Scout of First Draft is more than slightly annoyed when, in defense of the Shrubbery, Jonah Goldberg writes:

And then there’s Hurricane Katrina. Yes, the federal government could have responded better. And of course there were real tragedies involved in that disaster. But you know what? Bad stuff happens during disasters, which is why we don’t call them tickle-parties.

I would have thought by now that everyone understood that the major problem with the Katrina response was not what they did, but what they didn’t do, as in they didn’t do anything for days, and they prevented others from doing anything.

Hurricane John just made its way up the Baja peninsula and the Mexican government made food and water drops by helicopter within hours, not days. Why is the Mexican government able to react more quickly than the US government?

Glenn Greenwald takes issue with Mark Steyn’s endorsement of the attitude of David Warren et al. regarding the kidnapped Fox News journalists.

General George Smith Patton, Jr. was not known as an appeaser, but was considered by many to be both personally brave and extremely bellicose.

Messieurs Steyn and Warren should study General Patton’s well-known quote:

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

The winner isn’t the first “martyr” buried, it’s the last man standing, but people whose biggest fear is a social snub would hardly be a position to understand that.

Jack Cluth over at The People’s Republic of Seabrook is one of the fossils of blogtopia™ ^{[skippy the bush kangaroo]}. Today he is celebrating his Fifth Blogiversary™ ^{[Talk Left]}, which is close to a era in blog years.

Go congratulate the relic.

If you have dipped a toe into the news stream you would have seen some of what James Wolcott describes in his post about rightwing media attempts to OD on testosterone over Iran.

Hollywood at its B picture worst [or best, if you like that sort of thing] never portrayed a “primitive tribe” in a longer or louder war drum sequence than is currently on display stage right. I don’t know if it’s the pleated chinos, tasseled loafers, or bowties that make it such a howl, but someone needs to drop by a poultry processing plant to get them some bones and feathers to add some “authenticity” to their war dance. I realize that they have a shortage of “technical consultants” since Jack Abramoff got busted, but make the effort.

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