ABOUT THE OVERDONE NEWS COVERAGE OF IRENE...

...if it didn't happen in New York city, then it didn't happen, right? Click right over to Caminante's blog, Vermont's Own, for a report on the State of Vermont after the minor little tropical storm paid them a visit.

The state of Vermont woke up this morning to a new reality that turns the joke, ‘You can’t get there from here’ on its head. All of a sudden, we truly can’t get there from here. Whether it is from the south or the east or the north or west, either there are no options at all or extensive detours. The north, south and west will open up soon enough once the flood waters recede and repairs made but the eastern entry points, notably Route 4, will take much, much more time to be restored to pre-Irene status.

Below are a few pictures to help you get the picture in Vermont. Click on the pictures for the larger view.

Not pretty.

Pretty ugly.

Read Caminante's post, see the rest of her pictures, and weep.

Senior pundit George Will's utterly loathsome words:

“Florence Nightingale said, ‘Whatever you say about hospitals, they shouldn’t make their patients sicker,” he said. “And whatever else you want to say about journalism, it shouldn’t subtract from the nation’s understanding, and it certainly shouldn’t contribute to the manufactured, synthetic hysteria that is so much a part of modern life. And I think we may have done so with regard to this ‘tropical storm,’ as it now seems to be.”

It's way past time for Will to retire, don't you think?

And finally, Rmj at Adventus' brilliant find - this old cover from The New Yorker.