Be afraid. Be VERY afraid. The text is the most frightening part.

I mean, really. Cynicism is so bad for democracy and politics. I mean, the Republicans and our El Presidente, El Jefe Jorge Bush are "uniters not dividers." Everything they do is for the good of the country.

So, no, indeed! This liberal Democrat, Rosebud, will NOT-- I say will NOT-- hope that Tom DeLay hangs in the wind through the 2006 congressional elections. Heavens, no! A speedy trial! Justice now! Read the article at Slate Magazine.

Pic: Today's Slate Magazine.

Great little article at Salon.com. You have to pay for their service, but I find it worth the bucks. Here is the opening to a post today about the rampant, nationwide corruption in the Republican Party, which is permeating the upper levels of state and federal government:

"A stench of corruption"

Over the course of the summer, Howard Dean worked hard to get voters to associate the Republican Party with a "culture of corruption" in Washington. The message didn't get much traction then -- in part because Democrats in Congress didn't push it out of fear that it would come back to bite them, and in part because voters had bigger concerns about George W. Bush and the party he leads.

The message is getting through today.

Just after news of Tom DeLay's indictment broke this afternoon, White House press secretary Scott McClellan appeared for his daily press briefing, where a reporter asked him on live television if a "stench of corruption" now swirls around the president and his party. McClellan dismissed the question as relying on a "broad characterization" but acknowledged that there are "instances" and "individual situations" where "the legal process" will need to proceed.

That's certainly fair to say.

From Texas to Florida to Ohio, from K Street to Congress to the inner circles of the Bush administration itself, the Republican Party is suddenly -- or maybe not so -- looking like the party of scandal. You can't keep up without a scorecard. Here's ours.

Click here to read the entire article, complete with the laundry list of greedy GOP pols.

Poor Missy Dreier--a.ka., Congressman David Dreier, R-California. She was passed over today for the post of acting Majority Leader in the U.S. House (after Tom Delay was INDICTED on CONSPIRACY charges in Texas). Seems many people thought Missy D. would be named to the post by Speaker Dennis Hastert.

However, it is being the-o-rized that Missy D. was passed over due to some long-standing rumors, which we won't repeat here. But, you can click here, here, here, and here if you want to know more. Oh, yeah: type in a few key words in your Google search bar and see what turns up.

Always good for a laugh. Here's what Tom Tomorrow has to say about Karl Rove being in charge of the Gulf Coast reconstruction effort. Click here for the archive, located at Working for Change.

Is there any doubt that Congressman Tom "The Hammer" DeLay has one of the most sarcastic, nasty, mouths in Washington? Could there be a more cynical politican in America today? Is he not the perfect Republican majority leader in the House? He stands for all of the excesses of the modern conservatism--greed, cynical manipulation of extremist Christian religion, a thirst for political power... and on and on.

So, with such fabulous Bitch qualities, Rosebud says that DeLay will make the perfect prison bitch if he is convicted and sent to jail.

Yes, today's indictment of DeLay in Travis County, Texas, is just too much fun. As a friend of mine once said to a judge when called for jury duty: "Your honor, I cannot serve as an impartial juror. I look at that little SOB and I am just SURE he is guilty of something."

Same thing for DeLay. Except in his case, he is guilty of a boatload of things.

And the icing on the cake, for now: Delay has to do the perp walk. Read today's article in The Washington Post:

DeLay Must Appear in Austin on Charge
By SUZANNE GAMBOA
The Associated Press
Wednesday, September 28, 2005; 7:52 PM

Note to DeLay: Don't use cheap liptstick; it's bad for the complexion.

Some things make me scream with laugher. Some things make me scream with frustration. Some things make me scream with anger or fear. Some things simply leave me speechless.

This afternoon's headline in The Washington Post online left me speechless:

Arrests Made in Case Connected to Abramoff
Three Men Allegedly Killed 'Gus' Boulis, Who Sold A Casino Cruise Line to the Embattled Washington Lobbyist

I am still so stunned that I can hardly blog. You must read the story. In a nutshell, indicted lobbyist and Washington bagman Jack Abramoff -- close friend of Tom Delay, Karl Rove and many other high-level Republicans--just may be tied to the mob. Well, it looks like that might be the case.

Yes, the mafia. It smells like that. Okay, it looks suspcious. Guilt by association. Or something. It looks funny.

But, as much as I want this crazed, incompetent, far-right government to fall of its own corruption and ignorance, not even I want this story to be true. Well, mostly not. Read story here.

I don't know if Dubya is drinking again, but I sure am.

Yes, friends. This is what our beloved country, the U.S. of A. has come to: pure, bull-headed ignorance.

We have 50 percent of a population that willingly votes for Elmer Gantry for president.

Good Lord. As with most things, the devil is in the details. El Presidente Jorge Bush playing the role of U.S. Preacher-in-Chief, ala "Elmer Gantry" is bad enough.

But the fallout down the line is worse. Parents in Dover, Pennsylvania, have been forced to sue to keep their public school district from classifying and teaching "Intelligent Design" as science comparable to the theory of evolution. Yes, the wingnuts on the far right simply don't want to teach "ID" for what it is--another name for religion-based creationism. They want to call it SCIENCE.

Why, didn't you kow that Noah had dinosaurs on the Ark?

So, feeling good about America's future? Yes, I am sure that the future of science in America is just dandy.

This is from an article in The Times of London. This paper does a great job of covering this kind of crap--their editors aren't afraid of the right-wing crazies the way too many American newspaper editors now are.

An excerpt:

Parents take stand on Darwin versus God in school
From James Bone in New York

PARENTS in a rural Pennsylvania town are mounting the first legal test of the controversial theory of the origin of life known as intelligent design.

Eleven parents are suing the Dover school board for requiring teachers to cast doubt on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and to offer intelligent design as an alternative.

The landmark case, dubbed Scopes II, comes eight decades after the infamous Scopes “monkey trial” in which a teacher named John Scopes was convicted of illegally teaching evolution in a Tennessee school, rather than sticking to the biblical version of the creation. Lawyers on both sides expect the case to go all the way to the US Supreme Court.

Conservative Christians are pushing intelligent design to bypass the 1987 ban on creationism in schools. It argues that Darwin’s theory of natural selection cannot explain the emergence of highly-complex life forms, and that a higher intelligence must have created them.

The parents’ lawyers told the court in the nearby city of Harrisburg that intelligent design was merely “a 21st-century version of creationism”.

Read the entire article in The Times of London World section.

Good luck to the parents in Pennsylvania who are standing up to the religious wingnuts.

Is the research legitimate? I don't know. I don't know if religion per se contributes to societal ills--poverty, suicide, STDs, violence, murder, etc. But, I do know that fundamentalist religion--closed-minded, ignorant, intolerant, devoid of respect for facts and reality--is extremely dangerous for plurastic democracies. Frankly, I believe that intolerant fundamentalist religion is danger for religion in general!

Nevertheless, an interesting study was summarized today in this article in The Times of London. Here are a few paragraphs:

The paper, published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic journal, reports: “Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world.

“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies.

“The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so.”

Gregory Paul, the author of the study and a social scientist, used data from the International Social Survey Programme, Gallup and other research bodies to reach his conclusions.

He compared social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy.

I personally suspect that they key here is fundamentalist relgion--not religion itself. Speaking of fundamentalist wing-nuts, this is sure to make them crazy. Furthermore, look what fundamentalist religion has done to Dubya--took a fun-loving, basically harmless partyboy who lived off his family's fame and made him into a dangerous, idiotic, ideologue of a president. Read entire article

P.S. - Check out The Anti-Pat Robertson/Christian Coalition Site.

I still believe America and the World would better off if El Presidente Bush was boozing again. After all, could we be in worse shape with him addicted to his voodoo religion?

The National Enquirer has a hot new story about El Presidente El Jefe Jorge Bush hitting the booze again. Before you laugh about this posting based on The National Enquirer, ask yourself this: "How much real news do I get these days from the so-called respectable news media?"

That's what I thought: not much.

Salon.com even picked up on piece in The National Enquirer. Here's an excerpt:

What does it all mean? Who knows? The National Enquirer ain't exactly the New York Times, but it isn't the Weekly World News, either. As Slate's Jack Shafer wrote last year in a piece titled "I Believe the National Enquirer," the tabloid usually gets its facts straight, even if it teases them into the most sensational story possible. But even Shafer warned against reading too much into Enquirer stories built around anonymous quotes, as this one is.

There's only one named source in the Enquirer piece, and it's Justin Frank, the Washington psychiatrist who wrote "Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President." The Enquirer quotes Frank as saying, "I do think Bush is drinking again." But Frank has no firsthand knowledge of the matter, only supposition based on his own long-distance diagnosis and the same news the rest of us have seen. His conclusions lend a kind of "it makes sense to me" plausibility to the Bush-on-the-bottle story, but they're nothing that you could call proof. "Alcoholics who are not in any program, like the president, have a hard time when stress gets to be great," Frank says. "I think it's a concern that Bush disappears during times of stress. He spends so much time on his ranch [sic]. It's very frightening."

Please. WHO is surprised that Dubya may be hitting the sauce again? His daughters and his brother's children are all a bunch of sloppy drunks. (You have to wonder about the mother, The Evil-Bar-Dog, don't you?) And who would be shocked if it is true. Yes, I know, the right-winger "Christians" will profess shock and I suppose many of them will be dumbfounded (emphasis here on "dumb").

Dubya was a boozer extraordinaire, but he "just quit" at age 40 or so. Yeah, right. No counseling, no therapy, just that Old-Time-Religion. Apparently, El Presidente doesn't believe in therapy. Not surpirsing, considering what a bunch of white trash he has for family. (Money does not alleviate white trash tendencies.) And besides, well, you know... only LIBERALS believe in that-there-therapy-stuff.

At any rate, the story in The National Enquirer says Laura found Dubya downing a shot at the Texas ranch and screamed, "Stop, George!"

Rosebud says, "Have another one, George!" I still believe that the country would be better off if Dubya began drinking again. It might wean him off his crazed-fanatical-voodo-religion.

And don't just take my word for it... here is a 2001 article from Salon.com that includes the observations of a recovered alcoholic.

Do I care? Am I putting down alcoholics and people with other substance abuse problems? No. Substance abuse is a horrible affliction. I am pissed off because this crowd--the oh-so-perfect moralizers--lie to us. These people would hang a poor black man who is addicted to crack because he stole a bottle of beer. Dubya, on the other hand, geta free pass--on everything.

America could not possibly be in any more danger than it is at present. Drink up, George!

From The National Enquirer:

BUSH'S BOOZE CRISIS

By JENNIFER LUCE and DON GENTILE

Faced with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit the bottle again, The National Enquirer can reveal.

Bush, who said he quit drinking the morning after his 40th birthday, has started boozing amid the Katrina catastrophe.

Family sources have told how the 59-year-old president was caught by First Lady Laura downing a shot of booze at their family ranch in Crawford, Texas, when he learned of the hurricane disaster.

His worried wife yelled at him: "Stop, George."


Photo: Dubya's World (you must check out this blog)

Here's a New York Times headline today: "A Flourish and Lil' Kim Goes From Star To Inmate."

Please, dear Lord. PLEASE. May the whole Bush clan follow in Lil' Kim's footsteps. Every night when I say my prayers, I say, "Dear Lord, before I die I want to see Barbara Bush in a prison jump suit--with those damned pearls around her neck."

Are you familiar with Tom Tomorrow and This Modern World?

You should be--his cartoons are always great; they are available at Salon.com (paid) and Working for Change.

This week's cartoon is partuclarly relevant--it asks the question:

How much insane, stupid shit does Bush have to do before the faitful minions in the Republican Party, the little people (as Bar Bush would say) get a clue?

It's true that Democrats often run in circles, but the Republicans are frightening: they have a real desire for order at any price, which includes following orders from some truly frightening, incompetent people. What other explanation can there be?

Surely I am not the only person on this planet who has asked, "Perhaps we would be better off of George W. Bush started drinking to excess again?" It would be better if he went back to drinking and gave up the cooky right-wing religious vodoo. And it might make Dubya less inclinded to go along with the neo-cons advice to invade Middle Eastern countries.

I mean, we all know that El Presidente El Jefe Jorge Bush doesn't really run the country, so what's a bottle a day of Wild Turkey for the Dub-ster?

But it seems we can always count on a Bush spawn to keep up the family tradition of public drunkeness. No, no, silly! The latest incident was not the well-oiled Bush Twins, Jenna and Barbara. This time it was El Presidente's nephew, John Ellis Bush. He is the brother of that poor Noel Bush, the Xanax queen, and son of Florida Governor Jeb Bush (the election stealer).

It seems that the hairy-chested little Latin stud, JEB, had a bit too much to drink in Austin the other night. Well, based on this picture, I imagine there were quite a few regulars in the local jail who tried to get his phone number.

Do we live in great times or what? Any bunch of inbred drunken twits can run an empire, provided they have a few ill-gotten bucks and the right friends.

Lord knows this one does not pass the laugh-test.

The Vatican says it will begin a campaign of rootin' out the ho-mo-sex-u-als from it seminaries. Well, by the time they are done, we will have space travel to distant galaxies. And we will all be long dead.

I don't know about you, dear reader, but if I had a dollar for every gay priest or every former seminarian who is gay, I could buy Halliburton.

Besides, who will be left?

Photo: Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Web site

Read this piece by Doug Thompson, founder and publisher of Capitol Hill Blue. He says hell must have frozen over this past week because El Presidente Jorge Bush actually accepted responsibility for something--the shameful, incompetent response to Hurricanbe Katrina by FEMA.

A Note to Bush Voters and Republicans:

You had a choice last November. You could vote for Kerry and the Democrats who would have at least tried to do something about health care coverage--or lack of it--in the United States. But, no, you wouldn't do that. You freaked out and swallowed a pack of lies from a bunch of incompetent thugs--you know, the ones about how only El President, El Gran Jefe, Jorge Bush, could keep you safe. Among the other lies you swallowed were that gay people were COMING TO GET YOU AND YOUR KIDDIES! Gay marriage would destroy YOUR MARRIAGE!

Aaaaahhhh. Sssscccrrrreeeaaammmm. Nooooooo! Not homosexuals in my cul-de-sac!

Well, this article about the health care coverage crisis in America--and it IS rapidly becoming a crisis--makes me scream.

You had your choice. Happy? Learned anything.

What else can I say? Okay, the news is Britney-land is that she spawned. The Britney-child is here. Where does the madness stop? You have to pass a test and get a license to drive a car. This trollop, on the other hand, is free to drive her reproductive system around the galaxy at will.

Photo: Getty Images

This is the level to which our beloved country, the United States of America has sunk. The "Reverend" Pat Robertson--snake oil salesman par excellence--says New Orleans was destroyed because comedian and TV star Ellen DeGeneres is a New Orleans native. Yes, God destroyed New Orleans because Degeneres, a lesbian, was selected by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences to host this year's Emmy Awards.

[sigh] Actually, I [sigh] again. Some days, I just can't take it.

Robertson notes that the last time, 2001, that Degeneres was selected to host the Emmys the United States suffered the 9-11 attacks on New York and Washington.

“Is it any surprise that the Almighty chose to strike at Miss Degeneres’ hometown?” Robertson asked on his television show.

Where to begin? I could blog all night. I will say, though, that the US of A is in big trouble. This guy has millions of followers who believe every word out of Robertson's mouth. He has lots of political power in the Republican Party. We are in big trouble in this country, kids.

At some point foreign governments, and their citizens, will stop being horrified at what is going on in the United States and simply start laughing, and then ignoring us.

So... with people like this either running the country, or influencing those who do, what kind of future do we have?

Photo: Dateline Hollywood

Remember when Old Man Bush, fighting stomach flu, threw up on the prime minister of Japan? Well, at least Dubya didn't pee his pants yesterday at the United Nations.

If you have not seen the Reuters photo of Dubya penning a note to Condi Rice, well, you must (pic at left). Dubya was telling Condi that he was going to need a bathroom break. Yes, it's all very human. But, still...

Editor and Publisher has more information.

Perhaps the wrath of the Gods has finally begun to turn on El President, El Jefe Bush. This seems to be the type of thing that happens to elected officials when luck has turned against them. Old Man Bush lost to Clinton after the puking incident. And, remember when the rabbit attacked Jimmy Carter, who was in a boat fishing in Georgia? He lost to Reagan.

The universe has a funny way of letting us know when it has decided "enough."

Here is the caption for the pic: REUTERS/Rick Wilking

U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005. World leaders are exploring ways to revitalize the United Nations at a summit on Wednesday but their blueprint falls short of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's vision of freedom from want, persecution and war.

From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Mike Lukovich).

Ang Lee's move, "Brokeback Mountain," won top prize at Venice Flm Festival (story from International Herald Tribune). It stars Heath Ledger. Other Ange Lee movies include "The Ice Storm," "Sense and Sensibility," and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

Click here for movie trailers.

So, Karl Rove is sending in Laura Bush to do damage control, in an attempt to save Dubya's ass. But, read down in the story from the News-Telegraph (UK). In a nutshell: get ready to be bombarded with "9-11, 9-11, 9-11."

If this strategy works, someone please turn out the lights. This country is done.

Photo: Reuters.

Mark Fiore has a new animated cartoon, "Whoopsi Gras." While sometimes funny, it is mostly damning, in its own way, of the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Click here (you will need a Flash plug-in, and remember to turn up your sound).

Just because: Carlos Moya.

Caption, above: Oil-slicked water floods a New Orleans neighborhood. (Salon.com)

Good Lord. This article is from Salon.com. You have to be a member to read the whole thing. However, I think there are going to be plenty of similar articles in the weeks and months to come.

This is unreal. Are Americans ready to wake up? Will parts of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast ever be inhabitable during our lifetimes?

Here is the beginning of the article at Salon.com.

"The entire community is now a toxic waste dump"
The Gulf Coast is drowning in a poisonous stew, people are dying from waterborne bacteria, and federal funds have been drained by years of pro-industry policies. Katrina is one of the worst environmental catastrophes in U.S. history.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Rebecca Clarren

Sept. 9, 2005 | From 500 feet in the air, Chris Wells, a geographer with the U.S. Geological Survey, looked with dismay on the landscape pounded and then abandoned by Hurricane Katrina. As Wells flew on Wednesday above the Louisiana coastline, across New Orleans, the marshlands south of the city, and over Mississippi, nearly every tree was snapped, their limbs twisted around in a braid, the bark shredded right off the trunk. The marshland below looked as though somebody had taken a spatula and scraped away the marsh grasses, leaving a sea of mud. Aside from a number of shorebirds, and one 8-foot alligator swimming about 20 miles offshore, Wells saw no wildlife. What he did see were streaks of oil, some miles long and 200 yards wide.

"It was on any body of water of any significance," he says. Hundreds of thousands of inland acres are covered with a spotty sheen of oil. "The landscape right now is absolutely bizarre and unreal," Wells says, from his home in Lafayette, La. "It's emotionally draining. Even if nobody was hurt, it's heartbreaking to see what has happened to the environment."

Wells suspects that much of the oil has drained from thousands of boats lying at the bottom of countless bayous, canals, and the ocean. Within the impacted area are at least 2,200 underground fuel tanks, many potentially ruptured, says Rodney Mallett, spokesperson for the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. Officials also predict that thousands of cars, lawn mowers and weed-eaters are also submerged, leaking gas and oil into the waterways.

In addition, tens of thousands of barrels of oil have spilled from refineries and drilling rigs in at least 13 sites between Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico. Along the coast, Katrina damaged 58 drilling rigs and platforms in the Gulf, according to Rigzone.com, an oil and gas industry Web site. At least one rig has sunk and another was swept 66 miles through the gulf before washing up on Dauphin Island. It remains unclear how badly the hundreds of underwater pipelines connecting the oil to shore have been damaged.

Yet the destruction that Wells witnessed from the sky is only the most visible element of a poisonous stew bubbling in Katrina's wake. On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that bacteria in the water flooding Gulf Coast areas are at 10 times the agency's standard for human health, and already four people have died from waterborne bacteria. Read entire story

El Presidente, El Jefe Jorge Bush, is always yammering that he is a "uniter not a divider." Furthermore, El Jefe wants to appoint a minority to the Supreme Court, in the Sandra Day O'Conner seat.

Rosebud says, apoint a drag queen--the one in the pic at right. She's not a Latina, but she is from Florida.

Catty comments and posts always welcome here at "After the Revolution." - Rosebud

Where IS Barbara Bush? Has she been sited? More importantly, has anyone heard The Evil-Bar-Dog run her obnoxious old yapper in the past few days?

Rosebud posits that The Evil-Bar-Dog has taken her natural form, and will only reappear in human form when there is more suffering in America.

An intersting article in the New York Times talks about a new study on the human brain that was published in Science magazine. It is sure to cause controversy from a number of angles because "New versions of the genes, or alleles as geneticists call them, appear to have spread because they enhanced brain function in some way, the report suggests, and they are more common in some populations than others." (Emphasis added.)

Scientits have long thought that the human brain stoped evolving 50,000 years ago--along with human evolution. Here are my questions:

Will the Religious Right jump all over the study? After all, there is no such thing as evolution. God created the world in 6 days. Anyone who says otherwise is a Godless-liberal and an enemy of the Christian People's Republica of America.

Exactly what populations do the authors theorize have this brain-evolving gene more than others (read the whole article)? Rosebud prays that this cannot and will not be wrongly and ignorantly exploited by white supremacists (not to mention the Republican Party).

Are Republicans' brains evolving at the same pace as other human beings? Does holding the following beliefs slow down the evolution of the human brain? (1) God created the world in 6 days, (2) there is no global warming, (3) the internal combustine engine is the greatest creation ever and cannot be replaced, (4) souless exurbs full of strip malls and fast food are good for living creatures and (5) you can have all the government you want and NEVER pay taxes?

Hey, just asking.

Remember: this is a theory. We live in the reality-based community here.

Brain May Still Be Evolving, Studies Hint
By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: September 9, 2005
Two genes involved in determining the size of the human brain have undergone substantial evolution in the last 60,000 years, researchers say, leading to the surprising suggestion that the brain is still undergoing rapid evolution.

The discovery adds weight to the view that human evolution is still a work in progress, since previous instances of recent genetic change have come to light in genes that defend against disease and confer the ability to digest milk in adulthood.

It had been widely assumed until recently that human evolution more or less stopped 50,000 years ago.

The new finding, reported in today's issue of Science by Bruce T. Lahn of the University of Chicago, and colleagues, could raise controversy because of the genes' role in determining brain size. New versions of the genes, or alleles as geneticists call them, appear to have spread because they enhanced brain function in some way, the report suggests, and they are more common in some populations than others. Read entire story

I will say it again, especially for readers who are new to blogs: John Aravosis of AmericaBlog has one of the best liberal-oriented blogs around. And, he has some new T-Shirts for sale.

From the Times of London.

Father of the internet joins the Google family
By Philippe Naughton, Times Online

Google, the ever-ambitious search group, has hired one of the founding fathers of the internet as its "Chief Internet Evangelist". Vinton Cerf, 62, was one of the group that created the internet's predecessor, the Arpanet, and then co-developed the basic TCP-IP protocols that allowed remote networks to connect with each other. Read entire story

Photo: Kevin Wolfe, AP

This one made me laugh. It captures the cluelessness of that clan, especially the eldest spawn of Bar and H.W., "Dubya."

Source unknown.

Rafael Nadal, jugador de tennis espanol.

Sometimes you just have to love the New York Post--even if Rupert Murdoch owns it.

SITUATION NORMAL, ALL FEMA'D UP

---

September 8, 2005 -- The demands to fire FEMA director Michael Brown for his exceptionally poor performance in overseeing the federal government's emergency response to Katrina should be heeded ("Catastrophic Failure," Sept. 3).

Unfortunately, however, Brown need not worry too much.

Surely, his poor performance should earn him the same reward as did the poor performance of Paul Bremer, who oversaw deteriorating conditions throughout post-war Iraq, and George Tenet, who oversaw the "slam dunk" search for missing weapons of mass destruction.

Brown is now eminently qualified to...

Here is a Katrina Timeline for your reference. Print it out and keep it handy--next to your TV or computer... have the Timeline nearby when you read the morning paper and sip coffee.

Refer to the Timeline whenver the White House -- or FEMA or Homeland Security -- tries to "explain" to you about "what really happened and when" along the Gulf Coast before and after Hurricane Katrina.

The Timeline was sent to Rosebud by a Los Angeles correspondent--who we hope we soon be posting her own blogs on "After the Revolution."

KATRINA TIMELINE

Comment on the timeline here.

Friday, August 26

GOV. KATHLEEN BLANCO DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: [Office of the Governor]

GULF COAST STATES REQUEST TROOP ASSISTANCE FROM PENTAGON: At a 9/1 press conference, Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, commander, Joint Task Force Katrina, said that the Gulf States began the process of requesting additional forces on Friday, 8/26. [DOD]

Saturday, August 27

5AM — KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 3 HURRICANE [CNN]

GOV. BLANCO ASKS BUSH TO DECLARE FEDERAL STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: “I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster.” [Office of the Governor]

FEDERAL EMERGENCY DECLARED, DHS AND FEMA GIVEN FULL AUTHORITY TO RESPOND TO KATRINA: “Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency.” [White House]

Sunday, August 28

2AM – KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE [CNN]

7AM – KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE [CNN]

MORNING — LOUISIANA NEWSPAPER SIGNALS LEVEES MAY GIVE: “Forecasters Fear Levees Won’t Hold Katrina”: “Forecasters feared Sunday afternoon that storm driven waters will lap over the New Orleans levees when monster Hurricane Katrina pushes past the Crescent City tomorrow.” [Lafayette Daily Advertiser]

9:30AM — MAYOR NAGIN ISSUES FIRST EVER MANDATORY EVACUATION OF NEW ORLEANS: “We’re facing the storm most of us have feared,” said Nagin. “This is going to be an unprecedented event.” [Times-Picayune]

4PM – NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ISSUES SPECIAL HURRICANE WARNING: In the event of a category 4 or 5 hit, “Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks, perhaps longer. … At least one-half of well-constructed homes will have roof and wall failure. All gabled roofs will fail, leaving those homes severely damaged or destroyed. … Power outages will last for weeks. … Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards.” [National Weather Service]

AFTERNOON — BUSH, BROWN, CHERTOFF WARNED OF LEVEE FAILURE BY NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER DIRECTOR: Dr. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center: “‘We were briefing them way before landfall. … It’s not like this was a surprise. We had in the advisories that the levee could be topped.’” [Times-Picayune; St. Petersburg Times]

LATE PM – REPORTS OF WATER TOPPLING OVER LEVEE: “Waves crashed atop the exercise path on the Lake Pontchartrain levee in Kenner early Monday as Katrina churned closer.” [Times-Picayune]

APPROXIMATELY 30,000 EVACUEES GATHER AT SUPERDOME WITH ROUGHLY 36 HOURS WORTH OF FOOD [Times-Picayune]

Monday, August 29

7AM – KATRINA MAKES LANDFALL AS A CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE [CNN]

8AM – MAYOR NAGIN REPORTS THAT WATER IS FLOWING OVER LEVEE: “I’ve gotten reports this morning that there is already water coming over some of the levee systems. In the lower ninth ward, we’ve had one of our pumping stations to stop operating, so we will have significant flooding, it is just a matter of how much.” [NBC’s “Today Show”]

MORNING — BUSH CALLS SECRETARY CHERTOFF TO DISCUSS IMMIGRATION: “I spoke to Mike Chertoff today — he’s the head of the Department of Homeland Security. I knew people would want me to discuss this issue [immigration], so we got us an airplane on — a telephone on Air Force One, so I called him. I said, are you working with the governor? He said, you bet we are.” [White House]

MORNING – BUSH SHARES BIRTHDAY CAKE PHOTO-OP WITH SEN. JOHN MCCAIN [White House]

11AM — BUSH VISITS ARIZONA RESORT TO PROMOTE MEDICARE DRUG BENEFIT: “This new bill I signed says, if you’re a senior and you like the way things are today, you’re in good shape, don’t change. But, by the way, there’s a lot of different options for you. And we’re here to talk about what that means to our seniors.” [White House]

LATE MORNING – LEVEE BREACHED: “A large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee, where it connects to the brand new ‘hurricane proof’ Old Hammond Highway bridge, gave way late Monday morning in Bucktown after Katrina’s fiercest winds were well north.” [Times-Picayune]

11:30AM — MICHAEL BROWN FINALLY REQUESTS THAT DHS DISPATCH 1,000 EMPLOYEES TO REGION, GIVES THEM TWO DAYS TO ARRIVE: “Brown’s memo to Chertoff described Katrina as ‘this near catastrophic event’ but otherwise lacked any urgent language. The memo politely ended, ‘Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities.’” [AP]

2PM — BUSH TRAVELS TO CALIFORNIA SENIOR CENTER TO DISCUSS MEDICARE DRUG BENEFIT: “We’ve got some folks up here who are concerned about their Social Security or Medicare. Joan Geist is with us. … I could tell — she was looking at me when I first walked in the room to meet her, she was wondering whether or not old George W. is going to take away her Social Security check.” [White House]

9PM — RUMSFELD ATTENDS SAN DIEGO PADRES BASEBALL GAME: Rumsfeld “joined Padres President John Moores in the owner’s box…at Petco Park.” [Editor & Publisher]

Tuesday, August 30

9AM – BUSH SPEAKS ON IRAQ AT NAVAL BASE CORONADO [White House]

MIDDAY – CHERTOFF FINALLY BECOMES AWARE THAT LEVEE HAS FAILED: “It was on Tuesday that the levee–may have been overnight Monday to Tuesday–that the levee started to break. And it was midday Tuesday that I became aware of the fact that there was no possibility of plugging the gap and that essentially the lake was going to start to drain into the city.” [Meet the Press, 9/4/05]

PENTAGON CLAIMS THERE ARE ENOUGH NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS IN REGION: “Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said the states have adequate National Guard units to handle the hurricane needs.” [WWL-TV]

MASS LOOTING REPORTED, SECURITY SHORTAGE CITED: “The looting is out of control. The French Quarter has been attacked,” Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson said. “We’re using exhausted, scarce police to control looting when they should be used for search and rescue while we still have people on rooftops.” [AP]

U.S.S. BATAAN SITS OFF SHORE, VIRTUALLY UNUSED: “The USS Bataan, a 844-foot ship designed to dispatch Marines in amphibious assaults, has helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and water. It also can make its own water, up to 100,000 gallons a day. And it just happened to be in the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina came roaring ashore. The Bataan rode out the storm and then followed it toward shore, awaiting relief orders. Helicopter pilots flying from its deck were some of the first to begin plucking stranded New Orleans residents. But now the Bataan’s hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients, are empty.” [Chicago Tribune]

3PM – PRESIDENT BUSH PLAYS GUITAR WITH COUNTRY SINGER MARK WILLIS [AP]

BUSH RETURNS TO CRAWFORD FOR FINAL NIGHT OF VACATION [AP]

Wednesday, August 31

TENS OF THOUSANDS TRAPPED IN SUPERDOME; CONDITIONS DETERIORATE: “A 2-year-old girl slept in a pool of urine. Crack vials littered a restroom. Blood stained the walls next to vending machines smashed by teenagers. ‘We pee on the floor. We are like animals,’ said Taffany Smith, 25, as she cradled her 3-week-old son, Terry. … By Wednesday, it had degenerated into horror. … At least two people, including a child, have been raped. At least three people have died, including one man who jumped 50 feet to his death, saying he had nothing left to live for. There is no sanitation. The stench is overwhelming.”" [Los Angeles Times, 9/1/05]

PRESIDENT BUSH FINALLY ORGANIZES TASK FORCE TO COORDINATE FEDERAL RESPONSE: Bush says on Tuesday he will “fly to Washington to begin work…with a task force that will coordinate the work of 14 federal agencies involved in the relief effort.” [http:/www.nytimes.com/2005/08/31/

national/nationalspecial/31response.html?pagewanted=1">

New York Times, 8/31/05]

JEFFERSON PARISH EMERGENCY DIRECTOR SAYS FOOD AND WATER SUPPLY GONE: “Director Walter Maestri: FEMA and national agencies not delivering the help nearly as fast as it is needed.” [WWL-TV]

80,000 BELIEVED STRANDED IN NEW ORLEANS: Former Mayor Sidney Barthelemy “estimated 80,000 were trapped in the flooded city and urged President Bush to send more troops.” [Reuters]

3,000 STRANDED AT CONVENTION CENTER WITHOUT FOOD OR WATER: “With 3,000 or more evacuees stranded at the convention center — and with no apparent contingency plan or authority to deal with them — collecting a body was no one’s priority. … Some had been at the convention center since Tuesday morning but had received no food, water or instructions.” [Times-Picayune]

5PM — BUSH GIVES FIRST MAJOR ADDRESS ON KATRINA: “Nothing about the president’s demeanor… — which seemed casual to the point of carelessness — suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis.” [New York Times]

8PM – CONDOLEEZZA RICE TAKES IN A BROADWAY SHOW: “On Wednesday night, Secretary Rice was booed by some audience members at ‘Spamalot!, the Monty Python musical at the Shubert, when the lights went up after the performance.” [New York Post, 9/2/05]

9PM — FEMA DIRECTOR BROWN CLAIMS SURPRISE OVER SIZE OF STORM: “I must say, this storm is much much bigger than anyone expected.” [CNN]

Thursday, September 1

8AM — BUSH CLAIMS NO ONE EXPECTED LEVEES TO BREAK: “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” [Washington Post]

CONDOLEEZZA RICE VISITS U.S. OPEN: “Rice, [in New York] on three days’ vacation to shop and see the U.S. Open, hitting some balls with retired champ Monica Seles at the Indoor Tennis Club at Grand Central.” [New York Post]

STILL NO COMMAND AND CONTROL ESTABLISHED: Terry Ebbert, New Orleans Homeland Security Director: “This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace. FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can’t bail out the city of New Orleans.” [Fox News]

2PM — MAYOR NAGIN ISSUES “DESPERATE SOS” TO FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: “This is a desperate SOS. Right now we are out of resources at the convention centre and don’t anticipate enough buses. We need buses. Currently the convention centre is unsanitary and unsafe and we’re running out of supplies.” [Guardian, 9/2/05]

2PM — MICHAEL BROWN CLAIMS NOT TO HAVE HEARD OF REPORTS OF VIOLENCE: “I’ve had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot, or you know, they’re banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I’ve had no reports of that.” [CNN]

NEW ORLEANS “DESCEND[S] INTO ANARCHY”: “Storm victims were raped and beaten, fights and fires broke out, corpses lay out in the open, and rescue helicopters and law enforcement officers were shot at as flooded-out New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday. ‘This is a desperate SOS,’ the mayor said.” [AP]

CONDOLEEZZA RICE GOES SHOE SHOPPING: “Just moments ago at the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue, Condoleeza Rice was seen spending several thousands of dollars on some nice, new shoes (we’ve confirmed this, so her new heels will surely get coverage from the WaPo’s Robin Givhan). A fellow shopper, unable to fathom the absurdity of Rice’s timing, went up to the Secretary and reportedly shouted, ‘How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!’” [Gawker]

MICHAEL BROWN FINALLY LEARNS OF EVACUEES IN CONVENTION CENTER: “We learned about that (Thursday), so I have directed that we have all available resources to get that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water and medical care that they need.” [CNN]

Friday, September 2

ROVE-LED CAMPAIGN TO BLAME LOCAL OFFICIALS BEGINS: “Under the command of President Bush’s two senior political advisers, the White House rolled out a plan…to contain the political damage from the administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina.” President Bush’s comments from the Rose Garden Friday morning formed “the start of this campaign.” [New York Times, 9/5/05]

9:35AM — BUSH PRAISES MICHAEL BROWN: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” [White House, 9/2/05]

10 AM — PRESIDENT BUSH STAGES PHOTO-OP “BRIEFING”: Coast Guard helicopters and crew diverted to act as backdrop for President Bush’s photo-op.

BUSH VISIT GROUNDS FOOD AID: “Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush’s visit to New Orleans, officials said.” [Times-Picayune]

LEVEE REPAIR WORK ORCHESTRATED FOR PRESIDENT’S VISIT: Sen. Mary Landrieu, 9/3: “Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment.” [Sen. Mary Landrieu]

BUSH USES 50 FIREFIGHTERS AS PROPS IN DISASTER AREA PHOTO-OP: A group of 1,000 firefighters convened in Atlanta to volunteer with the Katrina relief efforts. Of those, “a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew’s first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.” [Salt Lake Tribune; Reuters]

3PM — BUSH “SATISFIED WITH THE RESPONSE”: “I am satisfied with the response. I am not satisfied with all the results.” [AP]

Saturday, September 3

SENIOR BUSH ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL LIES TO WASHINGTON POST, CLAIMS GOV. BLANCO NEVER DECLARED STATE OF EMERGENCY: The Post reported in their Sunday edition “As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.” They were forced to issue a correction hours later. [Washington Post, 9/4/05]

9AM — BUSH BLAMES STATE AND LOCAL OFFICIALS: “[T]he magnitude of responding to a crisis over a disaster area that is larger than the size of Great Britain has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities. The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need.” [White House, 9/3/05]

If my memory is correct, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has been far too much a cheerleader for the Iraq War and a fan of the neo-cons who think America can--and should--remake the world in its own image in 80 days. But today's column is 90% on-the-mark. Read the entire piece before the NYT archives it.

Here is the money-quote from Friedman:

Bush got a mandate, almost a blank check, to rule from 9/11 that he never really earned at the polls. Unfortunately, he used that mandate not simply to confront the terrorists but to take a radically uncompassionate conservative agenda - on taxes, stem cells, the environment and foreign treaties - that was going nowhere before 9/11, and drive it into a post-9/11 world. In that sense, 9/11 distorted our politics and society.

No kidding. Throw in gay-baiting, bowing to the anti-tax-at-any-price-crowd, the religious (Christian) extremists, and there you have it. Has it ever occured to the Bush people that no one takes HIS calls for action in Iraq seriously because it is obvious that everything Bush and the right-wing do is mean to consolidate power? Has it occured to Bush that about half the American people (hopefully more now) have figured out that they use American's legitimate fear of terror not to protect the country, but to gain total power and push through an extremist agenda? If we are engaged in a titanic world struggle, do you hand over the keys of government to Pat Robertson?

Another exceprt from Friedman:

If the Bush-Cheney team seemed to be the right guys to deal with Osama, they seem exactly the wrong guys to deal with Katrina - and all the rot and misplaced priorities it's exposed here at home.These are people so much better at inflicting pain than feeling it, so much better at taking things apart than putting them together, so much better at defending "intelligent design" as a theology than practicing it as a policy.

You mean a permanent underclass? Racism? A rotting infrastructure? And I love this excerpt:

An administration whose tax policy has been dominated by the toweringly selfish Grover Norquist - who has been quoted as saying: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub" - doesn't have the instincts for this moment. Mr. Norquist is the only person about whom I would say this: I hope he owns property around the New Orleans levee that was never properly finished because of a lack of tax dollars. I hope his basement got flooded. And I hope that he was busy drowning government in his bathtub when the levee broke and that he had to wait for a U.S. Army helicopter to get out of town.

And two more for the road (yeah, I'm getting into this):

Besides ripping away the roofs of New Orleans, Katrina ripped away the argument that we can cut taxes, properly educate our kids, compete with India and China, succeed in Iraq, keep improving the U.S. infrastructure, and take care of a catastrophic emergency - without putting ourselves totally into the debt of Beijing.

As my Democratic entrepreneur friend Joel Hyatt once remarked, the Bush team's philosophy since 9/11 has been: "We're at war. Let's party."