MEGHAN O’ROURKE criticizes censorious bloggers.

DANIEL DREZNER WRITES ON “HURRICANE PORN:” I think that complaints about that are misplaced with regard to Katrina, which was quite a dreadful storm, and which — on the strength of a last minute shift — just barely escaped being much worse. But the phenomenon in general is quite real and as I mentioned over at GlennReynolds.com yesterday it may also make it harder to get people to evacuate when a storm is really bad.

BILL QUICK ON JUDITH MILLER: “I expect the NYT is quite puzzled as to why there is no groundswell for the ‘plight’ of one of their reporters. Probably the notion that half the country thinks their entire staff should be in jail hasn’t quite sunk in yet.”

That kind of reminds me of Hugh Hewitt’s interview with Tim Rutten.

BRENDAN LOY IS ON HUGH HEWITT right now. He’s also got an impressive collection of photos from New Orleans on his site.

HURRICANE-PHOTOBLOGGING, using a laptop on battery power and a free AOL CD for dialup to bypass dead DSL. (Via Josh Britton).

Rex Hammock has thoughts and links on local emergency blogging. And it’s worth something — I’ve had folks evacuated from the Mississippi Gulf Coast begging me for links to blogs in their area because they can’t get enough news from the regular media. (Via Kaye Trammell).

THE MIAMI HERALD says that the New Orleans city government was slow to learn from Hurricane Andrew.

UPDATE: Michele Catalano says the media folks haven’t learned much, either.

ANOTHER UPDATE: N.Z. Bear notes previous problems in New Orleans. Let’s iron out all the kinks before next time, okay?

KATRINA UPDATE: Calder Lorenz emails:

NowPublic.com is providing a public service for those affected by Hurricane Katrina. We have set up a website that lets people send in photographs of those who go missing during the storm. We are asking others to contribute by posting a link to tool on their sites. Your assistance in this effort is greatly appreciated.

Here’s the link.

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF THE CAPITALISTS is up!

So is this week’s Carnival of Cordite.

UPDATE: Here’s an especially long and detailed Carnival of the Revolutions, with links to posts on pro-democracy activity in all sorts of countries.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Don’t miss The Blawg Review, a carnival of lawbloggers!

YES, BLOGGING WAS LIGHT: Classes have started here, and I was also having trouble reaching the server until the Hosting Matters folks worked their magic.

DAVID CORN: “Clinton Lied…and Hundreds of Thousands Died.”

No protests to speak of, though.

ANDREW MARCUS, the blog-documentarian I’ve mentioned before, has been in Crawford, Texas and has posted reports, photos, and video of what he saw.

UPDATE: Here’s another report.

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF PERSONAL FINANCE is up!

NOLA.COM’S HURRICANE BLOGGER has a picture of the Superdome with the roof peeling off.

There’s another picture here, along with a report that there are 10,000 people (not the 40,000 other outlets are reporting) inside.

UPDATE: Here’s a photo from Biloxi, via Flickr. Note roof damage. Still, it seems that things haven’t turned out as badly as they might have.

BOOKS LIKE THIS ONE ON THE ACLU, which I just got in the mail, are probably no worse than the myriad of hatchet jobs done in the past on, say, the NRA or (more recently) the Federalist Society. But I think that demonizing the ACLU is a bit silly. I do feel that they’ve become overly partisan in recent years, but they still do good work (I’ve worked with them in the past, on the New Orleans rave case for example, and will probably do so again.)

HERE’S A WEBCAM ON THE L.S.U. CAMPUS. (Via Baton Rouge local-blogger Josh Britton).

GLORIA SALT has a new URL. Make note of it.

SUPERDOME ROOF DAMAGE: The WDSU Hurricane Blog reports:

A 3-by-5-foot chunk is missing, and people are being ushered off the field of the stadium. Although the roof has been breached, those inside are remaining calm. A heavy mist is reported inside, and some are now wearing raincoats.

I’m really glad not to be there. I guess this headline will have to change . . . .

SUSAN DUDLEY offers some depressing news:

Before leaving town earlier this month, Congress approved nearly $300 billion in increased spending. But spending, supported through taxes, is not the only way the federal government diverts resources from the private sector to accomplish its goals. The other is through regulation and, in recent years, that too has increased at an impressive rate. . . .

The FY 2006 Budget requests that Congress allocate $41.4 billion for regulatory activities, up from $39.5 billion in 2005. This reflects a 4.8 percent increase in outlays directed at writing, administering, and enforcing federal regulations. The regulators’ budget is growing at a faster rate than other nondiscretionary spending, which the President’s budget held to only 2.1 percent in 2006. Since 2000, the regulators’ budget has grown an amazing 46 percent, after adjusting for inflation.

Jeez. My expectations that Bush would shrink the government were modest enough, given the realities of American politics. But it’s fair to say that, modest as they were, they’ve still been disappointed.

TERRY TEACHOUT has updated his list of hurricane-bloggers.

THE IRAQI PARLIAMENT has accepted the constitution over Sunni objections. Mohammed at Iraq the Model has a number of thoughts, including the suggestion that Shiite clergy have overplayed their hand.

MICKEY KAUS and Arnold Kling are unimpressed with Malcolm Gladwell’s latest on health insurance. I found the opening unpersuasive — is Gladwell suggesting that we should aspire to British standards of dentistry?

KATRINA has weakened a bit to Category 4. It seems to have veered eastward a bit, too. Let’s hope that will make a difference.

OLD MEDIA VS. NEW MEDIA: An interesting transcript of an interview between Hugh Hewitt and Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times.

HERE’S A NEW ORLEANS WEBCAM — at the corner of St. Charles & Napoleon — that’s still working.

UPDATE: Some unpleasant thoughts about quality of life in the Superdome.

If the worst happens -and at this point it seems implausible that it won’t- the bottom 2 stories will fill with water. Dirty nasty foul water full of chemicals and raw sewerage. Further the bathroom facilities are only expected to function for the first day.

So in rough terms, 40,000+ people will be trapped in a building with no plumbing, little light and no air conditioning. The temps after the storm rolls thru will probably be in the low 90s. Considerably hotter in the building.

Let’s just hope that people are in a position to worry about that. Heck, let’s hope that the “implausible” happens and New Orleans doesn’t flood.

UPDATE: As of 6:16 Eastern time, the webcam is still working.

LOCAL NEWS reports that Knoxville hotels are filling with refugees from the Gulf coast.