Whatever is beyond the shark, Nagin has jumped it, too.

Just about a year ago, upon Mayor Nagin’s reelection, I wrote:

C. Ray took it by about 5,000 votes and I for one am glad. With as much federal money as will be flowing through New Orleans, we need someone with a solid anti-corruption record, not one of the Cajun Kennedys, about whom the kindest thing I can say is, “Nothing proved.”

I defended Nagin.

The prevailing view seems to be that “politics as usual” won out, when in fact the exact opposite is true. Bloggers that I read regularly and respect have it completely wrong on this issue, including Paul at Powerline, and Michelle Malkin.

Over at Captain’s Quarters, Captain Ed got it pretty much on the mark. Paul from Wizbang, another NOLA blogger, predicted Nagin’s win and explains why whites support Nagin.

Now it is a year later, and Nagin gave his first “state of the city” address, transcribed by some grammar and punctuation-challenged person and located here. Here’s the response from the left, and here’s the response from the right. There’s a bit of truth in both, and quite a bit of lunacy.

The view from the left includes this gem: “Weeks after Katrina, Bush told us that he would do whatever it takes to bring back New Orleans. He has not done so. Instead, he has separated wind from flood. He has set up a housing program and a recovery that needs a recovery.” While I believe we’re entitled, due to the federal malfeasance that led to the levee breaks, to a fair chunk of change to fix the damage (and I don’t feel a bit bad about using the word “entitled” for a number of reasons - we haven’t received a nickel in offshore royalties since the Eisenhower administration while other states have received 50%, for example) I have to draw the line at this sort of nonsense. New Orleans is not entitled to federal funding to repair wind damage. I repeat: NEW ORLEANS IS NOT ENTITLED TO FEDERAL FUNDING TO REPAIR WIND DAMAGE. Good grief. This is exactly why half the country is so hostile toward us. The Corps of Engineers flooded 80% of the city, and they’ve admitted it repeatedly, after it was proved and they could no longer deny it. Fine; you break it, you bought it, but wind damage is an entirely separate issue. While I would love for someone to drop nearly $20k in my lap to cover my family’s losses, that kind of reimbursement is between me and my insurance company. Some things were covered, others weren’t. That’s the way it goes. It is not the responsibility of the rest of the country to fix wind damage to my house.

And on the flip side, the right commentator says this: “Throughout his address, Nagin continued to point fingers at everyone else and accept blame for none of the problems post Katrina. In fact, at the end of the speech, when Nagin abandoned his script, he said that “it’s not our fault” that the levees failed, that the water system is broken, that the road home plan is a mess and that “we were stranded and left.” Of course in the Mayor’s view, it is never his fault; everyone else is to blame for everything. Nagin only takes credit for successes.” You know what? It’s NOT our fault that the levees broke. You can’t get much more clear than this: “As elected officials have said many times, the federal government is responsible for this hurricane damage because of the failure of the levee system.” And the Road Home fiasco is, in fact, Blanco’s fault. Governor Kathleen Blanco is responsible for that failed and soon-to-be-bankrupt program. And it’s going bankrupt because they’ve been giving out money to people for wind damage, instead of restricting it to water damage as was originally intended. So now either American taxpayers are going to be stuck for it, or local homeowners who are not at fault will. Way to go, Governor!

This doesn’t, of course, relieve Nagin of the long, long list of things that ARE his fault. Start with crime and go from there; the list of things that Nagin could do something about… illegal aliens… illegal dumping… clogged ERs… the water system has so little pressure that high rise buildings regularly have problems with it… potholes… all things that Nagin, at the local level, could and should do something about. He has not.

Captain Ed wrote this a year ago:

Nagin has his second chance. Hopefully he will make the best of it and use his skills at reform and enterprise to make New Orleans ascendant and more hurricane-resistant than ever before. Voters will certainly not forgive another bout of incompetence.

No, we won’t. He had his chance, and blew it. The buzz phrase on local talk radio yesterday was that those of us who have come back to stay are “pioneers.” Whatever. This is home and I love it, but I have lived in many other places and found that I could be perfectly happy there. And a lot of us are starting to believe it might be a pretty good idea. We’re getting tired of wasting away in Chocolateville…
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UN Watchdog Yaps At The Wrong Country

Surreal:

The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog has given one of his sternest warnings against using military action to halt Iran’s uranium enrichment programme.

Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, described those wanting to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities as “new crazies”.

… Dr ElBaradei said a nuclear-armed Iran would be terrible but the jury was still out as to whether the country even wanted nuclear weapons.

Throwing Down The Gauntlet On Immigration

The rhetoric keeps ratcheting up, and conservatives are learning that there are some policies President Bush will stir himself to defend. Would that he had used as much energy to defend his Iraq policy as has has his immigration policy! The Wall Street Journal has been particularly harsh, calling those who believe that the borders of a sovereign nation must be enforced irrational, foaming at the mouth nativists. The editors at National Review Online have thrown down the gauntlet.

It shouldn’t be a problem for the Journal’s editors to take up this challenge, since opponents of the bill aren’t “rational” on the question, have no arguments, and are “foaming at the mouth,” as they explained in a videotaped session of one of their editorial meetings last week. Click here to watch — you have to see it to believe it.

We urge them to come out of the shadows, and hope defending the bill in this forum is not another one of those jobs that no American will do.

There is no way the WSJ editors will pick it up, but kudos to NRO for calling them out on this issue.

Added: Here’s the video linked above. The sheer arrogance of these people is breathtaking.

Socialism and Fiddler Auditions

The two top Democratic presidential contenders are espousing socialism, especially Hillary who came right out and said, “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.” I have wondered if socialism is gaining in popularity, especially among young people who see things in such black and white, and who champion their own ideas of fairness. I haven’t seen any polls, but at least the question is settled in my own household.

My seventeen year old daughter was trying to decide whether to audition for Fiddler on the Roof for a local theater company. It seemed like a no-brainer to me, but she was really hesitating. When I asked why, she said, “I don’t know if I can play Hodel. I mean, what kind of idiot falls in love with a Communist?” She gets it, but too many young people these days don’t. The Anchoress provides a much needed smackdown of Hillary’s “‘we’re all in it together’ society.”

There is an enormous difference between a few dozen people voluntarily giving up their worldly goods for communal living, and forcing people to participate in such a society against their will. The first brings freedom for those who choose it. The second, historically, has brought tyranny, poverty, slaughter and the gulag.

Hodel followed her fiance to the gulag. As I explained to my daughter, Communism hadn’t been tried yet, so people didn’t know it would fail for exactly the reason stated by The Anchoress. As the Anchoress describes, it’s a wonderful-sounding theory, and in very limited ways, it does work. Also, the alternative was the corrupt Romanov monarchy, and conditions were deplorable in most of the country; people were desperate for an alternative.

A surface comparison can be made of the United States today and turn of the century Russia. The originally popular Russo-Japanese war and the Iraq war lost the support of the people. Back then everyone hated the Romanovs, today a fair percentage of the country is so cynical and deluded that it thinks our own government could have orchestrated 9/11. But if Hillary and Obama think that the time is ripe for a political revolution and a hard turn left, they really need to think again. In a country where 97% of the people under the poverty line have color television, with an entirely volunteer military, I think they’ll have a hard time scaring up enough modern-day Bolsheviks to win the presidency. After all, how many of us love Hillary or Obama enough to follow them to the gulag?

78% Of Americans Believe the Bible Is True? Impossible!

I was amazed to read this post at JunkYardBlog -

The three surveys found that an average 31 percent of the respondents said that “the Bible is absolutely accurate and should be taken literally word for word,” according to Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. Forty-seven percent said the Bible was “the inspired word of God,” and 19 percent said it was a book of ancient fables, history and “moral precepts” recorded by man.

SeeDubya goes on to make an entirely different point, but I’m stuck on those statistics. There’s no possible way that they are true, except maybe in the sense of James 2:19: “You believe that there is one God. That’s fine! Even the demons believe that and tremble with fear.” (ISV)

People don’t really believe what the bible says, or they wouldn’t allow their daughters to idolize Paris Hilton. Their sons wouldn’t be playing video games like Grand Theft Auto. They wouldn’t be flipping people off and cutting them off in traffic, goldbricking and stealing office supplies at work, and surfing for porn at night when the rest of the family is asleep. If people truly believed, churches would have some activity going on 7 days a week - bible studies, community service projects, Alpha, food pantries, literacy classes… people would be serving instead of watching TV.

Saying they believe it is nothing like actually believing. When you really believe something, you act on it. If there were that many bible-believing Christians in this country it would be a very different place.

You can check out any time you like…

but you can never leave. Welcome to Islam.

Malaysia’s highest court has rejected a Muslim convert’s six-year battle to be legally recognised as a Christian.

A three-judge panel ruled that only the country’s Sharia Court could let Azlina Jailani, now known as Lina Joy, remove the word Islam from her identity card.

Malaysia’s constitution guarantees freedom of worship but says all ethnic Malays are Muslim. Under Sharia law, Muslims are not allowed to convert.

…”You can’t at whim and fancy convert from one religion to another,” Ahmad Fairuz said.

Cognitive Dissonance O’ The Day

As seen at Kos, in a post supporting Hugo Chavez’ takeover of a previously independent TV station:

In fact, as Lendman writes, if the news media in the United States had acted in the way RCTV, Venevision et al. acted in 2002, those responsible would likely face far harsher punishment than a mere refusal to renew the channel’s license. Section 2384 of the U.S. Code, entitled ‘Seditious Conspiracy’, states,

“If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States…they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years [later amended to six years], or both”.

Could you even imagine a situation whereby CNN or FOX News openly supported an armed putsch against the U.S. government and over four years later were still permitted to broadcast over the public airways, with basically the same people in charge? The very idea is laughable.

No “chill winds” in that tropical paradise! And no comprehension that the media is doing all it can to undermine our foreign policy with a series of classified information leaks, and undermine public confidence with a steady barrage of negative news on everything from the economy to the war - right down to printing, and airing, enemy propaganda. And yet they continue with no repercussions whatsoever, even under the eeevil theocratic regime of Bushco. Do the leaks violate Section 2384? We’ll never know… because no one will ever be seriously investigated or prosecuted for it.

A 2996 Project For The Troops?

These days, most people don’t understand the purpose of Memorial Day. It’s not BBQ Day. It’s not a “Free” Day Off of Work, unencumbered by the normal holiday obligations like Christmas and Thanksgiving. It’s not Home Improvement Weekend. It’s the day set aside every year to remember those who have died in the service of our country. People who have set aside their lives and picked up a gun so the rest of us can continue to enjoy the freedoms God has given us. People who have gone to kill other human beings on our behalf, with all of the nightmares that ensue. It’s a day to honor and remember people who have sacrificed their way of life, their innocence and part of their humanity, and finally their very lives… for us.

As Karl at Leaning Straight Up writes, “Please do not wish me a “happy” Memorial Day.” More great memorial posts can be found at Hot Air.

If anyone is interested in working on the equivalent of the 2996 Project, where those lost on 9/11 were remembered, for the troops lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, please email me. It’s not easy to write tributes, because you start to love the person you’re writing about a bit and you feel the loss more keenly, but it’s worth it. As I wrote in a post about my tribute, “They deserve to be remembered, and it speaks well of us and of them if we suffer some pain in the remembering.” Our troops deserve at least this minimal sacrifice from us. Next year we can honor and remember them with individual tributes, and offset this kind of nonsense. As Maggie writes in her post, Winston Churchill said “When the eagles are silent the parrots begin to jabber.” If you’re ready to speak up in the form of a tribute, comment on this post or email me at laura@pursuingholiness.com.

Updated: Use this form to sign up to write a tribute - I’ll get more information, a list and a site together sometime in the next month.

Updated again: In the immortal words of Emily Litella - never mind! Some clever person or group has already done it!!

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