Quotes of the Morning: A Cup of Coffee

“Katrina roared through South Mississippi knocking out electricity and communication systems, the White House ordered power restored to a pipeline that sends fuel to the Northeast.
That order - to restart two power substations in Collins that serve Colonial Pipeline Co. - delayed efforts by at least 24 hours to restore power to two rural hospitals and a number of water systems in the Pine Belt.
[…]
‘We were led to believe a national emergency was created when the pipelines were shut down,’ Compton said.
[…]
Compton said workers who were trying to restore substations that power two rural hospitals - Stone County Hospital in Wiggins and George County Hospital in Lucedale - worked instead on the Colonial Pipeline project.
The move caused power to be restored at least 24 hours later than planned.”
-Hattiesburg American (Newspaper), September 11, 2005

“Getting power to those that need it is what this administration does best.”
-Skippy

“I am duty-bound to report the talk of the New Orleans warehouse district last night: there was rejoicing (well, there would have been without the curfew, but the few people I saw on the streets were excited) when the power came back on for blocks on end. […] The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions.”
-Brian Williams, September 16, 2005

“It’s enough to make people distrust the government. It happens to our allies too.”
-Skippy

“A British armored vehicle escorted by a tank crashed into a detention center Monday in Basra and rescued two undercover troops held by police, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official told CNN.
[...]
In a statement released in London, Reid did not say why the two had been taken into custody. But the Iraqi official, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity, said their arrests stemmed from an incident earlier in the day.
The official said two unknown gunmen in full Arabic dress began firing on civilians in central Basra, wounding several, including a traffic police officer. There were no fatalities, the official said.
The two gunmen fled the scene but were captured and taken in for questioning, admitting they were British marines carrying out a ‘special security task,’ the official said.”
-CNN, September 19, 2005

“Oooo… Our allies in Iraq are disguising themselves as Arabs and shooting civilians. Kind of sounds bad. I hope that this one is proven untrue. We’re the good guys, right?”
-Skippy

“A U.S. inquiry into alleged abuse at Guantanamo uncovered a climate of deep distrust between military police and interrogators, who were accused during the probe of giving terror suspects personal information about their guards.
[…]
The investigation began in March 2004, when the same interrogator claimed military police had abused detainees at the high-security camp in eastern Cuba, where the United States holds about 500 men captured in its war on terror.
The interrogator claimed that guards mistreated a suspected al-Qaida member by not allowing him to use the bathroom immediately after a five-hour interrogation and that at other times withheld food and turned the temperature down on a cell to 52 degrees as punishment.
An investigating officer, however, found no evidence of abuse by the guards.
The investigator faulted the interrogator instead — recommending he be relieved of his duties for reasons that included a ‘failure to know his enemy,’ the ‘unfounded’ allegations against the guards and ‘the noted possibility that he suffers from Reverse Stockholm Syndrome.’”
-Associated Press, September 13, 2005

“Stockholm Syndrome is, of course, the famous psychological syndrome in which an abductee begins to relate and sympathize with their abductors and/or tormentor. Patty Hearst is the best known example of the condition. Reverse Stockholm Syndrome would be when an abductor and/or tormentor begins to see those that they have abducted or physically abused as sympathetic human beings. You see immediately why they’d worry about that..
Reverse Stockholm Syndrome is considered a really bad thing in Guantanamo.”
-Skippy

“O’Reilly: The truth of the matter is our correspondents at Fox News can’t go out for a cup of coffee in Baghdad....
Rice: Bill, that’s tough. It’s tough. But what — would they have wanted to have gone out for a cup of coffee when Saddam Hussein was in power?
Bill: No, no-but after three years you expect a little security in the country...
Condi: ...there is security...
Bill: They can't get coffee...”
-The O’Reilly Factor, interview with Condoleeza Rice, September 14, 2005