Daily Update:
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It's a Katrina entry.
Discussed are dumb blond Louisiana Senators who threaten the President of the United States with a punch in the nose.
And a most interesting Katrina funraiser and pics, of course.
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In this Garden missive we take a look at some garden bugs.
Including a spider that wants to catch himself a human!
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Why was the egg sitting on the garden fountain?
How did it get in such an odd place?
It's a "Photo-Essay". Featuring an unusual picture and a guess at an explanation.
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Daily Update Below.
The Roberts' Hearings
So the hearings went on as the nominee for Supreme Court Chief Justice conducted himself with excellent deportment.
Can't say the same for one senator from Massachusetts and another from my own state of Delaware.
Ted Kennedy, suffering a slight alcohol withdrawal before that lunchtime martini, asked ridiculously long questions while allowing Roberts what? Maybe five/ten seconds to answer.
Joe Biden, even though inundated with thousands of petitions from Delaware to support Roberts' nomination, got into a shout fest with the nominee.
He didn't look very statesmenlike at all.
Below, Ted Kennedy visits New Orleans.
He finds it rather to his liking as it is right now. One could get rid of lots of bothersome dames in that town without bother of a bridge.
Bush Accepts Blame for Federal Snafus
It was a forthright statement made in response to a question from a reporter during the Bush/Talibani press conference.
From the NY Times:
"To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said.
Is there a problem with this?
Let me state the obvious right now. Not one state official has done the same human, oddly noble, thing.
Nagin said something no-class like had he known the cavalry wasn't going to show up on time he would have done things differently. The cavalry not showing up had nothing to do with all those buses under water.
Louisiana's Senator Landreau, after threatening to punch the President in the nose and bloviating on TV about lack of mass transit which is also Bush's fault, has been silent.
Governor Blanco, the Louisiana Governor who declared a day of prayer in reaction to the break in the levee, has been absent for several days now.
Let's go over this one more time.
New Orleans had an evacuation plan on file. It required the removal of people unable to evacuate by public school bus. Those public school buses went nowhere and ended up under ten feet of water while evacuees waited for rescue at the Superdome.
Governor Blanco refused entry to the American Red Cross AND the Salvation Army, both organizations replete with supplies and ready to remove even with the flooding. This the day AFTER the levees broke. Blanco didn't want to encourage more people to come to the Superdome or Convention Center with a delivery of desperately needed supplies.
And what about those patients at the hospital? 45 of them dead. If nothing else, why weren't the patients in the hospital evacuated well before the storm hit?
Now we hear 34 people died at a nursing home, left to drown by a staff that, poof, just left them. Charges of involuntary manslaughter are being drawn up against the nursing home owners.
The local officials blew it.
Yes, the feds blew it. Several doctors were ready to come to Louisiana. They had supplies and provided their own shelter. They were told by FEMA that they would first have to attend a sexual harassment course.
In other words, FEMA remained a bureaucracy with bureaucratic logic.
Did anyone expect anything less?
There were other bureaucratic bumblings. Offers of help, supplies, medicines all slammed into a bureaucratic wall requiring such offers in writing and to be submitted in triplicate.
This surprises anyone?
Bureaucracies are by their very nature this way. Stubborn human robots who fill the slots in these safe cozy bureaucracies are not capable of thinking outside the box. Human ingenuity is the first victim of employment within a government bureaucracy. We've all had to deal with government entities and we've all got horror stories.
I remember having my bathroom re-done. Registered properly with the local yokels who inspect such things. My plumber put a light in the shower. It was a specially designed light, waterproofed by a tight rubber gasket. The building inspector condemned it as being unsafe. The write-up said that the light would have to be encased in a waterproof seal.
No one told this bureaucrat that this is the new millennium in the United States of America and such things are now designed specifically to be watertight. Because of this delay the contractors had to stop their work. The plumber phoned up the bureaucrats, even sent him an email with a picture of the light's packaging that declared it waterproof and UL approved.
It still took another week to get the approval to move forward. That was a week of hell for this humble homeowner who had to pay people for NOT working.
It's how they do, the bureaucrats. Your pain is not their pain. It's their itty little bit of power and they use it to shore of their pride of accomplishment that they don't get from their bureaucratic duties.
People with a sense of wonder, ingenuity and innovativeness do NOT work in government bureaucracies. They work in the private sector. They invent things. They have an idea and a dream and they struggle to make it happen.
Yes, Bush is responsible for the failure of the Feds. Maybe he didn't do anything wrong himself but the buck does stop somewhere.
The Feds did not cause any deaths or suffering.
There was the Red Cross and Salvation Army ready to deliver supplies into the state. The Governor of Louisiana turned them down.
The Coast Guard, whose job is to guard the coast, duh, had helicopters in the air and were rescuing people from the start.
The Louisiana national guard had over 2000 ready to go. Inexplicably, the Louisiana Governor ordered only 400. SHE was in charge of them all.
The hospitals should have been evacuated by the state, period. No way that was a federal job.
45 people left to sit and die. It's criminal.
My sense is that Louisiana officials are going to be seriously considered for blatant neglect of the duties they were elected to do.
Local officials are required to file a response plan for natural disasters and foreign attack in return for the federal money they receive for such practice and plans.
Louisiana officials filed an evacuation plan that they did not follow. Yet they took the federal money.
Why?
So Bush took responsibility for the federal idiots who used paper and rules to keep from doing anything effective. It was the adult thing to do.
The moonbat liberals will no doubt hoot and howl over the admission.
Which will get us nowhere in learning about the failures at the local level and how to avoid them in the future.
Suppose such a disaster hit your area? Are your local officials up to it?
Or did they just file the plan and take the federal money?
Tomorrow
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In this Katrina post Grandmother faces a hurricane of her own named Ophelia.
And evacuation plans are described.
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A Guest Writer, Michelle, writes about her turn in the acting genre.
It's a funny behind-the-scenes type of tale.
Emote!
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In this Pic of the Week we learn how to improve our memories.
The secret's been in our desk drawers right along.
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TV Events of Note
"So You Think You Can Dance?"
Fox-8 pm.
Final Eight.
CLICK HERE FOR "TODAY"POST ABOVE
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