information and analysis

By
  • Dancing Larry has a sobering report up speculating on the fate of Plaquemines Parish at the very end of Louisiana
  • DHinMI leads a good discussion at the Next Hurrah that includes Meteor Blades; don't miss this post either.
  • PBS News Hour was excellent today. Watch it on TV if at all possible, (I don't think it's availible online.) The British reporter's work from Gulfport and Biloxi is the best on-the-ground coverage of this I've seen
  • The Weather Channel has a comprehensive set of photos
  • Billmon finally sources the Led Zeppelin song everyone's been quoting (not me, though....let's leave it at that) and writes a brilliant forward-thinking, well-researched post.
  • There is something deeply amiss in this story from the Mississippi Sun Herald. (thanks to colinb at dailykos.com)
  • BBC reporter Alistair Leithead in New Orleans, BBC TV (generic link, but has good stuff), reports that there are many dead bodies floating in the city of New Orleans, and that there are still many trapped in houses there. He also notes that Air Force One was visible as it passed overhead, tilting and flying low over the city.


    • One note: Governor Blanco's press conference on NewsHour had a kind of alarming undertext. It's clear that when a governor is pleading and sounding exasperated and put out, that there's a drastic need for leadership here. Simply put, this disaster is beyond the resources of any local municipal or state official to deal with. The scope of this disaster is huge.

    Even if the they can't act immediately, it is critical that our Federal government project leadership and promise that all available means will be brought to bear in New Orleans and Gulf Coast. Believe it or not, leadership is as much about that as anything. That is the essential first step, and today's Presidential press conference did not cut it.

    Someone with vision and leadership needs to stand up and soon. In this time of need, our President has failed us.

    Comments

    kid oakland said…
    We need an FDR--a new sort of WPA....instead we're stuck with an incompetant president who possesses neither the mindfulness to prepare..a response to such disasters, nor the competence to responsd to them.

    Exactly.

    GWB, a Texas oil man, is VERY familiar with the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. He knows the politics of it. His inaction on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday...and his lack of planning, in fact, his lack of support for efforts to stave off just such a levee break in previous years....

    are no less than damning.
    12:04 PM
    Post a Comment

    Popular posts from this blog

    a serious moment

    By
    I was really struck by this photo , which graced the cover of Tuesday's New York Times, showing Ariel Sharon, Condoleeza Rice and James Baker attending a memorial of the late Yitzhak Rabin in Israel. There's something in that picture...in Rice's face, jaw set, eyes hidden behind rockstar sunglasses...and how she is flanked on either side by two men who've played hard-ball power politics for decades: Ariel Sharon, peering beneath his furrowed brow and, always conscious he is being observed, gesturing and thinking...and James Baker, completely hidden behind a permanent dimplomatic mask, an impenetrable sphinx. Of course, that photo sends a powerful message to the world. Rice was in Israel to do serious business . The fact that she brought Baker with her meant that the full weight of the U.S. military-industrial complex... the old guard ...was with her. That trip to Israel was important; and I would guess that U.S. plans and actions regarding Syria were part of that
    Read more

    James Watson: racism alive and well in the USA

    By
    I've spent the last 24 hours reading as the fires ignited by Nobel laureate James Watson have spurred hundreds of racist comments on message boards across the world . The racial views espoused by Watson are not simply pernicious, they are unamerican. The premise that you could walk out your door in the United States and make the claim, with a straight face and in a public place, that you presume that someone is less intelligent than you because of the color of their skin or ethnic background is abhorrent. Watson claims that everyone with Black employees “knows that they are not the equals of Whites” and, somehow, that is supposed to be acceptable? We are supposed to take him seriously…as a scientist? I don’t think so. Watson is about to lose his job and what was left of his reputation. The equality of every citizen, respect for each other including our differences and a sense of the potential inherent in each and every citizen, especially our children, is essential to what it m
    Read more

    Sharks, Carp and Dolphins: applying a model from business to politics

    By
    From where I stand, it is encouraging to read essays expressing creative and critical ways to think about Democratic strategy in what is shaping up to be a significant election year.   Thereisnospoon has served up another solid challenge (always welcome) to Democratic assumptions...and bmaples addendem to that diary (including a nice summary of some thoughts from Markos) extended the idea of a  "broad assault" on conservatism that I (with many others) advocated in the wake of Katrina with flipping the rock . What I'd like to do with this essay is adapt a paradigm from the world of business strategy that I think applies to the Democratic party in 2006.  I think you'll find these ideas dovetail with the above essays, and, I hope, will prove useful tools for thinking about Democratic strategy in 2006... Dudley Lynch's 1989 book Strategy of the Dolphin: Scoring a Win in a Chaotic World divided business strategy into three competing paradigms:  that of Sharks, that
    Read more