Category: Uncategorized

Several school buses were stolen from Orleans Parish, loaded with storm victims and driven out of New Orleans toward Houston in desperate acts to leave the ravaged city, according to reports. Three school buses were stopped Thursday night in Port Allen, La., just west of Baton Rouge after they were stolen, according to WBRZ-TV in Baton Rouge. The evacuees were placed on other buses and transferred to shelters in Texas.

An 18-year-old also decided to take matters into his own hands and stole an abandoned city school bus and drove storm victims to Texas, according to a CNN report. The teen driver, Jabbar Gibson, 18, said he had never driven a bus before but wanted to save people. “If it wasn’t for him, we’d still be in New Orleans on the Gulf,” bus passenger Randy Nathan said. “He got the bus for us.”

Authorities allowed the renegade passengers inside the Astrodome but Gibson could find himself in trouble after taking the school bus.

Let me get this straight. The government can suspend “unalienable” liberties and property rights due to an emergency of its own declaration, but even during such an emergency, private individuals are not to touch government property even to save their lives. That’s worth remembering too.

After all, those buses belonged to the government, not the public, and they should have been sitting here.

An NRO reader from New Orleans shares an ominous thought:

Louisiana’s Democratic Governor has been a miserable failure where it matters most – rallying the citizens. As my brother put it, “I have a mother. I need a Governor.” What that means about Americans’ view of women in top leadership positions now I dont know, but if I were Hillary, I would go to New Orleans and shoot some looters on national television.

She’s probably too stuffed after spending the last two days swimming around and devouring people with the other giant lizards.

And, of course, who you can’t:

11:29 P.M. – (AP): Col. Henry Whitehorn, chief of the Louisiana State Police, said he heard of numerous instances of New Orleans police officers – many of whom from flooded areas – turning in their badges. “They indicated that they had lost everything and didn’t feel that it was worth them going back to take fire from looters and losing their lives,” Whitehorn said.

5:07 A.M. – CNN producer Jim Spellman, who has been stationed with police sharpshooters, says reports indicate that New Orleans officers are not showing up for work. In some districts as many as 60 percent of officers have not reported for duty.

Would anyone who took exception to my previous posts critical of the police care to revisit their opinion of these fine, upstanding public servants, of whom there are merely a few bad apples?

Remember New Orleans the next time someone tells you that we need gun control because it is not your job to protect yourself, that is the responsibility of the police.

President Bush answered growing antiwar protests yesterday with a fresh reason for US troops to continue fighting in Iraq: protection of the country’s vast oil fields, which he said would otherwise fall under the control of terrorist extremists….

At the naval base, Bush declared, ”We will not rest until victory is America’s and our freedom is secure” from Al Qaeda and its forces in Iraq led by Abu Musab alZarqawi.

”If Zarqawi and [Osama] bin Laden gain control of Iraq, they would create a new training ground for future terrorist attacks,” Bush said. ”They’d seize oil fields to fund their ambitions. They could recruit more terrorists by claiming a historic victory over the United States and our coalition.”

And here even I thought the “no blood for oil” whackos were off-base. As for me, I’d be happy to risk the terrorists and ensure that our freedom was secured from the federal government. I think the pro-war crowd must be getting desperate indeed if they’re reduced to claiming that the reason they originally denied is the real justification for continuing the occupation.

A liveblog from the Astrodome:

In a stunning and completely inexplicable display of compassion and generosity, citizens of Houston have begun to offer assistance to arriving refugees without ever having been directed to do so by a properly authorized governmental authority.

Your reporter witnessed this bizarre behavior principally in the Fiesta parking lot across from the Astrodome at Kirby and La Concha. Throughout the evening, several hundred refugees attempted to enter the Astrodome parking lot in crammed and crowded cars, only to be told that they would not be allowed in, since they hadn’t been part of the “official” Superdome caravan and the necessary supplies could not be guaranteed.

Ignoring their lack of proper bureaucratic classification, the plight of these “renegade refugees” was soon alleviated by a steady stream of private individuals and groups who gathered together in the above mentioned parking lot and began to offer assistance. It is not clear when, if ever, this parking lot was designated by federal officials to serve as a “refugee relocation and relief” zone.

One local anarchist boldly grilled and handed out upwards of 400 pounds of free hot dogs, knowingly flouting his lack of public food preparation permits.

GN writes::

“Like I said, Shapiro may indeed be a chickenhawk, but you aren’t among the men – or women, for that matter – with the moral authority to level that charge at him.”

“No one needs any “moral authority” to do so. A fact is a fact.”

This is classic Bulverism – YOUR opinion should be judged on your motives for holding it, whereas MINE must be judged on the facts/issues. However tempting it may be, however true it may be, you simply cannot have an intelligent debate if you resort to Bulverism. We’ve endured this “Shapiro’s motives” thing for over a week now, and it’s only lowered the debate to the point where it could only sink lower if Hitler were invoked.It doesn’t fit the definition of Bulverism at all. No one, Morgan included, has argued that Ben Shapiro does not meet the definition of chickenhawk as it is commonly understood today. They have merely argued that I should not point out that he does meet this definition for various reasons.

Never mind the Sex Pistols, where did I judge Morgan’s statement based on her motives? Alternatively, where have I failed to judge Shapiro’s case based on the facts and issues? And show, don’t tell.

I’d like to remind those of you who appear to be future Alzheimer’s candidates that I was RESPONDING to Shapiro’s two columns ON CHICKENHAWKS. If you have a problem with the fact that the topic has entered the public discourse, then go complain to Shapiro. And Lowry. And Goldberg. Not me. All of their columns predate mine and I’m sure they’ll be just as patient as I’ve been listening to you endlessly repeat yourselves. Answer this: how many left-wing columnists devoted columns to the term in the last six months as opposed to defensive neocons to whom the appellation might be applied? Name them.

It is utterly and completely moronic to pretend that I launched an attack on Ben Shapiro out of the blue. Anyone so inclined could have applied the chickenhawk label to him as early as 16 months ago, when in one of his early WND columns the budding young lawyer wrote: “We can ignore the fact that one day the modern-day Nazis – the Islamofascists and their appeasement-minded allies – will storm our gates. We can ignore the fact that the first shots of this war have already been fired…. Or we can recognize that we are in the same situation as the heroes of the ZOB. We can recognize that though the fight is difficult, it is worth fighting.”

Right, so now Chamberlain is Hitler too? Whatever. The point is that it was not until Shapiro began repeatedly using his column for egregiously self-serving purposes that I called him out. And that, my dear GN, is a fact.

No one ever objects when I, or any other right-wing columnist, use dismissive names to refer to left-wing political figures or columnists, and, ironically enough, nearly everyone objecting to this supposedly unthinkable evil has called me and other posters names that are demonstrably less accurate in the past. Even the littlest chickenhawk’s words suddenly don’t look so unusually hypocritical when compared with his would-be defenders.

I don’t know if the obstinacy with which some of you are still defending Shapiro stems from an instinct to protect everyone and everything right-wing, (or perhaps supportive of the war), a fear of having the label applied to you yourself (as two emailers admitted), a simple contrarian instinct or simply a liking for tilting at windmills. But as you should all know by now, I have no problem with beating a dead horse, grinding it into hamburger, eating it, excreting it, burying it in the ground to rot then digging it up again to beat the crap out of it one more time.

If you dislike the subject so much, then I strongly suggest you drop it. And you might want to drop a note to Messrs Goldberg, Lowry and Shapiro to do likewise.

Trent Green is mysteriously missing practice. Jerry Porter dinged his hamstring again. Marcus Robinson is suddenly back in the running for the #2 WR spot contra Travis Taylor… after I dropped him.

I already have the record for the longest losing streak to kick off the season: seven games. If you suddenly hear a cry of anguished distres, it’s because I saw the words “Marvin Harrison” or “Domanick Davis” on an SI headline.

It’s strange, considering that my biggest weakness in fantasy football is obtaining productive WRs, but I did accurately predict that the Peerless Price-Atlanta saga would end exactly how it did, with him bombing out and getting cut. His last year in Buffalo, he was the most productive receiver I ever had, but when he went to the Falcons for the big bucks, everything about the situation screamed “ALVIN HARPER”!

(Harper was a big performer for Dallas when he had Michael Irvin drawing double-coverage. He signed for big dollars to become Tampa Bay’s #1 and flopped. Price was similarly dependent upon Eric Moulds drawing coverage in Buffalo.)

Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if Price went on to find real success if he goes to a team where he can be the number two option again.

From LA BUSTINA DI MINERVA, Bompiani, 2000

Un impero e’ sempre costrittivo e autocratico: e’ come un coperchio che preme su di un calderone bollente. A un certo punto la pressione interna e’ troppo forte e il coperchio salta, e si ha una sorta di eruzione vulcanica. No sto affatto dicendo che era bene che il coperchio non saltasse, anche perche’ di solita salta per ragioni termiche, e la fisica non e ne’ morale ne’ immorale. Dico solo che, sino a che non salta, si mantiene un ordine, per opprimente che sia, e quando salta bisogna pagare un prezzo.

La dissoluzione dell’impero romano ha prodotto una crisi dell’Europa che e’ durata, nella sua forma virulenta, almeno sei secoli….

An empire is always coercive and autocratic: it is like a cover that presses on a boiling cauldron. At a certain point, the internal pressure is too strong, the cover is blown off and there is a sort of volcanic eruption. I am not at all saying that it is good when the cover is not blown off, however, because it is usually blown off for thermal reasons and the physics are neither moral nor immoral. I only say that, until it is blown off, an order is maintained, however oppressive, and when it blows off a price must be paid.

The dissolution of the Roman Empire produced a European crisis that lasted at least six centuries in its most virulent form….

Some Americans believe that such oppression is justified. But we have no right or claim to the oil in the Middle East or South America, nor is it our responsibility to enforce a modern Pax Romana on the world. Those who find the pied piper call of the neocons to be compelling would do well to remember how Rome maintained imperial order before acceding to calls to imitate it.

First, invade. Second, enslave a statistically significant portion of the indigenous population and establish numerous settlements of American colonists with a strong core of ex-soldiers among them. Third, ruthlessly exterminate any challengers to the point of permanently destroying their civilization.

As the great dottore points out, such measures are ultimately futile. The cauldron will eventually boil over in any case, and the greater the oppression required to maintain control, the greater the eventual ramifications. The Balkan atrocities were the result of fifty years of Tito’s Yugoslav imperialism, the end result of an American empire in the Middle East would likely be an explosion of radical Islam that would make its 7th century expansion into Europe look like batting practice.

From a contributor who shall remain nameless lest s/he be accused of heartlessness:

I’m amazed. Yesteday, I was still filled with sympathy for the people of New Orleans. I used to have a friend who lived in Slidell; haven’t talked to her in years. I wonder if she’s okay.

Today, the European press is starting to blame the disaster on America for rejecting the Kyoto Treaty, the American mainstream press is starting to blame the disaster on George W. Bush for diverting funds to the Iraq War that could have been spent on flood-control projects here at home, and I’m surprised to find myself starting to blame the people of New Orleans. What the hell did you expect, living in a city that is below sea level? Isn’t the environmentalists’ whole point that we need to live in harmony with nature, not fight in opposition against it?

I say we declare New Orleans “The Venice of North America,” dynamite what’s left of the levees, and start building a Newer Orleans, further inland and on much higher ground.

Post your New Orleans-related comments here. I’m just not terribly interested in the environmental equivalent of a car crash, except to note in passing the irony of supposed conservatives screaming for more Federal intervention, faster.

With the exception of John Derbyshire and Ramesh Ponnuru, I’m not sure there are any conservatives left there.

John Derbyshire sees Copernicanism in crisis:

“Only half of US adults know that the Earth rotates around the Sun once each year (NSB, 2000). One in five US adults say that the Sun rotates around the Earth, and 14 percent of US adults think that the Earth rotates around the Sun once each day (see Figure 2). A comparative study with Britain in 1988 found that only one-third of British adults understood that the Earth rotates around the Sun once each year…The level of adult understanding of the solar system shows little change over the last decade….”

I am, as most of you know, an evolution skeptic. However, I am also not an advocate of Intelligent Design, Young Earthism, Hollow Earthism or any other theory of human and Earth origins. I am firmly of the opinion that we do not now know how everything came to pass*, that our most educated guesses today will look ridiculous tomorrow and that the strange arrogance of the cocksure Creationist is exceeded only by that of the egotistical evolutionist.

I do not care at all what is “taught” in the public schools, partly because I believe the public schools should be dismantled brick by brick, their grounds sown with salt and holy water and the teachers and administrators hunted down like bounty vermin, and partly because it is quite clear that most of the millions of children being forced to endure public schooling aren’t going to understand the first thing about any of these theories anyhow.

*And yes, fellow Christians, “God did it” is not an explanation of how anything to pass. An omnipotent Creator God CAN do X in any number of possible ways but knowing that is not the same as knowing precisely how X was done. What aspect of the bit about human minds being unable to comprehend divine ways is so difficult to grasp?