Even I have trouble believing al-Reuters could actually stoop to fake pee. This would make "fake but accurate" look like rigid rationality...

Venal organizations doing illegal things? That's such a MSMajor surprise to me. I'm shocked, just shocked... And speaking of the good ol' MSM, you might want to keep scrolling while you're over at Mickey's -- I should link to him more and will try to rectify my sin... (HT Glenn)

It still may not be true -- but you would expect them to shoot now if they could...

Unfit to face the truth. Did I forget to mention why?

I'm feeling like a classic redux on a post that has held up well: What French bashing?

No so fast -- they might have a few bazookas.

We will probably disagree on how to rebuild, but good for Donna.

1997. 1999. Well everyone knows that BusHitler stole that election in '92, didn't he? (HT Drudge)

Of Course It Wouldn't Have Fit The Storyline ...

... for the LA Times to have brought this up during the early critical impression phase of the "racist Dubya/get Mike Brown/what buses?" MSM campaign:

Senior officials in Louisiana's emergency planning agency already were awaiting trial over allegations stemming from a federal investigation into waste, mismanagement and missing funds when Hurricane Katrina struck.

Remember the REAL BLAME NAME? Even more hilarious:

The day before the report was issued, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Louisiana obtained an indictment against Michael L. Brown, deputy director of the Louisiana office of emergency preparedness. (Brown is no relation to former FEMA director Michael D. Brown who resigned this week.) Louisiana's deputy director oversaw the state's Hazard Mitigation program.

So either a) the MSM either had a story in pocket about the charges against the Louisiana FEMA's Michael D. Brown and suppressed it so as not to confuse the message in their biased attack on Dubya's Mike Brown -- or b) they're totally incompetent. Or c) all of the above.

Interesting about how questions about the MSM typically end up in a form like this isn't it?

I pick (c) of course.

Remember this?

4. We do not yet have teleporter nor replicator technology like you saw on "Star Trek" in college between hookah hits and waiting to pick up your worthless communications degree while the grownups actually engaged in the recovery effort today were studying engineering.

I'm thinking of promoting it to a Jaw Dropper. This idea that people with better than average writing skills -- but typically no other professional qualifications -- are somehow better qualified to understand and honestly communicate a wide range of complex subjects than professionals is one of the most risible ruses of all time.

As a society we have ceded entirely too much power to the "4th estate" in our quest for the material benefits of specialization. Absolute power has corrupted them absolutely as well as allowed them to brainwash their way to entirely too much respect. (And I say that in knowledge of how poorly the MSM is regarded by much of the public.)

Blogging has opened up a critical avenue for the re-engagement of citizenship -- and none too soon! All of a sudden, subject matter experts can gain a foothold against the venal and stupid MSM.

And it's also our unthinking trust in specialization along with violating the "Prime Directive" that has been key in leading us to the verge of the Tinfoil Apocalypse. Too much technology is leaking into the hands of nihilistic, bloody, brutal serial murderers.

I hope it's not too late to avoid it. But the evidence in favor of Apocalypse is getting pretty ugly.

SHHHH! This Strategy Page 9/16/05 update doesn't exist.

WHOOPS!

"There are probably some people among you here who fancy yourself as having leftist revolutionary credentials,” he said, in a discussion of Kurdish and Iraqi opponents of Saddam’s regime. "And, in fact, I can tell that you do by the zoo noises you make and the scars you can demonstrate from your long underground twilight struggle against Dick Cheney. But while you’re masturbating in that manner, the Iraqi secular left…[is] fighting for [its] lives against the most vicious and indiscriminate form of fascist violence that any country in the region has seen for a very long time."

Daffy Durbin and Atticus Finch.

Now THERE's Some Excellent Food For Thought

"fascist-fellating fraud"

--- AND ---

Tom Grey: "The myth that the weak are morally superior because they are weaker. But they're not always."

Now THERE's some excellent food for thought. I'm gonna chew on that one for awhile...

The interminable 15 minutes.

Did I forget to mention Barges? Well at least one anyway.

It's enough to make me want to believe in Revelations as a saner apocalypse. But I've been predicting it of course...

Danger! Danger! Will Robinson Jamie Gorelick!

"An employee of the Defense Department says he was ordered to destroy documents identifying Mohamed Atta as a terrorist two years before the 2001 attacks on the U.S., Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., announced today. "

Could it be possible that the risible 911 Commission will finally come out stinking like NOLA?

The face of moderate Islam -- or just plain nuts? And lucky for us, we all know that loons are never prone to violence...

"This response goes to the heart of the beliefs of the left—the socialist ideal of equality. In their world no one can have what everyone can’t have. (Well, an exception is always made for the elites but that’s another story.) Therefore, since they couldn’t evacuate everyone they shouldn’t even attempt to evacuate anyone." (HT Glenn)

48 would be gr8. Well, at least as long as the buses have drivers and armor plating. (HT Glenn)

When does reality become fake? When al-Reuters covers it...

Whoops

"Regular reader who just got internet access in South Mississippi tonight! I hope it does not go out before I finish this email. I live in Gautier, just north of I 10 on the gulf coast. Unlike many, I can plead personal knowledge.
...

There was literally no way into the area for convoys that did not involve clearing hundreds of miles of roads. The bridge between Mobile and Pascagoula was closed, due to fear that it would collapse. It is still only one lane each way. I 10 was, in places,under water until Tuesday.

So where did this idea of a slow response originate? I believe it came from fearful local politicians, mostly in Louisiana, eager to deflect blame to anyone else. It was picked up enthusiastically by the media. The Cindy Sheehan story was rapidly fading, so this was simply another attack by the media, beleieving they have finally got Bush. The Plame story, the Rumsfield story, Cindy Sheehan, Abu Graib, etc… etc…

I saw emergency personnel on Tuesday evening, and I was quite happy with the response."

RTWT.

"And now the maggot of Holocaust denial has emerged from within this filth finally to reveal, to those who would not believe it, just what it is that we are up against." (HT Glenn)

AT LAST: The real blame name.

Intro And Kipling Redux

"From Democrats and the American Left -- the U.S. equivalent to the people who run Canada -- we are still hearing that the disaster in New Orleans showed a heartless, white Republican America had abandoned its underclass.

This is garbage. ...

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise..."

Glenn Bus(ts) WaPo

"Fully evacuate?'' Yes. As Brendan Loy noted, even 48 hours is really too late -- though Nagin waited much later than that. (I've seen people doing math to the effect that you could have gotten everyone out in 24 hours, but I doubt that New Orleans could have mustered the necessary degree of organization for that.) But certainly a lot of people could have been evacuated who weren't, and that would have improved conditions for the rest, and reduced the burden on relief services. And if Nagin had gotten the buses out, they would have been available for further evacuations after the storm had passed, instead of him having to call for Greyhounds.

This is, of course, all water over the dam in the most literal sense, but given all the finger-pointing going on, it's hard to ignore this issue. Had more people been evacuated, as they should have been, before the storm hit, conditions in the city would have been better, and relief services less stressed, afterward. [My emphasis]

The Smartest Man In America

Thomas Sowell is not only smart but concise:

People who talk about a need for "change" in the law are off on a tangent, if not cynically confusing the issue. Nobody denies the need for change. The Constitution itself provides a process for its own amendment.

The real question is who should make those changes -- "we the people" through elected representatives or unelected judges?

Those who think that judges need to update the law have claimed that it is hard to amend the Constitution. But what is the evidence for that? That it hasn't been done very often?

People don't often put on one red shoe and one green shoe. But that doesn't mean that it is hard to do. It just means that they don't want to do it.

To show that it is hard to amend the Constitution, you would first have to show that the public wants it amended more often but somehow just can't seem to get the job done.

There are 27 amendments to the Constitution, which is to say 17 have been added since the original ten in the Bill of Rights. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were all ratified within 5 years of one another. The 16th and 17th were ratified the same year.

There is far less evidence that the public is dying to amend the Constitution, and just can't do it, than there is that they resent judges amending it by "interpretation."

The fact that judges feel a need to deny doing this suggests the same thing. The time is long overdue to stop repeating shopworn sophistries in defense of lawless judges.

RTWT.

A Nerdly No

Glenn points out that us nerds have an even stronger opinion than the rest of the country:



But realistically, the insurance companies are the only ones who can stop the rebuilding -- the politicos certainly won't. Including W of course...

NYeT Again

So the latest hit piece on W from NYeT begins:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 - American aviation officials were warned as early as 1998 that Al Qaeda could "seek to hijack a commercial jet and slam it into a U.S. landmark," according to previously secret portions of a report prepared last year by the Sept. 11 commission. The officials also realized months before the Sept. 11 attacks that two of the three airports used in the hijackings had suffered repeated security lapses.

And we all know that BusHitler won in that election mess in Florida in 1992, right?

Hellloo-ooo!!??

Slick who?

"The real wealth of nation lies with its people, who are forged in part by the expectations we hold of them. The Left has expected so little of those they've named as victims: they will not be disappointed."

Bus(ted) again.

UPDATE: Be sure to follow the link to the Superdome survivor's perspective.

QOTD: "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." --Albert Einstein

I passed neo's surprising test -- can you? And while you're at it you might want to examine whether Jews are generic...

Barging Out Of The Levee Canal Wall MSMemory Hole

Imagine just how amazed I am to discover this story in something vaguely resembling the MSM:

Barge could have crashed through canal's floodwall

Tuesday, September 06, 2005
BY JOHN McQUAID
NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE
A loose barge may have caused a large breach in the east side of the Industrial Canal floodwall that accelerated Hurricane Katrina's rising floodwaters in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward and adjacent St. Bernard Parish, Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi said yesterday.

Naomi said the barge was found on the land side of the floodwall, leading Army Corps officials to believe it could have crashed through the wall and sent a huge amount of water -- which was already pouring over the top -- into the neighborhoods immediately downriver.

"We have some pictures that show this very large barge inside the protected area. It had to go through the breach," Naomi said. "The opening is a little bit wider than the barge itself. One would think it's the barge that did it." ...

Amazingly, we have here an entire story dedicated to the barge theory! And even some speculation at the end of the story that the 17th Street canal breach was caused by a barge:

Leonardo Ramirez, a construction worker and Metairie resident who lives on the Jefferson Parish side of the 17th Street Canal near the breached area, said he thought he heard a barge hitting the levee early Aug. 29, though he did not see it happen.

"At quarter to six in the morning we heard a huge bang, and then we heard another," he said. "It was so loud. It scared us."

Check it out!

And there are now some other MSM stories that actually contain barge references. But nothing from the NYeT al heavy MSMajors.

And as near as I can tell, The Rail was on top of this very early:

A prediction, levees and the levee breaks are going to be extremely big news in the next few weeks.

We’ve already heard some of it. And frankly a lot of the news will likely criticize the failure to upgrade them. But, the levees are going to be big news because the body count will be significant. And the outcry will grow, as tragic discoveries of people drowning in their homes will be trumpeted by an outraged media.

We will learn, as if it is new news, that the major levee failure was the result of empty barges broken free by the hurricane ramming the concrete retaining walls. Survivors in Baton Rouge who relayed the stories to reporters in the evacuation centers have already reported it.

And there's a very interesting comment there by an ex-FEMA employee too.

But you've got to do some serious Googling to find this stuff.

NYeT/(C)BS/CNN doesn't want you to know that even the proposed Cat 5 flood wall wouldn't have helped since it wasn't going to be built where the canal walls broke! Much less that even if Bush was clairvoyant and made everything including canal walls Cat 5 reinforced (why everyone knows that Slick Willy was going to get right on that if he could have just had ANOTHER term!) little details like barges cause just a slight complication to the "W eats babies for breakfast" narrative.

But yall just go right ahead and turn your brain to risible MSMush.

And while youre at it don't forget: I control Karl Rove.

"No doubt all of this will appear in the New York Times tomorrow." NYeT!

ABLE CONDI may not be true after all? If not, then what on earth DID Sandy stuff down his pants anyway that he'd be willing to risk that horrific $50K fine???

Karl homers agin': "But in what solar system would a four-day job interview include a solid day in which the interviewer talks about himself?"

Re-Hijacked and praying to Mecca.

Those poor, oppressed drone pilots. And you don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out who supplied them...

TIMELINE OF HELL.

Oh yeah, I remember that.

The “journalism” continues -- Jeff has the takedown. (HT Glenn)

NEVER FORGET WHAT?

Why The MSMedia Are The Enemy

Terrorists can be a very small group of people or a politically weak organization. What makes the small and anonymous appear powerful and strong? In the 21st century, intense media coverage magnifies the terrorists’ capabilities. This suggests that winning the global war against Islamist terror ultimately means accomplishing two things: denying the terrorists’ weapons of mass destruction and curbing what is currently Al Qaeda’s greatest strategic capability: media magnification and occasional media enhancement of its bombing campaigns and political theatrics.

(HT Glenn)

Check out my update to "Intent On Burying Drowning The Lede Leader". It gains new relevance with the emerging "breaching vs. overtopping" meme.

Steyn Rolls

And, as the years go by, it becomes clearer that the war aspects -- the attacks in New York, Washington, Bali, Madrid, Istanbul, London -- are really spasmodic flashes of a much more elusive enemy. Although Islamism is the first truly global terrorist insurgency, it shares more similarities with conventional terror movements -- the IRA or the Basque separatists -- than many of us thought four years ago. Terror groups persist because of a lack of confidence on the part of their targets: the IRA, for example, calculated correctly that the British had the capability to smash them totally but not the will. So they knew that while they could never win militarily, they also could never be defeated. That's what the Islamists have bet.

Only a tiny minority of Muslims want to be suicide bombers, and only a slightly larger minority want actively to provide support networks for suicide bombers, but big majorities of Muslims support almost all the terrorists' strategic goals: For example, according to a recent poll, over 60 percent of British Muslims want to live under sharia in the United Kingdom. That's a "moderate" Westernized Muslim: He wants stoning for adultery to be introduced in Liverpool, but he's a "moderate" because it's not such a priority that he's prepared to fly a plane into a skyscraper.

RTWT.

Yahoo - A Good 1940s German Company

I Would Call This Devastating

... except that would be a vast understatement:

Did Louisiana and Governor Blanco follow any of its plan? Based on the report we read in the New York Times yesterday, it appears that Blanco didn't even know what the plan required, or even have any knowledge of the resources and responsibilities that the state government had.

Also note the date on Lousiana's EOP. Its last revision came in January 2000. No one in Louisiana has updated this plan despite the events that followed after that date:

* 9/11
* Hurricane Ivan (Sep 2004)
* Natural Hazards evaluation of LA/NO response (Nov 2004)

Florida officials have called this correctly. The response to Katrina and its unnecessarily deadly consequences started years ago, when Louisiana and its officials refused to take emergency planning seriously and neglected to make what slight planning did take place known to the various agencies expected to respond. No amount of federal intervention could have overcome the mistakes made by state and local response agencies in the days and hours before landfall, and even afterwards the reluctance of Blanco to allow federal authority to take over the area cost more time and lives while she dithered.

Sheer incompetence. Louisiana needs to ask itself why their elected officials left them so vulnerable to this kind of disaster.

RTWT. Of course, Florida doesn't know anything about hurricanes so why listen to them?



UPDATE: Did I mention ghost trains and liability yet? (HT Glenn)

All You Need To Know About The War's Progress Since 911

... is contained by the fact that CNN's photo 911 photo gallery contains no pictures of what the end of life was like for 911 victims:



But they're eager to show dead bodies in NOLA since they think they can hurt Bush with them.



After all, those pictures of buses were just Photoshopped by conservatives.



And doesn't everyone know that the leadership of the Red Cross and Salvation Army are just right-wing shills?

Their puerile fascifism is never ending. They believe that just as they have for now stuffed Orwell into his own Memory Hole, they will be able to do the same with 911.

The venal vultures of the MSM and their Gramscian Neo-Syndicalism is part and parcel of the enemy. Now it is true that many of them are unwitting, brainwashed dupes of Gramscianism.

It's an "arc of embrace", not a crescent! Never mind that we call it a crescent. You're just taking us too literally. What's the matter with you?

Nothing's the matter with me. But the MSM needs to become unemployed from any position shaping public opinion forthwith...

4. We do not yet have teleporter nor replicator technology like you [MSM'ers]
saw on "Star Trek" in college between hookah hits and waiting to pick up your
worthless communications degree while the grownups actually engaged in the
recovery effort today were studying engineering.

As I pointed out just a few posts ago, Scrappleface has the best remembrance of 911 in the midst of the continuing insanity.

Let's roll and honor their bravery and sacrifice.

And turn off CNN for good.

Katrina Takes On The Tinfoil Apocalypse

Here's some perspective on just how massive Katrina was:



This is taken from the Katrina Information Map -- it's pretty cool. (Don't abuse it by adding garbage notes of course! There seem to be too many on it already.)

Now here's the same map with the effects of a small fission nuke (Hiroshima sized) superimposed in red:



When you consider how much infrastructure was taken out fairly far inland and the extent of power outages in the immediate aftermath, and then pile on the flooding of NOLA you get something that in many respects humbles the Apocalyptic effects of a small nuke.

In fact, the only small nuke hit that would even rival this would be one in NOLA that would (of course) have flooded the city. At least then folks would have realized not to pump the water out into the lake since it would be radioactive. (This idea of pumping the NOLA witch's flood brew out into the lake is going to end very badly I think; but that's a topic for another post.)

But for most cities that would be nuked, you just have to think about a nanosecond to realize that while the death toll would be hugely higher given the likelihood of no warning at all (it's now looking like the low thousands at worst), it would actually be a lot easier to get help to the survivors on the fringes since the damage would extend only to approximately the outer red ring rather than the huge rounded rectangle of the Katrina map. In general, you could get there from wherever the supplies were since the infrastructure damage would be much more localized.

Aside from the whole issue of Federalism and whether W should have invoked the Insurrection Act -- and perhaps also aside from the general pychological effects of nuclear weapons -- it would be easier to get aid to the survivors of a nuke than those from Katrina.

Tinfoil Apocalypse? Yes, the Apocalypse is coming folks. But not in the fantasmagorical imagery of Revelations. In the form of insane, nihilistic Islamic lunatics wearing "Tinfoil Hats" finally getting their fingers on the "red button" and treating it like a door knocker.

It might take Iran a number of years to develop them themselves. Or maybe OBL has already acquired them from the NorKorComs or the Russian Mafia.

Who knows? Certainly not the CIA, that's for certain.

But too much technology in the hands of the too very intensely insane can only end badly.

Very badly.

But, surprisingly, in many ways possibly not as badly as Katrina...