They Neuter Wolverines, Don't They?

Michigan pulls defeat out of the jaws of victory in a 23-20 loss to Wisconsin. The kind of Michigan loss we've come to know and love over the last few years: no ball control in the last five minutes of a close game, leaving them in the hole with 24 seconds left. Ugh.


Conservative Theories Meet Political Realities.

David Brooks addressed the YAF on the history and future of the modern American conservative movement (podcast at C-SPAN's American Perspectives). His thesis: conservatives developed a tremendous structure to analyze and formulate ideas, but lack the political acumen to get them implemented as policy (ending Communism and beginning welfare reform may be exceptions). John Podhoretz, writing in the 10th anniversary issue of The Weekly Standard, recalled:

OH, LORD, the government shutdown of 1995. How I craved it. How utterly sure I was that it would reveal the naked political perfidy of the Clinton administration, which was resisting important entitlement reforms and spending restrictions that the nation surely wanted and certainly needed. And, like so many conservatives in Washington, how I had waited for the moment when, at last, there would be a true confrontation between the Big Spenders and the Rugged Individualists that would finally lift the veil of Beltway secrecy on the rottenness of the federal budget.

Oh, Lord, how wrong I was.

The political and social impact of the government shutdown was
completely the reverse of what I had expected. For it was not Bill Clinton and the Democrats who were blamed for the shuttering of the government, but Newt Gingrich and the Republicans. Americans wanted the federal government up and running, and they didn't like the image (admittedly fed to them by the liberal media) of a petulant GOP having a temper tantrum because it couldn't get its way...

Have conservatives learned the ropes of governance? The runaway spending by the government would suggest - No. Any progress on Social Security? No. Health Care? No. Education? Very little progress. Dismantling the culture of dependency? Not evident in the last month's events.

In The Candidate, Senator-elect McKay turns from the wild crowd of his victory party and asks his campaign manager: "now what?" It's time to learn how to transform ideas into realities.

March of the Comedians.

Kris of Reflections of a Libertarian Republican has a photoessay of today's fete' of the Hard Left in Washington, DC, co-sponsored by our "comrades" at ANSWER. Some of the attendees were Jesse Jackson, congresscritter Cynthia McKinney (D-Neptune), and Cindy Sheehan. And those were the moderate voices...

(LGF suggests the estimates of 100,000 may be dubious; photos of the event at Getty show marching crowds a tad thin and standing crowds possibly huddled to appear larger.)

Above the Tumult We Heard...The Blues.

The South Mississippi Blues Sampler podcast is up and running again, featuring the last pre-Katrina recordings from the Shed and The Boulevard Martini Club, featuring Dwayne Burnside and Mississippi Mafia.

Current Reading.

The Winter's Hero, by Vassily Aksyonov, is the second book in the story of the Gradov family, who struggle to survive the long winter of Stalin. In his first book, Generations of Winter, Aksyonov told of how the generations of the Gradovs, bourgoises, intellectuals, Bolsheviks, patriots alike, are scattered across the Soviet Union to their fates, by the winds of war and political terror. In this second book, we find the surviving members of the family now taking root and growing life after war and in the late years of the Man of Steel's reign. I read Generations years ago, and the Gradovs have never left my heart. Highly recommended reading, but sadly not currently in print. You can find it at a good used book store.

"I Came for My Country and for a Better Future."

Afghan parlimentary elections, the first since 1970, are underway. Another inchstone for human freedom. (Photo by David Guttenfelder, AP)

The "Paying Money to Read a Column by Maureen Dowd is Like..." Contest.

OK, gentle readers, here's a contest for you: complete the following sentence:

"Paying money to read a column by Maureen Dowd is like ___"

For example: "Paying money to read a column by Maureen Dowd is like writing a check to your proctologist."

Submit your entries to the comments of this thread by 12:00am 21 September. The winner for the best comparative phrase will receive some TBD Dead Drifts swag. Good Luck!

Mistress Maureen's Charging For It Now.

No more will the New York Times' covey of columnists bestow their wisdom on us e-slobs for free. You will be charged about 50 bucks per year for online enlightenment. Too bad - I find Tom Friedman a thoughtful read, but not for fifty skins. I'll wait for his books. They run about 20 dollars a piece, and word for word they're a better deal. And the royalties go to Tom. We can't expect the NYT to be socialist - well, when it comes to its own financial enterprise at least. Too bad they can't have an online auction for the columns, maybe something like priceline.com - I would bid Friedman high, but I would get it back by being paid by the Times to read Herbert, Rich, and ... Fraulein Dowd (did I hear a horse whinnying in the distance?).

All proceeds will go to the Pinch Sulzberger Home for Editors Victimized by Plagarism Scandals.

...Fraulein Dowd! (....neighheyyyy!)

Katrina Blow-Out.

Fierce winds caused by Hurricane Katrina are now blowing in - Washington, DC, of course. FEMA head Michael Brown has "resigned", replaced by a veteran firefighter. Good move - time to focus on FEMA activities, not personalities. Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu gave her state and local authorities a complete pass on their handling of the Katrina disaster, placing blame squarely on the White House for inadequately funding municipal mass transit. She's got a point: all of those extra buses could have been - just as wasted as the scores of waterlogged buses that are presently sitting in the New Orleans municipal bus yard. And that was the coherent part of the Landrieu's Ophelia-like monologue directed at Fox's Chris Wallace. You can watch it here, courtesy of Political Teen. Meanwhile, Barbara Bush does what she does best. If you don't know what you want to say, perhaps you shouldn't say anything, Bar.

My prescription for this irritating malady is to open your checkbook and write one out to the American Red Cross for Hurricane Relief. Your blood pressure will drop, and your mind will be cleared of those icky dismemberment thoughts.

Alligator Boogaloo.

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown has died, a week after losing his home in Slidell, La. His great music spanned genres, including swing, blues, and zedeco. The man could pick. He was 80. RIP. (photo from the Gatemouth Brown website)

Remaking Man in Marx's Image.

TV programs with a conservative bent on PBS are almost always consigned to Sunday afternoon. There they are likely neither to be seen by public television's predominantly leftish demographic, who would be enraged (and may withhold their $35 annual membership), nor viewed by rightish folk, who may want more. So it was with Heaven on Earth, a three-hour documentary on the history of socialism and communism. One the film's themes, and what certainly has been forgotten in the analysis of socialism's failings, is its inherent need to remake human behavior, expunging people of the intolerable condition of self-interest. In the case of British socialism, (of the Labour Party) this was accomplished by legislation to abolish capitalism and to create the welfare state; in the case of the Bolsheviks, mass murder was the vanguard's prescription for ridding humanity of such misfits. Four star television, available for purchase at the PBS store.

FEMA's Leadership.

FEMA is now receiving close scrutiny, and the qualifications of personnel that fill critical leadership positions. Here is a list of some of the people that fill these positions (from the FEMA website), and a yea or nea as to whether their professional background would be, in our opinion, adequate to emergency managment at such an important level. Keep in mind that this is not a measure of leadership ability.

• Michael Brown, Undesecretary for Emergency Preparedness: Nea (politics)
• James Rhode, Chief of Staff: Nea (politics)
• Kenneth Burris, Jr., Acting Director of Ops: Yea (firefighting & EM)
• Edward Buikema, Acting Director of Response: Yea (police & EM)
• Daniel Craig, Director of Recovery Division: Nea (lobbyist)

Our conclusion is not as unanimous as that of the MSM: some critical positions are filled by people with inadequate resumes, others appeared to have strong experience in emergency management.

Data Recovery for the Katrina Disaster.

Don Singleton has assembled some of the pre-Katrina emergency management documents and plans. For those of you wanting a ground-floor understanding of the process, it's valuable material. Dead Drifts is not joining the blame game. It is just extremely important to know the initial conditions of this situation to competently judge whether officials will draw the right conclusions in after-action studies.

Meanwhile, if you haven't cut a check yet to help the people of the Gulf Coast out, get on it now.

The Big Easy's Soul Lives On.

WWOZ, New Orleans Roots Radio, is now Streaming in Exile. (from Cybrludite)

Your Contribution is at Work.

Certainly, this is just the start.

American Red Cross shelters:

-- Louisiana: 127 shelters; 51,480 people
-- Mississippi: 102 shelters; 13,510 people
-- Texas: 49 shelters; 23,850 people
-- Alabama: 47 shelters; 3,760 people
-- Georgia: 17 shelters; 880 occupants
-- Tennessee: 9 shelters; 70 occupants
-- Florida: 8 shelters; 1,380 occupants
-- Arkansas: 1 shelter; 1,250 occupants
-- Missouri: 1 shelter; 0 occupants

Lock the Doors.

When NASA has had its two Shuttle accidents, at one point the Flight Director orders the doors to Mission Control to be locked: no one goes in or out until all the data of the flight has been secured. It is essential for a successful accident investigation.

The same should hold true for all of the data pertaining to the Katrina Catastrophe. Let's not have any city, state, or federal documents that pertain to the planning and preparations for this disaster to suddenly come up "missing".
For example, the City of New Orleans' disaster plan...(courtesy Bush in a Tree)

The Economic Backwash from Katrina.

Stratfor summarizes the consequences of the loss of New Orleans, the most critical port of the American economy.

"Ironpants" Honore' Takes Command.

Ooorah! Lt. General Honore' and his Task Force Katrina is getting the job done. In the process he blows the air clear of wouldshouldcoulda: when asked why troops weren't just thrown in earlier, the General stated clearly: because they would have become causalities themselves. This guy knows when it's time to kvetch and when it's time to shut up and work.

Jesse, can you just shut up?

Or at least get the facts straight:

Jesse Jackson lashes out at Bush over Katrina response
Doug Simpson / Associated Press

BATON ROUGE -- Racism is partly to blame for the deadly aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said, calling President Bush's response to the disaster "incompetent."...

...Jackson questioned why Bush has not named blacks to top positions in the federal response to the disaster, particularly when the majority of victims remaining stranded in New Orleans are black: "How can blacks be locked out of the leadership, and trapped in the suffering?"

"It is that lack of sensitivity and compassion that represents a kind of incompetence."

U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Russell Honore, head of the military task force overseeing operations in the three states, is black. His task force is providing search and rescue, medical help and sending supplies to the three states in support of the Federal Emergency Management Agency...

A Time for Unity.

Lincoln's allusion has been overused, but it really is time for us to appeal to the better angels of our nature. A reckoning of accountability will one day occur, but we are many months from it, despite the goading by the MSM. Let keep our mouths shut and instead open our checkbooks.

Catastrophe.

Since 911 most Americans have probably wondered when the crippling of an entire city and economic center would occur. Nature has provided the answer - it has happened now. All of New Orleans has gone offline...and it's almost impossible to comphrehend. God be with all of them. And let's roll up our sleeves, even if it's only to write a check.

A blog from WWL-TV New Orleans, located in the French Quarter, tries separate the fact from rumor of events in that stricken town. The station also features streaming video.

Keep your help simple: if your circumstances are such that you can't volunteer for service in the Gulf Coast, just give money to the Red Cross.