Haha! msbelle got the bargain-basement version of the internets!

This made me giggle.

A lot.

I just can't believe this. I've never had much use for W, but I'm amazed at how horribly he's handling this. I keep remembering when Gorbachev was in the US, and there was a big earthquake in the Soviet Union, and he dropped everything and flew home. Could he personally do anything? Perhaps not. But he knew how important it was for him to be there.

Regarding bussing people out, they could be doing more. Gas is a problem, but some busses have gotten out (and initially were turned away from the Astrodome because they weren't on the official list). So clearly this is not impossible.

This whole thing is just so sad and upsetting and, frankly, embarrassing.

Part of this feeling may be because of the migraine that popped in from nowhere last night and is still throbbing away. But definitely not all of it. Feh.

A friend in Texas is reporting her husband just saw a convoy of 9 buses escorted by Texas DPS cruisers. Some movement. Not enough, but some.

For people who were too poor to own a car, or pay for a motel outside the city, who live in absolute poverty, it's fucking Christmas to be able to go break into all those shops along Canal and load up on electronics and guns and jewelry.

I know you made this point elsewhere in your post, but I just want to be very clear that it's really only a (relatively) few people doing all the bad shit, compared to a ton of regular non-crazy poor people.

Turned out to be my dad's high school guidance counselor, of all people, but there was a rumor going around at the reception afterwards that Jimmy Carter had come to my grandpa's funeral.

Fantastic story.

Corwood, the joke goes deeper. I grew up in Wisconsin (Beloit/Janesville) and am not exactly slender. And I did have a carrom board as a kid.

Excellent!

talking to the pet DJ about getting a fund raiser night going next week.

ooooh! Jilli! Have a wee mini-auction of cutie-pie things. Get Gaiman to sign a couple of things and send them over. Maybe some gift certificates for gothy stores (maybe one of the places that makes pretty frocks to order will donate services for a free cape or skirt). Just whatever you can get sent to you in a week, 5-10 items. They're always fun and a nice advertisement. Whatever you can accomplish with a few emails. Plus, it takes your mind off the sick-feeling of it all. Win/win.

I just can't believe this. I've never had much use for W, but I'm amazed at how horribly he's handling this. I keep remembering when Gorbachev was in the US, and there was a big earthquake in the Soviet Union, and he dropped everything and flew home. Could he personally do anything? Perhaps not. But he knew how important it was for him to be there.

Should have come back the first day and started chewing asses until things started happening. Would it do much good? dunno. But that's what a leader needs to do.

CNN's on-the-ground reporting has scared the crap out of me. But this New York Times article sounds more positive about official response. [link]

Off topic, but this is the best editorial I've read that argues against teaching "Intelligent Design" in school (and I've read a shit-load of them): [link]

They make some excellent arguments for why to keep ID out of the classroom. But it's paragraphs like these that really annoy me:

Intelligent design is not an argument of the same character as these controversies. It is not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one. It might be worth discussing in a class on the history of ideas, in a philosophy class on popular logical fallacies, or in a comparative religion class on origin myths from around the world. But it no more belongs in a biology class than alchemy belongs in a chemistry class, phlogiston in a physics class or the stork theory in a sex education class. In those cases, the demand for equal time for "both theories" would be ludicrous. Similarly, in a class on 20th-century European history, who would demand equal time for the theory that the Holocaust never happened?

Yes, ID is a religious argument, and belongs firmly in church and not in science class. But minimizing ID by calling it, sequentially, a historical idea, a popular logical fallacy, and an origin myth; and then ridiculing ID by comparing it to alchemy, phlogiston, stork theory, and (in the classic application of Godwin's Law) holocaust revisionism? It's offensive, and only hurts their otherwise well-written article.

Isn't it CNN's job to scare the crap out of people? I mean, scared people don't change the channel, so they're around when the commercial breaks happen.

Actually, that is the problem with newscasts right there in a nutshell.