Not this buffoon again!

It's always interesting when local leftoid politicians get tired of abusing the "clients" in their urban lairs and decide to use the seemingly endless taxpayer resources at their command to make a "broader statement." One day it's a nuclear free zone and the next it's Rafah as a sister city. Idle hands do the Devil's work, I guess.

But all this is harmless wanking compared to their studied abuse of the legal system in refusing to notice illegal aliens, disdaining cooperation in terrorist investigations, trying to drive firearm manufacturers out of business, and demanding documentation of obscure business links to slavery, as foreplay for the eventual reparations lawsuits. Yet in all this primo pustulosis, one leftoid loon takes pride of place for the political vendettas that he conducts via the legal system and that's ole Travis County (Austin, TX) Democrat District Attorney, Ronnie Earle. After scrabbling around pissing and moaning for years, he finally has decided to indict Tom Delay for, er, well, that's not too clear to anybody but ole Ronnie. The usual suspects are all atwitter at the thought, although there are some who have a few qualms. I guess us regular folks just don't think big enough. I wonder if we could find some rural county DA's who would indict Ronnie Earle for being a pernicious prat. Naw, they likely take their jobs seriously.

A chip off the ole crock

Former CBS fabulist, Mary Mapes, has received the reward of the notorious, but unincarcerated - she has a book coming out November 8. Rand Simberg provides the requisite fisking to her continued cluelessness ("peripheral spacing") and studied disingenuousness (they're called timezones, Mary), but it is worth reading the whole excerpt on Amazon to see the inner workings of the mind of an "ace" MSM newshawk.

The day after the fake National Guard papers story went on the air, Mary was spending some quality time high fiving the other drones in the hive at CBS when she got an inkling that making one up wasn't going to serve this time:

I remember staring, disheartened and angry, at one posting. “60 Minutes is going down,” the writer crowed exultantly.

My heart started to pound. There is nothing more frightening for a reporter than the possibility of being wrong, seriously wrong. That is the reason that we checked and rechecked, argued about wording, took care to be certain that the video that accompanied the words didn’t create a new and unintended nuance. Being right, being sure, was everything. And right now, on the Internet, it appeared everything was falling apart.

I had a real physical reaction as I read the angry online accounts. It was something between a panic attack, a heart attack, and a nervous breakdown. My palms were sweaty; I gulped and tried to breathe. My heart was pounding like I had become a cartoon character whose heart outline pushes out the front of her shirt with each beat. The little girl in me wanted to crouch and hide behind the door and cry my eyes out.

The longtime reporter in me was pissed off ... and I hung on to her strength and certainty for dear life. I had never been fundamentally wrong, never been fooled, never been under this kind of attack. I resolved to fight back.

Yikes, better call Kinkos!

In retrospect, Matley was right and our story never recovered from this basic misunderstanding. Faxing changes a document in so many ways, large and small, that analyzing a memo that had been faxed---in some cases not once, but twice---was virtually impossible. The faxing destroyed the subtle arcs and lines in the letters. The characters bled into each other. The details of how the typed characters failed to line up perfectly inside each word were lost.

Er, Mary the problem wasn't that the documents were fuzzy - it was that they matched too well the default output of Microsoft Word with that pesky "peripheral spacing."

I knew what we were seeing was not a simple mistake made because of technical differences in the way the documents looked. This was something else, something new and fundamentally frightening. I had never seen this kind of response to any story. This was like rounding a corner in the woods and spotting a new creature, all venom and claws and teeth. You didn’t know what it was, but you sure knew it was out to get you.

As I watched the postings pile up and saw the words quickly become more hateful, it dawned on me that I was present at the birth of a political jihad, a movement conceived in radical conservative back rooms, given life in cyberspace, and growing by the minute.

Ruh Oh! Sounds like the VRWC to me! Pretty scary, eh kids?

There's much more of the same - poor little Mary the intrepid newshawk beset by rightwing meanies. Tres boring. On the other hand, the angst is great:

When I walked down the hall, I saw groups of people clumped together talking animatedly, then watched as they grew silent when I approached. They’d squeak out a, “Hi, Mary,” as I trudged dejectedly past. It was sort of the journalistic equivalent of having toilet paper stuck to your shoe. I can’t say that I blamed them or that I would have behaved any differently in their positions. Nothing like this had ever happened before to me or to anyone I knew of. What is journalistic etiquette for watching someone’s story and career go up in flames? Everyone knew what was going on. Everyone knew it was going very badly. No one knew what to say.

How about, "Mary, you shouldn't pull things out of your butt"?

Some people pitched in and tried to help bail the water out of our sinking ship. ... Assistant producers offered to open up Andy Rooney’s office and let us look at his collection of old typewriters.

Bwhahaha!

I was incredulous that the mainstream press---a group I’d been a part of for nearly twenty-five years and thought I knew---was falling for the blogs’ critiques.

Some things are so obvious that you can't spin em, Mary.

There's apparently lots more in this vein, but you have to wonder how she managed to fill 384 pages. After all, how many ways are there to say that Mary wouldn't recognize the truth if it bit her on her nether regions?

But wait, there's more! It turns out that Mary's mentor, that ole crock Dan Rather is out on the golf course with O.J. looking for the "real" story, since CBS won't let him do it on their nickel:

"CBS News doesn't want me to do that story. They wouldn't let me do that story," Rather said, declining to elaborate further.

Rather also expressed suspicion about bloggers' role in publicizing CBS's mistakes in the Memogate affair.

"There are some strange, and to me, still mysterious things, certainly unexplained things that happened about how it got attacked and why, even before the program was over," Rather said, adding that his network was derelict in not "knowing enough of how quickly bloggers could strike."

Dan doesn't understand timezones either, I guess.

Today's Weird News

Jax busts a move – to rap:

Cash it in, 50 Cent. Shrivel up, Slim Shady. Michael Jackson may be ready to rap.

Having once anointed himself the King of Pop, the singer now wants to reinvent himself as a booty-chasing hip-hopper, we hear.

The move toward a harder-edged sound is said to be part of a plan to put his child-molestation trial behind him. "Soon you will see him surrounded by all kinds of beautiful women," says "Alien Rock" author Michael Luckman, who's tapped into the Jackson camp.

Must maintain composure. Must ... Oh heck ... Bwahahaha! But wait, there's more:

Andre Van Pier thinks he has just the outfit for a Vegas show Jackson is said to be hatching.

Van Pier, who created costumes for several Jackson videos, envisions the Gloved One as a "Space Warrior," complete with Roman legion helmet and illuminated white leather jumpsuit.

"I want to transform Michael [into] a man with power on a level that we've never seen before," says Van Pier.

Forget about the power, just try for the "man" part.

So why can't we stop thinking of Bugs Bunny's little alien antagonist, Marvin?

Marvin the Martian has just been insulted.

Cindy Sheehan goes to the Big House

In the next episode, Cindy misunderstands when one of her cellmates says "Lez be friends!"

Today's Hoot!

Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi says This War Sucks:

Have you every been at Friday prayers when somebody just totally rips a gigantic falafel gasbomb while the Imam is cursing the crusaders and Jews? That's what it was like around the TV -- total dead silence. And with every shot of another placard-waving elderly hippie moron, every pachouli drum circle, possibly even more silence. Then, when the speakers started up, so did the uncomfortable buzz.

"Where are their weapons, effendi?"

"Well, ya see, um, they are using their um, voices as weapons, um, against empire and occupation, and..."

"It seems they will need much training for the street battles, effendi. Many are appear weak or fat or old."

"Well, see, er, they are basically offering more of a, uh, moral support, and..."

"Will they be conducting martrydom operations soon?"

"Okay, well, not exactly, but..."

"But... are these what the virgins in paradise will look like, effendi?"

Shit. I don't think I'll ever forget the look of horror in that poor Jordanian kid's eyes when the camera panned across that fugly forest of hairy vegan Heathers and uberbutch Andrea Dworkin manatees. And can you blame the poor trembling kid? Holy fargin' Prophet, sometimes I swear the only thing that keeps me motivated is knowing that a restored Caliphate means these hippie bowsers are gonna have their mugs and their bankles safely shielded under a burqqa.

By then the damage was done. I must have spent fifteen minutes trying to calm the boys down, promising them that Paradise is not gonna be a menage-a-72 with a bunch of Unitarian NPR grannies.

It still won't stop the whining

BUSH-HATERS LIED! PEOPLE UN-DIED!

But it wasn't all bad news for Cindy Sheehan!

(Click the image to supersize)

Media Whore Angst!

Life imitates parody:

Meanwhile in Euroland

(via E-nough!) France passes judgment on Katrina:

Do you know why France is never hit by hurricanes, even though she once owned Louisiana? It’s because France signed the Kyoto Protocol. Do you know why la petite Camargue in the south of France, with its famous bulls and free-range horses, was flooded twice this summer? It’s because George Bush did not sign the Kyoto Protocol.

Do you know why President Chirac did not get impeached after 15,000 people died in the 2003 French heat wave? Impeached? He didn’t even get pinched! It wasn’t his fault. How could it be his fault? He was on vacation. If some people were too dumb to retreat to a mountain chalet during this terrible vague de chaleur so what? So they shriveled up and died. The fact is, most of them were old; they would have died anyway. You’re not going to deprive a great statesman of his position at the helm of a great State just because 15,000 people didn’t have the sense to buy fans back in December!

French media coverage of Katrina and her aftermath will go down in history as Force 5 skullduggery. Let me go out on a limb here, and guess that the Iranians were more humane on this issue than the French. I’m just guessing. I’m just supposing that they said Allah was punishing us for killing Muslims, desecrating mosques, raping Muslim women, and defending the Zionist entity. Whereas the French, and first and foremost the incorrigible state-owned television channel France 2,* attacked us in our very foundations, set fire to our essence with inflammatory accusations, flailed us with acid-based criticism, smeared us with the muck of hearsay, propaganda, and outright lies, and even that was not enough to satisfy their lust for revenge. France 2’s new newswoman oozed contempt from every strand of her short cropped bleached blond locks. The station’s main man in the field gleefully gloated through every pore of his shiny outer space bald noggin. No alcohol-soaked floozy wandering bleary eyed through the ruins of la Nouvelle Orléans was too zonked to get a pass at a France 2 mike and belt out curses against the guv’mint.

Ah, everything's as usual, then!

I'm so surprised!

John Leo at US News:

Which politician emerged from the mess of Katrina as the biggest bonehead involved? No, it's not Michael Brown, George W. Bush, or even the bumbling Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco.

The clear winner is New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who made every conceivable mistake during the crisis.
...
So today the New York Times has a news profile of the mayor. How does it treat Nagin? You guessed it–he's a hero. The lead of the story is "Hurricane Katrina has given the nation a new political celebrity, the mayor of beleaguered New Orleans." (Nation to city: Can we please give this alleged celebrity back?)

How do the folks at the Times keep a straight face?

Today's Hoot!

Professor Bunyip:

Good manners in our multi-culti age demand that, if you can't say anything nice about another group, then you must say nothing at all -- an observance that has worked mightily to the benefit of soccer. If decent folks were free to speak their minds, they'd concede that it's a decent enough sport for little kids and girls, especially the ones who get their tops off, but somewhat beneath the dignity of men. Once, in less liberated times, the code no doubt served a purpose: a socially acceptable means by which excited men might kiss each other in front of large crowds.

The good professor is a little tough on "snooze ball," but what he is really on about is this year's finals in a real man's sport, Australian Rules Football. It's been centuries since I've seen a game, but I seem to recall that it consists chiefly of a mob of hearty ruffians without pads bashing each other while loosely moderated by guys in white coats waving flags according to some incomprehensible rules. Sort of like a samurai war movie where the troops wear shorts.

I guess Australia doesn't have a pond scum shortage either

Tim Blair:

One in five Labor Party candidates at the last federal election believed the United States was a threat to Australian security, a new study has showed.
...
and one in five said they were either not very proud, or not at all proud, to be Australian.

The US is a threat and Australia is shameful. Nice thinking, dregs.

Sounds like a job description for today's Democrat party in the USA.

Another reason to send the Hollyweirdos to Russia!

Want a pirate DVD? Try the secret nuclear bunker:

DURING the Cold War the West spent billions of dollars trying to spy on the military installations of the Soviet Union. Now Western governments are targeting secret Russian military facilities in a new conflict, this time over the piracy of music, films and software.

The Russian Interior Ministry has revealed that millions of pirated DVDs, CDs and CD-ROMs are being produced at factories on secret military facilities beyond the jurisdiction of the police. The ministry said: “Some of the counterfeit production is being made in commercial structures installed in secret and top-secret facilities.”
...
Russian police have had little success in clamping down on the factories, which can churn out an estimated 250 million discs a year, of which 90 per cent are pirated. In a kiosk less than 500 metres from the Moscow office of The Times, Anatoly offered a pirate DVD copy of the Adam Sandler comedy The Longest Yard — released in Britain on September 9 — for only 150 roubles (£3). “Tomorrow I’ll have Revolver,” he said, even though Guy Ritchie’s latest film had its premiere in London only this week.

Industry experts say that of the 42 factories known to be producing bootleg films, music and software at least 12 are on restricted government or military sites, many in or around Moscow. Konstantin Zem-chinkov, the director of the Russian Anti-Piracy Organisation (RAPO), said: “They want to make it difficult for police to come in and raid them. The military knows about it and the Government knows about it.”

The problem, he said, was that much of Russia’s vast military industrial complex was moribund and desperate for cash. “They have to have some money but the Government can’t supply it.”

Maybe the "stars" can put on a benefit show for them?

New Orleans Clown Posse Update!

Aaron Broussard - the trials of a thespian

If you're like me, you just can't get enough of the scamps, scalawags, and scoundrels that populate New Orleans local government. It's like The Three Stooges only with a larger cast!

Anyhow, in the last episode, you may recall that Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard was taking some heat for his scenery chewing performance on Meet the Press. It was so bogus that even NBC had to issue a statement, fetchingly titled An emotional moment and a misunderstanding: Story of a mother’s desperate calls from nursing home skewed. I guess that's what the MSM calls pulling one out of your butt. Cut to a Wuzzadem update:

I think it's worth noting that anyone who's watched the interview can plainly see that Broussard is reading from prepared notes throughout. If this was a misunderstanding, it was one that was carefully prepared.

Sheesh, he didn't even learn his lines! Well, I hope he does more prep work before he talks to the Feds about the Jefferson Parish bribery scandal.

And speaking of scandal, the Clown Posse cast just got a new member and he's already off to a good start (H/T: Florida Cracker) - Donations Found at La. Official's Home:

Police found cases of food, clothing and tools intended for hurricane victims at the home of the chief administrative officer for a New Orleans suburb, authorities said Wednesday.

Officers searched Cedric Floyd's home because of complaints that city workers were helping themselves to donations for hurricane victims. Floyd, who runs the day-to-day operations in the suburb of Kenner, was in charge of distributing the goods.

Police plan to seek a charge of committing an illegal act as a public official against Floyd, and more charges against other city workers are possible, police Capt. Steve Caraway said.

The donations filled a large pickup truck four times. "It was an awful lot of stuff," Caraway said.

The donated materials must be processed as evidence but eventually will be distributed to victims. "We have lots of families that are begging for these supplies," said Attorney General Charles Foti, whose office assisted in the investigation.

Let's all give Cedric a warm welcome! Oh, and the garage sale at his place this weekend has been canceled.

Like father, Like son

"There is not a day that goes by without me inhaling the perfume of the discreet violet"

E-Nough! alerts us to some hijinks in high places in France:

Better call Father so he can stop the cops from arresting me.

WHEN Arthur de Villepin was caught by police following a drunken brawl in Paris, he knew there was only one man he needed to call - his father, the French prime minister.
...
Arthur is also a part-time model, posing last year for the Italian designer Krizia, which said it had chosen him for "his natural elegance, his aristocratic beauty and his strong personality despite his young age".

Hit the link for more laughs including the disappearing police records and a photo of the young sprig who seems er, well, rather "ambivalent."

Maybe Dan Rather could give it a try!

Maybe he already did? Dutch Talk-Show Host to Take Heroin on Air:

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - A television presenter on a new Dutch talk show plans to take heroin and other illegal drugs on air in a program intended to reach young audiences on topics that touch their lives, producers said Wednesday.

The show, scheduled to premier on late-night television Oct. 10, is called "Spuiten & Slikken," or the "Shoot Up and Swallow" show.

Hey, Hans! That's some really good smack!

The Shoot Up & Swallow show's main hostess will interview guests about drug use and abuse, while Wesselink and another presenter will carry out in-the-field experiments with sex and drugs.

Woohoo! Experiments! No mention of Rock & Roll.

Wesselink, 26, plans to smoke a heroin pill, said Ingrid Timmer, a spokeswoman for the show's producer BNN.

"It's not our intention to create an outcry. We just want to talk about subjects that are part of young people's lives," Timmer said.

Translation: we couldn't think of anything else to do to hype ratings.

In other segments of the show, Wesselink plans to go on a drinking binge in a series of pubs. He also plans to take the hallucinogenic drug LSD — on his couch under the supervision of his mother.

Barfing in the gutter and giant lizards on the ceiling alert! "There, there, Sonny! I won't let the giant lizards bite you." Sheesh, what a bunch of poseurs. But hold on a sec - what happened to the sex?

BNN has drawn viewer complaints for programs in the past, including a sex education program called "This Is How You Screw." One segment discussed how to have sex in a nightclub and featured life-size mannequins with sex organs.

They seem to have a surplus of life-size dummies.

Today's Words of Wisdom

Never shake the bucket of nuts before you're tied to the yak rope.

Hey, Ray! This is how it is done.

Since ole Ray Nagin apparently played hooky from Mayor's school on the day they covered evacuations ahead of natural disasters, he might want to pay some attention to the city of Galveston. (Hat tip: rebelbase)

Tears of a Clown

My apologies to Smokey Robinson, but the only other title I could come up with was Old JO gets all sniffly about NJO:

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather said Monday that there is a climate of fear running through newsrooms stronger than he has ever seen in his more than four-decade career.

Somebody stole the New Year's Eve party fund?

Addressing the Fordham University School of Law in Manhattan, occasionally forcing back tears, he said that in the intervening years, politicians "of every persuasion" had gotten better at applying pressure on the conglomerates that own the broadcast networks. He called it a "new journalism order."

Sounds like another one of Dan's bogus stories. I wonder if someone FAXed him the details from Kinkos?

He said this pressure -- along with the "dumbed-down, tarted-up" coverage, the advent of 24-hour cable competition and the chase for ratings and demographics -- has taken its toll on the news business. "All of this creates a bigger atmosphere of fear in newsrooms," Rather said.

I guess being an egotistical, pompous ass with a mile wide bias and a proclivity for making up stories just doesn't cut it any more.

Rather was accompanied by HBO Documentary and Family president Sheila Nevins, both of whom were due to receive lifetime achievement awards at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards on Monday evening.
...
Nevins took up the cause for Rather, who was emotional several times during the event.

"When a man is close to tears discussing his work and his lip quivers, he deserves bosses who punch back. I feel I would punch back for Dan," Nevins said.

Ruh Oh! Sheila must pull her documentaries out of her butt too.

But not to worry, Captain Dan! There are little people in newsrooms all across America who are following in your footsteps! Take Shadi Rahimi at the New York Times who comes up with beauts like:

Many New Yorkers said yesterday that Ms. Sheehan gave them back hope that was lost when war was declared on Iraq.

The only New Yorkers ole Shadi mentions are the Stalinists that hover around Cindy like flies on a cow flop, but I guess there must have been some more back at the NY Times newsroom. Of course, some of them won't be there too much longer - 'Black Tuesday' Continues: NYT Co. Cutting 500 Jobs. Follow the link for a nice snap of Arthur "Punk" Sulzberger Jr. and the details of the layoffs at the Times and Boston Globe. The reference to "Black Tuesday" is because a number of other big dailies around the country also chose today to announce layoffs. Had to happen - the news is more accurate in the Weekly Shopper and the ads are better.

Today's Hoot!

Don't Get Stuck On Stupid:

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin held a press conference a little bit ago, and started losing control to a media pool assembled that was showing signs of panic, due to the previous incompetence in the region by the local and state government. Lt. Gen. Russel Honore stepped in and literally took over. Here's what he had to say:

Hit the link for the transcript and audio, but here's the nut:

Male reporter: General, a little bit more about why that's happening this time, though, and did not have that last time...

Honore: You are stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that question. We are going to deal with Rita.

I think the General just started a movement, and he may not even realize it. Every time a reporter, in any situation, starts spinning, or completely misses the point, they need to be peppered with, "Don't get stuck on stupid."

I'd pay money to see David Gregory in the White House Press Corps foaming at the mouth over something trivial Scott McClellan said, and have McClellan say, "David, you're stuck on stupid. I'm not going to answer that."

Stuck on stupid and can't find the gear shift. Isn't that the MSM motto?

Good ole American ingenuity!

Mickey Kaus:

It seems to me, though, that the NYT is missing an obvious, lucrative marketing angle. It would be a variant of the idea my college friend Mark had for a Reverse Record Store--you'd go and pay them $11.99 and they'd take your money and use it (along with the $11.99 payments of others) to bribe Paul McCartney to not make an album that year.

Similarly, imagine TimesDelete: for $19.95 a month, say, TimesDelete's premium subscribers could vote on one op-ed columnist to take an extended vacation. If more people picked Krugman rather than Brooks, Krugman would get his salary plus a bonus on the condition that he maintain a meaningful silence for several weeks. The race would be tight every month, I should imagine, with Republicans and Democrats trying to outvote each other. But you can't play if you don't pay! I'd say this is surefire, supplemental revenue stream would bring in way more than the puny $20 or $30 million dollars a year the Times might hope to make from TimesSelect, especially if the business model were extended to the news pages. Adam Nagourney--your ship has come in!

And why limit it to just one Times scribe? I admit that this plan bears an unfortunate resemblance to the protection racket, but who wouldn't kick in a few bucks to prevent the public simperings of Maureen Dowd?

Today's Hoot!

James Taranto:

The New York Times today began charging for online access to its op-ed and other columnists. Seems to us, though, that the Times Co. is missing out on a gold mine by allowing free access to the Boston Globe's letters to the editor, which are far more entertaining than Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd. Here's Aline Kaplan of Sudbury, weighing in yesterday:

Conservative friends have been sending me long, detailed e-mails about the government's response to Hurricane Katrina. They are all designed to place the blame on New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, while exonerating President Bush. These electronic messages have certainly been impressive and revealed previously unknown facts. After reading them, I acknowledge the timelines of what happened, when and who knew what, and when and who signed what and when. My friends are right that state and local government were the first lines of defense--and they failed. This represents a systemic failure of government at all levels.

While their details are valid and their points well made, these are merely the facts.

Today, Jeffrey J. Cymrot of Boston urges surrender:

Though valiant, the president's determination to restore a destroyed city and to rebuild a flood protection system ''stronger than it has ever been" contains within it an arrogance reminiscent of the pharaohs and the kings of antiquity. I consider it unfortunate that occupants of what has become an imperial presidency issue statements such as this, and the citizenry blithely accepts them as ordinary expressions of Pax Americana. I have begun to wonder where this hubris will end.

The gods are angry, and we must appease them!

Hot dang! I knew it was time to break out the virgins!

Help Cindy get her groove back!

(Hat tip: Sacred Cow Burgers)

Let's face it, a career as a media whore is tough. One day you're the toast of the limousine liberals and mainstream media with catered meals and foot massages; the next you're schlepping around the country in a minivan filled with Stalinists trying to fire up a handful of room temperature IQ wingnuts on street corners. Got to be a downer, right?

Well, ole Cindy Sheehan is trying her best to get back in the limelight, but it just doesn't seem to be working out. First, apparently having never heard of an Arkansas dirt nap, she starts beating up on both Hillary and Bubba Clinton. Then her "big" rally in New York City gets cut off for lack of a permit:

At the conclusion of her speech, from my perspective, a few loud and impassioned boos erupted, then I saw a hand come from behind Cindy and grab her shoulder-strap on her backpack. The arm jerked her backwards, with such force as to snap her head forward, and she fell from my view.

Bummer! She'll sure need a few brewskis back at the Stalinvan after a day like that.

But not to worry, Cindy! Lots of folks are thinking of you and one has made an incredibly worthwhile suggestion - An open invitation to Cindy Sheehan: Please bring Camp Casey up to Chappaqua and set up shop in front of Bill and Hill's Fuehrer Bunker. That'll get Hillary's attention and probably Bubba's too, but watch his hands!

Aw Jeez! Not this crap again!

(Hat tip: Echo Talon)

Big Lizards:

Bill Clinton flings his dirt like a monkey with a handful of monkey byproduct, and for the same reason: to mark his territory and ward off enemies -- Republicans who might stand in the way of Billary's return to la Casa Blanca. This is, of course, the open secret we're supposed to forget: that Hillary has designs on the presidency, and that her husband would of course go along for the ride... and possibly even take the wheel when she wasn't looking.

So now, Three-Term Bill suddenly decides that "there was no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq after all (but read Power Line for a Clinton Cwote from 2003 on that subject), that the military has become too small for the job under George W. Bush (wait -- didn't we use to have sixteen divisions in 1992?), and that we've been "unsuccessful" in Iraq because the proposed Iraqi constitution is not "universally supported" (yes, we've lost the crucial Zarqawi - al Duri vote).

C'mon Bubba! Tell us again how you blew up the aspirin factory!

Kind of like a pig in heat

No longer centre stage, but Clinton leaves them calling for more:

If there was any doubt that Bill Clinton still elicits the adoration of women, Barbra Streisand was on hand last week to squash it.

As the former president laid out his agenda for world change from a podium flanked by Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice and King Abdullah of Jordan, the singer-actress emitted a series of gentle but disconcerting squeals of approval, interspersed with admiring sighs.

No wonder Hillary banned Babs from staying over night at the White House!

No need to worry about an idiot shortage!

Mark Steyn has some fun with prize prat, Chuck Schumer:

New York's senior senator, Chuck Schumer, began with some observations about Judge Roberts' "troubling" record on "the issue of civil rights." Ah-ha! "Many of us consider racism the nation's poison," he said sternly. And then he dropped the big one: Twenty-five years ago Roberts had inappropriately used the word "amigos" in a memo.

Woohoo!

I yield to no one in my disdain for Schumer, but at that moment my heart went out to him. If I'd been president, I'd have declared his mouth a federal disaster area and allocated $200 billion so FEMA could parachute in a reconstruction team to restore his tongue to its previous level of toxicity.

He is a national treasure!

Alas, two days later the watery gush that had transformed Schumer into his own devastated wetland had still not dried up. He'd pretty much abandoned the racism angle of the inappropriate "amigos," though he trotted out some boilerplate about how it reflected the "misguided" and "cramped view of civil rights professed in the early Reagan administration." But by Day Four, he'd moved on to "the question of compassion and humanity," telling the judge that he had grave concerns about "the fullness of your heart.''

And what was Exhibit A for the heartlessness of Roberts? Well, back in the early '80s it seems he wrote this memo containing the word "amigos."

Hey, Chuck! What you are you doing with that dead horse?

Oh, dear. With enemies like Chuck, who needs amigos? Whatever happened to the party's fearsome forensic skills at "the politics of personal destruction"? Granted, blathering on about how, if the other guy doesn't agree with your views, he must be deficient in "compassion and humanity" is a lot of baloney even by mawkish Dem standards. But, if you're going to twitter about the fullness of somebody's heart, why get Chuck Schumer to play Senator Oprah? He has the shifty air of a mob accountant, even with every intern on his staff holding onions under his eyes.

That's ole Chuck fer sure.

Nothing like a nice lap dance!

Storm-relief money spent at strip clubs:

On the heels of a report earlier this week that Atlanta area Katrina victims were using $2,000 debit cards to purchase luxury items like Louis Vuitton handbags, Houston police yesterday discovered the cards, provided by FEMA and the Red Cross, being used at local strip clubs.
...
According to a report by KPRC, Channel 2, in Houston, a manager at Caligula XXI Gentlemen's Club said he has seen at least one debit card used at his club. A bartender at Baby Dolls, identified only as "Abby," said she has seen many of the cards used at her establishment.

"A lot of customers have been coming in from Louisiana and they've been real happy about the $1.75 beers and they're really nice," she said.

She couldn't say for sure whether the cards she has seen were from the Red Cross or from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but she found no fault in using federal dollars to guzzle beer at a strip club.

"You lost your whole house, then, why not?" she said "You might want some beer in a strip club. There are a lot of guys out there that like to do that."

Indeed! And I'm sure excited about footing the bill.

Today's Hoot!

The Therapist - Mayor Nagin May Want To Just Run For Dallas Mayor:

DEAN REYNOLDS: Fantastic! Where did Bush fail?”

WOMAN: He failed to educate that retarded mayor of ours. He could have at least paid for a book by Rudy Giuliani, or at least—Lee Iacocca. But that’s it. Our mayor needs to take a class on staying in town when the town is underwater. (screaming from Reynolds’monitor earphone)

DEAN REYNOLDS: Look, is anyone here even a real live black? Good grief, Ted, you send me into what is supposed to be the remnant tinder box of human misery, and I wind up interviewing Condi Rice’s foster family. Is there anyone here that thinks maybe Bush needs to accept the blame for this hurricane?

WOMAN: YES!

DEAN REYNOLDS: About time! In what capacity should Bush accept this blame?

WOMAN: I think he should accept the blame on behalf of Mayor Nagin, “since he couldn’t be here in New Orleans this evening, as he is closing escrow in Dallas”

More fun at WuzzaDem.

The bozos at CAIR ought to hire me!

Cheesy CAIR Photoshop versus Quality Job!

I mean as long as you are going to hire somebody to Photoshop your publicity photos, you might want to get someone with more than a box of crayons.

Today's Hoot!

Mickey Kaus:

Klein on Cooper:

"He is the anchorperson of the future," Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN/U.S., said [of Anderson Cooper] in an interview. He is "an anti-anchorperson," he said, adding: "He's all human. He's not putting it on."--New York Times

Hmmm. I always thought that Anderson Cooper was the anchorman of the future because he was profoundly stupid and had low ratings!

"There is something weird about Jonathan Klein. Everything he says makes you hate him, and also hate anyone he is praising."--kf reader E.

Him too!

Uh Oh! One of the suckers figured it out!

Japan Wants to Pay Less in U.N. Dues:

Japan, which currently funds about 20 percent of the U.N. budget of $1.2 billion, said Thursday it wants to open talks next year on paying less — a move that could spur a drawn-out battle with fellow member states.

As the second-largest contributor to the annual U.N. budget behind the United States, Japan has said for some time that its influence in the world body doesn't match what it pays. Those complaints have increased since its recent efforts to gain a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council stalled.

I guess they just don't appreciate what an honor it is to pay for all the kleptocrats!

Japan now pays a little less than 20 percent of the U.N. general budget — an amount larger than the combined payments of four of five permanent Security Council members — Britain, France, Russia and China. The United States pays about 22 percent.

Ooops, there's one bigger sucker!

Renegotiating Japan's contribution to the U.N. won't be easy. Dues are assessed according to a complex mathematical formula chiefly based on national income, and other nations could bridle at Tokyo's effort to pay less.

And they would do what, exactly, if Japan paid less? If the USA paid less?

Your tax dollars at work!

Thousands of State-Owned Vehicles Missing:

An examination of California's inventory has revealed that almost of half of the state's cars and trucks are unaccounted for.

The study concluded that 30,000 of the states 70,000 vehicles are missing -- everything from Caltrans trucks, to CHP cars, to fire rigs, to prison vehicles. The audit of state-owned property was ordered by Governor Schwarzenegger, and found state agencies had no idea what they owned.

"It was very bad," said Fred Aguiar, head of the State and Consumer Services Agency. "We were amazed at how inadequate the information was. The data coming from departments and agencies was terrible."

It was so terrible, in fact, the state found that one agency had recently purchased $4 million in new vehicles but had no record of where it bought them.

At least in New Orleans they know where their buses are.

Look what crawled out from under a rock!

Chavez the Killer:

As Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hit town for this week's special U.N. session, Chavez's flunkies were renting buses and offering to reimburse activists willing to create a "spontaneous" welcome crowd for the populist anti-American.

Tomorrow, Chavez will be the guest of Columbia University's president, Lee Bollinger. And he'll speak Saturday at St. Paul and St. Andrew Methodist Church on 86th Street; Jesse Jackson is set to appear alongside.

Of course, when there's a big United Nations pow wow you get to see all the lower forms of life. And their little pals.

Today's Hoot!

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical:

Beginning on September 19, the NYTimes will charge $49.95 a year for online users to access 22 columnists, including Tom Friedman, Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, Frank Rich, sports columnist George Vecsey and business columnist Gretchen Morgenson. Matt Drudge says he will at that point probably delink those columnists from his web site. Kiss of Death. [NewsMax Matt Drudge May Boot NY Times Columnists]

This is not unexpected; other papers will quickly follow suit IMO. It will be fun to watch, because paying $50 a year to read that pack is like going to Blockbusters and renting every Barbra Streisand movie ever made ... they all suck, and you hate her guts anyway.

New Orleans Clown Posse Update!

No worries that the act was getting stale - they've brought in new blood!

First off, how about erstwhile Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La) having a Bus Related Meltdown (video here)? Blonde jokes never go out of style!

Then there's Congressman William Jefferson (D-La) who finagled a National Guard truck and armed escort so he could "tour his home district." Then the Congressman directed the truck to stop at his own house where he left the escort cooling its heels for an hour while he went inside alone and did a little packing - " a laptop computer, three suitcases, and a box about the size of a small refrigerator, which the enlisted men loaded up into the truck." Comedy then ensued when the the truck got stuck after sitting in the mud and the Congressman declined a lift by helicopter that had been diverted from real rescue work. Finally the National Guard sent another truck to haul out the Congressman and his loot. And loot it likely is, since just before the storm hit:

In an unrelated matter, authorities recently searched Jefferson's property as part of a federal investigation into the finances of a high-tech firm. Last month FBI officials raided Jefferson's house as well as his home in Washington, D.C., his car and his accountant's house.

Jefferson has not commented on that matter, except to say he is cooperating with the investigation. But he has emerged as a major voice in the post-Katrina political debate.

Last week, Jefferson set up a special trust fund for contributions to his legal defense in light of the FBI investigation. A senior federal law enforcement source tells ABC News that investigators are interested in learning if Jefferson moved any materials relevant to the investigation. Jefferson says he did not.

He was just picking up some clean undies, I guess.

And how about ole Aaron Broussard, Jefferson Parish President (D), weeping through a bogus sob story on Meet the Press and blaming it all on the Federal Government. Of course, Aaron was probably feeling stressed - he'd just been supoeanaed by the Feds in a local corruption scandal.

As entertaining as the new cast is, however, the old favorites still have what it takes. Governor Kathleen "No Show" Blanco (D) first was miffed that there weren't enough bodies, and then it turns out she was caught on tape on August 31 wondering whether she really, really ought to ask for Federal troops and worrying about the poor looters. I have read the profiles that say ole Kathleen is "deliberate." Has anyone ever considered just plain slow?

And last but not least, there's NO Mayor Ray Nagin (D). Now that he's bought a house in Dallas, we've haven't seen too much of him, but he still hasn't lost that deft comedic touch:

"Appearing on NBC's "Dateline," Nagin was asked by host Stone Phillips: "What was mobilized? I mean were national guard troops in position. Were helicopters standing by? Were buses ready to take people away?"

"No. None of that," the Big Easy mayor replied.

"Why is that?" an incredulous Phillips asked.

Nagin replied: "I dont know. That is (a) question for somebody else."

The Louisiana Democrat didn't explain just who the "somebody else" was..."

Maybe it was somebody on the Ghost Train?

It's going to take more than running the Mississippi through it to clean out this nest of charlatans and losers.

Someday everyone and everything will have a blog

Heather Green at BusinessWeek Online:

Wow, this Juicy Fruit blog is so bad, I could hardly tear myself away from it. Usually I wouldn't bother blogging about this, but it's like a trainwreck.

It doesn't help that Juicy Fruit sucks, either.

Dog Bites Man!

Wizbang!:

Wow, Joe Biden kept it entertaining by outdoing even Kennedy for pomposity and self-righteousness.

Boy howdy! I hope he didn't hurt himself.

He spent eight minutes guffawing at his own jokes before he even asked a question, and then kept cutting off Roberts' answers so that he could pose more questions within his allotted time.

Ole Joe is a knee slapper, but not quite in the way he thinks.

It should be clear to anyone listening that these guys aren't interested in posing questions that get answers. They're only interested in posing questions that paint Roberts as some kind of Neanderthal.

Does Ted Kennedy drive drunk?

Good question

Tim Blair:

Michael Kinsley reveals CNN’s calm and moderate approach to hurricane coverage:

A Los Angeles Times colleague of mine, appearing on CNN last week to talk about Katrina, was told by a producer to “get angry."

I wonder if any CNN producer has ever told, say, a commentator on Islamic terrorism to “get angry”.

Which reminds me of Ben Stein's latest Katrina comment:

What is the real story of Katrina is (I suggest) not so much that nature wrought fury on land, water, people, property, and animals, not at all anything about racism, not much about federal government incompetence. The real story is that the mainstream media rioted.

They've been looting for years.

Line of the day

From an editorial in the Waterbury (Conn.) Republican American - Sen. Kennedy, credible critic:

But Sen. Kennedy's point is well taken. Something is amiss when fat cats with cars can escape with their lives while plain folk are condemned to watery graves. And it's worse when authorities are slow to respond to such emergencies because those in a position to summon help waited too long to ask for it. Just ask Mary Jo Kopechne.

Now for something completely different

The Register takes a break from boring computer stuff - Battling nonagenarian grabs burglar by 'nads:

A battling 93-year-old Lithuanian woman has thwarted an attempted burglary by grasping one of the miscreants by the testicles so hard that the sobbing blagger required hospital treatment, Ananova reports.
...
Popova continued: "He started screaming like an animal and his friend was trying to pull him free, but I have a grip like iron." The man's howling and his mate's protestations that the old girl should lay off alerted neighbours who called in law enforcement. The two broke free but were cuffed by police after escaping the attacking nonagenarian through a bedroom window. One was taken to hospital, the other to the lock-up.

A police officer noted: "They would not have got far, one of them could hardly walk and seemed pleased when he saw the police car. He demanded that he be taken to hospital because he was in so much pain."

Popova attributes her grip of steel to years of milking goats.

I survived Katrina and all I got was this Vuitton purse!

NY Daily News - Lavish tastes of card-carrying lowlifes:

Profiteering ghouls have been using debit cards distributed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina - intended to buy essentials for evacuated families - in luxury-goods stores as far away as Atlanta.

"We've seen three of the cards," said a senior employee of the Louis Vuitton store at the Lenox Square Mall in affluent Buckhead, who asked not to be named. "Two I'm certain have purchased; one actually asked if she could use it in the store. This has been since Saturday."
...
The source told me that the two women who had made purchases with the card each bought a signature monogrammed Louis Vuitton handbag in the $800 range.

"They didn't look destitute by any stretch. You would never have said, 'They must be one of the evacuees.' … The one that I dealt with yesterday was 20. She'll be 21 next month." The source described the reaction of other store-keepers in the mall - which includes luxury brands Ferragamo, Burberry, Judith Leiber and Neiman Marcus - as "outrage."

Apparently the card says on it that it's not good for alcohol, tobacco and firearms. I'm so relieved!

Now more than ever

Today's Hoot!

Jim Treacher:

The HSTeam? Hunter's Angels?

Just trying to think of a name for the heroic, Hunter Thompson-centric rescue squad that Sean Penn brought with him to New Orleans. When you're swooping into a national disaster area to show those right-wing dummies how it's done and get people out of the water, or at least get the water out of your boat (The Penntanic?), you really want Douglas Brinkley and Matt Taibbi on your crew. Two of Thompson's drinking buddies (one of them his official biographer) + The guy some call the next HST + A bass boat = Fear and Rowing in Nawlins. Just because ol' Hunter used his .45 for a toothbrush doesn't mean these guys can't pick up where he left off!

Tim Blair has more.

"Is that a banana in your pocket, Sandy?"

Berger to Pay Fine from Sales of New Book:

"Your Honor, to complete my blockbuster book I need to do some academic research at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing," Mr. Berger said. "If I could just have a few hours of unmonitored study there, where they print U.S. currency, I'd be in a better position to pay my debt to society."

The clue phone is ringing, but no one's home

One of them perfesser types has been cogitating again and apparently it hurt:

The U.S. "war on terror" is saving fewer lives than just spending the money on disease prevention and research, and has probably caused deaths by taking money away from basic services, an expert said on Thursday.

The accusation is not new, but Dr. Erica Frank of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta said she has calculated the cost, in terms of lives, of the Bush administration's terror policies.
...
Frank warned there is a threat that because of the U.S. government's policy, enormous numbers of Americans will die unnecessarily.

On September 11, 2001, 3,400 people died because of the four intentional plane crashes in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. But 5,200 other Americans died that same day from common diseases, according to Frank.
...
Predictable tragedies happen every day. We know strategies to reduce deaths from tobacco, alcohol, poor diet, unintentional injuries, and other predictable causes. And we know that millions of people will die unless we protect the population against these routine causes of death," she wrote.

Yet more money is spent to protect against deaths that are not likely to happen.

Too bad she wasn't around to advise FDR after Pearl Harbor! The Doc even manages to work in Hurricane Katrina although it rather spoils her jones for predictable causes. Chill out, Doc - strap on some high heels and have a beer, a bratwurst, and a cigar.

Today's Hoot!

Greg Gutfeld (the voice of sanity at the Huffington Post):

HUFFPO EMERGENCY BUSH BASH BLOG APPLICATION FOR THE VICTIMS OF ALL DISASTERS EVERYWHERE!

HELLO EVERYONE!!!

Do you often find yourself fantasizing about becoming a Huffpo blogger? Do you love to read other blogs, digest their info, and then expel pre-chewed nut-bag assumptions into a concerned and earnest post? If so, you might be perfect for this blog!

So... how do you get the job?

Just tick the boxes!

SECTION ONE: WHO ARE YOU?

Are you famous?
Do you know someone famous?
have you ever brushed up against someone famous?
Was it Warren Beatty?
Did you think he'd be firmer?

Is your husband famous?
(check one of the following)
- Yes I am Rebecca Pidgeon.
- Yes I am Laurie David
- Yes, I am Shiva Rose
- No, but my wife is rich AND famous, I am Brad Hall
- Other lady of leisure:____________________

...

Do you have a black and white picture of yourself, with your chin resting
comfortably on your fist? When you stare at this picture, do you get a
warm fuzzy feeling, not unlike urinating down your leg?

Ruh Oh! Much more japery by following the link including:

Randall Robinson says people were eating corpses in New Orleans.
-is this an example of what Bush calls "soft bigotry of lowered expectations?"
-Do you think Randall's desire to demonize Bush exposed his own delusional fantasies?
-Do you think Randall's pants were on when he wrote that fantasy?

The oinks of the perpetually offended are ringing through the comments section.

He sure has a way with words

From Mac Johnson's New Orleans Didn’t Just Go Nuts -- It’s Been Nuts:

And at some point during the disaster, the most disturbing of all the infighting began. The thugs of New Orleans turned on their neighbors like a Mongol horde. Looting erupted, as did arson and robberies, shootings and beatings. Rape became an organized crime as gangs preyed on the defenseless stranded girls of New Orleans. Pharmacies were looted and hospitals were surrounded and invaded in a manic hunt for drugs. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin couldn’t stop such junkie armies from destroying much of what was left of the City’s medical infrastructure, but he could excuse them, explaining that it was all just people “looking for something to take the edge off their jones, if you will.” Actually, no, I won’t. (The mayor added a few minutes later in the same interview: “You know, I'm not one of those drug addicts. I am thinking very clearly.” And nobody said different, Mayor.)

At least drugs would be an excuse.

Today's Hoot!

Iowahawk keeps us up to date with Nawlins News Niblets. A selection:

N.O. MAYOR SLAMS FEDS FOR LACK OF INCOMPETENCE PLANNING

In a televised interview with CNN's Larry King, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin today angrily criticized government response to the Katrina disaster, noting that state and federal officials had "failed to anticipate and factor in my obvious corruption and incompetence."

"What kind of bubble do these idiots live in?" said Nagin. "For crissakes, this is New Orleans, and me, we're talking about."

POWER OUTAGES PLAGUE PLASMA SCREEN LOOTER COMMUNITY

New Orleans Looters Association spokesman Kevin Broussard said his group would press local, state and federal officials for immediate delivery of emergency generators to power plasma screen televisions, silenced since the onset of New Orleans flooding.

"We in the looting community have now been without electric power and TV for 8 consecutive days," said Broussard. "America needs to step and fulfill its broken promise of rich colors and amazing lifelike high definition."

BLANCO: I'M A SURVIVOR

In a tear-streamed press conference Tuesday, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco reassured state citizens that "It took a lot of time curled up on the couch with Lifetime TV and Hagen-Daaz, but I am going to get through this."

"I've heard all the petty, nasty comments," said Blanco, wiping a tear on the lapel of her robe. "Why don't you do something? Make a decision, people are dying. Put on a little makeup, you could be almost as pretty as Mary Landrieu."

"Well, let me tell you something, Kathleen Blanco is a survivor," she said. "And I promise the people of Louisiana that I will refuse to beat myself up over this."

Blanco Spokesman Jodie Edwards said the governor would return to the statehouse in Baton Rouge today to lobby the legislature to change the official state song to "I Will Survive," the 1979 Gloria Gaynor disco classic.

You can catch a video of NO Show Blanco performing the new state song here.

Today's Hoot!

Vampire Sucks Anne Rice's Brain Dry:

YES, FEARLESS VAMPIRE MULTIMILLIONAIRE AUTHOR Anne Rice seems to have had her brains Hoovered right out of her shrinking skull. Or perhaps she's been caught by the intellectual black hole of the New York Times Op-Ed and pulled over the event horizon and out of the universe all together.

After a banal 3rd grade history of New Orleans and a list of reasons to save New Orleans in Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans? Rice reveals that she has absolutely no grasp or knowledge of the immense private and public relief efforts going forward second by second: "During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us 'Sin City,' and turned your backs."**

Spoiler Warning!

** In spring 2005 Anne Rice moved to [La Jolla], California.

More japery by following the link. Now that Anne's big "blockbusters" are more like damp squibs, maybe she'll get back to her roots in soft porn!

Not so fast, pond scum

Noemie Emery:

Late last week, as New Orleans was sliding into savage conditions, some talking heads were glowing with pleasure at the idea of a moral meltdown of such immense proportions that it would not only bury George Bush in its rubble, but erode forever the country's self confidence. Or, as Robert Scheer would happily write, "Instead of the much-celebrated American can-do machine that promises to bring freedom and prosperity to less fortunate people abroad, we have seen a callous official incompetence that puts even Third World rulers to shame."

Not quite. The reason New Orleans slid so quickly from civilization into Third World conditions was that it was pretty much a Third World city already, and didn't have too far to go. In its violence, in its corruption, in its reliance on ambience and tourism as its critical industry, in its one-party rule, in its model of graftocracy built on a depressed and crime-ridden underclass that was largely kept out of the sight and the mind of vacationing revelers, it was much more like a Caribbean resort than a normal American city. Its crime and murder rates were way above national averages, its corruption level astounding. The latter was written off as being picturesque and perversely adorable, until it suddenly wasn't, as it paid off in hundreds of buses--that could have borne thousands of stranded people to safety--sitting submerged in water, and police either looting or AWOL.

Out of all the areas of the USA that were hit by hurricanes in recent years and out of all the areas that were hit by Katrina (some much harder than New Orleans), there's one that stands out for sheer tomfoolery - New Orleans. Gosh, what a surprise!

Today's Hoot!

Bill Quick:

I caught a snippet of the Larry Gold show on my way to work today. He said that the powers at ABC have forbidden any on-air use of the word "looter." He is bleeping any callers who use it, and is himself using the term "undocumented consumer."

You really can't make this stuff up!

Speaking of which, Jesse Jackson has his panties in a knot over the use of "refugee" to describe the people who fled New Orleans:

By definition, a refugee is "one who flees in search of refuge, as in times of war, political oppression, or religious persecution," according to the American Heritage Dictionary - and not an appropriate tag for the thousands seeking food and shelter after their homes were destroyed last week, some say.

I tend to have a more inclusive view like that expressed at WordNet Search:

refugee (an exile who flees for safety)

but since when did ole Jesse become such a pedant?

"To see them as refugees is to see them as other than Americans," Jackson said, "and that is inaccurate, unfair, and racist."

Say what? I kind of thought folks of all races were refugees from the storm damage and how, exactly, would that make any of them seem less American?

Even better, the reporter trots out one of those handy professors and some members of Congress:

"The use of the term refugee doesn't benefit anybody," said Richard E. Vatz, a professor of rhetoric and communication at Towson University.

"It's another way of depicting African-Americans as hierarchically low, and I understand why they wouldn't want to be associated with that."
...
Reps. Diane E. Watson of California and Elijah E. Cummings of the Baltimore area, both Democrats, also took issue with the word refugee.

Must make a note: "refugee" now derogatory, racist terminology according to usual wankers. No worries about these guys picking up the clue phone when it rings, I guess.

Maybe he had a double secret plan?

Or maybe he was too busy bugging out to Baton Rouge? Drudge keeps asking, but we would all like to know.

Revised career path for NO Mayor Ray Nagin

What an opportunity! Maybe he'll sell franchises!

It's the Clown Posse!

Cut to the Head Clown, Ray Nagin:

The cursing had stopped. The tears were gone. Mayor Ray Nagin returned from his meeting with President Bush on Friday a picture of calm, leaning back against a railing in a hotel lobby that for the first time in nearly five days wasn't filled with stranded tourists.

"I feel much better. I feel like we've gotten everyone's attention and hopefully they'll continue to do what they're doing," Nagin said from the downtown Hyatt hotel, his temporary lodgings and command post since Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Big Easy.
...
By nightfall Friday, his tone had changed.

"Today was a turning point, I think," he said. "My philosophy is never get too high, never get too low. ... I always try to keep my emotions in check and yesterday I kind of went off a little bit. I was worried about that, but it maybe worked out. I don't know. If the CIA slips me something and next week you don't see me, you'll all know what happened."

I guess he hasn't been taking his medication and won't be likely to any time soon.

Nagin said evacuation has been hampered by officials' difficulty grasping where state authority ends and federal authority begins and he said he urged the president and Gov. Kathleen Blanco to sort it out.

No word on Ray's own authority and all the school buses down at the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool.

But heck, ole Ray isn't the only performer on the card. How about New Orleans deputy police commander W.S. Riley? Aside from not having a clue that the Louisiana National Guard is a state agency reporting to Governor Blanco, he says they were laying down on the job:

"The guard arrived 48 hours after the hurricane with 40 trucks. They drove their trucks in and went to sleep."
...
The National Guard commander, Lieutenant General Steven Blum, said the reservist force was slow to move troops into New Orleans because it did not anticipate the collapse of the city's police force.
...
Riley said he did not even know how many police remained from a normal force of 1,700.

"Many officers lost their homes or their families and there are many we have not heard from. Some officers could not handle the pressure and left. I don't know if we have 800 or thousands today."

Glad he's on top of the situation!

And the entertainment would not be complete without Governor "NO Show" Blanco. President Bush had to twist her and Ray's arms to get them declare an evacuation and then she joined Ray for a little snooze. But she wants everyone to know that she's in charge:

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.
...
Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state's victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort.

Woohoo! Way to go, "NO Show"!

Last and certainly not least, some of the New Orleans bit players noticed that their regular robovoters were missing:

As hurricane victims are being moved hundreds of miles from home, the president of the New Orleans City Council is demanding to know why Louisiana isn't housing more of them.

Oliver Thomas says Louisiana has many government buildings and gymnasiums that could be made into shelters. But instead, he says people are being even more uprooted and sent to places like Georgia and Utah.

Thomas believes exaggerated fears of violence have kept some Louisiana cities from offering more help.

Ya think?

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco says she's trying to find more shelters in the state, but that all existing locations are full.

But state Senator Cleo Fields says that's not the case. He points to the abandoned England Air Force base as an example of a large in-state location that the governor should open to evacuees.

Don't let the "clients" get away!

It seemed familiar to me too

Robert Tracinski - An Unnatural Disaster:

It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.
...
My wife, Sherri, figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage last night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. "The projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)

What Sherri was getting from last night's television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"--the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels--gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so who remained, a large number were from the city's public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose. There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.

There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.

All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.

Hey! I bet NO Mayor Ray Nagin is a hoot at Mardi Gras!

Update: On a related note - Australian hero of Horrordome:

BRISBANE man Bud Hopes was lauded as a hero for helping save dozens of tourists as the supposed safe haven of the city's Superdome deteriorated into a hell-hole.
...
Mr Hopes, 32, from Kangaroo Point, said: "That was the worst place in the universe.

"Ninety-eight percent of the people around the world are good ? in that place 98 per cent of the people were bad.

"Everyone brought their drugs, they brought guns in, they brought knives. Soldiers were shot in there."

Realising that foreigners were being targeted, Mr Hopes and fellow Aussies gathered other tourists into one part of the building.

More on how they managed to survive by following the link. What a complete and utter embarassment. I guess they don't call Ray Nagin, NO Mayor, for nothing. I hope he was comfy in Baton Rouge.

Mayor Ray Nagin breaks out his tinfoil beanie!

One of the posters on FR just spotted him wearing it on CNN:

On CNN just now. New Orleans Mayor Nagin, apparantly stressed out, in interview segment, said he has been yelling at the President and the Governor, and for all he knows, the "CIA could wipe me out". (Paraphrase) Just now.

Turning into a strange, macabre show now. Blame continues, spiraling out of control. Sad. It even raised CNN's eyebrows a bit.(5:57 p.m. Eastern/4:57 p.m. Central)

Ray would be better served to watch out for the constituents that he has served so well.

And now for something completely different

Man Fired for Eating Pizza Wins Contest:

A computer engineer who lost his job because he ate two pieces of pepperoni pizza left over from a company meeting has been named the winner of an offbeat Internet contest that solicited stories about outrageous firings.

A panel of Silicon Valley judges assembled by Simply Hired, a Mountain View startup that sponsored the contest, picked Jim Garrison's strange tale from more than 1,000 entries submitted during the past month.
...
The runners-up included these bizarre stories: a furniture mover who got fired after he and a co-worker were caught fencing with some adult sex toys that they found in a customer's bedroom; a worker who misunderstood a manager's instructions to send some sensitive data to microfilm and e-mailed it to a "Michael Finn" instead; and a warehouse worker found doing perverse things with the prosthetics made by his employer.

It made for such fascinating reading that one woman posted an account about how she got fired for spending too much company time scrolling through all the postings on Simplyfired.com.

More by following the link and at Simplyfired.com. This sounds like the everyday equivalent of "Dumb Crook News."

Mayor Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool

Original photo here. Via Drudge who asks "WHY DIDN'T YOU DEPLOY THE BUSES DURING THE MANDATORY EVACUATION, MAYOR?..." Bill Hobbs has more.

Update: No Worries for NO Mayor Ray.

Links from all over

More Ideological Looting At The HuffPo

Meanwhile, it is reported that Klingons have seized control of the French Quarter

Aliens Have Invaded the Earth

Somewhere tonight, Al Sharpton is abusing his staff for letting Jackson get from South America to New Orleans before him

Hurricane exploitation - the quotes

Bloggers on Hurricane Katrina (Left vs. Right)

A TALE OF TWO MAYORS: NEW ORLEANS MAYOR RAY NAGIN IS NO RUDY GIULIANI. See also: Mayor Nagin’s “Kate Hale” moment

"It seems that since there was a collapse of all levels of government from municipal through state, the only thing left to do is blame the feds."

"I can survive for some time with little water, no food and highly unsanitary conditions...but if I don't hear some poetic words of comfort and stirring verbal imagery from the president pretty soon, I'm a goner."

And last but not least:

"So it was six people and a large blue turd then?"

Blogging for Katrina victim relief

Glenn Reynolds is coordinating a blogburst for Katrina victims. (See also the TTLB Katrina Relief page.) Only rarely do I make contribution suggestions to my readers, but today please let me urge you to donate to relief for the victims of Katrina. If you don't have a favorite charity, I would also like to recommend the Salvation Army. They have been doing good for 140 years and operate with minimal overhead.

Technorati tags: flood aid, Hurricane Katrina