While the piggies are at the trough...

So, the governors of Louisiana and Mississippi were up in Washington, DC today. They were testifying before Congress about the response to Hurricane Katrina, and specifically the federal government's response.

They talked about the devastation, they talked about how the hurricane will impact their states' economies for years to come. They asked for money to help encourage corporations to return to Louisiana and Mississippi after the clean-up is finished.

You knew it was only a matter of time before non-recovery funding was sought. But financial incentives to try and retain the companies forced to leave the area are one thing. And they're almost acceptable. It's other things that they want money for that's a bit more troubling. Money for alligator farms. Price supports for the sugar industry. Carnival Cruise Lines got a no-bid contract to lease a ship to FEMA. And the oil companies want a bailout similar to that which the airlines received in the wake of 11 September 2001.

I knew at the time that the airline bailout was a bad idea because of how it was going to encourage other industries to seek similiar bailouts like the oil companies (who have made record profits as a result of the price spikes, no matter what they'll tell Congress in trying to get the bailouts) are currently doing. But that's another rant from 4 years in the past.

So, we have all of these people going to Washington to tell the Congress what went wrong in response to Katrina. And while they're near the trough, they're asking for a chance to gorge themselves on the public's money. Sweet, sweet pork, just like the Bridge to Nowhere, which is supposed to be acceptable now, because it's Katrina-stricken areas that are after the bacon.

Pork is pork, no matter who's eating it. Alligator farms are no better of a use of public funds than a Bridge to Nowhere.

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And there's been a new development in the prisoner abuse cases. A captain, who graduated from West Point and is the winner of two Bronze Stars, is going public with allegations that he attempted to make the Pentagon aware of systemic prisoner abuse. He's claiming that it wasn't limited to "a few bad apples" at Abu Ghraib, but that it carried out by most of the guards, and at multiple prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

After taking his concerns to the Pentagon, he claims that no actions were taken and at least some of the abuses were approved of, and condoned by, the chain of command. He's now taking his concerns to groups such as Human Rights Watch, and to senators, in an effort to bring them to light.

We'll see how far his allegations get, or if they'll simply be swept under the rug as similar allegations in the past have been.