Right city, wrong state
FEMA accused of flying evacuees to wrong Charleston

Tuesday, September 6, 2005; Posted: 11:29 p.m. EDT (03:29 GMT)

(CNN) — Add geography to the growing list of FEMA fumbles.

A South Carolina health official said his colleagues scrambled Tuesday when FEMA gave only a half-hour notice to prepare for the arrival of a plane carrying as many as 180 evacuees to Charleston.

But the plane, instead, landed in Charleston, West Virginia, 400 miles away.

It was not known whether arrangements have been made to care for the evacuees or transport them to the correct destination.

A call seeking comment from FEMA was not immediately returned.

When you read something like this, is there really anything more worth adding to it? I sure as hell can’t think of anything.

“This is all looking at the blame game,” McClellan said. “We’re not going to engage in the blame game.”

No, it’s called questioning your unbelievable ineptitude, Mr. McClellan. Thousands of people died for no reason, and the best you can do is deflect questions by calling every attempt to get an answer “the blame game?”

Interesting angle, but not sufficient.

Here’s a question that’s not putting the “blame” anywhere.

What the hell took so damned long to mobilize the troops that were set up down there when you knew well in advance that this was going to be a devastating storm.

No blame.

Just a question.

Do I think the federal government is 100% responsible? Nope. I think all government up one end and down the other (federal, state, and local) all failed these people. When would be an appropriate chance to learn the lessons? When is appropriate to deal with it? For all the talk about not wanting to play the blame game, and being singularly focused on rescue efforts, there hasn’t really been a whole lot of movement in one direction or the other.

If focusing on the rescue efforts to the exclusion of everything else is the excuse of the day, then something really needs to be done because with all the focus being given, not a lot got done.

No blame, just a question.

Source for Quote: AP

Just once, I wish some loud-mouthed blowhard would say he was quitting and quit. Namely, Mr. Kim DuToit. He keeps promising to quit and step back, and yet he keeps coming back again and again and again.

I guess all his fawning minions can breath a sigh of relief and continue their celebratory circle-jerk over his coming out of retirement to impart his wisdom upon us plebes.

Blech. There’s something with you if you don’t think this guy is a total waste of time.

WASHINGTON - With many blaming the growing scope of Katrina’s devastation on the Bush administration, Sen. Hillary Clinton called yesterday for a 9/11-style probe into how the federal government responded to the crisis.

“It has become increasingly evident that our nation was not prepared,” Clinton (D-N.Y.) said in a letter to Bush asking him to set up a “Katrina Commission.”

“The slow pace of relief efforts in the face of a mounting death toll … seems to confirm that our ability to respond to cataclysmic disasters has not been adequately addressed,” she said.

We need answers. Glad someone is actually asking the questions.

Well done, Senator.

Clinton has decided at least one thing without waiting for any commission reports. She said she plans to introduce legislation to split the Federal Emergency Management Agency out of the Department of Homeland Security and give it back a cabinet-level director like it had in her husband’s administration.

Can’t make it any worse, can it?

Hopefully she’ll follow through on this. America deserves some answers about why feet were dragged from the local government, to the state government, to the federal government.

Period.

Up the river again…

Originally uploaded by VincenzoF.

I made a promise to myself a few days ago. Today would be a day of rest and relaxation. After driving around Yonkers (and biking around it also), I found the entrance to the Bronx River bike path. It’s awesome.

Most of it is shaded by trees, and most of it runs parallel to the Bronx River. It’s an awesome ride if you live in the Bronx and like cycling.

After the ride, I hit Starbucks for a Mint Mocha Chip Frappuccino and a rainbow cookie. Came home, put the bike in the bedroom and sat at the computer browsing Flickr.

In other words, I’ve turned doing nothing into an art form today. Hope you’ve all enjoyed your Labor Day!

The Bursting Point
By DAVID BROOKS

As Ross Douthat observed on his blog, The American Scene, Katrina was the anti-9/11.

On Sept. 11, Rudy Giuliani took control. The government response was quick and decisive. The rich and poor suffered alike. Americans had been hit, but felt united and strong. Public confidence in institutions surged.

Last week in New Orleans, by contrast, nobody took control. Authority was diffuse and action was ineffective. The rich escaped while the poor were abandoned. Leaders spun while looters rampaged. Partisans squabbled while the nation was ashamed.

The first rule of the social fabric - that in times of crisis you protect the vulnerable - was trampled. Leaving the poor in New Orleans was the moral equivalent of leaving the injured on the battlefield. No wonder confidence in civic institutions is plummeting.

Go read the rest. David Brooks is 100% right.

Beth and I were talking today, and we both agree that the only thing more shocking than the destruction wrought by Katrina is going to be when the reports start trickling in about the astonishing ineptitude of the local, state, and federal governments in the hours following it.

I will not vote for one single member of this cabinet if they run in 2008. You can make note of it and bookmark this post. If any of them do run, I’m voting Democrat or Libertarian.

You lost me Mr. President.

As South drowns, Rice soaks in N.Y.

Did New Yorkers chase Condoleezza Rice back to Washington yesterday?

Like President Bush, the Secretary of State has been on vacation during the Hurricane Katrina crisis, with Rice enjoying her downtime in New York Wednesday and yesterday. The cabinet member’s responsibilities are usually international, but her timing contributed to the “fiddling while Rome burns” impression given by her boss during the disaster, which may have claimed thousands of lives.

On Wednesday night, Secretary Rice was booed by some audience members at “Spamalot!,” the Monty Python musical at the Shubert, when the lights went up after the performance.

Yesterday, Rice went shopping at Ferragamo on Fifth Ave. According to the Web site www.Gawker.com, the 50-year-old bought “several thousand dollars’ worth of shoes” at the pricey leather-goods boutique.

A fellow shopper shouted, “How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!” - presumably referring to Louisiana and Mississippi.

The woman expressing her First Amendment rights was promptly removed from the store. A Ferragamo store manager confirmed to us that Rice did shop there yesterday, but refused to answer questions about whether the protester was removed, and whether by his own security or the Secret Service.

At the State Department’s daily briefing yesterday morning, before the New York incident, spokesman Sean McCormack responded to a journalist who asked whether Rice was involved with hurricane relief efforts by saying, “She’s in contact with the department as appropriate.” He made no mention that his boss had any plans to leave New York.

But yesterday afternoon, Rice had done just that. Department spokeswoman Joanne Moore told us: “The secretary is back in Washington, and she is being briefed on the situation.” Moore did not know whether Condi had planned a longer stay here.

Good question.

I’m sorry. I know the Secretary of State doesn’t necessarily have many domestic responsibilities. That’s a given; she’s the chief diplomat of the United States. That being said, why was she not being diplomatic? Why wasn’t she hitting the phones talking up the Middle East scumbags and telling them to lower oil prices or we’d turn Mecca into a glass parking lot? Why wasn’t she hounding people to hand over some funds?

Why during a crisis was she not doing her diplomatic duties?

And don’t hand me some line about “everyone needs a break.” People like Rice, Bush, et. al. are hired for moments like this. Sorry you don’t get to lounge around for awhile. Do your job, and when everything is under control, which because of the absolute inaction of our government (state, federal, and local) it’s still not, then you can go buy thousand dollar shoes and see plays.

Until then, lock yourself in your office and do the job you were paid to do dammit.

Let’s say you’re a 33-year-old immigrant (we don’t know if you’re illegal or not because it’s politically incorrect to say so) woman mother of two. Your foot gets run over by a bus. You have a low IQ. You work for $20,000 a year as a clerk in a convenience store.

After your foot is runover by the bus, you do what any red-blooded american in the year 2005 would do. You sue.

How much would you win?

How about $16,000,000?

I kid you not.

A former clerk in a discount store who made about $20,000 a year, de la Cruz speaks little English, has a very low IQ and very limited job prospects, said her lawyer, Joshua Pollack.

Still, TA lawyers told jurors that the injury was not that bad and that de la Cruz could get a job as a ticket seller at a movie theater or a parking lot attendant.

“They were minimizing the injury,” Pollack said. “I think the jury was insulted by that.”

Before the two-week trial in June, the TA offered $150,000 to settle the case, Pollack said. His counteroffer of $1.5 million was rejected by the agency.

Good Lord.

One of the things that go into a jury award for injury is earning potential. Judging by her $20,000 a year salary, she’d only have to work 800 years to earn that settlement.

What I don’t get is why this woman can’t work as a clerk in a store? Because her foot got hurt? I mean really. I’m not saying the MTA was right here. In fact, the woman was struck in the crosswalk. But are there no one-legged people working in the world? And it doesn’t say her foot will or won’t heal. Basically she’s going to earn $16,000,000 now; never have to work another day in her life, all because her foot got run over by a bus?

There’s a word for a story like this.

Jackpot.

So much for her “limited earning potential.” Looks like her lawyer managed to increase that exponentially.

Source: NY Daily News

When Terri Schiavo was being starved to death by her loving and caring husband, Congress reconvened despite being on Easter vacation, to pass legislation to stop it. They managed to re-assemble, pass the legislation, and go home in one day.

One day.

Congress won’t reconvene until Tuesday.

New Orleans is still a wreck.

Happy Saturday folks.

I look at this picture and wonder why more wasn’t done sooner. I’m really angry right now on many different levels. Truthfully, these people should not have had to gone through what they’re going through right now. It’s a disgrace.

Over on Flickr, we’ve started putting up prints of our photos for auction. Please check out the auction and bid on some of the fine work that people have submitted. All the proceeds will go to the relief fund managed by the American Red Cross.

To see the pictures I submitted, click here, and feel free to bid on them. The money goes to a good cause and it’s desperately needed.

Thanks in advance!

Boing Boing, a directory of Hypocritical Things has topped the last time I mentioned them advising us of a study. This time, they point, again matter-of-factly with no sense of derision or ridicule, to a study on ESP being conducted by the University of Edinburgh.

They quote the Guardian (another fine publication) directly:

Parapsychology is about as far off mainstream science as it is possible to get in a reputable university. It is the study of paranormal phenomena, and the subjects of the Koestler lab’s recent experiments range from extrasensory perception through psychokinesis and clairvoyance to hauntings and out-of-body experiences. It is easy to see why the scientific community might give them a wide berth. Yet parapsychologists use the rational language and rigorous methods of science. They have no time for charlatans and fantasists.

Striving for academic reputability, the researchers at the KPU are incredibly careful about their methodology and their language. In many respects they are a model of scientific good practice.

No derision on the topic. No scorn. No ridicule. Nothing.

It’s pretty obvious that Boing Boing has no problem believing in ESP, or Out of Body Experiences. If they did, they’d make fun of it. Kinda like they do when they mention that a Giant Spaghetti Monster created and rules over the universe.

God is an open topic of scorn. People who believe in Him are.

People who believe in ESP and OBE are perfectly sane, as long as they call their exploration of such crap “science.” Pretty great way to live your life. Believe what you want; call it science; gain acceptance.

Researchers from Ohio State University have shown that the fermented, liquefied feed extracted from a cow’s stomach can produce about 600 millivolts. The juice comes from the rumen, the biggest portion of a cow’s stomach. Unlike converting methane from cow shit into electricity, a method that requires expensive gear, this method generates electricity as the microorganisms in rumen fluid break down the complex carbohydrates in roughage.

It makes sense. Boing Boing’s been running on bullshit for quite awhile now. Maybe they should seek royalties.

So many Christians are acting like jerks right now it makes me sick. Of course, the Phelpsesque fundamentalists are all clammoring to tell the world that Katrina is God’s judgment wrought upon a sinful city.

How stupid can you be?

If most of these fundies believed the book that they carried under their arm once a week and smacked with fervor during their singing, they would know that there’s no way this is God’s “wrath” as they call it. For those who have never picked up the book, Genesis 9:8-17

8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

17 So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

Now can we move along to helping the people down there as opposed to pointing out how we humans in our feeble minds believe that God wanted it that way?

I guess the mindless DuToit drones know no limits. Apparently if you dare to desecrate the sacred Mr. Kim, manliest of all manly men, you warrant being blocked from commenting.

For those who care what the legions of mindless drones think of their manly man leader, follow the comments here.

Screw you Spoons, you butt-kissing assbag.

How’s that for questionable?

Everything really has already been said. I know that’s become kind of a cliche in this oversaturated 24-hour cable news cycle world we live in, but it really is true. But I do feel as if I have to say something… Anything… Because ignoring the events in Louisiana and Mississippi like they aren’t happening is almost an unforgivably stupid move.

My heart breaks for those people. I can’t even fathom losing everything I owned. It’s not like I’m a millionaire or I have a million things. Hell, it’s not like most people who lost everything lost alot monetarily. Many of the people in Louisiana make barley more than $15,000 a year. But it’s not the monetary value of what was lost that will hurt forever. It’s the photos of baby’s first steps. It’s the trophies from a high school football career. Grandma’s wedding dress. Mom’s handmade quilt. None of those things are replaceable. That’s what it means to lose everything.

My heart rages for the people who are taking this opportunity to shit on the president. I’m sorry but considering the magnitude of the problem, can we deal with it, stabilize it, and set into motion the wheels that will begin to fix it before we start getting back to politics as usual? Do I think the President came off as an incompetent ass in his speech? I absolutely do. Do I think he should’ve been heading to a fund-raiser as the storm was rolling in? No (and don’t turn my words and make it sounds like I’m insinuating he should’ve flown into the heart of the hurricane; duh). However, do I think there’s a time to discuss this later? Definitely; because discussing it now is a blatant act of political opportunism.

My heart screams for the bastards that called the United States cheapskates as Banda Aceh was submerged in a devastating tsunami to step up to the plate and show how they aren’t. So far I’ve seen not one single pledge of aid from any of our neighbors and “friends” in the international community. I haven’t seen Kofi Annan flying over the broken levee and destroyed homes biting his lower lip and bemoaning the tragic loss of thousands of lives. None of it. Not one lick. Yet the US is the cheapskates. Yet we’re the evil of the world. Where are all the hypocrites? Not here.

My heart is wrenched hearing the stories of the people who the opportunistic vultures, otherwise known as reporters, swoop down on in the midst of their sorrow to ask, in their puke-tv voice, “So, you lost everything… How do you feel?” I can promise you, they aren’t thinking, “Just fine.”

Yesterday morning on Fox News, Dr. Georgia Witkin, a supposedly renowned psychiatrist, told the Fox & Friends morning crew that “after a disaster, the hard part really begins.”

No shit, Doc. I thought the hard part happened in the weeks leading up the event. Who knew that recovering from losing your entire life’s posessions and in some cases even losing family members, could be considered the hard part.

And while we’re at it, Fox News needs to go to hell. For three days they’ve been airing video of a man standing on top of a roof pointing out a fire. That fire was put out on day one, but since it created drama, it was played over and over again. Their incessant “Fox News Alerts” everytime a sheet is swept off a clothesline are annoying and obnoxious, and the way they’re swooping on everyone makes me sick.

And don’t think for a minute that I’m excusing the abhorring conduct of CNN, MSNBC and the networks. The way they’re capitalizing on this tragedy makes me sick.

Donate. Give money. If you’re down there, give time. Do something. Light a candle. Pray. But whatever you do, do it because you mean it or want to, not so other people will think more of you.

I really had no idea what to say about this disaster before I started. I decided just to let the words flow as honestly and openly as I could. The repercussions of this event will reach far into our future. We need to think about better times for pointing fingers.

Right now is the time to heal, help, and rebuild.

To do less is barbaric.