Curious story on the news this morning about Shaquille O'Neal witnessing a man who shouted a bunch of slurs and threw a bottle at a gay couple. Shaq apparently called the cops and then tailed the guy until the police got him.

Shaq wants to be a cop after he retires, and is training to become a deputy with the Miami police. He's all about the law and order.

In class last night, the professor said that she had heard that the president had gone on tv and taken personal responsibility for everything that went wrong.

Overly optimistic, indeed. There's a method to his madness. He's saying, "I'm responsible" because he's falling back to his default, man-of-the-people-straight-shooter facade in order to try to use the entire Gulf Coast as a lab experiement for the wonderful GOP idea of "smaller goverment, less regulation" that has worked out so well for all the poor people down there already.

From the Washington Post:

Bush already has dispatched his top strategist, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and other aides to assemble ideas from agencies, conservative think tanks, GOP lawmakers and state officials to guide the rebuilding of New Orleans and relocation of flood victims. The idea, aides said, is twofold: provide a quick federal response that comports with Bush's governing philosophy, and prevent Katrina from swamping his second-term ambitions on Social Security, taxes and Middle East democracy-building.

A top aide said he will stress that New Orleans officials will dictate how the city will be rebuilt, but will also make plain the reconstruction should reflect his vision of government -- including reducing regulatory obstacles and emphasizing entrepreneurship over big government, the aide said. He will discuss plans to provide health care, education, jobs and housing assistance to flood victims, another aide said.

The Administration will basically use this to test school vouchers and dumping the prevailing wage laws for construction and service industries for the profit of employers (especially Halliburton) who will get the fat contracts for reconstruction. And to prove that private charities can take the place of the feds in providing relief.

They've managed to spin it very well into an opportunity to continue conservative hegemony. Nice, isn't it?

Timelies. I missed w & p :(

I saw BONES, HOUSE and RESCUE ME.

BONES: Liked it (and the title character) a lot more than I thought, and DB wasn't as smug as he came off in the commercials. However, I thought the ending was outrageously dumb. Yo, just because you cop to the fact that shooting the guy might get her in trouble doesn't mean you just get to hand wave away in the next second.

HOUSE: Loved it, loved the snark. @@ forever, however when the Hallelujah montage came on. LL rocked the...ahem...house, but I've always liked him as an actor.

RESCUE ME: Well everything went to shit as expected. Not a single happy for anyone. I just wish they'd at least let one of the characters off the hook for an extended period.

Bush's agenda for this term is toast. And he's not going to be able to do anything in New Orleans except spend a shit load of money.

Which I hope leads to some good things in New Orleans, though largely I feel the end result is that there will be a lot less poor black people in New Orleans.

Feh. Awake since 4:30am. Can't sleep clown stress will eat me.

Bush's agenda for this term is toast. And he's not going to be able to do anything in New Orleans except spend a shit load of money.

I hope you're right, Hec. But it's obvious Turd Blossom has recovered from pissing blood and is back on the job. I keep going back to read the WaPo's editorial about the end of the era. It does give me a happy.

Bush's agenda for this term is toast. And he's not going to be able to do anything in New Orleans except spend a shit load of money.

I hope this is true. I'm tired of him fucking up this country.

You know something's not right when I feel like I woke up too early, but still later than someone on the West Coast. My problem is really being up too late. I have the world's stupidest stress, as I could be actually doing something about it right now, but yet? Am not.

I think I'm going to have a problem actually watching stuff I tape on the DVR. It just seems weird to watch new primetime TV in the morning, but now is when I have time. A dilemma.

Bush's agenda for this term is toast.

I dunno, so far they've been able to conjure "mandates" from narrow victories (and losses). I'm terrifed they're going to pull another one out of this. God knows they're not above using disaster for their own purposes.

hee! Teppy's letter got published in Salon!

AND it looks like we're going to need a runoff for the Democratic mayoral nomination, over like 12 votes. Which just makes me tired.