"Some poor feared charges for rescue."

From Atrios, a CNN story that's really shocking:

I am stunned by an interview I conducted with New Orleans Detective Lawrence Dupree. He told me they were trying to rescue people with a helicopter and the people were so poor they were afraid it would cost too much to get a ride and they had no money for a "ticket." Dupree was shaken telling us the story. He just couldn't believe these people were afraid they'd be charged for a rescue.

And Bush, salt-of-the-earth guy that he is, has suggested that those who are now suffering deserve it because they "chose" to stay...

The FEMA Files:

DailyKos links all these headlines:

FEMA won't accept Amtrak's help in evacuations

FEMA turns away experienced firefighters

FEMA turns back Wal-Mart supply trucks

FEMA prevents Coast Guard from delivering diesel fuel

FEMA won't let Red Cross deliver food

FEMA bars morticians from entering New Orleans

FEMA blocks 500-boat citizen flotilla from delivering aid

FEMA fails to utilize Navy ship with 600-bed hospital on board

FEMA to Chicago: Send just one truck

FEMA turns away generators

FEMA: "First Responders Urged Not To Respond"

AND: Announcing FEMA Failures, a watchdog blog.

By contrast...

Nearly 600,000 people were successfully evacuated from China's coastal province of Fujian to escape Typhoon Talim.

Rove's blame game.

I just wrote my own letter to the Star Tribune. Simplified, as these things must be, it reads:

Paul Karlberg of New Brighton writes in that "liberals seem to have only one objective: Blame Bush!" Funny, The New York Times reports that Karl Rove's plan is just the opposite; his PR strategy is to "shift the blame away from the White House and toward officials of New Orleans and Louisiana who, as it happens, are Democrats." But consider all the delays in leadership from the very highest offices in the land: It took Bush three days after the storm hit to cancel the last two days of his five-week vacation. It took Cheney another three days after that. Condi Rice was yukking it up at a Broadway musical when people were huddling on rooftops in New Orleans, and House Speaker Dennis Hastert couldn't cast his vote on emergency funds for Katrina's victims because he was at a fundraiser. With more than 10,000 dead and an estimated $100 billion in damage, getting to the bottom of why our systems failed so completely in the week following this disaster is not some liberal invention but an absolute necessity. It's clear there's plenty of blame to go around, and, having lived with five years of Rove's spin, I suspect Americans will know where to place it.

After hitting "submit," even more evidence comes to my attention that local leaders did their best, mostly, in Louisiana and it was the feds that dropped the ball.

As Larry Johnson writes (and cites), Louisiana's Gov. Blanco did everything right, declaring a State of Emergency on August 26. The next day she followed it up with a letter to the White House invoking the Stafford Act, which would turn the affair over to the federal government. She wrote, in part, "I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster. I am specifically requesting emergency protective measures, direct Federal Assistance, Individual and Household Program (IHP) assistance, Special Needs Program assistance, and debris removal." With the ball so squarely in the federal government's court—read her letter; she dots her i's and crosses her t's—it seems slanderous for Rove to spin things against the prepared state government of Louisiana. Now, it has been charged that mayor Ray Nagin (a lifelong Republican up until moments before his election papers: who knew?) has a bunch of buses that went unused in evacuation operations, and his plans for evacuating the poor were inadequate (and possibly nonexistent), but with the procedures followed by Blanco, attempts to blame it all on local officials can't possibly fly.

The Not So Big House.

From CNN:

A London home, in dark paint at centre, which is just 5ft 5ins (162.7 cm) wide in places has gone on the market for 525,000 pounds (dlrs 945,315 US), it emerged Tuesday Aug. 30, 2005. The property, which is in Goldhawk Road, Shepherds Bush area of London, measures 9ft 11ins (298 cm) at its widest point and is described by the property agent as "utterly amazing". The bathroom is so tiny that it only contains the bath and a bedroom has a built-in bed to save space.

National priorities.

A letter published in today's Star Tribune gets it right:

Imagine if the doctrine of preemption had been used for Hurricane Katrina. Imagine if all the resources of the armed forces and the government were brought to bear in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama before the disaster instead of after it. Imagine all the lives that would have been saved.

Russell Peterson, St. Michael, Minn.

Plastic Turkey redux.

In a repeat performance of his 2003 fly-in to Iraq with a theatrical (rather than edible) turkey in hand, Bush has opted for a photo-op instead of real relief for Katrina victims. Sen. Mary Landrieu, speaking of the infamous breached 17th Street levee, said, "Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast – black and white, rich and poor, young and old – deserve far better from their national government."

It's not the first time the president's personal needs have hindered relief aid: on Saturday, his visit to St. Bernard Parish grounded helicopters loaded with three tons of food; and a Friday photo-op featured several rescue helicopters as a backdrop, prompting some to wonder why they weren't in use.

Perhaps Tonka will create a Bush-themed heavy equipment toy to commemorate the occasion. It'd join the faux-turkey Bush "action" figure:

Ax Brownie.

Even the detestable Michelle Malkin thinks FEMA head Michael Brown should be fired.

Bamiyan's Laser Buddhas.

Six months before radical islamists affiliated with Afghanistan's Taliban got our attention on September 11, 2001, they outraged the world by blasting 1600-year old Buddha statues off the face of the Bamiyan Valley cliffs. Now California-based artist Hiro Yamagata has plans to put them back.

At the request of Afghanistan's government, he'll install a permanent laser projection system in the valley to superimpose 140 faceless, overlapping Buddhas. To be completed by June 2007, the project will utilize 14 laser projectors powered by windmills and solar panels to create the nearly 200-foot tall images. While Yamagato says "I'm doing a fine art piece. That's my purpose - not for human rights, or for supporting religion or a political statement," the medium of light, a theme in most major religions, seems perfect for illustrating the ethereal and ultimately indestructible nature of what underlies not only Buddhism but most spiritual traditions.

Hi new readers,

Please sign my guest map, willya?

File under: Doy.

AdJab writes: "The tremendous flooding in New Orleans caused by Hurricane Katrina means that travel and tourism in the city is non-existent." In fact, total economic losses are now estimated at over $100 billion, a number that exceeds the GAO's estimated economic impact of 9/11 on New York City (~$83 to $95 billion).

Fear of information.

2004 was a banner year for info-banning: not only were there 20% more attempts to ban books from library shelves but the federal government broke all-time records for classifying documents:

In 2004, federal officials classified 15.6 million new documents, which is 81 percent more than in 2001. Over the same period, the cost of classifying those new documents rose from $4.7 billion to $7.2 billion. These figures do not include documents classified by the CIA, as such information is itself secret.

The callous administration.

If Bush, Rice, Cheney, and Hastert can't muster the kind of compassion the hurricane calls for, maybe Rumsfeld can:

Today, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Louisiana and toured a medical facility at the New Orleans international airport. He spoke to and shook hands with military and rescue officials, but walked right by a dozen refugees lying on stretchers just feet away from him, most of them extremely sick or handicapped, Reuters reported.

Nope.

(Strike five.)

Calvary and the cavalry.

An image from Jesus' General.

"Bureaucracy has committed murder."

"Bureaucracy has committed murder here," says Jefferson Parish president Aaron Broussard before relating this horrifying story, told through choking sobs:

The guy who runs this building I’m in, Emergency Management, he’s responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, “Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?” and he said, “Yeah, Mama, somebody’s coming to get you.” Somebody’s coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Friday… and she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night! [Sobbing] Nobody’s coming to get us. Nobody’s coming to get us. The Secretary has promised. Everybody’s promised. They’ve had press conferences. I’m sick of the press conferences. For god’s sakes, just shut up and send us somebody.

[transcript/video]

An Bob Schieffer offers this personal commentary:

We have come through what may have been one of the worst weeks in America's history, a week in which government at every level failed the people it was created to serve. There is no purpose for government except to improve the lives of its citizens. Yet as scenes of horror that seemed to be coming from some Third World country flashed before us, official Washington was like a dog watching television. It saw the lights and images, but did not seem to comprehend their meaning or see any link to reality.

Only at Powerline...

From the partisan apologists at Powerline: "The City of New Orleans and its residents owe the President a profound debt of gratitude."

OK, here goes.

(Via Norwegianity.)

Times-Picayune calls for firing of FEMA head.

An open letter from the Times-Picayune to George W. Bush calls for the firing of FEMA director Michael Brown. I say, take Bush with him. An excerpt:

In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, [Brown] said his agency hadn’t known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."

Lies don’t get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.

Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You’re doing a heck of a job."

That’s unbelievable.

Brown's credentials: "The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows," writes the Boston Herald of Michael Brown, formerly an estates and family lawyer who was canned from his job as commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. The Herald continues: "And before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a deputy director in 2001, GOP activist Mike Brown had no significant experience that would have qualified him for the position. The Oklahoman got the job through an old college friend who at the time was heading up FEMA. "

And on top of it all:

Chief Justice William Renquist has died. Rest in peace, and God help us...

He lives!

What the hell is wrong with these people? It took the Vice President of the United States six days following the hurricane to cancel his vacation and fly back to the Washington! (Bush's strummin', Condi's Spamalot outing, Cheney's R&R: Three strikes, you're out... If they were allowed four strikes, it'd go to Dennis Hastert, who skipped the House vote on Katrina funding to attend a fundraiser.) Hm, but judging from his website, he hasn't been briefed on Katrina yet.


(Via Petrelis Files.)

Flip side of the "race meme."

Another far more sinister "race meme" is afoot, promoted by the likes of David Duke, American Rennaissance magazine, and posters at the Free Republic, among others. Read David Niewert's "The New Orleans race vampires."