Finally, some more media coverage of the case of Seabrook City Councilman Rick Sammons' arrest on weapons charges back in July. All charges have been dropped.

During City Council's Sept. 20 meeting, Sammons, 36, who is not eligible for re-election in May because of term limits, made his first public comments about his arrest.

Reading from a prepared statement, he said he was awakened by the sound of a man's voice in Sammons' home on July 23 about 12:30 a.m., which prompted him to grab a gun to "protect my family and my property."

Sammons said the man's voice was that of his neighbor, who told him there was a situation at the man's home he was "unable to control."

Sammons said he went to the neighbor's home, where he discovered a domestic dispute between his neighbors.

He said he then left the residence to return to his home and in doing so, encountered the sister of one of those involved in the squabble.

"I (informed) her I had a gun and I was going back into my house," Sammons said in his statement.

Shortly thereafter, he said, Seabrook police arrived.

He said he walked out of his home to talk to them about the situation, but was quickly arrested.

"The officer immediately read me my rights and put me in the back of the squad car and explained I was being charged with deadly conduct," Sammons said in his statement.

Now this is all well and good,, but I am still quite concerned about the media coverage -- or, more accurately, the lack thereof -- of this situation.

Other than scanty coverage in a couple of locations, there was no coverage of the arrest. There were no follow-up stories about the case in any media source. It was as if a great curtain of silence had descended around the incident.

It lead me to wonder what other stories are not being covered in the Houston press.

Posted by: Greg at 12:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This is not good news.

Hurricane Rita intensified into a Category 4 storm today with winds of 135 mph, deepening concerns that the storm could devastate coastal Texas and already-battered Louisiana by week's end.

Mandatory evacuations have already been ordered for New Orleans and Galveston today, one day after Rita skirted past the Florida Keys as a Category 2 storm, causing minimal damage.

I'm halfway between Galveston and Houston proper -- this is not good at all.

NOTE: The Houston Chronicle is operating two very good blogs dealing with Hurricane Rita -- Sci Guy and Huricane Rita. How long they reamin up is, of course,an open question, givent he coming of the storm and its intensity.

UPDATE DURING LUNCH (2;30 PM) -- In light of current projections, Paula, Carmie and I will pull the trigger at midnight, regardless of what is left undone. It is eight hours -- at least -- to Huntsville, and that is only about 100 miles from here. Hopefully traffic will thin out then, but who knows?, given the mandatory evacuations kicking in.

Traffic crawled along Houston's freeways today as officials ordered the mandatory evacuation of vulnerable areas in advance of Hurricane Rita, which was chugging toward the Gulf Coast as a dangerous Category 4 storm.

Mayor Bill White and County Judge Robert Eckels said today that some mandatory evacuations would begin at 6 p.m. They encouraged residents to leave voluntarily if possible before the evacuations become mandatory, and it was clear that thousands of residents were heeding the advice.

Traffic was especially heavy on the south end of Interstate 45, the main evacuation route from Galveston and the Clear Lake area, moving somewhat faster north of Loop 610. Speeds averaged about 20 mph on I-45 through Houston.

Although evacuees departing during rush hour this morning reported arriving in Dallas in the usual five hours, as of 1:30 p.m., it was taking at least two hours just to get from Galveston to Houston on I-45, AAA reported.

One reason so many residents were trying to get out of town before they had to: Once a mandatory evacuation begins, residents will no longer get to choose their own evacuation routes. Roads will be blocked off to funnel traffic to evacuation shelters in designated cities further inland according to a resident's zone.

Michelle Malkin has a good piece on some differences from Katrina.

Posted by: Greg at 01:18 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Is she coming to visit?

We donÂ’t know, yet, but she may stay to the south of us, which means tropical storm-like weather instead of a Category 3 storm that would require evacuation.

Keep packing that suitcase and hold off on a sigh of relief, but the National Hurricane Center's latest official forecast names the stretch of coast just north of Matagorda Island as Hurricane Rita's most likely target instead of Galveston.

With landfall on the Gulf Coast not expected until Friday night, meteorologists caution that predictions remain unreliable: Long-range forecasts such as this are typically off by hundreds of miles, and different computer models call for different landfalls. Morever, the overnight course shift is small, so preparations continue in the danger zone from Brownsville to Lake Charles, La.

"We're definitely not out of the woods yet," said Kent Prochazka, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in League City.

If Rita does in fact hit closer to Matagorda than Galveston as a Category 3 hurricane, the Houston area would be in for high winds, heavy rain and possibly tornadoes, but that wouldn't be as dangerous for Houston as a direct hit on Galveston, Prochazka said.

Instead of devastating Galveston and then moving over downtown Houston still packing the 100 mph winds of a Category 2 hurricane, a hurricane making landfall near Matagorda would to be expected to roll over Houston with tropical force winds in the 70 mph range.

"The difference between that and making landfall in Galveston is huge," Prochazka said.

I made hotel reservations for our evacuation tonight, and the closest I could get was in the Ardmore, Oklahoma. – “only” 400 miles from home. Here’s hoping I get to call and cancel them rather than bugging-out.

Oh, and by the way – only four more storms until they run out of names for the year – meaning we could see “Hurricane Alpha” in the event we get five more this year.

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IÂ’ve never figured out why this guy in a costume enrages so many mouth-breathers out there.

The taunts, nasty gestures and occasional Frisbee or soda can tossed his way don't ruffle Kyle Lincecum's feathers. But days like Sunday, when he was pummeled and sent sprawling into the path of busy Fry Road traffic, make him feel like an endangered species.

Lincecum, 20, is the guy inside the oversized green and orange bird suit whose loony antics lure the weekend crowds to the Mattresses for Less store at Fry and the Katy Freeway. The Sunday afternoon attack, which pitted a young assailant against Lincecum in his 12-foot-tall Citrus bird suit, brought traffic to a screeching halt.

The assault was the second time in his 2 1/2 -year career as an advertising bird that Lincecum has been pitched into traffic. But there have been other attacks; in January 2004, he was featured in the Houston Chronicle after being assaulted by a gang of skateboard-riding teens.

"Like every job," Lincecum said Monday, "this one has its ups and downs."

Uhhhh—yeah. Folks trying to kill you while you are trapped in a 12-foot-tall aluminum mesh and fake-fur costume certainly qualifies as a down-side in my book. Is the up-side the opportunity to stand out in Houston’s often-unbearable heat and humidity while wearing the costume?

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You have to wonder if the lack of hurricane and flood preparedness in Louisiana might have had something to do with state and local government corruption. After all, charges were already pending before the Katrina hit. It seems that$60 million in FMA funds granted to the the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness are missing -- and the federal government had requested the return of $30.4 million back in March.

Much of the FEMA money that was unaccounted for was sent to Louisiana under the Hazard Mitigation Grant program, intended to help states retrofit property and improve flood control facilities, for example.

The $30.4 million FEMA is demanding back was money paid into that program and others, including a program to buy out flood-prone homeowners. As much as $30 million in additional unaccounted for spending also is under review in audits that have not yet been released, according to a FEMA official.

One 2003 federal investigation of allegedly misspent funds in Ouachita Parish, a district in northern Louisiana, grew into a probe that sprawled into more than 20 other parishes.

Mark Smith, a spokesman for the Louisiana emergency office, said the agency had responded to calls for reform, and that "we now have the policy and personnel in place to ensure that past problems aren't repeated."

He said earlier problems were largely administrative mistakes, not due to corruption.

But federal officials disagreed. They said FEMA for years expressed concerns over patterns of improper management and lax oversight throughout the state agency, and said most problems had not been corrected.

They point to criminal indictments of three state workers as evidence the problem was more than management missteps. Two other state emergency officials also were identified in court documents as unindicted co-conspirators.

I wonder -- if that money had been properly spend, might we be seeing significantly fewere problems in Louisiana in the aftermath of this horrific storm? And if the waste, mismanagement and fraud came at the state and local level, isn't that again where much of the blame belongs for the inadequacy of the disaster preparedness and response that we have seen?

ANd please note some of the examples of how this money (what can be traced) was spent.

The report also said the Louisiana agency had misspent $617,787 between May 2000 and September 2003.

Questionable expenditures identified by the inspector general included $2,400 for sod installation, several thousand dollars for a trip to Germany by the deputy director, $1,071 for curtains, and $595 for an L.L. Bean parka and briefcase. The inspector general also challenged unspecified spending for camera equipment, professional dues and a 2002 Ford Crown Victoria.

And we won't get into the fact that 97% of disbursed funds from one of the FEMA grants have no receipts at all to account for spending.

Posted by: Greg at 04:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This comes as no surprise to me -- I've alread had one of the Katrina kids at my school tell me his family is staying.

Fewer than half of all New Orleans evacuees living in emergency shelters here said they will move back home, while two-thirds of those who want to relocate planned to settle permanently in the Houston area, according to a survey by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health.

The wide-ranging poll found that these survivors of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath remain physically and emotionally battered but unbroken. They praised God and the U.S. Coast Guard for saving them, but two weeks after the storm, nearly half still sought word about missing loved ones or close friends who may not have been as lucky.

However, I do have a methodology question about this poll. So does the Post, but they bury that nformation deep in the article.

A total of 680 randomly selected evacuees living temporarily in the Astrodome, Reliant Center and George R. Brown Convention Center, as well as five Red Cross shelters in the Houston area, were interviewed Sept. 10 to 12 for this Post-Kaiser-Harvard survey. More than 8,000 evacuees were living in these facilities and awaiting transfer to other housing when the interviewing was conducted.

More than nine in 10 of these evacuees said they were residents of New Orleans, while the remainder said they were from the surrounding area or elsewhere in Louisiana. The margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus four percentage points. Potential differences between these evacuees and those not living in shelters or those who lived elsewhere in the affected Gulf Coast region make it impossible to conclude that these results accurately reflect the views of all Gulf Coast residents displaced by Katrina.

Most of the evacuees never resided in our big public buildings or the Red Cross shelters. Those who were in those public buildings were among the poorest of the poor, according to reports. Those left there are often among the hardest-luck cases. And more importantly, theey are likely very unrepresetative of the 70-80 thousand who never lived in any of those locations. After all, those who never went to the shelters would have self-evacuated and are therefore less likely to be hard-core chronic poor.

But we will live this and see what happens.

(More from Captain's Quarters, Neo-Neocon, and Publius Rendevous)

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New Orleans teachers are receiving their last paycheck from before Hurricane Katrina -- and are being informed that they will not be paid again util schools reopen.

he paycheck issued this week to teachers is for the last pay period before the storm hit, said Bill Roberti, a director with the restructuring firm of Alvarez & Marsal, which runs the school system.

"This is the last payroll we will be able to issue for the time being," Roberti said in a briefing. "We were not able to move forward with the $50 million financing we were pursuing to keep the district afloat. We are very low on cash at this time."

The 7,000-employee, 116-school system was already in dire financial shape before Katrina hit, which is why the firm was pursuing the $50 million finance package.

A total of $13 million in payroll is available at Western Union branches across the country for teachers to pick up, Roberti said.

The state's schools superintendent said Tuesday he will ask Congress for $2.4 billion in aid for teacher benefits and salaries, and Alvarez & Marsal sent a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush as well, asking for help.

I pray for these teachers, since I know what terrible shape I would be in if the school where I teach closed and my salary were to be cut off.

And I am thankful that my district has found places for a few teachers, as have most of the other districts in the Houston area. Houston ISD itself held a job fair last week to try to find teachers for the 3000 extra students thay have taken in.

And while some of you may have seen the awful story from Jesse Jones High School, that is not typical of what is going on around here. Most of these kids are being welcomed with open arms at their new schools. I know the two in my classes are simply outstanding young people, and none of my colleagues have had a negative word to say about the evacuee kids in their classes, either.

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Could it have been the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a 40 -year-old underutilized channel funnelled the storm surge into the New Orleans Industrial Canal and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway -- and from there into New Orleans, St. Bernard Parish and beyond?

Authorities have not yet concluded what caused the drowning of New Orleans, and most attention has focused on two breached floodwalls near Lake Pontchartrain, to the city's north. But now experts believe that the initial flooding that overwhelmed St. Bernard Parish and the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans came from the Gulf Outlet, a channel that was an ecological and economic disappointment long before Hurricane Katrina.

Satellite images show that levees along the outlet were severely damaged by storm surges. Flyovers by the Army Corps of Engineers have revealed a path of destruction consistent with Mashriqui's theory that the Outlet provided a pathway for storm surges from the Gulf and neighboring Lake Borgne.

Mashriqui had warned that the confluence of the MRGO and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway created a funnel that would direct storm surges into the New Orleans Industrial Canal and on into St. Bernard Parish. On the Friday before Katrina made landfall, the parish's state senator, Walter Boasso, complained at a congressional hearing that the federal government was "playing Russian roulette" with his constituents.

Katrina's first storm surges apparently shot up the Gulf Outlet and neighboring Lake Borgne from the southeast, then overtopped levees along the Outlet and the Industrial Canal. The floodwaters eventually breached the Industrial Canal's levees, and officials believe a large portion of the Outlet's levees have been destroyed as well.

"That funnel was a back door into New Orleans," said G. Paul Kemp, an oceanographer at the LSU Hurricane Center. "I don't think there's much doubt that was the initial cause of the disaster."

In other words, it may have been a failed attempt to create an efficient port that caused the flooding and the levee breakage, not the storm itself.

Oh, and by the way, please note this.

Before Katrina, the Corps was already studying whether to close the canal. The initial conclusion was no, but the Bush administration ordered the agency to redo its analysis.

The main advocates for the channel were the Port of New Orleans and its supporters in the Corps of Engineers and in Louisiana's congressional delegation. "You had the people of St. Bernard Parish against the Port of New Orleans," Boasso said at a community meeting Monday. "And the Port of New Orleans had the clout."

* * *

John Paul Woodley Jr., the assistant Army secretary who oversees the Corps, said the Bush administration had to instruct the agency to restart its study of whether to close the channel, because it hadn't taken into account the channel's destruction of wetlands, even though it was conducting a separate study of a $14 billion project to restore Louisiana's coastal wetlands. Woodley said there was also concern that further erosion could merge the channel with Lake Borgne -- which happened after Katrina.

So, whose priorities resulted in this catastrophe? Sounds like those local congressional delegation, not the president.

More at Strata-Spere and Liberal Common Sense (the title of this blog is the only way you'll ever see those three words adjacent to each other on RWR)

Posted by: Greg at 07:06 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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It seems that the New York Times was against levee and drainage projects in Louisiana before they were for them. Unfortunately, the paper didn't come out for those projects until after Hurricane Katrina.

Look at this from April.

"Anyone who cares about responsible budgeting and the health of America's rivers and wetlands should pay attention to a bill now before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The bill would shovel $17 billion at the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control and other water-related projects, this at a time when President Bush is asking for major cuts in Medicaid and other important domestic programs. Among these projects is a $2.7 billion boondoggle on the Mississippi River that has twice flunked inspection by the National Academy of Sciences.

"This is a bad piece of legislation."

The legislation, S. 728, would have spent $512 million on hurricane and storm damage reduction.

Now the Times wants is complaining that money wasn't given to the Corps of Engineers for hurricane and storm damage reduction projects.

I guess hindsight is 20/20.

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I swear this is a real news story -- I could not have made it up to save my life.

At 10.15pm on Thursday the relative brought the 32-year-old woman to the bomohÂ’s house in Permatang Badak, near here, to seek a cure.

After relating her problem to the bomoh, he asked her to lie down.

He then took an egg and rolled it over her body, purportedly to sap out the spirit that was dwelling in her.

He then allegedly fondled and sucked her breasts.

Stunned, she immediately got up and demanded an explanation from the bomoh, to which he replied that she was “unclean” and he wanted to remove the bad spirits from her body.

Do you really mean it wasn't strange before he started to fondle and suck her breasts? Heck, that seems like the most normal part of the whole story.

(Hat Tip -- Raging Right Wing Republican)

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Could someone explain why I would want to?

Come Monday, Sept. 19, fans of New York Times columnists Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, and David Brooks will have to break out their credit cards. Sept. 19 is the launch date of TimesSelect, a new subscription service designed to diversify the newspaper's revenue stream beyond traditional Web site advertising.

The popular Op-Ed columnists are the main selling point behind the $49.95 a year subscription. (The service will be free for the paper's home delivery subscribers). The paper's news, features, editorials, and analysis will remain free, as will interactive graphics, multimedia, and video.

I feel overcharged paying nothing for Krugman and Dowd – and can get Brooks from other sources. Ditto most of the major articles I would want to access.

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Hey, if it is acceptable to take the tissues of slaughtered innocents for scientific experimentation, why not the tissues of the guilty for consumer products?

A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the Guardian has discovered.

Agents for the firm have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company's products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is "traditional" and nothing to "make such a big fuss about".

Think about it. The killings are legal under Chinese law, and the tissues arguably benefit others. And unlike aborted babies, the criminals whose tissue is used are actually guilty of a crime, so their execution does not raise the same moral concerns as using the stem cells of infants killed for convenience. The Chinese have even tied the two issues together as part of their research and marketting.

The agent told the researcher: "A lot of the research is still carried out in the traditional manner using skin from the executed prisoner and aborted foetus." This material, he said, was being bought from "bio tech" companies based in the northern province of Heilongjiang, and was being developed elsewhere in China.

He suggested that the use of skin and other tissues harvested from executed prisoners was not uncommon. "In China it is considered very normal and I was very shocked that western countries can make such a big fuss about this," he said. Speaking from his office in northern China, he added: "The government has put some pressure on all the medical facilities to keep this type of work in low profile."

The agent said his company exported to the west via Hong Kong."We are still in the early days of selling these products, and clients from abroad are quite surprised that China can manufacture the same human collagen for less than 5% of what it costs in the west." Skin from prisoners used to be even less expensive, he said. "Nowadays there is a certain fee that has to be paid to the court."

So see, there is even a societal benefit to this product, for the government makes money selling the skin of the executed prisoners. So why be skittish about this? Is it really so different from the harvesting of fetal stem cells? What is the real difference?

The story also notes that this is not out of line with Chinese practice. Stories of organs and other tissues being harvested from executed prisoners in China have been circulated for years.

Of course, I oppose these products and the ghoulish practices that lead to their creation. But then again, I also have serious moral reservations about the use of fetal stem cells for medical research. I guess it just comes down to a question of respect for human life and the reduction of human beings to commodities.

Posted by: Greg at 01:11 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Wow!

Rising land prices and falling attendance will close Houston landmark Astroworld at the end of the current season on Octover 30.

Something of that size will probably become a mixed-use development, including multifamily housing, retail and office, said Edmonds, who described the property as one of the largest contiguous pieces of land near the Medical Center.

Harris County officials said they did not know that Six Flags would be putting AstroWorld on the market, but they were not completely surprised.

"The park seems to underperform in comparison to some of their other parks," said County Judge Robert Eckels.

Mike Surface, chairman of the Harris County Sports & Convention Corp., which oversees Reliant Park, said: "There have been discussions for years about the viability of that location. You have a park that was obviously an aged park and limited in space needed for expansion."

Surface estimated that the land along the Loop, Kirby and Fannin could be worth $1 million an acre and that non-frontage property might go for $600,000 an acre.

After AstroWorld closes, an investor will likely build an amusement park in the Houston-area suburbs, some said.

"There is strong market in Houston for this type of facility," Eckels said.

Six Flags will continue to have a presence in the Houston area with Six Flags SplashTown water park.

I don't know about building another amusement park. Six Flags has FiestaTexas over in San Antonio, and Six Flags over Texas in the Dallas. Between the water parks in the Houston area and the additional parks in San Antonio (SeaWorld). I wonder how much interest there really will be in another amusement park -- especially depending on where it is located. After all, AstroWorld was close to downtown and centrally located -- any replacement is likely to be out towards katy and the west suburbs, bringing it ever closer to San Antonio .

Posted by: Greg at 11:20 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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They are already looking to re-open one French Quarter strip-joint. The only things missing are water, electricity, and, oh yeah, strippers.

Not that the owner is worried.

But Jones, a corpulent man with a strawberry blond beard wearing a black t-shirt reading "I'm smiling because they haven't found the bodies yet," foresaw few problems getting strippers.

"It shouldn't be too hard. Everyone's going to come back in town and want to work. You know, if you've got 50 dancers in Houston and they're not making money, they're going to spread out," he said.

At the risk of trashing my own town, Jones obviously does not know Houston.

The Bayou City features more strip-joints than I had ever seen in my life before I had moved down here.

I think he might just have a problem getting the girls back after all.

Posted by: Greg at 09:42 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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They are already looking to re-open one French Quarter strip-joint. The only things missing are water, electricity, and, oh yeah, strippers.

Not that the owner is worried.

But Jones, a corpulent man with a strawberry blond beard wearing a black t-shirt reading "I'm smiling because they haven't found the bodies yet," foresaw few problems getting strippers.

"It shouldn't be too hard. Everyone's going to come back in town and want to work. You know, if you've got 50 dancers in Houston and they're not making money, they're going to spread out," he said.

At the risk of trashing my own town, Jones obviously does not know Houston.

The Bayou City features more strip-joints than I had ever seen in my life before I had moved down here.

I think he might just have a problem getting the girls back after all.

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I'm not a Ray Nagin fan, and think that many decisions made on the local level made this disaster worse. I find his analysis of the president's response to Hurricane Katrina to be rather surprising, and refreshing, given some of his comments early in the recovery process.

New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin yesterday said President Bush "made things happen" in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but offered no praise for Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, who remains in control of the National Guard and refuses to order a mandatory evacuation of the devastated city.

Mr. Bush has been criticized by Democrats for the federal government's response to the storm, but the Democratic mayor -- whose own actions are now under scrutiny -- suggested major mistakes were made on the state level.

"I think [Mr. Bush] was probably getting advice from some of his key advisers or some low-level folk that had been on the ground that this was serious, but not as serious as it ended up being," Mr. Nagin said.

"My interactions with the president, at any time I talked with him and gave him what the real deal was and gave him the truth, he acted and he made things happen," Mr. Nagin told NBC's "Meet the Press."

Take that, Kanye West and the rest of you ranting liberals.

Posted by: Greg at 11:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The AP offers this report from Massachusetts about the likely failure of a compromise constitutional amendment on the gay marriage question.

A fragile coalition of lawmakers cobbled together to support an anti-gay marriage amendment is falling apart, virtually assuring that same-sex marriage will for now remain legal in Massachusetts, according to an Associated Press poll.

The survey, conducted between Sept. 6-9, found at least 104 lawmakers who plan to vote against the proposed constitutional amendment, which would ban gay marriage but create civil unions.

The amendment, which is scheduled for a vote on Wednesday, needs the support of at least 101 of the state's 200 lawmakers to get on the 2006 ballot.

I'd like to remind members of the Massachusetts Legislature of the following words from the Declaration of Independence.

. . . Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it. . .

I urge members of the Massachusetts legislature to permit the people of massachusetts the opportunity to alter the Massachusetts Constitution, as is their fundamental right as a free people.

UPDATE: Jefferson weeps in the Great beyond -- people of Massachusetts denied the right to alter their state Constitution.

Will this usurpation by the Massachusetts legislature result in the denial of the right of the citizens of all 49 other states to determine what constitutes marriage in their states?

Posted by: Greg at 11:22 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I've always questioned the showing of graphic photos of the dead to children. Yeah, I know that they were a staple of driver's education -- but they were not local photos. If you show local photos, you risk something like this.

A 12-year-old girl saw her father's remains in a gruesome photograph shown during a presentation by police warning teenagers about the dangers of drunken driving.

The girl's mother, Marla Cabbage Higginbotham, said her daughter was traumatized by the experience at her middle school last month in which she saw her father lying in a pool of blood with a crushed skull and mutilated face and torso.

She said the family did not know he had been drinking when he died.

An attorney representing the mother and daughter sent a letter to the Knox County law director's office calling for an investigation.

"Why are we showing 12-year-olds mutilated dead bodies when they can't even drive a car for four more years?" attorney Gregory P. Isaacs said Friday. The police "are good people with good intentions who have made a terrible, terrible mistake."

Police officers say the names of the victims about to be shown and ask if any students knew them. They called out the name of William F. Cabbage before showing pictures of the wreck.

The girl did not recognize his name because she knew her father as Lynn Cabbage.

I'm sorry -- this is unacceptable. Shouldn't there have been family permission before using the photos in any presentation? Shouldn't there have been family permission before the kids were subjected to the photos?

Posted by: Greg at 02:31 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The evacuees in the shelter in the People's Republic of Austin were pleased to see the Vice President of the United States.

At the convention center, where some 1,500 evacuees remained Saturday, Cheney met briefly with 23-year-old Telisha Diaz, who told him she spent four days at the New Orleans convention center before being brought to Austin a week ago.

"It's overwhelming that the state of Texas is giving so much, just giving us everything — jobs, food," Diaz told the vice president, who was surrounded by local officials and congressmen.

Cheney said Diaz's sentiments of gratitude were echoed by all of the evacuees he had spoken with in the two weeks since the hurricane pummeled Gulf Coast communities in Louisiana and Mississippi. He applauded Texas' response to the disaster and the outpouring of support from the state's leaders and residents.

"I was impressed with the caliber of the effort that was mounted here, and it's a good place to come learn some valuable lessons," Cheney said.

But for about two dozen residents of the state's officially designated sanctuary city for endangered socialists, it was an opportunity to take a national tragedy and expolit it for political purposes, chanting "Cheney, Cheney, you can't hide, we charge you with genocide.".

While the evacuees seemed to appreciate Cheney's visit, protesters saw it as an opportunity to voice frustration over a Halliburton Co. subsidiary's involvement in emergency repairs at Gulf Coast naval and Marine facilities.

Cheney headed Halliburton from 1995 to 2000, and Democrats have questioned whether the company has gotten favorable treatment because of his connection.

"Cheney is profiteering off of murder," said 36-year-old Debbie Russell of Austin, who flashed an obscene gesture at the vice president when he waved at her and other protesters as he got into his vehicle.

Nice show of class, Debbie. You seem to have ignored the fact that the company was the low bidder for the contract whenit was awarded over a year ago.

Posted by: Greg at 02:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Louisiana Libertarian, having survived Katrina relatively intact (and having scared a number of us by his long silence -- good to have you back, dude!), gives us this round-up from the persepctive of a survivor. One of his links is to a story about Gov. Blanco and her apparent decsision to avoid the evacuees.

At the Rayne Civic Center, emotions are high. The people are desperately waiting the arrival of Governor Blanco. All they are looking for are answers.

"I want her to tell us that she's going to find a way very soon for us to get housing," says Sidney Matthews, an evacuee from New Orleans.

"All we're asking for is help," exclaims Cassandra Dellihoue. "We're not here to badger anybody. We're not here to lose control. We're asking for help."

Despite the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, Beverly Godfrey remains positive. "No, I'm not. I'm not ever giving up hope."

As a glimmer of hope pulled into the parking lot, Governor Blanco is not on the bus, only her representatives.

"The governor wished she could be here," explains Connie Nelson, a Blanco representative.

"Here everybody's under the impression the Governor coming here and she's sending representatives," says one evacuee. "She's not here. It's nothing but lies and lies constantly. Enough is enough."

"I'm very disappointed because I feel like I'm being brushed away," says Dellihoue.

Lynette Byrd has been a Blanco supporter for years but her loyalty is beginning to shift. "I've always been for Governor Blanco, always. I'm a woman. But right now, I feel she's let us down."

And what about the answers to all of the evacuees questions?

Blanco representative Nelson had this to say to evacuees. "We don't have those answers and I have to apologize that we do not have those answers but we will get those answers to you."

"When you need us, we are there," says Dellihoue. "When you need our votes, we are there. Now that we need you, come and get us. We need you now!"

Lynette Byrd makes a final plea. "Governor Blanco, I'm begging you to get us some help. Please!"

Somehow, though, Blanco never has a problem finding the media. Maybe if we shipped those folks some video cameras and microphones, they might get some attention fom their governor.

Posted by: Greg at 02:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Don't you just love it when the whack-jobs embraced by the Left turn and eat their own allies?

The Vacaville woman who made national headlines with a peace vigil outside President Bush's Texas ranch brought her rhetorical guns to bear Friday on one of California's U.S. senators.

Cindy Sheehan — whose son, Casey, 24, was a soldier killed in Baghdad in April 2004 — met briefly with an aide to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., before telling reporters the lawmaker's reasons for supporting Iraq's ongoing occupation are "very bogus."

The Iraqi constitution the United States purportedly is supporting is based on Islamic law and severely curtails women's rights, she said, and the leaders America is protecting are "puppet leaders who George Bush put into place."

Iraqi soldiers the United States is training are seen as collaborators and can do little more than fight for survival, and Iraq's crucial infrastructure continues to be eroded by an insurgency fueled by our military presence, she said.

Feinstein previously has acknowledged that she and other lawmakers were lied to about the reasons for going to war, and that if she knew then what she knew now, she would not have voted to support the conflict, Sheehan said.

"Well, if she knows it's wrong, it's time to bring our kids home," she said.

But Barbara Boxer has lined up right behind Sheehan, who calls teh al-Qaeda affiliates who murdered her son "freedom fighters" and her son's fellow soldiers "terrorists" and "murderers" -- and who has declared America "not worth dying for."

UPDATE: The more mainstream press provides coverage, too.

"If she is a strong leader, and if she's strong about bringing the troops home, we will support her," Sheehan said. "If she is not, we will withdraw our support from her."

Sheehan said Feinstein's reasons for supporting the occupation in Iraq were "very bogus."

"There is no noble cause," Sheehan said. "This war is based on lies. To me, it's not rocket science."

Which Democrat will she start gnawing on next?

Posted by: Greg at 08:37 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Who ordered this attrocity -- cops on one side of the bridge telling them to cross, and cops on the other side turning them back?

Police agencies to the south of New Orleans were so fearful of the crowds trying to leave the city after Hurricane Katrina that they sealed a crucial bridge over the Mississippi River and turned back hundreds of desperate evacuees, two paramedics who were in the crowd said.

The paramedics and two other witnesses said officers sometimes shot guns over the heads of fleeing people, who, instead of complying immediately with orders to leave the bridge, pleaded to be let through, the paramedics and two other witnesses said. The witnesses said they had been told by the New Orleans police to cross that same bridge because buses were waiting for them there.

Instead, a suburban police officer angrily ordered about 200 people to abandon an encampment between the highways near the bridge. The officer then confiscated their food and water, the four witnesses said. The incidents took place in the first days after the storm last week, they said.

"The police kept saying, 'We don't want another Superdome,' and 'This isn't New Orleans,' " said Larry Bradshaw, a San Francisco paramedic who was among those fleeing.

Arthur Lawson, chief of the Gretna, La., Police Department, confirmed that his officers, along with those from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office and the Crescent City Connection Police, sealed the bridge.

"There was no place for them to come on our side," Mr. Lawson said.

He said that he had been asked by reporters about officers threatening victims with guns or shooting over their heads, but he said that he had not yet asked his officers about that.

"As soon as things calm down, we will do an inquiry and find out what happened," he said.

Actually, Lawson, you need an inquiry now.

Looks like another screw-up on the state/local level. Wanna bet the Left tries to pin this one on the president, too.

(Hat Tip -- Instapundit and JustOneMinute)

Posted by: Greg at 08:22 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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We've heard it was the fault of the federal government that there was no food or water in the Superdome. However, look at why there was no food or water -- it was offered and rejected.

Louisiana officials told the American Red Cross not to plan to go into New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit to provide relief to residents at the Superdome — and also refused help from the organization before the storm hit.

As its workers evacuated the city before the storm, the Red Cross offered to drop off food, water, cots and other emergency supplies to the Superdome, but officials declined the supplies, Red Cross spokeswoman Carol Miller said Thursday. The Red Cross was aware that the Superdome was a refuge of last resort for people who couldn't evacuate New Orleans.

Red Cross President Marty Evans said that officials for Louisiana's homeland security department told the relief agency not to drop off the supplies, Miller said. She didn't name the officials.

In the days after Katrina hit, television broadcasts from the Superdome showed thousands of people there complaining about the lack of food and water. Miller said the Red Cross didn't offer its own shelter in downtown New Orleans because it is the agency's policy to “not shelter in unsafe areas.”

So there is no more basis for saying it is the fault of the president or FEMA -- state and local government intentionally starved these people.

Posted by: Greg at 02:37 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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I love the response of the crowd at last night's NFL Kickoff celebration.

But I'm mystified by this writer's response to the crowd's reaction to Kanye West.

West did one tune, ''Heard 'Em Say." Yet it was disconcerting to hear his name booed loudly by Patriots fans who evidently didn't appreciate his nationally televised comment the other night on a Hurricane Katrina benefit that President Bush ''doesn't care about black people." The boos were thunderous and lasted for much of his number.

Why are you disconcerted? West made a selfishly self-indulgent and demonstrably false political statement during last week's telethon. Obviously folks did not approve. Is it any wonder that thes patriotic Patriots decided to make a statement of their own?

Posted by: Greg at 02:23 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Where are Bill Murray, Dan Akoyd, and Harold Ramis when you really need them?

The owners of a Japanese restaurant who claim their newly renovated building is haunted are being sued by their landlord for refusing to move in.

An offer to hold an exorcism was refused, according to the 2.6 million dollar lawsuit filed by the owners of the Church Street Station entertainment complex last month in Orange County Circuit Court.

The lawsuit also asks a judge to decide whether the building is haunted and, if so, whether the ghosts would interfere with the restaurant's business.
Christopher and Yoko Chung had planned to move their Amura Japanese Restaurant into the building in October 2004, but backed out of the lease.

The Chungs' attorney says subcontractors gave several documented reports of having seen ghosts or apparitions in the restaurant at night. The attorney also says Christopher Chung's religious beliefs require him to "avoid encountering or having any association with spirits or demons."

Sounds to me like these folks are avoiding any encounter or association with reality.

Posted by: Greg at 01:45 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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When Pat Robertson suggested the US government might consider assassinating Hugo Chavez, there was an uproar in the media. Why is there no outcry from the press over this statement from a German official, Andreas Renner, Social Minister in Germany's southern state of Baden-Wuertemberg?

During a visit to a local company on Tuesday, Renner said of Bush: "He ought to be shot down."

He later retracted the remark, saying he meant Bush should be shot down "in a political sense", according to the Reutlinger General-Anzeiger newspaper.

Yeah, like anyone could have intended the words “shot down” to mean anything other than an act of violence. Imagine the uproar if someone suggested that Ted Kennedy needed to be “shot down.” How long would it take for the Secret Service to reach your door if the phrase were directed at Hillary Clinton?

But the press is strangely silent.

I guess it is acceptable for a foreign official to suggest the murder of the President of the United States.

Posted by: Greg at 01:38 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Nothing had changed in the companyÂ’s circumstances, but the New York Stock Exchange suddenly dropped the planned listing of Life Sciences Research Inc. less than an hour before it was scheduled.

NYSE executives yesterday cowered before animal-rights activists who vowed angry protests over plans to market shares of a New Jersey firm that uses animals in scientific research and testing, investors in the company charged.

Executives of Life Sciences Research Inc. were looking forward to being listed on the world's most prestigious stock exchange.

But at 8:40 a.m. yesterday — less than an hour before the market's opening bell — a stock-exchange official took a Life Sciences Research official aside and said the listing would be postponed, said a company source.

"I'm appalled by what NYSE have done," said one investor who asked not to be named. "We won't be threatened by a bunch of goddamned long-haired hippies."

Animal-rights activists have targeted several companies involved with bringing LSR shares to market.

On Aug. 23, activists spray-painted animal-rights slogans at the Port Washington Yacht Club on Long Island, whose membership they believe includes executives of Carr Securities, which was trading in LSR stock.

Oddly, the animal-rights groups put out a "communiqué" several days later saying the attack happened at the nearby Manhasset Bay Yacht Club. It was unclear yesterday why the communiqué was incorrect, or if the group vandalized the wrong yacht club.

In any case, Carr Securities executives got the message, and on Aug. 26 the company said it would no longer trade LSR stock. No one from Carr returned a call for comment yesterday.

Animal-rights activists have targeted other securities firms as well, and claim their efforts have limited trading in LSR stock.

Leading the campaign against LSR is a British organization, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, which has long targeted LSR's British subsidiary, Huntingdon Life Sciences. SHAC has a branch based in New Jersey known as SHAC-USA.

Lest you forget, SHAC is the group responsible for this atrocity.

If yesterday was, as the group Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty claimed, "a great day in the history of the animal rights movement", shame on that movement.

Last October, the remains of Gladys Hammond were removed from her grave. This was the culmination of a long-running campaign against Mrs Hammond's relatives, the Halls of Darley Oaks Farm in Staffordshire, who provide guinea pigs for medical research.

Now that the Halls have, quite understandably, decided to cease breeding guinea pigs, they might get Mrs Hammond's body back. That will be the only positive result of their decision.

So to make it clear, the New York Stock Exchange has given into brazen grave-robbing terrorists. When will the US government take action against these people?

Posted by: Greg at 01:36 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I encountered this in a New York Times article about the decreasing population of the Astrodome.

Frank E. Gutierrez, the emergency management coordinator for Harris County, which covers Houston, said that Joe Leonard, the area commander for the Department of Homeland Security, had made it a goal to clear the shelter complex by Sept. 18. "Everyone was asking him, 'What if we don't make it?' " Mr. Gutierrez said, "And he said, 'Then I'll need to work harder.' "

If that date seems a little odd but vaguely familiar to you, let me offer you the following link to an earlier post on this site.

I'm left with some uncomfortable questions because of that. Questions that, being asked, are likely to bring some outraged fans looking for me on September 18, the first regular season home game for the Texans.

It does sort of make you wonder, doesnÂ’t it?

Posted by: Greg at 01:34 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Air Force Brigadier General Johnny Weida faced allegations of using his position to proselytize cadets at the Air Force Academy. According to this report he has been cleared.

The Air Force Inspector General's office has cleared a top Air Force Academy general of proselytizing non-Christian cadets, Air Force spokeswoman Jennifer Stephens said Wednesday.

Commandant of Cadets Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida had faced seven allegations that he improperly shared his faith. The inspector general in June cleared him of six of the seven allegations, including his June 2003 "guidance" to cadets that said they are "accountable first to your God." He also urged cadets and staff to pray.

The academy said the final allegation of which he was cleared Wednesday was "using a religious communicative code to facilitate the proselytizing of non-Christian cadets."

Frankly, I do not understand what this last charge even means. A “religious communicative code”? I guess I need someone to explain that to me, because the charge seems to be just so much gobbledy-gook.

Posted by: Greg at 01:29 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I think everyone has now heard about this from Oprah.

Oprah Winfrey on Tuesday devoted the first of two shows to the wake of Hurricane Katrina, saying: "I think ... this country owes these people an apology" – referring to the survivors for their treatment after the disaster struck and to those who were left to die as help failed to arrive.

"This makes me so mad. This should not have happened," said a tearful Winfrey, who wore a gas mask inside New Orleans' now-vacated Superdome, where she was overcome by the stench.

1) I am sorry that your governor delayed ordering an evacuation for two days after it became clear the hurricane was headed your direction.

2) IÂ’m sorry that your mayor ignored your cityÂ’s evacuation plan by directing you to shelter in the Superdome rather than using available buses to help you evacuate. IÂ’m further sorry that he allowed hundreds of buses to be destroyed by the hurricane instead of ordering them used to assist in getting you out of town.

3) I’m sorry about the culture of political corruption you and your fellow citizens of Louisiana have permitted and encouraged for decades, allowing the diversion of money for needed public works and public safety projects to be diverted into the pockets of so-called “public servants”.

4) IÂ’m sorry that the same destruction of infrastructure that made it impossible for you to get out of New Orleans also made it difficult for relief supplies and personnel to get into New Orleans following the hurricane.

5) IÂ’m sorry that you have had to be subjected to the ill-informed and hysterical rantings of Oprah Winfrey, whose millions will not be spent to provide you relief despite the fact that she used you and your tragedy to garner higher ratings.

Is that enough of an apology, Ms. Winfrey?

Posted by: Greg at 01:51 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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So, Al, would you like to correct your remarks about when you knew about the loan to Air America that took money from kid so that you can have a political platform. You claim you knew only a few weeks ago -- but now we have your signature on documents dating back a year spelling out the whole deal.

According to a November 2004 settlement agreement between former Air American head honchos Evan Cohen and Rex Sorensen and Air America's current owners and investors at Piquant LLC, Al Franken was smack dab in the middle of negotiations over the debts owed by the liberal radio network--including the Gloria Wise loan. The agreement was signed to clear the decks in advance of the questionable asset transfer from Air America's old owners, Progress Media and Radio Free America, to Piquant. (This is the transfer being challenged by Multicultural Radio Broadcasting Inc. as a "fraudulent conveyance," which we first reported exclusively in the first installment in our investigative blog series, "A Trail of Debts.")

Far from being an innocent party with no knowledge of Air America's money woes, Franken was a signatory to the agreement. The document, published here for the first time, exposes how Franken misled his listeners and the press about his knowledge of the charity loan.

Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go -- but definitely pay back $875,000.

Posted by: Greg at 11:34 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Are you Bush critics hearing this?

New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin told CNN's "American Morning" Monday that he met with Mr. Bush and Mrs. Blanco on Air Force One on Friday and implored the two to "get in sync."

"If you don't get in sync, more people are going to die," Mr. Nagin said.

Mr. Bush met privately first with Mrs. Blanco, then called Mr. Nagin in for a meeting.

"He called me in that office," Mr. Nagin said. "And he said, 'Mr. Mayor, I offered two options to the governor.' I was ready to move. The governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision."

Not that this is the first time she has delayed and temporized.

Mr. Bush, at the request of Mrs. Blanco, declared the entire state of Louisiana a disaster area 48 hours before the hurricane made landfall. He also asked Mrs. Blanco to order a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans on Aug. 27 -- two days before the hurricane hit -- but she did not make the order until Aug. 28.

In other words, Bush acted -- but Blanco did not.

And I won't get into the question of those school buses.

Posted by: Greg at 11:14 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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After all, if the board overseeing the levees is part of the legendary web of public-sector corruption in Louisiana, then it is hard to blame Corps of Engineers budget cuts for the problem, isn’t it?

Rampant public corruption was doing big business in New Orleans long before Hurricane Katrina ever hit. What then Congressman, now Senator David Vitter calls "corrupt, good old boy" practices were apparent in the New Orleans Levee Board just one year before the collapse of regional levees, emergency communications and government services brought the Big Easy to the brink of anarchy. In fact, Senator David Vitter requested a federal investigation into improper practices of a number of public utilities, including the New Orleans Levee Board, and a new Task Force was to have been initiated in the Baton Rouge office, beginning in July 2004.

As Vice-Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee, which holds jurisdiction over the Justice Department, Vitter met with and actively encouraged Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller to establish an additional Public Corruption Task Force in their Louisiana offices.

With the focus on kickbacks and bogus contractors, who was heeding experts calling for a levee disaster from a major hurricane?

Could New Orleans’s descent into quasi-revolutionary chaos be an indirect result of racketeering, kickbacks and procurement fraud by Democrat insiders with ties to a fast-growing organization called `La Francophonie’?

This is an important read, in my opinion.

Seems to me that we could have some folks here who should be facing some homicide charges along with public corruption charges – say 10,000 or so.

Posted by: Greg at 01:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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After all, if the board overseeing the levees is part of the legendary web of public-sector corruption in Louisiana, then it is hard to blame Corps of Engineers budget cuts for the problem, isnÂ’t it?

Rampant public corruption was doing big business in New Orleans long before Hurricane Katrina ever hit. What then Congressman, now Senator David Vitter calls "corrupt, good old boy" practices were apparent in the New Orleans Levee Board just one year before the collapse of regional levees, emergency communications and government services brought the Big Easy to the brink of anarchy. In fact, Senator David Vitter requested a federal investigation into improper practices of a number of public utilities, including the New Orleans Levee Board, and a new Task Force was to have been initiated in the Baton Rouge office, beginning in July 2004.

As Vice-Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee, which holds jurisdiction over the Justice Department, Vitter met with and actively encouraged Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller to establish an additional Public Corruption Task Force in their Louisiana offices.

With the focus on kickbacks and bogus contractors, who was heeding experts calling for a levee disaster from a major hurricane?

Could New OrleansÂ’s descent into quasi-revolutionary chaos be an indirect result of racketeering, kickbacks and procurement fraud by Democrat insiders with ties to a fast-growing organization called `La FrancophonieÂ’?

This is an important read, in my opinion.

Seems to me that we could have some folks here who should be facing some homicide charges along with public corruption charges – say 10,000 or so.

Posted by: Greg at 01:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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People are already talking about staying here in Houston following the storm.

After all, many evacuees have friends or family in the area, and others expect to be displaced a year. That means that they may decide that living in Houston may be a very attractive option for many of them.

From doctors and architects to retirees and gang members, more than 150,000 Louisiana residents have landed on this city's doorstep. Some will be here for days and months, but many will simply stay.

They will be looking for jobs and apartments. They will put their children in schools. They will figure out how to navigate the city in a bus.

These are not just the poor, dazed people seen in pictures of the shelters — many of whom are finding family and moving out.

They are professionals searching for nice houses and leasing them for the entire school year, said Terry Cominsky with Karpas Properties, who has helped six such families in the past week.

None has a clue whether they will ultimately buy a home and stay here, she said. Dozens of important questions come first, like how to collect insurance money and what happens to the mortgage back home.

But they might stay. And the effect on Houston could be "profound," said Mayor Bill White, without offering specifics. Certainly the city's budget will go up, as will tax revenue. Which will rise higher is anyone's guess, he said.

Other changes are happening fast.

A month ago you would have had no problem finding an apartment – today that is becoming much more difficult. A colleague’s wife reports an increase in potential homebuyers in the last week, many from Louisiana. The media claims that office space is renting fast as Louisiana companies plan for an extended relocation. On a note that is much closer to me, my school has a total of 9 students who have been displaced by Katrina -- and I expect the number to rise over the course of the week to at least 30 -- and beyond that next week.

Houston exists today because a hurricane wiped Galveston off the map 105 years ago. Does the destruction of New Orleans mean we will see an extended boom in 2005?

Posted by: Greg at 01:20 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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There are many lost cities, thriving metropoli in their day. Has Hurricane Katrina made New Orleans the latest one, joining Pompeii (or the mythical Atlantis) as silent ruins with no human inhabitants?

Consider this article from the New York Times.

Only the wind inhabits the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in Colorado, birds and vines the pyramids of the Maya. Sand and silence have swallowed the clamors of frankincense traders and camels in the old desert center of Ubar. Troy was buried for centuries before it was uncovered. Parts of the Great Library of Alexandria, center of learning in the ancient world, might be sleeping with the fishes, off Egypt's coast in the Mediterranean.

"Cities rise and fall depending on what made them go in the first place," said Peirce Lewis, an expert on the history of New Orleans and an emeritus professor of geography at Pennsylvania State University.

Changes in climate can make a friendly place less welcoming. Catastrophes like volcanoes or giant earthquakes can kill a city quickly. Political or economic shifts can strand what was once a thriving metropolis in a slow death of irrelevance. After the Mississippi River flood of 1993, the residents of Valmeyer, Ill., voted to move their entire town two miles east to higher ground.

What will happen to New Orleans now, in the wake of floods and death and violence, is hard to know. But watching the city fill up like a bathtub, with half a million people forced to leave, it has been hard not to think of other places that have fallen to time and the inconstant earth.

One of those locations resonates with me. My first teaching job was at a Catholic school that served, among other places, Valmeyer. The pastor of the Catholic church there had been the founding principal. My wife, then the pastor of a church in a neighboring community preached the sermon at the first Thanksgiving service ever held in one of the churches in the new town. To say they voted is somewhat misleading -- the people of Valmeyer were told they could not rebuild on the site sacrificed by the Corps of Engineers for the sake of larger, historically important communities down river. Their only decision was whether they should rebuild together or scatter to the four winds.

The people of New Orleans will have to decide -- as a community, as individuals -- if a return to the site of the current tragedy is the right thing. I suspect that many will not return. Like Galveston before it, New Orleans may never fully recover from the death and destruction inflicted by nature.

Posted by: Greg at 04:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Saturn's rings have been changing for the last 25 years, and one has started to dim!

New observations by the international Cassini spacecraft reveal that Saturn's trademark shimmering rings, which have dazzled astronomers since Galileo's time, have dramatically changed over just the past 25 years.

Among the most surprising findings is that parts of Saturn's innermost ring _ the D ring _ have grown dimmer since the Voyager spacecraft flew by the planet in 1981, and a piece of the D ring has moved 125 miles inward toward Saturn.

While scientists puzzle over what caused the changes, their observations could reveal something about the age and lifetime of the rings.

Cassini-related discoveries were discussed Monday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's division of planetary sciences in Cambridge, England.

"I don't think Saturn's rings will disappear anytime soon, but this tells us how the rings are evolving and how long they might last, " deputy project scientist Linda Spilker said in a telephone interview from England.

Scientists are interested in Saturn's rings because they are a model of the disk of gas and dust that initially surrounded the sun. Studying them could yield important clues about how the planets formed from that disc 4.5 billion years ago.

The ring observations were made this summer. The $3.3 billion Cassini mission, funded by NASA and the European and Italian space agencies, was launched in 1997. Cassini is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

I know the problem -- it is galactic warming, and George W. Bush is at fault for not accepting the limits of the Kyoto Accords!

Posted by: Greg at 01:58 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I never thought I would write those words, but they are deserved.

Sean Penn took matters into his own hands yesterday, launching a boat in a personal effort to rescue New Orleans families stranded by Hurricane Katrina.

The Oscar-winning actor and political activist managed to reach several people who had been trapped in their homes since the hurricane hit Monday.

Penn, who was accompanied by his personal photographer and a crew of helpers, brought the victims to dry land - and gave them cash as well.

Johnnie Brown, 73, a retired custodian, called his sister on a cell phone after being plucked from his flooded house. "Guess who come and got me out of the house? Sean Penn the actor. Them boys were really nice," he said.

Penn later accompanied a few of them to a hospital.

Asked what he was doing in the disaster zone, Penn said, "Whatever I can do to help."

"There's a lot of people out there," Penn said. "There's bodies everywhere. We could only do so many houses."

Your politics may be wrong -- but your actions here are exactly correct, and I salue you.

UPDATE: Contrast the above story with this story.

EFFORTS by Hollywood actor Sean Penn to aid New Orleans victims stranded by Hurricane Katrina foundered badly overnight, when the boat he was piloting to launch a rescue attempt sprang a leak.

Penn had planned to rescue children waylaid by Katrina's flood waters, but apparently forgot to plug a hole in the bottom of the vessel, which began taking water within seconds of its launch.

The actor, known for his political activism, was seen wearing what appeared to be a white flak jacket and frantically bailing water out of the sinking vessel with a red plastic cup.

When the boat's motor failed to start, those aboard were forced to use paddles to propel themselves down the flooded New Orleans street.

Asked what he had hoped to achieve in the waterlogged city, the actor replied: "Whatever I can do to help."

With the boat loaded with members of Penn's entourage, including a personal photographer, one bystander taunted the actor: "How are you going to get any people in that thing?"

I'd love to know where these two stories fit in relation to each other -- and if both are true. (Hat Tip: Colossus of Rhodey.)

Posted by: Greg at 03:46 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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This babbling buffoon has already shown he is in way over his head -- witness the obscene meltdown the other day, not to mention his failure to use available buses to get New Orleans residents out of the city before Hurricane Katrina hit the city. Now his mental breakdown appears to have gone a step further, as Nagin claims he is targetted for a CIA hit, based upon comments made on Friday night.

"Today was a turning point, I think," he said. "My philosophy is never get too high, never get too low. ... I always try to keep my emotions in check and yesterday I kind of went off a little bit. I was worried about that, but it maybe worked out. I don't know. If the CIA slips me something and next week you don't see me, you'll all know what happened."

Is there any way for this man to be relieved of all authority? He seems to have gone over the edge mentally, and to be suffering from the effects of some sort of psychological breakdown.

And lest anyone think this is a joke, Nagin even repeated the claim on Saturday.

Today he told interviewers for CNN on a live broadcast he feared the "CIA might take me out.".

So he screwed up the evacuation, and now he is melting down during the recovery. I've got a Bad feeling about this.

Posted by: Greg at 12:40 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I hadn't planned on writing any more today, but I had to click on one last link, sent by a friend. What I read is disquieting in more ways than one. I may not agree with Ana Menendez of the Miami Herald on everything, but she does raise one proper point.

It seems that some hotels in Talahassee are telling folks displaced by Hurricane Katrina that they are to be displaced by Miami Hurricanes and FSU Seminoles arriving for the big game between the two schools on Monday night. They have reservations, you see, some paid in advance no doubt, and these folks from Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana didn't plan ahead for their homes to be destroyed by the biggest natural disaster in the United States in at least a century.

Cancel the stupid game.

Let the Hurricanes, the Seminoles and their hollow mascots play another day. I don't care how long the fans have been waiting for the FSU-Miami showdown in Tallahassee Monday night. I don't care about Devin Hester's kick return.

What kind of country amuses itself with choreographed violence while the world burns? How low have we sunk on the moral scale when hotels in Tallahassee are kicking out victims from the real hurricane to make way for a bunch of football fans?

New Orleans is burning. Its people are waiting in lines that stretch for half a mile. Tens of thousands have lost not just homes, but an entire way of life. A city is gone. We are facing one of the biggest displacements in the country's history. And the few evacuees who have managed to find shelter in hotels around Tallahassee have to pick up and go because of football?

''We have to let them know what's going on in town and they're going to have to leave,'' a hotel manager told The Herald's Mary Ellen Klas.

The manager added: ``Many of them are trying to get closer to home anyway.''

I guess that would be those who still have a home.

Yeah, I find Menendez a bit shrill, but I agree with her on her larger point -- no person displaced by this disaster should be displaced by a mere football game. Yeah, Iknow that is near blasphemous coming from someone from Texas, but it is also the simple truth.

But I have to disagree with menendez when she proposes that all revenue from the game -- tickt sales, concessions, and salaries -- ought to be turned over to charity. She may be offended when University of Miami atheletic department spokesman Mark Pray rejected the idea out of hand and noted that she wasn't giving up her salary for the duration, but Pray had it right. Afte all, how many of those concession workers and ticket takers are working those jobs for the money they need for necessities, not for a little extra spending money? Would Ana and her press pass care to explain why these folks should get stiffed while she continues to draw her pay and her expense-account money? Probably not, but as a member of the MSM she feels she is semi-divine royalty entitled to be treated with a different standard that the commoners whose work does not involve the First Amendment.

But while I think that most of what Menendez has written is simply shrill socialism, she does strike a note with me. Because of a pair of seats in the back of Section 541.

Most folks know that we've got some 15,000 people displaced by Hurricane Katrina living in the Astrodome (more properly the Reliant Astrodome, thanks to a naming rights deal). Two other buildings in Reliant Park -- the Reliant Arena and Reliant Center -- have also been taken for emergency shelter. There are folks downtown at the George R. Brown Convention Center, too, some miles from the the other three locations. The mayor has rightly challenged groups or businesses with cancelled events to sue, and then explain in court why their event was more important than disaster relief.

But one facility at Reliant Park is not in use for temporary shelter, despite being literally only a Hail Mary pass or kickoff return from the Astrodome. That is the crown jewel of Reliant Park -- Reliant Stadium, home of the Houston Texans, where those two seats are located.

I'm left with some uncomfortable questions because of that. Questions that, being asked, are likely to bring some outraged fans looking for me on September 18, the first regular season home game for the Texans.

There is only one event booked into Relaint Stadium between now and the start of October -- the Septembr 18 game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Does that game need to be moved to provide more shelter for the victims of this disaster? I'm not sure -- but I have an answer gnawing in the pit of my stomach that might not be too popular with my fellow Texans fans.

And beyond the shelter question is the reality that many of the folks sleeping on cots in the other three buildings are still going to be there in two weeks. Is it responsible, is it proper, to surround them with game day crowds and the orgy of tailgating that we find in the parking lots surrounding their place of refuge? It somehow seems. . . less than ideal. But one has to wonder if the game does not belong somewhere else for that reason alone.

Please, no one hear me as taking a shot at the Houston Texans. Team owner Bob McNair made a $1,000,000 donation to disaster relief on Thursday night, matching the donations called in by Texan fans during the teams final pre-season game in Tampa Bay. I'm sure players and coaches, as well as fans, have shown generosity in this time of crisis. And there will no doubt be the obligatory Red Cross collection at the gates on September 18.

But I think there is a question that still needs to be asked by the state, county, and city, the fans and ticketholders, and the Houston Texans.

Is the biggest gift that the we can give to the victims of Hurricane Katrina the gift of our home opener?

Posted by: Greg at 02:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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