Usher's the man

Kudos to Usher for telling Kanye West to keep his mouth shut.

I think that West feels that he needs to increase his street cred with blacks given that he grew up in middle class America, so he spouts off invective to look cool.

No more big government

I have a feeling that the result of Hurricane Katrina will be expanded federal powers during emergencies that I fear will infringe on states' rights. Unfortunately, due to the political fallout of Katrina, the blame will be quickly shifted from failures at all levels of government to the government (in this case, federal) not having broad enough powers to overcome state intransigence or failure. And Congress and the President are ever eager to give themselves more power.

Took a break

I've been taking a break from blogging for awhile and actually improving my social life. Good times to be had by all.

Calmer heads

This guy has something rational to say about Hurrican Katrina and its after-effects.

The Katrina timeline

An interesting read regarding the Katrina timeline.

It makes things clearer, though the scope of what happened is too much for this brain of mine. It's looking like there was a lot of effort involved from both the local and federal authorities and that a lot of the furor was a resultant of what was being said, not what was being done.

Insurgents Seize Qaim

With Qaim so near the Syrian border coupled with it's unfortunate status as a conduit for terrorists, I'm surprised that the US or Iraqi military doesn't establish a permanent base there. Instead, Qaim seems to have fallen to Zarqawi terrorists.

What do you expect?

Yeah, I really expect the Palestinians to be able to govern themselves when they run around like animals and torch a Christian village, all because of a romance between a Palestinian woman and a Christian man.

Incidentally, the woman's family murdered her by forcing her to drink poison when they discovered the romance. We've got some real civilized folks over there.

Michael Brown: Horse show commissioner???

I'm stupefied that the director of FEMA, Michael Brown, was a damn horse show commissioner before becoming director of FEMA.

Not good.

Herald Sun: Sean Penn's rescue bid sinks

Bwahahahahaha!

Sean Penn could use boating lessons.

The critical paragraph

The critical paragraph in the entire long-winded article about the disarray of the federal response to Hurrican Katrina is that the federal plan post-9/11 advises local officials not to expect help for 72 to 96 hours.

Help from the federal government came 96 hours after President Bush declared a state of emergency. The local officials were advised to have plans to deal with the situation during the interim, which clearly they were not able to do.

I still think that the National Guard should have been able to enter the city before they did. However, as I'm no expert in the intricacies of the National Guard, I'm left wondering as to whether Governor Blanco had ordered the Guard to mobilize prior to the federal government.

Worse than Iraq

When your own countrymen are trying to kill you as you try to save their lives, I can understand why you wouldn't want to reenlist.

I hope that the military kills every last one of the barbarians.