Hurricane Katrina

I think the whole race thing has been overblown. A majority of the people in that area apparently were black, but I don't know that Bush would have acted any differently in any other situation. A lot of it, right now, stems from the fact that a good portion supporters of the man and his policies are going on and on about how the area deserved this hurricane thanks to all of its "sin" and so forth. I am sure a lot of it is racist.

For example, evacuees were told to cross this bridge into neighboring Gretna to escape the chaos. The Police Chief there told his deputees to keep black people out and anyone accompanied by them. They shot at them, kept them back, etc, all so these people couldn't taint their suburbs. There's several articles about it floating around, although for some reason it hasn't been talked about anywhere as much as it should be.

As for the Governor, there was actually word from the Administration that she never declared the state a disaster area, which was later proven to be a lie. I notice that they're very heavily trying to pin this inaction on other things rather than squarely where it belongs. Bush taking "responsibility" is meaningless right now when he just mouths the words, but then does nothing to rectify the situation. Sending money over wasn't thanks to anything he did; it was Congress. Meanwhile, the administration, again, is using no-bid contracts through FEMA while dealing with all of this... much like with Iraq and Halliburton, but not quite as major. More of his friends get the money and weird policies have been instituted to lower pay and other options for the actual workers.

It's all just really weird and really disgusting. Should the Governor have acted more? Sure. But there's a reason this guy is the damn President. Simple logic puts the President over the Governor. Everyone knew what was going to happen, the money for levees went to the war and any Class 3+ hurricane would have busted them, there were several days before it hit that everyone knew it was going to that area, etc. Instead the President fishes and bikes.

Going to Arizona and spending twenty minutes linking Iraq's purpose to that of World War II on the freaking day this is happening is just bizarre and disgusting. There's no link. There was an understanding back then that there should be a common sacrifice among the whole population for that war; more taxes, more work, more whatever. Today the only sacrifice is blood on the altar for a muddy cause: send the middle and lower classes to die for a muddy, vague cause that the administration keeps changing the purpose of (Bin Laden, Al Quida, Saddam, Terrorism... now it's some sort of protecting oil reserves thing). Taxes haven't been raised meaning people in my age bracket will be paying for it., little has been accomplished, the last draft of the constitution puts Islam at the front effectively making women a lower class, even the guy in charge of Iraq wants our troops to start leaving depite the fact that we're "helping" them, etc.

As for O'Rielly, I cannot watch that tripe. Him and Limbaugh need to go away. Limbaugh, for example, is convinced that Cindy Sheenan's story of her dead son has been made up by some sort of crazy anti-war movement and never happened. When will they look at a poll and see that something like 60%+ disapprove of what is going on?

Further polls show that around the same amount disapprove of the President's reaction to the hurricane and 70% want a probe. I'm glad most of this country isn't completely oblivious to reality.