perfidy

Conservatives have kicked the commies to the curb in Poland. However, the two parties that together garnered a majority of the votes fell out over distribution of high-level posts in the new government. But hey, at least the commies are out.

This year has been a really hard year for disasters. From the giant tsunami that struck Asia just after Christmas last year to the recent earthquakes and hurricanes that have spread misery almost as fast and wide as humankind could have done if left to its own devices, many terrible things have befallen the hapless and helpless populations of Earth of late.

But I have been hearing rumblings of "disaster fatigue." Indeed, the Red Cross reports that, in the wake of the massive relief efforts mounted for Indonesia and Louisiana, relatively little charity has been left over for the Red Cross' efforts in Pakistan, Guatemala, etc. Although money can only do so much, it can do a damn sight more than nothing at all.

So I have a proposition. If you, meaning "you right there with a Diet Coke, a gas station burrito and a Star Trek t-shirt riding up over your belly (I mean... with the snifter of brandy, the great hair, and the air of nonchalant cool that some would kill to possess)," donate at least $15 to the charity of your choice to help fund relief efforts in these relatively needful areas: e.g. the Pakistan/India earthquate, Hurricane Stan, or indeed any one of the thousands of worthy and underfunded causes out there in the world trying to do their part, I will send you, meaning "you right there the benighted soul whose life is enriched incrementally each day as our perfidious electrons bathe your benumbed eyes," two mix cds I have personally compiled from songs selected from among the 1,500 albums in my collection. I cannot guarantee each song will be new to you, but I can guarantee that you have never heard them in that particular order. So how about it?

(Offer expires November 31. Offer not valid in Albania, Uzbekistan, or Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan.)

Sixty-five years after winning the Battle of Britain, the sceptered isle has fallen to the fascists. In this case, the health nazis who have banned smoking across the entire nation, save only in alcohol-only pubs and clubs. Of course the government is reserving the right to ban smoking in those places as well. I imagine they're planning to wait and see if the British accept the first round like sheep, and then take away the rest of their rights.

"Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt says she is "proud" to be introducing new smoke-free legislation for England - despite widespread dismay at the Government's proposals." Goering was proud of the Luftwaffe, too.

The pennant race in the deranged dictator division is heating up. Iran, perpetual second place finisher in a division dominated for decades by league titan North Korea, has instituted some key lineup changes in hopes of displacing the defending champs. Kim Jong Il has led his team to victory for year after year with cunning diplomatic strategy composed of equal parts bald-faced lying, last minute appeals to charity and simple bugfuck craziness. This is a tough combination to beat, especially considering that the NK team has two to eight nukes batting clean-up.

Iran has not taken a pennant since 1979, when in a storied inter-league game, they beat the Superpower league's USA with a ballsy hostage taking play. Things might have ended badly for the Iranian underdogs, but a welcome assist from a sandstorm and below par coaching on the American side proved sufficient for the big win. Since the glory days of the first few years after expansion team Iran joined the DDD, it has been frustrated hopes and horrific casualties. An eight year slugfest with division rivals Iraq allowed North Korea to coast into division leadership year after year.

This season, things are looking up for the Iranians. With Iraq knocked clear out of the division by some superb play by both the Americans and the British, Iran has only one team to beat. With North Korea on the ropes thanks to a concerted diplomatic effort from regional rivals and the Americans, and the American military team locked in an extended playoff with nutbag religious fundamentalist splodeydopes league champs Al Qaida, now is the time for the big play.

This sets the stage for today's match up. Iranian coach Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told a group of students at an anti-Israel event today that Israel must be "wiped off the map" and that attacks by Palestinians will destroy it. Enough crazy talk like that, and the Iranians might have a shot at the pennant. Anti-Zionism has been a reliable strategy for the Islamic members of the DDD for half a century. But the game isn’t over yet. Iran, eager to match North Korea's hitting power in the middle of the lineup, is going for nukes.

This is a dangerous move in any match-up with the canny and ruthless Israelis. Astute watchers of the game will remember the last time a DDD contender tried that play against Israel's fearsome defense. It's a bold move for Iran, but the smart money is on Israeli strike planes over Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment plant by year's end, ending Iran's bid to reach the top of the division – and clearing the way for yet another championship for North Korea.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez claimed in a BBC interview that the United States is planning to invade his country. That's what the headline said. But the actual quote is, "We have detected with intelligence reports plans of a supposed invasion, one that would never happen. But we have to denounce it."

I'm sure the Pentagon has plans to invade Britain and Canada, too. Doesn't mean we're going to. While Chavez is certainly higher on the list of potential libervasion targets than Paul Martin or Tony Blair, I'm also certain that there are many countries ahead of him in line. Like Syria and Iran. With our military stretched out the way it is, we're not going to go around invading countries for shits and giggles. Chavez is an annoyance, not a threat. And he does still sell us gas. No real problem there. Just more hysterical windbaggery from a leftwing dictator.

In tomorrow's Telegraph, there's a story entitled "Benefits cheat's high-flying life paid for by 'secret' inheritance".

Standard fare, really. The story's protagonist, while hardly evil, is not among the most sympathetic of characters:

Malcolm Bingley, a former gentleman's outfitter who had not worked for 17 years, was later discovered to have £75,000 in a bank account.

He was among the last passengers of the Concorde, which was a fine, fine ride in its day, but there's a catch:

Bingley, 60, was convicted of 10 counts of benefit fraud by Sunderland magistrates, fined £500 with £300 costs and given 14 days to pay back £5,456 he received for two years' Jobseekers' Allowance while failing to declare his true financial position.

Neil Snaith, for the Department of Work and Pensions, said Bingley was caught when a computer found anomalies between interest on his bank accounts and the fact that he was on means-tested benefit.

Questioned about transactions from his account, one of which he explained was for airline tickets, Bingley told officials: "It was expensive because it was Concorde. I can bring a picture of it in, and a certificate with my name on."

OK, so that explains why it was so expensive, but not the lack of recognition of the ironic juxtaposition between 17 years of unemployment benefits and his extravagance. Turns out he thought, and claims to have had confirmation, that this was all just ducky.

He was less effusive, however, when asked why he had ticked "no" on a benefits claims form asking about savings and accounts. He did not declare his inheritance, after his mother and aunt died, because he "didn't think it was relevant".

He claimed that Jobcentre staff had told him he could carry on claiming.

Not relevant? Of course not.

But while in an absolute sense, the bilked money we're talking about here is truly small beer, the more I read, the more I waited for a punchline, the better to assuage my bulging eyes, bulging caused by the fact this guy clearly has the balls of a brass monkey. And at the end, I got my punchline. Without hint of irony (which is often lost in print media, so perhaps we was being ironic), he said:

"The court's decision is very harsh. I have to pay back the full amount. I think everyone should be entitled to a holiday."

If he wasn't just joshing, I'd contend we've found a role model for the Howard Dean's self-styled Democrat Wing of the Democrat Party.

Homeland Security Honcho Chertoff has said that he wants to kick out all the wetbacks. Well, he didn't say it that way, that was me paraphrasing. He did say this:

Our goal at DHS (Homeland Security) is to completely eliminate the 'catch and release' enforcement problem, and return every single illegal entrant, no exceptions. It should be possible to achieve significant and measurable progress to this end in less than a year.

Today, a non-Mexican illegal immigrant caught trying to enter the United States across the southwest border has an 80 percent chance of being released immediately because we lack the holding facilities. Through a comprehensive approach, we are moving to end this 'catch and release' style of border enforcement by reengineering our detention and removal process.

Well all right. I have no problem with legal immigration. Within limits, I would actually support raising the number of people legally allowed in this country. I am for lowering requirements for entry from anglophone nations along the lines of Jim Bennet's sojourner concept. But there should be no tolerance of illegal immigration.

I posted a while back on Jerry Pournelle's idea for running a scheme to rid ourselves of illegal immigrants. But that's just one way to do it. Another way to relieve the pressure that led to the catch and release policy is to lower the numbers of people in prison, and use that money. Seeing as over half a million people are in jail for pot possession, that gives us more than a little wiggle room, even if some of those reeferheads actually deserve to be in prison. Decamillions of illegals is just a mockery of the rule of law and good public policy.

I ran across a James Bennett article from a couple years ago about differing conceptions of Columbus Day. The whole thing is worth a read, but one thing in particular caught my eye:

Now, of course, Columbus Day is under attack as a holiday in the United States by the forces of political correctness. This is primarily an effect of the Calvinist Puritan roots of American progressivism. Just as Calvinists believed in the centrality of the depravity of man, with the exception of a miniscule contingent of the Elect of God, their secularized descendants believe in the depravity and cursedness of Western civilization, with their own enlightened selves in the role of the Elect.

Fairly apt. I first encountered this phenomenon when I worked for an environmental lobby group back in the nineties. It quickly became clear that what they felt was more religion than public advocacy. There I was, proto-conservative in Ohio but with legitimate concerns about pollution and the condition and future of the environment. The environment, after all, was where I lived. While I can tolerate a certain (my wife might say large) amount of mess and filth in my personal habitation, there are limits beyond which it is unsafe to go. At that point, I start cleaning. My views of the larger environment were similary constructed. We'd made a bit too much mess, and cleaning up and forestalling future mess was in order.

However, I didn't view my apartment as a sacred place that was despoiled by the very presence of the works of man. And this was what the environmentalists I worked with did believe. I found it ironic that even though they lived in the same world I did, somehow they were pure and I was not. Even though they wore leather jackets, drove cars and took advantage of aircraft, telephones and in general the entire panoply of modern technology and infrastructure. The concept that I was missing at the time was that they were the Elect, and I was not. Like wealth for the Puritans, there are outward signs of inner grace. For the enviroweenies, it was Birkenstocks, a set ideology of beliefs and a distinct lack of personal hygiene.

Sounds vaguely obscene, no? New research shows that stereotypes of national characteristics have little basis in fact. Individuals from diverse cultures scored more or less the same on basic personality indices. All very interesting, in a we're all pink and bloody on the inside kind of way. But these national characteristics are more typically just that - national characteristics. Of course there are sloppy, lazy and cowardly Germans and clean, martial and brave Frenchmen. But it seems to me that national sterotypes are useful in getting an idea about how large groups of people will act, rather than individuals within those groups.

There's an old joke, attributed to of all people Hermann Goering: "Take one German you have a good worker. Two Germans and you have a Bund. Three Germans and you have a war. One Italian, you have a good tenor. Two Italians and you have a retreat. Three Italians and you have a unconditional surrender. Take one Englishman and you have an idiot. Two Englishmen make a club. Three Englishmen and you have a world spanning empire.

National characteristics do not necessarily have a direct relationship to the characteristics of the individuals that make up the nation.

Today's Herald examines Boston's plans for a mass evacuation event. The article is titled pithily, but helpfully:

Hub evac plan useless: Traffic jams mean `you're dead'.

Boston's reputation for horrible driving conditions- and horrible drivers- is nationally renowned. Before the Big Dig, getting in and out of the city was, depending on the time of day, either moderately dangerous or fecklessly lethal. Since the Dig was sort of mostly completed (only a few more billion to go- thanks every taxpayer in America!), the major arteries now are only extended clusterfucks.

Everyone who's been there has a tale to tell about their scrape with danger in Hub traffic. Many have been scraped by Hub traffic. It once took me 6 hours to get from Logan Airport to Northampton, which ought to be 2 hours even with a piss stop on the Turnpike. As it was, I spent about 4 hours just in a fucking tunnel trying to get away from the airport. Oh, and PS my wife was almost in Paris before I'd gone 100 miles. And that was after Bechtel was supposed to have made everyting all better.

As things stand now, one accident or a clutch of knuckleheads with picket signs can shut down traffic effectively. With a million knuckleheads clamoring to escape...well yeah, getting them out of town in a timely manner isn't going to happen.

Some of the excerpts from the plan though were pretty interesting, as vague as they are ambitious; read the whole article for those. Mayor Menino's spokesperson added, "an evacuation plan is a fluid entity'', which could only have been more unhelpful had Hizzoner said it for himself (in which case it would have come out as: "An evacalation plansa floo-oodatitty").

But like I said, the piece is helpful because it tells you plainly what's at stake. In the event of catastrophe, don't expect to drive out, and don't wait for the feds, the schoolbus fleet, or the municipal constabulary to pop in and pick you up.

If you want to live, you're going to have to ruck up and hump out.

My first reaction upon hearing that the governer of Louisiana had ordered the National Guard to shoot to kill looters, was "good."

Then I got over myself. James Joyner runs down only a few of the ways in which this is a very, very bad idea: there's a little thing called the Constitution; posse comitatus; the right to trial by jury and the presumption of innocence; and so on. Not to mention the "Jean Valjean" effect, in which it is impossible to tell whether that guy over there is after bread, water, and blood pressure meds for his mother or just a scumbag. One needs helping and the other arguably needs shooting, but since when do the scumbags wear big helpful signs reading "I Need Shooting?"

Civil society exists in order to save us from our worst and most destructive impulses, indeed it exists to channel those impulses where necessary into places where they can do the least harm. I sincerely hope that the Gulf Coast does not descend into Congolese style (or Haitian style, or what have you) anarchy. The Republic is strong, but it's not bulletproof.

The Gulf Coast for the near future is going to be home to the full catalog of human suffering. My esteemed colleague GeekLethal has aptly summed up the feelings of us all directly below as to the dire situation facing the residents of New Orleans, Biloxi, Gulfport, and a hundred other unfortunate locales. But Michelle Catalano has done a great service for us, by cataloging all the good news too. Humanity might be depraved; humanity might be perverse (and this from a secular humanist!); but in the darkest hours the good will out. Go read it, if only to beat back the despair.

I have never been to New Orleans.

It seems I never will.

I am not concerned for the physical structures of the city. The distinctive architecture of a cityscape, of this unique cityscape drenched in history and bourbon, will survive. They almost always do, don’t they, the oldest buildings with the longest memories weather catastrophe in a way that modern homes and mods and pods don’t.

There is a metaphor there, for deeper thinkers than myself to consider: the impermanence of modern creations, built on the same capricious sediments as the old, but lasting only a second. Or a primeval sentiment, the lifetimes of achievement and struggle, erased by a force of nature. I remember Thucydides…or maybe it was Homer? …in the earliest histories of our civilization describing desolation wrought by war as though it were caused by a storm. The most destructive natural force that society of pre-gunpowder, pre-industrial, pre-nuclear seafarers could conceive of was a hurricane.

And so it is again, a prehistoric monster has risen from the sea, storming ashore to rend and break; steal, scratch and kill.

Or we can drop the poetics and just say that Katrina kicked the country square in the balls.

Even though the buildings will stand or fall, and the fallen ones will be rebuilt and the damaged ones repaired, my concern is not for them. Any city is greater than the arrangements of steel and stone that serve as its signature. They’re about people, at their core, not about the Sears Tower or the Empire State Building or every refurbished French Quarter brothel.

And it’s the people I see now that give me pause.

Continual reports of armed gangs roaming, pillaging at will; firefights over both booty and supplies; rescue personnel, helicopters, boats, doctors, and hospitals all coming under fire; hopelessness from those victims trapped between the toxic floodwaters, flowing by high as a house, and the toxic souls of the thugs who prey on them. Even the Superdome, the best-case accommodation for the worst-case scenario, has quickly fallen to a public health nightmare, complete with dysentery and gunfire in the night.

It’s less the people themselves who scare me, though. It’s that they confirm my worst expectations, my deepest beliefs about what would happen if our civilization broke down. In just a matter of days, perhaps 48 hours, New Orleans is what happens. Not Mogadishu, not Ivory Coast, not East Timor or Fallujah. Not them. Us.

And sadly enough, this scenario has come and gone a thousand times in a thousand works of fiction. Roving brigands are a staple of the post-apocalyptic landscape: Jerry Ahern’s The Survivalist; Robert McCammon’s Swan Song; Stephen King’s The Stand; Larry Niven’s Lucifer’s Hammer (which also gave us extensive flooding and a glimpse of coming to grips with an inundated landscape) … and on and on and on, through a deep bench. Film of course has excelled at mirroring our fears of disaster or lawlessness; Mad Max alone did it three times, and there are dozens and dozens more. Even zombie movies seem a tad prescient lately. New Orleans might also suggest what’s to come if someone pops a nuke in a shipping container in Los Angeles or New Jersey or Virginia; see Schreiber and Kunetka's Warday for scaries in that vein.

We are told that it is criminal gangs largely running amok through the city. I am highly skeptical though that MS-13 or the Bywater Crips are up on their eschatological fiction; they’re not following a script, which leads me to believe that there is something deeper, something more fundamentally homo sapiens, that finds delight in making other peoples’ lives hell on Earth. We’ve all seen it before in crises around the world, but maybe there was apart of me that thought our society was above all that.

If I do someday make it to New Orleans, what city will I find? Will it be again the polis that was, or the lobotomized remains?

[wik] (JOHNO SEZ): GL says it right. The entire situation seems absolutely batshit insane in its apocalyptic sweep, just like something out of the novels we nerdy types read to titillate our jones for simulated eschaton. On September 11, 2001, part of my brain could not help but judge the quality of the special effects used to simulate the collapse of the World Trade Center (wow... it's just like the movies!), demonstrating that I was securely in the grip of a merciful sort of shock that insulated me from the full truth of the horror unfolding before my eyes.

And so again. Nobody, no novelist, no hater of the Gulf states, could write a tragedy this ugly, so outrageously terrible in its cartoonish excess. (A note: I felt the same way about the tsunami earlier this year. Some things are just too immense to feel real.) Think about it: if the water doesn't get you, the industrial chemicals will. If the industrial chemicals don't get you, the raw sewage will. If the raw sewage doesn't get you, the giant rats will. If the giant rats don't get you, the nutria will. If the nutria don't get you, the water moccasins will. If the water moccasins don't get you, the alligators will. If the crocodiles don't get you, the floating balls of fire ants will. If the floating balls of fire ants don't get you, the roving bands of armed marauders will. And if you somehow manage to survive all that, you still stand a chance at getting your ass shot by a New Orleans policeman looting your local Wal-Mart.

As I type this, the umpteenth bus has entered my adopted home town of Houston, headed for the Astrodome to drop off refugees plucked from New Orleans' now-fetid Superdome. We'll have something like 25,000 of these unfortunate New Orleans victims before the weekend, along with as-yet uncounted victims from elsewhere to my east. My hope, in common, I'm sure, with that of the city officials from Houston, New Orleans, and the other affected areas, is that the absence of complete natural disaster on the south side of Houston will make the Astrodome a more friendly place of refuge than the Superdome turned out to be, and that we've got enough other housing to provide for the victims' needs.

"Mind-boggling" only begins to describe the devastation along the gulf coast east of Houston. You've seen the same TV shows I've seen, and the pictures of dead bodies, to say nothing of the looters and dreadfully forlorn people who've literally lost everything but their lives and the clothes on their backs are at once heart-rending and overwhelming. We don't know yet how many thousands have died or when the destroyed cities (because it's not just New Orleans, lest we forget) will again be habitable.

I had a call last night from a good friend in Baton Rouge, 80 miles or so northeast of New Orleans, and it seems that the 25,000 heading to the Astrodome are peanuts, relatively speaking. Baton Rouge, a city of 440,000 or so folk, is expecting 500,000 people before the weekend's over. It goes without saying that the infrastructure there is ill suited to a 115% increase in population, but there, I just said it. The ripple effect isn't going to help Baton Rouge or any of the other cities which experience significant influx of desperate homeless folk.

Dr. Mike Crouch, my Baton Rouge correspondent, also informed me of several other interesting bits about the state of things in the Big Easy, some troubling, some less so. Businesses, overall, appear to have been ill-prepared for the catastrophe. Mike's well plugged in to the goings on in the region, and heard repeated anecdotal evidence of untested disaster recovery plans, even though this is "the big one" New Orleans has been scared of for the last century. Many professional services firms are likely to be starting from scratch once this is over. Given the fact the municipal infrastructure is "totaled", a case could be made they were going to start from scratch anyway, but it's hard to overstate the economic ripple impact likely to emanate from this physical disaster, even without reckoning New Orleans itself as a complete write-off for the time being.

Mike also tells me that Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, is putting on a performance worthy of Rudy Giuliani's September 2001 efforts, and that the city couldn't be in better hands, so they've got that going for them. Peggy Noonan informs us that Haley Barbour, Mississippi's governor, is likewise acquitting himself well, and that Kathleen Blanco, Louisiana's governor can still get in the game:

She can turn this around. The waters may have peaked; a comeback will at some point commence. She showed anguish and now she can show fortitude, like a fighter made hungry by pain. Go, Kathleen, your state needs you. People will take their cues from you. Butch up, punch back, wade in. Literally. Be there.

So at least I'm not alone in temporarily being overwhelmed by this disaster, which is only a small relief.

I'll hazard a guess (wild-ass speculation, more like) that ten years from now, the area might have recovered some semblance of its past glory and gaudiness. If we're lucky, that is. The indirectly or less seriously affected areas, such as Baton Rouge, Houston, and any other temporary refuges, will likely end up thinking they've got legitimate complaints. At which point, I hope they just shut up and tough it out, because there's no way, absent new acts of a vengeful or random Mother Nature, the comparison will be apt.

It's that bad.

And the enormity of the disaster is such that, when I think about the ongoing attempts to help, they all seem so initially trivial as to be of almost no ultimate help. Witness this, just in from the club where I work out:

The WestLake Club would like to help support the community and the hurricane refugees displaced in Houston. We have compiled a list of ways the Members and Employee Partners of the WestLake Club can help by donating their time, money, or materials to those in need.

Help pay for Hotel Rooms - Help provide shelter at a local hotel with your monetary donations.
Cash Donation in your desired amount or a check made out to Studio 6, $40 will pay for a family to stay one night
**If every Member would donate $10, what a difference we could make. (Actually a $11,500 difference, to be exact).

Donate Material Items (WestLake will donate these items to the American Red Cross)

Paper goods such as plates and cups; Cleaning supplies, such as bleach, Top Job, Mr. Clean; Bottled water (no glass containers); Single serving snacks such as Pop-Tarts and cereal bars; MREs (Meals Ready to Eat); Sheets, pillows and blankets; Disposable diapers; Baby formula; Toilet paper and wipes; Peanut butter; Personal hygiene products; Clothing; Games and toys; Dog and Cat Food (Donated to the SPCA); Gift Cards for gas, groceries, or Wal-Mart

Volunteer your Time (In the upcoming days, the WestLake Club will have a posting of locations around town)
Volunteer Houston, 281-564-6669
American Red Cross, 800-HELP-NOW
American Red Cross Shelters in Houston, 713-313-5480
Houston Food Bank, 713-223-3700

Donate Blood

I'm struck by the "if only" near the top - if every member at the club donated $10, there'd be enough money to provide one night's housing for less than 300 families. And that pretends the hotel in question even has rooms available. While I know it's not a waste of time, this seems to be a task akin to decomposing Mt. Everest using a nail file.

But the folks of the Gulf Coast, in Houston and elsewhere, as well as the broader nation, will surely surprise me with what they're capable of to help those in need.

Keep a good thought, please, for those who've lost so much. And in the meantime, let's butch up.

[wik] Several addenda, based on later information that might, in some cases, even be true. If I could get hold of Mike Crouch, I'd ask him whether Ray Nagin has just gone insane, or whether he really is the antithesis of Rudy Giuliani, contrary to Mike's original declaration.

First, see this bit from Ray Nagin's radio interview.

And then, have a look at this comment on a post over at Donald Sensing's site, One Hand Clapping.

After you do, if you're anything like me, you'll think less well of Ray Nagin than Mike does. Or used to - he may have changed his mind by now.

Perhaps I'm more credulous than I should be, but I'm utterly unmoved by complaints that the Feds are doing less than they could be doing. They appear to be doing a whole lot more than Nagin, and at least they're not complaining profanely while laying the blame at someone else's doorstep.

Hurricane Katrina has left in her wake devastation and suffering. Thousands may be dead, and those remaining in New Orleans and the worst-hit portions of Mississippi and Alabama are in dire need of assistance. The first and simplest thing to do is to donate money to those who are trying to help. The Red Cross has a convenient web page where you can donate money via credit card. Over $11,000,000 has already been donated, and that just scratches the surface. Give all you can.

After giving to the Red Cross, consider other, more targeted aid. Instapundit has an immense and still growing list of organizations that can translate your money into help for the refugees of Katrina. I might also suggest The IOCC, the International Orthodox Christian Charities. They have low overhead; they focus on providing aid that doesn't merely ameliorate immediate needs, but that wil help prevent future need as well.

Tell your friends and family to give.

Spread good ideas, like this one from Donald Sensing. He suggests that printing and dropping leaflets over the affected areas would provide much needed information for those cut off from the outside world.

And pray for those who have died, for those who have been saved, and for those awaiting help, for the brave soldiers, firemen and police officers risking all to help others, and especially for those who have resorted to looting and violence.

As of 9:30 am yesterday, Texas is a majority-minority state. The white overclass is now a minority in the very home of redneckdom. Texas follows California, New Mexico and Hawaii into this unnatural state of being. I'm sure that God is laughing that most of the states in greatest danger of falling prey to this syndrome are in the ex-Confederacy.

I guess the only place that a self-respecting bigot can go is North Dakota, Iowa, West Virginia, Vermont, New Hampshire, or Maine.

The State Department has issued a new, less helpful, round of warnings for Americans considering travelling outside CONUS:

The warning did not list countries, nor did department officials offer any additional specifics about threats. The statement said "current information" indicates that al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups are planning attacks against U.S. interests in "multiple regions, including Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East."

The short version: everyplace with funny-talkin' furriners and no NASCAR is dangerous.

The targets could include places where Americans meet or visit, such as residential areas, hotels and restaurants, as well as places of worship, schools, clubs, business offices and public areas, the caution said. It also noted that "demonstrations and rioting" can occur with little or no warning.

The short version: Everything you do in the weird furrin' place makes you a target.

I know that the State Department has been getting shorted the last few years, but even with a shrunken budget isn't there anyone at State who can devise a more helpful warning than, "don't go anywhere, and don't do anything when you're there"?

everything looks like an argument. Which is to say, studying something very very closely will sometimes result in surprising insights. Of course, other times you will come to completely insane conclusions that no sane person would find persuasive; say, the theory that gay people threaten my and your marriage. (Okay, that was a misrepresentation. People who say that have not studied the issue closely at all.)

What is this guy talking about, you ask? First he's on about theses acting like hammes, then something about the gays, and now we're waist-deep in a thicket of self-referential onanism that would redden the face of David Eggers. If I'da wanted this kind of crazy today I'd have called up the Lyndon LaRouche hotline!

Well, here's the thing. NDR, also known as Nathaniel of Rhine River is writing his dissertation on, loosely speaking, issues of identity in the Rhine River region, which is neither specifically French nor German.

He finds some parallels between the American project in Iraq and France's integration of Rhenish peoples into France. To wit: Rhinelanders accepted France for the stability and infrastructure they lent, but still resented them for the supercilious frogs they were, so to speak. And this might be a sign of a healthy people.

Also, one of his bunnies recieved an unintended bris thanks to his other bunny. Weird.

When you hear the phrase "robotic camel jockey," what do you think of? I bet it's not this!

Via the new and soon-to-be-blogrolled centrist group blog donklephant, we find that the United Arab Emirates, in an effort to stem a tendency toward human slavery and slave trafficking to supply very small and young jockeys for their national pastime of camel racing, is actually using remote-controlled robotic camel jockeys. The jockeys are as light as a young boy, eiliminating the market for cage-raised and underfed young boys originally kidnapped or sold into slavery in Asia and sent to the UAE to be used as jockeys.

Hard to see how this fits into the Space Robots' master plan to subjugate humanity and crush them under their titanium-alloy heel; indeed, quite the opposite!

The asswipe former CEO of Worldcom, Bernie Ebbers, was just sentenced to 25 years for $11 billion in fraud, the largest in corporate history. (Though still a distant second to the UN Oil-for-Food scandal.) This is all to the good. Ebbers will be stripped of everything but his house and $50g. He won't be eligible for parole until he's 85.

Discussion of this topic around the campfire at work led to some interesting speculation. Assuming that you would receive a nominal three year sentence at a minimum security prison, how much would you be willing to steal? In other words, how much money would make that three year sentence worth your time?

Parameters: Being stolen, that money would be tax free; however you could expect some restrictions in exactly how you could go about spending it due to continued gov't attention. The minimum security prison would offer your fellow inmates minimal opportunities for prison rape, but would not guarantee your safety. You'd have access to the prison library, exercise equipment and cable tv. You'd probably end up working in the prison laundry or some other, similar job while in prison.

What's your price, beeyatch?

Going further, how much would make it worth your while to spend three years in general population in a large, maximum security prison for violent felons? I think we all know what conditions are like there. Now how much will you need?