Why does God hate Republicans?

Here they are, trying to protect marriage and man's right to plunder, and yet: on the heel's of the anniversary of Katrina, Gustave is headed for land.

WaPo:

Republican officials said yesterday that they are considering delaying the start of the GOP convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul because of Tropical Storm Gustav, which is on track to hit the Gulf Coast, and possibly New Orleans, as a full-force hurricane early next week.
The threat is serious enough that White House officials are also debating whether President Bush should cancel his scheduled convention appearance on Monday, the first day of the convention, according to administration officials and others familiar with the discussion.

via TPM:

"The Republicans can't seem to get a break when it comes to August and when it comes to the weather," said Rove, a FOX News analyst. "I know this is being thought a lot about in Washington and at the White House and discussed and I suspect they will monitor it carefully and figure out what to do."

And Greg says,

Yeah, Katrina (which hit in August 2005) was really rough on those Republicans, no question about it.

I was in Crawford, Texas, when Katrina hit. And I watched him fly overhead on his way to Arizona, where he presented McCain with a cake that both of them discarded after the photo op.

And unlike Bush and McCain, the people on the ground in Crawford that day were sorting batteries and blankets and non-perishable foods, loading buses and vans for immediate delivery to New Orleans.

I love New Orleans, really great memories of that city. So Katrina felt personal to me- self involved white woman that I am.

And if- and I say if- if the convention next week is in any way adversely affected by a storm like Gustav, I will take it as a sign that karma or the gods and goddesses have some scores to settle.

You could take it as a random act of weather, sure. But as a feminist ACLU member, I've been taking blame for years, and I would love th chance to spread it around.

Dear editors

I know: the 'Opinion' page is made up of opinion, not reporting. I know that it's an important journalistic tradition, and that the free press demands a free opinion page.

I'm cool with that.

I do wish, though, that the Star and every other news paper in the country would just ask their columnists- at the very least- not to lie. That would seem to be a pretty minimal standard, asking opinion writers to opine on fact, rather than calculated partisan fiction.

Take, for example, Terry Paulson.

In his column this week (Energy Independence Now), he makes some pretty dubious claims:

While politicians demand more oil from overseas, we sit on oil reserves that are the envy of the world.

Really? The envy of Saudi Arabia? Of Iraq? Of Canada? Venezuela? US oil production reached peak in the '70s, and while we certainly have more reserves, even untapped reserves, there isn't much evidence indicating that tapping them now would lead us to energy independence.

What would lead us there is getting off our addiction to a finite resource. But since people like Terry must support the line of the current administration ("Conservation is a personal virtue" and "So long from the world's biggest polluter"), even when giving alternate energy resources a nod, they must press the delusion that the oil is there, and it is ours for the taking.

All of that is just opinionating, though, so of course it has a place in the editorial pages. What I really have a problem with is this:

When Hurricanes Katrina and Rita roared through the Gulf's 3,000 offshore oil and gas platforms, no major spills were recorded.

Now, if you're going to let someone write something that easily disproved (in fact, the oil spill could be seen from space), maybe just a note from the news bureau at the bottom of the column?

It just tears my hide when lies are published without challenge on the pages of a newspaper.

Oh, and although this isn't a lie, I can't pass up commenting on

France generates 80 percent of its energy needs through nuclear power and safely handles the waste; so can we!

France has a significant regulatory structure. And as this government can't seem to figure out how to keep e coli out of my food, and refuses to address weaknesses is chemical manufacturing and transport, I'd prefer not to complicate their to-do list with enforcement and protection of nuclear power plants.

More memories

Lots of Katrina talk this week, including John McCain completely lying about supporting any review of what went wrong and why.
Over at Salon , more on what was going on in the White House while New Orleans drowned.

On Monday, August 29, 2005, at about 6:00 a.m., Hurricane Katrina slammed into the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. A category 5 hurricane until just before landfall, it was one of the worst storms ever to hit the Gulf Coast. Kathleen Blanco, the governor of Louisiana, had been briefed extensively about what to expect when the storm hit, which was why, on the Friday night before the storm reached the coast, she signed papers declaring Louisiana to be in a state of emergency.

Returning that week from camping in a ditch in Crawford, Texas, I watched the tragedy unfold on TV and wrote:

Let’s just take a moment to reflect: Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi were being slammed by a category five storm, with much loss of life anticipated. A couple hundred people were camped in ditches next to war memorials, begging for recognition of their pain.

The president was going golfing in AZ, and then on to San Diego to stay at Hotel del Coronado. Unlike, say, the Teri Schiavo craziness, which saw him zooming back from Crawford and signing “emergency” legislation in his pajamas, he was flying as far away from death and reminders of death as he could. And while the papers would cover his irrelevant speeches on Medicare or whatever, Camp Casey was mobilizing to address grief and pain once again.

I remember Buddy saying, when he first told us the news on Katrina, “People are going to die.” Maybe lawyers have better forecasting skills than fake cowboys? Is that why Bush didn’t seem to get it?