McLame needs a timeout

While he figures out how to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Maybe he should send his running mate to stand in for him. No time like the present to see if she would be ready on Day One.

Post-Ike traffic snarls make Houston's roads even worse

Last Thursday evening I left my house -- ten minutes before the electricity was restored -- and drove from West U to Copperfield, near 290 and 6 on the northwest side, a distance of about 40 miles that takes normally an hour at posted speeds with some traffic.

It took two hours and fifteen minutes. I regularly travel to Beaumont, a hundred miles away, in an hour less than that.

Over the weekend we ventured out for food a couple of times and instantly regretted it: four-way stops at nearly every intersection, with gridlocked cars clogging the lanes at each crossing that had a functioning traffic signal.

Yesterday the Chronic reported that the traffic jams on Monday, with many employees and school children returning for the first time in a week, were among the worst ever across the city:

Metro officials on Tuesday agreed to open high-occupancy vehicle lanes on U.S. 59 and U.S. 290 after traffic on many freeways came to a complete halt during the rush hour Monday, the first day many Houstonians went back to work after the storm.

Today we learn that our county judge -- "recognized worldwide as a transportation expert" -- won't have all the traffic lights restored before oh, maybe Election Day:

With darkened intersections leading to traffic snarls on freeways and city streets, officials are searching for at least some relief by putting more officers on traffic-directing duty and reopening high-occupancy vehicle lanes.

Traffic signals at about 1,200 Houston area intersections were not yet working Tuesday but should all have at least a flashing red light by the end of next week, said Mike Marcotte, the city's director of public works and engineering. ...

Getting all the city's traffic lights functioning at pre-Hurricane Ike levels could take until November, Marcotte said.

That article is sprinkled liberally with the same feel-good BS that last week's all-GOP press avails were similarly full of. Go read it. You'll get diabetes from the candy-coated smarm:

"I've been amazed with the courtesy our drivers have been showing," Marcotte said.

"More and more signals are being put in working condition every day, hour by hour almost," said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, who convened a meeting of transportation officials Tuesday afternoon to seek solutions to the problems. "The flow in the community is getting better."

"For the most part, Houston is behaving extremely well," said Art Neely, who has driven a cab for 25 years.

A cab driver complimenting Houston drivers. That's wow-worthy all by itself. (Have you seen how those crazy cabbies cut through traffic? They're worse than the wrecker drivers. But I digress.)

Ed Emmett led the parade of Republican officials running for re-election across every local teevee channel last week: Rick Perry (yes, he's running for re-election), Bill White (yes, he's a Republican and he's running for governor in 2010 too), John Cornyn, Michael McCaul, John Culberson (who at least publicly bitched a little when his command center ran out of pizza) and even that Michelin Man Tuffy Hamilton from washed-out Orange County managed to get some face time with the cameras. They cried out in unison "All is Well!" even as two million people had no electricity and the PODs couldn't get any ice.

I say we elect a few Democrats to county offices so that they can at least share some of the blame come the next hurricane, eh?

Floating bodies roundup

"After the water started going down the next day, I spent two or three hours clearing debris from the floor inside of the house to where I could get my wife down out of the attic," he remembered. "Then I climbed down a pole into the water and the mud and scavenged around and found a ladder where she could come down eventually. Then I walked the roads up there until I found enough water and stuff for us to survive." ... (Bolivar Peninsula survivor Frank) Sherman believes several close friends died in the storm, but officials have not confirmed any deaths on Crystal Beach.

Post-storm rescuers in Galveston and the peninsula removed about 3,500 people, but 6,000 refused to leave.

Nobody is suggesting that tens of thousands died, but determining what happened to those unaccounted for is a painstaking task that could leave survivors wondering for years to come.

Authorities concede that at least some of those who haven’t turned up could have been washed out to sea, as at least one woman on the peninsula apparently was, and that other bodies might still be found.

“I’m not Pollyanna. I think we will find some,” said Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough, the county’s highest-ranking elected official.

Pustilniks’ office brought in two refrigerated tractor-trailers to store bodies until autopsies are performed. One sat in front of the medical examiner’s office Wednesday morning with a sign on the side: “Jesus Christ is Lord not a cuss word.”

By the afternoon, five deaths had been reported in Galveston County: one man who drowned in his pickup, another found inside a motel, two dialysis patients who could not get to their treatment, and a woman with cancer whose oxygen machine shut down.

Many of you have probably seen the photo of Gilchrist, Texas showing complete destruction of the town of 750 people, save for one lone home. High-resolution satellite imagery made available by NOAA's National Geodetic Survey (Figure 1) confirm that of the approximately 1000 structures existing in the town before Hurricane Ike, only about five survived the hurricane. Approximately 200 of these buildings were homes, and it is thought that some of the residents attempted to ride out the storm in their homes. According to media reports, about 34 survivors from Gilchrist and the neighboring communities of Crystal Beach and Port Bolivar have been fished out of Galveston Bay in the past few days. Rescuers who have reached Gilchrist have not been able to find any victims in the debris because there is no debris. Ike's storm surge knocked 99.5% of the 1,000 buildings in Gilchrist off their foundations and either demolished them or washed them miles inland into the swamplands behind Gilchrist. Until search teams can locate the debris of what once was Gilchrist, we will not know the fate of those who may have stayed behind to ride out the storm.

Hurricane Toons (financial and otherwise)

Still-recovering-from-Ike Wrangle

Seven hundred and sixty-seven thousand Houstonians (34% of CenterPoint Energy's customers) are still without power today, ten days after the hurricane. That's 100,000 more people than Sarah Palin governs in Alaska, and more than the entire populations of the cities of San Francisco, CA, Columbus OH, and both Austin and Fort Worth.

At least I no longer have a big wad of state and local Republicans running for re-election on my teevee declaring "All is Well". Here's this week's edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance’s weekly roundup, compiled by Vince from Capitol Annex.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notices cronies are number #1 in Texas from insurance companies to power companies.

jobsanger points out the blatant racism at the “Values Voters Summit” sponsored by the Family Research Council, and wonders if John McCain’s “senior moments” are indicative of a more serious psychological problem.

The Texas Cloverleaf spots state Senator Kim Brimer at a union hall. Unfortunately, as they say, you can’t put lipstick on a pig.

Off the Kuff takes a look at the lawsuit filed by Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr to force John McCain and Barack Obama off the ballot in Texas.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the real-world effects of the TRCC: Builder protection agency “hits home” in Williamson County.

Neither the authorities nor the media have found any bodies hanging from the trees in Galveston or on Bolivar Peninsula — mostly because there aren’t any trees high enough to catch one — but that didn’t stop PDiddie from posting the rumors at Brains and Eggs.

Mike Thomas at Rhetoric and Rhthym notes that Lyle Larson would fight for San Antonio’s share of federal funding based on his latest ad blasting all Congressional earmarks as wasteful “pork”.

McBlogger takes a moment to demystify what’s going on in financial markets. And calls some people really bad names.

North Texas Liberal unveils the second installment of their Sarah Palin series.

nytexan at BlueBloggin wonders how John McCain cleans up Washington and Wall Street of the lobbyists when 177 of them work for him.

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News urges all to contact your Congress people now about this bad, very bad $700 billion taxpayer funded bailout of the financial industry. Otherwise, for the next three months and then an additional six months after that, the Treasury Secretary can do anything “appropriate” with your money without anybody anywhere looking it over.

WhosPlayin took a moment to pin that pesky “redistribution of wealth” meme back on the Republicans, where it originated and operates today.

BossKitty at TruthHugger still expects the Bush administration to pull a fast one, because the Pakistan Meltdown Offers Bush More Opportunities To Create Crisis, and the dogs of war are still salivating …

Vince at Capitol Annex tells us that state rep. John Davis is up to his old tricks down in HD-129. This time he’s holding a fundraiser in Austin while his district is without power, and his constituents are without water. He’s clearly addicted to campaign cash. Someone throw this guy a roll of quarters before he has a stroke.

Debate Watch Party this Friday

Blog Action Day, October 15, 2008: Poverty

More Funnies (which ones are the socialists, again?)

EV 9/21: Lots of tossups

The McPalin bounce is officially over. Look at all the states that moved within a polling margin of error this past week: NV, CO, WI, OH, PA, NH, and FL. New Mexico flipped red to blue.

There is no clear favorite now, 45 or so days from Election Day, and 5 days before the first presidential debate.

<p><strong>><a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/'>Electoral College Prediction Map</a></strong> - Predict the winner of the general election. Use the map to experiment with winning combinations of states. Save your prediction and send it to friends.</p>

Sunday Funnies (The Old Man and the C edition)

Hey, blame Ernest Hemingway...

A McPalin pork sandwich, with a side of lipstick and fries

I wonder if I can get one to go:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska-- A local restaurant is incorporating politics into its menu.

Lion's Den restaurant in midtown Anchorage has created its own specialty called the McPalin grilled pig sandwich.

Lion's Den owner Dale Keefe says normally he keeps politics out of work conversation. But when he was making sandwiches with his crew last week, the big top news story was Barack Obama's comment, "You know, you can put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig."

Obama's comment began Keefe's political food creation.



"I just kept thinking about that news story when I was making sandwiches and I just kind of had an epiphany," Keefe said.

The McPalin sandwich has grilled pork tenderloin on it with caramelized apples, red onions, melted cheddar cheese, and crisp bacon.

Most food creators add some type of garnish such as parsley or fruit to top off their dish, but Keefe decided to do something a little more personal.

The sandwich is served with a side of lipstick and fries.

The McPalin grilled pig sandwich runs for about $13, and has been selling out.

Cleaning up (after the hurricane, and after the markets)

Off shortly to the second day of Harris County's logic and accuracy testing of the Hart InterCivic e-Slates for November's election. More on that this weekend. Two excerpts from stories highlighting the twin messes that need mopping up; first Ike, Houston, and the immigration paradox, from Reuters:

The men gather early on street corners here in storm-battered Houston, ready for the jobs they know will come their way, sweeping up broken glass and clearing downed trees and debris from city streets.

They speak mostly Spanish, while looking warily at strangers. And these undocumented, also called illegal, immigrants worry that instead of a job and a day's wages, they might instead find themselves arrested and deported.

Indeed, in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, which left a trail of destruction across southeast Texas, America's ongoing debate over U.S. immigration policy is again aflame.

On the one hand, the undocumented in the United States -- an estimated 12 million mostly Hispanic individuals -- are seen by some as a needed labor source, particularly after disasters like Ike turn communities to ruin. But many see the group as a drag on government resources who take jobs from Americans and deserve no assistance.

"They don't have resources and they don't have legal status, and we are concerned that they might not ... have water or electricity," said Fernando Garcia, the director of the Border Network for Human Rights, a nonprofit advocacy group.

"People are afraid to reach out for help as they don't know if immigration (police) will detain them or not," he said.

There are more than one million undocumented workers in Texas, with many living in Houston and surrounding areas hit by the hurricane, according to the Border Network.

With drivers' licenses and Social Security numbers as the keys to unlocking government aid, assistance such as emergency food stamps and help with temporary housing are largely unavailable for this population.

"If you are an undocumented worker you are barred from these resources," said Texas Health and Human Services spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman.

What?!? But what about all that pissing and moaning I hear from conservatives all the time? It's not just more BS from the Republick elitists, is it?

Armed with shovels and rakes, undocumented workers have played a role in clearing away the rubble of many of America's natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the wildfires that ravaged southern California in 2007.

That factor, combined with evidence that many in the Hispanic population have trouble tapping post-disaster aid, needs reform, advocates said.

"The question of benefits and who can apply after a disaster is a big issue," said The National Council of La Raza spokeswoman Sara Benitez. "That has been a really big issue in the Gulf Coast."

Go to the link to get more about the "both sides of the story".

Amid the debate, with thousands of flooded and wind-battered homes and businesses in need of clean-up and repair across southeast Texas and Louisiana, manual laborers, including undocumented workers, are in high demand.

Laborers are needed everywhere from Houston, the fourth-largest U.S. city, to Galveston Island, a seaside community that once housed 60,000 but now is a deemed so storm-damaged that everyone has been asked to evacuate.

"Everyone went to work yesterday," said Mark Zwick, founder of Casa Juan Diego, an assistance organization that houses, feeds and provides medical care for undocumented immigrants in Houston. "Work had been down, but now there is plenty for them."

And this, on the bailout of the money markets accounts inside mutual funds:

The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday announced it will use $50 billion to back money market mutual funds whose asset values fall below $1 in another step to contain raging financial turmoil.

"For the next year, the U.S. Treasury will insure the holdings of any publicly offered eligible money market mutual fund -- both retail and institutional -- that pays a fee to participate in the program," the Treasury said in a statement.

A reaction from analyst David Kotok of New Jersey-based Cumberland Advisors: "Like it or not, we're going to get it. Massive government intervention is re-writing the financial markets playbook."

Update: What's going on locally that is affecting the oil markets post-Ike:

ExxonMobil said in a storm update late Thursday that its 349,000 barrel per day oil refinery in Beaumont, Texas, sustained "some water damage" from Hurricane Ike. The company also said it continued to make progress restarting its 567,000 bpd Baytown refinery and chemical plants.

And the Statesman, via Capitol Annex:

At least 49 offshore oil platforms, all with production of fewer than 1,000 barrels a day, were destroyed by Hurricane Ike as it crossed the Gulf of Mexico, and some may not be rebuilt, the Interior Department said Thursday.

The agency said in its latest hurricane damage assessment that the platforms accounted for 13,000 barrels of oil and 84 million cubic feet of natural gas a day.

There are more than 3,800 production platforms in the Gulf producing 1.3 million barrels of oil and 7 billion cubic feet of gas each day.