Security, National Guard, police, fire, EMT’s, volunteers and a bunch of citizens.

How could anybody support this mismanager, playing guitar and laughing? You Bunnypants apologists can pound sand, there is no excuse, Bush has been exposed for the fraud and uncaring SOB he has always been. If you cannot see it now you are truly blind and stoopid.

That is my opinion and I do not give a flip if you agree.

capt

PS - Glad Fats made it out. Thanks for the update.

Hurricane Politics

As Katrina forced President Bush to cut short his vacation, the White House is facing a perfect storm of trouble at home and abroad.

By Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey
Newsweek
Sept. 1, 2005

Beyond the poll numbers, the Bush administration faces some immediate, urgent challenges—°nd serious questions about its response to the disaster. For all the president’≥ statements ahead of the hurricane, the region seemed woefully unprepared for the flooding of New Orleans—° catastrophe that has long been predicted by experts and politicians alike. There seems to have been no contingency planning for a total evacuation of the city, including the final refuges of the city’≥ Superdome and its hospitals. There were no supplies of food and water ready offshore—Øn Navy ships for instance—©n the event of such flooding, even though government officials knew there were thousands of people stranded inside the sweltering and powerless city.

Then there’≥ the speed of the Bush administration’≥ response to such disasters. Just one week ago the White House declared that a major disaster existed in Louisiana, specifically most of the areas (such as Jefferson Parish) that are now under water. Was the White House psychic about the disaster ahead? Not exactly. In fact the major disaster referred to Tropical Storm Cindy, which struck the state a full seven weeks earlier. That announcement triggered federal aid for the stricken areas, where the clean-up had been on hold for almost two months while the White House chewed things over.

Now, faced with a far bigger and deadlier disaster, the Bush administration faces at least two difficult questions: Was it ready to deal with the long-predicted flooding of New Orleans? And is it ready to deal with the long-predicted terrorist attack that might some day strike another of our big cities?

*****end of clip*****

Cut his vacation short? Last week "aides" were saying he was on a working vacation and that he was at the helm steering the ship of state through the rough waters of potential terror attacks and a war with an illegal invasion to boot?

Either he was on vacation or he was not but they will not say that he cut his vacation short by TWO DAYS? Big deal.

capt

Oop's sorry the link is:

Hurricane Politics

capt

Bush and Katrina:A time for action, not aloofness

Editorials - August 31, 2005

AS THE EXTENT of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation became clearer on Tuesday — millions without power, tens of thousands homeless, a death toll unknowable because rescue crews can’t reach some regions — President Bush carried on with his plans to speak in San Diego, as if nothing important had happened the day before.

Katrina already is measured as one of the worst storms in American history. And yet, President Bush decided that his plans to commemorate the 60th anniversary of VJ Day with a speech were more pressing than responding to the carnage.

A better leader would have flown straight to the disaster zone and announced the immediate mobilization of every available resource to rescue the stranded, find and bury the dead, and keep the survivors fed, clothed, sheltered and free of disease.

The cool, confident, intuitive leadership Bush exhibited in his first term, particularly in the months immediately following Sept. 11, 2001, has vanished. In its place is a diffident detachment unsuitable for the leader of a nation facing war, natural disaster and economic uncertainty.

Wherever the old George W. Bush went, we sure wish we had him back.

*****end of clip*****

Note to trolls: This is a paper that SUPPORTS Bush. Get a clue, your guy is a stinker.

capt

Here's a good one. Because I like to torture myself I went to Ann Coulter's official website to see what she had to say about Katrina. Not a thing. She decided that a more important topic was Ted Kennedy's private parts. She's a gem.

Uh Oh...

Still no word for Jill to deploy...

They've pissed HER off now! Watch for shit, hitting fans, near you!

-T

When is the Liberal media going to ask W about Iraq hooking us up with oil on the cheap now that it's four bucks minimum at the pump...The Right all insist on how grateful Iraq is toward the United States. To crib Cuba Gooding Jr. "Show me the Oil."
Oh yeah, that's right, what Liberal media?

I'm sorry Ed, President Bush has already made it clear he will take no help from foreign goverments. We can help ourselves.

Come on...ask Hannity, or Limbaugh, or Coulter; they'll tell you, Iraq is bursting with gratitude and good will toward the United States.
Besides, they can spare a little oil.

"I doubt it. Once a Bush lover always a Bush lover!" My, my, don't we hold ourself in high regard...I find this sort of sad. While people are out there helping and making an effort to do somthing you take this as an oppertunity to tear down our president. "Pain is the essence of Heaven, for without it there is no hell. And without a hell earth is our paradise."-Eric Reaper Can God really save us from the hatred? You yourself seem to hate Republicans for all you can, or rather you hate Bush. How can one pray for salvation from hatred when one is drowned in the hate of another. The bible itself says that before you remove the splinter in your brothers eye you must first remove the wood in your own.

Besides the Hurricane isn't real anyways.
The Left made it up because they hate Bush.

Thank you brother Nathaniel, for speaking the truth. These miserable Leftists created the Hurricane, Christ, Ted Kennedy caused the Tsunami. When will these ignorant savages realize that this world was made for white male Christian land owners...just like you and me.
Right nate?

If it wasn't for Liberals nothing would go wrong, ask Bill O'Reilly, another of our noble breed of Right thinking individuals. I'm pretty sure that Bill Clinton was in london when the subways blew up. Coincidence?

That's Ann Colder I miss the folks who thought she was hot. Dig the cloven feet.

Wait until the disaster comes to your town, Nate. I can tell you with absolute certainty, we won't be prepared and guess what? The National Guard you're counting on is probably deployed. The funds you need? Sorry, gone.
Nate, this isn't about making cracks about the president. It's about demanding some accountablity. I want to know if Bush and his administration are capable of handling these catastrophies because if he can't we are in trouble. His strumming on a guitar did not give me a lot of confidence and that's what this nation needs right now.
Do you have enough oil reserves in your state? Do you have enough in the bank to cover the rising fuel prices and all that comes with it. Groceries are going to cost more.

How can someone who just got another newspaper to drop her column be wrong or unattractive?
Remember the mantra John, it's all the fault of the Left. Repeat about a thousand times, it gets catchy and you can dance to it.

John, I wonder if she thought that cartoon was funny. She's the type that would bring it on air with Bill O'Reilly and discuss it at length.

Ed;
FRI has a position for you! I'm getting ready to offer up some prime senior fellowships. That's the kind of thinking I want, stuff so demented it's almost hard to utter while keeping a straight face. I'm afraid I won't be able to pay you very much (OK anything), but think about how much we can serve this fine country by helping come up with the kind of meaningful insights real patriots demand.

Dave at #44. That's a done deal, as to all. Where do I sign up? Appreciate the point about high-fructose corn syrup too. Can I put my own house on a combination of tax-incentivized "on grid" solar and wind power? The tax incentives can be paid for by special excise taxes on gasonline fill-ups of Hummers and purchases of the 50 caliber terrorsm rifles that Bush freed up, at the least. Cheers.

Mr. Corn,

Fun to be President? The president had two tasks on that day after Haley Barbour told him it was too early to come to the Gulf coast. At this pre-scheduled event the president spent the morning visiting soldiers wounded in Iraq, Parents of the Dead, Scared young men preparing to be depolyed, and honoring those that served in the Pacific defeating the Japanese. This being the only celebration of the 60th anniversary of VJ day, it will probably be the last presidential decenniel celebration for WWII Vets ever. (We all remember Reagans 40th and some remember even Clinton's 50th VE day).

Mark Wills offered this Guitar to President Bush after playing it and another identical guitar for the troops. The second one will be donated to a charity auction for Wounded Soldiers.

The President participated in the photograph to add value to the auction for the wounded soldiers.

While the President was caring for these brave Americans, Cindy Sheehan was accusing the President of causing the Hurricane and depleting the Louisiana Guard and causing looting.

Didn't Michael Moore copyright this cutsie captioning bit?

Ed Perry...
Reporting for duty, no need for payment, I love the good fight
What's the scoop?

Nate: "The bible itself says that before you remove the splinter in your brothers eye you must first remove the wood in your own."

Fat lot of good daily bible sessions have done your president. Seems they've served only to make him callous as well as stupid. The asshole has taken a full year's worth of vacations in his 5 years of office, neglecting the safety of the Americans who looked to him for leadership. But at least he's tanned and physically fit.

If you doled out bibles at the New Orleans convention center right now, they'd use them for toilet paper, as they should.

Excellent, work Ed. Senior Fellow for sure.

Jeanne, I thought she looked very nice. You know she complained about the Time photo making her head look small. Frankly I don't see how that's possible, but then again I have no idea what kinds of mirrors she has at home.

Osama is responsible for Katrina, he is gay. The country is coming apart at the seams. It's sink or swim.

Well put TJ,
As everyone knows the Left EATS war veterans, not figuratively either but with real ketchup and such, and they thought that Wendy's finger chili bit was a hoax. How do you think Ted Kennedy got so big? Duh, he devours ground up war veterans, fetuses and small hamsters. Death to Michael Moore, it's his fault the world has to deal with cancer.
Thank God conservatives have been in power over five years now...no, I mean it, thank GOD!

Great!

Remember it's now Ed Perry Senior Fellow FRI (that facetious research institute, I considered Anything for a Buck, but I figured American Enterprise Institute would come after us).

Well the deal is that with all the bad news lately the President is having a hard time selling his agenda. We should help him. Look for the silver lining in everything that comes out. Naturally I expect the GOP to compensate us for this good work, (well maybe not, who can tell if we do a good job they'll never know we're getting ready to roll around with side splitting pain from holding it in.) Think of us as the blogging equivalent of the YES MEN.

I think we need to bring Robert Schwartz on as well. He has a real talent for spotting actual trouble the administration is having.

Capt. Hajji, and Pandemoniac need to be fellows at least. No let's go out and say the most moronic things we can. We still can't plumb the depths!

OK, maybe you should be the director.

TJ King, There is just no excuse anymore.

That'll be the rub though.
People, at least half the United States, take talk radio and Fox News dead serious. There are ditto heads willing to parrot anything the Right has to hand them. The day FRI gets to be any more moronic than the raving Right we can call it a success.
And yes, I'd be happy to be dictator, I hear the Doritos are to die for.

Imagine the beauty in hearing Limbaugh bemoan "These guys are morons, obviously the Left isn't to blame for everything."
Hyundai payments- $260 a month
Radio fees- zero
Bottle of OxyContin- $40 after co-pay
Rush Limbaugh caught abusing drugs- PRICELESS

TJ, since you know the actions and intentions of the (p)Resident...

What exactly did he REALLY want to say, when he said, "nobody expected the levees to be breached."

Did he just get some "bad intell" about the very thing the Army Corps have been begging for funds to fix for the past decade?

Or, as usual, was he just opening up his piehole and letting whatever reguritated offal that was being fed into his earpiece spill forth to foul the minds and ears of anybody with the stomach to listen to him?

Latest CNN...FEMA Chief Blames Victims for Their Fates

Maybe, just maybe I can get close enough...

How'd this MF get his job? I dunno, but I bet I can guess!

-T

Sorry, Benson...

I'd never join any club that would have a prick like me for a member.

...a member like mine for a prick?

I dunno... I gotta get some sleep... or stay up with this muscadine wine and bag of ice... I'm not sure which...

-T

During my torture session earlier this evening, I went to Fox news online. There was a news reporter on a freeway and I was blown away by the reporting. He was basically demanding that the people of New Orleans be helped. He was affected by his surroundings. He saw a man who'd been left dead on the side of the road and he demanded that fox news show it. It wasn't for shock and awe. It was because he wanted help for the people of New Orleans.

Hajji,
That's nice. The victims had no way of leaving because there was no transportation but somehow they should have gotten out. How nice for the relatives of those killed by the disaster to hear, "It wasn't my fault."
Maybe the guy is tired and overwhelmed. I guess you say stupid things when your world collapses.

Jeanne,

I just watched Ted Kopell hold the MF's feet to the fire for about 15 minutes on "Nightline". Brown tried to do the same thing he did to Stone Phillips of NBC and say that "The people were being taken care of" when Phillips was asking about the Convention Center debacle.

Brown was describing the (limited) success of the people over at the Superdome... I thought..."honest mistake, didnt' understand that he was being pressed about the 25,000+ people who were told to go to the Convention Center."

He tried exactly the same tactic with Ted Kopell, but Kopell caught him at it and called him on it and beat the bullshit right out of him for it.

Kopell's "On Camera" is a GREAT read, BTW.

-T

OK, I had step away from the keyboard. Liked the ketchup, but isn’t it a little to white bread to believe that the liberal elites would eat vetrans with ketchup. Sliced thin and served with wasabi. Those sushi bars you see all over the left coast, there’s a reason they don’t vote for real Americans.

Hajji are you sure? Not even for senior fellow? I'll double the salary, remember this isn't just a job, its a sacred duty.

JB,

I'll have to think about it... Would I have to give up BBQ Troll? I've kinda developed a taste for it.

-T

Hajji, why do I miss all the good stuff?
By the way, the Gitmo prisoners are on a hunger strike. Some have written wills.

The part I wonder about sometimes is maybe this is what really happens. Well I don't wonder about the foolishness, but Bush's smirk. I always get the impression he's thinking, "OK that was outrageously sophomoric and they're buying it."

Oxycontin for your thoughts.

Night everyone.

Jeanne,

I'd be happy to copy a tape and send it to you. My e-mail is real.

-T

'Nite John-Boy!

-Hairy Mellon

Usually, they photograph Bunnypants with a halo or a bumpersticker-worthy phrase repeated a hundred times behind him. In the photo above I notice a white li(n)e flickering out of his mouth in a rather serpent-like way...

Hmmmm....

-T

Fifteen more minutes and my 16 year old should be walking through the door and then it's nighty night for me too.
As the problems arise in New Orleans I can't help compare it to the disaster of Iraq. People complain about the lawlessness and the insurgency in Iraq. Well, the Bush administration has created a disaster. How are people supposed to function in hell?

I was impressed with NBC's reporting tonight, so I'll give 'em a link...this one on LOOTING and the difference between the "Haves" and "Never Gonna Gets" of the city.
_______

"Here we are at a gathering of the "Haves and Have Mores. Some would call you society's 'elite'. I call you my BASE!"

-What a maroon!

-T

Jeaane: "That's nice. The victims had no way of leaving because there was no transportation but somehow they should have gotten out. "

I suppose those prisoners sequestered on the overpass will get blamed for not evacuating, too.

We dropped tons of MRE's and supplies to Afghani Children a couple years ago (remember how they were the same color and size as "Cluster Bomblets"?)

Isn't there an MRE warehouse that we could bust open not too far from NO?

I've got a BITCHIN' set of bolt-cutters!

-T

Drewp,

I think the prisoners have all been picked up. I'm willing to bet there's a few thousand nursing home patients who's life sentence of confinement has come to a close, but nobody's reporting on THAT!

-T

There's GOT to be some Oil Company Skeletons in THIS MF's Closet!
__________
Prior to joining FEMA, Mr. Brown practiced law in Colorado and Oklahoma, where he served as a bar examiner on ethics and professional responsibility for the Oklahoma Supreme Court and as a hearing examiner for the Colorado Supreme Court. He had been appointed as a special prosecutor in police disciplinary matters.

From "Ask the Whitehouse" Sept 16, 2004...

Matthew, from Los Angeles writes:
How do people find out where to get the emergency supplies that they need? Is there a central location and is broadcast on the radio?

Mike Brown
Matthew, you mention broadcasts on the radio. That is one of the best places to get information on what to do in a disaster.

Oftentimes, during disasters powerlines are down and we don't have access to television or the Internet. That's why I always recommend that you have a battery powered radio and extra batteries so you can listen to the news and local authorities about what you should do during a disaster.
___________

Tonight on "Niteline" (from memory, so....)

Mike Brown, FEMA: We only found out about the people at the convention center when it was reported on Television this afternoon...

Ted Kopell, ABC: What about the RADIO, Mr. Brown, our reporters and others have been reporting from there for the PAST TWO DAYS!!!

Mike Brown, FEMA: Well, uhm, erm...I mean, what the people need to understand is it is THEIR FAULT!!!

ok, not Exactly,....but kinda sorta!

-

He's just having a bad day...being an inept and incopetent Federal Administrator(but I repeat myself) is HARD WORK

I'm done. Be a good time for a PANDE POST, bout now...

I'll enjoy it in the morning.

-T

Shoot to kill, troops told

As thousands wait to be rescued or receive aid, authorities have issued a "shoot to kill" order in a bid to stem the mounting lawlessness in the hurricane-ravaged city of New Orleans.

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said a detachment of 300 National Guard troops, who have served in Iraq, had been authorised to shoot to kill "hoodlums" in the hurricane-ravaged city of New Orleans.

"Three hundred of the Arkansas National Guard have landed in the city of New Orleans," Blanco said.

"These troops are fresh back from Iraq, well-trained, experienced, battle-tested and under my orders to restore order in the streets," Blanco said.
"They have M-16s and they are locked and loaded.

"These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will," said Blanco.

Meanwhile, anger mounted across the ruined city, with thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims increasingly hungry, desperate and tired of waiting for buses to take them out.

"We are out here like pure animals. We don't have help," the Rev Issac Clark, 68, said outside the New Orleans Convention Centre, where corpses lay in the open and the and other evacuees complained that they were dropped off and given nothing - no food, no water, no medicine.

"We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten," Compass said.

"Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon."

In a statement to CNN, Nagin said: "This is a desperate SOS. Right now we are out of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate enough buses. We need buses. Currently the convention centre is unsanitary and unsafe and we're running our of supplies."

In Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the government was sending in 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to help stop looting and other lawlessness in New Orleans. Some 2,800 National Guardsmen were already in the city, he said.

But across the flooded-out city, the rescuers themselves came under attack from storm victims.

"Hospitals are trying to evacuate," said Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Cheri Ben-Iesan, spokesman at the city emergency operations centre.

"At every one of them, there are reports that as the helicopters come in people are shooting at them. There are people just taking potshots at police and at helicopters, telling them, 'You better come get my family."'

"In areas where our employees have been determined to potentially be in danger, we have pulled back," he said.

Outside the Convention Center, the sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement. Thousands of storm refugees had been assembling outside for days, waiting for buses that did not come.

At least seven bodies were scattered outside, and hungry people broke through the steel doors to a food service entrance and began pushing out pallets of water and juice and whatever else they could find.

An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies cried around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered with a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.

"They've been teasing us with buses for four days," Edwards said.

People chanted, "Help, help!" as reporters and photographers walked through. The crowd got angry when journalists tried to photograph one of the bodies, and covered it over with a blanket.

A woman, screaming, went on the front steps of the convention centre and led the crowd in reciting the 23rd Psalm.

John Murray, 52, said: "It's like they're punishing us."

"These individuals will not take control of the city of New Orleans," he said.

But the ambulance service in charge of taking the sick and injured from the Superdome suspended flights after a shot was reported fired at a military helicopter. Richard Zuschlag, chief of Acadian Ambulance, said it was too dangerous for his pilots.

The military, which was overseeing the removal of the able-bodied by buses, continued the ground evacuation without interruption, said National Guard Lieutenant Colonel Pete Schneider. The government had no immediate confirmation of whether a military helicopter was fired on.

Terry Ebbert, head of the city's emergency operations, warned that the slow evacuation at the Superdome had become an "incredibly explosive situation," and he bitterly complained that FEMA was not offering enough help.

"This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace," he said. "FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."

"I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this - whether it be looting, or price gouging at the gasoline pump, or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud," Bush said.

Yesterday, Mayor Ray Nagin offered the most startling estimate yet of the magnitude of the disaster: Asked how many people died in New Orleans, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands." The death toll has already reached at least 126 in Mississippi.

*****end of clip*****

"Shoot to kill?" Why? Resort to illegal acts against the insurgency?

Sorry for the long post, I tried to snip the fluff.

I cannot believe this mess is being so mismanaged.

How many days would you be able to wait to be "rescued" only to be shot for stealing some food or water when you or your family are starving or dying of dehydration? THREE DAYS, that is the limit. People, healthy people are in major peril after THREE DAYS without water.

Jean Valjean comes to mind and "Les Miserables" too apt a description of the state they are in.

The people are VICTIMS damn it and a "shoot to kill" order needs to be given for the FEMA jerks and the lying politicians that are suppose to be "prepared."

capt

For city's historic hospital, help is needed 'in a hurry'

By Steve Sternberg, USA TODAY

Three days after Lake Ponchartrain claimed New Orleans' Charity Hospital, hundreds of doctors and patients were still marooned Thursday in dangerous waters without food, water, medicine or power.

The phones were dead, the halls were dark and the heat unbearable. Desperately ill patients who needed oxygen were being kept alive by a rotation of health workers pumping air into their lungs using bladders called ambu-bags.

"Somebody needs to come in a hurry," says Norman McSwain, director of trauma surgery at Charity. "By 'in a hurry,' I don't mean tomorrow or the next day. They need to get here tonight.

"By tomorrow, we'll have dead patients simply because they were not evacuated."

*****end of clip*****

My God, this is a major mess and the emergency services and medical care have been sent back to the stone age.

How can such a disaster be so mismanaged? Bush will be handing our medals, mark my words. There will be awards and medals for some to create a hallmark of heroism out of the lickspittle losers.

Nobody will be fired (again) and the only "heads to roll" will be the dead victims of the miscalculations and unprepared sycophants that gained their posh positions by political fund-raising or massive political donation.

Did someone say something about pitch-forks and torches?

It is time to storm the Bastille YET?

capt

I awoke from a nightmare to find a worse nightmare.

I thought the BILLIONS of our tax dollars was suppose to make us prepared for a nuclear attack on one of our ports or cities?

Come to find out the real nightmare is this misadministrations lies and fleecing of our tax dollars to multinational thieves that talk a line of bulls**t about how much more profits they need to be able to save the people.

Just like the pooch screwed going into Iraq, and that poor pooch getting nailed at every turn. Sadly we are the pooch people. What will it take to revolt against these fascists, these brown-shirts, these evil uncaring neochronic bastards.

It is not enough that we get screwed at the gas pumps by Bunnypants ineptitude, not bad enough that we are losing THOUSANDS of our brave and honorable troops to a "Whoops we knew Iraq had WMD's (in the 90's)" no do-overs in war so now we have to stay crap. Not enough that the millionaires are billionaires while the median income has decreased over the last five years (yep, since Bush was assigned) for the first time in the history of our once great nation. Not enough that we are a backwards looking theocracy of fake Kkkristo-fascists peddling "Intelligent design" to pander to the dumb-ass base of dumb-ass base emotion knee-jerk reactionaries?

What will it take to start a revolution. We better get on it. This country has been nearly destroyed by these psychos in five years. Where do we think this hand-basket to hell is going to go for the next three years under the inability’s of the uber-führer. No place to go but further down this crazy ass rabbit hole?

I really hope this is the nightmare and as I return my head to my pillow I will return to the dream that was once America, was once a "shining city on a hill."

capt

For Riff @ 73

As long as there is a breath of life in the oligarchs of the coal and oil cartels, there will be no significant on-grid use of renewable energy. They tolerate little non-threatening bull**it projects like bird-shredding windmills, ethanol production from corn, and hypothetical hydrogen cars because they know they don't, can't, or won't work. It keeps the Greens distracted while they drill for oil inside the carcasses of endangered whales. (Save the Whales: Many contain valuable OIL!) They play up fears of Nyucklar energy to ensure that it will never threaten them, even though it is the best short-term alternative we have. There are several good designs out there for inherently safe reactors than cannot, ever, melt down. And yes, we can dispose of the waste. You don't have to bury it in the desert, just drill a series of 25000-foot deep dry wells into the sinking edge of any subduction zone on the Earth, mark the package "return to sender", and drop it in the hole. It goes back into the mantle from whence it came. If some terrorist wants to try to dig it up, I'll loan him a shovel. It'll get him to Hell all the quicker.

You could take your house off the grid, but it would not be cost effective today. The sun can provide you with about 100 watts of power per square foot if you could get 100% conversion efficiency, which you can't, but you can do pretty well. The coolest method I have seen for this is setting up a mirrored parabolic dish with a linear Sterling engine positioned at the focus. The Sterling engine would be a sealed free-piston unit that basically has a doubled-ended piston inside that oscillates back and forth in a single bore. It runs on heat supplied externally. Sterlings are often referred to as external combustion engines, although combustion is not required, only a source of heat. The sun qualifies pretty well for that. Since there is no crankshaft or any other physical connection to the piston, the best way to get power out of it is to place a strong permanent magnet between the two pistons. You then wrap a coil of wire around the outside of the case, and presto, you have a magnet moving within a coil, a generator.

In most places in this country (US), you could put up a reasonably sized old-style satellite dish, line it with Mylar (like the material used to make Pop-Tarts wrappers), hang your heat collector / Sterling generator at the focus, and just pump out the (almost) free power. Unfortunately, all the product development in linear Sterling engines seems to be getting done by people who build really expensive over-engineered government crap like the Magical Exploding Space Shuttle (M.E.S.S.). We need a Briggs & Stratton style engine, and they are all building custom, experimental, hypersonic, antimatter-fueled, unlimited-class, interplanetary Ferrari racing engines. The Sterling engine is the essence of simplicity. If we could get a decent 10 HP (~7500W) model that could be produced for a couple of hundred bucks, we would achieve total energy independence by the end of the decade. Unfortunately, Halliburton Corporate Headquarters (1600 Penn Ave, NW, Wash. DC) doesn't seem to like this idea, so they direct alternative energy funding into absolute idiocy like their all-new Magical Exploding Hydrogen Vehicles.

For reference, when you look at the Shuttle on the pad, all of that external fuel tank up to a point a couple of feet north of the orbiter's nose is consumed by H2 storage. H2 fills about 3/4 of the volume of the external tank, but it weighs only about 1/7 as much as the LOX filling the remainder. Imagine strapping a travel trailer-sized tank of cryogenic liquid to the top of your ultra-compact 12-hp Magical Hydrogen Car of the Future. Of course, you don't HAVE to use cryogenically liquefied H2; you can always compress it to around 10000 PSI. After all, what could go wrong with that? Cars are never subjected to impacts or fires, are they? You too can drive the all-new, 2025 Hydrogen Bombe. If anything does go wrong, you AND the car will be "Knock, knock, knockin' on Heaven's Door" pretty darned quickly. Call it a faith-based, hydrogen-assisted Rapture for the True Believer.

This (mis) administration has nearly finished putting the Standard Oil trust back together. Standard Oil of New Jersey (Exxon) and Standard Oil of New York (Mobil) are now doing business as ExxonMobil. Standard Oil of Indiana (Amoco), Standard Oil of Ohio (Sohio), and Atlantic Richfield (Arco) are now doing business as BP, which seems to interchangeable with Chevron, a.k.a., Standard Oil of California. They only have one more round of mergers to get through, and the retarded scion of the oil oligarchy who now inhabits the White House will have enabled the creation of a new company called, perhaps, ExxonMobilChevronBPConocoPhillips, which I am sure will be changed to something shorter like Standard Oil of the Earth. If anyone has any doubts as to where the loyalties of Shrub and Company lay, just follow the money in the new "Energy Bill". (How aptly named; want to guess who gets to pay it?) None if it goes to anything even remotely feasible.

Today, based on government-funded research dating from the 1970's, we could rapidly establish an economy based on local and regional fuel production and electrical generation using renewable carbon-neutral (at worst) energy sources. Why doesn't it happen? Because we elected, oops, I mean the Supreme Court selected, the ex-CEO of Halliburton as de-facto President and a mentally challenged, illiterate, drunken, unemployable scion of an oil oligarchy as his front man and court jester. (Choked on a peanut my ass. What, does he eat them with the shells on? Better theory: he got drunk and passed out.) (He's too lame to get beaten up by his wife for skirt chasing.)

They trick us by pretending to look for the perfect energy source, but the perfect is the enemy of the good. They talk in absolutes, telling us that this or that renewable resource can't replace all the oil we are using, but it doesn't have to. We can combine technologies to create hybrid energy plants. It doesnt have to be all or nothing. Think of an oil-fired power plant where boiler steam is used to spin turbines that drive generators. Why not pass the water though a parabolic solar trough to preheat it? On good days you might not even have to burn any oil, the sun alone might suffice. We can do plenty, but the entrenched energy cartels will have nothing of it. They select spineless, easily manipulated candidates for the Executive and Legislative branches to ensure that the status quo is preserved.

Now I am depressed again. It sucks to be at least twelve times smarter than the president. (IQ >= 96)

Dave,

Great post and very good points.

You forgot the other very viable and realistic option. A return to an agrarian life style or the unpredictable future of magic and things we cannot imagine, yet.

I know, some people think it is impossible but there are the Amish. They have us all beat if the grid ever goes down in a big way. I am floored by the wisdom of beliefs and the way they have continued to function in a changing world.

If the grid ever goes down here I would be a very bored man sitting in a dark stucco box with a dark warm refrigerator. If I have water I could go for a week but I would be in real trouble.

Now, as far as other options go, I believe in the ability of our smart and savvy young people to rock this world with new innovations that most of us never dreamed possible.

The work being done with regard to laminar flow and directional friction on a nano-scale is changing our understanding of what is possible.

The nano-industry as a whole is really rocking. Nano metals and nano-catalysts for chemical processes are changing the way industry functions. Microbial and bio-technologies are doing things never dreamed of before. Current technology has expanded the limits of knowledge and what was impossible just a few years ago has been done and improved upon into obsolescence.

Technology has moved so fast in the last fifty years, I predict fifty years from now they will giggle at some of our very serious concerns and we would not recognize any of the technology except in the most abstract.

The next twenty years will likely bring major advances in all fields of science and study which will further drive the huge momentum we have been riding technologically with telegraph, radio, phones, autos, etc.

Well, that is if we do not make human life extinct in the effort. We need to teach our children well, the rest is like wallpaper and will change over time.

War is the greatest threat to peace, and peace the greatest threat to warmongering and war profiteering. A little "better" technology in that arena and we might all become extinct. The earth will then offer up a new life form to fill the void and we humans will have been a meaningless flash in the pan in the larger scheme of things.

The only real meaning is in the love we can share in our too short a physical experience here and now. The respect we give and leave as a lasting memory for those to follow. The example we offer for the future generations even if it is an example of what NOT to do. (we so qualify)

capt

Dave,

I believe you are about 100 times smarter than the preznit. I could make a good case for it being WAY more than you listed at minimum.

Just sayin'

capt

Looters denounced, but also called 'heroes'

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Officials have been denouncing the looting rampant in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck. But some say looters are also heroes.

A woman at the city's convention center says she's barely seen the police. She says the thugs and the criminals are the ones who saved her from her flooded neighborhood, using a stolen speedboat and moving truck.

At the Superdome, another Katrina evacuee says the looters have been distributing food to the evacuees there. Otherwise, he says, they'd starve.

Some looters have been anxious to show they need what they're taking. A gray-haired man at a Rite-Aid pulled up his T-shirt to show a surgery scar and explained that he needs pads for incontinence. Another man showed a reporter toothpaste, tooth brushes and deodorant.

*****end of clip*****

Like I said before, this type of disaster brings out the best in some people and the worst in others.

This is all too predictable including the "Shoot to kill" orders and overreaction by unprepared authorities and dysfunctional support systems.

I cannot help but wonder how many of the "think tanks" were charged with thinking through scenarios of disaster? There seems to be many that play war games and think through ideological issues.

It is a matter of priorities after all is said and done. The invasion of Iraq was sold as a defense to a falsely perceived threat and necessary resources and treasure has been squandered in that major miscalculation.

This is unacceptable and wrong and we have to put a stop to the madness. Our leaders are not leading (from either side of the aisle) they are lining their pockets and not doing their jobs or we would have better results.

It is the people that matter not the multinational mega-money corporations that by definition have no alliance to any one nation just a sociopathic quest for more profit by any means.

It is the people that have made America a great nation, not the politicians, and if we do not make a choice to take our country back it will only get worse. There must be a way to do so if not I fear we are doomed.

capt

Mirror Image

Bush is a mirror image of America and Americans. When we see and hear Bush, we are seeing and hearing ourselves. God has sent a message through Katrina of America's future. America is now the Les Miserables era, a shoot to kill era. My fell Americans, this is only the beginning of what Americans will face as events unravel before our eyes. Brother against brother and sister against sister! You have seen nothing yet!

Remember my words! It will be brother against brother and sister against sister. The killing mentality will expand to kill and kill and kill God's children.

When we look at Bush, we are looking at ourselves. We are a Bush in some manner and form. That is America's unending nightmare.

Phonyocracy

2000 was a prelude to America's future and endless nightmares.

We all must take responsibility for what our government does. The acts of the American people are effected in the acts of our government whether we agree or not.

Just as every tax dollar can be apportioned by the percentage that pays for war and the intentional infliction of misery we all contribute. The actions of our government are the actions of the people, no choice about it.

A few quotes for the early morning crew:

"Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear. " ~Alan Corenk

"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost. " ~Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC), Politics

"The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid. " ~Art Spander

"Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking. " ~Clement Atlee

"Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time. " ~E. B. White (1899 - 1985), New Yorker, July 3, 1944

"Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. " ~George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

"Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. " ~George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

"The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois. " ~Gustave Flaubert (1821 - 1880)

And my personal favorite:

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. " ~H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

*******

The bottom line: If we cannot change the government, if we cannot accept that it is our responsibility we surrender any authority we might have had in theory.

Somebody is smart enough to drive a real plan for change. I wish I was that smart person but I can make no such claim. That just means it is someone other than me, not that the person does not exists.

capt

Who lost New Orleans

Will the real Buchanan stand up? Is this the same Buchanan who has endorsed Bush every step along the way?

The war for the future

Does America have future? Not really because corruption, greed, and lies are America's legacy.

Australia donates $10m

September 2, 2005 - 4:25PM

The Australian government will donate $10 million to assist relief operations in the wake of hurricane Katrina in the United States.

Prime Minister John Howard said the money would be given to the American Red Cross and used for emergency relief carried out by the organisation.

"Given the extraordinary generosity of the United States when other countries are in need, and given the very close relationship between Australia and the United States, and given also the scale of the disaster, we believe it is a very valuable gesture and a mark of our concern for the scale of the human misery that has come from this disaster," Mr Howard said this afternoon in Hobart.

"Anything that can be of help to alleviate the tragic situation of the area affected by Hurricane Katrina will be accepted," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

The United Nations offered to help coordinate international relief efforts for the United States.

"The sheer size of this emergency makes it possible that we can supplement the American response with supplies from other countries, or with experience we have gained in other relief operations," UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a statement.

Earlier today, Prime Minister Howard said everyone's thoughts and sympathy should be with America.

"This idea that 'well they're the most powerful, wealthiest country in the world' - but when something like this strikes, the poor and the vulnerable are the same all around the world," Mr Howard said.

Earlier, President George W Bush said in a television interview that the United States could take care of itself.

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

The State Department said offers so far had come from Belgium, Canada, Russia, Japan, France, Germany, Britain, China, Australia, Jamaica, Honduras, Greece, Venezuela, the Organisation of American States, NATO, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, South Korea, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

Assistance ranged from medical teams, boats, aircraft, tents, blankets, generators and cash donations.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wrote to Bush offering medical teams.

"During these difficult times, we, the people of Israel stand firmly by your side in a show of solidarity and friendship," said the letter, which was released by the Israeli Embassy in Washington.

Where the United States really needs help is getting cheap oil and the Bush administration will be approaching Arab nations and other oil producers over the coming days.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a vocal critic of the United States, offered to send cheap fuel, humanitarian aid and relief workers to the disaster area.

The State Department did not comment on Venezuela's offer but several officials smiled at the gesture from Chavez, who yesterday called Bush a "cowboy" who failed to manage the disaster.

Cuban President Fidel Castro, a close Chavez ally, led a minute of silence in remembrance of the victims of Katrina in parliament today.

The parliament then returned to normal business with a resolution attacking Bush over the Iraq war.

*****end of clip*****

The are emotional times but this brought a tear to my eyes.

How is this for a quick primer about the world as a community and humans as a single group with great diversity but a strong bond for those in need.

Then the arrogant little bluster blaster in the WH with an insult to those making sincere and heartfelt offers with "the United States could take care of itself?"

Maybe the countries should emphasize the offer is not to help Bush but the people in need because of a natural disaster. With Bush busy running the country into the ground here and in Iraq or too busy collecting political "donations" for his Reich.. I mean "party", maybe he should just show a little humility on behalf of those in need that he is too busy to care about?

I predict his arrogance and bluster will continue to play out but he is exposing what he really is to the whole wide world, a petty inept mis-manager that could not run a small company let alone a country.

I do not believe ANY of the countries offering help are offering it because of Bush. They are offering it because this is one planet full of humans and we all understand suffering, well all except the w