It was great to see that Countdown with Keith Olberman had a segment called “The Nexus of Politics and Terror” tonight that went over 10 (though they have 13 on the web site) situations where bad news about the Bush administration was followed by a change in the terror alert.

I realize that Olberman isn’t the first to make this connection (JuliusBlog‘s “Timeline of Terror Alerts” is the most cited, though I prefer his chart showing Bush’s approval ratings and terror alerts), but Olberman’s show appeared on a major cable news network (MSNBC), which makes it more likely to be seen by the masses.

I know that one could make the argument that all of this is just a matter of coincidence and that correlation does not imply causation, but it does raise the question: Is the Bush administration using terror level alerts to distract the public? As Olberman joked, if someone felt so inclined it would probably be possible to create a list connecting Wal-Mart openings with terror alerts, but with those two items there is no relation (well…) — but the terror alerts do help the Bush administration and make people convinced that they are actually doing something and that they should still be afraid.

I, for one, am convinced that there is something sneaky going on.

Speaking of exploitation, I want to “exploit” the current disaster going on around New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina and defer blame not to nature but to President Bush.

(Yes, I am serious.)

Sidney Blumenthal has a great article on Salon: “‘No one can say they didn’t see it coming'”

My favorite quote:

In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze.

Upon further research, I found out that the third most likely disaster is an earthquake in San Francisco.

In addition to Blumenthal’s reporting, I also found “Katrina Proves Bush is a Failure” over at Swing State Project.

I really don’t think this is “exploiting” the situation, but rather highlighting why we must take as many points of view and ideas into consideration and understand the consequences of our actions.

As far as I am concerned, life is based on exploitation. Everyone exploits everything, and that just seems to be how things are. The people who complain about that are totally missing the point.

I find it extremely disturbing and ironic that while people are attacking Cindy Sheehan for exploiting her child’s death, we have another mother who is vowing to stay in Aruba until she gets answers about her daughter’s disappearance. In the same month that Cindy Sheehan is accosted by the media for camping outside of Bush’s ranch (where all he seems to do — as made evident by a recent episode of The Majority Report — is clear brush!), Beth Twitty-Holloway confronts and harasses a young man who she thinks is somehow hiding information from the police. Rather than covering Holloway’s actions as disrespectful and possibly illegal (the young man is seeking a lawsuit now), the media covers it as “a mother out for answers”-type thing. She is hailed for her slightly unorthodox actions and excused because she is a mother in grief.

Yet when it comes to Cindy Sheehan, the media’s story (when it chooses to get critical — admittedly, most of the stories covering her actions in Texas are pretty lame and don’t ask tough questions of either side) is that she is exploiting the death of her son in order to advance her left-wing agenda. The fact that she is a liberal who lost a child in the Iraq War seems to mean that must hide her political views as she grieves and that since her son died in a war she disagreed with, that she must stop all political action in the name of her son. It’s ridiculous.

The administration has been exploiting military families this entire war. And not just military families — this entire war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan before it, was waged in the name of those who died on Sept. 11. The U.S. wanted revenge and wanted to ensure that an event like Sept. 11 would never happen again. If the right-wing administration can exploit, what makes it so wrong for the other side to do the same?

Which brings me back to my first point — “exploitation” isn’t always so bad. Without “exploiting” the dead, we probably wouldn’t have made the same advancements we’ve made against fatal diseases, for example, because families who have suffered the loss of a loved one due strive to save others from the pain and fight for research and treatments and whatnot. If John Walsh hadn’t “exploited” the death of his son, America’s Most Wanted would have never existed — that show alone has helped apprehend 853 criminals and found over 40 missing children. (The America’s Most Wanted example comes to my mind because I saw John Walsh commenting on the whole Aruba thing last week.)

I think what Cindy Sheehan is doing is admirable and brave. I don’t think she is exploiting her son — or any other soldier. I think that she has turned her grief into action, and that is a commendable thing to do. In the face of horrible events, most people retreat inward and try to cope with what has happened. Cindy Sheehan lost her son. She is using that loss to illustrate the fact that he died for what is not a “noble cause.” She is trying to affect change, unlike (not to dis on her, because I am sure she is going through immense grief as well — it’s just that the media handles it differently) Beth Twitty-Holloway who is truly exploiting her daughter’s disappearance to be on the television and, well, I’m not really sure what her ultimate goal is, but I don’t think it is as selfless as Cindy Sheehan’s motives.

The story about the guy from Brazil who was shot (8 times!!) and killed in London on Friday is probably one of the most upsetting pieces of news I’ve read in a long time… probably more upsetting than this whole Karl Rove scandal.

Thank god we have The Huffington Post‘s “A Death in London” to really put things in perspective and actually report the story. (I swear, it took me a long time to even find this story on U.S. media sources this morning — the fact that an innocent man has been killed has been trumped by the release of the “names” of more suspects is rather disturbing).

I quote from the “Death in London” piece:

So let us consider two truths about this incident. Jean Charles de Menezes would never have been shot if he didn’t have dark skin, because if he didn’t have dark skin, he wouldn’t have been a suspect. (This despite the fact that Brazilians look nothing like Pakistanis.)

What this basically says, and which I think is true, is that anyone who doesn’t have white skin is now considered a potential terrorist — not just middle eastern people anymore.

And people who might defend this by saying that it was done in the name of safety and all that… well, it’s bullshit. After the Oklahoma City bombing here in the U.S. we never would’ve buried a story involving police killing “innocent” white redneck skinheads.

I just don’t get how this isn’t upsetting more people. The ends (stopping terrorists) do not justify the means (killing non-white people who might be terrorists). I understand that they police were doing their job and whatnot, but it seem as if the U.K. isn’t even apologizing for this — they are trying to justify/rationalize rather than say they are sorry.

What I find most ironic about all this “they hate our freedom” rationale for the combating these people who “hate our freedom” is by limiting our freedom (“shoot to kill” and The Patriot Act and whatnot), there is far less freedom for these terrorists to “hate” us for.

I’m not sure what the solution is, but I honestly don’t think that killing people without certainty and saying that it was the right thing to do is going to make things better.

The night of Sept. 11 I went for a run for whatever reason (during college I often went on late night runs). I remember being afraid that night, but not because I was worried about terrorists or anything like that, but because I thought the police or military or who knows what would stop me and interrogate me about why I was running at night and whether I was connected to terrorists or whatever. Is that freedom worth hating?