Medary.com

Another day, another one-run loss.

Royals need to go 20-10 to avoid 100 losses.

Looting and violence in New Orleans has made a horrible, terrible situation even worse--preventing and impeding rescue operations. OpinionJournal on lawlessness in New Orleans:

One reason for the New Orleans breakdown is the size of the calamity, whose growing severity caught nearly everyone by surprise. Louisiana National Guard troops that were deployed initially for rescue and relief efforts weren't available for the more basic duties of public security. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is also geared to providing relief, not order, and only yesterday did the federal government begin to focus on the potential anarchy. Among our political leaders, only Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour seemed to appreciate the genuine risk of disorder, with his early warnings that looters would not be given the benefit of the doubt.

I'll say it once: looters should be shot on sight. No arguments, no second-guessing. You loot, you die. Ted Frank at Point of Law said it eloquently:

I fully acknowledge that shooting looters is an inappropriately disproportionate response if one views looting as mere larceny. But one doesn't shoot looters to protect property, one does so to protect order. Somebody is going to suffer unjustly when society breaks down. I don't understand why Muller thinks it preferable for the law-abiding citizens to be the cost-bearers. History has shown repeatedly that the way to stop an anarchic riot is an early display of substantial force.

Blogger R.G. Combs makes the Second Amendment argument:

I wonder how many of the honest, decent residents had firearms -- and how many of those had been persuaded to keep their weapons unloaded, locked up, and inaccessible.

One of the grave weaknesses of our culture is that most people have come to believe that it's not merely acceptable, but necessary and proper for them to completely surrender responsibility for their own safety and well-being to others. In the best of times, I believe this is foolish -- do you know what the average police response time is for a 911 call in your community? Assuming you can and do make that call when the need arises...

In the worst of times -- and this is the worst of times in New Orleans -- such helplessness and dependency can be deadly. It's not just that having a gun helps the honest, decent people stave off the predators. There's a more subtle psychological factor: Someone who owns a gun (I'm talking about the honest, decent people, not the sociopaths) accepts responsibility for her own safety and for her own responsible behavior; gun ownership both empowers and disciplines you.

It's been said before: The Second Amendment is not about duck hunting. It is about the ability to protect yourself when there is no other protection available. The bottom line is that advocating gun control is essentially saying that that something like New Orleans can't happen here because the police will always be there. Well, New Orleans proves beyond all doubt that the police won't always be there. What 'cha gonna do when they come for you?

Saying what maybe needs to be said, Individ blows a gasket:

Hey, it's a free country folks. If people want to live in a sediment-starved, subsiding basin, surrounded by a lake, a river and an ocean,they can go right ahead. Just don't force my government to pay for it when the damn dam breaks. That's your corner, dudes. Your local government takes care of your corner, and our local govvamint will take care of ours.

I have already contributed to your relief out of my own pocket, by my own volition. My wife and I are currently talking about how we can do more. That's not the issue. But hey, Loonie Lefties: calling pentulantly and rapaciously for the Nanny State as the only solution to every problem is not what America is about. Look it up. Charity, the religious virtue, BEGINS AT HOME. Not at the damn IRS. We are about helping our neighbor as individuals, but not about having Big Brother wipe our nether regions everytime we are in trouble.

The blame game for Hurricane Katrina in general and New Orleans in particular is now in full swing. All involved in witch-hunting right now should be deeply ashamed of themselves. It is apparently too much to expect that we can come together as a nation to bring aid to the stricken Gulf Coast. We're obviously still in the Third Turning, not the Fourth.

Here's the short list of the disgraceful finger-pointing still going on while the waters are still high in New Orleans:

Global warming.
Bush.
Allah's will.
Bush.
God's vengeance for not passing the Kyoto agreement.
Bush.
Corporate America.
Bush.
Red states that voted for Bush.

That's the short version of the survey of blame comments assembled by Chrenkoff (Click and read, highly recommended).

Let's add sin, drunkenness, revelry, and abortion to the list. The folks at Reason Hit and Run have a live one in something called "Repent America"

"Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city," stated Repent America director Michael Savagers. "From 'Girls Gone Wild' to 'Southern Decadence,' New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. From the devastation may a city full of righteousness emerge," he continued.

New Orleans is also known for its Mardi Grass parties where thousands of drunken men revel in the streets to exchange plastic jewelry for drunken women to expose their breasts. This annual event sparked the creation of the "Girls Gone Wild" video series. In addition, Louisiana had a total of ten abortion clinics with half of them making their home in New Orleans. At these five abortion clinics in the city, countless numbers of children were murdered at the hands of abortionists.

That man Bush "akes a lot of joy about losing people" according to Air America's Randi Rhodes, as reported by Little Green Footballs via Radio Equalizer:

"This President is never gonna do the right thing. I think somewhere deep down inside him he takes a lot of joy about losing people, if he thinks they vote Democrat or if he thinks they're poor, or if he thinks they're in a blue state, whatever his reasons are not to rescue those people who are (planning?) for their safety."

Thank you, Randi, for your contribution to civil public discourse.

Daniel Kenning, in Wall Street Journal's opinion journal wants to blame bureaucrats in general:

Big public bureaucracies are going to get us killed. They already have. One may argue that this is an inevitable result of living in an advanced and complex democracy. Yes, up to a point. An open political system indeed breeds inefficiencies (though possibly the Deb Bush administration that dealt with Hurricane Andrew is more competent than Gov. Blanc's team in Louisiana). And perhaps low-lying, self-indulgent New Orleans understood its losing bargain with a devil's fate.

You may or may not agree, but at least he didn't blame global warming.

Not everyone is succumbing to panicked finger-pointing. Roy Spencer at Tech Central Station tries to take a higher road:

Given the recent work, how should we view the role of global warming? First, we know that category 4, and even category 5, storms have always occurred, and will continue to occur, with or without the help of humans, as the above examples demonstrate. Therefore, if we are prepared for what nature can throw at us, we will be prepared for the possible small increase in hurricane activity that some studies have suggested could occur with man-made global warming. To suggest that Katrina was caused by mankind is not only grossly misleading, it also obscures the real issues that need to be addressed, even in the absence of global warming. From a practical point of view, there is little that we can do in the near term to avert much if any future warming anyway, no matter what you believe that warming will be, including participating in the Kyoto Protocol. So why even bring it up (other than through political, philosophical, or financial motivation)?

Bill Clinton sounds a note of moderation, via Captain's Quarters blog:

CLINTON: Yes, I think that's important to point out. Because when you say that they should have done this, that or the other thing first, you can look at that problem in isolation, and you can say that.

But look at all the other things they had to deal with. I'm telling you, nobody thought this was going to happen like this. But what happened here is they escaped -- New Orleans escaped Katrina. But it brought all the water up the Mississippi River and all in the Pontchartrain, and then when it started running and that levee broke, they had problems they never could have foreseen.

And so I just think that we need to recognize right now there's a confident effort under way. People are doing the best they can. And I just don't think it's the time to worry about that. We need to keep people alive and get them back to life -- normal life.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Part-Time Pundit notes (and links) that the US Corps of Engineers was 25 years away from providing New Orleans with the kind of protection we now know it needed. (Via QandO Blog):

. . . In 1977, plans for hurricane protection structures at the Rigolets and Chef Menteur Pass were sunk when environmental groups sued the district. They believed that the environmental impact statement did not adequately address several potential problems, including impacts on Lake Pontchartrain's ecosystem and damage to wetlands. Ultimately, an agreement between the parties resulted in a consent decree to forgo the structures at the Rigolets and Chef Menteur Pass. Instead, a "high-level plan" resulted, amounting to construction of a levee system around St. Bernard, Orleans, East Jefferson and St. Charles parishes. . . . (Al Naomi, Corps of Engineers senior project manager said) "A category 5 hurricane hitting the city may be a once-in-500-year event...A Category 3 like Hurricane Betsy in 1965, or less, is more likely, and the existing levee system should be able to handle a storm like that.

"But there are no guarantees. One failure of overtopping of a levee could be catastrophic.

"The point is to eliminate that storm surge threat with one of these plans. Then we can build stronger buildings and stay in local shelters with the red cross, instead of spending eight hours in traffic trying to leave. "the philosophy of what we do during a hurricane would change. We could spend more time protecting our homes and less time trying to get out of the city in these desperate evacuations."

The cost estimate for the study will be discussed with the State Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD), the local sponsor, before being submitted to headquarters for funding. Right now, there is no money for the study in FY05, even though it is one of the most vital for a city threatened more every hurricane season by a potential Category 5 storm.

With federal funding, a cost sharing agreement could be arranged with DOTD, and the feasibility study could proceed, taking about five years to complete, with another 10 to 20 years for construction.

One obvious conclusion is that we need to start listening more to engineers and less to lawyers.

Even so, New Orleans still would have been flooded by Katrina, a high-Category-4 hurricane.

The levees were built to protect against a Category 3 storm. Against Katrina, they were useless. New Orleans, in a word, was doomed.

The Katrina disaster is still at the forefront of our prayers. If you haven't given to the charity of your choice yet, please consider doing so.

#10: SDSU's scoreboard going up
#9: SDSU football: year 2 of I-AA
#8: UT, SDSU weekend sport schedule
#7: Royals 1, Twins 0
#6: Dorothy's red slippers stolen
#5: Nationwide meth bust nets 400
#4: Four indicted in L.A.-terror cell
#3: Over 950 die in Iraqi shrine panic
#2: Katrina and global warming
#1: N.O. evacuation halted--someone shooting at 'copters

SDSU's scoreboard should be ready for Saturday night's home opener vs. Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Photo credit: SDSU

Tennessee Lady Vols:
Friday, September 2:
Women's soccer, vs. Washington State
Women's cross country, at the Belmont Opener
Saturday, September 3:
Women's volleyball, vs. Utah at Columbia, MO
Sunday, September 4:
Women's soccer, at West Virginia
Women's volleyball, at Missouri

South Dakota State:
Friday, September 2:
Cross Country, at Dragon Invitiational (Moorhead State, Minnesota)
Volleyball, at Cyclone Classic (Iowa State)
Women's soccer, vs. Northern Iowa
Saturday, September 3:
Volleyball, at Cyclone Classic (Iowa State)
Football, vs. Wisconsin-La Crosse

South Dakota State gears up for the 2005 football kickoff:

South Dakota State will open its 108th football season by hosting Wisconsin-La Crosse in the 40th Annual Shrine Game Saturday (Sept. 3).

Game time is 7 p.m. at Coughlin-Alumni Stadium.

SDSU faces a team it hasn't played since 1955, the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. SDSU and La Crosse met three times in the early 1950s: SDSU winning 35-7 in 1951 (SDSU was 8-1-1) and 20-0 in 1955 (SDSU was 6-2-1), and La Crosse winning 13-6 in 1952.

While SDSU in its second year of transition to NCAA Division I-AA, Wisconsin-La Crosse is one of the top teams in NCAA Division III, favored to win its fourth straight Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship this fall. UWL returns 39 lettermen from last year’s 7-4 team which finished 5-2 in the WIAC.

The red slippers worn by Judy Garland as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz have been stolen from a Grand Rapids museum:

Investigating officers observed that a window on an emergency exit door had been broken out and the glass display case that contained the ruby slippers was broken into and the slippers were removed. The incident is being further investigated by Grand Rapids Police Investigator Gene Bennet who said there have been five leads as of Tuesday.

There's no place like home.