He just wanted to get in my briefs: Diane Feinstein wasn't satisfied with John Roberts' legal credentials and impersonal answers to her probing questions on end-of-life issues.

I attempted to get a sense of his temperament and values. And I asked him about the end-of-life decisions: clearly, decisions that are gut-wrenching, difficult and extremely personal. Rather than talking to me as a son, a husband, a father--which I specifically requested he do--he gave a very detached response.

He's just like those guys that hurt her in the past. They pretend to listen, but they don't really care. And share their feelings? Not a chance. Guys just want one thing.

Hey DiFi, two scoops of Rocky Road and Beaches on DVD will make everything better.

Via James Taranto.

Down, Boy! From Rolling Stone's "The Briefing" feature:

No More Mr. Nice Guy Supreme Court nominee John Roberts has been heralded as Mr. Clean -- a sunny and genuinely likable. But judging by his record, Mr. Mean may be closer to the mark. In his legal opinions and memos, Roberts brandishes an acid with that barely conceals his contempt for women, minorities, children and even animals. An endangered species is nothing but a "hapless toad." Police should "treat children like children," even if it means arresting kids for eating a single french fry on the subway. Affirmative action requires "the recruiting of inadequately prepared candidates." The coup de grace? In a 1984 case, Roberts tarred future Sen. Olympia Snowe and two other female Republican House members as "radical" for their efforts to secure equal pay for women. Roberts suggested the women adopt a quasi-Marxist slogan: "From each according to his ability, to each according to their gender."

Jesus. Just think, this Middle American Mussolini, this Reaganite Radical, is allowed to walk free -- nay, allowed to sit like Zeus at the top of our judicial branch of government! -- while a true hero and patriot like Mumia languishes in jail. Liberals of the world, you might as well just kill yourselves now. Go ahead, use my legal, registered, no-safety-lock firearm. You don't want to be around when Bush nominates an actual conservative to the bench.

How the hell Scalia ever got out of committee, I'll never know.

F*cked: Imagine you're homeless thanks to Katrina. Imagine you have no options, no family nearby. What're you going to do? Then, the friendly, patriotic, god-fearin' citizens of Houston take you in. You're saved, your kids can go to school. You're thanking god for this sprawling oasis that Exxon built when suddenly . . .

It's like a nightmare, ain't it.

An Unusual Statistic: Over the past 48 hours, 59% of out blog's visits have been from here: the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Mostly, though not exclusively, one page view per visit. The exceptions are interesting, though: Multiple page views, some over an hour surfing Fauxpolitik. No referring URL available for any of the visits.

Just out of curiousity, have either of you been making derogatory comments about Scandanavian geeks? If so, the bastards are on to you.

And you can fit a case of chaw in it: Quick, you only have a short amount of time left to bid on some priceless memorabilia. No, not an Elvis jumpsuit. Nope, not a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Silly, it's Robbie Gordon's helmet -- you know the one he threw at Darryl Waltrip in last week's race in New Hampshire? Now, how much would you bid for something so ummmm, memorable as that? $20? Well, okay, brand new it's probably worth like $1000, so given a few dents, nicks, and scars from uhhhh, being thrown across the track, let's say $750.

What's that you say? Freaking over $9 million???

Oh, the proceeds go to Katrina relief. Big E would approve.

I wonder how much we could get for Roddick's racquet from the U.S. Open --- hardly used! Yukyukyuk.

Pork patrol: There's a lot of much deserved scrutiny on pork-barrel politics these days, particularly the recently passed transportation bill, in light of the ever expanding price tag of rebuilding a post-Katrina Gulf Coast. I'm all for turning off congress' pork spigot, and many of those in the blogosphere are not johnny-come-latelys to the issue. But it makes me uncomfortable to hear people in the media to suddenly be claiming X should be done because of Katrina or cut because of it. It just has too much of the old "for the children" ring to it.

Stupid wasteful pork barrel projects are stupid and wasteful regardless of any natural disaster. Worthwhile projects are worthwhile regardless of same. Fighting in Iraq is no more or less a good idea because New Orleans got a bath and Don Young's "bridge to nowhere" was gluttonous a month ago. But I wasn't hearing a lot of talk about pork projects on CNN a month ago.

I'm happy with just about anything that exposes wasteful spending, but I'm not comfortable with using Katrina as a big wet towel with which to snap the backsides of politicians on either side of the aisle. When disaster slips from our national consciousness the cries for fiscal discipline will still be coming from Stephen Moore. But will anyone still be listening.

Sharpen your resume: Wanna job at the White House? Well, here's what you'll make.

What I can't tell is whether the list of staffers makes the payroll seem bloated, or whether I should be amazed the place gets as much done as it does.

Funny seeing people like Rove making "only" $161k. Then you realize: once he's done, it's fat city from here on out.

I wonder what FDR or Lincoln would have thought of this being one of the top jobs: "Assistant to President and Director of Faith-based and Community Initiatives." Well, I guess considering Lincoln didn't even have the Secret Service (to speak of), he would have just laughed and waxed eloquently.

Anyway, I want this one: "Ethics Advisor (Detailee)." This has to be the cushiest job in all of politics, regardless of administration. I'll take the pay cut.

MORE: Actually, this pays less, but it sounds like perk city: "Director of Mail Analysis."

A Gripe: I meant to publish a lot of stuff this weekend, but I spent the time hitting the sauce instead. Went to a creole restaurant in town on Friday night. The service was just as slow as you find in the south, but it was worth the wait. The next night, though, at the local chop house, was a disappointment. And here we get to my pet peeve of the day:

Caesar Salad is not, in any universe, made with mayonaisse. If you want to make a nice Romaine salad with a mayo dressing, great; but it is not in any way, shape, or form a Caesar. I'm guessing the knucklehead executive chef with his diploma from Johnson & Wales, or wherever, knows this. They know it in most restaurants, but they continue to make awful salads, drowning in dressing, and call them . . . you know. Is it that nobody likes a real Caesar, or that they are afraid of the -- gasp -- raw egg? Whatever it is, you can be sure that 95% of American restaurants will serve some soggy, mayonaisse-y crap. With anchovy paste.

More: No gripe on the creole place though. It was excellent. (In New England? Go figure.) Good jambalaya, nice 'gator and sausage, and even a respectable pulled pork, even though I've never had decent barbecue in New Orleans. I'll take you there, Flyer. It's your kind of place.

If only you were more of a snob, I'd like you better: I've heard some crazy explanations in my day about the reasons why tennis is losing its popularity, but perhaps none so off-the-wall as Slate offers us today: because everyone can afford to play it, no one wants to.

Sure, the author gives lip service to the fact that the matches are more boring, because the players are more boring, and no one can see, much less appreciate, a 130mph serve, but really, if tennis could just be more like...more like...............golf...............then it would be more interesting. See, Tiger doesn't wear shorts, and ummm, golf matches are played mostly at private clubs, so ummmm, see??!?

I don't question that Americans are social-climbers at heart, but to suggest that the reason golf is surging and tennis waning is because golf is elitist is just....so freaking elitist. Golf is more popular because of one word: Tiger. End of sentence, end of story. Even I, golf hater, will watch golf (at least the majors) because Tiger is playing. Short of that, I might like to stick around and see how Lefty wins or loses a tourney.

Tennis is boring because all the players are. The Williams girls gave the game a brief shot in the arm, but their all-too-evident laissez faire attitude instills the same in the same in the audience. Roddick is verging on being a one-serve wonder; Davenport, the Russians...all too inconsistent. The Maestro...he is a thing of beauty to watch play, but when no one can step up to the plate with him (not even Steffi's husband), then we are left with no one to cheer for.

Tiger's invincibility raised the game of golf up to new levels. His supposed fall, took it even higher. We all love a champion, but we secretly love the little guy too. Tennis has no little guy...it has Gulliver, and it has its Lilliputians; FeeFiFoFum, with no "Englishmun". Please, someone, rescue my tennis fairy tale.

Successful fundraiser: Our Katrina Pub Crawl on Saturday night in Charlotte brought in over $5,000 in individual donations, before what we get from the bars who are all kicking in a percent of sales for the day. Not too bad, I'd say.

Very few people were unwilling to donate, and most of these you could tell were suffereing from charity fatigue. A lot of "I gave at the office." I can sympathize. Lots of others, though, gave more than the requested $10. All greatly appreciated.

Lying liars and the lies they tell: Remember Andrew Sullivan? You know, the gay conservative pundit who seemed to have the blogosphere in thrall from about 2002 through the first half of 2004? Yeah, that guy who suddenly went bat shit during the months leading up to the presidential election, getting so worked up into a lather that he threatened, nay promised, he was quitting blogging? Hell, even Eno took him at his word and dropped him from our illustrious and award-winning blogroll.

Well, for a guy who had quit blogging, he sure ummm, blogs a lot! Worse still, Sullivan, who took "blegging" to a whole 'nother level (successfully I might add -- raking in thousands of dollars), is still asking for your money...to fund his operations.

Now, again, if you want to pay for his howling at the moon, please go ahead. It's your money and a free blogosphere. But FOR A GUY WHO QUIT BLOGGING** HE SURE HAS A LOT OF NERVE ASKING FOR OUR MONEY TO KEEP BLOGGING++!

Luckily, we here at FauxPolitik promise to keep chugging along and while Eno's compensation demands have gotten a little out of hand lately (we don't even have a hook-up for a bidet), our budget allows us to maintain the consistent high quality you've all come to expect.


**He said he'd come back in maybe nine months, so if he "quit" in February, he's still got two months to cool his heels. In any event, my argument remains quite sound.

++But if anyone wants to give me one of those Apple Nanos...I won't complain -- it will be our little secret.

Katrina: The Gathering

This, at first blush, seems rather insensitive to those displaced, killed, etc. by the hurricane, but upon reading through the site, you can see that it's really a critique of the press and government, so you know...have at it!

Good news from NOLA: Just spoke with a good friend in New Orleans, and was pleased to learn that both his home, his parents' home, and his business/warehouse are basically fine (all three structures are in Metairie, a part of Jefferson Parish that didn't get flooded, at least not much of it). He was able to sleep in his own bed last night for the first time, and is getting the business up and running again (moving and storage, so that will be interesting). Some stores are beginning to reopen and different sections of the city are slowly coming back to life. Uptown residents, for instance, can begin returning next week.

Lakeview, Chalmette, Gentilly, and New Orleans East are out of luck for quite some time, though, obviously. Lower 9th Ward is being bulldozed, mostly, and there are still "cars on top of houses" in Chalmette.

He gladly accepted his $2,000 from FEMA, direct deposited to his bank account, to pay for travel and living expenses for the past few weeks, although his company kept paying his salary. And he spent the rest on a new handgun, so hopefully he'll be safe.

Fond memories of hours wasted: Baylen Linnekin, posting at his own blog and at our friend The Agitator's blog, tells us that NHL '94 has been voted the best video game of all time by visitors to Boston.com. This is the only video game that I ever got truly addicted to, in fact the only I've ever played enough to get good at, and hence enjoy to its fullest.

Another side of this story, though, is how odd it is that with all the improvements in graphics and sound quality, not to mention a flood of games with celebrity involvement/endorsement, the "best ever" is game from over ten years ago. And it's a hockey game, for cryin' out loud. Hockey's about as popular as log-rolling in this country, as we've learned all too well in the past year. But it makes for the best video game? Okay.

Says something, I think, about nostalgia, and about how people in Boston are, unlike most of the population, psychotic when it comes to hockey. Or just, you know, psychotic.

Blogging Suspended: I've just been called to go suit up as the back-up QB for the Chicago Bears. I should be back in oh...a week.

What Does Jeff Goldstein Have Against Gays?: Just kidding about the lede -- just trying to do what MSM does in reporting on Katrina -- you know, ignore the substance, go for the stylish attack on Bush.

Because, Jeff, like, eviscerates Andrew Sullivan's recent attempt to show how FEMA's perceived iffy response will cause Iranian generals to invade the lower 48...or something like that, who can tell with Sully these days. Anyway, read Jeff, he's got it going on today.

With half his brain tied behind his back: Great observation from Dahlia on the Roberts hearings: Roberts is toying with the Senators -- as he should be. While these pompous windbags go on and on about everything but what is germane to the confirmation process, Roberts pretends to listen and then gives them answers that only go to show the great, great disparity between the power of his mind and the collective power of the Mind of the Senate.

I'm of the opinion, and I'm obviously in the minority, that a judge gets to sit on the bench if she's smart, not a criminal, and has a body of work to show a depth and breadth of ability. That's it. The President gets to pick who he wants. If you don't like it, try to win the next election.

You can't pigeon-hole a judge on how he would rule on X, Y or Roe. A judge cannot make calls in a vaccum. Each set of facts is impacted by the law differently, and to simply ask whether Roberts would overturn Roe is meaningless. There could conceivably be a very compelling reason why the precedent should be ignored or reversed, wholly apart from "mere" personal preference.

When Roberts wrote, long, long ago, of the "so called right to privacy" in the Constitution, that's because the right to privacy is just that: implied. It took many years and a whole bunch of words for the constitutional "right" of privacy to be put into the Constitution, and then even more years and words for it to be stretched around as many issues as it has been. Hey, I'm in favor of a loose interpretation of the Document, but unless it's explicit, it's implied, and in that case, it's fair game to say something is "so called."

To the Senators: give up, to the extent you already haven't, and move on to trying to restrain yourself from making complete asses of your names in dealing with Katrina.

Also Overheard: Much ado is being made over the various ill-advised statements by our government leaders in the wake of Katrina. They range from vapid to outright outrageous, and partisan or not, one has to take them to task for many of the quotes. I, as an intrepid journalist, could not let the following quotes remain out of the public realm:

1. "Now come on, you have to admit, you've always wanted a swimming pool, huh kids?" House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX) to a group of children in Baton Rouge, LA.

2. "Boy, I bet you could make one big ol' pot of gumbo with all this water. But you know, without the dead bodies." President Bush to relief workers in New Orleans.

3. "This will provide me with the opportunity to wear my tall black boots again." Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, to herself, in her bathroom, three days after the levee broke.

4. "We have directed all available resources to proceed directly to Los Angeles to address this growing disas...(interrupted by aide)....I mean of course Louisiana...which you know, is kinda confusing because they both have 'L.A.' as their initials, and ... I need to make some phone calls, excuse me." FEMA Director, Michael Brown in a news conference, September 1, 2005.

5. "Brownie, you are doing one heck of a job cleaning out your desk." President Bush to former FEMA Director Michael Brown."

6. "He's a major leage asshole." "Yeah, big time." Exchange between President Bush and Vice President Cheney during break in news conference, referring to Mayor of New Orleans.

7. "The South will rise again! I mean...my house...my HOUSE will rise again." Trent Lott to group of refugess in Mississppi.

Bon Voyage: Some bloggers are in fact real writers who go places and report what they see. Michael Totten is one of them, and he's heading overseas again for more reporting from the trenches.

I've been reading his blog more often the past few months because I think a) he's a good, professional writer who isn't just venting his spleen b) he tries to look at issues from different perspectives, rather than just trying to figure out what his "side" will say and parrot the company line. Nobody's 100% objective, but I think Totten does a good job of keeping an open mind. I'm looking forward to reading what he has to say from places like Iran and Syria.

Of course, he's no P.J., but the master seems to be in semi-retirement.

Energy Bill: Here's the beginning of an editorial from my newspaper on the energy bill in light of gas price hikes these past couple of weeks:

With the U.S. spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a minute to buy foreign oil, it may come as a surprise that the 1,724-page energy bill recently signed into law by President Bush does not address increasing vehicle fuel efficiency.

Some believe that is just the way Bush, a former Texas oilman, wanted it.

Whoops, my bad! That's the beginning of my paper's "news" story on the subject.

Open Wrap: Don't everyone jump up at once to congratulate me for picking both the men's and women's winner in Queens. Sure, you say, Federer was an easy pick. But I bet that, after Andre had rallied to win the second set, and had Roger down a break in the third, you thought -- just for a moment -- "Andre is about to do to Federer what he did to Blake." I thought it. As for Clijsters: Who else looked likely?

I'll say this about Federer: He can be the most exciting player to watch, and then he can also be rather dull and clinical. Most of his victory over Andre was rather clinical. He's best when he's fighting for the match. Much like Sampras, he dominates the field so much that he can be a bit boring to watch. Let's hope that someone steps up to challenge him, or men's tennis could become even more of a snooze than the 90s were. Sampras, after all, never won Roland Garros. Federer, on the other hand, has the right game to win it repeatedly.

Sue Me: No, that's not the name of a Korean junior tennis sensation. It's my response to Flyer, who takes me to task in the comments for predicting a good Federer-Nalbandian match. I agree that it was a cakewalk. That said, here's what you got in that match that Agassi-Blake didn't offer: You got to see a man, running full chat across the court, whip a one-handed backhand cross court on the fly and have it smack the line and still have enough kick to bounce out of his opponent's reach. And dis you see his effortless passing shot that almost knocked the racquet out of Nalbandian's hands? Watching Agassi is fine, but watching Federer is like watching ballet. Sweaty ballet. With bushy eybrows. Okay, it's not ballet, but it's still amazing.

Predictions? I'll take Federer (surprise!) over Ginepri in the finals, following Ginepri's stunning straight-set takedown of Agassi. (What the hell; you can't pick all favorites.) For the chicks, the semi matches have already started, so I won't take picks there. I'll just take Clijsters in the final.

Oh, and now that Lllllllleyton has dumped Clijsters, she should get together with Ginepri, since both their names are vaguely gynecological.

Slideshow: Via Sully, a very good, very long series of photos that detail the buildup to Katrina, the immediate aftermath and its optimism, and the long decline into misery. It takes a while to go through. Amazing shots, though.

Final Open Predictions: Okay, first the easy one: Federer over Hewitt in straight sets. There's no reason to believe that Hewitt all of the sudden has Federer figured out, and given that Hewitt's game has been short of consistently good, and the Maestro has dropped like one set all tournament, it should be short work.

It's hard to measure the effect the US Open has on Agassi. Clearly, the place has inspired him to play well here, sometimes very well, but given all his talent, he's "only" won it twice (granted he had that guy Sampras to deal with for most of his career). Ginipri is a cipher - is he really good, or just riding a streak? With two Americans in the same match, the crowd pretty much has to side with Agassi as the sentimental favorite, which could really take the winds out of Ginipri, who otherwise gets great "home team" applause. Let's say Andre in 4.

If it's Agassi vs. Federer, again, nothing reasonable suggests that Federer would lose. He's a decade younger, the best player, and just on top of his fucking game. Give Agassi a token set, but it has to be the Maestro in 4.

MORE: (forgot the womenfolk)

First the boring match: Peirce v. Dementieva. Here we have the rejuvenated French-American (or AngloFranco) vs. the true blood Russky. Peirce, one of the first women to get all roided out, but who has faded badly over the past few years, vs. a woman with a 60mph second serve, but otherwise bounds all over the court with good shots. This is purely a gut call, as neither was supposed to be here: Peirce in straight sets. I'm guessing she's motivated to have made it, and knows her window of opportunity is slamming shut.

Now on to the big match. Shari v. Kim "Can I Buy a Vowel" Clijsters. This should be a very good match, for all the obvious reasons. Both are tough mentally. Kim "My Name is Uncomfortably Suggestive" Clijsters has been to the finals here; Maria has won Wimby. Both are powerful and seemingly healthy (which for Kim "Can You Believe Hewitt Chose Me to Bang?" Clijsters is no mean feat). The question is who has the higher ceiling; who has already peaked? All signs point to Kim "I Can Crush You with My Thighs" Clijsters" running out of gas, as the crowd increasingly falls in lust with Maria, who, it would seem, is still on the rise in terms of her ability. I see a tougher three-setter, with Sharipova taking the match.

Finals: Sharipova over Peirce in 2.

Wet Blanket: And you know I hate to be one, but I thought the Blake-Agassi match was a snoozer. Maybe I was pissed that the Davenport match went so long (talk about not playing your best game; jesus, she was awful). I'm back in rehearsals for the play now, so being up late isn't agreeing with me.

For the first two sets, I kept waiting for the announcers to call up to Agassi's hotel room, in an attempt to talk him into showing up for the match. The second two sets were an edge-of-the-seat wait for Blake to finally land a first serve. (There was one point in the fourth set, when Blake finally did land a first serve; Agassi blasted the return past him easily, probably because Blake was busy fishing in his pockets for the second serve ball, or standing dumbfounded that his serve was good.)

.No, this was not top-notch tennis, though there were some decent moments. First of all, thank god it went to a tiebreak. Another blowout set on either side would have been too boring to contemplate. Second, there were some mements when Agassi showed that he could still pull out some angles that few men in tennis could hit. I can't think of anyone much faster than Blake, but even he was huffing and puffing while Agassi dug in and dictated the point, much the way Blake dictated the points against Nadal. But most of the time, it seemed like one guy or the other was making a dumb shot or a rookie unforced error. Blake hit a lot of suckers to Agassi's forehand. And Agassi put a lot of Blake's milquetoasty second serves into the net.

Yes, it was impressive to see Agassi pull it together mentally. But the match was decided just as much by Blake completely falling to pieces. Some are comparing it to Connors-Krickstein in 1991. In a word, no. Not even close. Excitement? I thought Blake-Robredo and Blake-Nadal were better matches, as was Gasquet-Ljubicic. The second set of Federer-Rochus was about the most exciting hour of tennis, if only for that sawed-off little Belgian's tremendous ability to hang in with the world number one, however briefly.

Wouldn't it have been impressive to see Agassi and Blake playing their A-games at the same time? Alas, it happened for only a few minutes last night, if at all.

I have high hopes for Federer-Nalbandian. It's usually a good, tight match. And Agassi-Ginepri might be pretty good. But last night, looking back, I should have taken the sleep instead.

Agassi: Like an idiot I stayed up till 1:30 to watch the match last night, caught up as I am in tennis this year. I feel really bad for Blake, who could and should have won the match at several points, but playing two great sets doesn't mean bupkus if you can't close it out. Agassi was just tougher, even though he was clearly dominated by Blake, particularly when Blake's first serve was falling in. It's the difference between a champion and a very talented player.

It was the most exciting tennis match I've seen in who knows how long. I don't know how well Agassi will do in the next round(s), since last night will be tough to recover from, but he proved he's still a contender.

A Match for the Ages: I only caught highlights, but from what I saw and read, Blake and Agassi rewarded those fans who toughed it out into the wee hours. A true American Classic.

More interesting still, with Ginipri making it into the Semis, we're guaranteed an American in the Finals; something the women cannot claim with Peirce (well, she's really American, but pretends to be French) ousting Davenport, and Venus falling as well. Not trying to be jingoistic, just pulling for our countryme...er...people.

Open Blogging: Some observations and comments, on various facets of the tournament:

Is anyone else ready to see someone, anyone, beat the snot out of Maria "Loud Mary" Sharapova in straight six-love sets? Jesus, and I thought Monica Seles was a noisy player. Maria's shrieking is intolerable. And her dad looks like he's ready to be the next tennis hanger-on to stab someone.

Blake and Agassi: For many years, Blake played a lot like Agassi. He concentrated on baseline defense, returned hard, and hustled. This year he's coming to the net a lot more. Nobody's going to confuse him with Johnny Mac at the net, but he holds his own. What's more, he shows that he recognizes Federer's multifaceted game as the best way to dominate. Tonight, he may show us that he has grown past his idol. Certainly his legs will hold out longer. My guess is Blake in four.

Do the Williams sisters even bother to practice anymore?

When Andre retires, maybe he and Steffi could play mixed doubles. I mean, look at how well Navratilova is doing at nearly 50 years old.

In defense of duct tape: At Cold Fury the case is made that Tom Ridge's "Readiness Kits," the ones that included food, water and duct tape, might have come in a tad handy during the worst natural disaster in America in the past centruy or so.

Do you remember when the last Homeland Security Secretary, Tom Ridge, told us that to be prepared for emergencies, we should put together a readiness kit? I do. The kit layout is suggested at Ready.Gov. The portion of the kit for dealing with attacks and natural disasters should have, ideally, “at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food” and a corresponding amount of water - a gallon per day per person.

Yet when he announced the suggested measures that we all take to prepare for potential terror attacks or natural disasters, he was met with nothing but mockery. So much so, that his name is synonymous with duct tape - since that’s the only thing anybody in the MSM (or for that matter the lefty blogosphere) cared to discuss.

Thanks for undercutting it, my patriotic left wing friends, and calling it partisan scare mongering. What kind of a warped mind, can spin basic common sense as partisan bickering.

Sure it could have helped, but my bet is that not many poor people in New Orleans would have taken the time or effort to prepare such kit no matter how much Tom Ridge called for it or if every Democrat in the state had called it the greatest idea since the go-cup. After all, for most of these people "preparedness" means putting a pot of rice on to cook before you know what you're making for dinner.

Still, it's not a bad idea for anyone living in a vulnerable area.

The Interdictor: Checking in with the NOLA blogger Eno linked to last week. He has an amusing story about the 82nd Airborne busting into their building.

If you want to play soldier with me, I will make you play it a lot longer than you had in mind.

Heh.

Future of New Orleans: Re: talk of where/how/if to rebuild the city, this from George Friedman at Stratfor.

It follows from this that the port will have to be revived and, one would assume, the city as well. The ports around New Orleans are located as far north as they can be and still be accessed by ocean-going vessels. The need for ships to be able to pass each other in the waterways, which narrow to the north, adds to the problem. Besides, the Highway 190 bridge in Baton Rouge blocks the river going north. New Orleans is where it is for a reason: The United States needs a city right there.

It's a rather long discussion, but it details the importance of the ports in New Orleans and Southern Louisiana. I have a feeling economics will win the day in this debate. If there is no other economically efficient alternative, NOLA will be rebuilt right smack where it is right now. Hopefully better.

Sean Penn is my hero: At least if this is true, because it takes guts to be so monumentally stupid and still think you can save the world.

Sean Penn planned a personal rescue of Katrina victims over the weekend but forgot to plug a hole in the bottom of his boat. The vessel began to take on water within seconds of its launch, forcing Penn to frantically bail water out with a red plastic cup. Additionally, the boat's motor failed to start and those aboard were forced to use paddles.

With the boat loaded with members of Penn's entourage, including a personal photographer, one bystander taunted the actor: "How are you going to get any people in that thing?"

At least Penn wasn't slow to respond, though.

Via the Superficial.

Picks ahoy: Yeah I rushed through these at the last minute. Didn't even have time to consult Alabama Slim's 1-800 number which guarantees 2 locks of the week for just $19.95.

AFC East: New England. Two time defenders get benefit of doubtat least through regular season.

AFC North: Pittsburgh. Brian Billick is the antichrist and Jamal Lewis is injured. The two + games he'll miss will keep him from getting truly in sync with the offense after being out of camp with suspensions and surgery rehab.

AFC South: Indianapolis: Most talented team in NFL just signed Corey Simon to help out defense. He helped Philly last year, he'll do the same this year.

AFC West: San Diego: Offense will be enough to get them out of weak division. Maybe.

NFC East: Phildelphia. The meltdown is beginning between T.O. and McNabb, but it won't matter till the playoffs.

NFC North: Green Bay has one more shot with Favre and he knows it. They'll win ugly, but they'll win.

NFC South: Carolina. Please God, no injuries.

NFC West: Seattle. Talent to spare, but will their heads be screwed on straight this year. I think so.

AFC Wildcards: NY Jets Tennessee

NFC Wildcards: Atlanta Dallas

Super Bowl: Change the name to the Flyer Curse, Indy over Carolina.

First coach fired: None during the season. All the worst teams have first or second year coaches and they'll have a grace period. Exept Detroit, but since that's going to take total mangement restructuring, as Razor suggests, I think it'll happen after the season.

First QB benched: Tim Rattay, and it'll onlyget worse for SF.

Most improved: NY Giants. Little Manning will come around nicely this year.

New New Orleans? Steve Green writes:

[W]hat we've seen there this last week is something new to us Americans. We've seen looting. We've seen riots. We've seen incivility. We've seen natural disasters. We've seen how government can screw things up, and we've seen how government tends to get to the scene too late, and with too little.

But enough about the Rodney King trial.

However, I'm not sure we've ever seen all those things wrapped up into one soggy package before. And we've certainly never seen, in modern times, an entire major city removed from our map.

Read the rest. It includes pond scum, Snake Plissken, topless Mardi Gras women, and other delights, plus wild public policy ideas.

Razor Sharp Picks: Okay, you can all head to Vegas after reading my picks for the NFL season -- just be sure to play poker or blackjack or something; for heaven's sake, don't bet on any NFL games based on my predictions!

AFC East: New England. You can't put a fork in them yet, although this is the season that will sorely test the "genius" label of Belly. Both top assistants gone, along with some of his veteran defensive muscle.

AFC North: Baltimore. I think Pittsburgh is going to be off to a rough start with both starting RBs hurt, and having to rely on Rothlisburger to carry the day. Baltimore has that incredible defense, and has enough weapons on offense to score more than 13 pts, which is all the defense will allow. The QB is shaky, but just hand it off then...

AFC South: Some are picking Jacksonville. I don't know why. The Colts will win the division; but can they beat New England this year? Probably the last year the team will feature Peyton, Edgerrin and Marvin all together.

AFC West: For some reason I want to pick Oakland and then I look at that team's defense. Still looking...nope, can't find it. Let's say San Diego, with KC having a good shot if the stars align and its defense can find its stride. Otherwise, Brees, Tomlinson, Gates plus a solid D, should carry a weak division.

AFC Wild Card: Pittsburgh and KC (I just don't buy what the Jets are selling).

NFC East: Iggles. Some turmoil, but T.O. will play. McNabb in his prime, good cadre of running backs, Westbrook being one of the most dangerous of all time. Defense may be better than last year, with best secondary in the game. Great kicker. Coaching staff has been together for 6 years, which is forever. Must-win year b/c T.O. is gone afterwards, barring some sort of miracle.

NFC North: It's gotta be Minnesota. Too strong offensively and have worked on the defense in the off-season. Green Bay will be game, but perhaps is getting a bit gamey overall.

NFC South: Carolina. Everyone's Cinderella pick, and I'm not one to argue. Too much talent; very good coach; decent schedule. Tampa Bay still two years away -- needs an offense. New Orleans -- they have bigger issues right now.

NFC West: St. Louis. Weak, weak division. Eno likes AZ to improve, and hey, it can't get much worse, but I dunno -- Kurt Warner's mojo is more lost than Andy Roddick's (and how pissed off must AmEx be right now making Roddick the focal point of its ad campaign, in an "ironic" spin, only to have it be a self-fulfilling prophesy -- some things you simply can't make up).

Wildcards: Dallas, Atlanta.

Superbowl: Iggles vs. San Diego (I know, I know), with the Birds winning in a blow-out.

First coach to get fired: Mariucci. Lions fall to say, 2-7, Mooch gets the boot. Matt Millen steps down from front office to show how bad he can really muck things up.

T.O. Suspension: I agree...he plays all season, barring injury.

First QB Benched: Harrington. The Lions will have to be content with hosting SuperBowl.

Biggest Improvement: Washington. I think the NFC East will return to its glory days of having at least three competitive teams - once Gibbs gets his QB issues straightened out, there is no reason why it won't be a decent team.

Flyer, your turn...

Beads for everyone: Some friends of mine are arranging a Katrina fundraiser with some local bars here in Charlotte. Mardi Gras on Montford (St.) they're calling it. This is a crowd that doesn't need an excuse to drink heavily, but they like looking for one anyway. And raising money for charity isn't a bad excuse, if I may say so. (I'm opposed to the name for a number of reasons, mostly that the event is on a Saturday, not on a "Mardi." I was shouted down for being a dork.)

They wanted to give away strings of beads to everyone who pays their cover charge and were going to buy or get them donated from a store. Well, I just emptied my bag of beads that I have trucked around with me for five years, through numerous residences, for no apparent reason. I never looked at them or did anything with them. It's not like I run around the house in Mardi Gras beads shouting "Throw me something, Mister" to the dogs. The most useless souvenirs imaginable.

Glad I saved them. Glad they'll be put to good use. Glad they'll finally be gone from my attic. And in case you're curious I counted out almost 300 strings of beads, but I remember throwing out twice as many few years ago, the "shit beads" as we called them. The crappy ones that are left on Bourbon St. after the last parade. All mine are high quality, though still pretty ordinary colored beads. I had about 15 strings of really cool, unique, large and decorative beads, with medallions and other ornaments. I won't give those away, but maybe I'll auction them off for donations.

Destiny? Well, it's a long way to go to the final, but James Blake beat Rafael Nadal and then some. He won that match with authority. Each tournament usually features a player who, finalist or not, announces his presence in a way that can't be ignored. At the Open this year, Blake is announcing his arrival as a contender.

Great match, great win.

Rebuilding: Like I said before, New Orleans doesn't face the challenge of having been physically erased, like parts of Mississipi. Some infrastructure remains. Still, anyone who has ever had even a few feet of water in their house knows that the word "repair" doesn't cover it.

Another thing: if ever a city was in need of a major effort, it was NOLA. It was, essentially, still a segregated city. It had some of the worst projects and slums I'd ever seen (and, as Flyer noted, I haven't seen the worst the city had). The schools were unanimously recognized as horrendous, the police force inept, the political structure an onion of corrupt layer after layer. I don't mean to suggest that New Orleans either deserved this or should "look on the bright side." But a realist needs to look at the opportunities that have been presented. Bring New Orleans into the 21st century in any rebuilding effort, or leave it as what it naturally would be: a small, well-flooded bayou.

Open Surprises: Federer won in straight sets last night, but it was uglier in person than on paper. Fabrice Santoro threw everything he had at Roger, and at times really seemed to shake him with some amazing cross-court shots and fearless net play. He came to the net on his second serve numerous times.

Yes, Federer came up with the shots he needed, as if by magic, when he needed them most. But he'd better hope that magic continues. Both Nadal and Blake seem young and hungry this week, and either one will eat Federer's lunch if he's not on his A-game.

More: Both Srichiphan and Grosjean, my two perennial dark horses at any slam event, look like they can sneak into the fourth round. Srichiphan beat the 6-seed Davydenko in straight sets, and before that beat El Aynaoui, who has been a quarterfinalist in Flushing twice, with ease. Grosjean beat 14-seed Thomas Johansson, and only needs to get past Tommy Robredo (who admittedly is having a good year on hard courts for a clay-courter) to reach the fourth.

Both their trips will likely end there, since Grosjean would face the winner of Nadal/Blake, and Srichiphan would see competition like Nalbandian and Hewitt. But both guys have the talent to go further, and both always seem to put up great matches, no matter who they play.

In case you missed it: Give James Taranto's Friday Best of the Web a read. Lots of good tidbits, including some commentary on our topic of the rebuilding of New Orleans.

To all those screaming: Do you not understand the meaning of "worst case scenario?" On Monday we all thought that NOLA had been spared destruction, as Katrina moved slightly east. But the fact is that on Tuesday the levees failed. If the hurricane had hit directly the same thing would have happened. The city would not have filled with water twice or even twice as fast. We got the worst possible event.

I'm sorry I keep saying the same thing, but I'm watching Lou Dobbs right now and I'm trying not to throw my chair at the TV. He's trying to bait Mel Watt into making charges of racism. Fortunately, Watt didn't bite.

Here's a statement from an official involved in disaster planning with FEMA last year:

After the drill, FEMA concluded that progress had been made, and that hurricane planning would continue.

But one of the drill participants, Col. Michael L. Brown, then-deputy director of the Louisiana emergency preparedness department, told the Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper that, in a worst-case scenario, there would be only so much government agencies could do.

"Residents need to know they'll be on their own for several days in a situation like this," Brown, who is not related to the FEMA director, told the paper.

That's pretty much what's happened. It's not easy to watch suffering, and the overwhelming media coverage makes it hard to avoid. I'm not surprised people are angry and I'm aware that the Natl. Guard probably wasn't moved in fast enough or in large enough numbers to maintain security. But short of that I don't know what could have been different. Everyone is screaming "not enough is being done" and some are saying they're ahsamed of our government. I'm watching people work tirelessly to try to deal with an impossible situation. I may find reason to criticize in the future, but I'm not the least bit ashamed.

David Vitter freaks out: From WWL-TV's Katrina Blog:

3:07 P.M. - BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- U.S. Sen. David Vitter said FEMA's efforts to deal with the hurricane have been completely ineffective, and he called the federal government's response a failure.

"I think FEMA has been completely dysfunctional and is completely overwhelmed, and I don't know why. This situation was utterly predictable," said Vitter, R-Metairie. "It seems like there was no coherent plan, which I don't understand because this precise scenario has been predicted for 20 years," he said.

I'm sorry, but recognizing the worst case scenario is a long way from coiming up with a plan to deal with it. I just watched a live helicopter rescue. The camera followed a chopper hovering over a house, a rescuer lowered down past various roofs and windows until he stopped at a particular window and began to help an individual out. How did he know where the person was? If they were responding to a call, how did they find the right building with all that water? This is a total logistical impossibility that no amount of planning could have dealt with. David Vitter's career entails many years of service to the State of Louisiana. You think he might have done something about a "coherent plan" in that time.

Frying pan to fire: Just heard from my friend Steven, a Louisiana Natl. Guard captain who's been in Iraq for the past year. He's just been informed that upon his return from rotation next week he'll be activated for 6 months of duty in New Orleans. Lovely.

As Stephen would say, "Required Reading": Will Collier, over at Vodka, says the rest of what I've been thinking, but haven't written, but with much better support and detail, as opposed to my usual hems, haws and mindless speculation.

Death of New Orleans: Micheal Ledeen on NRO.

New Orleans is one of a handful of cities that are defined in large part by the recognition that it can all come to an end most any day. Joel Lockhart Dyer wrote that "New Orleans is North America's Venice; both cities are living on borrowed time." New Orleans and Venice are both subject to the vagaries of the water gods, and both have acted sporadically to fend off their seemingly inevitable fate. But their basic response to the looming disaster has been defiance, a ritual assertion of life in the face of the inevitable, and an embrace of human frailty that echoes the frailty of the city itself.

Put otherwise, let's have a hurricane party.

The worst case scenario: is a looter of somebody getting shot and killed by a guardsman. You think there's criticism of the federal response now, just wait for that to happen.

"Bush late to respond, shoots to kill."

One More Thing: How about Agassi, who is nearly eligible for Social Security, hanging on against Ivo Karlovic in three tiebreaker sets? Ivo is a powerhouse server. Plus he's nearly a foot taller than Andre. Sure, he's not exactly a player's player, but he has the kind of pace that can wear down a has-been pretty quickly.

If ever there was a test for those creaky old bones, the Croatian Sensation was it. Kudos to Andre.

Bush in NOLA: While I said in comments earlier that I don't think it's fair to blame the administration for the chaos that's ensued in New Orleans, I will say that I think Bush has showed a pretty tin ear this week, the same one that he has for just about everything else. While I voted for him, and like him in some respects, he's just not good at showing that he's engaged in a situation. Every piece of information he gets must come in briefing papers.

Bush's greatest moment came after 9/11, when he went to ground zero and took the megaphone in his hand and showed his support for the people hurt there. It was powerful stuff, because it didn't come across as scripted or phony. Why he didn't make a similar show on, say, Wednesday, I don't know. I guess he's going to do that today, but it's too late. It'll come off all wrong, now.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that whatever Hurricane Plan was in place on Monday wasn't going to work on Tuesday. The flood petty much ruined any chance of commencing normal evacuation and cleanup activities. I don't find much fault with FEMA or others for not being able to execute as swiftly as desired. Nobody could have, not with any plan. You just can't plan for 8 feet of water.

But losing control of the security situation wasn't inevitable. Plenty of blame goes to Mayor Nagin, who I think has shown himself to be way over his head, and other local officials. The federal agencies deserve plenty of blame, as well, though. I think they all realize they dropped the ball, but they've picked it back up and are doing the best they can. More suffering ensued because of mistakes all around, but that's what happens with natural disasters.

Now, the Important Stuff: The Blake/Nadal match on Saturday could end up being the best of the fortnight. If you saw James Blake manhandle Igor Andreev last night, you can tell that his footwork, always a strength, has improved. He almost never looked off balance, he patrolled the baseline confidently, he came to the net with a lot of poise, and he just looked comfortable. Plus, his shot placement was phenomenal. He saw more white lines last night than Aerosmith in the late 70s. I'll grant that Andreev is a specialty player, but he's an experienced pro, and Blake handled him in a way that Nadal could not handle Scoville Jenkins (essentially a junior player on a wildcard) on Wednesday. Nadal and Jenkins are roughly the same age, but Jenkins played like an amateur. He didn't play badly so much as inconsistently -- and when he was on target, he gave Nadal some serious headaches. (With some strong coaching, Jenkins could be a contender.)

Anyhoo, Blake sure looks good. Perhaps not Maestro good, but like a bit of a cinderella. Does he have that whiff of destiny, Razor?

NFL Time: Presented with minimal cribbing from chowderheads: For division winners I'll take New England, Pittsburgh, Indy, and Denver in the AFC. For the NFC, I think Parcells really does know what he's doing, so Dallas, Minnesota, Carolina, Seattle. It's silly to go deep in picking all the wildcards, so I'll pick the ones that will emerge: Bengals in the AFC, Cardinals in the NFC. Arizona will ride the wildcard into the superbowl, only to lose to Indy.

Bonus round: Joe Gibbs will be fired first, Owens will not be suspended in the regular season, Cleveland's Trent Dilfer will get benched (although Chicago will wish they could bench Jeff Blake, but they have nobody else) and Arizona, obviously, will have the biggest improvement from '04.

So there. All predictions guaranteed to be similar to coin toss in predictive power.

Great NOLA Blog: I just started reading this, so I am not entirely sure what to make of it, but this appears to be maintained by some employees of a company called Intercosmos Media Group. One or more of the employees has military training and is putting it to good use in manning his outpost at his company, and communicating with various agencies regarding the plight down there. Moreover, he takes a ton of pictures. Very good reporting.

Future of N'awlins: I will, of course, defer to our resident expert on NOLA, but in reading this other expert, my impression of the city's future is quite grim.

His take: the city, as we knew it, is gone. Most tellingly, NOLA is a city with minor industrial/commercial base, but a very large gambling/tourism/hospitality base. Meaning, the city is typically populated by a work force and the tourists said work force serves. Does a full-time population of 500,000 warrant a full-scale re-building? Moreover, given that it will be between 2-4 months before the city is even dried out, the absolute minimum for being able to host any significant degree of out-of-towners again would have be at least a year. First, you have to clean up. Then you have to make it safe. Then you have to re-do all the infrastructure and utilities. Then you have to re-build homes, apartments and hotels. Then, all the social services have to be re-implemented.

All this while the area is sucking state and federal money like there's no tomorrow. Said otherwise, there is no revenue being generated, from within, and without that revenue, besides general contractors, who will want to go back?

Restaurants, casinos, bars - none of them will be adequately supported by local population plus re-construction workforce. Certainly nothing like the pre-flood levels that business owners were used to.

This is not to pile on or somehow "blame" the city of New Orleans for its predicament, just that half of the allure of NOLA was its historical architecture and unique history. With all the demolition that will have to occur, one of two things happens: (1) the city is re-imagined from the ground up or (2) "Welcome to Disney NOLA!!"

Lest we forget: It's NFL time, and TMQ has been at work for a few weeks now. Here is the latest post from yesterday, but he's got about three weeks stored up already. Gregg, it's good to have you back.

Next week I draft my line-up for the fantasy league I'll be participating in. I won't bore you with the outcome unless you beg me to, however, I do think we need to get a little FauxPolitik prediction going, to coincide with every other website doing same.

I suggest we do the following areas: Division Winners, Wildcards, Super Bowl Participants, Super Bowl winner. Then for added glory: (1) first coach to get fired; (2)week for T.O. to be suspended in reg. season; (3) first QB to get benched; and (4) team with biggest improvement in record from 2004 to 2005. If either of you have more creative ideas to add or replace with, please let me know. All picks by next Tuesday.

Re: predictions: I said the other day that I feared claims from the environmental left that Hurricane Katrina was caused by global warming. I was right, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. gets the prize for being the first to politicize a natural disaster. What's more, he manages to blame Mississippi governor Haley Barbour for stopping passage of the Kyoto protocol, thereby failing to prevent the global warming that caused Katrina. So I guess Mississipi got what it deserved.

First Big Upset: Watched the first two sets of Roddick's stinging loss to Gilles Muller last night. The commentary was surprisingly bad. Usually I like McEnroe's points, but it took a long time for Mac (or his play-by-play buddy) to realize that Muller had done his homework on Roddick. Muller is obviously not the power player Roddick is, and his game is not as complete, but he dissected Roddick's weaknesses like Ivan Lendl last night, hitting to his backhand, serving to the lines, and playing the volley. Muller's net game is mediocre, to be sure, but he kept Roddick from playing his typical bash-from-the-baseline game.

In the end, it appeared that Roddick had thought this match would be a near-walkover. Consequently, he didn't look too familiar with Muller's game, and looked very uncomfortable against a lefty. It was a good match and a great upset.

On the ladies' side, I saw the end of Davenport's win over Li Na. True, Lindsay won in straight sets, but she was really slow to close the door, dropping several match points on the way. She won't get past Dementieva or Patty Schnyder playing that way, and that's just the competition in her bracket.

Storm report: Just reported on WWL-TV, Jefferson Parish residents will be allowed to return in one week to collect necessary items. They will then be required to leave again for a period of one month. Photo id will be required to prove residence in Jefferson Parish before being allowed to enter.

Jefferson is the area just to the west of New Oreleans, and includes Metairie, Kenner, and much of the West Bank area. Now we're starting to get some idea of the scope of the problem.

Best interview during the hurricane: Given all the hysteria and news anchors in their rain slicks, it was a given that there would be tremendous competition for the fresh angle as the storm unfolded hour by hour. Shepard Smith, of Fox News, however, wins hands-down, in asking the insightful questions, and getting the telling answers.

Web TV: WWL-TV, the CBS affiliate in NO, is Webcasting live.

Let's Talk about Sports, Baby: Allow me to return Eno's Open serve with a cross-court knee-buckling slasher just over the net.

Nadal seems (repeat, seems) to have started his ascent from the huge European and South American pool of clay courters, and given the paucity of legit contenders, should (repeat, should) challenge Federer. While Agassi is indeed 87 years old, let's not forget Connors ousting Krickstein when he (Jimbo) was 39 years old, and the yet-to-be-creaky Kricker was still bouncing about on good knees. Will Andre win it? Probably not. But he hasn't missed the US Open in 19 years - which given everything is pretty astounding.

Roddick, as usual, will be fine until he faces The Maestro, and then he will succumb either in straight sets, or to some phantom injury (noteworthy: Roddick won the "Open Series" which entitles him to double-up on the $1.1MM prize money that goes to the winner of the Open - so, take that for what it is worth). Unfortunately Marat Safin is out with an injury (hardly surprising, but disappointing to be sure), as it would have been good to see the only guy to beat Federer on a hard surface in a major take him on.

Great article on James Blake in the NYT Magazine this past Sunday. Funny, I wondered what happened to him, and it's to my discredit that I didn't know the guy had broken his neck ... and that's just for starters. But, he's to play in the US Open, and did pretty well in the aforementioned Open Series. I thought the guy was a bit of a marketing ploy (African American, Harvard-educated, played in Harlem growing up), but the more I read, the more I like him. I'm pulling for him, even though his chances are not good, but the fact that he's playing at all is pretty amazing.

Like Eno said, who knows with Hewitt -- he's just too combustible, and more in the self-immolating way, to be dependable. Guys like Hrbaty and Acic (try pronouncing either one correctly) are also good hard-courters who had some success in the Series - every tournament has a couple surprises; these guys might be sleepers.

For the women, well, last year's champ is out -- a first for the record books. It's not surprising as she's had a horrible year, and was a five seed coming in - pretty hard to do as the returning winner. By all accounts, Venus is looking good, and Serena...well....heavy. Funny how the two of them can't occupy elite status at the same time for very long. Doesn't make any sense, unless you get all psychological on me and say that they don't like to compete against one another.

Justine will do very well, I imagine - her game is a bit soft on power, but she's got it in spades in the toughness and mental departments. Clijsters won the Series for the women, and has the above-reference financial windfall to capitalize on, and let's face it, when healthy, the girl's got game (snap, snap).

The big story (pun intended) of course is Maria. Everyone wants her to win. Everyone wants a player with Anna's looks, Martina's game (don't forget, Martina used to be considered a power player, back when most women looked like Tracy Austin), and say Chris Evert's approachability. If she wins this one, fuggedaboudit. She will be all over the joint.

Davenport will, as always, play solid, occasionally inspired tennis, only to lose to someone who wants it more or due to one of her myriad nagging injuries. Hey, she usually surprises me, but I can never find it within myself to predict a win from her. Finally, no J-Cap still. She hasn't played in about 10 months, and no word on when she'll return. Perhaps we've seen the last bit of tennis from the former wunderkind who is now pushing 30.

Dodging the bullet: It's still too early to tell how bad the damage will be. I went to sleep last night relieved to see people drinking on Bourbon St., the first familiar sight I'd found all day. I don't know what time the levee broke last night, but it's allowing a ton of water to flood from the lake into the city.

Here's a link to the interview with Mayor Nagin that pretty much describes the awfulness. It's grim and very long, but it's the best account I've found of the damage. The good news is that the bridge he describes as being "gone, totally gone," the Twin Span between NO and Slidell, might have just been under so much water that the FEMA people in helicopters couldn't see it. It may be just badly damaged, but not washed away as feared.

Uptown, where I lived and my sister and her family lived until last fal (glad they moved out of the state) was probably the least affected with "only" a few feet of water, lots of trees knocked down, and probably no power for the next month. Most of the grand houses on St. Charles Ave. will survive, compared to the 9th ward projects and ghettos. I'm sure someone will have something to say about the unfairness of that, the poor are always hardest hit etc.. Tell it to the guy who just built a new mansion on the lake or just put down 50 large to join Southern Yacht Club (it somehow managed to sink and burn at the same time). Nobody got off easy here.

The bullet was certainly dodged, in the sense that the storm weakened slightly before hitting the city and it veered east enough to keep it from being a direct hit. Believe it or not, it could have been much worse. When the bullet is this big, though, dodging it doesn't mean a whole lot. If it lands next to you, you still get blowed up.

Worth Mentioning: Razor questions my comment, below, that New Orleans "cheated fate" again. Cheated fate? Yep, I'll stand by the phrase. No mass death, relatively orderly evacuation, minor looting, much of the French Quarter spared serious flooding.

Let's be honest here: With no changes to the levee/drainage system, a Cat 5 storm aimed the right way is going to absolutely wipe the city off the map one day. Rebuilding will be an effort on the scale of London, post-blitz. Only a matter of time.

But not this time. For a few moments it looked like this was the one, and it was curtains for the old city. But a lucky break spared them the full brunt of the storm. Sure, there's lots of damage, and I don't mean to minimize the actual suffering, but the city ducked "the big one" once again. I call that cheating fate.

Open Time Again: Opening day at the U.S. Open got little of my attention today, at least not until New Orleans had cheated fate one more time. Looking at the draws for the Open is tricky this year. It's obviously wall-to-wall with talent, but Federer has raised the . . . er, net again this year, leaving once-promising players huffing. Roddick's phenomenal numbers from the last couple years have gained him bupkus since his lone slam. Lleyton Hewitt played surprisingly little tennis this year for a guy who needs to put up some wins or settle into early-has-been land. And Agassi is . . . what, 43 years old now?

The young Spaniard Nadal is clearly the favorite to challenge Federer. He's a fireball, as opposed to Federer's studied cool, and will play well with the NYC crowd. But will he be able to hang on if Roger brings his A-game? Not likely. He made his bones this year on clay -- no small feat -- but his hard court play has been erratic, from winning the Rogers in Toronto to piking out in the first round in Cincy to perennial Czech also-ran Tomas Berdych. Clearly, the kid has talent and the drive to go after number one. But so did Hewitt in 2001. Let's take a breath.

Predictions: Radley made this prediction yesterday.

An American treasure -- and one of my favorite places, anywhere -- could well be no more as of Tuesday. There's no finer convergence of food, drink, and music than the French Quarter.

Let's hope things go differently. If not, I put the over/under at three days before a Christian Right type comes forth with the idea that God destroyed New Orleans because it's a den of sin.

Well, thank ...uh...God it looks like utter destruction won't come to pass. But there will still be those who wish to place blame for these storms, and I expect the more likely group to point the finger will be the enviro-left global warming crowd.

Hearing rumors: I've been told that famed Mother's Restaurant has been wiped out by Katrina. Totally unconfirmed, though. I'll update if I hear any more details that you can' get from regular news sites. WDSU seems to have the best coverage going.

Light rain: Here's the satellite image of Katrina, courtesy of WDSU TV, with the eye pretty much directly over New Orleans. The weather update on the right side bar says "New Orleans Ariport 80 degrees Light Rain." Perfect.

Should I cool it or should I blow: I spent the weekend at Topsail Island, just north of Wilmington, oblivious to the brewing storm in the Gulf. Last I'd heard Katrina was clubbing in Miami, a category 1 nosebleed, but nothing else.

Got back last night, around 7:00, to find my former hometown pulling up roots and heading for high ground. Freaky.

Eno asks if I would have tried to hang in there for "The Big One." It's a tough question. I have at least one friend who's there for it, keeping an eye on the company warehouse and planning to be miserable for the next few weeks. I'm pretty sure if I were still there I could have found a place to ride it out. Chance of survival very good, and lots of excitement for 36 hours or so. Pretty cool.

But the problem comes afterward. A category 3, which I partied through in 1998, leaves some power outages, a little flooding, and you're inconvenienced for a couple days. Certainly a lot of people lose property from flooding and lots of windows get broken, but if you make it through the storm, you'll be fine. This storm is going to make life miserable for anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months, with the first week being pretty much hell, literally. This is a city that buries its dead above ground, and this much water is going to open the tombs of many of them. I don't think I'd want to be in the city till the worst of that's cleaned up, assuming there's anything to come back to.

In all likelihood I would have headed to the Covington/Mandeville area, north of Lake Pontchartrain. Still close enough to action to be scared shitless, but with a place to stay for a few days out of the toxic cleanup site.

It looks right now like the storm has weakened, barely, and is making a slight turn to the east. That's good news for the Crescent City, though it will still be very bad, especially for the folks in Biloxi and the Gulf Coast. Here's wishing them safe passage through this storm, and as swift and thorough a recovery as possible. It will be very hard, but you will make it through.

If It Keeps on Rainin', The Levee's Gonna Break: The Crescent City appears to be looking down the barrel of "the big one" that everyone has talked about. The levee system, which keeps the city dry (some of the time), will likely not withstand Katrina.

"We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared," Mayor Ray Nagin said in ordering the mandatory evacuation for his city of 485,000 people, surrounded by suburbs of a million more. "The storm surge will most likely topple our levee system."

Meanwhile, some tourists are stuck with nowhere to evacuate to.

Tina and Bryan Steven, a couple from Forest Lake, Minn., who came to attend a conference of emergency medical services, sat glumly on the sidewalk outside their hotel in the French Quarter . . . [Tina], wearing a Bourbon Street T-shirt with a lewd message, interjected: "I just don't want to die in this shirt."

A true Yat would rather die than be seen in the shirt in the first place, naturally. Which leads me to Flyer, who knows what its like to ride out a New Orleans hurricane. It comes down to a simple choice: Beat feet or stock beer.

So here's the question, Flyer. You're in your apartment, you've laid in a few cases of Abita and a carton of smokes, and Mayor Nagin has just announced, "Last one out take the flag, please." Stay or go? It seems to me that with some serious preparation, you could stay and observe this in relative safety. But would you want to hang around to see your home taken away?

The tastefully named Brendan Loy is all over this storm.

The Lance Mystery: I doubt we'll ever know for sure about Lance Armstrong's 1999 piss test for performance enhancers. The thing they were testing for wasn't even illegal back then, after all. But the French sure seem to have a throbbing boner for the guy, as the latest flap makes clear.

Seems to me that no non-Frog could win the Tour seven times and not have his motives, integrity, and medical record questioned. It's a matter of national pride. I mean, what else do they have, other than this silly two-wheeled race through an inconsequential country? At least the Italians, for example, realized that it's better to blow through les pays at high-speed, in a motorized conveyance -- preferably the twelve-cylinder kind. I've said it before, and it bears repeating: The Tour de France is the dumbest sporting event ever conceived. Imagine riding your bike across the French countryside, an idiot trustifarian sort of accomplishment at best, without stopping to swill some vin ordinaire, eat some cheese that smells like your biking shoes, and take a twirl with the comely lasses of the villes (suggested courting gifts: perfume, economy size, and a twin-blade Bic).

Still, the stupid American pulled it off 7 times. Was he doping? Who the hell knows, but the question is ridiculous in nearly any professional sport. Surely others were doping. Why couldn't they beat Lance? Ah, hell with it.

More here.

Mohr to the point: Jay Mohr, the sometimes funny comic from SNL and Jerry Maguire fame, comes to my rescue. Jay...I owe you beers.

Have it your way: More hysteria from the media and government about fast food and its cause-and-effect relationship with childhood obesity. This is one of Radley Balko's bete-noirs, along with his fight to defend doctors who prescribe legal medicine, yet are targeted by the DEA, et al. because that medicine just so happens to be big league pain opiates. Radley's libertarian bona fides are certainly beyond reproach and I find his postings very informative and amusing.

The article in question, decrying how close fast food restaurants are to schools in the cities (and are therefore inherently dangerous), misses the point, which Radley also notes, stating how it's not that Fast Food doesn't offer healthy alternatives to bacon-wrapped, deep-fried meat sticks with mayo dipping sauce (yummy!), but that no one, well, at least not kids, chooses them.

I'd like to join in Radley's chorus, but also keep going. First of all, one must determine whether fast food is being consumed on a daily basis as opposed to occasionally, before one can even get to the issue of whether fast food is a problem with which we must even address.

I eat at hamburger joints on occasion. Probably less than once a week - not because of any higher virtue, but b/c I work in a major city that has a lot more options, even for the workaday $5-8 lunch alternative; and fast food is something I can get anywhere. However, when I go to eat fast food, I'm going not for the friggin' salads, I can assure you that. Meaning, I target fast food as an option when I want some greasy hamburgs, overly-large fries, and a soda to wash it all down. Stated another way, to me, fast food is an escape - an escape from the daily grind of trying to choose healthy or at least, non-deadly, alternatives for daily consumption.

It's the difference between having a glass of wine or two with dinner, and going to the bar for six pints and then rounds of Jagermeister with your new best friends with whom you've just decided to pool your money together to finally make that reunion movie with the cast from "The Facts of Life" (Do you think they're available??). The point is, you know going into the place that you're about to make some unhealthy decisions. The difference between some occasional and mostly harmless fun, and an appearance on The Smoking Gun is of frequency and degree.

If the "Gubbinment" takes away all my unhealthy choices - that can only possibly affect my life (I'll make the distinction on smoking only this once because one can argue that smoking can affect people second-hand [not that it's true, but that you can argue it]), just because others can't seem to control themselves, then there is no stopping the merry-go-round of government intervention into my life.

Fast food is one of this country's most successful exports - it may not say much about our culture, but it says a hell of a lot about our ability to tap into a universal human desire - much like our exportation of sports and entertainment. Complain all you want, but people are getting that which they desire. The only way to change the outcome is to change the desire, not the supply. One look at the "War on Drugs" should tell you all you need to know about "supply-side" prohibition.

Unfortunately (or not, depending on your viewpoint), changing preferences is much harder than simply outlawing that which we desire. My guess is that if we wanted to stop or at least greatly reduce fast food consumption by those who are most at risk, a good starting point would be diminishing the poverty gap, strengthening families, and increasing knowledge about diet and activity.

On second thought, just put a 50% tax on Big Macs and hold a press conference announcing: "Mission Accomplished."

Thoughts on movies: John Cole had this post yesterday at his Balloon Juice blog about falling prices on home video technology. I mention it only because I went to a rare movie in the theater this weekend, and was disappointed as usual. Saw the new "thriller" from Wes Craven, Red Eye, an outstandingly craptacular flick with Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy. I would be glad to never see this movie, but it's perfectly suited to a rental. $4 and some popcorn, not a great waste if the movie blows. $20 plus for two to go to the theater ain't worth it anyomore unless I know I'm going to be entertained.

This year I've seen Star Wars, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, and the above mentioned Red Eye in the theater and only Star Wars was worth it. And that probably had less to do with the movie than with the release of 6 years of pent up anticipation. The girlfriend asked a good question after the movie Friday: How do these theaters stay in business? How? The place was packed? Why? Can't answer that one.

Or as The Onion put it: My little self-righteous diatribe against "Intelligent Design" was of course, spot on and everything, but a bit dry - I mean, it's hard to be so insightful and witty at the same time. Well, hard for me anyway. The Onion did all that and more just in its headline. God, those guys are good.

For "Inveterate Imperialists" Only: Some people have too much time on their hands that they can devote a goodly amount of effort to creating websites that have no real purpose (bloggers aside of course!), but at the same time, are wildly entertaining.

NK News is just such a site. Its creator has managed to cull every article posted on the official propa...I mean news site of the North Korean government since December, 1996. Certainly, the creative jargon used by the government news agency is always good for a laugh, but I'm particularly enamored by the "Random Insult Generator," to wit:

You politically illiterate renegade, we will annihilate you with a fresh revolutionary upswing!

Or:

You imperialist renegade, we will transform your country into a sea of fire!

Okay, that one was more of a threat than an insult, but you get my drift.

More amusing the co-opting of the Kim Jong lookalike marionette from "Team America: World Police," which if you haven't seen, you are missing out.

Toto, we're not in an intelligently designed political state anymore: Okay, Kansas moves one step closer to teaching intelligent design to its public school students. Is it a little surprising? Yeah, it is. But, certainly the writing was on the wall.

What confuses me more however is the impetus:

"We think this is a great development ... for the academic freedom of students," said John West, senior fellow of the Discovery Institute, which supports intelligent design theory.

Hmmm, okay, it's about "academic freedom." I suppose that isn't a bad thing. So, one presumes that Kansas will soon be teaching about crop circles being evidence of alien visitations, how tinfoil hats keep the government waves from controlling our actions, and how L Ron Hubbard may be on to something after all.

See, the push for ID in schools is not about "academic freedom." Those behind ID are about pushing an agenda, specifically designed to advance a belief-based curriculum. Whatever you may think about evolution; it is God-neutral - it neither advances, nor curbs, the proposition that everything on earth (and all around us for that matter) was created by some higher, sentient being. It just says that once the spark of life got here, however that was, the way we are now came about due to things like natural selection.

The important part of course, is that Darwin's theories are scientifically supportable. It doesn't mean that we might not find ways to scientifically alter them, or even disprove them one day. But, to teach kids that life as we know it was/is intentionally designed, by one mother-fucker of an engineer, is not only not provable, it's not even demonstrable. It's like saying "Yellow is the most beautiful color around, because I can't imagine a more beautiful one, therefore it must have been created by a divine artist." The whole theory is self-centered - in our perception of what is possible - as opposed to what is objectively demonstrated by observance and testing.

Evolution should not be viewed as the end-all, be-all, nor a threat to religious belief in general. It should just be viewed, rightly, as the best scientific explanation going. ID has no real foundation in science, it is merely an alternative - one that is not entirely crack-pot, but one that is nonetheless as provable or demonstrable as my deeply-held belief that the divine drunken otter in the sky made us by accident. Weep for Kansas...weep.

So nice I read it twice: A penetrating review of The Dukes of Hazard movie over at Libertas. Just think about it:

However, if constructivism holds, we have to choose between dialectic narrative and a ‘great ass. '

I may go back and read it a third time, just to make sure I caught all the nuance.

Apologies: Here is the link. Enjoy!

Crackdown: If they'd had this law in Dayton when I went to college I would have been screwed.

A new ordinance is being considered in Anderson to keep certain types of furniture off porches.The Anderson City Council is working on a new ordinance that would ban traditional indoor furniture from being kept outside on a porch.

We once moved a friend's entire living room out into the driveway, including tv, lamps, coffee tables etc. An extra full size fridge, not the mini fridge, was requisitioned and hooked up and we spent a solid 12 -15 hours pretending nothing unusual was going on. And once I had a recliner stolen from my porch while a friend was passed out in the couch next to it. Never forgave him for not waking up.

Of course, the behavior of drunken college kids shouldn't be the standard of behavior for polite society.

Via Radley

What's in a name: More from The Corner. I agree with John Podhoretz's thoughts here about renaming streets. He's opposed to a movement to rename 16th St. in D.C. after Reagan.

Renaming something so very familiar is an act of government high-handedness, as the New York City example of renaming 6th Avenue "Avenue of the Americas" demonstrates. It's been 60 years, and nobody calls it Avenue of the Americas, and nobody ever will (except for real estate reasons). I'm all for honoring Ronald Reagan, but not this way -- not in a way that would embarrass Reagan himself.

It's seems a little arbitrary, although maybe 16th St. has some Reaganesque symbolism I don't know about. I could still get behind Eno's idea to create a dollar coin with the Gipper's likeness. That would be more fitting.

Razor's nightmare continues: Flip flops aren't just tacky, they're a killer. Serves the tasteless bastards right, though, eh Raz.

Via The Corner.

Excuses: As Flyer noted, I'm taking two weeks off (starting Monday) to relax, after which I'll return home, do my encore performance of Julius Caesar in early September, and then be back to blogging fairly regularly. Doesn't look like the nomination of Judge Roberts will give us much to fight about, but maybe Bolton will stir up that rogues gallery on Turtle Bay and give us a good sideshow. Something's gotta happen, right?

President Rodham: I've puzzled over this a couple of times, Flyer, and I could never figure out why, aside from the Ferraro disaster in 1984, the Democrats -- the party of women and minorities, we're told -- is positively allergic to running them nationally. It's been widely noted, in addition, that Bush Jr.'s cabinet looks more like America than Clinton's cabinet that he promised would "look like America." Besides which, Clinton's big minority nod was to put Kimba Wood, er, Zoe Baird, uh, Janet Reno, or some broad (though he claimed to be looking for "the best-qualified individual") in the AG spot, but only as a beard for Webb Hubbell.

At any rate, it highlights how deep in thrall traditional "minorities" are to the Dems. They don't have to let them play, after all. What are they going to do, join the GOP?

That said, Hillary does have the personality problem, so the Kos-ian protestations may be partly honest (though I really suspect a lot of older, male, honky Dems are afraid minorities will take the party from them). Last month's Atlantic surveyed influential Democrats about the '08 election, and they generally agreed that long-term exposure to Hillary is going to turn off even some who "like" her. She might surge at first, like Howard Dean did in the '04 primaries, but then she'll start to grate on folks. Look for '08 to be another white male vs. white male contest.

The perils of a Hillary nomination: Kos comes out against a Hillary '08 campaign, because she's dull as dishwater boring and the Dmocratic base needs someone cool they can rally around. And someone that still has positions well left of the DLC moderates. I don't know if he's really afraid she'd be so boring that turnout would be down. After all, the first female presidential candidate ought to be enough reason for your base to come out in support. Maybe the real problem is fear that she's for real with some of her moderate/right positions (hawkish on Iraq, not too doctrinaire on abortion) and not just playing to the masses. Although I'm inclined to believe that he only reason she ever does anything is to gain political advantage, and I doubt Kos believes any differently, I'm skeptical about that scenario as well.

What I really found odd in his post, though, was this line.

Given a choice between personality and policy, voters have been picking personality for the LAST SEVEN ELECTIONS. But Dems are still acting as if the voters have the same attention span they had during the Lincoln-Douglas debates, or even the Kennedy-Nixon debates.

What? Americans have short attention spans? Just conservatives, Kos, or do you think any bong smoke theorists on the left, with their short term memory obliterated, have trouble staying awake through a John Kerry ten point plan to come up with a ten point plan to improve the economy? Maybe you're right, though. If we were all as informed about the issues and detailed plans as they average voter was in 1858, I'm sure everything would be great. Information widely disseminated at the speed of horse and average education levels pretty low, even by modern DOE standards. That's the ideal situation for voter awareness.

And the Kennedy-Nixon debate was pretty much the beginning of modern "popularity contest" politics. Kennedy got elected because he and his wife were pretty and his daddy was rich, the ultimate triumph of style over substance. You can claim that modern voters make some decisions for pretty stupid reasons (like what they heard in a Green Day song) but don't pretend there was some halcyon day of intellectual debate when the masses trotted out to stadiums to cheer the noble competitors thrust and parry with their daggerlike tongues (and your guy, naturally, won the day).

All he's really saying is that we keep losing even though we're so much smarter than our opponent, so it must be style. Let's find some of that '92 sax-playing mojo!

Maybe you keep losing because when the style isn't there and people actually hear you talk, they stay away in droves.

Flashback on Bolton: Mark Steyn's (long) take on John Bolton's nomination/appointment. From March, but very funny and very on point. Demorat hand wringing over Bolton isn't about his personality, temper, or impatience with subordinates. It's that when he says the UN needs reform, he's not talking about

change(ing) three-letter acronyms (INS) to four-letter acronyms (BCIS) just to show how serious we are, and a year or four down the line we may well get real tough and require five-letter acronyms.

Intelligent design: I don't think Bush is trying to push Christianity on anyone, while promoting the idea that we can expose children to more than one idea and worldview, including intelligent design. He means well

Unfortunately that's no excuse. This is just a bad idea for a federal Department of Education and it's a pretty dumb move politically. Christian conservatives can accept (I hope) that once the government starts teaching one religious idea, it pretty much has to give equal time to every other viewpoint. Unless you're in a parochial school stick to that which can be proven by scientific method and tell the little whelps to meditate if they want any answers beyond that.

Hat tip John Hawkins.