Church, State and Privacy in Japan

All one can say to this article about Japan's impending post office privatization is that the people are people everywhere. Read and enjoy. This article is courtesy of the Daily Mainichi Newspaper.

However, on a more serious side, the Japanese High Court has ruled Prime Minister Koizumi's annual pilgrimage to the Yasukuni Shrine (靖国神社) unconstitutional on the grounds that it is a religious activity and that the Constitution forbids to the government on grounds of separation of Church and State.

These pilgrimages have been a constant for Japanese Prime Minister's for at least the last thirty or forty years, though they have been increasingly controversial, even inside Japan. The Court did, however, leave open the door for him to continue visiting if he clearly states that it is in a personal capacity.

Personally, I think that this is pussyfooting around the real issue. Should Japan's Prime Minister be allowed to pay visits to the shrine where Japan's war dead are memorialized? Yes. Should fourteen Class A war criminals from WWII be enshrined there (which is the real root of the controversy)? Probably not. However, as the shrine refuses to allow their removal, there seems to be no easy resolution to this problem. Perhaps only a true and full Japanese admission for their many atrocities during the Second World War (which they call the Pacific War) would really answer the critics.

On a side note, how long will it be before the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State or some other left-wing group manages to convince an activist judge somewhere (along the lines of the out-of-control judge who recently declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional) to use this decision as a precedent to bar the President from visiting the National Cathedral? Or maybe even swearing to uphold the Constitution 'so help me, God'?

Streetwalkers of the World, Unite!

Fascinating. According to the Asian Sex Gazette, Korean prostitutes near the US Army base in Pyongtaek are in the process of forming what they hope to have recognized as a trade union. They also "complain of the lack of help from women's rights advocates who regard their job as an affront to female dignity." Well, that is certainly par for the course for the so-called 'women's right advocates'. With few exceptions, they seem to be more interested in getting female members into August golf course than actually helping those who really need their help. Typical libs....

However. Considering that prosititution in South Korea is highly illegal, I have to think that the prosititutes' chances or recognition are as scanty as their 'work uniforms'. Or will the authorities be taxing the 'labor' involved next? Snicker....

The EU Wants In?

Well, well. After the EU's infamous ISO-OSI model for the Internet was rejected by the free market in favor of the US's privately developed TCP/IP model, and after the US has done virtually all of the heacy lifting on the creation, manintenance and upgrading of the Internet, the EU now thinks it somehow deserves an equal role in managing the Internet. Natually along with Third-World 'contributors' such as China, Brazil, etc.

According to Breitbart this morning, the EU is insistent that control of the Internet be handed over to an international body,; the US says no way. Without being too nationalistic, I have to think that the US government is correct on this one. If you have developed something and done by far the majority of the maintenance, organization and funding, why hand it over to a group that definitely does not have your best interests at heart? If the EU and the developing world wants to have a larger cut of the Internet pie, they should have contributed a little more of the development.

Hat tip to Matt Drudge.

More Egg For the MSM

It appears that the so-called 'professionalism' the MSM likes to bleat about is nothing more than a monstrous put-up job. Recent reports out of New Orleans would seem to indicate that the job performed by the MSM was disgraceful at best and downright criminal at worst. The most appalling part of the new information seems to indicate that if the majority of refugees had been white, as occurred in Mississippi, the Exempt Media would not have covered things this way. Which brings up the question- then why did color make a difference?

According to John Podhoretz of the National Review, both the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the Los Angeles Times have now noticed the lack of accuracy displayed by our 'professional' media regarding the Katrina story. Of course, Dan Rather hasn't. He thinks the coverage was wonderful. Well, Mr. Forged-but-True's lack of perspicacity is unfortunately not surprising. Disappointing, but not surprising.

Hope for Oil?

This article, contains an interesting possibility as regards our unfortunate dependency on Islamoterrorist oil. Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel after all. Read the article in its entirety and see what you think.

I agree with Glenn Reynolds when he says:

Long term strategic plan for the United States: Get the price of oil up high enough that oil shale competes with Middle East oil. Then put Middle East oil producers out of business, or just let them run out of oil. Oil-funded islamoterror then goes out of business, too, and the Middle East goes back to being an unimportant backwater.

Now if only the enviro-terrorists can be persuaded to hold their inevitable lawsuits in abeyance until we know whether this is a viable option or not. Wait, who am I kidding? Environmentalists work for the good of the country as opposed to their own little agenda? We all know they would rather see us all die as opposed to find any alternatives to oil other than their favored (unfeasible and impratcial, but oh-so-touchy/feely)ideas.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

Air Scamerica- Take Three

Well, well. The Air America scandal keeps getting deeper and dirtier. The New York Sun newspaper reported today that David Goodfriend, a former Clinton Administration appointee and the one Air America executive who actually appears to have tried to behave ethically, was "sickened to the core" by the idea of money being taken from a Boys and Girls Club to fund Air America.

Mr. Goodfriend, in fact, as the Sun reports, resigned in the face of great pressure rather than sign on to what he believes was a fraudulent transfer of authority from Progress Media to the current owners of Air America, Piquant Media.

And I am sure we can all imagine what the Exempt Media would be saying if this were a conservative network. Or even a story that could be tied in some remote way to George W. Bush. Remember their breathless attempts to blame Bush and the Republicans for Enron? How that story simply couldn't get enough resources? Or maybe how they spent so much time on the Texas ANG story in hopes of proving Bush an AWOL- though they themselves do not appear to have any issues with draft-dodgers, as evidenced by their adoption of and identification with Bill Clinton!

But apparently the "win at all costs" attitude the Left inherited from the Bolsheviks and Communists who were their major funders has trumped truth in reporting for these repulsive remnants of the Left's broadcast dominance. Will the Exempt Media ever report on this story? The world wonders....

Truth in Pork?

Truth in Legislation? Considering the embarrassing and bloated bills that our Congress and Presidents have foisted on the unsuspecting taxpayer, like the recent highway bill, perhaps it is time we start. Two members of the legal profession, Professor Brannon Denning and attorney Brooks Smith have suggested a Truth-in-Legislation amendment to the US Constitution. A copy of their proposal may be found here . Read the full text and decide for yourself.

One word of warning- this has been tried before, both times during Republican administrations and has failed both times. Congressmen and Senators are wedded firmly to pork and are not likely to easily give it up. However, I like the idea. Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

Don't Cry for Me Dan

Dan Rather apparently has succumbed to the well-known phenomenon of viewing the past through rose-colored glasses. This despite being a member of the baby boom generation- one not known for either introspection or for much humility. This was the generation that was so convinced of its own purity- and is still not very good at taking stock of its failures, as was famously proven by Bill Clintons' eight scandal-ridden years in the WHite House!

Rather, according to Matt Drudge, claims that there is a "new journalism order" and said that a climate of fear is running through newsrooms "worse than anything he had seen in his more than four-decade career".He also whined that politicians had gotten better at applying pressure to the corporate entities that run most journalistic enterprises.

Well, gee, Dan. Since you members of the Fourth Estate have twisted your role from reporter of events to arbiter of society, and can't or won't observe either objectivity or just come out and admit your biases, don't you think that politicians might strike back the only way they can- at your bosses pocketbooks? The First Amendment exists, like it or not, to protect mainly political speech of the type you (mostly) engage in, not porn, despite what you folks on the Left would like to believe. Therefore, since politicians cannot regulate the Press they way a United Kingdom can, they are going to make life uncomfortable for your corporate bosses, instead of directly attacking you.

This is simply more proof that the Exempt Media cannot come to grips with the fact that they are no longer able to get away with the partisan, untruthful and biased 'rfeporting' that they have engaged in for the better part of the last fifty years. Welcome to the New Order, Dan. I personally prefer it to what went before.

Weekend Posts

The weekends are pretty slow in the Gankomon househopd. I spent today cleaning up my office. SInce we have recently joined the ranks of the homeowners, our belongeings, while mostly unpacked and correctly stored, are not entirely organized toi our liking. The office, as it is the repository of our book collection is a particularly unsightly at the monment, hencce our efforts this weekend to make it somewhat more presentable.

after spending the majority of the day building additional bookshelves, shredding no-longer-relevant documents and re-organizing Mrs. Gankomon has promounced the room 'a vast improvement'. Therefore, I conclude that my efforts were not in vain. We will be spending the remainder of the weekend execuiting those other required domestic tasks- shopping for groceries, vacuuming, and taking my mother-in-law, who is visiting, to local Japanese supermarkets.

Republicans Like Pork Too

More proof that you can't trust politicians with other people's money came in today, as Tom DeLay engaged in one of the most amusing- and completely untruthful- exercises in speech in quite some time. Majority Leader DeLay is without doubt a very skilled politician. His financial acumen is equally doubtless- his LACK of financial acumen, that is!

Debra Saunders reported today that according to the Washington Times, DeLay declared an "ongoing victory" over cutting government spending. Well, Tom, have you taken a look lately at say, the highway bill? Or perhaps the other pork projects that your fat-cutting Congress has passed in the last few years?

Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste(C.A.G.W.), is set to release a list of over $2 trillion in pork that he says the government could and should cut. Even members of DeLay's own party aren't sure what he is talking about. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) even wondered if DeLay and he had been serving in the same Congress.

While we wait for the good folks at C.A.G.W. to get their own list up, the Heritage Foundation has a excellent summary of some of the more egregious pork in the federal budget for Mr. DeLay to work on in his "victory". A more detailed version of the Heritage Foundation's list can be found here .

Republicans used to be the party of fiscal restraint. But that was before they became the majority party. It appears that when in power, they are no better than the Democrats at restraining government spending. The only thing for which we can be grateful is that they do spend more on the important things- like our wonderful military- and they ado not appear ready to surrender to the next would-be tyrant or little tin god who comes along spouting a politically correct ideology, unlike the once-proud Democrats!

However, once again, this proves that a) politicians can't count and b) should NEVER be trusted with your money. Remember that the next time your neighborhood government representative is trying to convince you that Washington/your local government/etc can spend your money more responsibly than can you.

Prince Albert Chooses Unwisely

Another word on Katrina came up today. Apparently, as Al Gore was delivering a September 9th speech in San Francisco to the Sierra Club, in which he busied himself accusing President Bush of sabotaging the enviornment, a Congressional task force in Washington, D.C. was releasing their own report regarding the levees of New Orleans. The same levees that gave way so disastrously in the aftermath of Katrina's touchdown.

Unfortunately for Al and his enviro-wacko friends in the Sierra Club, it turns out, as reported here by Emmett Tyrell, that the Army Corps of Engineers was ready to build up those levees in 1996. But they were stopped by a lawsuit filed by- the Sierra Club! Hmmm...

It also turns out that another enviro-freak group, this one called Save the Wetlands, filed a lawsuit in 1977 to stop the congressionally-funded building of what the LA Times characterized as a "massive hurricane barrier". Apparently they convinced a judge that it was more important to do a more thorough environmental study than protect the citizens of New Orleans.

Gee Al- would you include your enviro-friends among those who you so passionately called on to be held accountable for the disaster caused by Katrina? Just asking....

Expose-ing Aichi

Fascinating. According to Japan's Weekly Playboy magazine, and reported by Mainichi Daily News' Wai-Wai, five people were arrested while filming a nude girl from the Ferris wheel at the Aichi World Exposition. The perpetrators look likely to get off with small fines. The main worry of the Weekly Playboy? They may have endangered the burgeoning exhibitionism sector of Japan's adult film industry. Hmmm....

Perception is Everything

Perception is interesting. Listen to the Exempt Media or watch any primetime program on the television, and you will see horrors in the characters; daily lives. Children are kidnapped, women raped, and drugs are a daily presence. However, a new article by John Stossel on Town Hall reminded me that we actually live in a better, safer, cleaner time than perhaps any generation that has preceded us.

Crime is the lowest it's been in fifty years, cigarettes have been all but banished from the public sphere in many places, and even though the environmental movement is still desperately trying to convince us to subordinate humanity to the ruffled owl or perhaps the minnow, environmentally we live in the cleanest era in American history.

Wouldn't it be nice to see the media once in a while stop to count the blessings of life in 21st-century America, instead of trying to impose their own dark visions on the rest of us? It does raise the question of what kind of life they want that they try so hard to darken ours. Doesn't it?

MSM Misfires- Again

Well, well. Despite all the Exempt Media lashing out at President Bush, even as they are giving a pass to the state and local (Democratic) officals who were really at fault in the Katrina reaction, it appears that most Americans are not buying the snake oil the MSM is trying to sell. A recent Gallup poll, courtesy of Ankle Biting Pundits shows that Bush's poll numbers, far from crashing as the Democrats and their media friends were doubtless hoping, have actually risen and even more important, 49% of Americans say the media is spending too much time trying to afix blame.

Interestingly enough, in the same poll, Bush's overall job approval is up to 46% from last week's 45%, and 63% still have confidence in the go vernment's ability to handle terrorist attacks.

You almost have to feel for those poor mediacrat elites with their better intelligence. Even after striking out with every resource at Bush after Katrina as referenced by James Pinkerton at Tech Central Station, they still can't bring him down. And the rest of the country is catching on, as evidenced by the continuing growth of the blogosphere. And if we are all very lucky, they won't be able to foist Madame Hillary on us in 2008, and we'll have more years of Republican leadership, as opposed to Democratic ankle-biting.

One last thought- all that attention is focused on New Orleans and Louisiana. What was the state and local response like in Republican-governed Mississippi? Was it actually competent? Or were there not enough dead black Democrats for the MSM? Just wondering....

Hat tip as usual to Glenn Reynolds.

Walmart Live!

OK- this is ridiculous. WALMART has a BLOG !!????? Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

Our National Anthem

On a different note from our usual focus on the political scene, I thought that we should celebrate one of the many high points in our country's history by remembering that this day in history is the day when Francis Scott Key was inspired to write the Star-Spangled Banner, our national anthem.

On September 13, 1815, Key was being held prisoner on board a British ship bombarding Fort McHenry near Baltimore during the War of 1812. It was a different era, and Key was allowed to be on deck as the fleet attacked the defenses to Baltimore. All through the night, the British fleet kept up their firing, but the fort never surrendered, and as the sun came up, Key saw that the flag was still waving over the embattled fortress. Inspired by the sight, he wrote the lyrics to what became the United States' national anthem, setting it to an old English drinking song titled To Anacreon in Heaven. According to Infoplease, this tune's origins are difficult to trace, but it might have been written by John Stafford Smith, born in 1750.

Although there has been a movement to change the anthem to something easier to sing, I personally like the Star-Spangled Banner, despite its difficulty (as can be proven by the many popular "singers" who attempt and usually fail miserably to sing it during professional sporting events) and the fact that there are few who actually know all of the lyrics. Usually only the first verse of the song is sung. The complete lyrics of the Star-Spangled Banner also courtesy of Infoplease, are as follows:

O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen thro' the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever when free-men shall stand
Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust!”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

More Katrina Coverage

Sorry in advance for the length of today's post, but there are a few things i need to get off my chest. Is anyone else smirking now that despite the Left's attempts to blame George W. Bush for the Katrina disaster, it appears that most Americans are not buying. Accoring to a recent Washington Post poll, 55% of Americans do not in fact blame the Federal Government for the disastrous reaction to Hurricane Katrina. In fact, most of them appear to understand what Bush-obsessed lefty journalists do not- that there is a clear divide in responsibility in this country- it's called federalism- and the primary responsibility rests with the Mayor of New Orleans- Ray Nagin, who not coincidentally is both Democrat and black. What qualifications did you need to be a 'professional journalist' again?

In fact, the federal response was faster than Hurricane Andrew, and the much-maligned FEMA head Michael Brown actually began moving Federal resources to the area two days before the hurricane touched down! And as has been reported elsewhere, the Coast Guard was in action less than 24 hours after the storm hit. This in addition to the fact that federal resources were on the ground and in action 48 hours after the storm hit, despite the failure by state and local officials to follow The City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan. Said plan, by the way, DOES NOT MENTION any asssistance from the federal government. State asssistance is mentioned, and the main responssibility rests with the mayor's office, but the feds are not even referenced! I wonder if anybody in the so-called mainstream Media has even read the plan? Apparently not.

As Ben Johnson of the Front Page Magazine shows, the City of New Orleans' own disaster plan clearly bestows the responsibility for disaster planning and evactuaion on the Mayor of New Orleans. Not the Federal government, not the United Nation, but on the Mayor. And the Mayor failed his city badly. It was his responsibility to get the people out who could not get out by themselves- he failed. It was his responsibility to control the city in the aftermath of the storm- his Police Departmnent, for which he is ultimately responsible, failed. And it was his responsibility to follow his own disaster plan- which he completely failed to do- see Captain Ed Morrissey's coverage of the bodies in a New Orleans hospital for evidence of just how badly he failed his constituents.

However, he was not alone. And it appears that the students at Louisiana State University (congratulations, by the way on the great win at Arizona State this weekend) understand their governmental system better than either the politicians who tried so hard to pass the buck or the Exempt Media who tried to let them off the hook due apparently to their party affiliation. As the LSU student paper, The Reveille accurately commented,

We live in the era of massive federal government. Yet, this doesn’t change the fact that America was not designed to function through one huge central government. Our federalist system gives states and municipal governments the responsibility to protect and care for their citizenry.

Two days before Hurricane Katrina made landfall near New Orleans, President Bush took the extraordinary step of declaring the state of Louisiana a major disaster area before the disaster was a reality. Through this declaration, medical supplies, food, water and National Guard units were sent to be on call just a short distance from New Orleans.

The Reveille went on to scour Governor Kathleen Blanco (D-LA), saying,

According to Colonel David Hunt, a Fox News military analyst, Blanco had 6,000 Louisiana National Guard and 1,000 state police at her disposal, but Blanco didn’t send them in. Nor did she call her fellow governors to mobilize Guard units from other states.

In my estimation, Governor Blanco also deserves blame for her decision to block Red Cross workers from delivering relief supplies and who dithered before actually calling in the feds to help. She is a political hack, and deserves impeachment for her utter lack of leadership, along with the main hack, Mayor Nagin. Not that any of this has stopped the Left's attack dogs from claiming that George Bush is somehow responsible. Does the Left live in the real world?

So let's review. In 1992, the Democrats and their media friends sold us a draft-dodger by saying that it was time to move on from Vietnam and that draft-dodging didn't matter. But when a Republican with less-than-heroic military credentials ran, they claimed he was a draft-dodger! When Bill Clinton sent our military into Kosovo on a bleeding-heart whim (we are still there, by the way), they had no problem with the lack of UN credentials or with using the US military. And they certainly didn't hover like vultures waiting for the next day's death list! (And I do not recall many Republicans claiming Clinton was making us less safer. They questioned his motives, but not his actions). But when George Bush goes into Iraq in pursuit of actually making the United States safer, somehow a lack of UN credentials is criminal and our soldiers are suddenly imperialist baby-killers again. When a Senate voted 99-0 against Kyoto, they said nothing. But when a hurricane hits, instead of pulling together and trying to rebuild, they can only try to use this disaster to destroy the President! Whatever happened to the idea of loyal opposition? Or is that one more just ideal consigned to the scrapbin of history?

Re: Sarong Party Girls

Heh. It appears that Singapore has yet to lighten up. According to Asian Sex Gazette, there is a 19-year old Sarong Party Girl (SPG) blogging in full detail about her sex life and experiences as a Sarong Party Girl! So I went searching for her blog, and found an fascinating blog written, as promised, by a Singaporean SPG. This particular SPG is highly entertaining and has a interesting utilization of language on her blog. She also appears to be very intelligent, and if you want a window into her world, check out her blog at Sarong Party Girl.

So what is a Sarong Party Girl? For those of you who are unaware of this phenonmenon, I will briefly explain. In Malaysia and Singapore, there is a particular type of girl who are known as Sarong Party Girls (SPG). According to a good girlfriend of mine in Malaysia, SPGs are usually young, pretty hot, dress provocatively, and they are also shallow, relatively easy to sleep with and expensive. In short, if you are dating an SPG, expect to be hit up frequently for their little desires- Gucci purses, expensive clothes, fancy places to go on dates, etc. Basically the classic gold-digger.

It takes money to get them- your physical appearance is secondary to your financial standing, though still important. In Japan of the late 1980s, they would be roughly analogous to the body-conscious girls found in places like Julianna's Tokyo, though the bodicons were not as into foreigners as the SPGs are reputed to be (language difficulties may have had something to do with that- Singaporean girls speak English, as opposed to most Japanese girls). However, be aware that SPGs are NOT analogous to the bar-girls found in Thailand and the Philippine Islands. In other words, they are not prostitutes. Oh, and they usually prefer non-Asian men (European-American seems to be the most popular).

So if you are going to be in Singapore and/or Malaysia, you can find them fairly easily once you enter the local scene. Or just ask your local friends where they hang out. And then don't say I didn't warn you. Serious hat tip to Mentok.

More Air Scamerica

So I observed that at long last, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune has taken notice of the ongoing and ever-deepening Air America scandal involving local 'hero' Al Franken. Let's see- how long has this been going on and the Exempt Media has chosen to ignore it? And as Scott Johnson of Power Line immediately and accurately responded, the Strib managed to report only on where Franken could actually be heard- ignoring the salient details of the actual story entirely! Hmm, media professionalism in action.

Can anyone imagine that they would have ignored this if say, Rush Limbaugh had been involved? I seem to recall breathless and constant coverage (much of it unfairly suggsting that Rush was a drug-crazed fiend) when Rush announced he had become addicted to pain-killers. This despite the fact that the Exempt Media normally portary drug-users, like Robert Downey, Jr., for example, as helpless victims.

Speaking of Rush, he also has a post today on the failure of Exempt Media to report on the real story from New Orleans that everyone else has managed to find- that it was the Louisiana state officials, starting with Governor Blanco, who are the villains of the piece, not the feds or George W. Bush.

The moral of this sordid story seems to be that when a liberal 'hero' is involved in a potential scandal, the Exempt Media prefer to serve as Democratic Party shills rather than actually report on the story. Hat tips to Power Line, The Washington Times and of course Glenn Reynolds. Special notice to Michelle Malkin and Brian Maloney who have been providing suberb coverage on the shenanigans at Air America almost since Day One.

Media Interest

So I observe that the Exempt Media have not been able to find anything to do other than blame President Bush for the Hurricane Katrina fiasco. This despite numerous debunkers, including Power Line, Hugh Hewitt, and even a fair member of the left, Jay Rosen of New York University.

However, a new story posted yesterday by Radio Blogger contains the transcript of a conversation between Hugh Hewitt and Major Garrett of Fox News clearly shows that despite the dreams of the Democrats and their allies in the Exempt Media, the main culprit was Louisiana, NOT the federal government. Additionally, an article posted by Diana West and backed up by the left-leaning site The Daily Howler clearly shows that the federal response was not that bad. In fact, federal responders were on the ground 48 hours after Katrina hit- quicker than when Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992. In fact, the US Coast Guard was in action rescuing people less than 24 hours after Katrina hit. This is an especially good reaction considering the dithering from the state's elected officials and the disgraceful behavior by the city of New Orleans. had they allowed the feds to get involved earlier, perhaps at least SOME of the suffering might have been alleviated.

Perhaps maybe the Exempt Media might take a minute to examine the real story? Oh, wait, they are too busy trying to destroy Bush for their friends in the Democratic Party.

Hurricanes and Blowhards

So I have been somewhat lax in following the 'coverage' of the New Orleans damage. However, I fear it appears that the Exempt Media have once again allowed their partisanship to outweigh their so-called professionalism. Having been a blog-reader for some time, I will resist the temptation to comment somewhat pithily on the level of their 'professionalism'. Let us merely say that journalists do not seem to have either great understanding of the stories which they cover or great ethics in the way they execute their jobs. In short, they are supremely unqualified for the important role that society has asssigned them.

Case in point is the 'coverage' on display from the Exempt Media. Though they can find time to blame the President for the entire mess, they seem to have forgotten their civics classes, as several of bloggers have already pointed out. I point to examples like this one from the LA Times, and this one from the Democracry Project.

Also much applause to Glenn Reynolds, Captain's Quarters and many others for not only organizing and leading the blogosphere donation effort, but also for actual reporting on the real culprits- Governor Kathleen Blanco and Mayor Ray Nagin. They also take time to remind the flaming moonbats of the Left that the Federal Government is not responsible as a first responder to catastrophes, and in this case, was not even assked for help by the Governor until apparently a personal phone call from the President shamed her into actually making a decision! According to Hugh Hewitt, they even went so far as to block aid directly after the storm. This is sonmething that our Exempt Media (with the solitary exception of ABC News, according to Matt Drudge) has yet to notice in their unseemly haste to blame the President. And I will be nice and won't even mention the ludicrous and hypocritical "efforts" of people like Sean Penn and RFK, Jr.