Welcome to Medary.com Sunday, November 24 2024 @ 06:07 AM CST

Roberts nominated for Chief Justice

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John Roberts gets a promotion before he even gets the job:
McClellan said Bush called O'Connor from Air Force One en route to Louisiana Monday to talk with her about his decision. "He indicated that he was going to move quickly to find her replacement as well," the president's spokesman added. Talking to reporters who accompanied the president on a hurricane-damage inspection trip to the South, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino was unable to say whether O'Connor reiterated her earlier promise about temporarily staying on the court.

Getting a new chief justice of Bush's choosing in place quickly also avoids the scenario of having liberal Justice John Paul Stevens making the decisions about whom to assign cases to and making other decisions that could influence court deliberations. As the court's senior justice, Stevens would take over Rehnquist's administrative duties until a new chief is confirmed.

So, who's next up for Supreme Court Justice? No matter who it is you can be sure he or she will be utterly unacceptable to the Loony Left.

Intelligent Design, Flying Spaghetti Monsterism out in Utah

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Salt Lake Tribune story:
Speaking to board members, 10 scientists and researchers representing disciplines including biology, chemistry, geology, paleontology and engineering tried to dismantle the contention that intelligent design is based on sound science.

Instead, many called it pseudoscience and agreed with Duane Jeffery, a Brigham Young University biology professor, who put it in the same category as astrology and pyramid power.

"By definition, science does not attempt to explain the world by invoking the supernatural," University of Utah bioengineering professor Gregory Clark told the board.

"Intelligent design fails as science because it does exactly that - it posits that life is too complex to have arisen from natural causes, and instead requires the intervention of an intelligent designer who is beyond natural explanation. Invoking the supernatural can explain anything, and hence explains nothing."

Who'd have thunk it? Utah more rational than Kansas? (Google "flying spaghetti monsterism" to get up to speed.)

Royals briefly wake up

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The Kansas City Royals were apparently saving up their offense all season for this one game.
The victory was only the sixth in 34 games for the Royals, who own the worst record (44-91) in the majors.

Angel Berroa drove in five runs, matching his career high, and Aaron Guiel had three hits, including his first home run since Aug. 23, 2004. Emil Brown drove in four runs, equaling his career best, with a two-run homer in the eighth and a two-double in the third.

Royals need to go 19-7 to avoid 100 losses.

Great West Football Conference week 1 results

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Thursday's results:
Idaho State 38, Southern Utah 13
North Dakota State 59, Arkansas-Monticello 7

Saturday's results:
South Dakota State 42, Wisconsin-La Crosse 13
Northern Colorado 52, Colorado Mines 31
Troy 27, Cal Poly 10
New Hampshire 17, UC Davis 13

As expected: North Dakota State and South Dakota State's big wins, Cal Poly's loss to I-A Troy.

Surprises: Southern Utah's surprisingly weak showing against Idaho State, Northern Colorado giving up 31 points to D-II Colorado Mines.

Next week's games:
Northern Colorado at Western Illinois, Thursday night
Cal Poly hosts Sacramento State
UC Davis hosts Portland State
North Dakota State at Northwestern State
South Dakota State hosts Valparaiso
Southern Utah at Texas State

Special Saturday feature: Who's to blame?

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Well, this will probably just piss off everyone. So be it:

Let's start with obvious facts. It was (or should have been) common knowledge that the New Orleans levee system could not withstand a strike by anything greater than a Category 3 hurricane. The nearly hysterical National Weather Service warning issued on Sunday before Katrina hit should have been sufficient warning to everybody concerned--citizens, City, State, and Federal government--to get off their asses and take whatever steps were necessary to get everyone out of New Orleans. But this didn't happen. Years of near-misses, lucky breaks, and false alarms lulled everyone into a mindset where "it wouldn't be that bad." It is this mindset that the infamous NWS warning was trying to break. Unfortunately for the thousands of dead and displaced, too many people continued to believe that "it can't happen here."

With that preview, let's look at all of the parties to this disaster and Monday-Morning-Quarterback their responses:

1. The People of New Orleans.
The people of New Orleans failed in their responsibility as citizens of the United States: to take individual and personal responsibility for their own safety. The stories of individual citizens taking independent action to improve their condition and/or escape the disaster are few and far between. We know one person commandeered a school bus and took some others out of the area. While I don't want to endorse stealing school buses, more stories like this where individuals took appropriate action to get themselves and others out of danger would be of some comfort. Instead, we're treated to hour after hour of the TV news channels showing passive victims complaining about the horrible conditions there.

It's not as if the people of New Orleans did not have plenty of warning. On July 24th, they were basically told "you're on your own."

Each time you hear a federal, state or city official explain what he or she is doing to help New Orleans, consider the opening paragraphs of a July 24 story in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

"City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give the poorest of New Orleans' poor a historically blunt message: In the event of a major hurricane, you're on your own."

The story continues:

"In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm's way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation."

The victims huddling on the I-10 or in and around the Superdome have some questions to answer. Why are you here? What did you do to get out, or even to prepare for this day? The level of my sympathy for the victims is in direct proportion to the quality of the victims' answers to those critical questions. They are not completely innocent here. They were warned.

2. The New Orleans city government. As discussed above, the New Orleans city government had no plan to evacuate the city in the predictable case of levee breaks and major flooding. This is criminally irresponsible in my opinion. The City government failed in its primary responsibility--to ensure the security of its citizenry. No amount of Mayoral tantrum-throwing will change that fact.

The pictures of a huge school bus farm completely under water says volumes about the failure of the city government to plan for and react to this level of disaster.

3. The Louisiana state government.
State government knew, or should have known, that New Orleans was unprepared for major flooding. As the hurricane approached, The Governor as well as the mayor had to be prodded by President Bush to order an evacuation for which we now know that they had no plan or capability to carry out. The City of New Orleans essentially ceased to function in the aftermath of Katrina. The thousands of storm victims huddling on I-10 testify to that. Louisiana should have stepped in and aggressively took control after it became obvious that the City could not manage the situation and provide order. It did not. Like the Mayor and New Orleans city government, the Louisiana Governor and Louisiana State Government have much to answer for.

4. The Federal government.
The Federal government knew that something extremely bad was about to happen. The Corps of Engineers knew that the levees could not withstand any hurricane above Category 3. The National Weather Service was well aware of the imminent danger. President Bush pleaded with the Mayor and the Governor to order an evacuation. But it wasn't enough. The President should have canceled his regular schedule (including a seemingly oblivious San Diego speech/photo op and some wrongheaded appearance where Bush strummed a guitar) and gone to Houston or Washington, and immediately ordered the Homeland Security and Defense departments to full disaster response readiness status.

5. The disaster reaction system.
The disaster response system in the U.S. is tiered, matching our political structure. That is, local governments have primary responsibility to manage incidents. This responsibility flows "upward" to the State and to the Federal government as the scale of emergency incidents grow. A key assumption is that disaster response will be escalated appropriately from level to level. So, Federal authorities wait for State requests, and State authorities wait for requests for local governments. It's obvious that this system is no longer adequate. The Federal government can't assume that the State will be able to communicate its disaster response requirements, and the State can't assume that local governments will be able to ask for what they need.

6. God.
If you're inclined to think that way, the hurricane was a Lesson. What should we learn?

Have I blamed everyone yet? No? Read on . . .

Modest proposals
1. Individual citizens must take real responsibility for their own lives. Victims have complained that they were "treated like cattle." Well that's probably because you were acting like cattle. Stop acting like cattle. You've got a human brain, hands, legs, and arms. You've got ears and a mouth. If the "authorities" aren't handling the situation, get together with those around you, and figure out something yourself. I think my stand here is pretty clear.

2. Take warnings seriously. Humans want to sugar-coat things and tend to believe that dangerous situations are not really that bad and/or will turn out well in the end. Over and over, we see how dangerous this tendency is. The higher you are in government, the more essential it is to take warnings seriously, because the consequences of blowing off a threat get larger and larger as you move from local to State to Federal government.

3. Always be prepared--individually and at all levels of government. Having worked for a while in private industry on disaster recovery plans, I am well aware that your response plan depends primarily on your initial assumptions. Figure out what the worst-case scenario is, and then figure out how it could be worse. That's what you plan for.

Nobody wants to think about disasters and disaster response/recovery. It goes back to the fundamental human attitude of "it can't happen here." If you make that assumption, you're dead. We all, at every level, need to take time and spend money up front to ensure that our personal and our governmental disaster plans are both reasonable and are up-to-date. Maybe we need to have an annual Federal Disaster Preparedness Day, where normal activities are suspended and the entire country reviews and updates our personal, corporate, and governmental disaster plans.

The larger the disaster, the longer the list of -missed opportunities, mistakes, and failures to take appropriate actions at the appropriate time. Katrina is one of the biggest. No one, not the victims huddled on I-10, not the President, nobody escapes without some responsibility.