Yellow Dog

Hopefully the department of homeland security has suspended their idiotic "tip of the day" campaign until every Katrina survivor is, say... SAFE?

But more likely they just have a great labor day picnic to prepare, so no one is updating the website.

(Strumming and Drowning On Tuesday, August 30)

Just like Bush found time to play with his presidential guitar during the wrath of Hurricane Katrina, it seems the department of homeland security still has plenty of time to continue their idiotic daily tips for "disaster preparedness month." Today's tip is a good one:

9/2 Tip of the Day - Pick a place to meet
Designate two meeting places.  Choose one right outside your home, in case of a sudden household emergency, such as a fire.  The second place you choose needs to be outside your neighborhood, in the event that it is not safe to stay near or return to your home.

Meeting place 1: The roof.



Meeting place 2: The Superdome


That worked great. It's sure good to be prepared!

The situation in New Orleans and the Gulf coast is beyond comprehension, yet Bush's federal government is still operating in gimmicky PR mode. I realize that President Bush can't personally drive a bus into New Orleans and help the thousands of Americans who have been clinging to life on an interstate ramp for three days, but could these guys at least pretend to understand what is going on, right NOW?

Michael Chertoff, the empty suit director of homeland security, just held a press conference to let people know that September is National Preparedness Month. Their website will spoon out one "safety tip" per day for the entire month. Here's today's tip!

9/1 Tip Of The Day - Best Way Out:
Take a moment to imagine that there is an emergency, like a fire in your home, and you need to leave quickly. What are the best escape routes from your home? Find at least two ways out of each room. Now, write it down - you've got the beginning of a plan.

Got that? "Try to imagine that there is an emergency"...

More info about national preparedness month HERE!

Bush's failed leadership in the wake of the hurricane is matched only by his failed leadership in the Iraq war.

According to this Washington Post article, "US forces in Iraq suffered at least 74 combat deaths in August, more than in any month since November and the third-highest total for any month of the war, according to Pentagon figures."

Is it just me, or does everything Bush touch turn to crap?

U.S. Death Toll In August Is Third Highest

Thanks to Bush's disastrous foreign policy, his domestic policies are even more disastrous, and never has that been so evident than in the failed response to Hurricane Katrina:

"There were not enough helicopters to repair the breached levees and rescue people trapped by rising water. Nor are there enough Louisiana National Guardsmen available to help with rescue efforts and to patrol against looting.

The National Guard and helicopters are off on a fool's mission in Iraq.

Now the Guardsmen, trapped in the Iraqi quagmire, are watching on TV the families they left behind trapped by rising waters and wondering if the floating bodies are family members. None know where their dislocated families are, but, shades of Fallujah, they do see their destroyed homes.

The mayor of New Orleans was counting on helicopters to put in place massive sandbags to repair the levee. However, someone called the few helicopters away to rescue people from rooftops. The rising water overwhelmed the massive pumping stations, and New Orleans disappeared under deep water.

Distracted by its phony war on terrorism, the U.S. government had made no preparations in the event Hurricane Katrina brought catastrophe to New Orleans. No contingency plan existed. Only now after the disaster are FEMA and the Corps of Engineers trying to assemble the material and equipment to save New Orleans from the fate of Atlantis.

Even worse, articles in the New Orleans Times-Picayune and public statements by emergency management chiefs in New Orleans make it clear that the Bush administration slashed the funding for the Corps of Engineers' projects to strengthen and raise the New Orleans levees and diverted the money to the Iraq war.

Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune (June 8, 2004): "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

How New Orleans Was Lost - by Paul Craig Roberts

From Knight Ridder:

WASHINGTON - The federal government so far has bungled the job of quickly helping the multitudes of hungry, thirsty and desperate victims of Hurricane Katrina, former top federal, state and local disaster chiefs said Wednesday.

The experts, including a former Bush administration disaster response manager, told Knight Ridder that the government wasn't prepared, scrimped on storm spending and shifted its attention from dealing with natural disasters to fighting the global war on terrorism.

The disaster preparedness agency at the center of the relief effort is the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which was enveloped by the new Department of Homeland Security with a new mission aimed at responding to the attacks of al-Qaida.

"What you're seeing is revealing weaknesses in the state, local and federal levels," said Eric Tolbert, who until February was FEMA's disaster response chief. "All three levels have been weakened. They've been weakened by diversion into terrorism."

In interviews on Wednesday, several men and women who've led relief efforts for dozens of killer hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes over the years chastised current disaster leaders for forgetting the simple Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared.

KR Washington Bureau | 08/31/2005 | Federal government wasn't ready for Katrina, disaster experts say

This is pretty unbelievable. Bush robbed the flood fund (the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA) to pay for his tax cuts to the rich and his billion-dollar war.

After 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

Not only that, but there's a shortage of national guards available since most are deployed in Iraq. It looks like there's one natural disaster that tops Katrina: Hurricane George.
Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen? 'Times-Picayune' Had Repeatedly Raised Federal Spending Issues

More bad news on Bush's watch:

For the fourth straight year, poverty has increased under the Bush Administration, according to this AP article:

"The Census Bureau said household income remained flat, and that the number of people without health insurance edged up by about 800,000 to 45.8 million people.

Overall, the nation's poverty rate rose to 12.7 percent of the population last year. Of the 37 million living below the poverty level, close to a third were children.

The last decline in overall poverty was in 2000, during the Clinton administration, when 31.1 million people lived under the threshold. Since then, the number of people in poverty has increased steadily from 32.9 million in 2001, when the economy slipped into recession, to 35.8 million in 2003.

The mention of Clinton, under whose leadership poverty declined, takes me back to the good old days when a Democrat was running the economy instead of running it into the ground.