duct tape: you're fucked tape

* Drownie Brownie's replacement at fema is the guy who brought us the Duct Tape Nonsense of a couple of years ago. there were 2 parts of the DuctTape story that didnt get nearly enough attention - 1) the largest duct tape manufacturer was a major donor to BushCo 2) there was a nervous mother (in israel i think) who took that advice and suffocated herself and her kids. (link)

* "Now the city is bristling with automatic weapons and is patrolled by troops in armored vehicles fresh from Iraq. The obvious question is what is this massive armed force doing in New Orleans, a city that is largely submerged under water and nearly deserted? This level of military occupation is on its face absurd, but it has been executed according to existing plans for martial law that are the product of protracted secret deliberations." (link)

* did anyone see blinky's interview in nola? he is such an incompetent git - inappropriately sniggering and getting petulant all over the place. the funny thing was watching nagin in the background - there were times he could barely hide his contempt (i often watch the people in the background during interviews for reactions - cos they tend to be a bit more transparent, cos they tend to relax a little more, cos they dont think they are 'performing')

* im watching hannity - he just said that nagin should have used the buses to get people outta town: "there were 3,000 buses - i dunno how many buses were there - 3000 say - and the mayor didnt use them". hannity knows exactly how many buses there were, and he is wrong by 600%

* i watched some of the roberts hearings yesterday - kennedy and biden seemed to do a reasonable job. i hope biden doesnt say "i love you buddy" to roberts. everyone is spinning the hearings as a fait accompli - but bolton was in the same situtation, and so was gonzales. i wanna see roberts bruised, and bruised bad.

* krugman takes a look at which agencies have been infiltrated with political hacks - he fingers fema, epa, cpb, fda, treasury, and DHS: "The point is that Katrina should serve as a wakeup call, not just about FEMA, but about the executive branch as a whole. Everything I know suggests that it's in a sorry state - that an administration which doesn't treat governing seriously has created two, three, many FEMA's." (link)
id have to imagine that the cdc is on that list as well, and probably the tsa - altho im just guessin.

* how much damage will bolton do at the UN this week? irreparable?

* the fbi's top ten list includes osama. his profile doesnt include 911. funny. (it was apparently updated november, 01 (link)

* australia is gonna try to jail people if they leave their bags unattended in an airport.