Catching my eye: morning A through Z

Here’s what’s caught my eye this morning:

• Apparently, PowerBlogs has been down since around 9:00am CDT.
• Abu Aardvark has an interesting post about the thaw that seems to be happening between the Bush Administration and Arab language news network Al-Jazeera. He also notes a recent appearance on AJ by Thomas Friedman. Positive developments, IMO.
• Booker Rising has a list of black-run charitable organizations providing relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
• John Whitehead of Environmental Economics has another possible model for the rebuilding of New Orleans: Princeville, NC.
• Noah Millman of Gideon’s Blog resurfaces and provides a succinct summary of the aftermath of the Katrina disaster in New Orleans:
  

  It looks like Bush has wrecked FEMA (by merging it into DHS and by appointing a moronic buddy of his to run the agency), like the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana are both utterly incompetent, and like if you have an atrocious crime problem (and nonexistent police force) as New Orleans has had for decades, you are going to have anarchy once a disaster happens.

• For those of us who need a civics refresher, Hugh Hewitt has a handy summary of the division among federal, state, and local governmental powers.
• Milblogger MoltenThought addresses a number of the crackpot suggestions about how to avoid future problems like those we’ve had in the post-Katrina relief effort in 12 easy points. Hat tip: Major K.

That’s the lot.