A heart-wrenching picture.

Effects at a glance.

Not enough media?

More on Ms. Media Hog:

“When you read about the Camp Casey movement in the history books, you can say I met Casey’s mom.

— Cindy Sheehan

See the video.

Man, we ran out of things to blame on Bush. No wait…there’s a hurricane! Let’s blame Bush for the hurricane.

I’m dead serious. The lefy’s did it. Sad, sad, sad, sad…

Bloomberg reported at 1:23 EST that crude oil on the New York Exchange jumped to $70.80 a barrel this morning temporarily before sliding back down to a more bearable $67.25 (you know it’s bad when we’re calling $65+ a bearable price). And that’s just jittery investors so far. We still have no idea what the real damage entails, and we may never know. But don’t worry, you can count on the oil to get worse.

There is one glimmer of hope: stock indexes for oil companies has consistently gone up over the past day.

Who knows, maybe Haliburton will own the state of Lousiana after its all said and done?

In his book “Where the Right Went Wrong,” conservative Pat Buchanan listed some of the pet projects that our dear U.S. congressmen, including those on the GOP side of the floor, routinely load bills down with.

Among some of the better ones:

$2 million for the First Tee Program, which teaches young people to play golf.

$50,000 for a tattoo-removal project in San Luis Obispo.

$40 million for the construction of a cargo terminal in the port of Philadelphia to support “high-speed military sealift and other military purposes” vessels which, as [Sen. John] McCain notes, “do not even exist, nor are they being championed by the military.”

$220,000 for the Blueberry Hill Farm in Maine.

$200,000 for recreational improvements in North Pole, Alaska.

$270,000 to combat “goth culture” in Blue Springs, Missouri.

$100,000 for the renovation of the Coca-Cola building in Macon, George [what, a company like Coca-Cola can’t afford to renovate its own buildings?].

$90,000 for fruit fly research in Motpeillier, France.

$150,000 for therapeutic horseback riding in Apple Valley, California.

$6 million for sea lions in Alaska.

$7.3 million for Hawaiian sea turtles.

$200,000 for the West Oahu campus of the University of Hawaii for the making of a documentary film called “Primal Quest.”

Folks, this is your Republican-controlled Congress at work. Just remember that the next time you receive your paycheck and see the amount taken out for taxes, this is the kind of thing it’s helping pay for.

And if I can do a bit of self-promotion here, a more thorough review of Buchanan’s book will be appearing soon in Virtue Magazine.

New Orleans was pounded by Hurricane Katrina this morning, but apparently, things could have been even worse. According to this AP report, the city was spared a direct hit from the gigantic storm when the hurricane veered slightly east before reaching land.

Still, New Orleans suffered some severe damage:

NEW ORLEANS - Hurricane Katrina plowed into this city Monday with howling, 135-mph winds and blinding rain that knocked out power, flooded homes to the ceilings, sent glass flying through city streets and ripped away pieces from the roof of the Superdome, where thousands had sought shelter.

More on the Superdome (the football stadium that the New Orleans Saints play their home games in) from another AP report:

NEW ORLEANS - Hurricane Katrina ripped two holes in the curved roof of the Louisiana Superdome, letting in rain as thousands of storm refugees huddled inside Monday.

Superdome and government emergency officials stressed that they did not expect the huge roof to fail because of the relatively small breaches, each about 15 to 20 feet long and 4 to 5 feet wide.

. . .

Power failed around 5 a.m., triggering groans from the crowd. Emergency generators kicked in but they run only reduced lighting, not the air conditioning. The inside of the Superdome quickly became very hot and muggy, and condensation made some floors wet and slippery.

“It’s not very comfortable now and it’s going to get more uncomfortable, but it is safe,” Thornton said.

You really have to feel sorry for all of these people.

Residents lined up for blocks, clutching meager belongings and crying children as National Guardsman searched them for guns, knives and drugs. It was almost 10:30 p.m. before the last person was searched and allowed in. Thornton estimated 8,000 to 9,000 were inside when the doors closed for the 11 p.m. curfew.

“We’ve got sick babies, sick old people and everything in between,” Stephens said. “We’re seen strokes, chest pain, diabetes patients passing out, seizures, people without medicine, people with the wrong medicine. It’s been busy.”

These things remind us that despite how technologically advanced we are, and despite any military, economic or other type of power we might hold, we are essentially powerless in cases such as this.

Category 5 Hurricane + 30-foot water surge + major oil network = bad economic news

Read the rest of this entry »

. . . I’ll take it upon myself to update readers about the current situation in Iraq.

Which is, as usual, not good.

After missing three—count them, three!—deadlines set for finishing the draft of a new constitution, now people are already complaining about the draft that finally has been finished:

BAGHDAD - Five of the top Sunni Arabs in government spoke out Saturday against the draft constitution, a major blow to deadline efforts to craft a document that can win the backing of all Iraqi groups. Sunni negotiators sought changes in the draft on the eve of a parliament session to approve it.

U.S. diplomats worked furiously to mediate a deal among the Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni Arab delegations so that the National Assembly can receive a document accepted by all—enhancing chances for an easy approval by the voters in the Oct. 15 referendum.

More here.

Can you imagine four more years of this?

Pro-war pundits such as Michelle Malkin , who normally are very good at keeping readers up to date on the latest going ons in Iraq, have been strangely quiet about the constitution subject lately.

But conservative columnist Charley Reese points out what these pro-war drum-pounders seem to have forgotten. Here are some especially strong excerpts from his column:

The United States, which set up the rules for adopting the Iraqi constitution, has probably shot itself in the foot, as it usually does when it tries to play the imperial game. One of those rules states that the constitution is dead meat if it fails to get a two-thirds vote in three provinces. The Sunnis are a majority in four provinces. They call the draft constitution a plan for civil war.

. . .

Those who opposed this war have been proven right, and those who advocated it have been proven wrong. Those who now say we have to stay and see it through are saying we have to stay and participate in a civil war and the imposition of a theocratic state. So, what are we going to get if we do stay? Nothing any sensible American would want.

. . .

Those who say we have to fight the terrorists in Iraq to avoid fighting them in the U.S. will soon, no doubt, be disabused of that stupid idea.

In other news, a new AP Poll is showing that nearly 60 percent of people now disapprove of the way the Bush administration has conducted the war in Iraq.

Or, how Iran is stubborn and wants to conduct legitimate nuclear research. As long as legitimate, research, and Iran put together aren’t an oxymoron. Which is always possible.

“The Islamic Republic is serious in achieving nuclear know-how and regards it as a legal right of the Iranian nation,” Ali Larijani was quoted as saying…”Iran has complied with all regulations of the agency and will do the same in the future … but will not tolerate imposition beyond that,” he said.

Obey the letter of the law, but not the spirit. Yes! That’s how to do it! We’ll look like we’re disarming, but instead, let’s ship them somewhere safer. Or in this case, we’ll fill out the paperwork, but we didn’t sign our name to the small print. And of course it’s a legal right of the Iranian nation, didn’t you know that? And if Israel’s computations are correct, and they reach nuclear capacity (all of course for the benefit of peaceful civilians… I wonder if test scores will go up, crime will go down, and the enviroment will be happier) by 2008… does that possibly make the United States’ accusation (though it is such a harsh word…I’m sure it’s going to offend someone, heaven help us) of Iran developing nuclear weapons under the guise of civilian usage right? That remains to be seen, though with Iran, you can never know. Perhaps to them it’s all legitimate!

This week we decided to do our roundup via video. Choose between original and extra crispy. Er, that’s not right, choose between the high bandwidth version (2mb) and the version for dialup users (570kb).

Related Links:

• Wake Up the NEA


• Pat Robertson


• Cindy Sheehan