Gov. Jeb Bush's son arrested

This is cool.

The benefits of a program like this would be of great benefit. Up until now (or in the near future) we've been unable to monitor the surface conditions within a hurricane; of course we wont count the place of landfall or any thing like that. What we are interested in is the interaction between the surface water and the atmosphere which is where the life is. This should be an exciting field in the future.

Our president is a moron.

How does a group of professional propagandists who are so involved in staged events overlook this? This may be a photoshop or some type of illusion but you look me in the eye and tell me this man is not capable of this.

I didn't watch his speech because nothing the president says really matters anymore he's a lame duck and in the coming months as November '06 nears, his supporters will be distancing themselves from Bush and his crowd for their personal political ambitions. In short he is dead weight.

A clearly out of touch remark, an embarrassment.

Evidence is burned.

The good news is ... Quick Draw McBush pulled Brownie off the job.

The bad news is ... George of the Bungle named DuctTape Paulison as the replacement.

The good news is ... Brownie resigned altogether from FEMA.

The bad news is ... Wonderboy takes responsibility for the Katrina fiasco. [read: None of the sacrificial scapegoats worked.]

The bad news is ... This "responsibility" is just one more card in the stacked deck: WMDs, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, nearly 2,000 young dead Americans.

The bad news is ... Howard Dean spoke for us and no one even noticed this time: "Mike Brown's decision to resign from FEMA is the best decision he's made in three weeks."

The bad news is ... St Rita's nursing home staff allowed 34 of their patients to die needlessly.

The bad news is ... even Laura doesn't know what she's talking about -- Hurricane Corina.

The bad news is ... John Roberts is calling all balls and no strikes.

The bad news is ... yet another suicide bomber has taken lives in Baghdad.

I have to stop. I can't find any more good news, even from this NOLA resident with a positive attitude: "The least we can do is clean up our own streets," Wallace Kimbrough, 43, said as he pried debris out of the storm drain beside his home in the French Quarter. "Hey," he exclaimed, holding up a plastic bag he pulled from the muck. "Somebody lost their marijuana seeds."

Oh, wait, there is one more!
The good news is ... Drinking Liberally Charleston is thriving!!

Voodoo Lounge
15 Magnolia Road
West Ashley
5:30 till 8:30-ish
FREE PARKING BEHIND THE BAR
DLibbers on the left as you enter the front of the lounge.

Neocon dreamer and PNAC hack, Gary Schmitt, writes an op-ed in WaPo pushing a policy that misrepresents the total situation in Iraq by generalizing the insurgency as "dead-enders" and jihadists. Well Mr. Schmitt, you offer a bleak intro in what is to come. Thx for the failed war, we're much safer now.

Contrary to popular mythology and the drivel that soldiers tell women on occasion, there are always a fair number of people in armies who are not personally averse to combat. They are the people who keep the outfit functioning under fire. Shh! Don't tell anyone! Nevertheless, it has been my experience that most of those so blessed (or damned) are not willing to advocate an easy resort to arms. In the years that I spent in the Pentagon, it was almost a joke that the Joint Chiefs of Staff would always advise against war when the government gave them the opportunity to advise. "A Council of War Never Votes To Fight" is an old military aphorism and I have known it to be true. Now, in the time of Generalissimo Rumsfeld it may be different.

So what is it that this paragon of the civilian tough guy crowd has as an option for extricating ourselves from the mess that he and his pals convinced the president to create? He says we have to fight until "the so-called dead-enders are either dead or vanquished."

What a brave soul! "Let's You and Him fight" might be the summation of this op/ed piece. Political accommodation of the Sunni Arabs? No. A retreat from the lunacy of "One man, One vote" in an essentially tribal society? No! A Willingness to talk to the non-Jihadi insurgents? No! No!

"Let's You and Him Fight!!!" This begins to make the idea of recruiting the "Young Republicans" as special counterinsurgency troops more and more attractive.

The Iraqi constitution is still not in its final form. Unless there is a delay in the, now scheduled, mid-October referendum the voters will be voting on something they have not been able to read.

Fallujah 2 has come to an end with little progress. The idea was to trap the insurgence, but they managed to escape through a tunnel network. Basically, this operation was a complete failure. It cleared and devastated the city, but more importantly highlighted the unconventional civil war going on between the largely Shi'a government forces and the Sunni insurgency; highlighted here. Juan Cole described these raids as similar to "attacking water"

The author of "Hotel Rwanda" will be speaking at the Citadel in Charleston, SC on 13 September 2005. The event will begin at 7 pm in Mark Clark Hall Auditorium. Space will be limited.

Here is the release, and the Citadel's main site.

SUSA puts out an interesting poll (routed through dKos) that had sum surprising results

- Pro-life outnumbers pro-choice in only 13 states. They are tied in another.

When I first read this I though it read Pro-choice outnumbers pro-life in only 13 states.

- Of the 20 states most hostile to abortion rights, 19 voted for Bush. Of the 20 most pro-choice states, 15 voted for Kerry.

- Surprising pro-choice states: Wyoming supports choice by a margin of 57-39. Alaska, 58-37. Virginia, 54-39. Montana it's 53-42.

These are all red states.

- Opposition to abortion is highest in
Utah (by 61%) and Louisiana and Arkansas measured in the mid 50's

- In total, the pro-life movement got only 38% of the vote (41% unweighted). That is nowhere near a majority.

I wonder if anyone has polled the public, asking who favored more limits and restrictions to abortions (e.g. limiting the number, or limiting it to forced pregnancy)

Today is a somber memorial of the horrors that befell our nation and the world on 11 September 2001; a date in which a shadowy enemy, in an unprecedented fashion, attacked our great nation. In these memorial services many of our nations leaders spoke to the families and friends of loved ones lost in this horrific attack. In addition, they spoke to the world. The little bit I watched, including Rice, Meyers, and Rumsfield, was moving and appropriate. I say appropriate because these speeches were heartfelt and not filled with policy rhetoric and war mongering. I especially enjoyed Rumsfield’s speech in which he got choked up twice; certainly something I can’t remember seeing in any previous speeches by Rumsfield or other administration or government officials anytime in the recent past. These past few years have been difficult; with the 911 attacks, one war, one invasion/occupation, more attacks, a natural disaster that appears to be of biblical proportions, and on and on. Today I want to embrace the friendships that I have developed on this medium across the state of South Carolina, as well as across the nation (those on but not limited to my blogroll to the left). My local political enemies at MUSC Tiger, Arguing with Signposts (hey, bush is the one who said it budd), the Backcountry Conservative...; and my political allies at Cracked the Bell, Public Domain Progress, Democracy for America – Charleston, LaurinLine, A lie a Day... It is a privilege and an honor to share cyberspace (the internets) with all of you and certainly anyone I’ve left out. It is through this medium where discussions are held, feelings, ideas, and beliefs are expressed, and freedom and democracy rage. It is through this discourse that full spectrums of ideals are addressed and, in theory, truth permeates. As John Stuart Mill once stated

"...the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied."

Thank you, to you all (y’all).

This is a serious statement, but isn't the timing suspect?

In an apparent Sept. 11 communique broadcast on ABC News, an al Qaeda operative threatens new attacks against cities in the U.S. and Australia.

"Yesterday, London and Madrid. Tomorrow, Los Angeles and Melbourne, Allah willing. And this time, don't count on us demonstrating restraint or compassion," the tape warns. "We are Muslims. We love peace, but peace on our terms, peace as laid down by Islam, not the so-called peace of occupiers and dictators."

Meanwhile the political aftermath of Katrina simmers and Bush is limp in the polls; 38% approve, 28% satisfied. We'll see...