As a quick FYI: Referendum 71 made it onto the fall ballot here in Washington.

On the surface, this seems to be a good thing - extend to all domestic partnerships all the rights and responsibilities of marriage.

However, it also EXPRESSLY forbids marriage to be anything except between one man and one woman.

The wording is extremely confusing (so much so that TWICE I've actually voiced my support for it...until a lawyer said, "That's not all it does..." and clarified things for me).

WA-istas, and other political activists: encourage people to educate themselves on this issue. I obviously have a stake in the outcome - but my emphasis here is education not persuasion towards a specific goal.

Looks like the clown car fits 19 now. Yikes.

Get out of my HEAD, Suzi. I was about to say the same exact thing. Down to the "yikes."

In terms of comparing natural disaster to 911. The natural disaster may not be human caused but quite often the deaths are. In Katrina the neglect was at least careless, and in my personal opinion deliberate. Rove was heavily involved in decision making. And I assume that he was thinking "we can drive out and kill a lot of the black people who live in a purple state, on that can go either red or blue, and make it more reliably red." A lot of the Bush very White House Katrina choices can be explained on that basis. And in general how many people a disaster kills depends on a lot on preparation and government response. So if a natural disaster results in a lot of deaths, most of the time it means the public authorities did not do what they should have. And most of the time much of this neglect is done in the face of warnings that they are asking for trouble.

The impression I got from the Bush administration's handling of Katrina was more of incompetence rather than malice.

The impression I got from the Bush administration's handling of Katrina was more of incompetence rather than malice.

At the very least, I can't help feeling like they'd have gotten competent if it were a population they cared about.

Of course, in my darker hours I think the neglect/gutting of the public schools is a deliberate effort to create/maintain an easily manipulated underclass.

Get out of my HEAD, Suzi.

Ya know, I think Barb's head would be a real spicy place to hang out.

The impression I got from the Bush administration's handling of Katrina was more of incompetence rather than malice.

Either way, if there was one instant when the last administration reached the Point of No Return in the public's eyes, it was, "Heck of a job, Brownie."

Of course, in my darker hours I think the neglect/gutting of the public schools is a deliberate effort to create/maintain an easily manipulated underclass.

Some public schools are great though. I think there is a really tough problem with schools. In general, where there is a good tax base there are good schools. It would be hard to fix that.

The reason I think it was at least partially deliberate was the extensive involvement of Rove from the beginning. Rove was all about winning elections. Rove, though not the genius he is sometimes called is not a complete moron. The Bush White House not only failed to do the right thing, but stopped others from doing the right thing - refusing permission for NG units and red cross units to help. Where was the political gain in that? Changing the demographics. When someone has a proven record of malice I think the "assume incompetence over malice" heuristic no longer applies.