"Frankly, I'm getting a little sick of being labeled with these kind of destructive stereotypes."

It's still bad out there.

Now, as the waters recede, some Iowans are finding themselves victimized again -- by their state's self-destructive work ethic. Blogger / flood victim Dave Burge reports from the scene.

But fear not; the Turkeys' stupid pink locker room was unharmed.

On a serious note, the Iowa City animal shelter needs help feeding and caring for pets whose humans can't keep them in their temporary/new housing. If I don't stop looking at pictures of kittens who need my help, I won't be able to make rent next week. *sigh* I've been encouraged to head out to Waukesha and adopt a refugee from Iowa, but I'm already outnumbered here, four legs to two.

Hrm.

This might get Hollywood and the multicultural grievance industry to notice there was a natural disaster in Redneckloserland...

The flood waters that devastated much of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, also have damaged historic records and artifacts in the Mother Mosque of America, one of the first permanent structures in the United States that was designed and built to serve as a mosque.

Sean Penn and Louis Farrakhan in 5...4...3...

Eh. Seems like a lot of collateral damage from the Rove-Bush weather machine just to get one building.

Rush seems to think no one cares because most of the victims were white. From the maps, I'm thinking there are probably quite a few undocumented Iowans illegal aliens who didn't bother to stick around and file claims for government assistance. They just haven't reached critical mass yet (and now they're reaching it somewhere else...probably Wisconsin).

Still fascinated by Flood '08

The Cedar Rapids Gazette has the best coverage of any Iowa outlet.

Checks earmarked for flood relief can be mailed to The Salvation Army at P.O. Box 8056, Cedar Rapids, 52406.

Updates: 83 of the state's 99 counties have been declared disaster areas, and my brother's National Guard unit has been activated. Crazy.

Hey, Barack!

You claim you can "slow the oceans from rising"--how about waving your hands over a couple of rivers in some states that gave you more convention delegates than Hillary? Either you're a pretty impotent Messiah, or you're an ungrateful brat. Or both.

I'm disturbed that there's a major disaster going on in the heartland, and a) neither candidate appears to notice (this headline says O "may discuss it" and then doesn't mention it anywhere in the article) and b) no one in the MSM has bothered to ask them about it. Maybe the Electoral College doesn't really keep us from being slaves/pawns of CA, NY, TX, and FL.

Good grief.

I guess it's 1993 now.

File this under "holy crap."
The only thing missing in this picture of DSM is the trees banging into the spillway...

My family's all safe on a bluff in western Iowa, except the ones who are safe in Omaha and Oregon.

It seems like floods are slowly cutting Milwaukee off from the rest of the state, but I've got a two-month supply of cat food and a fridge full of beer, so bring it on!

UPDATE: Roundup of Iowa blogger flood coverage.

George Bush hates white people?

This cracked me up. Except for Rush getting Cedar Rapids and Cedar Falls mixed up--but if Obama can get a pass for mixing up Sioux City and Sioux Falls, which are in different STATES, Rush can get one for confusing two cities in the same state along the same river (dunno why Cedar Falls ever changed its name from "Sturgis Falls").

RUSH: Have you been watching the television and seeing pictures of this flooding in Illinois and in Cedar Rapids, Iowa? Levees have broken in Lawrenceville, Illinois. The town is flooded. Where is FEMA? Where's the president? Cedar Rapids is on the verge of the same thing happening. They got sandbags out there protecting their levees. Where's FEMA? Where's the president? Where are all the people that care? We care. The president's in Europe, that's right. Where's Cheney? Where's Colin Powell? Where's somebody to go out there and hug some people?

Like I said before, the worst part of the Flood of '93 was the footage of Bill Clinton groping victims and pretending to care...

Meanwhile, Gary Varvel salutes Indiana's flood-relief volunteers:

That's a lot of water.

I read a single sentence in the middle of an AP "Midwest floods" story yesterday about the Cedar River at Cedar Falls, Iowa, and I shrugged...I lived there for three springs and the area on the bottom left of this picture, as well as the left between the cloverleaf and the river, was covered in water for at least two of them.

But it seems much worse this year. The bridge never collapsed before...

(Also, there are no falls in the Cedar River near Cedar Falls. No one told me this until after I'd spent most of a summer hiking up and down the paved trail along the river looking for them.)

Cute town--good local arts scene, good locally-owned restaurants, three quilt shops, beautiful library, airport ten minutes from my apartment, could do my grocery shopping within walking distance, miles and miles of woods to walk through without a long drive--if I hadn't been the only unmarried childless woman over 23 in the entire county, I might have stayed. (Advice to funny-looking 28-year-old women with intimidating job titles: don't move to a small town in the middle of nowhere if it has a state college with 75% female undergraduates, or you will never go on a date with a man younger than 70 without driving two hours to get there...)

Actually, Cedar Falls would be a good place to retire.

The AP is also throwing around 1993 references:

Rising waters also threatened Palo to the south. City officials there urged residents to evacuate, predicting flood levels as much as 2 feet higher than 1993 levels, which left much of the state under water.

There's a nuclear power plant (build more!) in Palo. I'm sure they've planned for this. I'm surprised the AP didn't pick up on that, to spread more enviro-FUD.

Silver lining

MMSD rain gauges measured totals of 9.55 inches at N. Teutonia Ave. on Milwaukee's north side near Glendale

I guess there are some advantages to renting a crappy apartment on the second floor. I'm dry and generally uninconvenienced. I took a scenic detour past the Milwaukee River on my way home from work and it's higher than I've ever seen it, but not out of control.

It's only rained for what, four days? Not quite Iowa 1993 yet--rained for six weeks. Another bonus: no one in IA, WI, or IN will have to watch Bill Clinton's lip quiver as he gropes young female flood victims and claims he's feeling their pain. *shudder*

Iowa City looks a little like 1993...