I was going to spend some time with Mindreading: An Integrated Account of Pretence, Self-Awareness, and Understanding Other Minds after reading The Design of Sites for some ideas.

Then the mailman shows up with When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America. 

This could be my last post of the day...possibly the weekend.

Quote of note:

The exemption strikes at the heart of a requirement that labor unions and Democratic lawmakers have ferociously defended for years.

"There are a lot of opportunities to experiment," said Mr. Snow, who jointed Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao and Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez in a rapid trip to highlight the administration's hurricane-relief operations.

G.O.P. Sees Opportunities Arising From Storm
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

HOUSTON, Sept. 9 - Republican leaders in Congress and some White House officials see opportunities in Hurricane Katrina to advance longstanding conservative goals like giving students vouchers to pay for private schools, paying churches to help with temporary housing and scaling back business regulation.

I found this Swiss commercial for Office XP and this British commercial for a soft drink.

Quote of note:

Republicans have long been trying to repeal the prevailing wage law on the grounds that the regulations are expensive and bureaucratic; weakening it was even part of the Republican Party platform in 1996 and 2000. Now, in a time of searing need, the party wants to achieve by fiat what it couldn't achieve through the normal democratic process.

A Shameful Proclamation

On Thursday, President Bush issued a proclamation suspending the law that requires employers to pay the locally prevailing wage to construction workers on federally financed projects. The suspension applies to parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

From the September 1 edition of CBN's The 700 Club:

LEE WEBB (CBN News anchor): And back here at home, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts will be introduced by a Republican and Democrat when his confirmation hearings begin next Tuesday in Washington. USA Today reports Virginia Republican John Warner and Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh will appear with Roberts. It's viewed as a positive symbolic boost for Roberts. The nominee is from Bayh's state of Indiana. Bayh, though, says he hasn't decided whether he will vote for Roberts, but many moderate Democrats are expected to support him. Liberal senators like Ted Kennedy and Charles Schumer have criticized Roberts. And now, let's go back over to Terry with more of the Club.

Quote of note:

The 29-page decision, if permitted to stand, would lift the federally imposed order that is keeping the nonprofit organization from identifying itself as the recipient of a recent request for patron information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Plaintiffs Win Round in Lawsuit on Patriot Act
By ALISON LEIGH COWAN

BRIDGEPORT, Conn., Sept. 9 - A federal judge ruled on Friday that the government cannot continue to bar the representatives of a nonprofit organization from speaking out about the sweeping powers that the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act gives investigators seeking library records.

Ex-Columnist Will Not Be Tried for Taping Call
By TERRY AGUAYO

MIAMI, Sept. 9 - A former columnist for The Miami Herald will not be prosecuted for taping a phone conversation with a former politician without his knowledge shortly before the man killed himself, the district attorney said.

The columnist, Jim DeFede, "admitted to the unconsented taping and cooperated with law enforcement in explaining his actions," the Miami-Dade assistant state attorney, Joseph M. Centorino, wrote.

While Mr. DeFede, 42, may have violated a Florida law requiring that "all parties must consent to the recording or disclosure of the contents of any wire, oral or electronic communication," prosecutors said he did not tape the conversation with the former politician, Arthur Teele Jr., for his own advantage.

Quote of note:

Some experts warn that the crisis atmosphere and the open federal purse are a bonanza for lobbyists and private companies and are likely to lead to the contract abuses, cronyism and waste that numerous investigations have uncovered in post-war Iraq.

In Storm's Ruins, a Rush to Rebuild and Reopen for Business
By JOHN M. BRODER

BATON ROUGE, La., Sept. 9 - Private contractors, guided by two former directors of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other well-connected lobbyists and consultants, are rushing to cash in on the unprecedented sums to be spent on Hurricane Katrina relief and reconstruction.

 At Crooks and Liars,:

Olbermann's Time Line

Keith put together a video time line that jumps back and forth between different days and shows the spin by Chertoff and others coupled with the reality on the ground.

...and thence to BobHarris.com

Picking up on a thought bouncing around back at TMW after a Chris Floyd post, I thought I'd find out for myself exactly which Louisiana parishes were and were not included in George W. Bush's declaration of emergency effective August 26th, which you can also reach by clicking the map itself.

via Republic of T: 

Compassionate Conservatism
Here’s yet another fine example of what Republicans must mean when they talk about compassionate conservatism (WSJ, subscription required), though more along the lines of the Dennis Hastert or Barbara Bush variety.

Two shaky House incumbents, Democrat Melancon and Republican Boustany, hope response to hurricane rallies voters behind them. House Republican campaign chief Reynolds touts chance to market conservative social-policy solutions; Rep. Baker of Baton Rouge is overheard telling lobbyists: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did."

...who, incidentally, was on Lou Dobbs last night in his official capacity as "one of the heroes of 9/11" to tell us that it's all New Orleans' fault.

Anyway... 

Brown, More Unqualified Than You Thought

Astoundingly, FEMA Director Michael Brown is even more unqualified for his job than previously believed. The reason: he's been lying on his resume. A 2001 White House press release states that "from 1975 to 1978, Brown worked for the City of Edmond, Oklahoma, overseeing the emergency services divisions." Brown's official government biography says he served "as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight." Time Magazine contacted Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond and got the real story. Deakins revealed that Brown "was an 'assistant to the city manager' from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself, and had no authority over other employees. 'The assistant is more like an intern,' she told TIME. 'Department heads did not report to him.'" It's just one of several fabrications Brown has made about his professional experience.

When George W. Bush is asked why he doesn't fire FEMA Director Michael Brown:

"Brownie's the kind of guy that will stand up and say thousands of people starving in an overheated cesspool have been fed twice a day, and I believe him." 

Ex-Army Lt. General Joe Ballard, another Louisianan and the first Black commander of the Corps of Engineers 

Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of Gulf Coast communities is painful for Blacks to watch for obvious reasons and ones that seem not so obvious to white fellow citizens.
 
History returns to haunt.

Almost all Blacks are southerners, or descendants of southern families freed by the Civil War, lifted from peonage by the Great Migration. And almost all have relatives, friends and college classmates still in the affected states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas.

Now, with the lives of thousands jeopardized by floods, destruction of homes and businesses, and ailments spread by contaminated water, comes the disheartening news of widespread lawlessness among the hurricane’s victims.
 
This we get while watching a disaster unfold that should never have happened in the first place.
 
TV pictures keep showing lines of Black evacuees, not looting or shooting at police, but holding on as best they can, waiting for the emergency help their government has rushed to other disaster victims, in America or halfway around the world. Waiting still, even as their leaders from Washington congratulate themselves on their coping skills.
 
The image of Black looters and criminals keeps getting resurrected, while  images of Black leaders driving the recovery efforts is minimized. 
 
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, struggling to keep order after an estimated 70 percent of his police force walked off, is still working, in a city with filthy water covering 70 percent of its streets.

Lt. Gen. Russell Honoré, a graduate of historically Black Southern University, took charge as soon as he was sent, changing the dynamic on the streets as he ordered soldiers and civilian police to point their guns toward the ground: “This is not Iraq.”

Brig. Gen. Robert Crear, who actually capped oil wells in Iraq, cleared up in days a problem  armchair experts said would take weeks: blocking the gaps in two levees whose failure let Lake Pontchartrain flood the whole of the New Orleans basin, so pumping operations could begin.
 
Ex-Army Lt. General Joe Ballard, another Louisianan and the first Black commander of the Corps of Engineers, makes the most painful point of all: This disaster, predicted by “every Corps of Engineers commander since 1927,” did not have to happen.
 
What he’s talking about is New Orleans’ levees, built in the mid-1950s to withstand a Category Three storm, could not in fact stand up to that much battering. The Mississippi River, made to run straight by high levees after devastating floods in 1927, washed away barrier islands that should have protected the city from the full brunt of Nature’s fury.
With the barriers gone, Army engineers kept asking their leaders in Congress and the White House for money to build up the levees to prevent exactly the kind of flooding New Orleans has endured.
 
Gen. Ballard, for his part, put forward a plan that Congress denounced as wasteful in the extreme. He wanted to spend more than $100 million to build up the levees to withstand a “100-year storm,” but was excoriated as a would-be big spender, and retired after that.
 
Now that a 100-year storm has proved his point, Congress has targeted $68 billion for a cleanup many experts believe will cost $150 billion, and Gen. Ballard’s spending plan looks to have been the more prudent investment. Who’s the big spender now?
 
It was all so unnecessary, especially the negative characterizations of the Blacks, who are after all American citizens. So few of gave up to lawlessness, amid a catastrophe so great its police force disintegrated, that the continued focus on criminality is an affront to the dignity and nobility so many have displayed. That, sadly, magnifies the tragedy we witness.
 
Garland Thompson is Editorial Director and Tyrone D. Taborn is Editor-in-Chief of US Black Engineer magazine

Quote of note: 

As someone who is acquainted with the inflammatory media coverage of civil disturbances involving blacks since Reconstruction, I was prepared for the inflammatory, sensational and racist coverage accorded the Hurricane Katrina tragedy, much of it lining up with that of the online comments about the flood and its aftermath by ex-convict David Duke, a leader of the Eurocentric movement in the United States. White residents of Louisiana were so fond of this man that they almost elected him governor.

Also, I'm not surprised that there was very little difference between the former Ku Klux Klan leader's comments and commentary earlier this week by the New York Times' elite columnists Nicholas D. Kristof and John Tierney. Conservatives might view the Times as liberal, but, in my opinion, the Times leads the nation's media when it comes to scapegoating blacks for the country's social problems. 

Color-blind coverage?
- Ishmael Reed
Friday, September 9, 2005

Because many whites believe a fact only when someone who resembles them informs them of it, black opinion-makers are wasting their time when they talk about the racist features of the New Orleans' calamity. It's better to leave that job to Maureen Dowd, writing in the New York Times, Francis Fox Piven, appearing on KPFA radio and, remarkably, Don Imus on MSNBC.

As a result of an industry of heavily financed think tanks and a media intimidated by conservatives -- institutions that have conspired to destroy the credibility of black leaders -- many Americans are convinced that American society is color-blind. Many progressives agree, maintaining that issues involving gays, lesbians, transgender persons and white middle-class women are more pressing than those affecting blacks. I'm against discrimination against anyone, but I've noticed that most of those being evacuated from New Orleans -- people who couldn't get out -- were black, both gay and straight. Yet, when the Rev. Jesse Jackson raised the issue of the racist treatment of black residents, he got a Swift Boat-type retaliation from Bill O'Reilly and Newt Gingrich, who appeared on O'Reilly's show Monday. (Of course, we learned from the documentary "Outfoxed" that sliming Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton are part of the Fox playbook.)

When it comes down to removing folks from NOLA by force, I'm not going to have a single complaint. Not unless something TOTALLY absurd happens.

Holdouts on Dry Ground Say, 'Why Leave Now?'
By ALEX BERENSON

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 8 - Ten days ago, the water rose to the front steps of their house. Four days ago, it began falling. But only now is the city demanding that Richie Kay and Emily Harris get out.

They cannot understand why. They live on high ground in the Bywater neighborhood, and their house escaped structural damage. They are healthy and have enough food and water to last almost a year.

Quote of note:

Before Katrina, supporters of the new law argued it would curb abuse of the bankruptcy code. This argument was always dubious, and in the aftermath of the hurricane, the new law appears simply callous.

Bankrupting the victims
September 9, 2005

GOVERNMENT AID IS FINALLY flowing to the most helpless victims of Hurricane Katrina, but a broader category of the dispossessed will test the government over a longer period of time. They are families with the means to flee the hurricane, perhaps even with insurance to cover some losses, but without the resources to make a living immediately. In other contexts, they would be referred to simply as the middle class.

Quote of note:

the public suffering of these desperate Americans is a symbol for a nation that is becoming progressively poorer under the leadership of the party of Big Business. As Katrina was making its devastating landfall, the U.S. Census Bureau released new figures that show that since 1999, the income of the poorest fifth of Americans has dropped 8.7% in inflation-adjusted dollars. Last year alone, 1.1 million were added to the 36 million already on the poverty rolls.

For those who have trouble with statistics, here's the shorthand: The rich have been getting richer and the poor have been getting, in the ripe populist language of Louisiana's legendary Long, the shaft.

Robert Scheer:
The real costs of a culture of greed

Campbell Donates Her Fee to Hurricane Victims

Supermodel Naomi Campbell is donating her entire earnings from upcoming New York Fashion Week to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The Brit is heartbroken by the scenes of devastation in the U.S. and has decided to donate all her catwalk fees to the American Red Cross.

Campbell is offering her services to any designer who agrees to donate her salary to the relief effort in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

She also is encouraging her fellow supermodels to follow her lead and donate their earnings.

...and no Libertarians in Louisiana.

Tropical Storm Becomes Hurricane Off Fla.
- By TRAVIS REED, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, September 8, 2005

(09-08) 22:01 PDT New Smyrna Beach, Fla. (AP) --

Tropical Storm Ophelia strengthened into a hurricane as it stalled 70 miles off the northeast Florida coast Thursday, churning up waves that caused beach erosion and drenching Kennedy Space Center with rain.

Thursday night, Ophelia had top sustained winds of 75 mph, just over the threshold to be classified as a hurricane, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said.

But forecasters said it was still unclear where Ophelia was headed.

If it hits Florida, it would become the third hurricane to strike the state this year and the seventh in the last 13 months.

The other day I said the pictures coming out of New Orleans hit the same nerve pictures out of Selma did in the 60s. There has been a couple of differences, of course.

The major emotional reaction White America had to Selma was guilt...and it's inverse, anger. I just saw Susan Collins and Joseph Lieberman interviewed on PBS' The Newshour. They say their own constituents' reaction to the government failure was anger, frustration and embarrassment....brazen dishonesty must be the inverse of embarrassment...

Another difference is these are crimes of thoughtlessness...Selma was malicious, brutal.

One thing that's the same is, white folks are responding collectively, as they always do when race is a prominent element.

On the other hand folks are actively using that fact (what did you think control of the media was about?).

Victims feel forgotten in southeastern Louisiana
'St. Bernard Parish and Plaquemines was ground zero'

CHALMETTE, Louisana (AP) -- The cars were swallowed, the homes shattered and the people left clinging for life. Survivors waited for help, but it seemed like so little, so late.

More than a week since Hurricane Katrina cut its swath along the Gulf Coast, word is only now starting to trickle out from this outlying area of some 66,000 people on Louisiana's southeastern edge.

What's said is filled with anger -- residents feeling even more abandoned than hard-hit New Orleans -- and disbelief.

"If you dropped a bomb on this place, it couldn't be any worse than this," said Ron Silva, a district fire chief in St. Bernard Parish. "It's Day 8, guys. Everything was diverted first to New Orleans, we understand that. But do you realize we got 18 to 20 feet of water from the storm, and we've still got 7 to 8 feet of water?"

RELIEF -- PERRY FUNNELS RELIEF FUNDS TO HIS OWN GROUP'S COFFERS: "Gov. Rick Perry, in hurricane relief tours around the state, in news releases and on his official state Web site, has urged Texans to contribute to three groups: the Red Cross, Salvation Army and the OneStar Foundation," the Dallas Morning News reports. Sounds admirable, except for one detail: the OneStar Foundation isn't doing any relief work in the Gulf states. In fact, it's a volunteer organization set up by Perry himself -- "birthed from the heart and vision of Governor Rick Perry," according to the group's website -- and run by Susan Weddington, a close political ally of Perry who left her political position to run the organization.

 You were doing so well...

Katrina's Silver Lining
By DAVID BROOKS

As a colleague of mine says, every crisis is an opportunity. And sure enough, Hurricane Katrina has given us an amazing chance to do something serious about urban poverty.

That's because Katrina was a natural disaster that interrupted a social disaster. It separated tens of thousands of poor people from the run-down, isolated neighborhoods in which they were trapped. It disrupted the patterns that have led one generation to follow another into poverty.

It has created as close to a blank slate as we get in human affairs, and given us a chance to rebuild a city that wasn't working. We need to be realistic about how much we can actually change human behavior, but it would be a double tragedy if we didn't take advantage of these unique circumstances to do something that could serve as a spur to antipoverty programs nationwide.

You do know the difference, right?

Quote of note: 

Richard Grenell, a spokesman for the United States at the United Nations, disputed the idea that the United States is stingy. "Let me remind the authors that President Bush has increased overall development assistance from the United States by 90 percent since he took office," he said.

That's why we're only second to last.

U.N. Report Cites U.S. and Japan as the 'Least Generous Donors'
By CELIA W. DUGGER

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 7 - A week before world leaders gather here to set a course for combating global poverty, a United Nations report released on Wednesday names the United States and Japan as among "the least generous donors" and says American and European trade policies are hypocritical and contribute to impoverishing African farmers.

Maybe they knew the USofA wasn't negotiating in good faith. 

The Bolton backfire: Weaken UN, imperil Americans
By Helena Cobban

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. – Why is the Bush administration seemingly hurtling toward confrontation with the rest of the world in the lead-up to the World Summit in New York next week?

Almost the first act taken by Washington's new energetic, sometimes pugnacious, UN envoy John R. Bolton, was the submission of a list of 750 amendments he seeks in the draft of the summit's declaration. That text, which deals with issues as important as nuclear disarmament, human rights, global warming, and counterterrorism, had been painstakingly negotiated by world diplomats over preceding months.

The New York Times has an article that makes clear the relative value of religion to Black and white folks, peaking in my professional role of Chaos Lord and New Wave Titan, it really sounds like two different deities are involved. And one of them is Mammon.

Quote of note:

In Missouri, a much wider constellation of Internet sites - with names like parishdonations.com and katrinafamilies.com - displayed pictures of the flood-ravaged South and drove traffic to a single site, InternetDonations.org, a nonprofit entity with apparent links to white separatist groups.

After the Storm, the Swindlers
By TOM ZELLER Jr.

Even as millions of Americans rally to make donations to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the Internet is brimming with swindles, come-ons and opportunistic pandering related to the relief effort in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. And the frauds are more varied and more numerous than in past disasters, according to law enforcement officials and online watchdog groups.

Katrina bares racial gulf; experts see little change
Wed Sep 7, 2005 03:12 PM ET
By Alan Elsner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The gaping racial divide in the United States was laid bare by Hurricane Katrina, but many social policy experts say the disaster is unlikely to prompt any sustained effort to combat black urban poverty.

In the chaotic aftermath of the hurricane that destroyed New Orleans it became obvious that the overwhelming majority of people trapped in the drowned city, waiting desperately for help or succumbing to the storm, were poor blacks.

"It was pretty stark looking at the pictures and the data. Black people in New Orleans and elsewhere live together in the most fragile neighborhoods and it's not an accident -- it's the result of decades of segregation and discrimination," said Myron Orfield, a law professor at the University of Minnesota and former state legislator.

Last night Tavis Smiley interviewed two survivors of New Orleans. I think one of the interviews can clear up some of the rumors. I didn't want to just gank it out of context, hence the extensive quote...or you can just go to the emphasis added part toward the end.

Silas: Okay. I'm in the Sixth Ward and that was one of the heavily hit...

Tavis: Absolutely.

Silas: ...areas of the flood, sir. It, actually, the day of the storm, actually, the day prior to the storm, they was telling about mandatory evacuations, but if you just look at New Orleans' history, no one ever took the storms serious, okay? But the day after the waters rose about five feet in the house, and once it got about five feet in the house, we decided we were going to leave. Okay. Once we got to that part, we got, got outside of the house, we got in the water, which was about eight feet high, we made, my son and I made a makeshift raft out of somebody's wooden gate, and we started wading down through the streets, which took us like maybe two and a half, three miles. And we were, everything was fine until, you know, I put my wife and my daughter on the raft, my son and I was pushing. At certain points, we had to actually paddle with our feet. You know, one of our neighbors, which is a good friend of my wife, unfortunately, passed away and she was floating in the water, and she bumped into, her body bumped into the side of my daughter, and that's when we started having the real problems.

in We’re Going West…

But a sizable minority of blacks — including police — behaved reprehensibly in the aftermath, shooting at rescue workers, raping, killing and, yes, looting (though no cannibalism).

Oh really? 

Relief efforts ground to a halt last week after reports circulated of looters shooting at helicopters, yet none of the hundreds of articles I read on the subject contained a single first-hand confirmation from a pilot or eyewitness. The suspension-triggering attack—on a military Chinook attempting to evacuate refugees from the Superdome—was contested by Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown, who told ABC News, "We're controlling every single aircraft in that airspace and none of them reported being fired on." What's more, when asked about the attacks, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff replied: "I haven't actually received a confirmed report of someone firing on a helicopter."

Either way, compare the treatment Florida got to the following, from the American Progress Action Fund:

FEMA's Failures

The more you know about the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina, the worse it gets. Last night, the Associated Press reported that FEMA Director Michael Brown "waited hours after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast before he proposed to his boss sending at least 1,000 Homeland Security workers into the region to support rescuers." According to internal documents obtained by the AP, Brown specified that part of the workers mission would be to "'convey a positive image' about the government's response for victims" to the public. While it was sent five hours after the storm hit, Brown's letter lacked any sense of urgency -- he requested the workers arrive within two days. The letter politely ended, "Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities."

And from the same page...

Jackson Writes Song for Katrina Victims

NEW YORK — Michael Jackson has written a song to help raise funds for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and will soon record it.

Tentatively titled, "From the Bottom of My Heart," the singer plans to ask other musicians to join him in recording it, his spokeswoman, Raymone K. Bain, said Tuesday.

Jackson hopes to record the song within two weeks in the style of "We Are the World," which he co-wrote and produced in 1985 to raise money for famine relief efforts in Africa.

"It pains me to watch the human suffering taking place in the gulf region of my country," Jackson, 47, said in a statement. "I will be reaching out to others within the music industry to join me in helping to bring relief and hope to these resilient people who have lost everything."

Quote of note:

Mr. Bush signaled yesterday that we are in for more of the same when he sneered and said, "One of the things that people want us to do here is to play a blame game." This is not a game.

It's Not a 'Blame Game'

With the size and difficulty of the task of rescuing and rebuilding New Orleans and other Gulf Coast areas still unfolding, it seemed early to talk about investigating how this predicted cataclysm had been allowed to occur and why the government's response was so slow and inept. Until yesterday, that is, when President Bush blithely announced at a photo-op cabinet meeting that he, personally, was going to "find out what went right and what went wrong." We can't imagine a worse idea.

Quote of note:

Only in recent days, after the federal response to the disaster has come to be seen as inadequate, have large numbers of troops and dozens of helicopters, trucks and other equipment been poured into to the effort. Early on, the military rescue operations were smaller, often depending on the initiative of individuals like Lieutenants Shand and Udkow.

Navy Pilots Who Rescued Victims Are Reprimanded
By DAVID S. CLOUD

PENSACOLA, Fla., Sept. 6 - Two Navy helicopter pilots and their crews returned from New Orleans on Aug. 30 expecting to be greeted as lifesavers after ferrying more than 100 hurricane victims to safety.

I'd like to remind you though...

Opponents of the measure warned that lawmakers were venturing into uncharted and potentially dangerous territory.

"Engaging in social experimentation with our children is not the role of the legislature," said Assemblyman Ray Haynes, a Republican from Southern California. "We are throwing the dice and taking a huge gamble, and we are gambling with the lives and future of generations not yet born."

This is the same sentiment that fueled over fifty years of resistance to integrating schools.

Still got a long way to go. A really long way. 

Same Sex Marriage Wins Vote in California
By DEAN E. MURPHY

Nuclear Weapon Is Years Off for Iran, Research Panel Says
By ALAN COWELL

LONDON, Sept. 6 - A leading British research institute said Tuesday that Iran was at least five years away from producing sufficient material for "a single nuclear weapon," and that it could make one only if it chose to ignore international reaction and "throw caution to the wind."

...The new report broadly concurs with one completed in May by American intelligence agencies, which concluded that Iran was not expected to build a nuclear weapon before the next decade.

I should create a category called, "It's the blacks..."

If you check Technorati, you'll see that right wing folks are ignoring the truth just as hard as they can.

Well, they stand corrected again. 

Finally, most black men stood up. My nephew was our family leader and he successfully got us to his cousin's house. It was agreat feeling to have a young black man do his thing. He decided we would leave and he choose the route and we made it well ahead of the storm to Jackson. There were more black men like him who did whatthey had to to help people other than themselves get to safety or get help. It was to me better than the Million Man March to see them taking charge. My hat is off to you black men regardless as to whether you were in such a situation but by example I know that each of you would do the very same given the circumstances. 

via The Colorblind Society (there's an actual post there too), we find this explanation of why there's no suitable explanation for FEMA's failure.

FEMA: Florida Election Management Agency

Mel Brooks once said, "it's good to be king." Well when it comes to hurricanes, it's even better being the President's brother. Especially in a vital swing state. In an election year.

Louisiana's Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco is learning that the hard way. While her state suffered through a disastrous, disorganized and delayed response to Katrina from FEMA and the Bush administration, Florida governor Jeb Bush had no such problems as his state weathered four hurricanes in 2004.

There is no mystery to this discrepancy, as GovExec.com wrote in "How FEMA Delivered Florida for Bush" on November 3rd, 2004, literally the day after the President won reelection:

Now that President Bush has won Florida in his 2004 re-election bid, he may want to draft a letter of appreciation to Michael Brown, chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Seldom has any federal agency had the opportunity to so directly and uniquely alter the course of a presidential election, and seldom has any agency delivered for a president as FEMA did in Florida this fall.

FEMA's preparation, performance and questionable largesse during the four 2004 Florida hurricanes stands in stark contrast with its abysmal failure in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. While severe, the four Florida hurricanes (Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne) caused under 100 deaths and $22 billion in damage, a fraction of Katrina's destructive force. Yet FEMA's proactive role and President Bush's timely and personal involvement in Florida bear no relation to 2005

No, that's not the whole post. Check it out...it's quite informative.

Reflecting on my reaction to far too many white people's reaction to New Orleans

Desire deflects intent
Intent deflects desire

Those picture out of NOLA hit the same nerve attack dogs and firehoses hit in the 60s. But we have more history...and I can see some white folks becoming a problem.

"It's the blacks," whispered one white woman in the elevator. "We always worried this would happen."

"We've provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they've gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."

Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You're doing a heck of a job."

Quote of note:

During a week when communications were difficult, rumours have acquired a particular currency. They acquired through repetition the status of established facts.

One French journalist from the daily newspaper Libération was given precise information that 1,200 people had drowned at Marion Abramson school on 5552 Read Boulevard. Nobody at the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the New Orleans police force has been able to verify that.

..."Katrina's winds have left behind an information vacuum. And that vacuum has been filled by rumour.

"There is nothing to correct wild reports that armed gangs have taken over the convention centre," wrote Associated Press writer, Allen Breed.

"You can report them but you at least have to say they are unsubstantiated and not pass them off as fact," said one Baltimore-based journalist.

"But nobody is doing that."

Murder and rape - fact or fiction?
Gary Younge in Baton Rouge
Tuesday September 6, 2005
The Guardian

There were two babies who had their throats slit. The seven-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in the Superdome. And the corpses laid out amid the excrement in the convention centre.

In a week filled with dreadful scenes of desperation and anger from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina some stories stood out.

But as time goes on many remain unsubstantiated and may yet prove to be apocryphal.

New Orleans police have been unable to confirm the tale of the raped child, or indeed any of the reports of rapes, in the Superdome and convention centre.

A Political Tempest?

...ABC also has an emotional breakdown by party: Democrats were far more likely than Republicans to describe themselves as "shocked" (68% to 42%), "angry" (63% to 27%) and "ashamed" (63% to 28%) at the response to Katrina, while Republicans were far more "hopeful" (80% to 50%) and "proud" (43% to 17%).

So 58% of Republicans were not shocked by what they saw happen to New Orleans. Why not? They expected it?

And 73% weren't angry at all. I expect those who were live in Louisiana or Mississippi...

And 72% were unashamed of it.

Now for the disgusting part. What the HELL did 43% of Republicans see that made them proud? What did 80% of Republicans and 50% of Democrats see that gave them hope? 

"Recreational rioting???" 

Police appeal for calm over riots

Children as young as five have been involved in "recreational rioting" in north Belfast, a senior police officer has revealed.

Assistant Chief Constable Duncan McCausland appealed for calm following rioting in the loyalist Woodvale and Shankill Road areas on Monday.

He said police had intelligence that text messages were sent around schools to plan further rioting for Tuesday.

Five people arrested on the Shankill were freed, pending further inquiries.

Mr McCausland said "a sinister element" was controlling the rioting.

"It's a very difficult situation, and I am calling on people to exercise restraint to calm the situation down," he said.

Walking and chewing gum is one thing; juggling and chewing gum, though...

I get email occasionally from these two guys:

Late Registration asin: B0009WPKY0 binding: Audio CD list price: $13.98 USD amazon price: $11.99 USD

First, let me hook up the sound track...straight up or remixed.

Now. If you saw it or heard it, you know how nervous going off-script made Mr. West. You know he felt a moral imperitive to speak out. And you know it got roughly the same reception that this did...howls of outrage from conservatives attempting to overtalk a community-wide "Somebody FINALLY said it!"

I don't think Mr. West should have to be concerned. So I want y'all to buy Kanye West's new CD. Consensus is he's got a positive message...order the sanitized version from Wal-Mart if the explicit lyrics thing troubles you.

I know, it's going to go over big anyway...folks been waiting for it. But I don't want anyone to think Mr. West lost support because of this.

Quote of note:

Brandii Toby, a spokeswoman for Channel 5, said the station was indeed refusing to run Mr. Ellner's advertisement, but she said the station would provide no explanation.

Channel 5 Rejects Anti-Bush Ad of Borough President Candidate
By JIM RUTENBERG

A local television station, WNYW/Channel 5, is refusing to run a provocative advertisement promoting a Democratic candidate for Manhattan borough president. And the campaign of the candidate, Brian Ellner, is charging that the station is doing so because the spot takes a swipe at President Bush.

The 30-second ad features Mr. Bush's face superimposed upon a middle-aged man's naked torso as Mr. Ellner says of the president that "the emperor has no clothes." Mr. Ellner also introduces his partner, Simon Holloway, in the spot - which the campaign says is the first time in city history that a gay candidate has introduced his or her partner in a campaign commercial.

The specs for this are ideal for an ebook reader NOW. It cold almost tempt me to give up on paper (were it not for certain legal copyright absurdities that are in the works). 

Philips plans to transform mobile market with rollable display
2nd September 2005
By CBR Staff Writer

Royal Philips Electronics NV has said it could be in volume production by the end of 2006 with a rollable display that could transform mobile devices by giving users access to a five-inch screen whenever it is needed.

Quote of note:

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, hinted at similar criticism on Monday when asked about the emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, who donated $100 million to the American victims of Hurricane Katrina but nothing to the victims of the stampede. "I'm not condemning what he did, but he should think of Iraq," Mr. Jaafari said.

Why? "Other Arabs" believe "Iraq's plight" is America's plight...frankly, correctly so. And Qatar, in particular, knows what side its bread is buttered on. They know helping the USofA in Iraq is a different thing than helping Iraqis, and they know what their job has been since the invasion.

Leader Says Other Arabs Are Insensitive to Iraq's Plight
By ROBERT F. WORTH

Your presence, Mr. Bush, is an obstacle. The security you need will interfere if you go where the problems are, and if you don't (like, for instance, you didn't with your first, week-too-late discussion) it's a photo-op for a president that's so damn disconnected as to say the situation is "secured" by locking thousands of suffering people in a sewer.

Just stay at home in Texas where you're equally useless but st least not in the way. 

Bush Makes Return Visit; Two Levees Secured
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
and CLYDE HABERMAN

As criticism raged over the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina, President Bush returned to the region yesterday, and Army engineers patched up two levees that had been breached by the storm and cautiously began pumping water out of New Orleans.

Stupid errors on the keyboard made me lose two previous attempts to link this article. Maybe because it makes me angry. I could say some really ugly shit.

Spreading the poison of bigotry
By Howard Witt
Tribune senior correspondent
September 4, 2005

BATON ROUGE, La. -- They locked down the entrance doors Thursday at the Baton Rouge hotel where I'm staying alongside hundreds of New Orleans residents driven from their homes by Hurricane Katrina.

"Because of the riots," the hotel managers explained. Armed Gunmen from New Orleans were headed this way, they had heard.

"It's the blacks," whispered one white woman in the elevator. "We always worried this would happen."

Something else gave way last week besides the levees that had protected New Orleans from the waters surrounding it. The thin veneer of civility and practiced cordiality that in normal times masks the prejudices and bigotries held by many whites in this region of Deep South Louisiana was heavily battered as well.

All it took to set the rumor mills in motion were the first TV pictures broadcast Tuesday showing some looters—many of them black—smashing store windows in downtown New Orleans. Reports later in the week of sporadic violence and shootings among the desperate throngs outside the Superdome clamoring to be rescued only added to the panic.

Quote of note:

Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, sent a public letter to Mayor John W. Hickenlooper of Denver this summer asking if the library was considering Spanish-only branches or converting to Spanish-language material at the expense of English material. Mr. Tancredo, an outspoken critic of American immigration policies, said he had been contacted by concerned librarians and patrons.

"When you have a strong cultural identity and there aren't set incentives to become American, it creates a lot of tension and divides the community," said Mr. Tancredo's spokesman, Will Adams.

Bilingual Material in Libraries Draws Some Criticism
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Quote of note:

In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn't known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We've provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they've gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."

Lies don't get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.

Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You're doing a heck of a job."

That's unbelievable.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- The Times-Picayune of New Orleans printed this editorial in its Sunday edition, criticizing the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina and calling on every FEMA official to be fired:

Quote of note:

Judge McCarroll's decision prompted 12 experts on judicial ethics to write to the Tennessee Supreme Court in late August. The experts called his action lawless and said they feared that his approach could spread around the nation and to subjects like the death penalty, medical marijuana, flag burning and even divorce.

"Unwillingness to follow the law," the letter said, "is not a legitimate ground for recusal."

It should, however, be grounds for dismissal. 

On Moral Grounds, Some Judges Are Opting Out of Abortion Cases
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: September 4, 2005

OpenTheGovernment.org has issued it's second annual secrecy report card (pdf). Seems this administration has more to hide than any previous one.

By The Numbers

Seems NBC got no balls. If anyone missed it, it's here.

Quote of note:

The line NBC stopped us from hearing on the West Coast: "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

...The show was aired live on the East Coast, where West's full comments were heard.

There was a several-second tape delay, but the person in charge "was instructed to listen for a curse word and didn't realize [West] had gone off script," NBC spokeswoman Rebecca Marks told Associated Press.

The Show Didn't Benefit by Censors
By Robert Hilburn, Times Staff Writer

I got a heads-up on this article from Erica Ford (who has no web site for me to link to). 

Quote of note:

As hurricane Katrina approached, our Governor urged us to "Pray the hurricane down" to a level two. Trapped in a building two days after the hurricane, we tuned our battery-operated radio into local radio and tv stations, hoping for vital news, and were told that our governor had called for a day of prayer. As rumors and panic began to rule, they was no source of solid dependable information. Tuesday night, politicians and reporters said the water level would rise another 12 feet - instead it stabilized. Rumors spread like wildfire, and the politicians and media only made it worse.

I'm lifting this entire from rootwork the rootsblog. He's out of New Orleans and so with  Rudy at Chickenbones has been keeping a close watch on the arts community.

National Coalition for Black Civic Participation: As we have seen in the recent fiasco, it is TIME for us to build and strengthen our community based organizations. I write you this email for two particular reasons. The first reason is to thank you the work, prayers and contributions that each of you have made to our communities down south. The second reason is to ask each of you to support and spread the word about all of the great grassroot efforts that are currently underway in our community.

T-Steel on NOLA:

Now some of you may give me a lecture about expecting the federal government to do the job of the state government. Or lecture me about how hard it is to mobilize a large military force. Go ahead. I'm listening. But let me break this to you. This in the United States of America (emphasis on UNITED). There comes a time when you must extend and over-extend for your citizens. The federal government has the job to protect its citizens in foreign and domestic emergency situations. Screw welfare and other programs. I'm talking about protection. And the Gulf Coast residents need to be protected from the criminal element and the terrible conditions. So excuse me if I'm expecting much. I'm American and we are the country of much. So I will EXPECT MUCH, damn it.

And what was that about upper class Black folks having different interests than middle and lower class Black folks? Huh? What was it? 

Viqi French Fever, a decidedly non-political blog:

One of my closest friends is unaccounted for in New Orleans, is not yet even being searched for in the deadly aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Luckily, we finally learned Wednesday that she is alive -- for now. You see, my very decent, hard-working, Jaguar-driving friend Desiree is eerily trapped inside her powerless house in Orleans Parrish and close to starving to death. The car had been troublesome, had broken down a month ago on the very highway-bridge that was destroyed by the hurricane. So she was "stuck" in New Orleans to weather the storm, alone.

At some point, she ventured out of her flooded home and into the waist-high "slop" -- the sewage and remains of the deceased and the rats and wildlife that probably are feeding on them -- with intentions of wading to the Super Dome.

But somewhere along the way, a sheriff stuck a gun in her model-lovely, mocha face and threatened to shoot it off. And then at the Super Dome, when she realized there was no way in hell she'd be able to board a bus to Houston, she decided it was too risky to stay overnight in the pitch blackness with the crowd, which was likely more irritated and anxious than she. So she waded her lanky, upscale self back home. And there she sits and waits...

I imagine what she waits for. For help that she sadly doesn't know may not arrive for another week? Is she sitting there journaling apologies and "I love yous" to those of us who are having omelettes and coffee and typing away at our computers this morning? Or possibly, she is awaiting her death, a way out of the hell-on-Earth her beloved town has become. Despite her patriotic lifetime of tax-paying.

While she waits, she takes cat naps, I imagine. But at some point, she may be too hungry and too tired and too defeated to awaken from what must be nightmarish sleep. Somewhere inside, she may figure that death would be better, her only relief.

I haven't immersed myself in Katerina coverage. It's like the last Star Wars movie, everyone talking about it so much that between that and the "coming attractions" clips you don't have to see the movie to know the story.

I just watched a clip from Fox News of all places, at Crooks and Liars. 

I'm feeling kind of bitter right now. 

Solomon, aka Solo, aka S-Train has hung up the keyboard.

I started this blog on July 6, 2003. From that date to now, I've had some life-changing events. Most that I have shared. Some I wish I didn't but it doesn't matter now. It's all history. Too be honest, I'm a little relieved. Blogging seemed to lose it's luster and became a chore. Shit, I started dreading blogging. I've grown increasingly distant from many major news events. The Weather Channel, The Learning Channel, and all the cartoon networks make more sense to me now than "da news". Family and Hapkido is my life. And I'm a happy fella. What more can a person ask for, ya know?

 

And we're real big on personal responsibility these days, aren't we? 

Quote of note:

Gordon and Mississippi NAACP officials spoke at a news conference in Jackson hours after Bush administration officials including Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff met with black leaders in Washington about allegations that indifference to black suffering slowed the response.

Bush Aides Meet With Black Leaders
Bush Aides Meet With Concerned Black Leaders; NAACP Head Says Time Not Right for 'Finger-Pointing'
By TIMOTHY R. BROWN Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press

Sep. 4, 2005 - President Bush's top advisers met Saturday with black leaders concerned about the administration's slow response to blacks suffering from Hurricane Katrina, while the head of the NAACP said it was not time for "finger-pointing."

Jason Toney on Kanye West:

I'd quibble with the semantics a bit and say that George Bush doesn't care about poor people but you can extrapolate to his point. If you don't care about poor people and poverty effects black people at a much higher rate in this country than any other community then, by extension, you can't really care about black folks right?

If you don't have an urban renewal program, you can't care about poor black people who still live mostly in ghetto-ized urban communities.

If your recently passed bankruptcy bill that goes into effect in October will make it almost impossible for these poverty stricken disaster refugees to recoup much of anything from their losses or get out from under the massive debts they will accrue, then you can't really care about poor people.

Negritude has the video of Kanye West's assessment of the handling of th aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. His loss of faith in the nation is as profound as, if less hyperbolic than, Randall Robinson's.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist Dies
By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 4, 2005; 12:21 AM

William Hubbs Rehnquist, the 16th Chief Justice of the United States, died last night at his home in Arlington. He was 80.

Rehnquist, who had been suffering from thyroid cancer since last October, had managed to lead the court through its last term, which ended in June. But he went through "a precipitous decline in his health in the last couple of days," Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said.

Rehnquist's death comes as the Senate is preparing for hearings on President Bush's nomination of John G. Roberts Jr. to replace Sandra Day O'Connor as an associate justice. Those hearings are set to begin on Tuesday. O'Connor, 75, announced her retirement on July 1, effective upon the confirmation of a successor.