You know, for the better part of this week a lot of countries have been trying to give support to the USA. Rice had to be shamed to return from her vacation before the administration gave their OK to our help. Finally it’s there:

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More than 20 countries, from allies Germany and Japan to prickly Venezuela and poor Honduras, have offered to help the United States cope with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

And what do we get in return from the press?

Indeed:

REPORTER: This morning you said the results were unacceptable, what did you mean by that?

PRESIDENT:  Well, I’m talking about…uh….the fact that …uh…we don’t have enough security in New Orleans yet.  The results are acceptable here in Mississippi.  Uhh…you know…the results are acceptable in New Orleans when it comes to the hard work of the Coast Guard.  But we need to get troops…we have 1200 troops who arrived yesterday I’m told,  and we have 1200 today and 1200 tomorrow – especially trained for military police work.  They need to get in there.  They need to stabilize that situation.  They need to make sure that the food and medicine that’s in place is given to the people who need the food and medicine.  I’ve had a good report today about food and medicine getting to people who weren’t getting it – but we’ll find out if it’s true when we get to New Orleans…

…You know…uh…this is a huge task that we’re dealing with (guffaw).  And our jobs – with people of positions of responsibility – is not to be satisfied until the job is done as good as it can possibly be done – and that’s what I was referring to.

I’m certainly not denigrading the efforts of anybody (smile).  But the results could be better in New Orleans.  And I intend to work with the folks to make it better.

Again, in Mississippi, we have a different situation.  Uh, we’ve got a guard that’s…uh…in place – activated.  Haley made some clear rules (inaudible).  Uh, but the tasks in both places…uh…the task is enormous (guffaw) – and it’s going to take awhile.

Our fellow citizens must understand that we’re talking years.  We’re not talking years to get people rescued – we’re talking days.  And we’re…uh…not talking years to get infrastructure back up here.  You, know – we’re talking weeks to get the electricity running.

I’ve got some good news on the pipeline…(Talks about this for 1:20)

REPORTER:  You talk about fixing what’s wrong and you talk about the results not being acceptable.  There are a lot of people wondering why you weren’t fixing the problems yesterday or the day before, and why the richest country on earth can’t get food and water to the people who need it.

PRESIDENT: Uh…the levee was broken on Tuesday in New Orleans.  On Wednesday…uh…on Thursday we started evacuating people.  A lot of people evacuated that city – a lot of people left on buses.  It’s…uh…You know, I am…uh…satisfied with the response, but I’m not satisfied with the results.  We started pulling people off of roofs immediately.  We started rallying choppers to get people off of rooftops to start saving lives.  I mean, thousands of people’s lives have been saved – immediately.  And that’s good news.  This is one of the worst storms in our nation’s history.  And we got hit by two storms – one by the hurricane and one by the flood.  And…uh…it’s…uh…it’s…uh…it is…uh…it’s going to take a monumental effort to move forward, but we will.  And…uh…this is a nation that’s done a lot of great things before.

You know, when Clinton had his “I did not have sexual relationship with that woman” speech, I was disgusted. But this, it’s just a whole new level. Amazing. The incompetence is dripping from every single word. It’s tremendously difficult for me to listen to more than just a few seconds of W.

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Senate Finance Committee members were informed this morning that Sen. Bill Frist will move forward with a vote to permanently repeal the estate tax next week, likely on Tuesday, ThinkProgress has learned.

One stands in awe of Sen. Frist�s timing. Permanently repealing the estate tax would be a major blow to the nation�s charities. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has �found that the estate tax encourages wealthy individuals to donate considerably more to charity, since estate tax liability is reduced through donations made both during life and at death.� If there were no estate tax in 2000, for example, �charitable donations would have been between $13 billion to $25 billion lower than they actually were.�

As they did after 9/11 and during the lead-up to the Iraq war, conservatives have placed tax cuts for the most wealthy and well-off over the spirit of shared national sacrifice. What a stark contrast to the outpouring of generosity being shown by the American people in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

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A natural coral bridge that spanned a cove along Aruba’s west coast collapsed before dawn Friday, destroying one of the island’s biggest tourist attractions.

The bridge, the largest of its kind in the Caribbean, was 25 feet high and 100 feet long, said Tourism Minister Edison Briesen. The cause was not immediately known, he said.

“It’s a very sad day for Aruba and for its tourism,” Briesen said. “A picture of the bridge appears in almost every promotional flier, and more tourists visit it than any other attraction.”

He stood among hundreds of Arubans who traveled along a bumpy dirt road to see what remained of the national treasure.

“The people who saw it always marveled,” said Julie Lacle, a 26-year-old taxi driver who often took tourists to the bridge. “They couldn’t believe how beautiful it was.”

The bridge, a formation of coral limestone cut out from thousands of years of pounding waves and strong winds, was a popular picnic spot. Hundreds of visitors walked across it each year.

A crack had appeared at one end of the bridge several years ago, said Jose Joseph, who owns a nearby snack and souvenir shop.

Aruba has several natural bridges, some of them difficult to reach. A shorter bridge is located next to the one that collapsed.

“We lost the mother. But we still have the daughter,” Joseph said.

The bridge’s collapse brought more bad news to an island that has been under the scrutiny of the U.S. media for three months since the disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway.

Here’s a picture of the current situation:

Compare that to a picture on a site I host

more pictures

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Why are these helicopters being used as a backdrop for President Bush, instead of assisting the victims of Hurricane Katrina?

Why are members of the Coast Guard being used as a backdrop for Bush’s press conference? Don’t they have more important things to do?

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“An unmitigated, total fucking disaster.”  That’s not a quote from Mike Brown, but rather, a quote describing him.  And most disturbingly, it’s not even a reference to his dismal performance as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).  This blunt critique was emailed to me from a regular reader who was apparently attracted to HorsesAss.org by her passion for politics and her love of Arabian horses.

I think I’ve told you that I’m into Arab horses.  Well, for 3 years Michael Brown was hired and then fired by our IAHA, the International Arabian Horse Assoc.  He was an unmitigated, total fucking disaster.  I was shocked as hell when captain clueless put him in charge of FEMA a couple of years ago.

He or the WH lied on the WH presser announcing him to FEMA.  IAHA was never connected to the Olympic Comm, only the half Arab registry then and the governing body to the state and local Arabian horse clubs.  He ruined IAHA financially so badly that we had to change the name and combine it with the Purebred registry.

I am telling you this after watching the fucking shipwreck in the Gulf.  His incompetence is KILLING people.

Yes, that’s right… the man responsible for directing federal relief operations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, sharpened his emergency management skills as the “Judges and Stewards Commissioner” for the International Arabian Horses Association… a position from which he was forced to resign in the face of mounting litigation and financial disarray.

And what of that misleading White House press release?

From 1991 to 2001, Brown was the Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association, an international subsidiary of the national governing organization of the U.S. Olympic Committee.

I can’t even begin to fact check the dates or IAHA’s alleged relationship to the US Olympic Committee, because of course, the IAHA doesn’t exist anymore, so there’s nothing to Google. But it begs the question… how the hell did his prior job experience prepare Brown to head FEMA?

Well, judging by his agency’s performance over the past few days… it didn’t.

More pictures… some beautiful, some chilling…

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According to Drudge, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has recently enjoyed a little Broadway entertainment. And Page Six reports that she’s also working on her backhand with Monica Seles. So the Gulf Coast has gone all Mad Max, women are being raped in the Superdome, and Rice is enjoying a brief vacation in New York. We wish we were surprised.

What does surprise us: Just moments ago at the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue, Condoleeza Rice was seen spending several thousands of dollars on some nice, new shoes (we’ve confirmed this, so her new heels will surely get coverage from the WaPo’s Robin Givhan). A fellow shopper, unable to fathom the absurdity of Rice’s timing, went up to the Secretary and reportedly shouted, “How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!” Never one to have her fashion choices questioned, Rice had security PHYSICALLY REMOVE the woman.

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Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco warned rioters and looters late on Thursday that National Guard troops were under her orders to “shoot and kill” if needed to restore order.

“These troops are battle-tested. They have M-16s and are locked and loaded,” she said. “These troops know how to shoot and kill and I expect they will.”

FEMA has released to the media and on its Web site a list of suggested charities to help the storm’s hundreds of thousands of victims. The Red Cross is first on the list. The Rev. Pat Robertson’s “Operation Blessing” is third on the list.

Shame and decency have really left the building. Robertson is a religious extremist who calls for the assasination of foreign leaders, and now we have a federal agency trying to help him raise money.

Isn’t that fucking special.

Rumor has it that the only reason President Bush offered money and aid to rebuild the Katrina-damaged coastal areas of Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana is that he misheard on the news that there was “major damage and flooding all along the Golf Course.”

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This photo was taken 18 months ago at a cemetery in New Orleans.

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I am an expat from Bangladesh originally, and it’s struck me that the name of my country has already come up in several blog posts & news reports. It’s usually in a disparaging sense as in: “You expect to see things like this in Haiti or Bangladesh ARRGHH!”

It’s true that our location in the heart of a river delta makes us prone to annual flooding, some years tolerable, some years terrible, 1988 and 1998 being particularly bad years in recent memory. (I remember when school was out for a whole month in the fall of 1988, and when we went back we could see the watermark on the school walls were about 10 feet high). And yes, the regularity of disasters lends an extra dose of preparedness and alertness to the relief efforts, there is even a separate Ministry (or Department, in US terms) for the job.

However, I can tell all the good readers and blog posters and US commentators out there that if some of the scenes that have been reported in New Orleans – especially things like looting and lawlessness, or even worse, dead people lying in the open – if all this had happened in Bangladesh, there would have been scandal and outrage, and a call for action and accountability at the highest levels.

My thoughts go out to all the people of New Orleans, especially those left behind in this apocalyptic nightmare scenario. I don’t know if their city will ever recover (and it’s a shame, it’s a city I never got around to visiting although I lived in Texas for several years). But I hope that their immediate needs are taken care of, either by government or the private sector relief agencies.

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The Netherlands has offered the US authorities the services of a dike inspection team to help combat the flooding in New Orleans.

The team is ready to leave for America if it is required, the Dutch Ministry of Transport and Waterways said on Thursday.

A quarter of the Netherlands’ land area lies below sea level and the country has built up a reputation for water management due to the ongoing battle to keep the water at bay.

The officials are attached to the Ministry of Waterways and Public Works and have experience in dealing with burst embankments and flooding. Last year the Dutch town of Stein was flooded when a dike along a canal was
breached.

The US response to the offer was not known by Thursday afternoon.

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First it was Hurricane Katrina chasing them away. Now it’s the fans of the Miami Hurricanes. Hundreds of storm refugees are being evicted from Tallahassee hotels to accommodate fans coming to Tallahassee for the Miami-Florida State game Monday night. “There is absolutely no compassion here whatsoever,” Lynne Bernard wrote on a Web bulletin board of The Times-Picayune of New Orleans. Hoteliers said there was little they could do to help those who fled homes in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama because they had to honor longstanding reservations for the football weekend. “This weekend has been booked for a couple of months,” said Antwan Hinkle, the front-desk manager of the Quality Inn. “We’re going to have a whole bunch of angry people.” Christian Heritage Church plans to shelter as many as 200 refugees for four nights starting Friday.

A satellite image taken on August 31, 2005 shows the city of New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katarina. Submerged streets are seen as dark areas towards the top of the picture.

This article was published on August 1, 2005:

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When members of the Louisiana National Guard left for Iraq in October, they took a lot equipment with them. Dozens of high water vehicles, humvees, refuelers and generators are now abroad, and in the event of a major natural disaster that, could be a problem.

“The National Guard needs that equipment back home to support the homeland security mission,” said Lt. Colonel Pete Schneider with the LA National Guard.

Col. Schneider says the state has enough equipment to get by, and if Louisiana were to get hit by a major hurricane, the neighboring states of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida have all agreed to help.

Unfortunately, reality is different:

[Quote:]

Meanwhile, the situation in New Orleans continued to deteriorate. Angry crowds chanted cries for help, and some among them rushed chaotically at helicopters bringing in food. Although Mayor C. Ray Nagin speculated that thousands might have died, officials said they still did not have a clear idea of the precise toll.

[..]
Chaos and gunfire hampered efforts to evacuate the Superdome, and, Superintendent P. Edward Compass III of the New Orleans Police Department said, armed thugs have taken control of the secondary makeshift shelter at the convention center. Superintendent Compass said that the thugs repelled eight squads of 11 officers each he had sent to secure the place and that rapes and assaults were occurring unimpeded in the neighboring streets as criminals “preyed upon” passers-by, including stranded tourists.

Mr. Compass said the federal government had taken too long to send in the thousands of troops – as well as the supplies, fuel, vehicles, water and food – needed to stabilize his now “very, very tenuous” city.

Col. Terry Ebbert, director of homeland security for New Orleans, concurred and he was particularly pungent in his criticism. Asserting that the whole recovery operation had been “carried on the backs of the little guys for four goddamn days,” he said “the rest of the goddamn nation can’t get us any resources for security.”

“We are like little birds with our mouths open and you don’t have to be very smart to know where to drop the worm,” Colonel Ebbert said. “It’s criminal within the confines of the United States that within one hour of the hurricane they weren’t force-feeding us. It’s like FEMA has never been to a hurricane.” FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The current “leader” of the FEMA, Michael D. Brown:

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Prior to joining FEMA, Mr. Brown practiced law in Colorado and Oklahoma, where he served as a bar examiner on ethics and professional responsibility for the Oklahoma Supreme Court and as a hearing examiner for the Colorado Supreme Court. He had been appointed as a special prosecutor in police disciplinary matters. While attending law school he was appointed by the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee of the Oklahoma Legislature as the Finance Committee Staff Director, where he oversaw state fiscal issues. His background in state and local government also includes serving as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight and as a city councilman.

He replaced James Lee Witt, appointed by Clinton:

[Quote:]

James Lee Witt has over 25 years of disaster management experience, culminating in his appointment as the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where he served from 1993-2001. In this capacity, he is credited with turning FEMA from an unsuccessful bureaucratic agency to an internationally lauded all-hazards disaster management agency.

I smell a Medal of Freedom coming.