The tyranny of events

The apocalypse is tumbling toward us, and writers like Joe Conason are still writing about how the US could avoid "perceived defeat" in Iraq by getting the UN to help with a negotiated settlement "which could eventually persuade the Sunni nationalist rebels to lay down their weapons and enter the nascent political system". Joe, are you writing from some parallel universe where John Kerry won the election? Wishful thinking is not a policy.
Events keep marching forward. The events in Iraq and elsewhere are overtaking anyone's ability to negotiate anything with anybody.
The Saudis are running around with their hair on fire -- warning "everyone who will listen" that Iraq is "hurtling toward disintegration" and will take the region with it.
According to Moon Over Alabama, Seymour Hersch is saying that "the US administration promised to take care of Israel's assumed biggest strategic danger - Iranian nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, Pakistan is developing small nuclear weapons in the kiloton range, essentially at landmine size, transportable. Pakistan is protecting OBL. Pakistani hardcore leadership is afraid they will be next after Iran. And now AFT is reporting that the rationale for war with Iran is being advanced.

Great line of the day

From "Justin Case" commenting on Steve Clemont's post "Time to do some Outing in Vatican City" from The Washington Note: "Christianity has nothing to do with Christ and probably never has, unless Christ was a close-minded, misogynistic, war-loving, imperialistic, aggressive hater of anything he didn't understand or agree with. "

Jokes of the day

From the website Late Night Political Jokes:

In New York a man has set the Guinness World Record for being a couch potato. He spent 68 hours and 48 minutes straight watching TV. So nice to see FEMA director Mike Brown landing on his feet. --Jay Leno
Martha Stewart is with us tonight and she's going to show us how to dig a tunnel with a melon baller. --David Letterman

Thanks, Cindy

Well, its about time.
Here is this AP story - Antiwar protesters going on offense - actually talking about the big anti-war protests this weekend, in advance and without implying that anyone participating is a traitor.

Antiwar groups are using a $1 million ad campaign and a demonstration they say will attract 100,000 people to try to re-energize their movement and pressure the Bush administration to bring troops home from Iraq. Organizers of Saturday’s protest, which will take marchers past the White House, say it will be the largest since the war began more than two years ago. Cindy Sheehan, the woman who drew thousands of protesters to her 26-day vigil outside President Bush’s Texas ranch last month, is among those planning to participate.

Its about time the antiwar movement got some attention from the press.
They have this idea that there was no anti-war movement in the US, that the movement needed to be reenergized.
This is wrong, wrong, wrong. There have been people doing their own protests for years -- beginning, of course, with the millions of people around the world who protested Iraq before it even started, but continuing on to the people setting up crosses every weekend on beaches and to people picketing Walter Reed. Its been going on all over the United States and the world, but with the press determined to ignore it.
The media wants to pretend now that they weren't covering the anti-war movement because it didn't exist. Well, OK, if that's what you need to believe. At least you guys are covering it now. What Cindy Sheehan reenergized was the press and their willingness to provide coverage to the movement. Thanks, Cindy.

Over There

We have been watching FX network's Over There on History Television and we think this is one of the series which we will try to watch each week -- though, as I said tonight to my husband while we were watching Episode 3 tonight, its sort of like watching a show about the German side in Occupied France.

Great line of the day

"And who says the Pentagon doesn't believe in fairies?"
This is the question asked by John from AMERICAblog after reading the Pentagon's latest TinkerBell thesis: "Chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita urged people not to gauge the war based on the volume of rebel bombings. "That's not a good way to determine how good or bad things are going -- by (counting) how many things are exploding," Di Rita said."

Avast, me hearties!

Aaarrrrhhh!
This be it -- today be the international Talk Like A Pirate Day at last! Dave Barry writes:

Every now and then, some visionary individuals come along with a concept that is so original and so revolutionary that your immediate reaction is: "Those individuals should be on medication."
Today I want to tell you about two such people, John Baur and Mark Summers, who have come up with a concept that is going to make you kick yourself for not thinking of it first: Talk Like a Pirate Day. As the name suggests, this is a day on which everybody would talk like a pirate. Is that a great idea, or what? There are so many practical benefits that I can't even begin to list them all.
Baur and Summers came up with this idea a few years ago. They were playing racquetball, and, as so often happens, they began talking like pirates. And then it struck them: Why not have a day when EVERYBODY talks like a pirate? They decided that the logical day would be Sept. 19, because that -- as you are no doubt aware -- is Summers' ex-wife's birthday.
Since then, Baur and Summers have made a near-superhuman effort to promote Talk Like a Pirate Day. As Baur puts it: "We've talked like pirates and encouraged our several friends to, every Sept. 19, except for a couple where we forgot."
And yet, incredibly, despite this well-orchestrated campaign, the nation has turned a deaf shoulder to Talk Like a Pirate Day. In desperation, Baur and Summers turned to me for help. As an influential newspaper columnist, I have the power to "make or break" a national day. You may recall that almost nobody celebrated Thanksgiving until I began writing about it in the 1970s.
I have given Baur's and Summers' idea serious thought, looking for ways to improve it. One variation I considered was Talk Like a Member of the Lollipop Guild Day, on which everybody would talk like the three Munchkins in the film version of "The Wizard of Oz" who welcome Dorothy to Munchkin Land by singing with one corner of their mouths drooping down, as though they have large invisible dental suction devices hanging from their lips. But I realized that would be stupid.
So I have decided to throw my full support behind Talk Like a Pirate Day, to be observed this Thursday, Sept. 19. To help promote this important cause, I have decided to seek the endorsement of famous celebrities, and I am pleased to report that, as of today, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Britney Spears, Brad Pitt, Oprah Winfrey, the Osbournes, Tiger Woods, Ted Koppel, the Sopranos, Puff Doody and the late Elvis Presley are all people who I hope will read this column and become big supporters. I see no need to recruit President Bush, because he already talks like a pirate, as we can see from this transcript of a White House press conference:
REPORTER: Could you please explain either your foreign or your domestic policy?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Arrrrr.
To prepare for Talk Like a Pirate Day, you should practice incorporating pirate terminology into your everyday speech. For example, let's consider a typical conversation between two coworkers in a business office:
BOB: Hi. Mary.
MARY: Hi, Bob. Have you had a chance to look at the Fennerman contract?
BOB: Yes, and I have some suggestions.
MARY: OK, I'll review them.
Now let's see how this same conversation would sound on Talk Like a Pirate Day:
BOB: Avast, me beauty.
MARY: Avast, Bob. Is that a yardarm in your doubloons, or are you just glad to see me?
BOB: You are giving me the desire to haul some keel.
MARY: Arrrrr.
As you can see, talking like a pirate will infuse your everyday conversations with romance and danger. So join the movement! On Sept. 19, do not answer the phone with "hello." Answer the phone with "Ahoy, me hearty!" If the caller objects that he is not a hearty, inform him that he is a scurvy dog (or, if the caller is female, a scurvy female dog) who will be walking the plank off the poop deck and winding up in Davy Jones' locker, sleeping with the fishes. No, wait, that would be Talk Like a Pirate in "The Godfather" Day, which is another variation I considered ("I'm gonna make him an offer that will shiver his timbers").
But the point is, this is a great idea, and you, me bucko, should be part of it. Join us on Sept. 19. You HAVE the buckles, darn it: Don't be afraid to swash them! Let's make this into a grassroots movement that sweeps the nation, like campaign-finance reform or Krispy Kreme doughnuts. I truly think this idea could bring us, as a nation, closer together.
But not TOO much closer. Some of us will have swords.

Reality bites

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

This always was a complete crock.
It is from Ron Susskind's article, Without a Doubt about Bush's faith-based administration.
I don't mean that the Susskind story was a crock, but rather, this idea that reality could be ignored. This is the "Bush Bubble" that George Bush lived in, the belief that Bush was infaliable, always right and that reality, if it conflicted with Bush's belief, was wrong.
Like all the bubbles which came before it - tech stocks, dot coms, Hawaiian time-share condos -- it did seem to have substance. A few people did make a few dollars. But when the bubble burst, then everyone said -- hey, its empty! There's nothing there!
The bubble has now burst.
Combine this story: Bush Katrina Ratings Fall After Speech -- with this one: Rove Off the Record . And the truth whacks you upside the head -- everything the Bush Administration believes to be true is JUST NOT TRUE ANYMORE, and they can no longer make people believe it just by saying it.
With Bush's speech last week, the media echo chamber and the Washington pundits seemed to think that Bush did OK -- not really Churchillian great, but not too bad, really.
But Rasmussen shows that Bush's poll numbers with the general public actually fell four points more after his speech, from 39 per cent in favour to 35 per cent in favour. So people saw through all the Disney castle lighting and the compassionate-sounding tripe and the Rove-in-charge reassurance, and turned off. We don't believe you anymore, George.
In the Rove story, it says Rove talked about the issues du jour to a bunch or power-brokers:

On Katrina: The only mistake we made with Katrina was not overriding the local government...
On The Anti-War Movement: Cindy Sheehan is a clown. There is no real anti-war movement. No serious politician, with anything to do with anything, would show his face at an anti-war rally...
On Bush's Low Poll Numbers: We have not been good at explaining the success in Iraq. Polls go up and down and don't mean anything...
On Iraq: There has been a big difference in the region. Iraq will transform the Middle East...

And as I was reading this, I realized -- this is just tripe! Completely. NONE of these things are true. And just saying these things will NOT create a new reality. Not anymore.
"We create our own reality"? Oh yeah? You and what army? Get real! Grow up!
We don't believe you anymore, Karl.

Terrific

Congratulations to Meg Brubacher and Bonnie Deekon -- this news story "CTV.ca | Canadians mount dog rescue effort in New Orleans" notes that they drove to New Orleans and returned late Thursday night with 15 dogs, including seven puppies. Deekon is director of the Cambridge & District Humane Society, where the dogs will be put up for adoption.

Only in Canada, eh?

"Hamilton (2-10) remains last in the East, its playoff aspirations literally hanging by a thread."
This sentence in the Globe and Mail coverage of the Calgary-Hamilton game gave me a chuckle -- because where but in the CFL could a team with a 2-10 record still have "playoff aspirations"?
Only in Canada, eh?

Now we know

Well at last. Now we know. In Spinning the war -- off to the state level, Oregonian columnist David Sarasohn from the Oregonian explains who is really to blame for all that trouble in Iraq.

A high-level White House official explained today that problems in the war in Iraq have been largely caused by state and local government failures. 'All the Americans over there come from a state,' said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. 'There are real limits to what you can expect the federal government to do.' The idea that having a U.S. Department of Defense makes war an exclusively federal responsibility, he noted, is as mistaken as the impression that having a Federal Emergency Management Agency means that a federal agency should manage emergencies. 'Look at the problems we're having in Iraq,' he said. 'Public safety, utilities, running elections. Those are state and local responsibilities. The federal government has been trying to help out, but those things aren't really our job.' The official, who insisted that the initials of the country he works for not be published, noted that the Bush administration has not wanted to stress the failures of state and local governments in Iraq, which he called 'Fallujah finger-pointing.' But, he pointed out, 'People talk about all the garbage in the streets of Baghdad, but collecting garbage is a state and local responsibility. And I don't want to even get into the question of who's fallen down on Iraqi mass transit.'

Thanks to Today in Iraq for the link.

Joke of the Day

Today in Iraq with the joke of the day:
Q: What's Bush's position on Roe v. Wade?
A: None. He didn't care how people got out of New Orleans.

The great photos from New Orleans

In our society, we capture and realize the significance of an event through the photographs it produces. Here are some of the photos from New Orleans which I found to be the most powerful.

A man carrying his cat and searching for help: to me, this photo summarized everything that New Orleans people went through to leave their city.

AP photo/ Roger Deforest

August 31 - a family with no place to go

Times-Picayune /David Grunfeld

This was the photo which brought home to many Americans the reality of Katrina:
Finding the woman in the photo

Matt Rourke /Austin American-Statesman

The marines arrive at the Dome at last

AFP/File/James Nielsen

Life goes on -- the Decadance Day parade on Sunday, Sept. 4 in the French Quarter had only about two dozen participants, but still, it went on.

AP Photo/Rick Bowmer

The "Here lies Vera" photo, which made people realize how many bodies were lying on the streets.

AP Photo/Dave Martin

Canadian navy arrives in Biloxi

AP Photo/Rob Carr

The big-dog-ugly-woman guy:

Michael Democker / Times-Picayune

Johnny White's Sports Bar and Grill never closed

AP Photo/Cheryl Diaz Meyer

See hundreds of other Times-Picayune photos here.

Say it ain't so, Joe

It's painful, isn't it - nails-on-the-blackboard painful.
Just about every news story you will read about New Orleans recovery over the next two years could already be written.
Like this one: Money Earmarked for Evacuation Redirected -- oh, who would not have guessed?
And this one: FEMA, Slow to the Rescue, Now Stumbles in Aid Effort -- so now, no one can get through to FEMA to apply for help.
Here's what will happen next:
The FEMA applications for help will be delayed for months and months, both because applications will just be lost outright and because every non-perfect application will be "returned to sender" and get lost in the mail.
Then, whenever people actually do get their cheques, there will be such serious shortages of repair goods that people won't be able to repair their homes before winter. ie -- lumber, electrical wire, flooring, windows. Predictably, there will be calls to get more Canadian softwood lumber by dropping the tarrifs, which the US lumbermen will resist with every fiber of their being
Undoubtedly, there will be a huge land-grad in New Orleans, with developers pushing the city, state and federal governments to assert "eminent domain" over vast areas of property to prevent a lot of low-income housing from being rebuilt. Every level of government will try to get in on the action.
Finally, there will be a perfect storm of shoddy home-repair outfits stealing people's money left and right.
And for every single one of these happenings, someone in the Bush administration will say "Gee, we never expected THIS to happen! We don't have any plans to deal with it."

Good Better Best

Tab, The Calgary Sun


Tab, The Calgary Sun


Cam Cardow, Ottawa Citizen