Why Cindy Sheehan needs to shut up (or at least get on point)

It was when she was speaking at the Operation Ceasefire event last weekend not about how her son died for a war that was based on lies but rather about how the Iraqi constitution needed to protect the rights of women that I began to think we might be losing some oomph here.

And then when the speaker from Alliance to End the Israeli Occupation spoke, I seriously thought we had gone off the tracks.

And today I found myself actually agreeing with a column by Charles Krauthammer, who normally I find to be a pompous asshole.

Bad Choice for an Antiwar Voice

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, September 30, 2005; Page A19

A large number of Americans feel deep and understandable unease about the war in Iraq and want nothing more than to pull out. But the antiwar movement is singularly disserved by its leadership, such as it is. Its de facto leader is Cindy Sheehan...

[...]

The antiwar movement has found itself ill served by endowing absolute moral authority on a political radical who demanded that American troops leave not just Iraq but "occupied New Orleans." Who blames Israel for her son's death. Who complained that the news media went "100 percent rita" -- "a little wind and a little rain" -- rather than covering other things in the world, meaning her.

Most tellingly, Sheehan demands withdrawal not just from Iraq but also from Afghanistan, a war that is not only just by every possible measure but also remarkably successful.

Okay, it's absurd to call the Afghanistan War "remarkably successful" but it was at least a worthwhile war, one that most of the reasonable left supported, and one that probably demands more resources to finish the job, not pullout.

You don't build a mass movement on that. Nor on antiwar rallies like the one last weekend in Washington, organized and run by a front group for the Workers World Party. The WWP is descended from Cold War Stalinists who found other communists insufficiently rigorous for refusing to support the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Thus a rally ostensibly against war is run by a group that supported the Soviet invasions of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, the massacre in Tiananmen Square, and a litany of the very worst mass murderers of our time, including Slobodan Milosevic, Hussein and Kim Jong Il. You don't seize the moral high ground in America with fellow travelers such as these.

Can we get the fuck rid of ANSWER too while we're at it? Though I tend to agree with most of their stuff, they're a terrible figurehead for the anti-war movement, considering 99% of the anti-war public probably has major disagreements with ANSWER's positions on non-Iraq issues.

34,750

According to Eugene Robinson's column today, that's how many registered lobbyists there are in DC. That number has doubled since 2000. As he puts it, "That's a lot of mouths at the trough."

if you're gonna beat Tom DeLay you gotta be able to throw a punch

but I guess Lampson's campaign is content to issue meandering statements and wait for DeLay to go down on his own.

Statement from Lampson Campaign Manager on DeLay Indictment
09/28/2005

Houston, TX -- The Nick Lampson for Congress campaign released the following statement today regarding the indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

Lampson campaign manager Mike Malaise stated: "This is not simply a political matter. A grand jury of his fellow Texans indicted Tom DeLay on this very serious charge. The trial of Tom DeLay will show what the former Majority Leader has been doing instead of working for his district back home. Whether he is convicted or not, it will become clear to the voters of this district that he has not been working for them."

Malaise continued: "Nick Lampson will continue campaigning as he has been doing. He will introduce himself to the voters of Southeast Texas and try to earn their vote. Congressman Lampson thinks it is not enough to be the anti-DeLay. He is working hard to show the voters of this district that he has a positive agenda with a record to be proud of and he is a positive alternative to Congressman DeLay."

It seems you should either go one of two ways: 1) Pop him: "This confirms what we've known all along: Hot Tub Tom, Jack Abramoff and their lobbyist cronies are a bunch of crooks. He should step down so we can have a campaign on the issues without his criminal distractions," or 2) Be snide: "Despite his history of ethical violations and clear flouting of the law, Tom DeLay deserves a chance to try to clear his name before a jury of his peers like anyone else indicted for a felony crime."

That's off the cuff, but come one, this is the biggest race in the country. Can't the Dems do better?

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice

CNN:
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay indicted on one count of criminal conspiracy by Texas grand jury, according to Travis County clerk's office.

More hurricane profiteering

Disgusting (but maybe not too late for you to get on the gravy train).

Lobbies Line Up For Relief Riches
Groups Portray Projects as Storm Aid
Washington Post
September 28, 2005

With Congress dangling as much as $200 billion in hurricane-related aid, lobbyists for oil companies, airlines, manufacturers and others are clamoring to get their share.

[...]

The troubled airline industry has been particularly active on the hurricane front. Delta Air Lines Inc. and Northwest Airlines Corp. are trying to include relief from their pension obligations in hurricane legislation this year. The firms have been pressing for the change since the spring, before the hurricane season, but are telling lawmakers that the fuel price hikes in the wake of Katrina have made the aid more necessary.

[...]

Insurers have been using Katrina as an argument for approving their long-held top priority, an extension of the Terrorism Reinsurance Act (TRIA), which provides for the government to pay a portion of the damage caused by a foreign terrorist attack over certain thresholds. To illustrate the tie between the hurricane and the legislative effort, Carl M. Parks, senior vice president of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, has coined the term "KA-TRIA."

[...]

A lot of lobbyists' pleas dressed in hurricane clothing are for things that Congress has rejected for years. John M. Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, has called for the opening of oil and gas drilling on the ocean's Outer Continental Shelf as a way to increase the availability of energy. Why now? Because Katrina is a reminder of how fragile the country's energy infrastructure is, he said.

You too can invent your own hurricane excuse. Just fill in the blanks. "Hurricane Katrina is an example of _______________, so we must _______________."

Hurricane Katrina is an example of how fragile life is, so we must live every moment to the fullest by legalizing drugs and prostitution. Or maybe Hurricane Katrina is an example of the wrath of an angry God, so we must appease Him with federally-subsidized Old Testament-style lamb sacrifices. Or, Hurricane Katrina is an example of how people without cars can't evacuate natural disasters, so we must lower safety standards to reduce auto prices, and give new tax subsidies to Detroit. Hurricane Katrina is an example of how fragile the country's voodoo economy is, so we need special tax breaks for voodoo practioners. Eye of newt half off!

DeLay Going Down?

Let's hope so:

U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's leadership post is on the line today as a Travis County grand jury is expected to consider indicting DeLay on conspiracy charges, several lawyers familiar with the investigation said.

The charges would stem from DeLay's role in using corporate money in the 2002 elections. State law generally bans corporate money from campaign activities.

"I wouldn't have expected this a year ago," one Austin criminal defense lawyer said. "It's quite a turnaround if it happens."

Those same lawyers, though, expect the grand jury to take no action against Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick, Texas Association of Business President Bill Hammond or state Reps. Dianne Delisi and Beverly Woolley for their roles in the election.

The lawyers requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the grand jury's discussions.

Grand jury proceedings are secret, and jurors took no action Tuesday. Even as DeLay, a Republican from Sugar Land, continued to insist that he did nothing wrong, his defense team has been bracing for the worst.

An indictment would not force DeLay to resign as a member of Congress, but the GOP's rules would demand that he resign his post as majority leader.

Ouch

'Graph of the day:

"People are a lot more likely to read about a food fight than his position on taxes," said Jason Stanford, Bell's press guy. "This could go down on my record as one of the dumbest things to do in politics, but it should make for a good column." Yeah, if you don't mind being painted as a stooge.

The entire Kelso article is worth a read.

Red carpet for the pigs at the trough

It's not bad enough that they gave a no-bid contract to Halliburton for Katrina rebuilding, it's not bad enough that they're using Katrina (and now Rita) as an excuse to give immunity from lawsuits to construction companies, nursing homes, airlines, and hospitals, it's not bad enough that they had the gall to hire Mike Brown back as a private consultant (to tell FEMA how it screwed up no less!), it's not bad enough they're using this as an excuse to go after Medicaid and PBS ... now they're actually holding a seminar in a Senate Office Building, hosted by a US Senator, to advise private contractors how to get their spot at the trough, complete with coffee and donuts.

Deep Pockets, Small Government and the Man in the Middle

By Dana Milbank
Tuesday, September 27, 2005; Page A04

As fiscal hawks surrendered, would-be government contractors were meeting in the Hart Senate Office Building to figure out how to get a share of the money. A "Katrina Reconstruction Summit," hosted by Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and sponsored by Halliburton, among others, brought some 200 lobbyists, corporate representatives and government staffers to a room overlooking the Capitol for a five-hour conference that included time for a "networking break" and advice on "opportunities for private sector involvement."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) sent his budget director, Bill Hoagland, who cautioned that federal Katrina spending might not exceed $100 billion. But John Clerici, from a law firm that helped sponsor the event, told the group that spending would "probably be larger" than $200 billion. "It's going to be spent in a fast and furious way," Clerici said.

Sipping coffee from china cups and munching on doughnuts, the corporate crowd heard Joe McInerney, president of the American Hotel and Lodging Association, predict: "I think we'll see Mardi Gras in New Orleans to some extent this year."

Ah, America

Cindy Sheehan arrested.

Delusional, largely toothless and at times hilarious

I would love to take a road trip with these guys:

Mental patients survive on instincts
Troubled souls stick together on an extraordinary odyssey out of New Orleans
By Joseph B. Verrengia, Associated Press

HOUSTON — They're out there.

The shooters, the choppers, the looters, the lines, the foul water and the bodies. Especially the bodies.

"But we're in here," says Victor Fruge.

Others — hundreds of thousands of them — had also escaped from New Orleans. But few could match the extraordinary, even miraculous odyssey of Fruge and his comrades — 16 mentally ill men and recovering addicts, cast out of their group home, Abstract House, by the storm.

[...]

They are not inmates. While they might be delusional, largely toothless and at times hilarious, they are not really rebellious. Wearing scraps of donated clothing, the men range in age from 30 to 70. Several are quiet — Leonard, for one, didn't speak for 12 days after the storm.

For these men who are schizophrenic, bipolar, severely depressed, obsessive-compulsive and shell-shocked from war — often simultaneously — Hurricane Katrina and its agonizing aftermath have forced them to function as a family, perhaps for the first time in their lives.

"We look out for each other," says Raymond Jean Pierre, who everybody agrees is the oldest.

"We stick together," says Patrick Pitchford, whose tattoos crawl down both arms like psychedelic shirt sleeves. "If one person had to go to the bathroom, we all go'd to the bathroom."

"We haven't killed each other," says Ray Brown.

[...]


Abstract's director, Barrie Byrnes, explains she was following instructions from city officials. She describes Abstract House as "a big, dysfunctional family that is more fun than a barrel of monkeys."

[...]

When they finally were loaded on a bus, Richard rocked faster in his seat. James started getting paranoid. Bruce, who has lived at the Abstract for 20 years, was hearing voices.

Ray: "That's nothing. He also thinks he's a pregnant woman."

Mike: "And that he has wires coming out his mouth. I just reach over and make like I'm pluckin' them."

Some of my favorite bars sue over Austin smoking ban

Warehouse Saloon & Billiards, 219 West, Elysium, Lovejoy's Tap Room and Brewery, Beerland, the Horseshoe Lounge and Ego's filed suit Friday against the City of Austin, saying the smoking ban passed in May violates state law by including penalties that are too high.

If only I were there to "contribute to the legal defense fund."

Kinksteriffic

Kinky unleashes his first ad on the internet and it's damn hilarious -- and on-message. Very King of the Hill-ish too.

Dick Cheney: not much of a singer

The NFL, Destiny's Child, and organic dog food irrelevant?

While I generally prefer to write my own stuff rather than just re-post the work of others, this is too good to pass up.

Mark Morford, SFGate.com (the online version of the San Francisco Chronicle) columnist, went to Burning Man '05 to blog from the Playa (and hell yes I'm jealous; I mean, why isn't someone paying me to blog from the world's biggest party??). Unfortunately, BM this year coincided with Hurricane Katrina, and while the revelers reveled, the news of the flooding, the devastation, the death, and the pitiful federal response mounted.

Readers of Morford's blog responded via e-mail. Morford explains:

And these e-mails, with more than a little bitter condescension or holier-than-thou snicker, asked me this: "How the hell could you be out there dancing and reveling and drinking badly mixed margaritas and eating camp-stove-cooked gourmet food and imbibing all those unholy joys when the worst natural disaster in recent U.S. history just hammered Louisiana like a Republican hammers welfare?"

This is what they argued. Doesn't it make Burning Man seem completely trite and superfluous and overindulgent? Don't you feel more than a little, you know, silly, trying to write about your childish little otherworldly sexed-up art-rave survivalist-camping thing with even the slightest hint of seriousness in the aftermath of this horrible tragedy and loss of life and the fact that we have a grossly inept president who sits around the ranch smoking stogies with his oil cronies and chuckling while the corpses of thousands of poor mostly black Americans bobble around Louisiana and Mississippi?

And of course my reply is, well, hell yes, of course Burning Man is utterly gratuitous, and excessive, and more than a little ridiculous, especially in the wake of Katrina -- just as, say, NFL football has become suddenly pointless, and also the auto industry, and celebrity, and organic dog food and ornithology and Destiny's Child or the fact that the ultraviolent cheese of "Transporter II" took in $20 mil over this past tragedy-thick weekend, enough to repair at least a few schools and roadways in Biloxi. You have a point?

These are, after all, the weird swipes of the universe, the jarring simultaneous juxtapositions we cannot control, a wild sybaritic celebration contrasted with an epic heartbreaking disaster and you cannot, as a BM participant, escape the painful and weirdly fascinating irony of it all. We all feel small and heartbroken.

But here's the thing: While the circumstances and the remoteness of the event meant most Burning Man participants had little or no idea of the extent of Katrina's wrath, as soon as news did begin to trickle in, the call went out and Burners immediately rallied and funds were immediately raised across the camp, and word has it that the money gathered reached into the tens of thousands within two or three days, with zero PR or advertising or formal pleas from Angelina Jolie or the Red Cross and sans any blank-eyed stares from our useless president.

Hell, on one level, everything becomes moot and hollow in the wake of epic death tolls and a massive karmic shock. Everything seems trite and pointless and more than a little insulting to your deeper consciousness. Sept. 11 was the death of irony and humor and pop culture for a good six months. Horrific events like Katrina inject a temporary numbness into all sense of play. Death and inexpressible loss trump all cultural protests. Same as it ever was.

But there's another angle, too. Let us argue the obvious but necessary flip-side notion that, in the wake of any national disaster or mounting death toll, it is exactly those things that celebrate life that we turn to because they offer salve and balm and resurrection of spirit.

Well said. As we head off to enjoy yet another weekend of merriment and mirth, let us not forget that it is important to celebrate life and friendships. Let us also proudly proclaim that we need neither tax breaks nor MTV to convince us to care about our fellow man.

Ha Ha

I hope it hurts:

Never mind those planned congressional hearings on the hows and whys of government incompetence in the attempt to cope with Hurricane Katrina.

There were not only logistical and bureaucratic troubles but, astonishingly for the Bush White House, political snafus. Maybe there's a simple explanation: Karl Rove's kidney stones.

Washington insiders have been buzzing that President Bush's guru-in-chief - often called "Bush's Brain" - has been suffering from the painful urinary-tract malady for the past couple of weeks, causing him to miss some key Katrina strategy sessions.

I'm told that the 54-year-old deputy White House chief of staff - who apparently was feeling well enough yesterday to travel outside the nation's capital - visited the hospital, possibly twice, to relieve his agony since Labor Day.

White House officials declined to speak on the record about Rove's kidney stones, due to the extreme delicacy of discussions about internal organs of top presidential advisers.

But the National Institutes of Health define a kidney stone as "a hard mass developed from crystals that separate from the urine and build up on the inner surfaces of the kidney. ... Usually, the first symptom of a kidney stone is extreme pain, which occurs when a stone acutely blocks the flow of urine. ... Sometimes nausea and vomiting occur. Later, pain may spread to the groin.

Now That's Funny

From the NY Daily News, via Wonkette.

That was funnyman Damon Wayans in Orlando the other day going nuclear on President Bush - and twins Jenna and Barbara - over the war in Iraq and the possible reinstatement of a military draft. "I'll send my sons if he sends his daughters," Wayans told the crowd, including Daily News contributor Jawn Murray, at Tom Joyner's Family Reunion in Disneyworld. "Put those two drunk bitches on a plane and let them go fight. At least I know my sons would be getting some on the way." By way of White House reaction, First Lady Laura Bush's press secretary, Susan Whitson, gasped yesterday and told me: "I wouldn't dignify that with a response."

Whitson did, however, ask for the Wayans son's phone numbers. When ask why she might be interested in such information, Whitson replied, "Let's just say that the President isn't the only Bush that likes screwing black people."

Ouch

Dowd comes in blazing.

How many places will be in shambles by the time the Bush crew leaves office?

Given that the Bush team has dealt with both gulf crises, Iraq and Katrina, with the same deadly mixture of arrogance and incompetence, and a refusal to face reality, it's frightening to think how it will handle the most demanding act of government domestic investment since the New Deal.

Even though we know W. likes to be in his bubble with his feather pillow, the stories this week are breathtaking about the lengths the White House staff had to go to in order to capture Incurious George's attention.

Newsweek reported that the reality of Katrina did not sink in for the president until days after the levees broke, turning New Orleans into a watery grave. It took a virtual intervention of his top aides to make W. watch the news about the worst natural disaster in a century. Dan Bartlett made a DVD of newscasts on the hurricane to show the president on Friday morning as he flew down to the Gulf Coast.

The aides were scared to tell the isolated president that he should cut short his vacation by a couple of days, Newsweek said, because he can be "cold and snappish in private." Mike Allen wrote in Time about one "youngish aide" who was so terrified about telling Mr. Bush he was wrong about something during the first term, he "had dry heaves" afterward.

The president had to be truly zoned out not to jump at the word "hurricane," given that he has always used his father's term as a reverse playbook and his father almost lost Florida in 1992 because of his slow-footed response to Hurricane Andrew. And W.'s chief of staff, Andy Card, was the White House transportation secretary the senior President Bush sent to the rescue after FEMA bungled that one.

W. has said he prefers to get his information straight up from aides, rather than filtered through newspapers or newscasts. But he surrounds himself with weak sisters who don't have the nerve to break bad news to him, or ideologues with agendas that require warping reality or chuckleheaded cronies like Brownie.

The president should stop haunting New Orleans, looking for that bullhorn moment. It's too late.

Sri Lanka vs Louisiana

A damning comparison in the international press pointed out to us by a reader:

From World Opinion Roundup in WP

When asked to compare governmental responses to Katrina and the South Asia tsunami, Daniel Lak, a BBC correspondent who covered both, wrote “In Sri Lanka, with 60-70 per cent of the coastline devastated, the government was powerless to meet everyone’s needs. But the international community stepped in to eventually get a decent relief effort going. Including psychological counseling for those who had lost loved ones. In America, I saw none of this for days. Instead I saw bureaucratic boondoggling, government rescue workers who rarely missed a meal or a coffee break, political leaders who’d rather point fingers of blame than roll up their sleeves and help out. I saw an impressive private and voluntary sector effort thwarted by government. I saw the poor, the black, the old, the obese, the sick neglected by the middle class and the rich who fled to higher ground and lived off their credit cards. Those without cars or amex platinum were left to fend for themselves. Many of them died from sheer neglect.

"If there’s a ray of hope," he wrote, "it’s in the growing disgust among many Americans with the state of their Union. There are now nearly 50 million Americans without health insurance, a third of US children living in poverty, more people losing jobs every year. Race and class are becoming issues again. One can only hope this wonderful place, this nation of so many great achievements alongside a few shameful episodes, will again set an example for all of us, instead of being the land we all loathe far too readily. If Katrina has a legacy, let it be this.”

It's definitely Senator Watson now

Naishtat says no to state Senate bid
Legislator seeks re-election, not Barrientos' seat

Conversations with a Sierra Leonean cabbie

Taking a cab hungover to work the other day, the cab driver and I are listening to some call-in talk radio show when some all-too-typical idiot calls in to essentially say "The people in New Orleans it's their own damn fault for not leaving when they were told to."

The cab driver, who I soon learned was from Sierra Leone, laughed, turned down the radio, and told me his own story about being told to evacuate.

Apparently the Sierra Leone Army, which he was later to serve in, used to come into his town and tell the residents they had three days to evacuate because the West Army was coming in and their town would soon be a battleground. "How do you evacuate when you have no money and no place to go?" he asked.

Once, he recalls, the Army evacuated a major city of 65,000 people for 3 months to fight.

This guy was fascinating, telling me war stories about planes landing full of guns and leaving full of diamonds, generals and warlords being paid in diamonds, Sierra Leonean prostitutes hired by the army to have sex with enemy warlords and kill them afterwards in their sleep.

"We didn’t start any wars," he told me. "The wars have always come to us." He says the "credo" in the Sierra Leone military is that a general cannot use his men to save his life. He must "smell the war." Literally be at the front.

Oddly, given what perceptions of brutality I had, is the main thing he had to say about the guys he knew in the army were how funny they were. "Those guys are hard core, but funny. Really funny." And then he just cracked up to himself presumably remembering some joke.

He said he was going back in the Spring to make a documentary about the untold stories of Sierra Leoneans fighting for the British, that the British conscripted Sierra Leone warriors to fight in WWII and in the bush in India. That there was a famous Sierra Leone fighter pilot who shot down German planes.

He says it’s much calmer (not sure about this ) and a gorgeous country (this I believe). Hope he gets to make his film. Of course I can't remember the guy's name now. But if a documentary happens to come out about the untold story of Sierra Leone fighters in the British military, I'm gonna assume it's the same.

The moral to the story: if I hadn't had so much to drink the night before, and I'd taken the bus, I never would have had such an interesting conversation. So drink up!

Brown OUT!

AP: Mike Brown says he has resigned as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Details soon

The triple checker jump

The WP coverage of the "Freedom" Walk is hilarious.

On the Freedom Walk, Many Bridges to Cross

"We're here because something horrific happened" -- 9/11 -- "and now we have family and friends who are over there and supporting our country and fighting for us to be free," Brown said.

That's the triple checker jump: From Sept. 11, by way of Iraq, to Freedom.

[...]

Sometimes people caution against linking everything to everything, but such advice often goes unheeded. Not discussed much yesterday were President Bush's acknowledgments that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with Sept. 11.

Understatement of the year.

And never mind that Pentagon spokesmen have insisted that the Freedom Walk was not a pro-war stroll. It was about the troops, said the spokesmen, not the war.

Most of the walkers strayed way off those messages. They made the connections. Survivors of the Pentagon attack walked with relatives of soldiers in Iraq. Legless veterans of Iraq sat in the front
row at the post-walk Clint Black concert, beside family members of those who died in the Pentagon or aboard American Airlines Flight 77 on 9/11.

The walkers echoed Bush on other occasions when he linked Sept. 11 to Iraq in a greater drama of a war on terror.

[...]

"I've always believed the people who died on September 11 were the first casualties of this war," Ronald Griffin -- whose son Kyle died in a truck accident between Mosul and Tikrit two years ago -- said Friday as he was preparing to drive down from New Jersey for the walk. "The war in Iraq, the war on terror, the war in Afghanistan. The war is not just in Iraq. The war is everywhere."

I would have a hard time accepting the 9/11-Iraq link was bullshit too if my son had died for it.

The walkers also said their support for the troops was inextricably linked to support for the war.

"What I've never really understood is how someone could say they support the troops but they don't support the war. . . . Because the troops want to win the war," said Debra Burlingame, who walked in memory of her brother Charles F. Burlingame III -- pilot of the hijacked plane that struck the Pentagon -- and to say thank you to the troops wherever they serve.

What does winning even mean? How do we win? I'd love to see an open-ended survey of the troops to see what they think "winning the war" means, and if they give a shit or if they'd rather just declare victory and get the fuck out.

Here's another piece:

At 9/11 Walks, Remembrances Stream Forth
Thousands in D.C. and Va. Honor Victims, U.S. Troops

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld joined the walk and was treated like a rock star, hounded by passersby who begged his Secret Service detail to snap their photos with him.

"I wish I remembered my permanent marker so he could sign my T-shirt," one woman lamented after shaking Rumsfeld's hand. Patricia Rivera, 26, an Air Force enlistee, gasped and said: "Oh, my. What an honor! What an honor!" after having her photo taken with Rumsfeld.

[...]

One protester, Rik Silverman, 27, of Arlington said he was holding a sign that said, "Shame on You" when a marcher leaned over the railing and punched him in the stomach. A U.S. Park Police officer wrote a report but no arrests were made.

Although the Pentagon required walkers to preregister for the event, officials did not provide a crowd estimate.

You don't need to know that! Mind your business!

Kevin Pannell, who stood on his prosthetic legs, said the Sept. 11 attacks still take their toll on the nation.

"I lost my legs in Baghdad, and 9/11 was the initiative," said Pannell, 27, of Woodbridge.

Huh?

Is it possible to despise DeLay more?

Sadly, yes.

DeLay to evacuees: 'Is this kind of fun?'

"Freedom" is on the march!

Going to the Pentagon's "Freedom" Walk?

You must register online to participate. You will march behind a fence to prevent non-registered people from participating. Media cannot participate but can watch from viewing areas. And you're not allowed to bring signs.

As DCist put it, "The Pentagon's top brass seems to have stepped in a steaming pile of irony."

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job"

I would love to use that line in a tv spot, played over and over as the video is overhead shots of New Orleans flooded, and people floating on coolers.

Maybe you alternate it with Joe Allbaugh's assertion that "the President couldn't have chosen a better man to help...prepare and protect the nation," said when Bush first nominated Brown on Allbaugh's departure to go war profiteer.

Here's the Onion's take on the Brown mess:

Before joining FEMA, his only previous stint in emergency management, according to his bio posted on FEMA's website, was "serving as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight." The White House press release from 2001 stated that Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing the emergency services division." In fact, according to Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, Brown was an "assistant to the city manager" from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself, and had no authority over other employees. "The assistant is more like an intern," she told TIME. "Department heads did not report to him." Brown did do a good job at his humble position, however, according to his boss. "Yes. Mike Brown worked for me. He was my administrative assistant. He was a student at Central State University," recalls former city manager Bill Dashner. "Mike used to handle a lot of details. Every now and again I'd ask him to write me a speech. He was very loyal. He was always on time. He always had on a suit and a starched white shirt."

Ha ha, no that's actually Time magazine.

Correction of the day

Those fuckers.

Because of incorrect information from a company spokesman, a Sept. 6 Business article about Wal-Mart's hurricane relief efforts misstated the number of trucks filled with donated merchandise the chain sent to the Gulf Coast. It was about 100, not 1,500.

Texas Voters Catching On?

Nice poll:

39 percent of Texans approve of Perry's job performance and 45 percent disapprove.

Now if only we could find a real Dem candidate to run for Guv...

Friedman has a great piece

Osama and KatrinaBy THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: September 7, 2005

These are people so much better at inflicting pain than feeling it, so much better at taking things apart than putting them together, so much better at defending "intelligent design" as a theology than practicing it as a policy.

For instance, it's unavoidably obvious that we need a real policy of energy conservation. But President Bush can barely choke out the word "conservation." And can you imagine Mr. Cheney, who has already denounced conservation as a "personal virtue" irrelevant to national policy, now leading such a campaign or confronting oil companies for price gouging?

And then there are the president's standard lines: "It's not the government's money; it's your money," and, "One of the last things that we need to do to this economy is to take money out of your pocket and fuel government." Maybe Mr. Bush will now also tell us: "It's not the government's hurricane - it's your hurricane."

OK, Tom, now you can go back to rambling about transforming the Middle East.

Whiskey, women, and blogs

Not sure how politically astute this is, but sounds like a great blog.

His blog is laced with references to pornography and strip clubs, a lust for whiskey and women, and disdain for President Bush and Céline Dion.

Then there are some politically incorrect quips about Palestinians and "a third-world type" who cleans hotel rooms.

It's not the work of Howard Stern, or even a college kid with too much broadband.

The author of www.leachvent.com - a collection of humor columns - is State Rep. Daylin Leach, a Democrat from Upper Merion.

FYI - The blog link doesn't work, not sure if Leach took it down or if there's something else afoot.