Katrina aftermath updates--none of them pretty

There is now reason to believe that the failure of the levees was caused by the process known as "heave"--water pushing soil under the base of the floodwall away from the 17th Steet Canal and upward in an arc.

My parish president, Kevin Davis, is furious over a new FEMA lie, this one told by FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews on CNN's website. Andrews said that he tried to hire a construction company he owns to develop property "to which he has personal ties" for a large temporary housing site near Slidell, Louisiana.

Davis does not own a construction company, and he says he has no ties whatever to the property. Though I thoroughly dislike Davis's conservative politics, he is a very good parish president, and there has never been a breath of scandal about him. He is demanding an apology from FEMA. Good luck, Kevin: Get in line behind the people who are trying to get walls and toilets.

There is also mounting evidence that African American inmates who were taken out of the Jefferson Parish Prison and moved to a facility in Jena, Louisiana were insulted, beaten, forced to hold their faces against a wall sprayed with mace, and other things that make us think of that other prison over in you-know-where.