Saturday, 3 September 2005
Waiting for Godot
The play is in two acts.The plot concerns Vladimir (also called Didi) and Estragon (also called Gogo), who arrive at a pre-specified roadside location in order to await the arrival of Godot. Vladimir and Estragon appear to be tramps: their clothes are ragged and do not fit. They pass the time in conversation, and sometimes in conflict. Estragon complains of his ill-fitting boots, and Vladimir struts about stiff-legged due to a painful bladder condition. They make vague allusions to the nature of their circumstances and to the reasons for meeting Godot, but the audience never learns who Godot is or why he is important.
They are soon interrupted by the arrival of Pozzo, a cruel but lyrically gifted man who claims to own the land they stand on, and his servant Lucky, whom he appears to control by means of a lengthy rope. Pozzo sits down to feast on chicken, and afterwords throws the bones to the two tramps. He entertains them by directing Lucky to perform a lively dance, and then deliver an ex tempore lecture on the theories of Bishop Berkeley. After Pozzo and Lucky depart, a boy arrives with a message he says is from Godot that he will not be coming today, but will come tomorrow. The second act follows a similar pattern to the first, but when Pozzo and Lucky arrive, Pozzo has inexplicably gone blind and Lucky has gone mute. Again the boy arrives and announces that Godot will not appear, also confessing that Godot beats him and makes him sleep in a barn. The much quoted ending of the play might be said to sum up the stasis of the whole work:
Vladimir: Well, shall we go?
Estragon: Yes, let's go.
They do not move.
I recall seeing that play in College when I was MUCH younger, in the first scene taking place in the Spring one Tramp takes off his boots with a sigh of relief and comfort. In the second scene the same Tramp returning spies the boots still sitting there and is delighted that they fit.
What we have witnessed in New Orleans is Waiting for Godot/Fema.
According to an article I read in the Wall Street Journal Marketplace, in many respects the New Orleans Evacuation could be a model for other Major Metropolitan Evacuations. Of 1.4 Million residents over 80% were evacuated without much trouble. Those were the ones with access to vehicles and the lessons of past traffic jams exiting Large Cities were used to good advantage by making all of the lanes outbound.
Those who did NOT have access to vehicles were another story, they sat in collecting points Waiting for Godot/Fema.
What we experienced is a complete breakdown of Local Authority. I do not want a Federal Government with the Power to Arbitrarily assume total control in any area of the United States it wishes to at its own whim. We MUST learn from this experience and spread the Libertarian values of Individual Responsibility and Local Authority, instead of Waiting for Godot.
Convoy greeted with applause and anger
NEW ORLEANS- More than four days after Hurricane Katrina struck, the National Guard arrived in force Friday with food, water and weapons, churning through the floodwaters in a vast truck convoy that was met with both catcalls and cries of “Thank you, Jesus!” from the suffering multitudes.
But 46-year-old Michael Levy said, “They should have been here days ago. I ain’t glad to see ’em” — words that brought shouts of “Hell, yeah!” from those around him. He added: “We’ve been sleeping on the ... ground like rats. I say burn this whole ... city down.”
National Guard Troops started out from pre-positioned points as soon as the wind velocities dropped below 50 miles per hour in many places they had to cut through debris and downed trees blocking the roads. This is the thanks they get?
"This is a national disgrace," said New Orleans' emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert. "We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."
Ebbert's job is to coordinate New Orleans' response to emergencies. Somebody should show him this picture and tell him to stop blaming everyone but himself:
And finally this from Mayor Nagin himself:
"I need reinforcements," he pleaded. "I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. ...
I've done it all man, and I'll tell you man, I keep hearing that it's coming. This is coming, that is coming. And my answer to that today is BS, where is the beef? Because there is no beef in this city. "
Nagin said, "Get every Greyhound bus in the country and get them moving."
Some need to ask these two men WHY they let ever City Vehicle. every City Transport Bus, every School Bus sit waiting to be covered by flood waters instead of USING them to move people!
Then they should be horsewhipped.
If they had to, they should have loaded people onto dump trucks to move them out of the reach of the storm.
What can we learn from this debacle? We learned good lessons the last few times about how not to clog the roads during an evacuation. Now if we
are lucky we have learned like Charity, Emergency Planning MUST begin at HOME.
Does your City have a Plan in effect to use City Vehicles and Buses to evacuate your City in an emergency? If not then maybe YOU had better do something about it.
I read in the WSJ about a family who went back to their house as SOON as the Storm passed, the woman complained they had no electricity, they had no water and they had no food. They also did not seem to be in too much of a hurry to get to where these things were.
So the question is are we going Take Responsibility for our own future and see to these matters OURSELVES? Or are we going to Wait for Godot
Vladimir: Well, shall we go?
Estragon: Yes, let's go.
They do not move.
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Friday, 2 September 2005
Looting the Big Easy
In any plan, no matter how diligent the crafters, some details will be overlooked. The unforeseen will rear its ugly head and there will invariably be those demand vehemently WHY this is so?
I believe the decline in literacy, might be in part responsible for a lack of understanding of the concept known as "unforeseen".
One detail overlooked was, how DOES a Drug Addict get a fix during a Major Disaster. There appears to have been no contingency plan to address this issue.
New Orleans regrettably appears to be singularly vulnerable to this problem.
New Orleans teems with crime, and the NOPD can?t keep order on a good day. Former commissioner Richard Pennington brought New Orleans? crime rate down from its peak during the mid-1990s. But since Pennington?s departure, crime rates have soared, to ten times the national average. The NOPD might have hundreds of decent officers, but it has a well-deserved institutional image as corrupt, brutal, and incompetent.
Thousands of opportunistic vultures have looted stores all over the city, and shot in the head one police officer who tried to stop them. The New Orleans Times-Picayune has posted photos on its website of other police officers joining in the widespread theft from unattended stores. Looters have picked clean Wal-Mart?s gun department downtown. This anarchy is regrettably not all that surprising. Disaster does not make a weak peacetime civil and social infrastructure strong. Unfortunately, New Orleans must now ask for deserved billions in recovery money even as Americans see images of a city that loots itself on its worst day.
Still despite all the negative stories thanks to lessons learned from the last few major hurricanes,
about 80% of the 1.4 Million from New Orleans. We can do better, we must do better, we shall do better.
Too bad the bad eggs get all the publicity and all the hard work and sacrifice of those doing what needs to be done is overlooked.
One of the best articles I have seen was in the WSJ Marketplace Aug 30. But you will have to find an old hard print copy or subscribe to read it online.
$$] Escape From the Big EasyThe evacuation of New Orleans in the face of Hurricane Katrina could be a blueprint for authorities elsewhere. But the relatively smooth departure was little solace to thousands who lacked transportation.
The looting of the Big Easy was not confined with ripping off hospitals and drug stores and the like.
The media looted the attention away from those who were working miracles in an impossible situation, because stories of what is going wrong always sell better than those about what is going right.
I was sickened this evening to hear while I happened to walk by a Television some NBC talking head ranting about it being "Amateur Time" there. You see he had seen Hurricane Recovery operations in Florida he had been there and knew all about it.
Who among us has experienced the complete destruction of a City of over 1 million in the US before? Are there any still alive who lived through the Civil War? Because I do think that was the last time we had a Catastrophe of this magnitude inside our Borders.
If some Recovery Worker who had been pulling dead bodies out of shattered buildings and from the stinking water that covers New Orleans now had laid that full out cold on Prime Time TV? I would have clapped.
There is responsible journalism and there is whipping up crowds into hysteria. They are not the same.
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Thursday, 1 September 2005
Katrina Phishing Scams Begin
If I had one bullet and saw a looter, and one of the>se carrion, I would not hesitate in deciding which to shoot.
Security Fix
Brian Krebs on Computer Security
Katrina Phishing Scams Begins
It was bound to happen.On a hunch that we might see phishing scams popping up that take advantage of the terrible destruction that Hurricane Katrina has wrought on the Gulf Coast, I started looking up new Web address registrations for possible scam sites. In just a few minutes, I stumbled upon Katrinahelp.com, which claims to be a donation site for Katrina victims but was almost certainly constructed to steal Paypal usernames and passwords.
The DNS records have very little information on the registrant, which should be the first red flag. The only information in the DNS record is a P.O. box address registered to one "Demon Moon."
What's more, when you click on the "donate" link on the site, you are taken to a Web site designed to look just like Paypal.com. Only problem is that if you visit the site in Firefox, you will see that the Web address in the URL field is still Katrinahelp.com, when it should be Paypal.com.
Maybe this site tries to pull some tricks to manipulate what you see in that window if you visit the page with Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, but I don't know. I haven't tried it yet. My advice would be to just stay away from this site altogether. I am sure the authorities will have it shuttered soon anyhow.
And then something just like it will popup somewhere else and no doubt someone will fall for it.
Folks stick with Charities you KNOW and it might be best NOT to click on any links you get in emails or elsewhere. Just copy and paste the address.The Red Cross can be trusted, but to be consistent with my former advice here is the URL to copy and paste. ;-)
http://www.redcross.org/
Much other good trustwoorty information here
hurricane katrina -- flood aid--Instapundit Roundup
UPDATE: I just got paid tonight so I kicked off donations to the Red Cross from this site.
If you want to join in, use the links above to make the donation and Report your donation on The Truth Laid Bear Website with
This Link
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K Squared
Topic: Global Warming
There has been some flapping mouths linking Kyoto to Katrina. Robert Kennedy Jr for one I believe.
For the moment I will leave aside the Scientific Reasons why this is total nonsense and remind all
of a possibly forgotten detail of the Kyto Treaty.
BEFORE Al Gore went to Tokyo, A Bill was set before the Senate commonly called the
Byrd-Hagel Resolution
Sponsored by Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
Expressing the sense of the Senate regarding the conditions for the United States becoming a signatory to any international agreement on greenhouse gas emissions under the United Nations... (Passed by the Senate 95-0
In case you missed it let me in the manner of the US Congress ask for Unanimous Consent to Revise and Extend those remarks.
Passed by the Senate
95-0
which stated the Senate would not ratify the Protocol unless rapidly developing countries such as China were included in its requirements to reduce greenhouse gases.
The Clinton Administration announced it would not send the treaty to the Senate for ratification.
Somebody correct me if I am wrong, but I fail to see George Bush's name anywhere attached to this?
Not hard to fathom why, since this was before he became President
Whose Names ARE listed as supporting this Bill?
Well the total List can be found at
U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 105th Congress - 1st Session
as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate
Vote Summary
Question: On the Resolution (s.res.98 )
Vote Number: 205 Vote Date: July 25, 1997, 11:37 AM
Required For Majority: 1/2 Vote Result: Resolution Agreed to
Vote Counts: YEAs 95
NAYs 0
Not Voting 5
Now I encourage my readers to go to the website and view the Senate List themselves, but to start off I would like to List Just a few Senators who
VOTED NOT TO RATIFY KYOTO
A Yeah Vote is to support the Resolution actually its not to hard to deciphere, 5 Senators did not vote at all and EVERY Single Senator who DID vote, voted to support the Resolution and go On Record that they would not Ratify Kyoto as it stood.
Massachusetts:
Kennedy (D-MA), Yea
Kerry (D-MA), Yea
Illinois:
Durbin (D-IL), Yea
Moseley-Braun (D-IL), Yea
California:
Boxer (D-CA), Yea
Feinstein (D-CA), Not Voting
South Dakota:
Daschle (D-SD), Yea
Johnson (D-SD), Yea
I think I have made my point. I wonder if Bobby Boy discussed his essay on Kyoto and Katrina with his Uncle Teddy?
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Wednesday, 31 August 2005
The Hot SAUCE Crisis
A Post on Baen's Bar
There Might Be A Tabasco Shortage by Tim Covington AKA
De Opresso Liber Against the Enemies of Freedom(Note you may have to register, to get in but it is free and has great discussion groups)
Brought up a possible effect of Hurricane Katrina that had not even occurred to me.
This comes from my wife:
My mom had a wild idea the other night, that now doesn't seem so wild.
I haven't heard anything out of Avery Island, Louisiana. Not familiar
with Avery Island? It's the home of the One And Only McIlhenny's
Tabasco Sauce.
Check out this map. Zoom it out a few times, and look at its surroundings.
Their website is http://www.tabasco.com/ but I haven't been able to hit it.
How much do you think the price on a bottle of Tabasco is going to go up?
TimC
Now folks you can walk to work and shop, you can ride a bicycle, but without the
Spice of Lifebland food is just that, BLAND.
If need be the back country barbecues in Flyover, Jesusland might have to step in and help stem the hot sauce shortage.
Now where I come from in Western Kentucky Barbecue is listed in the Yellow Pages as just that Barbecue, not under Restaurants or any other heading but Barbecue.
The best pits don't even bother to advertise, and EVERY little hole in the wall Barbecue Pit has it OWN Hot Sauce recipe, usually made and curing in gal glass jugs.
Oh they do have 8 oz bottles with all the proper labels and things but that's for tourists, locals buy it in clear plastic fifth bottles the same ones whiskey comes in, no label, they just fill them up from a jug slap a top on and you pay and go. LOL
That stuff has a kick it has the same consistency as Tabasco sauce, NOT the thick gooey sweet barbecue sauce you find in grocery stores.
I am certain that the hinterlands of Jacksonian America can step into the breach if need be and stem any Hot Sauce Shortage.
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Tuesday, 30 August 2005
You Might Be A Jacksonian American September.
Topic: Out of Flyover Land
It's time to bump up this contest. There are only 13 days left to enter.
To view the previous entries go to the comments on
THIS PAGE
My buddy Gabe and I were brainstorming some spinoffs of Jeff Foxworthy's You Might Be A Redneck Jokes while on a smokebreak at work.
We call them You Might Be A Jacksonian American
You Might Be A Jacksonian American
If you think MREs taste good
You Might Be A Jacksonian American
If you think using the New York Times to line
the bottom of a cat litter box would be redundant
You Might Be A Jacksonian American
If you think the US should withdraw its forces
from Iraq, through Iran
You Might Be A Jacksonian American
If you think the saying "Speak softly
but carry a Big Stick" doesn't need
the "Speak softly"
You Might Be A Jacksonian American
If you look at the following cartoon
with an air of wistful regret.
I think I am going to call a contest, open until Sept 11, 2005, winner will get a teeshirt I picked up in St Petersburg, Russia. The above entries are disqualified. I will pick some neutral bloggers to vote on the winner.
Now if you really want to LEARN something about Jacksonian Americans, all kidding aside, there is no better place to start than
The Jacksonian Tradition by Walter Russell Mead
UPDATE Here are some jpgs of the prize. Now you CAN get them online from RussianLegacy.com
I got mine in a Bazaar in St Petersburg, Russia
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Free your 180, John Kerry!
I found the following via my friend
third world county
I work nights and sleep days, going to hit the sack in a few minutes so I cannot stay online to get the code for the blogroll, but I want to go on record as supporting this effort and decided to slap this together instead of waiting around. I will update and post some of my personal thoughts later.
UPDATE Now SOME may say this is old business from 30 years ago. It is not. The Man said he would release his 180, and he has not. He even state that he HAD released all his military record and he never did. THAT is not Old Business from 30 years ago it was Last Year.
Myself I am more concerned with other facets of his History, truth be told.
Like: His whitewash of the POW-MIA Investigation. His ramrodding Normalization of Relations with North Vietnam through despite the vehement protests of the American-Vietnamese Community AND their abysmal record in Human Rights.
Regarding these items I have another query of Mr. Kerry, beside the 180.
To Wit.
Was their any connection between the above actions on your part as stated and your cousin receiving an 800 million dollar construction contract?
Oh and along with releasing your 180 I would REALLY like some answers to the questions raised in this article.
Did America Abandon Vietnam War P.O.W.'s?
It is not conspiracy theory, not paranoid myth, not Rambo fantasy. It is only hard evidence of a national disgrace: American prisoners were left behind at the end of the Vietnam War. They were abandoned because six presidents and official Washington could not admit their guilty secret. They were forgotten because the press and most Americans turned away from all things that reminded them of Vietnam
Folks these issues are NOT 30 years ago, they were last year and while the Man was a US Senator and they demand an answer. While Mr Kerry was not alone in this venal cover up it would appear that he and his benefited from it to no small degree financially.
Cao's Blog
Join the blogbursts to help FREE Kerry’s 180 every Tuesday!
We’ve formed a blogburst group and here are the bloggers who are contributing so far. If you want to join the blogroll for Free Kerry’s 180, click here to email me, include the url for your blog. The blogburst is every Tuesday, so don’t forget to blog about it. All you have to do is encourage Kerry to set his 180 FREE, I’ll send you the code for the blogroll.
The more people we have, the merrier!
Aaron's cc
And Rightly So!
Atlas Shrugs
Balance Sheet
Cao's Blog
Christmas Ghost
Civil Issues
Conservative Friends
Cuppapolitics
DANEgerus
doubleplusgood infotainment
Doughnut Holes
Euphoric Reality
Flight Pundit
Fundamentally Right
Furry Press
GM's Corner
Gribbit's Word
House Of Wheels
i-imagery.com
Infinite Universe
International House of Conservatism
Jackson's Junction
Jay Howard Smith
Kender's Musings
Lifetrek
Moonbattery.com
My Vast Rightwing Conspiracy
NIF
PBSWatcher
Pettifog
Pirate's Cove
Pooklekufr: The Kafir Constitutionalist
Power and Control
Private Radio
Progressive Conservatism
Publius Rendezvous
Ravings Of A Mad Tech
Reasoned Audacity
Republican Vet
Reverse Vampyr
Right in Philly
Rottweiler Puppy
Shades of Gray
Something...and Half of Something
Steve's Blog
Steve's Blog
Stop the ACLU
Tall Glass of Milk
The Babaganoosh
The Creative Conservative
The Dark Citadel
The Paragraph Farmer
The Pulpit Pounder
The Sunnyeside Of Life
Think About It
Third World County
TMH's Bacon Bits
Uncle Jack
Villainous Company
Web-Nuts
What Attitude Problem?
Where's Your Brain?
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Monday, 29 August 2005
We Will Pursue Looters Ruthlessly
Topic: Out of Flyover Land
I could be mistaken, but that is what I think
I heard Haley Barbour the Governor of Mississippi
say on Fox, when asked how his State planned to handle looters in the wake of Katrina.
For the unenlightened. One of the most unpleasant
experiences you could have, would be a big burly
Mississippi State Trooper looking down and you,
spiting some chewing tobacco to the side and saying.
"This is MISSISSIPPI Boy, we don't appeal to better natures here."
A word to the wise, loot in a Blue State, they may be more empathetic.
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To Make a Safer World
Topic: Out of Flyover Land
I live and work in Cedar Rapids Iowa.
Let me make it clear that I am STILL from
Kentucky. That last sentence was to placate
the departed spirit of my maternal Grandfather
Stonewall Jackson Puckett. ;-)
So yes I live and work in Cedar Rapids, and
recently I found out that the good citizens
to the South of me, in Iowa City have taken
steps to make our area safer.
To wit they have declared Iowa City a
Drum roll, clash of cymbals!
NUCLEAR WEAPON FREE ZONE!No Really that is what they did, passed an ordinance and EVEN put up warning signs!
"the City Council of Iowa City declared the city a nuclear free zone; signs noting this fact, such as this one on Dubuque Street, are usually found near city limits."
I feel SO much safer to know that a City a half hour drive has taken such steps to ensure that possession of a Nuclear Bomb will be illegal.
Don't you wish YOU were this safe?
You know the really sad part? That is EXACTLY the way the Left thinks about National Security, Rogue States and International Terrorism.
Just pass an Ordinance, put up some signs and naturally all the nasty people in the world will read and obey them. If not then put massive financial investment in Literacy Programs.
I try to picture in my mind sometimes an Iowa City Cop enforcing that ordinance.
"Put the Atomic bomb on the ground and raise your hands in the air.
Put the atomic bomb on the ground and------------
White noise.
Oh there is ONE other slight problem, those signs? They cost $80 a piece and they keep coming up missing.
Your Tax dollars at work, to make a Safer Nuclear Free World. Forget about the potholes in the streets some things are more important.
Do I really need to mention Iowa City is a University town? I say town because the population is 60K and the Student body is 30K.
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Sunday, 28 August 2005
Who Moved Where?
Topic: Out of Flyover Land
As I was reading a post over at
Eye of Polyphemus it occurred to me how "definition of terms" can radically alter a perspective.
The passage that caught my attention and reminded me of some concepts I had been let build towards a posts starts:
According to George Will, it's the party base's embrace of Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, and MoveOn.org. Most of America couldn't care less about that trio, but the rank and file Democrats are all for such Leftist radicalism. That may spell trouble for the democrats in 2008.
"According to George Will, it's the party base's embrace of Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, and MoveOn.org."In time that COULD be true of the Party's "base" I am not certain if it is now, and I am pretty certain it has not been in the past.
Of course we can get down to a "definition of terms" here.
I think of the Base as being the Broad population of people who think of themselves as Democrats the bulk of the Party in terms of voters going to the Polls.
If you are talking about the ACTIVIST Base, those who do the nuts and bolts work of the Party it would be correct that it has been coopted by The Michael Moore and Moveon.org crowd, for after all didn't Moveon.org say they OWNED The Democratic Party now because they had PAID for ?
Picture the public reaction of an org tied with a Republican Party said that they had BOUGHT the GOP. LOL
I have been mulling over a few concepts, for instance, the idea that Zell Miller broached when he said.
"I did not leave the Democratic Party, they left me."I keep hearing that the Nation has moved to the Right. I am not certain that is accurate. I am wondering if the Democratic Leadership has moved so far to the left that they have abandoned a large portion of what I considered the Democratic Base.
How else can one explain the radical shift in Politics in what used to be called the Solid South? This has created such things as the Neo-Con movement which I perceive as former liberals who no longer feel at home in the Democratic Party.
It is certainly true there seems to be far more spleen directed against Neo-Cons than against old time Republicans. It is the sort of vehemence often directed at a former Lover after being spurned, it contains not just opposition of philosophical ideas, but the the hysteria of betrayal.
Not how could you
think THAT.
But
How could
YOU think that.
Or at least it seems so to me.
We live in interesting times. One of the Brightest orators or the Left, Christopher Hitchens is now a Neo-Con. Had you told me 20 years ago that I would eagerly read and agree with a life-time Trotskyite?
I would have told you, that is insane the World could NOT change to that extent.
On September 11, 2001 it did change to that extent.
Though despite claims that Hitchens has abandoned his Leftist principles he maintains that he has been consistent and loyal to them, it is the others who have abandoned them.
Those he maintains who support fascist thugs cannot point their fingers at those fighting to defeat fascist thugs, and use that epithet.
Zell Miller and Christopher Hitchens saying almost the same thing? I did not abandon my Party it abandoned me? Weird. A World Turned Upside Down indeed.
Now EVERYONE knows that the Nation has taken a turn to the Right and become more Conservative, but sometimes I wonder.
Did WE THE PEOPLE change or did the Leadership of the Democratic Party change?
Who was it said, "It ain't what folks don't know, it's what they do know that ain't so."???
In any case I think everyone has this situation all backwards. Though as time goes on it will create its own reality, as more and more former Democrats get driven out of the Party and register and start thinking of themselves as either Republicans, Libertarians or Independents.
The rank and file Democrats will become increasingly for Leftist radicalism.
And that folks will doom them to Political
Oblivion, because they will have abandoned
their TRUE base for MONEY.
MoveOn: "We Bought" the Democratic Party
By Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 10, 2004
A standard ?action alert? has provided a rare glimpse inside the mind of the Shadow Party.
In a December 9th e-mail signed by ?Eli Pariser, Justin Ruben, and the whole MoveOn PAC team,? the Soros front group stated: ?In the last year, grassroots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the Party doesn't need corporate cash to be competitive. Now it's our Party: we bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back.?
To clarify, the hysterical Left believes not only that America?s oldest political party is for sale, but that George Soros has already made the down payment.|
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