In a Newsweek interview with Merle Haggard, he’s asked about the Dixie Chicks:

I don’t really understand it. I don’t know what’s new about girls not liking war, first of all. And second of all, they have a right to say what they want to. Third, I’m an American, and I’ll back everything they say. I’m not for the war in Iraq because I don’t believe they’ve explained why they’re doing it.

Later in the interview, Mr. Haggard says his wife doesn’t want him to write political songs because they’ll send the IRS after him, and he thinks she’s probably right.

A second Newsweek article covers Maliki’s Master Plan which includes a timetable for US withdrawal from Iraq. The new head of the Iraqi government seems to believe that Iraqis won’t believe they have a government while the country is occupied by foreign troops.

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Andante started with the adventures of Pippin the Chihuahua, but now Karen has Poe the long-hair dachshund.

Note: puppy blogging is only a substitute for cat blogging when there is no other alternative.

Scout at First Draft continues to keep the status of New Orleans on people’s mind, because it is not going to get better if people ignore it.

The crew from 3 Old Men have several posts and pictures up from their trip back to the Gulf Coast. They visited the houses they helped build in Mississippi with Habitat for Humanity and then went on to New Orleans.

Folks, things are not fixed, hell, the debris still hasn’t been cleaned up in many areas. You can’t rebuild until you get clearance from FEMA and the insurance companies, and a lot of people want to be sure that the floodwalls are going to hold before they start spending the money. None of that prevents debris removal, but it hasn’t occurred in some places because they are still looking for human remains.

We have been lucky so far, because there is a lot of wind shear that has prevented the formation of storms. There are three possibles out in the Atlantic, but the wind shear has prevented them from developing. Those conditions could change at any point and life could get “interesting” for the Gulf states. It would have nice to have been further along in the clean-up from the 2004 storms, not to mention the 2005.