This Can't Be True

In the face of a catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, a mandatory evacuation was ordered Sunday for New Orleans by Mayor Ray Nagin.The mayor called the order unprecedented and said anyone who could leave the city should. He exempted hotels from the evacuation order because airlines had already cancelled all flights.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.

Bush called the evacuation? What the hell were Nagin and Blanco doing? The federal response has been weak, at best, but these two have done nothing.

I wonder if Jesse Jackson will criticize the black Nagin? Nah.

The Pork Barrel Comes Home to Roost

I'm with Johah Goldberg:

So the question is, would the money have been better spent if the Republicans hadn't gotten their way? And, though it sickens me to say so, that is at best an open question. I have the utmost faith in the kleptocratic and dysfunctional governments of New Orleans and Louisiana to waste and steal money. But, we were supposed to be preparing --at the national level -- for a major terrorist attack for the last four years. I just don't see much evidence of that preparation... For supporters of the war, this spectacle is going to be particularly hard to accomodate because it is in the interests of the political classes to keep their pork and it is in the interests of the antiwar left to frame this as a choice between Baghdad and New Orleans. That should not be the choice. The choice should be between the highway bill, ag subsidies and the like. The Don Young Highway should at least be renamed to the "Go Suck Eggs New Orleans Highway.

Nice Work, Boys

Just last year, the Army Corps of Engineers sought $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans. The White House slashed the request to about $40 million. Congress finally approved $42.2 million, less than half of the agency's request.

Yet the lawmakers and Bush agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-laden highway bill that included more than 6,000 pet projects for lawmakers. Congress spent money on dust control for Arkansas roads, a warehouse on the Erie Canal and a $231 million bridge to a small, uninhabited Alaskan island. How could Washington spend $231 million on a bridge to nowhere - and not find $42 million for hurricane and flood projects in New Orleans?

It's a matter of power and politics. Alaska is represented by Republican Rep. Don Young, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, and Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, a senior member of the all-important Senate Appropriations Committee. Louisiana's delegation holds far less sway.

Doing Our Part

After listening to the President's - and others - plea yesterday to conserve gas, we decided to cancel our weekend trip to Bowling Green. I figure it's our way of easing the demand on gas prices...and a possible shortage.

Here's hoping people park those gas-guzzling SUVs in the garage for a few weeks.

This Is Good News

The United States has an oil reserve at least three times that of Saudi Arabia locked in oil-shale deposits beneath federal land in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, according to a study released yesterday. . . .

For years, the industry and the government considered oil shale — a rock that produces petroleum when heated — too expensive to be a feasible source of oil.

However, oil prices, which spiked above $70 a barrel this week, combined with advances in technology could soon make it possible to tap the estimated 500 billion to 1.1 trillion recoverable barrels, the report found.

More on Me and Monkeys and Dogs and a Creator

Andrew Sullivan posts:

96 PERCENT CHIMP: They've done the chimpanzee genome - and we're 96 percent the same DNA. If you're one of the 70 percent of evangelical Christians who believe we were all made on one day 6,000 years ago, best not to read the link.

So let me get this straight. (1) Andrew believes that we spawned from monkeys. (2) Monkeys and humans share 96% of the same DNA. (3) Therefore, humans evolved from monkeys.

A don't mean to be a drag, but what about dogs:

...Because of this latter benefit, scientists and doctors interested in understanding more about human diseases see the dog genome paying off in the realm of human health as well. Dr. Elaine Ostrander of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Wash. is currently conducting research into how cancer is passed down in dog families. Humans and dogs have almost identical DNA, so whatever information this investigation turns up should benefit human cancer research as well.

Hmmm, so humans and dogs have almost identical DNA, too. I'll bet you this is the case with almost all mammals to varying degrees. What does this prove? Well, either we evolved from rabbits to dogs to monkeys to humans. Or, the same hand used the same tools to form the differing organisms.

I'm Famous...

...and going to see Iowa at Purdue. I've hit the big time.

Quotes of the Day

"There's no America out there except America to respond to it. We've got to do it ourselves." -- Blogger Austen Bay on the relief effort

"We have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy." -- Winston Churchill

My Grandfather Wasn't No Monkey

Andrew Sullivan writes:

42%! That's how many Americans believe that the earth and all its creatures have always been the same since they were created by God in Genesis. Fully "70 percent of white evangelical Protestants say that life has existed in its present form since the beginning of time." 63 percent of them are "very certain" that this is true. I must say that there are times when one is rendered speechless. No educated intelligent person could possibly look at the evidence of science and say such a thing. And yet we are supposed to have a reasoned debate with these people on the matter. How is that even possible?

Actually, I have looked at the evidence and I do believe in a Creator. Imagine that.

There's Looting...and Then There's Looting

I don't have a problem with people looting damaged and abandoned grocery stores for food, water and other essential materials...that's just trying to survive. But the other looting - for jeans, stereos, and TVs - should be greeted with gunshots.

Children's Hospital under seige
Tuesday, 11:45 p.m.

Late Tuesday, Gov. Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher described a disturbing scene unfolding in uptown New Orleans, where looters were trying to break into Children's Hospital.

Bottcher said the director of the hospital fears for the safety of the staff and the 100 kids inside the hospital. The director said the hospital is locked, but that the looters were trying to break in and had gathered outside the facility.

The director has sought help from the police, but, due to rising flood waters, police have not been able to respond.

Bottcher said Blanco has been told of the situation and has informed the National Guard. However, Bottcher said, the National Guard has also been unable to respond.

Amazon Says No Thanks

This will be good for business:

But mainstream Web sites that had jumped to pull in money for the tsunami victims showed no evidence of repeating it here in the U.S. for Katrina's. Amazon.com, which raised more than $14 million for the American Red Cross in January via a donation link on its home page, didn't have one as of mid-day Monday. Nor did Google, Yahoo, MSN, or eBay, all of which hustled earlier in the year to put up donation links on their portals. (Google slapped up an "Information about Hurricane Katrina" link on its Spartan home page, but that led to news sources and stories.)

An Amazon spokesperson said that the online retailer had no plans to post a donation link on its site. "Each case is different," she said. "The Red Cross has essentially given over its entire site to donations. The tsunami came out of the blue, so it was an 'all hands on deck' situation, but the Red Cross has been getting ready for this and getting its message out there for several days."

Cindy Sheehan...Moron

I'm always reluctant to criticize a grieving mother, but her grieving has turned into idiocy.

Well, George and I are leaving Crawford today. George is finished playing golf and telling his fables in San Diego , so he will be heading to Louisiana to see the devastation that his environmental policies and his killing policies have caused. Recovery would be easier and much quicker if almost ½ of the three states involved National Guard were not in Iraq. All of the National Guard's equipment is in Iraq also. Plus, with the 2 billion dollars a week that the private contractors are siphoning from our treasury, how are we going to pay for helping our own citizens in Louisiana , Mississippi, and Alabama? And, should I dare say "global warming?" and be branded as a "conspiracy theorist" on top of everything else the reich-wingers say about me.

A Silver Lining

In terms of economic damage and lives lost, Katrina may turn out to be one of the worst hurricanes in U.S. history.

But the storm actually turned out to be much less powerful than predicted. Meteorologists say a puff of dry air coming out of the Midwest weakened Katrina just before it reached land, transforming a Category 5 monster into a less-threatening Category 3 storm.

The last-minute gust also pushed Katrina slightly to the east of its Big Easy-bound trajectory, sparing New Orleans a direct hit - though not horrendous harm.

"It was kind of an amazing sequence of events," said Peter Black, a meteorologist at the Hurricane Research Division of the federal government's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.
On Sunday, meteorologists watched in awe as one of the most powerful hurricanes they had ever seen churned northward over the Gulf of Mexico on a direct bearing for New Orleans. Fed by unusually warm waters in the central gulf, Katrina easily pumped itself up to a Category 5 monster, with top winds approaching 175 mph. That afternoon a National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration aircraft flying through the storm pegged its minimum barometric pressure at 902 millibars, making Katrina the fourth most powerful hurricane ever observed.

But by the time it reached land Monday, Katrina was no stronger than any of a dozen or more hurricanes that have hit the United States in the past century. Hurricane Camille had a substantially lower central pressure when it slammed into Mississippi in 1969. Hurricane Charley blasted the Sunshine State with higher winds when it came ashore near Tampa last year.

The Human Toll

One man in Biloxi told CNN affiliate WKRG-TV he believed his wife was killed after she was ripped from his grasp when their home split in half.

"I held her hand as tight as I could," the unidentified man said. "She told me, 'You can't hold me.' She told me to take care of the kids and the grandkids ... we ain't got nowhere to go. I'm lost. That's all I had."

This Has Huge Implications for the Catholic Church

A federal bankruptcy judge yesterday ruled that churches and schools in the Catholic Diocese of Spokane are owned by the diocese and can be sold to pay settlements to sex-abuse victims, a decision that evoked both triumph and disappointment.

The decision — the first of its kind in the nation — is considered a victory for victims and a loss for the diocese and its 80-plus parishes, which had argued that the properties belong to individual parishes, not to the diocese, and therefore were not subject to liquidation.

The ruling likely will be watched closely by other dioceses around the country as they, too, resolve claims of people who were sexually abused by priests.

"This is a big victory," said attorney Michael Pfau, who represents many of the plaintiffs in Spokane, where one in five residents is Catholic. "It's simply a devastating ruling for the diocese."

The diocese plans to appeal by the end of next week.

"I'm obviously disappointed," said Shaun Cross, bankruptcy attorney for the diocese.

Ford Elsaesser, attorney for an association of Spokane parishes, said they, too, likely will appeal.

Plaintiff Mark Mains of Edmonds, who said he was abused by a Spokane priest when he was young, said trying to omit parish property from a list of diocesan assets was an attempt by Bishop William Skylstad to avoid responsibility.

"I feel for [the parishioners]. I really do. But we never asked for this," he said, referring to himself and other victims. Skylstad "voluntarily put ... this stuff at risk. It's not our doing. It's the bishop's doing.

"I didn't ask to be raped, or my wife to be deposed about our sex life, or my old girlfriends to be hunted down, harassed," Mains said. "I didn't ask for any of that."

Although yesterday's ruling by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Patricia Williams technically involves only about 20 Spokane parishes and their affiliated schools, the decision essentially makes it easier for attorneys to push for the other diocesan parishes and properties to be made available for claims.

"In theory, all the property of the diocese could be liquidated," Pfau said.

The diocese faces 19 pending lawsuits from 63 plaintiffs seeking about $75 million, and other plaintiffs may yet come forward, Cross said.

In its initial bankruptcy filings, the diocese said it owned $11 million in assets. Cross said diocesan officials don't know how much the parishes are worth.

In her ruling, Williams tackled thorny church-state issues that are being closely watched nationwide. Among the most important: whether civil law would trump church law on the issue of who owns parish property.

Under Catholic Church law, individual parishes own their property. And while the bishop holds legal title to parish property and schools, the church considers such property to be held in trust for the benefit of parishioners.

The diocese argued that any decision to the contrary would violate the church's First Amendment rights in that the state essentially would be forcing the bishop to violate church law.

In her ruling, though, the bankruptcy judge said Skylstad had voluntarily entered into bankruptcy court. She said that though the dispute did involve a church, the case was not an internal church dispute and therefore civil law took precedence.

Further, she said it was not a violation of the First Amendment to apply federal bankruptcy law or state law to determine what property the diocese owns.

The Republican Spendthrifts are Out of Control

Before leaving town earlier this month, Congress approved nearly $300 billion in increased spending. But spending, supported through taxes, is not the only way the federal government diverts resources from the private sector to accomplish its goals. The other is through regulation and, in recent years, that too has increased at an impressive rate. . . .

The FY 2006 Budget requests that Congress allocate $41.4 billion for regulatory activities, up from $39.5 billion in 2005. This reflects a 4.8 percent increase in outlays directed at writing, administering, and enforcing federal regulations. The regulators' budget is growing at a faster rate than other nondiscretionary spending, which the President's budget held to only 2.1 percent in 2006. Since 2000, the regulators' budget has grown an amazing 46 percent, after adjusting for inflation.

The Price at the Pump Could Skyrocket

This is just great. Could we build some new refineries, please.

Lousiana has 17 active refineries, producing about 16% of America's fuel.

Total American refinery capacity utilization was at 93% in 2004.
American refineries are now operating at 97% capacity, processing 17 million barrels of oil a day (American consumes 20.6 million barrels of oil a day.)

If Katrina takes refinery capacity off-line, the effect at the pump will be immediate. Ther is no more capacity available to up output within the counry. Shortfalls will have to be made up from imported gasoline suppliers. They are unlikely to be moved by complaints of gauging from American congressmen.

At this point Americans may ask why no new refinery has been built in the United States since 1976. (There is one on the drawing board for Yuma, Arizona.)

There were 315 refineries operating in the United States in 1981. There are 144 operating today.

BTW: 25% of American oil and natural gas production comes from off-shore drilling in the Gulf. No word yet on Katrina's impact on those operations.

How Quickly We Forget

Rick Brookhiser, historian of our Founding Fathers, on the Sunni intransigence and the Iraqi Constitution:

Intransigence is not a new phenomenon. The framers of the Constitution said it would go into effect if nine states ratified (not 13), as a way of undermining bitter enders. When George Washington was inaugurated for the first time in April 1789, Rhode Island and North Carolina were still outside the fold.

Interesting.

Coffee Good

If your hand is trembling over your third coffee of the morning, do not despair. You could be getting more healthy antioxidants from your liquid fix than are from the fruit or vegetables you eat, according to a study of US diets. . . .

Helping to rid the body of free radicals, destructive molecules that damage cells and DNA, antioxidants have been linked to a number of benefits, including protection against heart disease and cancer.

The research is the latest in a number of studies to suggest coffee could be beneficial, with consumption linked to a reduced risk of liver and colon cancer, type two diabetes, and Parkinson's disease.

"Americans get more of their antioxidants from coffee than any other dietary source - nothing else comes close," said Joe Vinson from Scranton University in Pennsylvania, who led the research.