Jeff Goldstein takes on those suggesting it is absolutely necessary to photograph and pass around pictures of the dead in order to somehow speak ‘truth to power’ about the ‘government failures’ in New Orleans.
Go flame him for a while.
This post is in: Excellent Links
Jeff Goldstein takes on those suggesting it is absolutely necessary to photograph and pass around pictures of the dead in order to somehow speak ‘truth to power’ about the ‘government failures’ in New Orleans.
Go flame him for a while.
by John Cole| 5 Comments
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance
I don’t have categories for every possible topic under the sun. I just don’t. So, sometimes I have to squeeze something into a category that makes it a stretch or a tight fit.
Also, in WordPress, the default category is uncategorized. You have to uncheck it, and then check the categories you think fit. Sometimes, I check the wrong box. Like, the post below, on nuclear power, which was supposed to be ‘Domestic Affairs,’ but which I accidentally filed under ‘Democratic Stupidity.’
Even I don’t think the no-nukes green-weanies speak for Democrats. There is a reason there is the ‘green’ party. There is also a reason it has only twelve members (give or take a dozen).
So keep that in mind when you see something that is in a weird category, draw my attention to it, and I will fix it.
A Quick Notice About This Site and WordPressPost + Comments (5)
by John Cole| 36 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
The price of natural gas could soar 71% this winter, making home heating costs rise sharply:
Natural gas prices could rise as much as 71% in places, the largest increase in projected energy costs as a result of Hurricane Katrina, the Energy Department says
The department’s statistical agency, the Energy Information Administration, says price hikes will depend on how quickly oil rigs and Gulf coast refineries damaged by Hurricane Katrina can be repaired.In its report, the agency said natural gas prices for the Midwest will increase as much as 71%, while heating oil prices in the Northeast could rise 31%. Electricity prices in the South could jump 17%.
But barring an unusually slow pace of repairs, the agency said domestic oil production should return to just under 5.4 million barrels a day in November, where it was in August before Katrina disrupted most Gulf production and knocked out 10 refineries.
While this is being blamed partially on Hurricane Katrina, prices for natural gas have been soaring for years (I think a five-fold increase), in large part because the vast majority of new plants designed to generate electricity are fueled mostly or in large part by natural gas.
We really need to revisit nuclear, and now, not later. Your thoughts? And if you can find the graphs charting the price increase in natural gas, that would be appreciated. I am relying on memory.
by John Cole| 46 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
There is nasty stuff in the water. And if you don’t believe me, check this out:
That is a 15′ (Readers state that water moccasins don’t get that big and it is probably only 5-6′. That is, by my estimation, still 5-6′ more water mocassin for my tastes.)water moccasin near the devastation in New Orleans.
Authorities should show that picture, and I bet it would convince a few people. I, personally, would drop dead from heart failure if I saw that near my house.*
*Brief personal anecdote:
As an undergrad, I lived in a house with several guys at the top of a hill. Our street, garage, and mailbox were about 50 steep steps down the hill, and on either sides of the steps were brush, thornbushes, honeysuckle, etc. One day during the summer, I was walking, barefoot, down the steps to check the mail, when I step on some rubbery like tube that immediately hissed and lashed out at me. I jumped, not unlike startled cats who reflexively shoot straight up into the air, over the railing and into the briar patches.
Turns out I had stepped on a snake sunning itself. I have never been the same sense. I never checked the mail barefoot again. In fact, I checked the mail with a shotgun or a shovel for a month afterwards.
by John Cole| 10 Comments
This post is in: Foreign Affairs
Here:
Saddam Hussein’s chief attorney denied on Thursday that the ousted president had confessed to ordering executions and waging a campaign against Kurds in which thousands of people are said to have been killed.
“There was no confession by the president and all the investigations in this case do not implicate him at all,” Khalil Dulaimi said in a statement sent to Reuters.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told state television on Tuesday that an investigator who questioned Saddam told him he had extracted important confessions from him and that the ousted leader had signed them.
Talabani did not say whether Saddam had actually admitted to committing any crimes, or had merely acknowledged that he was head of state and commander in chief of the army at the time of various military operations.
“Saddam deserves a death sentence 20 times a day because he tried to assassinate me 20 times,” Talabani said, recalling his days as a Kurdish rebel leader fighting the Baghdad authorities.
While this is clearly absurd, it underscores a real problem. Saddam is absolutely guilty, but we still need for there to be a fair trial ijn order for people to accept the results. This kind of nonsense makes the possibility of such a trial difficult, to say the least.
This post is in: Politics, General Stupidity
I will publicly acknowledge and credit anyone who can explain how this is not the shameless exploitation of a tragedy for immediate and unrelated political gain:
The televised images of poverty-stricken evacuees from Hurricane Katrina are part of a provocative, last-minute effort by a liberal interest group to divert federal Judge John Roberts’ path to confirmation as chief justice.
MoveOn.org Political Action plans to unveil a TV ad on Monday that questions whether Roberts is sensitive enough to civil rights concerns to lead the Supreme Court. The ad suggests that the plight of the mostly African-American evacuees in New Orleans showed that poverty remains a serious problem among minorities, said Ben Brandzel, the group’s advocacy director. In a mix of judicial and racial politics, the ad then suggests that minorities could suffer if the Senate confirms Roberts.
“The connection is obvious,” Brandzel said. “The images after Hurricane Katrina show we still live in a society where significant racial inequities exist. We believe John Roberts’ record on civil rights … is clearly not the direction our country needs to head now.”
Maybe a Kanye West cameo:
“Judge John Roberts doesn’t care about black people.”
Really, this is absurd.
*** Update ***
And another idiot speaks:
U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., asked House Speaker Dennis Hastert not to send federal disaster aid to officials in Louisiana, calling state and local government there incompetent and corrupt.
In a letter to Hastert on Wednesday, Tancredo urged the speaker to create a “bipartisan select committee” of members of Congress to oversee federal disaster spending in Louisiana.
It boggles the mind. Someone ought to throw his stupid ass and his family into the nasty water in New Orleans.
by John Cole| 41 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Republican Stupidity
This position makes no sense whatsoever:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) announced Wednesday night that he will veto landmark legislation that would have allowed same-sex couples to marry.
In a statement, Schwarzenegger’s press secretary, Margita Thompson, said the governor opposes the legislation, passed Tuesday night by the California Assembly and last week by the state Senate, because he thinks the matter should be decided by California’s courts or its voters.
Schwarzenegger’s decision ends the prospects for the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, which passed along strict party lines after an impassioned debate in the California Assembly. The measure would have recast the state’s legal definition of marriage as a union between two people rather than a union between a man and a woman.
The vote marked the first time that a state legislature had approved a bill authorizing same-sex marriage without a court order. Massachusetts has passed regulations allowing gay marriage, but only after state courts ordered it to do so.
Don’t the voters select the legislators? Since when do we want the courts to decide these issues.
Given that anymore the election of a Republican statewide in California is an aberration, it will be interesting to see what happens if Arnold does veto this and a Democrat is elected to succeed him. Will the legislature pass it again, or will the bill suddenly not have the votes to be passed again?
*** Update ***
Patterico says this is the right thing for Arnold to do.