It seems many websites are unavailable.

There is an online poll at the Wall Street Journal.  

How would you grade the federal government's handling of the hurricane so far?

225 votes (8%)       A
310 votes (10%)      B
298 votes (10%)         C
635 votes (21%)         D
1528 votes (51%)     F

People have also posted comments:

"It is time to hold our politicians, and especially George W. Bush, accountable for the huge breach in judgement. It is just one bad call after another."
-Isabel Gomes McCann

"'I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.'
G.W. Bush'

This after numerous predictions of breaches. That, plus people with no food or water days after Katrina (anyone hear of airlifts?), should tell you all you need to know."
-Richard David

Please hit up this cnn poll (lower right corner of cnn.com main page).

As of 11:00 CST, with over 135,000 votes, 79% of people think Bush should fire Rove.

Lets see if we can get it over 80%!  85%!

I think the intent of the people is well known, they want Rove gone.  Even the appearance of impropriety is unacceptable inside the White House.  Of course, we all know this scandal goes way beyond impropriety.

I will update the poll results throughout the day.

A former covert CIA operative commented on the Valerie Plame outing at TPM Cafe.

Send this link to as many people as you know.

Even everyday, non-blogging Americans know you don't mess with the CIA NOC list, thanks to the Tom Cruise movie Mission: Impossible.

Outing a CIA NOC is a severe blow to the confidence of the entire agency.  How are these people supposed to do their jobs when partisan hacks can compromise their entire operation in the name of political vengeance?

Karl Rove hurt the war on terror by destroying an entire operation, the purpose of which was to locate WMD's.  Karl Rove gave comfort to the enemy by removing this crucial CIA asset.

If the Media lets him off the hook by not aggresively pursuing this issue, by not challenging the ridiculous talking points diseminated by the RNC, than our country more fucked than you can imagine.

Truman, 1949: 57%

Eisenhower, 1957: 65%

Johnson, 1965: 69%

Nixon, 1973: 57%

Reagan, 1985: 56%

Clinton, 1997: 59%

Bush, 2005: 45%

Worst President Ever.  But wait.  Hold the Presses.  It turns out that there is actually a silent majority out there who will begin showing their support for the war by wearing red on fridays.  Surely this will be much more effective than buying yellow support the troops magnets from a guy in china, yes?  

When U.S. soldiers without body armor are getting shot at in Iraq, I am sure they are thinking "at least all those people put yellow ribbons on their car!"  Or perhaps soldiers who are using sandbags and plywood to armor their tin can humvees will proclaim "Yay! people are wearing red on fridays to show their support for us troops!  Now everything will be just fine!"

This past weekend, me and my college friends had a reunion in Mexico.  Amazingly, nearly everyone who was invited managed to fit this mini-vacation into their busy schedules and we all had a great time.

One of the people who tagged along with us because he is a friend of a friend was a 22 year old U.S. Marine.  Once I found out he was a Marine, I entered into a long conversation with him about Iraq.  This is what he told me:

"I was deployed twice to Iraq.  The first time was during the initial invasion.  The Iraqi people were very happy to see U.S. Marines after the initial invasion.  Saddam truly was a tyrant, and they were happy that an another outside nation had the heart and determination to get rid of such a horrible person."

"The second time I went to Iraq, our unit took Fallujah.  By this point, most Iraqis angry with us.  They said that U.S. troops needed to leave Iraq.  They were glad that Saddam was gone but the overwhelming view was the U.S. troops are now a burden on their society and have not been able to effectively do anything beneficial for the Iraqi people outside of deposing saddam"

Neil Cavuto, super-journalist, had an interesting interview with our Mr. Bush, our presididn't.

You can read all about it here:

The Foxnewsified Bush Interview

Mr. Cavuto, powerhouse investigative  journalist, covered such important topics as Michael Jackson, John Kerry's grades, and Laura Bush's presidential aspirations.

MR. Cavuto, $1,000 donor to Mr. Bush's fundraising campaign in 2002, had this exchange with fellow Fox News anchor Joe Gibson:

Gibson: "So, Neil, I got to ask, how did Michael Jackson come up?"

Cavuto: "Well, I have got to be honest. I brought it up."

Gibson: "Yes."

Later, Gibson had this to say: "Now, Neil, nobody can talk to the president very long without bringing up the war."

Cavuto: "Right..."

Of course, Mr. Cavuto, journamalist master, didn't ask a single question of Mr. Bush regarding Iraq.  Nor did he mention that other war we are in...where is it again?  Oh ya, Afghanistan.

Anyways, I encourage all of you to read the article.  It demonstrates the journalistic skillz of one Neil Cavuto.

Many of us are just now getting over our shellshock from this election.  There is no doubt that the evangelical wing of the religious right played a large part in getting Bush Jr. re-elected.  At best, these evangelical preachers used a tenuous connection between politics and their religion to promote a political agenda, and at worst they violated their tax exempt status by endorsing a specific candidate from the pulpit.

So what are we to do?  Fight back, of course.    Many of the evangelical preachers across the country espouse strict religious standards to their parishoners that they themselves fail to live up to.  My brother-in-law recently visited a "powerhouse" christian church at the request of his friend, who is a muslim with an evangelical girlfriend.  My brother-in-law was surprised at the number of times the preacher asked for money during the 2 hour service - five.