Cindy....Who?

Hello Kiddies! Remember way back in the mid-summer when a mother of a dead soldier was holding a protest outside of Bush's ranch? Remember how the MSM wet themselves trying make her a "turning point" in the American view of the war? (pansies.) Remember? Remember that? Well, it got knocked off the radar by Katrina, which was two things the MSM can't ignore: a real, earth shaking, biblical event, and a chance to play politics with a real, earth shaking, biblical event. In the wake of that Cindy Sheehan is back again. Ladies and gentlemen, this is why we blogroll, why we read Drudge, why we seek out alternative media:

"I don't care if a human being is black, brown, white, yellow or pink. I don't care if a human being is Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, or pagan. I don't care what flag a person salutes: if a human being is hungry, then it is up to another human being to feed him/her. George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power. The only way America will become more secure is if we have a new administration that cares about Americans even if they don't fall into the top two percent of the wealthiest [sic]."

And that was the post-script on the media driven story that was "Cindy." Let's mourn together by looking at the logic of this statement. She says she doesn't care about race or creed or nationality, but we have to feed hungry people. If that were the true we should invade North Korea post-haste. That little troll is starving his people by the millions while he fiddles. Then she says Bush should pull out of Iraq and NO and step down. So, Bush should ignore the wishes of both Iraq's and NO's people? Then by stepping down Bush should hand over power to the much more compassionate and liberal Dick Cheney. This is the left? How did we ever get beat by these people. To any liberals out there I challenge you to defend this, and I dare you to suggest you're anything but humiliated that you followed this wacko. Dear Lord!

(h/t: Drudge)

Previously:
Mandatory Cindy Sheehan Post

Pres. Bush's Speech

Sorry about all the light blogging lately; I've been busy with work and genie's been. . . well, I don't really know what he does. Anyway, here's some quick thoughts on President Bush's speech (video here) this evening:

Just about everything he said was pure vanilla, nothing shocking, nothing inspirational, etc. What I was really hoping for was to hear Bush confront the accusations of racism head-on. I wanted to hear Bush call a spade a spade and tell the world that such accusations are baseless (not to mention base) and are cheap, polarizing tactics used by some to gain political points in a time that what is needed is not such polarization, but rather solidarity among all Americans in the wake of such a disaster as Katrina. Unfortunately he didn't do that; again, a predictable speech. Hopefully he was trying to take the high road by NOT acknowledging such race-baiting in an attempt to not lend them credibility. If this is the case, he's wrong. I'm not denying that mistakes were made in the wake of Katrina, but I want to see the mistakes of everyone involved to come to light and be shown to the country, from the pork that was thrown about in New Orleans and Louisiana as a whole to the failures of FEMA and the Federal Government. If the race-baiter's, the hate-mongers, etc. yell long enough and loud enough, they'll be heard, and eventually their misconstructions of the facts will become truth. To them, there is no high road, there is no middle ground.

Quote O' the Day

“The fact of the matter is, Bill, I’ve been black all my life, nobody needs to tell me how to be black."
-Condoleezza Rice on The O'Reilly Factor.

See you in '08 Condi.

Bombings and Blogging In Iraq

A string of suicide bombers hit Baghdad today. You might not have heard yet what with all the coverage on Roberts and Katrina. But as I'm sure you all know, Iraqi blogs cover happening in Iraq as good as, if not better, than the MSM. Iraq the Model is such a blog. He's blogging on the attacks in Baghdad, here's a taste:

"I passed by two of the car-bombs on my way home, one of them-gladly-failed to detonate and the driver was arrested, he was apparently trying to attack the interior ministry, the crowd that gathered in the scene say the driver was Syrian.A few minutes later I saw a big explosion that was close to the green zone.The other passengers in the mini bus were discussing the explosion in Kadhimiya that killed more than a hundred construction workers who were waiting for employers to hire them."

This guy is in the war zone. There are tons of blogs out there like this that can give you a much better view of the real deal than some huge MSM outlet.

Steven Seagal Watch #10

If Local, State, and Federal authorities had trouble handling Katrina they should have called Steven Freakin' Seagal--because he's the badddddeeesssttt of the bad, baby! And I mean bad. But with all this hurricane coverage whatever it is the monotone avenger is up to, and I'm sure it involves ninjas or lost treasure, is not making the news (probably just as the stealthy Seagal planned). So, until his return to the headlines here are some fun Seagal-related sites to visit. This one has the 10 universal rules of Seagal movies, for example:

3.A great amount of broken limbs
One of the fun parts of watching a Seagal flick is to count the number of broken legs, arms and fingers that his character inflicts on his enemies. I'm at a loss to think of which movie has the most broken limbs but I'll estimate that in his career he's probably broken over 200 or more. I think that he should just make a movie where he walks down the street breaking people's arms!

This site has lots of Seagal stuff, although it's not the most user friendly and contains graphic language, but it does have a drinking game!

"Any character discusses his CIA or strange past - One drink
Steven won’t tell them about his past when asked - Two drinks"

Drinking is almost a requirement when watching a Seagal flick, and paying attention to the rules will limit your contact with the gaping plot holes. However, the cake-taker is the Seagal Haiku section, meant to be read in a Steven Seagal voice whisper; here's a taste:

Take over this ship?
That's just not gonna happen.
I'm taking you down.

Both the drinking game and the Haiku's can be found under the "Spoofs" section. I liked the site's content, if not design, so much I decided to try my own haiku:

Executive Decision.
Never in decent movie again.
Wish I had really died.

Obvious

Well, the thinkable has happened: FEMA Director Brown resigned today. Which means I get to use this picture again:

Homo Says What?

Gay Marriage. The recent hot spot in the culture wars. If you're like me you're not exactly sure how to address this issue, but if so, also like me, you're in a definite minority. Everyone knows exactly what should happen—literally, with a religious conviction. Recently, the Arnold, Governator of Kaleefornya, promised to veto a state-legislator passed gay marriage bill. Frankly, that takes stones in the people's republic of California. See, a referendum had clearly shown a majority of the citizens did not support gay marriage. But Arnold said the people or the courts should decide--which I assume means he'll roll over if they can get the state courts find a "fundamental right" to gay marriage. So, Arnold's walked a thin line that could hurt him on the right (as Chrenkoff points out). I actually know way more than I ever thought I would about the legal arguments on this subject. I'll sum up the whole gay marriage legal argument: gay marriage loses. Oh, it might not shake out that way, but, frankly, you have to reinvent the wheel to win gay marriage in the courts. I'm sure a lot of you are getting your amicus briefs ready as I write, but ease up, I'm here to discuss the realpolitik of the issue.

The truth is gays, regular gays--not the kind of gays other gays think are too gay--have a good argument for gay marriage. If a person loves another person, then why shouldn't they be able to get married? Okay, there are a ton of assumptions in that statement, but that's where we conservatives could end up. On the wrong side of love. The problem is that gay marriage isn't really about love, for the political groups, it's about acceptance. So, what's the endgame? Can conservatives win? No. A lot of you won't be able to accept this point. Good. Don't. Fight like hell. But just remember California is likely to approve gay marriage, Mass. already has, and its going to be in pushed every second in the Media. The victory is already being heralded and anyone in the way is mocked as a hate monger. The left is ready to use gay marriage as a weapon, even using low tactics, like the whole Cheney's Daughter thing during the election. People aren't willing to take stances that appear to "outlaw" gays. But just as many aren't ready to say that being gay is okay. You hear them all the time: "He's gay--not that there's anything wrong with that." The unspoken part is "not that I want him to be my son's Scout Master, either." Look, I can sit here and tear apart what libs affectionately refer to as "legal arguments" all day long, but what's going to actually happen?

My guess is that as the culture wars move homosexuality more and more into the "Mainstream" people are going not to be willing to prevent gay marriage purely on a moral basis. If you recall, the more liberal you become the less you're allowed to judge things as being good and/or evil. The problem with this is if in the process of losing this battle we could lose the justification of morality for a social rule or actual law. Marriage isn't moral to extreme liberals--if they even bother to entertain morality. Liberals show their contempt for marriage, spewing out lines like, “I don't think marriage is anything special,” something that obviously thousands of gays disagree with them on. No morality, no reason to stop things like incest. Wait? Incest? Well, actually no, not incest, because collectively speaking we all think its pretty darn icky. So, unless there's a horrible court decision you're not going to see "incest marriage" anytime soon (although... one cannot estimate the effect of the Internet--go Google "incest" and see how many hits you get). But Stanley Kurtz has been all over this subject and brings to the foreground an article showing that the next big step is polygamy. (No Mormon cracks, it's too easy.) You don't believe it? It'll never happen? I'm sure old TR would've said the same thing about gay marriage.

Now, I'm not giving up, but right now--no BS assessment--I think the best thing conservatives can do--short of staging an entire counter sexual-revolution, which I'm all for--is get homosexuals some sort of civil unions or domestic partnerships. I don't like this idea. Creating a "marriage-lite" is like crippling marriage to save its life. Regardless, if we could cut the legs out from under the argument that gays are being punished it could end the issue. This means gays get an alternative bond and benefits and such. What do we get? Conservatives get to go on making moral choices and marriage is separate and, hopefully, sacred. Toleration traded for preventing forced acceptance.

Now, just relax, and let the hate-mail roll in....

Never Forget

Thanks to an unwitting Cox and Forkum for the illustration.

Red State Cool

Chrenkoff is blogging that blogging isn't enough. That's contrary to the MSM claim that the Right owns the media. We've come a long way, baby, but we've just barely made a dent in the media. Chrenkoff doesn't know what's next. I've got a suggestion: entertainment. It really gets my goat that movies, comic books, and TV can't be republican, can't be conservative. From The Passion of the Christ to Conan the Barbarian, right-leaning movies have been shown to make the money. Dennis Miller Live and Tough Crowd were hilarious shows! Of course, conservatives aren't as "lock-step" as your libs would have you believe, but we can at least agree on things like Reagan and self-reliance. The worst part is the conservative Hollywood types who, for whatever reason, keep a low profile politically--while the rest of Hollywood is having pagan-marxist orgies and making slanderous remarks about all conservatives. One guy that showed at the Republican National Convention was The Rock! Is it possible? A closet GOPer? Maybe...

Here he is doing his part, surrounded by folks that would tear his entrails out if he did turn out to be a Republican; well, maybe just move farther away down the line from him. I actually gave a little money to the Red Cross, so I think that entitles me to make up funny captions for this picture.

Reba: Hello, sexy--I'm going to tear you apart!
Rock: What!?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Caller: Listen to me very carefully--
Rock: If you touch one hair on her head--
Caller: You daughter is safe as long as you do as you're told...
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Caller: Come on! You want my donation don't you?
Rock: Sir, I hardly think giving 10 bucks entitles you to have me give the "People's Elbow" to Laura Flynn Boyle--even though, I grant you, it would be fun.

Courting Terror, or ACL-You've Gotta Be Kidding Me!

"Won't somebody please think about the Enemy Combatants?"

Never was there such a source for blog fodder as the ACLU. Jose Padilla, the press-dubbed "Dirty Bomber," has been sitting in a Navy brig in SC for three years now. He was declared an enemy combatant, and no sooner than did the ink dry but the legal eagles sprang to his defense. I bring this up when people lay the "well, no matter the crime, a person should have due process" line on me. Maybe, but maybe if you're a terrorist we should skip bail hearing? The "conservative" 4th Circuit of Appeals (that's two Clinton appointees and one Bush 41 judge) said "no way Jose" and left Padilla in that brig. Here's the article in the, yuck, Boston Globe, and Powerline has a brief, albeit truncated, summary. Basically, 1) Congress gave Bush the power to go after Al Queda, and 2) Padilla is just like Yaser Hamdi, a US citizen snagged as an EC fighting with the Taliban, just Padilla was caught here. Now, I know the headlines will read "BUSH CAN EAT YOUR CHILD," but let me point out a couple of things.

I. Padilla wasn't just caught here. He was caught coming off a plane ride from Pakistan. Nobody seems to be arguing over whether he was a member of the Al Queda glee club nor that he was here to commit a terror attack. Plus, they got him as he was stepping off the plane! They literally caught him on a mission. Hooray! Intel actually did something right (I hope)! Assuming all that is true, Padilla is an EC, if not legally, in plain-old horse sense. So, he was caught on American soil, last time I checked American soil was a battleground.

II. Ah, but the more wary reader caught the flaw above--how do we know he's all of those fairly specific things that allow an EC designation unless we run him through our little truth-machine: "the fair trial?" Well, that's kind of the point of Al Queda isn't it? I mean if some invading army hit our shores and we captured one I'd hope that most everyone (except the ACLU, of course, they love this country too much to defend it) would say slap that jerk in a brig until we are done gutting his buddies and firebombing his cities. That's the way everyone's suppose to do it. But now you got invading armies with no uniforms. In fact, one of our biggest luck-outs is that we are not near a Muslim nation--even without uniforms Muslim extremists may not blend--which is probably exactly why Hispanic-American Padilla was recruited to attack us. I don't have a great answer for this, but the civil-liberty types seem to be saying that you give an EC rights and lawyers and phone calls. That's a hell of a way to fight a war.

By the way--and I hate when people do this--Padilla had won at the Second Circuit but as the NY Times is careful to point out: "the Supreme Court said Mr. Padilla should have filed his case in the Fourth Circuit, which has jurisdiction over South Carolina and is more conservative than the Second Circuit [emphasis added]." First of all, they didn't say they ruled. And its not a matter of should, but a matter of MUST. Without jurisdiction a court's finding is worthless, this is what keeps the 9th Circuit from declaring itself the source of all law in the universe. Lastly, "more conservative" is a little off here since conservative and liberal mean different things when applied to judges. To suggest otherwise leaves a sting of politicization in my mouth that makes me want to break something.

A+ B Movies

Frailty will always be a great movie in my mind for the red-state laugh I got to have in the theater. I saw it up north and a bunch of lib students were in front of me laughing, but I had seen enough horror movies to know what they were in for. Frailty certainly does have some great gallows humor--think Stand By Me meets Psycho meets Exorcist. I don't want to ruin it for you so I'm going drop the summary. I strongly suggest you watch it clean. The DVD is cool for a lesser known film because its got three different commentaries, deleted scenes, a making of, and some other little stuff. This movie's premise freaks out liberals and the writer commentary is mostly the poor guy trying to explain why this movie is not insane. A great cast, good child actors, plenty of blood, and a great twist. This is one of those movies that breaks the rules, but it plays by enough of them so as to blindside the veiwer.

Katrina Lessons via Instapundit

I don't link to Instapundit often, since it's, well, Instapundit and doesn't really need any gratuitous links. Besides, if you're reading this blog, you've probably heard of and often read Instapundit anyway. Today though, Glenn has posted what he thinks are the 9 lessons that Katrina taught us. Most of them are pretty obvious, yet the sure-to-be-upcoming (and taxpayer-funded) commissions and panels are going to spend months trying to figure them out. Here's the Garm short version of the list, complete with Garm Commentary:

1. Don't build your city below sea level.
Duh. Moving on. . .

2. Order evacuations early.
Yeah, and if the evacuations are MANDANTORY, then enforce them. MANDANTORY has an actual definition, and it's not a synonym for VOLUNTARY. MANDANTORY evacuations are occurring as we speak, with soldiers and police going door to door and MAKING people leave.

3. Have -- and use -- a plan for evacuating people who can't get out on their own.
Actually New Orleans DID have a plan. Hence Reynolds' use of the word USE. See the pictures of flooded school buses here. Look Mayor Nagin, buses!

4. Have an emergency relocation plan.
Could also be considered number 3B, but it's not my list, I'm just borrowing it. This ties into number

5. Make critical infrastructure survivable.
Glenn analyzes the collapse of the NO police radio system. How could the local government NOT realize that communications were critical? And if the government did realize this, why did they not have a plan in place to deal with it? And if they DID have a plan in place, why was it not followed? And if. . . ok, ok, moving on to

6. Stock supplies and prepare facilities.
Again, duh. As Reynolds says, "All public buildings that might be used for refugees should be ready. We used to stock fallout shelters that way; we could do it again."

7. Be realistic.
In other words, it is NOT going to be possible for the government, be it Local, State, or Federal, to help every single citizen in their time of need, even if the other items on this list are followed. In the case of a natural disaster on the scale we're currently experiencing, it is up to the INDIVIDUAL to recognize that their government is not set up to handle such a large disaster event. That's why it's a DISASTER. The government can and should help before, during, and after such an event, but the citizenry must be counted on to do their part as well. In other words, remember the Boy Scout motto: BE PREPARED. Know what's going on around you, know what the disaster plan is, listen to what the experts are telling you, etc.

8. Put somebody in charge.
I'll just quote Glenn again, as he sums it up better than me, while saying exactly what I wanted to say:

Politicians and bureaucrats thrive on diffusion of responsibility, because it helps them escape blame (as they're trying to do in the finger pointing orgy that's going on now). Somebody needs to be clearly in charge. Right now it's mostly state governors, but this needs to be made inescapably plain, regardless of where it is.

9. Make people care.
Disasters are by definition horrible events that are not planned for. That needs to change. All levels of government (there are more than enough fingers to point at FEMA, Ray Nagin, Blanco, etc. rather than just point at any one of them) need to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

To sum up this entire list, and to sum up what any possible 9-11-style commision might find, I humbly submit this:

Flood Recedes, Thugs Take Over

Who are these people? NO get hit with the biggest hurricane a city can be hit with and what do they do? They take pot shots at people trying to help. They see a chance to smash up things and they take it. They see people suffering and they thrive on it like some kind of ghoul. I'm talking about the political bomb-throwers. Like this "gentleman" whom revels in the opportunity Katrina (already label Katrina-gate) affords to claim political victory. No, no, he's not done, yet--because if you didn't know, Katrina isn't just the personal failure of Mr. Bush, or global warming, or race--no its a demolition of the American System, listen to this second article:

When President Bush told "Good Morning America" on Thursday morning that nobody could have "anticipated" the breach of the New Orleans levees, it pointed to not only a remote leader in denial, but a whole political class. The uneasy paradox which so many live with in this country - of being first-and-foremost rugged individuals, out to plunder what they can and paying as little tax as they can get away with, while at the same time believing that America is a robust, model society - has reached a crisis point this week.

Let me see if I understand... Bush supporters killed NO? Look, a lot of people dropped the ball on the Hurricane. When a person looks at people dying and suffering from a natural disaster and says here's my chance to use that misery to my own ends. Metaphorically speaking, what makes them different from the looters? Listen to what Hollywood had to say:

"It's devastating and I'm ashamed of the way it's being handled and, when we get home, we'll be doing PSAs (public service announcements) and I want to help in whatever way I can because I'm embarrassed and I think it will hopefully change a lot of politics," Dunst said.

Yes, that's it. Not I hope things get better, or even I hope the people who screwed up are sacked. No, we're going to change "politics." We're going use the bodies of the dead and dying as a stepping stone for our views. It is important to note that this is what the left think Bush did with 9/11 and thus they now refer to Katrina as the "anti-9/11"--the cure, if you will, to the nation's rallying. They were right, floods do bring the snakes out.

This sparkling blogger has a quick break down of the MSM coverage, and the USS Neverdock is all over this BBC's harsh attacks.

Let's Hear It For Kuwait

And the rest of Middle-East! They're giving tons of aid. Europe doesn't seem to be giving much at all. Kuwait is giving 500 million dollars and lots of free oil. Now, I don't want to be a jerk and not mention that Saudi Arabia is giving 1.5 billion, but Kuwait ain't no Saudi Arabia--and I think we're all a little cynical about the US/Saudi relationship. But still... Emoodz has the list of all the Arab aid givers. I mean the French sent cots. It nice to know who your friends are.

and the most obvious Drudge headline is:

N.O. Water - 45,000 times what's considered safe.

No, really? I'm shocked!

30 Second Law School (part 2)

Last time, we talked about con law. Now, let's talk about Rule 11. Its a little section of the federal rules of civil procedure. Basically, its rules for how you sue in civil court (non-criminal). Rule 11 is about dishonest and/or stupid people. It has horrible sanctions that make lawyers wet themselves. Things like paying the other side's attorney's billable hours for all the time an effort they took in trouncing you. Unfortunately, lawyers are always right, about everything, all the time. Which was bad for this idiot. He was just so right about what a killer argument he had that he couldn't understand when the court dismissed the case. So, he sued again in another case with the same argument--they just needed to read it over again, you see. Case dismissed. So, what does he do? Yup. Same argument. Only this time the Court dismissed and the other side brought down the Rule 11 hammer.

"Defendants argue that Mr. deLone should have been aware that the complaint did not state a claim cognizable under section 1983 because Mr. deLone himself litigated the cases which established the controlling law in this judicial circuit,...sanctions in the amount of the attorney’s fees and costs reasonably incurred by the defendants, and no greater than necessary to adequately deter Mr. deLone from engaging in similar conduct in the future."

I know that might not sound too bad to some of you, but every lawyer out there just experienced some shrinkage, even the women.

A+ B Movies

Ah, revenge. Garm and I love revenge movies. Mostly because we dream of methodically slaughtering our way through our enemies until we find the person responsible and beat them to death...what, don't you want to do that too? Get Carter was a 1971 British mob-action movie. In 2000, the yanks got a hold of it. Sly Stallone plays Jack Carter, mob muscle. His brother dies, and Carter starts shaking trees--what falls out is a great performance. This is a simple, brutal, slick revenge movie. Like Man on Fire, which probably more people saw, this movie really grabs you and doesn't let go. A great cast, a great twist, realistic fight scenes, and experimental editing makes this movie worth watching. Old folks will be asking why the car turned upside down and kids will be scarred for life, but if you hanker for sweet, sweet revenge give this somewhat lesser-known flick a try.

While everyone on the Left. . .

seems to think that Bush and the Republicans are the sole reason so many have died/are dying in NOLA, I ran across some interesting photos over at the JunkYardBlog. First the analysis of the photo:

With the improved resolution we count 255 buses in that one lot. That means at a capacity of 66 on board, 16,830 New Orleans residents could have been evacced out in one trip. Even if you have a lower capacity per bus, say 50 per bus, you're still getting nearly 13,000 out in one run. In an emergency mandatory evacuation, you could probably get away with putting more than 66 on each of those buses.

And here's the photo:Now, did Bush control those buses? No. The local government does and did. Now they're as waterlogged as the rest of New Orleans. Again I'll quote the JunkYard Blog, since it's late and I don't have time tonight to write too much:

Led by Jesse Jackson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr and a slew of other major leftists who can't win political power the legal way, a larger than reasonable number of Americans have been sniffing revolutionary airs since the crisis started. They have tried to turn hurricane Katrina into a race war. They have blamed the crisis on everything from Bush hating blacks to the Iraq war to irrelevant budget cuts to whatever canard they could dream up. We should ask ourselves, to what end? Bush isn't running for re-election in 2008. He'll leave office soon enough. So why stir up so much animosity in the midst of crisis? What is their end game, or are they just driven by pure hate?
...
If we let Ray Nagin, Jesse Jackson, RFK Jr and the rest of the leftist mob define Katrina and tell us what went wrong, the coming big bang will be dangerous. These are dangerous people. They taste the air and sense blood. They feed on misery. They must be answered, they must be pushed back, or they will win.

Ditto. It's time for the residents of New Orleans to start asking Mayor Nagin some hard questions instead of just asking them of the Federal Government. Read the whole thing.

RIP Rehnquist

Our condolences to his family and we thank him for his many years of service to our country.
























I'll post thoughts on the political aspects and implications of this later, hopefully tomorrow, but for now I'll say this, and if anybody finds it in poor taste, I'm sorry, but not THAT sorry. Hopefully the late Chief Justice would see the humor:












MENTOK FOR CHIEF JUSTICE!

Gas Panic Hits Georgia

(note: this is a dual-authored post. See below for updates. genie is reporting on the situation in South/Mid GA., where he lives, and Garm is doing the same up in the Atlanta Metro Area)

Rumors are flying, but the word on the street is that gas stations are running out of gas because of the hurricane. All over South GA they're stacked five to ten deep on each pump waiting to fill up because at 4pm they're shutting down. No more gas. At least for the day. Prices are above 3 dollars a gal. There's talk of rationing. More updates if I get them. -genie junkie

Update: Governor calls for calm. Here's a two-hour old report on the circumstances. -genie junkie

Update: It's even worse in the ATL and the AMA. Here's the report from an Atlanta news station:

Hurricane Katrina knocked out power to two pipelines that bring gas and jet fuel into the region. The lines have been down for two days while the Metro typically holds onto a 10-day supply of gasoline.
...
Governor Perdue said he contacted the state's gas distributors Wednesday morning and has been assured that they are working to address the supply problem. He said that a significant amount of the state's gas supplies are not affected because they arrive at the port, not by pipeline.

"To further ease the supply problem, we have temporarily waived the fuel additive requirements to expand the supply of gasoline," he said. The EPA approved the request to waive the additive, which allows for more types of fuel to come into the metro area.

Local news outlets are NOT reporting that the pumps are to be shut down at any specific time, at least in the AMA, but logic suggests that when the tanks run dry, the pumps will too. People are rushing to stations to hoard gas, which is NOT helping any of us, according to GA. Gov. Sonny Perdue. Word on the street and eyes-on experience saw long lines in the burbs and out in West Georgia, including one gas station patron filling at least 15 3 gallon gas containers. Will update. -Garm

Update: Local TV news is showing video of a few gas stations literally changing their prices by the minute, in a couple of cases as high as $5+ per gallon. Is this gouging? I don't know, and no one in the local media has said anything, but I have yet to see any "big name" stations (BP, QT, etc.) doing this yet. Cancel that. Just saw a BP with $5.87 posted. -Garm

Update: Governor Purdue at his press conference denounces any price gouging and urges patience, conservation. Ironically, some stations are lowering their prices, thus gaining more customers. IMHO, this "panic" is temporary; unfortunately, not everyone has gotten the message here in the ATL. Here's hoping people will take a deep breath overnight and be a little more thoughtful tomorrow. According to local interviews with gas station patrons, most of the "panic" is word-of-mouth/Internet gossip. Their panic over a possible gas shortage is actually creating that shortage, or at least snowballing its creation. -Garm

Update: Similar panic has been reported in FL, though it is also reported as false. -Garm

Update, Day 2: In the AMA local media is still reporting shortages, though IMO and in the opinion of local government agencies, the shortage is mostly due to citizens rushing to the gas stations and also the hoarding of gasoline. The pipelines are back open, though running at much lower capacity; the lines are being run without pumps in Mississippi, which obviously doesn't allow the same amount of flow as a week ago. Petroleum is arriving in Savannah, and officials say that gas supply will normalize by the weekend. The prices will still be elevated somewhat, but price-gouging cases are already being investigated. Like I said yesterday, hopefully people are analyzing the situation and calming down somewhat. Go here for the latest (as of this post) local news -Garm