CELINE DION MELTS DOWN

Just watch. She justifies the looting in New Orleans yet weepily wonders why the people who were stuck there weren't being rescued faster.

Of course, they weren't being rescued because of the looting.

(thanks to bWb)

MECCA, WE HAVE A PROBLEM

Scroll down for the latest sequel to Flight 93: Embrace of the Serp... -- I mean updates to our "Crescent of Embrace" post. Is it really a coincidence that it points to Mecca?

Then check out the latest updates and animated gif here.

From Captain Ed:

Yesterday's post on this subject generated a heated debate on the nature of the memorial, with a few defenders pointing out the generic shape of the crescent and arguing that its inclusion in the design has no ill intent, and that therefore any objections to it relegate us to lunacy. In response (and I posted this as a comment in the thread), allow me to offer a proposal for a World War II memorial in Pearl Harbor, something new and modern that can be located near the USS Arizona, and see if everyone likes it. Perhaps it could even be a mosaic or a mural on the side of the Arizona Memorial, as an addition.

I think it should symbolize the re-emergence of the US in the Pacific after the devastating attack on our fleet at Pearl. It should represent the national effort to come out of the East to reclaim our position and to establish a beacon of freedom and prosperity.

A rising sun would perfectly symbolize that.

It should also represent how we used thatas a launching point to liberate the many islands in the East Pacific that suffered under the brutal Japanese occupation. Several sunrays could symbolize our efforts across the vast ocean to bring freedom to the oppressed in faraway lands.

And since our national colors are red, white, and blue, I would design it as a red sun on a field of white, emerging over a blue ocean. Now, you may not see much of the blue because of the sea line on the memorial, but the idea would be to have the sun rise above the sea line on the Arizona memorial anyway.

Wouldn't that be a great way to memorialize those who died in a heroic battle for their country?

Oh, wait -- the "wingnuts" are claiming that the Rising Sun looks almost exactly like the battleflag of imperial Japan, the very nation that attacked Pearl Harbor! How silly of the "wingnuts"! Why, the sun belongs to everyone! And it even appears on a state flag -- Arizona's!

Had someone trotted out this idea in 1946, they'd be lucky to ever find work in the US again. It's a measure of the intellectual erosion of the Left that this kind of thinking gets celebrated and defended today.

Heh. Indeed.

MORE: The crescent as seen from the Strata-Sphere:

One final word on this for today. We need to ignore the elitists and the fantasy world that we hear them expouse. They are simply apologists who cannot understand why this is offensive and dangerous. ...

I do not care whether they get it or not. I know what Al Qaeda will do with this. They will say it is a sign that fanatical Islam will win. They will say Allah placed his sign over those of the dead Americans who fought back as symbol of victory. They will use it to rally the forces of Jihad. They will use this as a rallying point against us.

They will take a memorial that was supposed to honor our dead heroes and use it in such a manner that will mean we probably will have many more memorials to build in the future.

MORE:From A.M. Siriano

So is all this much ado about nothing, a mere coincidence?

If you believe that, then you don’t understand the nature of artists, which is what architects are. (Try to debate with them that they are not; you will get an earful.)

A couple of years ago I worked with another type of artist, a graphic designer, whose team was hired to design a website for a logistics firm. The president of the firm expressly wanted his site to convey a spirit of reliability. “When you go to this site,” he told them, “you should think reliability, integrity, a solid company that you can trust.” The team returned a week later with three or four variations for the homepage, and I noticed that one design included an Oriental-style tree. Somewhat familiar with symbols, I asked about it. How surprised I was to hear one of the designers, a young lady, sheepishly say, “Well, that’s based on an old Buddhist symbol for reliability.” (The president, an ex-Marine, stared at her as if she had grown that tree out of the end of her nose.)

Architects—good ones like Paul Murdoch and his design crew—are fully aware of the symbolism that they put into their work. The first order of business is to make money, of course, which is why their design incorporates various half-religious notions of sacredness and healing, which appeal to people’s sentimentalism. But no one can tell me that it never crossed their minds that the Crescent is the symbol of Islam, just as the Cross is the symbol of Christianity. (Neither started out that way: the Crescent was originally a pagan symbol, and the Cross was a favorite torture device of the Romans.) ...

The presence of “minaret” in the Memorial design is barely apparent, but only because, living in a non-Islamic nation, we have no need to take note of its function: it is used by the muezzin (crier) to call the faithful to turn toward Mecca and pray. The minaret, five times a day, literally becomes a “tower of voices.” Is connecting the Flight 93 Memorial tower to an Islamic minaret a stretch? Not with the Crescent symbol in proximity.

Also, few are mentioning how the key focal point of the "sacred ground" is positioned exactly where the star is supposed to be in relation to the crescent. The whole thing clearly appears to be a semi-abstract version of a "peaceful" Islamic shrine embracing the dead. I thought I was going out on a limb with my initial impression, but it's held up quite nicely.

In the context of a Flight 93 Memorial though, Islam certainly does not mean peace. The true definition of submission rises to the fore. This was the fundamental mistake of the architects who almost certainly would have gone with a new-age or buddhist influenced shrine in most other cases. You only have so many choices for representing sacredness and spirituality once you eliminate Christianity. They chose Islam. They chose to represent submission.

MORE ON MECCA: From Politicalities:

I've always been one to go for cold calculations over pretty pictures, so I set to find out if indeed the crescent points towards Mecca. Here's what I came up with:

According to this site, the latitude/longitude coordinates of Mecca are 21.4234, 39.8262 and the coordinates of the Flight 93 crash site are 40.052, -78.8963. Using the calculator from this site, I determined that the azimuth between the two points is 124.80°.

Next I went to the Flight 93 National Memorial website and found the biggest overhead view of the memorial I could find with north oriented up. I measured the distance from tip-to-tip of the crescent and came up with 64px east-west and 90px north-south. The arctangent of 64/90 is the angle between north and a line drawn between the tips, which works out to 35.42°. Adding 90° to this angle gives the direction the crescent faces as 125.42°.

Conclusion: the crescent points towards Mecca with an error of 0.62°, or 0.17%. If you take a circle and divide its circumference into 580 equal arcs, the angle subtended by one of those arcs is the error. (Bear in mind that any error in my figures could change this value; the figure most open to interpretation is the distance in pixels between the tips of the crescent.)

I'm guessing the architects probably nailed it dead on and that the tiny margin of error comes from using an image smaller than the original blueprints.

UPDATE: Belmont Club checks the math:

I went to two sites to independently calculate the bearing from the Flight 93 crash site to Mecca. You can go to the Marine Great Circle Calculator or WhereAreWe?. Both these sites accept the coordinates of points A and B and calculate the true bearing to get from A to B. Both give a result of 55 degrees true, or its reciprocal 235. I can tell you that my jaw fell open. The bearing given by both Great Circle Calculators corresponded near enough to the measured opening of the Crescent from the PDF map. (The reader should do this for himself).

Now it could have been coincidence. ... If you look at the video provided, you'll see that the orientation of the "Crescent of Embrace" is determined, or at least very strongly suggested by the contours of the ground. ...

But what a coincidence! Memorials are symbols above all and it may be inappropriate to commemorate Flight 93 with a Red Crescent facing Mecca.

LAWLESSNESS KILLS

More evidence that encouraging the looting early on after hurricane Katrina cost many innocent people their lives, in the New York Times:

As early as Friday, Aug. 26, as Katrina moved across the Gulf of Mexico, officials in the watch center at FEMA headquarters in Washington discussed the need for buses.

That's in DC, a couple of days before the storm.

Someone said, "We should be getting buses and getting people out of there," recalled Leo V. Bosner, an emergency management specialist with 26 years at FEMA and president of an employees' union. Others nodded in agreement, he said.

"We could all see it coming, like a guided missile," Mr. Bosner said of the storm. "We, as staff members at the agency, felt helpless. We knew that major steps needed to be taken fast, but, for whatever reasons, they were not taken."

Drivers Afraid

When the water rose, the state began scrambling to find buses. Officials pleaded with various parishes across the state for school buses. But by Tuesday, Aug. 30, as news reports of looting and violence appeared, local officials began resisting.

Governor Blanco said the bus drivers, many of them women, "got afraid to drive. So then we looked for somebody of authority to drive the school buses."

"Somebody of authority to drive...?" Is that a hint that lawyers were still putting liability ahead of lifesaving? Sounds like it might be.

Had widespread lawlessness not been an issue so early after the storm (looters reportedly hit the streets before they were even flooded, thanks to Blanco's a Nagin's lax attitude), they might have had enough drivers from surrounding parishes to move all those buses into action before they were all flooded. But the lawlessness understandably frightened drivers away. Would you want to drive a big, slow bus into what amounted to a war zone unarmed?

Perhaps FEMA in DC should have gotten on the phone to someone in Mayor Nagin's office on Aug. 26 and asked them about their evacuation plans, but that isn't FEMA's job. It probably will be eventually. One thing I see coming out of this is a FEMA that will require states and cities to draw up detailed disaster plans and file them with FEMA HQ. Currently, FEMA wants such plans but the filing requirements are very loose.

And cities and states will still have to follow those plans.

One thing is curious about this NYT story, btw. It never mentions the hundreds of buses scattered all around New Orleans and how using them before the storm might have made the whole situation different. Those buses don't even rate a throwaway line.

MORE: The Captain blasts the NYT for failing to mention the nearly 600 buses NOLA officials had at their disposal but failed to use. It is more than passing strange that in a story that uses the word "buses" 18 times, the Times never mentions the most famous buses in the United States. As usual, when there's a fact that may harm Democrats, NYT readers are the last to know it.

(thanks to Chris)

SHOULD MICHAEL BROWN BE DRAWN AND QUARTERED OR MERELY FIRED?

That seems to be the debate around the blogosphere these days. I've got to side with Jeff Goldstein on this. Brown said some horrendous and clueless things in the early days after Katrina, and that alone made him a political liability. But I find it fascinating that Brown's FEMA has handled four hurricanes before Katrina without much of a hitch, and is handling Katrina well in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi right now, yet it's the catastrophe in Louisiana that gets all the press and has him on the ropes.

If we were to look at this scientifically, we might note that one element among the states mentioned is not like the others. If we were to look at this logically, we might conclude that the one thing that's not like the others is likely to be the souce of the problems. But I guess science and logic have no utility anymore when there are points to be scored.

Here are the facts: Florida, Alabama and Mississippi all have GOP governors who took charge of the relief situation, didn't dither or dish out conflicting information up and down the chain of command and haven't surrounded themselves with lawyers and high-paid political advisors. Those governors made good decisions and stuck with them. They knew what FEMA would and would not do based on history and regulation. Louisiana, on the other hand, has a weepy, indecisive Democrat governor who seems to have considerable trouble deciding whether to shoot looters or hug them. She clearly doesn't understand her own role in disasters, doesn't understand FEMA's role, and doesn't understand what local officials are supposed to do either. So she has performed miserably, and seems to be far more concerned about politics than just doing her job. James Lee Wiit, FEMA director under President Clinton, is nothing less than a living flack jacket for Gov. Blanco.

I really don't see how firing Michael Brown fixes any of this. But I do see how recalling Gov. Blanco fixes pretty much all of it.

PADILLA TO STAY IN THE BRIG

Good. A win for us on the war, a loss for terrorists and the ACLU that defends them.

A federal appeals court Friday sided with the Bush administration and reversed a judge's order that the government charge or free "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the president has the authority to detain a U.S. citizen closely associated with al Qaida.

Of course he does. Congress explicitly gave him that authority shortly after 9-11.

RASICM OR RIPPLE EFFECT FROM LOOTING?

I don't know. Just asking. Here's the story:

Police from surrounding jurisdictions shut down several access points to one of the only ways out of New Orleans last week, effectively trapping victims of Hurricane Katrina in the flooded and devastated city. . . .

"We shut down the bridge," Arthur Lawson, chief of the City of Gretna Police Department, confirmed to United Press International, adding that his jurisdiction had been "a closed and secure location" since before the storm hit.

"All our people had evacuated and we locked the city down," he said. The bridge in question -- the Crescent City Connection -- is the major artery heading west out of New Orleans across the Mississippi River.

Lawson said that once the storm itself had passed Monday, police from Gretna City, Jefferson Parrish and the Louisiana State Crescent City Connection Police Department closed to foot traffic the three access points to the bridge closest to the West Bank of the river.

He added that the small town, which he called "a bedroom community" for the city of New Orleans, would have been overwhelmed by the influx.

"There was no food, water or shelter" in Gretna City, Lawson said. "We did not have the wherewithal to deal with these people."

"If we had opened the bridge, our city would have looked like New Orleans does now: looted, burned and pillaged."

But -- in an example of the chaos that continued to beset survivors of the storm long after it had passed -- even as Lawson's men were closing the bridge, authorities in New Orleans were telling people that it was only way out of the city.

Yes, police from surrounding jurisdictions were trapping victims in New Orleans. And once again, city leadership was giving its citizens bad information that endangered them. But the police from the outlying jurisdictions were also containing the lawlessness that had broken out, preventing it from spreading to their towns. That seems to be the intent stated in the quote above, and how were those officers to know who did and didn't pose a threat? The looters weren't wearing Cafe Press T-shirts with "LOOTERS" stencilled in big letters on the front. If containing the looting and mayhem was what those officers were doing, it's hardly "an absolute disgrace." I guess it's easier to accuse police who might have been doing their duty as they saw it to their own towns than it is to accuse fellow lawyers who are demonstrably helping al Qaeda terrorists, but we won't go there. Many will no doubt see racism in this, and DoJ should look into the possibility, but we may be seeing yet another side effect of allowing the looting to run amock. I wouldn't be so quick on the accusation trigger. It just looks like irresponsible piling on at this point.

Lawlessness hurts everyone, and the innocent who happen to be in its path are obviously the ones most hurt. Allowing the looting to get out of hand hurt everyone. Allowing it to spread outside of New Orleans, which was a real possibility, would have been a truly dangerous and dumb thing to do. Containing it, if that's what those police departments were doing, was hardly a crime.

(thanks to Chris)

JIMMY CARTER TO HEAD UP N.O. REBUILD?

Tim Roemer can't be serious.

This morning on Fox's "Fox and Friends," former Indiana Democrat congressman and 9/11 commissioner Tim Roemer called on President Bush to name former President Jimmy Carter to the head of efforts to rebuild New Orleans.

Roemer told the stunned hosts: "The second thing we should do is put somebody like former President Jimmy Carter in charge of rebuilding New Orleans."

Well, Carter might be handy if any killer swamp rabbits show up.

YELLOW SUBMARINES UPDATE

National Review's next cover features the buses of New Orleans.

I think it's fair to say that we're now past the stage where we need to keep looking for more buses in satellite photos of New Orleans. That point has been made. But we're nowhere near the point where the story has reached sufficient play in the national media. Fox has covered it, but to my knowledge CNN hasn't. Neither have most major dailies.

If you're still interested in getting the bus story into the national discussion about what happened in New Orleans, try and prod your local paper and TV stations to cover it. The original photo is an AP shot, so they will be able to get it easily enough. The story is easy enough to tell with a bit of research and it's visually arresting. There were buses, they were supposed to be used to evacuate those who lacked personal transportation, but they weren't used. People died needlessly. The NO and LA evacuation plans were underwhelming in their seriousness, and the indecision on the part of Gov. Blanco and the meltdown of the NOPD and Mayor Nagin during the unfolding crisis contributed mightily to the death and suffering in New Orleans. And people died needlessly.

That's the basic storyline. If you can get your local paper and/or TV station to cover it, you'll be doing the nation some good.

NOT ONE DIME

for the "Crescent of Embrace." The heroes of Flight 93 deserve a memorial. That memorial should not be shaped around the most promiment symbol of their murderers.

What next--a holocaust memorial in the shape of a swastika?

UPDATE: Great line Bryan. That said it all. But just in case people still don't get it, let me add this:

The large scale of the design allowed the architect to try to get away with it on a subconscious level. He knew Americans wouldn't accept an "Islam is peace" Flight 93 memorial if they knew that's what it was. People who were voting on the original detailed design drawings(.pdf file) probably didn't even notice it. It's meant to be seen and admired from high above on a plane, or from Paradise, if you know what I mean. At least in spirit, it's probably designed to be an American mini-Mecca. It tricks you into the “loving” embrace of Islam rather than telling the visitor up front what it is. And lastly, it reminds me of George Harrison’s clever song My Sweet Lord:

My sweet lord (hallelujah)
My, my, lord (hallelujah)
Hm, my lord (hare krishna)
My, my, my lord (hare krishna)
Oh hm, my sweet lord (krishna, krishna)

Chris R. (Changed to mini-Mecca because I like the sound of it then added a bit more. That's my artistic interpretation and I'm sticking to it.)

MORE: Two good comments on Captain's Quarters:

This was not mere ham-fistedness. There is no group more attuned to symbolism and the "meaning" of structures than architects. It is their business to take drawings and, ultimately, wood, glass, and stone, and create meaning out of it. That this design is in some way accidental or coincidental is preposterous.
Posted by: rich

I want a big monument. One with the likeness of those who fought back, standing tall, facing the hijackers with anything they could find that could cause some harm to the hijackers... standing firm, and fighting back. At the base of the monument, all of the names of those in that flight should be inscribed, with an inscription at the top of the base: Todd Beamer's Battle Cry, "Let's Roll!"
Posted by: newton

And it turns out the jury did have a problem with the name being too religious and they asked that it be changed. To bad they didn't grasp that the entire project was worse than the name. Changing the name wouldn't have fooled anyone, which is probably why it wasn't changed.

Murdoch, however, said his crescent has no religious significance, but was created to add formality to the bowl-shaped valley surrounding the crash site.

"This is not about any religion per se," Murdoch said in a telephone interview with the Tribune-Democrat in Johnstown. "It's a spiritual space, and a sacred place, but it's open to anyone."

The word "crescent," he said, was used as a generic architectural term for a curved line.

"Sure, there is an Islamic crescent," Murdoch said. "Theirs is a lunar crescent. Ours isn't based on that."

The jury that recommended the final design, approved by the Flight 93 Advisory Commission, had suggested in a report that planners rethink use of the word "crescent" and, instead, use "circle," "arc" or other words not linked to religious icons.

Fouad El Bayly, leader of the Islamic Center of Johnstown, said the crescent isn't a holy symbol, but one identified with the lunar Muslim calendar.

"When it comes to a memorial, all mankind sympathizes," he said. "They recognize it was against everybody."

The crescent was created for "formality?" Please. This isn't about "religion per se" but about "sacred spirituality?" Whatever dude.

Look, this was almost surely conceived innocently by an idealistic liberal as symbolic of "peaceful Islam" healing and bonding with those slaughtered for Allah, but this shifty artiste doesn't want to say that outright. He may think that's a noble cause, but he would also think think CAIR has a noble cause. By not admitting any honest intent here, it raises the possibility that the mockery is intentional. It does almost feel like a big practical joke.

(Chris R.)

UPDATE: It looks like another tree artist in Germany did design a memorial swastika tree pattern to be seen best from a high altitude when the leaves changed, but thankfully it wasn't created over a mass Jewish grave to commemorate their deaths.

Forest rangers Monday put their chain saws to a cluster of trees that form a huge swastika when seen from the air, believed to be the legacy of a forest warden who planted them in 1938 out of enthusiasm for Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Officials in the eastern state of Brandenburg say the relic near the rural village of Zernikow, some 60 miles north of Berlin, is an eyesore in what is now a nature reserve.

An attempt to make the swastika disappear five years ago failed because when some of the larches were cut down, the others grew to fill in the spaces. The swastika popped up again this fall for anyone flying overhead, when the trees turned dark yellow against the surrounding green pines.

"This is something of a wound, so we really want to do something," state agriculture ministry spokesman Jens-Uwe Schade said. "We want to finally bring this to a conclusion."

Officials reportedly also fear the forest could become a neo-Nazi pilgrimage site.

More here from the 1963 Mohawk swastika sightings.

MORE: A member of the architecture community addresses the design failures in the proposed Flight 93 Memorial.

Okay, so what does this all mean? I would contend that the attitude of "blame America first" is an attitude shared by liberals. It is members of the liberal who often contend that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter; even Cindy Sheehan is on the record as saying this. I will further surmise that Paul Murdoch's commitment to sustainable design is a sign of his inclination towards the left of center, compounded by the fact that he works, and probably lives in the one of the “bluest” sections of California.

Understanding this, it becomes even more likely that the appearance of this crescent in the Flight 93 Memorial design was intentional based on socio-political inclinations of the design. Being an architectural designer by trade, I knowing how the process of design works, and the implications of it. As architects, we are responsible for every single line (or arc) we draw--not only from a legal standpoint. A crescent shape, created out of Red Maple (Acer rubrum) trees that turn bright red in the fall, forming the red Islamic crescent, effectively during the season in which 9/11 occurred. Accident? No. Ideally speaking, everything is intentional with design. Plantings are not picked at random, this specific species was chosen for its color; perhaps even its timing.

No one outside the design team can say for certain that this Islamic crescent was an intentional design element or not, but I can say with certainty that any design, especially designs for memorials, are more about symbolism than utility and economy; symbolism is everything. A design for a memorial is one of a handful of projects where a designer can take symbolism to the extreme--an opportunity not afforded to most projects and budgets.

The designers, if not initially aware of the presence of the Islamic crescent in the design, became aware of the inference of the crescent in short order, and probably disregarded the relationship or worse yet, silently embraced it. The designers created this design cognizant of its implications in all dimensions--and if they can claim they were not aware of the appearance of the crescent, did not understand what it meant, realized it and did nothing, than they have failed as designers.

Once again, the architecture flowing out of the 9/11 tragedy is being marred with symbolism gone amiss.

And from a reader: Is the Flight 93 crescent really oriented on a direct line from the graves of the fallen (to which the opening points) to Mecca? If so, we can all be certain that it was just a coincidence and the bowl-shaped valley made them do it. Not.

OUR LATEST POST: Mecca, we have a problem.

ROUND-UP

FEMA Director Michael Brown, under fire from all directions and dimensions, may have padded his resume to get the job. PunditGuy: Brown has been thrown under the bus.

This photo is the best summary yet of the whole bus and Red Cross situation.

Songblogger Dr. BLT has two new Katrina-related tunes out this week. Here's one, and here's the other.

The ACLU has been actively thwarting interrogations of terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. When otherwise sound thinkers go out of their way to defend the ACLU, and then the ACLU does things like this, otherwise sound thinkers shouldn't cry about attracting a little criticism themselves. What on earth am I talking about? Go here and follow the links.

Patriots' fans booed Kanye West at last night's NFL season opener, presumably for his anti-Bush rant during the NBC Katrina relief telethon last weekend. Today, I am a Patriots fan.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco apparently doesn't understand her own job. She performed so badly during the Katrina disaster that President Bush contemplated invoking the Insurrection Act to shove her aside and assume control of all disaster relief resources. You can be sure, though, that had the President done that, Gov. Blanco would have played the girl card, the Democrats would have played the party politics card, and the entire left would have played the dictator card. The Insurrection Act might have become more relevant to the situation than any of us should want.

UPDATE: Michael Brown may not have padded his resume. But he is being removed from the ongoing relief effort and brought back to DC.

PAY UP

Sandy the Bergler got slapped with a $50k fine for pilfering classified documents and destroying them. He also has to stay clear of classified material for three years. Then he can resume shredding incriminating evidence he missed the first time.

(via several readers)

AN OPEN LETTER FROM AN AMERICAN CITIZEN

A reader sent this to me tonight. It succinctly captures what a lot of people are thinking and feeling right now.

September 8, 2005

Open Letter to Fellow Americans,

It’s the fashion now, from New Orleans to DC, to write open letters. Here is mine:

We need grownups in Washington, DC, in New Orleans, in Mississippi and Alabama (oh, wait, you’re not hearing too much from the utter devastation of those two states – hmm, might be their two governors are doing their duty.)

In fact, we need grownups across the United States. We face huge problems – we faced many before Hurricane Katrina, but now, we’ve got three out of 50 states out of commission, and the surrounding states picking up our fellow Americans.

I, for one American, do not want to hear elected politicians in DC or in their home states, bickering, pointing fingers, sending form emails in response to their constituents’ concerns. I want them to do their jobs, which is to run the United States. Partisan be damned. I am tired of Congress ducking their responsibility – a clear and present danger – for the 9/11 debacle of our defense and intelligence agencies. And now.

Whether we restructure FEMA or Homeland Security – calling for the heads of those agencies to be fired right now is counter-productive and destructive. Just pause for a moment and think how long it would take to get someone else approved.

Like it or not, we are in the midst of the worst natural disaster we’ve ever experienced. And as bad as it has been for one week, much tougher times are coming. Reclaiming the dead, rebuilding homes, towns, cities, states, battling diseases that are breeding as I write.

Americans, who deal with every day life – work, family, balancing checkbooks, are watching and ACTING, as we shoulder aside the naysayers, roll up our sleeves, and just help – from cash contributions to taking in a neighbor to piling their cars with foodstuffs and heading for the scene.

My fellow Americans, we are at war, we are responding to an unprecedented disaster, with 24/7 coverage (not experienced before). I realize we are all individually responding. When you have ten seconds, write, call, email your representatives and tell them what you expect.

The frustration raging inside me at childish pundits, childish politicians masquerading as adults, is reaching my max. I want grownups in charge. I do not care about your self-esteem, your next election, your ratings. Get out of the way and let us do the job.

Peggie Duggan
Federal Way, WA

GOV. BLANCOUT'S OTHER EXECUTIVE ORDER

Somebody was in tail-covering mode:

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. KBB 2005 - 31

EMERGENCY EVACUATION BY BUSES

WHEREAS, the Louisiana Homeland Security and Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act, R.S. 29:721, et seq., confers upon the governor of the state of Louisiana emergency powers to deal with emergencies and disasters, including those caused by fire, flood, earthquake or other natural or man-made causes, to ensure that preparations of this state will be adequate to deal with such emergencies or disasters, and to preserve the lives and property of the citizens of the state of Louisiana;


WHEREAS, pursuant to Proclamation No. 48 KBB 2005, a state of emergency was declared and is currently in effect;


WHEREAS, R.S. 29:724(D)(4) provides that the governor, subject to any applicable requirements for compensation, may commandeer or utilize any private property if she finds it necessary to cope with the disaster or emergency;


WHEREAS, there is an immediate need for mass transportation to move citizens to shelters and other safe locations from disaster areas; and


WHEREAS, given the current exigent circumstances, buses are the most reasonable and practical mode of mass transportation to move our citizens to safety;


NOW THEREFORE I, KATHLEEN BABINEAUX BLANCO, Governor of the state of Louisiana, by virtue of the authority vested by the Constitution and laws of the state of Louisiana, do hereby order and direct as follows:

SECTION 1: Each Superintendent of Education for each school district in Louisiana that remains substantially operational following the passage of Hurricane Katrina shall contact the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness at 225-925-3916 and provide an inventory of school buses and bus drivers in their district;

SECTION 2: As determined by the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency
Preparedness, such buses shall be made available to be used as necessary for the mass transportation of Hurricane Katrina evacuees, accompanying law
enforcement personnel, and necessary supplies to from areas of concern to areas of safety;

SECTION 3: The Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness is hereby authorized to commandeer and utilize such buses for such purposes;

SECTION 4: Each Superintendent of Education for each school district in Louisiana that remains substantially operational following the passage of Hurricane Katrina shall coordinate with local law enforcement agencies and peace officers to ensure that at least one peace officer ride in each bus and at least two marked law enforcement vehicles accompany every ten buses;

SECTION 5: The Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness shall make efforts to work with the superintendents and local boards of education to minimize interruption of regular transportation of students;

SECTION 6: R.S. 17:158, relative to parish and city school boards providing free
transportation to students, is hereby suspended until Sunday, September 25,
2005, unless reinstated sooner.

SECTION 7: This Order is effective upon signature and shall continue in effect until amended, modified, terminated, or rescinded by the governor, or terminated by operation of law.


IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have set my hand officially and caused to be affixed the Great Seal of Louisiana, at the Capitol, in the city of Baton Rouge, on this 31st day of August, 2005.


/S/ Kathleen Babineaux Blanco

GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA

ATTEST BY

THE GOVERNOR

/S/ Al Ater

SECRETARY OF STATE

This was issued on August 31. It's an order to commandeer the buses and use them to move people to safety. The storm was already past. The city of New Orleans, and therefore all of those buses we've all been looking at, flooded on the 29th and 30th. By the time this order went out, it was worthless.

I guess the gov needed to sleep on it.

RACIAL LOGIC

By Jacob Weisberg's logic, Katrina's aftermath should persuade more blacks to vote Republican:

Had the residents of New Orleans been white Republicans in a state that mattered politically, instead of poor blacks in city that didn't, Bush's response surely would have been different. Compare what happened when hurricanes Charley and Frances hit Florida in 2004. Though the damage from those storms was negligible in relation to Katrina's, the reaction from the White House was instinctive, rapid, and generous to the point of profligacy. Bush visited hurricane victims four times in six weeks and delivered relief checks personally. Michael Brown of FEMA, now widely regarded as an incompetent political hack, was so responsive that local officials praised the agency's performance.

The kind of constituency politics that results in a big life-preserver for whites in Florida and a tiny one for blacks in Louisiana may not be racist by design or intent. But the inevitable result is clear racial discrimination. It won't change when Republicans care more about blacks. It will change when they have more reason to care.

Let me say first that I don't buy Weisberg's thinking at all. The fact that two other whole states got slammed along with New Orleans, and the sequence of the disaster which put NO last in the timeline, have played a very large role in how FEMA and the Bush adminstration have responded to the disaster. Louisiana's disgraceful, incompetent, petulant, indecisive and just plain lame Gov. Blancout's disastrous role in the apocalypse never even gets a mention from Weisberg--surely it's relevant that the two Republican governors in neighboring states responded better than Blancout, so much so that even NO Mayor Nagin has started blaming her, and not Bush, for keeping supplies from poor people and sitting on evacuation orders until Bush personally asked her to issue them.

But leaving all of that aside, as Weisberg did because none of it helped him make his race baiting points, he says that Republicans don't care about blacks and therefore didn't help majority black New Orleans because Republicans aren't supported by blacks to any extent and don't need to maintain their political support. So then the obvious response from blacks should be to vote Republican. It'll get the President off his vacationing keister faster next time, right, Jake?

Right?

To tell you the sad truth, the Democrats' collective whiny and disgusting response to Katrina has had everything to do with what happened in 2004. In 2000, Gov. George W. Bush only garnered 8 percent of the black vote on his way to winning the White House. In 2004, he jumped up to 11 percent and was comfortably re-elected. If the GOP can even manage to attract 15-20 percent of the black vote, just one in five black voters, the Democrats are doomed. Doomed, I tell you. Pre-Katrina, it was possible to imagine a GOP candidate reaching 15 percent of the black vote. Now...not likely.

Since dropping to near-permanent minority status, the Democrats have no margin for error and cannot afford to lose even one percent more of the black vote without suffering at the polls around the country. Their power at the state and city level will continue to erode. So when Katrina came and they saw lots of suffering black faces on the cable nets, a meme was born: Bush and the Republicans hate blacks and are letting them die.

It didn't matter that Louisiana politics are Democrat dominated, or that the governor and mayor are Democrats or that their failures had contributed mightily to the suffering. Well, I take that back. All of that did matter. And the Democrats couldn't let those facts out without making sure to prevent Bush from getting any kind of traction for being seen to help blacks. Which, absent the race war talk of Al Sharpton et al, that is the image that the nation would have seen. That is also an image that a stricken nation needed to see. We, all of us, needed to see our President responding to a crisis with smooth efficiency. And we would have seen that, because his response to Katrina wasn't out of line with federal responses to other disasters.

The Democrats prevented, consciously and with intent thought out beforehand, letting President Bush be seen as helpful in any way in the middle of a national crisis because they knew it threatened their own political prospects. They let poor black people die in great numbers in order to protect their stranglehold on the black vote. And they then accused Republicans of letting blacks die for racist reasons. The Democrats' performance during Katrina has been the most ghastly display of race-based politics this nation has seen in a long, long time.

That is the truth.

AND ANOTHER THING: Weisberg refers to previous hurricanes, ones for which Bush received praise rather than insurrection. He states that Bush got praise because he helped the victims faster because they were mostly white and therefore Bush supporters, so Bush wanted to help them more than he wanted to help poor, black New Orleans.

Might it be possible that Bush received praise for handling those other disasters because the race hustlers saw no advantage to playing up some nonexistent racial angle? It's kind of hard for Sharpton et al to argue that Bush is a racist for not helping blacks when most of a given storm's victims aren't black. But it's very easy to smear Bush when a natural disaster hits a location that happens to have a mostly black population.

Weisberg never even considers the race hustlers' own unsavory motivations at all. Not a bit. I think their motivations--which mostly amount to keeping themselves rich and relevant--explain quite a lot about the past week and how the story has played.

GOV. BLANCOUT'S EXECUTIVE ORDER

I haven't seen too many people discussing this. It's Executive Order No. KBB 2005-18. It puts the Louisiana National Guard Commander, Bennett C. Landreneau, in charge of the Bayou State's emergency prep and response. When you see Mr. Landreneau on camera praising or cursing anyone for their performance during Katrina, it might be wise to keep this executive order in mind.

(thanks to Tom)

DOGGONE IT

I was going to write a magnum opus about how Congress needs to act like grownups for once, kill off the recently passed and pork-laden $25 billion highway bill and use that money in Katrina relief. And it would've been a stemwinder of an article. But Heritage has beaten me to the story:

If Congress follows its usual pattern, there will be much debate about how much money to send and where to send it, and in the end an initial package totaling some tens of billions of dollars will be passed and signed into the law. But these are extraordinary times, and Congress must rise above the “usual pattern” and show the American people that they too can be just as generous in their own personal sacrifice as their constituents.

One way to show such sacrifice and resolve would be to agree to shift at least half of the $25 billion dollars that the recently enacted highway bill (SAFETEA-LU) dedicates to frivolous pork barrel spending in local communities around the nation. As Mississippi and Louisiana confront the replacement of dozens of wrecked bridges, is it possible that Rep. Don Young (R-AK) could give up one of the two $200 million dollar bridges he secured for his state? Perhaps Alaskans could go without the one that will serve a town of just fifty people, who now ride a ferry? Such an example of leadership and sacrifice by a senior Member like Rep. Young could persuade the rest of the Congress to follow his lead and give up there own wasteful earmarks and pork until the $12 or $13 billion dollars is redirected to those whose need is dire.

I still may write the article--Heritage mentions one slice of pork that demands further examination:

The more than 6,000 earmarks in it add up to nearly $25 billion in money that could now be better used for a more urgent purpose than flower gardens, replica sailing ships, and bus museums. (emphasis added)

Any bets that those museums weren't slated for N'awlins?

(thanks to Peggie)

THE CLUELESS HISTORIAN

Celebrity faux historian Doug Brinkley needs to stick to glossing up John Kerry's past. He has no, and I mean no, grasp on the present:

"If you had to say one line about this, this whole hurricane is about racism. I think if you go to the Astrodome like I've been or if you go to any of the evacuation centers you are going to see the divide between African American community and others. The fact that the Bush administration seem in my mind to behave as if the underclass or as Michael Herrington use to call it, the other America, the poor, the disenfranchised, those without a lot, those that when a hurricane is announced and they are told to evacuate they try to say, how can I evacuate? I don't have a car. I don't own any other way of mode to get out and I'm scared to get put into some bus, leave my animals and money behind.

"...scared to get put into some bus..." So that's the lefty line now? People didn't leave because they were scared to get put into some bus? The only problem with that line of thinking is that they never even had the opportunity to get scared to get put into some bus. The mayor never ordered them into service.

These are, by the way, the very same buses parents put their kids on every morning in sending them to school. I'd think the least likely reaction to seeing a bus bumping down the street with an evacuation order in your mind and a storm on the horizon would be to fear the bus. You'd see it as a saviour, if you had the chance to see it at all. A chance the residents of New Orleans never had. How clueless can a historian be?

The quote is from Imus this morning. Both Imus the Ignoramus and Brinkley agreed that the hurricane was a racist, that Bush is a racist, that the whole country except the people who didn't fire up the buses and the woman who kept the Red Cross from feeding the poor in the dome are all racists. Nagin, Ebbert and Blanco, architects of death on a grand scale, get a pass. The rest of us get whacked.

And Mother Nature has come out of the closet as a Grand Wizard in the KKK. I guess she replaced Bobby Byrd.

(thanks to Sally and friends)

UPDATE: Brinkley is even more clueless than I'd thought.

Another city resident, the historian Douglas Brinkley, remained in New Orleans during the storm. "I was in a building that was built to withstand this type of storm and didn't heed the first notice to evacuate."

A Cat 5 is bearing down on a city that clearly isn't ready for it, and he stays behind. Reader Ward wonders whether the fear of getting put on buses during the mythical bus-borne evac was Brinkley committing a gaffee--accidentally telling the truth. Perhaps, wonders Ward, Brinkley mentally bridged that sentence "...with those poor people." It would then read: "I don't own any other way of mode to get out and I'm scared to get put into some bus...with those poor people...leave my animals and money behind."

I won't even pretend to crawl inside Brinkley's head and speak for him. But that is just about the only way his sentence makes any sense at all.

Whether that was Brinkley's own fear finding voice or not, he did manage to make some sense eventually:

The core problem here is there has been no person in charge. In New York after 9/11 you had Rudy Giuliani, who had strong leadership. I don't think New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has provided that."

That's correct.

NEW ORLEANS RESCUE, HOLLYWOOD STYLE

Sean Penn, great humanitarian, sailed in to New Orleans, nearly sunk, then went looking for any poor that he might save from the flood. Right?

Ummm. You decide.

Last night Hollywood star Sean Penn joined the desperate search for hurricane survivors in New Orleans.

The frantic actor begged rescue crews to take him out to a house owned by pals near the 17th Street Canal. He had not heard from them since the area was flooded by up to 20ft of water.

Mystic River hunk Sean, 45, refused to name his friends, but said he could not bear watching rescues from his San Francisco home, knowing they could be dying.

He said: “I’m really worried. I need to go out and find them.”

Rescuers ferried him to the canal area.

To get his pals. While the poor drowned. He dragged a rescue crew around to save his party buds.

Sean Penn, humanitarian.

(thanks to Sally)

STARVING THE POOR WAS BLANCO'S POLICY

Don't take my word for it. Just consult the Red Cross:

Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

The "state Homeland Security Department" would be the one under Gov. Kathleen Blanco's direct control. She is figuratively standing in the highway, where she has been figuratively standing since Katrina struck, keeping the Red Cross from delivering supplies to the Superdome.

Which isn't much of a problem now, because there's no one seeking refuge there anymore. But when thousands did need the dome...Blanco was already standing in the way.

She should be impeached.

WE'VE HEARD ALOT ABOUT BAD BEHAVIOR IN POST-APOCALYPSE NEW ORLEANS

Let's hear about some amazing good behavior:

NEW ORLEANS - When their homes began to sink in Katrina's floodwaters, elders in the quarter here known as Uptown gathered their neighbors to seek refuge at the Samuel J. Green Charter School, the local toughs included.

But when the thugs started vandalizing the place - wielding guns and breaking into vending machines - Vance Anthion put them out, literally tossing them into the fetid waters. Anthion stayed awake at night after that, protecting the inhabitants of the school from looters or worse.

---

Inside the school, it was quiet, cool and clean. They converted a classroom into a dining room and, when a reporter arrived Monday, were serving a lunch of spicy red beans and rice. A table nearby overflowed with supplies: canned spaghetti, paper towels, water and Gatorade, salt, hot sauce, pepper.

Mmmm...hot sauce. Tabasco Sauce's HQ was just outside New Orleans. Those folks might have been consuming the city's last remaining stash.

Anyway. The hot sauce distracted me there for a minute. It's good to see that some people remained civilized even when the world was collapsing around them.

They are American citizens.

(via InstaPundit)

UPDATE: This story and the info below brings up another lesson learned for Glenn's list: Do not assume a big building will be a better shelter than a little one. This article from last year was available for New Orleans residents that asked tough questions about their city's evac plan:

It appears a facility as large as the Dome could hold up in hurricane conditions but Bill Curl, spokesman for the Superdome, says that is yet to be tested and if there is no other choice then maybe the Dome could serve as a shelter.

“Only in dire emergencies. The Superdome is not a shelter,” said Curl.

According to Curl, the assumption that the Superdome can withstand hurricane force winds is just that: an assumption. He says more analysis is needed to determine what the Dome can actually withstand because previous wind studies have become somewhat irrelevant since they did not factor in the new high-rise buildings around the Dome.

“They create a wind tunnel effect and that needs to be tested. There were initial studies that indicated 130 miles per hour, but we don’t know,” said Curl. He adds that the Dome is not impervious to the same elements other areas would be exposed to.

“If we were to lose power, if we were to lose plumbing facilities, if a storm were to hit and create flooding in the area; the Superdome would not be a desirable place to be,” he said.

(via Hugh Hewitt and as mentioned in our recent NRO article)

FLOODED WITH CASH

Oink, oink:

In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times larger.

Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon.

For example, after a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill ordering the agency to redo its calculations. The Corps also spends tens of millions of dollars a year dredging little-used waterways like the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the Atchafalaya River and the Red River -- now known as the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, in honor of the project's congressional godfather -- for barge traffic that turns out to be less than forecast.

Read it all. The paranoid left is going to have to some up with a new game plan. The "Bush shortchanged the levees" schtick won't work.

(thanks to Tom)

FLOODED WITH GREEN ACTIVISTS UPDATE: Hmm:

In the 1970s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Barrier Project planned to build fortifications at two strategic locations, which would keep massive storms on the Gulf of Mexico from causing Lake Pontchartrain to flood the city. An article in the May 28, 2005, New Orleans Times-Picayune stated, “Under the original plan, floodgate-type structures would have been built at the Rigolets and Chef Menteur passes to block storm surges from moving from the Gulf into Lake Pontchartrain.”

“The floodgates would have blocked the flow of water from the Gulf of Mexico, through Lake Borgne, through the Rigolets [and Chef Mentuer] into Lake Pontchartrain,” declared Professor Gregory Stone, the James P. Morgan Distinguished Professor and Director of the Coastal Studies Institute of Louisiana State University. “This would likely have reduced storm surge coming from the Gulf and into the Lake Pontchartrain,” Professor Stone told Michael P. Tremoglie during an interview on September 6. The professor concluded, “[T]hese floodgates would have alleviated the flooding of New Orleans caused by Hurricane Katrina.”

---

Why was this project aborted? As the Times-Picayune wrote, “Those plans were abandoned after environmental advocates successfully sued to stop the projects as too damaging to the wetlands and the lake's eco-system.” (Emphasis added.) Specifically, in 1977, a state environmentalist group known as Save Our Wetlands (SOWL) sued to have it stopped. SOWL stated the proposed Rigolets and Chef Menteur floodgates of the Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Prevention Project would have a negative effect on the area surrounding Lake Pontchartrain. Further, SOWL’s recollection of this case demonstrates they considered this move the first step in a perfidious design to drain Lake Pontchartrain entirely and open the area to dreaded capitalist investment.

The "blame Bush" meme is about to run out of steam. But the "blame corrupt Democrat politicians and environmentalist wackos" meme is just getting its shoes on. It looks like it has long, lean legs.

(thanks to Jim)

BUSES, LAWYERS AND THE DEAD OF NEW ORLEANS

This is where an overly letigious society finally leads, and may die: legal liability concerns froze both Mayor Nagin and Gov. Blanco's decision-making in the midst of the crisis. Both the mayor and governor consulted their lawyers before making or not making critical moves before, during and after the hurricane and flood.

PARANOIA STRIKES DEEP

Daily Kos: The Army Corps of Engineers bombed the 17th Street levee, flooding New Orleans on purpose.

To commit genocide per Darth Rove's orders, of course. On people who weren't supposed to be there if the wheels on the buses had gone round and round.

And since when does the Army Corps of Engineers bomb anything?

MORE: "Reality-based community." Where did that meme run off to?

BLANCO: LET THEM EAT CAKE

So the Queen of Denial, Obstruction and Delay, Kathleen "Antoinette" Blanco, and her royal staff made multiple decisions to deny the Refugees of New Orleans the security, food and water they needed.

Video link above. More from Major Garrett here.

I think at least one of Gov Blanco's decisions, or non-decisions, was made right about the time that "cannibalism" was being reported in the Huffington Post. Remember, she would actually believe what she reads in the Huffington Post. I'm sure Arianna will be concerned about this report now and call for her impeachment, just as Bryan, and now I have.

President Bush failed now in one way. He failed to ascertain that he was dealing with a governor who was a clear and present danger to the people of Louisiana. That's a tough nut to crack in a crisis, so I don't blame him. Taking military control over Louisiana to save Blanco's subjects from her sociopathic leadership style would have been helpful to some individuals for sure, but the problem is that such a move may have done more serious long-term damage than the Democrats have already done to the United States in this crisis. Can you say "military dictator?" Can you say "ethnic cleansing?" Oh yeah. Those charges would have come right from Hillary herself. Hmm...now that I think about it, maybe there was a political method to Blanco's madness.

So for the record, the JYB is 100% unified on the Blanco impeachment call on behalf of the remaining citizens of Louisiana. We've been discussing her role for several days and now I firmly believe she's the rosetta stone for decoding the post-hurricane NOLA Nightmare. And we still don't even know the half of it. I want to see all her communications with her lawyers, political advisors, Sen. Mary Landrieu, James Lee Witt (Hillary?), et al.

Her ethically-challenged Homeland Security Office should have been on top of the New Orleans Evac Plan too. Did Mayor Nagin have state emergency preparedness experts telling him they loved his bus-free DVD plan? Probably so.

IMPEACH BLANCO

It's becoming clearer by the day that most of the relief problems New Orleans has experienced originate with Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco. She failed to issue orders or even make decisions when it was her job, she consistently bollixed things up, encouraged looting early on and generally served as a poor and even deceptive interface between the city and the federal government. She has acted to preserve her own control over relief efforts at the expense of the people who need help the most, causing of all things a sort of union to develop between Mayor Nagin and the Bush administration. It's by now beyond clear that Blanco is a menace, more interested in politics than in saving lives. Read several of the posts here and check out the timeline linked below in the "Round Up" to get a sense of just how bad her performance has been.

Now, a reader tells me that she is even countermanding Mayor Nagin's mandatory evacuation order--the one that superceded the other mandatory evacuation order from last week--in order to test the floodwaters first. Or something. She appears from this vantage point half a continent away to be delusional.

People of Louisiana, please do yourselves and the nation a favor and impeach your governor. Your governor's poor decision making--when she even bothers to make a decision--has contributed directly to the deaths of thousands of your fellow citizens. She has shown no composure and a great deal of madness in your crisis. It's in your best interests to get rid of her, asap.

UPDATE: Details:

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco (search) seemed at odds with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (search ) Wednesday, hours after the mayor ordered the mandatory evacuation of the crippled Crescent City by force if necessary.

As floodwaters caused by Hurricane Katrina (search) began to slowly recede with the ruined city's first pumps returning to operation, Nagin late Tuesday authorized law enforcement officers to force the evacuation of the estimated 10,000 residents who refuse to heed orders to leave.

But in a Wednesday interview with FOX News, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco (search) said she had not signed off on the decision.

"The mayor certainly has ordered that but the governor, and that would be me, would have to enforce it or implement it. We are trying to determine whether there is an absolute justification for that," she told FOX News.

"I think the most important thing driving that decision would be the possibility of disease. If indeed the disease problem is evident, is inevitable, we'll have to move to the next stage," she said.

"The governor, and that would be me...." Sheesh. We know you're the governor. That's the problem.

As for the "possibility of disease," how do five more deaths sound? That's how many people are known to have died so far just from contact with the fetid ooze in New Orleans. There will be more deaths. How many will it take for Gov. Blanco to grow a conscience, do the right thing, and leave?

IMPEACH. KATHLEEN. BLANCO. NOW. UPDATE: "They apparently wanted people hungry, thirsty and anxious to leave":

The Fox News Channel's Major Garrett was just on my show extending the story he had just reported on Brit Hume's show: The Red Cross is confirming to Garrett that it had prepositioned water, food, blankets and hygiene products for delivery to the Superdome and the Convention Center in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, but were blocked from delivering those supplies by orders of the Louisiana state government, which did not want to attract people to the Superdome and/or Convention Center.

So....they didn't want to attract people to the designated shelters? Where did they want to attract people to, then?

I SEE SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS FEDERALISM

From a senator's website:

Emergency management operations for disasters include three phases: preparedness, response, and recovery. In the preparedness phase, state and local governments administer emergency preparedness programs with ongoing activities to help ensure that they are ready to respond to disasters. The Louisiana Department of Emergency Preparedness is responsible for all initial damage assessment prior to federal involvement.

Just as Terry Ebbert needs to be shown a certain photo, Sen. Mary Landrieu needs to be shown her own web site.

(via Ace)

YELLOW SUBMARINES

The bus story is making the rounds. Unlike the buses themselves.

The BBC--Multiple Failures Caused Relief Crisis.

Former NYC Mayor Ed Koch was recently spotted on MSNBC asking "Where were the buses? What happened to all the hundreds of school buses? Public transit? Why weren't the poor evacuated with these?"

Brit Hume on FNC has discussed the buses.

Mark Steyn--The Big Easy Rocked, But Didn't Roll. He even mentions a certain blogger.

Rush Limbaugh--The Evacuation Plan Mayor Nagin Failed to Implement.

(thanks to Chris, William, See Dub and Michelle)

MORE: Lisa Myers, on NBC Nightly News --What Went Wrong in Katrina's Wake?

MORE: I wrote over on Michelle Malkin's blog (while this one was down) about the NO school system's near collapse at the start of this school year. That the school system didn't even know how many employees it has is evidence of serious municipal chaos, and may be relevant to the bus issue. Well, here's more grist for that mill--minutes from a June 9, 2005 Orleans Parish school board meeting. From these minutes it's clear that the city and the school district were talking about using buses during hurricanes and had been having those discussions for some time. But red tape and bureaucracy got in the way, delayed decisions and ultimately cost lives.

On the one hand, it's good that the discussion was taking place at all. But on the other hand, it's terrible that it wasn't concluded a long time ago. New Orleans has been threatened by floods and storms for centuries, and had a couple of near misses in the past couple of years as warning. Yet it only started working the bus issue and the "You're on your own" message this summer, too late to even complete anything useful before hurricane season started.

MORE: The Houston Chronicle front-pages the bus photo in this story about the disaster.

WHY DID SO MANY N.O. COPS WALK OFF THE JOB?

According to their chief, it's because they just couldn't get a good b-m.

GALLUP'S NEW POLL BIASED FOR GOV BLANCO

The new Gallup poll is actually biased in favor of the single individual most responsible for all the problems after the hurricane.

The Chief Executive of Louisiana, the Commander of the La. National Guard that Mayor Nagin needed so bad right after the hurricane and the indecisive, politics before lives, blocker of federal assistance in Louisiana is left off the poll by name. Yet it still came out in Bush's favor when only the tiny fringe 13% of Deaniac Americans who trust the MSM's spin blamed him:

Gallup Poll: 2005 Sep 5-6 6. Who do you think is MOST responsible for the problems in New Orleans after the hurricane ­ [ROTATED: George W. Bush, federal agencies, (or) state and local officials, or is no one really to blame?

George W. Bush 13
Federal agencies 18
State/local officials 25
No one to blame 38
No opinion 6

I actually don't mind the "No one is to blame" crowd. Until the Bush-bashing politics began it would be a fine position to take for now. But just because the MSM has given Blanco's inaction and obstrution during a state emergency a complete pass in an attempt to hang the President from a French Quarter lamp post, doesn't mean that Gallup should do the same. Polls shouldn't be based on furthering media bias.

I could see Nagin, Ebbert and the police chief rolled into one "local officials" category, but no way should Gov. Kathleen Blanco and her lawyers be left off this poll. The very minimum that Gallup should have done is make the choices: federal, state, local and none. But if the U.S. Chief Exec, George W. Bush, is on there by name then the La. Chief Exec, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, should be as well. Period.

Her actions were a disgrace to the very office of Governor in these great United States. Had her office not existed, President Bush, Gen Honore, et al could have taken immediate military command of the situation as the Mayor was begging for. There's no doubt that Gov. Blanco didn't provide the proper La. troops for immediate security, failed to react to the new emergency when the levee broke, then blocked federal control of those screw ups, allowing the cascade of errors to completely delay the recovery in a myriad of ways. You know she was bad when Mayor Nagin was left shaking his head in amazement at how her crazy 24-hr decision cycles during anarchy were "killing more people."

MORE: As I was saying:

...unlike the governors of New York, Oklahoma and California in past disasters, Gov. Blanco failed to take charge of the situation and ensure that the state emergency operation facility was in constant contact with Mayor Nagin and FEMA. It is likely that thousands of people died because of the failure of Gov. Blanco to implement the state plan, which mentions the possible need to evacuate up to one million people. The plan clearly gives the governor the authority for declaring an emergency, sending in state resources to the disaster area and requesting necessary federal assistance.

State legislators and governors nationwide need to update their contingency plans and the operation procedures for state emergency centers. Hurricane Katrina had been forecast for days, but that will not always be the case with a disaster (think of terrorist attacks). It must be made clear that the governor and locally elected officials are in charge of the "first response."

I am not attempting to excuse some of the delays in FEMA's response. Congress and the president need to take corrective action there, also. However, if citizens expect FEMA to be a first responder to terrorist attacks or other local emergencies (earthquakes, forest fires, volcanoes), they will be disappointed. The federal government's role is to offer aid upon request.

The Louisiana Legislature should conduct an immediate investigation into the failures of state and local officials to implement the written emergency plans.

DEBIT CARD TO REFUGEES EVACUEES

Relief begins:

Homeland Security Department Secretary Michael Chertoff (search) described the plan in a conference call with state officials Wednesday morning. The unprecedented cash card program initially will benefit stranded people who have been moved to major rescue centers such as the Houston Astrodome (search).

"They are going to start issuing debit cards, $2,000 per adult, today [Wednesday] at the Astrodome," said Kathy Walt, a spokeswoman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

The cards could be used to buy food, transportation, gas and other essentials, according to a state official who was on the call and requested anonymity because the program has not been publicly announced.

In Boston, Gov. Mitt Romney said the cards will be offered "to people in shelters as well as people who are not in shelters but who have evacuated the area and need help." He said the hope is the cards will encourage people to leave shelters voluntarily.

I'm sure the cards will help a great deal, and they're an innovative idea that's much better than just putting wads of cash in people's hands. Given the lawlessness of the past week, that would be a bad idea. It would be a bad idea in almost any circumstance.

But I can see how the race and povery pimps may play the cash cards. The cards are going out to adults, one per, in each family. So a pair of yuppie evacuees with zero kids will get 2 cards, value $4k. A single mom with four minor kids will get 1 card, value $2k. The single mom is more likely to be poor and black than the yuppies, she has greater need and will get less money. The poverty/race pimps will say that this plan is further evidence of racism. They'll be wrong, but that won't stop them from saying it.

HOSTAGE ROY HALLUMS IS FREE

The Jawa Report has details and deserves much credit for helping the Hallums family. Credit also to the US troops--heroes, all--who rescued him.

DEMOCRATS WILL USE HURRICANE TO ATTACK ROBERTS

This will backfire. As usual, the Democrats just don't know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.

KATRINA WAS OUR MOMENT

Disasters, says the cliche, usually bring out the best in people. But the cliche doesn't take into account the current generation, our current understanding of how government works, our current understanding of our place in the world or even our current understanding of right and wrong.

The Katrina disaster, history will record, did bring out the best in some of us. Rescuers rode in quickly to help; fund drives kicked off to drum up cash; corporations like Wal-Mart stepped up with donations of money and water and whatever else was needed; states outside the disaster zones immediately sent crews to restore downed powerlines or help in other ways. Even for all the guff FEMA has taken, some justified, it moved first to help stricken Florida then to help stricken Mississippi and Alabama and then to help stricken Louisiana (because that was the sequence of the disaster) about three times faster than it was able to move after hurricane Andrew struck Florida 13 years ago. And it is important to remember that FEMA has been dealing with not one but several hard-hit states and a disaster area the size of Britain with shredded infrastructure. Some towns along the Gulf coast remained only accessible by air for days--some probably still are, thanks to washed out bridges. Bash the federal response all you want, but it won't change any of the facts--just other people's perception of the facts.

It's that latter reality that has brought out the absolute worst in people. Almost before the wind even died down, the blame game began. From DC to NO and all across the land, critics rose up to declare in all their serious tones that the federal response was too slow because President Bush doesn't care about black people. They have placed blame everywhere but the local level, the first level of government response and accountability in our system, for purely political reasons, right and wrong never entering their calculations. The result is unsurprising--Americans are as divided on the federal response to Katrina as we are on everything else.

The sad fact is, Katrina was our moment to undo much of the self-inflicted damage we have sustained since 9-11. We have shown much division and dissension during the war, enough to sustain our enemy's hopes that he can outlast us and win. Al Qaeda must surely by now know that its naive plan to destroy our economy by toppling a couple of landmark buildings in New York is not only a failure but a massive backfire--not only did our economy not collapse, but we ended up taking their Afghan sanctuary away from them and have turned most of the world against them. Al Qaeda could have seen in our response to Katrina reason for despair. An enemy in despair is an enemy in psychological retreat.

But al Qaeda must surely see in Katrina reasons for hope and the will to fight on. We had the chance to demoralize al Qaeda for all time, by showing them that even if nature or an enemy could take out one of our most historic cities and one of our most important ports and puncture our economy, we will come together, put legitimate differences aside and work through it as a united people. But that isn't what we showed them, is it?

We showed them division. We showed them that we don't understand how our own government works. We showed them that we have among us ambitious people who will accuse their fellow Americans of genocide if it might score a political point or two. We showed them how we will respond to al Qaeda's next massive attack on us. How Osama bin Laden's heart must have leaped.

Katrina has tested our national metal. It was our moment to prove the meaning of union, but the moment is lost to us forever. Instead of showing unity the disaster has turned up fissures what won't heal anytime soon. Al Qaeda and every other enemy we have has undoubtedly taken note of where those cracks are and how to exploit them.

U.S. BLACK HAT HACKER HELPING AL QAEDA?

While some Americans are trying to start a race war over a hurricane, it looks like another American is helping al Qaeda:

U.S. counterterrorism authorities have been engaged for months in a shadow war with a computer hacker extraordinaire who is using cutting-edge technology to help al Qaeda and other jihad groups with their vast Internet operations, The Post has learned. Experts inside and outside the government confirmed in recent interviews that an intensive effort has been under way for more than a year to track and shut down the mysterious cyber-ghost, who identifies himself as Irhabi 007 — or "Terrorist 007."

---

The FBI has been investigating Irhabi 007 since July 2004, when the Web site of the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department was hacked.

The site was transformed into an al Qaeda message board, and links were posted that allowed visitors to view videotapes of Osama bin Laden and tributes to the 9/11 hijackers.

The person who hacked into the Arkansas government site and posted the links identified himself as Irhabi 007.

---

There is growing evidence 007 is in direct contact with the media wings of several terror groups including Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq, Kohlmann said.

What's most intriguing about the case is that Irhabi 007 claims he is U.S.-based, and may be an American.

ROUND-UP

Francis Turner takes on Tubby Reifenstahl.

The ACLU sides with predators in Hawaii.

Feel the love oozing from one woman's iron ore heart.

Michelle Malkin and Brian Maloney catalog Al Franken's Air Ameriscam lying lies.

Doug TenNapel says "Save the humans!"

Hurricane Katrina: A Pictorial Timeline (thanks to Chris)

Kaus: The U.S. should take Fidel Castro up on his post-Katrina offer to send over 1,586 doctors from Cuba. It could be a PR victory--how many do you think will go back? (via Jonah Goldberg)

Me: And while they're here, we can take them to a few of our top hospitals and then get the real story on Cuba's vaunted health-care system. So let 'em in!

Michael Goodwin: Don't Blame Only the Feds

The charge of racism-inspired foot-dragging isn't just nonsense. It's pernicious nonsense, as in destructive and malicious. You know that's a fact because loony Howard Dean, the Democratic Party boss, is now peddling it. He's joined by Jesse Jackson, who said the squalor in New Orleans "looks like the hull of a slave ship." Oh, please.

---

That the New Orleans police are hardly the Finest was proven by a shocking report yesterday: Nearly a third of New Orleans cops - some 500 of the 1,600 - are now unaccounted for. The department says some quit, but it doesn't know where most of them are.

The top cop, Eddie Compass, has responded by offering all officers paid vacations to Las Vegas and Atlanta. Yes, that's right - he is pulling all cops off the street, even while bodies lie in the open. Never in New York.

---

And how's this for preparation? Cops were told not to work on the day Katrina hit, one officer told The New York Times, but "to come in the next day, to save money on their budget."

By all means, let's investigate what went wrong in New Orleans. Let's start in City Hall.

Amen.

UPDATE: Houston, praised for its Katrina relief work in the domestic NY Times, slimed for profiteering on Katrina relief in the international NY Times. Note to the Times: This is the internet. We can bias-check you no matter where your stories run.

UPDATE: Just found this terrific and comprehensive Katrina timeline at Right Wing Nuthouse.

FLOODED BUSES AS ART

Brilliant.

REACTIONS TO THE "GHOST PLAN" ARTICLE

Reader Gregory K. writes:

I grew up in Berwick, Louisiana (the cork in the bottom of the Atchafalaya Basin) and agree with everything you wrote. The Atchfalaya Basin levee was only fixed after the near disaster Mississippi flood of 1972 where both the Morganza and Bonne Carrie spillways were opened. I would point out that the "levee failure" that doomed the city was the NEWLY INSTALLED 17th Street Canal channel wall not in an "old" Lake Ponchatrain levee. The Ponchatrain levees were overtopped but generally remained sound (note that they are currently having to be opened so the water will flow back into the lake). The failure of the 17th St wall was a double body blow as it not only let continuous water into a previously unflooded part of the city; it also took the largest and newest pumps out of the struggle. The people at the convention center or the Superdome, which are near the river, could have been supplied or evacuated by using private (Tidewater etc) workboats (350' long with 250' of deck) by the mayor or the governor by only lifting up a phone.

Gregory graduated from LSU with an engineering degree in 1969.

About those newly installed sections of the levee, Sally writes in to say "Y'all are the only reason my head hasn't spun off my shoulders and landed on the floor." [I'm happy to have had a role in keeping your head where it's supposed to be--ed.] She also wonders whether or not those newly built and easily breached levee sections might have been constructed under a less than honest contract deal. We've been wondering about that same question. If any readers here have any kind of first-hand knowledge about that, please drop us a line.

Not everyone was pleased with the article, but until they cite sources beyond their own opinions, we'll forgo a debate. Suffice it to say that it's irrelevant to the current discussion whom the Times-Picayune endorsed for President in any given year. What's relevant is that the paper knew that the city and state's plan amounted to telling the poor "You're on your own," then turned to fix blame on the federal government when the crisis actually arrived.

Dawn from Pensacola writes:

What an excellent article! I live in Pensacola, and although our local government is far from perfect -- or even competent at times! -- I must say that I believe the relatively low loss of life that we experienced here during Ivan last year was due to our local emergency planners having a plan and implementing it. Ivan itself was a terrifying experience, and we are still recovering. But the pictures I've seen coming out of New Orleans are just unbelievably worse than I could have imagined. Thank you again for such a well-researched and well-written article. It should be required reading for all those idiots with microphones pontificating nightly on the news!

Florida gets the buses lined up and gets people out of the way. As for the TV pontificating, I'd just like to see the deceptions stop. I caught a little bit of CBS 48 Hours tonight, and they ran an old Byron Pitts piece from a three or four days ago as if it was fresh out of the edit bay. It went on and on about how FEMA hadn't shown up yet in Biloxi, when FEMA has now been there for quite a while. If I hadn't seen the piece when it initially ran, I'd have been livid at FEMA. But I had seen the piece when it initially ran, so I was livid at CBS for running it again.

Keep the letters of praise, condemnation or suggestions coming. Smart readers are what makes a good blog work.

"EVACUATE THE CITY"

A commentor has just sent in a link to this site--Evacuate the City. It's dedicated to imagery of New Orleans after Katrina.

Yes, there are pictures of unused buses sitting in several lots scattered all around the city. The city owned hundreds and hundreds of them, and seems to have kept them in a very orderly manner. It just mismanaged everything else.

GHOST PLAN FOR A GHOST TOWN

Chris & I have a new flood-related article up at NRO.

UPDATE: One part of this story that has been coming out in the past few days is Gov. Blanco's passive-aggressive, indecisive yet accusatory behavior throughout this entire crisis. I think it's fair to say that we're watching the nation's worst governor deal with a crisis that she should have been prepared for but wasn't, given the state she governs, and that she has dealt with the crisis in ways that have resulted in massive loss of human life. Well, one question that has come up here and there is whether President Bush would have been acting within his legal authority to just push her aside and take control of the situation. That question came up while we were writing the Ghost Plan article. The answer, courtesy reader Tom, is no:

The Feds may take charge following procedures as established in the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. The procedures are detailed in Appendix 5, Section 2 (p. 9) of the NRP: "Immediately after an incident, local jurisdictions respond using available resources and notify State response elements. As information emerges, they also assess the situation and the need for State assistance. The State reviews the situation, mobilizes State resources, and informs the DHS/EPR/FEMA Regional Office of actions taken. The Governor activates the State emergency operations plan, proclaims or declares a state of emergency, and requests a State/DHS joint Preliminary Damage Assessment (PDA) to determine if sufficient damage has occurred to justify a request for a Presidential declaration of a major disaster or emergency. Based upon the results of the PDA, the Governor may request a Presidential declaration and define the kind of Federal assistance needed." Point being, the Feds can't just seize control.

Which, in this case at least, is too bad. People are dead for want of a streamlined national response to disaster. And they are dead for want of a governor with a clue and the ability to make a decision without a ring of lawyers and advisors around her and a good night's sleep behind her.

MORE: On the ghost communications system:

Not only were the police undermanned, they were deaf... From an overlooked Federal Computer Week article:

Operation of the New Orleans police radio system in the wake of Hurricane Katrina has been plagued not only by floodwaters but by a lack of natural gas to power generators.

Not only that, Louisiana State Police turned away repair technicians when they attempted to reach the city, according to an on-scene report the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International relayed to Federal Computer Week.

...Radio repair technicians attempting to enter the city were turned away by the state police, even though they had letters from the city police authorizing their access, [Dominic] Tusa said.

State officials were not only not part of the solution, they were a huge part of the problem...

FEMA

isn't a perfect organization, and I was as uncomfortable as any conservative when it became clear that the Bush administration's domestic answer to 9-11 was to create a big shiny new bureaucracy known at the Department of Homeland Security. But as more and more facts come out, it's becoming clearer that FEMA wasn't ill prepared for Katrina.

Here's data point number one:

USNORTHCOM was prepositioned for response to the hurricane, but as per the National Response Plan, we support the lead federal agency in disaster relief — in this case, FEMA. The simple description of the process is the state requests federal assistance from FEMA which in turn may request assistance from the military upon approval by the president or Secretary of Defense. Having worked the hurricanes from last year as well as Dennis this year, we knew that FEMA would make requests of the military — primarily in the areas of transportation, communications, logistics, and medicine. Thus we began staging such assets and waited for the storm to hit.

The biggest hurdles to responding to the storm were the storm itself — couldn't begin really helping until it passed — and damage assessment — figuring out which roads were passable, where communications and power were out, etc. Military helos began damage assessment and SAR on Tuesday. Thus we had permission to operate as soon as it was possible. We even brought in night SAR helos to continue the mission on Tuesday night.

The President and Secretary of Defense did authorize us to act right away and are not to blame on this end. Yes, we have to wait for authorization, but it was given in a timely manner.

The feds, as has been noted everywhere but the MSM, can't just send in the troops to any state any time it feels like it. Ultimately, states have to request federal aid, and that's precisely where the breakdown occurred. Gov. Blanco figuratively stood in the highway for days on end, keeping much FEMA support from entering the LA disaster zone.

Here's data point number two: Where FEMA could get in early it did, until it couldn't operate anymore due to deteriorating law and order on the ground in New Orleans:

"We first got in on Tuesday night," a FEMA pilot, who identified himself only as "Randy," told Fox News Radio's Tony Snow this morning. The 17th Street levee had begun to give way late in the evening Monday. Well into Tuesday, city officials were celebrating reports that the brunt of Hurricane Kartrina had missed the Big Easy.

By the time the scope of the impending tragedy became known, however, FEMA rescue operations were already well underway.

"We were one of two helicopters with night vision goggles," Snow's caller explained. "They wanted to start evacuating Tulane Hospital, which is right next to Charity [Hospital]."

Shortly thereafter, however, the mission ground to a halt. "We were being shot at by various snipers around the city," chopper pilot Randy said. "So the military, Eagles Nest 1, basically called all helicopters out about 10 o'clock that night."

This blog warned that the Mad Max situation in New Orleans made rescue operations more dangerous, which meant more innocent people would die. But I don't think anyone who wasn't familiar with the true condition of city and state government in NOLA would have forseen the complete meltdown that took place last week. And those most familiar with the situation--Mayor Nagin but also and even more importantly Gov. Blanco--contributed more than their fare share to the meltdown. Blanco's performance was particularly indecisive and destructive. Still is.

TYPHOON BUTTERFLY

While we're still reeling from hurricane Katrina's lasting effects, a supertyphoon is lashing east Asia. Typhoon Nabi, Korean for "butterfly," has teetered between Cat 4 and 5 power, and is beating down on Japan on its way to South Korea and China. So far Nabi has killed a few people and flooded towns up and down the Japanese archipelago from Kyushu to Tokyo. Dozens are missing, and it will take a while to sort out the full extent of the damage to property and infrastructure. Since Japan is a series of islands, the storm has severed transit and some communication links from the capital to the more affected parts of the country.

Japan is a nation so used to disaster that much of its entertainment centers on movies, TV shows and stories about gigantic monsters stomping all over their largest cities. I dare say that they'll get through Nabi without all the finger-pointing, back-stabbing and outright malfeasance that we've witnessed in the past week.

MORE: Blogger Francis Turner lives in Japan and is riding out typhoon Nabi.

BLANCO'S FEMA PAYBACK

Hmm...I see we already had a little political battle on our hands before the hurricane:

Louisiana officials are stumped. Do officials in our Office of Homeland Security owe the federal government more than 30 million dollars? The feds sent the bill Wednesday for money paid out in the form of grants for a federal flood buyout program. Three former Louisiana Homeland Security employees who oversaw the program are currently under federal indictment.

The state says we don't owe the money back. But they say if we do, the individual parishes the grants went to will have to pay back the money.

Mark Smith, Dept. of Homeland Security said, "Would I call it a public relations nightmare? Yes."

It was just a matter of time before the bill was sent to the state following its handling of federal FEMA flood buyout monies. The government says more than 30 million was misspent by the state through the Office of Emergency Preparedness between 1997 and 2002. Three former high level employees of the office are under federal indictment for charges related to the handling of those FEMA funds.

"Really its not that the money was misspent here or the money was misspent there," says Smith. "It's going to be, in a lot of the cases, a matter of improper paperwork."

What did Gov. Blanco have to say about that missing money? She tried to play the children and the sick card to get them off her back:

Governor Kathleen Blanco says if the state is forced to pay back the federal government more than 30 million dollars, the state's children and sick will suffer. This week, FEMA officials sent a letter demanding back 30.4 million dollars back in misspent flood buyout money.

Governor Blanco is very concerned about that FEMA demand letter. She says the state simply does not have that kind of money just laying around. Blanco says a 30 million dollar hit to the state budget would be devastating.

"The regretful thing is if we have to come up with 30 million dollars, it takes away from children, it takes away from the sick... you know, very, very important initiatives."

Oh. like the evacuation of the children and sick from New Orleans before a hurricane? By all means keep it then. We know you care.

Suffice it to say she's going to have a lot more money to manage now and she's going to have unlimited sympathy cards to play. This helps understand just a little more about the attitude of the remaining Louisiana Homeland Security officials that weren't indicted, the political and legal posturing of Gov Blanco and her hiring of ex-FEMA James Lee Witt to help work with (undercut the authority of) FEMA and DHS. You had to wonder what all the political gamesmanship was about when most thought they would simply welcome FEMA with kisses and flowers.

(via Freeper Ellesu)

MORE: After seeing that "It takes a village" excuse for the $30M, I don't think this is as harsh an opener as I once did:

Put a public school teacher in the governor's mansion and you'll have a pedagogue as the chief executive every time. ...

From the moment Katrina blew ashore—hours before the 17th Street levee broke—New Orleans mayor Raymond Nagin declared martial law over his city and ordered it evacuated. He tried, in vain, to get Gov. Blanco to turn control of available National Guard troops over to him. She refused.

Blanco's advisers told her that the remaining 7,000 National Guard troops left in Louisiana were not enough to secure the city of New Orleans, and that it was not in her best political interest to use them until they could be reinforced since they might get hurt, or worse, hurt or kill a civilian they were charged with protecting. Instead, she let Nagin's 1,500 New Orleans cops fend for themselves in a city that had been tacitly surrendered to looters and thugs.

Blanco, who apparently was not in constant or at least direct contact with the mayor of New Orleans as a leader would be expected to be, appeared to be preoccupied with media photo ops which made it appear to the voters that she was aware of the plight that was enveloping her State—and that she was implementing corrective measures to ward off disaster. Like a school teacher passing out unimportant assignments, she outlined the measures that would take place to secure the city of New Orleans and rescue its people. But nothing happened. Why? Because Blanco never took control of the emergency apparatus of Louisiana—and apparently did not want anyone doing so, either, until she was ready to act. ...

But Blanco refused to act for a long time.

I think when the facts come out, we'll find that most information being used to make the biggest decisions were being laundered through a black hole spin machine in the governor's office and confused everyone involved in the rescue effort. I know Mike Brown at FEMA looks pretty bad and may deserve some heat, but it's likely they he and others were being fed a huge amount of misinformation by Blanco's office in order to keep them from taking over or otherwise getting involved in "her business."

And here's more about her business:

Not only does the governor have a black mold problem in the Mansion, causing her to live in a rented house for the summer, but her offices in the State Capitol appear to have a plumbing problem, following the embarrassing leak of a confidential memo on how to deal with partisan opposition.

The memo was sent to the governor's communications director Bob Mann by his friend and former journalist John Copes, who refers to their conversations about "the most serious problem Democrats in Louisiana now face." According to the memo, that would be a "right-wing destruction machine" consisting of a Republican Party "that becomes more organized, more belligerent and more nakedly partisan by the day" coupled with "daily message-peddling by GOP surrogates" in the mainstream media, talk radio and Internet web sites. ...

But then the memo heads for the deep end by exploring how to conceal the web site's source, including "to masquerade as some sort of anonymous non-partisan do-gooder group." Though the writer doubts such a ploy would "pass the smell test," he sees the need "to come up with some kind of story about who's doing the site and why" without identifying the state's top Democrats behind it.

While state officials wrote none of the above words, the memo refers to frequent if not-so-recent discussions with the governor's communications director about how to deal with the administration's critics.

Some of those critics on talk radio and the Internet blasted the administration's consideration of the web site project, however nascent, as deceitful and chilling. How much the administration even entertained the idea is unknown, though you can be sure that any discussion of it on the Fourth Floor now is strictly verboten.

UPDATE: Looks like more getting reported here now:

Nine months before the Hurricane Katrina disaster, three Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness officials were indicted for obstructing an audit into flood prevention expenditures.

In a November 2004 press release, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Louisiana announced:

"A federal grand jury has returned two separate indictments charging three members of the State Military Department with offenses related to the obstruction of an audit of the use of federal funds for flood mitigation activities throughout Louisiana.

"The two emergency management officials were senior employees of the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Both were charged with conspiracy to obstruct a federal audit."

Gov. Kathleen Blanco told Louisiana's News-Star at the time that she was disturbed by the indictments. She said the National Guard is cooperating with the investigation "as I expect them to do."

Reports of rampant corruption among Louisiana's state and local agencies have been cited in recent days to explain why officials were so ill-prepared to deal with the Katrina disaster.

See comments for related links.

BUSES TO THE RESCUE

In what might be the most poignantly ironic post I've ever drafted, 300 Houston ISD drivers and employees use buses to rescue victims in New Orleans:

About 300 Houston Independent School District bus drivers and other employees spent Sunday on almost 150 district school buses rescuing hurricane victims from the waterlogged streets of New Orleans.

HISD buses also transported military troops from an airfield to duty within flooded areas.

The buses, some equipped with wheelchair lifts, picked up evacuees from a nursing home and other locations, said Bonnie Russell, HISD's executive manager of transportation.

Yup. School buses can be pretty useful in a crisis. You can do all sorts of things with them. As long as their engine blocks aren't full of water, that is.

(hat tip: Michelle Malkin)

ANOTHER STOLEN BUS ESCAPE FROM NEW ORLEANS

A Current Affair host, Arthel Neville (niece of Aaron Neville), reported to Fox correspondent Greta van Susteren (Saturday evening 9/3/2005) that she received a cell phone message from her missing cousin on Friday saying that she was safe and that she had escaped the floods by stealing a RTA bus and driving her and 45 other hurricane victims out of New Orleans.

Then she also said this:

Something else for you that ... dramatically paints a picture of what's happening here -- a police friend of ours was given three month's pay, at New Orleans Police Department, given three month's pay and said, "You need to leave, you need to relocate, find another unit, another district, division, or another job because to clean up this city is going to take three to five years."

No word on whether or not he packed up his belongings and stole a bus.

(Thanks to Nancy P. for transcribing)

MORE: File under bizarre belated news:

Date: 9/1/2005

Contact:Denise Bottcher or Roderick Hawkins at 225-342-9037

Governor Blanco Announces Executive Order

Baton Rouge, LA— Governor Blanco today announced the following Executive Order:

Executive Order NO. KBB 2005- 31- provides that pursuant to the Louisiana Homeland Security and Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act, R.S. 29:721, et seq., grants emergency powers to the governor, where, she has in consultation with school superintendents, utilized public school buses for transportation of Hurricane Katrina evacuees. As you are aware most public school districts will not begin school until Tuesday, September 6th 2005.

I bet this came in response to hearing Mayor Nagin screaming at the feds and the governor for buses as she saw hundreds and hundreds of flooded school buses on her computer screen then looked out her office window at a fleet of school buses just sitting there--causing fleeting memories of laughing, happy children to echo in her ears. Then as she recalled the sad stories of less-fortunate children being brutally raped, stabbed and left for dead in New Orleans, she must have had an epiphany. It's reminiscent of the delayed shoot-to-kill during anarchy epiphany she had earlier, which of course followed the one she had when President Bush called and told her there was a really, really big hurricane coming that she might want to think a little harder about.

(Hat tip: Michelle Malkin's sad post about the Lost Children of Katrina.)

MORE: Gov Blanco now has her hired PR flack, I mean recovery advisor, James Lee Witt, talking on MSNBC. The former Clinton FEMA Director (current director of Bush-bashing for Blanco and faux FEMA director for MSM propaganda purposes, since of course the President is doing nothing) will be making all the rounds on cable and network news shows I'm sure. he's putting out all the governor's talking points and assuring MSM viewers that the state was prepared and the mayor was prepared as Witt just claimed...twice. He said that the only reason it appears that Blanco was slow to act was because of the Iraq War deployment of her troops. The bottom line is that Gov. Blanco is stabbing Bush in the back when he's down--with a hired Clinton ally. And she knows that Bush can't, or won't, fire back at her or Witt's cheap shot "expertise." Other than that, I'm sure he'll do OK getting things cleaned up.

And speaking of political cheap shots, it sounds here like Mayor Nagin has become the new Cindy Sheehan:

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he's feeling better about his city, he feels confident he has gotten the attention of Gov. Kathleen Blanco and President Bush, but he said he fears the Central Intelligence Agency may take him out because he's been yelling at these officials.

He didn't say it once. He said it twice.

Last night he told a reporter for the Associated Press: "If the CIA slips me something and next week you don't see me, you'll all know what happened."

Today he told interviewers for CNN on a live broadcast he feared the "CIA might take me out."

Cindy Sheehan also said the Secret Service was trying to kill her and that if anything happened, we would know who did it. It's such a weird post-Katrina world.

UPDATE: It seems the NOPD found their own unflooded school buses and were using them to patrol the city. No word on if they were full of loot.

Photo here (original source).

More from Bryan's post here on the delusion coming from New Orleans journalists and on where those in the NOPD who were not given 3 months pay and told to get out of town are going to go next. Not that there aren't some good cops who were not looting and who need a rest from the insane pressure. Without them it would have been even worse.

CHIEF JUSTICE WILLIAM REHNQUIST, R.I.P.

We are without a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court:

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist died Saturday evening of cancer, ending a remarkable 33-year tenure on the Supreme Court and creating a rare second vacancy on the nation's highest court.

President Bush now has two simmering wars, a national emergency of unprecedented scope and two vacancies on the Supreme Court to fill on his plate. And a domestic opposition that is unhinged.

Pray.

(via a reader, Stop the ACLU and Drudge)