Tuesday Afternoon Abridgment

So much is happening that's just worth noting, let alone commenting upon.

Barbara Bush can be mean. Al Franken intimated as much in his book (see the comments in this post - "I'm done with you" - but he's a liberal, so it's not suprising some of you thought it was a lie). Need some details? Go look at Mean Mr. Mustard by way of Atrios and Barbara's take on New Orleans: "This is working very well for them." If you need more proof that mom and son are birds of a feather, Wonkette offers some insite into Barbara's drinking habits:

• Page Six: Barbara Bush --the white-haired one-- was spotted "guzzling numerous
vodka sodas at East Side Company Bar with a gal pal." [NYP]

And The Wege weighs in with even more Barbara Bush news:

Add to that Barbara Bush’s little-old-lady-hate-screed:

“Almost everyone I have talked to says, `We’re going to move to Houston,’” she said in remarks to National Public Radio’s “Marketplace.” “What I’m hearing is they all want to stay in Texas,” she said. “Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them.”

No, the truth is they let the rot of racism destroy their communities long before Katrina hit, and now Houston and Baton Rouge and other cities are about to experience massive demographic shifts. They can embrace the newcomers, or they can embrace a huge uprise in crime and violence. The Cities absorbed over 60,000 Hmong refugess over the last dozen years, and it changed our culture permanently. Houston and Baton Rouge need to accept that changes will happen whether they like it or not so just accept it and go with the flow from Big Easy.

And in case Barbara's word isn't good enough for you that all the living folk from New Orleans are doing ok, you can take the word of our local Blogger of the Year (link to City Pages, not to him):

"The City of New Orleans and its residents owe the President a profound debt of gratitude." -- Powerline blogger John Hinderaker

Interestingly - that same summary from the City Pages Blotter has a link to a fun program that tells you exactly where you'll end up if you dig a hole through the earth from where you live (or any other place for that matter). I'd be within swimming distance (if I were the Incredible Hulk) of Australia - so maybe I'll use that knowledge to avoid airfare for my sister's 20th anniversary.
Generic Heretic has a post about the most obvious use of irony in a long time - Walmart complaining about being the small fish.

Mean Mr. Mustard relinks to a piece by Keith Olbermann posted at Dependable Renegade. My favorite quotes are below - the later in particular because one of my commentors recently pointed out that I shouldn't credit GW with a "let them eat cake" attitude.

It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.

For him, it is a shame — in all senses of the word. A few changes of pronouns in there, and he might not have looked so much like a 21st Century Marie Antoinette. All that was needed was just a quick "I'm not satisfied with my government's response." Instead of hiding behind phrases like "no one could have foreseen," had he only remembered Winston Churchill's quote from the 1930's. "The responsibility," of government, Churchill told the British Parliament "for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact, the prime object for which governments come into existence."

Finally, the whole Steve Ballmer vs. Google tirade is, in my opinion, funny (via Fimoculous). Not the ravings of a company bent on world domination scary, this is what comes of corporate internationalism frightening...just funny. It reminds me precisely of the scene in The Aviator where Howard Hughes asks the senator (Ralph Owen Brewster as played by Alan Alda) if he really wants to go to war with him.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer vowed to "kill" Google in an expletitive-laced, chair-throwing tirade when a senior engineer told him he was leaving the company to go work for Google, the engineer claimed in court documents made public on Friday.