Remember that the storm swell didn’t engulf New Orleans, nor did the storm destroy the levees directly. The city flooded after the storm had receded.

I’m pretty sure that the “storm” is still “receding” somewhere up near the Hudson Bay right now.

And this is one of the smart lefties I read. Here’s one of the dumb ones: bitching about the 2006 budget that caused this disaster — which, well, starts at the end of September — 31 days into the future. What I particularly enjoy is the “definitive proof” link leads to a story about a contractor for ACE that can’t seem to get paid on time. NO! In Louisiana? Stop the presses!

I love this kind of stuff: But what does Nostradamus have to say? Glad you asked!

But wait! Didn’t some egghead figure out that the true number of the beast was 616? Man, I hate that…all those hours of conspiratorializing gone to waste. And the mess they all left…freaking Freemasons. You’d think they could square the rumpus room away before they go home…

OK, some levity:

Thursday State Fair Grand Stand, $Your Eternal Soul’s Damnation in Hell (if you go with two of your best friends, make sure one of you wears a tshirt, the other a Western shirt, and make the fattest of the 3 of you wear a long-cut, untucked silk shirt with a spikey collar and the sleeves undone, pout at any girls you meet)

Jack completely punishes Maria McBridges and some boy-band.

Me, I’m sitting here loading up all my damn Cajun music into iTunes*, in honor of the Big NO. Here’s who I gots so far:
Boozoo Chavis
Clifton Chenier
Buckwheat Zydeco
Beau Jocque
Jimmy Thibodeaux (we last ran into Jimmy on these pages here…)

No New Orleans? Not while I’m drawing breath. Hell, I’ll sell it all and build the world’s biggest dance hall on stilts down in the Quarter if I have to. We’ll ferry everybody in on airboats, right over the gators’ heads. Poker in the back, too (heh). And I won’t need no stinking federal dollars to do it You can’t let that kind of greatness just wash away. You know how many people don’t even know that they like that kind of music yet? Shoot, man…

* I believe I’m thisfar from buying a damn iPod. And yeah, I feel like a pod-person. Kevin, didn’t you have one of those you said you weren’t using much? Make you a deal…

I wonder if King Tut-Tut thinks “ruthless” is too rough of a turn of phrase for these pieces of shit looters:

Late Tuesday, Gov. Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher described a disturbing scene unfolding in uptown New Orleans, where looters were trying to break into Children’s Hospital.

Bottcher said the director of the hospital fears for the safety of the staff and the 100 kids inside the hospital. The director said the hospital is locked, but that the looters were trying to break in and had gathered outside the facility.

Several loads of buckshot would not be mis-spent here.

You know, it’s almost like ripping off ancient pottery from an Iraqi museum, which is what some dipshit brought up. Sick children + caregivers = Mesopotamian piss-pots these days.

interdictor is my freaking hero:

I heard I was on CNN and it was mentioned that my tone is no longer optimistic. Let me just say that I am very optimistic. The city can descend into chaos for a little while, but eventually order will develop. Sure, it looks bleak, but we’ll work through it.

I have a lot of people telling us to abandon ship and get out. Guys, that’s not gonna happen. I’ll eat roaches and drink the funky Quarter sludge in the gutters of Bourbon Street long before I abandon my city. I’ve got resources and will and so does my team, and we’re here until this is over.

Should have linked this long ago, but I didn’t want to get in the way of the Big Dogs.

I love this entry from the same blog:

They are ok and armed and defending the bar. They plan on staying at the bar until the police make them leave or until the situation with the electricity looks too bleak. The quarter isn’t flooding yet and so far they still have gas at the bar so they’ve been cooking what perishables they have left.

Some might call that foolhardy, and I almost do, but I can understand the idea that you only have one life, and when you put every bit of into something, it’s worth defending until you have to blow. And you only blow so you can get back to rebuild.

Should New Orleans be rebuilt?

Call me a romantic, but I’m afraid I simply can’t imagine an America without New Orleans. It does not compute.

Now if the question is, should it be rebuilt 100% with 100% federal tax dollars, that’s valid. But like some say, let’s block the breeches, put out the fires and bury the dead before the question even gets asked. That means you, too, Congress.

Have a laptop hard-drive go semi-bad…just enough to keep you in desperate recovery mode for about six hours, until you throw in the towel and go buy a new one and start from scratch. Well, it’s bigger and it’s faster, so WTHeck?

Donate to the American Red Cross, or the Salvation Army.

And I do have RV spots for anyone who needs to ride it out for however long. It’s a long way from home, I know, but the offer’s there.

The last Truly Great American City is under direct & heavy assault by Mother Nature. Godspeed and good luck, you beautiful, crazy people who make it a beautiful, crazy city.

UPDATE: Which leads me to wonder if there’s anything I can do. Well, I have tons of room for RVs and tents and such if you want/need to hunker down for a while. I also have truckloads of stuff to help clean up after she blows out — tractor, chainsaws, tents, all that survival-type crap, just sitting here high and dry. I could be rolling by manana, no problem. I love my coon-ass brethren and would be happy to go help out.

KEEPING UP UPDATE: Terry Teachout has an excellent link roundup of Katrina-bloggers. Spooky, spooky stuff. And keep praying…

FQ UPDATE: Fox News live shot shows the corner of Bienville and Bourbon (Old Absinthe House) to be basically unscathed — a few broken windows and shutters, but not much else. Unreal.

As BlogLines continues to de-impress me, I get antsy to read about other server-side aggregators. Here’s one based on Ajax.

Human Cannonball Soars Across U.S. Border

Except someone forgot this is a pure hayseed moment, and got all artsy-fartsy philosophical about it:

Tellez called the project “living sculpture” and said it was about “dissolving borders” between the United States and Mexico and between mental health patients and the rest of the world.

“David Smith is a metaphor for flying over human borders, flying over the law, flying over everything that is established,” he said

Whatever, dude…we know a human cannonball when we see one, and they’re rarely not worthy of a grin. Don’t ruin the moment with your rickety “metaphor” talk, m’kay?

* What can I say? It’s a good Hayseed day, I guess.

Farmer May Have Caught Legendary ‘Chupacabra’ : What he found in his trap was a mix between a hairless dog, a rat and a kangaroo.

Poor little critter in the trap

Man, I love a chupacabra story…

Banjo Jones notes* the drop in talk-radio audience. He sez:

Across the country, audience ratings for talk radio are dropping. It could be a function of the election cycle, say some. And it could be a reflection of the fortunes of the current Administration, since most talk radio is Republican.

Me, I think it’s because they insist on letting the general public call in, and then put them on the air. I like to imagine that all of those callers are mouth-breathing morons living in their collective parents’ converted attic, but sadly, I know that at least some of these callers are productive members of society that contribute to our national economy and probably lead good lives, with happy families and well-kept lawns. Any sensible adult, though, would shun them if their ignorance and lunacy were widely known. That’s why I turned off political talk radio, anyway (and it’s why I’m punching out more and more on sports talk, too.)

Combine Caller on Line One with the undisputed fact that the random generic talk radio host is an uninformed, egomaniacal blowhard, and the these-days inevitable Gaggle of Baboons with Headsets that they have surrounding the host, and it’s Sayanora, Sweetheart for me. Life’s too short, and there’s too much good music**, to waste a second on someone else’s st00p1d poli-sci opinion.

* Still no permalinks for Banjo. Aren’t they a default part of that Blogger buddy?

** Which reminds me of a business idea I had for those satellite radio dudes: add a Buy CD button to the receiver. It works like this — when you get your service, you can go online and fill in your credit card number and shipping address. Then, when a song comes on that you like, you hit the button, and the Magical Interweb Wizard finds the lowest price, buys it, and sends it to you. Heck, you could probably go ahead and sell it yourself and take a couple of nickels for the trouble. My desk would be piled to the ceiling with new stuff I generally hear and like but then forget about 5 minutes later. Wrap this around the new all-digital download services, if you’d like. Oh, yeah — this idea is copyrighted by The Fat Guy©. You can PayPal me the royalties. You’re welcome.

This would be a fun project: HOW-TO: Portable car pc

It’s got me thinking of ways to hack out a road-trip Tablet PC. I’ve got the laptop and OS already. The trick would be an external display that was Tablet-capable. Combined with the Verizon EV-DO card, I’d really be always-on.

Hang on. What am I thinking here? All I need is a power-supply and a secure ‘holder’ bracket (vibration-dampened) for the laptop itself. No, wait. Laptop LCD screens aren’t near bright enough to be used outdoors.

Yep, an external screen. Hack it into the stereo system, and you’ve got an iPod Super-Deluxe. Hack it into your VoIP provider and you’ve got instantaneous voice-mail (gawd, I hate voice mail) delivery.

Well, anyway…it’s a fun way to waste a few minutes, thinking about doing cool stuff like this. I think adding the EV-DO is the shizzle, though. To heck with having to find WiFi. Although, a seamless switcher app would be nice to have for those times when you do have it. Hmm…

NB: You have to love the Youth of America, too:

The “trunk”, which is a very short space between the back seat and the rear of the car, is just enough room for an 1800 watt car amp and dual 12” speaker box.

Gotta have priorities, you know…

Good ol’ Jeffro:

Interesting… so imagine if rather than having to go to companies for service — and waiting on hold and waiting and waiting… — the companies came to us! What a concept.

Haven’t we seen this before? Telemarketing, anyone? We had to make it a federal case to get it go away?