This is a good sign

Apparently, the FBI caught a Egyptian national, here in the country illegally, with an airline pilot's uniform, a chart of Memphis International Airport, and a DVD entitled "How an Airline Captain Should Look and Act". Now this all might be innocent, but I think not. And despite his protestation saying his "school is everything", he's being held without bond.

Even if he's not a terrorost, I say, out he goes. He's here illegally. I'm glad we caught this one.

Oil slides

Good news aat the pump, as oil futures fell to a six week low. Some experts see a maximum oil price of $55 per barrel by Halloween. I say, mid $40s by end of Q1 next year. All you greedhead that bought at $70, remember: pigs get slaughtered.

I always thought Garrison Keillor was an asshole

And this confirms it. He's suing a blogger for a parody.

This is what always bothers me about the left: their arrogant humorlessness. Everything they see is framed in the politics of Oppression by the Pale Penis People and I, for one, am so sick of it. I guess this goes a long way to explain the success of Rush Limbaugh, who has made a career out of being politically incorrect (he probably coined the termed.)

Almost all of my New York, Jewish, live-in-The-City relatives are like this. They hate President George Bush because of the way he looks (yes, they actually said that). They ask me, in all seriousness, if I would send my daughter to die in Iraq. That I'm not willing to "sacrifice my own child" to the endeavor somehow negates it's worth. Nevermind, that we have a volunteer army and that parents don't own their adult children. If my daughter wanted to enlist -- as an adult -- then that wouldn't matter.

They are all of the same mind. Time to turn off NPR. And defund it completely.

From NBC News last night:

Read this report from NBC News last night:

LISA MYERS reporting:
It's called the Mardi Gras Fountain, and its unveiling was celebrated this year in typical New Orleans style. The cost? Two point four million dollars paid by the Orleans Levee Board, the state agency whose main job is to protect the levees surrounding New Orleans. The same levees that failed after Katrina hit.

Mr. BILLY NUNGESSER (Former Levee Board President): They misspent the money, so any dollar they wasted was a dollar that would have went to the levees.

MYERS: Billy Nungesser, a former top Republican official, was once president of the Levee Board, and says he lost his job because he targeted wasteful spending.

Mr. NUNGESSER: A cesspool of politics, that's all it was: provide jobs for people, and state senators and, you know, contracts--giving out contracts.

MYERS: In fact, NBC News has uncovered a pattern of what critics call questionable spending practices by the Levee Board, a board which at one point was accused by a state inspector general of "a long-standing and continuing disregard of the public interest." Beyond the fountain, there's $15 million spent on two overpasses that helped gamblers get to Bally's riverboat casino, critics tried and failed to put some of that money into flood protection. Forty-five thousand dollars for private investigators to dig up dirt on this radio host and board critic, then another $45,000 to settle after he sued.

Unidentified Man: They hired a private eye for nine months to find something to--to make me look whacko, to make me look crazy or bad.

MYERS: Critics charged for years the board has paid more attention to marinas, gambling, and business than to maintaining the levees. Example, of 11 construction projects now on the board's Web site, only two are related to flood control.

Mr. JAMES HUEY (Levee Board President): I will assure you that you will find that all of our money was appropriately expended.

MYERS: Levee Board president Jim Huey says money for the levees comes from a different account than money for business activities, and that part of the board's job is providing recreational opportunities. And despite the catastrophic flooding, Huey says...

Mr. HUEY: As far as the overall flood protection system, it's intact. It's there today. It worked. In 239 miles of levees, 152 floodgates, canals throughout this entire city, there was only two areas.

MYERS: But those two critical areas where major canals, and their collapse contributed to hundreds of deaths and widespread destruction. Lisa Myers, NBC News, Washington.

What is amazing to me is that more people haven't picked up on this story; that it isn't about how much money the Bush Administration did or didn't spend on the levees. It's how much was wasted on stupid shit by corrupt politicians trying to bribe the citizens with their own money. P.J. O'Rourke was right when he said of American Government that it is a Parliment of Whores and the whores are us. Exhibit A: New Orleans.

From the Corps of Engineers

The breaches that have occurred on the levees surrounding New Orleans are located on the 17th Street Canal Levee and London Avenue Canal Levee. The 17th Street Canal Levees and London Avenue Canal Levees are completed segments of the Lake Ponchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project. Although other portions of the Lake Ponchartrain project are pending, these two segments were complete, and no modifications or improvements to these segments were pending, proposed, or remain unfunded.

Three major pending projects are in various stages of development: two hurricane protection projects -- the West Bank and Vicinity project and the remaining portions of the Lake Ponchartrain project, and the Southeast Louisiana flood damage reduction project. Even if these three projects in development were completed and in place, they would not have prevented the breach and the flooding caused by the breach. Like the levee that was breached, the hurricane protection projects were designed to withstand forces of a hurricane that has a .5% chance of occurrence in any given year. This translates to what is now classified as a Category 3 hurricane.

Oil continues to drop

For those who bought at $70+, read this and weep.