Why the Democrats are wrong and other meanderings

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Location: Metro Phoenix, Arizona, United States

I'm too lazy to type anything about me. Read my blog and I'm sure you'll eventually learn a few things.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Katrina Corruption

Well, I've already spoken of the massive political corruption in Lousiana, but here's an article that takes a bigger look at it.

Unsurprisingly, many tales of horror from the convention center and Superdome were exaggerated (or flat-out lies), too. See here.

Also, I think I forgot to previously post this about this congressman who used the national guard when they could have been saving people or the like.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

More Cindy Sheehan Lunacy

I meant to post this before going out of town for the weekend, but Cindy Sheehan's rhetoric got even more irresponsible last week -- something I didn't think possible. She called for Bush to end the military occupation of New Orleans. Anyone surprised the mainstream media hasn't given the statement much coverage? Neither am I.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Impressive Baseball Note

On Monday night, in Barry Bonds's first game back in the lineup, Rudy Saenez of the Padres became the first pitcher to have Bonds swing and miss three pitches in a single at bat in five years. Five years. How amazing is that? I'd have trouble trying to make a similar string of five at bats. Since it last happened, Bonds walked 660 times. [Okay, looking at the numbers, it looks like the last time he did it was towards the start of the 2001 season, so, technically, more like 4 1/2 years, but still.]

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Great Katrina Writing from Ireland

From the Irish Times, by Newton Emerson:

As the full horror of Hurricane Katrina sinks in, thousands of desperate columnists are asking if this is the end of George Bush's presidency. The answer is almost certainly yes, provided that every copy of the US Constitution was destroyed in the storm. Otherwise President Bush will remain in office until noon on January 20th, 2009, as required by the 20th Amendment, after which he is barred from seeking a third term anyway under the 22nd Amendment.
The rest of the article is good. I love it. Read it here.

Monday, September 12, 2005

More Katrina Nonsense

I know that in her position as a U.S. Senator she is not really responsible for the way the Katrina situation has been handled (except as far as previous Congressional actions go, and possibly some stuff she did in Louisiana before being elected to the Senate -- sorry, can't remember what all the senators did before getting elected), but Mary Landrieu has had some of the worst reactions of any elected official to this whole mess. And lest you think I'm just being partisan, here's a takedown of her from the liberal Daily Howler. It also condemns some of the mindless and inaccurate reporting by the media, mostly relating to FEMA Director Brown (for the record, I think he's been far from perfect, but I think most of the media attacks on him have been unfair). It takes a couple swipes at Bush in passing (as far as I recall off the top of my head, nothing to do with Katrina), and there might be some other stuff I don't whole-heartedly endorse, but it is a good write-up and generally worth reading.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Simpsons Top 100 Countdown

#88 The Cartridge Family
Season 9, Episode 5 (Guide from the Simpsons Archive)
The Continental Soccer Association comes to Springfield, with its fast kicking, low scoring, and ties! The Simpsons (and most of the town) turn out at the game thanks to the snazzy ad campaign (and the fact that players they've never heard of will be signing autographs). A few minutes into the game, they realize that soccer is painfully boring, and in the rush to leave the stadium, a riot breaks out. The riot spills out of the stadium and turns into a massive crime spree through the town. After consulting with Ex-Con Home Security, and seeing the high price of installing a security system, Homer decides to buy a handgun instead. After suffering through the musical montage waiting period, he picks up his gun and takes it home. Marge, however, does not want a gun in her house (this despite her previously having a handgun in the house when she became a cop, and Homer previously having a shotgun, though she did previously object to Grandpa's gun being in the house). Homer talks her into going to an NRA meeting, at which he decides to join the fine organization. Marge still isn't sure about the gun and after several accidental discharges, demands that Homer get rid of it. He says that he does, but actually hides it in the vegetable crisper, where Bart finds it. Marge finds Bart as he is about to attempt to shoot an apple out of Milhouse's mouth. She takes the kids, and not being able to stay with her sisters due to them withholding a tv repairman against his will, they go to a sleazy motel. Meanwhile, Homer holds an NRA meeting at his house, but, after they see how irresponsibly he handles a gun, they kick him out of the organization and ask him to leave the house for the remainder of the meeting. Homer decides he needs his family and goes to the sleazy motel to patch things up with Marge. He tells her that the gun is gone forever, but when Snake tries to rob the office, Homer pulls it out. After more arguing, Homer leaves it behind for good; however, Marge picks it up, and decides to keep it herself, thus flopping back to her original position on the issue of gun ownership (though I'll certainly agree that Homer shouldn't own one). The show gets in the predictable jokes about the NRA, but at least it shows that they condemn reckless handling of guns, such as that of Homer. Memorable moments include the soccer commercial, the soccer game, the NRA meetings, Homer's security system, the sleazy motel (especially the Quimby parts), Homer in the gun shop, and the whole "the waiting is the hardest part" piece.

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More Katrina Stuff

Apparently, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army were ready to move in to the afflicted areas right after the hurricane hit and before the worst of the flooding, but they were stopped from doing so by the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security, who didn't want people gathering at the Superdome and such places, they wanted people to leave town (how?). Video available here. So as you hear more people pointing blame towards the feds, remember this further screw-up of the state.

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Simpsons Top 100 Countdown

#89 Krusty Gets Busted
Season 1, Episode 12 (Guide from the Simpsons Archive)
A classic that started the whole nearly annual Sideshow Bob series of episodes (which helps it in the rankings). While buying some premium ice cream at the Kwik-e Mart, Homer observes Krusty the Klown robbing it. After he's thrown in jail, the whole town turns against him and Sideshow Bob takes over his television show. However, Bart nevers loses his faith that Krusty is innocent. He recruits Lisa to help him investigate and they discover several suspicious happenings. They go to meet Sideshow Bob to try to get his help, but Bob is rushed to get on set and gives the kids tickets to the show. During the show, he notices Bart looking depressed, so he brings him onto the stage to try to address the problem. While on stage, Bart realizes that the robber had large feet, while Krusty had small feet, and Sideshow Bob has large feet. He puts two and two together and exposes Bob on live tv. The police, who happen to be watching the show, rush down to the studio to arrest Bob; they release Krusty, who gives a special thanks to Bart. Memorable moments include the kids expressing their total devotion to Krusty, Patty and Selma's "thorough" slide show, the trial, Bob being shot out of a cannon (or not), the news intro hyping Kent Brockman only to not have him there (that always amuses me), "Dad, you're giving in to mob mentality!" "No, I'm not; I'm jumping on the bandwagon", and the burning of the children's toys.

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NASCAR Politics

There's been talk lately in political circles about "NASCAR Dads" (they're the new "soccer moms" only they lean towards the conservative side, and by a decent amount). Well, this is the most interesting play for their votes that I've seen so far: a Kilgore for Governor car. Picture of the car available here. Jerry Kilgore is the Republican candidate for Virginia governor, one of two gubernatorial elections this November (the other is in New Jersey). The car will be participating in NASCAR race in Martinsville, Virginia on October 23. More can be read on the matter here.

As it stands, Kilgore is the favorite to win in Virginia, and dem Sen. John Corzine is the favorite to win in New Jersey. In both states, a democrat won the last election; Mark Warner in Virginia, a fairly popular democrat, a moderate and a 2008 hopeful; in New Jersey, it was Jim McGreevey, who had to resign in disgrace after it was discovered that he appointed his gay lover as the head of state homeland security (and, to make matters more scandalous, his gay lover didn't even qualify for a security clearance; plus, McGreevey was married; McGreevey tried to spin the whole resignation as being related to him being gay, but there was so much more).

Monday, September 05, 2005

Supreme Court Stuff

Well, President Bush decided to nominate Roberts for the Chief position, no big surprise. I meant to list that aa a possiblity in my post the other day, but I guess I forgot it. He's well qualified and all that stuff. Scrappleface posted a great pseudo-article that was a take-off of democrats' rhetoric after O'Connor announced her retirement (Scrappleface is definitely recommended reading, by the way; great stuff).

It looks like the Roberts hearings have had their start delayed from Tuesday to Thursday (or possibly later). At first, I thought this was due to the hurricane (because people had suggested doing as much), and that greatly irritated me -- the Senate Judiciary Committee has nothing to due with hurricane relief, and the new Supreme Court term starts in a month (i.e., time is limited), so they should be working on confirming the nominee. I did find out that the delay was to honor Rehnquist, though, which I find acceptable. There are still some (leftist blowhard, drunk, and girl-killer Ted Kennedy, for instance) saying the hearings should be delayed due to the hurricane, but they don't really have any crediblity, as they are all on record opposing the nomination anyways (though not always in so many words). They're desperate for any delay they can find. (Update: I've found out that the Judiciary Committee, then under democrat Patrick Leahy, held confirmation hearings on September 13, 2001; if they could do that then, they can certainly hold hearings now, over a week after the hurricane, and after basically everyone has been evacuated.)

The interesting thing here, which didn't seem like much of a possiblity before Rehnquist died, is that O'Connor might be sticking around for awhile. Since she said that her resignation was effective upon the confirmation of a successor (which is somewhat questionable, legally, though everyone goes along with it), it doesn't look like her successor will be named before the start of the new Court term next month. In fact, I'd put the odds at very nearly 100% against such an event transpiring. Unfortunately, this will lead to more gimmickery among democrats to delay the confirmation of her successor (on the plus side, I think a little bit -- but only a little bit -- of the steam in their opposition to Roberts will subside). I would look for Bush to name the new nominee by the end of the week, and there will be an effort to start hearings by the end of the month or the beginning of October, though they might be delayed. A vote will probably be held before December. The only complication is that O'Connor could potentially withdraw her nomination so that the Court wouldn't have to switch justices in the middle of a term (which could complicate a few cases that were before it, especially any that were 5-4 with O'Connor in the majority, but not really any decided by lopsided results). That seems unlikely as she's wanted to retire for awhile now; the belief is that she wanted to retire after the 2000 election, but she thought it was improper to do so given the Court's role in that election (although several studies have called into doubt whether that really made a difference). Another possiblity is that she could declare herself retired and let the Court operate with only eight members for a period, which seems messy, as it would allow for a tie, but see my previous remark about any 5-4 vote the Court made if she stayed on. So, who really knows.

As for his next pick, I think the two Ediths look good, and he will come under even more pressure to nominate a woman. I heard that one of them (forgot which) is from New Orleans, and some people have said he should nominate her because of that, but that suggestion sickens me, even borderline to the point that I would not want to nominate her. Beyond those two, Luttig and McConnell look like top candidates.

Most interesting is that the two justices most likely to leave the Court next are its two most liberal members, which could spur a real realignment of the Court (while the two new justices to be confirmed could differ from their predecessors, they're likely to be on the right or in the center, so it could move slightly right, be a wash, or slightly towards the center (the last of which would effectively be a wash on this court, but would come into play with future retirements).

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Nagin

Nagin is ticking me off even more. I saw him on the news, and they asked him if he knew what was going to happen before it happened, and he said that he would have started cussing out people sooner, telling them to get to work. As I've already stated, there was much more that he could have done. Ugh. Incompetence.

They then mentioned that some people are saying the (lack of) response is race-related. He said he wasn't sure about that, but that it was at least class-related. Double ugh.

He desperately trying to blame others for his own incompetence, and even trying a class warfare move -- anything to keep the blame away from him.

Unfortunately, the mindless mainstream media follows the typical thinking that the feds should take care of everything.

Also of note, the feds tried to take control of things in the wee morning hours Friday, and state officials refused.

UPDATE:

Watched some more (it's Nightline, by the way, and I've been in and out of the room);

They mentioned the buses and some other blame with local and state officials. George Stephanopolis (who worked in the Clinton White House) even admitted that they really dropped the ball, and didn't really accuse the president of messing up at all, but went with the whole "the buck stops here" thing.

Simpsons Top 100 Countdown -- a double dose!

#91 The Way We Was
Season 12, Episode 12 (Guide from the Simpsons Archive)
The tv goes out, so to pass the time Homer and Marge tell the story of how they met (Marge deemed the story of how Homer proposed less than appropriate (he made an honest woman out of her, if you catch my drift)). They meet in detention; Homer is in for smoking and cutting class, while Marge is in for her political protest in which she burned her bra (which burned up quickly due to the tissue paper inside) (she decides not to speak out anymore after that, explaining why she takes a ton of abuse). "[He] reached step one -- she knew [his] name; the problem was, she didn't care." To try to get her to notice him more, he joins the debate team (of which she is a member), where he moons for rebuttal. He asks her out, but she hesitates, so he gives her references, all of who provide interesting reviews. She's still not ready to date him, so he pretends to need French tutoring to get to know her better. He learns a large amount for only a few hours, and asks her to the prom, and she finally relents. However, he decides to come clean to her and admits that he wasn't in any French class; as he kept her up past 1am the night before her debate performance, she slaps him and yells at him, and storms out. Following the debate meet, Artie Ziff (class valedictorian) asks her to prom and she agrees. On prom night, Homer shows up to the Bouvier residence, which makes her family question her taste in men. Artie then shows up, much to their relief. Homer, having already paid for a limo and prom tickets (complete with two dinners), he decides to get his money's worth out of them and goes along to prom. Artie and Marge are named king and queen; Homer gets too emotional and runs out. Marge goes out to see how he is, and tells him they have no future together. All three end up going to the local make-out point (Homer's limo driver: "Okay, but I'm only paid to drive") where Artie tries to put the moves on Marge. She slaps him and asks to be taken home, passing Homer on the way while he's walking home since the time is up on his limo and he has no more money. She decides that she made a mistake, and after getting home, she drives her car to go pick him up and give him a ride. She tells him that she made a mistake and , in not so many words, agrees to go out with him. Memorable moments include the McBain movie, Abe's talk with Homer (not a very encouraging father), "pretending to be stupid", Homer's references, and the whole flashback thing (I love just about all of the Simpsons flashback episodes; one of the ones I don't is titled The Way We Weren't, which goes to show that the show has declined to the point where they've run out of ideas for episode titles).


#90 Bart the Daredevil
Season 2, Episode 8 (Guide from the Simpsons Archive)
Following a pro-wrestling match on tv, Bart and Homer see a commercial for truckosaurus, which excites them immensely. After a brief scare when learning that Lisa has a school band concert the same night, they realize they can go to the truck rally after the concert. Lisa's band plays Schubert's Unfinished Symphony (Homer: "Oh, good, unfinished. This shouldn't take long."). At the end of the concert, they rush to the truck rally, but in looking for a parking space, they accidentally drive into the arena, where truckosaurus attacks their car. After surviving the scare, they go in to watch the festivities and see motorcycle stuntman Captain Lance Murdock. He jumps over a tank "filled with man-eating great white sharks, deadly electric eels, ravenous piranha, bone-crushing alligators, and perhaps most frightening of all, the king of the jungle, one ferocious lion!" While Murdock is attempting the feat, the entire audience except for Bart hides their eyes; he completes the jump, but in driving back up the landing ramp to receive the cheers from the audience, he falls into the tank. Bart has found his desired profession. Attempting to jump over the family station wagon on his skateboard, he falls and is taken to the hospital. Dr. Hibbert shows them a ward devoted to children injured imitating stunts and such that they've seen on tv or by other means. Bart, however, is not dissuaded. He tries again, and succeeds this time. He jumps over various other things to impress his school chums, but starts running out of things to jump. ON a class field trip to Springfield Gorge, Bart is struck by inspiration. Trying to keep him from doing something so stupid, Lisa takes him to see Murdock in the hospital, but her plan backfires when he encourages Bart instead. She tries telling their parents, but Bart sneaks out. Homer finds Bart missing, and drives down to the gorge and stops him at the last minute. Homer then climbs onto the skateboard, threatening to do the jump himself and Bart realizes the folly of his ways. However, in the most replayed Simpsons moment of all time, the skateboard starts rolling and Homer makes his attempt to jump the gorge, only to fall down. Memorable moments include Homer's antics waiting for the concert to finish, truckosaurus, the Lance Murdock scene at the truck rally, various jumps by Bart, the tv trauma ward, and, naturally, the oft-replayed fall of Homer (and his second fall). I just couldn't leave the most famous Simpsons moment off this list.

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Saturday, September 03, 2005

R.I.P. Chief Justice William Rehnquist

October 1, 1924 -- September 3, 2005

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he went on to receive masters degrees in political science from Stanford in 1949 and Harvard in 1950, and then graduated first in his class from Stanford law school in December 1951 (O'Connor graduated third in the same class, and they briefly dated each other while there). He went on to private practice in Phoenix (as an aside, O'Connor also came to Arizona after law school, where she served in the state legislature and as a state judge), and then became Assistant Attorney General. On the Burger Court, he was the most conservative member, earning the nickname "the lone ranger" for his frequent dissents; however, he was also regarded as the justice with the most impressive intellectual ability. As Chief Justice, he was widely respected, both in legal circles and on his own Court (some justices bristled under the Burger's administration of the Court). In about a two month period, Arizona went from having a claim to two justices on the Supreme Court, to having claim to none.

Appointed to the Court as Associate Justice by Richard Nixon (October 22, 1971; confirmed 68-26 December 10, 1971; took oath of office January 7, 1972)
Elevated to Chief Justice by Ronald Reagan (June 17, 1986; confirmed 65-33 September 17, 1986; took oath of office September 26, 1986)

Only five justices served longer than he did:
William O. Douglas
Stephen Field
John Marshall (Chief Justice)
Hugo Black
John Marshall Harlan (apparently destined for the court from the time he was named)
(He served briefly longer than Joseph Story, though that's because Story didn't take the oath of office until two and a half months after beiong confirmed by the Senate)

He is the first justice to die in office since Robert H. Jackson died on October 9, 1954, and the first Chief Justice to do so since Fred M. Vinson died September 8, 1953.

There are currently two vacancies on the Court (some would argue whether O'Connor's seat is really vacant, but I'll leave that aside) for the first time since Rehnquist was a nominee of Nixon (Powell was confirmed four days before him, but they took the oath of office the same day).

As for a possible replacement, I doubt that Bush will elevate a current member of the Court; he will more likely look outside the Court for a new Chief (it may sound odd to do so, but only four chief justices have reached that position via promotion within the Court, and all in the 20th Century (though John Rutledge was recess appointed to the Chief Justiceship after having resigned as an associate justice, and his permanent appointment to the post was rejected by the Senate, and Abe Fortas was nominated for the Chief Justiceship, but his nomination was withdrawn when it became evident that he would be defeated in the Senate)). Look at the previous list of candidates that I provided for O'Connor; it will probably be one of them.

Friday, September 02, 2005

More on New Orleans

Time for some angry blogging.

Next time you hear NO mayor Nagin whining that he "need[s] 500 buses" or "get every Greyhound bus in the country and get them moving", remember this. The city of New Orleans had over 200 school buses and nearly 350 city buses that could have been used to get residents out of the city. Why didn't he use those? When he heard people suggesting that school buses were being brought in to take some of the refugees away, he seemed to reject it. What is this guy's problem? Some will say (and some have said) that things were fine until the levee broke, so we shouldn't blame him for not getting them out of town. Try again. Remember all those news reports before the hurricane hit? It looked like NO was going to be hit head-on by a cat 5 and the levees were going to be useless. Nobody saw this coming? THEY'VE BEEN WARNING ABOUT IT FOR FORTY YEARS!!!!!! Moreover, even with all the dire predictions before the storm, they apparently didn't bother to adequately stock the Superdome, convention center, and other sites with adequate supplies (most especially bottled water and food). Same deal for Terry Ebbert, head of emergency operations for New Orleans. These people should be in jail for negligent manslaughter.

Meanwhile, while city officials refused to use the buses, some people did. Jabbar Gibson, 20, commandeered an abandoned school bus and used it to get over 50 people out of the city and to the Astrodome. Infuriatingly, he may now face criminal charges. I say Gibson for mayor. Throw out the incompetent Nagin (who does nothing but naggin') and put in somehow who has a head on his shoulders. A 20-year-old as mayor? They've already done worse.

Also, check out this bit of hypocrisy from the New York Times. It wails about Congress cutting funding for flood control earlier this year (I've already addressed why this wouldn't have done anything in my last post), but it had complained that they were spending too much on it back in April. Anything that smears Republicans, I guess.

Katrina

A few points on Katrina, who's being dumb, what should be done, et cetera.

Might as well jump in with the non-pc stuff -- the people in New Orleans who stayed in their homes were dumb. Before anyone whines about those without the financial means to evacuate, the city had set up ten shelters for such people. they should have gone to one of those (and yes, I know there have been some issues with some of them, but more on that later). As it is, too many resources have had to be focused on rescuing people from their houses. It also makes it more difficult to supply those affected with water, food, et cetera.

The looting going on there is simply disgusting. People stealing big screen televisions, other electronics, jewelry, clothes, and various other non-essentials. Extremely violent, too. These looters should be shot. Seriously. And i must say, to people like Kathryn Jean Lopez, that i don't think anyone saying the looters should be shot is advocating shooting people taking food, water, or the like. Also for her benefit, I'm not advocating spraying down every looter with a hail of gunfire -- you shoot a couple of them and the others start getting the idea real fast. Again, it's distracting police and national guardsmen from helping those who need it. Moreover, with the lousy job that's been done protecting people's property, more people are going to want to stay behind the next time they're ordered to evacuate to try to protect their possessions, or to loot from stores (some of those who stayed behind apparently did so with that intention). Bit of trivia -- the first order of the mayor of San Francisco following the earthquake and ensuing fires of 1906 was to shoot the looters. Maintaining order is one of the primary purposes of government. The primary, I'd say.

Combining the first two points, what's up with the people on rooftops who have shot at helicopters and boats? Apparently, they're trying to get help for themselves or their families, but is that really the way to do it? Ugh. Stupid people bother me, and they've shown up in abundance.

Reading what some people have to say on the whole matter, I was amazed by the levels of asininity. First there are those blaming Bush for this. Some blame him because of "global warming" -- completely ignoring the fact that, even accepting all the numbers and such that environmentalists toss around, if Bush had started fighting greenhouse gases from the moment he stepped into office, the effect would have been imperceptable; moreover, science doesn't back up the claim that "global warming" -- even if it is actually occurring -- is causing stronger hurricanes, and the author of the study that people are using to make this claim says that he doesn't think global warming can be blamed for the hurricane. Then there are those blaming him because the levees weren't strengthened due to cuts in federal funding, but even if it had full funding, the study on improving the levees wasn't going to be completed until 2008, let alone any actual work. Finally, for the Bush-bashers, at least, there are those saying the troops should be brought home from Iraq to man New Orleans and other affected areas; this ignores that there are already thousands of national guardsmen there, with more on the way, and the logistics of actually bringing the troops home -- by the time they started arriving stateside in any significant amount, the city will have been drained and they won't be needed (that, and would putting 120,000 troops there make any sense?). Then there's all the misperceptions and stupidity surrounding gas, but I think I'll save that for another post. I saw one person saying she's convinced that some people are trapped in their attics, so she wants rescue workers to go around with chainsaws cutting into all the roofs (last I heard, they were still working on getting people off rooftops who managed to get their on their own; it would seem that they need to finish that first before trying to find people who are quite possibly already dead (if they got trapped in their attic, there's a good chance they already drowned or have suffered from a lack of supplies, the contaminated water, and the heat (attics tend to reach temperatures higher than those outside the house)).

The media is also annoying. They're walking around there, not really doing much of anything to help aside from "raising awareness" (a concept I think little of). Also, when talking about the people in New Orleans, I've caught several reporters saying that they've been enduring [insert hardship here] for "days and days and days" on Thursday and this morning. I hardly consider three or four days to be "days and days and days". I dislike over-exaggeration.

How much sense does a city like New Orleans make anyways? A city that's below sea level, located where it is in relation to various bodies of water. It makes no sense. Unless you're talking about the Dead Sea, you shouldn't build a city that's below sea level, it's just asking for trouble.

Now, as to the incompetence of part of the response. It was the responsiblity of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana to take the lead in the response, and the feds were supposed to aid them. However, there's no aiding something as poorly organized as this was. There are those who claim that nobody could have seen something like this coming. Bull. They've been warning about this for decades now, it's nothing new. Unfortunately, there are high levels of corruption in the Louisiana and New Orleans governments (including the police force), which hampered planning (and seems to have led some police officers to be part of the looting, according to some reports). Now, we're not talking Jersey-level corruption, but you don't need that much corruption to generate a problem. Some are eager to blame the feds, as always, but, like I said, this is primarily the state's responsiblity. And they failed miserably. Governor Blanco is in deeper than she knows how to handle; showing she feels for all the people afflicted by crying on tv is all well and good, but ... well, it's not all well and good without any competent action to back it up. As Jonah Goldberg said, she seemed like a second-grade teacher when she was giving her weak condemnation of the looters. The mayor really isn't much better; he whines about the feds not doing enough, but what had the city done to prepare? Not bloody much. And there's the problem.

On a brighter note, Gov. Barbour of Mississippi seems to be handling things a bit better. He at least has an air of competence around him.

And with that, I think I've typed enough for now. I hope all of you don't have any friends or family that were in harm's way.