Over There, Over Here

Another terror color code...

Hmmm...considering how the terror alerts seesawed during the 2004 election season HERE, I'd say the Mesopotamian model is a bit understated...not quite chaos?

Judge for yourself.

Meanwhile, Bubble Boy continues to do what he does best--demonstrate a vacuum's basic principles:


There's every reason to throw this administration out on their ear--or at least send them a shit-sandwich, special delivery--for the way they've thoroughly, and perhaps permanently, made a big old mess out of Mesopotamia (with an even bigger mess potentially on the horizon)...but I'll repeat something I said yesterday, especially since Pravda on the Hudson managed to take a break from the story of the moment (what John Kerry did or didn't mean), and instead looked at the counterbalance to Debacle Iraq, that is, Debacle, United States...in this instance, a quick glance at John McDonogh High School in New Orleans:

John McDonogh High School has at least 25 security guards, at the entrance, up the stairs and outside classes. The school has a metal detector, four police officers and four police cruisers on the sidewalk.

In the last six weeks, students at McDonogh, the largest functioning high school here, have assaulted guards, a teacher and a police officer. A guard and a teacher were beaten so badly that they were hospitalized.

The surge hints at a far-reaching phenomenon after Hurricane Katrina, educators here say. Teenagers in the city are living alone or with older siblings or relatives, separated by hundreds of miles from their displaced parents. Dozens of McDonogh students fend largely for themselves, school officials say.

Oh, and while Shrubleroy alternately lies about Democrats, or what John Kerry meant, or waxes Kumbaya about a "democratic" Iraq that now has about as much chance of eventually happening as Shrub personally shitting 24 carat gold bricks in the Rose Garden to pay the cost of Enduring Clusterfuck, it's more than a little "interesting" (to use one of his favorite words) that the US Gulf Coast is curiously absent from his speechifying...and it's more than a little interesting to watch the dwindling base try to justify abandonment of a major American city/entire region of this nation.

Over there, virtually no expense is spared...well, except the cost of actually keeping the army fed and adequately equipped (funny how that goes). Over here, the level of whining and moaning about the geographic suitability of the Gulf Coast for habitation--by people who've never so much as set foot here--would provide enough hot air to heat the Northeast come this winter, if they could figure out a way to bottle it (note: they can't, they won't, and, as they have for a century, they'll be relying on Gulf Coast production for a substantial portion of their energy needs).

What a bunch of pathetic do-nothings. Their forebears ought to be ashamed...

OK, to fully move the topic to domestic matters, specifically this region, yesterday I was musing about coastal restoration, Cat 5 protection for NOLA, and so on (inspired in part by this beautiful, but ominous photo posted by Oyster)...and it hit me: you know what? It's not like the original development that CAUSED coastal erosion just "happened." The levees didn't build themselves, the canals and shipping channels didn't dig themselves. These massive projects were done by people. People with far more primitive technology than that which we possess. People who, yes, either didn't plan, or didn't know how to plan, or made the wrong plans/compromises re: long term considerations...but who nonetheless accomplished epic tasks.

This generation could likewise accomplish--or at least begin--the modern equivalent, i.e., correcting the mistakes...but instead there's a whole contingent who throw up their hands, bitch, whine, moan, and otherwise act like little children being asked, for the very first time, to tidy up their room.

Pathetic.

Come to think of it, maybe we should challenge these whining, bitching, moaning numbnuts to show a little consistency: if coastal restoration is too hard, then why is it ok to throw money away in the Iraqi desert? In fact, why should we embark on ANY large project? Roads turn to rubble...so why bother to grade or pave them? Houses eventually fall down, so why bother building them? Crops require constant tending, fertilizer, and so on...and even then a fair amount of produce rots before reaching the market...then you've got topsoil depletion, runoff, etc.... so let's just give it up (besides, it's an "unnatural" use of the land anyway). Yeah, just give it all up, move back into caves, resume a hunter gatherer lifestyle...and hope evolution personally looks upon you kindly.

And, damn...I haven't even mentioned regions like Tornado Alley, the Rust Belt, the Pacific Ring of Fire, and so on, which, as we all know, have risks associated with habitation. But the biggest risk of all, it seems...are people who cringe and cower, then bitch and moan...which, come to think of it, is their classic response to both domestic AND international issues (i.e., Shrub's 'terrorists might be in your backyard' campaign).

Calling them "pathetic" is actually being generous, come to think of it.