Prior Hurricane and Prior Flood Worse

From the media accounts, you would think that nothing like the current New Orleans and Gulf Coast disaster had ever happened before in America.

But a 1900 hurricane (6000 deaths) and a 1927 Mississippi flood (one million homeless) have been comprehensively described in recent books.

Do any of our media elites read?

Amazon listing for John Barry's book, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America.

For a fictionalized but true account of the 1900 hurricane that claimed 6000 lives in Galveston, Texas, see Amazon listing for: Isaac's Storm.

From a Google search html cache, Barry Interview on 1927 Mississippi Flood (Source pdf from a PBS article, Great Projects Interview: John Barry. Link supplied by a Power Line post, They're tryin' to wash us away .):

Interview with John M. Barry, author of Rising Tide, for “A Tale of Two Rivers” [/] Note: This transcript is from a videotaped interview for the “A Tale of Two Rivers” segment of“Great Projects.” It has been edited lightly for readability.

[…] JB: Well, according the levees-only theory which was based on a 17th century Italian engineernamed Gugiel Menee's observations and hypotheses, you wanted actually to increase the water inthe river, because the more water in the river, the higher the slope and, therefore, the faster thecurrent is going to move, which is true. And the faster the current was going to move, then the moreit was going to scour out the bottom of the river, which is also true. The problem is, it's not going toincrease the scour enough to accommodate the extraordinary enormous increase in water, really ageometric progression between low water and a great flood. So, you know, the Corps of Engineerskept sticking to this hypothesis despite the fact that every scientific observation contradicted it. Soyou had a disaster that was waiting to happen.

[…] JB: Yeah. The flood control plan that the Corps of Engineers put in after the ‘27 flood is basicallywhat's in place today, with some adjustments. And, of course, Jadwin didn't write the plan. In fact,he had a very sharp engineer who had been in the Corps, but actually was then a civilian -- he had aphysical disability that forced him to retire from the Army -- who wrote the plan. And it was a goodplan, you know, once they gave up the hypothesis of levees-only. You know, there were a couple ofgaps in it and there were some political problems with it -- chiefly, in effect, the plan would haveallowed the flooding of the State of Arkansas and Louisiana, essentially using that as a naturalreservoir. Originally the levees in Arkansas were going to be lower than the levees on theMississippi side, so the river would naturally flood in Arkansas. That was ultimately taken care ofby what was then a very controversial policy called cut-offs. The river moves like a dollar sign, inS’s. And a cut-off is like the straight line through a dollar sign. It straightens the river and,therefore, it carries more water faster. But there were a lot of people who thought cut-offs were notgoing to work. And, in fact, they've worked pretty well, not perfectly. They shorten the river by150 miles in total, and that lowered the flood plain in Greenville, Mississippi, for example, by 15feet, which is an enormous lowering. That was initially. Now since the cut-offs have been put in,the river has regained probably one-third of that length and some of the lowering of the flood plains-- some of those benefits have been lost. And ultimately the river will probably regain all thelength. And then you make more cut-offs, I guess.

[…] JB: Well, there are a lot of mistakes you could make. One is a policy mistake, such as the levees-only policy. The other is some weakness in the levee. It needs to be maintained. They can settle.You have to keep rebuilding them. There's a levee, a fairly lengthy stretch of levee, in the state ofMississippi right now that is eight feet below grade for Project Flood. Eight feet is an enormousdistance. I mean that is a lot of water. Eight feet of water, you know, a mile wide moving at eight ornine miles an hour, just think of how much water that is that you've got to take care of for eightfeet. But there are a lot of little things that can destroy a levee. In the old days -- this doesn'thappen anymore -- but if during the construction somebody left a log or even really a branch in thelevee, it rots and creates a cavity. That's a weakness. When the water saturates a levee, which it willdo automatically in a flood, it finds that little cavity and starts to eat away at it. Even some crawfishnests. A crawfish builds a nest in the levee and that -- that's a cavity. The water comes in and startsto erode that, and pure pressure as well. Just the weight of the water pressing against the sides willpush water through the levee and it'll come out on the other side. Some of this seepage is perfectlysafe. Some of it is quite dangerous. And you can get what's called sand boils and a sand boil isreally like a miniature volcano. It looks just like a volcano, and it'll spout water in a sort of agusher. If the water is clear, then it's safe. But if the water is muddy, that means that it's eroding thelevee. The water, as it runs through the levee, is taking the earth of the levee with it. And that has tobe taken care of immediately. And, again, just the constant pressure of the water against the levee,the levee can slough off. That has to be supported. I mean there are an infinite number of problemsthat can arise.

[…] JB: Well, you've got to understand that when there's a crevasse, it's not simply the water flowingover the top of the levee as if it were overflowing a bath tub. What you get is tremendousturbulence, unbelievable forces at work, and in a great crevasse the river will gouge out a hole inthe earth and the greatest crevasse on record, which was in 1927 about 15 miles north ofGreenville, Mississippi, you know, the hole in the levee was about two-thirds of a mile wide. Andthey sounded it with a hundred-foot line and found no bottom. It was later they figured out that itwas 130 feet deep. So you had this hole, you know, over, as I said, about two-thirds of a mile wide,130 feet deep pouring water onto the land. Obviously, that is a ferocious current when it first hitsthe land. So a house is not gonna stand up to that under any circumstances. In fact, trees, forests,whatever, they're just simply wiped out, but as the water spreads out and slows down, you know,people with some experience in the delta would, for example, leave their doors open to f allow thewater into the house, 'cause if they closed everything off, then it had this resistance and it would --it would just, you know, undermine it or overpower it. But if they let the doors and windows open,the water could flow through it. That was one of devices for people who had experience withfloods.You know, the 1927 Flood was two stories. It was man against nature, but it was also man againstman.

And part of the story in man against man involved the city of New Orleans, which in 1927was a much more vibrant and vital city than it is today. It was, by far, the leading city in the South,economically dwarfed, literally double and triple Miami, Houston, Dallas, Nashville, Louisville,any of its rivals. And one of the things that the people in New Orleans who ran the city wereconcerned about was fear of their investors, who were mostly in New York and Boston, of what theMississippi River might do to New Orleans in a big flood. So here, you had this tremendous floodcoming down the river and, oddly enough, it didn't threaten New Orleans. And the reason it didn'tthreaten New Orleans was because there was no possible way that that water was ever going tomake it to New Orleans. The levees upriver had to break. They had to, as, in fact, they did. Forexample, the river spread out 70 miles from Vicksburg to Monroe, Louisiana. But before thathappened, while people in New York were worrying about whether or not they should put moremoney into New Orleans and invest in the port and so forth, the city fathers decided to demonstratethat they would never, under any circumstances, allow the river to threaten the city. So what theydid was decide to dynamite the levee about 13 miles below the city and flood out their neighbors. Race had nothing to do with this. They were almost all poor whites who were flooded out.INT: Describe what happens when levees break upriver.JB: When the levees upriver break, it lets water out of the river. So, therefore, the level in the rivergets lower. In fact, in every flood there's concerns about sabotage, 'cause if the levee on one side ofthe river breaks, that side floods, but the people on the other side of the river are safe. And, in fact,there were at least a dozen people killed in separate gun battles in 1927 over attempts to sabotagethe levee. And, in fact, in Vicksburg, the record on the Vicksburg gauge is not 1927. The reason isthe water had spread out to Monroe, Louisiana, 70 miles away. So, obviously, that's going to lowerthe water level.

[…] And Jadwin finally went along only if New Orleans promised to,among other things, fully compensate the victims of the dynamiting, which they freely promised.And, in fact, 54 leading men of New Orleans, the president of every major business, the presidentof every trade association, the city council, the mayor, and so forth, they all signed a pledge thatthey would, in fact, compensate the victims fully. A couple years later when the claims came in,they'd paid off pennies on the dollar and there were roughly 10,000 who were flooded out of theirhomes. When the water went through, there was absolutely nothing left. And their homes weregone, their means of making a living disappeared, and they got an average of $80 a person,something like that.

[…] JB: In this flood there were actually several hundred thousand people who were picked off rooftopsor levees or from trees. And Hoover gathered together a fleet of over 800 boats and there were afew steamboats, major paddle wheelers that rolled down the river. In some cases they wouldactually roll on what had been land and they would act as a mother ship and there would be, asmaller boats that would go out usually in a given area that would go with a mail man, who knewthe routes, knew where the houses were or at least had been, knew what certain signs were and theywould go look for people. And they did an absolutely extraordinary job. I mean literally a hundredthousand people were picked off rooftops and trees. I mean it was an unbelievably well organizedrescue operation. But the whole area was known, from the great crevasse at Mound's Landing in theState of Mississippi, I know, for more than 50 miles to the east to the hills, there was nothing but water. And for 75 miles south from that break there was nothing but water. That's an inland sea. Onthe other side of the river, the river went from Vicksburg to Monroe, Louisiana, and that's 70 miles.Again, all of it essentially under water, some of it under five feet of water, some of it under a gooddeal more water. In central Louisiana further south in the Chafalaya Basin, again, you know,hundreds of thousands of people. In total, there were roughly a million people living in the lowerMississippi region that was flooded by the river. Almost two-thirds of them were fed by the RedCross. The rest basically left and went to stay with relatives outside the area. There were 330,000people living in tents for months. And the population of the United States at the time was roughly120 million people. So what you've got is nearly one percent of the entire population of the UnitedStates was flooded in 1927.

[…] JB: Sure. Let's say you had situations up and down the river. You've got 335,000-340,000 peopleliving in tents, many of them for months. In some cases the only dry land is the levee itself. Theriver's on one side, flooded territory's on the other side. The levee has got a crown eight feet wide, alittle bit more than that is out of water, and these refugee camps stretch for miles up the levee. Inmany places it's very difficult to supply. In several places dogs were being shot for fear of rabies.There was fear of epidemics. There's livestock being penned up next to these refugee camps. Thewhole scene really looks like the devastation of a war. And when the river went through towns,again, it's not high water generally, but when this river went through, there was just tremendousdevastation left everywhere.

[…] JB: I don't pretend to be an expert on the [19]93 flood, but while it was occurring I had already startedworking on this book. And I was amazed. I had started my book reading about the levees-onlytheory and whether levees were good or levees were bad. And this was material that was written inthe 1830s and the exact same debate was going on after the '93 flood in almost the exact samelanguage. If you change the grammar a little bit, you could simply interchange the arguments,which I found more than just amusing. “Amusing” is not the right word. But the issues are politicalissues largely at this point, much more than technical issues any you know, what are you going todo with the flood plain? A lot of that flood plain is awfully valuable and I personally think it's rightto take much of that and use it. Some of the flood plain may not be so valuable or protecting it istoo expensive. But that's really the debate, the political issues. You know, there are, obviously,some technical problems, particularly in the upper river, and lack of coordination and things likethat which contributed greatly to the disaster in [19]93. But ultimately the society has to make apolitical decision on what it's going to do with that river’s flood.

[…] JB: Well, I mean the basic argument is what impact levees have. And, of course, they will protect,-- when they work -- some land, but then they pass the problem both up and down the river. Theypass the problem along to neighbors.

[…] JB: I'd say the work done on the Mississippi, obviously. Historically it's been chiefly to protectpeople living along the river and to allow them to develop the river. And to a significant extent, it'sachieved that goal. Now the question is whether or not the society wants to continue to pay theprice to protect all that land, whether the river, for reasons of beauty or environmental health orflood control, should be allowed to reclaim some of that land, whether in natural reservoirs andother wetlands. I think it should, you know, and probably most people would agree with that. Thequestion is--and here’s where the fight is--where you draw the line, over how much you allow toriver to reclaim and how much you continue to protect and at what cost. [my elipses and emphasis]

New Orleans: A Woeful Scene

From a Nola.com / Times-Picayune article, City a woeful scene :

Times-Picayune [/] Tuesday, August 30, 2005 [/] City a woeful scene [/] Tuesday, 10:14 p.m. [/] By Brian Thevenot, Gordon Russell, Keith Spera and Doug MacCash [/] Staff writers

Sitting on a black barrel amid the muck and stench near the St. Claude Avenue bridge, 52-year-old Daniel Weber broke into a sob, his voice cracking as he recounted how he had watched his wife drown and spent the next 14 hours floating in the polluted flood waters, his only life line a piece of driftwood.

"My hands were all cut up from breaking through the window, and I was standing on the fence. I said, ‘I’ll get on the roof and pull you up," he said. "And then we just went under."

[… … …] Those trapped in the city faced an increasingly lawless environment, as law enforcement agencies found themselves overwhelmed with widespread looting. Looters swarmed the Wal-mart on Tchoupitoulas Street, often bypassing the food and drink section to steal wide-screen TVs, jewelry, bicycles and computers. Watching the sordid display and shaking his head in disgust, one firefighter said of the scene: "It’s a #### hurricane, what are you do with a basketball goal?"

Police regained control at about 3 p.m., after clearing the store with armed patrol. One shotgun-toting Third District detective described the looting as "ferocious." [/] "And it’s going to get worse as the days progress," he said.

In Uptown, one the few areas that remained dry, a bearded man patrolled Oak Street near the boarded-up Maple Leaf Bar, a sawed-off shotgun slung over his shoulder. The owners of a hardware store sat in folding chairs, pistols at the ready.

Uptown resident Keith Williams started his own security patrol, driving around in his Ford pickup with his newly purchased handgun. Earlier in the day, Williams said he had seen the body of a gunshot victim near the corner of Leonidas and Hickory streets.

"What I want to know is why we don’t have paratroopers with machine guns on every street," Williams said.

Like-minded Art Depodesta sat on the edge of a picnic table outside Cooter Brown’s Bar, a chrome shotgun at his side loaded with red shells.

"They broke into the Shell station across the street," he said. "I walked over with my 12-gauge and shot a couple into the air." [/] The looters scattered, but soon after, another man appeared outside the bar in a pickup truck armed with a pistol and threatened Depodesta. [/] "I told him, ‘Listen, I was in the Army and I will blow your ass off,’" Depodesta said. "We’ve got enough trouble with the flood." [/] The man sped away.

"You know what ####," Depodesta said. "The whole U.S. is looking at this city right now, and this is what they see."

In the Bywater, a supply store sported spray-painted signs reading "You Loot, I Shoot" and "You Bein Watched." A man seated nearby with a rifle in his lap suggested it was no idle threat. At the Bywater studio of Dr. Bob, the artist known for handpainted "Be Nice or Leave" signs, a less fanciful sentiment was painted on the wall: "Looters Will Be Shot. Dr. Bob."

[…] Many stumbled from dehydration as they made their way onto dry land. Several rescue workers said some of the people trapped were so shell-shocked or stubborn they refused to leave their houses. "If you can figure that one out, let me know," said Oscar Dupree, a volunteer who had been trapped on a roof himself and returned to help save others.

The scene called to mind a refugee camp in a Third World nation. Liquor flowed freely and tempers flared amid complaints about the pace of the relief effort, which seemed to overwhelm the agencies involved and the city’s inability to contain flood waters.

As they emerged from rescue boats, at times wobbling and speaking incoherently, many of the rescued seem stunned they had not died. Johnell Johnson of Marais street said she had been trapped on her roof " with a handicapped man with one #### leg." Gerald Wimberly wept as he recounted his unsuccessful effort to help a young girl, who rescuers ultimately saved. Dupree said he had seen a young man he knew drown. "I just couldn’t get to him," he said. "I had to tell his people."

Weber, the man who lost his wife, seemed at the breaking point as he waited, surrounded by anger and filth, for a National Guard truck to ferry him to the Dome. After 14 hours of floating on a piece of wood, volunteers who knew him had fished him out. [/] "Another hour, I would have just let myself drown," he said. [/] A moment later, staring ahead to a bleak future without his wife, he said he almost wished he had. "I’m not going to make it. I know I’m not."

Terrorism Still Number One!

From a Financial Times article, Louisiana governor calls for evacuation of New Orleans:

“It is likely Hurricane Katrina will be the largest insured loss from a single event since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the largest US hurricane loss since Hurricane Andrew in 1992,“ Fitch Ratings said.

And number one in lives as well as treasure:

Hundreds of dead are predicted for Katrina when the priority of recovering the living ends.

Three thousand died on September 9, 2001.

And just the rumor of terrorism killed over seven hundred in Baghdad, today.

From a Yahoo! AP article, 719 Dead, 383 Hurt in Iraq Bridge Stampede :

719 Dead, 383 Hurt in Iraq Bridge Stampede By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Trampled, crushed against barricades or plunging into the Tigris River, more than 700 Shiite pilgrims died Wednesday when a procession across a Baghdad bridge was engulfed in panic over rumors that a suicide bomber was at large.

Most of the dead were women and children, Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said. It was the single biggest confirmed loss of life in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion. Sabah Ali, a senior official in the Health Ministry, said 719 were killed and 383 injured.

Tensions already had risen among the Shiite marchers because of a mortar attack two hours earlier near the shrine where they were heading. Then the crowd was slowed by barriers about a quarter of the way across the Two Imams Bridge, Interior Minister Bayn Jabr said on state-run TV.

"Pushing started when a rumor was spread by a terrorist who claimed that there was a person with an explosive belt, which caused panic and the pushing started," Jabr said. "Some fell from the bridge, others fell on the barricades" and were trampled to death. […]

Power Point Kills Astronauts

(Actually, not yet, as far as we know, but stay tuned.)

As we descend into the Abyss of the post-literate age, it is instructive to take notice of the depth gauge.

Something like the Ten Circles of the Inferno are unfolding before our eyes.

Where is Dante when we need him?

But the Demons of Dumbness are less visible than those Dante depicted so ably.

Occasionally there is a report from the wise.

In 1955: Why Johnny Can't Read:

In 1983: Why Johnny Still Can't Read:

In 1995: Dumbing Down Our Kids : Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't Read, Write, or Add

Until the teacher's union is broken there will be no improvement in the most expensive extended baby-sitting operation in history.

But like the typical Clinton scandal which never got examined because of the distraction of a new Clinton scandal -

We are now distracted by a Washington Post article, PowerPoint: Killer App?:

PowerPoint: Killer App? [\] By Ruth Marcus [\] Tuesday, August 30, 2005; A17

Did PowerPoint make the space shuttle crash? Could it doom another mission? Preposterous as this may sound, the ubiquitous Microsoft "presentation software" has twice been singled out for special criticism by task forces reviewing the space shuttle disaster.

Perhaps I've sat through too many PowerPoint presentations lately, but I think the trouble with these critics is that they don't go far enough: The software may be as much of a mind-numbing menace to those of us who intend to remain earthbound as it is to astronauts.

PowerPoint's failings have been outlined most vividly by Yale political scientist Edward Tufte, a specialist in the visual display of information. In a 2003 Wired magazine article headlined "PowerPoint Is Evil" and a less dramatically titled pamphlet, "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint," Tufte argued that the program encourages "faux-analytical" thinking that favors the slickly produced "sales pitch" over the sober exchange of information.

Exhibit A in Tufte's analysis is a PowerPoint slide presented to NASA senior managers in January 2003, while the space shuttle Columbia was in the air and the agency was weighing the risk posed by tile damage on the shuttle wings. Key information was so buried and condensed in the rigid PowerPoint format as to be useless.

"It is easy to understand how a senior manager might read this PowerPoint slide and not realize that it addresses a life-threatening situation," the Columbia Accident Investigation Board concluded, citing Tufte's work. The board devoted a full page of its 2003 report to the issue, criticizing a space agency culture in which, it said, "the endemic use of PowerPoint" substituted for rigorous technical analysis.

But NASA -- like the rest of corporate and bureaucratic America -- seems powerless to resist PowerPoint. Just this month a minority report by the latest shuttle safety task force echoed the earlier concerns: Often, the group said, when it asked for data it ended up with PowerPoints -- without supporting documentation.

These critiques are, pardon the phrase, on point, but I suspect that the insidious influence of PowerPoint goes beyond the way it frustrates scientific analysis. The deeper problem with the PowerPointing of America -- the PowerPointing of the planet, actually -- is that the program tends to flatten the most complex, subtle, even beautiful, ideas into tedious, bullet-pointed bureaucratese.

[…] If NASA managers didn't recognize the safety problem, perhaps it's because they were dazed from having to endure too many presentations like this -- the inevitable computer balkiness, the robotic recitation of bullet points, the truncated language of a marketing pitch. Hence the New Yorker cartoon in which the devil, seated at his desk in Hell, interviews a potential assistant: "I need someone well versed in the art of torture -- do you know PowerPoint?"

[…] The most disturbing development in the world of PowerPoint is its migration to the schools -- like sex and drugs, at earlier and earlier ages. Now we have second-graders being tutored in PowerPoint. No matter that students who compose at the keyboard already spend more energy perfecting their fonts than polishing their sentences -- PowerPoint dispenses with the need to write any sentences at all. Perhaps the politicians who are so worked up about the ill effects of violent video games should turn their attention to PowerPoint instead.

In the meantime, Tufte, who's now doing consulting work for NASA, has a modest proposal for its new administrator: Ban the use of PowerPoint. Sounds good to me. After all, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see the perils of PowerPoint. [my ellipses and emphasis]

A War to Be Proud Of

From a Weekly Standard article by Christopher Hitchens, A War to Be Proud Of :

A War to Be Proud Of [/] From the September 5 / September 12, 2005 issue: The case for overthrowing Saddam was unimpeachable. Why, then, is the administration tongue-tied? [/] by Christopher Hitchens [/] 09/05/2005, Volume 010, Issue 47

Administrations cannot always speak clearly about their views. It is simple prudence to avoid offense to various allies, both foreign and domestic.

But free citizens of a democracy have, as providentially directed, a duty to be informed and to acquaint others with their opinions.

So Mr. Hitchens and I speak, as plainly and clearly as we are able.

LET ME BEGIN WITH A simple sentence that, even as I write it, appears less than Swiftian in the modesty of its proposal: "Prison conditions at Abu Ghraib have improved markedly and dramatically since the arrival of Coalition troops in Baghdad."

I could undertake to defend that statement against any member of Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International, and I know in advance that none of them could challenge it, let alone negate it. Before March 2003, Abu Ghraib was an abattoir, a torture chamber, and a concentration camp. Now, and not without reason, it is an international byword for Yankee imperialism and sadism. Yet the improvement is still, unarguably, the difference between night and day. How is it possible that the advocates of a post-Saddam Iraq have been placed on the defensive in this manner? And where should one begin?

I once tried to calculate how long the post-Cold War liberal Utopia had actually lasted. […]

I know hardly anybody who comes out of this examination with complete credit. There were neoconservatives who jeered at Rushdie in 1989 and who couldn't see the point when Sarajevo faced obliteration in 1992. There were leftist humanitarians and radicals who rallied to Rushdie and called for solidarity with Bosnia, but who--perhaps because of a bad conscience about Palestine--couldn't face a confrontation with Saddam Hussein even when he annexed a neighbor state that was a full member of the Arab League and of the U.N. (I suppose I have to admit that I was for a time a member of that second group.) But there were consistencies, too. French statecraft, for example, was uniformly hostile to any resistance to any aggression, and Paris even sent troops to rescue its filthy clientele in Rwanda. And some on the hard left and the brute right were also opposed to any exercise, for any reason, of American military force.

The only speech by any statesman that can bear reprinting from that low, dishonest decade came from Tony Blair when he spoke in Chicago in 1999. Welcoming the defeat and overthrow of Milosevic after the Kosovo intervention, he warned against any self-satisfaction and drew attention to an inescapable confrontation that was coming with Saddam Hussein. So far from being an American "poodle," as his taunting and ignorant foes like to sneer, Blair had in fact leaned on Clinton over Kosovo and was insisting on the importance of Iraq while George Bush was still an isolationist governor of Texas.

Notwithstanding this prescience and principle on his part, one still cannot read the journals of the 2000/2001 millennium without the feeling that one is revisiting a hopelessly somnambulist relative in a neglected home. I am one of those who believe, uncynically, that Osama bin Laden did us all a service (and holy war a great disservice) by his mad decision to assault the American homeland four years ago. Had he not made this world-historical mistake, we would have been able to add a Talibanized and nuclear-armed Pakistan to our list of the threats we failed to recognize in time. (This threat still exists, but it is no longer so casually overlooked.)

The subsequent liberation of Pakistan's theocratic colony in Afghanistan, and the so-far decisive eviction and defeat of its bin Ladenist guests, was only a reprisal. It took care of the last attack. But what about the next one? For anyone with eyes to see, there was only one other state that combined the latent and the blatant definitions of both "rogue" and "failed." This state--Saddam's ruined and tortured and collapsing Iraq--had also met all the conditions under which a country may be deemed to have sacrificed its own legal sovereignty. To recapitulate: It had invaded its neighbors, committed genocide on its own soil, harbored and nurtured international thugs and killers, and flouted every provision of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United Nations, in this crisis, faced with regular insult to its own resolutions and its own character, had managed to set up a system of sanctions-based mutual corruption. In May 2003, had things gone on as they had been going, Saddam Hussein would have been due to fill Iraq's slot as chair of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament. Meanwhile, every species of gangster from the hero of the Achille Lauro hijacking to Abu Musab al Zarqawi was finding hospitality under Saddam's crumbling roof. […]

THERE IS, first, the problem of humorless and pseudo-legalistic literalism. In Saki's short story The Lumber Room, the naughty but clever child Nicholas, who has actually placed a frog in his morning bread-and-milk, rejoices in his triumph over the adults who don't credit this excuse for not eating his healthful dish:

"You said there couldn't possibly be a frog in my bread-and-milk; there was a frog in my bread-and-milk," he repeated, with the insistence of a skilled tactician who does not intend to shift from favorable ground.

Childishness is one thing--those of us who grew up on this wonderful Edwardian author were always happy to see the grown-ups and governesses discomfited. But puerility in adults is quite another thing, and considerably less charming. "You said there were WMDs in Iraq and that Saddam had friends in al Qaeda. . . . Blah, blah, pants on fire." I have had many opportunities to tire of this mantra. It takes ten seconds to intone the said mantra. It would take me, on my most eloquent C-SPAN day, at the very least five minutes to say that Abdul Rahman Yasin, who mixed the chemicals for the World Trade Center attack in 1993, subsequently sought and found refuge in Baghdad; that Dr. Mahdi Obeidi, Saddam's senior physicist, was able to lead American soldiers to nuclear centrifuge parts and a blueprint for a complete centrifuge (the crown jewel of nuclear physics) buried on the orders of Qusay Hussein; that Saddam's agents were in Damascus as late as February 2003, negotiating to purchase missiles off the shelf from North Korea; or that Rolf Ekeus, the great Swedish socialist who founded the inspection process in Iraq after 1991, has told me for the record that he was offered a $2 million bribe in a face-to-face meeting with Tariq Aziz. And these eye-catching examples would by no means exhaust my repertoire, or empty my quiver. Yes, it must be admitted that Bush and Blair made a hash of a good case, largely because they preferred to scare people rather than enlighten them or reason with them. Still, the only real strategy of deception has come from those who believe, or pretend, that Saddam Hussein was no problem.

[…] "If what you claim is true," the honest citizen at this meeting politely asked me, "how come the White House hasn't told us?" [/] I do in fact know the answer to this question. So deep and bitter is the split within official Washington, most especially between the Defense Department and the CIA, that any claim made by the former has been undermined by leaks from the latter. (The latter being those who maintained, with a combination of dogmatism and cowardice not seen since Lincoln had to fire General McClellan, that Saddam Hussein was both a "secular" actor and--this is the really rich bit--a rational and calculating one.) […]

[…] The peaceniks love to ask: When and where will it all end? The answer is easy: It will end with the surrender or defeat of one of the contending parties. Should I add that I am certain which party that ought to be? Defeat is just about imaginable, though the mathematics and the algebra tell heavily against the holy warriors. Surrender to such a foe, after only four years of combat, is not even worthy of consideration. […]

At once, one sees that all the alternatives would have been infinitely worse, and would most likely have led to an implosion--as well as opportunistic invasions from Iran and Turkey and Saudi Arabia, on behalf of their respective interests or confessional clienteles. This would in turn have necessitated a more costly and bloody intervention by some kind of coalition, much too late and on even worse terms and conditions. This is the lesson of Bosnia and Rwanda yesterday, and of Darfur today. When I have made this point in public, I have never had anyone offer an answer to it. A broken Iraq was in our future no matter what, and was a responsibility (somewhat conditioned by our past blunders) that no decent person could shirk. The only unthinkable policy was one of abstention. […]

[…] We need not argue about the failures and the mistakes and even the crimes, because these in some ways argue themselves. But a positive accounting could be offered without braggartry, and would include:

(1) The overthrow of Talibanism and Baathism, and the exposure of many highly suggestive links between the two elements of this Hitler-Stalin pact. Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who moved from Afghanistan to Iraq before the coalition intervention, has even gone to the trouble of naming his organization al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

(2) The subsequent capitulation of Qaddafi's Libya in point of weapons of mass destruction--a capitulation that was offered not to Kofi Annan or the E.U. but to Blair and Bush.

(3) The consequent unmasking of the A.Q. Khan network for the illicit transfer of nuclear technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea.

(4) The agreement by the United Nations that its own reform is necessary and overdue, and the unmasking of a quasi-criminal network within its elite.

(5) The craven admission by President Chirac and Chancellor Schröder, when confronted with irrefutable evidence of cheating and concealment, respecting solemn treaties, on the part of Iran, that not even this will alter their commitment to neutralism. (One had already suspected as much in the Iraqi case.)

(6) The ability to certify Iraq as actually disarmed, rather than accept the word of a psychopathic autocrat.

(7) The immense gains made by the largest stateless minority in the region--the Kurds--and the spread of this example to other states.

(8) The related encouragement of democratic and civil society movements in Egypt, Syria, and most notably Lebanon, which has regained a version of its autonomy.

(9) The violent and ignominious death of thousands of bin Ladenist infiltrators into Iraq and Afghanistan, and the real prospect of greatly enlarging this number.

(10) The training and hardening of many thousands of American servicemen and women in a battle against the forces of nihilism and absolutism, which training and hardening will surely be of great use in future combat.

It would be admirable if the president could manage to make such a presentation. It would also be welcome if he and his deputies adopted a clear attitude toward the war within the war: in other words, stated plainly, that the secular and pluralist forces within Afghan and Iraqi society, while they are not our clients, can in no circumstance be allowed to wonder which outcome we favor.

The great point about Blair's 1999 speech was that it asserted the obvious. Coexistence with aggressive regimes or expansionist, theocratic, and totalitarian ideologies is not in fact possible. One should welcome this conclusion for the additional reason that such coexistence is not desirable, either. If the great effort to remake Iraq as a demilitarized federal and secular democracy should fail or be defeated, I shall lose sleep for the rest of my life in reproaching myself for doing too little. But at least I shall have the comfort of not having offered, so far as I can recall, any word or deed that contributed to a defeat. [my ellipses and emphasis]

Anti-Fruits Join Anti-War Fruitcake

From a forum thread:

{{___ I don't understand such hate

{{___ [from linked article:] Church: God Punishing GIs Over Gays By BETH RUCKER, Associated Press Writer [/] Sun Aug 28,10:16 AM ET

{{___ SMYRNA, Tenn. - Members of a church say God is punishing American soldiers for defending a country that harbors gays, and they brought their anti-gay message to the funerals Saturday of two Tennessee soldiers killed in Iraq. […]}}

Take an even strain. The event appears to be extreme and isolated.

Several things should be noted:

One. The nature of the protesters.

The Rev. Fred Phelps, founder of Westboro Baptist in Kansas, contends that American soldiers are being killed in Iraq as vengeance from God for protecting a country that harbors gays. The church, which is not affiliated with a larger denomination, is made up mostly of Phelps' children, grandchildren and in-laws.

There are many "one man's [extended] family" local independent churches. When the patriarch goes a bit off the rails, perhaps because of senile dementia and lack of collegial guidance, odd things happen.

Two. Misapplication of scripture.

To the uninstructed or unwary Romans 1 and Genesis 19 give a much bigger place to homosexual behavior in the causes and effects of iniquity than the context demonstrates.

Three. Preaching about far away sins.

Homosexuals make a good target, since congregations do not generally include admitted homosexuals.

The horrific damage in lives and property in 1861-1865 was due in part to Northern preaching about the horrors of Southern slavery, and Southern preaching about the offense of Northern abolitionists, particularly John Brown, minding other people's business.

The then biggest denomination split over slavery fifteen years before the war. Other denominations followed, and the preaching about the iniquities of those living in other states intensified. And the political parties split, and the Nation, and then there was our most costly war.

Four. The anti-war fruitcake.

What a splendiferous assortment of fruits and nuts (and, now, anti-fruits)! The Hollywood crowd, the crypto-Marxists in their variegated disguises, the neo-Nazi white-supremacist anti-Semites, the prophets citing the example of Sodom, etc.

They differ most magnificently in their diagnoses of, and prescriptions for, the ills of our Nation.

I am reminded of a Fourth of July fireworks display back in the days when Communism, Fascism, and Nazism were rising in Europe:

Americanism Is Our Only Ism

Pat Robertson: Assassinate Chavez

From a Yahoo! AP article, Robertson Calls for Chavez Assassination :

Robertson Calls for Chavez Assassination By SUE LINDSEY, Associated Press Writer

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson has suggested that American agents assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism." […]

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said Monday on the Christian Broadcast Network's "The 700 Club."

"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

Chavez has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of President Bush, accusing the United States of conspiring to topple his government and possibly backing plots to assassinate him. U.S. officials have called the accusations ridiculous.

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop." […]

"It's absolutely chilling to hear a religious leader call for the murder of any political leader, no matter how much he disagrees with such a leader's policies or practices," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

David Brock, president of Media Matters, a liberal media watchdog group, said the remarks should discredit Robertson as a spokesman for the religious right.

Robertson, 75, founder of the Christian Coalition of America and a former presidential candidate, accused the United States of failing to act when Chavez was briefly overthrown in 2002. […]

In Caracas, pro-Chavez legislator Desire Santos Amaral accused Robertson of shedding his Christian values.

"This man cannot be a true Christian. He's a fascist," Santos said. "This is part of the policies of aggression from the right wing in the North against our revolution."

Santos said she thinks U.S.-Venezuelan relations could still improve but comments by "charlatans and fascists" like Robertson only get in the way.

Venezuela is the fifth largest oil exporter and a major supplier of oil to the United States. The CIA estimates that U.S. markets absorb almost 59 percent of Venezuela's total exports. […]

Robertson has made controversial statements in the past. In October 2003, he suggested that the State Department be blown up with a nuclear device. He has also said that feminism encourages women to "kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

Link to Robertson's Christian Broadcast Network

A Celebration of Confident Despair

A noted Christian apologist of the last century stated that without the God of the Bible the best man can hope for is Confident Despair.

I thought of that when reading of the recent solemnities for Hunter S. Thompson, the inspiration for Dunebury's "Uncle Duke", inventor and premier practitioner of Gonzo Journalism, author of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas".

This may not be the last celebration of the zeitgeist of the sixties, but it seems to me to be a fitting memorial.

From a Yahoo! AP article, Thompson's Ashes Blast Off :

Gonzo Writer Thompson's Ashes Blast Off By ROBERT WELLER, Associated Press Writer / Sun Aug 21, 9:47 AM ET

WOODY CREEK, Colo. - With a deafening boom, the ashes of Hunter S. Thompson were blown into the sky amid fireworks late Saturday as relatives and a star-studded crowd bid an irreverent farewell to the founder of "gonzo journalism."

As the ashes erupted from a tower, red, white, blue and green fireworks lit up the sky over Thompson's home near Aspen.

"I'll always remember where I was when Hunter was blown into the heavens," said Thompson's neighbor, Rita Sherman, who watched the spectacle from the deck of her house.

The 15-story tower was modeled after Thompson's logo: a clenched fist, made symmetrical with two thumbs, rising from the hilt of a dagger. It was built between his home and a tree-covered canyon wall, not far from a tent filled with merrymakers.

"He loved explosions," explained his wife, Anita Thompson.

The private celebration included actors Bill Murray and Johnny Depp, rock bands, blowup dolls and plenty of liquor to honor Thompson, who killed himself six months ago at the age of 67.

Security guards kept reporters and the public away from the compound as the 250 invited guests arrived, but Thompson's fans scouted the surrounding hills for the best view of the celebration.

"We just threw a gallon of Wild Turkey in the back and headed west," said Kevin Coy of Chester, W.Va., who drove more than 1,500 miles with a friend in hopes of seeing the celebration. "We came to pay our respects."

Thompson fatally shot himself in his kitchen Feb. 20, apparently despondent over his declining health. The memorial, however, was planned as a party, with readings and scheduled performances by both Lyle Lovett and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. […]

"We had talked a couple of times about his last wishes to be shot out of a cannon of his own design," Depp told The Associated Press last month. "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out."

Besides the 1972 classic about Thompson's visit to Las Vegas — in which the central character was a snarling, drug- and alcohol-crazed observer and participant — he also wrote an expose on the Hell's Angels and "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72." […]

In now-chic Aspen, Thompson was an eccentricity: He proudly fired his guns whenever he wanted, let peacocks have the run of the land and ran for sheriff in 1970 under the Freak Power Party banner. […]

Harry Potter: The Real Danger

A New Hampshire painting contractor and part time columnist has discovered the true danger threatened by the Harry Potter books.

The endorsement of Big Government by Witches is potential threat to decent people everywhere.

(Although I suppose there are those who believe that the witches might do better than our politicians. And this despite the widespread opinion that "our politicians are the best that money can buy".)

From a New Hampshire Union Leader article, Harry Potter and the realm of big government :

Wednesday, August 17, 2005 / by Fergus Cullen:

I'LL ADMIT to liking the Harry Potter books, but I can't suspend disbelief any longer. The kid lives in the realm of big government, and it's interfering with my enjoyment of the Half-Blood Prince. Consider these facts about life in the wizarding world:

Huge government bureaucracies: Every time another department within the Ministry of Magic is mentioned, I wonder if the real threat to Harry's liberty is Voldemort or the Leviathan government, which has a branch overseeing all aspects of wizard daily life. There's the Improper Use of Magic Office, the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, even the Department of Magical Games and Sports, which may be needed to investigate steroid use among Quidditch players. […]

Free national health care: No one admitted to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injures is ever asked about insurance, not even victims of the entrails expelling curse, which sounds very expensive to fix. It's the sort of situation a goody two-shoes know it all like Hillary — I mean, Hermione — must love. […]

Fergus Cullen is a painting contractor in Wolfeboro. He can be reached at ferguscullen@aol.com. His column runs every other Wednesday.

Roe v. Wade Causes a Problem

From a WSJ Opinion Journal article, Catholics Need Not Apply :

Best of the Web Today / BY JAMES TARANTO / Tuesday, August 9, 2005 3:51 p.m.

Catholics Need Not Apply

No one seriously argues anymore that Roe v. Wade was correctly decided. Rather, pro-Roe advocates rest their case on policy grounds (warnings about coat alleys and back hangers, etc.) or, when they must argue the law, on the power of precedent. Of the five Supreme Court justices who more or less upheld Roe in the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, three went out of their way to avoid endorsing the decision, emphasizing instead the allegedly high cost of the court's admitting a mistake:

A decision to overrule Roe's essential holding under the existing circumstances would address error, if error there was, at the cost of both profound and unnecessary damage to the Court's legitimacy, and to the Nation's commitment to the rule of law. It is therefore imperative to adhere to the essence of Roe's original decision, and we do so today.

A jaw-dropping op-ed piece in today's Boston Globe suggests that these three justices got it exactly wrong. One Christopher D. Morris, "a writer and critic in Northfield, Vt.," argues that the Senate Judiciary Committee should subject the Catholic Church, and Catholic jurists, to special scrutiny:

Catholic bishops threatened to exclude Senator John Kerry from the Eucharist because of his support for Roe v. Wade. The Senate Judiciary Committee is now fully justified in asking these bishops whether the same threats would apply to Supreme Court nominee Judge Roberts, if he were to vote to uphold Roe v. Wade.

The bishops have made this question legitimate because Americans no longer know whether a Catholic judge can hear abortion cases without an automatic conflict of interest. . . .

Asking the bishops to testify would be healthy. If they rescinded the threats made against Kerry, then Roberts would feel free to make his decision without the appearance of a conflict of interest, and Catholic politicians who support Roe v. Wade would gain renewed confidence in their advocacy. If the bishops repeated or confirmed their threats, the Senate Judiciary Committee should draft legislation calling for the automatic recusal of Catholic judges from cases citing Roe v. Wade as a precedent.

In other words, in order to preserve the bogus constitutional right to abortion, it is necessary to disregard the actual constitutional provisions for church-state separation and against religious tests for officeholders. It's yet another reason why Roe must go. [emphasis added]

Is Animal Rights Group Racist?

I have often noted from observing Washington rallies that Animal Rights people appear to be from a much better class, financially and culturally, than Human Rights people.

I suspect that any racism associated with Animal Rights is unintentional and mostly due to ignorance of the real world inhabited by the lesser orders.

From a New Haven Register article, Outrage on the green:

08/09/2005 / Maria Garriga , Register Staff

"This is the most racist thing I’ve ever seen on the Green. How dare you," roared Philip Goldson, 43, of New Haven at the protest organizers at Church and Chapel streets.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a national animal rights group, posted giant photographs of people, mostly black Americans, being tortured, sold and killed, next to photographs of animals, including cattle and sheep, being tortured, sold and killed.

"I think it is an apt comparison," said Josh Warchol, 26, of Wallingford, president of the Southern Connecticut Vegetarian Society, which is aligned with PETA.

PETA officials said they had hoped to generate dialogue with the shocking photographs. […]

One man demanded that the NAACP get involved immediately. Five minutes later, Scot X. Esdaile, president of the state and Greater New Haven chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, arrived at the scene, surveyed the photos and blasted the organizers.

"Once again, black people are being pimped. You used us. You have used us enough," Esdaile said. "Take it down immediately."

"I am a black man! I can’t compare the suffering of these black human beings to the suffering of this cow," said Michael Perkins, 47, of New Haven. He stood in front of a photo of butchered livestock hung next to the photo of two lynched black men dangling before a white mob.

"You can’t compare me to a freaking cow," shouted John Darryl Thompson, 46, of New Haven, inches from Carr’s face. "We don’t care about PETA. You are playing a dangerous game." […]

"I think he’s right," said Tomaselli, who is white, in support of Thompson. "To compare people to animals is an unfairness to people." [or perhaps unfairness to animals]

The display, "Are Animals the New Slaves?" is on a 10-week, 42-city tour that started in early July. Today’s stop: Scranton, Pa., then on to Baltimore and Washington, D.C. […] [emphasis and bracketed comment are mine]

Clinton Admin. ID'd Four 9/11 Attackers

The infamous Clinton administration wall between intelligence and law enforcement was possibly even more dangerous than previously known.

From a New York Times article, Four in 9/11 Plot Are Called Tied to Qaeda in '00:

August 9, 2005 / By DOUGLAS JEHL

WASHINGTON, Aug. 8 - More than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a small, highly classified military intelligence unit identified Mohammed Atta and three other future hijackers as likely members of a cell of Al Qaeda operating in the United States, according to a former defense intelligence official and a Republican member of Congress.

In the summer of 2000, the military team, known as Able Danger, prepared a chart that included visa photographs of the four men and recommended to the military's Special Operations Command that the information be shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the congressman, Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, and the former intelligence official said Monday.

The recommendation was rejected and the information was not shared, they said, apparently at least in part because Mr. Atta, and the others were in the United States on valid entry visas. Under American law, United States citizens and green-card holders may not be singled out in intelligence-collection operations by the military or intelligence agencies. That protection does not extend to visa holders, but Mr. Weldon and the former intelligence official said it might have reinforced a sense of discomfort common before Sept. 11 about sharing intelligence information with a law enforcement agency. […] [my emphasis]