Katrina Two Years On

"For years, researchers have described exactly what would happen if a megahurricane hit New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf region. They predicted that the city levees would not hold. Their elaborate computer models showed that tens of thousands would be left behind. They described rooftop rescues, 80% of New Orleans underwater and "toxic gumbo" purling through the streets. If experts had prophesied a terrorist attack with that kind of accuracy, they would be under suspicion for treason." Time

So, how did this happen in 2005 in a major US city? (Warning: this photo isn't easy to look at. Look at it anyway.)

Musicians are living in the houses Habitat helped build for them. I volunteered there last September. It's great to see and hear life in New Orleans. At least some folks are back home.

So much to do.

Headline of the Day

Gonzales to Spend More Time Eavesdropping on His Family

See ya, Alberto.

What it Takes?

"We will do what it takes . . . stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives."

George W. Bush, New Orleans, September 12, 2005

What it takes?

Bumper Sticker of the Day

Pluto is a Planet!

Is there a pro-Pluto advocacy movement on to return Pluto to its former status? Is there a 'Move Mars Closer to the Sun' organization out there too?

Quote of the Day

[riding a circus elephant]
Peter Griffin: Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a big fat white guy who is threatened by change. Family Guy

I know it's so wrong....but it's so funny.

Still Swinging in New Orleans

''It's just so wonderful to be alive and swinging in New Orleans. We're going to
be buried here, man. That's for sure. That's for DAMN sure.'' Jazz trumpeter
Kermit Ruffins, a co-founder of the renowned Rebirth Brass Band.

Amid the reports of rampant crime, neighborhoods still in ruin, an Army Corps struggling to figure out what it did wrong 30 years ago, there is still music playing and people are celebrating , still jamming, and still rebuilding.

Satchmo.com has a list of organizations that help musicians get back to playing.

They Way We All Need to See It

This op-ed by seven US soldiers, just returned from 15 months in Iraq, is what we need to hear. Is this what Vietnam was like? Does it matter? Do the fools is Washington hear anything they don't want to hear?

"In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a “time-sensitive target acquisition mission” on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force."

Thank you, Specialist Jayamaha, Sergeants Smith, Roebuck, Mora, and Sandmeier, and Staff Sergeants Gray and Murphy.

Great Name For a Band.....

Jesus Manson Mellencamp. A real band. For real.

That's Where My IPod Went!

Astronomers Find a Hole in the Universe

He Called Her a What??

So, Marco Materazzi finally admitted that he DID call Zidane's sister a puttana.

I thought he used another, slightly more graphic, but not uncommon phrase about his sister. No matter. I'd like to think my brother would head butt anyone who called me a who-a.

First of all, why in the name of holy hell are we still using so much coal?

And, why for christ's sake are we still sending men (and women?) into the ground to face being buried alive? Those miners in Utah will likely never be found because it's too dangerous to keep looking for them. Pray they were dead after the first collapse.

And do something to stop this dangerous addiction to fossil fuels that's killing us. Some of us faster than others.

Hope From Hope

"You know, I've never hated the Clintons. I still don't, I have great respect for them. He made a lot of mistakes — a lot of personal ones — but you know something that I think should not be forgotten. There's two things about Bill Clinton I tell Republicans, it drives them nuts, but here it is.

"Number one, don't get it lost on you that a kid out of a very small, Southern rural state aspired to be President of the United States. This kid came from a dysfunctional family — alcoholic abusive father. And yet he didn't just aspire, he was elected president of the United States not once, but twice. That is an affirmation of the system. And it's a wonderful testament to give to every kid in America that no matter where you've come from, you've got an opportunity to do something extraordinary. " That's his hope that two people from Hope, Arkansas can be elected president.

"The second thing, and this'll really wrangle, again, some of my Republican colleagues. Bill Clinton and Hillary went through some horrible experiences in their marriage, because of some of the reckless behavior that he has admitted he had. I'm not defending him on that — it's indefensible. But they kept their marriage together. And a lot of the Republicans who have condemned them, and who talk about their platform of family values, interestingly didn't keep their own families together." Mike Huckabee on NPR's Bryant Park Project (Thanks to Talking Points Memo)

One Billion Dollars and the Same Old Song

"New Orleans was swamped by Hurricane Katrina; now it is awash in data, studied obsessively in homes all over town. And the simple message conveyed by that data is that while parts of the city are substantially safer, others have changed little. New Orleans remains a very risky place to live."

Wait for it.......

"After two years and more than a billion dollars spent by the Army
Corps of Engineers to rebuild New Orleans’s hurricane protection system,
that is how much the water level is likely to be reduced if a big 1-in-100 flood
hits Leah Pratcher’s Gentilly neighborhood. Looking over the maps that showed other possible water levels around the city, Ms. Pratcher grew increasingly furious. Her house got four feet of water after Hurricane Katrina, and still stands to get almost as much from a 1-in-100 flood."

You knew it was coming......

"By comparison, the wealthier neighborhood to the west, Lakeview, had its flooding risk reduced by nearly five and a half feet."

Quote(s) of the Day

Mike Huckabee on his second-place showing in the Iowa straw poll:

"It wasn't just that we surprised people with a second showing, it's that we
did it with so few resources. I mean, this really was feeding the 5,000 with
two fish and five loaves, an amazing kind of day for us."

Jon Stewart:

"Don't you think Jesus would have won?"

Thanks to the Hotline.

Trey Ellis contends in the Huffington Post that most African Americans will vote for Barack Obama because he is the first viable black candidate:

If the majority of black folks swore O.J. was innocent just because of the color
of his skin, the majority of us, when we're alone in that ballot booth, will
pull the lever for brother Obama.

Am I going to find myself compelled to vote for Hillary Clinton because she's a woman? Maybe.

All Fall Down

Unless the bridges get blown up by helpful terrorists, making us eligible for Halliburton to come in and rebuild them, I don't imagine that much will happen. There will be an investigation and someday, when we are much older, we will learn that the bridge collapsed due to a unique set of circumstances that could not have been predicted by anybody. Nobody had sex with that woman. Everybody was doing a heckuva job. Garrison Keillor

Mike Bacsik of the Nats pitched #756 to Barry Bonds. His father pitched to Hank Aaron after he hit 755 home runs. Had Bacsik pere pitched a homer to Aaron, we would not have to honor Barry Bonds today.

Their mouths, God's ear

Pragmatic Prognostication Over Partisanship:

Lawyers at Kirkland & Ellis, the national firm which employs Kenneth Starr (the fellow who investigated former President Clinton), have give more money to Hillary Clinton than to all Republican presidential candidates combined.

At Jones Day, the law firm that represents the Republican National Committee, attorneys have given more than three times as much to Barack Obama as to the top three GOP candidates.

According to a source interviewed by Lindsay Fortado of Bloomberg, "Firms want to be on the good side of who they think is going to be the incumbent. . . . The conventional wisdom is that the Democrats are going to win the White House." AAI Countdown

Joe Biden: Candidates need to ask themselves "what's worth losing over."

Good for him.

Campaign Slogans We'd Love To See

Mitt Romney: He'll Look Great on the Mount

Feel free to post your ideas. It's the only one I can come up with at the moment.

Smarr T. Pants

My reader are so smart....

Noe I. All said...
James K. Polk was elected POTUS, eventually baptised Methodist, then died a week later.

William Jennings Bryan actually won his case versus Clarence Darrow, but he died less than a week later.

Unitarian Universalists in the U.S. population comprise just 0.2% of the population (one in every 500 Americans). Yet there have been 4 Unitarian presidents. Adams, Adams, Filmore, Taft.

JQ Adams (N.B. one of the founding members of the All Souls Unitarian congregation in Washington) regularly swam nude in the Potomac River. Anne Royall knew of Adams' 5 A.M. swims. After being refused interviews with the president time after time, she went to the river, gathered his clothes and sat on them until she had her interview. Before this, no female had interviewed a president.

Judge's ruling: While Thomas Jefferson was raised Anglican (later, Episcopalian), his writings and beliefs --esp. those regarding Jesus --were very Unitarian. In 1822 he wrote that "there is not a young man now living in the US who will not die an Unitarian." True, he never joined a Unitarian congregation. There was no Unitarian congregation in Virginia in his lifetime. Make that 5 presidents?

Having a Ball

Walter “Sonny” Kowalczyk ....snagg(ed) Alex Rodriguez’s 500th career homer. Collectors may offer up to $100,000. Mr. Rodriguez is holding out “a boatload of autographed memorabilia from high-profile Yankees,” according to Newsday. “I would love to have the ball,” the Yankee star said.

So just offer him 100 g's for it, A-Rod.

Comment of the Day

Re: Bush and Karzai:

Terry Washingon said...
You kill me.

"Nice hat."

"You're gonna get me killed, you خر سور ."

Under the Boot

"And in just over two-and-a-half years, the Iraqi people have made incredible progress on the road to lasting freedom. Iraqis have gone from living under the boot of a brutal tyrant, to liberation, free elections, and a democratic constitution." George W. Bush

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden truck into a village near the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar on Monday, killing at least 28 people and wounding 50 others, an Iraqi army official said.

Samir Jawaad, 6, is treated Monday after a roadside bomb exploded in the Iraqi capital's Zafaraniya district.

At least 19 of those killed were children, Brig. Gen. Najim Abdullah told The Associated Press.
The blast left a 10-foot crater in the ground and damaged 10 homes in the Shiite Turkmen village of Qubbak, about six miles (10 kilometers) northeast of Tal Afar, the army official told CNN.

The suicide bomber used a dump truck and covered his deadly wares in a layer of gravel, Abdullah told the AP.

In Baghdad, three roadside bombs detonated in various neighborhoods, killing at least 11 people and wounding 33 others, according to the Iraqi Interior Ministry.

The deadliest of the blasts came in southeast Baghdad's Zafaraniya district, where eight people were killed and 16 were wounded.

Another bomb in the Ghadir neighborhood of southeastern Baghdad killed three people and wounded 11.

Soulshine

"New Orleans has changed. People's priorities have changed. People I know are not about dressing up and going to big events, going to the opera, anymore, wearing all that fancy costume jewelry and such. New Orleans has a new sense to
me. People are about small things, things that make their soul feel better." Norma Bridges

As the second anniversary approaches, it's good to see some signs of life.

Musicians' Village in the Upper Ninth is sounding again. 80 houses, mostly for musicians built by Habitat for Humanity volunteers. I cut windowsills, installed doorknobs, cut siding and painted a few of those houses. Tiny contribution, for sure, but makes the soul feel better.

Damn sure better than rain.

Bumper Sticker of the Day

Take my advice
I'm not using it anyway

Thanks, Bonz.