ANOTHER REASON NOT TO BE indiscriminately doling out federal pork: “State tax revenues continue to surge.”

APPARENTLY, THE PRESS’S PERFORMANCE DURING KATRINA wasn’t any better than the governments involved. At least, this Times-Picayune report says that the reports of death and destruction were wildly exaggerated. This is significant, not least because false reports of mayhem may have slowed rescue efforts over concerns with security. In addition, portrayal of New Orleans as lawless and debauched is likely to feed reluctance to rebuild.

UPDATE: More thoughts on the press’s overrated performance. Though most of the positive commentary I’ve seen on press performance has come in the form of self-congratulation.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Rick Stuart is charging racism:

Can you depend on the media to tell you what is really happening? No. Especially when they are stuck in one place, and can only look around their location and for whatever reason end up spreading rumors. . . .

And why was everyone so quick to believe (and report) that a mostly black group of mostly poor gathered together would turn to such violence? Even early reports on cannibalism? These are people like you and me, not some sub human race. When I watched the news reports I wasn’t fully buying into the wildest stories, but of course the wildest stories made the news. And they made the news often, without being questioned or fact checked.

I thought the reporting from the area was awful, and I’d even go so far to say racist.

I’m guessing that the rumors of Klingon invasion didn’t pan out, either.

MORE: John Cole has further thoughts on why it’s important to get the story right.

MORE BLOGGERS PROFILED over at the Pajamas Media site, including Varifrank, John Cole, and Laurence Simon.

LOTS OF GUESTBLOGGERS AT RIGHTWINGNEWS, including Frank J., who emails: “John Hawkins asked for Frank J. to guest blog, so he got Frank J.” You gotta watch out for that . . ..

SPEAKING OF GOOD ADVICE FROM BERKELEY: “In fact, the biggest problem that the ‘anti-war’ movement has right now is the illusion that somehow the war they protested starting in 2003 is the same war that they’re protesting today.”

I TRIED TO PERSUADE blogosphere celebrity Rachael Klein, who wrote a famed sex column for the Berkeley paper, to write a book. I failed. But I’ve just noticed that her opposite number at Yale, Natalie Krinsky, did just that, publishing a novel called Chloe Does Yale. Booklist liked it, the Amazon reader reviews are mixed.

ED MORRISSEY NOTES the next big Canadian scandal. They just keep coming.

AL JAZEERA REPORTER CONVICTED OF TERRORISM: More on this story here.

TOM DELAY seems to be feeling the heat:

I agree that an essential point has achieved consensus in this debate: The current political dialogue on political spending is one that requires a clear declaration of principles from House Republicans. We will continue to display an earnest devotion to the ideals of a smaller, more efficient, better-prioritized government. Flaunting rhetoric on the issue of fiscal discipline will not be enough. The conservative ideals of fiscal discipline and leaner, smarter government require a legislative agenda that can be put into action and enacted into law.

That action begins with the House Republican commitment to breaking the government bureaucracy’s logjam of inefficient programs and wasteful spending. This goal will be accomplished by advancing a budget initiative that pulls up from the roots billions of dollars of wasteful spending programs that have taken hold in the federal budget for far too long.

Now that he’s started to look, I guess he’s found some fat!

Hey, Tom: Look here!

UPDATE: John Podhoretz: “The debate in this country over the size of government has taken a fortunate turn in the past week as consciousness about wasteful spending seems to have broken through to the public. . . . maybe we’re on the brink of a change in political atmosphere.” He suggests, though, that calls to delay or eliminate the prescription drug benefit dilute the anti-pork message. I’m not sure whether I agree with that.

LT SMASH: “The Arab-Israeli conflict has arrived in San Diego.”

“AFTER KATRINA, A BUDGETARY BLOG SWARM:“

The push by President Bush for the federal government to spend $200 billion to recover from Hurricane Katrina has sparked a firestorm of criticism from bloggers on the left and right.

Indeed it has.

UPDATE: Indeed: “Our instant readiness to spend seemingly any amount of money naturally activated people to do what they can to get the money to flow in their direction. It’s not unlike the the way the flood itself set off looting.”

IS THIS PORK?

Louisiana’s congressional delegation has requested $40 billion for Army Corps of Engineers projects in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, about 10 times the annual Corps budget for the entire nation, or 16 times the amount the Corps has said it would need to protect New Orleans from a Category 5 hurricane.

Louisiana Sens. David Vitter (R) and Mary Landrieu (D) tucked the request into their $250 billion Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act, the state’s opening salvo in the scramble for federal dollars.

The bill, unveiled last week, would create a powerful “Pelican Commission” controlled by Louisiana residents that would decide which Corps projects to fund, and ordered the commission to consider several controversial navigation projects that have nothing to do with flood protection. The Corps section of the Louisiana bill, which was supported by the entire state delegation, was based on recommendations from a “working group” dominated by lobbyists for ports, shipping firms, energy companies and other corporate interests.

This needs to be a non-starter. It is, to me, an open and under-debated question whether the federal government should fund the rebuilding of New Orleans — I’m inclined to agree with the polls that say it shouldn’t — but this is a naked grab for money by the very political establishment whose corruption and ineptitude led to the problems in the first place. It should be slapped down fast and hard.

UPDATE: Reader Ric Locke emails:

I dunno, Glenn. Maybe you’re too hasty.

The rule in Louisiana has generally been that twenty percent goes to the relevant officials. In the case of a big project, that means that after the Congressional delegation, the State people, and all the city/parish locals, what’s left is 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8 = a little over half for the actual work.

Contractors then take over, and you have, e.g., four loads of fill dirt delivered but pay for five.

Let’s give them most or even all of it, but with a proviso that they have to put up a Web site on which /every penny/ is accounted for, down to front-and-back scans of every invoice paid. There’s bound to be one or two public-spirited anal retentives detail-minded folk willing to go over it. The result would either be enough indictments to clean-sweep the whole bunch, or a New New Orleans twenty meters above sea level, made entirely of gold-plated titanium, and covered with a dome for full-city air conditioning. Either one would be fun to have, no?

Heh. I know which is more likely . . . .

In a related item, John Fund writes that it’s time for the feds to clean up corruption in Louisiana:

Despite assurances from President Bush, “the government is fighting this war [on waste] with Civil War weapons, and we’re just overwhelmed,” Joshua Schwartz, co-director of the George Washington University Law School’s procurement law program, told Knight Ridder. Democrats are already scoring political points. Rep. David Obey, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, is lamenting the lack of accountability in the aid package. He is calling for “the beginning of some new thinking” on how to handle disaster relief.

Put bluntly, the local political cultures don’t engender confidence that aid won’t be diverted from the people who truly need and deserve it. While the feds can try to ride herd on the money, here’s hoping folks in the region take the opportunity to finally demand their own political housecleaning. Change is past due. Last year, Lou Riegel, the agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans office, described Louisiana’s public corruption as “epidemic, endemic, and entrenched. No branch of government is exempt.”

Louisiana ranks third in the nation in the number of elected officials per capita convicted of crimes (Mississippi takes top prize). In just the past generation, the Pelican State has had a governor, an attorney general, three successive insurance commissioners, a congressman, a federal judge, a state Senate president and a swarm of local officials convicted. Last year, three top officials at Louisiana’s Office of Emergency Preparedness were indicted on charges they obstructed a probe into how federal money bought out flood-prone homes. Last March the Federal Emergency Management Agency ordered Louisiana to repay $30 million in flood-control grants it had awarded to 23 parishes.

Read the whole thing. And maybe (expanding on Locke’s suggestion) the aid relief should have a provision allowing private qui tam suits for fraud — and allowing them to be brought by lawyers admitted to practice in any jurisdiction in the United States. Those guys won’t be able to turn around without somebody taking notes. Put the trial lawyers to work cleaning up Louisiana!

Okay, maybe not. But we need to do something — and Louisiana officials shouldn’t expect a blank check. Or an excessively large one.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More here: “There is nothing at all sensible about rebuilding New Orleans. It will be on, or under, the Gulf of Mexico by 2050.”