Scout at First Draft has done a lot of work on all of the issues surrounding Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. This week it was DHS cronyism. When January 2009 finally gets here and there is a change of administration, the Department of Homeland Security is going to be cut back to its third level managers, because there are no civil service people in the top two levels, everyone is a political appointee. In his effort to break unions, the Shrubbery has politicized every department in government, appointing ideologues and partisans to professional positions for which they are not qualified. There is no one available to “watch the store” during the transition period.

Scout’s second piece is on the insurance companies that whistle-blowers are claiming transfered a good deal of their liability to the government Flood Insurance program.

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The fine folks at Facing South have been posting on the efforts of Florida Power and Light to build a new generation plant on the west side of Lake Okeechobee. They say they need more capacity to keep up with growth.

Randy Neal reports:

Earlier this week, the Florida Public Service Commission denied a Florida Power and Light “Needs Determination” permit for a huge coal-fired power plant on 4900 acres of wilderness near the Everglades National Park in Glades Co. Florida, effectively killing the project.

Sue Sturgis writes that FPL is now talking about building a nuclear plant, on the same site.

It’s time for a reality check. It doesn’t make any difference whether they use coal, natural gas, oil, ethanol, biomass, or nuclear fission, they are still going to be heating water to drive a steam turbine, and there isn’t enough water to do it. Ignoring the fact that if something isn’t done about global warming the area is going to be under sea water in a few decades, they just put out a wild fire on the what was once the bottom of Lake Okeechobee because of the drought.

There are no spare millions of gallons of water available every day to be used by a steam turbine. The Florida Aquifer is under stress and development in South Florida has to be reined in, because there quite simply isn’t enough water for the people already living there.

A song parody, GOP Piety Song from Mad Kane, of course.

Juan Cole of Informed Comment: “The Republican candidates are way behind the Dems in internet popularity so far. Imagine losing a race because you did not have enough Facebook friends.”

Kevin Drum Political Animal on cold cash, in which Rep. Don Young [R-AK] get a $40k “campaign contribution” and then adds $91M to a bill to improve roads in Lee County, Florida. Being from Alaska, Rep. Young didn’t have to wrap it in foil and stick it in a freezer.

Sock Gnome Discovered

Who me? I’m just a cute little sleeping kitten.

[Editor: You always wondered what happened to the other sock, now you know – filched by the Sock Gnome.]

Friday Ark