I swear I didn't re-arrange them. :)

In an attempt to look less like a scrub and/or a middle-school kid, and more like a summer associate, I just got my haircut. :) Also: the have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too cell phone switcheroo is
complete. Woohoo!

Still having issues with Cox cable Internet, so still no Web access at the moment… :(

I see on my cell phone that the mayor who fiddled while New Orleans drowned has been re-elected. Sheesh. Welcome to America, where criminal incompetence is OK, being responsible for hundreds of deaths is no big deal, and the race card trumps reason.

UPDATE: Welcome, InstaPundit readers. I apologize for the lack of detail in my analysis on this post. I was posting via cell-phone because I didn’t have Internet access last night, as explained here.

My reasons for believing that Ray Nagin was an unforgivably bad choice for mayor are explained in detail here, with lots of links to previous relevant posts (many of them written contemporaneously as the storm approached).

It isn’t that I think Landrieu was necessarily a great alternative, or that Nagin’s plan for the future is awful. I don’t know much about either of those points, but I don’t care: Nagin’s past failures are so horrible that, if accountability means anything at all, re-electing him should not have been an option… PERIOD. You cannot screw up as badly as Nagin did, and be re-elected. You just can’t. Hence the title of this post.

And yes, that logic can be applied to President Bush too, if you think President Bush screwed up badly enough. That’s a debatable issue, IMHO — but, as matter of fact, one of the reasons I reluctantly voted for Kerry was because I don’t believe it was acceptable to re-elect the president whose administration screwed up the pre-war intelligence in Iraq (even though I still support the war). However, while the question of how badly Bush screwed up is debatable, I don’t believe Nagin’s overwhelming incompetence in the run-up to Hurricane Katrina is remotely debatable. Again, I explained why here.

As for those who object to my mention of the “race card”… who even have the audacity to suggest that I am being racist by pointing out the obvious… give me a freakin’ break. Blacks voted roughly 80% to 20% for Nagin, and whites voted roughly 80% to 20% for Landrieu, right? Those statistics make it obvious that race was a key deciding factor in this race. It was a key deciding factor in the April election, too…. if not for the race card, there might have been two entirely different candidates in the runoff. Nagin got 38% of the vote in the original election largely because many, many blacks felt that he was the only candidate who would represent “them”… an impression that he deliberately fostered with his “Chocolate City” comments and such. Anyway, it’s absurd to deny the overwhelming role of race in establishing the parameters of this race. And given that re-electing the mayor who fiddled while New Orleans drowned obviously flies in the face of reason, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to say that “the race card trumped reason” in this election. I would say the exact same thing if an incompetent white mayor was re-elected because white voters favored him overwhemingly over his black opponent. Duh.

All that said, I genuinely hope Mayor Nagin does a good job from this point forward. Obviously, a great deal depends on him, and I’ll be rooting for him. Perhaps his clear-as-day incompetence and unforgivable failures in the days before Katrina hit will prove to have been an isolated incident, and he’ll end up doing a great job leading New Orleans over the next four years. If so, awesome. It won’t change my opinion that he never should have been re-elected; it is simply unacceptable to give a stamp of approval to an elected official who screwed up as badly as Nagin did. But that doesn’t mean I’m hoping he’ll fail. Whether he succeeds or fails from this point forward has no bearing on my unalterable opinion that his re-election was a mistake (because I believe accountability should matter), but it has a great dael of bearing on the future of New Orleans, so I’ll be rooting for him.

Due to my aforeblogged cell-phone shenanigans, which won't be resolved till tomorrow, and now a problem with our new cable modem, which also won't be resolved till tomorrow, we are without Web access for at least 12 hours. Oh, the humanity!!! :)

Unofficial results per NOLA.com (aka The N’awlins Times-Picayune :).

The Word on Bourbon Street is, it’s to be a Squeaker.

The Word on always Race-blind Hartford Avenue, Newington CT :), is that to win, Mayor Ray Nagin needs to (a) convert some of the significant slice of the Afro-American vote that went to Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu in the April 22 primary, and/or (b) get the support of some of the Caucasian Conservatives who gave Republican Rob Couhig 10% of the total & 4th place in that Preliminary round. (Couhig has endorsed Nagin. April’s 3rd-place finisher at 18%, white Democrat and NOLA Zoo Czar Ron Forman, has endorsed Landrieu. )

1st Returns: 6 of 443 precincts reporting: Landrieu 25%, Nagin 75%.

(Candidate order as listed by NOLA and presumably as on Ballot, alphabetically.)

UPDATE 9:33 pm Eastern time: 12 of 443 precincts, Landrieu 23%, Nagin 77 %.

UPDATE 9:38 pm Eastern time: 19 of 443 precincts,
Landrieu 23%, Nagin 77 %.

(If these are basically all-Black precincts, it’s good for Landrieu. If Not, it’s Not.)

UPDATE 9:43 pm Eastern time: 26 of 443 precincts,
Landrieu 28%, Nagin 72%.

These results are Slow. What’s the matter with these Lazy Election Officials? :> What do we Pay These People For? :} I smell Frauuud. :]

I WAS RIGHT! It IS Frauuud! :> Now at 9:55 pm they claim that it’s (UPDATE ) only 8 of 443 precincts, and
Landrieu 59%, Nagin 41%! :) [IOW, the NOLA T-P made a Mistake before ~ OR, made one Now. :]

UPDATE 10 pm Eastern: Flor-i-DUH! O-hi-O!! Wash-ing-TON!!! :> “We’re going to Go Down and get a Lawyer and find out what the Hell is going on around here.” ~ Hubert H. Humphrey; Ohio presidential primary night; 1968. Verbatim. :) [Note: unlike the April 28 primary, it appears that LASOS Al Ater’s office is Not Doing these online returns, but rather Only the News Media, themselves. That is what is Going On around here. Don’t fret about it; it’s Par for the Course. :)

UPDATE 10:10 pm Eastern time: 63 of 443 precincts,
Landrieu 53%, Nagin 47%. / NOLA.com has got it back on Track.

UPDATE, 11:15 pm: ~ Apologies for long delay. Computer trouble: Hamster on the Hard-drive. Dinner Break. :> Said it’s in da Contrack; any Questions, call Hizzoner Moon Landrieu. :)

NOLA.com: 370 of (they now say) 442 precincts: Landrieu 47%, Nagin 53%.

UPDATE 11:25 pm Eastern ~ Hat Tip: commentposter Plunkster, veteran Alachua County, FL election official ~ per http://www.wwltv.com/, with 433 (98%) of 442 precincts in, it’s Nagin 53%, Landrieu 47%. / If that’s right, my post-Primary predicted Numbers were Spot On ~ except that they Reversed the Candidates. :/

UPDATE NOLA.com, 11:35 pm, COMPLETE, 442 of 442 precincts: Landrieu 54,131; 48% , Ray Nagin (D) 59,460, 52% . / MSNBC reports that Mitch Landrieu has conceded defeat.

It’s Mayor Ray. / “We’re Still havin’ Fun / and you’re Still the One.” :|

I figured out a way to have my cake and eat it too. Since Becky and I already have a shared-minutes plan, I can simply add the 8100 as our third phone line and use it exclusively as a modem, while
keeping the 8300 as my phone. And it won't cost that much!

As Brendan makes his way through the southern border states and settles back in Arizona, he hasn’t kept up with the immigration debate. Luckily, we’re here to help. :)

Having listened to the President’s speech at the beginning of this week, the only thing that I could possibly object to was that the National Guard thing seems to be a PR ploy. Forgiving him this for the moment — I would expect the same from most politicians — the general idea of 1) having a guest worker program, and 2) allowing existing illegal immigrants pay a fine and (eventually) work toward citizenship seems reasonable. Not everyone agrees.

(On the second point, it’s important to note that some of them wouldn’t get citizenship for 15 or more years, since that’s the ‘line’ he spoke of when he said that “they will have to wait in line behind those who played by the rules[.]”)

The alternative is the “Lou Dobbs” solution, which would either be to deport them all or simply imprison them. While there are advocates of various strategies on both sides of the aisle, the strongest resistance to the President’s plan seems to be from Republicans. Some are predicting that there will be pushback from the President’s own party — that the unwritten “majority-of-the-majority” rule will cause problems — while others believe that with the leadership onboard that the rank-and-file will follow. There has been a flurry of activity on the Hill this past week as lawmakers jockey for position on who is more patriotic — note the ‘national language’ bill — and various amendments are debated back and forth.

Meanwhile, Mexico and four other Latin American nations (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica) have complained bitterly about a plan to build hundreds of miles of triple layer fencing along the southern border. Mexican President Vicente Fox has compared the plan to the Berlin Wall (forgetting, perhaps, that the Berlin Wall was built by Germany to keep residents inside the state). Also, Mexico is threatening to sue the United States in U.S. courts if Mexicans are harmed by the National Guard:

“If there is a real wave of rights abuses, if we see the National Guard starting to directly participate in detaining people … we would immediately start filing lawsuits through our consulates,” Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said[.]

(Perhaps with the recent border shooting we’ll see whether they follow through, but somehow I doubt much will come of it.)

On the conspiracy theory side of things, I’ve heard one rumor that this will cause a split in both parties: the big business group in the Republican party will ally with the “softie liberals” in the Democratic party, while the nativists and social conservatives in the Republican party will ally with the union types on the Democratic side, leading to total chaos in the upcoming electoral season. I’m not so sure, as this is one issue among many, but only time will tell.

Discuss.

As suggested earlier, my dad will be handling New Orleans election updates this evening. You can watch the returns here as they come in. The polls close in just over 20 minutes.

Two major sports stories that Becky and I missed while moving into our apartment and visiting the Sprint PCS store: Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro was injured in the Preakness, which was ultimately won by Bernardini; and Barry Bonds tied Babe Ruth with his 714th home run. The game is still in progress, in extra innings.

The Da Vinci Code made an estimated $29.5 million on Friday, the 32nd-biggest single-day total in Hollywood history. Of course, if you adjust for inflation, I’m sure it would be ranked much lower than that, but still… not bad. I’m not surprised, considering how relatively full the theater was for the 10:40 AM show. I wonder how much less money it would have made if Catholics and other protesters hadn’t given it so much free publicity by creating a big controversy?

I also wonder if there’s a record for how much money two separate films featuring the same actor in a key leading role have made over the course of consecutive weekends. Because with X3 opening next Friday, I bet Ian McKellen would be challenging for that record…

There has been an explosion in a Kentucky coal mine, killing five miners. The mine is about 250 miles southeast of Louisville near a town called Holmes Mill. Details are scant at the moment, or at least not yet public, but the bodies of all five have been recovered.

The frequency of these blasts has been alarming. U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA) has called it an emergency within the mining industry:

“These five deaths bring the grim toll of coal miners killed on the job this year to 31, compared with 22 in all of 2005,” Miller said. “This is clearly an emergency. In light of this most recent tragedy, it would be criminal neglect for the U.S. Congress to continue to fail to pass mine safety reform legislation. The foot dragging has got to stop.”

A bill endorsed in committee last week made new requirements for air supplies, rescue teams, and communications equipment, and should be before the full Senate soon.

Stuck in Mesa traffic trying to get to the Sprint store to return my phone (sniff, sniff). In other news, Buffalo beat Carolina 3-2 in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, at Carolina.
Woohoo!

Starting to move in…