UPDATE: The answer is YES.  He just did.  See the additional update, below.

Genuinely curious now. 

As Rita takes aim on the Texas gulf coast, will Bush soon declare an emergency in Austin, hundreds of miles inland?

I’ll be watching the White House press release site to see.  I’m still trying to understand this.

Incidentally, the emergency declaration for the Florida Keys — identically worded to the pre-landfall Katrina declaration, effective August 26th — was not for Tampa or Orlando, but for the area around the actual, um, Florida Keys.  Go figure.

If you don’t know what started this whole line of thought, click here.

And for the love of god, please read the whole thing before jumping to
conclusions, sending angry letters, or pointing to August 29th
documents.  You’ll save yourself a lot of time.

Finally, although I shouldn’t have to say something so obvious: of
course I am hoping the storm will dissipate.  I wish no one ill and
take no joy in asking this.

But this is a sincere question.  Let’s watch and see how they handle
the declarations in a slightly less incomprehensible fashion this time.

UPDATE: Mere hours after I posted this, the White House declared the entire state of Texas part of the hurricane Rita emergency.  The entire state.

Amarillo, almost 600 miles inland from the impending landfall — farther inland than the southern tip of Illinois was from Katrina — has now been declared as a federal hurricane emergency.  Rural Dallam County is almost as far inland as Topeka freaking Kansas.

What the bloody hell is going on here?

This is a picture I took last year of downtown Ketchikan, Alaska:

That’s really the downtown.  You’re looking at the throbbing heart of the metropolis.

And here is a map of the $223 million "Bridge To Nowhere"
(which will probably cost over $300 million) pet project of Alaska
Republican Don Young (R-Pure Evil), overlord of the GOP transportation
committee, who insists that no, the money would not be better spent helping Hurricane Katrina victims:

Notice that the bridge is, in fact, larger than the ENTIRE TOWN.

Look at the giant city, above.  And imagine that 8000-resident
community getting something the size of a Golden Gate bridge.  Instead
of hundreds of millions of dollars going to help hurricane victims.

The ferry ride the bridge would replace, incidentally, takes exactly seven minutes.

This is the single most wasteful transportation project in American history.  No exaggeration.

And the GOP values this over the well-being of American citizens.

No exaggeration.

UPDATE: I’ve been informed by several emailers that my memory was
mistaken; the above photo is not of downtown Ketchikan but of a
thriving section sometimes more frequented by passers-by like myself.

My mistake, and I apologize.

Two emails accused me outright of lying, which is kinda funny.  Because, um, Ketchikan is so utterly memorable that no one could possibly have made this honest mistake.  Well, obviously.

Whatever.  My apologies for the confusion.  If you’d like to see downtown Ketchikan, there’s a lovely view of it here, and another one would be here (scroll down), except in this shot the town seems to be completely obscured by the cruise ships.

Yes, I chose this picture to buttress my point.  But if anyone thinks there’s any deception, by all means, Google image search "downtown Ketchikan"
and let your breath be taken by the throbbing metropolis which surely
deserves hundreds of millions of dollars to build a bridge roughly the
size of the Golden Gate.

Given that the proposed is explicitly designed to tower high
enough that the cruise ships can pass below, I think this also should
explain what I meant by the perhaps hyperbolic phrase "bigger than the
entire town."  If "big" means "up" it pretty much has to be.  And if
you look at the map, the proposed new roadway sure looks like it’s of
greater length than the town itself.  So that’s two dimensions
covered.  No, it’s not wider.  In that sense, yes.  I am humbled.

If anyone wants to push the discussion into further dimensions of
string theory, they’re welcome to do so.

What would the Bush administration have to do to alienate their base?
Allow hundreds of CEOs to drown needlessly
552   55.5%
Torture innocent Christians at Abu Ghraib
231   23.2%
Ignore briefings warning "Bin Laden determined to attack Vince Gill"
111   11.2%
Provide insufficient armor plating for monster truck rallies
100   10.1%

Ah, but how is the government preparing for the possibly imminent pandemic of Avian Flu?

New poll at left.

Light blogging here for a week or two.  Book deadline looming.

Light blogging here for a week or two.  Book deadline looming.