Linkatharsis: Back like bacne

I seem to have fallen off the Hurricane Katrina wagon but it's not like everyone wasn't covering it so I'm sure I wasn't missed one bit. Cole Slaw Blog has done an especially great job of analyzing this and that, and I'm not just saying that because I love sites named after vegetable-based side dishes.

There was going to be a long Kanye/Bush rant, what more is there to say? No politician cares about black people, just black votes, and Democrats need those more than GOPers. And is there any doubt a key swing state, say Florida, would have gotten help quicker? Or why Bush has spent more time in Biloxi than New Orleans?

I'll try to get back on track over the next day and a half. What else has been happening?

We'd leave no one behind, Mike says. We'll see about that.

Bob Dole still doesn't get it, a journalistic shield law does NOT protect sources who use journalists to commit a crime.

It's pretty simple, Bob. You know how criminals can't use attorney-client privilege to communicate with each other in order to commit a crime? Same deal. In Judith Miller's case, the journalist was the medium by which Karl Rove or whoever leaked Plame's name.

Don't you hate it when a politician doesn't understand the very law he's proposing? This is Intro Media Law shit.

I don't get it, but I still think it's funny: Support Gay Judge Roberts

Wait, so did Fox 5 pull the ad because the dude introduced his life partner, or because of the Bush bashing?

What do I think? I think Ellner and Fox 5 are conspiring on this - Ellner needs the attention and Fox 5 is cementing its right wing cred at News Corp. You gotta keep up with NY Post's nuttiness, right?

Probably the best Gothamist interview, ever. Really.

How about when Pearl Harbor happened. What was the mood? Do you remember that?

I turned the TV on and I just seen them coming down.

Wait...

VW drops Arnold, moves to Crispin. I know, most of y'all don't care but this is huge. Crispin's been on a hot streak lately, especially with their Burger King work. Meanwhile, Arnold, the agency that singlehandedly revived Nick Drake's career posthumously loses its only big client.

And to show the advertising world it's not fucking around, Crispin goes out and gets Sprite.

From political football to football politics - Saints might be done in Nawlins for good and ditto for the Hornets.

Can you blame them, really? The Saints never did like playing in the Superdome and their gate receipts are going to take a huge dump if they come back in '06. You think the NO business community's going to spend much on luxury suites in the coming years?

Meanwhile, the NBA didn't like the idea of the Hornets moving from Charlotte either, but the ownership burnt every bridge before skipping town and I don't think the Commish was too heartbroken to see the team struggle to fill New Orleans Arena.

Plus, we're talking about a city that lost an NBA franchise to Utah of all places. Now, the questions is how the Saints and Hornets will try to move without coming off like jackasses.

But you do what you have to do, including keeping police officers out of your liquor cabinet:

[NO police officers] commandeered [a luxury suite] the first night, but it flooded and they had to leave.
Saints owner Tom Benson's suite had been filled with bottles of top shelf liquor, ornamental iron and fine furniture.

'We were told we had to stay out of this suite,' Blanco said.

If you're using "____ is the new ____" and "bling" unironically and it's 2005, you just might be trying a little too hard.

Slate has a nice little discussion going on Barbara Ehrenreich's "Bait and Switch". I enjoyed her "Nickeled and Dimed: On (not) Making It in America" quite a bit and disappointed to see that this one doesn't seem to be up to par. In "Nickeled", Ehrenreich gave a wonderful insight on the impossiblityof making it on pay from low wage jobs alone. But a similar experiment doesn't work with white collar jobs where experience and contacts are essential. Sure, it's hard to find a job these days, but it's made all the more impossible when you manufacture another identity as you could with minimum wage jobs, where employment is essentially based on your willingness to take jobs that others won't.

It's no Category 5 hurricane or anything, but typhoons are deadly too.

Does Sarah Silverman have to choke a bitch? One can only hope.

Bush wants an investigation? I'd go after the guy who stuck FEMA under the Dept of Homeland Security, and then hired Brown and Chertoff, for starters.

Fired over two slices of pizza.

Underwhelmed by Motorola's iTunes-enabled phone but pleasantly surprised by iPod Nano. And they have it in black. Cool.

Oh, and did anyone else download the new iTunes and find this?


Now, you have to enter the lyrics yourself, at least for the stuff you already own/stole off the internet, but I'm guessing iTunes downloads are going to have lyrics now? From what I understand, only the Nano displays the lyrics but it's a nice little feature.

Jack Shafer is quickly becoming my favorite writer, this time presenting the case against rebuilding New Orleans. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't agree with him - the city is too essential commercially, but it seems much of the outcry against Hastert came from purely sentimental POVs.

The fact is, thousands of New Orleans evacuees are willing to say good riddance to the Big Easy, and the city ain't all French Quarter and Mardi Gras. If they're going to rebuild the thing, we better be damn sure we don't create a Third World city again, lest we go through the same shit when the next big hurricane hits.

Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis releasing her solo ish next January, reports Gumsy. In the meantime, you can catch Miniskirted Jenny's solo work here.

I'm now convinced, Carolina's title defense might be difficult.