« August 2005 | Main | October 2005 »
September 30, 2005
A Very Happy Birthday...
to a most excellent blog: Coming Anarchy.
One year ago today, Younghusband and I started this blog with a vague mission to cover the dark underbelly of world affairs. Our inspiration was our mutual love of history and politics, travel and geography, the Great Game and Robert D. Kaplan.
There follows a selection of their favorite posts. Check them out--those guys are really on their game.
Posted at 11:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)September 29, 2005
Staying The Course--In Other Words, "Don't Panic!"
AJStrata made note of the same post by John Hinderaker at Powerline that I did, in which John speculates that Ronnie Earle timed his indictment to help prepare the ground for a Democratic filibuster of the coming SCOTUS nominee. As AJ observed, it's a little bit of a stretch; but Hinderaker constructs his arguments well, and it's hard to come up with anything else that makes more sense.
Leaving aside the question of whether or not a Democratic filibuster will succeed (I think it will be crushed), AJ is of the opinion that the Delay indictment is small potatoes: members of Congress have been in trouble with the law for ages, and in a year's time this will be a fading blip.
As I ground out some hard interval training on my bike today I was concurrently ramping up my outrage at the ridiculous actions of Ronnie Earle, until I suddenly remembered last year's interminable crucible of election stress. I, too, realized that in comparison to the election of GWB and the defeat of the awful Kerry, the indictment is just another political tempest in a teacup. And this on a day when John Roberts is overwhelmingly confirmed. AJ put his finger on a central thread:
Folks, if the conservative cause is going to falter every time it is challenged, or it hits a rough patch, then it is not ready for prime time. [...] Since Reagan’s first term I have heard so many predictions of doom and gloom that I would be richer than Bill Gates if I had a dollar everytime conservatism was supposed to be on the rocks. We are ushering in the Roberts’ era of the Supreme Court, soon with another conservative justice to be added to the court. How is it we are about to crumble???
And because DeLay has some bogus indictment thrown at him by an incompetent partisan hack I am supposed to be seeing the coming of the end? Geez, I understand how desparate liberals need to grasp at these kinds of scenarios - what else do they have? But conservatives?
That is very well said. The excesses of the information age (of which we bloggers are sometimes contributors) have made focusing on the big picture ever more difficult. While I would never vote for going back to the information Dark Ages, I think we need to realize that the instant snaphot can be misleading; the trend is always what's important. (Ergo, the Coalition of the Chillin').
I sometimes share AJ's frustration--we conservatives are supposed to be less emotional and more reasonable. I've decided to celebrate Roberts and forget Delay, for now at least.
Posted at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)September 28, 2005
Mapes And Earle: Two Of A Kind?
After reading Rand Simberg's precise filleting of the unbelievable pronouncements Mary Mapes has made in support of her new book, and after perusing Michelle Malkin's roundup of the reaction to the indictment of Tom Delay, I have an observation:
It's entirely likely that Mapes and Travis county DA Ronnie Earle are twins, separated at birth.
The juicy bits--first from Simberg:
[Mapes:]Our work was being compared to that of Jayson Blair, the discredited New York Times reporter who had fabricated and plagiarized stories.
Hey, this isn't fair. At least Jayson Blair didn't fabricate actual evidence. And of course, given that they're "hard-core, politically angry, hyperconservatives," there's no need to pay any attention to what they say, right, even if they are smart lawyers, and that in the case of Charles Johnson, proprieter of Little Green Footballs and web site designer, he has forgotten more about typography than Mary is ever likely to learn or (on the available evidence) be able to comprehend?
All these Web sites had extensive write-ups on the documents: on typeface, font style, and peripheral spacing.
"Peripheral spacing"? I think that she means proportional spacing. This demonstrates again, just how little she has learned from this experience, when she doesn't even seem to possess the reasoning skills to understand the arguments against her.
And from Malkin--here's former DOJ official Barbara Comstock:
Ronnie Earle argues that Tom DeLay conspired to make a contribution to a political party in violation of the Texas Election Code. There was no contribution to a political party in violation of the Texas Election Code. There was no conspiracy. Ronnie Earle is wrong on the facts. Ronnie Earle is wrong on the law. [...]
There was no violation of the Texas Election Code. There was no conspiracy. The underlying transaction was legal. Had corporations sent money directly to the RNC or RNSEC, the transaction would be legal. How could anyone conspire to do indirectly what could legally have been done directly?
So here we have two cases in which the main characters have attempted to foist off upon the public baseless (in Earle's case) or downright fraudulent (in Mapes') attacks upon prominent public (conservative) figures. Mapes drew a check from CBS for quite a few years and saw her projects get national airtime. In yet another example of the dangers of an ideologically monopolized media, these career notches in her belt allowed her to assume a moral authority that was revealed as illusory by the smart guys at LGF and Powerline.
Earle is a little more familiar a figure: of course all branches of government, from local to national, have a long history of corrupt but legitimately elected members. Check out Mark Coffey's hometown analysis of this sterling example of an elected official.
Earle's little imbroglio targeting Kay Bailey Hutchinson took place in the early '90s, before the advent of the blogosphere. I do sorely hope that the blogs can serve him out as thoroughly, and deservedly, as Mary Mapes.
A Multicultural Nightmare
I've got about ten years or so until we have to start making real decisions about where our son will go to college. But judging by the current state of affairs, it will take all that time and more to find a school where he's not subjected to an Orwellian nightmare like the one that befell Athena Kerry. Athena applied to be a Resident Assistant (undergraduate student counselor) at a well-known Catholic university; her tale of the ensuing multicultural indoctrination is sobering:
As a student employee of the university, I have been force-fed diversity indoctrination non-stop.When I first interviewed for an RA job, a group of us were given the task of designing an ideal residence hall. Our interviewers observed our ability to work together.
When we presented our design [...], our interviewers were impressed by our creativity and enthusiasm. But they asked only two questions:
1) How do you address the needs of non-Christian students who may need worship space? and
2) How would you encourage any students who may not support GLBTQA to become "persons of care"?
GLBTQA?
Persons of care?
I almost got it...Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Asexual. I wonder what the difference between "gay" and "queer" is? (No doubt this question alone would label me as "intolerant" and subject to expulsion.) Athena wasn't hired on her first try; the next year she applied again (having caught on to the game) and was hired.
[After being hired] I also received a glossary of terms that are acceptable and not acceptable to use in my position. "Boyfriend" and "girlfriend" are out, unless used in conjunction—as in "do you have a boyfriend or girlfriend?" thereby avoiding the assumption of heterosexuality.
Athena goes on to relate tales of encounter groups in which she was pressured to sign a document in which she admitted to being the "product of a heterosexist culture"--a document that resembles nothing so much as a confession from a Lubyanka inmate.
I think there is an unmistakeable line of inheritance from the postmodern philosophy that continues to enrapture the liberal arts academy, to the crude facscistic multicultrual oppression imposed on students like Athena. No matter how deeply obfuscating their theoretical language, the end result has been a measurable degree of very real oppression.
The proof is in the pudding--that is, the experiences of our undergraduates like Athena.
Posted at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)September 27, 2005
Journalistic Integrity...Don't Make Me Laugh
Christopher Hitchens once again illuminates for us the rotten family tree of the two groups responsible for the recent "anti-war" demonstrations in Washington (thanks: Mark Coffey at Decision '08). The lineage of International ANSWER and people like Clark Clifford and Ramsey Clark should be well enough known by now (as Hitchens points out, even David Corn has written on their Stalinist roots). But the MSM is nothing if not tenacious, and Hitch takes a sledgehammer to their stone wall:
To be against war and militarism, in the tradition of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, is one thing. But to have a record of consistent support for war and militarism, from the Red Army in Eastern Europe to the Serbian ethnic cleansers and the Taliban, is quite another. It is really a disgrace that the liberal press refers to such enemies of liberalism as "antiwar" when in reality they are straight-out pro-war, but on the other side. Was there a single placard saying, "No to Jihad"? Of course not. Or a single placard saying, "Yes to Kurdish self-determination" or "We support Afghan women's struggle"? Don't make me laugh. And this in a week when Afghans went back to the polls, and when Iraqis were preparing to do so, under a hail of fire from those who blow up mosques and U.N. buildings, behead aid workers and journalists, proclaim fatwahs against the wrong kind of Muslim, and utter hysterical diatribes against Jews and Hindus.
That's perfectly framed--there was not a single placard saying "No to jihad".
If a dedicated man of the Left such as David Corn (not to mention reformed Leftist Hitchens) can summon up the integrity to expose and question these people, what is the problem with our mainstream media?
How transparently biased can this get?
September 26, 2005
That Didn't Take Long
From the Houston Chronicle today:
Hamas halts attacks in Gaza: The order came after Israel gave its forces free rein to stop terrorists
JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel said Sunday that he had given the military free rein to act against Palestinian factions firing rockets at Israel. Hours later, the militant group Hamas announced that it was halting all attacks from the Gaza Strip.
The surprise statement by Hamas, delivered late Sunday night in Gaza City by a senior Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar, offered the possibility that the escalating violence of the past three days could be brought to a halt.
The emphases are mine, and I'm sorely tempted to commit extreme profanity. To whom, I wonder, was this "announcement" a surprise? And I refuse to grant to Hamas the ownership of any authority to "offer the possibility" of ending the violence. They fired rockets into Israel within days of the withdrawal--they have no bargaining position whatsosever. (Do you hear that, Condi?)
And farther along comes the topper:
But late Sunday night, Zahar said that Hamas "declares an end to its operations from the Gaza Strip against the Israeli occupation."
Wait a minute--what "Israeli occupation" is he speaking of? The Israelis have been gone from Gaza for several weeks now; he couldn't have been referring to Israel proper? Could he?
Here's the emblem of the Palestinian Liberation Organization:
Note the outline pictured is of all of the state of Israel.
UPDATE: Captain Ed has further thoughts:
{T]he Israeli withdrawal from Gaza brought an entirely new set of circumstances to the use of military force. The abandonment of the settlements and the removal of Israeli troops took away the excuse of a 'legitimate fight against an unjust occupation' [...]. It makes such rocket attacks open acts of war, for which the government nominally in control of the territory must take responsibility.
That means that the Israelis have every right to respond to an attack on their country when presented with such a casus belli, and they have done so. The Palestinians appealed to the US, which has all too often yanked a diplomatic leash on Israel, but not this time. The BBC reports that the American response, translated from Diplomatese, says, "Don't expect us to pull your bacon from the fire this time."
This was my great hope for the Gaza pullout. The Arabs seem to have no sincere desire for a rational peace. The idea that Israel has a right to exist (as opposed to Arab recognition of some sort of real estate fait accompli) does not appear to be gaining acceptance. Thus I find no fault with the Israelis' recent strategy of defense by segregation, by means of the security fence (effective so far) and the Gaza withdrawal (to be determined). Withdrawing the settlers was no doubt a wrenching and tragic experience for those involved, but hopefully it will not have been for naught if Israel can more readily illuminate for the world the true nature of these fascistic terrorists.
Gaining Admission To The Moonbat Grotto
Over at townhall.com Tony Snow examines the cause of former nice guy Harry Reid's descent into the "moonbat grotto". Tony notes that Reid's opposition to SCOTUS nominee John Roberts is evidently based on nothing more than the fact that years ago Roberts used the term "illegal amigos" in a DoJ memorandum. Why, Snow wonders, is a formerly partisan but rational senator now promulgating such non-rational opposition to an obviously qualified candidate?
Here is the two-word answer: McCain-Feingold. The McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform bill, designed grandly to "take money out of politics," predictably produced the opposite effect. It sucked in a flood of cash, gutted the major political parties and made poseurs more unaccountable than ever before. [...]
Democrats find themselves beholden to a batch of petulant billionaires, led by George Soros, Peter Lewis and Steven Bing. That trio alone contributed nearly $65 million to Democratic candidates and causes during the 2004 election cycle. [...]
Much of this cash went to such organizations as MoveOn.org, the Joint Victory Campaign 2004, the Media Fund and the now-defunct America Coming Together -- all of which spent tens of millions of dollars on such losing causes as John Kerry's candidacy, opposition to the Iraq war and attempts to crush John Roberts' original nomination to the Supreme Court. [...]
Thus, the solution to our conundrum: Harry Reid has to act like a nut in public because money talks. As Senate leader, Reid has to tilt at every windmill, charge into every fusillade and dip his head into every wood-chipper just to please his billionaire bosses.
This set-up has also allowed a truly marginalized character like Cindy Sheehan to grab disproportionate amounts of media time--this is the same Cindy Sheehan whose plan to help Katrina-devastated New Orleans consisted of removing the federal troops from the city!
This is yet another answer to the question: "What does it really mean to be a progressive?" I guess an ordinary person would think progressivism would concern itself with the little guy. Maybe it's similar to the progressives' vaunted concern over women's rights in Afghanistan. Or the condition of the oppressed Marsh Arabs in Iraq. Or...
Posted at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)September 24, 2005
All's Well...
Everything's fine here. I doubt if any of the wind gusts were over 50 mph; but they were plenty high as it was. I went to bed late, around 1:00 a.m., and the power went out around 2:00. By eight it was back on, cable TV was restored at 1:00 p.m.
Then the fatique hit me like a sledgehammer. Five solid days of stressing about this storm resulting in less than an inch of rain--a wonderful result, but my body demanded not one, but two naps this afternoon. And a lot of people around here had a lot more to deal with than we did.
We've dodged a very big bullet.
Posted at 07:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)Houston's Evacuation Plans
While awaiting any significant rain from Hurricane Rita (we've had some gusty winds throughout the evening), I found this perceptive analysis of the well-publicized traffic jams emanating from Houston (from Austin Bay's blog):
Why is it taking so long? Well, try this math problem: If 100,000 cars, averaging 20 feet in length are stopped bumper to bumper on four lanes, how long does the traffic jam stretch?
Answer: A half-million feet, or 94.7 miles. In other words, the distance from Houston to College Station, the home of Texas A&M.
The Houston metropolitan area contains more than 5 million people. To keep the math simple, let’s just assume that there are 1 million cars departing coastal Texas for points west. One million cars, on four lanes stretches 1,000 miles. Bumper to bumper on one lane, and those same cars will form a traffic jam greater in length than the distance from Houston, Texas to Juneau, Alaska.
There's been some criticism of local officials for not opening up the opposing lanes of the interstates soon enough. But those plans were in place; just not to the distances finally arrived at. I-45, the main freeway north out of Houston, was opened for single-direction traffic all the way to Buffalo, Texas. That's 125 miles, over halfway to Dallas! And on I-10 west out of the city, single-direction traffice was allowed all the way to Sequin--160 miles, or over 80% of the distance to San Antonio. The logistics involved are fearsome--think of all the jurisdictions that must be contacted.
I'm sure that mistakes were made, and there are areas needed improvement, but all in all I think we did a good job.
September 23, 2005
More Gloomy News From State
From Powerline, more discouraging news on Condi Rice's state department. Observing that the new US ambassador to Israel, Richard Jones, is an old school arabist, Paul Mirengoff comments:
The same folks who brought us the tragic sham of "Oslo" are now pushing what is effectively a pro-Hamas policy in Gaza. On the not insignificant issue of Israel, Condoleezza Rice seems to be Colin Powell with clout. On the broader issue of terrorism, Rice appears to be the force behind a mid-course "correction." Instead of winning Arab hearts and minds by promoting the spread of democracy, we now hope to win them through something that looks more like appeasement.
Paul references an article by Diana West in which she wonders if GWB is really on top of things. (She wonders why a novice has just been appointed to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency--a novice who just happens to be the niece of outgoing Joint Chiefs chairman Richard Myers.)
I'm wondering too, and worried. Does Bush really know the difference in views between Paul Wolfowitz and, say, Brent Scowcroft?
Anticipating Rita
Not much has changed this morning...landfall is still predicted to be near Sabine Pass around daybreak tomorrow. That's about 80 miles east of here, and every mile nearer or farther will have an impact on what we'll go through tonight and tomorrow morning. Though I'm not wishing misfortune on anyone, I'd love to see even a ten mile jog farther east. Remember, wind damage is exponential to the wind speed--an 80 mph wind causes four times as much damage as a 40 mph wind.
One good point I noted in the latest bulletins: the threat of tornadoes will be confined mainly to the areas hit by the eyewall. This is important in an area that's covered in trees, like our neighborhood. With uniform winds, the trees tend to shield each other to a degree; tornadoes embedded in the winds have the ability to reach down and cut a swath through the trees, which is exactly what happened to my parent's house during hurricane Alicia in 1983. The backyards of six or seven consecutive neighbors had trees downed--my parents had four oaks blown over.
I'm hoping against hope that the power will not go out; again, a ten mile jog either way will have a tremendous impact on how soon we can get back to normal. With satellite imaging, recon flights every few hours, the internet and cable news--this storm has been our only concern since Monday. I guess media overload is much preferable to the blissful and deadly ignorance endured by coastal dwellers of a hundred years ago, but I'm ready for this thing to come, and be gone.
Posted at 08:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)September 22, 2005
A Little Luck?
It looks like we may have caught a big break overnight, as the current track forecasts call for Rita to come ashore east of Galveston/Houston. This takes us out of the stronger northeast quadrant.
If I get our preparations finished I just might be able to have a look around the political internet this evening--it's been nothing but weather, weather, weather around here lately.
Posted at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)September 21, 2005
The Waiting Game
Blogging will be sporadic for the next couple of days...we've got a big list of things to do. The nastiest job I've got is to try and clear room in my bike/woodworking shop (otherwise known as a garage) so we can get at least on of our cars inside.
I believe there's not a single "D" cell battery left in Houston.
Posted at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)September 20, 2005
Now, It's Personal
Well, I've got the hurricane jitters.
This is really the first time I've had a deep seated sense of fear about an approaching storm. The easy explanation is the front row seat we Houstonians have had to the disaster in New Orleans has given us a tangible example of what a major hurricane can do to a big city.
But that's not it. I've been fascinated with weather almost since my first memories. I'll never forget my first hurricane--Carla in 1961, a strong cat 4--and how my parents gathered themselves and all three of us kids into their bedroom. We all slept together in their shoved-together twin beds (I had to slept on the crack between the two mattresses.)
As I grew up and chose engineering as a profession, I became even more aware of the power of those storms. I knew all about technical things like the power of storm surge (one cubic yard of water weighs about one ton) and the exponential relation of wind damage to wind speed (a 150mph hurricane is at least four times as destructive as a 75mph storm); still, I didn't yet have a visceral fear. Too young, I suppose, with too much of an engineer's clinical interest in the awesome phenomenon.
That's all changed now. Mainly, I'm sure, because of my beautiful six year old; and I'm older too. Going without electricity for two weeks as my family did in 1961 and 1983 is not an experience I want to repeat. Even more worrisome is the memory of walking into my parents' back yard in 1983 and finding four oak trees laying across the ground at various angles. The massive weight of what was an appearently modest tree is hard to convey; a falling oak or pine will crush to a pulp anything below it.
And my house is surrounded by tall oaks and pines.
Posted at 09:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)A Return To Arabism In The State Department?
Diana West has thrown a wrench in the works of my nascent support of Condi Rice for president (hat tip: Powerline). Noting the recent snubbing of Israel's offer to provide aid for hurricane Katrina, West wonders whether Rice and the department she heads are returning to the "Arabist" views of George H.W. Bush, Brent Scowcroft, and James Baker. Much more alarmingly, West highlights this staggering fact:
Since the Oslo "peace process" began in 1993, Palestinians have received more than $1.5 billion from the United States — more aid, as the San Francisco Chronicle pointed out, than from any other single country. Not that other countries, mainly European ones, haven't been generous. The Atlantic Monthly's David Samuel tallied up post-Oslo PA aid at $7 billion, estimating that as much as half of that money was siphoned off by Yasser Arafat and cronies. Still the bucks flow.
When Rice was nominated for Secretary of State, there was lots of speculation about whether she'd be able to reign in the monolithic careerist dinosaurs that ballast the State Department. I've been disturbed before by her pronouncements vis-a-vis the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, and unfortunately it looks like West has indicated that Rice won't be the one to reform State.
Where have you gone, Paul Wolfowitz?
Posted at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)September 19, 2005
Academic Bullies
AcademicElephant brings us a cautionary tale that illustrates the wisdom of her decision to maintain anonymity as a blogger. She relates that Brian Leitner, who holds an endowed chair in law and is also a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas, was presumably offended by a comment to his blog made by a graduate philosophy student. The student writes his own blog The Good and the Right, and he made the mistake of indicating his upcoming attendance at an academic conference. The exalted tenured professor, panties thoroughly in a wad, commented:
So a rude, reactionary and not very bright Emory grad student will be attending conferences in Madison this weekend. I’ll have to ask my friends to look for you, you are a piece of work.
What blatant nonsense--as the author of The Good and the Right points out, Leitner regularly spews out the most vile ad hominem diatribes against the Bush administration; that's his right, of course, but for Leitner to accuse anyone of "rudeness" is hypocritical in the extreme. AcademicElephant concludes:
For me, this episode reveals that the "heavy hitters" in academia are prepared to hold no punches in defending the ivory tower as liberal turf. They have lost sight of the fact that presenting contrasting viewpoints is one of the fundamental roles of the academy. Intimidating junior scholars who dare to criticize your work isn't a defense of your position, it's intellectual thuggery. [...]
In my post on the "Intellectual Dishonesty of Michael Moore", I wrote that constructive criticism (or presenting contrasting viewpoints, for that matter) was not a goal of those on the Left. As Stephen R.C. Hicks points out in his marvelous book Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault:
The postmodernists find themselves confronting a world dominated by liberalism and capitalism, by science and technology, by people who still believe in reality, in reason, and in the greatness of human potential. The world they said was impossible and destructive has both come to be and is flourishing. The heirs of the Enlightenment are running the world, and they have marginalized the postmodernists to the academy. (1)
The bullying tactics of these academic enforcers of the postmodern party line are a worthy target of the new media. I hope blogs like Elephants in Academia and The Good and the Right keep the inside information flowing--it's vital to winning this battle to get reasoned debate and honest scholarship reestablished in the academy.
(1)Stephen R.C. Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault (Scholargy Publishing, 2004), p. 198.
September 18, 2005
They Said It Couldn't Be Done
Today was election day in Afghanistan. Publius Pundit has a great roundup of election news.
Posted at 09:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)September 17, 2005
Why You Should Never Argue With A Bureaucrat
AJStrata explains bureaucratic irrationality:
In a classic example that hits close to home we have this story on how NASA needs further waivers from the International Trafficking in Arms Regulations (ITAR) so they can continue to use Russian manned launch assets to support the space station and our astronauts there. See, we are not allowed to talk to foreignors about things having to do with space, since we may provide them the technology to build rockets and missiles. Since lawyers cannot grasp technology and understand what is common knowledge (e.g., Intel Processor) and what is not, they got lazy and put a ban on all talk of technology that flies on US satellites. So we cannot admit we fly the same processor the Europeans do - to the Europeans. So it is important we do not talk to the Russians, in case they learn to build rockets.
OK, we're worried the Russians might learn from us how to build rockets...but we want to talk to them about using their rockets because ours broke.
Posted at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)What A Joke
Today's front page headline in the Houston Chronicle:
WHERE WILL THE BILLIONS TO REBUILD COME FROM - While Bush say U.S. programs will be cut, his staff talks about adding to budget deficit
Let's see...first, George Bush caused the hurricane (with help from Karl Rove). Then they called the helicopter pilots and personally ordered them to not pick up poor blacks stranded on the rooftops.
And now, GWB's recovery plan is criticized because all the members of the editorial staff of the Chronicle have turned into small-government conservatives.
Sure.
Posted at 06:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (1)September 16, 2005
The Latest On The WTC Memorial
I'm swamped today so blogging will be delayed. In the interim here's something to note:
RDS at The Ten O'Clock Scholar has the latest on the important battle going on over the seepage of multicultural relativism into the WTC memorial at Ground Zero.
Most of the time it's hard to fight these people--they're usually academics and tenure is a powerful shield. But this is a fight out in the open, so to speak, and it's one we shouldn't lose.
Posted at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)September 15, 2005
Should New Orleans Be Declared A Superfund Site?
Back during the darkest days of the Katrina disaster (a couple days after the levees broke) news media overload went into the red zone. The information storm itself was a category 5, and it was almost impossible to sort fact from fiction, reason from wild speculation. But some stories even then stood out as deserving of a very beady skeptical eye. One was the "10,000 dead" pronouncement--this being made even as evacuees were still leaving the city.
I had a similar suspicion when I read the following around August 31st (all emphases are mine):
Even then, there may be nothing normal about New Orleans, because the floodwater, spiked with tons of contaminants ranging from heavy metals and hydrocarbons to industrial waste, human feces and the decayed remains of humans and animals, will linger nearby in the Gulf of Mexico for a decade.
"This is the worst case," Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency, said of the toxic stew that contaminates New Orleans. "There is not enough money in the Gross National Product of the United States to dispose of the amount of hazardous material in the area."
Or later, this:
"It's a Superfund site," said Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency who's worked on toxic cleanups for 30 years. He estimates it would cost $80 billion to $100 billion to clean up the damage caused by the floods. If the area were declared a Superfund site, the companies and public agencies responsible for the pollution would have to pay for the cleanup.
Kaufman's estimate is his own; the EPA has not completed its assessment of the extent of the pollution or the possible costs.
Hmmm...Hugh Kaufman's name keeps popping up--time for some more digging. Well, well, well:
Toxic chemicals in the New Orleans flood waters will make the city unsafe for full human habitation for a decade, a US government official has told The Independent on Sunday. And, he added, the Bush administration is covering up the danger. [...]
The pollution was far worse than had been admitted, he said, because his agency was failing to take enough samples and was refusing to make public the results of those it had analyzed. "Inept political hacks" running the clean-up will imperil the health of low-income migrant workers by getting them to do the work.
Mr Kaufman claimed the Bush administration was playing down the need for a clean-up: the EPA has not been included in the core White House group tackling the crisis. [...] "All the money for emergency response has gone to buy guns and cowboys - which don't do anything when a hurricane hits. We were less prepared for this than we would have been on 10 September 2001."
Sounds like a familiar refrain from Kaufman. He has also accused the EPA and other government agencies of lying about the air quality at the Ground Zero cleanup after 9/11:
The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) chief investigator has accused the EPA and other government agencies of deliberately not testing the air quality in the World Trade Center area properly and possibly covering up the reasons why.
"I believe EPA did not do that because they knew it would come up not safe and so they are involved in providing knowingly false information to the public about safety," said Hugh Kaufman, chief investigator for the EPA's Ombudsman Office, at a public hearing Saturday with scientists, residents, and small business owners. [...]
Kaufman has said earlier this month that he believes the air quality at Ground Zero is worse than the EPA will admit, and that he believes the agency has been misleading the public about the inherent risks for residents and workers in the area.
"Unsafe for full human habitation for a decade"? Unsafe by who's standards? This gets back to a fundamental gripe I have about the EPA and all regulatory agencies--standards can be meaningless if the science is hijacked by politics. (Just look at the DDT fiasco.)
Meanwhile Captain Ed injects some reason into the chaos by pointing to a Washington Post article that, you guessed it, reveals that things aren't nearly as bad as Hugh Kaufman would have you think. From the Post:
Early tests on the floodwater that covered most of this city do not suggest it will leave a permanent toxic residue or render residential areas uninhabitable for more than a short time, officials of both state and federal environmental agencies said yesterday. [...]
Despite descriptions of the floodwater as a "toxic soup" and a "witch's brew" of contaminants, the preliminary tests reveal it contains little that is different from what has been seen after past floods in other cities and here.
Well, imagine that. Captain Ed asks, "How did the "toxic soup" story start, anyway?"
Someone needs to ask Hugh Kaufman.
Posted at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)September 14, 2005
European Anti-Americanism: Why They Hate Us
Had an unexpectedly busy day, so planned posts went by the boards. But I found this fairly profound piece thanks to the Anchoress, posted at Sigmund, Carl and Alfred. SCA is recalling a dinner in Europe, at which his host broached the topic of European anti-Americanism:
He then went on to ask me why we thought Europeans were so anti American. We gave him an answer that to this day, defines a good part of our view of European anti Americanism. We went on to explain. Europeans, we said, dislike Americans because, in a short period of human history, went on to surpass Europe in being the center of global influence. What was even worse, was that America was built by European 'garbage' as we put it. He started to object, but we immediately interrupted.
We went on to explain that a century ago, Europe was only too happy to rid itself of the 'wretched refuse' and 'teeming masses'. The European elite and intellectuals thought that once rid of the annoying and newly demanding 'unwashed' peasant class, Europe would once again regain it's rightful place as the center of the moral and political world, and thus preserve the imperialist relationships they had established, if not formally, then by necessity. Through benevolent noblesse oblige, Europe would assume control the economic and political fate of the 'lesser' nations. Without masses of lower classes, now demanding equitable political participation, Europe's destiny would be assured. America, that upstart, would be relegated to it's proper position- that of being subservient to Europe, no more than a source of cheap raw materials for what must be the dominant European economic model.
He was intrigued. We went on to explain further.
Europe, we said, never got over the fact that, unleashed, those 'wretched refuse' and 'huddled masses'- their very own- went on to build success not only for themselves, but for their adopted country as well. We said that these unwanted masses of people understood what the elite and intellectuals of Europe never understood for themselves-- that given the opportunity, they were perfectly able to fend for themselves, succeed and even excel. Thus, the European 'refuse' become proud and worthy pillars in the community. Their worth and contributions to the American mosaic was far more than what the Europeans had exploited them for. Europe had made a mistake by sending off it's most abundant natural resource, it's own sons and daughters. All had been willing to work- and then some, had they been given the chance. Europe had squandered it's best and most precious resource- a population ready to do it's best, in exchange for equal opportunity.
Emphases are mine. I'm not an expert on European history, but I do know that the European idea of class is vastly different than ours. Class over here is really based on wealth, a wealth that is truly egalitarian. Indeed, I have read statistics (can't find the link right now) that have shown that a good percentage of people in the lowest economic classes have, ten or so years later, wound up in the middle or upper classes. Class over here is dynamic; in Europe it is traditionally static and hereditary.
(There is a dark side to our heritage of success-by-castoffs: the long strain of anti-intellectualism that can be traced back through our history. European elitism is an easy target, but we should not throw the intellectual baby out with the elitist bathwater.)
But there is something pathological in the Europeans' obsessive emphasis on popularity and consensus-at-all-costs. As I've said before, moral correctness doesn't depend on how many people agree with you. I've really gone past caring whether a bunch of European enablers of head-chopping terrorists agree with me or not.
Posted at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)September 13, 2005
Good News On Syria And Iraq
Captain Ed notes that the Bush administration has sharpened its stance on Syria's continued practice of allowing jihadists to cross into Iraq from Syria. Ed cites a New York Times story that reports that US envoy to Iraq Zalmay Khalizad spoke to reporters in Washington and made it clear that the US believes that not only is Syria providing assistance to jihadists operating in Iraq, but also that the assistance is increasing.
Syrian authorities "allow youngsters misguided by Al Qaeda - from Saudi Arabia, from Yemen, from North Africa - to fly into Damascus International Airport," attend training camps and then cross into Iraq, he contended. ...
"Our patience is running out," said the ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad
It's about time our patience ran out. More importantly, it looks like the Iraqis themselves might be losing patience. Ed:
The only reason for Assad to stop the insurgent flow into Iraq is the credible threat of American action. However, as the Americans build the Iraqi security forces into a credible army, the Syrians may soon find themselves at the mercy of an Iraqi effort to push back against Assad. He can expect that Kurdish elements would enthusiastically take to that mission, and that the ethnic Kurds in Syria would probably welcome them.
If the Americans want to get serious with Assad, they need to pick a clear target along this line of communication feeding the Zarqawi network -- something whose loss will hurt Assad's regime -- and take it out. Make it clear that we will follow the Bush Doctrine.
Emphases mine.
GWB is, of course, serving his last term. When he was reelected I had the fervent hope that he would feel himself free to make these kind of bold moves, but I have a bad feeling that Katrina has dealt a severe blow to the legacy of his second term. I hope GWB doesn't allow himself to be swayed by events such as Katrina or the 2006 elections.
A much-reduced influx of jihadists from Syria into Iraq would do wonders for Iraqi prospects--and a responsible, freely-elected government in Iraq would be the best legacy Bush could wish for.
September 12, 2005
Good News From Japan!
Yesterday the Japanese held national elections, and current Prime Minister Koizumi--a strong advocate of fiscal reform as well as a staunch ally of the US--will keep his job. Koizumi bet the farm when he dissolved the Lower House for the first time ever and called a snap election. His audacious wager paid off when he and his party won the largest parliamentary majority in Japan's history.
Curzon at Coming Anarchy has the intricate and interesting details.
Posted at 07:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)Michael Moore's Intellectual Dishonesty
A friend of mine forwarded to me this letter from Michael Moore. A rant that affixes all the blame for the Katrina disaster upon George W. Bush, the letter is staggering in its juvenile tone and steeped to its marrow in intellectual dishonesty.
Dear Mr. Bush:
Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.
Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?
So Michael Moore is presuming to speak for all National Guard soldiers? According to the Army National Guard website, the Guard's federal mission is (all emphases are mine):
During peacetime each state National Guard answers to the leadership in the 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia. During national emergencies, however, the President reserves the right to mobilize the National Guard, putting them in federal duty status. While federalized, the units answer to the Combatant Commander of the theatre in which they are operating and, ultimately, to the President.
Even when not federalized, the Army National Guard has a federal obligation (or mission.) That mission is to maintain properly trained and equipped units, available for prompt mobilization for war, national emergency, or as otherwise needed.
The Army National Guard is a partner with the Active Army and the Army Reserves in fulfilling the country's military needs.
Has Moore done polling of Guard personnel to find out why they enlisted? I doubt that many joined with the idea of handling civil insurrections or searching through flooded houses.
[...]And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!
Gee Michael...even a sixth grader ought to know that the President cannot introduce or vote on legislation, so GWB has not "specifically reduced" anything. Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu does know the rules of the game, though. A Washington Post story reveals that Louisiana receives more money than any other state for Corps projects:
For example, after a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill ordering the agency to redo its calculations. The Corps also spends tens of millions of dollars a year dredging little-used waterways such as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the Atchafalaya River and the Red River -- now known as the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, in honor of the project's congressional godfather -- for barge traffic that is less than forecast.
In addition, Michael, you might want to note that the floodwall that failed was in a section that was considered "completed"--there was no work underway there nor plans for any future work. More intellectual dishonesty.
And what exactly do you have against democracy in Iraq, anyway? I guess the little boys want Saddam back, so that they can resume their kite flying.
I'm not at all happy with GWB's handling of this situation; his inability to recognize this as a leadership moment will come back to haunt conservatives, I'm sure. And even from a non-partisan viewpoint there needs to be some very pointed, but constructive criticism of Bush's handling of the disaster and the whole structure of FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security.
Moore's juvenile sarcasm is anything but constructive; but as with all of those on the Left, that wasn't his goal in the first place.
September 09, 2005
Ouch!
Ann Althouse has had enough of Jon Stewart. (I never had the problem of having to stop, as I never watched in the first place. I did recently see an internet clip of a visit to the show by Christopher Hitchens--it was disgusting how the the audience was preprogrammed to applaude at Stewart's every pronouncement, no matter how inane.)
But a commenter to the Ann's post had the most astute observation:
Democrats have no problem busing poor black people to the polls but bus the very same people to safety? Away from a killer hurricane? N'uh uh.
I figured I should do my small part to preserve that little gem.
Posted at 04:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)The Moral Authority Of Celebrities
Pam at Blogmeister USA pokes novelist Ann Rice with a very sharp stick in response to Rice's ludicrous claim that the American people "failed" New Orleanians. Rice:
But to my country I want to say this: 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.
Before I could even type out a defense of my own city's effort, Pam was already there:
Really? You mean all of that money pouring out of American pockets was a failure? People in Houston opening their hearts, their wallets and their homes is a failure? People like the husband of my coworker, a prison guard who is volunteering to head down to quell the violence, are failures? Where is your criticism of the media? They are the ones spreading more stories about looting and shooting than helping hands and heroes.
There is no doubt that the federal govenment bears some responsibility for this fiasco. But the emotional cripples who single out George Bush as the sole cause of the disaster (from the genesis of the storm itself--see Robert Kennedy, Jr; to GWB's failure to personally inspect the levees; to Bush's failure to somehow instantly turn FEMA into a replacement for the Louisiana National Guard and the New Orleans Police Department) are simply cowering behind a brick wall of intellectual dishonesty.
September 08, 2005
Props To Charles Johnson
One year ago, perhaps the conservative blogosphere's finest moment:
Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs produced this brilliant animated .gif and forever changed the balance of power in political journalism. If you don't understand why or how, you have a lot of catching up to do.
Check out the complete timeline at LGF for the Rathergate scandal.
September 07, 2005
Houston's Leaders Are Performing Well
I have to admit I've been pretty proud of the way my city has handled the sudden influx of evacuees from New Orleans. Houston is often portrayed by outsiders as crass, development-mad, unappreciative of its cultural history--accusations that are true to some extent. But the flip side of the argument is that developers are can-do people; we are energetic and not easily discouraged.
And I've said many thankful prayers under my breath that Bill White is our mayor, rather than his predecessor, the truly awful Lee Brown. Although both are Democrats, they are polar opposites as leaders: Brown always gave off the scent of a careful career climber, master of the bureaucratic Peter Principle; when elected in 2003, White brought an immediate breath of fresh air and pragmatic, problem-solving energy. He is well-liked and respected by Republicans.
White's office of mayor is powerful--we have a "strong mayor" system in the city; but unlike other large cities we have separate city and county governments. Harris County is run by a Commissioner's Court that is presided over by County Judge Robert Eckels, who exercises executive powers. He is also director of the county's office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
In the Houston Chronicle today, columnist Rick Casey highlights one of the primary ways in which the city and county are working together to deal with this crisis: a daily "Katrina Working Group" session held every day, and attended by both White and Eckels. Casey reports on one recent meeting that was presided over by White:
It's the forum in which a wide variety of people dealing with scores of thousands of evacuees raise issues and agree on actions.
White's people are eager to talk about how much leadership Eckels has provided. The fact is, the two top elected officials have worked very well together, with a rare ability to defuse turf issues.
The 8 a.m. meeting I attended Tuesday was presided over by White. There was one ground rule. I was to report "color and flavor but not detail."
The reason: Candor must be encouraged and grandstanding discouraged. That's hard enough for bureaucrats and politicians without having them worrying about what they'll read about themselves.
Casey goes on to relate how the seemingly easy-going White can abruptly cut off speechifying, and how the meetings include representatives from organizations as diverse as KBR, FEMA, the United Way, and the Houston Food Bank. More to the point, White has gently but firmly orchestrated these meetings to produce results from these organizations, not just promises.
Anyone who has endured a corporate project meeting gone bad can appreciate the skill involved.
The conclusions to be drawn vis-à-vis the New Orleans city and state leadership will remain unstated.
Just A Reminder...
The President cannot introduce legislation.
Introducing and passing bills into law (including spending bills) is the job of the Congress.
Posted at 01:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)Problems With The NOLA Local Government
A clearer picture is emerging of the manner in which the local New Orleans government agencies conducted their business--that business being to protect the people of NO against catastrophic flooding. I've heard references to the mish-mash of interlocking and competing jurisdictions that managed the levee system, and now from CNSNews.com we get some eye-opening research. Jeff Johnson has gone back to newspaper reports and state budgets to construct a damning indictment of the state of local preparedness. Some highlights (emphases mine throughout):
[R]esearch into more than ten years of reporting on hurricane and flood damage mitigation efforts in and around New Orleans indicates that local and state officials did not use federal money that was available for levee improvements or coastal reinforcement and often did not secure local matching funds that would have generated even more federal funding.[...]
In a 1995 story in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Johnson reports, the members of the levee board promised that the "few" remaining gaps in the system would be sealed within four years. But there were big problems within board itself:
But less than a year later, that same levee board was denied the authority to refinance its debts. [...] The newspaper quoted [legislative auditor Dan] Kyle as saying that the board was near bankruptcy and should not be allowed to refinance any bonds, or issue new ones, until it submitted an acceptable plan to achieve solvency.
Blocked from financing the local portion of the flood fighting efforts, the levee board was unable to spend the federal matching funds that had been designated for the project.
By 1998, Louisiana's state government had a $2 billion construction budget, but less than one tenth of one percent of that -- $1.98 million -- was dedicated to levee improvements in the New Orleans area. State appropriators were able to find $22 million that year to renovate a new home for the Louisiana Supreme Court and $35 million for one phase of an expansion to the New Orleans convention center.
The following year, the state legislature did appropriate $49.5 million for levee improvements, but the proposed spending had to be allocated by the State Bond Commission before the projects could receive financing. The commission placed the levee improvements in the "Priority 5" category, among the projects least likely to receive full or immediate funding.
So we have incompetence at the local government level (mismanagement and insolvency on the levee board) and at the state level (under funding and assigning low priority to the projects that were funded). On top of that, the citizens of New Orleans themselves bear some responsibility: in 2001 the Orleans Levee Board was forced to defer projects worth millions of dollars because tax increases to cover the proposed projects were voted down. And get this:
The newspaper reported that in 2000 and 2001, "the Bond Commission has approved or pledged millions of dollars for projects in Jefferson Parish, including construction of the Tournament Players Club golf course near Westwego, the relocation of Hickory Avenue in Jefferson (Parish) and historic district development in Westwego."
I'm not denying that it's hard to plan for the future's unpleasant certainties--I'm quite an expert at procrastination. Lot's of people die without wills and lots of us wait till the last minute to study for exams; it's human nature. But as I've said before, the fact that one's city, one's home, lies below sea level should have given an extra impetus to making sure those levees were as strong as they could be.
Some things are worth paying for.
September 06, 2005
Problems With The Federal Response
Although I believe that Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco bear the lion's share of the blame for the majority of the problems in the Katrina debacle, the federal government certainly deserves some very pointed questioning. The performance of the feds is perhaps even more critical to the whole nation, because of course the same type of response would be required in the event of another terrorist attack.
Today in the Wall Street Journal print edition there is a sobering examination of the failure of the Department of Homeland Security--the (now) parent organization of FEMA. According to the Journal, in spite of the considerable progress made in New Orleans over the past weekend, many troubling questions remains about the following problems:
• The decision to transform the Federal Emergency Management Agency from a cabinet-level agency reporting directly to the president to just one piece of a new, gargantuan Department of Homeland Security, which altered FEMA's mission and watered down its powers.
• Too few helicopters stationed in the Gulf Coast area ahead of the storm.
• A military stretched by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which left commanders near New Orleans reluctant to commit some active-duty units at nearby Fort Polk, La., because they were in the midst of preparing for an Afghan deployment this winter.
• A total breakdown of communications systems, an echo of the problems that faced New York officials dealing with the 2001 terrorist attacks and a system the government has been trying to fix for four years.
• Poor coordination among federal, state and local officials in the days immediately before and after the hurricane.
• Failure at all levels of government to take seriously many studies and reports over many years warning of the potential disaster.
Indeed, despite many warnings of the dangers, Mr. Chertoff and other administration officials have explained their poor initial response by saying government planners didn't expect both a serious hurricane and a breach in levees. "This is really one which I think was breathtaking in its surprise," Mr. Chertoff told reporters on Saturday.
Emphases mine. I thought Chertoff was supposed to be a brilliant guy, but his department didn't expect both a hurricane and a breach. What exactly did he think was ever going to cause a failure of the levee--an earthquake?
And bureaucratic breakdowns seem to be responsible for our failure to connect the dots prior to the 9/11 attacks. Our response was to impose an even larger bureaucratic layer over the existing ones.
Many of last week's problems are rooted in January 2003, when the Bush administration, urged on by some members of Congress, created the Homeland Security Department. It amalgamated 22 agencies, from the Coast Guard to the Secret Service, creating the largest government bureaucracy since the Pentagon [Department of Defense--ed]was formed in 1947.
From the start, emergency experts and even the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, warned that a special effort was needed to be sure FEMA's traditional mission of providing disaster relief wasn't lost in the shuffle.
But it was. FEMA's clout had long depended on its ability to help states plan for natural disasters by providing emergency preparedness grants and other resources. Under Homeland Security, grant-making decisions were transferred to a new, department-wide office in an attempt to consolidate funding. As a result, FEMA lost control of more than $800 million in preparedness grants since 2003, congressional figures show.
I think there's only one situation that can smite the Gordian knot of bureaucracy--a sense of grave national danger. That sense existed briefly after 9/11, but it dissipated pretty rapidly--especially after the quick toppling of the Taliban. With no easy-to-focus-on enemies like Germany or Japan, the absence of subsequent terrorist attacks allowed us all to resume our normal ways. And for the federal government, normalcy means bureaucracy.
I hate to think what it will take to get us on the right track; it might make Katrina look like a summer thunderstorm.
Blanco's Ineptitude
Pam at Blogmeister USA relates that even eBay has been infested with the "Blame Katrina On Bush" virus. One brave soul wades into the Bush-bash-fest and clears a wide swath by citing a story in the Sunday Washingington Post:
The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request...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.
That's right. The President ASKED THE GOVERNOR (as he's legally required to do) to give him the power to have the US military take over the evacuation. AND SHE REFUSED. And she didn't declare a state of emergency (which kicks in all sorts of Federal assistance) until YESTERDAY.
I think it's pretty well established that Louisiana officials, both city and state, gambled and lost bigtime.
Posted at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)September 05, 2005
Here's Your Evacuation DVD...Now Get Lost
Brad DeLong offers damning and unanswerable evidence of the state of New Orleans' hurricane preparedness:
In storm, N.O. wants no one left behind; Number of people without cars makes evacuation difficult By Bruce Nolan, Staff writer, New Orleans Times-Picayne, July 24, 2005:
City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give the poorest of New Orleans' poor a historically blunt message: In the event of a major hurricane, you're on your own. In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm's way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation.
In the video, made by the anti-poverty agency Total Community Action, they urge those people to make arrangements now by finding their own ways to leave the city in the event of an evacuation. "You're responsible for your safety, and you should be responsible for the person next to you," Wilkins said in an interview. "If you have some room to get that person out of town, the Red Cross will have a space for that person outside the area. We can help you. "But we don't have the transportation." [...]
Production likely will continue through August. Officials want to get the DVDs into the hands of pastors and community leaders as hurricane season reaches its height in September, Katz said. [...]
Meanwhile, some churches appear to have moved on their own to create evacuation plans that assist members without cars. Since the Hurricane Ivan evacuation of 2004, Mormon churches have begun matching members who have empty seats in cars with those needing seats, said Scott Conlin, president of the church's local stake.
Emphases mine. So what we have is Nagin and company making DVDs for the citizens of New Orleans that admit the city cannot provide for the poorest among them. And the result is that churches are forced to carpool among their members if they wish to evacuate. Brad DeLong:
They were going to make a DVD. A DVD saying, "you all are on your own." They didn't even care enough to make the DVD before the hurricane season began.
No. New Orleans did not have a functioning government as of the summer of 2005. This is a catastrophic failure of local governance--much worse than FEMA's failures.
Lots of liberals are trying to deflect the blame by arguing that disasters of this magnitude are always handled by the Feds. Wrong, wrong, wrong...as usual they're employing the zero-sum fallacy. The federal government, especially FEMA and Homeland Security, have to answer questions. But the grading of their performance has no effect on the fact that first responsibility, both chro