Welcome Back, Blog

It has been a long time since my last blog posting - January 4th to be exact. But with all that is going on, I think it's time to get the blog back up and running - we have football starting in a few short days, elections in a couple of months, and I'm ready to get back to blogging.

If you haven't read much of my blog, it is all archived on the site. The main things I discuss are sports, politics and news, my life (and others), and anything worth discussing. It's pretty obvious - the title is "...Go Big Red...Go Away Bush..." Fairly self-explanatory. You can also add comments to any of my posts, which is always encouraged, and I also will post polls from time to time. If you know of anyone else that may be interested in reading my blog, please feel free to pass it on.

A lot has happened since that last post on January 4th. Let's see, Cheney shot someone in the face, the NSA is reading this as I type, along with you talking to your friend in Ireland, we are STILL in Iraq, and somehow it's even worse now than it was before. In March I finally graduated from college (on the quick 13 year plan!) And since I apparently enjoy torture I recently started grad school at UNO. So I'm busy as shit, and with football coming up in a few days, I'm completely booked for a few months.

I don't have a set schedule for postings, but roughly here is how it will work:

• During the week I'll just post whatever is on my mind, articles I enjoyed, or really anything.
• Every Friday morning if you are looking for a good laugh, this will be the perfect place to go, as there will be a funny link, joke, or article that I'd like to share.
• If you are visiting my blog for football picks, that's a smart move. Every single Saturday morning (and some Friday nights, this one for sure since I'll be going to Lincoln early for the game Saturday!) will be my top 5 college picks for the day, along with my top 5 NFL picks. Last season my 5* rated picks went 62% (8-5), and my overall season was 58% (34-25). The best part though was that I only had 3 losing weekends all year, which is most important. I also went 11-7 in bowl games (61%). Vegas handicapper goals are 55%, and even though I exceeded that number, I was very disappointed and expect a better percentage this season.
• Last season I picked the Nebraska football season almost on the nose. From last season: "In the end, the Huskers go 7-4 and get to a decent bowl game, where we beat a middle of the road Big 10, SEC, or Pac 10 team, for an 8-4 finish. Pretty solid improvement and it will only get better in 2006!" Well, the Huskers simply finished 8-4 by winning a decent Alamo Bowl against middle of the road Big 10 team Michigan! My entire college football season preview will come before Saturday (probably Wednesday or Thursday), along with my Husker preview, so keep an eye out for that. The following week will be my complete NFL preview.

Everyone enjoy the rest of your summer and have a great fall! Wait, I haven't really even posted anything other than a heads up. So here's an example of something to expect from my blog. Paul Krugman wrote an outstanding Op-Ed in the NYT Monday, cutting pretty hard on Bush, and I can always admire that. Here it is...

August 28, 2006

Op-Ed Columnist

Broken Promises

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Last September President Bush stood in New Orleans, where the lights had just come on for the first time since Katrina struck, and promised “one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen.” Then he left, and the lights went out again.

What happened next was a replay of what happened after Mr. Bush asked Congress to allocate $18 billion for Iraqi reconstruction. In the months that followed, congressmen who visited Iraq returned with glowing accounts of all the wonderful things we were doing there, like repainting schools and, um, repainting schools.

But when the Coalition Provisional Authority, which was running Iraq, closed up shop nine months later, it turned out that only 2 percent of the $18 billion had been spent, and only a handful of the projects that were supposed to have been financed with that money had even been started. In the end, America failed to deliver even the most basic repair of Iraq’s infrastructure; today, Baghdad gets less than seven hours of electricity a day.

And so it is along our own Gulf Coast. The Bush administration likes to talk about all the money it has allocated to the region, and it plans a public relations blitz to persuade America that it’s doing a heck of a job aiding Katrina’s victims. But as the Iraqis learned, allocating money and actually using it for reconstruction are two different things, and so far the administration has done almost nothing to make good on last year’s promises.

It’s true that tens of billions have been spent on emergency relief and cleanup. But even the cleanup remains incomplete: almost a third of the hurricane debris in New Orleans has yet to be removed. And the process of going beyond cleanup to actual reconstruction has barely begun.

For example, although Congress allocated $17 billion to the Department of Housing and Urban Development for Katrina relief, primarily to provide cash assistance to homeowners, as of last week the department had spent only $100 million. The first Louisiana homeowners finally received checks under a federally financed program just three days ago. Mississippi, which has a similar program, has sent out only about two dozen checks so far.

Local governments, which were promised aid in rebuilding facilities such as fire stations and sewer systems, have fared little better in actually getting that aid. A recent article in The National Journal describes a Kafkaesque situation in which devastated towns and parishes seeking federal funds have been told to jump through complex hoops, spending time and money they don’t have on things like proving that felled trees were actually knocked down by Katrina, only to face demands for even more paperwork.

Apologists for the administration will doubtless claim that blame for the lack of progress rests not with Mr. Bush, but with the inherent inefficiency of government bureaucracies. That’s the great thing about being an antigovernment conservative: even when you fail at the task of governing, you can claim vindication for your ideology.

But bureaucracies don’t have to be this inefficient. The failure to get moving on reconstruction reflects lack of leadership at the top.

Mr. Bush could have moved quickly to turn his promises of reconstruction into reality. But he didn’t. As months dragged by with little sign of White House action, all urgency about developing a plan for reconstruction ebbed away.

Mr. Bush could have appointed someone visible and energetic to oversee the Gulf Coast’s recovery, someone who could act as an advocate for families and local governments in need of help. But he didn’t. How many people can even name the supposed reconstruction “czar”?

Mr. Bush could have tried to fix FEMA, the agency whose effectiveness he destroyed through cronyism and privatization. But he didn’t. FEMA remains a demoralized organization, unable to replenish its ranks: it currently has fewer than 84 percent of its authorized personnel.

Maybe the aid promised to the gulf region will actually arrive some day. But by then it will probably be too late. Many former residents and small-business owners, tired of waiting for help that never comes, will have permanently relocated elsewhere; those businesses that stayed open, or reopened after the storm, will have gone under for lack of customers. In America as in Iraq, reconstruction delayed is reconstruction denied — and Mr. Bush has, once again, broken a promise.