Train P*rn

We took Mia to the Model Train Expo at Union Station this weekend. I stupidly forgot my camera, so I can't post pics of the cool layouts on display, but I had to mention one thing.

While browsing all the scenery (trees, cars, buildings etc.), I couldn't help but notice the bright yellow packages with the tiny little people in p*rnographic poses. Because what train layout would be complete without model p*rn? The box is opaque, but the manufacturer has helpfully placed a large silhouette of the activity in question on the outside. God forbid your pre-readers should just walk by without noticing. The box also had a warning label: Not intended for children under 6 yrs of age. Gee, thanks for the tip. I might have slipped one of those in Mia's Christmas stocking.

I won't go so far as to say I was offended. More annoyed by the fact that even at a train show, an obvious kid magnet, we can't escape p*rnography. I felt a bit sorry for the men there with their young sons. Well, at least they weren't selling the stuff out of the same booths as the Thomas-the-Tank-Engine stuff.

Update: I'm adding asterisks because, I'm actually getting hits for the google search Thomas Tank Engine P*rn. Eeeeew.

Sometimes A Shark Is Just A Shark

And not a cosmic piece of karma coming to bite arrogant Americans on the butt.

Libertas has a tribute (via Mrs. Happy Housewife) to Jaws on the 30th anniversary of its release. Just to underline how preachy Hollywood movies have become, the author notes:

Would Jaws get made today? Yeah, I think so. But would it be as good even with the same talent available? No, I don’t think so. I don’t think so because the straight-forwardness of the script would be lost in today’s agenda-driven Hollywood.

I think a woman would be put on the boat. Probably in the Dreyfus role. Not because she would be better – who could possibly be better than Dreyfus? – but for politically correct reasons. And she’d of course be a liberal environmentalist feminist who would remind us ad nauseum sharks don’t normally do this. And finally we’d learn the shark attack is “our” fault. That man, specifically America - specifically corporate America - had committed some environmental crime that affected the shark’s natural habitat, and with no choice the shark came to Amity to feed. In other words, poetic justice liberal style.

You know it's true. But commenter points out that the people who produced, wrote and directed Jaws were liberals. Yet they were able to make movies without beating the viewer over the head transparent agendas. What happened?

There is nothing more annoying than having the brick wall of Message pushed over on you when you're trying to enjoy a movie. If you don't agree with The Message, you're scolded like a naughty child. But even if you agree, you feel condescended to. Reminds me of Fatherland, a terribled movie based on a good book. The director went out of his way to announce that the Nazi's were bad - really bad. Gee thanks for pointing that out. I hadn't heard. It shouldn't take an artistic genius to get across the idea that Nazi's are bad. If you have to beat your audience over the head with it, well.... Either you're not much of a director, or you don't think much of your audience. But I digress.

For more on Hollywood preachers, see Debbie Schlussel's post on Flight Plan.

I knew that Broussard character was squirrelly...

but do you think he purposely tried to blame the slow federal response for a death that occurred during or immediately after the hurricane? The story he told Tim Russert didn't seem to make much sense, but then, neither does most of what he says. Luckily, bloggers were on the case. That colorful Cajun is definitely too good to check. (via Instapundit)

U.S out of U.S.

Okay, I think I've mostly avoided discussing Cindy Sheehan on this blog, on the grounds that it's impolite to point and stare as a grieving mother has a nervous breakdown. But I can't help but point this out. Sheehan has a post-Katrina screed up at Michael Moore's site that contains this deep thought:

I don't care if a human being is black, brown, white, yellow or pink. I don't care if a human being is Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, or pagan. I don't care what flag a person salutes: if a human being is hungry, then it is up to another human being to feed him/her. George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power. The only way America will become more secure is if we have a new administration that cares about Americans even if they don't fall into the top two percent of the wealthiest.

I thought the leftie line was: not enough government help, but Cindy's going off in the opposite direction. Actually, she's going off in all directions: We demand security, but we also demand you get rid of those scary men with those yucky guns. Makes a good chant though: U.S. out of U.S. I has to double-check to make sure Iowahawk didn't right this.

(Via a commenter at Ace of Spades. You didn't think I read Moore's blog, did you?)

Poor Dean* Reynolds (from ABC)

at the Astrodome, trying sooooo hard to get someone to say something bad about Bush's speech. But everyone professed to believe Bush's promise to rebuild New Orleans. And person after person blamed the mayor and local government. Dean finally got someone to half-heartedly say they wish more would have been done sooner. But boy, was that crowd down on the mayor. Luckily, Koppel was able to interview George Stephanopoulis to get a few negatives.

Everyone is sounding positive. Even that crazy Broussard guy from Jefferson Parish was upbeat (if not entirely coherent).

Update: Lorie Byrd has more. Video here.

Update: Luckily, ABC was able to ignore its own coverage and find some hostile folks.

* edited to get Dean's name right.

Update (9/16): On the Newshour, they pulled the one negative comment Reynolds managed to drag out of one woman and played that as representative of comments "outside the Astrodome." I almost predicted that in my post last night. Then I deleted it as being paranoid. I guess it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.

Update (9/17): Matt Duffy's post on selective editing: NPR: Taking the time to frame it right.

Wow

Check out these pictures from Bay St. Louis. Lance from Red State Rant has a friend whose house was 1/2 mile from the beach at 28 feet above sea level. The house was inundated with at least 7 feet of water. I still can't quite get my head around that. Just unbelievable. He also puts in a good word for the way churches are responding:

The work they are doing is nothing short of amazing. They, not any government agency are responding and rallying to the needs of their communities. Tractor trailer loads of support coming in from all over the country. At the church below a semi pulled in with loads of supplies while I was speaking with the pastor about what types of things they needed. I asked the pastor who was coordinating shipments and he said "no one". The trailer load of food and water was donated by three churches in Iowa and was making a stop before heading to another 6 or 7 stops on the way down. I asked the driver about it and his repsonse was "I am delivering til I am out of stuff and then Ill go back to Iowa for more".

Let's Roll?

Or Let's Roll Over? Mark Steyn on the travesty of a memorial to Flight 93 (via LGF):

That sounds like a fabulous winning entry - in a competition to create a note-perfect parody of effete multicultural responses to terrorism.

Fake Facts

The Daily Howler (scroll down to The Joy of Fake Facts) thoroughly trashes the meme that Michael Brown didn't even know there were people at the Convention center until 24 hours after the networks were covering it live:

Don't you guys watch television?” [Koppel] scolded. “Our reporters have been reporting about it for more than just today.” But in fact, Ted’s reporters had not been reporting it until that day; according to the Nexis archives, ABC’s first mention of the Convention Center occurred at 2:30 that afternoon (9/1), in a George Stephanopoulos “Special Report.” Before that, the Convention Center had never been mentioned on Nightline. It had never been mentioned on World News Tonight. It had never been mentioned on Good Morning America. According to Nexis, ABC viewers first learned about the Convention Center at mid-day Thursday—just like Brown, who Koppel scolded in his latest inaccurate report.

This is why I hesitate to pontificate on Katrina. Events have overtaken me. Even as I was watching the coverage, I could tell there was confusion and gaping holes in the storyline. Much was unknown. Now, even things I thought I knew are turning out to be, well, at least inaccurate, if not outright false.

MoveOn Protest Update

The Buzz covered it, including this happy piece of information:

But one statistic stands out: MoveOn only had two Katrina survivors on hand.

Unbelievable

Malkin's got a nauseating MoveOn.org memo alerting the press that Katrina evacuees will be demonstrating in front of the White House to demand Bush acknowledge that he is responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened. Presumably MoveOn in flying these people in, organizing them, and choosing their talking points.

What are they thinking? Rhetorical question. They are thinking about how much they can use these people's suffering to hurt Bush.

Consider, if you will, that American citizens have already freely donated half a billion dollars to the victims of Katrina. That line workers from as far away as Canada have been working non-stop and are almost ready to turn the power on in Mississippi. That the Coast Guard was rescuing people off rooftops before the rain stopped and the Navy wasn't far behind. That the Superdome was nearly evacuated by Thursday afternoon, about 72 hours after the levy break. That a million refugees are being rapidly absorbed by the rest of the country.

And all these people can do is complain? I don't blame them. When you are having the crisis, you want help yesterday. Of course. I would too. But MoveOn is endangering the future welfare of these people.

Mark Steyn relates this story:

I got an e-mail over the weekend from a US Army surgeon just back in Afghanistan after his wedding. Changing planes in Kuwait for the final leg to Bagram and confronted by yet another charity box for Katrina relief, he decided that this time he'd pass. "I'd had it up to here," he wrote, "with the passivity, the whining, and the when-are-they-going-to-do-something blame game."

So far, I have fought this feeling by reminding myself that most of the carping is coming from the talking heads and crazed Bush haters, not the actual victims. Now MoveOn is using the victims with no regard for the consequences.

The people busting their tails on the Gulf Coast right now are too busy to note the Democratic talking point that no one was helping the victims, but when they have time to turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper, they won't be happy to discover that their heroic efforts have been dismissed.

And when the time comes for Congress to vote the money for rebuilding New Orleans or aiding the victims with any of the numerous things they're going to need help with, it would be better for them if they weren't seem as a bunch of finger-pointing whiners who could, apparently get a master's degree, like protester Michelle Augillard, but yet, weren't smart enough to get out of the path of a Cat 5 hurricane.

I guess I shouldn't be shocked at the Democrats trying to rip apart a country that spontaneously came together in the wake of disaster, but I am.

Update: Jim Geraghty nails a whining leftist to the wall:

To save you guys now, I — and a lot of other Americans — will pitch in. We are witnessing the biggest mobilization of civilian and military rescue and relief crews in history. But I have a sneaking suspicion you’re going to want the rest of us to pay for the rebuilding of your city. (In the near future, we’re going to have to have a little chat about the wisdom of building below sea level, directly next to large bodies of water.) And if you’re going to come to the rest of us hat in hand, demanding the rest of us clean up after your poor judgment, I’d appreciate a little less “you failed us” and a little more “we’ve learned our lesson.” (via Ace of Spades)

Foreign Aid

Germany has donated 30 tons of Meals Ready-to-Eat for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. They were even kind enough to drop them off in Pensecola:


(via The US Navy)

Update: CNN has a partial list of the 94 countries and international organizations that have offered aid. It's touching to see countries like Afghanistan and Djibouti on the list. (via BrianDot)

Media Coverage of Katrina

Does the cable new coverage suck as bad as the network coverage does? Luckily the USS Bataan has a web-site, (via Powerline) or I would never have know that they have been in the Gulf of Mexico since LAST TUESDAY. Yes, the day after the hurricane:

The crews flew off Tuesday night towards New Orleans and were tasked by the on-scene rescue coordinators. “Our first mission was to provide food and water and to take some people to a safer haven and to help with the levee by providing sandbags,” said AS2(AW/NAC) Johnny Ramirez, MH-53 Aircrewman for HM-15. “We weren't able to complete our assigned mission Tuesday night because it got too dark and it was too risky to land anywhere with all of the water and power lines. Instead, we just flew Tuesday night to survey the area.”

On Wednesday, a crew from HM-15 assisted with lifting numerous stranded citizens in a very short period of time. “My crew and I airlifted nearly 100 people from the roof of a building and onto a field where ambulances and busses were waiting for them,” said LCDR David Hopper, detachment Officer in Charge of HM-15. “Ten of those who we rescued couldn't even walk; my crewmen had to carry them.”
__

“We have jumped in feet first to provide as much assistance as we can,” said Capt. Nora Tyson, Bataan's commanding officer.

The ship's captain is a woman and they still can't get any coverage. You'd think that would be right MSM's PC alley.

All last week, I was as upset as the next person about the plight of the people in the Superdome. When Brian Williams and the others asked "Where is the military?" I wanted to know too. But I wondered why this intrepid crew of journalists couldn't tell me. "You're the reporter Brian. You tell me where the military is!" Turns out they were on the other side of the city picking people off of roofs. And Brian didn't mention that because....

Maybe the Navy guys are too busy to give interviews.

Update: Lots of commentary on the Media's performance at (where else) The Media Blog.

I Love It When A Plan Comes Together

Last year, to assist with catastrophic disaster planning, FEMA Director Michael Brown whipped up a hypothetical "Hurricane Pam" to hit New Orleans:

Participants drew up action plans for dealing with the storm's aftermath in which calls for evacuation were partially heeded, water pumps were overwhelmed, corpses floated in the streets and as many as 60,000 people died -- mostly by drowning. [snip]

"Hurricane Katrina caused the same kind of damage that we anticipated," Brown said Wednesday. "So we planned for it two years ago. Last year, we exercised it. And unfortunately this year, we're implementing it."

This has been my fear all along. This is the plan. We are witnessing the plan in action.

(via The Corner)

Blogger Relief Effort

If you've donated to a charity, be sure to register you're donation with TTLB, who is keeping track of the blogosphere's contribution. $ 433,653 in contributions so far.

Who's to Blame?

It's a question we can't help but ask ourselves, even if we know it's fruitless:

Katrina was the third most-intense hurricane to ever hit the United States. It will definitely be the third most deadly, with a shot at the #2 slot (or even, God help us, #1). It will undoubtedly be the most expensive. Either the destruction of the Gulf Coast or the loss of New Orleans would have vied for the title of worst natural disaster in American history. But we got them both within 24 hours.

Yes, local emergency services were totally overwhelmed. But consider Frank Martin's thoughtful post on the matter:

Does it occur to those of you that are blaming the mayor and the New Orleans police department that the very people you are castigating for a “lack of leadership” also lost everything in the disaster? The people everyone counted on to have the plans and to be on the job afterwards were also wiped out in this disaster. This is not a simple high water mark on some rich folks barrier island vacation homes; this is the utter destruction of 4 major cities. [snip]

Stop thinking of this as a Hurricane and start thinking of this as an atomic bombing and you can start to see what happened here was just beyond anyone local to have the ability to deal with it. The hurricane didn’t just destroy the buildings; it destroyed the authority and the infrastructure of local government as well.

The lesson here is that in true large scale disasters, you can’t count on the locals to even be there to take the lead. The assumption has to be that the locals are gone and cannot take part in their own rescue. That is not an assumption we make today in our planning, all disaster planning says the locals “drive the show”. Katrina showed the weakness in that idea. Katrina changed the paradigm of disasters in our memory. I always wondered what would take the place of 9/11 in my nightmares, and now I know what it is.

This is undeniably true. America has traditionally depended on local government to plan for and respond to disasters. The plan was implemented. It just didn't begin to be enough.

It's a waste of time to assign blame now. There will be congressional hearings, probably a full-blown independent inquiry, to spread the blame around later It's also useless to tell the people trapped in New Orleans and all along the coast that their mayor should have had a better plan or that they should have evacuated. Local government failed. We can talk about why later. Right now, people are looking to Washington.

Americans have a very low tolerence for disorganization. We see old people and children with out water, we get upset. We see it in America, we get angry. That may not be rational given the stats I cited above, but that's the way it is. The time for Bush to take control of the relief effort was yesterday, federalism be damned. Save the people now, let the lawyers work out the details later. I just hope that has already happened and we'll be seeing the results soon... real soon.

Update: Looks like things have started to happen. Hopefully, this convoy just the beginning.

Update: Oh yeah, there's gonna be plenty of blame to go around.

Foreign Aid

Bad Hair Blog has a list of 12 countries that have offered us some aid in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Australia has offered two specialist emergency managers. From the looks of things in New Orleans, they couldn't get here too soon.

Help the Victims of Katrina

Today bloggers across the country (and around the world) are blogging to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Donate to The American Red Cross! Or choose the charity of your choice. Instapundit has a list of charities.

Truth Laid Bear has another list of charities.

"The Veneer of Civilization is Very Thin"

said Margaret Thatcher, and apparently, she was right:

The operation to bus more than 20,000 people to the Houston Astrodome was suspended “until they gain control of the Superdome,” said Richard Zeuschlag, head of Acadian Ambulance, which was handling the evacuation of sick and injured people from the Superdome.

He said that military would not fly out of the Superdome either because of the gunfire and that the National Guard told him that it was sending 100 military police officers to gain control.

“That’s not enough,” Zeuschlag. “We need a thousand.”

I guess this is a lesson for next time. Future large-scale relief efforts will need military assistance. I'm sure no one imagined refugee busses would be carjacked or helicopters would be shot at. But now they know.