MeyerBros

We’ve all heard plenty about the federal government’s “incompetent” response to Katrina. Bush finally even (belatedly) apologized for it. But I never had a real clear sense of what “incompetent” meant. Now I do. Apparently it means “shameless cronyism.” (Ok, honestly I did already know that Mike Brown, Bush’s appointee to run FEMA, had previously held a job as the Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. But this is even more reckless.)

Greg Palast reporting for Democracy Now! a couple weeks ago around the Katrina one-year anniversary. (mp3 and transcripts for the two segments here and here):

What kind of evacuation plan would leave 127,000 to sink or swim? It turns out that the Bush administration had contracted out evacuation planning to a corporation, IEM, Innovative Emergency Management. I couldn’t locate their qualifications, but I did locate their list of donations to the Republican Party. We went to Baton Rouge to talk to them.

Palast goes on to report about how the evacuation plan, which IEM was paid a half-million dollars for, is mysteriously missing. And about how the real emergency management experts at LSU had never heard of these guys until they got their fat contract. And the kicker? After people drowned in New Orleans because these guys never came up with an actual evacuation plan (very innovative, I have to admit), guess who Bush contracted with to study what went wrong? That’s right - another fat consulting contract for IEM.

More info on IEM from SourceWatch.

Items from my day:

1. Turn on the radio on the way home from Rapid: Violent Femmes’ “Blister in the Sun“. It’s a bad song. Don’t follow that link. But wow - did it ever take me back to high school. Yeah, those two years when I went to high school.

2. Same radio, same car, same drive: teaser snippet from some radio comedian whose name I didn’t catch. Roughly:

Now whatever you think of Bush, he really seems like a fun guy.

(At this point, I fear we’re headed for mushroom jokes, at best, and offensive politics, at worst. This is a generic ClearChannel music station, after all.)

… I mean, he does, he seems like a fun guy. Like the kind of guy who shows up at your barbecue, and you can always count on him to get the whiffle ball game going. He shows up, and you’re like, cool, yeah, that’s cool, everything’s good. Whiffle ball. Tony the whiffle ball guy.

But then somebody decides to put Whiffle ball Tony in charge of EVERYTHING. And you’re like, whaaat?! I mean, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. He’s kind of competitive. And pretty soon he’s breaking into the neighbor’s yard, challenging them to whiffle ball. I KNOW you want to play whiffle ball, and I’ll take you! Like that. Um, no, we didn’t say we wanted to play whiffle ball. And then he starts chucking hamburgers at them, and you’re like, hey, Tony, what’s up? And he says, Dude, they were just about to start chucking hamburgers at me!! Only then you find out, they never even HAD any hamburgers…

Ok, well, I found it funny.

3. We played a round of disc golf in Rapid while waiting for an estimate on the damage to our front bumper from some guy who had a little trouble parking at Safeway. Scored ten over par, my worst round yet on that course. It was windy, and I was getting used to a new driver. But a beautiful day anyway, and what better excuse to wander around in a park for a couple of hours?

so i saw Syriana the other night (i should note that i watched most of the movie by myself, because aparently it wasn’t good enough to keep the attention of hannah and kelly for more than 45 minutes). i thought it was a decent movie, but way too complicated to really understand without rewinding a few times. i have to admit that i actually watched 3/4 of the movie, read the wikipedia synopsis, and then finished the movie. i had most of the plotlines and characters correct, but there were a few things i definitely would not have caught without reading the synopsis, even after watching the entire movie. perhaps the characters are a bit stereotyped (especially how all Arabs are presented as puppets of the US). oh, and it criticizes the US, which is why columnist Charles Krauthammer says “Osama bin Laden could not have scripted this film with more conviction.” well, i’d like to see him try anyway.

howard zinn wrote an article in the progressive yesterday calling for an end to nationalism. nationalism is harmless, he says, in a country without power. pride is fine untill you mix in a nuclear arsenal and potential for global domination.

the article gives some history of our nation’s conception of unique-god-chosen-ness - and it’s affect on “outsiders” - from Indians to Mexicans to Filipinos, Afghanies and Iraqis.

nothing new, really, but always worth noting and remembering.

since he throws in a bit about the flag - i’ll add a scott adams note on recent flag developments. ironic - the heavy government restrictions on it’s “symbol of freedom”.

Did I just hear this right? I think I just heard (on NPR) our President, GWBush, say:

“In our free society, people have the right to choose how they live their lives.”

Yes he did. I just looked it up.

And yes, he then followed that with the logical conclusion about free society:

“…decisions about such a fundamental social institution as marriage should be made by the people.”

Therefore, the logic follows, we need to have a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. This will put the power back in the hands of The People. So they can be free to live the way they want to. So The People can decide what marriage is.

None of the people, of course, are gay. None of the people would support gay marriage. These aren’t the people. The people are the ones who are free to live as they choose and define social institutions freely. Freely = no gay-ness. Anyone who is gay or supports gay rights must be… an animal! One of those beastly, uncivilized ones, like a warthog or a toad. Therefore, we need to have an amendment to protect The People from The Toads. Those same-sex loving toads must not marry. We need to keep the people free.

Amazing how easy it is to string these thoughts together.

Alright. So I haven’t been a very reliable blogger the last week or so. I repent and I’ll reform my ways, I promise. Starting now.

So, I put up some new mini-reviews of movies I’ve seen recently - The Red Violin, Pride & Prejudice, Mission Impossible 3, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Wag the Dog, some others. Some better, some worse.

Quality funny: the Yes Men strike again. Their MO is to build fake corporate websites, then get invited to conferences / media events as impostor representatives of a corporation. A couple years ago, the BBC interviewed them, believing them to be Dow Chemical reps, and on behalf of Dow they accepted responsibility for the Bhopal chemical disaster, which killed 15,000 and injured up to 600,000. Their stunt forced Dow to remind the world that neither Union Carbide nor its new corporate parent, Dow, have ever accepted any responsibility or lifted a finger to help the survivors.

In their newest trick, they “represented” Halliburton at an insurance industry conference on “catastrophic loss”, where they demoed Halliburton R&D’s newest project - the Survivaball, an inflatable “one-man gated community” to preserve the lives of corporate managers during future floods and natural disasters caused by global warming. In response to a serious question from the audience: “what about terrorism?” they “had to explain that, well, you know, it’s mainly — it’s got a bit of defensive capabilities, some elementary RPGs and maybe some other, you know, torpedo launchers, but basically … mainly that’s used against affluent members of the community who are trying to destroy your — you know, of the neighboring community, because those are the only people who can afford at that point to travel. You know, terrorism from the Middle East or whatever, we’re just not — that’s out of the picture at this point.”

Hey NWA, you got good actors - could they stand up in a suit in front of a bunch of insurance execs and say that with a straight face? If so, volunteer to help out the Yes Men! It’s like the Action-Comedy Co-Lab, but real life and even funnier. Elementary RPGs!

(more…)

this in my email forwarded by Michelle:

“Crawford, Texas

A tragic flood this morning destroyed the personal library of President
George W. Bush. The flood began in the presidential bathroom where both
books were kept. Both his books have been lost. A presidential spokesman
said the president was devastated, as he had almost finished coloring the
second one.

The White House tried to call FEMA. There was no answer.”