The "give us your social security number and T-shirt size and we'll let you walk down a fenced-in path like the Running of the Bulls without the Bulls" Freedom Walk went off without a hitch yesterday. I'm sure the administration was sorely disappointed that the significance and patriotism-swelling aspects of the event were overshadowed by the natural disastery events of the past weeks. They could really use a diversion of some kind at the moment, given all the bad press, so look for the start of our war with North Korea in the next few weeks (with the hopes of a decisive obliteration of the entire country within two to three days). Unfortunately, Kim Jong-Il has a super-human brain and has already discovered the plot and fled to a remote outpost in Venezuela -- a country we won't have the resources to eradicate and sink beneath sea level for at least six months. We will triumph eventually though -- gas is only twelve cents a gallon there, and Exxon finds that unacceptable.

I like watching the fallout that occurs when politicians of all stripes put their feet in their mouths. This time around, it's Louisiana Representative Richard H. Baker, who supposedly said, "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did.". Close by, vying for airtime was Rick Santorum trying to blame the lack of warning wholely on the National Weather Service (It took me multiple tries to crop the image on the right because Photoshop couldn't handle the smarmy politician grin and kept crashing). It seems pretty clear to me that he's just using the excuse to push his bill that would privatize weather forecasting and prevent the National Weather Service from giving the information out for free. I guess this wasn't enough warning for Mr. Santorum:

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

...DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...

HURRICANE KATRINA...A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER.

AT LEAST HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED...ALL WINDOWS WILL BE BLOWN OUT.

THE VAST MAJORITY...OF TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

The National Weather Service countered the accusation with their own press release touting their new Global Warming educational packet which uses Santorum's face as a visual aid -- his forehead playing the part of the melting icecaps and his toupée in the role of the receding shorelines.

Another fun read is General Stonewall McClellan's toe-ing of the party line on FEMA:.

On the other hand, I don't think it was a big deal that Wolf Blitzer said the victims were "so poor and so black" on a live CNN report. I see it as simply an unfortunate slip of the tongue -- anyone who has watched a newscaster try to report on a sensational story live knows that they generally don't have a clue about the word-turds roiling out of their mouth, and they're lucky to form a single coherent thought 50% of the time (one newscaster recently said that the Corp of Engineers "performed a miracle" by moving water from the city of New Orleans into the nearby lake. Truly God-like, I agree). Yes, all newscasters should just the hell up, but no, Wolf's quote wasn't inherently racist.

In unrelated news, the Hokies won 45-0 over Duke. I didn't get to watch the game (work beckoned) but I'm sure I would have gotten bored around halftime.

Happy Birthday Becky!

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