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Thursday, September 08, 2005
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More from those god-damned, hateful, execrable moral midgets at Focus on the Family. If there were a god, he'd strike this fucker down.
It is most unpalatable, of course, to suggest divine wrath. But biblically there is such a thing, and to assume that such Godly interference with evil will never happen again in our "enlightened" age is folly. New Orleans, for one, was one formidable "sin city." To begin the litany of God-mockery is to wonder where to finally stop: the occult and voodoo, Mardi Gras and the annual Southern Decadence festival (basically a homosexual Mardi Gras), ten times the national average of murders, a reputation for the worst government corruption, casinos with their bribes of public officials, the famous Bourbon Street which has evolved into a long line of porn shops and strip joints, police officers so uncommitted as to join in recent looting, and a city heaving with crime.
Perhaps it is just coincidence, but "Katrina" comes from the Greek which means "purity." New Orleans could use some of that.
Yeah, it might be "unpalatable" to suggest divine wrath, but this asshole seems to take a lot of glee in doing it.
Look around this Agape Press site. All this pornography about the family all over the place. But cares about the family doesn't seem to include worrying about the numbers of the poor in this country. Find an article about kids going without health insurance. Find an article about the plague of poverty that's covering this country. Find one thing, in fact, that shows they really care about people, instead of trying to elevate themselves into some sort of holier-than-thow judges, even daring to suggest that some heavenly demon would possibly call down this hurricane because this imaginary friend doens't like the same things they do. No, all I see here is hate.
10:08:10 PM 
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Awww! Isn’t this sweet:
SAN DIEGO, Aug. 30—The Naval Medical Center in San Diego’s Balboa Park was shut down to accommodate a visit by President George W. Bush Aug. 30, RAW STORY has learned, forcing patients to cancel chemotherapy treatments and hundreds of scheduled patient visits.
(Via Suburban Guerrilla.)
9:55:58 PM
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File under: Satscams
A New York education professor recently baked to death on an Arizona mountain in an attempt at Dahnhak mastery. Julia Siverls was allegedly fed meals laced with marijuana and methadone and then made to carry a backpack full of rocks up Casner Mountain near Sedona, AZ. Lacking food, water and the benefit of any compassion on the part of her teachers, Julia collapsed halfway up and died of dehydration and heat exhaustion. Now her parents are suing for $84 million: The suit says Dahnhak "lures" members with free yoga classes, then pressures them to attend pricey classes and retreats. Named as co-defendants are over a dozen allegedly related operations and Dahnhak's Korean leader, "Grand Master" Seung Huen Lee. Looks like Dahnhak founder "Ilchi" Lee's stock as a psychotic cult leader is on the rise. But we find his recruitment techniques could use a little tweaking. Killing your aspiring teachers off isn't really that inspirational, and they can't bring in much money as corpses, either.
(Via Guruphiliac.)
8:15:41 PM
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Lolita is 50 this year, but Dolores Schiller, as David Thomson points out in this essay, would be 70, had she survived.
I know—she’d be 70 this year, and surely not still a Schiller. (I keep a list of suspects, adequate second husbands, but that’s for another day.) Meanwhile, join me if you will in honoring some beguilingly hidden old lady inclined to say “Bah!”, a crusty kid who—like her nation—has not the least intention of growing up, and who has a taste for lurid murder stories, especially if they have a fancy style. She has a bitterness that keeps her alive—in the Pierre and a Tempe trailer park, split years. It’s the something Humbert taught her, and as she grows older the message burns brighter. It’s something Nabokov said in his Lectures on Literature, and it haunts our “You’ve got mail” America: “The girl Emma Bovary never existed: the book Madame Bovary shall exist forever and ever. A book lives longer than a girl.”
Dolores is a little girl, as well as a literary creation, and the little girl is a victim and a prisoner, no matter who takes the lead from time to time. It’s not surprising that the reading circle described by Azar Nafisi in her recent Reading Lolita in Tehran (some of them clutching Xerox copies, because the book is forbidden) feel that Lo is Humbert’s prisoner, her life his romance. And that recalls Nabokov’s recollection of “the initial shiver of inspiration” for the book: He read about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes, encouraged to draw by its keepers, which produced the first picture ever made by an ape. The drawing shows the bars to a cage.
(The link to the trbire is going to break soon, damn the New York Observer, when it falls into the archives.
4:39:46 PM
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Dvorak is right: this is an amazing article. We've had four years of lapdog journalists who spoonfeed us crap that was spoonfed to them from the administration. Even the embedded journalists in Iraq haven't been telling us what they've actually seen. Then, last week, seeing the scales fall from some of their eyes was pretty amazing. There was a disconnect between what people on the coast were seeing with their own eyes, and the crap the editors in the main office were spewing out. but as Dvorak says, it's amazing and shameful that this disconnect ever happened.
(Via Dvorak.)
3:47:17 PM
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From A to Z, thanks to The Daily Show.
R is our favorite... even though we don't think they exist.
(Via Sadly, No!.)
1:46:35 PM
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I can't tell if this is satire or the real thing, from the Presidential Prayer Kids.
It might be tempting to look at the news and think about what's happened and be discouraged. It is very sad to see people suffering. But as kids who pray, we have a source of strength and hope in our mighty God. It's definitely okay to feel sad for the people who are suffering and going through so much. But the very best thing we can do is to pray. And get others to pray. We can also give to relief groups who are on the ground helping%u2014groups like the Salvation Army are great because they bring the Good News of Jesus right along with food and water and other kinds of help.
1:34:00 PM
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Thank the Flying Spahetti Monster we have the American Family Institute to keep us on the straight and narrow:
Lest anyone respond that the looting is justified because the looters are simply trying to feed their families, I have two responses. First, stealing is wrong under any circumstances. Second, food is not the primary item being stolen. As one newspaper from Biloxi, Mississippi, reported, in a recent break-in at a convenience store, cigarettes, cigars and beer were taken, but the food was not touched. One of the most often stolen items is guns. Nursing homes are under siege. Almost overnight, New Orleans has become a war zone.
The souls of those who have embraced crime in New Orleans are of the same basic essence as the souls of Josef Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer ... and you and me. That's right; we are no different from the worst criminal when it comes to the capacity of our hearts to do evil.
Yes, disaster does bring out the worst in us sometimes, and these guys are a prime example of it.
1:26:29 PM
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BLAMING THE LOCALS II: An alert emailer writes the following: "Plain and simple: President Bush signed Gov. Blanco's request to declare a state of emergency in Louisiana on 8/27. Within the text of that declaration the Gov. declares: Pursuant to 44 CFR § 206.35, I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster. The Stafford Act is the legal stipulator in that declaration. Under The Stafford Act: § 5170a. GENERAL FEDERAL ASSISTANCE {Sec. 402}
In any major disaster, the President may--
# direct any Federal agency, with or without reimbursement, to utilize its authorities and the resources granted to it under Federal law (including personnel, equipment, supplies, facilities, and managerial, technical, and advisory services) in support of State and local assistance efforts. When President Bush signed that declaration on 8/27 he accepted a responsibility to the citizens of Louisiana. Who has the greater resources, Gov. Blanco, or President Bush? Why is Gov. Blanco held to a higher standard of competence than President Bush, when they each had the same responsibility?" The only problem here is the formulation: "accepting responsibility." This is something this president has a great deal of trouble doing.
(Via Daily Dish.)
1:19:16 PM
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LIFE AND THE ONION: See if you can tell the difference. My favorite: Throughout the Gulf Coast, Caucasian suburbanites attempting to gather food and drink in the shattered wreckage of shopping districts have reported seeing African-Americans "looting snacks and beer from damaged businesses." "I was in the abandoned Wal-Mart gathering an air mattress so I could float out the potato chips, beef jerky, and Budweiser I'd managed to find," said white survivor Lars Wrightson, who had carefully selected foodstuffs whose salt and alcohol content provide protection against contamination. "Then I look up, and I see a whole family of [African-Americans] going straight for the booze. Hell, you could see they had already looted a fortune in diapers." Take it away, Sean Hannity.
(Via Daily Dish.)
12:08:59 PM
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But, nationally, these are leaders who won re-election last year largely
by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe.
These are leaders who regularly pressure the news media in this country
to report the reopening of a school or a power station in Iraq, and
defies its citizens not to stand up and cheer. Yet they couldn't even
keep one school or power station from being devastated by infrastructure
collapse in New Orleans even though the government had heard all the
"chatter" from the scientists and city planners and hurricane centers
and some group whose purposes the government couldn't quite discern...
a group called The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror
government. It promised protection or at least amelioration against
all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological.
It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological
weapon called standing water.
(Via On Lisa Rein's Radar.)
12:04:23 PM
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How much is happening under our noses that we don't see? Quite a bit.
11:47:20 AM
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Xeni Jardin:
A Boing Boing reader who owns an environmental cleanup services company -- and asks to remain anonymous here -- says,
Thanks for publishing my plea to get involved the other day. Unfortunately nothing has come of that. No one is proceeding at this point. However, plenty of opportunities to help refugees in Atlanta are now available, so that's where my time has gone.
My company cleans up waste industrial gas cylinders and specialty chemicals. As such we are in contact with the EPA regularly and often work for the government. As you might imagine, there is expected to be a large number of cylinders recovered from Katrina, and many will probably be in bad shape, or even unknowns, which can present hazard. Today a consultant who works with us and the EPA came back from the Gulf region. Here are some of the things that he had to report:
* He said that the 30 elderly who died in the nursing home were simply forgotten. They were supposed to be rescued but someone dropped the ball and they died.
* There are now 130,000 people working in the Gulf region, including 60,000 National Guard. Conditions for these workers, especially the contractors, are extremely hard. Many are sleeping in their cars and have to supply their own food and water. There is as yet no infrastructure in place to support this group. 80% of these people have terrible diarrhea and some have been hospitalized.
* Under Homeland Security, FEMA is supposed to be in charge, but they have been marginalized due to their obvious screw ups. The National Guard is now in charge in the region and they have no experience in these matters. This is aggravating a bad situation.
* The plan going forward for New Orleans is to demolish all the houses and burn them. There is nowhere to bury the waste in the region so they will incinerate it all. Before that can go on, they will have to search every house for chemical hazards.
* They have found large numbers of seals in and around the houses in NOLA and no one is clear where they came from. An aquarium?
* They are shooting hundreds of dogs a day to protect search and rescue workers. The Humane Society shelters in the region have over 4000 animals.
* The entire Gulfport region is blocked by National Guard and only authorized contractors can get in. An RV campground has grown up outside the roadblock of 80 or more contractors hoping to get a piece of the action. These people have signs outside saying, "Mold Expert," "Asbestos Contractor," etc. They are having cookouts at their RVs just to try to get people to come and talk to them.
* Cell phone towers are on their way from Germany to get the communication infrastructure back in place. The EPA ordered 40 satellite phones to get their people in contact. Those phones have arrived, but no one ordered SIM cards and these phones are currently useless.
* This contractor has been organizing reverse osmosis (RO) water purification units from all over the country since last Tuesday. He has over 100 units of various sizes available to move into the region, but no one will give the go ahead. No one will sign their name to a piece of paper for fear recriminations later. He says that over 80 million pint bottles of water have been purchased at $0.75 each. The RO units can produce a gallon of water from contaminated water for $0.01 and they can produce thousands of gallons a day. Two are staged near the zone and these alone can produce 250,000 gallons per day. The Army has RO units, but every functional one, and every operator trained to use them, is in Iraq or Afghanistan.
* The Navy ship Bataan, which has been widely reported to be available for producing water, can only do desalination, but cannot handle contaminated water.
* All of the Army's good gear, including vehicles and generators are overseas. Humvees and other vehicles in the Gulf region are breaking down frequently.
Certainly I cannot attest to the absolute reliability of all this information, but it is from a reliable source who has been involved with EPA response to hazardous situations for 20 years.
He confirms what everyone else has already said: the clusterfuck down there is beyond all imagining.
(Via Boing Boing.)
11:35:26 AM
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Hans Blix, U.N. inspector, says Washington's "virtual reality" about Iraq eventually collided with "our old-fashioned ordinary reality." Now, drawing from findings of the Iraq Survey Group and other official investigations, from U.N., U.S., Iraqi and British documents, from Associated Press interviews and on-scene reporting, from books by Blix and others, it's possible to reconstruct much of the "ordinary reality" of this extraordinary story, one that has changed the course of history.
10:26:00 AM
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Chances are, the new New Orleans won't look much like it looked a month or so ago.
The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."
Not every white business leader or prominent family supports that view. Some black leaders and their allies in New Orleans fear that it boils down to preventing large numbers of blacks from returning to the city and eliminating the African-American voting majority. Rep. William Jefferson, a sharecropper's son who was educated at Harvard and is currently serving his eighth term in Congress, points out that the evacuees from New Orleans already have been spread out across many states far from their old home and won't be able to afford to return. "This is an example of poor people forced to make choices because they don't have the money to do otherwise," Mr. Jefferson says.
10:24:34 AM
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Government workers classified over 15 million documents last year, more than twice the number classified in 2001. The cost? About $7 billion.
(Via NPR Programs: Morning Edition.)
For the most part a good story, but it doesn't ask the key question: what have they got to hide?
10:17:14 AM
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Ever hear of Hurricane Pam? Me neither.
You won't find it on any of the lists of storms that have struck in the past. Pam was a 2004 simulation exercise with federal, state, and local officials to estimate the impact of a major hurricane on New Orleans. It predicted that the levees would be swamped. One million people from the area would be evacuated in time, but 300,000 or so residents, mostly the poor without transportation, would be left behind.
Pam was the alarm bell that should have alerted the Bush administration that its preference for tax cuts and defense spending over necessary domestic projects could have disastrous consequences. One government official who rang the alarm, Assistant Secretary of the Army Michael Parker, was fired for accusing the Bush administration of shortchanging the Corps of Engineers, the agency responsible for the levees in New Orleans. Parker, a former Republican congressman from Mississippi, was an unlikely martyr to the cause of big government.
(Via Dave Farber.)
10:13:21 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Steve Michel.
Last update: 10/1/2005; 12:08:22 AM.
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