Brown blames state and local officials for Katrina response

CNN reported Former FEMA director Michael Brown aggressively defended his role in responding to Hurricane Katrina on Tuesday and put much of the blame for coordination failures on Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.

Basically he is right. He may have done a few things wrong, but 60% of the problem was Blanco, and 30% of it was Nagin

"My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional," Brown told a special congressional panel set up by House Republican leaders to investigate the catastrophe. The storm slammed into the Gulf Coast on Monday, August 29. Brown's defense drew a scathing response from Rep. Wiliam Jefferson, D-Louisiana.

Trying to cover up for New Orlenas fault.

"I find it absolutely stunning that this hearing would start out with you, Mr. Brown, laying the blame for FEMA's failings at the feet of the governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans."

Why? It was their fault. Things went much better in Mississippi and Alabama during Katrina, and in Texas and even Louisiana for Rita, when Blanco realized she needed to cooperate with the feds.

Brown, who for many became a symbol of government failures in the natural disaster that claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people, rejected accusations that he was too inexperienced for the job.

He certainly did not have any problems with the hurricanes in Florida last year.

"I've overseen over 150 presidentially declared disasters. I know what I'm doing, and I think I do a pretty darn good job of it," Brown said. Brown resigned as the head of FEMA earlier this month after being removed by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff from responsibility in the stricken areas. Brown, who joined FEMA in 2001 and ran it for more than two years, was previously an attorney who held several local government and private posts, including leading the International Arabian Horse Association.

Brown in his opening statement said he had made several "specific mistakes" in dealing with the storm, and listed two. One, he said, was not having more media briefings. As to the other, he said: "I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences, and work together. I just couldn't pull that off."

Both Blanco and Nagin are Democrats.

But Blanco wanted to punish Nagin for supporting her opponent (a Republican) in 2003.

"The people of FEMA are being tired of being beat up, and they don't deserve it," Brown said.

He is right

The hearing was largely boycotted by Democrats, who want an independent investigation conducted into government failures, not one run by congressional Republicans.

The Sunnis found that by boycotting the Iraqi elections, they shot themselves in the foot. I suspect the Dems will do the same thing.

GatewayPundit blogged Heaven forbid if someone would question the state or local officials for mistakes made. This may get you a left uppercut from the pretty Senator Landrieu! The democrats boycott leaves no doubt that all along their goal was to politicize rather than get to the truth of Katrina failures

DonSurber blogged Blanco and Nagin, you've been hosed by a pro.

Martini blogged The “only variable” was the state government officials? What about a below-sea-level major city of 500,000 in the path of the Hurricane?

What other city is stupid enough to approve construction permits for houses on land that is 7 to 15 feet below sea level

Is that a variable, Brownie? How many cities in those other states had to evacuate 500,000 people?

And refused to use the 600 buses they had at their disposal

Where in Mississippi and Alabama did breached levees innundate 80% of a major city? You think that is a ‘variable,’ or did you simply fail to take that risk into account now as well as before Katrina hit? Is Brownie really this stupid, or does he think the problems facing New Orleans were no different than those facing Pass Christian or Biloxi?

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Say No More

With her tongue firmly in her cheek Greta blogged Dear crazy kids in DC,

Thank you all soooo much for helping us win this “war” on terror. We believe all your efforts will help raise the morale of our terrorists and decrease the morale of the soldiers. This is very good for us and Allah will be happy. We sure hope that all your negative comments about the President will make his supporters turn on him. We look forward to your next election and have already given some money to MoveOn.org and other organizations that will greatly help our cause of WORLD DOMINATION. We stil can’t believe that the world doesn’t think and act like us, but if we persist they will hopefully succumb to our wishes.

And if not, we will just kill all of you.

The picture of that mom in DC really solidifies the way the entire U.S. (minus George Bush & those making money off of Haliburton) feel.

The females in Afghanistan and Iraq who have had a taste of Western Freedom can’t wait until we are in total control again. They miss the role they used to play and feel education, work, and serving a purpose are a waste of their time.

And they look much better in burkas

As you know, we have had some really good leadership in the middle east and recently we have let the US think they have made us change our way by letting new leaders in and even having elections. This is all a farce as we are just doing some Hollywood type of staging so new leaders can rise. Once again, keep up the protests and the constant slamming of the President. We are soooo happy that your newspapers and television work in our favor as well. Say no more, we appreciate all you do for our cause.

Sincerely,
The Insurgents

Greta has been bitten by the sarcasm bug

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Common sense on terrorism

Jeff Jacoby wrote on JWR Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney kicked off a rumpus last week when he observed that homeland security depends not just on protecting assets but on counterterror intelligence — including keeping tabs on people and places when there is reason to believe they may be involved in terrorism or its incitement.

I agree with him

''People who are in settings — mosques, for instance — that may be teaching doctrines of hate and terror," Romney said. ''Are we monitoring that? Are we wiretapping? Are we following what's going on? Are we seeing who's coming in, who's coming out? Are we eavesdropping, carrying out surveillance on those individuals that are coming from places that sponsor domestic terror?"

We certainly should.

Well, no kidding. After 9/11, after the Madrid and London transit massacres, it is hard to imagine anyone objecting to Romney's statement of the obvious. But object they did. The ACLU accused the governor of proposing ''another giant stride toward a police state." The Council on American Islamic Relations, shamelessly distorting Romney's words, said it was aghast that any governor would ''suggest blanket wiretapping of houses of worship." Groups from the leftist fringe staged a protest outside Romney's office.

ACLU and CAIR should both be ignored.

But if they expected to browbeat him into an apology, they were disappointed. ''This thing is just common sense," he told reporters. ''Surely we have to recognize that some of this has gone on in mosques in the past . . . . There have been places of extremism where certain teachers have been identified as having been involved in . . . terrorist attacks. Let's not pretend that's not the case."

Absolutely

Again, a statement of the obvious. But imagine the reaction if Romney had said something not so obvious. Say, like this: ''The most dangerous thing that is going on now in these mosques . . . is the extremists' ideology. Because they are very active, they took over the mosques; and we can say that they took over more than 80 percent of the mosques that have been established in the US. And there are more than 3,000 mosques in the US."

An American politician who uttered such thoughts would be smeared as a bigot. But it wasn't a politician who said them. It was a Muslim scholar and humanitarian, the Sufi sheik Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, speaking at a State Department forum in 1999. Kabbani was one of the first moderate Muslim leaders in the United States with the courage to publicly denounce the extremists. Unfortunately, his alarm didn't wake Americans from their pre-9/11 slumber. But what excuse can there be now for not taking seriously his warning that most US mosques are in the hands of a radical minority? As Romney says, ''This thing is just common sense."

There would have been no hullabaloo if Romney had spoken of ''monitoring" and ''wiretapping" what was being discussed by suspected gangsters meeting in the back rooms of Italian restaurants. Or of ''seeing who's coming in, who's coming out" of a housing project where drug deals take place. It was the focus on mosques that caused hackles to rise. Freedom of religion is an engrained American value, and the prospect of singling out Muslim houses of worship for special scrutiny leaves a bad taste.

Then don't single them out. Wiretap a Catholic Church and a Baptist Church and a Jewish Synagogue. All you will here there are praises of God, and it might do the police some good to hear that.

But if Americans want to protect themselves from Islamist terrorism, monitoring the mosques that foment it must be a priority. Needless to say, this must be done legally. Romney isn't proposing to do away with safeguards like judicial oversight and warrants issued only for probable cause. ''I don't want to change the rules," he emphasized in an interview last week. ''You can wiretap only when you comply with the Constitution."

The evidence that some radical mosques have been perverted into terrorist hatcheries has been mounting for years. The notorious Finsbury Park mosque in London incubated jihadists for holy wars worldwide; among its alumni are Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged 20th hijacker, and shoe bomber Richard Reid. Brooklyn's Al-Farooq Mosque is where Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, a rabid Egyptian cleric, incited his followers to bomb the World Trade Center in 1993.

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Penny-Wise Pelosi

Brendan Miniter wrote in OpinionJournal Democrats try to reinvent themselves as the party of fiscal discipline.

It is the Republican's fault for abandoning that position.

If Democrats retake the House next year, we can mark the start of the party's resurgence to a speech Nancy Pelosi delivered on Capitol Hill last week. It was there, at a press conference called to attack Republicans over their response to Hurricane Katrina, that the House minority leader actually used the words "waste, fraud and abuse" in talking about government spending.

If the Dems get in, I dont expect to see spending cut back. It will just go into social programs rather than defense, and they will raise taxes and hurt the economy to try to pay for it.

What Ms. Pelosi and a few other Democrats seem to be figuring out in the wake of Katrina is that Americans aren't happy with their government throwing billions of dollars around with little if any accountability. Therefore she's laying out a legislative agenda aimed at capturing the mantle of fiscal responsibility. So far that agenda includes calling for an "antifraud commission" to look into Katrina spending as well as an independent examination--modeled after the 9/11 Commission--of the government's response to the monster storm. And, of course, her party has long attacked Republicans for deficit spending and no-bid contracts to Halliburton in Iraq. A Halliburton subsidiary is already coming under scrutiny for receiving a contract to help rebuild the Gulf Coast.

What Ms. Pelosi is now counting on is that as Republican spending goes through the roof, obstructionism might finally pay off for Democrats. This may come as a shock to some on the right. It shouldn't. Republicans have held the House for almost 12 years and have occupied the White House for all but eight of the past 25 years, yet they have failed to shut off the spending valves in Washington. It was only a matter of time before Democrats ran against wasteful Republican spending. It's also not surprising that Democrats would claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility, for that claim has won them elections in the past. Indeed, it's how Sam Rayburn--the legendary speaker who now has a House office building named after him--won back the House for Democrats in 1954 and handed the party 40 years of uninterrupted control.

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GOP Leaders Try to Soothe Conservatives

WaPo reported Squeezed between a conservative clamor for spending cuts and the rising cost of hurricane relief, Republican congressional leaders will respond this week with a public relations offensive to win over angry conservatives -- but no substantive changes in budget policy.

I would rather see a change in policy, and no public relations offensive

Republican lawmakers and leadership aides conceded that the wholesale budget cuts envisioned by House conservatives are not being contemplated; the Senate is moving toward approving a temporary expansion of Medicaid for hurricane survivors, estimated to cost $9 billion. Nor are GOP leaders considering tax increases.

I am glad they are not looking at a tax increase, which would slow the economy and result in less money to the treasury.

And Hurricane Rita's blow to a politically sensitive region of Texas could add more pressure to spend. "Many communities, faith-based entities and the state of Texas have drained assets to save lives and help with the enormous multi-state national emergency, and they will need reimbursement to avoid massive financial failures," warned Rep. Louie Gohmert, a freshman Republican whose hard-hit East Texas district was drawn with the help of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) to take it from Democratic control.

I dont mind spending money to save lives, and I support reimbursement of those that spent money on that, including the faith based organizations, but I dont support spending one penny to try to increase the levees and floodwalls to protect an area that is 7 to 15 feet below sea level. Protect the French Quarter, the business district, and the houses built on land above sea level, and turn the rest into Lake Orleans.

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September Straw Poll

Patrick Ruffini is running a September Straw Poll with twelve candidates (George Allen, Haley Barbour. Sam Brownback, Bill Frist, Rudy Giuliani, Chuck Hagel, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Tim Pawlenty, George Pataki, Mitt Romney, and Tom Tancredo and then there is a second poll with five fantasy candidates: Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Mark Sanford, Fred Thompson, and you can tag your vote with conservative/moderate, pro-life/pro-choice, illegal immigration/pro-immigration, and see how others with your opinion voted.

I voted for Giuliani on the main ballot, and Rice on the Fantasy ballot, and at the time I voted, my choices were in first place Giuliani with 32.9%, and Rice with 30.7%

Try it out. It is interesting.

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Cooing at new-born babies banned

BBC NEWS reported A West Yorkshire hospital has banned visitors from cooing at new-born babies over fears their human rights are being breached and to reduce infection.

Brits can certainly be loony when they try.

A statement from Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax said staff had held an advice session to highlight the need for respect and dignity for patients. On one ward there is a doll featuring the message: "What makes you think I want to be looked at?"

What makes you think a baby that young know when someone is looking at them, or cares.

But Labour MP Linda Riordan said the measures were "bureaucracy gone mad". She told the Halifax Courier: "All mothers want people to admire their babies because all babies are beautiful.

Makes sense.

"But in a case where a mother did not want to answer questions it should be up to that individual to say so."

Who is forcing them to answer questions.

Some new mothers have already said they are astonished by the rules which stop people asking questions about their babies or looking at them in maternity wards.

I too am astonished.

Debbie Lawson, neo-natal manager at the hospital's special care baby unit, said: "Cooing should be a thing of the past because these are little people with the same rights as you or me.

I doubt anyone wants to coo over you.

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FEMA Plans to Reimburse Faith Groups for Aid

WaPo reported After weeks of prodding by Republican lawmakers and the American Red Cross, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said yesterday that it will use taxpayer money to reimburse churches and other religious organizations that have opened their doors to provide shelter, food and supplies to survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

That is good. Faith based groups did very good work, often superior to that done by secular groups.

FEMA officials said it would mark the first time that the government has made large-scale payments to religious groups for helping to cope with a domestic natural disaster.

I hope it is not the last.

"I believe it's appropriate for the federal government to assist the faith community because of the scale and scope of the effort and how long it's lasting," said Joe Becker, senior vice president for preparedness and response with the Red Cross.

Strangly, the Red Cross is considered a secular organization, despite its symbol, and the fact than in Muslim countries it is a Red Crescent, and in Israel a Red Star of David

Civil liberties groups called the decision a violation of the traditional boundary between church and state, accusing FEMA of trying to restore its battered reputation by playing to religious conservatives....

Those idiots hate anything or anyone with faith in a higher power.

FEMA officials said religious organizations would be eligible for payments only if they operated emergency shelters, food distribution centers or medical facilities at the request of state or local governments in the three states that have declared emergencies -- Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. In those cases, "a wide range of costs would be available for reimbursement, including labor costs incurred in excess of normal operations, rent for the facility and delivery of essential needs like food and water," FEMA spokesman Eugene Kinerney said in an e-mail.

It is very reasonable to reimburse for those services. They were provided without asking the faith of the recipient.

For churches, synagogues and mosques that have taken in hurricane survivors, FEMA's decision presents a quandary. Some said they were eager to get the money and had begun tallying their costs, from electric bills to worn carpets. Others said they probably would not apply for the funds, fearing donations would dry up if the public came to believe they were receiving government handouts.

That is up to them, but I think they should be reimbursed if they ask for it.

"Volunteer labor is just that: volunteer," said the Rev. Robert E. Reccord, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's North American Mission Board. "We would never ask the government to pay for it."

Then permit me to pray that God blesses you and your organization. And if you change your mind and ask for reimbursement of your expenses, I hope the government provides it.

Shakespeare's Sister blogged Even the plonking Salvation Army is lobbying for reimbursement.


Stirling Newberry blogged It is also clear that the American Red Cross is so thoroughly corrupt that only a complete obliteration of its current executive structure will restore it to being capable of its historic mission to help those in need, rather than to assist those in greed

He said this because they supported paying the faith based groups

DonSurber blogged I thought religious groups such as the Salvation Army already received reimbursements. Why should Catholic Charities, for example, be denied reimbursement when the American Civil Liberties Union gets paid legal fees for suing the government? The churches ain't supposed to be in it for the money, but neither is the ACLU. Both have expenses. Pay. Beats the pants off of having a Department of Hurricane Beaters on the federal dole. Hey, I didn't see Americans United for Separation of Church and State volunteering to help shelter, feed and comfort flood victims.

Mustang Bobb blogged Are you out of what could charitably be called your collective minds?

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Rather: CBS 'Doesn't Want Me to' Pursue Bush Guard Story

Matthew Sheffield wrote on NewsBusters In a televised interview with former CBSer Marvin Kalb, retired CBS anchor Dan Rather stated that his network will not allow him to continue to pursue the story of President Bush's Air Guard service

Gee I wonder why. Could it be because you completely disccredited the network, as well as yourself, by basing a story on forged documents?

..... Rather also expressed suspicion about bloggers' role in publicizing CBS's mistakes in the whole Memogate affair.

Simbaud blogged Broken Man - In a C-SPAN interview with Marvin Kalb, Dan Rather reveals that he is unlikely to revisit the story of the President's spotty service in the Texas Air National Guard

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Tuesday, September 27

This Day In History

• 1779   John Adams was named to negotiate the Revolutionary War's peace terms with Britain.
  
• 1825   The first locomotive to haul a passenger train was operated by George Stephenson in England.
  
• 1829   A locomotive belonging to England's Stockton and Darlington line, pulled a passenger train down the tracks. It was the first time an engine -- not a horse -- had accomplished this. The locomotive, "The Rocket", was designed by George Stephenson with the help of his son Robert. It was the first truly successful steam locomotive, able to pull a train on smooth rails. (The very first steam engine locomotive was built by Richard Treithick, also of England, in 1804.)
  
• 1854   The first great disaster involving an ocean liner in the Atlantic occurred when the steamship Arctic sank with 300 people aboard.
  
• 1928   The United States said it was recognizing the Nationalist Chinese government.
  
• 1938   "Thanks for the Memory" was heard for the first time on "The Bob Hope Show" -- on the NBC Red radio network. Who was the bandleader? If you said Les Brown, you’d be ... wrong. It was Skinnay Ennis accompanying ol’ ski nose at the time.
  
• 1939   Warsaw, Poland, surrendered after weeks of resistance to invading forces from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II.
  
• 1942   Glenn Miller and his Orchestra performed together for the last time, at the Central Theater in Passaic, N.J., prior to Miller's entry into the Army.
  
• 1954   ''Tonight!'' hosted by Steve Allen, made its debut on NBC-TV.
  
• 1959   A typhoon battered the main Japanese island of Honshu, killing nearly 5,000 people.
  
• 1990   The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Supreme Court nomination of David H. Souter.
  
• 1991   The Senate Judiciary Committee deadlocked, 7-7, on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court.
  
• 1994   More than 350 Republican congressional candidates signed the ''Contract with America,'' a 10-point platform they pledged to enact if voters sent a GOP majority to the House.
  
• 1995   The government unveiled its redesigned $100 bill, featuring a larger, off-center portrait of Benjamin Franklin.
  
• 1996   The Taliban, a band of former seminary students, drove the government of Afghani President Burhanuddin Rabbani out of Kabul, captured the capital and executed former leader Najibullah.
  
• 1998   Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder was elected chancellor of Germany, ending 16 years of conservative rule.
  
• 1998   Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals hit his record-setting 69th and 70th home runs duing the last game of the season.
  
• 1999   Tiger Stadium closed after 87 years, with Detroit beating the Kansas City Royals 8-2.
  
• 2001   An armed man went on a shooting rampage in the local parliament in Zug, Switzerland, killing 14 people before taking his own life.
  
• 2001   President George W. Bush announced plans to bolster airline security, including expanded use of federal marshals on airliners, making cockpits more secure and putting the federal government in charge of airport security.
  

Happy Birthday To

• 1722   Samuel Adams (U.S. Revolutionary War leader; governor of Massachusetts [1793-1797]; cousin of U.S. President John Adams; died Oct 2, 1803)
  
• 1840   Thomas Nast (political cartoonist: considered the father of American political cartooning: drew cartoon [Harper’s Weekly] using elephant as symbol of Republican party; died Dec 7, 1902)
  
• 1920   Jayne Meadows (Cotter) (actress: City Slickers, Murder by Numbers, Lady in the Lake, The Steve Allen Comedy Hour, Medical Center; panelist: I’ve Got a Secret; wife of Steve Allen; sister of Audrey Meadows)
  
• 1924   Wilford Brimley (actor: Cocoon, The Natural, Tender Mercies, The Firm, Absence of Malice, The China Syndrome, The Electric Horseman, Our House)
  

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Katrina Crime???

Michelle Malkin blogged Remember all those rapes and murders that supposedly took place in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina? By and large, according to a new report, they didn't happen. (Original report at NOLA. com)

According to Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan, "authorities have only confirmed four murders in the entire city in the aftermath of Katrina — making it a typical week in a city that anticipated more than 200 homicides this year." Officials now say there were only six deaths inside the Superdome. Of those, "four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide." No murders.

This is not exactly consistent with Louisiana National Guard Col. Thomas Beron saying there were 200 bodies.

At the Convention Center, four bodies have been recovered. Only one of the four deaths appears to have resulted from murder. An earlier report said that none of the reported rapes in the Superdome and the Convention Center have been substantiated.

John Hinderaker at Power Line says It's time to investigate the press

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Fighting poverty

Star Parker wrote in Townhall Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. More than $7 trillion has been spent on poverty programs since Lyndon Johnson declared his "war on poverty" 40 years ago, with effectively zero impact on overall black poverty. Yet 40 years of failure doesn't seem to be enough to suggest to liberals, black and white, that their approach to poverty might be wrong.

Of course not. The Democratic party is founded on the idea that it does not matter if the idea is good or not, just spend more money on it.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and former Democratic Sen. John Edwards, among others, riding the post-Katrina poverty-in-America theme, are making predictable speeches calling for yet more government poverty programs. I'm not sure I want to let these folks off with an insanity plea, but you really have to wonder what it takes for liberals to add one and one and get two. It's a bit hard to buy the claim that Katrina suddenly made Americans aware of poverty. The Washington Post reported this week that the federal government has in place over 80 poverty-related programs on which we spend in the neighborhood of $500 billion annually. Given the 37 million Americans that the Census Bureau tells us live in poverty, my calculator tells me this comes out to $13,500 spent per poverty-stricken person. Hardly indifference.

According to this if the government is spending $13,500 per proverty-stricken person, that is MORE than the poverty level, which is $9,310 (higher in Alaska and Hawaii). Either that must mean that no one is in poverty, or the government is doing a terrible job with its spending.

Yet, says the Post, "despite" all this spending, tens of millions of Americans remain poor. And despite 40 years of bloated government and massive spending, with no impact on structural black poverty, Obama concludes we need even more of the same. At least as incredible as the insistence of liberals on perpetuating failure is their absolute refusal to consider a single new idea. Black politicians and black entertainers are jumping on President Bush for allegedly being "indifferent" and not caring about blacks.

Most black politicians have a vested interest in keeping people in poverty (otherwise they would be out of a job).

But they have fought proposals that the president brought to Washington that would tangibly improve the condition of black America.

One of the single biggest issues for blacks today is education. Few would argue that education is the key to every kid's future. Black kids are trapped in hopeless, failing inner-city public schools. There is only one answer here, and that is school choice. We need voucher programs that would let black parents send their kids to school wherever they choose. The marketplace delivers the best products in the world to American consumers. We need to let that same marketplace deliver education. The No Child Left Behind law was enacted with limited choice provisions.

There would have been many more choice provisions, if it was not for the interference by Senator Kennedy.

When a school loses accreditation, parents can choose another public school in the district. The challenge, under these constrained circumstances, is to find one. My assistant, with great difficulty, just moved her son to a new school after his school failed. She tells me about the change in this child as a result of showing up in a positive school environment every day. No Child Left Behind had broad choice provisions as initially proposed by Bush. However, these provisions were gutted as a result of Democratic opposition.

Exactly what I said.

Blacks themselves understand the importance of vouchers and choice, and regularly poll over 50 percent in favor of them. Yet the Congressional Black Caucus remains opposed to any plan that would give black parents choice and black kids an open field of alternatives for school.

Social Security private accounts is another issue, proposed by Bush, that the Black Caucus has fought to the detriment of its own community. Black politicians, if they really wanted to lift the economic shackles off their own constituents, would be fighting to free them from the regressive payroll tax that deprives them of ownership and wealth creation. Despite the political smoke, this reform is for poor people, not rich people. The wealthy can pay the tax and have plenty spare cash left over to save in 401(k)s and IRAs. But for someone making $25,000 a year, that's not the case. The only cash that could be available for saving is taxed into Social Security. But, here again, the Black Caucus tells blacks that it is too risky to get off the government plantation.

That is because they have a vested interest in keeping them there. Blacks that make it to the middle class tend to vote Republican.

Any finance professor will make clear that over 40 years the risk of a savings account that is half bonds and half stock index fund is minimal and is virtually certain to produce retirement income many times greater than what Social Security promises (and does not have to give). So why do black political leaders, who supposedly care about black economic well-being, uniformly fight this? Black liberals should give Einstein a little credit, even if he was white. It is indeed insane to repeat past failures and expect different results. It's time for black leaders to start believing in their own people.

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New Analyses Bolster Central Tenets of Evolution Theory

WaPo reported When scientists announced last month they had determined the exact order of all 3 billion bits of genetic code that go into making a chimpanzee, it was no surprise that the sequence was more than 96 percent identical to the human genome. Charles Darwin had deduced more than a century ago that chimps were among humans' closest cousins.

So what? If as ID suggests, and intelligent designer created both, why is it not reasonable that he would use a lot of the same building blocks on each species?

But decoding chimpanzees' DNA allowed scientists to do more than just refine their estimates of how similar humans and chimps are. It let them put the very theory of evolution to some tough new tests. If Darwin was right, for example, then scientists should be able to perform a neat trick. Using a mathematical formula that emerges from evolutionary theory, they should be able to predict the number of harmful mutations in chimpanzee DNA by knowing the number of mutations in a different species' DNA and the two animals' population sizes. "That's a very specific prediction," said Eric Lander, a geneticist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., and a leader in the chimp project. Sure enough, when Lander and his colleagues tallied the harmful mutations in the chimp genome, the number fit perfectly into the range that evolutionary theory had predicted.

If Darwin was right, and chimpanzee's evolved into humans, surely 4% of their DNA did not change all at once. If Darwin was right, and some of the DNA changed, and then some more, and then some more, surely there should be fossile examples of the intermediate species.

Their analysis was just the latest of many in such disparate fields as genetics, biochemistry, geology and paleontology that in recent years have added new credence to the central tenet of evolutionary theory: That a smidgeon of cells 3.5 billion years ago could -- through mechanisms no more extraordinary than random mutation and natural selection -- give rise to the astonishing tapestry of biological diversity that today thrives on Earth. Evolution's repeated power to predict the unexpected goes a long way toward explaining why so many scientists and others are practically apoplectic over the recent decision by a Pennsylvania school board to treat evolution as an unproven hypothesis, on par with "alternative" explanations such as Intelligent Design (ID), the proposition that life as we know it could not have arisen without the helping hand of some mysterious intelligent force.

Could have, and did, are two different things. Perhaps it could have happened, just as an Intelligent Designer could have done it. The difference is that if Darwin was right, there would have been fossil records of the intermediate species, and there are not any, and if an Intelligent Designer did it, there would have been no need for intermediate species.

Pharyngula blogged You've written the best article on evolutionary theory I've seen in a newspaper yet.

blogged Can we please cut the CRAP...of (Un)Intelligent Design, already??

Julie blogged I have it on good authority from a biologist, that this Washington Pos

Feministe blogged Science class is for teaching science, not religion. Not “we don’t know, so God must have done it.” Not “evolution is only a theory” (gravity is also only a theory, but I’m not gonna start agitating for my kids to be taught intelligent falling).

If you knew what you were talking about, you would offer real evidence, not belittle the other side.

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The big picture

Michael Barone wrote in Townhall It's often hard to keep the big picture in focus. Television news tends to center on bombs going off in Iraq and has mostly ignored several million people voting in Afghanistan. We see footage of angry Palestinians, but not much about the ongoing progress toward democracy in Egypt.

That is a combination of two causes:

• The MSM's hatred of Bush, and wanting to take any opportunity to hurt him, and
• The journalistic philosophy of "if it bleeds, it leads"

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in turn have dominated the news and have made it difficult to get a sense of what is happening in the world. A world spinning out of control: That is what the old-line broadcast networks seem to be showing us.

Because that is what they want you to see.

But I see other patterns. George W. Bush has consistently asserted that one reason for removing Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was to advance freedom and democracy in the Middle East. In spite of the improvised explosive devices, that seems to be happening. Lebanon's Cedar Revolution was as inspiring an example of people power as the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Libya has dismantled its weapons of mass destruction. Egypt, by far the largest Arab nation, had its first contested election this month, and, as the Washington Post's David Ignatius writes from Cairo, "the power of the reform movement in the Arab world today ... is potent because it's coming from the Arab societies themselves and not just from democracy enthusiasts in Washington." Which is evidence that Bush was right: Muslims and Arabs, like people everywhere, want liberty and self-rule. Afghanistan has just voted, and Iraq is about to vote a second time this year. Violence continues, but the more important story is that democracy and freedom are advancing.

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Trashing insurance contracts in Mississippi.

OpinionJournal wrote President Bush has promised to rebuild the Gulf Coast "higher and better" than before. But that task is going to be far more difficult if Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood and his tort lawyer pals succeed in rewriting private insurance contracts after the hurricanes have hit.

I doubt that they will be successful.

For decades private insurers have had flood exclusions in their contracts--which is one reason the federal government decided to offer its own flood insurance. Yet Mr. Hood now says these exclusions are "unconscionable," and he is suing private insurers to cover all of Katrina's costs. Hot on his heels is tort kingpin Dickie Scruggs, whose own home was damaged and who promises to sue the industry for what he claims are deceptive business practices.

I definitely believe the Federal Government should NOT be in the business of offerring flood insurance that private insurance companies won't write. If no one is willing to write insurance for it, then prehaps people will stop building in flood prone areas.

Wading through this muddled thinking takes some effort, but the first thing to understand is why insurers have flood exclusions. The simple reason is that floods are not a typical insurable risk. The entire point of insurance is to spread risk by collecting premiums from a large group of people who pay into a pool, which is then used to compensate the relatively few who suffer accidents. Floods don't work that way. The only people who buy flood insurance are those who are very likely to be flooded, making it impossible to spread risk. Floods also tend to wipe out entire regions, causing extraordinary losses. And they often result in repeat losses, because people rebuild in flood-prone areas.

What the government should do is urge insurance companies to cover flood along with all other damages, the first time it happens, but that once an area has been flooded, make it a pre-existing condition, not to be covered in the the future, and if people are stupid enough to rebuild in an area that has been flooded, then they are on their own. Darwinism at it's finest.

Flood insurance has instead been offered by the federal government for 37 years, and FEMA, which administers the National Flood Insurance Program, spends millions of dollars annually to promote this coverage in the Gulf Coast and other areas. It's true that few Mississippians actually bought this flood insurance--which explains Mr. Hood's populist suit--but that was because either they didn't bother or didn't want to spend the money because they assumed the feds would bail them out anyway if disaster struck.

And that is what MUST come to a stop.

It was not because the public didn't realize they weren't covered by their private policies, which practically scream about the exclusion on the declaration page.

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A Swamp of Corruption

John Fund wrote on OpinionJournal In Katrina's wake, Louisiana's political culture needs a cleanup too.... No state turns out better demagogues than Louisiana--the state that Huey Long ruled with an near-fascistic fist and that inspired the new Sean Penn version of "All the King's Men" that hits movie theaters this November. While the Bush administration and Congress aren't in danger of being fried as witches, they better figure out that they and the taxpayers are about to be fleeced like sheep as they ship south $62 billion in emergency aid with few controls or safeguards. More will be coming. Last week, Louisiana's two senators didn't even blink when they asked the feds for an ultimate total of $250 billion in assistance just for their state. "We recognize that it's a very high number," Sen. Mary Landrieu admitted. "But this is an unprecedented national tragedy and needs an unprecedented national response."

She is right there. The Republicans have been spending just like Democrats, and we need an unprecedented action - Bush needs to say that if the Congress sends him a bill calling for wasting $250 billion on Louisiana, then that bill will be VETOED

Even if the total ends up far short of that figure, the opportunity for fraud and waste will be unprecedented. "We're getting a lot of calls" on emergency aid abuses, reports Gen. Richard Skinner, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general. Last week, police officers found a treasure trove of food, drinks, chainsaws and roof tarps in the home of Cedric Floyd, chief administrative officer for the Jefferson Parish suburb of Kenner. Mr. Floyd is one of several city workers who will likely be charged with pilfering

Hopefully they will nail the two cops MSNBC filmed looting Walmart

..... Louisiana ranks third in the nation in the number of elected officials per capita convicted of crimes (Mississippi takes top prize). In just the past generation, the Pelican State has had a governor, an attorney general, three successive insurance commissioners, a congressman, a federal judge, a state Senate president and a swarm of local officials convicted. Last year, three top officials at Louisiana's Office of Emergency Preparedness were indicted on charges they obstructed a probe into how federal money bought out flood-prone homes. Last March the Federal Emergency Management Agency ordered Louisiana to repay $30 million in flood-control grants it had awarded to 23 parishes.

I think they need to reevaluate. I believe that Louisiana is first in the nation for corruption

Much of the region has long had a relaxed attitude towards corruption. ABC's Cokie Roberts, whose parents, Hale and Lindy Boggs, both represented New Orleans in Congress, was only half-joking when her first suggestion for speeding reconstruction was releasing convicted former governor Edwin Edwards from prison because he "knows how to get things done."

He might well have done a better job than Governor Blanco, but the correct action would be to put her in prison, not let Edwards out.

.... As for New Orleans, no city in America would better serve its most vulnerable residents with a clean sweep of its institutions. Just this summer, associates of former mayor Marc Morial were indicted for alleged kickbacks involving public contracts. Last month the FBI raided the home and car of Rep. William Jefferson as part of a probe into allegations he had misused his office.

The city has pretty well been wiped out. What we need to do is clean up the scum in government before worrying about cleaning up the scum left by the flood.

It is the city's dysfunctional police force that needs immediate attention. Lt. Gen. Steven Baum, chief of the Pentagon's National Guard bureau, lamented the poststorm "disintegration" of the force. City residents have long endured men in blue who not only fail to fight crime but sometimes engage in it, with more than 50 officers going to prison in the past dozen years, two of them to death row. When one police district was caught altering its data, Chief Eddie Compass said, "I don't need an outside agency coming in. I think we have proven that we are capable of taking care of our own house." Indeed, many local officials are quick to attack any outsiders who question the local way of doing things. Sen. Landrieu is especially sensitive since politics is her family's business. Her father was mayor of New Orleans, her aunt sits on the city's school board, and her brother is the state's lieutenant governor. She did a passable imitation of the overwrought Aaron Brossard when she told ABC News that if President Bush utters any criticism of how local officials responded to the disaster "I might have to punch him--literally."

I hope she does. A senator is imune from many things, but assault on the President of the United States is not one of them. The Secret Service should be able to take care of her.

But some questions must be asked before city residents decide whether to return. "We can't go back to the way we've done things," says former congressman Bob Livingston, a Republican. He notes that the Orleans Parish Levee Board allowed money to be diverted from levees into many other projects. Those included a local casino, a convention center and a Mardi Gras fountain. "We were trying to be good neighbors," former board member Jim Livingston (no relation to Bob) explained to me.

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Roe Row

Manuel Miranda wrote in OpinionJournal Pro-lifers largely stayed out of the Roberts fight. That was a mistake.

I disagree. If the pro-lifers had joined the fight, Roberts might or might not have been confirmed, and if he was, it would have taken a lot longer. As it is, he is about to be confirmed, and should be the Chief Justice for 30 years or longer.

.... Preparing for the Supreme Court fight, pro-lifers were told by White House surrogates to stay out of the light and out of the newspapers, to be quiet so as not to scare the horses.... Ever so smoothly, pro-lifers were corralled and managed, so that if the president appointed yet another Republican disappointment to the Supreme Court, it would be too late after the fact to do anything about it. It isn't that pro-life leaders don't trust President George W. Bush. They do. They trust what they think is a working internal compass.

I agree GWB has a good internal compass. And he also knows what is important in selecting a judge. While overturning Roe would be wonderful, what is even more important is getting judges that will do their job, and decide cases without "making law". It is the legislature's job to make laws, not the Judical Branch's.

Yet there is the fear that for some who surround him "Roe versus Wade" are merely two alternative means of exiting New Orleans. There was the White House communicator who called MSNBC to berate them over a headline that suggested that John Roberts was pro-life; as if such news would bring down the Roberts nomination. And even now, the president is being advised by timid senators and aids to avoid a next selection that will cause commotion. How alarming then it must have been for the children of country-club Republicans scattered throughout GOP officialdom to hear nearly every Republican senator in the Roberts hearings make it resplendently clear that the fight of our times is over Roe:

• Lindsay Graham of South Carolina: "Roe v. Wade: It divides America. . . . There are plenty of women in South Carolina who have an opposite view about abortion. . . . I daresay that 90% of the Republican Caucus is pro-life.
• Jeff Sessions of Alabama: "You committed to Sen. Specter that you would bring no hidden agendas to this matter, that you would consider any case that came up under Roe. . . . We will take you at your word that your mind is open and you will evaluate the matter fairly according to the high standards of justice that you can bring to bear to that issue and any others like it that come up. Will you give us that commitment?"
• Tom Coburn of Oklahoma: "I've delivered 4,000 babies. . . . And I won't pressure you on this issue. .But for the listeners of this hearing, if, in fact, life is the presence of a heartbeat and brain wave, it's important for everybody in the country to know that at 16 days postconception, a heartbeat is present."
• Sam Brownback of Kansas: "Perhaps the Supreme Court's most notorious exercise of raw political power came in Roe v. Wade. . . . Since that time, nearly 40 million children have been aborted in America, 40 million lives that could be amongst us but are not, beautiful, innocent faces that could bless our existence. . . . It is noteworthy to me that a supermajority of committee members have asked you about privacy and leading up to questions on Roe, which I think only makes the point that this is an issue that should be left into the political system and not into the judicial system, where it is today."

These are all very valid statements by Legislators (the people that make laws). They are hoping to reverse a bad court decision by stacking the court in the other direction. But the approriate way to do it would be for the legislature to pass a constitution ammendment to do what they want, and the USSC would not be able to reverse that.

After the fact, it is impossible to imagine that Senate Republicans would have allowed their Democratic colleagues to harangue Mr. Roberts with questions on Roe and abortion rights with the liberal premise that their position is inarguably right, without an equal and thoughtful countervailing effort. Yet before the fact one does not need an imagination. That is exactly what many pro-life leaders did, they abandoned the field of national debate over Roe and left it to others to occupy. They did it when they neglected the surrogate fight in recent years over the appellate nominees and over judicial filibusters, and with their fright of the cameras and the quotation marks. If there is disappointment in the president's next pick, the blame can be squarely placed. The blame goes to the silent. As Mr. Krauthammer put it, it is all about Roe.

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Louisiana Goes After Federal Billions

WaPo reported Louisiana's congressional delegation has requested $40 billion for Army Corps of Engineers projects in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, about 10 times the annual Corps budget for the entire nation, or 16 times the amount the Corps has said it would need to protect New Orleans from a Category 5 hurricane.

They are insane. I do not even support protecting the current New Orleans from a Category 5 hurricane. I don't mind protecting the land above sea level (the French Quarter and the business district, plus some homes), but not one penny should be spent protecting houses 7 to 15 feet below sea level, that would be flooded by the rain even if the levees held up.

Louisiana Sens. David Vitter (R) and Mary Landrieu (D) tucked the request into their $250 billion Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act, the state's opening salvo in the scramble for federal dollars.

That is absolutely ridiculous.

The bill, unveiled last week, would create a powerful "Pelican Commission" controlled by Louisiana residents that would decide which Corps projects to fund, and ordered the commission to consider several controversial navigation projects that have nothing to do with flood protection. The Corps section of the Louisiana bill, which was supported by the entire state delegation, was based on recommendations from a "working group" dominated by lobbyists for ports, shipping firms, energy companies and other corporate interests.

Louisiana is filled with corruption. If they want to spend state money through a state commission, that is their business, but NO federal funds should be controlled by them

The bill would exempt any Corps projects approved by the commission from provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act. It would also waive the usual Corps cost-sharing requirements, ensuring that federal taxpayers would pay every dime.

Not only no, but hell no.

With the public eager to help Katrina's victims, President Bush and Congress have already approved $62.3 billion in spending for the Gulf Coast. But some budget hawks are grumbling about the impact on the deficit; the Louisiana delegation's $250 billion bill would cost more than the Louisiana Purchase under the Jefferson administration on an inflation-adjusted basis.

I wonder if France would like to buy it back (not the entire Louisiana Purchase, but just the part of New Orleans below sea level).

Some critics of federal water projects said the $40 billion Corps request could make the delegation look especially greedy and undermine support for the state's reconstruction plans. Vitter and Landrieu have described their bill as a starting point for congressional deliberations,

Ok it is a starting point. Zero is another starting point, and it is what they should get.

but one GOP Senate aide said they should not expect to get their entire wish list, voicing particular skepticism of the funding for the Corps. Even before Katrina, Louisiana received more Corps funding than any other state, and that was less than $400 million a year. The overall Corps budget for fiscal 2005 was $4 billion, and Corps officials have estimated that they could upgrade the New Orleans flood protection system to defend against a Category 5 storm for about $2.5 billion.

One percent of what these greedy people want

"This bill boggles the mind," said Steve Ellis, a water resources expert at Taxpayers for Common Sense. "Brazen doesn't begin to describe it. The Louisiana delegation is using Katrina as an excuse to resurrect a laundry list of pork projects.".... Corps funding is only part of what Louisiana wants. The 440-page bill also includes $50 billion in open-ended grants for storm-ravaged communities and $13 billion for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, along with mortgage assistance, health care, substance abuse treatment and other services for hurricane victims. It also includes hefty payments to hospitals, ports, banks, shipbuilders, fishermen and schools, as well as $8 million for alligator farms, $35 million for seafood industry marketing, and $25 million for a sugar-cane research laboratory that had not been completed before Katrina.

I suspect we already have enough alligators, I dont see a need for a farm to grow more, the seafood industry should handle its own marketing, and as far as mortgage assistance, surely you are not planning on rebuilding houses in an area 7 to 15 feet below sea level. President Bush has proposed providing free land tracts in federally owned land (that is above sea level) which they can get if they can come up with their own mortgage or provide a charity like Habitat for Humanities to build a house on it, and that is the direction we should go.

InstaPundit blogged This needs to be a non-starter. It is, to me, an open and under-debated question whether the federal government should fund the rebuilding of New Orleans -- I'm inclined to agree with the polls that say it shouldn't -- but this is a naked grab for money by the very political establishment whose corruption and ineptitude led to the problems in the first place. It should be slapped down fast and hard.

Jason blogged How about you guys just team up with those other overspending, bribed liberals in Boston who dug a big ass hole under their city, have them truck all that dirt to New Orleans, and fill in the city you built in a bowl next to the ocean and make it... oh, I don't know... ABOVE SEA LEVEL!?!?!?

Merv blogged Louisiana gets a couple of storms and acts like it won a double lottery. I do not trust Louisiana politicians at this point. Reconstruction should be given to a group that has a majority of its members outside of Louisiana who can hopefully keep them honest. Contractors from outside the state whould be allowed to bid on an equal basis for all work that the federal government is to pay for. This will force the Louisiana contractors to be competitive and provide a better finished product if they happen to win the bid.

Reaganite blogged I don't usually suggest activism, that's for you to decide, but this can't stand. Call your Senators and Congressional delegations and tell them this is nuts!

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Monday, September 26

This Day In History

• 1777   British troops occupied Philadelphia during the American Revolution.
  
• 1789   Thomas Jefferson was appointed America's first secretary of state and John Jay the first chief justice of the United States.
  
• 1898   Composer George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn, New York.
  
• 1914   The Federal Trade Commission was established.
  
• 1950   United Nations troops recaptured the South Korean capital of Seoul from the North Koreans.
  
• 1957   The musical ''West Side Story'' opened on Broadway.
  
• 1969   The album ''Abbey Road'' by the Beatles was released.
  
• 1980   The Cuban government closed Mariel Harbor, ending the freedom flotilla of Cuban refugees that began the previous April.
  
• 1986   William H. Rehnquist was sworn in as the 16th chief justice of the United States, while Antonin Scalia joined the Supreme Court as its 103rd member.
  
• 1990   The Motion Picture Association of America announced it had created a new rating, NC-17, designed to bar moviegoers under age 17 from certain films without the commercial stigma of the old X rating.
  
• 1991   Four men and four women began a two-year stay inside a sealed-off structure known as Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Ariz.
  
• 1995   The prosecution began its closing argument in the murder trial of O.J. Simpson.
  
• 1996   Richard Allen Davis, the killer of 12-year-old Polly Klaas, was sentenced to death in San Jose, Calif.
  
• 2000   Slobodan Milosevic conceded that his challenger, Vojislav Kostunica, had finished first in Yugoslavia's presidential election and declared a runoff   a move that prompted mass protests leading to Milosevic's ouster.
  
• 2002   WorldCom former controller David Myers pleaded guilty to securities fraud, saying he was told by ''senior management'' to falsify records in what became the largest corporate accounting scandal in U.S. history.
  
• 2002   A state-run Senegalese ferry capsized in the Atlantic, killing more than 1,800 people.
  

Happy Birthday To

• 1774   Johnny Appleseed (Chapman) (nurseryman: planter of apple orchards; died Mar 18, 1845)
  
• 1888   T.S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot (Nobel Prize-winning poet [1948]; The Waste Land, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock; died Jan 4, 1965)
  
• 1897   Pope Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini) (262nd pope of the Roman Catholic Church [1963-1978]; died Aug 6, 1978)
  
• 1898   George Gershwin (Jacob Gershvin) (composer: Rhapsody in Blue, Swanee, Porgy & Bess, The Man I Love, Strike Up the Band, Funny Face, I Got Rhythm, Summertime, An American in Paris, They Can’t Take That Away from Me, Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off, A Foggy Day [In London Town], Fascinating Rhythm, Embraceable You, Our Love is Here to Stay; collaborated with brother Ira; died July 11, 1937)
  
• 1914   Jack LaLanne (fitness guru)
  
• 1936   Winnie Mandela (political activist; married South African president Nelson Madela)
  
• 1948   Olivia Newton-John (singer)
  

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Pegasus News - $1 for a lifetime!

The Media Drop blogged Okay, so our pals over at Pegasus News are about to get the ball rolling on their news service, which will roll out in Dallas-Fort Worth on February 14, 2006. If you're interested in what kind of service this will be, and would like to see it pop up in your market - or one near you - then why not drop by and sign up for a lifetime subscription to the service - which will cost anywhere from $12-$75/year. However, if you sign up now (well, until October 3, 2005), you can get all that for $1.

Now obviously none of us knows what Pegasus News will ultimately end up being, or how huge it could become. But if you've ever wanted to get in on the ground floor of something without dropping $120/share at an IPO you don't have access to anyway, then this is probably one of those moments. Plus, it's like....$1.

When do you get a chance like this? You dont even have to give them your Credit Card number; they use PayPal.

They say Why do we need your dollar? Two simple reasons:

• Every dollar we get is proof that there is a desire for this kind of news service in our cities.

  And by using PayPal they learn what city you are in, which helps them decide which cities to go into next, once they get Dallas/Ft Worth up and running

• Our interns are starting to demand sodas. And even at Sams Club, caffeine ain't free.

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