Pierre at Candide’s Notebooks feels that the government reaction to “terrorism” has gone From Solemn To Embarrassing. He offers his view of the future for airline travelers.

R. Neal has a nice piece on Bayou la Batre over at Facing South.

It’s a little Gulfside town that made its money by shrimping and fishing. The people aren’t rich, but they felt they had a pretty good life based on what Nature offered them in the Gulf of Mexico.

This is one of the many places the Shrubbery didn’t want to go on his Katrina tour. Not much has happened since the storm, and the Federal government prevented the fishermen from digging a canal to retrieve their boats from the inland area where the storm surge carried them. A year later and almost two dozen large vessels are still in the woods inland.

CNN’s article, Bush’s 9/11 speech sparks bitter partisan squabbles, actually leads with the Democratic response and some fairly straight forward reporting.

A real surprise is over at MSNBC which carries a Newsweek opinion piece by Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey: Patriotism or Politics?

The White House promised a non-political speech. Bush’s aides said the president’s address to the nation would exploit no partisan differences, and issue no calls to Congress. In technical terms, they were right. To all intents and purposes, they were wrong.

It looks like the Kool-Aid is losing its effect.

Update: more along this line from Digby.

If you haven’t already, you should head over to STOP George’s Kos diary for the wide angle lens view of a couple of photo ops. [via Steve Gilliard]

I was really thrilled by the Shrubbery wiping his feet on the flag.

As long as you’re cruising you can read Laura Rozen on the Washington Post piece about CIA agents lawyering up on the taxpayers’ dime.

Why are we, the citizens, reimbursing our employees for the cost of their legal defense for breaking our laws? If they want this kind of help they should join a union.