BEIRUT — Well, as you can see, the blog is back up. A few minor changes have been made, and all the spe­cial fea­tures seem to be work­ing.
But really, who cares? Almost 1,000 Shi’ites in Bagh­dad are dead in a stam­pede that is a hor­ri­ble, hor­ri­ble tragedy. The _only_ upside is that for a while, sec­tar­ian sus­pi­cions were put on hold as Sunni mosques orga­nized relief for Shi’ite fam­i­lies. Today, how­ever, I hear pol­i­tics in Bagh­dad are back to nor­mal — there was a gun­fight at the bridge, which isn’t unsual for Bagh­dad.
Mean­while, back in the United States, I’m shocked and appalled by the destruc­tion of Kat­rina and the sheer inept­ness of the res­cue efforts. You mean to tell me that four years after 9/11, the United States fed­eral gov­ern­ment responds to a mas­sive dis­as­ter in a major Amer­i­can city in such a slip-shod man­ner? Unbe­liev­able. I guess those tax dol­lars going to home­land secu­rity were well-spent, eh?