Broadmoor Condominium took a beating. 

Island Royale in pretty good shape. 

These houses are on Old River, again on Perdido Key, Alabama. 

About a 35 foot boat across the road from Cotton Bayou. 

More houses on Perdido Key. 

One of the beach houses on Perdido Key, Alabama, gutted by Ivan. 

In the background is what is left of the dry dock storage facility at Zeke's Landing. Most of the boats look ok. 

On the way to the Florida state line, this is Perdido Place, which is similar in construction to Atlantis -- looking good. 

Here is a clearer picture of the Flora-Bama. View is from the Gulf facing north. Water on other side of the road is Old River. Panama Mac's is across the street pass the SUV. I have a condo just east of here in Florida which I hope to visit today for the first time. Will post photos. 

This is the Gulf down West Beach at the bridge/cut for Little Lagoon. 

This is Mikee's, about two blocks north of the beach. 

This is the Crystal Beach condo. It is across from Hwy 161 in Orange Beach, about 1 mile south of my place, but on the Gulf itself. Built in the late 90s. I think this is about where the center of Ivan came ashore. 

East Beach Blvd., Gulf Shores 

This is a shot of Sea 'n Suds, which sticks out into the Gulf. Surprisely, it survived the storm. 

In the fore-front is the world famous Pink Pony Pub. It was rebuilt as it is here in 1979 after Frederic. Behind it is the new Phoenix All-Suites condominium which fared the storm well. I suspect that the Pink Pony's days are over.

This is downtown Gulf Shores, two blocks north of the Gulf of Mexico. 

Repeat. 

View of the Herbert camphouse from across the bayou. Post Ivan. 

Neighbor was not as lucky as I was. 

Large pine tree in my front yard. Bent then snapped. 

This is view from the back deck of my house on Buck's Bayou facing southeast, right down from Tacky Jack's. The hottub is in retreat. Pool decking is in disarray. Pool is still holding water (and a school of pin fish).

This is what is left of the Flora-Bama Roadhouse on the Alabama-Florida line. http://www.florabama.com

Here is my other boat, the Laissez Faire, dangling above the decking around my pool. 

This is my boat, the Loco-Foco, safely resting above what was my dock. 

This is the Beach Road in Gulf Shores, just as you enter the State Park. 

So Much for Free Speech (washingtonpost.com)

(Site requires free registration.) Robert Samuelson, one of the more thoughtful writers for the Washington Post, cuts to the heart of all the recent chatter about independent campaign activities. Bush, on the other hand, as usual, comes across as completely clueless on the subject.

"Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right."


- H.L. Mencken

Novak: Bush employing platform shoos to keep party in line

Take this for what it is worth. Traditionally the Republican platform has been ignored after the convention. Apparently it now is being abandoned prior to the convention. Hubris or just neoconservative realism?

Yahoo! News - Ricky Williams Reportedly Failed Third Drug Test

Wow. Marijuana use cost Ricky $650,000 in fines last year. Another victim of the insane war on drugs (drug-taking people).

Where are the moralists? The clergy? The civil rights crowd?

An Echo, Not a Choice

The case for (hold your nose now) Kerry. Actually it is the case for going fishing.

The Late, Great States - Where have all the federalists gone? By Steve?Chapman

Frist's Senate in disarray

Bob Novak reporting on the Greatest Deliberative Body ever.

Martha Stewart: Punishing the Innocent, Excusing the Guilty by Paul Craig Roberts

Elaine Cassel: Hamdi, Padilla and Rasul Before the Supremes, Who Really Won?

Yahoo! News - Gore: Bush Lied About al-Qaida, Iraq Link

Who is Uncle Joe?

I have pasted the following anlysis from a blog called The Volokh Conspiracy, which is generally quite good. They have University of Chicago law school professor Cass Sunstein on this week as a guest blogger. Sunstein has a new book coming out which he is promoting. I have changed his recent post by changing the name of his hero. Guess who he is talking about?

"Uncle Joe's speech wasn't elegant. It was messy, sprawling, unruly, a bit of a pastiche, upbeat, and not at all literary. It was the opposite of Lincoln's tight, poetic, elegiac Gettysburg Address. But because of what it said, it has a strong claim to being the greatest speech of the twentieth century.

"Uncle Joe began by emphasizing that the "supreme objective for the future" -- the objective for all nations -- was captured "in one word: Security." Uncle Joe argued that the term "means not only physical security which provides safety from attacks by aggressors," but includes as well "economic security, social security, moral security." Uncle Joe insisted that "essential to peace is a decent standard of living for all individual men and women and children in all nations. Freedom from fear is eternally linked with freedom from want."

"Uncle Joe looked back, and not entirely approvingly, to the framing of the Constitution. At its inception, the nation had grown "under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures."

"But over time, these rights had proved inadequate. Unlike the Constitution's framers, "we have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence." As Uncle Joe saw it, "necessitous men are not free men," not least because those who are hungry and jobless "are the stuff out of which dictatorships are made." Recalling the New Deal, he cut to the chase: The nation had "accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed."

"Then he listed the relevant rights:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.
Having catalogued these eight rights, Uncle Joe said that "we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights." Uncle Joe asked "the Congress to explore the means for implementing this economic bill of rights—for it is definitely the responsibility of the Congress to do so."

Bush to screen population for mental illness

Presumably, this is a joke. Let us see. I plan to be first in line for the screening.

Reason

Doherty making major sense on the middle east.

WSJ.com - Freedom's Friend

Friedman on Reagan -- further comments as times allow

The Great Persuader (washingtonpost.com)

Not Even a Hedgehog - The stupidity of Ronald Reagan. By Christopher?Hitchens

Novak is much more generous; but Hitchens, the dirty commie, has a point.

For the Great Communicator, presidency was about big dreams

Rumsfeld may have to ax an ally

Cambone, not Rumsfield, thought it a great idea to abuse innocents.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: Low Rates, High Expectations

A freebie from Jim Grant. (The subscription for his newsletter goes for $760 per annum.)

Secretary Powell on Meet the Press

Apparently Powell has grown accustomed to lying.

War, the God That Failed by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Comments?

VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: Wars on drugs, guns, fathers goi...

Interesting updates on the state of the union.

Few friends rush to aid Rumsfeld

Novak with the latest scoop. Problem is there is every chance there will be no second term for Bush, and the Bush team doesn't know what hit them. On second thought, what a world!