"I want to cook the mushrooms before they deliquesce, is that the word?"
"The word for what?"
"What mushrooms do if you leave them in a plastic bag for too long, where they turn to slime."
Yes it is, and it is pronounced dell-ih-KWESS. It turns out it is from the Latin inchoative form of liquēre, to be liquid. And apparently the inchoative is a sort of old fashioned verb form indicating an action that is about to take place. Oh, and the line over that "e" is called a macron. And outré is pronounced oo-TRAY.
This cartoon cracked me up: Every sperm really is sacred.
So, now there is video proof that Bush was warned about Katrina before it hit. On August 28 he participated in a video conference (Bush was on vacation at the time, remember). During that conference he was warned that the levees might fail and that the Superdome might be inadequate as emergency shelter. Bush's response?
"I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm to help you deal with the loss of property. And we pray for no loss of life, of course."
Michael Brown ("Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job") is pointing to this tape as evidence that he was a scapegoat -- because he did warn the administration ahead of time. However, the whiny and clueless e-mail that Brown sent during the disaster kind of proves that he was every bit the incompetent screw-up he was made out to be.
(You know the ones. "Thanks for update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?" "Can I quit now? Can I come home?" "I'm trapped now, please rescue me." "If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god." They make him sound not only mind-bogglingly incompetent, but actually kind of insane.)
It's a pattern -- the same pattern that marked the other major touchstones of this presidency, 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. The pattern goes like this:
1. Receive warnings from people who know what they're talking about, assuring them that you've got everything under control.
2. Ignore warnings. Keep doing, or not doing, whatever you were planning to do anyway.
3. When disaster strikes, claim that nobody had any idea that such a thing could possibly happen.
4. Make promises about future improvements.
5. Ignore promises. Keep doing, or not doing, whatever you were planning to do anyway.
The Bush administration -- every last one of them, from Bush down to "Brownie" -- are acting just like people who got hired for important positions based on fake resumes, and are trying desperately to cover up their fundamental lack of suitability for the job. It's like a sitcom. A very black-comedy sitcom, where people actually die and have their lives destroyed. Like, one where the surgeons aren't really surgeons, or a fourteen year old kid drives a semi through a shopping mall.
Although, to be fair, it's possible that Bush wasn't technically lying when he said that nobody could have anticipated the breach of the levees. Maybe he wasn't even paying attention during the briefing on August 28, and just forgot.
