"The law would prohibit us, also family members, clergy people, health care providers, from giving young women information about their options if they're pregnant," said Peter Brownlie, president of Planned Parenthood's Kansas and Mid-Missouri chapter.

The actual text reads, "This act provides, as to a minor's consent for an abortion, that the term "next friend" shall not include another minor child or any persons or entities who have a financial interest or potential gain from the proposed abortion."

The way that is written, they are basically making the speech support structure criminally responsible. Jane's boyfriend gets her drunk and they have sex. They're teenagers and in this state they don't really know how people get pregnant, so suddenly, Jane's pregnant. Jane's dad is a nut job that Jane is already afraid of and the last thing she wants is for him to find out she's pregnant, so she goes off to the clinic to try to explain all this.

They listen, but they can't represent Jane, they work for the clinic. They can't get anyone, because that person would be a voluteer. So Jane has to find someone completely on her own. She of course, being a teenager, doesn't really have any adult friends (except the boyfrind who knocked her up and you think he wants to deal with this?).

Welcome to catch-22.

Fortunately, this is likely to be struck down on any of three fronts. First, it places undue limits on speech. It is illegal for someone to speak on the person's behalf because of their job or where they volunteer? That won't fly.
Second, it places undue limits on other professionals. A psychiatrist who works at a hospital where abortions are performed would no longer be able to act in that capacity for a patient.
Third, there is another expressed clause that states

It is not a defense to a claim brought pursuant to this act that the abortion was performed in accordance with the required consent of the state or place where the abortion was performed.

Meaning, let's say sister lives in California and takes Jane in. Sister is guilty under Missouri law. At best, that one is an utter mess, and has all kinds of problems with the interstate commerce clause.
Additionally, it is only restricting action by one side. With any luck, the stays will show up putting the law on hold and this one will be still born.

Missouri Makes Abortion Criminal

Michael Brown told The New York Times that within hours of Katrina's attack on New Orleans he told the White House that Louisiana officials lacked an organized response, leading to an "out of control" situation.
Brown said he called Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and White House chief of staff Andrew Card to let them know the situation was out of control.
His account suggests the White House knew right away that the storm was leaving the coast in shambles.

This is extremely troubling in every direction. Either Brown is rationalizing and trying to avoid taking all of the heat, or he's telling the truth and the White House ignored what was going on. Based on some of Brown's other comments, I would lean towards Brown being an idiot, but the other side of this should not be discounted.

Report: Ex-FEMA Director Blames La. - Yahoo! News

HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

This weather report was put out about 20 hours before Katrina hit land. Ted Koppel says his team thought it was a hoax and tried to get it confirmed.

Wow. Some people need to be seriously damned for not having begun acting upon this kind of report.

August 28 2005 10:11 AM CDT NOAA Bulletin - Wikisource

But a source close to Brown, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the FEMA director had been considering leaving after the hurricane season ended in November and that Friday's action virtually assures his departure.

I'm still waiting for "Brown Shitcanned!"

FEMA Chief Relieved of Katrina Duties

"This is not a time for finger-pointing or playing politics," - White House spokesman Scott McClellan. Sept 1 2005.

"Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said." Washington Post, Sept 4 2005.

"A Sept. 4 article on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina incorrectly said that Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) had not declared a state of emergency. She declared an emergency on Aug. 26." Washington Post, Sept 4 2005.

Contrary to the statements of the White House spokesman, the White House is playing the blame game. They are trying to deflect the blame onto anyone but themselves. In the spirit of that, I want to examine where the blame should go.

Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans since 2002. Republican until literally days before the 2002 election, Nagin switched his affiliation to the Democratic Party to gain a better chance at winning in heavily Democrat New Orleans. New Orleans was a city of roughly 480,000 people and the poorest metropolitan area in the entire country with a poverty rate close to 30%. Additionally it is known as historically one of the most corrupt cities in the United States, and one of Nagin's first acts as mayor was to go after the city Taxicab Bureau and the Utilities Department (ironically, the same department that manages the pumping stations that kept New Orleans dry).

On August 27, Mayor Nagin ordered a voluntary evacuation. When Katrina increased to a cat 4 hurricane the following day he changed that to a mandatory evacuation. Unfortunately, the city's ability to actually deal with such an order was poor. Fortunately, the governor had already declared a state of emergency.

Kathleen Blanco, Governor of New Orleans since 2004. Had worked heavily on tourism as Lt Governor, and the major issue of the day was trying to keep the Saints in New Orleans, and their requests to renovate the Superdome at state expense. Declared a state of emergency asking for any aid on August 26, three days before Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, 15 miles east of New Orleans.

No help came.

While much can be made of the fact that New Orleans was remiss in it's disaster planning, and many would like to lay the blame for that at the feet of Mayor Nagin, he has been mayor for a bit over two years, and maybe he could have been better prepared. Others are trying to lay the blame at the feet of Governor Blanco who has been in office less than two years.

If anyone has seen how state government works, they would see a number of things. First, every state and municipality has dozens of issues fighting for dollars and attention. Second, federal aid sent to states has decreased in the last five years, while at the same time federal demands OF states, has increased dramatically, especially when it comes to Medi... [ Read More (0.4k in body) ]

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you
know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she
chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

WHAT???

Barbara Bush: Things Working Out 'Very Well' for Poor Evacuees from New Orleans

In comments on Thursday,
President George W. Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

But Louisiana State University engineer Joseph Suhayda and others have warned for years that defenses could fail. In 2002, the New Orleans Times Picayune published a five-part series on "The Big One" examining what might happen if they did.

This sounds just like what he said after 9/11. No one considered them hi-jacking planes and... Yes, all kinds of people did. The only ones who didn't seem to consider this were W and his people.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, won't get fooled again? Not even Crawford wants this fool back.

Models predicted New Orleans disaster, experts say

"I am absolutely disgusted. After the tsunami our people, even the ones who lost everything, wanted to help the others who were suffering," said Sajeewa Chinthaka, 36, as he watched a cricket match in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

"Not a single tourist caught in the tsunami was mugged. Now with all this happening in the U.S. we can easily see where the civilized part of the world's population is."

Ouch. That hurts, but is also on the mark.

World stunned as US struggles with Katrina - Yahoo! News

Michael Brown also agreed with other public officials that the death toll in the city could reach into the thousands.

"Unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings," Brown told CNN.

Unbelievable. People who couldn't get out because they didn't have the money to get out are at fault because they didn't listen to the evacuation order? Someone please fire this asshole. Better yet, air drop him in the middle of New Orleans with no food, water, money or ammo, and see whether he gets out.

CNN.com - FEMA chief: Victims bear some responsibility - Sep 1, 2005

I just got home from work a few minutes ago and got my mail on the way in. In my mailbox I found an Army recuruitment letter asking me if I wanted more information on signing up.

Now I'm sure I got this because of the signup information when I downloaded America's Army back in 2001, but part of that was a survey that asked things like age, etc. They should have been able to connect that back to my Selective Service registration, or even when I went in looking at the reserves just getting out of high school.

Where all of this is going is, if the Army is so hard up that they're looking for out of shape guys closer to 40 than 30 with dependants and jobs, then we're in a hell of a lot more trouble than they've been saying publically. This is NOT a good indicator. Either that that hard up, or they're paying no attention to the demographics they collected. They're also ignoring the fact that I haven't played the game in 4 years. Any way I slice it, this is not a good sign.

And oh yeah, I'm leftist pinko scum with no respect for authority. I don't think I'm really the guy they want in any case.