GreyMail Futzed

The hotel doesn't allow group emails...and I'm not going to address individually, so greymail is screwed for the duration. Instead, here's a roundup of today's greymail:

....Hurricane, hurricane, hurricane. It's weakened slightly, is expected to strengthen. But worse, it's also expected to stall a bit over land meaning perhaps days of rain. People are stuck on the highways in heat. An environmental disaster is of concern given the large petro-chemical presence in the areas expected to be hit. Oye.....

....Louisiana. Gov. Blanco said anybody in western Louisiana who plans on sticking around should "write their Social Security numbers on their arms with indelible ink," so their bodies can be ID'd later.

....The last time two Category 4's hit the U.S. was in 1915. One was in Galveston and the other: New Orleans.

....The Wall Street Journal says Katrina caused 10 major oil spills, dumping nearly as much crude and other petrochemicals as the Exxon Valdez did. But it's obviously spread over a much larger area, and the surrounding marshland tends to make a quick comeback. The larger problem, explains the Journal, is that the marshlands are disappearing.

....Talk about rats and sinking ships... Bush is Lyndon Johnson, circa 1968, and Iraq, for exclusively political purposes, really is Vietnam.

....White House Shakeup in the Works?
Capitol Buzz points us to an interesting alert: "US News Bulletin has learned that conservatives chafing at President Bush's Hurricane Katrina spending plan and depressed with his low poll numbers are beginning to blame his top staff for moving too slowly to reverse Bush's slide. As a result, some are starting to suggest that the President needs to bring in new top staff to invigorate the Administration."

Says one GOP strategist: "He needs a new group of people with energy and ideas around him. They're like a dying cellphone battery."

Meanwhile, conservatives have "called on Administration officials to speak more clearly about how the President planned to cut spending to pay for Katrina or face disaster at the 2006 polls."

....Bush Drinking Again

[Talk radio host] Ed Schultz just interviewed an editor with the National Enquirer. The editor said the paper stands by its story “150%” and would go to court over it if they had to. He said that they have 2 different sources for the story, and that the sources had been informing the National Enquirer about this story for about the last month or so.

Notably, the editor said that a “highly respected” newspaper has also been working on the story and could well publish something on it in the next week or two.

....Abramoff Bragged of Ties to Rove

Here's one more reason why Republicans are worried about this developing scandal. The Washington Post reports GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff "bragged two years ago that he was in contact with White House political aide Karl Rove on behalf of a large, Bermuda-based corporation that wanted to avoid incurring some taxes and continue receiving federal contracts."

And in the really really important world news:

Mr. B Crawled!