"Under CBO's new analysis of the Bush Administration's policies, every vital sign of the budget grows decidedly worse over the next ten years," said Spratt. "These new deficit figures show that the budget has deteriorated dramatically on this administration's watch."

And this comes as a surprise to anyone?

Analysis Sees Deficits Growing Under Bush - Yahoo! News

Scotland aims to generate 10 percent of its electricity from tidal and wave power which would be equivalent to replacing a huge fossil fueled power station, the Scottish government said this week.

Cool.

Scotland set to harness tidal power

Fifteen have been hospitalized and 13 of those were being fed through tubes, Behrens said in a written response to questions from The Associated Press. Medics are monitoring all 89 and checking their vital signs daily, he added.

I see that we're getting plenty of valuable information out of them. When people get to this point, something is very seriously wrong.

U.S. Military Tube-Feeds 13 Gitmo Strikers

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

After Sept. 11, there was an external enemy, "evildoers" against whom to summon fear and fervor. Now, instead, the flood has brought to the surface the deepest national questions of race, class and inequality. On Aug. 30, the day after the hurricane hit, the Census Bureau released figures showing that the poor had increased by 1.1 million since 2003, to 12.7 percent of the population, the fourth annual increase, with blacks and Hispanics the poorest, and the South remaining the poorest region. Since Bush has been in office, poverty has grown by almost 9 percent. (Under President Clinton, poverty fell by 25 percent.) As these issues began to receive serious attention for the first time in years, Bush reiterated that it was inappropriate to "play the blame game."

Meanwhile, his aides sought to blame New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco. On Sept. 3, the Washington Post, citing an anonymous "senior administration official," reported that Blanco "still had not declared a state of emergency." Newsweek published a similar report. Within hours, however, the Post published a correction; the report was false. In fact, Blanco had declared an emergency on Aug. 26 and sent President Bush a letter on Aug. 27 requesting that the federal government declare an emergency and provide aid; and, in fact, Bush did make such a declaration, thereby accepting responsibility. Nonetheless, these facts have not stymied White House aides from their drumbeat that state and local officials -- but curiously, not the Republican governors of Mississippi and Alabama -- are ultimately to blame.

Salon has had some really good coverage of the flood porn aspect of other peoples' misfortunes. Earlier this week they pointed out how Geraldo Rivera made some poor elderly woman walk from the heliport to the Superdome twice just so he could get another take for the newscast. Now we have a look at all of the self congratulating in the current Administration, who thinks that they've done everything right once they started.

'What didn't go right?'

"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) ]

U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum said in a weekend interview that people who do not heed evacuation warnings in the future may need to be penalized,

And the hit parade just keeps on comin!

AP Wire | 09/06/2005 | Sen. Santorum suggests penalties for some who don't evacuate

Americans spend $5,267 per capita on health care every year, almost two and half times the industrialized world’s median of $2,193; the extra spending comes to hundreds of billions of dollars a year. What does that extra spending buy us? Americans have fewer doctors per capita than most Western countries. We go to the doctor less than people in other Western countries. We get admitted to the hospital less frequently than people in other Western countries. We are less satisfied with our health care than our counterparts in other countries. American life expectancy is lower than the Western average. Childhood-immunization rates in the United States are lower than average. Infant-mortality rates are in the nineteenth percentile of industrialized nations

The counter point to this perspective usually consists of "sick people aren't my problem" or "wealthy people get more convenient healthcare in the US then in Canada." I am constantly amazed to talk to Americans who actually beleive that Canada is a socialist country. This spin is the product of Rush Limbaugh's rantings during the Clinton years. "Socialism is bad, right? Thats what the communists did, and they were evil!"

The American healthcare system is both heavily regulated and wealth redistributed. Its just as socialist as anyone else's healthcare system. But it has the additional feature of generating a class of people with serious medical problems who are too sick to work and therefore don't get to participate in the wealth redistribution. Oh, and its more convenient for the wealthy because they never have to wait in line behind someone with a more serious problem unless they are at an ER. And its a hell of a lot more expensive.

Gripping onto a ideology for ideology's sake while it is literally killing you seems the very definition of irrational behavior. On the issue the United States is like the last guy back in the hood in New Orleans, sitting on his couch with a foot of standing water in his living room, slowly succumbing to the E.Coli because its his damn town and he'll be damned if he is gunna leave, even after everyone else is long gone...

Sounds like the Administration wants to get up off the couch and go for a swim. Don't worry about Europe hating us. If we keep going down this path they'll be laughing at us instead.

[They won't be laughing, they'll be sending us aid as a third world country.]

The New Yorker: The Moral Hazard Myth

Bob Denver, whose portrayal of goofy castaway Gilligan on the 1960s TV show "Gilligan's Island" made him an iconic figure to generations of TV viewers, has died.

So long little buddy...

Bob Denver, TV's Gilligan, Dead at 70