Media lockout in hardest-hit areas?

Burnt Orange has the initial report -- with links to both Think Progress and Capitol Annex -- regarding Houston media's virtual lockout of certain areas of Galveston's west end and the Bolivar Peninsula, areas where the most severe devastation have been seen in some overhead aerials and video but little on-the-ground. Because there are less than ten deaths announced from Galveston -- fewer than in the Midwest -- there are some speculative and mostly unattributed sources trickling in, in absence of eyeball verification.

Today I got the infamous text-message-from-a-friend's-brother, someone who was allegedly part of the helicopter crew and emergency management team that ferried Gov. Perry from Beaumont to Galveston and then across to Bolivar, and then on to Port Arthur, Orange, and Bridge City, Texas. Perry viewed Galveston from the air, he reports, then peeled off while the rest of the helicopter convoy proceeded. The crew aboard the copters saw many bodies floating in the waters on both sides of the peninsula; they stopped counting them at 160. The sheriff on BP -- it is unclear to me whether this would be Galveston or Chambers County -- who lost his home at Gilchrist Beach wants state and local media to come in and view the calamity but state and federal officials are continuing to enforce the media blackout of the area.

I really have no idea whether this account could be accurate. Since there is no nearby morgue, medical examiner's office or even decent funeral home left standing to process so much as a fourth of this number of corpses, it seems implausible that some staging area could have been rapidly constructed to do. The logistics of transporting a hundred or more bodies off the peninsula without anyone knowing are exceptionally problematic as well: vehicles could only traverse west back to Galveston via a fifteen-minute ferry ride, or east up the peninsula and then north through High Island to Winnie, a trip of thirty minutes in the best of conditions. Those areas suffered severe hurricane destruction themselves, of course.

In addition there is some video at KFDM.com (I am unable to effectively access it) as well as the BeaumontEnterprise.com site. That's as local as media gets if it's not from Houston or Galveston, and if they saw any bodies floating, they didn't include it in their reports.

Still, we have a nonsensical number of deaths reported in Galveston so far, and I cannot find a report of even one fatality in Houston directly attributable to Ike:

The Galveston death toll brings the local total from Hurricane Ike to at least 11, including three unrelated deaths from apparent carbon monoxide poisoning from generator use, officials said.

The Harris County Medical Examiner's office said today that three people - a 4-year-old boy and two men, ages 18 and 34 - died when generators were being used without proper ventilation. The three are unrelated and their identities are not being released.

The storm and its fallout are also believed responsible for several other deaths in Montgomery, Chambers and Walker counties from fires and fallen trees.

I suppose "generator asphyxiation" is Ike-related, but the story confuses Galveston with Harris County unless that is two separate trios of dead people in both places. Ike has fried my reading comprehension a little.

HPD pulls a body out of Braes Bayou near my house once a week, and the same for Buffalo Bayou and others around town when there is barely a decent rainfall. Concealing a large number of deaths would demonstrate extraordinary coordination and secrecy in the best of times, and that's not an accurate description of what's going on here right now.

Any evidence of bodies being "hidden" from the media, and thus the public, is a story far too large for this little blog to break anyway.

So what's the story? Anyone?

Update (9/16): Burnt Orange has another eyewitness report of many bodies, and Houston media reported from Bolivar Peninsula today (specifically Art Rascon of KTRK). He didn't see any bodies. One "official" pronouncement claimed the "floaters" were from cemeteries, but there aren't too many cemeteries on BP and besides, it's caskets that pop out of the ground during severe flooding, not bodies.

Wrangling Ike

I can't find any gas for my chainsaw to remove these damned tree limbs, but I can post a Texas Progressive Alliance weekly roundup.

Please consider making a donation to the Red Cross to help relief efforts.

Why does Sarah Palin hate wolves? The Texas Cloverleaf clues us in.

Everybody knows that this year's wedge'em and hate'em issue is Hispanics immigration. CouldBeTrue at South Texas Chisme says Texas leads the way with banning rents in Farmers Branch, denying passports to citizens in the Valley and threatening document checks during an evacuation.

During the preparations for Hurricane Ike, Off the Kuff noted yet another lawsuit filed against Farmers Branch for its ongoing war against immigrants and apartment renters.

Sen. John Cornyn claims to be voting "Texas values" when he consistently rubber-stamps Bush in the U. S. Senate. Eye On Williamson asks: since when have torture, spying on Americans and misleading the country on matters of war and peace been Texas values?

PDiddie survived Ike almost exactly as he predicted.

BossKitty at TruthHugger wonders if disaster lessons recently learned, will be used as we watch Hurricane Ike Recovery, Texas Style.

Colloquialisms are a wonderful rhetorical device to create an instant sense of commonality within the minds of the voting public. However they can be misconstrued at ties (right, Governor Swift?) which is why McBlogger took some time to offer Sen. Obama (The BEST!) a phrase he could use that can't possibly be interpreted as anything other than an attack on John McCain and his worthless ideas, proposals and suggestions.

North Texas Liberal examines in depth the Palin pick, comparing and contrasting her with Obama's VP pick of Joe Biden, and dissecting the media's coverage of her.

jobsanger writes about how United States interference into Bolivia's internal affairs have gotten American ambassadors kicked out of two countries in South America, and how some politicians can't refuse even a bad photo op.

Vince at Capitol Annex notes that state rep. Phil King (R-Waxahachie), chair of the House Regulated Industries Committee, is having a fund-raiser at the home of a lobbyist for telecom giant AT&T. King's committee just happens to regulate telecommunications in Texas.

Blackouts in Cincy, Black Monday for the banks

America's stockbrokers are folding:

In one of the most dramatic days in Wall Street’s history, Merrill Lynch agreed to sell itself on Sunday to Bank of America for roughly $50 billion to avert a deepening financial crisis, while another prominent securities firm, Lehman Brothers, filed for bankruptcy protection and hurtled toward liquidation after it failed to find a buyer.

The humbling moves, which reshape the landscape of American finance, mark the latest chapter in a tumultuous year in which once-proud financial institutions have been brought to their knees as a result of hundreds of billions of dollars in losses because of bad mortgage finance and real estate investments.

The crisis is still rippling out, and may swallow AIG and Washington Mutual this week. Meanwhile there's good news about the price of oil:

Oil plunged $7 on Monday as investors fled to safer havens, due to turmoil in the U.S. financial system, and on early signs Hurricane Ike had spared key U.S. energy infrastructure. ...

U.S. crude dropped $7 to $94.18 barrel at 1135 GMT, the lowest level in seven months. U.S. oil dropped below $100 briefly on Friday for the first time since early April, and trade was open for a special session on Sunday due to Hurricane Ike.

... but the gasoline retailers in Tennessee haven't heard about it yet:

Gas has already shot up over $4 in a lot of places, even close to home. In Gatlinburg, one gas station is currently selling a gallon of regular for $4.15, though surrounding stations are charging 20 cents less.

Price-gouging like that was rampant across the country as it was feared that the US would lose 20% of its refining capacity -- that's our part down here -- from Ike's wrath. Not the case. Cars were lined up ten deep to pay $3.59 a gallon at the Chevron on Hwy. 6 and 290 in northwest Houston yesterday afternoon.

They probably wanted to leave because they didn't have a/c:

As night fell only one in four Houston-area electric customers had power.

Mercifully, temperatures forecast to dip into the upper 60s overnight helped with the heat, but did nothing for those with dwindling cell phone batteries, melting ice, spoiling food and restless children. As of 8 p.m. CenterPoint Energy had restored power to 380,000 customers, but 1.72 million were still without power.

And from the Buckeye State, as well as other Midwest locales, Ike is still beating US up:

Power outages darkened more than a million homes and businesses in Ohio and Kentucky.

More than 680,000 Duke Energy customers were without power Sunday night in southwest Ohio and northern Kentucky in the biggest outage in the company's history, said Duke Energy spokeswoman Kathy Meinke.

"It's going to be quite extensive," Meinke said. "Over 90 percent of our customers are without service."

Neil is still hoping to post something when he can make it out to the library, so I'll defer the belated Ohio report to him.

I'll find out later today what my place smells like.

EV 9/14: McPain at 270

Let's flip NV, NM, ND, FL and Montana to red, and Minnesota to grey. Only NH goes from grey to blue. Sing Hail to the Chief to President POW.

<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 (Oink Oink Baby edition)

Domestic battery jokes aside ...

... that Ike has been a real bastard. Especially coming on the heels of Rita three years ago.

Mom's still stuck in her house in Orange County, uncomfortable without air conditioning and a little scared from the storm's fury, but safe otherwise. My brother in Fort Worth is headed to get her -- he's the only one with a cell phone that can reach hers.

I'm posting from the NW Houston-area home of my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, where power has been mostly on. Saved all the meat from the freezer. We lost neither a shingle nor a window screen, but Reliant Stadium -- which I can see clearly to the south from my own bedroom window, when I'm there to look out of it, that is -- did not fare as well. Eric Berger the Sci Guy explains that and a few more reasons why we skated through relatively safely in Houston. Damaged windows in downtown skyscrapers are reminiscent of Alicia 25 years ago.

Wife's first hurricane terrified her, but she's sound asleep and her puppy is likewise, beside her. May not have electricity at my house for a few more days. May not have it in poor SE TX for a month.

Among the more significant property losses: the Balinese Room, which was washed away. RIP.

Sunday Funnies, the electoral vote projection from statewide polls during the past week, and more regular posting resuming in short order.

Chillin' with Ike

Until the power goes out. Maybe late this evening.

Doing some laundry. Surfing the Toobs. Not watching the hysteria on the teevee. (That shit'll drive ya nuts.)

Wind forecast here 81 mph. That's not too bad, unless a tree branch or piece of gravel breaks a window. We're on the fifth story, but with large windows facing both south and east, so waking up tomorrow morning without a/c and a broken window likely is a worst-case scenario for us. Unless a tornado gets spawned and does worse.

By noon tomorrow we may go ahead and leave for Austin if necessary, as Ike will have blown on through. And by Monday my guess is we should have power restored -- since I live near the Texas Medical Center and and in a part of town (West U) where a few wealthy, influential types live, I doubt we will be without electricity for very long.

Did you see the Pig's interview with Charlie Gibson last night? She didn't know what the Bush Doctrine was. She dared him to point out where she had said that global warming wasn't made-made. She still blames Iraq for 9/11 (even Bush doesn't say that any more).

And this after two weeks of cramming for the interview.

Does McCain owe America an Alzeimer's test?

When Bob Fertik broke this off last week, even I -- in my snarkiest self-indulgent moment -- thought it was a little harsh on the old POW. But I don't think that any more:

... McCain's age is no joke. He (turned) 72 (last) Friday and would be halfway to 73 if elected and sworn in on January 20. That would make him the oldest first-term President ever, two years older than Ronald Reagan. He has survived four skin cancers (melanomas), including one in 2000 that was classified as Stage IIa.

McCain is two years older than his father was when he died suddenly of a heart attack at 70. He is 11 years older than his grandfather was when he died suddenly of a heart attack at age 61.

The United States cannot afford the risk that McCain would die suddenly in the middle of an international crisis.

Nor can we afford the risk of dementia. 22% of Americans over 70 are affected by mild cognitive impairment, while 13% of Americans over 65 have Alzheimer's. Ronald Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's at age 83, but early signs were evident during his first term. Britain's "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher developed dementia at age 75.

Prescriptions can also adversely affect mental function. McCain takes Simvastatin, a cholestoral drug that can cause memory loss. McCain also takes Ambien to sleep, which can cause amnesia and "fugue states" like the one that caused Rep. Patrick Kennedy's late-night car crash. If the phone rang at 3 a.m., would McCain even wake up?

McCain's medical records are not available to physicians. He did not "release" them for the campaign; he only allowed hand-picked reporters to examine them quickly without making copies. And there were no results of an Alzheimer's test, because McCain has never had one -- even though he has 6 of the 10 warning signs, including his inability to remember facts like the number of homes he owns or the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The question has been gently raised a few times before:

But I'm hardly the first McCain critic to raise this question. Frank Rich and Josh Marshall have previously written about how the media is ignoring McCain's frequent "senior moments," signs of possible impairment that look awfully familiar to many who have seen a family member or loved one in the early stages of senility. Back in April, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann aired a commentary on "McCain's Memory" featuring similarly disturbing video. Last Friday, Paul Begala wrote an op-ed for CNN ("Is John McCain Out of His Mind?") that questioned his "shockingly irresponsible" judgment over the Sarah Palin pick.)

How is a timid media -- already cowed by an aggressive McCain campaign determined to attack like snarling pit bulls any reporter or question they don't like -- going to do their job and try to get an answer on this?

Answer: They aren't. As with any senile person who gradually starts to lose it, there are deniers, enablers, and co-dependents all the way to the point that the condition is painfully obvious to everyone.

If McCain can manage to keep his drooling to a minimum in the debates, then the issues will be the same ones they are today: the vast differences in policy, the value of the politics of "values", and the lies.

A Pig to Nowhere

Seven years ago this morning

Today, a show of unity among rivals:

The two candidates, who were on their way to work in Chicago and Washington when the first plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Center seven years ago, will meet for the first time as the presidential nominees of their parties as they lay a wreath together at Ground Zero.

This evening, Obama and McCain will meet at Columbia University, where they will speak separately at a nationally televised forum, laying out their personal visions on civic engagement and service.

"All of us came together on 9/11 - not as Democrats or Republicans - but as Americans," the candidates said in a joint statement. "... On Thursday, we will put aside politics and come together to renew that unity, to honor the memory of each and every American who died, and to grieve with families and friends who lost loved ones."

That's nice and all, but John McCain and Sarah Palin are still two lying POS, and there's just no taking a break from that.

Ike, old boy ...

...you're givin' me a headache. Or maybe that pain is a little lower:

The official forecast for Hurricane Ike maintains a landfall centered upon Brazoria County, near Freeport.

What's been surprising overnight is that the storm's maximum winds have not increased, remaining at 100 mph this morning. The central pressure, after falling Wednesday evening, has settled at 945 millibars. The official forecast now brings a strong category 3 hurricane to Texas. There is considerable uncertainty in both the track and intensity forecast, even less than two days before landfall.

We have a hotel reservation in Austin, but only for Saturday night. Don't think it does us much good to wake up in the middle of a storm and then get in the car and follow it inland. Looks like we're riding this one out.

I'm going to hope -- and not for all of my family, friends, and clients' sake in the Golden Triangle -- that Ike continues doing what Rita did three years ago, which is bend a little more to the east.

Bad for them but good for us.

EV 9/10: There's that Palin bounce

Put OH and VA into McCain's column and sure enough, now we got ourselves a horse race:

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There's been lots of squealing by Republican stuck pigs already this week, and polling being done as this posts will reveal if the trend is for real or just the same short-lived convention bounce that Obama enjoyed for a few days.

In barely-related news, you have to love Harvey Kronberg, both for his occasional scoops and his Drudge-like screaming:

THIRD PARTY PRESIDENTIAL STUNNER: BARR ASKS PAUL TO BE HIS RUNNING MATE

If Paul, a former Libertarian presidential candidate, accepts the offer, it could have electoral implications in Texas and several other states.

Libertarian Party presidential nominee Bob Barr is asking Texas GOP Congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul to join his ticket as his running mate.

Barr, a former Congressman from suburban Atlanta, said in a press release that Paul is one of the "few American patriots" and asked that Paul "seriously consider this final offer as an opportunity to show true, lasting leadership beyond party politics."

Should Paul take Barr up on his offer, it's safe to say that the electoral calculations in Texas and in several other states could be upset.

Is that really your final offer, Bob? It probably won't happen, but just a couple of days ago I didn't think Ike was coming to Houston, either.

Put it with the news that Paul made the ballot in Montana as a member of the Constitution Party, and the conservatives' squealing may start sounding like the whimpering from a four-year-old under the bed.