Miscellaneous News

A 28-member search party is looking for adventurer Steve Fossett, who disappeared almost exactly one year ago.

I doubt they'll ever find him. He's likely long since dead. Legends will sprout up about him, just like there are tales over Amelia Earhart.
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New Orleans residents can return.
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Republican Convention

Laura Bush and Cindy McCain helped to kick off this year's convention by focusing on Hurricane Gustav.

Because of the hurricane, the convention will be scaled down somewhat this year.

Hurricane Gustav [Updated]

Gustav has weakened to a Category 2.

Officials are optimistic New Orleans will be spared the worst of the storm.


Brownie tells us all about what is right with the response to Gustav:

Hurricane Gustav

More than two million people on the Gulf Coast have evacuated.

Few people have stayed behind.

As everybody knows, the GOP convention will be a very bare-bones affair with the hurricane coming up. They don't dare repeat the catastrophe of Katrina.

Hurricane Gustav

Authorities have been calling for mandatory evacuations of East Jefferson.

There is NO excuse for ANYBODY leaving their pets behind:

Pets can be evacuated through the public evacuation, authorities said. Dogs need to be on a leash and cats need to be in carriers to be allowed on the buses.

Michael Moore

should just shut up:

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

Dear God,

The other night, the Rev. James Dobson’s ministry asked all believers to pray for a storm on Thursday night so that the Obama acceptance speech outdoors in Denver would have to be cancelled.

I see that You have answered Rev. Dobson’s prayers — except the storm You have sent to earth is not over Denver, but on its way to New Orleans! In fact, You have scheduled it to hit Louisiana at exactly the moment that George W. Bush is to deliver his speech at the Republican National Convention.

Now, heavenly Father, we all know You have a great sense of humor and impeccable timing. To send a hurricane on the third anniversary of the Katrina disaster AND right at the beginning of the Republican Convention was, at first blush, a stroke of divine irony. I don’t blame You, I know You’re angry that the Republicans tried to blame YOU for Katrina by calling it an “Act of God” — when the truth was that the hurricane itself caused few casualties in New Orleans. Over a thousand people died because of the mistakes and neglect caused by humans, not You.

Some of us tried to help after Katrina hit, while Bush ate cake with McCain and twiddled his thumbs. I closed my office in New York and sent my entire staff down to New Orleans to help. I asked people on my website to contribute to the relief effort I organized — and I ended up sending over two million dollars in donations, food, water, and supplies (collected from thousands of fans) to New Orleans while Bush’s FEMA ice trucks were still driving around Maine three weeks later.

But this past Thursday night, the Washington Post reported that the Republicans had begun making plans to possibly postpone the convention. The AP had reported that there were no shelters set up in New Orleans for this storm, and that the levee repairs have not been adequate. In other words, as the great Ronald Reagan would say, “There you go again!”

So the last thing John McCain and the Republicans needed was to have a split-screen on TVs across America: one side with Bush and McCain partying in St. Paul, and on the other side of the screen, live footage of their Republican administration screwing up once again while New Orleans drowns.

So, yes, You have scared the Jesus, Mary and Joseph out of them, and more than a few million of your followers tip their hats to You.

But now it appears that You haven’t been having just a little fun with Bush & Co. It appears that Hurricane Gustav is truly heading to New Orleans and the Gulf coast. We hear You, O Lord, loud and clear, just as we did when Rev. Falwell said You made 9/11 happen because of all those gays and abortions. We beseech You, O Merciful One, not to punish us again as Pat Robertson said You did by giving us Katrina because of America’s “wholesale slaughter of unborn children.” His sentiments were echoed by other Republicans in 2005.

So this is my plea to you: Don’t do this to Louisiana again. The Republicans got your message. They are scrambling and doing the best they can to get planes, trains and buses to New Orleans so that everyone can get out. They haven’t sent the entire Louisiana National Guard to Iraq this time — they are already patrolling the city streets. And, in a nod to I don’t know what, Bush’s head of FEMA has named a man to help manage the federal government’s response. His name is W. Michael Moore. I kid you not, heavenly Father. They have sent a man with both my name AND W’s to help save the Gulf Coast.

So please God, let the storm die out at sea. It’s done enough damage already. If you do this one favor for me, I promise not to invoke your name again. I’ll leave that to the followers of Rev. Dobson and to those gathering this week in St. Paul.

Your faithful servant and former seminarian,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. To all of God’s fellow children who are reading this, the city New Orleans has not yet recovered from Katrina. Please click here for a list of things you can do to help our brothers and sisters on the Gulf Coast. And, if you do live along the Gulf Coast, please take all necessary safety precautions immediately.

There is nothing funny about this, and the PS doesn't absolve the outrageous previous screed.

Miscellaneous News

Oh, Jesus, here we go again, meaning it's hurricane season and Gustav is considered a monster.
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With all of the hoopla surrounding the presidential race, our dictator remains forgotten but not gone.

Some fools though want to pretend a Democrat is going to take the White House:

Anxious denizens of Bushworld worry that McCain will beat himself and in the process take down their best chance for deliverance when it comes to the verdict of history. One former Bush aide who spends his days publicly bashing Barack Obama sat down for lunch with me recently and before the appetizers even arrived lamented that the Democrat will probably crush McCain. He ruefully called Obama one of the three most talented political figures of his lifetime, along with John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Bush’s political guru, Karl Rove, in conversations with friends this summer, could hardly restrain his exasperation at what he saw as the McCain team’s dysfunctional organization and sclerotic message. And the president himself, according to friends and prominent Republicans, privately rails about what he considers McCain’s undisciplined approach to the campaign and grouses about McCain’s efforts to distance himself from the administration. A new McCain ad this month declared, “We’re worse off than we were four years ago.” That’s the sort of stinging indictment a candidate usually issues when the other party is in the White House.

I for one don't believe it.

There's plenty of speculation in the piece about the relationship between Bush and McCain.

And what of our dictator's legacy?

Beyond the library, Bush plans to write a book and is settling on a ghostwriter. During a private gathering for House Republican leaders in the White House residence this summer, he mused about using the book to set the record straight as he sees it. “He has a number of pivotal points in his presidency that he’s willing to sit down and reflect on,” Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the House minority whip, told me afterward. “He believes that history is on his side. And if it’s not, he’s never going to know.”

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