Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:10 PM

Just seen it on two different news sites.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:45 PM

As seen on uggabugga:

Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies

September 1, 2005

SUBJECT: Assistance to Federal Employees Affected by Hurricane Katrina

I have directed the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to establish an emergency leave transfer program to assist employees affected by Hurricane Katrina. The emergency leave transfer program will permit employees in an executive agency to donate unused annual leave for transfer to employees of the same or other agencies who have been adversely affected by Hurricane Katrina and who need additional time off from work without having to use their own paid leave.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Donate your vacation time to coworkers in need, because we're not cutting 'em any slack.

Here's the original on Whitehouse.gov if you doubt this is real.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:14 PM

Quoting AMERICAblog directly:

Bush faked levee repair for photo op yesterday

From a press release LA Senator Mary Landrieu sent out today:

But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast - black and white, rich and poor, young annd old - deserve far better from their national governmeent.

And as long as I'm spreading the outrage, I'm going to repeat a late addition to my earlier post: 1000 experienced boaters with 500 boats refused access/entry for two days.
In the comments to that post, somebody quoted a CNN transcript in which former Louisiana Senator John Breaux says "American Ambulance Association said, look, we have 300 [ambulances] three days ago they wanted to send down there from a Florida area. They said, well, we were told we had to have GSA's permission. GSA said they had to have FEMA ask for it. As a result they weren't sent."

I only wish we could guarantee the right heads would roll for this clusterfuck.

Added later: More from Mary Landrieu's press release:

FEMA, now a shell of what it once was, continues to be overwhelmed by the task at hand.
I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate significant numbers of victims -- far more efficiently than buses -- FEMA again dragged its feet. Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency.

And confirmation/expansion of the original accusation from Washington Monthly:

Good God. Laura Rozen passes along the following report from a Dutch reader:

There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV.

ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.

The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF.

This goes beyond stage management. This is criminal.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:59 PM

Associated Press is reporting:

President Bush plans to return to the Gulf Coast on Monday.

[...]

In addition to the president, several other administration officials also are heading south.
The Pentagon says Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers will fly to Louisiana and Mississippi tomorrow.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is planning a trip to Mobile, Alabama.

A side effect of Bush's visit yesterday:

Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush's visit to New Orleans, officials said.

As I understand it, the subject of such special flight security can choose to have the FAA waive those restrictions. Wonder if the collective blogosphere can't pressure him to do so for the general welfare of those he's visiting.

While we're speaking of Bush forsaking a little comfort for the hurricane survivors,

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said as many as 120,000 hurricane refugees were in 97 shelters in his state alone, with another 100,000 in Texas hotels and motels. Hundreds more were housed in churches or private homes.

Has Bush made any offer to sacrifice his Crawford ranch for a few homeless families? Shouldn't he?

Ian's comment on me telling him Bush was planning to revisit the region on Monday:

"Does he think they still won't have the evacuation finished after two more days?" [Latest reports say just 300 remain in the Superdome and only "pockets of stragglers" are near the Convention Center.]

Me: "No. He hopes they will. That way he won't have to deal with any of them firsthand."

Posted by Lis Riba at 4:44 PM

From From a commenter at Atrios':

Back in journalism school [...] we learned that there are three ways for government officials to screw up: malfeasance (deliberate bad acts), misfeasance (unintentional bad acts) and nonfeasance failure to act).

We seem to have hit the trifecta.

[Via Kevin Maroney]

PS: A DailyKos diarist is trying to compile a comprehensive list of cases where officials delayed or disallowed relief. This is intended to be less partisan than this DK diary I linked to earlier.

Posted by Lis Riba at 4:05 PM

Two stories, both from the Associated Press:

At one point Friday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses pulled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt Hotel could move to the head of the evacuation line ? much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the Superdome since last Sunday.

"How does this work? They (are) clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?" exclaimed Howard Blue, 22, who tried to get in their line. The National Guard blocked him as other guardsmen helped the well-dressed guests with their luggage.

That was yesterday. Compare and contrast with this story today:

Evacuees continue to board buses at the New Orleans Convention Center, with many people filing past corpses to make their escape. Conditions are crowded and many people have had to leave bags full of belongings at the side of the road because there's no room. National Guardsmen are providing security at the center.

So, the rich not only have room for their luggage, they get guardsmen as porters...

And, also

Pets were not allowed on the bus evacuating to the Houston Astrodome. When a police officer confiscated a little boy's dog, the child cried until he vomited. "Snowball, Snowball," he cried.
When asked, the police officer said he did not know what would happen to the dog.

Heartbreaking

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:45 PM

Catching up on the blogs this morning, and...

• The Homeland Security Department and other authorites forbid the Red Cross to enter New Orleans [First seen on TalkLeft but Rivka writes it better.]
• Northern Command has been in position to drop food, waiting for Presidential orders they haven't received

  NorthCom started planning before the storm even hit. We were ready for the storm when it hit Florida because, as you remember, it crossed the bottom part of Florida, and then we were plaining, you know, once it was pointed towards the Gulf Coast. So what we did was we activated what we call defense coordinating officers to work with the state to say okay, what do you think you'll need, and we set up staging bases that could be started. We had the USS Baton sailing almost behind the hurricane so that after the hurricane made landfall it's search and rescue helicopters would be available almost immediately. So we had things ready. The only caveat is, we have to wait until the President authorizes us to do so. The laws of the United States say that the military can't just act in this fashion, we have to wait for the President to give us permission.

  • Here's another account where the military was ready and FEMA was the roadblock.
• Here's proof Louisiana asked the DHS for assistance on Sunday
• In fact, other states offered their National Guard troops to Louisiana as early as Sunday, but Feds in Washington delayed the paperwork until late Thursday

Funny how all the aid arrived just in time for the President's photo-ops... Even CNN reporters and New York Times commented upon that.

Meanwhile, Digby heard rumors that all helicopter flights were grounded during Bush's visit (that means moving patients, food delivery, search & rescue).
Confirmed at 3pm: AMERICAblog quotes the Times-Picayune:

Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush's visit to New Orleans, officials said.

A few days ago, somebody was asking why people were blaming the President; what the President could possibly do.

The word is leadership.

As Jim Macdonald wrote:

And what do you call this government?

The Aristocrats!

Best punchline I've seen all day...

Postscript, added later: And I just remembered the administration initially turned away offers of help from other countries, which, if they'd been permitted, would've arrived before our troops and services could reach New Orleans (a hospital ship leaving the Caribbean has a much shorter trip than one from Maryland).

DHS/FEMA turned away assistance from Chicago. Volunteers with airboats were initially told to shoulder the burden of their own fuel and then weren't allowed in at all.

As I read a few days ago in the Washington Post,

If this is what happens when the nation has two days of advance warning, imagine the aftermath of a surprise attack using a chemical, biological or nuclear device.

What the he!! has the administration been doing in the past four years?

PPS: A DailyKos diarist has compiled a much longer list of aid offers delayed and denied.

And another account: 1000 experienced boaters with 500 boats refused for two days. I think people are trying to collate sourced lists and timelines for these accounts...

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:56 PM

From AMERICAblog: Halliburton's been hired for Katarina cleanup.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:40 AM

Paul Krugman's latest begins with this sobering note:

Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans.

Given this administration's track records, San Franciscans may wish to take precautions before Bush hits another trifecta.

On a tangentially related note, several people have recommended Interdictor's LiveJournal -- who has managed to continue blogging from inside New Orleans. The description he provides of Convention Center conditions is harrowing.

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:30 AM

Ian just blogged an offhand comment I made. But it's a good point, so I'm just going to quote him directly.

So I say to Lis: "They did one thing right in the New Orleans situation. I don't know if there ever has been an evacuation of a major metropolitan area that got 80% of the people out, ever in the entire history of the world. Getting 65% out is considered nearly impossible. And they managed 80."

Lis says, "How do we know it actually WAS 80%?"

Does anyone know where that number came from? 'Cause it's a damn good point. If 65% is considered a best-case scenario, how did they manage to beat that by 15%? Is it just that people in New Orleans have been worried about the levees bursting for seventy years, and there are dozens of good songs about the precarious situation that New Orleans has always been in, so it's always been in people's minds, so they took it seriously, and a higher percentage of people had evacuation plans in their heads, and made sure to always have the ability to evacuate during hurricane season?

Or is that just a number someone pulled out of their ass? I can see either as being possible.

Seriously, anybody have an answer? You can post here or in Ian's blog; I'll see it either way.

Oh, and I guess I've gotten over my writers' block about the situation. I should go to bed and get some sleep...

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:20 AM

Been thinking about our untenanted, under-construction downstairs with regards to HurricaneHousing.org. Boston is a long ways from New Orleans. On the other hand, NPR tonight had a news story about a Mississippi choir currently stranded in the Chicago area because that's where they happened to be when disaster struck their hometown. There might be other such tourists stuck in this area (colleges are about to start; maybe parents who drove their freshman up to the dorms?)...

Latest news is that the Houston Astrodome is already filled to capacity and turning people away.

And I got to thinking... there's this big ole ranch in Crawford that's currently uninhabited. I wonder how many people that could house? Certainly not a busload, but I'm sure there's room enough for a couple families...

I doubt he'd have the nerve to do it, but I wonder if anyone will suggest it to him?

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:55 AM

Time for a distraction from all the grim news.

How about Cats In Sinks?

And if you don't like that, there's always Kitten War, which displays two photos and asks you to pick the cutest. Or, jump straight to the pics of the winningest kittens to OD on teh cuteness...

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:15 PM

For the last several days, I've just been glued to the screen reading everything I can find about what's going on down in New Orleans.

There's been a lot on my mind, but I haven't felt much like writing about it. It's been easier to just watch and read than write. Even this much is an effort (though I've found it easier to respond with comments in other blogs).

News sources I've been relying upon most are the local ones: Nola.com and WWLTV.com, particularly the WWLTV Katarina Blog. A coworker pointed me towards CNN weblogs of correspondent reports: today's and yesterday's. [Update during lunch Friday: here's the latest CNN blog; while there don't appear to be links from one day to the next, the URL-scheme is pretty easy to figure out.]

Weblogs, all over my blogroll. Yes, they've got a liberal bias, but among the best for breaking coverage have been (alphabetically):

• AMERICAblog (On LiveJournal @ americablog)
• Eschaton (Atrios) (LJ: atrios)
• Suburban Guerrilla (LJ: susiesplace_new)
• Think Progress (LJ: thinkprogress)

For quality commentary, too many to mention. I think my most frequent hits of late have been to:

• Washington Monthly (Political Animal) (LJ: wash_monthly)
• Steve Gilliard (LJ: stevegilliard)
• Light of Reason (LJ: light_of_reason)
• The Left Coaster (LJ: rssleftcoaster)

And the discussion threads over at Making Light are among the best around.

Just too many good blogs on the subject out there to name them all. My blogroll is supposed to list the most recent updates at the top, if you want to read further.

There are things I want to write, but right now I can't, and by the time I feel ready others may well say it better.

In the meantime, I just want to wish everyone the best in terms of keeping their heads above water during this crisis -- as literally or figuratively as your situation requires.

Added later: A few more -- of course I'd forget some:

• Crooks and Liars for their amazing video clips
• Hullabaloo (Digby) (LJ: digby2)
• TPM Cafe (LJ: the newly created tpmcafe)

And yet later: Forgot to mention Kathryn Cramer (LJ: kathryncramer) for her amazing work with maps.

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:05 PM

I've written previously about my preference for the Opera browser. When I first discovered it (back in 1998!) I found it so superior to IE and Netscape that I've been a paying customer ever since.

Well, turns out today is Opera's 10th anniversary, and to celebrate the day, they're giving away free registration codes. If you've ever wanted to try the browser without paying for it and without seeing banner ads, this is your day!

• Free registration offer
• About Opera (in general)
• Other anniversary events and announcements