im watching this mtv concert that im sure a lot of you are watching too. all these artists are singing their songs and theres no commercials, and they have a crawl on the bottom but its not obnoxious. finally mtv is doing the right thing.

four hours theyre going to show all the big stars playing music to raise money for the victims of the hurricane. so lets do a twenty minutes with tony for them and in the memory of everyone who died in the gulf coast due to this hurricane. k, go.

first let me remind you that im still selling "brownie, youre doing a hell of a job" tshirts and mugs here and the profits (about $5 an item) will go to the Red Cross.

its so hard not to hear this music or watch the newscasts and listen to the people and not think about politics. and before anyone gets the wrong idea i want everyone gone. even the black mayor and you know i loves my people. yeah he had busses and they sat there in the water. they had the new orleans emergency disaster chief on bill maher last night and he said those busses were actually used for as long as they could use them and they went back to that lot and then the levees broke and they couldnt get to them any more.

the mayor was getting interviewed in the local paper yesterday and he said there were more busses on higher ground but there wasnt anyone who could drive them and it wasnt like all the roads were usable to get to the superdome, but the Right want to blame anyone but Bush and FEMA so fine, fire the mayor. fire the governor too.

even the instapundit is doing his best to be a company man and try to give as many links as he can that say that FEMA has always had a history of taking a few days to get to emergencies - as if thats kosher - but i hear what hes saying: the ball is in the court of the locals for the first three days.

but after that, the superheroes are supposed to arrive. and they didnt arrive, glenn. people sat in their attics, people faught on the streets, people waded in that shit waiting for the guys in the white hats to swoop down and get them.

but it didnt happen.

fire the mayor and the governor. burn them at the stake for all i care. but how can the Feds be blameless if canadians can make their way from canadia and the calvary cant get there from america?

the critics have asked me whats my point, where am i going with this, why cant i talk about fingering coeds, why do i have to keep kicking the dead horse

because the horse aint dead fuckers.

the mayor has been on the radio, hes been on tv, hes been everywhere. he answers the tough questions and sure he blames others, hes got a right to blame some others. he might not have prepared perfectly for the biggest disaster of all time, but his people did get to where they were supposed to get to and the feds didnt come, and when FEMA arrived, they made things worse!

do you really want me to list their fuckups?

people go on and on about oh the mayor is a dem and the governor is a dem, did you know that the mayor was a republican up until right before he ran for mayor? did you know that he didnt endorse the governor in 2003 and instead backed the republican congressman Bobby Jindal? did you know that he, like me, only reluctantly endorsed john kerry in 2004? not really much of a dem.

but people need to affix labels on people and stick people in boxes, so there you are, fine, hes a dem. one that doesnt really like kerry and who didnt like the governor even before she also dropped the ball on this emergency.

things arent always black and white, but sometimes theyre closer than we want them to be. for example, i dont want to have to continually acknowledge to the world that my president is a fucking retard. and i really hate to admit that hes a pansy-assed coward.

why is it that ive seen kanye west on tv four times more than ive seen my president?

someone said, bush was too scared to meet with cindy sheehan of course he was too chickenshit to go to new orleans.

and what would he say there anyway? he doesnt say anything inspiring, ever. he doesnt know what to do when the shits fucked. he doesnt care about black people and he doesnt care about white people either. i hate to say it, but what do you want me to say, he hasnt disproven it.

sometimes people say fucked up shit about me thats totally wrong but feedback is feedback and after kanye said that i woulda gotten on tv and said kanye congratulations on your grammy and on your new cd thats about to drop but how about leaving the governing to me. and bam people would have said, damn. and then i would have told all the white people in my staff to stay away from me for about two three days and i would have only hung out with blacks.

image is everything when youre a leader and how fucked up is it that a blogger in his pajamas has to continually coach the president of the united states on how to do his fucking job.

in my new job im a quasi leader and on week one i was called in and told that i have to get my shit together because in business just like in politics image is everything and if the kids see me blogging or talking to hotties on the phone, even if my shits together, it wont look good, so i need to get organized and not just that but Look organized, look like i know what the fuck im doing, communicate with people so they GET IT, dont say oh but i emailed mary she never emailed me back. email her a second time and cc: everyone.

in life perception is just as important as reality.

but no bushie went to mississippi and hugged two three blacks and then hung out with tons of white people. and im not saying that whites werent affected by katrina, of course they are. but anyone who saw the news over the days, anyone who saw the AFP fuck up, anyone who saw the lootings and the accusation by kanye on national tv knows that there was a racial element to this and when youre the leader of the parade youve gotta wave to the left side of the street and the right side which means on one day of your life mr president you fucking hang out with black people.

and no you dont get a ghetto pass for hiring condi and colin. anyone would have hired colin, plus hes jamacian, so it doesnt really count. and condi is the biggest sellout to the black race since larry elder so get it right.

you prove that you care about black people when you actually do things for black people as a whole. otherwise its tokenism. how much has unemployment for african-americans gone down since you took office. how many more blacks are in college since you got into office, how many more own homes, how many more have started businesses. how many more are now voting republican. thats how you know what youre doing is good for blacks. we're as loyal as can be.

but last week you were not loyal to us.

and my time is up but i have to say a few more things. the purpose of this blog today is the same it was on day one. i write to get laid. if you ever hear me say something different you know someone has kidnapped me and tortured me into giving up my password.

unlike some i dont do this for the money. i dont do this for some weirdo fucked up nerdy blogger fame. i dont do this as a resume builder to get a job writing. i do this so that the ladies of the world will continue to send me nudes of themselves and let me examine their finer parts.

i know i dont always write things that will turn them on, and quite frankly i dont really know what would turn them on, but i know that somewhere i will meet someone who will say i read your shit and i love it and therefore i love you, and even though that might not mean happilly ever after, its a good start.

consider it the call of the wild.

poot-tweet. poot-tweet.

or in this case fuck-bush fuck-bush.

i write this thing on here because if blogger hadnt existed i would have written it on a website like i did in the olden days. and if i hadnt been born in the perfect time i would have written this shit on the walls of the cave or on the ass of a dinosaur or on the eye of a needle. i am a writer and its just as normal for me to write as it is for the president to fuck up.

i feel extremely lucky that i have a small group of people who read my shit but you have to trust me when i say i never Ever think about that group when i write. you can ask "why dont you write something inspirational" or "why dont you say something constructive" or "why dont you write something sexy" or "why dont you give us a football pre-write" and you may as well talk to a wall because what comes out is whats inside and theres no way i can even think about football when it keeps dawning on me that the president of the united states turned his back on drowning people of all ages

and he still gets to keep his job

and worse, he still gets some of your respect.

all bush had to do was show up earlier and do the right thing and all of this would have been about the weather.

but he made it about politics.

i have the worse thoughts about him when i think about him. the worst. and that rips me up inside because im not like that.

usually.

will it help to impeach bush? its a good start. but it would send the message to the next leaders that they actually have to lead.

tomdog is in LA and im gonna drink with him and all you buzznetters who are gonna be there it will be my pleasure to meet you.

caitlin + brooks + jaime + sutter

# | |

for some reason when Bill Maher was on every night, it wasnt of much interest to me. it was because it was set up differently with four people and maher all yelling at each other.

the format is slightly different now, and it still could be improved (i'd like to see more right-wingers, but apparently they'd rather get stroked on fox news than get torn apart by maher - in fact the best scenario i could imagine would be two repubs and only one dem which would make it an even two-on-two counting the host).

but the opening monologue is usually short and sweet, the guests are usually pretty decent (this week he had, among others, george carlin and kurt vonnegut - who both looked and sounded tired - aka old - but they had some good insights)

and maher is a master of the knockout punch, which is generally in his closing minutes during the new rules/summary.

last night this was his summary, which you can download here.

[Maher, Speaking to President Bush]
Now I kid, but seriously Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you anymore. There's no more money to spend, you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you also used up the army, and now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare - helping poor people.

Yeah, listen to your mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit card's maxed out, and no one is speaking to you.

Mission accomplished!

Now it's time for you to do what you've always done best, lose interest and walk away, like you did with your military service...and the oil company...and the baeball team.

It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job.

How about cowboy? Or spaceman?

Now I know what you're saying. You're saying that there are so many other things that you as the president could involve yourself in. PLEASE DON'T.

I know there's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela and eliminating the sales tax on yachts, turning the space program over to the church and social security to Fannie Mae, giving embryos the vote, but sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why?

Because you govern like Billy Joel drives.

You perform so poorly I am surprised you haven't given yourself a medal.

You're a catastrophe that walks like a man.

Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire metropolis to rising water and snakes.

On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon, and the city of New Orleans.

Maybe you're just not... lucky?

I'm not saying you don't love this country, I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

So yes, God does speak to you and what He is saying is "Take a hint".

transcription via Red Goatee + dont blink: instapundit (slightly)critical of a Bush decision - yay! + but no love for the Daily Show - wtf?!

# | |

they don't want to play the "blame game" because they know they will lose.

they know that its not game, it's a way of acknowledging responsibility and accountability.

this is an administration who dragged their feet to rescue americans in america because, some say, they didn't want to overstep their bounds

they didn't want to appear tyrannical

they didn't want to show up where they weren't invited.

or was it because they didn't want to cut their vacation short?

because when they're not on vacation this is an administration who has no problem sticking their noses

into women's wombs

into gay couple's wedding plans

into sick people's medicine cabinets

into working people's social security plans

into the television and radio airwaves of programs listened to by adults

even into the library records of the books that americans check out.

and yet they refused to allow helicopters and boats and food and water or even sanitation workers into new orleans because they didn't want to deal with the red tape.

they swear that they wanted to allow the state to handle its own business, but here in california we voted to let the terminally sick smoke marijuana

and somehow what the state wanted for itself didn't matter to this administration and they fought against us, and got that vote overturned.

this administration fought to stop the votes from being counted in florida in 2000

this administration fought to stop the 9/11 commission from being bi-partisan

this administration even fought to keep a feeding tube in a brain-dead woman's mouth

but they didn't fight to get supplies and professionals into new orleans.

infact they cockblocked the help.

pick your battles, they tell you, and for some reason this administration chose not to use their might and influence to get aid to those people in the south and their reasoning is as dark and murky as those toxic waters.

and their excuses are as flimsy as the roof of the superdome.

the good book warns that the bad people might not get punished on earth, but their judgment day will come.

and that wont be a blame game either.

it will be a day of acknowledging responsibility and accountability.

and the most ironic thing about these people who run around who call themselves Christians, is the good book is chock full of incompetent "leaders" who ascend to the throne through nefarious means

and the misery that these fools imposed through their bungling and evil.

when the old man said repent he meant you old man

and even the mule raised up his ears.

happy belated bday amylangfield.com + gaping void + tomdog has arrived + brett lamb

# | |

me: if i was president, just like if i was the Navy, i'd act first and ask questions later

scott: And we'd have a super-raging, red-hot volcanic debate over posse comitatus. Ten times worse than this petty BS finger-pointing right now. THAT would be an impeachable offense, even if BushCo manned a human chain and held the levees and saved every lost life in NOLA. Congress would be FORCED to impeach him.

+ + +

let me tell you a few things about being a leader.

a leader saves peoples lives and worries about his job later.

a leader cuts his vacation short when he sees that people of his nation are drowning and help is not in the way.

a leader is that help on the way.

the busblog definition of a leader is someone who brings the group to where they need to be.

george bush has never cared about being impeached, and the democrats dont have enough chutzpah to even try to impeach him.

he and his bros stole the election in 2000 and the dems didnt go after him. he and his bros lied about not knowing that terrorists would fly planes into buildings and the dems didnt go after him. he and his bros lied about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in iraq and iraqs threat to america and the dems didnt go after him.

bush and his bros challenged the ideas of torture in relation to the geneva conventions and the bro who questioned it the most might be our next supreme court justice. and yes, death and torture did happen in the prisons of iraq and gitmo and the president isnt in danger of being impeached.

so this limp defense of the president's inactions in new orleans last week that omg if he brought help or overstepped his bounds by saving lives might get him impeached is laughable to the point of being sad.

where BushCo is ruthless and selfish and hopeless and inept, the dems are pussy and silent and weak and timid and worthless.

and the losers of this slamdance of fucktards are americans and iraqis.

a real leader, a real president of the united states, whose number one concern was not his ass or his politics but his people would have flown to new orleans the day that he saw people floating in the water and brought the calvary.

period.

everyone knows that where the president goes, the heat comes with.

new orleans needed that heat.

yes sometimes shit stops when the president is around but thats because the president is a idiot and a pussy and inept. and those who vote for him repeatedly and support him are part of the problem, if not THE problem, but this isnt about them. today is about him.

a leader doesnt eat cake while people are screaming for help. a leader doesnt play guitar as people are drowning.

especially after 9/11. especially after what's happened to the economy and the deficit and the gas prices and the war and the budget cuts to the levees and the flood plain.

a leader says, just like he said at gitmo, what law, im going to fucking save the world, i dare you to impeach me for saving 10,000 people you fucking fucks, impeach me for saving lives and watch your party disappear.

a leader does what the group is either too afraid to do or too stuck in excuses to do. its why they say leaders rise to the top. its why they say leaders are born not made. its why they say follow the leader. its why i say mr bush is not a leader.

paris hilton is more of a leader than george bush.

i talk about the Daily Nexus a lot, my college paper. i ran for Editor-in-Chief my senior year and lost, but during the final portion we had to have an interview with the Press Council which were 5 members of various student organizations and the administration.

at one point they asked "what would you do if your staff wanted to do one thing, but you wanted to do the opposite?"

i said, "i would ask them to explain to me why they wanted to do it, and i would tell them that i would consider their idea, but if i felt that mine was better, i would lead us that way."

they said, "but dont you respect your team, what if they wanted to quit, what if they were offended?"

and i said, "there is a reason why we only have one Editor-in-Chief. it's not to go along with consensus, it's not to sit at the head of the figurehead table, it's to make the tough decisions, and sometimes the tough decisions means going against the group."

i lost by one vote, 2-3, but i would say exactly the same thing again, because i still believe it.

the president's job security is not more important than the lives and well being of those sufferring and dying in new orleans.

the lack of preparedness, the absense of government funding, the slow-as-molasses "resuce" effort, and the bungling of FEMA and the department of homeland security, and the horrendous lies by the president that brownie did a heck of a job and that the newspapers on tuesday said that new orleans dodged a bullet caused as many deaths as five 9/11s.

it caused as many deaths as five iraq wars.

this president has sat at the grownup table and ignored the august 2001 cia briefing that said that bin ladin was determined to strike inside the US and we had one 9/11

he attacked iraq and we lost as many US soldiers as another 9/11 and over 100,000 iraqis died.

in order to get re-elected he continued to cut taxes during wartime and part of the monies that werent collected were supposed to go to the levees and the flood plains and the result was five 9/11s.

at some point the leader takes responsibility for what happened on his watch, be it something he did directly like lead us into a false war, cut taxes for programs that would have saved lives, or played it safe and not immediately aid the devistation of one of his cities.

at some point the followers call bullshit on the leader.

this is that point.

im sick of 9/11s.

im sick of not having a leader.

im sick of this figurehead never taking responsibility for anything.

im sick of this administration only being punk rock when it has to do with denying things to gays and women and our military and political prisoners and those in disaster areas screaming out for help.

the democratic party isnt the one that impeaches presidents over bullshit. thats the other party. the democratic party doesnt impeach anyone but themselves.

the american people are the ones who need to stop acting like the democratic party and sit on thier hands and watch this government splooge on themselves as they fuck up time after time.

new orleans was a fuck up from the ground up. and at some point the president needed to say ok im taking over for a minute because i am seeing that this red tape is strangling people. impeach my ass later but now im gonna show you how its done.

but we dont have a leader in america

although we have plenty of sheep

and now we have 10,000 more dead people.

people are dead and others worry about finger pointing?

this country doesnt have enough leaders or sense and i dont have enough middle fingers.

pdf of the dallas morning news on 8/30/05 + mark + alecia + sploid redesign + impeach bush

# | |

i dont mind being lied to,

"oh tony it's soooo big, i dont think it will fit!"

"no tony your house isnt that messy, ive seen way worse"

"no really, i'm 19."

in fact one could say that the older you get the more you get used to lies and the lying liars.

"lease this car for just $199 a month."

"i'll call you right back."

"i'm a libertarian."

but the other day, in the midst of the worst national disaster in the history of our country a bunch of high ranking officials lied right through their teeth and the president didnt call bullshit, the press didnt call bullshit, not even the worlds most popular blogger the instapundit called bullshit

and their lack of bullshit calling sorta makes you think that maybe they were all in on it or dont want to talk about it, but since i dont believe in conspiracy theories i'll pretend that they were all too busy donating to the red cross or something.

anyway here was the lie: on Sunday morning when everyone was at church the chief of Homeland Security told Tim Russert on Meet The Press that the reason that the feds were so slow to rush to New Orleans was because of what he had read in the papers "I remember on Tuesday morning picking up newspapers and I saw headlines, 'New Orleans Dodged The Bullet.'"

First of all, does Homeland Security decide how it's going to handle its affairs not by what it sees on CNN, the Weather Channel, or a variety of newschannels - but waits for the paper to come out? And doesnt it have, oh I dont know, PEOPLE that it could talk to who are, you know, in the effected areas?

But more importantly, what fucking paper did Chertoff read? as Wonkette pointed out the other day, here are the headlines that morning from the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Washington Times, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

no headlines saying new orleans dodged a bullet.

in fact thanks to the wonders of the interweb theres even a website that archives a huge number of newspaper covers every day.

for example, here is page of todays headlines

here is the page of the headlines on 9/12/01

and here is the one from the morning that Homeland Security chief Chertoff was talking about

no headline that screams New Orleans Dodged The Bullet.

in fact there are 477 newspapers archived on that day. none that say what he says they said.

ok that wouldnt be such a big deal if General Richard Myers hadn't said almost exactly the same thing two days ago, Tuesday, in a press conference with Donald Rumsfield

The headline, of course, in most of the country's papers on Tuesday were 'New Orleans dodged a bullet,' or words to that effect. At that time, when those words were in our minds, we started working issues before we were asked.

wait, what? so you read these mysterious papers that said all was well and with those words in your feeble little minds you started working on issues?

what fucking issues? either you read a paper that said everything was chill and you chilled or you really read the papers and knew that shit was fucked. but dont lie to us and say that most of the nation's papers said things were chilled, General, because any dipwad with even basic cable knew it wasnt and anyone who was reading anything other than the Weekly World News knew that the Gulf Coast was toast.

my buddy Dan called me up last night and we were talking about this storm and he said that the interesting thing about it is that with it's 150+ MPH winds it lifted the rock that the Republicans hide under

and when that rock was pulled up we have seen all the slime and much and dreck that wiggles in there.

we have seen the President mosey his way to the affected area, we have seen his mother say that since the evacuees are poor theyre better off homeless in the astrodome, we have seen the bush cronies at FEMA bungle and turn away help, we have seen the Navy reprimand heroic pilots who actually fucking saved 100+ people,

and now he says, we are seeing the right wing bloggers and red state supporters defend this adminstration as they drop the ball and lie and lie and lie.

the rock has indeed been lifted my friends, and not even the investigation that the president yesterday proposed that he will launch on himself (which now, thankfully will be bi-partisan) will help him dodge this bullet.

new orleans was devistated with a one-two punch indeed. first nature nailed it, and then this administration sat on its hands for five days and watched people drown and starve and suffer and kill each other.

ive lived through many miserable times in my life, but the more this tragedy sinks in and the more rock gets pulled away the sicker i get inside, and i dont even care that people think this is a political blog, which we all know it isnt.

this is a pissed off blog thats only getting pissier and if youre not mad as hell youre not paying attention.

zulieka + political mania + buzzmachine + aint no bad dude

# | |

the Stiff cover contest

as you know, later this month i will be releasing my third self-published book.

the first one, Blook sold about 100 copies and people were sorta bummed out that it looked more like a college reader than a book

so How To Blog was released almost a year ago and about 250 copies were sold, partially because it looked like a real book, but probably because it was pretty damn good.

in a few weeks i will be offerring Stiff, which are mostly posts from 2002-2003 of entirely fictional material where i die, meet Kurt Kobain and go to Hell.

i can easilly say that those stories are my finest collection of fiction ive ever written. it has a real beginning, a real center, and a real end. they arent just posts thrown together with some sort of faint storyline, theyre all meant to be read as a whole. theyre creative, weird, and unlike anything that ive written lately.

in addition to that tale, i have included about 20 of my best poems. yes, i know poetry isnt what the kids are into much nowadays, but a thousand years ago when i was running around they were all the rage. i majored in poetry in college, and most of these poems are from those days. several have been published in fancy publications, and i must say that they have held up over the years and arent like the shit that passes for poetry today.

straight up.

id have this book out right now but i have one problem, i dont have a cover that im happy with.

i tried to do something with karisa on the cover but it didnt work out. i tried working with an artist today, but that fell through, and i thought about going to you but for some reason i didnt because i wanted it out Fast, but now my better judgement is telling me that i can wait a week, and i should hold a contest: this contest

the Design the Cover for Stiff Contest!

heres what you do: create an image for my new book.

attatch it as a file and email it to this weirdo email address: tony.stiff.contest@buzznet.com, no entries sent to my real email address will be accepted. if you have questions put them in the comments of this post. that email address is only for submissions.

the book will be 5" x 8" so the image needs to be 1650 x 2550 at 250 dpi

the winner will get their name in the book, a month of primo linkage to their blog (or to their favorite blog) on the busblog, two copies of Stiff, and a cash prize of $66.66!!!

the contest will end on Tuesday Sept 13, so get to work!

heres my only bit of advice: CafePress will not allow me to sell a book whose image has a picture of a famous person or famous artwork, so no pics of Kurt.

good luck! and to those of you who are just watching, you can see the entries as they appear in my Buzznet gallery here

enter early and often!

# | |

for the people who think im a bush-hater, let me make one thing perfectly clear, i dont hate our president.

allow me to explain.

i love pot.

marijuana, mary jane, cheeba, weed, chronic

green sticky purple haired wacky tobbacky.

love it.

i love the smell, i love the taste, i love its looks,

i love the culture, i love the sharing, i love people who smoke it, i love its resin, i love its paraphenalia, i love its high.

i love smelling pot in the bag, i love packing it into a bowl, i love lighting it, i love the sound that the water makes as it gurgles as i take a rip, i love inhaling, i love exhaling

i love exhaling it into the mouth of a pretty girl and i love to watch her close her eyes as she holds it

i love the sound of one holding and failing slightly - gnk - cough - gnk.

i love laughing and laughing and laughing at laughing.

i love hotboxing, i love rolling joints, i love finding weed, i love being passed joints, i love songs about weed, i love references about weed, i love the variety of uses for weed/hemp, i love the many ways to call weed weed. i love looking at the clock and noticing when it says 4:20.

got it?

k.

but at some point i had to really look at pot and what it was doing to me and i had to make the adult decision that it was hurting me more than it was helping me, it was costing me money without giving me much of a high any more, and it was slowly and surely killing me and putting me in danger.

so i acted like a grown up and quit.

i saw it was bad for me, i stoped, and in no way does that make me a hater.

similarily i ask you to look at your relationship, bush supporters, to this president, and ask yourself the same thing

is this president the leader that you expect from the most powerful man in america. is he causing you more headaches than joy. is he as effective as he should be considering the fact that he has a republican congress and a republican supreme court and support from most of the media for the exception of the nyt, the wapo, and for a few hours a day cbs?

are you truly in support of this president's actions or have you just gotten into a habit of supporting republicans no matter what theyre doing to your well-being?

you can love bush like i love weed but ask yourself what it will take for you to kick the habit.

it took me 5 years of smoking and not getting high for me to realize that i was just going through the motions of smoking without receiving that euphoria, that benefit, that kick.

has george bush given you what you expect from the president's office since 9/11 or have you just let him off the hook year after year after year?

i was not in the biggest defict of my life because of weed, i was not vilified by the world because of my habit, i am in good health and i was in good health, but at some point i took a long look at what i was doing and i made the conscious decision to stop it.

i kicked the habit.

i invite you to kick this habit of voting republican and supporting whoever does whatever regardless of what they do, because it is simply a habit which perhaps once was useful, but the thrill is gone.

america its time to get off the pipe.

katrina timeline + em + rabbit blog + mathieu

# | |

Yesterday Matt Good said that I had just written the post of the week, but I'm happy to say that he was wrong.

That acclaim should go to Keith Olbermann who has successfully transitioned from being one of the best and funniest sports commentators to being one of the best and biting political commentators.

video here, transcript below.

The "city" of Louisiana, by Keith Olbermann, MSNBC

SECAUCUS — Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said it all, starting his news briefing Saturday afternoon: "Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater..."

Well there's your problem right there.

If ever a slip-of-the-tongue defined a government's response to a crisis, this was it.

The seeming definition of our time and our leaders had been their insistence on slashing federal budgets for projects that might’ve saved New Orleans. The seeming characterization of our government that it was on vacation when the city was lost, and could barely tear itself away from commemorating V.J. Day and watching Monty Python's Flying Circus, to at least pretend to get back to work. The seeming identification of these hapless bureaucrats: their pathetic use of the future tense in terms of relief they could’ve brought last Monday and Tuesday — like the President, whose statements have looked like they’re being transmitted to us by some kind of four-day tape-delay.

But no. The incompetence and the ludicrous prioritization will forever be symbolized by one gaffe by of the head of what is ironically called “The Department of Homeland Security”: “Louisiana is a city…”

Politician after politician — Republican and Democrat alike — has paraded before us, unwilling or unable to shut off the "I-Me" switch in their heads, condescendingly telling us about how moved they were or how devastated they were — congenitally incapable of telling the difference between the destruction of a city and the opening of a supermarket.

And as that sorry recital of self-absorption dragged on, I have resisted editorial comment. The focus needed to be on the efforts to save the stranded — even the internet's meager powers were correctly devoted to telling the stories of the twin disasters, natural... and government-made.

But now, at least, it is has stopped getting exponentially worse in Mississippi and Alabama and New Orleans and Louisiana (the state, not the city). And, having given our leaders what we know now is the week or so they need to get their act together, that period of editorial silence I mentioned, should come to an end.

No one is suggesting that mayors or governors in the afflicted areas, nor the federal government, should be able to stop hurricanes. Lord knows, no one is suggesting that we should ever prioritize levee improvement for a below-sea-level city, ahead of $454 million worth of trophy bridges for the politicians of Alaska.

But, nationally, these are leaders who won re-election last year largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe. These are leaders who regularly pressure the news media in this country to report the reopening of a school or a power station in Iraq, and defies its citizens not to stand up and cheer. Yet they couldn't even keep one school or power station from being devastated by infrastructure collapse in New Orleans — even though the government had heard all the "chatter" from the scientists and city planners and hurricane centers and some group whose purposes the government couldn't quite discern... a group called The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection — or at least amelioration — against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological.

It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.

Mr. Bush has now twice insisted that, "we are not satisfied," with the response to the manifold tragedies along the Gulf Coast. I wonder which "we" he thinks he's speaking for on this point. Perhaps it's the administration, although we still don't know where some of them are. Anybody seen the Vice President lately? The man whose message this time last year was, 'I'll Protect You, The Other Guy Will Let You Die'?

I don't know which 'we' Mr. Bush meant.

For many of this country's citizens, the mantra has been — as we were taught in Social Studies it should always be — whether or not I voted for this President — he is still my President. I suspect anybody who had to give him that benefit of the doubt stopped doing so last week. I suspect a lot of his supporters, looking ahead to '08, are wondering how they can distance themselves from the two words which will define his government — our government — "New Orleans."

For him, it is a shame — in all senses of the word. A few changes of pronouns in there, and he might not have looked so much like a 21st Century Marie Antoinette. All that was needed was just a quick "I'm not satisfied with my government's response." Instead of hiding behind phrases like "no one could have foreseen," had he only remembered Winston Churchill's quote from the 1930's. "The responsibility," of government, Churchill told the British Parliament "for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact, the prime object for which governments come into existence."

In forgetting that, the current administration did not merely damage itself — it damaged our confidence in our ability to rely on whoever is in the White House.

As we emphasized to you here all last week, the realities of the region are such that New Orleans is going to be largely uninhabitable for a lot longer than anybody is yet willing to recognize. Lord knows when the last body will be found, or the last artifact of the levee break, dug up. Could be next March. Could be 2100. By then, in the muck and toxic mire of New Orleans, they may even find our government's credibility.

Somewhere, in the City of Louisiana.


police and thieves + crooks and liars + that colored fella + ktimes

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FEMA: Fire Every Motherfucker Associated

From the How Could It Get Any Worse files - The help that FEMA has actually accepted, namely the 1,000 firefighters who have left their communities to volunteer with the relief effort in New Orleans,

are now being asked NOT to save people trapped, or administer aid to the sick and dying, but to act as reps for FEMA by passing out the phone number to FEMA

and to stand behind the President for his photo ops!

Salt Lake Tribune, 9/6:

ATLANTA - Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?"

As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.

Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.

Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.

...

Also of concern to some of the firefighters is the cost borne by their municipalities in the wake of their absence. Cities are picking up the tab to fill the firefighters' vacancies while they work 30 days for the federal government.

"There are all of these guys with all of this training and we're sending them out to hand out a phone number," an Oregon firefighter said. "They [the hurricane victims] are screaming for help and this day [of FEMA training] was a waste."

Firefighters say they want to brave the heat, the debris-littered roads, the poisonous cottonmouth snakes and fire ants and travel into pockets of Louisiana where many people have yet to receive emergency aid.

But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.

Heck of a job, Bushie.

h/t Metafilter + raymi + LA you can donate at the Dream Center

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people wanna lay blame regarding this disaster and others are nervous about it, and i think i know why some arent sure about getting into it.

because at some point the blame is going to be directed at those who really deserve it.

ourselves.

its not really Bush's fault, entirely, that he didnt feel it necessary to go to new orleans earlier, or stay longer, or get more done while he was there. sure hes a dipshit, but he's been supported by a majority of the american public for the last five years with nary a bullshit yelled from the crowd.

abu ghraib happened, you let it slide. no wmds were found, you let it go. obl is flipping through his tivo - youre all, no big deal. theres a reporter Still in jail over RoveGate and you've totally forgotten it.

gas is over $3, youre like, thats not bush's fault. theres a civil war happening in iraq right now, but you'll swear thats not george's fault. reporters are paid off by the white house, and a gay hooker is discovered getting a day pass into the west wing for a year and youre all whatev.

so yes, many of you have enabled this bush behavoir of incompentence.

which means, i hate to say it, America, that destruction, that death, that misery, that bullshit that went down in New Orleans, thats not

just

Brownie's fault, FEMAs fault, the dipshits at the Department of Homeland Securty's fault

its youre fault.

you voted for Bush.

twice!

Bush was the one who sent our troops AND our national guardsmen to Iraq for a war based on lies and phantom wmds.

Bush was the one who slashed the budgets of the levee funding and the flood control funding so the rich could retain their tax cuts and so the war in iraq could continue.

Bush was the one who undid Clinton's plan of having FEMA be a cabinet level department. Bush demoted it so it could fit underneath the DHS.

Bush invented the DHS and sold it to us under the terms that in times of crisis there would be Less red tape so that if there was a terror attack or a disaster the DHS could oversee and manage all the aspects of saving lives and protecting the citizens.

in fact we gave up huge chunks of personal liberties so that the DHS could better serve us. ask those getting searched in subways. ask those taking off their shoes at airports.

sadly this storm has shown us that we are not safer or being any better served.

yes its Bush's fault, in part, but Bush wouldnt have ever had a chance to hire Brownie, or demote FEMA, or create the DHS, or invade Iraq, or still be in Iraq if the majority of US voters hadnt voted for this genius.

if you have a Bush/Cheeney sticker on your SUV, the blood of New Orleans is on your hands.

straight up.

go ahead and try to blame the mayor of new orleans. go ahead and keep showing us those school busses in that flooded parking lot and you try and pretend that that one lot could have solved all the problems of the broken levee.

go ahead and try to pretend that those school busses were the reason for the panic and chaos and dumbfuckery and mahem and rape and murder and cops quitting on the job and help not arriving for nearly a week.

i'll meet you half way right now and say, fine, fire the mayor. will you say fire the president?

the first term of the Bush administration was one of the biggest jokes of all time. the economy tanked in that he took the biggest surplus ever and dumbfucked it into the biggest deficit ever. he took the biggest outpouring of international support after 9/11 and turned it into worldwide hatred after we invaded iraq. and he refused to persue the real terrorist center, saudi arabia, home of 15 of the 19 terrorists involved in 9/11 and osama bin ladin, who was still on the loose. and to cap off that spectacular run, he took part in a video where he jokingly looked for wmds under a couch in the white house.

he ran against a 20yr senator who was a decorated war hero who swore to be fiscially responsible, enviornmentally concious, and true to the ideal of the seperation of church and state.

but you, america, voted to give your dumbass a second shot at cowboy quartback.

mostly because he promised to keep gay people from being married.

as a matter of fact, you came out in droves to make sure that gay people wouldnt be allowed to be married.

do you have the courage to admit that we dont have a leader, and youre to blame?

or will you continue to pass the buck and point elsewhere.

just like the mayor of new orleans, you didnt prepare properly for disaster, you didnt make the right call, and your representative has continued to drop the ball just like he fumbled for the last five years.

this president has often been criticized as not being able to admit when he's wrong. even during the debates he was asked to talk about any mistake that he had made during his first term and he couldnt do it.

are you, america, ready to admit you made a mistake, or will you continue to mimic your boy and pretend that youre blameless - that its not your fault or his fault, its the fault of the person he hired.

you hired the president and he hired everyone on his team pre 9/11. nobody was fired post 9/11. and then you didnt fire him.

you rehired the president and he hired everyone on his team pre katrina

just like post 9/11 there should have been wholesale terminations, starting at the top, begining with those who got the PDB titled "bin laden determined to strike in the us" who then ignored it.

therefore post katrina there should be wholesale terminations, starting at the top, begining with those who knew of the likihood of this devistation in the wake of the hurricane, including those who refused to take charge of the multi-state national disaster, including those who let school busses get parked in unusable lots

and including those who played his lyre and ate cake as a goodly portion of his nation drowned.

katrina is simply just one more notch on the bush bedpost of failure

how many more will you allow until you

yes, you,

stop it.

you are not powerless on a roof unable to make change

you are the people of the united states of america

the greatest country in the world

you deserve better.

but before you will get it, you need to do what your president refuses to do

you need to start firing people.

and you know where you need to start.

jack bog + sean bonner + fil + krista

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open discussion



i have said a lot over the last few days.
some of which i even regret: when i lashed out at Robert, below.
(since then we have patched things up.)
but one thing i havent done is allow you, the readers,
to just say whatever it is you want.
so i'll just give you a chance to link to
or say whatever you want.
all i ask is you be respectful of each other.

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when theyre not drinking, listening to npr, or reading all those confounded books, my pals sk smith and dan are... whats this... volunteering?!?!

apparently busloads of evacuees from the gulf coast made it to Austin on Saturday night and sk and her man were not only nice enough to be there but good enough to write a few paragraphs about it

yes it was just a little thing, but every little bit counts. im sure that there are thousands of little stories like this, if not tens of thousands, but heres one.

a portion:

On Saturday night Dan and I were watching a horrible rerun of Saturday Night Live and mostly falling asleep on the couch when an emergency message scrawled across the bottom of the television screen. A hundred volunteers were urgently needed at the Convention Center downtown—evacuees were coming in by the busload and a large number were expected around 5am, and the Red Cross needed people to set up cots. I mentioned this to Dan, who wasn’t really paying attention, in the hopes that he would let us both off the hook by saying “Enh, let’s just go tomorrow.” But no, he is a Boy Scout, and so we put on our shoes and hoofed it down to the Convention Center.

When we got there, the line at the volunteer sign-in was maybe 10 people deep. By the time we were signed in, the line stretched all the way outside, and the Statesman later reported that over 400 people showed up. As a Red Cross coordinator led away my little group of volunteers, we walked past this incredible line, and it was a lovely thing indeed to see that the only thing these people had in common was that they were all homebodies who’d been spending their Saturday night watching television. Collegiate Asian hipsters, middle-aged Hispanic women, young black couples…I was relieved to see it wasn’t just a bunch of bleeding-heart KLRU subscribers ministering to the poor and disenfranchised.

as the good professor says, read the whole thing

buzznet and the mississip sun-hearld have teamed up + blog of the year + destroying FEMA

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four new busblog items for charity



ladies ringer (pictured) + men's baseball shirt + mug + t-shirt

all profits will go to the Red Cross


to read the latest on the busblog click here

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"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" - President Bush on 9/2 to FEMA Director Michael Brown (pictured, pointing)

uh...what?

Even right-wing cheerleader Michelle Malkin is calling Brown "utterly clueless" while calling for his head... but Michelle if Brownie is clueless and deserving of a resignation, then what's Bushie for not only hiring him but complimenting him on Friday?

While we wait for that answer, here's a rundown on some troubling news that came out yesterday, followed by some good news.

But first watch this clip from today's Meet The Press of a grown man who has had enough and cant even keep it together any more based on what you will read below, and after you watch it you should ask yourself why is the president still in washington, and moreso, why are we still allowing him to be our leader now that it has become absolutely plain that he cannot help us when we need help or where we need help.

He hired Brown, who had no experience. He sent the Nat'l Guard to Iraq where there were no WMDs, he flew away from the South a day after the hurricane, and he still hasnt stepped foot in New Orleans as people continue to literally drown in his failures.

9/3 Chicago Sun-Times: "Daley 'shocked' as feds reject aid"
All FEMA allowed them to send was one tank

(Chicago) Mayor (Richard) Daley said the city offered 36 member s of the firefighters' technical rescue teams, eight emergency medical technicians, search-and-rescue equipment, more than 100 police officers as well as police vehicles and two boats, 29 clinical and 117 non-clinical health workers, a mobile clinic and eight trained personnel, 140 Streets and Sanitation workers and 29 trucks, plus other supplies.

9/3 RedCross.org: Red Cross Not Allowed in New Orleans

Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

9/3 AFP: Angry LA Senator accuses President Bush's visit as a Staged, Phoney "Photo-Op"

Perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street Levee.

Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe.

Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity.

The desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment.

9/3 Race has nothing to do with this? Army Times, Brig. Gen Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force told the Army Times on Friday that hundreds of armed troops were going to "take this city back"

"This place is going to look like Little Somalia," he said. "We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control."

9/3 CNN.com DHS Has Failed to Release Nine Stockpiles of Emergency Gear

Nine stockpiles of fire-and-rescue equipment strategically placed around the country to be used in the event of a catastrophe still have not been pressed into service in New Orleans... The gear -- including generators, radios, breathing apparatus, cots and other items -- is stockpiled by DHS in nine locations. The three closest to New Orleans are College Station, Texas; Columbia, S.C.; and Clearwater, Fla. The gear is intended to replenish or sustain up to 150 first responders.

Contractors who maintain the gear are required to transport it to a disaster site no later than 12 hours after the initial request is made by local authorities and approved by DHS.

9/3 NO Times-Picayune: Tons of Food Delayed When Bush Arrived

Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush’s visit to New Orleans, officials said.

The provisions, secured by U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, and state Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom, baked in the afternoon sun as Bush surveyed damage across southeast Louisiana five days after Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 storm, said Melancon’s chief of staff, Casey O’Shea.

9/3 DailyKos: NorthCom had millions of meals and supplies available, but no order from the President to deploy

A: Now I'm sure you're aware of the criticism that the authorities have been slow to respond to this. When did you get the order to start relied work?

K: NorthCom started planning before the storm even hit. We were ready for the storm when it hit Florida because, as you remember, it crossed the bottom part of Florida, and then we were plaining, you know, once it was pointed towards the Gulf Coast. So what we did was we activated what we call defense coordinating officers to work with the state to say okay, what do you think you'll need, and we set up staging bases that could be started. We had the USS Baton sailing almost behind the hurricane so that after the hurricane made landfall it's search and rescue helicopters would be available almost immediately. So we had things ready. The only caveat is, we have to wait until the President authorizes us to do so. The laws of the United States say that the military can't just act in this fashion, we have to wait for the President to give us permission.

9/3 AP: Federal Paperwork Stalled Nat. Guard Response

Several states ready and willing to send National Guard troops to the rescue in New Orleans didn't get the go-ahead until days after the storm struck — a delay nearly certain to be investigated by Congress.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state's National Guard last Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn't come from Washington until late Thursday.

8/17/04 SP Times Hours After Hurricane Charley Hit FLA, Bush Approved Aid to Bush

Gov. Jeb Bush sought federal help Friday while Charley was still in the Gulf of Mexico. President Bush approved the aid about an hour after the hurricane made landfall.

By Monday afternoon, the cavalry seemed to be in place.

Heroes

9/1 Houston Chronicle 20yr-old Jabbar Gibson drives school bus packed with flood victims from NO to Houston

Jabbar Gibson, 20, said police in New Orleans told him and others to take the school bus and try to get out of the flooded city.

Gibson drove the bus from the flooded Crescent City, picking up stranded people, some of them infants, along the way. Some of those on board had been in the Superdome, among those who were supposed to be evacuated to Houston on more than 400 buses Wednesday and today. They couldn't wait.

The group of mostly teenagers and young adults pooled what little money they had to buy diapers for the babies and fuel for the bus.

After arriving at the Astrodome at about 10:30 p.m., however, they initially were refused entry by Reliant officials who said the aging landmark was reserved for the 23,000 people being evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome.

"Now, we don't have nowhere to go," Gibson said. "We heard the Astrodome was open for people from New Orleans. We ain't ate right, we ain't slept right. They don't want to give us no help. They don't want to let us in."

9/3 CNN: Foul Mouthed 3 Star General - the Black John Wayne (more on IronMouth)

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin calls Lt. Gen. Russel Honore a "John Wayne dude" who can "get some stuff done."

"He came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing and people started moving," Nagin said.

Getting food and water to the people at the city's convention center was a difficult process, Honore said.

"If you ever have 20,000 people come to supper, you know what I'm talking about. If it's easy, it would have been done already."

9/3 Video of Normal People with Boats Volunteering to Help

Strange Bedfellows

9/3 CNN: Castro Offers To Send 1,100 Doctors and 26 tons of medicine and equipment.

"Others have sent money; we are offering to save lives," (Fidel) Castro said.

Castro -- an enemy of U.S. President George W. Bush and frequent subject of condemnation from the White House -- said he would not comment on the U.S. government's response to the tragedy because "this is not the time to kick an adversary -- while he's down."

donate blood via red cross + Flickr Photo Auction for Katrina + "bureaucracy has committed murder here"

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