Don't get confortable and think the worst has past---It hasn't! 

Storm's Over? Think Again!

You know that after Osama and al-Zawahiri viewed the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent mayhem that ensued in New Orleans, they are sitting back in some Pakistani cave toking on a big hookah, laughing their asses off, praising Allah, and stepping up their game to hit the U.S. again. And hard. And soon.

For me, watching Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco handle the New Orleans/ Louisiana debacle is like watching Moe and Curly trying to work a Rubik’s cube. Those two gave me all the relief that half a Tums did the other night after eating three grease laden chimichangas covered in Scorned Woman Habanera Pepper Sauce®. Suffice it to say, after watching this entire fiasco unfold on the Gulf Coast, that I’m not getting the “our homeland is secured” feeling from Homeland Security.

This leads me to think that if we cannot get our act together to handle a CAT 4 storm we saw lumbering toward us for several days, then what the heck are we going to do if al Qaeda sleeper cells, embedded in the US, clandestinely strike us with massive force?

Y’know, I hate to speak for others, but I think the majority of our nation doesn’t even think al Qaeda is a threat to the US any longer. Here’s the unarticulated sleepy vibe you get from most people regarding the immediate menace terrorists pose to us:

1. There hasn’t been another attack on US soil in four years now.
2. The majority of what they’re doing is on the other side of the pond.
3. Their attacks are unsophisticated.
4. Their weapons are crude.
5. The effects of their assaults are benign, and thus . . .
6. They are incapable of levying a catastrophic hit on a major super power like the U.S.

And this is probably just what OBL and his tribe from hell wants you to think—even though they have made it abundantly clear that they are going to attempt to kill at least four million of us, and that they will do it with nuclear weapons which we know are already in their possession. What Osama wants to do to us will make Katrina look like Chucky Cheese. Al Qaeda dreams of an American Nagasaki.

Author Paul Williams is not singing any sleep-inducing lullabies in his latest work, The Al-Qaeda Connection: International Terrorism, Organized Crime and the Coming Apocalypse. Williams’ new book will blister your soul as you read the well-known, truly apocalyptic, yet sinfully unreported data in this heavily footnoted 231-page hot, pithy tome.

Trust me, or better yet, see for yourself that this is not the rambling of some speculative doom saying TBN prophet playing pin the tail on the latest beast. Rather, Williams’ book is riddled with readily available empirical information that he has simply put together to the end that we:

1. appreciate our enemy’s wishes and advances
2. get off our collective butt and
3. take swift and specific action before several major cities become melted glass beds.

Williams makes a hard case that al Qaeda has climbed into bed with the Sicilian Mafia that is helping to float terrorism through the sale of Number Four heroin, the soup de jour with American and European druggies. With this mega-million dollar underwriting, OBL and his sick ilk have purchased, via the Chechen mafia, nuclear weapons they have taken from feebly protected Russian repositories.

To further expedite the eternal night al Qaeda wishes to rain down upon us, they have joined hands with a Salvadoran street gang called Mara Salvatrucha, aka MS-13. And what’s MS-13’s job description from al Qaeda? Well, this violent and rapidly-growing-in-numbers-and-finance gaggle of punks has the job of smuggling nukes and sleeper agents across the Mexican border, which, incidentally, they have been overseeing for quite sometime now.

The bottom line is this: Don’t read Williams’ new book if you don’t want to know:

1. How we know OBL has nuclear weapons.
2. How he got such weapons.
3. If they have already been smuggled into the USA.
4. How nuke smuggling occurs post 911.
5. Why the information regarding a planned nuclear attack has been under-reported by the national media.
6. What the effects of a nuclear blast would be should one rock one of our major metro areas.
7. What major metro areas are on OBL’s hit list.
8. How many sleeper agents/cells in the US are planning the next 911.
9. What steps we must take to ward off a nuclear nightmare.
10. Why al Qaeda has waited until now to launch its next attack on US soil.
11. What the local, state and the federal government must do, like yesterday, to mitigate this present and real threat.
12. That in the last few months, 9,000 plus or minus “special interest” aliens from terrorist supporting countries have been arrested and released on our Mexican border.
13. That it is not if they are going to attack us but when they are going to attack us.

So, here we sit with borders that are more open than the space between Kanye West’s ears, with airports and ports that receive cargo that gets inspected about as often as Rosie O’Donnell does her abdominal workout, and while Hollywood and D.C. play the Katrina blame game and get wrapped around the prop regarding who sucks the least. The terrorists, on the other hand, are staying their course, biding their time, blowing through our borders, getting briefed and fired up in their mosques, and with religious zeal, are looking to put and end to our world as we know it.

My advice to help stave off their hellish desires would be to buy yourself, your congressmen, your senators and your President a copy of William’s book. And bug the crap out of them until they do more about the current deadly terror threat from within.

What the New York Times won't report

Two of the most explosive post-Katrina charges were debunked over the last 24 hours. One of them, that the eeeevil Bush Administration has starved the Army Corps of Engineers for money to maintain and repair New Orleans' levee system, was demolished in that noted redoubt of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, the Washington Post:

In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large.

Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon.

For example, after a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill ordering the agency to redo its calculations. The Corps also spends tens of millions of dollars a year dredging little-used waterways such as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the Atchafalaya River and the Red River -- now known as the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, in honor of the project's congressional godfather -- for barge traffic that is less than forecast.

The Industrial Canal lock is one of the agency's most controversial projects, sued by residents of a New Orleans low-income black neighborhood and cited by an alliance of environmentalists and taxpayer advocates as the fifth-worst current Corps boondoggle. In 1998, the Corps justified its plan to build a new lock -- rather than fix the old lock for a tiny fraction of the cost -- by predicting huge increases in use by barges traveling between the Port of New Orleans and the Mississippi River.

In fact, barge traffic on the canal had been plummeting since 1994, but the Corps left that data out of its study.

Landrieu was quoted over the weekend threatening to "punch in the mouth" anybody who criticized the local officials in Louisiana over their response to the hurricane. I doubt she's rethinking that threat in light of this Fox News report from yesterday, but after I first saw it, I definitely thought a few mouth-punches were in order:

[Brit] Hume: [The Red Cross was] Standing by, ready. Why didn't FEMA send The Red Cross into New Orleans when we had all of the people there on that bridge overpass and elsewhere. Why not?

[Major] Garrett: First of all, no jurisdiction. FEMA works with The Red Cross, The Salvation Army and other organizations but it has no control to order them to go one place or the other. Secondarily, The Red Cross was ready. I got off the phone with one of their officials. They had a vanguard, Brit, of trucks with water, food, hygiene equipment, all sorts of things ready to go where? To the Superdome and convention center. Why weren't they there? The Louisiana Department of Homeland Security told them they could not go.

Hume: This is isn't the Louisiana branch of the federal Homeland Security? This is --

Garrett: The state's own agency devoted to the state's homeland security. They told them you cannot go there. Why? The Red Cross tells me that state agency in Louisiana said, look, we do not want to create a magnet for more people to come to the Superdome or convention center, we want to get them out. So at the same time local officials were screaming where is the food, where is the water? The Red Cross was standing by ready, the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security said you can't go.

Hume: FEMA does, presumably at some point, have some jurisdiction over some military forces. Of course, the first responders there are the National Guard. Why didn't FEMA send the National Guard in? You heard that cry from many people.

Garrett: FEMA does not have jurisdictional control over any state's National Guard, only the governor does. The governor in this case, Kathleen Blanco, A democrat, did use the Louisiana National Guard for some purposes, did not deploy them in massive numbers initially and they were not used to move any of these relief organizations in and they could have been for the very same reason I talked about earlier, the state decided they didn't want the relief organizations where the people needed it most because they wanted those people to get out.

Hume: But even today we know that Governor Blanco has now decided that a mandatory evacuation may not be necessarily after all. But we can go into that later. What about the use by her of the National Guard to impose law and order during the early looting and all of that?

Garrett: She had a choice, as I am told. She could have taken up the offer from FEMA to federalize all of the activities in Louisiana, meaning that FEMA would be in control of everything. Not only law enforcement, but everything else. She declined to give them that authority. So essentially FEMA was trapped between two bureaucracies. One the Department Of Homeland Security where many of its decisions have to be reviewed and in some cases approved, and a recalcitrant state bureaucracy that wasn't going to give them the authority they needed to make things happen, among them, the National Guard.

Blogger John from Wuzzadem independently confirmed Garrett's story--which, for some strange reason, has not been picked up by any major news outlet other than Fox:

Here's the Red Cross FAQ entry (entitled "Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?") that liberal web sites (and irresponsible politicians) are using to indict FEMA and the USDHS:

Access to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

Yesterday I called the National Affairs office of the Red Cross (202-303-5551) and talked with Red Cross spokesperson Lesly Simmons, who told me that the shipment was not turned away by the US Dept of Homeland Security, but by this agency:

The Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (LHLS & EP); formally the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness (LOEP), was created by the Civil Act of 1950 and is under the Louisiana Military Department.

Ms. Simmons also told me that the Red Cross has never mentioned any involvement in this incident by FEMA, because FEMA wasn't involved.

Note to the MSM: this is called reporting. I think it might be in some of your job descriptions, but I'd be happy to post a correction if I'm wrong about that.

So here we have the governor of Louisiana, acting out of God-knows-what motivation--probably nothing more malign than bureaucratic cowardice, but that was plenty destructive enough--refusing to send nearby food and water to all those people who were trapped in downtown New Orleans, at the mercy of both the natural elements, and an unleashed criminal element in their midst. And she also refused to give authority to her own National Guard to enter the city in force and end the violence

Again, this has not been reported elsewhere. Can you imagine--can you even conceive of the reaction if George Bush had told the Red Cross to stay away from the Superdome?

But hey, if you're the MSM, there's a simple answer: Doesn't matter. It was all Bush's fault.

Noogie Notes

Bob Denver To Be Buried At Sea, Wash Up In Aruba, Disappear Completely

HEY!
This interesting tidbit from today's Washington Post:

"But overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years. Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the chief of the Corps, has said that in any event, more money would not have prevented the drowning of the city, since its levees were designed to protect against a Category 3 storm, and the levees that failed were already completed projects."

Senator Byrd prepares for the Roberts nomination 

Stop Blaming FEMA 

Baghdad Bobette marshalls Sean Penn and other from her State for duty in Newe Orleans 

And Now--A Little Truth and some Sick Satire

Oh, the lessons we learned from Katrina. President Bush's refusal to invade New Orleans tells you everything you need to know about Republican racist perfidy. The local government's incompetence tells you nothing whatsoever about Democrats' ability to govern at the micro level. Lethal storms can be turned aside months in advance by signing the right treaties. Or so they're saying in the reality-based community.

Check the blogs: They're calling President Bush's response to Katrina "My Pet Goat Part 2." It's a reference to the idea, so beloved of the Michael Moore enthusiasts and Osama bin Laden, that Bush's initial reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks was to give a what-me-worry grin and keep reading a kids' story because he wanted to know how it ended.

These people seem to believe that a complete set of evacuation plans -- including the removal of the entire city, buildings included, to Manitoba -- was slapped down on the president's desk the moment Katrina was just a stiff breeze, and Bush said nope. Call me when gas hits nine bucks a gallon, and besides, the town's just full of Democrats and po' folks.

That's what the frothier elements on the left seem to think. One Air America host said as much; various rappers and actors have blamed Bush for not calling Superman on the hot line and blowing the storm away with Superbreath.

One theory -- and it's an interesting one, as Howard Dean would say -- suspects the administration deliberately flooded New Orleans to test the nation's ability to deal with a nuclear strike. That makes sense. Sure. Why bother to drill to learn lessons that can be applied in other cities when you can drown a city and learn nothing about the hazards of radioactivity? The latter method has the added virtue of a conspiracy, which means there's a good chance someone in the chain will breach the levee of secrecy, leading to what the founding fathers called Super Extra Immediate Impeachment Plus.

Crazy, yes. But this is what it's come to. According to the choir of professional carpers, President Clinton spent half his two terms personally drawing up plans for new levees -- when he wasn't sneaking around Afghanistan in camo paint trying to apprehend bin Laden.

By contrast, the Bush Junta sent 100 percent of the National Guard to Iraq, which meant the 12th Airborne Plunger Brigade couldn't descend to the Superdome with jetpacks and unstop the overflowing toilets. Doesn't matter that New Orleans had hundreds of school buses unused for evacuation -- blame the feds who cut matching funds for bus-driver instruction back in 1927.

This level of incandescent lunacy isn't new. In the '90s there were people who believed that Clinton would use Y2K to herd us into FEMA-run gulags to have bar codes tattooed on our necks, but these people confined themselves to rants at 3 a.m. on Art Bell's radio show. By 2006 their ideological heirs on the left will be the evening lineup of MSNBC guests.

If we learned anything we can take away, it's this: You're on your own. At least keep an emergency kit on hand, the sort of thing Tom Ridge proposed, and which made the smart set hardy-har-har because it contained duct tape.

Don't rely on the government. Four years after Sept. 11, it's apparent that some local governments are not well-oiled machines when it comes to disasters -- more like a box of sand and busted gears. Blame for that can be promiscuously distributed.

Lesson two: The next terrorist attack will not unite us for a warm, hug-filled fortnight. The hard left won't wait 24 hours before blaming Bush, and the country will enjoy the sight of prominent pundits angrier at the president than at the men who nuked Des Moines.

If an attack should happen during the term of President Hillary Clinton, they'll still blame Bush -- and if she wishes to retain her moderate credentials, she'll be canny enough to repudiate the lot. They'll be stunned. They'll be hurt. After all the free-lance hating they did out of the goodness of their hearts! Where can they turn now?

The guy who took over for Art Bell still takes calls.

From Senator Ted (Swimmerboy) Kennedy

"What the American people have seen is this incredible disparity in which those people who had cars and money got out and those people who were impoverished died."--Ted Kennedy on Hurricane Katrina

Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.

Blame Bush part XXXIII
Yesterday it was confirmed and reported that Governor Kathleen Blanco kept the Louisiana National Guard from assisting the New Orleans police department, leaving their force of 1,500 (less those who fled duty) to vainly attempt to restore order in the wake of last Tuesday's devastating flooding. About the the same time Louisiana state police were preventing radio repair technicians from entering the city to repair the damaged police scanner system, leaving the NOPD unable to communicate.

It's pretty hard to miss coverage of New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin's order for forced evacuations of those who remain in New Orleans - it was all over the news. Guess who has already subverted that effort? In a Fox News interview this evening Governor Blanco said Nagin might be the one to order an evacuation, but she controls the resources necessary to enforce it and she will not sign off on the decision. Reuters reports, Not all will help in forced evacuation of New Orleans.

Art Jones, a senior official with the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said state authorities, who are in command of the Louisiana State Police and National Guard, have no plans at the moment to participate in a forced evacuation.

"We personally will not force anyone out of their homes," he told reporters at a briefing

Then this evening Fox New's Major Garrett broke what may be the most damning story of the post hurricane period - The Red Cross was blocked from delivering supplies to the Superdome by Blanco's Louisiana Department of Homeland Security. Read that again... The Red Cross was prevented from getting supplies to the Superdome and the convention center.

Governor Blanco's administration ensured that there was no (or minimal) state presence in New Orleans; no food, medicine, or other need supplies for hurricane victims; and that vital repairs to the city's police scanners could not be completed. All of which would lead one to only one natural conclusion:

It's all Bush's fault...

President Bush and the Katrina Response

The Looney Left has been on fire trying to pin all the problems with Hurricane Katrina on Bush. Remember all the "Bush Stayed on Vacation" nonsense? From Reuters

The Looney Tunes know he is never "on vacation" but it sells well to the gullible... Maybe the power of the picture can refute the idiocy. More...

Bush declares La. emergency

8/27/2005

CRAWFORD, Texas -- President Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana on Saturday because of the approach of Hurricane Katrina and his spokesman urged residents along the coast to heed authorities' advice to evacuate.

Bush, vacationing at his ranch, was being regularly updated about the storm, which is expected to hit land early Monday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency continue to coordinate with state authorities in Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, and have prepositioned supplies in areas expected to be affected, he said.

The president's emergency declaration authorizes the FEMA to coordinate all disaster relief efforts and to provide assistance in a number of Louisiana parishes, or counties.

For the first time in (I heard) 34 years the President actually declared a state of emergency before the storm even hit. Then he went a step further...

Bush urges safety from Katrina

8/28/05

CRAWFORD, Texas -- President Bush, as he readied the federal government for a massive relief effort, on Sunday urged people in the path of Hurricane Katrina to forget anything but their safety and move to higher ground as instructed.

"We cannot stress enough the danger this hurricane poses to Gulf Coast communities," Bush said as the storm roared across the gulf toward New Orleans and other communities. "I urge all citizens to put their own safety and the safety of their families first by moving to safe ground."

With forecasters warning of a category five storm, the president made sure the federal response would not be delayed by already declaring emergencies in Mississippi and Florida just hours after a similar declaration for Louisiana. Such declarations make federal aid available to assist with disaster relief, but they are rarely made before a storm even hits.

Sorta weird to read that the way history unfolded huh?

Lastly, as has been widely reported, Bush even called Blanco personally and urged her and Nagin to declare a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. Anyone who says Bush was not on top of this is either lying or delusional.... Bush was far more on top of it than the mayor of New Orleans who had to be reminded by the National Weather Service that hurricanes were dangerous.

Of course FEMA, and the idiot who runs it, are a different matter.

Katrina Hatches New Breed of Chickenhawk

"How can these people sleep at night and how can they choke down their food knowing it is purchased off of the flesh and blood of others?" Cindy Sheehan, War Mom

As the floodwaters slowly recede to reveal a thick layer of dead democrat voters, a new breed of chickenhawk has risen from the toxic muck, demanding our children be sent into harm's way without ever having served themselves. This time, the cowardly warmongers are not the bloviating Nazi propagandists of right-wing hate radio, but outstanding members of the progressive community. Brothers, sisters, and sexually ambiguous political comrades they may be, they have nonetheless taken it upon themselves to volunteer our young tots for hazard duty in the devasted gulf region.

Our beloved Maureen Dowd, for instance, thinks the 82nd Airborne should have parachuted into New Orleans through the eye of the hurricane, yet she sat out the entire Vietnam War with a convenient case of chlamydia. The profoundly flatulent Oliver Willis spent Desert Storm shovelling pastries into his porcine cakehole, but he has no problem sending someone else's kid to wade chest deep through raw sewage. Even the saucy Arianna Huffington has joined the neo-chickenhawk brigade, insisting that Bush should have pulled the troops out of Iraq and sent them to Louisiana - a state that poses no imminent threat, and where they'd be welcomed with "flowers in the streets". But I doubt we'll see ol' Zsa Zsa chasing armed looters down Bourbon Street any time soon. She's got a blog to run!

Don't get me wrong. I love these progressive icons as much as abortion itself. Perhaps this sudden spurt of fascism is just a temporary case of insanity, like when the entire political left became flag-waving jingoists for about 10 minutes after 9/11. Michael Moore helped us get through our patriotic dementia, and were back to sneering at the Stars & Stripes before Bush could finish milking his Pet Goat. I only hope liberal intellectuals like Arianna, Oliver, and MoDo quickly regain their senses, lest people start to think they're all a bunch of blubbering hypocrites.

Fascist Stormtroopers Invade New Orleans

In the terrible aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a new progressive Eden began to emerge from the watery Hell that Bush's environmental policies created. The opressive socio-economic system created by white slaveowners to keep blacks down was crumbling before our very eyes, and the bright beacon of liberty was at last shining for America's long suffering people of color. Gone were "Law and Order", and other right-wing code words for "get the blacks". Greedy corporations built on the backs of the working poor fled for higher ground, and thousands of liberated wage slaves were free to spend their days in pursuit of intellectual and sexual fulfillment. Food, water, DVD players, and other necessities of life could now be plucked from store shelves like ripe tomatoes, without the obligatory angry glares from racist Koreans. In the blink of an eye, the heavy hand of white opression was finally lifted from the black community, and African-Americans who were born into slavery were now freer than they had been for generations.

Then, the rich white folks in their big mansions up on the hill began to sweat. With New Orleans now a free, democratic society in the truest Chomskian sense, who would work their smog-belching factories? Who would clean their houses and mow their lawns? Who would line their pockets with the blood of the working poor? Desperate, Louisiana's wealthy elite pulled their political strings and had the National Guard sent in to "restore order". Much like Baghdad, New Orleans is now an occupied city under martial law, its citizens terrorized by jackbooted fascists sent to protect the economic interests of the ruling plutocracy. With orders to shoot "looters", the distribution of goods has been taken back from The People and returned to the exploiters of labor. Racial profiling is the rule of the day, with troops returning fire on a disproportionate number of black street gangs. Little old ladies are being dragged from their homes at gun point, their Qurans mishandled and genitals mocked by uniformed, chain-smoking dwarves. Literally overnight, New Orleans has been transformed from a socialist utopia into a totalitarian conservative nightmare.

I, the formerly un-jaundiced president of the Bea Arthur Fan Club, have finally come to see my country for what it really is: Cat Poop. Pandora's Litter Box has been opened, my friends, and the new American Kristalnacht has begun.

What the Hell is Cutey Kathy Harris talking about? Huh??? The Main Stream Media NEVER edits pictures to make people look bad or good. Do They? 

SATIRE ALERT (for the terminally dumb)

John Bolton Has No Teats

The power to make recess appointments is a sacred one, and should be exercised only by a benevolent Democrat president for awarding ambassadorships to campaign contributors and chicks he's banging, without any partisan interference from an obstructive right-wing congress.

Bush has abused this power and crossed into dictatorial waters, essentially circumventing the constitutional process to appoint John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations - a position he's proven to be completely unsuited for. In a scant 24 hours on the job, Bolton has already insulted Secretary General Kofi Annan by showing up to the traditional introductory meeting without the customary kneepads and suitcase full of cash. Such arrogance will only alienate our allies, and runs the serious risk of forcing trusted friends like France to collaborate with our enemies.

One of the first things every child learns is how to play nicely with others. It's a skill that requires a willingness to compromise - that is, bend over and blindly acquiesce without demanding anything in return. Throughout his career, John Bolton has demonstrated that he cannot play nicely with others. Indeed, he's little more than a playground bully who will put the interests of his country above the needs of the International Community. A congressionally appointed envoy to the United Nations should not be a swaggering cowboy, but rather a nurturing, multi-breasted nursemaid upon whose giant teats developing third-world countries can perpetually suckle. Unless I am mistaken, John Bolton has no teats. All he has is a string of Top 40 hits and some rather intimidating facial hair.

So weeks from now, when they crack open George Voiniovich's garage to find the lifeless, blue corpses of Oliver Willis and the senator huddled together in his idling Caddy, you can place the blame squarely upon John Bolton and his unilateralist mustache.

SATIRE ALERT !!!

Al-Zawahiri, Right on Cue

When Dan Rather uncovered shocking evidence that Bush went AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard for the entire Vietnam War, "Osama Bin Laden" made a diversionary video appearance that dominated the news for weeks and captured six Golden Globes for Best Documentary. When polls showed John Kerry surging ahead of Bush among heroin addicts, circus freaks, and New York Times Op-Ed columnists, out came another one of the Shrub's Osama lookalikes to scare the crap out of the American sheeple just ahead of the November elections. So when "bizarre weather" forced down a commercial aircraft full of French citizens at a Toronto airport, it was a safe bet that another turbaned stooge would conveniently surface to let Bush off the hook.

Thankfully, all 297 passengers aboard the Air France jet survived, and were found in a nearby field attempting to surrender to a flock of Canadian geese. But with Charles Nelson Reilly making phony terrorist threats in an equally phony beard, everyone quickly forgot about the mysterious storm that brought down an airplane full of rabid Bush-Haters on the same day the Shrub was to begin the longest presidential vacation in American history.

Nine out of ten dentists agree that severe weather is the direct result of Bush's refusal to give the UN regulatory powers over American industries. The French, who used only 30 gallons of water last year nationwide, would be more than happy to help us adopt a more European model of conservation, recycling, and sucking-up to mustachioed dictators. But Bush has chosen to ignore the sage advice of our eco-friendly friends. Now, our children must face a bleak future where their Rice Krispies are saturated with arsenic, the air is unbreathable even in the cold vacuum of space, and Tony Award-winning actors are little more than paid stooges for Halliburton, Inc.

A Journalist Is Murdered

Steven Vincent, "an art critic inspired to write about war after watching from the roof of his New York apartment as the World Trade Center towers fell," was found murdered in Basra, Iraq, yesterday, Reuters reports from New York. Vincent published an article in Sunday's New York Times criticizing British troops in Basra for being insufficiently aggressive in promoting democratic values:

Fearing to appear like colonial occupiers, they avoid any hint of ideological indoctrination: in my time with them, not once did I see an instructor explain such basics of democracy as the politically neutral role of the police in a civil society. Nor did I see anyone question the alarming number of religious posters on the walls of Basran police stations. When I asked British troops if the security sector reform strategy included measures to encourage cadets to identify with the national government rather than their neighborhood mosque, I received polite shrugs: not our job, mate.

Vincent was also a frequent contributor to National Review Online, which has collected links to his articles. Blogger Larry O'Connor picks up a pertinent Vincent quotation:

Words matter. Words convey moral clarity. Without moral clarity, we will not succeed in Iraq. That is why the terms the press uses to cover this conflict are so vital. For example, take the word "guerillas." As you noted, mainstream media sources like the New York Times often use the terms "insurgents" or "guerillas" to describe the Sunni Triangle gunmen, as if these murderous thugs represented a traditional national liberation movement. But when the Times reports on similar groups of masked reactionary killers operating in Latin American countries, they utilize the phrase "paramilitary death squads." Same murderers, different designations. Yet of the two, "insurgents" and especially "guerillas" has a claim on our sympathies that "paramilitaries" lacks. This is not semantics: imagine if the media routinely called the Sunni Triangle gunmen "right wing paramilitary death squads." Not only would the description be more accurate, but it would offer the American public a clear idea of the enemy in Iraq. And that, in turn, would bolster public attitudes toward the war.

Supporters of the conflict in Iraq bear much blame for allowing the terminology---and, by extension, the narrative--of events to slip from our grasp and into the hands of the anti-war camp. Words and ideas matter. Instead of saying that the Coalition "invaded" Iraq and "occupies" it today, we could more precisely claim that the allies liberated the country and are currently reconstructing it. More than cosmetic changes, these definitions reflect the nobility of our effort in Iraq, and steal rhetorical ammunition from the left.

The most despicable misuse of terminology, however, occurs when Leftists call the Saddamites and foreign jihadists "the resistance" What an example of moral inversion! For the fact is, paramilitary death squads are attacking the Iraqi people. And those who oppose the killers--the Iraqi police and National Guardsmen, members of the Allawi government, people like Nour--they are the "resistance." They are preventing Islamofascists from seizing Iraq, they are resisting evil men from turning the entire nation into a mass slaughterhouse like we saw in re-liberated Falluja. Anyone who cares about success in our struggle against Islamofascism, or upholds principles of moral clarity and lucid thought--should combat such Orwellian distortions of our language.

May he rest in peace.

Hello: My name is Karl and I make most members of the "Whackado Wing" of the Democrat Party dribble on themselves when I enter into a room. Heh! 

Karl Rove, The NARCitect

The overlying importance of this whole Plamegate scandal is that it perfectly illustrates how far the Republicans will go to destroy a true American hero. We saw it when they invented a group of phony Veterans known as "The Swift Boat Liars" to besmirch the heroism of Sen. John Kerry, a thrice-wounded Vietnam vet with eight Purple Hearts, 17 Medals of Honor, and a Cap'n Crunch Super Sailor Badge with clusters. We saw it when they smeared the reputation of Scott Ritter, a Green Beret who disguised himself as a middle-aged pervert in order to expose the seedy underworld of internet pedophiles. We saw it when the right-wing controlled media made a laughing stock of the courageous Sandy Berger, a man who risked severe paper cuts to his genitals in order to illustrate how badly security at the National Archives has deteriorated on Bush's watch. And now, the Repugs have shown their true colors once again by blowing the cover of super-duper top secret undercover CIA agent and American Hero, Valerie Plame. Her crime? Telling the truth about Bush's lies.

The inspiration for six Ian Fleming novels and the hit TV series, Alias, Plame's 35-year career as a super-duper top secret agent was what legends were made of. From her base of operations, Codename: Cubicle, Agent Plame spearheaded such major CIA operations as Project Fetch Director Woolsey a Cup Of Coffee and Operation Who Stole a Box of Staples from the Supply Room? In 1996, she singlehandedly thwarted a major terrorist attack by remaining motionless at her desk for several months while slowly tripling the size of her ass. Along with John Deutch and Aldrich Ames, Valerie Plame is one of the few CIA spooks who has earned the admiration and respect of progressives everywhere.

While some repugs are quick to shrug her off as a "pencil pusher" or a "cubicly monkey", the frontline of the War on Terror ran right across Agent Plame's desk. When she pushed her seemingly nondescript pencil, nations burned. Empires rose and fell at the flick of her super-duper top secret wrist. So when the Agency ordered her to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein had tried to obtain yellowcake uranium from Niger, she devised a cunning plan to assign the most unqualified, inexperienced boob with zero credentials to the task. It would be the exact opposite of what the Nigerites expected.

After hours of painstaking research, she whittled the list of candidates down to two potentials. Big Bird from Sesame Street refused the assignment, so she placed a call to Mr. Joseph Wilson, Codename: Shmoopsie, - former Ambassador to Lower Slobovia and, by pure coincidence, her husband.

Shmoopsie was incredibly busy helping democrats defeat Bush in the 2004 election, but when Agent Plame, Codename: Mumsy-Wumsy explained the mission to him, he turned his yacht around and headed for Nigeria at once. It was a daunting task, requiring long hours in a third world country with shitty golf courses, but he would do it for Mumsy-Wumsy. He would do it for the country he loved. And he would do it for America, too.

After spending several grueling hours sipping dreadful martinis at the Lagos Hilton, Shmoopsie made two very shocking discoveries:

1. For a nation full of Black people, it was next to impossible to get a decent shoe shine in Nigeria, and

2. Nigerian leaders vehemently denied selling yellow cake, or any other form of tasty dessert to Saddam Hussein.

Alas, Bush's entire reason for invading Iraq was a farce.

Upon reading Shmoopsie's super-duper top secret CIA report, Codename: An Article in the New York Times, Agent Plame proceeded to the office of Director George Tenet, carrying a cup of coffee to confuse snipers, ward off ninjas, and cloak her from Soviet spy satellites. Director Tenet was not only unimpressed by the Jennifer Garner pouty-face Agent Plame had spent months perfecting, but complained that she put too much cream in the coffee. Devastated, she returned to her Base of Operations, but vowed to continue working behind the scenes to expose Bush for the lying liar he is.

When she found out days later that Robert Novak had blown her cover, she immediately suspected that Rove was behind it. Aside from her husband, the Agency, the barista at the Langley Starbuck's, the entire cast of Cats, most of Washington D.C., and that guy who printed the "Kiss Me, I'm Married to a CIA Operative" T-shirt she gave to Shmoopsie for their anniversary, Rove was the only person who knew of her super-duper top secret identity. Obviously, this was his revenge for Shmoopsie's completely impartial criticism of Bush's illegal and immoral war in Iraq. Sleazy tactics indeed, but business as usual for the Bush junta. They ruined Wen Ho Lee, and now they had ruined her.

In the twelve months since Rove destroyed Agent Plame's career, Mumsy-Wumsy and Shmoopsie have suffered an endless nightmare of TV appearances, speaking engagments, magazine spreads, and lucrative book deals. Karl "The NARCitect" Rove's immediate termination will go a long way to repay these modern day Rosenbergs for the unjustice done to them, but it will never repair the damage they've inflicted on the War on Terror, a federal jobs program soon to be helmed by President Hillary Clinton. What Rove did amounts to treason, and not the noble kind of treason where you sell out your country or side with the enemy. Nothing short of his prosecution and incarceration will get us back on the Roadmap to Winning the Peace.

UPDATE--It was a small twister that leveled the boathouse and my neighbor got it on tape--which he sent to BayNews 9 and we got to see it on TV---Big Whoop! 

Ugly, no? 

The former boathouse 

Hurricane Blogging

Dennis

As I write this, about the only thing that is going good is that the power is still on. Hurricane Dennis missed us here in the Tampa Bay area but we are now getting pounded by the outer bands. The tide is about three feet above normal. We are getting sustained winds of 40 knots plus with gusts that have to be in excess of 60 knots. This has been going on all night and it is now almost 8 in the morning and it seems that it will continue this way until much later this morning. One can only imagine what the folks in the Panhandle are in for when the main portion of the storm makes landfall.

The roof of my boat house is no more. Most of it is resting on the boat itself, with the rest pretty evenly distributed among my neighbors docks and yards.. This is going to be a major issue when the winds stop as to how to get those portions of the roof off the boat and what remains of the dock. About 65 feet of my seawall has busted out and a good portion of the land against the wall is now slipping into the bay. The seawall is about three feet thick (concrete) and one can only imagine what the hydrostatic pressure must have been to bust out that big a section of the wall. I have a new and exciting leak in the front of the house that seems to be from water getting into the siding of the house and not from the roof. I can only imagine what it’s going to be like to try and find where this water is coming from. But coming it is, by the bucketful. Some of these outer bands are just wind but others are wind and rain with rainfall rates in the 3 to 4 inches per hour rate. Would you believe that these bands are moving at around 50 mph?

And the Hurricane missed us??????

Oops—sorry just had to stop for a moment as a giant piece of stucco that covers the ceiling in the hallway just landed on the floor. And the bad news continues as there are now three different locations where water is dripping off the ceiling. It is now raining like a mutha!

I gotta tell you that this is worst than any of the four storms we ducked last year. Much worse.

Want some more good news? Because this is Sunday I have to get Debbie in to the Oncology Center between 8:30 and 9:30 for her Nuprogen shot.

I’ll be soliciting donations later.

France=Roadkill 

An Open Letter To France

Dear France,

You probably don't remember me but we met at a party a number of years ago. I still recall the tone of your voice and the way you looked me up and down before pronouncing my outfit "quaint". I could tell that you were very important (and busy) by the way that you laughed and turned back to Belgium and Canada after you said it. Still you made quite the impression on me.

That is why when I learned of your recent disappointments, I felt that I had to write you. Losing the 2012 Olympics to London after all of that effort must have been devastating. I know that you and England have a long rivalry. This had to really sting. A lot. This is the third bid in a row that you have lost right?

Then there is the matter of Lance Armstrong and his utter domination of the Tour de France. How a testicularly challenged American heathen can continue to trounce the athletic flower of French manhood is beyond me.

And as if your collective luck wasn't bad enough, along comes that virulent strain of snail-gonorrhea that has decimated escargot production. Have the God's no mercy?

To add insult to injury, David Hasselhof's new reality show was not picked up for a new... oh wait, that's Germany... Sorry.

And all of your disappointments are not recent, I know. How long has it been since Jerry Lewis has made a movie? Losing a screen legend like this, before his time, must cause irreparable damage to an already shaky national psyche.

On the international front, that damn cowboy George Bush went right ahead and invaded Iraq even though you forbade it! What arrogance!

French women are shaving and bathing more. Berets are losing ground to the baseball hat. Where does it all end? I cannot rightly say.

All I can offer is this advice: Keep your nose head up and soldier on. When I say "soldier on" I don't mean like you have done during actual wars. I meant... maybe "soldier on" is a poor phrase to use. How about "keep truckin' "? Yes, that's it. Keep truckin' until we meet again.

Sincerely,

Fate

P.S. Keep f---ing with me and see what happens next.