I'm kinda pissy about the attitude the coasts have towards Flyover-Jesusland. Former friend said, in effect, that the people in Mississippi deserved to die because they were stupid and didn't vote the right way in 2004.

I'm not sure it's fair to group those two sentences. I live in the bluest of blue state (and we're flyover, too!) and I've heard nothing of the sort. Jackassery knows no color.

There are the millions of poor folk who'd be trapped in the theocracy, getting stoned to death in public squares, who were unable to leave due to not having anyplace else to go, I think.

Eh. If they seceded, they'd be another country, and we never jump in when this happens in other countries.

Probably better to set aside some real estate where the therocratists could move to. Like, oh, Venus.

I need a word: mundaneness? mundancity?

And ITA with bon about gas pricing and motivation.

Thousands? God.

I just saw on the news that the mayor of a hurricane-hit Mississippi town has been reported missing, too. (Can't remember the name of the town now, damn it...)

mundanity

I need a word: mundaneness? mundancity?

Mundacity! It's like mendacity but more common and less untrue.

Coolish thing: my firm is matching Red Cross donations for Katrina.

answering their contempt and vitriol with contempt and vitriol is counter-productive and the terrorists have already won and think of the children.

This? Pretty much generally a good idea in my book. Which book being, oddly enough, the Bible.

This? Pretty much generally a good idea in my book.

I don't have a book and am inclined to agree.

Askye? My cell # insent. If you're still about.

Coolish thing: my firm is matching Red Cross donations for Katrina.

The Chicago Tribune is doing the same (if you want to make your donation stretch farther, they're matching 50 cents to the dollar up to $1 million).

Good news:

***********

Canal breach update

Wednesday, 1:40 p.m.

By Jan Moller

BATON ROUGE - Water levels in Orleans Parish have crested and are beginning to slowly recede as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers prepares to begin an unprecedented effort to fix a 200-foot breach in the 17th Street Canal that has inundated the city, state and federal officials said Wednesday.

State Secrertary of Transportation and Development Johnny Bradberry said Lake Pontchatrain has receded by two feet since yesterday as water levels equalized between the lake and the flooded city interior.

"The good news here is that we've stabilized. Water is not rising in the city," Bradberry said.

Maj. Gen. Don Reily of the Corps of Engineers said flood levels are now receding at a rate of one inch per hour, but that it's likely to take at least 30 days before all the water is gone from New Orleans. "Lake level has equalized with interior water inside the city,. which means that it won't be any more flowing into the city except for a high tide," Reily said.

The Corps and the Louisiana National Guard are planning to use Chinook helicopters to drop 1,200 bags of sand into the breach weighing 20,000 pounds each, and 250 concrete highway construction barriers. In the meantime, they are using smaller bags of sand, weighing 3,000 pounds apiece, to try to stem the deluge.

Fixing the levee breach has been the Corps' top priority, as the lengthy process of pumping water out of Orleans cannot begin until the canal walls are secure.

State officials announced the operation Tuesday and spent the night getting equipment into place, a process that was complicated when officials could not get enough slings that are needed to drop the material into the breach.

"The issue that we had was not enough slings," Bradberry said. "When you release a 3,000 bag of sand the sling goes with it."

Reily said the corps is also working with the Orleans Sewerage and Water Board and the Orleans Levee Board on efforts to close the entrance to the canal from Lake Pontchrartrain. In the last day three barges of rock have been brought into the lake to help with that effort.