Despite all the destruction and devastation around the globe, despite soaring inflation and security threats, it’s hard not to feel a little buzz of optimism in the air.  After all, Arlen Specter returned Harriet Miers’s questionnaire responses as “inadequate,” the investigation into Plamegate is proceeding apace, and the Congressional agenda seems thrown into a tailspin by the indictment of Tom DeLay.

And now, there’s this.  Here’s the first sentence; see if you can guess the publication:

It remains to be seen just how far George Bush is willing to go in exploiting the members of our uniformed services to compensate for his own lack of substance.

The answer, below the fold.

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For sheer absurdity, perhaps the most dumbfounding thing I’ve seen all day.

This is the so-called leader of the free world, folks.  But you gotta love those guys at Reuters for pulling out the caption-knives.  [Via Wonkette.]

Follow these directions:

1. Call Governor Schwartzenegger: 916-445-2841 (they’re apparently accepting calls from anywhere).

2. Push: 2 (voice your opinion on legislation).

3. Push: 1 (gender-neutral marriage bill - Senate Bill 849).

4. And push: 1 to support marriage equality.

Of course, the conspiracy theorist in my brain has me convinced that all the 1 calls are being dumped, while the 2s are being carefully tallied.  But we’ll see…

before
Originally uploaded by KF.

My stepfather just forwarded me a couple of photos sent to him by his junior partner in his real estate firm.  The junior partner received these from a fraternity brother of his, who took the pictures before and after Katrina, from roughly the same spot in his Bay St. Louis yard.

after
Originally uploaded by KF.

That’s before.  This is after.

If you haven’t seen it, go watch.

This, I can’t resist (from a wire story on Salon:

“Bureaucracy has murdered people in the greater New Orleans area. And bureaucracy needs to stand trial before Congress today,” Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, said on CBS’ “The Early Show.”

“So I’m asking Congress, please investigate this now. Take whatever idiot they have at the top of whatever agency and give me a better idiot. Give me a caring idiot. Give me a sensitive idiot. Just don’t give me the same idiot.”

I’ve found myself, since mid-weekend, with a vastly reduced desire to write about Katrina and its aftermath.  I’ve spent a bit this morning trying to figure out why, and have come up with a number of possible reasons why I no longer feel so compelled to post every frantic thought that goes through my brain.  A few of them, below the fold.

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Via a listserv I’m in, information about the Katrina PeopleFinder Project:

Donated money? Please donate a little time. Join the Katrina

PeopleFinder Project.

It’s easy. All you need is an internet connection and the ability to

copy data into a form.

http://192.122.183.218/wiki/index.php/

Help_Needed#Katrina_PeopleFinder_Project

After Katrina many friends and family members have been separated and

left with no clear way to find each other. Hundreds of internet web

sites are gathering hundreds, and probably thousands, of entries about

missing persons or persons who want to let others know they’re okay.

The problem is: the data on these sites has no particular form or

structure. So it’s almost impossible for people to search or match

things up. Plus there are dozens of sites - making it hard for a

person seeking lost loved ones to search them all.

The Katrina PeopleFinder Project NEEDS YOUR HELP to enter data about

missing and found people from various online sources. We’re requesting

as little as an hour of your time. All you need to do is help read

unstructured posts about missing or found persons, and then add the

relevant data to a database through a simple online form.

To get started please click here:

http://192.122.183.218/wiki/index.php/

Help_Needed#Katrina_PeopleFinder_Project

Questions? Email katrina-people (at) activist-tech.org

Thanks!!!

The Katrina PeopleFinder Team

Air America has announced a service that they hope will assist people looking for missing loved ones:  Air America Public Voicemail.  From their announcement:

Air America Public Voicemail

1-866-217-6255

Call the toll-free number above, enter your everyday phone number, and then record a message. Other people who know your everyday phone number (even if it doesn’t work anymore) can call Emergency Voicemail, enter the phone number they associate with you, and hear your message.

You can also search for messages left by people whose phone numbers you know. Air America Radio will leave Public Voicemail in service for as long as this crisis continues. You can call it whenever you are trying to locate someone, or if you are trying to be found.

Obviously, for this to work, people need to know about it so please forward the number to as many people as you can. You can find out more about Katrina and the affected areas at www.airamericaradio.com.

A pal of mine, whose mother works for one of the region’s power companies, passed on some information that she’d gotten via email.  I’m not going to quote the message directly, but will report a few of the facts that it includes, below the fold.

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