**KATRINA** the Aftermath

It is looking better and better for our beloved New Orelans as each hour passes. At this time she has weakened to Category 2, and is mostly past New Orleans, and is moving North at a pretty good clip. This will help to lessen the impact on the vulnerable crescent city. Now she is headed toward Jackson, MS and the vulnerable Pearl River basin and from there she looks to be coming here to Memphis.

Stephen Green over at the VodkaPundit has some excellent thoughts on the American attitude to adversity in general, and how we always, always suck it up and git'r done. His observations are dead on. We rise to the occasion everytime from the Revolutionary War, to the War between the States, WWII, to 11SEP01 to Katrina, to whatever comes next. It is an inextricably intertwined trait of the American spirit.

Find good links here too HT to the InstaPundit.

The ugly part of the aftermath will be in the drudgery of the clean up and the likely months long impact on energy prices as petroleum production, and refining capacity is restored. Too easily panicked oil traders are likely to wet their pants yet again and drive prices through the roof.

Everything I am reading keeps indicating that a lack of refinery capacity rather than shortage of supply is driving the tightness in the market right now. Why are we not building new refineries right now? I've heard Cheney mention tight refinery capacity several times in speeches going back at least a couple of years; why are we not all over this like a cheap suit?? It is time to put environmentalists, and NIMBYs in their place and get on with the business of easing this bottleneck, before it takes the wind out of the US economy.

Meanwhile keep praying for our beloved New Orleans. -SpinDaddy