The Reporter-Telegram has published a several articles yesterday and today on the serious issue of teen pregnancy. Kudos to them and the writer. Some well written stuff on a subject that can be identified with by a lot of the paper's audience. The pertinent, linkable, articles are here, here, here and here.

I have to note that there is almost no mention of adoption as an option for teen moms.

There is much discussion of all the support that there is out there for teens to raise a baby: tax-payer supported child/baby care at school, counseling, parents/grandparents that are supportive, etc. Included are inspiring stories (truly!) of teen moms that have been successful parents long term. But that is not the usual outcome for unintended pregnancies. About half of unintended pregnancies end in abortion, a tragic choice. Of the other approximate half, the mom or a relative chooses to raise the baby, a choice for life, and one to be commended. But that choice tends to limit the future options of both the mother and the child, as was pointed out in the articles. Fewer than 5% of teen moms choose adoption.

There are still huge numbers of loving couples who are eager to adopt and provide a great future for the child. Adoption is downplayed in society today and I can say that I was not surprised for it to be left out of the MR-T articles, but I was very disappointed. Teen moms hear nearly nothing about adoption in school and the schools are set up to support (enable?) the teen raising the baby (no further tax digs here*). Adoption deserves equal time or at least a little more attention in the presentation of teen pregnancies in Midland.

Stewart? Are you still out there? A gentle suggestion: call some of the adoption agencies' offices in town and do a follow up. They are full-to-the-brim with great success stories for both the birth parent(s) and the adoptive parents, not to mention for the children. They just wish they had more "business." The teens dealing with an unplanned pregnancy deserve to have all the alternatives presented to them, and the local paper has quite the soapbox (someone in the girl's circle of family and friends will point out the article to them). Adoption is an amazingly loving choice that puts the life and future of the baby first, where it belongs.

*

I shouldn't be surprised by this story, but somehow, I am:

"Faced with a so-called obesity epidemic -- eight percent of children and 23 percent of adults were obese in 2004 according to Statistics Canada -- provincial governments are pursuing policies to separate people from their junk food.

In July, the province's health promotion minister vowed to target obesity as aggressively as tobacco through a number of yet-to-be revealed initiatives."

I know, I know. It's just those nutty Canadians, so why mention it, right? Well, considering America's hostility toward its own tobacco industry, this kind of thing might not be far off stateside. You never know.

FEMA To Reimburse Charities.

Of all the bad ideas I have heard about the government's role in the Katrina recovery effort, this is by far the worst.

Country Under Threat of Jail Time

England facing sentence after Abu Ghraib conviction

Other breaking news:

Odessa American Hires Ex-MRT Headline Writer

"We are in a global warming emergency state, and these storms are going to become more frequent, more intense," Streisand urgently declares.

Drudge has the latest round of keening from Ben Stein's grocery shopping buddy, Babs Streisand. Sheesh!

(Yo, Babs, it works like this: the sun has a multi-decade cycle of slightly varying intensity, the earth gets in the way and absorbs a tiny percentage of the sun's output which provides the basis for all life as we know it (mild over-emphasis), the oceans warm slightly and cool slightly with the cycle of the sun, which tends to begat stronger and more frequent tropical storms when warmer and fewer, weaker ones when cooler. The coincidence of Rita and Katrina is a coincidence, a statistically possible event. And Drudge succinctly lists the previous coincidences of storms in the U.S. Nice job, Matt!)

And, Ben, if she ever takes you up on the offer, give me a call. I'll be happy to help load the U-Haul with her stuff.

An absolutely unthinkable Time Magazine cover. Or is it? Let your mouse hover over the image to see that the unthinkable is actually thought each and every second of every news cycle by the sort of people who consider themselves less fellow Americans engaged in a war against our country than some sort of "citizen of the world". Sometimes I have to wonder if the unthinkable is actually cheered on by these people.

The possibilities are endless at this point, I guess. So I say let us beat the citizens of the world to the punch. For those of you who have Photoshop, click here to get an effort-saving Time Magazine cover "blank" and create your own previously unthinkable Time covers. It has the frame and the logo. All you have to do is drop in your own photos and text.

"Old Media: Is It Too Late To Admit Bias?" comes to mind....

Each year they come here, from Cambridge and Ithaca and New Haven, young and eager social critics seeking nothing more than an honest day's wage for an honest day's condescension, and perhaps a decent squab pate in white wine reduction.

An excerpt from: In New York, Scrappy Newspaper Struggles to Survive, a short, moving story about the struggles of a small, earnest, but aging firm in a dying industry.

It is a timeless story; a story of dreams; dreams that could come true if the dreamer had but a little courage:

"I want to get out of this boring town, go somewhere exciting," he says. "I want to see new things -Mormons, tractor supply companies, parking spaces. I want to see people wearing John Deere caps without grunge irony. I want to grab life, suck the marrow from its bones, and then wash it down with a Pabst Blue Ribbon."

I missed this news item yesterday:

MoveOn.org Says Ready For Rita

Galveston, Texas - As Texas Gulf Coast braced for the worst, activist group MoveOn.org today began moving massive convoys of celebrities, civil rights rights spokesmen, reporters, conspiracy theorists and litigators into the region for the expected weekend landfall of Hurricane Rita.

MoveOn spokesman Peter Maloney said that the organization made painful mistakes during the Hurricane Katrina disaster which they would strive to avoid with Rita.

"Frankly, we were caught flat-footed by the Katrina," said Maloney. "We lost almost six hours before were able to coordinate our blame workers with our complaint teams, let alone set up basic communication links with the European media."

"This time, though, we are locked and loaded," he added, pointing to a detailed pre-Hurricane response plan that includes over 10 satellite uplink trucks, redundant teleprompters, and over 200 pounds of nails to flatten the tires of evacuating residents.

From Iowahawk via Little Green Footballs. Great stuff.

A Not So Bold Prediction: The organization and deployment of the relief effort post-Rita will go well....prompting the re-discovery on the part of the major networks of how state and local officials come into play during such times rather than any credit being given to President Bush the Federal role.

From this Fox News article:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday that Rita would "quite likely be a devastating storm." But, he added, "there is no need to panic. We've been preparing for this type of an event for a number of years." Perry said officials were working to help those who could not evacuate by themselves and strongly encouraged people to "being proceeding to more safe areas."

Or:

"We are praying that the hurricane dissipates or that it weakens," said Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who declared a state of emergency. "This state can barely stand what happened to it."

Classical conservative mindset or classical liberal mindset? You decide.

Animated Gif: Fake, but accurate!

"When a man is close to tears discussing his work and his lip quivers, he deserves bosses who punch back. I feel I would punch back for Dan," Nevins said.

Snip.

"I gave it everything I had, I didn't hold anything back. I did the best newscast we were capable of doing," Rather said.

Sheesh. via Drudge. If the above is true, we have given Gunga Dan more credit than he deserved.

Further to the musings of our erudite Mr. Walsingham, I wonder if the ED slush fund might not be needed anymore, anyway.

As I understand it, the economic development funds and the taxes on us that are funding the funds, were to be used for Economic Development. That is, creating jobs in Midland. We were to attract employers to the town. They were to be attracted by our well-educated populace, our wonderful schools, our fine climate, our plethora of entertainment opportunities and, oh yeah, some cash. Some of the cash up front, more later if the jobs materialized. We (that includes you Mr. or Ms. Sales Taxpayer) have supplied funds to several call centers (high performing,well educated staff turned away at the first interview required) with one more big one on the way, an expansion of a pre-existing sweet shop and gave money to a trailer business that was going to expand into Midland anyway. Why not take the money if it is there for the taking, huh?

It now appears that the Economic Development fund (and the staff that has been feeding from the tax trough) was never needed in the first place has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams!

The Midland metropolitan statistical area (MSA) continued to post the lowest unemployment rate among the state's MSAs in August, tied with Amarillo at 3.9 percent unemployment, unchanged from July, the Texas Workforce Commission reported Friday. The rate is down from 4.5 percent reported in August 2004.

I am certain that the ED folks are going to figure out how to take credit for this little bit of news, and this too, but as several of the posters here have noted over the years, none of the jobs created in this town are due to the existance of the ED funds. If the jobs were economically viable, they would have happened anyway.

And now, in the twisted world of Unintended Consequences Due to Government Meddling, we have siphoned off the group of folks most likely to work entry level, good paying jobs in the oil field and put them in a cube with a headphone and an answer sheet. No wonder we can't get anyone to work in the patch anymore. They've got a comfy chair, A/C all the time, regular hours, a lower-but-fixed-and-no-pesky-overtime-to-eat-into-my-beer-drinking-time income, free coffee and no need to think. "Not happy with our service? Can I interest you into upgrading your account with more minutes and a new phone?" "Click." "Hello? Not happy with our service?..."

Galveston has already taken steps towards an orderly evacuation.

This is because:

A) FEMA has already taken over for state and local authorities in Texas like Federal agencies are supposed to, or

B) The City of Galveston has an actual emergency plan and is actually putting it into effect like states and municipalities are supposed to.

I choose "A" because the story mentions the use of municipal buses to help evacuees from the area and if we have learned anything from the MSM during Katrina it is that FEMA controls all of the local municipal buses.

Walser asks a good question. Why is private funding is the obvious answer for a performing arts center? A public use building that would, like the current Midland Center, have a pseudo-public entity dedicated to keeping it filled and active thereby contributing to the greater good.....yet....

Yet public financing was the obvious way to finance the baseball stadium, a facility that also houses events (yada, yada, yada) and contributes to the greater good, but is occupied and operated primarily by a private concern (Midland Rockhounds) which derives and keeps its private sector income from the use of the facility paying only a nominal rent.

Isn't this backwards?

I am guessing that there is no real philosophy on what should be privately financed and what should be publicly financed that comes in to play here. More likely they just don't think that a performing arts center will pay off....even under the loose standards under which such projects are said to "pay off" and this is a way to NOT say building a performing arts center is so crazy that we wouldn't even do it with your money.

I wonder if MRT Staff Writer Colin Guy has gotten "the phone call" yet. Maybe he did today when his latest article on the imminent and certain beyond all doubt expansion..and do you think we're stupid? Phase I of the preliminary feasibility study on the expansion of Midland Center appeared in the Sunday paper....or maybe it will be tomorrow. But the phone call is coming. You don't lead with this paragraph and not get "the phone call":

"A feasibility study performed to analyze the market conditions in Midland for a new, or expanded, convention center and performing arts center revealed that more than half of the event coordinators surveyed would not be likely to consider Midland as a destination for their events. However, members of the City Council are still optimistic about the prospect of a new convention center attracting more business, and are interested in pursuing the second phase of the study."

Keep in mind that Phase I has already stated that "Five percent of respondents said they would "definitely" hold an event at an improved convention center in Midland, and 11 percent said they would "likely" hold an event in Midland." So Mr. Guy is reporting correctly that the response was underwhelming to say the least. That alone could get him "the phone call". But then he guarantees it with a well placed "However....Still" pairing in the next sentence that betrays his total lack of credulousness....a condition which altogether disqualifies him from working the Chamber beat.

"The second phase also will highlight the economic impact a new facility might have and what funding options are available. The council has the option to either terminate the study, request a study for either just the convention center, just the performing arts center or both."

Memo to anyone who is wondering if there will be a Phase II of the study: Try to remember to breathe. You will die if you don't breathe.

The Performing Arts Center part of the plan seems to be faring poorly, though, with several of those quoted in the article saying that they think it ought to be privately funded. While I agree with them on this, I wish that they had been asked why it is that they think that. I can understand that building both with public funds might just be too expensive, but why public funds for one and private funds for the other?

I guess the lesson to be learned is that you just can't let yourself be discouraged. In the face of the disinterest of the majority of respondents in the Phase I report on holding their events in Midland even presuming we have already improved and expanded the convention center at least one councilman was "pleasantly suprised" by the findings of the study. Pleasantly surprised by the fact that only 16% of the respondents would definitely or likely hold an event in the updated center and that a outright majority was not interested. I shudder to think what his greatest fear was. I'll tell you one of mine. That included in the 16% are events that already come here.

The last two paragraphs are interesting:

"Perry said he trusts the reliability of the first phase of the study, and that if the consultants did not believe it was feasible for a new or upgraded convention center to bring more business into the city, they would not have made the recommendation.

'This company has made a recommendation to a lot of cities not to continue (with the second phase),' Perry said. "That's why we picked them, we wanted a consultant that has told cities you don't need to build.'"

I'll say one thing....these guys are reading all the right blogs.

So...where are we? Oh yeah, we are about to begin Phase II of the feasibility study when the only real decisions left unmade at this point are the location, naming rights, and paint color of the new or expanded center.

The funding is still a question, I guess. Bond Issue? Could be tricky. Is the public in the mood for even more debt? Can the E.D. Sales Tax Slush Fund be used for such a thing?

Better yet....could there be an initiative to re-direct the E.D. Sales Tax Proceeds (roughly $4 million of your dollars per year) to a new/improved convention center? I realize that the "new paradigm" dictates that these public funds need to go into the private sector coffers of the Chamber connected in order to advance the greater good but I am just old fashioned in my belief that these public funds are much better suited for public facillities used for public purposes.

I could go for a new convention center on those terms.

From Yahoo News:

"Breaking [for about the one jillionth time, thank you very much --Ed.] with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq 'virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed, with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass destruction.'"

Wow. You would think that there was no such thing as Lexis or Nexis. Or even tiny little blogs who have a nasty habit of remembering what Mr. Clinton and members of his administration and his party were saying about WMD's when Saddam was their problem.

And for the nuance-impaired:

"Virtually Alone" = Without France....which, oddly, is operationally identical to invading with France.

From Kaus:

"She's so ... S.C.: What words would you use in the last sentence in this excerpt from today's Washington Post site?

Slightly more than half of American teenagers, ages 15 to 19, have engaged in oral sex, with females and males reporting similar levels of experience, according to the most comprehensive national survey of sexual behaviors ever released by the federal government. ... The survey, according to those who work with young people, offers one more sign that young women are more [_______________] than they used to be.

WaPo's answer: "sexually confident." ... That's one way to put it! Other suggestions accepted.

She is not easy! She is sexually confident!

Cindy Sheehan has to be the most tragic story of the year. She has lost both her brave son and her mind in recent months. From her article at Daily Kos:

"One thing that truly troubled me about my visit to Louisiana was the level of the military presence there. I imagined before that if the military had to be used in a CONUS (Continental US) operations that they would be there to help the citizens: Clothe them, feed them, shelter them, and protect them. But what I saw was a city that is occupied. I saw soldiers walking around in patrols of 7 with their weapons slung on their backs. I wanted to ask one of them what it would take for one of them to shoot me. Sand bags were removed from private property to make machine gun nests."

These, and other quotes and opinions, seem to get out despite the best efforts of her handlers or at least those who hope to exploit her sad situation to advance their 'cause'.

And it is those people, who use this obviously deranged and completely damaged woman to advance their own political agenda that are beyond contemp. These operatives and political and PR hacks are no different and no better than the jihadists who use the mentally handicapped as suicide bombers to advance their 'cause'.

What's up with the Piney-Fresh Scent Lady at the CAIR presser?

This is what's up. (via LGF)

Bonus Lesson: Don't do anything that will start a Photoshop contest on the internet. Ever.

Will Midland come to be known as the Call Center Center of Texas? Or perhaps the Performing Arts Center Center of Texas?

Today the Katrina death toll stands at 711. It will go higher, but it will come nowhere near the feared "10,000".

As in any massive relief effort that spans three states and affects hundreds of thousands, mistakes will be (and were) made at all levels. (My personal ordering is Local, State, Federal)....but....

But however we order the culpability I think we should at least all ratchet down the intensity to match what the actual death toll will be and not what we thought it was going to be.

Think about the storm. Think about the area affected. Think about the population densities.

Yet the death toll is only now at 711. Pretty amazing, really.

I mean, what was everyone's idea of what a "hoped for, best case scenario death toll" would be in the event a Cat 5 Hurricane scored a direct hit on New Orleans and the levees were either topped or breached? Not sure? Well, take a look at the damage from the "Hurricane Pam" simulation.

That isn't a typo: It says between 25,000 and 100,000 people might die.

Two weeks after Katrina we have arrived at 711. Maybe...just maybe....there isn't quite as much blame to assign as we originally thought.

UPDATE: Need an additional frame of reference? Try this one.

The much anticipated feasibility study on the expansion of the Midland center has arrived and, as expected, it has re-confirmed the First Iron Law of Feasibility Studies: Firms that report back that these great civic projects are not feasible do not get hired in the first place. A corollary of this first law is that a civic project's true worth is inversely related to the amount of money spent on studies to justify it.

To be fair, just because there was never a chance that any firm hired to do a feasibility study was going to come back and say what they were asked to study wasn't actually feasible doesn't mean that the project is not feasible either.

Let us go to the tape:

"The interviews conducted by CSL revealed that 54 percent of the people contacted responded negatively, and 46 percent responded positively, regarding an interest in choosing Midland as a location for an event. However, the results considered 'positive' by the survey include 30 percent of recipients who responded that they would 'possibly' consider Midland as a destination. Five percent of respondents said they would "definitely" hold an event at an improved convention center in Midland, and 11 percent said they would "likely" hold an event in Midland. Twenty-five percent of respondents said they were 'not likely' to hold an event in Midland and 29 percent said they would 'definitely not.'"

Yeegods! Only sixteen percent of repsondents would "definitely" or "likely" choose Midland as a destination? And this is assuming that the center has been improved/upgraded. These numbers don't strike me as good at all. But perhaps they don't need to be good....just feasible. Let us hope that not included in that sixteen percent is FEMA looking for additional....er....space.

"[Consultant Bill] Krueger said the findings revealed that there were some qualities that Midland has to offer that make it attractive to some of the rotating events. He said the Hilton Midland Plaza was considered an asset because of the quality of service, the convenient location near the existing convention center and the room capacity. The feasibility study indicated that a nearby hotel with at least 250 rooms was needed to support visitors to an expanded convention center. The Hilton Midland Plaza currently has 258 rooms."

One can immediately spot the folly in locating a convention center where there are no hotel rooms to be had. But who among our competitors have handicapped themselves in such a way? I would guess zero. They are jumping through at least a couple of hoops to try to portray an obvious requirement (which we do meet...and with eight rooms to spare!) as some sort of an advantage that we don't really have.

"Midland's geographical location was cited as a positive feature by some of the people his group contacted, as well, Krueger said. He said Midland's central location in the West Texas region made it a good place to stop for traveling groups, such as ballets, orchestras or theater productions, if there was an adequate performing arts center to house them."

OK. So now it is an expanded convention center and a performing arts center. A performing arts center whose main advantage (as reported, anyway) is being a possible stop for road shows traveling between bigger venues. It is more than ironic that this feature called geographical location that is listed as an asset for the performing arts center is precisely the feature that makes Midland less attractive as a convention location.

All in all I was surprised. I had expected the report to come back much more gung-ho than it did. Look at this key 'graph:

"There is a moderate level of interest in choosing Midland as a destination for these events, but in order to attract potential customers the civic center would need to have at least 30,000 square feet of exhibit space. Midland Center currently has 12,500 square feet of space in its exhibit hall. A marketable convention center in Midland would need 10,000 square feet of meeting space, according to the study, compared to the Midland Center's roughly 5,000 square feet of meeting space."

Did you get that? We would have to double the size of the facility in order the reach the rarified air of "moderate interest".

Yet the headline trumpets: "Study confirms need for larger convention center". The first phase of the study does anything but that.

It may be possible that this is the type of report that you receive when your project is not really feasible.

Because for $45,000 you have to provide something more than "Oh, yeah. As if!"

So now there is only one thing we can do: Spend another $42,000 on Phase Two!

"I heard from a very reliable source who saw a 25 foot deep crater under the levee breach. It may have been blown up to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry."
-- Louis Farrakhan

WOW.

Read the whole thing here.

Yo, Nat. Login was way sluggish (more than usual) and halfway through a "preview" of my post on the just arrived feasibility study concerning the expansion of the Midland Center MovableType just kind of forgets me and my Draft.

I am in a WordPress sort of mood right now.....for what it is worth.

I read some time ago (sorry no link) that Garrison Keillor was the man in America most in need of an enema.

Yup.

Although, why should we have a memorial to Flight 93 at all?

I mean, it was only just a bunch of people on a plane that just happened to crash.

You will notice that I have disabled (for now anyway) the ability for anyone to speak truth to power! use the Comments or to post Trackback pings. The admin side of Movabletype just absolutely crawls and I am eliminating some variables to try and discover why that is. I notice that Trackback/Comment spammers are constantly pinging the system and while the new "anti" features handle the task of keeping them unpublished pretty darn well I fear that it does so at the expense of system performance.

So I am trying this for a while to see if it improves.

Does anyone else's MT (3.2 in my case) admin pages just take forever? And why am I even asking when I have shut off my comments? E-Mail me at admin -at- jessicaswell.com.

Update: So far.....blindingly fast as compared to before. I will soon be adding on some of the feedback features to see what that does to the performance.

"If Mr Murdoch sincerely believes in a "crescent of embrace", let him build one - at the headquarters of a "moderate" Islamic lobby group, or in the parking lot of your wackier colleges. To impose it on Flight 93 - to, in effect, hijack those passengers a second time - is an abomination. Flight 93 is about what happens when you understand that some things can't be embraced. Perhaps Mr Beamer and his comrades did indeed "look them in the eye" and saw there was nothing to negotiate, nothing to "embrace". So they acted - and, faced with a novel and unprecedented form of terror, they stopped it cold in little more than an hour. Todd Beamer asked that telephone operator to join him in reciting the 23rd Psalm: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..."He knew there would be no happy ending that day, but in their resourcefulness and sacrifice he and his fellow passengers gave their country the next best thing: a hopeful ending. That's what the Flight 93 Memorial should be honouring.

Instead, in its feeble cultural cringe, the Crescent of Embrace hands the terrorists of Flight 93 the victory they were denied on September 11th. And it profoundly dishonours Todd Beamer, Thomas Burnett, Jeremy Glick, Mark Bingham and other forgotten heroes of that flight."

Read the rest by Mark Steyn.

FEMA Chief Michael Brown has resigned.

This only looks like a sort of "accountability" but isn't really.

True accountability will be realized only when The President drowns himself in the Potomac just after having Karl Rove shot, un-nominating John Roberts and replacing him with Patricia Ireland. Or something like that. At that point, the MSM will remark on how Mr. Bush seemed to "have grown" in office there toward the end.

Meanwhile, almost ready to hit the shelves are the new milk cartons asking "Have you seen this Mayor/Governor?"

Vegas might be a good place to begin looking.

In other interesting news, Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, sister of Louisiana Lt. Governor Mitchell Joseph Landrieu, and daughter of long-time Lousiana political boss and former New Orleans Mayor Maurice Edwin "Moon" Landrieu is re-thinking the whole idea of overly strong and too-well-connected political families.....as long as their last name is Bush.

Get the dirty details here!

In a world run by evil corporations, a rebel who plays by his own rules starts a deadly game of cat and mouse with an all-powerful conspiracy in this searing portrait of extraordinary courage in a life under siege, starring...me!

(Also from Tribes)

When I was a kid my parents really looked forward to the day that that week's issue of Time arrived in the mail. Newsweek was also big on the list. Kids nowadays have heard of both of these news periodicals (well, maybe) but only know them by their current "thin" and not as widely distributed look-alikes.

Lost readership and lost ad space. What happened?

Competition and in the face of competition crap like this.

And so it also goes with network television news and the major dailies.

Permit me the metaphor if you will, but the internet is the 17th Street Canal and in this case they aren't going to get it plugged.

Widely reported throughout the blogosphere but not among...er....other news outlets:

It is settled wisdom among journalists that the federal response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina was unconscionably slow. [snip]

But the conventional wisdom is the opposite of the truth.

Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:

"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."

For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 2002. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.

Journalists who are long on opinions and short on knowledge have no idea what is involved in moving hundreds of tons of relief supplies into an area the size of England in which power lines are down, telecommunications are out, no gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airports are covered with debris, and apparently have little interest in finding out.

So they libel as a "national disgrace" the most monumental and successful disaster relief operation in world history.

Read the rest of Jack Kelly's column here.

Not a blog, but Citizen Journalism nonetheless.

Five Days With Katrina - by Alvaro

Hat Tip to Little Green Footballs.

I was thinking about posting something this morning on the origins of 9/11: the blind hatred for America and Americans that still exists in certain parts of the world. I was going to do something (hopefully) profound about how far we have come in four years, how blessed we are by our military, the local and state police forces and, yes, our current administration where, for all their faults (and they are many), their efforts have spared us from a repeat performance of 9/11 for nearly 1500 days. In the days immediately after 9/11, I knew, just knew that we'd be attacked again and soon. Maybe within 3 months, maybe 6 months if we were lucky. It has been four years, people. We should be very thankful. And ever vigilant. Never forget! Attacks can still happen, as Spain and Beslan and London will attest to.

Anyway, while I am pondering this post, I go and check the previous week's posts on the site. I am knocked for a loop by a commenter on a post I made a few days ago. I have avoided visiting the moveon.orgs of the blogosphere for a long time. No time on my part and no patience either. The vocal, vile, tiny minority of the Democrat Party that make up the posters and commenters in that world do not live on the same planet that the rest of us do.

And Friday was another anniversary that we all need to remember: RatherGate! Ah, the good old days: Big Dan, Mary Mapes, the Clyde Whataburger and those pesky superscripts. Read the whole thing for a quick trip down memory lane. For more, the pertinent Jessica's Well archives (here and here and, oh yeah, here, too*) are standing by for your reading pleasure.

Thanks for the memories, Powerline!

*google: clyde whataburger dan rather

Just surfed over to mywesttexas.com on our regular errand to find a local and linkable article to emphasize, comment on and/or ridicule. And what to our wandering eyes should appear...but a compliment. Actually several.

Jessica's Well returns and the world is a better place for it. ...snip... Jessica's Well has a wealth of readers and should never be mistaken for anything other than what it is: a serious means of disseminating information it deems important. Sorta like a newspaper.

We are struggling a bit with whether being compared to a newspaper should be taken as a compliment or not, but it was obviously intended as such. Thank you, Jimmy Patterson. You probably deserve a promotion from junior associate to associate. Let us know if we can put in a plug for you!

First, I have to lay off PBS because of their truly great support of hurricane coverage by letting WWL use their studios in Baton Rouge, and now I'll feel bad if I pick on the MR-T too much over the next couple of days. Jimmy, is "The Angelus" fair game? (BTW, you've been doing a good job in that gig, too.)

Black voters could respond to the devastation of Katrina by asking themselves: Is this what we get for supporting Democrats for 40 years? That in itself may not be sufficient reason to vote Republican, but surely it's enough to worry Howard Dean.

James Taranto on racial politics in the post-Katrina world. Read the whole thing. It is excellent.

A blast from the past. So to speak. Who would have thought that within a week of Jessica's Well's restart, there would be news about one of our favorite subjects?

A must read from Bill Whittle.

This whole article at Breitbart.com that concerns the upcoming "star-studded" Katrina benefit/telethon is couched in the question "Will the stars be allowed to speak out?"

I reject the question outright.

In its place I wish to substitute the question: Will the stars consider it more important that you receive their opinion rather than relief efforts receiving your money?

Now answer.

Greg Gutfeld, the only contributor to the Huffington Post who sees the Huffington Post for what it really is, is really funny when he is mad.

Headline: Mayor: More coordinated hurricane help needed

Says current hurricane helpers too uncoordinated; almost spastic.

(OK. He didn't really say that.)

From Little Green Footballs:

The vultures of MoveOn.org are planning a television ad that uses images of New Orleans hurricane victims to attack John Roberts.

The televised images of poverty-stricken evacuees from Hurricane Katrina are part of a provocative, last-minute effort by a liberal interest group to divert federal Judge John Roberts’ path to confirmation as chief justice.

MoveOn.org Political Action plans to unveil a TV ad on Monday that questions whether Roberts is sensitive enough to civil rights concerns to lead the Supreme Court. The ad suggests that the plight of the mostly African-American evacuees in New Orleans showed that poverty remains a serious problem among minorities, said Ben Brandzel, the group’s advocacy director. In a mix of judicial and racial politics, the ad then suggests that minorities could suffer if the Senate confirms Roberts.

“The connection is obvious,” Brandzel said. “The images after Hurricane Katrina show we still live in a society where significant racial inequities exist. We believe John Roberts’ record on civil rights ... is clearly not the direction our country needs to head now.”

Please take time to send MoveOn.org a donation so that they can secure an everlasting supply of feet and bullets.

From Tuesday's MR-T, an article on gasoline theft:

According to city of Midland Public Information Officer Tina Jauz, the number of gasoline thefts, or "drive-offs," reported was 1,428 between June 1 and Aug. 31, 2004. That number for the same period of time this year fell to 1,369, Jauz said.

That would still be 12 thefts per day. In Midland. When the getaway vehicle can be easily identified. If 12 convenience stores were held up for $50 to $100 per day in cash or other merchandise, I am sure we would be hearing more about it and the perps would be pursued. What is different about this theft?

But the real issue is this: how often have the media-publicized and -driven complaints about high gas prices addressed the costs incurred in covering the losses due to these thefts? I haven't heard any. The MR-T article mentions stations requiring prepayment before pumping, but does not mention that several cents per gallon of your gasoline price is due to covering the cost of theft.

The thieves are not stealing from the gas station or from "big oil," they are stealing from you.

From the WWL Katrina "blog:"

1:24 P.M. - Sen. Mary Landrieu: Don’t send money to FEMA; send it to the local governments. FEMA doesn’t have the wherewithal to manage this problem right now.

In the long run, we need to reestablish FEMA. I’d rather put Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama first.

I’m asking for the federal government to step in and ask for a temporary freeze on debt, or to put off mortgage payments for period of time. The banks have a long term vested interest in helping these people by providing some sort of temporary relief.

If (small businesses) can just get through these next few weeks together, they’ll be stronger in the long run.

This is gibberish. I say: Please don't send any more money to any government agency than you already do by paying your taxes. Send it the Red Cross or Salvation Army or a religious charity of your choice. You might have some confidence that the bucks will get to where they're needed.

The Air America scandal is finally getting the attention that it deserves even if not as much as, say, Fox News would get if it found itself in the same position of having "borrowed" money from an orphanage.

This can mean only one thing: Efforts will be re-doubled to acquire access to Rush Limbaugh's medical records.

CNN Poll: Most Americans believe New Orleans will never recover.

As bad as Katrina was, she just got even more tragic for many. But you have to go all the way to the fifth paragraph to find out who. The Bush Haters.

Respondents also disagreed widely on who is to blame for the problems in the city following the hurricane -- 13 percent said Bush, 18 percent said federal agencies, 25 percent blamed state or local officials and 38 percent said no one is to blame. And 63 percent said they do not believe anyone at federal agencies responsible for handling emergencies should be fired as a result.

At 13%, I'd say that they agree very widely that President Bush was not to blame for the problems in the city following the hurricane. Further I would say that (at 63%) that not only do the respondents not "widely disagree" on who is to blame, but that a number that high indicates that they more believe that there is no blame to be assigned. (You know, it's that Force Majeure thing you see every now and again in fancy paperwork). All in all, this poll turned out to be really ugly for CNN.

I used to think that those who suffered most from BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) were just very susceptible to any sort of "Rope-a-Dope" strategy that the Death Star White House might employ. I think the White House strategery now is to just to get the hell out of the way when any national level Democrat wants access to a microphone and a camera. Or even better...line up interviews for them.

This from Scott (The Fat Guy) Chaffin:

Dear Sweet, Clean Texas Members of the TFG Blogroll:

You might or might not know that I have a Tiny Bidness down on the Brazos River which contains within it some 21 virtually unused RV hookups. I'm opening them up for temporary housing requirements for victims of that Hurricane Katrina. Problem is, I ain't gots no RVs.

That's where you come in. Being Texans, you probably know some hayseed (maybe family, maybe not) who owns an RV that will be parked for the next few months as we slip into fall and winter. I'm looking for donations of those idle RVs for temporary housing at my place.

So...I would greatly appreciate your assistance in getting the word out to people through your blogs or through your personal network. You don't need to link to The Fat Guy.* I've got a notice up on the
Tiny Bidness website with contact information that can be linked: http://buckbrazos.com/

I'm also working with a couple of other folks around the nation to pull together a national dealio of this sort. National attention to this very easy and cheap method of semi-permanent housing will be important in the long run, I think. But, there's no reason not to start here at home, and learn from it.

Please feel free to forward this on to your pards, too. But don't do a REPLY ALL...some people don't like that.

Yours in Waylon,
Scott Chaffin
thefatguy.com

Great link for Hurricane Katrina news is to WWL in New Orleans. Post-evacuation, they've been broadcasting from the Louisiana Public Television studios in Baton Rouge. (Sadly, this will cause me to have to lay off criticism of PBS until at least October.) The coverage has been really good.

As a side benefit, if you and a bunch of your co-workers all watch the streaming video simultaneously, on your individual computers, you will bring down your company's network. Maybe. Not that I would have any personal experience in this matter.

The Beeb gets corrected by its readers. And the corrections are made in the article, not just by re-editing (and not acknowledging the correction). Minor kudos here, but note the import and magnitude of the "updates:"

But how much support was there at the Superdome? And how much city transport was actually used? There is a photo showing city school buses still lined up, in waterlogged parking lots, after the hurricane.

Update: a reader has pointed out that there are detailed plans for Louisiana and the City of New Orleans for an evacuation and these make it clear that buses should be used to transport those without cars. See links.

Snip.

And an Army Corps of Engineers spokeswoman, Connie Gillette, said there had never been any plans or funds to improve those floodwalls which had failed.

Update: a reader has pointed out a quote in the New York Times indicating that the failed floodwalls had in fact previously been strengthened:

'"Shea Penland, director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of New Orleans, said [it] was particularly surprising because the break was "along a section that was just upgraded." "It did not have an earthen levee," Dr. Penland said. "It had a vertical concrete wall several feel thick."'

The blogosphere ethic of correction begins to take hold in the old media? Or is the old media just relying on readers to do their fact-checking for them?

There is good news to report, however. The storm has not caused Keith Olbermann to lose his viewer.

This just in.....and not from The Onion, either:

An attempt by Sean Penn, the outspoken Hollywood actor, to stage a personal mission to help victims of Hurricane Katrina descended into farce when his rescue boat sprang a leak.

The activist star headed to New Orleans with a photographer and entourage to rescue stranded victims clinging to roofs and attics in the wake of the deadly storm.

But he and his crew apparently forgot to plug a hole in the bottom of his small vessel which began to take in water almost immediately after launching.

Reports yesterday said the 45-year-old Oscar winner was seen frantically bailing water from the boat with a red plastic cup.

For the uninitiated: "Activist Star" = "Barking Moonbat Lefty".

I have to admit that when I first heard the story I wanted to cut Spicoli Mr. Penn some slack. Perhaps he had been in the vicinity during the storm as was doing his part to help.

Of course, later we learn that he chartered a jet to get there and loaded it up with that which is most valuable in flood recovery operations specifically and humanitarian crisii in general: his posse and a photographer.

Bob Denver has died at age 70. He is shown above making one last run at Mary Ann who we all knew was the one you would pick over Ginger.

R.I.P. and may he be in a place where he doesn't have to think about the kind of residuals that sitcom actors pull down today.

A welcome back from Jeff at AchaeoTexture who noticed our as-yet-not-working "Old Media" link:

"....one page under construction there is called 'Old Media' ... devoted, perhaps, to debauched harlots of the mainstream media, like myself?

Debauched harlots with no pictures is just no fun. Debauched harlots with pictures is a lot more fun but not the direction we necessarily want to head.

Actually, while the "Old Media" graphic is a fun barb, I was thinking about a separate local media page that, while it had better links would also take and display RSS feeds from same.

That is the idea anyway.

Anyway, thanks Jeff, it is good to be back.