If all the drama queens rushing to the aid of Katrina victims so they can feel better about themselves actually gave a shit about people losing their homes, they would spend their extra time fighting homelessness. They would donate annually to their local homeless shelter. If they cared about people who have no food, they would fight poverty and donate regularly to their local food banks. But you know what? People don't. It takes a tragedy that everyone saw coming to create a drama for everyone to participate in so they can once again escape their own nothingness. So you donated money to the Red Ross? Good for you. It'll pay for some guy's salary. You're just putting a band-aid on a systemic problem that deserves more than your one-time "I did something now I can go back to my normal life of bitching about taxes". A $100 a plate dinner to raise funds for the Red Cross? Bah. Donate that to a local homeless shelter (or even one in Baton Rouge) if you really want the most bang for your buck. But no, you just want an easy way to assuage your guilty conscience. So go ahead, write that check, and forget about the people who lose their homes every day, or the people who are starving every day, or the people who lose everything due to corporate "downsizing" or lose their retirement plans dues to corporate "bankruptcy". THEY are the victims, not of Mother Nature, but of the system we all participate in and perpetuate. But perhaps that would be too frightening an issue for you to confront. It's easier to vicariously live through someone else's suffering than to realize that every time you buy at Wal-Mart you create it. I hope you feel good about yourselves. Hypocrites.

Look for the Northern Lights tonight and tomorrow night.

Just a small reminder on this fourth anniversary of 9/11:

OSAMA BIN LADEN IS STILL AT LARGE.

(and we're stuck in Iraq after "looking" for WMD that never existed).

My heart goes out to all those who lost loved ones on 9/11, and to those who have lost and will lose loved ones in Iraq (both American and Iraqi, for we all love and mourn the same).

A-fricken-men, brother:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8866.htm

At the bottom, you will see a link for the full video. If you have 47 minutes, you should watch it. God bless you, Mr. George Galloway.

I can't believe our fe'ral [sic] government is using the head of FEMA as their fall guy. I could understand the President doing that, because he won't take blame for anything, but Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Minority Leader? Puh-lease. FEMA has been relegated to some perfunctory organization headed by the Department of Vaterland Security, and its budget has been perpetually cut. What's the head of FEMA to do when his hands are tied both in responsibility and in budget? The fact of the matter is that we've known for years and years that N.O. was going to go under water, and that it was only a matter of time, but regardless of the "please" [or pleas] from LA politicians and engineers, the fer'al government ignored the threat (sound familiar?). And it wasn't ignored by FEMA. The federal budget (created by the president and approved by congress) has never had "room" to deal with protecting the Big Easy from the inevitable. You know who deserves blame? The President and Congress - NOT FEMA.

This is why I am so reluctant to donate money. I give money to the federal government every year, and had it been up to me, I would have started allocating money for the N.O. project years ago when I first learned that it was going to go under. But my government decided rather to spend the money on corporate tax breaks and a floundering war in Iraq. If I give money, it will only perpetuate the habits of our government. Bush's "wave of compassion" is what he depends on. Why should he lobby for funding schools and FEMA when he knows that such things will tug on the heart strings of America in such a way that people will open their coffers, and he won't have to worry about raising taxes. You see? The education crisis is manufactured. We have money to fix schools, but our government chooses not to. It would be much easier to allocate money for things the public does not support (like the War), and then allow the remaining vacuum in the budget to be filled by the "compassion" of others donating their bake sales as an "incidental tax" that never becomes formal. Similarly, why should government officials have spent money on protecting N.O. if they knew that people would voluntarily excise an "incidental tax" to Red Cross if such a disaster hit.

So, in the big picture of things, are we really helping by donating money to Red Cross? I personally think everyone who is donating money to Red Cross should put that money into a campaign to reconstitute our government with people who will actually heed the warnings of those who know best. Every time we pick up the tab that our government refuses to pay, they have an excuse to do it again. and again. and again.

Our (my wife and I) home is open to university faculty looking to relocate, we've volunteerd to foster a dog that has been rescued from N.O., but we're not sending any money. I sent money last year in my tax statement. But those on capital hill aren't giving it to the Red Cross as I would have it. I don't want to donate money now; I want the government to do what's right with the money I donated last year.

Well done:
http://www.markfiore.com/animation/gras.html

Bush is nominating a person who has never sat on the Supreme Court to be its Chief Justice? Is he really that stupid? If I were a Republican I would be appalled. Nominate Thomas or Scalia or something, at least those nut balls have experience on the Court. The only other thing this could amount to is an opportunity for more dissent regarding Roberts' nomination. If there was some hesitation last week, there will certainly be more now. So Roberts was a clerk for Rehnquist. So what? Any jackass can learn to look up cases on a database and type up someone else's dictation. A justice must be able to THINK, and placing someone with no experience for the culture of the Supreme Court into its position of leadership is dangerous and can only amount to confusion and upheaval in the Court.

I honestly think Bush has just given up on trying to be political, because he's come to realize, a) he is incapable of compromise or rational discourse and b) he's comfortably in his second term. He doesn't give a shit about the reputation of the Republican Party or what the populace thinks. He figures he's in his second term, he's got all of his buddies in positions of power, and he'll just set everything up to his liking now that he is in a practically untouchable position. The members of his party should be protesting. Bush has shown and angry, violent disregard for common sense and American democratic values. Bush's motto should be "Ask not what you can do what your country, but what your country can do for you!" Asshole.