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Friday, September 02, 2005
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This is one powerful diary over at Kos. Go read the whole thing:
They would move heaven and earth to save the life of one White Woman in Florida to combat the very idea of euthanasia (which technically it was not). A woman that a decade earlier had lost her ability to so much as ask for help, much less have coherent thoughts about the quality of her own life.
And they would sit on their ass and watch as tens of thousands of poor men, women, children, babies, and elderly bake in the New Orleans heat surrounded by water, sewage, gasoline and an abandoned city, now devoid of anyone with the means to have escaped ahead of the storm.
This is the culture of life. The culture of life wants to save brain dead white women and unborn children. The culture of life wants you to watch endless non-news about the disappearance of one white teenager in Aruba. The culture of life wants you to support your nation as it kills tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians in its Quixotic quest against a non-threat. The culture of life wants a zero-tolerance for looters policy to sound authoritative as babies die of dehydration. The culture of life expects you to take care of yourself, and if you can’t, then it is your own fault for getting into that situation in the first place. Fuck off. You had your shot. Station in life, where you hang your hat, and whether you have the $40 at the end of the month to pay for the overpriced gasoline to get out of that home in time is all up to you.
Always I have argued with Republican friends—the reasonable ones—that not everyone was dealt the same cards on their original Birth Day. Not everyone has been given the same gifts by God, friends, family, or luck. Always those Republican friends believe that they deserve where they have gotten in life, and that no one, including the government, should be asking for their hard-earned cash to help the less affluent. It is always the fault of the lesser-affluent themselves. Circumstances are irrelevant in all cases and constitute class warfare if the question is raised.
Bullshit.
(Via Suburban Guerrilla.)
12:19:47 PM 
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You know how the wingnuts were falling all over themselves to blame the New Orleans mayor instead of Bush? Read this from Wikipedia:
Before his election, Nagin was a member of the United States Republican Party and had little political experience; he was a vice president and general manager at Cox Communications, a cable communications company and subsidiary of Cox Enterprises. Nagin did give donations periodically to candidates, namely President George W. Bush and former Republican U.S. Representative Billy Tauzin in 1999 and 2000, as well as to Democratic U.S. Senators John Breaux and J. Bennett Johnston earlier in the decade.
Days before filing for the New Orleans Mayoral race in February 2002, Nagin switched his party registration to the United States Democratic Party, presumably in order to improve his chances.
Just another Republican, running government like a business.
(Via Suburban Guerrilla.)
12:19:03 PM
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Chris Floyd, writing on CounterPunch:"As culpable, criminal and loathsome as the Bush Administration is, it is only the apotheosis of an overarching trend in American society that has been gathering force for decades: the destruction of the idea of a common good, a public sector whose benefits and responsibilities are shared by all, and directed by the consent of the governed. For more than 30 years, the corporate Right has waged a relentless and highly focused campaign against the common good, seeking to atomize individuals into isolated 'consumer units' whose political energies kept deliberately underinformed by the ubiquitous corporate media can be diverted into emotionalized 'hot button' issues (gay marriage, school prayer, intelligent design, flag burning, welfare queens, drugs, porn, abortion, teen sex, commie subversion, terrorist threats, etc., etc.) that never threaten Big Money's bottom line.
"Again deliberately, with smear, spin and sham, they have sought and succeeded in poisoning the well of the democratic process, turning it into a tabloid melee where only 'character counts' while the rapacious policies of Big Money's bought-and-sold candidates are completely ignored. As Big Money solidified its ascendancy over government, pouring billions over and under the table into campaign coffers, politicians could ignore larger and larger swathes of the people. If you can't hook yourself up to a well-funded, coffer-filling interest group, if you can't hire a big-time Beltway player to lobby your cause and get you 'a seat at the table,' then your voice goes unheard, your concerns are shunted aside. (Apart from a few cynical gestures around election-time, of course.) The poor, the sick, the weak, the vulnerable have become invisible in the media, in the corporate boardroom, 'at the table' of the power players in national, state and local governments. The increasingly marginalized and unstable middle class is also fading from the consciousness of the rulers, whose servicing of the elite goes more brazen and frantic all the time.
"When unbridled commercial development of delicately balanced environments like the Mississippi Delta is bruited 'at the table,' whose voice is heard? Not the poor, who, as we have seen this week, will overwhelmingly bear the brunt of the overstressed environment. And not the middle class, who might opt for the security of safer, saner development policies to protect their hard-won homes and businesses. No, the only voice that matters is that of the developers themselves, and the elite investors who stand behind them." What he said.
(Via Left I on the News.)
12:12:54 PM
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QUOTE OF THE DAY: "'I'm not saying it wouldn't still be flooded, but I do feel that if it had been totally funded, there would be less flooding than you have,' said Michael Parker, a former Republican Mississippi congressman who headed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from October 2001 until March 2002, when he was ousted after publicly criticizing a Bush administration proposal to cut the corps' budget." - from the Chicago Tribune, noted by Josh Marshall.
(Via Daily Dish.)
11:08:25 AM
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It continues
Hurricane Katrina is expected to cause a spurt of bankruptcy filings by storm victims — and sweeping changes in U.S. bankruptcy laws may leave them even more strapped than they otherwise might be.
The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, which takes effect Oct. 17, includes a slew of rules and restrictions intended to curb abuse. These are expected to make it harder for individuals to file to keep creditors away, and more difficult for businesses to reorganize.
But the law wasn’t directed at people who file because of catastrophes such as Katrina, in which people lost homes, businesses and perhaps months of regular paychecks. Katrina has caused widespread devastation in Louisiana and Mississippi and left New Orleans, population 462,269, virtually uninhabitable.
“People who are seriously affected by this hurricane are not going to be able to file bankruptcy by October 17,” said Henry Sommer, co-editor of “Collier on Bankruptcy,” a leading reference work. “They have more pressing things in their lives, like survival.”
UPDATE: Via Lis, we see that the House Dems have legislation to exempt Katrina victims from this legislation. Anyone who votes against it is scum.
(Via Oliver Willis - Like Kryptonite To Stupid.)
10:38:52 AM
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Xeni Jardin:
If you didn't hear NPR host Robert Siegel's inverview with Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff on yesterday's "All Things Considered," you can listen to it here. In it, Siegel asks about the nightmarish conditions at the convention center (>1000 with no food, water; rapes, deaths, disease, human waste everywhere). Chertoff tries to talk about the Superdome. Siegel points out he was asking about the convention center, not the superdome. Chertoff says that in situations like this, there are a lot of rumors. Siegel says -- not rumors, an NPR reporter, who has been there all day, is on the line with producers as they speak. And it's 2000 people. Chertoff blathers. Later, Chertoff's assistant phones NPR back and told them -- you were right. Link
(Via Boing Boing.)
This is astounding stuff. People who had been watching even a bit of TV knew what was going on but Chertoff was living in some fantasy world. He literally had no idea about the people at the convention center when CNN and MSNBC had been showing them for hours. This guy should be fired in disgrace, but given the track record of the Bush Administration will probably be given a medal of freedom.
10:34:36 AM
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At first glance, and after using it for half an hour or so, the new SQLGrinder looks terrific. It has a clean layout that lets you focus on what you're doing: writing SQL code. I've been waiting for years for a Mac version of the excellent SQLyog. I don't think this beta is up to that level, but it's much better and much more useable than any other SQL clients I've yet seen on the Mac. And for $59, it looks to be a bargain. I just ordered a $49 license for version 1, which will get me a coupon for 2.0.
10:18:06 AM
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Liberal Blogosphere for Hurricane Relief (Add to your site)Hurricane Katrina destroyed thousands of lives.Together, the liberal blogosphere is raising money for the Red Cross fund for food, water, shelter, and transportation out of the Hurricane Zone. Please donate now.
10:16:42 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Steve Michel.
Last update: 10/1/2005; 12:08:04 AM.
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