James Lileks expounds on the continuing national tragedy that is Bush Derangement Syndrome:

One theory

The corruption at the UN is even more wide spread than most imagined (though I’m not surprised at all):

Procurement and budgeting corruption may escape Volcker’s scrutiny, but they are central to the mandate of Annan.

This scandal touches on almost everything the secretary-general is supposed to control. It is by way of procurement contracts, for goods and services ranging from cappuccino and paper clips at U.N. headquarters, to air freight services and food rations for peacekeeping troops worldwide, that the United Nations spends the billions contributed every year by member states

The corruption at the UN is even more wide spread than most imagined (though I’m not surprised at all):

Procurement and budgeting corruption may escape Volcker’s scrutiny, but they are central to the mandate of Annan.

This scandal touches on almost everything the secretary-general is supposed to control. It is by way of procurement contracts, for goods and services ranging from cappuccino and paper clips at U.N. headquarters, to air freight services and food rations for peacekeeping troops worldwide, that the United Nations spends the billions contributed every year by member states

The corruption at the UN is even more wide spread than most imagined (though I’m not surprised at all):

Procurement and budgeting corruption may escape Volcker’s scrutiny, but they are central to the mandate of Annan.

This scandal touches on almost everything the secretary-general is supposed to control. It is by way of procurement contracts, for goods and services ranging from cappuccino and paper clips at U.N. headquarters, to air freight services and food rations for peacekeeping troops worldwide, that the United Nations spends the billions contributed every year by member states

Tim Cavanaugh knows where to find the money to rebuild southeast Louisiana:

Nobody, however, made out on the highway bill quite like the state of Alaska and its ravenous political class. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, bragged to his constituents that the transportation bill (which Young loves so much he named it after his wife) was “stuffed like a turkey” with handouts for his state, and he was not exaggerating. The $721 million in tundra spending includes: a $2 23 million “bridge to “nowhere,” connecting the 8,900-person town of Ketchikan to an airport on Gravina Island, whose population is 50; a $200 million bridge connecting Anchorage to a rural port so insignificant even the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce tried to block the project; and $15 million in seed money for a 68-mile, $284 million access road to Juneau. (This last one is opposed by not only the Environmental Protection Agency but a majority of the area’s residents.)

A retired Marine major explains that FEMA is not a first responder.

I’ll have more thoughts on this later. But briefly, to the degree that this has been a PR disaster for the administration, it (unlike all of the other things, like Global Warming, and Racism in Amerikkka, and lousy movies out of Hollywood, and French disdain for us, and the hurricane itself) really is Bush’s fault.

Why? Because he’s not only done nothing to discourage the notion that the federal government should see every sparrow that falls, and immediately call in an air strike of a soft net upon which it can plummet, nurses at the ready, and grief counselors for the potentially bereaved sparrow family, even before it hits the ground, he’s actively encouraged it. As such, criticism of him as a “conservative” shows just how meaningless that word has become, a situation to which, for better or worse, he has been a major contributor.

[Update at 9:30 AM PDT]

Hugh Hewitt has related thoughts, and questions for Terry Neal and Brendan Loy:

What is the “police power?”

Where does it reside?

Is there a federal “police power?”

Can the federal government order the evacuation of a city when state and local officials have not done so?

Who has first call on a state’s national guard?

Who controls a city’s police department?

Can a federal official order a police department to deploy in strength to specific points within a city such as the Supredome or the Convention Center?

Can a federal official commandeer a city’s supply of school busses, city busses, and city personnel?

[Update mid afternoon on Tuesday]

Here’s another little bit from Bill Whittle’s piece from yesterday that’s pertinent:

A person of some modest education might have remembered that the worship and adulation fostered after 9/11 was for the NYPD and the FDNY. No one was buying FEMA hats after 9/11, because FEMA is essentially a mop-up agency. It’s the first responders, the local governments, that will determine if a city will live or die. The State — that means, the “governor”– has the sole authority to mobilize the National Guard, and the governor of the state of Louisana was not only slow to do that, she turned down NG assistance from several OTHER states as well. The President does not have the authority to drop precious egg salad sandwiches from Michael Moore’s missing helicopters. We do this ON PURPOSE. We limit the power of the federal government, as those of us fortunate enough to have spent time in Civics, rather than Self Esteem classes, are aware. This is so that we do not develop a central power so strong that eventually we end up with idiot inbred royals, or Presidentes for life, on the face of OUR money.

It’s been a while since Bill Whittle wrote a new essay, but it was worth the wait. Apparently momentous events bring out great thoughts. And let’s face it, Sean Penn (among others) was an irresistible target:

What kind of money could Barbra and Martin and Tim and Susan and Gwenneth and George and Steven and Viggo and Linda and Harvey and Brad and Angelina and Ben and all the rest

Stephen Hayes provides more reason to think that we need a commission to investigate the 9/11 Commission:

Why would the 9/11 Commission fail to mention Abdul Rahman Yasin, who admitted his role in the first World Trade Center attack, which killed 6 people, injured more than 1,000, and blew a hole seven stories deep in the North Tower? It’s an odd omission, especially since the commission named no fewer than five of his accomplices.

Why would the 9/11 Commission neglect Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, a man who was photographed assisting a 9/11 hijacker and attended perhaps the most important 9/11 planning meeting?

And why would the 9/11 Commission fail to mention the overlap between the two successful plots to attack the World Trade Center?

The answer is simple: The Iraqi link didn’t fit the commission’s narrative….

…From the evidence now available, it seems clear that Saddam Hussein did not direct the 9/11 attacks. Few people have ever claimed he did. But some four years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and one year after the 9/11 Commission released its final report, there is much we do not know. The determination of these officials to write out of the history any Iraqi involvement in terrorism against America has contributed mightily to public misperceptions about the former Iraqi regime and the war on terror.

While we’re at it, it would be nice to complete the investigation of the OK City bombing, and find who else was involved besides McVeigh and Nichols.

So now Mother Sheehan has support from the communists, Al Sharpton, and Nazis.

I don’t know about her but, like Indiana Jones, I hate those guys.

CNN just announced a planned new arrival in Crawford to join Mother Sheehan.

You know, if I were staging a protest event of some kind and Al Sharpton decided to join it, I’d be compelled to rethink my position. But that’s just me.