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I can't offer any lodging, because I live in the impact zone.

However, I wanted to remind pet owners who can't find any pet-friendly places to go that the Humane Society in the area which you're fleeing to can probably accomodate your pets while you are in the motel, shelter, or whatever.

I may have to drop my own pets off at a shelter north of here, since I am having a hard time finding pet friendly accomodations left.

I know my cats won't enjoy spending the weekend in a shelter, but I'm not going to choose between leaving them to drown, or staying to drown with 'em.

I just talked to my father, who lives in the Northeast. I had heard this afternoon that the predicted landfall was near Corpus Christi.

He said, "Now they're saying that it will land somewhere in between Houston and Lake Charles. That's you, isn't it?" Yes, it is.

When I got up this morning I didn't even know there was a new storm on the horizon -- now I have to start thinking about flight vs. stoicism. I have always heard that if a Category 4 hurricane hit my area, everything south of Interstate 10 would be under water. Well, I live north of I-10, but only by a mile or so...

Forgive me if I am talking too much about this issue, because I've mentioned this on other Katrina threads, but in my opinion most conservative commentators are missing a major and (seemingly) obvious point about this issue.

The Left has tried to make Katrina entirely about New Orleans, so that it can be characterized as "the black hurricane" and any governmental shortcomings in response can be characterized as racist. Some MSM reports now state blithely that the hurricane "primarily affected blacks." And many people defending Bush seem to have bought into this -- Parker appears to in this article, hence the theme of Bush's alleged discomfort with poverty.

But outside the city limits of New Orleans, the large majority of people in the affected areas are white. The impacted area covers at least three states and is approximately as large as England; millions of people have been impacted. There's every reason to believe that the majority of those who have been left dead or homeless are white, Asian or Hispanic. It's not just about New Orleans.

The "blame Bush" theme is not only malicious, it is based on a glaringly obvious distortion of the facts about who was affected by the hurricane. In fact, to the degree that FEMA fumbled the ball, their mistakes seem to have had more impact on the rural and suburban areas hit by Katrina, rather than New Orleans.

It is essential to challenge the myth of "the black hurricane," so that any real failings discovered in the Federal response will be properly attributed to incompetence or disorganization, not to racism.

Am I the only one who notices that the critics are doing their best to pretend that Katrina struck only within the city limits of New Orleans?

We currently have no idea how many died, or what the racial breakdown is among them. The storm devastated an area roughly the size of England. There is every reason to believe that the majority of the people left dead or homeless are white. But the media, partly for convenience and partly out of a political agenda, focuses on New Orleans, causing this to be seen as "the black hurricane."

Even conservative bloggers and columnists are not being nearly aggressive enough in pointing this out.

My local Humane Society is taking care of many "hurricane dogs" -- dogs whose owners have been evacuated to local shelters (or hotels) that don't allow animals. No doubt the animals are confused, but they are safe and well fed and available to be reunited with their owners in the future. Pet owners that have to evacuate should think about this option.

Remember, most reporters are firearms-illiterate. A lot of the "automatic weapons" and "sawed off shotguns" are probably civilian-legal semiauto AR145's, or shotguns with minimum (18 inch) length barrels.

Of course, an LEO could legally own a real sawed off ("entry") shotgun or full auto rifle if they were willing to deal with the hassles of getting BATF permission.

By the way, if I'm not mistaken that's an Ingram MAC 10. Sinister looking, but not very practical. I've fired them, and it's like shooting a shoebox with a trigger. If I were in a riot area I'd much rather have a shotgun...

Sorry, that's 108 15,000 pound concrete barriers.

According to the Times-Picayune website, the LA Dept. of Transportation has 108 15,000 concrete barriers on the way to New Orleans for use at the levee break.

Just saw Blanco say, regarding the Superdome, that "we need to get them out of there." Nothing about anything actually being done...

She said that part of the holdup was finding an appropriate place to accomodate such a massive number of people.

However, there should have been a contingency plan drafted for that 20 years ago.

The informed consensus is that the best way to help grizzlies is identical to the best way to help the surviving tribes with Stone Age lifestyles -- stay away from them. Intruding on their world to "help" them has consistently shown itself to be against their best interest.

Having said that, Treadwell's grizzly pictures are awesome, and I would like to see the movie.

...and his buddy Rummy likes to send our citizen-soldiers over for multiple years rather than admitting a larger contingent of regular active-duty military is wiser.

You're correct. But the real blame goes to the Bush I and Clinton adminstrations, both of which drastically downzised the armed forces before Rumsfeld ever came on the scene. According to one account the Clinton adminstration eliminated eight standing Army divisions, on top of significant cuts already made by Bush I. I am hedging my language because I have not researched this first hand, but a poster here recently asserted that from 1992-2000, the US eliminated not only eight Army divisions but three carrier battle groups as well.

And as much as I would like to deny it, the process began during the first Bush administration. Remember the "peace dividend"?

If we had the forces available now that we had for the first Gulf War, we would be able to garrison Iraq without the Guard, and still have resources to put out another fire elsewhere if needed. Remember, for decades the US intentionally maintained a force structure that was large enough to fight two major wars at once. We were naive in thinking that the collapse of the Soviet Union would eliminate any possible need for this.

This is a mistake the US has made after every major war of the 20th century. We started World War II undermanned and underequipped because of complacency and denial. Then we downsized so drastically that we started the Korean War as underdogs.

By the way, COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong To Us has posted a great rebuttal to the "no terrorists before invasion" line. You'll have to scroll about halfway down the page.

www.iraqnow.blogspot.com

Why have so many people failed to point out that Iraq was known to have WMD's, namely the chemical weapons which they used against the Iranians and Kurds?

During the runup to the two Gulf Wars everyone, whether they were "for" or "against" war with Iraq, took for granted that Iraq had chemical weapons, and perhaps worse. Some opponents of Gulf War I gave this as a reason to oppose invasion. I wonder how many of these people are now crowing that Bush "lied" about WMD's.

Freepers who are interested in serious discussion about this and other issues in the evangelical church might be interested in Modern Reformation magazine.

www.modernreformation.org

One of Warren's comments exemplifies the Achilles heel of the whole "seeker sensitive" concept. Warren states that he downplays Saddlebacks SBC affiliation because polling shows that many "unbelievers" would not consider visiting a Southern Baptist church. To what degree should a church base decisions on the reactions of unbelievers?

I have never belonged to a Baptist church, but when I was an "unbeliever" who became open to exploring Christianity, I went to SBC churches first because I wanted to hear a no-holds-barred Christian message and the SBC, rightly or wrongly, has a reputation for delivering this. The animosity many non-Christians have toward the SBC is based on its history of asserting the Bibilical truth even when it's unpopular.

If considerations like this were limited to the choice of a name for a church it would not be a serious matter. However, the Purpose Driven Church approach (I attended a PDC seminar in the 90's, so I have heard the ideas firsthand) is based on building the majority of the church's practice and ministry around the felt needs of unbelievers. I don't believe that this is wise. The whole seeker sensitive approach, a la Willow Creek, (and I know that Warren is not affilitated with Willow Creek) reminds me of Spurgeon's sermon, "Feeding Sheep or Amusing Goats?"

My own church bases its services around traditional hymns, expository preaching (teaching through a book of the Bible, sometimes line by line) and readings from the Scriptures and the Reformed confessions. In other words, we do absolutely nothing which would currently be defined as "seeker sensitive." Nonetheless, the church is growing steadily. If we continue to grow at our current pace we will be SRO on Sunday mornings in a year or two.

I acknowledge that our growth appears to come from committed Christians who are leaving other churches which they consider too liberal or fad driven, rather than from new converts to Christianity. However, I believe in what we do because people deserve access to churches where there is theological depth and weight, and room to grow beyond initial conversion. In addition, I am skeptical about how many real conversions take place in churches that do not directly confront people with their sin and need for redemption.

Please give us the source who said that "she threatened to run him over if he enlisted."

I'm not doubting you, I just want to know where to go to get the whole ugly story...

That's an awesome piece of construction. I had imagined Israel's "wall" as a glorified barbed wire fence, or something.

And yes, we need one.

Where was that wall picture taken?

I believe you're pointing out that the desire to split theological hairs -- to "be right" about relatively minor issues -- can lead to hyper-sectarianism. I agree, but I suspect that many people have heard "fundamentalist" used so often by the enemies of orthodox Christianity that the word makes them highly defensive.

In a fallen world, there is a tension in any church between two poles -- between the rigidity that can fracture a body into sects with little or no real difference between them, and the "inclusive" tendency that will open the door to the kind of heresy seen in the mainline denominations.

An example of the first tendency is the continuing Anglican groups in North America, which are split into at least a dozen rival bodies, and therefore appear unable to offer an effective alterntive to ECUSA. The various conservative Presbyterian churches can also illustrate this (I belong to a conservative Presbyterian "splinter group", so I mean no offense here.)

The obvious examples of the second, "big tent" tendency are the ECUSA and PCUSA themselves.

You can probably predict that I think it is a lesser evil to lean toward the doctrinally rigid end of the spectrum. The reason orthodox churches end up dividing over issues of theology is because they care about theology in the first place, which is a good thing. The sectarian divisions between conservative Presbyterians are a waste of human and financial resources, but at least a "seeker" walking into one of their churches will hear Bibilical Christianity. We're all well aware that if the "seeker" walks into a PCUSA congregation,there is no such guarantee.

In my own congregation I am a "liberal", because I believe that Catholics can be Christians and that religious artwork is not always idolatrous. I choose to belong to a body that is slightly more "fundamentalist" than I am, rather than one where people are asking, "You don't really believe that stuff, do you?"

As for the agonizing issue about when to "abandon" a church or seminary to liberals, I don't have an easy answer to that one. I became a Christian in the 90's, so I don't have personal or family history that binds me to one of the mainline churches. I believe that there is a point when the only option is to leave, but all I can do is pray for believers who are wrestling with whether their own church has reached that point. I do note, however, that if enough orthodox Presbyterians had followed Machen out of the "mainline" church, Bibilical orthodoxy would now be the "mainstream" of Presbyterianism, and the neo-Unitarians would now be the "splinter group."

To me the most striking thing about this article is the offhand assertion that the standard of living is so much higher in the US than in much of Europe, with many people who are considered poor in the US being as affluent as people considered middle class in Western Europe. Bruce Bawer, who is no conservative, made the same assertion in an essay excerpted here some months ago.

When Democrats assert that middle class Americans vote against their own economic interests by voting Republican, the implicit assumption is that democratic socialist policies like those in place in Western Europe would boost America's standard of living. I have two questions:

1. Can we demonstrate that the US is, in fact, that much more affluent than most of Europe? (I would limit this to Western Europe, since Eastern Europe has an obvious handicap.)

2. If it is, why are we not getting this information out there?