Thoughts from Kansas has a new home at ScienceBlogs and has a new post on water or the lack of it across Kansas, as in the rivers and streams have a smaller volume of water than even in the days of the Dust Bowl. If the Democrats are serious about a SageBrush Rebellion and Midwest/West/Southwest strategy, then they'll have to be serious about resource and land management.

Yesterday, the Red State Rabble found the Blogs for Bush declaring the end of science due to the lack of religion fused to scientific studies. Real scientists are of course looking for the source of creation. As posted earlier, the mapping of the minute variations in the universe's background radiation help confirm theories of Universal Inflation. Inflation suggests that the Creator is a quantum fluctuation, which isn't immediately practical. In fact it's pretty clear that Blogs for Bush aren't MIT guys, because then they'd have known that the "search for something immediately practical" isn't science but engineering. But what can you expect from the Busheviks who dropped evolutionary biology from a federal university grant list. I guess in the Bushevik world it sucks when scientists don't explore for the nature of creation, and sucks even more if they do, but don't adhere to the Party Line.

As for adhering to the Party Line, Brad DeLong falls in behind SubCommandante Kos and notes that Republicans are eating their own.

Not only is the cash-strapped NRSC spending millions running racist ads against fellow Republican Stephen Laffey in an effort to rescue the flailing incumbent Lincoln Chafee (R), but they are sending all the bodies they can as well:

Atrios notes the mainstream media's strange lack of interest in the Republican purges and infighting.

And Roy at alicublog finds the Busheviks are too busy to do the things they whinge about others not doing. Too busy to serve in the military and fight against the terra terra terra of Islamofascism. And too busy to write the plays, TV and movie scripts, and novels with the required "politically correct words" they seem so intent on demanding of others. PatriotBoy reminded us a month ago of a time when such political correctness was found in the arts and higher education. Such inspiration and memories for former radical Leftist turned radical right zealot Davey Horowitz. Meanwhile back in the present, Tristam-Shandy revisits the comments RogerLSimon, cofounder of FrumpyHouseCoatMedia and "noted" author, made a year ago on Spike Lee and the making of When The Levee Breaks. Idiot! Almost as worthwhile as the prediction of chocolate and flowers in Iraq after the charade of evidence in the run up to the invasion. (Charade being RogerLSimon's words for the marketing campaign).

Barb at The Mahablog comments on the Busheviks' Image and Action. It's all politics. The Mayberry Machiavellis. Or as Mao put it, RED OVER EXPERT!

Via the AllSpinZone comes The Tattered Coat on the real images and lack of action in New Orleans set to Bob Dylan's Everything Is Broken (includes links to the flickr photosets of New Orleans by Matt Cohen of 1115.org and a lot of other interesting stories). Shakespeare's Sister revisits the Gulf Coast one year later and how the lack of action is directly due to the Bushevik ideology of politics guiding all decisions. And Echidne of the Snakes captures George Bush's visit to Biloxi as the Potemkin Village.

Mr. Bush delivered his remarks at an intersection in a working-class Biloxi neighborhood against a carefully orchestrated backdrop of neatly reconstructed homes. Just a few feet out of camera range stood gutted houses with wires dangling from interior ceilings. A tattered piece of crime scene tape hung from a tree in the field where Mr. Bush spoke. A toilet seat lay on its side in the grass.

And allow me to move to the Biloxi Sun-Herald, which noted on Sunday Biloxi's Vietnamese population has been largely invisible.

Biloxi's Vietnamese population has been largely invisible to government agencies, and those residents were mostly unaware of the state sponsored-aid offered in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a new report finds.

Released Saturday by the National Alliance of Vietnamese American Service Agencies, the report finds much FEMA and other relief money went uncollected by some 4,000 Vietnamese who live in South Mississippi and are concentrated in East Biloxi.

...

It also said Vietnamese-focused relief agencies have been understaffed since Katrina.

The NAVASA report also said Vietnamese residents were mostly left out of the redevelopment process - which yielded plans to turn a large section of Point Cadet, where many Vietnamese live, into a Central Park.

The Financial Times has a story on what's really driving redevelopment in Biloxi and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Until Katrina, casinos were restricted to floating seafront barges to appease opponents of gambling in one of the Bible Belt’s most God-fearing states. But the law was relaxed following the storm to allow casinos on land within 800ft of the shore, as state legislators sought to make sure the industry returned.

Almost immediately gaming companies began buying former residential land swept clear by Katrina, with at least four new casinos planned in addition to existing ones being rebuilt.

...

Casino operators are part of a broader rush of private capital into the Mississippi coast as investors seize the opportunity created by Katrina to redevelop a stretch of sandy coastline once derided as the “Redneck Riviera”.

Property developers were already eyeing the coast’s potential as nearby Florida became more expensive and crowded, but the storm provided a catalyst for them to move in.

More than $600m worth of new seafront apartment blocks have been proposed in Biloxi alone since the storm, with several already rising from the ground even before all damaged buildings have been demolished.

...

Not everyone is enthusiastic about the influx of casinos and apartment complexes. Critics fear the coast’s rich southern architecture and fishing heritage risk being obliterated and complain that the interests of gaming companies and property developers are being put ahead of ordinary people.

Land prices in Biloxi have soared from about $15-$25 per sq ft before Katrina to $50-$100 following the storm as developers swarm, delivering a bonanza for land owners but making it harder for low-income residents to return.

Many of Biloxi’s poorest residents, mostly African-Americans and Vietnamese fishermen, lived in the district that was flattened by Katrina and is now earmarked for redevelopment by casino operators.