Month: August 2006
Preparation H (Hurricanes, That Is)
When a hurricane strikes, there is an undercurrent in other parts of the country of victim-blaming. “What do those idiots expect if they live on the coast?” “Why don’t those morons evacuate when there’s a hurricane out there?”
The obvious answers to the first question are a) It wasn’t like this when I moved here 37 years ago…and I don’t really want to start over in Fargo at my age, and b) Like there’s no weather where YOU live?
For the answer to the second question, you just have to be here. In the time since we (meaning those of us in Florida and the Gulf states) started tracking Ernesto, it has been variously forecasted to hit New Orleans, Pensacola, Tallahassee, Cedar Key, Tampa, and the Keys. At what point do you say, “O.K., this is it! I’m packing the car!”
When Rita hit last year, post-Katrina, people in South Florida were chastised (mostly by the governor and other Republican officials) for not stocking up on enough emergency supplies. After all, they should be prepared to fend for themselves for a couple of weeks now that everyone’s had fair warning government will not save them. But what does it mean, exactly, to fend for yourself?
Here’s an idea. This helpful piece of advice is in my local paper today, since my town is in the current forecast to be the exit point for Ernesto as it leaves Florida.
Your written family/pet disaster plan
Crate/carrier and bedding
Food, water, manual can opener, dishes
Plastic bags, paper towels, newspaper (when shredded, can be used as cat litter)
Cleaning supplies, disinfectants
Collar, leash, harness
Muzzle, gauze rolls
Identification tags
Current medical and vaccination records
Extra bottles of daily medications or copies of prescriptions with expiration dates
Current photos of you and your pet(s) together
Pet comfort items: towels, blankets, toys
A list of hotels, motels and boarding kennels that accept pets
Detailed instructions for animal care and rescue workers
First aid kit for your pet(s)
Flashlights, batteries
Flat tire repair kit
Out-of-state telephone contact number
Label all pet supplies with your name, address and telephone number
Source: St. Johns County Office of Emergency Management
I can’t imagine what the flat tire repair kit is used for, but maybe my dog and cat will appreciate it.
The list seems a tad ambiguous. Why do I need detailed instructions for animal care and rescue workers if I’m taking my pets with me? What’s the out of state phone number for? Should I be teaching Pepsi and Stinky how to dial on my cell?
The point is, hurricanes are a crap shoot, and the best we can hope for is to make the right last-minute decision — because until the science of meteorology gets a little more precise, that’s all we can do. So please, Fargoans and the rest of you, don’t get mad at us if we get hit. We really did try to think of everything.
Bankrollers of Swiftboat Vets and McCain Smear in Trouble With the Feds
The Wyly brothers (as in Wiley Coyote) are finally being investigated for their byzantine finances. The guys who funded the smear campaign on John McCain that led to Bush’s primary victory in 2000, and more recently, the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, are in trouble for evading taxes.
The Wylys represent the ultra-rich of Dallas.
They started, bought and built several successful businesses including Earth Resources, Sterling Software, Michaels Stores, the Bonanza restaurant chain and electricity supplier Green Mountain Energy…
Sam [Wyly] says they decided to pay for the attack ads because, ultimately, they back their friends.A report released this month by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations alleged that the Wylys established the offshore trusts in the Irish Sea’s Isle of Man, a commonly used tax haven, to get around their U.S. tax obligations…
Senate investigators allege that the Wylys used the offshore trusts to buy $30 million worth of artwork, jewelry, furniture and other items for their personal use. Among the purchases: a $937,500 portrait of Ben Franklin; a $13,000 French bronze chandelier; $721,000 in official documents from Abraham Lincoln’s presidency; and a $759,000 emerald necklace.
Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who launched the investigation, said the Wylys “participated in a 13-year scam and scheme to circumvent U.S. tax, securities and anti-money laundering requirements.”
With the brothers in so many powerful back pockets, it’s surprising they needed to resort to all this.
Staunch Republicans, the Wylys have been big party donors since the Nixon presidency, personally giving about $10 million to Republican causes and candidates since the early 1970s, they say…
They’re invited to the most elite Christmas parties at the White House. They’ve spent time at Camp David. Sam [Wyly] used to motorboat on the Potomac with former President George Bush.
“George the younger kind of inherited us,” Sam said…
Nonpartisan Rothenberg Report: Dems Poised to Take House
Our latest race-by-race review of Congressional districts around the country convinces us that a Democratic wave is building and that the party is poised to take control of the House of Representatives in the fall. The only question now is the size of the November wave.
The national mood remains bleak for Republicans. President George W. Bush’s job performance ratings are terrible, and the public still gives Congress low marks. A majority of Americans continue to tell pollsters that the country is headed in the wrong direction.
That’s a recipe for a GOP disaster, and there is no reason to believe that things will change dramatically between now and Election Day to improve Republican prospects…
Therefore, we are raising our estimate of likely Democratic gains from 8-12 seats to 15-20 seats, which would translate to between 218 and 223 seats – and a majority – in the next House.
Rumsfeld to Troop Families: We Own You
According to Donald Rumsfeld, if you didn’t want to hand your whole life over to ruthless megalomanics to be chewed on and tossed out like the straw in your chocolate McShake, then you shouldn’t have signed up for the military. What did you think you’d be doing anyway, serving your country? Puh-lese.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Saturday praised the work of an Army brigade whose one-year tour in Iraq was extended just as they prepared to return home, and said he saw no reason for the soldiers or their families to be angry at him.
“These people are all volunteers. They all signed up. They all are there doing what they’re doing because they want to do it.”“I don’t put it in that context,” he said. “These people are all volunteers. They all signed up. They all are there doing what they’re doing because they want to do it.”
And don’t start whining about coming home by 2007, either.
Rumsfeld said he would make no promises that the full brigade would be back home by the holidays.
“I’d love to be Santa Claus. I’m not,” he said in an interview with reporters during a flight to Fairbanks.
If it turned out that by December, U.S. commanders in Iraq felt they needed an unscheduled infusion of troops, “our first choice obviously would be to have them be someone other than the people we just extended,” Rumsfeld said. “But I’m not going to get into the promises business. That isn’t my style.”
What is your style, exactly, Rummy? Besides dunderheaded incompetence and cold-blooded apathy, I mean.
CYA is Not an Effective Infrastructure Policy
If you thought the government response last year to Hurricane Katrina was bad, stay tuned.
Blogger and Washington analyst Christian Beckner is predicting more trouble ahead, as the Bush Administration continues to ignore domestic needs and divert domestic funding while pre-emptively blaming state and local governments for impending disasters.
The Seattle Times notes a growing list of failures.
The Commission on Public Infrastructure at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, said in a recent report that facilities are deteriorating “at an alarming rate.”
British oil company BP announced this month that severe corrosion would close its Alaska pipelines for extensive repairs. Analysts say this may sideline some 200,000 barrels a day of production for several months.
Then an instrument landing system that guides arriving planes onto a runway at Los Angeles International Airport failed for the second time in a week, delaying flights.
Those incidents followed reports that the National Security Agency (NSA), the intelligence world’s electronic eavesdropping arm, is consuming so much electricity at its headquarters outside Washington that it is in danger of exceeding its power supply.
“If a terrorist group were able to knock the NSA offline, or disrupt one of the nation’s busiest airports, or shut down the most important oil pipeline in the nation, the impact would be perceived as devastating,” Beckner said. “And yet we’ve essentially let these things happen — or almost happen — to ourselves.”
Wait, there’s more.
The Commission on Public Infrastructure at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, said in a recent report that facilities are deteriorating “at an alarming rate.”
It noted that half the 257 locks operated by the Army Corps of Engineers on inland waterways are functionally obsolete, more than one-quarter of the nation’s bridges are structurally deficient or obsolete, and $11 billion is needed annually to replace aging drinking-water facilities.
So how does our courageous leader respond? Does he step up to the plate and do the hard stuff? Has he ever?
President Bush, asked about the problem during a public question-and-answer session in an April visit to Irvine, Calif., cited last year’s enactment of a comprehensive law reauthorizing highway, transit and road-safety programs.
“Infrastructure is always a difficult issue,” Bush acknowledged. “It’s a federal responsibility and a state and local responsibility. And I, frankly, feel like we’ve upheld our responsibility at the federal level with the highway bill.”
What Pres. “I’ve Never Made a Mistake or At Least Taken Responsibility for It” is saying kinda sorta worked when he tried to defend himself for blowing it during Katrina. It gave the rightwing pundits something to harp on, the idea that maybe local officials were really to blame for the multi-state disaster. And as we know, if a dodge kinda sorta worked once for this idiot, he’ll trot the same horseshit out again and again.
The only problem with all the talk and no action is that in the meantime, our country is at risk. And CYA is not a policy.
Harris View of the World Pisses Off Jews, Other Non-Christians, Christians, Democrats, Republicans, Gays, Straights, and Model Airplane Enthusiasts
Florida Jews and other non-Chrisitians are expressing outrage at U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris, who recently stated that only the twice-born are fit to hold office.
Since He chooses our rulers, He chose Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton as surely as He chose Katherine herself. God sounds a little conflicted.
As PR Editor Buck noted, statements by Harris published in the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist Convention surpassed even her own unmatched record of looniness. Others are starting to agree.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said she was “disgusted” by the comments “and deeply disappointed in Rep. Harris personally.”Harris, Wasserman Schultz said, “clearly shows that she does not deserve to be a Representative . . .”
State Rep. Irv Slosberg, D-Boca Raton, demanded an apology, saying the statements were “outrageous, even by her standards.
“What is going through this woman’s mind?” said Slosberg. “We do not live in a theocracy.”
…Ahmed Bedier, the Central Florida Director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said he was “appalled that a person who’s been in politics this long would hold such extreme views.”
Bedier said most Christians would find such comments “shameful.”
…The criticism was not limited to Democrats.
Ruby Brooks, a veteran Tampa Bay Republican activist, said Harris’ remarks “were offensive to me as a Christian and a Republican.”
“To me, it’s the height of hubris,” said Brooks, a former Largo Republican Club president and former member of the Pinellas County Republican Executive Committee.
And Jillian Hasner, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said: “I don’t think it’s representative of the Republican Party at all. Our party is much bigger and better than Katherine Harris is trying to make it.”
What did Harris say to get everyone so upset? It’s best to read it for yourself. […]
Quote du Jour II
“I’m not saying all Republicans are racist, sexist homophobes. Just the people they elect into office to represent them.”
America’s Most Wanted: Environmentalists
The Sierra Club is wondering if the Bush Administration’s efforts in the war on terror are impeded by the way they keep focusing on the wrong targets. No, I’m not talking about confusing Saddem Hussein with Osama bin Laden, I’m talking about blowing it here at home.
The FBI has dubbed environmental extremists America’s number one domestic terrorism threat
Jim Bensman, a resident of Alton, IL and environmental activist working with the group Heartwood, innocently suggested at a public hearing in late July that the Army Corps of Engineers destroy one its dams on the Mississippi River to restore fish habitat. When newspaper accounts said that Bensmen wanted to “blow up” the dam, the FBI came calling to interrogate him. Never mind that the Army Corps of Engineers really does use explosives to decommission dams and had itself considered doing so in this case.
The FBI, by the way, never bothered to check with anyone at the Corps of Engineers before harassing Bensman, who is also a Sierra Club volunteer. Had they done that they would have quickly learned there was nothing to fear. The Corps’ Kevin Bluhm gave the New York Times his impression of Bensman, “He’s not malicious, oh no…if [the FBI] would have asked me first, I would have said no, there’s not that kind of risk there.”
On one hand, this could be just an innocent mistake of an agency erring on the side of caution. On the other hand, it could also be a sign of something more ominous. The FBI has dubbed environmental extremists America’s number one domestic terrorism threat.
Are there political motives at work here? One can only speculate. It is disturbing that the FBI made it sound to Bensman like they had started a file on him before he publicly damned the dam.
If Harris is Elected, We Can Blame God
Jesus is my campaign manager: Just when you thought that Katherine Harris’ campaign couldn’t get any weirder, she comes out of the closet as a Christian crusader with some real zingers. If she’s trying to distinguish herself from the other candidates, she’s succeeding — they appear to be sane.
From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:
In an interview with the Florida Baptist Witness, the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention, Harris described her faith, saying it animates “everything I do,” including her votes in Congress.
“If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you’re not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin,” she told interviewers, citing abortion and gay marriage as two examples of that sin.
‘God is the one who chooses our rulers.’
— Katherine HarrisDoing so, she said, “will take western civilization, indeed other nations because people look to our country as one nation as under God and whenever we legislate sin and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don’t know better, we are leading them astray and it’s wrong …”
Separating religion and politics is “so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers,” Harris said. “And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women,” then “we’re going to have a nation of secular laws. That’s not what our founding fathers intended and that’s (sic) certainly isn’t what God intended.”
