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Republicans frequently claim that the Democrats enjoy a sympathetic Press, which is true, but probably not the main problem. The problem is that Democrats are just better at playing the public perception game. Right now pundits and politicians are vociferously...

A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State

H/T to a former Navy shipmate for this article e-mailed to me. He offered it without comment, and if you check it out, you'll see that it speaks for itself. (by the way, he's in the Houston area, a lot closer to the action than the Chief is up in South Dakota.)

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists?myself included?did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.

The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.

The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over four days last week. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.

Hugh Hewitt (HT to Power Line):The Fox News Channel's Major Garrett made another appearance on the program this evening, following up on his blockbuster story yesterday. Among other things, Garrett got confirmation from the head of the Red cross --on...

David Brooks and Ruben Navarrette have different takes on the government's response on all levels to hurricane Katrina. Not surprisingly I find myself siding with Brooks. Brooks argues: Katrina was the most anticipated natural disaster in American history, and still...

Time for a Sheriff's Relief Fund update. Today I wrote a check and took it to the bank for deposit. Y'all donated $55 so far. The deposit slip is available for the donors to look at. If you wish to...

Hey, Maybe the Singularity Really Is Near

A very interesting article from Glenn Reynolds stepping outside of his "evil" incarnation as the Instapundit, in which he points out some very strange sounding science and technology at the bleeding edge of the art.

Ray Kurzweil's book, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology comes out next week. And I suspect that a lot of people wonder if things will really happen as fast as Kurzweil suggests.

But as I look at the news reports, I see quite a few signs that we're living in a future that not long ago would have looked science fictional. Take, for example, this report: Miracle Mouse Can Grow Back Limbs.

It's so far out, that the Chief read it in new sci-fi just a few years ago. In spite of the cautious optimism implicit in all of this stuff, there's also a sobering warning:

Meanwhile, here's an interview with Ray Kurzweil that I published elsewhere. Kurzweil is an optimist, but even he worries that the Singularity may come as a result of Chinese, not American, efforts, and he's got some disturbing numbers. The future is almost here, but we've still got some choices about how things will turn out. Let's try to choose wisely.

Indeed!

Today's FARK headline: Today's "I'll never drink again" story brought to you by Denver, where man on painkillers, who hadn't slept for two days because of tooth abscess, decides to have a few beers and go four-wheeling at night in...

Do we still remember? Was it the day that changed us forever? Here are some thoughts from Mark Steyn, and Todd Bevan. My favorite contemporary pieces were this one by John Derbyshire, and a Sept. 12, 2001 piece by...

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