Terror at the Levees

I came across this letter to the editor while reading The Economist:

"SIR – New Orleans's mayor should have called the hawks in Washington before Katrina struck and told them that 30 al-Qaeda-looking types were at the levees. Help would then surely have arrived in time."
-Stein Glorvigen. Skjetten, Norway

I makes me wonder. Just what was Homeland Security's plan in the event the levees were maliciously breeched? Is it possible they didn't have a plan?

I feel pretty unsettled about this. We're spending so much money on security and I don't feel any safer.

New Orleans, August 31, 2005:

An IOU for Gas

This story doesn't make sense:

Gas Prices Blamed for Late Credit Payments

Why would someone not pay their credit card bill just because the price of gas goes up? I can understand that when it comes time to pay your bills, if you spent a little more on gas that month, you might have less to put towards your credit card bill. But by not paying it, you incur a penalty, and your rate could climb as a result. That's like paying another 15 to 20% more for your gas (most notably if you pay for your gas with credit).

Let me see, an increase of 20% on gas selling for $3.00/gallon is $3.60/gallon. If you normally spend $45 to fill a 15 gallon tank, you're paying the equivalent of $54! Does that make sense? The only thing that will do is make it even more difficult to pay your credit card bill next month.

I cringe at the thought of paying finance charges to greedy, profit-fat banks. I'll take money from my savings if I have to just to pay off my credit card each month.

Personal Donations for Iraq Reconstruction

Would you like to donate a part of your personal budget to help Iraq get back on its feet? President Bush has made it easy for you to contribute to Iraq's reconstruction. Just visit:

www.iraqpartnership.org

Pick a project, click the "Give Now" button, and have your credit card info handy.

Oddly, the site was launched two weeks ago but has yet to collect more than $600 US dollars. That's a drop in the bucket considering $30 billion is expected to be needed.

According to the Guardian:

"It is understood to be the first time that a US government has made an appeal to taxpayers for foreign aid money. Contributors have no way of knowing who will receive their donations or even where they may go, after officials said details had be kept secret for security reasons."

I must say, in light of the recent disappearance of Iraq's ENTIRE defense budget, confirmed by Iraq's current Finance Minister, I don't think I'd give a cent without a very transparent accounting of its use. Also, I understand that my taxes are contributing to the $100 billion/year the US is spending in Iraq for just that purpose.

(I even visited costofwar.com which gave an estimate of the pay-out from just my community. I was flabbergasted.)

I hear the administration is concerned that all this money may run out before its work there is completed, so they're making a plea to private citizens. I suggest instead that someone in the administration take a refresher course in personal finance. Budgeting really isn't that difficult, Mr. President. Just balance your debits and credits each month so you don't land in the red. Even I can do that.

Links:

Donation site:
www.iraqpartnership.org

Launch of Donation site:
USAID Administrator Natsios Announces Launch of IraqPartnership.org

Cost of war:
National Priorities Project: Cost of War in Iraq

Guardian article:
Bush plea for cash to rebuild Iraq raises $600

Gore in '08?

I found a blog this morning, The Ostroy Report. His last few posts regard the possibility of Al Gore regaining his party's nomination for president in 2008.

I think Gore would make a good president. He espouses many of my own beliefs. But I wonder if he could win the nomination, let alone the presidency. I see him as more liberal than Clinton, and I think anyone who has potential of winning will have to move to the center, as Clinton did. (Clinton, with his smaller government and reduced spending looks more like a Republican sometimes than Bush!) And will he be able to convince Independents and even some Bush-backers or at least Republican-leaning voters to support him? He would need their vote to win.

While I'm on this, I hear people saying that Joe Biden, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and some other Democrats "voted for the war" in Iraq. Is that true? I was under the impression that they voted to give the president the authority to use the military as he sees fit, but they did not explicitly vote to support the Iraqi invasion.

"Evil Tendencies"

It looks like the Vatican is soon to release a document that will re-support barring homosexual men from the priesthood:

Expected Vatican Ban Roils American Church

They supported it 40 years ago too. So this will just be a reaffirmation:

"(Advancement) to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers."
- Vatican document Instruction on the Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders, Feb. 2, 1961.

Don't Roman Catholic priests take a vow of celibacy? What difference does it make what a person's sexual proclivities are if they take a vow to not practice them?

Is a homosexual man more likely to engage in sexual abuse than a heterosexual man? If we find that heterosexual men also engage in sexual abuse, do we ban them too?

Just a Gas Update

The lowest prices here are still at least .20/gal higher than pre-Katrina, which made landfall 23 days ago.

If the global oil market ... supplies, refining capacity ... was stable, should one hurricane cause such a price upset? After all, hurricanes aren't a fluke. The Gulf of Mexico bears a number of them each year.

How can I not conclude then that the global oil market is not stable? I'm not an energy expert, but I can sure see the writing on the wall.

It's getting difficult for me to have sympathy for people who complain about the price of gas yet hold onto or (heavens) buy a 10-mpg SUV in this climate.

More Theft on a Grand Scale

Why doesn't this kind of news make headlines in the US?

From yesterday's UK publication, The Independent:
What Has Happened to Iraq's Missing $1bn?

Apparently, just about ALL of the money in Iraq's Defense budget has been stolen.

"If you compare the amount that was allegedly stolen of about $1bn compared with the budget of the ministry of defence, it is nearly 100 per cent of the ministry's [procurement] budget that has gone Awol,"
- Ali Allawi, Iraq's Finance Minister

This is why Iraq finds it so difficult to build and maintain a security force. And it's why we continue to need 135,000 US troops performing that function in a sovereign country.

Would we tolerate that in this country? How would taxpayers behave if say, FEMA couldn't respond to Katrina because ALL of its budget was hijacked? A 100% loss is a lot more than negligence or stupidity. It's corruption.

Making Sense

Let me see if I understand this...

• Iraq democracy-building costs billions of dollars.
  
• Katrina reconstruction costs billions of dollars.
  
• Tax cuts cost billions of dollars.

Where does the money come from for that? Not from increased taxes, as Bush explained, but from international loans, or more specifically, from the selling of US Treasury bills to other countries.

What countries are lending us that money? In 2004, the top 4 buyers of US Treasury Securities were:

• Japan
  
• China
  
• UK
  
• Korea
  
• and probably Saudi Arabia. But they don't disclose that information.

So when I hear that the cost of government programs is causing our national debt to rise, I interpret that to mean that Japan, China, et al. are in effect funding democracy-building in Iraq, Katrina reconstruction, and all the luxury goods that some Americans are able to purchase with their tax cut.

Does that make sense?


US National Debt as of September 19, 2005:

Praying For $4/gallon Gasoline

Why Cheap Gas Is a Bad Habit

I don't often agree with Robert Samuelson, but his article has me salivating after every sentence - in a good way. I think we'd be in a better position if gasoline was more expensive. Higher fuel prices would increase demand for more fuel efficient cars. (Does my neighbor really need a Hummer to drive her kids to school?) I even like the idea of a gas tax - which would give us wiggle room in case market forces drive the price up too high too fast.

I truly believe that gasoline prices can only go up. I'll even wager that if they fall, they won't reach pre-Katrina level by Christmas.

Responsibility

What does it mean to take responsibility?

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government and to the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility."
- George Bush, Sept 13, 2005

Does it mean to appoint a committee? Does it mean to sacrifice your job to someone else? Does it mean to pay a fine? I don't understand what substance lies behind his words.

To Walk Him Through It

I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one asking about our VP during the worst catastrophe in the nation's history.



Nora Ephron has been asking too.

The Curious Incident of the Veep in the Summertime

She has a theory - that the Pres and his VP have fallen out. Something to chew on.

Deer

There were three deer making their way across the yard this morning. The sun wasn't all the way up. But I could still see that the leader, a doe, was limping. And the two followers were fawns. I wonder what will happen to the fawns when the leader can't walk anymore.

Flying Spaghetti Monster

In an open letter to the Kansas Board of Education in July, Mr. Henderson (the prophet to which the Flying Spaghetti Monster reveled himself) wrote:

"I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; one third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence."

Ramen!

In the beginning there was the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Just Curious

Why did it take the Vice President of the richest nation on earth 10 days to visit what Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff described as "probably the worst catastrophe, or set of catastrophes" in the nation's history? Where was he all that time? What was he doing?

Vice President Cheney Heckled on Hurricane Tour

Buzzcut

"I'd like a No. 2, please."

My barber, or hairstylist, but I think of him more as a barber, didn't flinch. He's been cutting, or styling, but I think of it more as cutting, my hair for maybe 10 years, adhering exactly to the length and shape of the hair in the pictures I'd brought him. He shampoos or not, conditions or not, blows or not, depending on how I feel on that day. He's utterly accommodating. Thus, I left with the least amount of hair I can recall having, if you discount the years post-birth that I can't recall.

The response has been mixed.