WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS

Again.

Hurricane Rita's steady rains sent water pouring through breaches in a patched levee Friday, cascading into one of the city's lowest-lying neighborhoods in a devastating repeat of New Orleans' flooding nightmare.

"Our worst fears came true," said Maj. Barry Guidry of the Georgia National Guard.

"We have three significant breaches in the levy and the water is rising rapidly," he said. "At daybreak I found substantial breaks and they've grown larger."

Dozens of blocks in the Ninth Ward were under water as a waterfall at least 30 feet wide poured over and through a dike that had been used to patch breaks in the Industrial Canal levee. On the street that runs parallel to the canal, the water ran waist-deep and was rising fast. Guidry said water was rising about three inches a minute.

The impoverished neighborhood was one of the areas of the city hit hardest by Katrina's floodwaters and finally had been pumped dry before Hurricane Rita struck.

MORE: On that shoddy levee construction.

ANOTHER MSM SCANDAL?

Time, Inc gets a subpoena:

The U.S. Attorney's Office in New York asked for information from Time Inc. on so-called sponsored sales programs, such as courtesy copies of magazines given to doctors' offices or promotional copies for other uses, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

---

It was not immediately clear whether Time Inc. was a witness or target of the investigation or whether other publishers had received subpoenas. The U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn was not immediately available for comment.

---

Several publishers were found to have overstated their circulation figures. These include Belo Corp.'s Dallas Morning News, Hollinger International Inc.'s Chicago Sun-Times and Tribune Co.'s Newsday from Long Island.

They overstate sales to drive up the price of advertising.

QUICK TAKES ON THE WAR

President Bush says weak response to terrorism led to 9-11:

Speaking Thursday at the Pentagon after an update on the war on terror, Bush said a pullback would be seen as weakness and make the United States less safe.

'The terrorists saw our response to the hostage crisis in Iran, the bombings in the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the first World Trade Center attack, the killing of American soldiers in Somalia, the destruction of two U.S. embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole,' Bush said. 'The terrorists concluded that we lacked the courage and character to defend ourselves and so they attacked us.'

Quite right. Bush should return the favor Bill Clinton paid him earlier this week and outline all the ways Clinton's weak responses left this country vulnerable to attack. Such a statement would differ from anything Clinton says about Iraq in that what Bush says would be undeniably true.

---

British police and MI5 have put together a secret--well, it was a secret--map of extremism in the UK:

It is understood to show evidence of extremism in virtually every British county. And it may partly explain plans for a radical shake-up of policing in the UK to drastically reduce the number of forces and make them bigger to deal with the demands of modern policing - including the heightened terrorist threat.

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The map is believed to bring together evidence of Muslim radicalism, Irish terrorism and animal rights extremists by depicting hotspots in brighter colours than areas where extremism is at lower levels.

Mr O'Connor said at the Police Superintendents' Association conference in Warwickshire: "It's not just the cities."

Only one or two Scottish police force areas were believed to be devoid of extremism.

Britain is starting to take the Islamist threat seriously. Meanwhile, back in the States, we're letting an Islamist smear all of us:

COLMES: Welcome back to Hannity and Colmes. I'm Alan Colmes.Find out how some Katrina victims are cashing in with their FEMA debit cards. You're not going to believe the shocking report.

First, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has charged white people with
purposefully blowing up the New Orleans levees in a government conspiracy
against blacks. This is what he said, and here are his word:

In that levee, there was a 25-foot hole, which suggested that it may have
been blown up, so that the water would destroy the black part of the town.

He's also blasted relief agencies like the Red Cross and FEMA for being too
white. Is Farrakhan out of line or do hiss conspiracy theories have some
merit?

Joining us now, is the national chief of staff of the New Black Panther
Party, Minister Nashim Nzinga.

Mr. Nzinga, thank you for being with us tonight.

NASHIM NZINGA, CHIEF OF STAFF, NEW BLACK PANTHER PARTY: Thank you, Pat (ph).

COLMES: Do you believe this was a purposeful effort on the part of white
people: blow up levees to hurt black people where they live?

NZINGA: I believe Minister Farrakhan wouldn't make the statement if he
hadn't researched and found out that -- from people who know.

COLMES: And you're here to say whatever he says?

NZINGA: I'm here to say in 1980 they knew this levee couldn't hold but a
three size hurricane, and a four and five would wipe that area out, which
just happened to be 62 percent black people. And this year, $17 million was
put up to fix these levees, and the federal government refused to do it.

COLMES: Well, that's different than saying there was actually a device that
went off that purposefully blew up the levees. Is that what you're claiming?

NZINGA: I also know that Minister Louis Farrakhan charted two planes and put
16 people on them and flew to Dallas, Texas; Houston, Texas; Baton Rouge,
Louisiana; and Jackson, Mississippi, on a fact-finding mission. And he met
the mayor of New Orleans in Dallas, Texas, and was told these things
directly from him.

COLMES: By the way, are you claiming that Mayor Nagin is, he himself, the
mayor, is claiming that this was a planned event to blow up the levees to
hurt the black population, according to the mayor of New Orleans?

NZINGA: I'm saying to you that Louis Farrakhan met with him in Dallas,
Texas, and in Atlanta, Georgia, announced to the world before 6,40 people
that this is what he was told.

That's called enemy propaganda.

---

Three LA-area Muslims face charges of planning murder sprees:

Three men charged in a terror investigation were planning shooting rampages at Los Angeles-area military sites to retaliate for what they called the oppression of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to court documents.

Levar Haley Washington, 25, Gregory Vernon Patterson, 21, and Hammad Riaz Samana, 21, were indicted last month on federal charges of conspiring to wage war against the U.S. government through terrorism. All three have pleaded not guilty.

Washington told authorities he was the leader of a council of Muslims who planned to carry out operations in Southern California as part of a jihad against the United States, according to an FBI affidavit unsealed Wednesday.

---

And finally, they call it a global war on terrorism for a reason. It's against terrorists (Islamic imperialists if you want to be specific), and it's going on nearly everywhere radical Muslims live anywhere near non-Muslims. Thailand, for instance:

The south of Thailand has been thrown into a security crisis after two marines were roped together, then beaten and hacked to death by a mob that accused them of being part of an undercover death squad.

The Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, vowed to track down their killers. Analysts said the incident could lead to a further escalation in a separatist insurgency in provinces with a Muslim majority, which has killed more than 1,000 people over the past 21 months. Malaysia placed security forces on alert along its northern border to prevent any spillover of the violence. Muslim rubber-tappers and labourers expressed fear of reprisal killings.

Here's how things work. Enemy propagandists come up with outlandish rumors about non-Muslims intended to stoke radical fury into action. In the case above, the rumor about the officers being in a death squad served this purpose. The resulting action is almost always in the form of violence against non-Muslims by Muslims, bombings, hackings, etc. Then tensions are furthered along, the fear and hatred of Muslims in the targeted area becomes real, more Muslims get attracted to the cause because it can now be cast as defending Islam, and more violence is the result. The end game for the Islamicists is to destroy non-Muslim governments and set up their own hardline sharia-based systems. They will do this wherever they can, by any means necessary. In Thailand, the radicals win every time the war is cast as a "separatist" issue as opposed to a radical Islamist imperialist issue. That is how the press always casts the violence in Thailand, thus obscuring the fact that the violence there is very much a part of the global war against the Islamic imperialists.

Farrakhan (see above) understands exactly what he's doing when he alleges that whites blew up the New Orleans levees to kill blacks. He understands the dynamic, and knows how to play it. He has crossed the line from being a racist flamethrower to being on the other side in this war.

GALLOWAY'S EPILOGUE

Ghastly George Gallowy leaves the US after completing his book tour this weekend, but Clinton W. Taylor reports that some of Galloway's statements could land him in court:

Galloway founded a pseudo-charity, which he now claims was purely a political campaign, called "Mariam Appeal," which lobbied to lift the sanctions against Iraq. This is the charity which the PSI was referring to when it concluded that "some evidence indicates that Galloway appeared to use a charity for children's leukemia to conceal payments associated with at least one such allocation." The signatory in these transactions was a Jordanian businessman named Fawaz Zureikat, who was both president of a company that contracted with Saddam's regime for oil allocations, and the chairman of Mariam Appeal.

Senator Norm Coleman asked Galloway whether he knew Zureikat was trading oil with Saddam, and Galloway claimed that not only did he know that, he was quite public about that fact: "Not only did I know that, but I told everyone about it. I emblazoned it in our literature, on our Web site...I knew he was a big trader with Iraq, and I told everybody about it." This is where blogger and web developer George Gooding (www.seixon.com) caught him out, using the Internet Wayback archive to show the Mariam Appeal website said no such thing. Nor did it even show that Zureikat was MA's chairman.

Read the whole thing. Galloway probably committed perjury, which is a petty crime considering the mosters he has aligned himself with over the years.

QUICK HITS

This pastor is thinking, "I really wish that lady in the front row hadn't worn THAT dress..."

PSSST. Are you a blogger? Wanna see a free movie? Go here then.

Disabled Able Danger hearings smell like a cover-up to the Voice of the Taciturn. Me too, and I can think of a couple of reasons from the outside looking in. First, that AD was killed prematurely by lawyers on what now looks like flimsy reasoning. The general who sided with those lawyers--that would now Army Chief of Staff Shoomaker--will look foolish. Additionally, the Pentagon could fear a sort of Church Committee redux that would use AD's "domestic spying" to crimp DoD's intel gathering. Second, we know that AD found false positive data linking Condi Rice to China and seemed to indicate the links were nefarious. AD also probably turned up lots of links between prominent Americans of that era which were not false positives. If AD found Condi because she worked at Stanford and Stanford has connections to China, surely it found Sandy Berger, who had been a paid lobbyist for the Chinese government and who had been up to his neck in the 1995 and 96 Chinagate shenanigans, and surely it found John Huang and Charlie Trie and various others who were throwing PLA money at the Clinton campaign. Perhaps AD came close enough to enough high ranking Clintonites that the Pentagon got nervous and stayed that way?

Finally, John Roberts has been voted out of committee and is on his way to confirmation. Let's hope he's a conservative as he appears to be. We'll be living with his decisions for a long, long time.

Audio proof: Jimmy Carter is a moonbat's moonbat.

LOST AND FOUND

So FEMA was the problem in New Orleans? Well...

BATON ROUGE, La. - Police found cases of food, clothing and tools intended for hurricane victims at the home of the chief administrative officer for a New Orleans suburb, authorities said Wednesday.
ADVERTISEMENT

Officers searched Cedric Floyd's home because of complaints that city workers were helping themselves to donations for hurricane victims. Floyd, who runs the day-to-day operations in the suburb of Kenner, was in charge of distributing the goods.

I'm sure he just misunderstood. He didn't realize that distributing the goods meant he'd actually have to get them out of his house. That's all. Nothing to see here.

Blame Brown! Blame Bush!

RELATED: This is disgusting:

On CNN's "Paula Zahn Now," a deeply troubling story about how gangs of New Orleans cops are going around looting apartments in the city -- and how a group of 8 cops harrassed and robbed people at an Amerihost Hotel during the storm. The spokesman for the police department told CNN there are two sides to every story. Which is true. Can't be fun being a spokesman for the New Orleans police department these days.

Can't be much fun being a New Orleans resident these days either. You get a hurricane that ends up flooding your city, now your fool of a mayor asks you back only to order you out again (if you came back) as another hurricane approaches, and now it turns out that your city police are using your time away from home to rob you.

FLASH STRATEGY BRIEFING

Bill Roggio, Marvin Hutchens and Steve Schippert have put a very interesting Flash presentation depicting US-Free Iraq anti-terrorist operations over the past month. It's the kind of thing we did a while ago here--use digital tools to try and make some sense of the war.

I have one minor design quibble with Roggio's presentation, but otherwise it's terrific and worth watching. The quibble is that I'd like to see some icon representing clashes persist as as the story unfolds. That would give viewers a way to keep the number and size of clashes in mind, and might shed some light on the patterns of combat--locations, timings and so forth.

LOST

Other than the NFL, there is only one television event I've been waiting months to see--the return of Lost. It returned tonight, and delivered a great hour of suspense, thrills and shocks.

Did I guess that someone was living at the bottom of the shaft? No, I did not.

Did I guess that Jack would know that person? Nope.

Do I have any idea why Shannon saw Walt dripping wet in the middle of the forest, when he was supposed to have been captured by those spooky boat people at the end of last season? Nope.

And where's Kate? She has to be in that strange underground world beneath the hatch, but where?

Lost is the most baffling show on TV, but it's also the best. The cast is perfect, the editing and visuals are as good as any Hollywood feature, and the story line, supposing it's actually going somewhere, is wildly unpredictable.

If you have any Lost speculations or conjectures, share them. Why did Locke know that the black cloud thingy wouldn't kill him? I just want to know.

IS OUR PRESIDENT LEARNING?

It doesn't look like it. After Katrina hit and the media succeeded for a while in blaming FEMA for everything that went wrong, we all learned that FEMA was run by Michael Brown, who had no experience in disaster management prior to joining FEMA. Thus it didn't matter much that he had handled smaller disasters in that role before Katrina without a hitch, and it didn't matter at all that all of Louisiana's problems originated in Louisiana, in the persons of Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco and their lackeys. Brown looked bad, his resume was unimpressive, and out he went. The perception stuck that Brown had only been put into the job in the first place because he was a political hack who supported Bush.

So what is the Bush administration doing now? Well, if you read Michelle Malkin--and you should if you don't--we're getting yet another political hack in yet another vital area:

The new crony waiting in the wings is attorney Julie Myers, the White House pick to head the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). At the risk of stating the painfully obvious, the agency Myers would spearhead deals with "enforcement" of "immigration" and "customs" laws and policies. Myers has practical and managerial experience in none of the above.

Zip. Nada. Nil.

And that's not the end of it. Bruce Bartlett says the same thing is about to happen at Treasury:

The Washington Post reported on Sept. 9 that Treasury Secretary John Snow is once again being shown the door. His rumored replacement is White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, who would then be replaced either by deputy chief of staff Karl Rove or Office of Management and Budget Director Josh Bolten. This sounds like a bad plan to me.

---

Many experts are now deeply concerned about the stresses and strains in the financial sector of the economy and fearful that a crisis could emerge at any moment. The huge budget and current account deficits, rising energy and gold prices, a bubble in the housing market, out-of-control hedge funds and a corporate pension system in the process of collapse are just some of the things that could trigger a financial crisis. Should that happen, I fear that Andy Card would be as out of his depth as Michael Brown was in New Orleans.

I'm on the record as not having much of an issue with Brown's handling of New Orleans, given the fact that Mississippi and Alabama serve as data points demonstrating that the failures in Louisiana were local. Still, when the crisis hit Brown didn't inspire confidence, and his background didn't shore him up and he became a political liability that the administration couldn't afford. The administration should learn from this a very basic lesson: Put qualified people in the roles they're qualified to fulfill. Surely it's not impossible to find solid Republicans who are solidly qualified to head up ICE and Treasury. We're supposed to be the party of law and order and sound economics, right? Then what's the problem?

This administration made a brilliant pick in putting Dr. Michael Griffin atop NASA. It made a brilliant choice in Condi Rice at State. It has made some inspired choices for judges and most of the cabinet as well. But with the great we're getting the awful, it seems. Norm Mineta, anyone?

I have to wonder if the administration isn't simply so adrift right now that it doesn't know which way is up and has forgotten how to conduct job interviews. If the answer to the first question--"Why are you qualified for this job?"--is "Because I know X and we both support the President," that's not good enough. Not even close.

DON'T GET STUCK ON STUPID

Gen. Honore is a leader.

MORE: Shorter video clip here.

From the csmonitor.com 2 weeks ago:

A man of a thousand one-liners, Honoré has told soldiers to keep their guns down: "This isn't Iraq." Aides-de-camp says he knows how to cut through the thickets of famously murky Louisiana politics. At a recent staff meeting here at Camp Shelby, he growled, "We're not stuck on stupid." It became the saying of the day, written on a bulletin board.

14:59

The Onion gives Cindy Sheehan her last second of fame:

WASHINGTON, DC—According to White House sources, President Bush is bracing for intensified criticism following Monday's report that the body of Tyler Sheehan, son of outspoken anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, was recovered from the receding floodwaters in New Orleans.

---

Before Sheehan moved to New Orleans, he was a struggling coho-salmon fisherman in Oregon's Klamath Basin. However, when the Bush Administration relaxed federal protection of the endangered fish, Sheehan's catch became contaminated with mercury. He gave up fishing and moved to Oakland, CA, where he opened a free clinic, which lost its federal funding in 2002 for giving out oral contraceptives to poor women.

Rtwt.

HURRICANE RITA LIKELY A CAT 5 NOW

Currently the recon planes are delayed, but Rita may have moved to Category 5 a few hours ago.

If you check the CIMSS website and look at the Dvorak satellite estimation for pressure and winds, Rita may have been a Category 5 hurricane as of 8:45 AM ET. This is the 10:15 AM EDT update.

UW - CIMSS
ADVANCED OBJECTIVE DVORAK TECHNIQUE
AODT - Version 6.4.2
Tropical Cyclone Intensity Algorithm

----- Current Analysis -----
Date : 21 SEP 2005 Time : 141500 UTC
Lat : 24:17:43 N Lon : 85:40:46 W

CI# /Pressure/ Vmax
7.0 / 920.1mb/140.0kt

140 kts x 1.15 kts/mph = 161 mph winds. Category 5 Hurricanes are stronger than 156 mph.

So why hasn't the Hurricane Center reflected a much stronger hurricane at the 8 AM advisory? Simply because the above data is a computer estimation. It is a very accurate estimation but not an actual number nonetheless. A recon plane is scheduled to take off at 10 AM and should have a specific fix on the hurricane's actual strength by late this morning or early this afternoon.

More discussion here:
Good chance we may have cat 5 now: In-house Dvorak estimating 914mb.

Simulation of what a Galveston impact would look like.

My previous comments posted as updates here.

MORE: Info on that 160 MPH Dvorak estimate from the National Hurricane Center. They're playing it conservative but see the ominous signs. Official pressure Just dropped anther 10mb to 934mb to as of 12:15 PM.

Incredible NASA color image of a much more ragged Rita from yesterday. Future updates will be posted here.

Animation of the estimated wave height as it approaches the Texas coast. Massive surge projected. (This link will update with current info).

UPDATE: As of 1 PM, recon reports pressure bombing another 10mb to 923mb with 170+ MPH flight level winds in the NE stadium eyewall, which would indicate surface winds greater than CAT 5/155MPH. No official annnouncement from the NHC yet.

This is becoming a scary perfect storm and from the looks of it may even become a steady state annular hurricane which would resist weakening. If you live on the Texas coast, do not get stuck on stupid!

More hurricane blogging listed up on Michelle Malkin's site.

UPDATE: As of the 2:15 PM NHC update, Rita can be considered a Category 5 hurricane.

The latest recon report indicated the pressure in Rita has fallen to 920 mb and the maximum flight level winds were over 175 mph. AccuWeather.com Meteorologist believe Rita has become a Cat 5 hurricane.

UPDATE: OK, finally the official wind speed catches up with the other indicators from this morning. Now packing 165 MPH sustained surface winds while the pressure has once again plummeted to a scary 906mb. This is now becoming one of the biggest hurricanes ever, and don't be surprised if it gets stronger. Even if it weakens before landfall it will still push a massive Category 5 level storm surge ahead of it.

UPDATE: 8PM advisory pressure reading outside the eye drops to an insanely low 898mb. 3rd most intense ever in the Atlantic. This could easily mean an increase to 185MPH sustained winds overnight.

UPDATE: Well, it appears to have peaked ovenight at "only" 175 MPH with the highest recorded gust of 235 MPH. It has now encountered some shear that should eventually weaken it a category or two before it hits land. But there are many who just see this as an eyewall replacement cycle and fear it will strengthen again first.

RED KEN STRIKES AGAIN

The Mayor of London just doesn't know a terrorist when he's standing next to one:

An Islamic scholar who has been accused of supporting suicide bombers was likened by Ken Livingstone, the London mayor, yesterday to Pope John XXIII.

He said that Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Qatar-based imam who is banned from America, was "an absolutely sane Islamist engaged with the world" who believed in democracy and an increasing role for women.

---

The mayor conceded that he [Qaradawi] did not condemn "and may be prepared to endorse" suicide bombings in Israel because the Palestinians "only have their bodies" as weapons. His views were shared by a majority of Muslims, said Mr Livingstone.

That's the problem, isn't it. And with Qaradawi it doesn't stop there--he also approves of suicide attacks carried out in the West against civilians. He thinks killing Londoners is fine. And London's own mayor thinks Qaradawi is basically a pope in disguise.

GOOGLE REVEALS PREVIOUS ABLE DANGER TESTIMONY

A nice post from Captain's Quarters:

The New York Times reports this evening that the Pentagon has blocked its military witnesses from testifying on Able Danger at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings tomorrow. Senator Arlen Specter registered his surprise but plans on holding the hearings anyway

...

Another interesting fact got mentioned in Shaffer's interview. He spoke about a Dr. Eileen Pricer. One of the more mysterious potential sources of the Able Danger story involved a female PhD that could corroborate Shaffer and Phillpott, the woman who actually developed the Atta identification in the first place. I Googled Eileen Pricer and got just one hit -- but it's a doozy.

It turns out that Dr. Pricer testified before a closed session of Congressional subcommittee on national security exactly one month after 9/11. That testimony isn't available, but Rep. Christopher Shays mentions her on the record in the next day's public testimony:

Mr. Shays. In a briefing we had yesterday, we had Eileen Pricer, who argues that we don't have the data we need because we don't take all the public data that is available and mix it with the security data. And just taking public data, using, you know, computer systems that are high-speed and able to digest, you know, literally floors' worth of material, she can take relationships that are seven times removed, seven units removed, and when she does that, she ends up with relationships to the bin Laden group where she sees the purchase of chemicals, the sending of students to universities. You wouldn't see it if you isolated it there, but if that unit is connected to that unit, which is connected to that unit, which is connected to that unit, you then see the relationship. So we don't know ultimately the authenticity of how she does it, but when she does it, she comes up with the kind of answer that you have just asked, which is a little unsettling.

Unsettling? Christopher Shays described Able Danger thirty-one days after the 9/11 attacks. What else did Eileen Pricer tell the Congressional subcommittee on national security on October 11, 2001? Did Pricer tell Shays that the information no longer existed but did at one time?

Senator Specter should invite Christopher Shays to have a seat on the witness bench, and he should also start issuing subpoenas for the witnesses that the Pentagon wants to silence. We need answers, and we need to know that our country will fight terrorism with every tool at its disposal.

As we predicted though when the Able Danger story first broke, there may be a good reason or two that the Pentagon will resist Able Danger revelations. One is valid and the other not so valid:

If the Pentagon is reticent to confirm Lt Col Shaffer's story, you have two data points to consider as reasons why. One, the likely involvement of NSA, the most secretive and most effective (largely because it's so secretive) intel agency we have. They stay out of the limelight and generally because of that run rings around the CIA. Anything that puts a spotlight on NSA is bad, so that in and of itself could be a reason to pour cold water on Able Danger. The second data point is that it could boomerang around on the Army Chief of Staff if he was in any way involved in bottling up Able Danger in his old command. The Pentagon does not want this scandal, not now and not ever. So I'll be surprised if they say anything interesting anytime in the next hundred years about Able Danger.

BERGER RESURFACES

Fresh from being fined $50k for stealing and then destroying classified documents from the National Archives, Sandy Stickyfingers Berger has popped up again, and guess what--China is involved. Color me surprised:

The Brookings Institution today launched its new China Initiative, which is intended to explore the dynamics of China's transformation and emergence as a political and economic power and the implications for the United States, China, the East Asian region, and the world.

The Initiative was established through the generosity of Brookings Chairman John L. Thornton, and will be directed by Senior Fellow Jeffrey A. Bader, who previously served as ambassador and a senior official at the State Department, National Security Council, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

"The rise of China and its impact on the world is the most important geo-political event of the twenty-first century," said Thornton, who is a professor of global leadership at Tsinghua University in Beijing. "With today's launch, Brookings is now poised to establish itself as a key destination for both Chinese and American policy-makers seeking to understand China's critically important role in today's world."

Umhm. Chinese policy-makers are going to go to Brookings to understand Chinese policy? I don't think so. It's more likely that Brookings is providing a place for liberal (since Brookings is liberal) Democrat policy-makers to cozy up to Chinese policy-makers and vice versa. Which is where Berger fits in:

The China Initiative began its public work today with a series of panel discussions on China's emergence. Panelists included Donald Evans, former secretary of commerce; Samuel Berger, former national security advisor; Carla Hills, former U.S. trade representative; Kishore Mahbubani, former permanent secretary for the Singapore Foreign Ministry; Fred Hu, chairman of Goldman Sachs China; and J. Stapleton Roy, former U.S. ambassador to China.

It's a fitting role for the felon. Prior to joining the Clinton administration as National Security Advisor, Berger was a lobbyist on China's dime.

BLOG PLAN TO BE USED FOR LATEST NOLA EVACUATION

Mayor Nagin finally gives in to the fatherly advice of the feds...again. Instead of his original plan to lure residents and tourists back in this week, he's going to get people out of town--using the JYB plan this time. From the Politically Incorrect Mom:

“The city requested 200 buses to assist in an evacuation. They would start running 48 hours before landfall from the downtown convention center and a stadium in Algiers”

Gee, I wonder where they got that idea?? I’d like to see the Mayor himself out there with a shop-vac, drying out the buses that weren’t good enough for him to use when he let hundreds of people die in their homes during and after Katrina.

You can read the article yourself, but I’m sure you get my primary rant. The Mayor of New Orleans wasn’t just under stress when he made poor decisions and used horrible judgment in not evacuating his citizens before Katrina. It would appear that he’s just a complete idiot who wouldn’t know good judgment if it bit him in the butt. It wasn’t until federal officials, including President Bush, “URGED” Nagin (for a couple of days) to reconsider letting people back in to [New Orleans] that he suspended his “re-opening”. It’s like a teenager is in charge and the President has to guide him in the right direction or he’ll keep making the same mistakes over and over. Even when he DID reverse his decision to allow people to re-enter, his reasons seem to be related to Tropical Storm Rita causing more damage – not the utter insanity of allowing people to re-enter when much of the city is not cleaned up and the mayor can't even provide healthcare or emergency services to the citizens. ...

I say it’s time for the feds to take a level of authority that matches their level of responsibility in this rescue/recovery/rebuilding effort. People just end up getting shot in the foot when they’re given a boat-load of responsibility and no authority to carry it out.

If the federal government really does change the rules, giving them the authority to step in and take over in cases of natural disaster – something the President hinted to in his speech, but I have a hard time envisioning it actually becoming a reality, they’re going to have to develop a protocol that will keep idiots like Nagin from muddying the process so much.

I think we’ve given him enough rope and he’s managed to hang everyone around him – the feds need to tell him to sit down and shut up so they can do their job.

UPDATE: Joe Bastardi of Accuweather was on FNC predicting another monster CAT 4/5 landfall in Texas--"A worse hit for the Texas coast than Carla.” He was the first to call Katrina, but I hope he's wrong on this one. As was the case last time, most meteorologists think he's crazy predicting a CAT 4/5 so early.

UPDATE: Now everyone else is on the Bastardi bandwagon, agreeing that Rita will bomb from CAT 2 to 4 by Weds. The Texas National Guard is staging and ready to roll out of Austin. Galveston even had a plan to uses buses for the most vulnerable before the NOLA Katrina fiasco. So it looks like Texans are not planning to gamble and sit around and attacking Bush, FEMA and Fed troops if they lose.

MORE: Not only could Galveston be wiped out with a direct hit, but models show potential "massive devastation" in Houston. Up to $50 billion in damage. The exact landfall spot and strength for Rita is still a longshot prediction though. Currently it's headed south of Galveston/Houston and more towards Corpus Christi, which would also be devastated by a CAT 4 direct hit. Here's hoping other meteorologists are right that it will slow down later and hit the less populated coast at just a CAT 3.

NORTH KOREA RENEGS

Surprise, surprise. You can't trust a Stalinist:

North Korea said Tuesday it would not dismantle its nuclear weapons program until the United States first provides an atomic energy reactor, casting doubt on its commitment to a breakthrough agreement reached at international arms talks.

The North insisted during arms talks that began last week in Beijing that it be given a light-water reactor, a type less easily diverted for weapons use, in exchange for abandoning nuclear weapons. The agreement reached at the talks' end Monday _ the first since the negotiations began in August 2003 _ says the six countries in the negotiations will discuss the reactor issue "at an appropriate time."

Both the United States and Japan, members of the six-nation disarmament talks, rejected the North's latest demand.

"This is not the agreement that they signed and we'll give them some time to reflect on the agreement they signed," U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in New York, where he was with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at meetings of the U.N. Security Council.

"The Japanese side has continuously said that North Korea's demand is unacceptable," Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura told reporters.

And the games go on.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IS JUST A FANCY TERM FOR STUPID

PC orcs have claimed another victim: cheerleading in Howard County, MD:

There was no sideline, so they made do with the tight space on the bleachers, moving only their feet and arms as they belted out their cheers.

Rooting on Howard High School's volleyball team for the first time last week, the cheerleading squad was somewhat hesitant and unsure of its moves.

"When am I not supposed to cheer?" wondered Ciara Gissentaner, a senior co-captain of the 20-member squad.

"When they serve," a few cheerleaders called out.

Welcome to the new world of cheerleading in Howard County - where the football field and the basketball court are not a cheerleader's only playgrounds. Cheerleading is now a varsity sport here, ushering in new rules.

"The traditional days of cheerleading - going to all football games and showing up for nothing else - is over," said Mike Williams, the school system's coordinator of athletics.

The most notable change - and the one that has caused the most grief among many cheerleaders - is the limitation on football games.

Under Title IX, which in part provides equal opportunity for male and female athletics in schools, cheerleading squads must cheer at the same number of boys and girls events and mix up the type of events they attend.

So they'll have cheerleaders at track meets (!) and all kinds of other sports where frankly cheerleading doesn't belong. All in the name of that most nebulous quantity, equality.

This is stupid. But...

Imagine the scene at the next soccer game:

KICK IT! PASS IT! WE WANT A...GOAL! (cheerleaders shrug, look at each other, and start up again)
KICK IT! PASS IT! WE WANT A...GOAL!

Imagine the scene at the next fencing tournament:

EN GARDE! PARRY! SCARE HIM WITH YOUR FIST!
SLICE HIM UP! DICE HIM UP! CHASE HIM ROUND THE PISTE!

Imagine the scene at the next high school golf tournament:

Announcer: (in hushed voice) Gary Johnson leads by a single stroke. He is within sight of the tournament championship, his school's first in more than 20 years. He needs this 18-foot putt to birdie number 17 and hold off the challenge from...

STROKE IT JOHNSON! PUTT IT IN THE HOLE!
STROKE IT JOHNSON! PUTT IT IN THE HOLE!

Announcer: (hushed, bewildered, slightly embarassed voice): And he missed the putt! He missed the putt! One has to suspect that the sudden cheers erupting from his own supporters did him in.

Write your own Inappropriate Cheer for Sports that Should Not Have Cheerleaders in comments. Best submission gets the satisfaction of having too much time on their hands.

KILLING ME SOFTLY

James Pinkerton says Bill Clinton is trying to kill off the UN and replace it with...himself.

Last week in New York City, the Clinton Global Initiative (GGI) made its bid to upstage the United Nations' 60th anniversary General Assembly. And the former president made a start toward displacing the fading UN from its prominent perch. And he will be back to try again next year.

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Put simply, the CGI is striving to be a better version of the UN, skimming off the cream and the glitz; Mick Jagger, Brad Pitt, and Chris Tucker, among other stars, showed up at the Clinton extravaganza. Convening in Manhattan at the same time as the General Assembly, just a mile or so from UN headquarters, the CGI set forth four missions for itself: a quartet of "breakout sessions" were dedicated global warming, economic development, religious harmony, and effective governance. All weighty topics, no? Exactly the sorts of issues that the UN would worry about, right?

Interestingly enough, Clinton's CGI also resembles another emerging icon's ambitions. Rev. Rick Warren's Global PEACE Plan is a Christianized version of Clinton's endeavor, more or less. The question is are these two working for the same job or are they working toward the same goals? Clinton has his base, the secular global elites, while Warren has his base, the 30,000 or so churches that have tossed out their own doctrines in favors of his. A little bit of synergy might put them on the same team.

I'm all for killing off the UN. But replacing it with Clinton is one of the few ideas that could lead to worse. Between Bill and Kofi, I'll take Kofi. He's corrupt and ineffective, whereas Clinton is corrupt but very effective.

The Bush administration could have been out in front of the issue a long time ago and moved ahead of everyone to knock off the UN and replace it with something useful. It could have started morphing the Proliferation Security Initiative into a competitor to the UN, or seized the initiative and at least helped push the UN off a cliff. But it never parleyed the PSI into anything--it never even promoted the PSI at all, actually. And has only spent the past three years trying to make the UN relevant.

So now we're likely to get stuck with Clinton galavanting and philandering across the world stage again. Great.