No Title, Because That Would Most Likely Be Misleading And I would Never Want To Do That To You And (After All) I Am Already The Cosmic Gallactic Univ

(ersal Big Head In The Sky Who Loves A Huge Hummer Of A Post Title)
wow. it seems today's my day. if you know my previous posts, then you know that i posted a resume on monster.com. that was when? Saturday or Sunday? Maybe last Friday? Yeah, I think it was Friday. Hmmm...took longer than I thought.
When I got home today from work I found a message on my phone from a materials supplier who wanted to talk to me, because he has two openings. His is a company I know well. I test against it all of the time. I create asphalt mix designs (actually making asphalt in my lab) from its material and specifications in order to see if the material will do what it wants it to do. He called from L.A. Who knows where he has openings for. It could be L.A. It could be San Jose. Or Fresno.
Then I logged in to my email. On the bulk mail page I found two messages of interest. One was from the guy who called me. Very good so far. I decided to talk to my boss before answering that one. But then I read the second one. It was from a "head hunter" who may have not read my resume all of the way through. It's for a job in San Jose. I have most of the prerequisates, but I don't have a "Degree in Science or something equivalent". I wrote her back to tell her this. I also wrote that if the degree had any waiverability to it I would be interested. She wrote back almost immediately that the degree waiver had been lifted if the applicant had good enough experience (and, unfortunately, has experience in word, excel and something else). she says the pay should be $45-55,000 with benefits and a company car. i know i'm already either:
a) out of my depth
b) dealing with a company that is desparate for qualified talent.
Either and both could be the case. Don't even think for a moment that I know how to downplay my expertise. I love my knowledge and talent in the lab. I'm one of a rare breed who chooses to stay in the lab. A lab technician by definition makes the least amount of money per hour. Most technicians start in the lab and move on, because they want state wages when they can get on field job. Lab techs who stick it out become valuable commodities. As an example, I know more about asphalt and how to make it then my degreed managers do. I also know more about soil than most engineers do, because i used to deal with it every day. I looked at it, kneaded it, compressed it, stretched it, tore it apart, broke it down, reassembled it, theorized about it. Engineers know what it's supposed to do. Technicians know what it does. An amazing concept in many ways.
Engineers spend so much money to attain a piece of paper that states they know soil or asphalt or concrete. With that paper they can earn $50,000 right out of college. But they may not know what friable clay actually looks like. They may not understand what "heavy flushing" means when they look at asphalt. They may not know how to recognize "rootlet voids". When looking at a blueish soil from the foothills what would they say? Can they tell you what the Valley normally uses for an asphalt emolliant on highways? What is the minimal degree faranheit atmosperically allowed when paving in the Valley? When are you allowed to use a laser temperature gun as opposed to a metal asphalt thermometer when inspecting paving on the mat?
I can answer these questions. An engineer can't always. But an engineer can use a calculator to solve for an angle on a slope. An engineer can tell you how steep your hill can be and still build on it. He can formulate a theory based on my tests that lets you manifest your dreams.
I can't do that. I can only help. I can only provide reality. And both are equally important. But the engineer can look at what I've done and extrapolate. I cannot look at what he's done and interpolate.
So, the Astros will be playing the Cardinals. Who will be playing the White Sox? It's still up to chance.

Indiana Means In Diana And Nothin' Else!

we here at dyerama central, known clearinghouse of information, wish to pass along the following alert to anyone residing in the state of indiana: your rights to assisted pregnancy (i.e. you're infertile and wish to go the surrogate route, you're unmarried or gay) may end soon. a proposed bill has been introduced to the Health Finance Commission. it is Request Number 20061258. within this "request" is a line which states that an unmarried person may not be an intended parent. further down (and it's long) is a section that would require "intended parents" to describe in detail their lives and livlihoods (okay on the surface). however, within this list is: "values" and "relationships". read further and one finds that the bill would require one to list any and all "faith-based" associations and activities. evidently, this proposed bill has the backing of the commission's chairperson, state senator patricia miller. however, yesterday she withdrew this bill from consideration. one wonders why. one's mind boggles. one shakes the magic eight ball for insight into how this neanderthal was ever elected. then one checks the map that shows all 50 states, peruses past statewide voting tendancies, and shrugs. unles, of course, one has been to indiana in the past lifetime...then one doesn't even have to look at stats. one just knows.
p.s. ginandtacos has a good line on this topic as well. look to the october 6 entry.

fed up in fresno

so, i decided to post on monster.com and whore out my expertise. i did this, because today i found out that a field technician who is returning to washington and was going to quit working for my comapny was offered a lab manager position in poulsbo. he has no lab experience whatsoever. he evidently is a great field tech, but...he has none of the below. when i accepted employment with this company i made a point of telling it that i would be willing to relocate in order to help the company (and myself). i think that i am in the grips of yet another behemoth that will hold me back at all costs in order to keep me where it wants me. at my last job i was told i was their "secret weapon". in other words i did such a good job that they would never tell me when a rival company was interested. but they would tell lesser qualified employees about openings elsewhere. simply put, i am a bit put out. i can run 98% of an engineering lab's tests (plus, i have learned a few tricks that aren't in any test manual). i can run a lab. my only weakness is that i will tell managers where they can stuff it when i think they are being unreasonable or supercilious. so, does anyone know of lab openings at an engineering firm in washington? i'd actually like to move closer to my parents and one of my brothers and his family (who live in spokane). i'm tired of being the player not to be named later.

and i'm willing to post tattoos.
Laboratory Technician, Level 3

(blank) and Associates
Clovis/CA

I currently run all asphalt tests for this office. I am engaged in all phases of asphalt mix designs. Tests I am proficient in include: Hveem and Marshall compaction, stability, stability and flow, bulk specific gravities, theoretical specific gravity, solvent extraction, asphalt content via ignition oven, gradations, sand equivalent, coarse and fine aggregate specific gravities, CKE, particle size analysis, atterburg limits, L.A. rattler, tensile/strength ratio (asphalt), all soil compaction, expansion index, direct shear, soil permeability, cleanness value, durability index, unconfined compression, resistance values (soil), concrete cylinder compression, fractured faces, flat and elongated particles, unit weight, moisture determination (oven and microwave), material finer than the 200 sieve, Concerning field work, I am proficient in concrete specimen sampling (all phases), aggregate and oil sampling at batch plants, asphalt sampling from the roadway, batch plant supervision and inspection.I currently hold certification of Caltrans 105, 106, 125 Aggegrate, 125 Asphalt, 201, 303, 304, 308, 370, 382.I am Nicet Level 1 certified.I am ACI Field certified.I have been a co-manager of an engineering laboratory. I have been certified in all of Caltrans field concrete requirements. I have passed multiple government security clearances for field work.I have my Troxler Nuclear Gauge Safety certificate.I have more than 5 years experience in this field. My strength and enjoyment is in the lab. I am currently in the process of attaining my ACI Lab certificate and will be attempting to attain my NICET Level 2 certificates in the next month. Also, I will most likely have 8 more Caltrans cetificates as well in that time.I am a self starter and require no supervision.

HNT I got NOTHING!!!!!

i got nothing this week. so i reversed color on this tat. i like it. but i still got nothing. no story, no nothing. my life is a chasm of work hell right now and i literally don't know what day it is. lecram had to correct me earlier today when i thought it was tuesday.
but that is one good looking tattoo. better than the real thing. and you can still see the ribbon in the dancer's hands. happy HNT to all and to all a good fright.

Tabula Rasa

okay, maybe it's a cheap shot...but i'd swear i can see the president's lips moving. now let's see him drink a glass of water.
anyhoo, his doll is perhaps the next supreme. be aware, be vary aware. and to those of you who might make the assertion that charlotte mccarthy over there is maybe not so zealously partisan because it's on the record that she donated to al gore's campaign fund...think about who was gore's campaign chairman at the time-none other than democrat-turned-republican (insert triumphal music cue here) texas's now-governor rick perry. big raspberries.

next topic: the DOD has better things to do, it seems, than repay families who bought body armor and whatnot for their soldier-children when the DOD wouldn't (even though congress ordered it to last year). tsk, tsk. but maybe that money is going to the starving children of Sudan. no? well then, it must be the victims of hurricanes katrina and rita. wrong again? huh...
(by the way, two sidenotes here on the 'canes. did anyone else think on the song "walking on sunshine" and notice any irony? also, everyone knows that tornadoes target mobile home parks and wipe them from the face of the earth. that's a given. but recently there have been articles about 150,000 mobile homes springing up out of nowhere after these 'canes. so, do the tornadoes waft them up into the air, take them out over the atlantic, hand them to the hurricanes [who clean them up, polish them, get rid of the residents] and the hurricanes bring them back ready for new inhabitants? not that anyone really is. only about 5000 of the 150,000 are actually being resided in. just wondering.)

"Lady Thatcher met Mr DeLay as as one politician meeting another. It was in no way a business meeting." um, how can that NOT be a business meeting? they're politicians for crying out loud! that's all they do. they eat it, breathe it, live it, crap it and bugger it. delay does not go anywhere without an agenda. least of all, to england...oh wait, it was a golf outing. perhaps, he just wanted her advice on how best to swing a mashie. there are a few other tidbits (rumors) on thatcher's health and decline thereof. i can't say i didn't admire her after a fashion and it would be a shame for her to lose her mental prowess. casting aside the falklands photo-op war, she did much to bring england back into the mainstream of world politics. she was more than smart enough to realize that the dollar was once again invincible, reagan was on a major roll and the Cold War was being won by him. when you are no longer the world's biggest power, what do you do? well, the smart leader places her money on the biggest and strongest horse. this she did and it was the right thing to do at the time. which is more than can be said of many world leaders at any given time in history.

oops, charlotte mccarthy ( i mean, harriet miers) time again. here is her resume. then she says this: "The wisdom of those who drafted our Constitution and conceived our nation as functioning with three strong and independent branches has proven truly remarkable" and i wonder where she was vacationing when terri schiavo was being batted around by the republicans who accused the federal and supreme courts of activism in refusing to become involved in a private matter and threatened them with physical retaliation. or when the supreme court actually agreed to step in and stop the 2000 presidential vote recount? does an independent judicial branch do what the white house tells it to do? does it interpret law as decreed by a 250-ish year old manuscript and allow as how only men are created equal? thomas jefferson and ben franklin were were very wary of instituting laws that, once in ink and signed, could be used by the few to oppress the many. and they both knew it could be done through "strict interpretation" easier than through verbal manipulation.
enough for now. as everyone knows...i hate politics except when it hates me back.

friday night fights? Swing and a Spliff

oh my. it's friday, isn't it? it was monday and now it's friday. it was monday, then it was tuesdaywednesdaythursday and tonight it's not. i need a moment to do a system check...minor knot in the mid-back region next to the spine (curable with Heinieken10, per hour x2, low-level headache and small blister on finger from busting ass all day today so that tomorrow will only be a long short work experience (see above prescription); beer fluids level is acceptable (but can be topped off); red sox are beating the yankees. cheers.
okay. everything's fairly in the green.
so, let's chat. i'll open up the floor to questions first. anyone? no? you sure? great.
looking to the news:
© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. the link really is to a story, but when i was at the end of it and saw the threat...well, call me immature. call me reactionary. call me...The Pale Writer.

Storms in U.S. divert gaze from worsening Iraq...yeah, remember this one? that "war" over "there"? wasn't going so well, people dying, soldiers getting blown up, constitution in crisis and all that? still happening...yup. didn't go away. except from the papers, of course. it seems judith miller being freed from jail is more newsworthy than 62 iraqis being blown to pieces along with 5 of our soldiers. karen hughes handing out books about our presidents to children in istanbul (by the way, the four photos on the book's cover were of washington, kennedy, lincoln and...you guessed it...bush) is also more noteworthy. but the iraq "experience" is still kicking up dust in the rear view mirror and gaining again. unless, of course, we can generate another diversion.

some time ago i was sent a link by lecram to a site that traded photos of dead iraqis from american soldiers for free porn access. lecram did not send it for prurient reasons. he sent it to inform me of a gruesome and immoral "hobby" going on. i did not blog about it. instead i sent it to a fellow blogger. he posted about it and sent it to other friends who could investigate it. little did we know at the time that this would become something of news importance. we were just trying to get the word out about this atrocious site. now, i find who the first blogger was to see it and post about it. don't click on the link unless you know italian. now, though, the press is beginning to run this story and ask questions. like "how can it be legal to trade desecration of the dead for 'lolitas-r-us'"? this link gives multiple links to those in the press picking up the thread. and about time. the site started as a place for soldiers to post nude pictures of their wives/girlfriends (huh?). it eventually morphed into what it is when the site's owner was sent pictures of iraqi dead (civilians, insurgents, terrorists...what's the difference, right?). he chose to then open the porn up to anyone who would email him or post macabre shots. and give free access to retail porn. i can understand soldiers using morbid humor to relieve the daily stress over there. cops do it, too, over here. we civilians tend to not understand the pressures constantly placed on soldiers. they are not the decision or policy makers. they are the front line holding the decisions and policies together on a shoestring budget and no armor for their trucks. and getting shot at and blown up...however. trading death for what one can only hope is a good 30 second jackoff is just wrong. FUCKING wrong! there is plenty of free porn to be had out there (and way more fun). more than i can shake my stick at. one doesn't have to buy a dime's worth in order to get off. so, there you have it. straight from the ass's mouth. my moral two cents, which is worth $.00014 less than it was when you started reading this post.

The Senator's aide chuckled rather loudly and said, "What VA? By the time this administration is done there won't be a VA." cue villain theme music, an offstage "bwahahahah!!!" and four shots of something strong. the Veteran's Administration actually works? despite the budgetary cutbacks they've experienced over the past 6 years or so? go figure. they should be bankrupt by now. they should be mere rubble under the boots of Small Government Nazis. we should be watching old soldiers lining up for the "special showers". that's how much conservative compassion this administration has had for those who served our country (for better or worse) in times of war and peace. once again: front line grunts paying the political price instead of those politicians on both sides of the corporate boardwalk who try to gut needed programs in order to free up money for their pet pork. at the moment, this IS a republican pogrom. but politicians will be politicians no matter who's in power. sell to the highest bidder and hope they have really good lawyers who can hide the shady dealings, reword untimely sales of stock and redistribute focus when it it all spills out (what politico can honestly think nowadays that the BIG fuckups will go away? especially with us fuckass bloggers getting involved).

now, it's important to remember that the Texas District Attorney is well known for his indiscriminatory pursuits of justice. and it's important to remember that a cia agent's outing is still not solved at the highest level. this man in Texas has managed to convince a grand jury that Tom (How To) Delay should be indicted for conspiracy (granted, grand juries merely rule on the general news). this indictment follows in the footsteps of not less than three rebukes by the House On Ethics and Reform in the last three (?) years. the majority leader has a few marks on his record? seems to me that if his scoresheet belonged to me i would be paying very high insurance rates and unable to secure loans or any kind of real financial help. but How To still has the public backing of the largest insurance company in the world: the republican party. if things went this south for me i'd be worried that the check cashing place on the corner wouldn't really hold my check until monday.

the one time i ran afoul of the law (in any meaningful way) was when i got really, really, really drunk and insisted on driving. it was a barbecue after a matinee at second space. we started at one actor's house where we drank beer and ate. then we went to the "english" pub where i used to work and drank guinness (notice how i separate beer from guinness?). after some games of real cricket we sojourned to the roadhouse. i had been given $5 by a friend who couldn't go and had told me to buy a kamakazi and drink it for her. when the gang got to the roadhouse one of my compadres talked the bartender into giving the two of us a pitcher of kamakazis for the same price. i remember saying to him "that's damn slick". then i turned to view the pool table. then i woke up and was driving through a school fence at 3 a.m. the only thing that woke me in time was the cigarette ember burning into my hand, because my head was slumped down onto my arm. at the station i blew a .27. at the court appearance to plead guilty to drunken driving 2 or 3 months later the prosecuter's assistant's jaw hit the floor when the judge read off my blood alcohol level. so did i actually. i hadn't heard what it was. and i immediately thought of how i drove right through the fence without hitting the posts and no car rammed me and nobody was hurt. and only one word came to mind: wow. i'm alive.

and all of this makes me think of my cat who expects me to feed it, house it and then leave it the fuck alone. this is the tabby translated into siamese. holy cat on a cross, saint francis. i don't know her name, but thumper is her game.

HNT Goes Coastal

we walked into the theater and claimed our spots. we were first in line, the three of us. picking seats in that back row (because that's usually the safest place in a Neo-Surrealist show) we began to enjoy our beers. lecram had run out after the previous show and bought a fifth of C.C. you see, the Neo-Surrealists are what some might categorize as "drunken fools on a parade float with four flat tires and nowhere to go". in plainer words, they don't care what happens so long as they have fun and make us have fun in the process. but i don't agree. i think they have a master plan to show themselves as aliens, take over the world and then redo mount rushmore to make it look like mojo nixon, lyle lovett, ed wood and all of southern culture on the skids. oh, and they're drunk. the Neo's, that is.

so, they we are. lecram has handed me the fifth. i have yet to open it. i had been drinking most of that afternoon, but it was all beer. i don't like to mix beer with the hard stuff on the weekend. so, i left it capped and sealed. then, daniel walked in and asked in his childlike voice "so, where that drink?". or something to that effect (one year it was "who's got the fucking booze?"). i have to admit now that the bottle was for him and his cohorts. i have learned over the past 4 years that (when walking into one of his shows) one should come well stocked.
but i digress. we're here for the show.
well, i don't remember how it started other than lights down. but the lights down part was pretty good. then a man was rubbing northern quilted toilet paper through his crack while yelling at the quilters that the stitching was'nt tight enough. then really bad carpentry...hit a bit close to home. at one point a mime fucked up a heckler. the c.c. came back out for the portrait session. somewhere in there, they threw cheese at us. generik and i were given chocolate as a love gift by a naked man whose genitalia always reminds me of a lotus blossom on the pond. i mean literally. and that's all i mean... shut up.
there were bouncy balls with a black light. a "go fly a kite" song. zuskha wasn't there this year and she is my favorite techie in the world, because she's really pretty and got naked for the show last year. in fact, there were 4 or 5 naked women in that booth. where'd that go?
so anyway. i'd broken the rule of the festival that said no pictures allowed during a show. well, i didn't break it really. when daniel was hanging out before the show and told me he was doing the "love" skit i told him about HNT and asked him if it would be okay to use him for it. he agreed and told the actors that there would a flash during the skit. but when it started i couldn't do it. he was on top of his game that night. i've seen that skit 4 times now and this year was by far the best (even though it wasn't zuskha). it was tight. and i didn't want to interrupt it. so, i didn't get The Shot. what i got was bathroom humor:

disgusting. immature. freakish. not the high brow i was expecting. i felt dirty afterwards. i hate myself now... i ate his chocolate.

Roger Roger, Over Rover

president bush wants to allow the military to wander our streets and tell us what to do in the event of a(nother) catastrophic event. contrary to popular belief, there are some critics of this plan. and this is the government which i think broke our basic agreement with it by not protecting us from weather beyond our normal control. so, i do not give the benefit of doubt any more. and this proposal of bush's is ludicrous at best. at worst it's ...well, i don't see a worst. i see fascism. i see a strangelovian operetta filled with all of the "worst" things that our government can think of to throw at us in times of stress in order to divert with either a new scare (and reason for continued patriotism) or an old triumph (and reason for renewed patriotism). the only reason we went crazy down in new orleans after the flood was because we thought we had been left to die. i watched it from the west coast and couldn't believe my eyes. i couldn't believe what i read. it started bad really quickly and then it went straight to hell. but do i think that letting the military step in as if it's martial law is right? why, wouldn't that basically say that the government has quit the business of our safety if it means giving up afghanistan and iraq?

have you heard of the davis-bacon act of 1931? neither had i until today when i read that president bush had suspended it. go here to find a summary of it. or go here to read the actual act itself.
evidently, federal contractors working to rebuild any area damaged by the recent hurricanes need not pay a local area's prevailing wage (don't read that as union wage...not even close!) to workers hired. in louisiana that prevailing wage is about $9 per hour. many of the people who would apply for these jobs are the very locals put out by the storms and in need of jobs and money. now, they will work for minimum wage or thereabouts. if they can even get the jobs. word is going around that the contractors are trying to hire as many undocumented workers as they can find.
apparently, bush looked at the money he was willing to let go of to help the storm reconstruction and looked at the amount of bodies needed to do the work and sagely decided that the only way in which to keep the budget under control was to roughly halve the wages. hey, let's all give a damn hearty round of applause to those white house bean counters, huh? kudos to youse guys! and let's not forget that oh-so-humble white house counsel who looked into the murky, murky past and saw an opportunity to do good for the common citizen by suspending a major law that protected the common citizen up until today, but was now "keepin' the kid down on the farm". big, big shout out!
hell, you'd think the "citizens" down around the Big Easy would be more than grateful for this government handout. minimum wage? so what? it's a job and those folks who were dumb enough to choose to live 6 feet under sea level should be grateful to bush for this show of generosity. and they should just get to work and tote that cotton. damn, i love this country! what a great way of life! now shut up and eat your gruel!

Can We put Bush's Face On It?

Official Announcement

The government today announced that it is changing its
emblem from an Eagle to a CONDOM because it more
accurately reflects the government's political stance. A
condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the
next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you
a sense of security while you're actually being screwed.

i like to write to the Fresno Bee with my pompous, self-serving genuflections. it beats actually doing anything concrete to change society. the following are the most recent two i wrote and considered sending. enjoy, hate, froth, writhe, undulate...whatever. i'm becoming pretty damn cynical, so i don't really care much anymore.

It seems the media and the populace at large are content to be enthralled with Mayor Autry's taxpayer-paid excursion to Louisiana where he is conducting a touchy-feely, goodwill tour full of newsbites.Yet I have not seen or read of one instance in which a family has been issued an invitation to our city while they sort out their affairs at home. Are we really looking to bring 300-400 evacuees here or are we merely paying for a re-election junket? Autry looks good "getting down" and yucking it up with selected Lousianans, but what is he actually doing? I'm beginning to seriously doubt that a few busloads of displaced poor people will be allowed to enter our county. It's really the "thought" that counts anyway, right?

While we focus on Mayor Autry's re-election tour in Louisiana it may be time to, also, think on how we might respond to a natural disaster happening closer to home. We now know that we can't rely on the federal government to protect us in any manner resembling that which it agreed to when any of us became citizens. That agreement involves our government protecting us from harm to our bodies and our properties from individuals or events that endanger our basic way of life. That is democracy. In return, we work hard and tithe a certain percent to its coffers. This is the big question. What did we receive from it when Katrina hit? Answer: platitudes, assurances, denials, finger pointing and death. There will be a next time and chances are the response will be the same without common outrage forcing change at the highest levels. This is an American tragedy. Not White versus Black. Poor versus rich. American. How do we not let our government simply wipe this blood off its hands? If we don't speak up, shout out, then history is doomed to repeat itself.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1108972,00.html

booger.com to me

well, my blog won't let me upload pictures, so i guess no HNT this week. what the fuck? last night it wouldn't let me post with pictures. in fact, it wouldn't let me post at all. today, i find the post did go through, but according to blogger.com it didn't. now, no picture even on my create window. fuck it. i'm getting tired of this crap anyway.

FEMA, Michael Brown and Bush

2005


Departments
Election 2004

FEMA Chief Brown Paid Millions in False Claims to Help Bush Win Fla. Votes
by Jason Leopold
September 19, 2005

Michael Brown, the embattled head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, approved payments in excess of $31 million in taxpayer money to thousands of Florida residents who were unaffected by Hurricane Frances and three other hurricanes last year in an effort to help President Bush win a majority of votes in that state during his reelection campaign, according to published reports.

“Some Homeland Security sources said FEMA's efforts to distribute funds quickly after Frances and three other hurricanes that hit the key political battleground state of Florida in a six-week period last fall were undertaken with a keen awareness of the looming presidential elections,” according to a May 19 Washington Post story.

Homeland Security sources told the Post that after the hurricanes that Brown “and his allies [recommended] him to succeed Tom Ridge as Homeland Security secretary because of their claim that he helped deliver Florida to President Bush by efficiently responding to the Florida hurricanes.”

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel uncovered emails from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush that confirmed those allegations and directly implicated Brown as playing politics at the expense of hurricane victims.

“As the second hurricane in less than a month bore down on Florida last fall, a federal [FEMA] consultant predicted a "huge mess" that could reflect poorly on President Bush and suggested that his re-election staff be brought in to minimize any political liability, records show,” the Sentinel reported in a March 23 story.

“Two weeks later, a Florida official summarizing the hurricane response wrote that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was handing out housing assistance "to everyone who needs it without asking for much information of any kind."

The records the Sentinel obtained were contained in hundreds of pages of Gov. Jeb Bush's storm-related e-mails the paper received from the governor’s office under the threat of a lawsuit.

The explosive charges of mismanagement of disaster relief funds made against Brown and FEMA were confirmed earlier this year following a four-month investigation by Richard Skinner, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general. Skinner looked into media reports alleging that residents of Miami-Dade were receiving windfall payments from FEMA to cover losses from Hurricane Frances they never incurred.

Hurricane Frances hit Hutchinson Island, Fla., about 100 miles north of Dade County, on Sept. 5. Miami-Dade officials described damage there from heavy rain and winds of up to 45 mph as ''minimal,'' according to the Post.

Indeed. A May 14 story in the Sun-Sentinel said: “Miami-Dade County residents collected Hurricane Frances aid for belongings they didn't own, temporary housing they never requested and cars worth far less than the government paid, according to a federal audit that questions millions in storm payouts.

Responding to those allegations, Brown held a news conference Jan. 11 blaming the overpayments on a “computer glitch” and said the disbursements were far less than the $31 million that was cited in news reports and involved 3,500 people. Moreover, to silence his critics who said that Hurricane Frances barely touched down in Miami-Dade, Brown cited a report by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to prove that there were legitimate hurricane conditions there and as a result that a bulk of the payments was legitimate.

But according to the Sun-Sentinel, NOAA had refuted the weather maps Brown claimed to have obtained from them. That report prompted Congressman Robert Wexler to send off a scathing letter to President Bush calling for Brown’s resignation.

Bush rebuffed Wexler. However, the DHS’ inspector general launched a probe to determine how widespread the problems were involving overpayments to Miami-Dade residents. In May, the inspector general released his report. What he found was damning.

“The review found waste and poor controls in every level of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's assistance program and challenges the designation of Miami-Dade as a disaster area when the county "did not incur any hurricane force winds, tornados or other adverse weather conditions that would cause widespread damage."

In identifying one of the overpayments, the inspector general’s report said FEMA paid $10 million to replace hundreds of household items even though only a bed was reported to be damaged, the inspector general’s report said.

"Millions of individuals and households became eligible to apply for [money], straining FEMA's limited inspection resources to verify damages and making the program more susceptible to potential fraud, waste and abuse," the report states.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee, said during a committee hearing in May that Brown “approved massive payouts to replace thousands of televisions, air conditioners, beds and other furniture, as well as a number of cars, without receipts, or proof of ownership or damage, and based solely on verbal statements by the residents, sometimes made in fleeting encounters at fast-food restaurants.”

“It was a pay first, ask questions later approach,'' Collins said. ''The inspector general's report identifies a number of significant control weaknesses that create a potential for widespread fraud, erroneous payments and wasteful practices.''

But the most interesting charge against Brown is that he helped speed up payments in Florida and purposely bypassed FEMA’s lengthy reviews process for distributing funds in order to help Bush secure votes in the state during last year’s presidential election.

Bob Hunter, director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, who was a top federal flood insurance official in the 1970s and 1980s and a Texas insurance commissioner in the 1990s, told the Post “that in the vast majority of hurricanes, other than those in Florida in 2004, complaints are rife that FEMA has vastly underpaid hurricane victims. The Frances overpayments are questionable given the timing of the election and Florida's importance as a battleground state.”

FEMA consultant Glenn Garcelon actions certainly lends credibility to questions raised by Hunter.

On Sept. 2, 2004, Garcelon, wrote a three-page memo titled "Hurricane Frances -- Thoughts and Suggestions."

“The Republican National Convention was winding down, and President Bush had only a slight lead in the polls against Democrat John Kerry,” the Sentinel reported in its March 23 story. “Winning Florida was key to the president's re-election. FEMA should pay careful attention to how it is portrayed by the public, Garcelon wrote in the memo, conveying "the team effort theme at every opportunity" alongside state and local officials, the insurance and construction industries, and relief agencies such as the Red Cross.”

Gov. Bush received the memo Sept. 30, 2004 shortly before a swell of payments made its way to residents in Miami-Dade who did not sustain damage as a result of Hurricane Frances.

A couple of weeks before Gov. Bush received the memo from Garcelon, Orlando J. Cabrera, executive director of the Florida Housing Finance Corp. and a member of the governor's Hurricane Housing Work Group, said in a different memo to Gov. Bush that FEMA was allocating short-term rental assistance to "everyone who needs it, without asking for much information of any kind," the Sentinel reported.

In addition, "standard housing assistance," of up to $25,600, Cabrera wrote, is "liberally provided without significant scrutiny of the request made during the initial months; scrutiny increases remarkably and the package is far more stringent after an unspecified time."

The DHS audit report found that, under Brown, FEMA erroneously distributed to Miami-Dade residents:

* $8.2 million in rental assistance to 4,308 applicants in the county who "did not indicate a need for shelter" when they registered for help. In 60 cases reviewed by auditors, inspectors deemed homes unsafe without explanation, and applicants never moved out.

* $720,403 to 228 people for belongings based on their word alone.

* $192,592 for generators, air purifiers, wet/dry vacuum cleaners, chainsaws and other items without proof that they were needed to deal with the hurricane. Three applicants got generators for their homes, plus rental assistance from FEMA to live somewhere else.

* $15,743 for three funerals without sufficient documentation that the deaths were due to the hurricane.

* $46,464 to 64 residents for temporary housing even though they had homeowners insurance. FEMA funds cannot be used when costs are covered by insurance.

* $17,424 in rental assistance to 24 people who reported that their homes were not damaged.

* $97,500 for 15 automobiles with a "blue book" value of $56,140. In general, the report states that FEMA approved claims for damaged vehicles without properly verifying that the losses were caused by the storm.

---
Jason Leopold is the author of the explosive memoir, News Junkie, to be released in the spring of 2006 by Process/Feral House Books. Visit Leopold's website at www.jasonleopold.com for updates.

Stormin' and Struttin'

well, we've got another severe storm warning plus high winds. the winds have taken down a tree and a telephone pole on my block. in the seventh inning of the giants/nationals game there was a loud crack and an equally loud pop. the tree broke at its root base, grabbed onto a phone line from across the street, failed to keep itself upright with that, went to the ground with the line still in its clutches and the pole (rotten from the inside out) followed. the police are here now with lights flashing to let drivers know they should take another route. no rain, thunder or lightning, though. speaking of police...
it seems there was a child abduction at heaton elementary school this afternoon (about a four minute walk from my house). the 7 year old boy lives at the end of my block. the cops put out an Amber Alert, so it's on the radar. i'm sure the registered sex offender down my other street will have had a visit by now (whether or not it's warranted)...
the lightning has now arrived. beautiful forked lightning with three, four and five prongs. it remains to be seen if it will attack my neighborhood ( it can pour rain two miles away and leave my house completely dry often). but the sky light is gorgeous. the clouds are forming overhead, looming dark and foreboding. the wind is picking back up again. i won't be surprised if the power goes out at some point tonight...
still waiting for some city worker with a chainsaw to get the tree off of the street. still waiting for SBC to come and look at the phone line on the ground. perhaps, police cars should be equipped with saws of some kind instead of just guns, vests, restraint jackets, tasers, mace, etc. at least they're here...
as for the fringe festival, well. it was a very good time. lecram and i partied it up, coffeed it up, played it up and networked it up. the hotel we stayed in this year (because the essex hotel was sold to the city) was, uh, functional. no perks like rooftop access or The Mirror That Looks Back At You. it did have beds and a bathroom. and, really, what more does one need (other than Magic Fingers)? however, there was no interest in hanging out there if it wasn't necessary. no more Air Travel Hotel next year. it's just too dandy a place for poor slobs like us. oh, and how do flies make it seven stories up and into an open window? i thought they had like a 30 foot ceiling or something.
i saw ten plays this time around. and i was 8 for 10 in the good vs. not good scheme of things. a much better average than most years. not too much nudity this year. but plenty of cheese throwing, canadian club sipping, laughing. i even got spooged on by a giant penis (took me 5 minutes to get it all out of my hair).
the food was, of course, fantastic. friday night we supped on vietnamese food (their meatloaf is very interesting). saturday it was roast beef and lamb (at original joe's, which was the site of a robert downey, jr movie shoot on monday). and sunday it was indian. we naturally hit the Sunshine Kitchen for breakfast one morning (you can get rice with your eggs, bacon and toast, but i DIDN'T).
and a lot of time was spent at the powell street BART station drinking coffee and trying to guess who was a native and who was a tourist...it was a lecram thing. i won by pointing at him and yelling "TOURIST!!!" over and over again. the "scenery" was very nice with plenty of european women cavorting about along with the chinese stewardesses staying at our hotel. in the theater i developed a crush on the main actress from "Go!". she was pretty, but when she began acting she became beautiful. and stage talent turns me on like almost nothing else...
...the rain has arrived. heavy downpour. we'll probably get a quarter of an inch in about an hour. in some states that would be considered a fine spring mist, but here in september it's pretty much unheard of. the lightning is hitting about every five to ten seconds and it is almost directly overhead. the raisins (a bazillion dollar crop) will be ruined if this storm is widespread. i feel sorry for the policemen standing guard over the tree. and for the family of the lost little boy. this turn of the weather can only make it more fearsome...
we ended our fringe tour by attending the closing night party. now, in past years this event had been plenty boring and pretentious. i almost opted not to go, but that's where the bar was and generik (who is a hell of a host even if he wouldn't take me to a giants game and can't hold his liquor) and i weren't finished toasting each other. off we went and to my surprise it was a hell of a shindig. all of the actors showed up and stayed. whether it was because of all of the press they received this year (hadn't ever gotten any before) and a new sense of community was born or because they all thought they could win an award (and almost all of them did, because the festival founder greatly expanded the categories this year and very rightly so) or they had nowhere to go and the food was free or they wanted to meet those super sexy rogue festival creators and rub up against their auras...who knows? but it was a grand time for all. and the hangover wasn't so bad the next day.
on monday, lecram and i were up at the crack of ass (which is much later than dawn and shouldn't be experienced in front of the children) and down to powell station for one more gulp and ogle. then, we cruised it down highway 101 and over 152 with a stop for lunch at casa de puta. i had an unbelievingly normal burger with fries and lecram had the crow pot pie (i believe it was called the "casa de caw caw"). after a stretch and a good casa de poo poo we headed back to I-5 and cut over to 99 via the Firebaugh exit. a good trip back with plenty of good conversation, though most of it came from the radio. and in spanish. and they wouldn't take calls from wedos ("no habla honkie")...
...so, KVPT (our local public station) is off the air and not showing NOVA. i assume it's because of the storm. and the pizza delivery guy is lost and asking me for directions to an address that doesn't exist (i directed him to the house of my former car mechanic). the rain is still falling, but not as hard and the light show has eased. i wonder if this is the lull before the back edge hits. that's how it usually works here. the front dumps and blows and acts like a colicy baby, then mellows like a pothead on primo weed who's into computer games, then hits again as it exits as if to say "bitch! don't you ever hold out on me again!"....
and that's it for my adventures in The City. a good time, but it didn't refresh me in the normal manner. at work today i was a son of a bitch. didn't like anything. didn't want to do anything. i was tired and my back hurt and they shorted me on my paycheck (but it turned out to be okay, bacuse they told me they could get away with it...cool. next holiday pay period i will NOT be going into work on a saturday to help out a manager if they won't pay me overtime and they can just kiss my overqualified ass). tonight i'm better, because i left without working extra, got a nap in and watched the giants beat the nationals in a late inning comeback AND barry bonds hit a monster of a homer that shut up the boos (yes, virgina, he CAN hit them farther than santa claus, so shut the fuck up and go to sleep). and it looks like the padres lost, so the giants creep within 4 or 5 games with a handful left to play. exciting to the finish. and the giants beat the stinking dodgers head to head this year and could finish up better in the standings. bite me, L.A. and now we have a storm and i do so love inclement weather. it hurts my pocketbook sometimes when no asphalt can be paved, but rain is more important than asphalt. rain brings forth, asphalt covers up.

Storm Warning

just a quick post. i've turned on the television set (which is hooked up to the Dish Network) and it is experiencing massive technical difficulties. which means a storm is interfering with the satellites. and there is a storm warning for my fair city that includes heavy rain, thunder and lightning, and nickel sized hail. i'd say it might be on its way. cool. for me. not cool for the raisin growers (if one can say that about the people who make raisins. they don't really grow them, they grow grapes and then let those grapes lie on paper until they're mere ghosts of the fat, succulent crowd pleasers they once were). i'm going to try and post on my trip to the San Francisco Fringe Festival at some point today, but i'm still recovering from the vacation.

well, hellooooooo. is everyone having a grand time in san francisco? no? hmmm. oh, wait. that could be because you're not here and i am. bwahahahahaha!
seriously, i miss you all and---sorry. started laughing again.
anyway, arrived in the City at 1-ish this afternoon after a groovy 180 mile commute that included almost no traffic (other than the idiot in front of us at the bridge tollbooth who spent something like 5 minutes either looking for exact change or chatting up the very cute booth operator). started out the morning with a javalanche from java wava to kickstart the drive. hit modesto and stopped for iced tea, film and batteries. livermore's a & w/kfc mega-greasepit was the official pisspoint (seemed appropriate). then over the hill, into the brisk sea air and a glorious afternoon of wandering around the tenderloin and looking at hookers...i mean, bookstores. um, for the next installment of our adventures, you'll have to go lecram's blog.

Jim Crow Back On The Beat

there's no way this can be true in our enlightened era. right? anyone? bueller?

Half Nekkid Thursday

happy happy joy joy! it's HNT time again! this week i'm pulling an oldie from my college days. back in the year 19mumblemumble i was but a wee lad who thought he had the makings of a sean connery, sean penn, sean young or pauly shore. there i was at the U, making my way up the ranks of the privileged class (those who were given parts without having to really audition). at that time i was about a pfc. most of my work was being done in the "black box", which is where the student-run productions happened 9and where the best shows occured, because they were anarchy at its finest). i had been blacklisted by a professor a semester or so before this picture was taken, because i failed to show up for one of his poetry class readings (or something like that). so, i had been working the non-teacher-controlled plays for a while. when a senior grade actor decided to be Hamlet for his senior project i went to auditions hoping to get a minor supporting role. in fact, the professor/director had suggested i try out for laertes or Hamlet's sissy friend. reading the script for the first time in my life i quickly focused on Claudius (that bastard evil king/stepfather/murderer). something about him just clicked with me. i got the part and this is the one promo photo i was given and able to hang onto. it's not necessarily half-nekkid now, but i felt ALL nekkid when i was on stage. this was my biggest and baddest role to date. and damn i was good looking before the drugs, booze, baby and narcissism took full hold of me.
happy HNT to all and to all a good night/morning/afternoon. go here for the rules (more like guidelines, actually) and go here to see my favorite hottie (if she's out of the hospital and feeling up to blogging). and go here to check out HNT's creator's blog. also, lecram's HNT is up.
go. now. i mean it. quit staring at me. or say something. anything. fuck it. fine, just go. this was the biggest mistake of my life trying to be honest with you. you're just like all the rest. ogle me and on to the next. you'll get yours someday and i'll be there to laugh and laugh and laugh...i'm sending you the bill for my therapy.

so, theraminman (who, evidently, actually started writing on his blog while i wasn't looking), gave me a cd of Jonathon Richman and the Modern lovers. much loved gift. it's jonathon singing live and "ice cream man" is perhaps one of the best live versions of any song i have heard by anyone ever. "egyptian reggae" ain't so damn bad either. that would have been enough to get me to his music gig last saturday (plus the gig was damn fun. i haven't danced like a giraffe in heat for some time; made me reealize that if i'm going to not quit smoking i need to get back in the other habit of getting exercise). but...
BUT he can't give me just one richman cd. no, he has to tease me with a "bonus cd". and when he hands it to me it turns out to be the very album that got me started at the age of 16 on my jonathon odyssey. my older sister had bought a rubinoos album (vinyl, of course). inside, though, was something by someone we didn't know of. sis wanted to return it right away, but i and her older brother convinced her to play it first. the rest is history...she didn't return it. and i have followed his music ever since. how could i go wrong with songs like "here come the martian martians", "abominable snowman in the supermarket", "hey there little insect", "hi dear", unique covers of "back in the u.s.a." and "amazing grace", and "rockin' shoppin' center"? not to mention "lonely financial building".
so, thank you theremainman (sic). you rock just as does jonathon. and your "ticket to ride" gig on saturday was a kick for me. the music was good, the dancing was strokeworthy (not in the kleenex way, mind you) and your shoutouts made me feel like i was having my birthday all over again. and the picture above is my badnewsblonde way of thanking you (she thanks people who buy her stuff by showing parts of her body...which is damn smart. you don't get that. you get what i got. and what i got is me at 15 trying to be cool for the camera. but aces works for the gift. aces to you, beeyatch).
cheers to all and listen to jonathon richman as much as you can. by the way, the cd has at least three more songs on it than the vinyl did, including "roadrunner". SUPER BONUS!!!!!!!!!!

Even I Am Stunned By The Absolutely Incoherent Manner In Which Bush Addresses Katrina

(normally i'd just link to an article, but this is so intense as an indictment of our current leader's incompetence that i chose to go ahead and print it in its entirety. this man has no clue. he can't finish sentences. he loses track of his thoughts. he calls what he did extraordinary. he becomes combative when a question diviates from what he expects to hear. he falls back on repeated words to try and convince people that he has a handle on the situation. switching questions from new orleans to iraq seems to have flummoxed him momentarily. his grasp of the english language is simplistic at best and rote at worst all in the same q and a period. he claims he doesn't lead by poll, but unquestionly accepts on what his handlers tell him [it's in here if you read closely]. he tells the country that a big storm is coming on monday on monday morning? i must have missed that, because i was at work as was everyone else. actually , he was still out at his ranch on vacation. if he had called an emergency television message wouldn't i have at least heard about it? maybe NPR and those other left wing commies censored it. and, wow, he signed a pre-declaration in anticipation of a big storm coming. what the hell does that mean?!? and what did it contain? because nothing other than devastation, death, looting and panic ensued. police from neighboring states cut off routes of escape. doctors were forced to put to death those patients they couldn't justify taking with them. the national guard wouldn't allow food drops. local, state and national agencies had no idea what the other was doing. it took bush almost three days to be called out of vacation to do a fly-over. FEMA had no idea people were being housed in the convention center until 4 days after katrina hit. FEMA's head has resigned "in the interest of the country and in the interest of the president" [somebody tell me what that means, please? did he finally realize that a political appointment should be looked at as a responsibility? or did he get a call from karl rove?]. anyway, here is bush's press conference from today.

President Bush Meets the Press in New Orleans, Admits 'Sense of Relaxation' After Hurricane Hit By E&P Staff Published: September 12, 2005 5:00 PM ET
NEW YORK Appearing in hurricane-scarred New Orleans today, President Bush took a few questions from reporters, a little before Michael D. Brown, embattled director of FEMA, would resign. But here, the president could not identify any shortcomings in the relief effort, denied any racism in responding to the storm, and said there were plenty of troops to fight the war in Iraq and maintain security and relief here at home. He also said that after the hurricane struck, and he believed New Orleans was not ravaged, "there was a sense of relaxation."A transcript:

Q Sir, what do you make of some of the comments that have been made by quite a number of people that there was a racial component to some of the people that were left behind and left without help?
THE PRESIDENT: My attitude is this: The storm didn't discriminate, and neither will the recovery effort. When those Coast Guard choppers, many of whom were first on the scene, were pulling people off roofs, they didn't check the color of a person's skin. They wanted to save lives.I can assure people from the -- and I know from the state and local level, as well, that this recovery is going to be comprehensive. The rescue efforts were comprehensive, and the recovery will be comprehensive.
Q Mr. President, does the federal government need the authority to come in earlier, or even in advance of a storm that threatening?
THE PRESIDENT: I think that's one of the interesting issues that Congress needs to take a look at. And it's really important that as we take a step back and learn lessons, that we are in a position to adequately answer the question, are we prepared for major catastrophes, that the system is such that we're able to work closely together and that --
Q Do you recommend that Congress consider allowing the federal government to act more quickly?
THE PRESIDENT: I think it's very important for Congress to take a good, close look at what went on, what didn't go on, and come up with a series of recommendations. And my attitude is, is that we need to learn everything we possibly can; we need to make sure that this country is knitted up as well as it can be, in order to deal with significant problems and disasters. Meantime, we've got to keep moving forward.And I know there's been a lot of second-guessing. I can assure you I'm not interested in that. What I'm interested in is solving problems. And there will be time to take a step back and to take a sober look at what went right and what didn't go right. There's a lot of information floating around that will be analyzed in an objective way, and that's important. And it's important for the people of this country to understand that all of us want to learn lessons. If there were to be a biological attack of some kind, we've got to make sure we understand the lessons learned to be able to deal with catastrophe.
Q Will what is needed to get this area back on its feet have any impact on the timing of troop withdrawals in Iraq?
THE PRESIDENT: In Iraq?
Q Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: We've got plenty of troops to do both. Let me just -- let me just talk about that again. I've answered this question before, and you can speak to General Honore if you care to. He's the military man on the ground. It is preposterous to claim that the engagement in Iraq meant there wasn't enough troops here, just pure and simple.Do you care to comment on that?GENERAL HONORE: Well, we have about 90,000 members of the Reserve and National Guard deployed, of a total force of approximately 400,000. So 90,000 are deployed. We've got the capability. We're here, we're demonstrating in deed every day. We're performing the mission with the great support of the National Guard from multiple states. The response is here. The troops are getting the job done under the conditions that you see here today, and they're making America proud that we have that capability.We have capability. We're applying it -- air, land and sea -- our federal forces in support of the Governors of Louisiana and Mississippi under the direction of the Adjutant General. The system is working. We've got the capability, and we're looking forward to get the job done and get the job completed, until the Governors tell us otherwise.
THE PRESIDENT: The troop levels in Iraq will be decided by commanders on the ground. One, we're going to -- our mission is to defeat the terrorists, is to win. Secondly, the strategy is, as Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. And so, to answer your question about the decisions made on the ground in Iraq, they will be made based upon the ability of the Iraqis to take the fight. And more and more Iraqi units are getting more and more qualified.There's still a lot of work to be done there. Obviously, we're going to make sure we have a troop presence to help this political process go forward. There's an election -- the ratification of the constitution -- election will be coming up, and, of course, there will be elections this -- later on this year. And we will have the troop levels necessary to make sure those elections go forward. After all, the enemy wants to stop democracy. See, that's what they want to do. They want to kill enough people so that -- in the hopes that democracy won't go forward. They tried that prior to -- more than eight million Iraqis voting. They were unable to stop Iraqis from voting, because people want to be free. Deep in everybody's soul, regardless of your religion or where you live, is a desire to be free. And they can't stop it. And what we're going to do is help -- and they can't stop democracy from moving. And so what we're going to do is help make sure those elections are accessible to the Iraqi people.
Q Mr. President, there is a belief that we've been hearing for two weeks now on the ground that FEMA let the people here on the ground down. And perhaps, in turn, if you look at the evidence of what it's done to your popularity, FEMA let you down. Do you think that your management style of sort of relying on the advice that you got in this particular scenario let you down? And do you think that plays at all --
THE PRESIDENT: Look, there will be plenty of time to play the blame game. That's what you're trying to do.
Q No, I'm trying to --
THE PRESIDENT: You're trying to say somebody is at fault. Look -- and I want to know. I want to know exactly what went on and how it went on. And we'll continually assess inside my administration. I sent Mike Chertoff down here to make an assessment of how best to do the job. He made a decision; I accepted his decision. But we're moving on. We're going to solve these problems. And there will be ample time for people to look back and see the facts.Now, as far as my own personal popularity goes, I don't make decisions based upon polls. I hope the American people appreciate that. You can't make difficult decisions if you have to take a poll. That's been my style ever since I've been the President. And, of course, I rely upon good people. Of course, you got to as the President of the United States. You set the space, you set the strategy, you hold people to account. But yeah, I'm relying upon good people. That's why Admiral Allen is here. He's good man. He can do the job. That's why General Honore is here. And so when I come into a briefing, I don't tell them what to do. They tell me the facts on the ground, and my question to them is, do you have what you need.
Q Did they misinform you when you said that no one anticipated the breach of the levees?
THE PRESIDENT: No, what I was referring to is this. When that storm came by, a lot of people said we dodged a bullet. When that storm came through at first, people said, whew. There was a sense of relaxation, and that's what I was referring to. And I, myself, thought we had dodged a bullet. You know why? Because I was listening to people, probably over the airways, say, the bullet has been dodged. And that was what I was referring to.Of course, there were plans in case the levee had been breached. There was a sense of relaxation in the moment, a critical moment. And thank you for giving me a chance to clarify that.
Q Mr. President, where were you when you realized the severity of the storm?
THE PRESIDENT: I was -- I knew that a big storm was coming on Monday, so I spoke to the country on Monday morning about it. I said, there's a big storm coming. I had pre-signed emergency declarations in anticipation of a big storm coming.
Q Mr. President --
THE PRESIDENT: -- which is, by the way, extraordinary. Most emergencies the President signs after the storm has hit. It's a rare occasion for the President to anticipate the severity of a storm and sign the documentation prior to the storm hitting. So, in other words, we anticipated a serious storm coming. But as the man's question said, basically implied, wasn't there a moment where everybody said, well, gosh, we dodged the bullet, and yet the bullet hadn't been dodged.
Q Mr. President --
THE PRESIDENT: Last question.
Q This is two weeks in. You must have developed a clear image at this point of one critical thing that failed, one thing that went wrong in the first five days.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I think there will be plenty of time to analyze, particularly the structure of the relationship between government levels. But, again, there's -- what I think Congress needs to do -- I know Congress needs to do -- and we're doing this internally, as well -- is to take a sober look at the decision-making that went on.And what I want the people of this state and the state of Mississippi to understand is that we're moving forward with relief plans. And we're going to move forward with reconstruction plans, and we're going to do so in a coordinated way. And it's very important for the folks of New Orleans to understand that, at least as far as I'm concerned, this great city has got ample talent and ample genius to set the strategy and set the vision. And our role at the federal government is -- obviously, within the law -- is to help them realize that vision. And that's what I wanted to assure the Mayor.

A Somber Note

"Doctors working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leaving them to die in agony as they evacuated hospitals, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. "

and this:
"Toxic chemicals in the New Orleans flood waters will make the city unsafe for full human habitation for a decade, a US government official has told The Independent on Sunday. And, he added, the Bush administration is covering up the danger. "

saturday night slights

we seem to have contract security forces in new orleans. not the national guard, not the marines or army or navy. not the police. these guys i've heard of and i've followed their exploits in iraq. they really can kill with impunity. so long as they don't shoot at or shoot back at u.s. military. it's an amazing thing. they are almost all ex-military (which makes sense) and they make somewhere in the neighborhood of $300,000-500,000 a year for going to iraq. and their companies all have guaranteed contracts either with our government or with major government contractors. remember the men hung from the bridge in fallujah? that's them. remember the men arrested by us when they fired on a u.s. checkpoint in baghdad? no one does, because that was embarrassing and they may not have fired first. contract security forces...legalized militias?
"As the threat of forced evictions now looms in New Orleans and the city confiscates even legally registered weapons from civilians, the private mercenaries of Blackwater patrol the streets openly wielding M-16s and other assault weapons. This despite Police Commissioner Eddie Compass' claim that "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons." "
and then there's michael brown of FEMA. what a world of hurt this man is in. accepted a political job (he's a big supporter of conservative causes) and runs smack into katrina. not a good way for an unqualified candidate to publicly helm that boat. but to me it seems endemic with this administration.
"Jones was surprised Brown was being considered for job at FEMA but figured it wasn't impossible he could have risen high enough in local and state government to be considered for a job directing FEMA operations in Oklahoma.
"The agents quickly corrected him. This was a national post in Washington, deputy director of FEMA, the arm of the federal government that prepares for and responds to disasters around the United States.
Jones looked at the agents, "You're surely kidding?" "
and andrew card is looking a bit peaked these days if you haven't noticed or the white house press has forgotten to tell you.
"I knew that if word leaked out, the bureaucracies would defend themselves," "
this one speaks for itself. FEMA is trying "pilot programs" like it's a brand new toy? FEMA used to know how to handle disasters.
"FEMA spokesman Matt Burns in Washington told the Chronicle today its debit card program was a pilot, designed to get money quickly to a large number of people sheltering in one location.
Ed Conley, the FEMA liaison at Reliant Park, stressed today that FEMA is still giving financial assistance, just through different channels -- by checks that will be mailed and by direct deposit to bank accounts. "
i was talking to karen about this tonight. she hadn't heard about it. i read it on one of the lousiana papers. now here it is in the new york times. the quote i read (from the swamp news) went something like "we don't want another new orleans with looters and all".
Police agencies to the south of New Orleans were so fearful of the crowds trying to leave the city after Hurricane Katrina that they sealed a crucial bridge over the Mississippi River and turned back hundreds of desperate evacuees, two paramedics who were in the crowd said.
well, here's something for the central valleyites. at least we don't live in stockton.
"This is the fastest-growing region in California, and the bulk of that growth is taking place on the flood plains," said Jeffrey F. Mount, a geology professor and the director of the Watershed Center at the University of California, Davis. "What we are doing is creating our own New Orleans."

Friday Night Fights

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as much as i hate tagging unless it's done artfully and to the competition's shop window, i will acquiesce (but not silently) to lecram's.

10 Years Ago: i was living in seattle, washington in the freelard neighborhood and working for a candle supply making shop called pourette. i was heavily involved with a woman named jennifer. i was taking in seattle mariner baseball games. and i was learning the very tough art of gardening in the pacific northwest. the summer season there is actually a defined season unlike here in the central valley of california. if i wanted tomatoes, peas, carrots, radishes, dope and the like i had to watch the extended forecasts closely (and i mean the national ones, not the stoopid local ones. by the way, if i were i local meteorologist up there i wouldn't even go to work some months. a simple placard that reads "rain expected with some clearing and a chance of afternoon sun" would suffice). however, it helped me to hone my green thumb. unfortunately, i brought that green thumb back to the san joaquin valley and killed quite a few vegetable plants through overzealousness. also, i was learning that i wasn't cut out for extended and daily relationships. my true joys of an evening were to go to a nearby pub, drink guinness beer, throw real darts, work the crossword, write a drivel of a poem or two, shoot a game or two of pool and wander home. all in all a very enjoyable evening (and if i had or found someone who had the KGB, even better). my girlfriend, while not too demanding of my sobriety, was a bit too demanding of my time. a well learned lesson, the outcome of which was that we agreed (mutually, i might add) that our lives just didn't mesh after 2 and a half years. we made better friends than...the cliche.

5 Years Ago: i moved back to Fresno. decided seattle was just too damn small and conservative for a man like me. so i packed up my 1969 VW bus and cruised over the mountains to klamath falls, oregon where my beloved sister lives with my beloved niece. it was to be a weekend stop, but events conspired to lengthen the stay. on the way over said mountains of no name i was stopped by a crew laying high speed phone lines. as i was in a line of cars i turned off my engine. when it was my turn to go forward i tried to start the bus and it wouldn't. facing uphill. long story short i ended up being the only obstacle between it and a deep ravine with a river at the bottom. in other words i got out of the bus, put a rock under the wheel, got back in, tried to start it in neutral and the rock shifted. i got back out to fix the rock and forgot to set the hand brake. for ten minutes i was back to back with the bus, because it was in neutral and i had already kicked the rock out of the way. i waved to people as my body groaned against the weight trying to push me over and my legs began to tremble. the one driver who made eye contact just sahook his head as i yelled to him to get out and set my handbrake. he got the seattle one finger salute. eventually, i got out of that jam all by myself, faced the bus downhill and jumpstarted it in second gear. got to the bottom of the "hill", turned a round, got back in line and didn't cut the motor until i got to my sis's. blown oil pump, gaskets, everything. the bus's oil pan was flooding when it faced uphil and couldn't breathe. got to fresno (sanger, really), moved in with my parents for a while, laid low and was found out by people like lecram.

1 Year Ago: i was swearing to never work the rogue festival again. i had been one of its founders. i had been running venues for it for too long and last year was a bugger of a venue. i was also looking at my job and wondering why i was still working for assholes.

Yesterday: after a very long day at work mixing asphalt and running tests on it and tests on other black goo that came from the visalia airport and highway 99, i sat out on my patio with a beer and looked at the albatross that is the empty two-story fouplex built acroos the street from this past june. empty, because the bay areas owners bought it sight unseen for a cool $750,000 only to view and realize they owned a pig in a poke that was D.O.A. no way to make their money back in any timely or untikely fashion. so they've decided to rent it for a price no one will touch (i'm smelling tax writeoff). then, lecram called. he's borrowed my second car for a bit (yes, i am a "monied" man), but he evidently can't read a gas gauge. i picked him up, he bought a gas can and filled it up, we replenished the bmw and he was on his way again after a very good conversation about friends, lovers and the heartbreak of psoriasis. then, writerboy shows up at my house. only met this guy once at a barbecue. he wanted to "buy a baggie". i had to tell him that i am now a blue moon smoker and had nothing on the shelves (i stopped short of telling him that hurricane katrina had swamped my crop). he was polite and obsequious, which did nothing for me. i like my folks blunt. a dry martini ain't bad either. i watched the USA soccer team tie guatamala, but it was okay because USA has already earned their way into next year's world cup in germany (and you know i will be up watching every damn game that i can when next summer rolls around). then, i went to bed, because i had to be at work at 5 this morning.

5 Songs I Know All The Words To: Mojo Nixon's "She's Vibrator Dependent" (don't want me in it); Bloodhound Gang's "You're Pretty When I'm Drunk"; Kinky Friedman's "Waitress, Please Waitress"; the Roches' "The Boat Family" (although the harmonies kill me); Southern Culture On The Skids' "House of Bamboo".

5 Snacks: baby ruth, peanuts in the shell, microwave popcorn sans butter, celery and peanutbutter, beer.

5 Things I'd do w/ $100 million dollars: wait outside my house for the bottle and can pickers i know to be honest and hardworking and set them up right; buy a small nightclub/bar and hire musical acts that i actually like (like the Roches, Bloodhound Gang, Tom Waits, Rickie Lee Jones, Joan Osbourne, Jonathon Richman, Michelle Shocked, U2, REM, Sleater/Kinney, Eyes Like Mars, the Moldy Peaches, Fiona Apple); run naked down wishon boulevard from shields avenue to belmont shouting "i have the littlest dick in the world" and then pay the cops to turn their flashers on for me; disappear for the rest of my life (with sporadic emails to certain friends and family about where they can meet me all expenses paid); pay the drycleaning bill for lecram's pants.

5 places I would run away to: AAA (when AA isn't enough just keep aaadding); Madagascar, because it was always the darker appendix to the dark continent when i was growing up and, evidently, it has an ecosystem unlike anything else; Nepal (and i'd even quit smoking in order to be able to breathe the rarified air); Molokai (has a huge telescope that i could commandeer if this was tied into the $100 million question); seattle, but only if i could afford to live on a union lake houseboat without working (the july 4 fireworks are amazing).

5 things I would never wear: a toupee, a muscle shirt, a pushup bra, mickey's mantle, lederhosen (sorry, theraminman).

5 favorite TV shows: West Wing, Xena: Princess Warrior, Arrested Development, Reno 911, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.

5 greatest joys: candlemaking, poetry writing, telescope viewing, beer drinking, masturbating.

5 favorite toys: weed whacker, pruning shears, computer, the cat, t.v.

5 people I'm tagging: probably none, because the gentleman who tagged ME knows all of my blogger friends.

Ass-Fault (Half Nekkid Thursday)

so, i work in an engineering lab. i've been doing this for 5 years now and have become way too proficient in the knowledge of soils and concrete (what it is, does, doesn't want to and shouldn't under any circumstances). if you land safely on an airport runway or arrive safely after a long or short road trip; if you survive an earthquake, because your building didn't collapse...you can thank me in part).
but it wasn't until i came to my current employer that i began to really learn about the black stuff your wheels grip. with that in mind, i present to you this pictorial tribute to my current passion. the stuff that keeps you safe. the road of happy returns: Ass-Fault. because no man should drive there alone.
HNT is a good thing. visit all of them. now, dammit!

a polaroid generation

my good friend generik found this letter from the New Orleans Times-Picayune, which says it all. we can pretend that shit happens and no one is perfect, but this is pure 100% administration fuck-up. this is the result of 5 years of cuts in FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Wetlands Protection Act. this is the result of turning FEMA into a subdivision of Homeland Security, where beurocracy (spelling on that, judges?) reigns and execution of law seems like a distant wet dream. rightwingers are trying to confuse us by saying that clinton started all of the cuts when, in fact, he didn't. but they tried that with iraq, gas prices, the recession (which may be coming around again). why can't we find a politician who is willing to say "wow. i fucked up. that started and got out of control on my watch. i will make this right even though i voted to fuck it up in the first place"? leftwingers are tying themselves to the mast of a ship that blames all republicans when some republicans are not to blame. when are the "liberals" going to accept the fact that when they refuse to budge on important issues that affect all americans they, in effect, do harm to many of them? however, this letter hits the coffin nail right on the fucking head. bush and his "employees" have fucked up in grand manner.

OUR OPINIONS:
An open letter to the President
Dear Mr. President:
We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we’re going to make it right."Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It’s accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.Despite the city’s multiple points of entry, our nation’s bureaucrats spent days after last week’s hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city’s stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning.Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That’s to the government’s shame.Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don’t know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city’s death toll would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially higher.It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren’t they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn’t suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn’t have but two urgent needs: "Buses! And gas!" Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn’t known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."Lies don’t get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You’re doing a heck of a job."That’s unbelievable.There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We’re no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn’t be reached.Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.When you do, we will be the first to applaud.

happy non-HNT night. i just wanna show a tattoo.

wow. weird what a night at lecram's can do to one's head. especially when mustang is there. and "J". trust me when i say that these are three individuals who should never be in the same vicinity as me. drunk, drunk, stoned and drunk. and i speak of just me. them i don't know about. i hope "them" are sufficiently dizzy enough to not fall asleep until they've puked.
a nice barbecue. lots of burned meat, lots and lots of beer, tequila and devil's brew. eclectic mix of folks. good conversation that would turn dirty and/or silly at the twist of a word. jaded stopped by and starsadie (neither of whom write very much) hung out. some guy named "writerboy" was there. not a clue about that. we named him, but we want a paternity test. man, there was a lot of booze there. and no dope. nope. nada. nichts. niente. zilch. nein. nyet. null set. zippo. well, at least it was fun. otherwise i would have told them all to fuck off. so, lucky for them that they're really cool.