I know this is talked about all the time as it relates to climate change, the war in Iraq, you name it. I want to come at it from a different angle.

Over the course of the last year or so I have become 110% addicted to BBC America. One of the best shows is Top Gear. Think three guys getting to drive the world's fastest and most expensive cars and then talking about them.

But in a few shows the three hosts are given a small sum of money to buy a junker and then complete nearly impossible tasks.

They came to the US for the first time. They started in Miami and had only $1,000 to buy a used car and drive to New Orleans. When they got to New Orleans it got interesting, and I don't mean in a good way.

This is in light of the fact that not only could I not get anyone to commit to a June Blogathon, I was also unable to think of anything fresh and new myself to write on regarding New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Region.

Besides this, lately I haven't felt up to writing on the subject. I've felt burned out. And I find my own lack of good ideas and passion far more frustrating and discouraging than not being able to sign other people up.

It's become a hallmark of his presidency, climbing up on some rubble or a nicely cleaned town square to give a rousing speech about fixing a place he really doesn't give two spits about. Now, with the Midwest floods, Bush is calling for OUR tax dollars to support his photo-op FEMA.

Hat tip to RSN.com:

President Bush, speaking in his weekly radio address on Sunday in the wake of disastrous floods in the Midwest over the last three weeks, requested that Congress pass an emergency spending bill that would provide ample funds for photo opportunities in Iowa as well as potential other natural disasters that strike this summer.

A round up of stories today about opportunity in America, pulled from a variety of nonprofits, race and immigration blogs, and mainstream media outlets.  Cross posted at The State of Opportunity, a blog about human rights and the American Dream.

Remember Moving Water Industries, Jeb Bush’s old partner that got the exclusive contract to sell pumps for the flood control at the 17th St. Canal in New Orleans?

Come on, you remember.  The defective pumps that were installed without testing?  The pumps that were bought on a bid tailored exclusively for Moving Water, shutting out all other competitors, according to the Corps of Engineers own people?  Those pumps?  That deal?

If you were solely judging by appearances, you would never assume that I listened to hip-hop.  I look more like a hippie from the 60's with my curly Afro, chunky, earthy jewelry, and my social justice nature which I display as often as I may.  I listen to various types of music--from Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue" and  Flyleaf's "Red Sam" to Bread's "If" and Jay Z's "Roc Boys."   What I am attracted to is the emotion of a song--not the words or even the meaning because not all music has those characteristics.   What pulls me in is the artist's ability to translate and transfer his or her emotion onto me.  

Now, some music is just a guilty pleasure, like a trashy novel I read and throw away before anyone discovers that I even have it.  My "relationship" with Lil'Wayne's music fit this category.  From "Tha Block is Hot" to "Tha Carter II," it's been one long, trashy (yet enjoyable) novel.  

Though this is no shocker, a new book describes Karl Rove's SWIFT, carefully orchestrated political defense of the federal (non)response to Katrina and its aftermath.  The book is noted on the New Orleans Times-Picayune website NOLA.com:  

In a new book, "Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove," author Paul Alexander quotes Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu and former Gov. Kathleen Blanco saying that Karl Rove, a top political adviser to President Bush, led a coordinated political attack of local Democrats in the days immediately after Hurricane Katrina hit.

In the book, Landrieu and Blanco say that Rove manipulated New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and gave political talking points to GOP U.S. Sen. David Vitter in an effort to deflect blame for slow storm response away from Bush and the White House and onto Blanco.

More below:

In Louisiana, McCain Claims He Voted For Every Katrina Investigation -- Except He Didn't
By Eric Kleefeld - June 4, 2008, 3:44PM

Last night on Countdown, Keith Olbermann sat down with the most unlikely of Bush administration critics - former Bush loyalist and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan.

The first question asked was "Who is more surprised that you're here? You or me?" to which Scott replied "I think the White House is probably most surprised". The interview then proceeded to take almost an entire hour and was surprisingly substantive and interesting. I'm glad Olbermann didn't just go for sound bites and quick questions, but instead allowed time to delve into a wide range of issues in detail.

Below, I have assembled a handful of clips that stand out from the interview as particularly interesting. Rather than give my take on each of them in this diary I'll let you blog about whichever segment is interesting to each of you and respond to your comments. Here are the highlights:

The next Daily Kos NOLA/Gulf Blogathon has been scheduled for Wed., June 18th and Thurs., June 19th. (Time slots to sign up for are below the fold.)

While, as with all previous blogathons, all in the DKos community are invited to publish diaries on anything having to do with New Orleans, Katrina, and Rita, and even a good rant will do, I wish to extend special invitations to all Front Pagers who would like to do so to post diaries presenting and defending their opinion that New Orleans and recovery from Katrina and Rita are not worthy of being covered on DKos' front page. More below the fold.

This is a NOLA/Gulf Coast Blogathon diary.  You got a problem with that?

This year, despite a once-in-a-generation candidate and an opposition in disarray, Democrats are going to have a fight to take the White House.  Some swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio are going to be tough slogs with social conservatives (not to mention, shall we say, ethnic issues).  Other states, once considered solidly Republican, are going to surprise pundits by proving open to the Democratic message.

I'd like to show you, and the Obama campaign, how to make Louisiana one of them.

"Music gets into your DNA down there." That's how I described it to a friend who asked about the abundance of New Orleans flavored music that you'll find on my iPod, my stereo at home, in my car... For me, New Orleans isn't Mardi Gras or a great restaurant just a stone's throw from where ever you happen to be standing at the moment, or streetcar rattling down St. Charles under the arching branches of live oaks or any of the other images that typically come to mind. Make no mistake, New Orleans is all of those things and more, but when I think of New Orleans the first thing that comes to mind is music.

In the weeks immediately after Hurricane Katrina, there began to appear an assortment of concert and benefit CDs aimed at funding relief efforts. These discs featured a great assortment of New Orleans musicians and guests from across the country performing standards, celebrating the city and hoping to quickly repair the damage. Examples are Our New Orleans: A Benefit Album for the Gulf Coast and Higher Ground Hurricane Benefit Relief Concert.

This diary is intended as something of a rant. Because this saddens me and makes my blood boil every time I think about it.

But before I vent, here's a caveat: as I said in yesterday's diary, 9/11 tore me apart. So this is by no means intended as a put-down of the trauma 9/11 survivors went through or a complaint about the well-deserved sympathy and support they've gotten.

Rather, what pisses me off is is the fact that survivors of 8/29--whether of Katrina, the federal flood, or of Rita--have not been receiving the equal aid, synpathy, or other treatment to that received by 9/11 survivors, that they deserve. What blueintheface brings up--the fact that Daily Kos hasn't been paying enough attention to New Orleans and Katrina, is the tip of a very big iceberg involving the MSM and many politicians that has been keeping storm and flood survivors from getting the attention they have a right to receive.

A rambling riff on the oddness of New Orleans as part of this cycle's NOLA/Gulf Blogathon...

I've often imagined many in the DKos community have been wondering why I care so much and have been so passionate in my support of New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Region from afar, after having been to New Orleans but once, over 30 years ago. And how Hurricane Katrina and the federal flood have had such a tremendous, shattering impact on me though I witnessed them safe and dry far from the sea in central Illinois. And how not only could I be well-deservedly hard on BushCo, but even take Clinton and Obama to task for not paying enough attention to New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Region. And why I feel so strongly about this I started the NOLA/Gulf Blogathons. I'll go into that in more detail below the fold--but first I'll tell you how 9/11 impacted me.

It's rare for me to have anything good to say about the mainstream media, and even rarer for me to watch a "reality show," because "reality television" isn't.

But after seeing it promo'ed Saturday night, I determined that a reality show that was going to air Sunday night was going to be "Must-See TV." Because I knew it would have socially-redeeming value. I have only kudos for the show, ABC, and all who contributed to it for because it was heartwarming and inspiring to see and left me with a warm, fuzzy feeling.

More below the fold.

A couple of weeks ago, we joined ten other people and toured the Katrina-damaged areas of New Orleans. This amounts to 80 per cent of the entire city, an expanse of 144 square miles, or the size of seven Manhattans. Katrina-related damage extended to four parishes: Orleans, Jefferson, Placquemines, and St. Bernard's.  As we discovered on the tour, little of it need have happened: Although touched off by natural forces, Katrina was largely a man-made disaster caused by the failure of the federal levee system.

So much happened on the national scene yesterday, a huge news day. McCain proposed a withdrawl-- er, "victory"...timetable of five more years in Iraq, to counter his previous "as long as it takes" policy. President Chimpzilla ran his mouth in Israel (at one point in an attempt to disparage the soon-to-be Democratic presidential nominee), only to send Senator Joe Biden into a philippic on the senate floor. Chris Matthews laid a fat smackdown on a rethug sock puppet that was a true thing of beauty on Hardball.