Domestic Affairs

But I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky. — Bill Bennett, Former Sect. of Education under the Reagan Administration,…

NYT: September 25, 2005 As Test Scores Jump, Raleigh Credits Integration by Income By ALAN FINDER RALEIGH, N.C. – Over the last decade, black and Hispanic students here in Wake County have made such dramatic strides in standardized reading and math tests that it has caught the attention of education experts around the country. The main reason for the students’ dramatic improvement, say officials and parents in the county, which includes Raleigh and its sprawling suburbs, is that the district…

LA Times: Sea Lions Sink Boats in Newport Harbor By Roy Rivenburg Times Staff Writer 12:31 PM PDT, September 14, 2005 Think of them as amphibious sumo wrestlers. A pack of rowdy sea lions has invaded Newport Harbor, sinking boats, thrashing docks and, with their nonstop barking, turning residents into sleepless zombies. In a scene that has played out up and down the West Coast, the whiskered creatures are charming tourists but exasperating local officials, who are considering a bizarre…

WashPost: Mayor Ray Nagin called [Lt. Gen. Russell] Honoré (pronounced ah-NOR-ay) “one John Wayne dude” when the general arrived here after the storm and started taking charge. It seemed the city had spiraled out of anyone’s control when the 6-foot-2 general with the pencil mustache and caramel skin appeared from obscurity and threw his weight against the mayhem. “He’s got the power to make things happen,” Firestone says. Nearby, Honoré is pledging to a volunteer that the Army will find…

AP: Hardest hit will be the approximately 18,000 Northeast Corridor commuters who have monthly passes, whose fares will increase an average of 50 percent. The cost of monthly passes vary. A monthly pass to ride Amtrak between Trenton, N.J., and New York City currently costs $522. Same pass on NJ Transit? $320.00 Why is Amtrak so expensive? Even with a $1.2 billion subsidy!

I was catching up on some The Party Line reading this morning when I caught the links to two articles from the East Bay Express written in February 2005 about the possibility and aftermath of a massive quake in the Bay Area. Remember the FEMA 2001 report that said that the three most likely disasters are a terrorist attack on NYC (check), and a hurricane on New Orleans (check) — and a massive quake on SF? Uh oh. What trenching…

AmericaBlog has two gems this morning: HED: Bush says today he will investigate himself That’s nice. Bush is going to investigate his OWN bungling of Hurricane Katrina. That’s nice. Will he be investigating why he remained on vacation until the 3d day AFTER the hurricane destroyed New Orleans? Will he be investigating why Condi Rice went on vacation to NYC for most of the week? Why Dick Cheney and Andy Card STAYED on vacation even after the hurricane struck? Why…

LA Times So many refugees now live in the Astrodome that the U.S. Postal Service has issued the 77320 ZIP Code to the former professional stadium. The move makes it easier for refugees to receive letters and care packages.

Dave Winer points to four times in the last four years that major media outlets have predicted a major disaster if a major hurricane hit New Orleans. Time Magazine, July 10, 2000: If a flood of Biblical proportions were to lay waste to New Orleans, Joe Suhayda has a good idea how it would happen. A Category 5 hurricane would come barreling out of the Gulf of Mexico. It would cause Lake Pontchartrain, north of New Orleans, to overflow, pouring…

The more I read about the fallout from Hurricane Katrina, the more riled up I get. I want to help, but there’s not much that I can do from the other side of the country. I’m sending $140 to relief efforts (the money that I will be paid from the piece that I filed yesterday to Wired News). Half of it is going to my journalistic bretheren down at The Sun Herald, where my Columbia classmates Michael Keller and Josh…