Houblog

Herschel Smith over at the Captain’s Journal has a few questions about the National Security Force being proposed by Obama. They’re good questions, like (paraphrasing):

• If it’s just as well funded, where’s the money going to come from?
• If it’s just as well equipped, does that mean tanks, bombers, Strykers?

I’m tempted to make jokes about this organization, such as, “hey, if he wants a civilian defense force, Blackwater’s for hire!” I’ll pass on the snark for once. However, I do have a few questions that aren’t on Herschel’s list, that I’d like to see answered first.

• What is the purpose of this force?
• What will it’s training be like?
• Where will it be deployed?
• To whom does it answer?
• What type of people will be recruited?

There are two kinds of security. Internal, and external. Internal security involves police-type work and enforcement of the law on people who don’t want to obey it. External security involves imposition of a national will on another group of people, whether that will is “don’t shoot your neighbor” or “don’t shoot us.” They’re similar in some ways, but different in others. Given the level of combat in Iraq until recently, a “civilian” force would be nothing more than a collection of targets and hostages. I can’t imagine deploying a super-sized LAPD SWAT team to Iraq, and being nearly as effective against insurgents and Iranian-supplied RPG’s, mortars, AK-47’s, IED’s etc., as the military was.

It’s not just a matter of gear, it’s also training and mindset. The military has over 200 years of experience in getting tens of thousands of people performing widely different tasks, and operating on the same page. One of those reasons is military discipline. You disobey an order in the military, your butt can end up in the slammer. (At least.) You don’t obey it in a civilian job, you can be fired. Whoopee. If I’m a civilian security force member, I have to know that the guy next to me can quit at any time; he might not do it in the middle of a fire-fight in Bosnia, but he’s not exactly the Marines when all hell breaks loose This isn’t to say that there aren’t cultural and human imperatives to support a fellow security force member in a tight spot, just that these are MUCH weaker in a force that has no “institutional” memory and little power to punish deserters. If the force does have the power to punish, not just fire, deserters or those who disobey orders, then it’s not civilian. It’s just a military force in disguise. Therefore, I believe this should not be called a “civilian” force, but what it really is: a “quasi-military” force.

So is the plan to deploy a few million heavily-armed, poorly-trained, volunteer targets around the world? That’s going to be popular with the mothers back home…

Or is the National Security force for internal use? Will the act of Congress that authorizes this force permit or bar it from being deployed in the U.S.? If it is meant for domestic use, then it has to be equipped and trained differently from the “lavishly equipped” military. (Ask a soldier sleeping in a tent in Afganistan just how lavish it is…) Lets look at internal use.

Internal security involves the apprehension of those defined as criminals by the government. It will require forensics, detective skills, informants, databases of criminals, and so on. But wait, we already have these in the FBI. Why do we need a large, lavishly equipped force as big as the military to perform these functions? Why do we need three million extra people under arms inside the U.S.? Is our crime problem that bad? Well, you could give the National Security force enough medium or heavy weaponry to suppress violent outbreaks of up to city-wide level. Helluva police force, but otherwise, there’s no point in having it; existing city and state forces, backed up by the National Guard have sufficed. (”But what about Kent State?” screams the audience. Well, what about it? Do we have rioters at our colleges today? If you’re planning on having any, why? And what does Kent State have to do with anything? Four dead rock and bottle throwers no more validates a national security force thirty-five years later, than the Gulf of Tonkien incident would validate our going back to war with Vietnam today.

So, if we assume this force is meant for external use, it will need to have military training, military equipment, and military discipline. You can’t keep the peace if you’re not willing to wage war on those who would break it. And if it’s for internal use, it needs to be equipped to investigate and detain “criminal” elements, plus, at that size, probably it will be used to suppress disorderly elements among the people. So the aim of the force will be obvious from the training and equipment — which we won’t really know until after the force is being formed, will we? So why would we create this big, expensive force, just as Sen. Barney Frank says (paraphrased) “Let’s cut spending on the military by 25%”?

Now the next question is, if you’re going to form this force, to whom will it answer? If it’s civilian, not the Secretary of Defense. If it’s judicial or prosecutorial, the DOJ would be obvious. But that doesn’t fit either. So, if it’s foreign use, it will have to have its own “department” which may or may not be considered cabinet-level. Obviously, if it’s intended for domestic use, Homeland Security would be the right place.

Homeland Security, with its own quasi-military force of 2 to 3 million people. (Why does that make my butt pucker?) Or some new office entirely? (The puckering gets worse.)

And I have to ask, what kind of people will this force recruit? Or will it be “compulsory youth service?” If it’s volunteer, would it be too much to expect that people who think this force is a bad idea from several perspectives would not join it? And if it’s “compulsory youth service” (read: “draft”) would the members be subject to, shall we say, a certain amount of persuasion that they’re doing A Great Thing? Morale boosting along with the training? Hm. Just realized, if it’s compulsory service, there go those pesky problems with discipline in tight spots; you’re not allowed to quit. Maybe that “Q” in “Quasi-military” should be capitalized.

So will this “Quasi-military” forcet have an oath? No, seriously, the military does. The President does. Police Departments do. Hell, doctors have an oath. In the military, every man and woman under arms with the military, takes an oath, although the last sentence is optional. The enlisted oath of office swears that person to obey all lawful orders. But the officers oath is much more interesting.

I, [name], do solemnly swear, (or affirm,) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. (So help me God.)

Will this “Quasi-military” National Security Defense Force have an oath…. and will it contain that specific obligation? Or will it instead, call upon its members to uphold “the lawful Government of the United States?”

Huge. Freaking. Difference.

So tell me again, what is the point of creating a large “Quasi-military” force that is “as big and lavishly equipped as the military” that the Democratic party wants to downsize?

And why is my butt puckering again?

So I’m researching non-profits for a project I’m working on (more later), and I run across this, while looking for information on sample by-laws. Note the part I bolded:

The Klingon Language Institute (http://www.kli.org/kli/KLI.Bylaws.html), a Pennsylvania nonprofit, offers these sample bylaws (in English).

I wonder if the state would have accepted them if they’d been in Klingon…

Probably not. Unless they claimed to be an oppressed minority.

And some people wonder why I try to never buy Chinese goods. Bad enough that they fix their exchange rate artificially low; they’ve destroyed our heavy industry, what was left of our semi-conductor industry, our textiles; it’s gotten so bad they’re stealing Mexican jobs from the maquiladoras.

But I’m sure President Osama, I mean Obama, will seek better relations with them by fixing that thorny Taiwanese problem. If I were Taiwan, I’d be cozying up to India, Japan, and Russia right now. None of them alone would be enough to save them, but the combination might keep the dragon at bay.

I wouldn’t put money on it. Wonder if I could find a Taiwanese internet bride, really cheap, in a few months? Heh. If I’m lucky, she might like wearing cat ears… “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Catgirls! Nya?”

Overseas military votes disallowed in Virginia.

Remind me again, why haven’t we started stringing these bastards up from lightpoles?

h/t Instapundit.

Go here, and read this article, all the way to the end. Especially if you’ve ever listened to a co-worker blathering on about hope and change, and thought, “no, I don’t want to start an argument or stand out…”

Implicit in the Left’s continuous attempts to exaggerate Obama’s perceived support is the belief that “a crowd draws a crowd” and that undecided voters will be drawn to the Obama camp if they think “everyone else” is supporting him. But is that an accurate assessment? Is there any evidence that it’s true?

Well, actually, yes.

And that evidence was collected fifty years ago.

Starting in 1951, Asch, a professor at Swarthmore College, ran a series of unusual experiments to generate a quantitative measurement of the subjective term “conformity.” The experiments, which many now consider somewhat unethical and a bit sadistic, went like this:

A volunteer was recruited to participate in a vision test. He was brought to a room with seven other volunteers who were also to take the same test, in a group. Little did the volunteer know, however, that his fellow “volunteers” were all confederates of the experimenter, and the test was not a vision test but a psychological torture session designed to elicit conformist behavior. The experimenter would then unveil a pair of displays, one showing a single black line, and the other showing three black lines of varying lengths. The volunteer is told to simply state which of the three lines most closely matches the length of the single line.

The volunteer, who was always placed in the second-to-last position, was only allowed to state his answer after he had heard most of the other faux-volunteers give their answers. For the first two rounds, these confederates were instructed to give the obviously correct answer; in each instance, the test subject would then also give the correct answer. But starting on the third round, the confederates, as instructed by Asch, intentionally gave a consistently wrong answer; the goal of the experiment was to see if the volunteer would “break” and also begin to chime in with the wrong answer as well. Most volunteers would resist for a few rounds, but eventually the majority would cave in at least part of the time and give the wrong answers in complete defiance of their own perceptions. Overall, the test subjects gave the wrong answers 36.8% of the time — an astonishing result.

Should you speak up? Should you speak out? Should you engage an Obamabot? Well, yes. Just have an escape route planned; they’re not all rational, when challenged, you know. For the sake of your fellows, (who will probably slink for the shadows, leaving you unsupported, the ingrates).

…the pressure to conform drops precipitously if the subject is aware of even a single fellow dissenter. All it takes is one person to shatter the facade of unanimity, and suddenly the number of conformist answers drop from around 33% to around 8%. With more dissenters, it drops even further.

Now as any of my longtime readers know (Hi, mom!), I wrote off the Republican party back in 2006 over pork and immigration. I may vote for its candidates, or I may vote Libertarian, but I don’t consider myself a member of either one. I’ve supported the Jacksonian Party, with a membership of one. (Or two.)

Next week, I will have more information on how to stand up, en masse, and refuse to conform. Stay tuned.

Just got this email — in my city email inbox, mind you — from my uwanted friends at the SEIU:

Dear Friend,

Earlier this week the SEIU New Media team wrote to you about what our union is doing online to help get Barack Obama elected President of the United States.

Over 25,000 people have watched our online ad or signed up to volunteer before the election … and after.

Today I want to turn the focus back to you, our members and supporters.

SEIU is organizing Get Out The Vote canvasses in swing states across America this weekend and every weekend between now and the election.

Will you volunteer your time to talk to undecided voters about why we need to elect Barack Obama on November 4th?

seiu.org/gotv

I know not all of you live in swing states or can’t take the time to travel to volunteer, so we’ve built an online calling program that lets you talk to undecided health care workers from home.

Healthcare is an important issue in this election and polling shows that healthcare workers are a critical voting block that we need to reach.

The simple act of picking up the phone or knocking on a door to talk to an undecided voter will ensure we elect a pro-working family administration this November.

We need your energy to win this election – will you take action today?

seiu.org/gotv

We can do this together.

In Solidarity,

Andy Stern

Go fuck your solidarity, Andy. This is spam.

PAID FOR BY SEIU. WWW.SEIU.ORG. THIS COMMUNICATION IS NOT AUTHORIZED BY ANY CANDIDATE OR CANDIDATE’S COMMITTEE.

SEIU
1800 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036

This should be considered an in-kind donation by the SEIU to Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. Failure to report it as such, I’m quite sure, is a violation.

Not that we’ll hear anything about such in the press, will we?

From an email making the rounds:

Back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed. Now we are trusting the economy of our country to a pack of dumb-asses who couldn’t make money running a whore house and selling booze?

h/t to Tom Bazan

Strangely, I was thinking about the whole “Horsemen of the Ablogolypse” a few days ago. Maybe it was a premonition (I was trying to remember who they all were, and I forgot Charles Johnson and Andrew Sullivan). Tonight, Steven Den Beste reminisces about that, thanks to an Andrew Sullivan-inspired link to the past. Now given that Andrew has gone over to the stupid side, and Steven’s retired to anime-blogging for the most part, that means we need a new Plague and War. I’d take nominations, but even with Ike and Brendan Loy helping me, I don’t pull that kind of traffic!

Still, I can speculate. Emperor Darth Misha I? (But would he be Plague or War?) Could Jane Galt finally make the grade? Could Bill Quick get promoted from the B-team? What about Bill Whittle? Michelle Malkin?

I’m just not feelin’ it here…. especially given that DenBeste was one-of-a-kind. I mean Whittle’s the second coming of Samual Clemens, but he’s a little wordy, and definitely short on science skill. Maybe we can give him Sullivan’s old spot?

Maybe now we’re going start seeing something on this in the media?

Nearly 400 people are presumed missing 12 days after Hurricane Ike slammed on shore. Calls flooded a Galveston County missing persons hotline at the Laura Recovery Center. People are terrified a relative was lost in the storm.

Also, we have the point that Rorschach made in comments:

This is third hand but I am told of a coast guard member that is saying that they are pulling bodies out of the bay on a daily basis and is suprised that it is not being reported in the media. I am also being told that many people on the Bolivar peninsula were overtaken by events. That Thursday evening many people got home form work and started packing up to leave Friday morning, but TXDOT stopped the ferry early Friday morning and that within an hour or so of the ferry stopping, the road through High Island flooded from the storm surge in seargent leaving them no way off the peninsula. I too am questioning the official body count.

The last part of Ror’s comment dovetails with accounts we’ve seen all along — hundreds of people were trapped on the Bolivar Peninsula, and the Coast Guard ran out of time to rescue them prior to the storm. Rumors continue to swirl about that there is a cover-up, and while I don’t have any sympathy for the tinfoil hat brigade, I would be remiss if I failed to note ABC13’s reports of rumors on the issue:

Viewer emails have come in claiming there are countless 18-wheeler trailers full of refrigerators with crews unloading boxes and boxes of bodies. Another viewer reported the recovery of at least 60 bodies, while another says 89 corpses are at UTMB.

And in Crosby, despite the four FEMA trucks outside the crematorium, owner Stanley Blackwell says his cemetery is in fact the regional storage site for area funeral homes in the event of a disaster.

When the power went out, FEMA sent the refrigerated trucks and powerless funeral homes sent over their deceased. He stresses the 100 bodies he currently has are not stacked inside. “We do not stack bodies,” he told us.

So where are all the bodies? Answers based on the official speculation so far…

1. In the marshes/small islands behind Bolivar. Significant debris fields exist there, and are difficult to reach, thus they haven’t been searched.

2. Out in the Gulf, washed there by the back flow off the islands, when the surge receeded.

3. Still in unsearched debris or buried in the sand. Sure they searched with cadaver dogs. They did in New Orleans too, and were still finding bodies in attics a year after Katrina.

4. They were all Scientologists and nobody noticed the giant comet stopping off to pick them up in the middle of the hurricane. (Ok, that one’s not official; I made it up.)

So the death toll is still pending, but at least it’s going to be a lot lower than it looked 5-6 hours before Ike landed.

A related rant.

And before I forget, lookie-look! The Chron’s back up to it’s old “Support the Illegal Aliens” schitck. “Cleanup spurs labor need: Undocumented workers will be linchpin in efforts.” Just goes to show that there’s no disaster so bad that the Chronicle can’t find a way to use it to push its agenda.

Homeowners have already turned to day laborers — many of whom are undocumented — to help clear brush, tent roofs and repair other storm damage. Contractors have hired them to rebuild or restore businesses and the city’s infrastructure.

And the major work of rebuilding small towns along the Gulf Coast or big homes in Galveston will likely be aided by undocumented workers.

And if they were here legally, they could pay taxes on their earnings, helping to fund the cleanup too, instead of sending all their money home to relatives in Mexico, so they can pay the coyotes to join the others here.

A few days ago, after Mayor White pitched a fit over the distribution of some relief supplies, I expressed some concern over Mayor White’s tendency to make harsh demands and slam people whom he felt didn’t meet his expectations:

I am rather disturbed about the Mayor’s tendency to demand other people make heads roll. In general, such behavior tends to cause folks you may need in the very near future to make notes about you like, “Doesn’t play well with others.” And it also sets you up for reciprocal demands. Bill might not want to lash out so much at perceived errors.

Lo and behold, his behavior that morning has come home to roost, and Governor Perry has stepped in to apologize on behalf of Texas. From Ted Olberg of ABC 13:

In storms like this, FEMA sends crews from all over the country to help manage the disaster. One of those crews came from Georgia to dispatch trucks of food and ice to points of distribution, or PODs. Mayor White thought they weren’t getting the job done and the governor of Georgia got offended when White told them so.

Last Tuesday morning, Mayor White visited the thousands of people in line at the TSU POD. All the supplies had been sitting overnight at Reliant Stadium. The mayor wasn’t happy.

“That is not going to happen again,” said Mayor White to the media in the days after the storm.
What he didn’t say from that podium is that before the trucks started rolling, some tough words rolled off his tongue. According to a city witness, he told some FEMA workers from Georgia dispatching trucks, to “Get those (expletive) trucks moving” and “You better get your (expletive) act together.”

Channel 13 keeps trying to carry the Mayor’s water on this one, saying, “We’re not proud of it and it doesn’t sound real nice, but when there’s no AC, heated language is a little understandable, maybe even coming from our Mayor White.” Then there’s this humdinger:

Apparently, those Georgia workers’ feelings bruise easier than a Georgia peach. They tattled on our mayor and the Georgia governor wrote Texas Governor Rick Perry a letter saying, “I would not tolerate the profane berating of Texas or Georgia volunteers here…and I trust that you do not either.”

If not for the involvement of two governors, this sure would seem like a little dealAnd it does seem like a little deal to the guy who supervises the Georgia workers. He told me on Tuesday that they’ve been yelled at by a lot more people than Mayor White and they understand how he lost his cool.

Well, I suspect the reason he told you that, Ted, is that he’s got a hell of a lot more class than the Mayor showed that morning.

The Chronicle, long derided as “Ms. White,” seems a bit disenchanted in her spouse, noting that while the supervisor may be a guy, the Georgia workers the Mayor was so kindly remonstrating with were not.

Gov. Rick Perry yesterday asked his staff to investigate comments White made to two Georgia Forestry Commission employees who came to Houston to help manage the distribution of federal and state supplies to area residents hit hard by Hurricane Ike. Perdue said in a letter to Perry that White had “verbally and profanely abused” the women.

A witness said White told the women, “You need to be getting these (expletive) trucks out of here.” The mayor then began arguing with a Harris County sheriff’s deputy over whether trucks full of Federal Emergency Management Agency supplies had been delivered to a distribution site, the witness said. White told the deputy he had just been to the site and about 3,000 people were waiting for supplies.

White went on to say that if nothing was delivered soon, they were ”about to be in a (expletive) riot,” the witness said.

I’m sure that they now have a really positive view of Texas men. And of General Patton, whom Bill so kindly compares himself to:

“I did use words that I have never used in the Sunday school class I teach, but which were closer to the vocabulary General Patton used when he was trying to keep his army moving,”

As salty as he was towards the press and his own soldiers, I strongly suspect that General Patton would have shot any officer who directed intemperate language like that towards ladies.

Was he ejected, or not?

In a letter sent Friday to Perry, but not White, the Georgia governor [Perdue] described a confrontation last Tuesday that has become a hot topic of conversation in local law enforcement and Republican political circles.

”Apparently, Mayor White had to be escorted from the scene by the Incident Commander,” Perdue wrote.

White wrote in his response that he was not “escorted from the site” but “drove with one convoy of trucks to a site where about 100 volunteers and many thousands of people had been waiting in line.”

Well, at least the Chronicle manages to make it look like it’s all just partisan sniping, by working in “Republican political circles” right after “local law enforcement.” As if it doesn’t matter whether your temper tantrums become local gossip as long as it can be passed off as partisan local gossip.

Another interesting note about the ABC 13 piece: the name that doesn’t show up in here (”right before the trucks got rolling”) is that of County Judge Emmett. When the going got tough, Mayor White pitched a fit. Judge Emmett sat down at a table with a notepad and pen, and started fixing the problem.

And Governor Perry picked up the bruised peaches for Mayor White. Gee, I wonder if it’s time for a game of “Name that Party“? The Chronicle started it…

Well, Mayor White’s been great when it comes to telling private industry how to make allowances for their employees for some time now (or even what to pay them, if they’re unionized janitors), but apparently someone got his ear and pointed out that he ought to set the example. As a result, in the middle of last week, the City of Houston belatedly began to offer ice, water, and MRE’s to employees without power, who had to be at work, rather than scrounging for the necessities. Wednesday, just as a few more gas stations were opening and the early lines easing, they also made gasoline available. However, I think they inadvertently let some information slip that they didn’t intend to bandy about.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 9:02 AM
To: COH - All Employees
Subject: Fuel to all City Employees

All City Employees who can show a City of Houston active Employee Identification Badge are allowed to get 5 gallons per visit, maximum of two visits, at the below designated fuel locations. Employees will be charged our cost for fuel, $4.35 per gallon, through payroll deduction. When an employee approaches the site for the fuel they will be required to sign that they received the gas and that they agree to the terms of the deduction from their paychecks.

There’s only one thing I can say the city purchasing gas at $4.35:

Read the rest of this entry »

A number of Disaster Recovery Centers (DRC) have been established to help people who have already applied for assistance. Note that while applications can be made there, FEMA would strongly prefer to accept registration for assistance by phone or online. (FEMA really doesn’t want to repeat the long lines that occurred after Katrina and Rita, and I don’t blame them. A busy signal may be annoying, but so is standing in line for four hours.)

When an applicant gets a FEMA letter after registering with FEMA it can often be confusing. The DRC will help the applicant understand the denial or award letter they receive. They will also be able to register there, but it is preferred that they register over the phone or online. The DRC also provides different agencies that may help the applicant after a disaster such as: IRS, SBA, etc.

The IRS? (Never mind…. making a joke of that would be like shooting fish in a barrel.)

As of today, four sites will be open Monday thru Sunday from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm:

1. Ellington Joint Reserve Base, 14657 Sneider Street, 77034
2. Home Depot Store, 11500 Chimney Rock, Houston, Texas 77035
3. Home Depot Store, 10707 North Freeway, Houston, Texas 77037
4. Home Depot Store, 6810 Gulf Freeway, Houston, Texas 77087

More may be opened later. Before going to the center, residents should make sure to have their identification, Social Security number, insurance information, proof of address and contact numbers on hand.

At the DRC, visitors can:

* Receive information about different types of state and federal disaster assistance.
* Get help completing low-interest loan applications from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) for homeowners, renters and business owners.
* Inquire about the status of applications for federal assistance.
* Receive referrals to the American Red Cross and other voluntary organizations to help with immediate unmet needs.
* Learn cost-effective measures to reduce the impact of future disaster losses.

Additionally Nationwide Insurance had a mobile center set up yesterday in the parking lot of Lowe’s at Wallisville and Beltway 8 on the east side for its customers. They looked kind of bored when I drove by at 5pm.

Americares has opened a mobile clinic to serve the public at 215 Westheimer.

Sept 13: In the wake of Hurricane Ike’s landfall, the international disaster relief and humanitarian aid organization AmeriCares is moving relief supplies and emergency response specialists to the hardest hit areas of the storm. At AmeriCares headquarters in Stamford today, staff and volunteers are loading a Mobile Medical Unit with essential medicines and medical supplies that are bound for the Galveston-Houston area. The Mobile Medical Unit will provide medical services to returning evacuees in the Houston metro area.

“As Texas officials issued urgent warnings about Hurricane Ike this week, AmeriCares began working to ensure that critical medical supplies will be available in the recovery effort,” said Curt Welling, president and CEO of AmeriCares. “The need for assistance and support is great. We will remain in Texas as long as is necessary to support the individuals and families affected by Hurricane Ike.”

In addition to deploying the Mobile Medical Unit, AmeriCares is sending emergency response and clinical staff to assess the needs of the communities in the path of the storm and determine the priorities for future assistance. The organization is also working in collaboration with Nestle to send bottled water to the Galveston-Houston Area.

AmeriCares is a private, nonprofit international disaster relief and humanitarian aid organization, which delivers medicines, medical supplies and aid to people in crisis around the world. Since it was established in 1982, AmeriCares has distributed more than $7.5 billion in humanitarian aid to 137 countries. To learn more about AmeriCares and to find out how to support the relief efforts in Texas, visit americares.org.

And unless you’re some kind of anti-religious bigot, Grace Community Church Senior Pastor, Steve Riggle, announced today that his church will be hosting a community seminar with Houston City Council Member Mike Sullivan at their South Campus location 14505 Gulf Freeway at Dixie Farm Road Monday, September 22 from 7PM-8PM to cover issues with insurance, FEMA and housing. This seminar is open to anyone and everyone. The goal of this seminar is to answer questions many have but are unable to get answered.

Presentations will be given about temporary and long term housing issues for those affected by Hurricane Ike; insurance and insurance claims processes; Texas Windstorm insurance; as well as FEMA related issues. (Actually, they’ll probably let you in, even if you are an anti-religious bigot. Those whacky Christians, never know what to expect from them!)

Speaking of Christians, Catholic Charities Staff and Volunteers will be giving out food and water at the Catholic Charismatic Center at 1949 Cullen Blvd Monday, September 22 from 2 - 7 pm. Donations for Ike are urgently needed to assist with recovery efforts. To donate visit www.catholiccharities.org.

Links to more information:

Chron’s assistance blog/list
KHOU’s help blog
ABC13’s list (with services provided)
Channel 2’s list of POD locations

I also checked the Houston Press, but they were too busy snarking and putting links to two year old articles on the front page (News and Columns; Special Reports) to actually be, you know, helpful. (I suppose that’s rather mean of me after their Hair Balls called me “the ever sharp-eyed Ubu Roi.” I am such an ingrate.) Well, they do have a list of restaurants that are open.

Mmmmm. El Jardin’s. Love their quesadillas.

Ah always knew that boy had too much sense ta be a damnyankee.

Just in case you didn’t think we could home-grow these sick bastards here. (Edit: you know, this is so perfectly stupid, I almost have to believe it’s a fake.)

I got Schlotsky’s today for lunch and went again to the courthouse in Baytown to get my water, ice, and food. This time, there were different meals, but hopefully as good as the others. Then, i came home, emptied my trunk and then headed off for the Deer Park POD (Point of Delivery).”

“I think that I am falling in love with MREs. They are pretty darn good. I went around 5:30 to go get more MREs and actually got another box of real MREs, water, and ice.”

Jacki, a teacher in Baytown, is spending her days scamming free eats that we, the taxpayers, have provided. And bragging about it in cyberspace.

“Life is great after a hurricane when nothing really happened to your house!” Steinhauer says in her blog, “The Secret Life of an Uninteresting Teacher.”

She’s already taken down her blog (after claiming not to have taken anything she wasn’t entitled to, and that it was all really for her boyfriend), but someone else grabbed her posts before she could wipe the blog, and put them here.

Why is she doing this? Well, from her posts it appears she accidentally ended up in a POD line, and once she figured out how easy it was, she went crazy. But still, why would she do that? Because she felt — wait for it — entitled.

Also, I registered with FEMA to get some money. I was pissed during Rita that I got no money, even though I had tons of expenses. I was not a property owner at that time, but now I am and I want my money from Rita. If these other people can get money, I can too. There are not enough damages to make a claim on my homeowners’ insurance, so this would really help out. We are just going to have to replace a couple of windows, at least the glass portion of it. My deductible is over a thousand dollars, so it is so not worth it.

Hello. Ms. Stupid Fucking Greedy Bitch? I was a homeowner during Rita, and I had expenses from the evac too. Not one dime reimbursed by the government, and I would be insulted if they did. Not their job to deal with life’s curveballs and make every boo-boo better.

Oh, but it gets better. Listen to this rant:

Also, with my parents, my grandma was killing me. I was concerned about my house. She kept on talking about her trailer. My brother and brother-in-law both said that it was fine, but she desperately wanted to go over there. She kept on saying that she just wanted to stay at her house eventhough she would have no electricity. She kept on egging things on and it was driving me crazy! As I am writing this, I realize that I have left my mother by herself. I feel so sorry for her. My grandma does not like her and whenever they get something new, it always goes back on my mom somehow. Either my dad only cares about my mom, my mom always wants new things, or something else crazy like that. my mom didn’t do anything to my grandma except for marry my dad. She has not liked any other the other women that my dad was married until after the divorce. My grandma even brought up how my dad’s first wife took everything that he had after the divorce. My grandma is crazy. I wish that I could have had my mother stay, but she wouldn’t stay behind without my dad, so she had to leave and I really wanted to stay at home. I will call her tomorrow and talk to her.

You know, after reading that paragraph, I was originally assuming she is of a particular ethnic persuasion. Yeah, that one. The one we call “White Trash.”

Does that make me racist?

(And dammit, I’m still taking time off from hurricane-blogging!!!)

A title which has to be the most tasteless and tacky Monty Python reference of this hurricane season. Yeah, I know I’m supposed to be taking time off from hurricane blogging. So sue me. Only don’t, ok?

Amazingly, despite all the horrible predictions, we still have no bodies found on Bolivar. It’s been almost a week now. I’ve seen some contradictory net rumors from “friend of a friend” type sources, but not one eyewitness report. From KHOU:

GALVESTON, Texas — Search teams finished a second sweep of Bolivar Peninsula on Thursday and did not find any bodies, the Galveston County judge said. However, as the search of the devastated peninsula transitions from rescue to recovery, Judge Jim Yarbrough cautioned that those missing from Bolivar might never be seen again.

“There’s no question we are going to have some missing people (that) we are never going to find,” Yarbrough said Thursday night.

I’m having real problems believing we could be so lucky, that there has not been one body found yet*. The escapes we’ve heard of have been too close and harrowing for there to not be a number of deaths, if there were lots of people left. Estimates of the number of people who remained on Bolivar and Galveston must have been wildly incorrect.

*edit: we do have the report of someone dead here.