That's how a CNBC anchor describes the boats-in-moats regime that's prevalent throughout the Midwest and Mid-South, and I couldn't put it better myself. I believe the word "hypocrisy" was also deployed, and that's right on point, too. (Analyst Robert LaFleur also has some thoughts regarding Macao, in the online video, that are worth hearing.)

One of the few things that was well and truly put right in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was the relocation of most of the Mississippi Gulf Coast's 11 casinos. It cost Gov. Haley Barbour (R) some political capital and stirred up the ire of the churchy set, but he pushed it through the Lege, and for that he earns at least this vote of thanks.

True, Hurricane Gustav struck a relatively glancing blow at Biloxi-Gulfport -- and when we're talking hurricanes, that's a mighty big "relatively." So we didn't have to find out how the newly land-based casinos would have withstood the brunt of hurricane, thanks be. Still, the fact that what damage was inflicted was but a minor impediment to reopening is vindication of Barbour's initiative.

The perfect is forever the enemy of the good, and Mississippi's casinos still bob in rivers and sit atop pilings in man-made lagoons. Which is damned silly and ought to have been addressed post-Katrina. But I fear the Mississippi solons could only be moved so far and it will take another natural catastrophe or two before the lightbulb comes on.

Same in Lousiana, where neither current governor Bobby Jindal (R) nor his ineffectual predecessor, Kathleen Blanco (D), has shown the gumption to get the state's casinos off the water and onto dry land. In Jindal's case, he's been too busy trying squelch casino expansion instead.

A good thing Gustav wasn't a stronger hurricane, seeing as the Lake Charles market lay in its path. Pinnacle Entertainment gets 80% of its cash flow from Louisana and Isle of Capri Casinos draws 15%, and most of that comes from Lake Charles. Which means that, had this been another Katrina, it could have taken out both Pinnacle and financially ailing Isle of Capri in one fell swoop. If Louisiana's solons are going to continue to predicate their budgeting on casino $$$, or if they see themselves as pro-business or if they just want to preserve jobs, they need to stop shooting dice with Mother Nature and hoping their luck doesn't run out.

Props to Harrah's Entertainment for closing its New Orleans casino on mid-Saturday, exercising the discretion that is the better part of valor. Harrah's also shuttered its Biloxi casino early Sunday morning (4 a.m. to be precise), three hours before the edict came down from the capitol. Others were not so proactive.

First as tragedy, then as farce. It just wouldn't be a cataclysmic weather event without some predictable buffoonery from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, the single most ridiculous figure in the Katrina debacle (beating out some tough competition).

Simply put, Nagin freaked out. (Again.) "This is the mother of all storms. I am not sure we have seen anything like it ... This is worse than Katrina," he overreacted. Then, reverting to Nagin-esque every-man-for-himself form, he proclaimed, "If you decide to stay you are on your own."

Yup, when it comes to abdicating responsibility in the face of a crisis, there's nobody quite like Ray Nagin. (Maybe he'd been listening to the meteorologist Bloomberg News quotes as predicting widespread failure for the Crescent City's levees and having a meltdown of his own.) I kept tabs on Gustav via that normal hotbed of hysteria, cable news, and heard no Nagin-like levels of panic, least of all from the Weather Channel.

And it sure looks as though every responsible agency and public figure performed with both competence and continence. Except Ray Nagin. As usual. Then again, New Orleans voters re-elected this bungler right after Katrina, so they've not much room for complaint.