As Hurricane Gustav continues its course towards Louisiana, our nation’s attention turns to New Orleans. The good news is that the city’s hurricane preparedness (and evacuation methods) have increased since the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The bad news is that there are still several flaws in the system that are going to leave people stuck in the city.
From CNN:
“The thing is,” [26 year old dishwasher Michael Kennedy] continued, “most people don’t have cars to leave, don’t have money for gas. Pay for a hotel for that long? I mean, you …

From Jesse at Pandagon:
The theme of the 2008 GOP Convention: The Cake Was A Lie.

 
Hehe.  It makes my nerd heart smile.

John McCain’s campaign has a problem that also befell the Clinton campaign: aides, advisers and surrogates who run off to the press to make a statement often without permission from the campaign and almost always when they should really not be speaking.
Take this gem from the New York Times for example:
“[Sarah Palin is] going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years, and most doctors think that he’ll be around at least that long,” said Charlie Black, one of Mr. McCain’s top advisers, …

I don’t have to agree with someone politically to think they should still be treated with respect as a human being. Inky99, a poster at Daily Kos, has a diary up about Sarah Palin that is disgusting in the depths to which it sinks. I’ll excerpt the post below but I will again make it clear that I strongly disagree with what Inky99 is doing here. The reason I’m making this post is because some people in the Kos comment thread (thankfully) had a problem with the post as well. …

(5 day prediction cone for Hurricane Gustav from the National Hurricane Center).
Hurricane Gustav is now a Category 4 with wind speeds of 145 miles per hour. Cubans are evacuating by the hundreds of thousands. 81 people have already died in the Caribbean because of the storm. Gustav could gain speed in the Gulf as it heads for the U.S. but is expected to weaken before it makes landfall.
Before it makes landfall in Louisiana. This week was the 3 year anniversary of Katrina and, as most of you probably know, New …

I was at a meeting with about 15 or 20 people of various political stripes yesterday when someone there got a call from a friend letting him know McCain’s Veep pick. After we all got over our surprise, the unifying consensus in the room was that it was obviously a play for the Hillary voters. Which makes me think that it’s a bit too transparent and patronizing of a play to really get the Hillary voters, and it wouldn’t work anyway since they might, you know, actually look at McCain …

Alaska’s right next to Russia! What more experience do you need? As Brandy put it, since Florida’s surrounded by water, it must make her a marine biologist.

Planet Terror, the Robert Rodriguez directed portion of the double feature Grindhouse, is tied with True Romance as my favorite movie of all time . It was like Rodriguez came to my house and asked me what I’d like to see in a movie. Zombies? Got it. Go-go dancing? Sure thing. Rose McGowan with an amputated leg replaced by a machine gun? Sweet FSM, this is what heaven looks like.
I know that film can be used in important ways to explore the realities and possible realities of existence and the …

Tonight’s legendary speech given by Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention:

We’ll have video of Obama’s speech up later tonight, but I wanted to share a quick impression for now.
The speech was great. It hit all the right notes, as I was sure it would. Say what you will about Barack Obama-and a lot of people have-but that man can give a hell of a speech. He hit McCain, tying him to Republican policies and Bush. He nicely deflected the attacks on himself. And he presented progressive, Democratic policies simply and powerfully.
I thought the stage was wonderful. The “Greek columns” were …