oh, CNN hurricane coverage, you may be the death of me yet.

“If there were a fire here (in Beaumont, TX), would you be able to respond?”

“Oh, absolutely not.”
(Beaumont Fire Chief, 2 hours to eye landfall)

Where does one go for a well-accessorized crotch?

to you football people: announcers keep referring to “gadget” plays. why the hell can’t they just call them what they are, trick plays, anymore?

So, is this what it feels like to be published? Or this?

Reporting on the “Freedom Walk” yesterday from the Pentagon to the Mall, the New York Times’ Glen Justice and John Files noticed a few notes of discord. One lady had her anti-war sign taken away, and a protester along the march route held up a “Bush is a liar” sign, to be met by “USA” chants — coached by Allison Barber, a Rumsfeld aide. And there was also this:

One man who registered for the walk was detained by a Pentagon police officer after he slipped a black hood over his head and produced a sign that read, ‘Freedom?’

The other side said:

For Them, For Us, For Our Troops: Never Again
Support the McCain and Levin Amendments

I know, because that’s the side I displayed first.

(via Amygdala.

Help Working Assets and The League of Independent Voters put this billboard up outside Grover Norquist’s office, where dozens of conservative leaders meet weekly.

(via Amygdala, an amazingly broad survey of coverage of hurricane coverage from around the web)

LJ user Sisyphus Shrugged presents the Claude Raines Memorial Gambling Awareness Awards. . . .

TIME magazine “reveals discrepancies in the FEMA chief’s official biographies“.

The White House press release from 2001 stated that Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 “overseeing the emergency services division.” In fact, according to Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, Brown was an “assistant to the city manager” from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself, and had no authority over other employees. “The assistant is more like an intern,” she told TIME.

Mark Schmitt at TPM Cafe says, however, that that’s not the point—Even if every single thing on Brown’s resume was true, it was still an obviously pathetic set of qualifications to run a major federal agency. (Also at The Decembrist.)

The Blotter, the blog of Minneapolis/St Paul weekly paper City Pages, is among a laundry list of sites reproducing the story of two paramedics and a horde of others being prevented from leaving New Orleans. They also have the story of a journalist who had to stay in NO to deliver a baby. (via Common Monkeyflower)

one quick quote before i go to bed:

an online poll currently running on al-Jazeera asks this question: “Have your views of the capabilities of the United States changed after the Katrina hurricane?” With almost 30,000 responses already, 68% say yes and 32% no.

— Abu Aardvark (via Homais)

The United Nations, confirming with statistics what many already knew: some parts of the US are doing more poorly than even the third world.

And a number of polls show Bush’s approval rating the lowest it’s ever been.

Oh, yeah, the Pitt football team suck ass this year. And not in that happy-fun-time way. Gave up 500+ yards to Notre Dame. Lost to Ohio, a team that was last in the MAC last year. Pitt looked good for one series, in the last minute of regulation, out of which they got a whole field goal. Their only touchdown came on the opening kickoff return, while both Ohio’s touchdowns came on returns of Ty Palko interceptions. . . .

Pitt are 0-2 for the first time since Palko was born. He should get a series or two next week to not suck, and then he should be benched. Pitt’s been trying to get Wannstedt for five or ten years, but I have no idea why. He should get a one or two more games to make them not suck, and then he should be gone. Defending Big East champions, or Pop Warner champs?

Thomas L Friedman, on Grover Norquist, the conservative commentator behind many of the Administration’s strange ideas on taxes, who has said he doesn’t want to abolish government, just starve it till he can kill it with his own hands: “I hope he owns property around the New Orleans levee that was never properly finished because of a lack of tax dollars. I hope his basement got flooded. And I hope that he was busy drowning government in his bathtub when the levee broke and that he had to wait for a U.S. Army helicopter to get out of town.”

Copied wholesale from YpsiDixit:

FILING A DISASTER CLAIM ONLINE: from FEMA: You tell me if traumatized homeless people can deal with this ridiculously complicated procedure:

Create an account (requires MS IE 6.0 or higher) [this eliminates Ypsidixit, who has IE5 -ed.]
You will get a PIN and password, via e-mail
You must wait 24 hours after receiving your PIN and Password to return to the Individual Assistance Center (IAC) to check your registration.
In most cases, you will find your application and that means you do not need to register again. If you do not see your application AND it has been at least 24 hours since you received your pin and password, we recommend registering again. However, if you do not wait 24 hours before re-registering, multiple registrations may be recorded and that will delay processing your case….

If you don’t have access to a computer, you can phone them and they’ll send an application packet to your mailing address–if you still have one.

And just when you think they can’t get any lower….

Can you say ‘recusal‘? Apparently John Roberts can’t. . . .

“On Monday, September 12th, between the hours of 5:00pm and 7:00pm, bar customers across the nation will raise their glasses for a “Save New Orleans Cocktail Hour” as bar and restaurant owners shake up New Orleans’ classic cocktails to directly benefit New Orleans food and beverage industry workers who are out of work and sorely in need of funds for rebuilding their lives.” (via a later date)

Cal economics prof Brad DeLong suggests that maybe future presidential candidates should actually have some skill in public administration.

That story about FEMA director Mike Brown having been fired from his last job, as head of judging for the International Arabian Horse Association? The Boston Herald has details.

Penn State literature and cultural studies prof Michael Bérubé renames a few key players in the ‘recovery’.

The Rude Pundit takes A God’s Eye View of Recent Events: “[T]he hurricane and its vengeful aftermath are not God’s penance on New Orleans and Biloxi for the sins of sex and gambling. For God is far wiser than that. No, Hurricane Katrina was God’s way of wrecking the Republican agenda.” (The link on ‘agenda’ in the original post, while very pretty, crashed Opera. Twice. Beware.)

“Although it remained well away from North America, Isaac generated waves that capsized a boat off Long Island, and one of the passengers drowned.”

On this date in history:

• 1877: Crazy Horse bayoneted to death by a US soldier.
• 1949: Howard Unruh becomes the first single-episode mass murderer in US history, killing thirteen neighbors with a souvenir Luger. He’s still alive, apparently, and lives in a mental hospital in New Jersey.
• 1972: Palestinian terrorists attack Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.
• 1975: Manson Family member Lynette Fromme attacks President Gerald Ford with an unloaded pistol. Currently imprisoned in Texas after escaping prison in 1987, she’s scheduled to be released today.
• 1986: Pan Am Flight 73 is hijacked on the tarmac at Karachi airport
• 2004: Ivan becomes a hurricane.

(via Wikipedia)

Google Maps has posted satellite pictures taken Wednesday morning over New Orleans. Here’s the Superdome.

over at Common Monkeyflower, U-M urban planning student Murph has some interesting ruminations on the rebuilding of New Orleans—whether it should be done at all, f’rinstance. Sensible coastal policies as the 21st century version of building codes?; Abandoning NOLA, revised; The suburbia of rebuilding.

Language Log’s Mark Liberman, on whether Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff is pulling a Clinton.