disaster area

This evening’s news Roundup:

• Hurricane Ike blew through Galveston and Houston early this morning. Most of Galveston is underwater. Power is out for four to five million people and restoring it might take weeks. Hurricane Ike originally headed up I-45 toward Dallas but then started to veer right toward Tyler, Texas. It has currently been downgraded to a tropical storm. President Bush has declared parts of Texas a disaster area.
• The Baltimore Ravens vs. Houston Texans football game originally scheduled for Sunday, tomorrow, has been rescheduled to a later date. The game was originally scheduled to be played in Houston at Reliant Stadium. I’ve heard some reports that Reliant Stadium suffered some damage. With flooding in some areas in Houston and massive power outages, I believe the NFL made the right decision.
• The New Yorker has an exclusive interview with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. In the interview she admits that she spoke with state police commissioner about the problems that she was having with her ex-brother-in-law who is a state trooper. Trooper-gate seems to show the kind of vindictiveness that we’ve seen from the Bush administration with regard to the U.S. Attorney’s scandal.
• Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post went to bat for Governor Palin. Many people in the media and most of the major blogs (even my little blog) chastised Governor Palin for not knowing what the “Bush doctrine” was during an ABC interview with Charlie Gibson. As a matter of fact, the Washington Post, in a separate article, argued that there are probably seven policies which could be labeled as the Bush doctrine.

  Let us remember that this was the first interview that Governor Sarah Palin has granted since she was plucked out of obscurity by Senator McCain. She needed to prove to the American people that she had knowledge beyond moose-burgers. She was very aggressive in this interview. She could’ve taken the offensive and stated, “the Bush doctrine as I understand it” and then state any of the seven possible answers. But, she didn’t. She didn’t come close. Krauthammer needs to go to bat for a conservative that has actually been aware of the Bush administration’s foreign policy over the last seven years.

• When you’re running for a national office like the presidency and you have no new ideas, you need to find something else to talk about. Over the last two to three weeks, the McCain campaign has shown that they will manufacture controversy over trivial matters likw “lipstick on a pig” and they have targeted a favorite whipping boy of the right wing — the media. Fred Thompson was the first salvo in what I suspect will be a seven-week long campaign against the media and their coverage of the McCain campaign. Look for an official statement blasting the members of The View because they treated McCain “unfairly.” They actually didn’t, but I think that the McCain campaign will say they did. By the way, the women on The View, did an excellent job of trying to pin McCain down on some of the hypocrisy that he has shown us lately.
• Yesterday, a bomb went off in New Delhi. Eighteen people were killed and as many as 61 others were wounded. This really wasn’t one bomb but a series of five bombs. We must remember that India, the world’s largest democracy, has a significant amount of social unrest.
• A car bomb exploded north of Baghdad killing 31 people and wounding 60 others. Until everyone in Iraq buys into the idea of a Muslim-style “democracy” (is that an oxymoron?), we will continue to have reports of car bombs and suicide bombers.
• A Sacramento State grad student is selling her virginity on eBay. She states that she needs money for grad school. I’ve been trying to think up some clever and witty commentary, but nothing comes to mind. As a matter of fact, I find it kind of sad that a seemingly intelligent young woman cannot find other ways to pay for grad school. Maybe she’s doing a masters thesis on the horniness of men? If so, she should get an A+!