Yesterday I attended a 2nd annual golf outing, sponsored by a document storage company that we do business with. The weather was great, but we must have played the slowest round of golf in the history of the world. We returned to the clubhouse to find every single other golfer seated and watching prizes being drawn. They had even finished dinner already. We’re still not sure exactly why it took us so long, but no matter. It was at a private country club, got us some free food and beer, plus some golf junk.

Our Grief Is Not Special - a speech made by Robert Jensen. This CounterPunch piece finally says what needed to be said years ago, even right after September 11th happened. Yes, we tragically lost some 3,000 individuals that day, but those lives were no more important than other lives around the world. I think one statistic he cites says it the best: 12,000 children died in Africa on September 10, 2001 - from poverty-related diseases. That’s one day, and four times as many lives lost. 500 children dying per hour from the conditions they face every day. I too have found it awfully self-centered and even narcissistic that we continue to reflect on 9/11 as though it were a tragedy that no other country has faced before, or could even comprehend. If Americans would get over themselves and quit thinking their wealth and culture make them more important than everyone else, perhaps we could start viewing humanity as inclusive of people beyond our coastlines.

How Bush Blew It - a Newsweek story. In this piece, there’s further evidence to substantiate the rumors about Bush’s behavior and general ineptitude. Aides actually produced a DVD for him to watch so he could begin to understand how serious the situation in New Orleans had become. Why? Come on, you know why. He doesn’t watch the news. Since he views a person that disagrees with him as someone who is disloyal, he is now surrounded by a bunch of people who agree with him. While an actual investigation into what went wrong with getting relief down there will take months, this report gives an overview of how things fell apart. After reading this, I can’t help but picture a poorly run business where no one knows what the other person does, or who to call in the event that something out of the ordinary happens. And when you reach the top of the chain of command, you wind up talking with the person who knows absolutely nothing about any of it. Truly pathetic. So prepare your ears for the address Bush is scheduled to give on Thursday, because the human auditory system can only take in so much bullshit before it ruptures and causes hearing loss.

Ohio: land of children in cages. Just a few months ago there was a report of this, but with just one child. Now authorities have found a foster family who were keeping 11 children in cages. To be fair, I think this family actually let them out during the day. The other wackjobs kept their foster child in there all the time. Still, it makes you wonder how many kids are under lock and key right now across the nation. That is really messed up.

Here’s Kevin Bacon on the game that bears his name.

Game where you must tranquilize sheep before they flee your field.

I’m not sure what format this video is in, but it’s hilarious. There’s this girl riding around on her bike at a bike park, and someone’s driving an R/C car. After she reminds them “This place is for bikes!”, they give her something to think about.

Well, that was a pretty sweet birthday weekend, I must say. Saturday my band played Studio-A-Rama, which was a lot of fun. Some old friends such as The Caucasian Dream, Tom Duresky, J. Schurk (!), and NDP dropped by. Unbelievable. Then I got to see my first in-person Browns game ever. We got schooled, yes, but it was fun. Today I’m off in a bit to play golf.

Bush’s approval rate: 39%. Just look at the obviously false concern he has plastered on his face there! Sickening. Here’s Bill Maher ranting about his terrible leadership. And here’s Kurt Vonnegut, who also comments about Bush’s ineptitude.

Al Qadea made some new threats… Los Angeles is mentioned.

Baghdad Burning has been updated.

Did you know the US has the equivalent of concentration camps if martial law is declared?

No? Then you probably also didn’t know that weed makes you cool.

Baghdad Burning has been updated! Thank goodness Riverbend is alright. I mean, she’s still dealing with sporadic electricity and water, but she’s alright.

Barbara Bush: poor people are funny! The queen of all bluehaired, wealthy prunes chuckles as she audaciously proclaims that the displaced poor, temporarily residing in the Astrodome, were actually living better there than they were back home! Go crawl back into your hole, you vile wench.

Here’s an interesting photo gallery of Katrina pictures. What makes this one particularly interesting is that it shows why some people were reluctant to leave, and how the situation got gradually worse. Check it out.

Even HRH LeBron James is donating four semis worth of diapers, food, and other items. Thanks Lee Brawn!

The UN issues a report explaining that parts of America are as poor as the third world.

Boy, I’ll tell you what will help to make us less poor… raising natural gas prices. Motherfuckers, er, officials are saying that natural gas prices will rise up to 70% this winter. Son of a BITCH! I better get down to the thrift store and pick up some sweaters.

SomethingAwful’s Photoshop Phriday is: Biggest Movie of the Year. (Making movies fat.)

I know everyone is probably long since tired of the Budweiser “wazaaaaap” trend that swept the nation a few years back. Still, I can’t help but laugh at this video of kids acting it out, with milk.

I’d like to retract my previous comment about Katrina not being a disaster similarly catastrophic to the tsunami. Every quote I’ve read explains that the only way to grasp how bad things are is to be there in person. Journalists that travel there are even reported to be in need of trauma counseling after seeing the devastation. More and more bodies are being uncovered, and I’m sure the death toll is still miniscule compared to what it will stand at six months from now. I’d be surprised if it was a higher number than those killed in the tsunami, but this isn’t a competition. Here are some pictures.

Speaking of pictures, FEMA doesn’t want the press to take pictures of bodies. Rightfully so, they’ve been accused of censorship. This is yet another example of an attempt to escape blame and downplay what a huge relief failure this has been, if you ask me. If you’ve looked at the pictures linked above, you know it’s bad. Really bad. And FEMA uses words like ‘dignity’ and ‘respect’ to lay a guilt trip on reporters who are just trying to convey the gravity of the situation. It’s no wonder the rest of the country is so disconnected from this tragedy, and why I’ve hardly heard anyone talking about it.

Charmaine Neville, of the famous Neville family of musicians, wrote a piece for Counterpunch about her experiences in the wake of Katrina. I recommend you read it.

Just to clear your mind for a minute, here’s a flash game starring The Flying Spaghetti Monster.

There was one guy who predicted Katrina would hit New Orleans before most anyone else - self-proclaimed “weather nerd” Brendan Loy. On his blog, which only occasionally covers weather, he foresaw disaster. He says now that he wishes he’d been wrong, despite the astounding amount of hits he received on his blog.

Just to show that it wasn’t only the feds who screwed up in this disaster, here’s a piece about some of the other failures that took place at more local levels. The one element of this article I really agree with is the bit about race being involved. I’m willing to pile blame on the Bush administration for anything including a frustrating commute into work, but there is just no way that the slow response to victims of Katrina was due to race. Yes there are a great deal of displaced minorities now that the storm has passed, and it sure must be tough on the poor, but I don’t think a connection can be drawn beyond that. I would have liked to have read some more specific examples of failure on city and state levels, though. It does seem like the New Orleans police in some parts were rather lazy about the impending disaster, and the mayor did admit they would be unable to ensure that everyone could be evacuated on time, but aside from that, it seemed like a disaster on this scale could only be taken on by FEMA and the National Guard anyway.

Here’s a composite photo showing what Bush was up to while federal aid was desperately needed.

Chuck D wrote a rap about Katrina’s destruction.

Gilligan is no more. Bob Denver, who was also on The Doby Gillis Show, passed away at age 70 from cancer. RIP, lil’ buddy.

I imagine BWIII will enjoy this: How to select wine for fast food.

Pictures of a creepy, closed amusement park in Korea.

Bush vows to investigate what went wrong with Katrina. No! NO! You don’t get to investigate things that YOU helped fuck up! Gee, I wonder what facts will be left out of their findings. Oh, perhaps your fucking senseless decision to divert funds from the levee project to the Iraq war? Might also want to leave out that tons of National Guardsmen are over in another country, protecting your oil interests? That ought to be real easy to sweep under the rug with your brand new Chief Justice in place, eh jerkface? God dammit.

There’s some madness going on at work, so I won’t be posting too much.

“Insurgents” in Fallujah appear to be gaining a foothold again. I was surprised to learn that about 130,000 people have moved back into the city of rubble. Sparse attacks are concerning both US and Iraqi military. The Iraqi soliders are particularly worried about being targeted, and several have been killed already. What is it going to take for the Bush administration, or even military brass, to realize that this is not one organized group but an ideology that will not go away no matter what tough opposition they’re faced with? There hasn’t been a shred of forward progress against the insurgency, and in fact all the evidence tells us that it has grown exponentially.

The Astrodome is already at capacity, and the Superdome is still a nightmarish situation. You’ve probably heard that the government was considering using cruise ships to evacuate people, and now would be a good time to get that in order, if you ask me! Here’s an article detailing the process of draining off the city, which doesn’t seem like it could possibly happen soon enough.

And what is the fucking deal with assholes shooting at the helicopters?! Who are these dolts, and what do they think they’re achieving?! Another fuckface was shooting at a helicopter while it attempted to evacuate people from a hospital! Dude… you are NOT helping. What the fuck.

It’d be pretty hard to focus on anything but Katrina right now. Everything is somehow related to the catastrophe that she left in her wake.

Other than the day and a half of rain that we received, the most obvious consequence of the hurricane has been a steep rise in gas prices. I’m sure that in California, people are fainting at the first glimpse of these prices. On May 14th, 2004 I posted a picture on this blog of the very fist time I ever saw gas rise above $2.00. Even after that, it dipped below $2.00 a number of times. It’s now over $3.00 all over the place. Shit, look at this picture of a BP station where regular costs $5.87! Bush has warned against price gouging, but what is he gonna do?

To make matters worse, the evacuation of the now-deplorable Superdome was forgone due to what the helicopter pilot described as an armed mob. As he tried to land, shots were fired, so they’ve decided to wait until they can regain control of the facility. By now, anyone that can is probably trying to make their way there - knowing of the evacuation - so it has to be crowded beyond belief. The bathrooms inside the Superdome are worthless. People are defecating in dark corners, and all are in danger of dysentary due to a shortage of clean water.

All of this has got to be resting heavy on the shoulders of one short-sighted moron: GW Bush. There is a dramatic shortage of national guard members to be deployed down there, and all because they’re serving over in Iraq. Also, the inadequate levee system was supposed to be raised and repaired by the Army Corps of Engineers - that is until their funds were cut and allocated for the Iraq war. This CounterPunch article sums it up.

The Iraqi constitution isn’t coming along so well. That’s putting it lightly! It sounds as though they’re just writing one big mad lib and planning on filling in everything once the National Assembly begins meeting. One official said they needed at least four years to create something that satisfied everyone. Boy, that just ain’t gonna fit with Bush’s PR campaign.