If Anyone Happens to Read the New Vonnegut Collection Before I Do...
You owe us a book report!
9.17.2005
9.16.2005
Venezuela
Awful thing about this is that I don't think there's any way in hell that I, as a US citizen in a supposed country of free speech and great standards, could read anything to learn about Hugo Chavez that isn't horribly skewed. No matter how much I read about him, I don't feel I have the start of a handle on whether Chavez is really a good or bad guy.
I also think it's very likely that he's right, that we were or are planning to hit Venezuela. It's an important oil source for us and Bush will move heaven and earth (or two larger but less heavenly bodies, Rove and Rumsfeld) to get rid of Chavez. And if we are planning to invade Venezuela, we should be doing something to stop it.
I know, easier said than done.
Fat Boy Jeb's Boy - the Great Almost White Hope of the Bush Dynasty - Arrested
And it's fairly hard to get arrested in Bush America if you're a Bush, too.
Oops, sorry, this is little George's little brother (on Jeb's side).
"Subterranean Halliburton Blues"
Karlo at Swerve Left connects us up or you can surf straight into Zen Comix.
Talking Points Come True
We'd heard over the last few days that the GOP had decided their talking points would be "we'll throw every dollar we can find and then some at the Gulf Coast and make people believe we're going to make it all spiffy and peachy-keen-arino. Last night, that's exactly what Bush promised.
Oh, he's GREAT at throwing huge piles of money at Halliburton, Bechtel, et al. But we never see the results of this except that Halliburton and Bechtel's values keep rising at the same time Bush keeps handing them big tax breaks. Before Katrina, we were told, "we've prevented untold number of attacks - just trust us on this."
Based on Katrina, do you think you've been saved anything?
From Blah3:
Gergen, Jay Carney and Mark Whittaker are all pointing out that he just floated what is probably more than $200 billion in ideas, with no indication of how they'll be paid for. And Gergen pointed out that between the gulf Project, Iraq, and Bush's tax cut, this country is going to go completely broke unless something is sacrificed.
My take is this - Bush is real good at promising lots and lots of money to everyone, and then counting on the fact that people will remember the promise and assume the money was paid. No Child Left Behind, anyone? That's how Bush works.
Update: People over at Dem underground are reporting that Tucker Carlson just announced that Bush will lose the conservative base with that speech - and said Bush was a bigger spender than Clinton, and that whatever gains he makes among moderates will be evened out by defecting conservatives. He may have just made a bad situation worse.
"Is that the Rapture scheduled on your calendar for next Saturday or are you just trying to get out of toxic cleanup weekend?"
Posted by Hunter at DailyKos:
The person who is being placed in charge of the Gulf Coast rebuilding effort, in the wake of stunning government bungling of a national disaster due to political patrons who had no expertise in their ostensible "duties" for which they were collecting paychecks: yes, Karl Rove. And apparently, nobody in the media has a problem with this, because we're essentially all used to the notion that the manner in which, for example, primarily-black neighborhoods in New Orleans get rebuilt, or not, is a task best left to the President's loyal election strategist...
True Conservatives are tonight up in arms over the cost of rebuilding New Orleans, and demand budget cuts to pay for it. Budget cuts deemed necessary to pay for the Iraq War? None. Zip. Nada. Well, a few minor levees that nobody really cares about or will ever notice...
Insane Foaming Monkey Conservatives are working themselves into a more foamy state than usual, and apparently have some sort of blastfax campaign going on over the design of the Flight 93 Memorial which -- shudder -- is crescent-shaped. I hereby predict the next wingnut attack will be upon... the accursed, goddamn, communist moon. Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the moon, the news reports will gush, as the rockets are readied in order to square that damn puppy for once and for all...
Pre-Inquisition Conservatives are proudly hawking the notion that dinosaurs and blue-eyed white guys were holding bake sales together 5,000 years ago. Because it's not enough to merely believe God created the universe -- he also specifically planted an entire false history of the universe to screw with you, you sodomy-loving, DNA-believing-in, post-Newtonian bastards. You just wait, we're only a few months away from digging up an authentic handcrafted dinosaur saddle that will prove that at least one prehistoric Big 5 Sporting Goods Store survived the Biblical flood. Presuming you're among the Pre-Inquisition Conservatives who acknowledge the existence of dinosaurs at all, mind you -- and if you are, the rest of the non-believing-in-dinosaurs movement hereby condemns you for falling for another of God's devious nature-based soul mousetraps: yep, you're going to Hell.
But hey, on our own side of the ideological divide, I just followed a circuitous trail of links and trackbacks taking me to one single very astute opinion that... ugh. You know, never mind. Insert your own war here, I don't care which one. Suffice it to say that if conservatives had a lock on every half-baked unnecessarily conspiratorial premise on the planet, I'd die a happy man. But they don't, and I won't. The salad fork goes on the left side, dammit, or it proves you may not carry the holy mantle of Blogtopia, which is big and shiny and knows all and is all powerful and likes me better than you and could easily beat Chewbacca in a fight as long as nobody had blasters!
That's it. I'm done. You might as well kill me now, because it's the Apocalypse. All life on this planet is no doubt mere days away from coming to an end, because really -- mankind couldn't possibly get any stupider. Not possible.
In my life, I've seen 70's-era fashions that seemed to be based on the fabric equivalent of haggis. I had to listen to Ronald Freaking Reagan being praised as The Great Cultural Father. I've watched Britney Spears become famous. I've seen a Leading Religious Figure hawk videos during his Happy CouchPotato Prayertime Hour detailing how President Clinton was incontrovertibly a Central American drug lord. I've watched Orwell become praised by the right. I've watched Ozymandias become a Republican military strategy guide. I've seen the pilot episode of Manimal.
And this is worse. This, finally, is the long-awaited Apocalypse. Clearly, Terri Schiavo was the glue holding the last threads of the universe together, just as Tom DeLay had foretold in his Holy But Questionably Legal Checkbook Prophesies.
Condi Rice is Not an Asshole; At Least Once a Day, an Anus Proves Useful
From Think Progress:
On the “deadliest day of violence in Baghdad since the U.S. invasion more than two years ago,” Bill O’Reilly sat down with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to examine the real issues in Iraq: It’s all about the lattes.
Watch Rice: Streaming QTO’Reilly: The truth of the matter is our correspondents at Fox News can’t go out for a cup of coffee in Baghdad.
Rice: Bill, that’s tough. It’s tough. But what — would they have wanted to have gone out for a cup of coffee when Saddam Hussein was in power?
Bush's Sleight of Hand Last Night
Only a few places have outlined how much fakery was involved in Bush's speech last night, save for Keith Olbermann and a few.
Atrios points to another:
More reporting like this, please. Brian Williams:I am duty-bound to report the talk of the New Orleans warehouse district last night: there was rejoicing (well, there would have been without the curfew, but the few people I saw on the streets were excited) when the power came back on for blocks on end. Kevin Tibbles was positively jubilant on the live update edition of Nightly News that we fed to the West Coast. The mini-mart, long ago cleaned out by looters, was nonetheless bathed in light, including the empty, roped-off gas pumps. The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions.
Note from a "Tax and Spend" Liberal
The VP just had TWO - count them, TWO - months off at our expense.
But he waits until he just bothers to return to work to go out for aneurysm surgery (ALSO at our expense)?
Go read Cookie Jill at Skippy for the rest.
hey...don't mention it.what we didn't hear last night
no mention of exemptions from the bankruptcy bill.
no mention of easing up on tax cuts for the wealthiest or cutting the estate tax.
no mention of bringing troops home to help with rebuilding and future disasters.
no mention of any independent commission despite the ongoing hurricane season.
no mention of a preventing future hurricane disasters by targeting global warming or saving wetlands.
no mention of dropping no-bid contracts.
no mention of the administration's connections to the those who won no-bid contracts to clean up the devastated gulf states
no mention of paying reconstruction workers a prevailing wage.
no mention of putting a reconstruction expert (rather than his political expert) in charge.
no mention of removing political cronies from positions where they have no relevant experience.
no mention of restoring the levee funding cut by administration.
no mention of or explanation for why he, his vice president, etc. were awol for so many days.
no mention of punishment for anybody in his administration.
no mention of scaling back the pork-laden transportation bill.
no mention of how to pay for the reconstruction.
no mention of exactly which government land will be used for "homesteading" (the government owns a number of superfund cleanup sites in new orleans)
(On a side note: MAN IS THAT FLOP SWEAT BAD!)
Presidential Disaster Relief Cronyism
Captain Skippy points us to this at Sysiphus Shrugged:
Newsrack points out that not only are the press being blocked from watching the gathering of the dead from Katrina, the job has been outsourced by FEMA (although after they awarded the job Governor Bianco ended up having to pay for it, because FEMA doesn't do the contract thing so good) to Kenyon International Emergency Services, a subsidiary of SCI.
This SCIAUSTIN – A former state funeral home regulator who said she was wrongfully fired for investigating a large funeral home chain operated by a longtime family friend ofGeorge W. Bush has settled her 2-year-old whistleblower lawsuit for $210,000.
The state will pay Eliza May and her lawyers $155,000 and Houston-based Service Corp. International will pay $55,000, said sources familiar with the agreement.
Ms. May contended in her lawsuit that she was fired in 1999 as executive director of the Texas Funeral Service Commission after SCI Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert Waltrip met with Joe Allbaugh, a top aide to Mr. Bush while he was governor, to complain about the agency's investigation of the company's homes.
After the investigation, fines totaling about $450,000 were assessed against more than 20 of SCI's affiliated funeral homes for using unlicensed embalmers. SCI has appealed, and a state hearings officer is expected to rule soon on the case.
Neither SCI, Mr. Bush nor any of the other defendants admit wrongdoing under the terms of the settlement. Attorney General John Cornyn, who was also named as a defendant as a result of a legal opinion he wrote that was favorable to SCI, represented the state in the case.
FEMA Gives New Meaning to "Rush"
Keith Olbermann reports that today, just 18+ days since Katrina struck land, FEMA opened its first emergency support office in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Were they waiting for the president to be able to spell it first?
Countdown on MSNBC was also talking about we're paying for all these ice and water trucks to sit or be sent from one state to the next again and again because FEMA isn't sure where it should go. [backspacing over my rude suggestion]
Zero Tolerance on NOLA Looting Unless Looter is Named Halliburton or Bechtel
From the International Herald Tribune:
President George W. Bush told the television network ABC on Thursday, "there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this, whether it be looting or price-gouging at the gasoline pump or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud."
Zero tolerance is meaningless when the White House lets the biggest looters of Hurricane Katrina walk off with billions of dollars.
We are not referring to the people crashing through storefronts and wading through chest-high water with clothes, food and pharmaceuticals. Some folks are disgusting in their thuggishness, but many others are simply desperate, having gone for days without food or water. The latter are living out one of the most famous hypothetical problems in moral reasoning: Should a husband steal a cancer drug he cannot afford for his dying wife?
Our President is Just Sooooo Funny
From the wire services:
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - John Bolton's reputation as a difficult diplomat gave his boss, U.S.
President George W. Bush, an opportunity to tease the new American ambassador to the
United Nations.
"How's he doing? Has the place blown up?" Bush asked U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan as the president and Bolton arrived at U.N. headquarters on Tuesday for a world summit.
The president's jest was captured on videotape by a U.N. television crew.
Anyone Else Notice?
Our Belooped Leader buttoned his shirt wrong before speaking on national TV.
Link here.
Bush's Cure for Everything: More Tax Cuts for the Ultra-Wealthy
From TBogg:
From Krugman:
If a giant asteroid were hurtling its way towards Earth, the Heritage Foundation would propose weaving a giant safety net out of poor peoples bodies to stop it. That and another tax cut.
It's a given that the Bush administration, which tried to turn Iraq into a laboratory for conservative economic policies, will try the same thing on the Gulf Coast. The Heritage Foundation, which has surely been helping Karl Rove develop the administration's recovery plan, has already published a manifesto on post-Katrina policy. It calls for waivers on environmental rules, the elimination of capital gains taxes and the private ownership of public school buildings in the disaster areas. And if any of the people killed by Katrina, most of them poor, had a net worth of more than $1.5 million, Heritage wants to exempt their heirs from the estate tax...
9.15.2005
What Mr. Bush Won't Say/Raise Tonight
Cookie Jill from Skippy brings us one hell of a list... start here, read the rest there:
- report offers 'grave' view of impact on environment. as the water recedes, it leaves behind a sludge so laden with petroleum that federal officials are having trouble analyzing it. houston chronicle
katrina leaves a toxic nightmare. hurricane katrina is rapidly becoming the worst environmental calamity in u.s. history, with oil spills rivaling the exxon valdez, hundreds of toxic sites still uncontrolled, and waterborne poisons soaking 160,000 homes. dallas morning news
katrina lays bare superfund woes. the receding floodwaters in new orleans and other parts of the gulf coast are exposing hazardous chemicals and other dangerous waste. but they're also revealing the accomplishments - and the limits - of government programs designed to clean up such pollution. christian science monitor
deq: rail cars pose hazards. hundreds and possibly thousands of railcars in the area hit by hurricane katrina could be an environmental hazard. baton rouge advocate
new orleans: raze or rebuild? the water in the lower ninth ward is thickening into a glassy, fetid slick as the gasoline, oil, solvents and sewage from thousands of submerged vehicles and homes leaches out. the nation
floodwater deals blow to lake pontchartrain. the effort to bail out new orleans is sending plumes of contaminated water into lake pontchartrain, setting back years of effort to restore the lake. chicago tribune
seafood, sugar, coffee getting harder to come by. the louisiana department of wildlife and fisheries estimates a $1.3 billion loss in fisheries revenue at the retail level and a $296 million loss in oyster revenue in the next two years. the losses result from storm-induced pollution and damage to oyster beds. houston chronicle
heavy contamination of new orleans sediment hinders testing. the sediments in parts of new orleans and the surrounding parishes are so contaminated with petroleum products that the epa hasn't been able to sort out what other potentially hazardous chemicals are spread across the region. knight ridder newspapers
katrina's cost to agriculture: $3 billion and still rising. cotton fields are flattened. hundreds of chicken houses are destroyed. timber and pecan trees are splayed across the ground. more than $2 billion in agricultural damage is reported in mississippi and $1 billion in louisiana. philadelphia inquirer
environmental impact on texas unknown. scientists are becoming increasingly concerned about the effect of pollution from hurricane-ravaged new orleans on the gulf of mexico. fort worth star-telegram reg. req.
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