A few days ago, a friend of the BF described Katrina as "the first time in my lifetime that the US Government has utterly and completely failed it's citizens." A couple of the latest exhibits on display in the carnival of horrors:

The Salt Lake Tribune

As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.

Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers. Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA

On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency. Federal officials are unapologetic. "I would go back and ask the firefighter to revisit his commitment to FEMA, to firefighting and to the citizens of this country," said FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak.

If someone should be revisiting their commitment, maybe FEMA should be revisiting their commitment to help people who get hit by a hurricane!

How about this one: Yesterday CNN interviewed some students at Duke University who heard about the problems at the convention center, drove down, and evacuated seven people—two days before the government evacuated anyone. CNN

M. O'BRIEN:So, off you go to the National Guard checkpoint. You brandish your credentials. I say credentials like this [O'brien does air-quotes: the students had photoshopped press credentials]. And the next thing you know you're there. How long did it take you to get to the Convention Center?

BYRD: Past the National Guard blockade, it probably took us about 15 to 20 minutes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was nothing. It was basically a direct drive.

M. O'BRIEN: All right. Now here's the part where people at home are going to be scratching their heads and say, wait a minute, three guys from college, they drive in with a couple of credentials, and it takes them only 20 minutes to get from the checkpoint to the Convention Center. How is it people were suffering for so long there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right, and that's our question. Why were people stranded there for four or five days with no food and water? You know, there were murders and beatings in that place. And we heard about it on Thursday, about three days after. We drove in, and we have never been to New Orleans. And we made it in, in 20 minutes in a Hyundai Elantra, completely over land.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No difficulty at all. We can't figure it out.

M. O'BRIEN: It makes it very difficult for me to understand the explanation. The federal officials have said they had a hard time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You could have driven buses en masse to the front of the Convention Center and unloaded those people two days after that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And while we were there we saw over 150 buses that were either leaving the city or just sitting parked completely empty outside. Bus after bus.

M. O'BRIEN: Why is that? Did you ever ask? Did you get any -- is this some of the pictures you took maybe as you drove in? [Photos on screen.]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

M. O'BRIEN: There you see the buses going the other way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

M. O'BRIEN: Many of those buses you say were empty?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were all empty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every single bus, we saw...

M. O'BRIEN: I would love an explanation for that one.

We'd all love an explanation for that one. Oh, no, wait—House Majority Leader Tom DeLay cancelled congressional hearings on Katrina and FEMA head Micheal Brown to "convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public"; Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has joined the line of people won't criticize the administration ("It's a short line," he adds); and Powerline's John Hinderaker calls reporting of these disasters "the worst instance yet of media bias."

Well, excuse me for "playing the blame game," but any agency that sends 1,000 fire-fighters—search-and-rescue certified, haz-mat certified and paramedic certified fire-fighters—to community relations training one week after the entire Gulf Coast is decimated has fucked up beyond all forgiveness; any President who staffs the Federal Emergency Management Agency with a Director, a Chief of Staff, and a Deputy Chief of Staff who have, between them, collectively, precisely zero experience in emergency management has fucked up; and anyone who calls criticism of said agency and President "a disgrace" is absolutely, utterly bat-shit insane and can go to hell.

M. O'BRIEN: Many of those buses you say were empty?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were all empty.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every single bus, we saw...

Fuck.

John Stewart said it best last night has our goverment failed the people of New Orleans? Short answer:yes. long answer: yeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssssssssss
sssss in ssseattle.

Posted by  Anonymous @ 6:40 PM

 

just some more of the BUllSHit at work, or in this case; not at work
-still ticked in TN

Posted by  Anonymous @ 8:37 AM

 

Hey, Bush has declared Sept 16 a national day of prayer. Yet, the bleeding heart liberals STILL accuse him of lacking compassion! - Haven't got a prayer in UT

Posted by  Anonymous @ 5:07 PM

 

social inequity breeds violence.
incessant exposure to violence and untruth in the media sets
the conditions for reaction, aggression and intolerance.
a nation living extravagantly will eventually have to watch
the balance return.
deceit, no matter how expedient, will in the end always be
rectified by the unfolding of truth. The longer the deceit the more difficult the restoration will be.
oil and gas are a finite resource and time is running out to
impliment a practical solution to dwindling supplies of available
energy.
we are in a period of global warming.
leadership preoccupied with its own agenda is not capable of
serving the people it leads.
a media which is obsessed with discord, enmity, aggression and
greed will only hasten the demise of the culture it covers.
hope is built on kindess, generosity and the realization
we all live within each other's lives.
more hurricanes are on the way.
classic coke is better than pepsi..

Posted by  Anonymous @ 12:02 AM

 

I see Halliburton (via KBR) already has received contracts from FEMA to do work on clean up projects. - GUY

Posted by  Anonymous @ 1:56 PM

 

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