US dollar falls to 14-year low vs Canadian

I'm thinking I might take a weekend trip south of the border to pick up some silver trinkets and inexpensive electronic goods.

Arnie Finds his Pen

Lattes all around! Arnie's vetoed the gay marriage bill in California.


So, that's lattes for Steve, Robin, Derek, Erica, Patrick.

No surprises here for anyone.

It's unofficial: Arnie can't find his pen

This guy is gonna cost me a couple of lattes. The word is that he can't find his official Governor's Pen™, and that is what is delaying him from signing that bill.

I've also heard that after the mid-term elections, the national speed limit is going to be reduced to 55MPH (again). Any takers on the con?

30 Days: the Countdown Begins

According to the California Assembly website, AB 849 (which would permit gay couples equal status in marriage) was enrolld on Thursday, Sept 22 and put on the governor's desk at 3pm. This is about 2 weeks since the bill was actually voted on, but the principle author enacted a delaying tactic, for the purpose of giving additional time to lobby Arnie to sign it. In the mean time, Arnie's declared he will veto it. He now has 30 days to do so.

TimesSelect: Good for You, Good for the Country

Now that the NY Times is charging $50/yr to read all their OpEd columnists, there are a couple of obvious reasons I love it.

1) We all suddenly have an extra free hour in the morning. I've taken up more studious grooming habits, which benefits my social relationships. Long term dental care is expected to improve nationwide.
2) Mental health providers have reported a 20% decline in repoted situational depression since TimesSelect started. No longer are there masses of rational, intelligent people reading Krugman and realizing just how screwed we all really are.
3) Couples in the 24-38 year age-bracket are reporting more satisfying lovemaking, as their minds no longer wander during sex toward the possibility that it is they who David Brooks is refering to as "BoBos".
4) Without Nicholas Kristof single-handedly calling attention otherwise ignorable mass human crimes, like the genocide in Darfur or the horrendous treatment of women in Pakistan, we can look forward to cocktail parties discussing real estate prices and our parent's health. Oh, and the weather. Let's not forget the weather.
5) Frank Rich's well-reasoned and comprehensive arguments on all subjects have made us a nation of lazy thinkers. Now, we will be forced to sit down and spend 3-4 days each week writing our own biting critiques of the latest social and political ills, which will dramatically improve our expository skills.


Yes, friends, we can all look forward to the day when the question might once again be asked in earnest, "Who the hell is Maureen Dowd?"

NYTSelect = Failure

Mickey Kaus blogged about this this morning. Mainly, he points out that if TimesSelect were a big hit we would know already, as the NYT would be publicizing the heck out of it.

The thing that really impresses me though, is this page: Most Emailed Articles. Note how there are only two NYTS-protected Op-Ed columns in the list - at places 6 and 20. The Op-Ed columns used to take up most slots in the top 5, which merit special mention on the NYT home page. This is all the more incredible when you consider that NYTS readers know that most or all of their friends do not have access to NYTS - which should encourage them to email more, not less.

In other words, it is looking as if eight of the NYT's most-prized properties have suddenly dropped off the face of the Earth.

Two more things that I am noticing.

• The little orange NYTS logos all over the NYT home page are annoying to me, a non-subscriber. When I visit a website, I want to feel like I have full unfettered access, to click on any link - in a sense this is the primary sensation that the Web is all about. NYTS frustrates this aspect of the experience, and makes browsing the NYT less enjoyable all around. Contrast that feeling to the feeling you get when browsing Yahoo News, or Google News, instead.
• I don't really miss the columnists. Now forced not to read them - or dig through John Tabin's list for the privilege - I realize they spend most of their time parroting the party line on one side or the other, and there are many places to get that. As a whole the blogosphere has far more wit and cleverness than any individual anyway, so my time is better spent foraging.

I predict that the NYT, in the pattern of incompetent Administrations throughout history, will declare victory and beat a tactical retreat, within six months. In particular, they will free the Op-Ed columnists for us to read, email, and blog about once more. NYTSelect will be reserved for Archive users.

Suggestions to an HDTV convert

B. HDTV kicks ass over DVDs. Here are the issues in a nutshell: (1) DVDs provide output at regular television resolution;

Not true. DVDs can either output in 4:3 format, Widescreen "letterbox" (2.35:1) which preserves original theatrical presentation, or the "full" Widescreen (no black bars on top and bottom) format of 1.85:1, they can also output at higher than television resolution.

(2) You can only ever recover some of this back with "progressive scan" or "HD upconversion" DVD players;

DVDs can be encoded several different ways. High/Low compression, High/Low bitrate, High/Low resolution etc. etc. depending on whether or not the studio wants the DVD to fit in a single layer, double layer, or have the movie span several discs (I.E. Das Boot. I've got the 6 hour version). HD upconversion and progressive scan DVD players help out with DVDs that are encoded poorly (I.E. Blade Runner. This title was a royal bummer for me until I got a Denon player with HD upconversion). Other DVDs which are encoded from a pure digital format such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy or Toy Story do not benefit from HD upconversion. Also, DVDs which are encoded correctly will not need the added benefit of an HD upconversion.

(3) DVDs are digitized at a TV rate of 60 frames/sec, while cinema is filmed at 24 frames/sec; expanding the latter to fit the former results in additional degradation of your signal;

The NTSC standard television displays 59.94 fields/sec, and a single frame is made up of 2 fields (one field for even lines, one field for odd lines) yielding a frame rate of 29.97 frames/sec. It is also a little known fact that NTSC stands for "Not The Same Color"
DVDs which are encoded correctly (see above) will have a frame rate of 29.97 frames/sec, and will not suffer any loss in quality.

(4) The aspect of DVDs is all wrong; you have to fiddle around with the TV to get a "letterbox" DVD to display properly on your screen, and that's lame. Either that or you have a "pan and scan" which can never use all of your widescreen real estate, which is doubly-lame

It isn't the DVD's fault that the TV doesn't automatically switch to the proper format. If you are connecting using an S-Video cable or a composite (RCA) cable, there is no data which is transmitted to the TV which tells it to switch to the correct format. If you have a composite, DVI, or HDMI connection between your TV and DVD player, the TV will automatically switch to the correct format. Also, if you have a DVD which was encoded in "pan and scan", you purchased the wrong one. Many DVDs come in 2 formats. Sometimes the widescreen and 4:3 "pan and scan" are included on the same disc (like many of the James Bond titles) but some titles sell them completely separate. Watch out for this during your purchase, and always purchase the "Widescreen format" titles.

HDTV on the other hand can be compressed at the source, and decompressed at your box using a lossy format. At worst, these 2 formats are equal.

Some HDTV Clarity

So I have a confession to make: I recently purchased a 46-inch HDTV. Even more recently, I had it connected to a digital cable box + DVR (TiVO clone).

This appliance has brought some new-found clarity to my life. Here is what I have found:

A. HDTV kicks ass over TV. Tech columnists have been saying this for a while, but flipping from regular television to HDTV from the comfort of your own couch really puts this statement in a new light.

B. HDTV kicks ass over DVDs. Here are the issues in a nutshell: (1) DVDs provide output at regular television resolution; (2) You can only ever recover some of this back with "progressive scan" or "HD upconversion" DVD players; (3) DVDs are digitized at a TV rate of 60 frames/sec, while cinema is filmed at 24 frames/sec; expanding the latter to fit the former results in additional degradation of your signal; (4) The aspect of DVDs is all wrong; you have to fiddle around with the TV to get a "letterbox" DVD to display properly on your screen, and that's lame. Either that or you have a "pan and scan" which can never use all of your widescreen real estate, which is doubly-lame.

C. HDTV Movies are as good in your own living room as they are in any theater. This holds when you route the sound over your (decent) stereo system. I can say this because my cable provider includes the channel HDNet Movies which broadcasts only movies in HD. Meditate for a moment, if you will, on how brilliant that is. Last night Erica and I were enraptured by Winged Migration on this channel - freaking awesome, or as Erica said, better than the first time. And since I have the cable company DVR, I can record any of these that I want (Winged Migration is on there now). The quality comparison to DVDs is no contest, and I don't have to do any fiddling to use all of the real estate on the screen.

These primary revelations have in turn yielded two secondary revelations.

D. No wonder box office is down. People talk about the movies this summer being crap, but Hollywood always puts out mostly crap. I say more and more people are realizing that the local movie theater is a lower-quality or, at best, on-par experience to what they can get at home. And they would rather watch something stale at home, in comfort, in HD or via DVD, than go to the theater for something "fresh".

E. No wonder DVD sales have taken a hit. There's no way I'm buying another "letterbox", regular-TV, "premium edition" DVD of ANYTHING. I'm telling you - you might as well start reconstructing your 80's era collection of cassingles. I'll watch the movies I get on HDNet Movies. I'll rent from Netflix or my local video store. But I'm not in the market to buy, not any more - not until the DVDs also provide HD performance.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch Martha Stewart kick some nubile unimprisoned ass on The Apprentice (in HD, recorded earlier tonight).

Arnie on His Deeply Held Beliefs regarding Gay Marriage

Two things happen today: Arnie meets with gay leaders in his office, after he requested they come. Also, the gay marriage bill finally hits his desk, after being held up by a delaying tactic from the legislature, to give them opportunity to lobby Arnie.

Yesterday, the San Jose Mercury News interviewed Arnie on this and other topics. Here's the [original article] and a partial transcript. Of particular interest is the fact that
he can't remember if he's ever attended a gay wedding or committment ceremony. I suppose that's because he just doesn't pay attention to such things as gender -- he's a gender blind guy.


"Q: Let me change gears here for a moment, if you don't mind. I'm curious if you, Governor Schwarzenegger or private citizen Arnold Schwarzenegger, if you've have ever attended a gay marriage or a gay commitment ceremony -- a gay or lesbian marriage or commitment ceremony?

A: I can't remember.

Q: You've talked a lot about, you know, being deferential to the courts and to the people, but I'm curious what your personal views are on gay marriage. Are you personally troubled by it, as a father, as a Catholic? Does it bother you, or are you deferring to the wishes of the people, do you think?

A: You know, to me, I have never really felt that strong one way or another because to me, I don't, you know, I'm not personally hung up on the whole thing....But I try not to, as much as possible, not to get my own personal opinion in there. Because, I think that if you represent the people of California and the people of California voted on that issue, and overwhelmingly voted on that issue, and Proposition 22 won, I don't want to be the one that says, `Look, I decide right now your vote doesn't mean anything. And the money that you spent on that campaign was a waste of money and it's gone.' And I think it just shows you also, at the same time, how much out of touch the Legislature is with the people.

Q: But it (Proposition 22) was five years ago, right?

A: It doesn't matter. The only way can redo it -- Look, Proposition 13 was in 1978, does it mean that now we should go, the legislators should go, and re-do Proposition 13? What would you say if --

Q: Well polls show that opinions have changed on gay marriage --

A: You're absolutely correct. I believe that too. But then they have to go back to the people, like I do. The reason why I have to go with our budget reform back to the people is because it involves Prop 98. I cannot say, `That was in 1988 and people misunderstood it and now they think totally different.' No, I have to go back to the people to get my budget approved because it does have an effect on education. You know, it will stabilize education funding so it doesn't go up and down the way it is right now, but it will effect it. And so therefore, I think that it you want to change that, I have no objection to people going out and trying to change it, but they have to go back to the people. That's just the way it works. Thats the way the law is....

I have the utmost respect for gay people, for gay couples....In this particular case, I'm the governor and I've got to protect the people of California and I've got to protect the people of California's right that if they vote there should be no other power that should change it other than the courts....

Q: So then would you take some sort of pledge vowing not to use the gay marriage veto in --

A: No, I'm out of the pledge business....

Q: But you said you're not hung up on the issue, would you agree not to use the gay marriage issue for political advantage?

A: I will never use it. Did you see me saying one word at the Republican convention?

Q: No, but you know things could always change down the line...

A: No, no, no, no. There is no change. I don't want to set up one group of people against another group of people. No....That's not my style....

"

TimesSelect: Not aimed at the readers, but aimed at the writers

you can see that, they did this simultaneously with a site-redesign. The result of this redesign is that all the OpEd columnists appear on the far right, below the scrolll -- you have to move down the page, rather than having them appear at the top.

Anyone doing site design *knows* that's horrible real estate. People look center, left, right, scroll down and repeat. The new position for columnists insures that they get far less attention that the now top of the page center Editorials -- which nobody is interested.

So what's going on? It seems to me that the NYTimes figured out that their columnists had become celebrities -- no holes barred -- in the blogosphere, only because they are columnists at the NYTimes, and the NYTimes was getting no ownership of that action.

What to do? You demote them all, move them aside to a lower place of feature and you make it harder for readers to read them, because you can't renegotiate their contracts once they exist. And now you've got a new ceiling, something to bargain with. If your columnists become famous and want more cash, you can offer them better placement. Or, make their columns free of charge. Which will increase their celebrity, and presumably their book marketability and lectureship fees.

In other words -- TimesSelect wasn't invented to get money from readers; TimesSelect was invented to claw back money from their writers.

NYTSelect & Syndication

Turns out, as long as we are willing to wait a day or two, we need suffer no anxiety over not having primo access to our favorite NYT columnists via TimesSelect. All of our gnashing of teeth was for naught!

John Tabin has pointed out that every NYT columnist is also published at other papers via the wonders of national syndication. And some of these papers have free-access websites. So as long as we are willing to hoof it around the web somewhat, we need suffer no deprivation. He's even going to make it easy for us, collecting links on this page right here.

Ahh, the joys of free OpEd access. Plus, just look at all the suffering we are missing!

Tip via Kausfiles.

WaPost Features NYTimes Taunts

Guest Blogger Andrew Sullivan is featured on the OpEd page at the WaPost, where today he says: "I would have linked to John Tierney's excellent NYT op-ed today on how Wal-Mart is better able to deal with natural disasters than FEMA. But only Times Select readers can read the link. So I won't. Nyah nyah."

A Site to Bookmark

The Unofficial Paul Krugman Archive (or go directly to today's column).

Don't know if NYTS is savvy to them yet, but at least we can all get our fix for today.

TimesSelect, Day 1

There they go: Today's Krugman, Herbert are now behind the locked gates. Will the digirati crack? Or will they walk right past the gates to stroll in the open bloggish gardens surrounding them on all sides?

Uh oh. Calif. Gay Marriage Bill was Stalled to Lobby Arnie

Seems that the explanation for why Arnie hasn't signed the bill yet is that its author used a tactic to stall the bill for 12 days from getting to Arnold's desk, so that he could be lobbied longer.

Bob, getting the phonecalls again

Zellweger has split after a five month stint with her husband.

Her reason for splitting? Bob's sexiness, and, I quote: "I was a fool for leaving him."

George Bush Needs a Bathroom Break

At least, according to this note he wrote to Condi during a Security Council Meeting today.

And There It Goes

Starting next Monday, the NYTimes OpEds will be access restricted. The yearly fee is $50 (which includes other services as well).

So the question is -- how long until I can't stand not reading Paul Krugman again?

Wha? This Doesn't Make Any Sense

Less than 2 weeks after President Bush praized Mike Brown, head of FEMA, with "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job", regarding his response to the Katrina disaster -- Brown first was relieved of all duties regarding Katrina, and now he's resigned.

So what are we to conclude from this? That Bush is a big ol' liar? That he can't tell the difference between a horrible job over which one should (and did) resign, and a "heck of a job?"

Is it really a good idea to have a President who makes statements which everyone knows is a complete lie, including himself?

The Post is a Stooge

Dear Washington Post Ombudsman,

In Howard Kurtz's column today, we see Post National Editor Michael Abramowitz scrambling to apologize for printing, unchallenged, a claim by an anonymous Administration official that a state of emergency was not declared in Louisiana until after September 3. Since Gov. Blanco declared just such a state on Friday, August 26 - more than a week before the Post story - this was a shockingly false claim to appear in the Posts' pages.

The story's co-writer, Spencer Hsu, attempts to explain away this deception by saying:

We don't blow sources, period, especially if we don't have reason to believe the source in this case actually lied deliberately.

Two questions about this quote:

1. Is it true that Mr. Hsu would protect his dissembling source, even if he did believe that his source had "lied deliberately" to make a stooge of the Post? Is this official Washington Post policy?
2. If Mr. Hsu does not believe that his source "lied deliberately", then exactly how does he think the source came to state this falsehood? Since the claim itself is so egregiously wrong, there was obviously a very deliberate lie planted by someone somewhere along the line - either by the source itself or by a trusted informant of the source. In other words, someone upstream from the Washington Post lied deliberately either about: (a) The date when a state of emergency was declared in Louisiana; or (b) The source's state of knowledge regarding when, exactly, a state of emergency had been declared in Louisiana. Does Mr. Hsu mean to claim that the second case is more forgivable than the first? Is this, also, official Washington Post policy?

Thank you very much for your time.

Derek Fox

Robin in the Room

I'd like to point out that Bob is now the Robin in the room on 13D.

Press Release on Schwarzenegger's Veto

[Here]
Press Secretary Margita Thompson says: the matter is before the courts, deciding on voter's ballot initiative -- exactly where it should be. Out of respsect for California's voters, he will veto the bill.

Any Other 2-for-1er's?

Steve feels confident enough that Arnold will veto the Gay Marriage bill, that he unilaterally altered the terms of his bet (see comment under Derek's Post, "Why Bob Should Buy Some Lattes in Bulk") to 2:1 -- he buys me two if I win, while I buy him one if he wins, pointing out that in nearly all previous bets I've lost to him in the past 2 years (and it's been nearly all the bets) taking the cynical side has been a big win for him.

So, how about it, Derek, Robin, Patrick, Erica? Anybody else feeling confident enough to join Steve in the 2-for-1 odds level? I'll mention again that I conceded in the comment below that I had not known that the California Legislature went out of session Sept 9th (pointed out by Derek), after which they would have had to call an emergency session to revive the bill, but could have brought it back up to try to override his veto if he had vetoed it before then, a seemingly very strong argument to explain Arnie's several days delay (now, 5 days, and 2 days past Sept 9th)
in vetoing the Bill after announcing his intention to do so.

Like I said, any other 2-for-1 takers?

Rumsfeld Channeling Washington?

From McCullough's 1776 (p 256):

Once, during the Siege of Boston, when almost nothing was going right and General Schuyler had written from Albany to bemoan his troubles, Washington had replied that he understood but that "we must bear up against them, and make the best of mankind as they are, since we cannot have them as we wish."

In other words: you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might like to have.

Why Bob Should Buy Some Lattes in Bulk

Allow me to address Bob's argument point-by-point:

• Arnold didn't threaten to veto ahead of time because he was hoping the bill wouldn't pass (it was close). If the bill doesn't pass, Arnold doesn't have to end his straddle on gay marriage and alienate a consituency (which he does, either way);
• Once the bill passes, Arnold is forced to choose. If he doesn't veto the bill then it becomes law so that's as good as signing. This is a tough decision, though, so it takes him 24 hours;
• Making and announcing the decision early indicates that he takes the issue seriously, and avoids engendering the bitterness of dashed hopes;
• After announcing his decision, though, he will want to hold off on the actual veto until the legislature goes out of session. This forces the Democrats to call a special session should they be so crazed as to want to attempt an override;
• In the end, the veto is the only politic course of action. If the legislature wants it badly enough they can always override, but the people have spoken, via the ballot proposition, in a pretty strong way;
• Arnold's not gay.

Why Arnold Will Not Veto The Marriage Bill

Now that Steve, Robin, Patrick and Derek have taken the con side of my bet (Pro: That Gov. Arnold does not veto the California Gay Marriage Bill), maybe I should explain my logic a little.

The California legislature passed the Religous Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act on Tuesday Evening (Sept 6th). From that time, Arnie has 30 days in which to sign the bill into law or veto it, after which it passes into law without his signature. After 24 hours, (Sept 7th) Arnie announced that he intends to veto the bill.

For those of you who watch political theatre, this is a complete mis-ordering. As Governor, you don't announce your intention to veto a bill *after* it has passed the legislature, you do so before it has passed, to force the legislature to modify it into a 2/3s veto-proof form, which is nearly impossible to do, and likely would make it acceptable to the Governornor anyhow.

It's now Sept 10th -- a good three plus days after the bill was passed. What's he waiting for? Can't find a pen? Busy with leg curls?

Arnie took 24 hours, not to decide to veto the bill, but to decide *to announce* that he would veto the bill. With 30 days in front of him, this is a political opening, not closing, of the debate: if he wants to sign the bill, he wants to get a bounce from the proponents, and so he needs a conversion story. Announcing that he will veto the bill begins that conversion.

And why would Arnold want to sign the bill? Well, apart from issues of basic fairness, let's say that, somewhere, there's a parallel universe, identical to this one, except that in that Universe, Mr. Universe had sex with other body builders. In that parallel universe, Mr. Universe would be governor, fully knowledgeable of the fact that the gay community has a habit of leaving closeted politicians alone if they generally support gay rights, and outing those who work against them. In that Universe, if Mr. Universe vetoed a gay marriage bill, I think you would see a few gay bodybuilders outing the Governor, which would devestate his support among his base.

Thus, I ask myself: what's the probability that that universe is this universe? Given the Governors aggressive personality, his known penchant for sexual aggression (so far only seen with women), and the obvious joy he takes in domination and humiliation of other men (documented on the body bulding circuit -- for example, by mocking a body builder he used to compete with about his having had sex with his wife), I give it a good 30-50%.

And, if I'm right about that, Arnold will simply announce: "I have always believed that this is a matter to be decided in the courts. Leaving this sort of legal confusion around can only lead to civil strife, which the California economy cannot afford. Therefore, in order to put this matter in front of the courts as quickly as possible and bring the debate to a decisive end, and not cause any more damage to the California economy, I have decided to pass this bill. Vote Arnold for Senator, 2008".

Note, however -- even if I am wrong about why Arnold wants to pass the bill, his waiting 4 days and not simply signing his veto casts suspicions on his intentions. And, motiviations aside, still gives me a read of him that he intends to attempt a conversion story.

bob Sez: no veto

It's beingwidely reported Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared he will veto the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, which would give state recognition to same-sex marriage in California.

I'm offering a cappa bet, to anyone who accepts via a comment below, prior to a change in the present situation, that Arnold will, in fact, not veto the bill.

Takers?

Onion Strikes Katrina

God Outdoes Terrorists Yet Again. And be sure to follow the link to the second page to see "Bush Urges Victims To Gnaw On Bootstraps For Sustenance"

A Stunning Statistic

For Bush, a Deepening Divide: "A Washington Post-ABC News poll taken last Friday illustrates the point vividly. Just 17 percent of Democrats said they approved of the way Bush was handling the Katrina crisis while 74 percent of Republicans said they approved. About two in three Republicans rated the federal government's response as good or excellent, while two in three Democrats rated it not so good or poor."

Bush: "Trent Lott's new house is gonna be AWESOME!"

New Orleans is a totall mess, but I can't wait to kick back at Trent's new crib, sez Bush:

"We've got a lot of rebuilding to do. First, we're going to save lives and stabilize the situation. And then we're going to help these communities rebuild. The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.)"

Comment Spam

So, we're getting comment spam. I turned on a requirement of typing in a distended word. If that doesn't stop it, I'll also limit comments to registered users (since so far the comments are anonymous.

In a nutshell

Since we haven't had a post on Hurricane Katrina, I thought I'd sum it up:

The disaster is being called a casualty of the war in Iraq, and also "George's Blue Dress". The body of water which was once New Orleans is now being called "Lake George". Martial Law has been declared in the area, yet there aren't enough troops to enforce the law. Snipers are firing from rooftops keeping people indoors for hours while they go unchallenged. Why?:

1) Bush said yesterday that no one could have foreseen that the levees would break. This is in direct contradiction to a FEMA report in 2001 naming the New Orleans levee system as one of the top three potential disaster areas. The money for reinforcement was diverted to the war in Iraq.

2) Bush, Cheney AND Condi were all on vacation AFTER the storm occured. Bush waited three days until he decided to 'cancel' his vacation. He flew over New Orleans at 35,000 ft to see the devistation, and is just this morning receiving a 'briefing' of what is going on. Why does he need a briefing, and why did THAT take so long. People reading news are most likely more well informed than the the Commander in Chief. One of Bush's stops before the disaster was a cake eating photo op with John McCain. The cake said "Let them eat cake". For godsake, all you had to do was listen to NPR to know that by Tuesday, that cake would be in bad taste, REGARDLESS of who it is for
Condi - She was out catching a show of "Spamalot", seen purchasing a $1000 pair of shoes (when another shopper approached her and scolded her for being so callous about the disaster, Condi had security physically remove her from the building). She also spent some time catching a tennis match, and also hitting a few to Monica Seles. Condi finally cut her vacation short on Thursday morning, four days after the disaster began. Quite possibly the most disgusting reaction to a national disaster since Bush finished reading "My Pet Goat" while the World Trade Center fell.
Cheney - So where the hell is Cheney? The Washington Post reports that he is on vacation at his home outside Jackson, Wyoming. "He'll be back any day now".


3) FEMA, an organization which has been gutted by the Bush administration is advocatingdonations to Pat Robertson's "Operation Blessing". Bush praises the FEMA director this morning: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job.". 'Brownie' (Michael Brown) also told Katie Couric this morning "people are getting the help they need.". This was also after making a comment that they are "...to help those who are stranded, who chose not to evacuate, who chose not to leave the city..." Apparently, Brownie isn't aware that there is a fairly large number of people in America who do not own cars, could not afford them, nor can they afford to just pick up and leave. These people live hand-to-mouth and demonstrably could not evacuate the area IF THEIR LIVES DEPENDED ON IT.

4) Trent Lott's house was destroyed (well, one of them anyway), and Fats Domino is missing.

5) The US is stalling on help because "The United States Government is not yet requesting international assistance at this time."

6) Thousands of Louisiana's poorest are being bussed out to the Astrodome in Texas. These people, who couldn't afford to leave, will most likely not be able to afford to come back. That, coupled with the fact that many businesses have been destroyed, reinforces the possibility that a significantly large part of the LA population will never return. Dennis Hastart, in an interview with the Chicago Daily Herald editorial board said that "It doesn't make sense to rebuild".

7) Reps are already backtracking on the "Consumer Protection Act of 2005" (which made it harder for people to declare bankruptcy.) Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Rep. Mel Watt, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee announced today that when Congress returns next Tuesday, they will introduce legislation to protect the thousands of families and small businesses financially devastated by Hurricane Katrina from being penalized by anti-debtor provisions contained in the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, scheduled to take effect on October 17, 2005. Reps. Conyers, Nadler, and Jackson Lee released the following joint statement:

"We are concerned that just as survivors of Hurricane Katrina are beginning to rebuild their lives, the new bankruptcy law will result in a further and unintended financial whammy. Unfortunately, the new law is likely to have the consequence of preventing devestated families from being able to obtain relief from massive and unexpected new financial obligations they are incurring and by forcing them to repay their debt with income they no longer have, but which is counted by the law.

Ooops. I guess they didn't see that coming. My final thought on this whole disaster is that it couldn't have happened to a redder group of States. You go in to a disaster with the government you voted for, not the government that would actually help you out.

Not to sound too flippant about the whole thing, but this disaster has shown us that the war on terror/war on Iraq has made us extremely vulnerable in many areas. The Bush Team had always repeated the mantra "Americans want to feel safe", so they gutted everything they could to take us into a war where the money was funneled into defense spending, no-bid contracts, etc. Meanwhile at home we are left vulnerable to rising energy costs, inability to protect ourselves from natural disaster, and a distinct sense that we are worse off today than we were 5 years ago. They are running out of fuel in the south, they have no food, shelter or medical supplies, and the death toll will most likely outstrip the World Trade Center and the casualties in Iraq combined. This disaster is going to take us into a new recession, and Bush's unbridled spending will make sure that it lasts generations.

Robin is Visiting

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Originally uploaded by rerutled.

Coffee in the morning.

David Brooks as Travis Bickle

David Brooks, NYTimes: "Floods wash away the surface of society, the settled way things have been done. They expose the underlying power structures, the injustices, the patterns of corruption and the unacknowledged inequalities. When you look back over the meteorological turbulence in this nation's history, it's striking how often political turbulence followed."

Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver : All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.

George Will on Judicial Activism: It's a Good Thing

George Will comes out in favor of 'judicial activism' and says good conservatives should favor it, too. Why? Because it favors the Constitution in its constructionist mean over modern majoritarian impulses (popular in the Republican party because, hey, they're the majority); and the constructionist interpretation offers deference to the majority of the founding -- an unusually deliberative moment which deserves such deference.

What's useful about the OpEd is it draws a clean line between constuctionism (one conservative meme) and anti-activism, and effectively chides Republicans for giving in to the majoritarian spoils system. Activist away!