I guess like pretty much everyone, I have been both amazed and disgusted by what I have seen from New Orleans. There has been an endless series of news reports and 24 hour news channel video pumping this stuff at us like a firehose. It has been a little bit, well overwhelming.

My friends ran this new orleans blog about their experiences trying to keep internet connectivity and keeping their business afloat while this has been going on. They are located not more than about 4 blocks from the Superdome, so they have been living this crap first hand.

The people that disgust me the most? Morons like Bill O’Reilly (fox news) who has attempted with every broadcast (and every “talking points” bullshit that he puts out) to spin responsiblity away from the president and onto local officials and specifically the democrat Governer of Louisiana. Considering he claims to be the “no spin zone”, his performance has been nothing less than hurricane strenght.

Mr O, here is a hint: No matter what happens, the boss is always responsible in the end. In case you missed it, LA and MS were declared federal disaster areas before the storm even hit. That means that FEMA is effectively authorized to enter the area and begin operations without any “invitation” from the state or local officials. They are FEDERAL DISASTER AREAS. End problem. FEMA screwed the pooch, took a 5 day vacation (they got 2 days lead time with the disaster area declaration), and in the end, there is one guy responsible for it: They guy who stayed on vacation in Texas instead of heading back to Washington to “lead the fight”. Had Bush been back in Washington on Sunday, I suspect you would have seen the trucks rolling into the area Monday morning – not wednesday afternoon or thursday.

He didn’t make it back to work until Tuesday himself, so why should anyone else care? Heck, Cheney didn’t make it off vacation for nearly 10 days after this started. WTF?

No matter how hard you try to “no spin zone” the situation, the federal response was lax, and the leader of the federal response is POTUS. The buck is suppose to stop there. Let’s see where it really ends up.

I am a news junkie. I will admit it. I live in a fairly liberal country (Canada), and I get my news from many sources. In the 400 channel universe, I have access to reputable (or not) news sources such as the major american networks, BBC, CBC, CTV… english, french, and even chinese and german (translated with subtitles) – plus all the sources on the internet you can choose. I don’t let any one of those sources pollute my views or cloud the subject. By listening and reading various sources, I feel that I end up with a pretty good idea of what is what.

Hurricane Katrina also brought something to Canada – Fox News Channel. This network has been added to Canadian DTV systems over the last week or so, available for free to all subscribers. As a new junkie, I am grateful for a new source of information, especially one which has become the most watched new channel in the US. The addition of this channel and especially it’s most opinionated host, Bill O’Reilly. His talking point memo (read it here) for September 5th just blows my mind.

In the middle of a catastophy that makes 9/11 look small, this guy is more interested in covering the president’s back and blaming everyone else than he is about the facts of what is going on in New Orleans and other affected areas.

The federal response to this situation has been slow or worse. They started about 4 or 5 days late, and they have only just really started to take control of the situation. The number of troops on the ground has only made it to reasonable numbers in the last 48 hours – one full week after the start of the whole ordeal. Remember, this storm was coming and they knew it. They didn’t know exactly where it was going to hit, but on Friday last week (28th of August) even FEMA knew that there was going to be a problem.

Why wasn’t Fema loading up the trucks and getting people ready to go at that point?

My opinion: Nobody took charge, it was summer vacation for just about everyone in the chain of command (from the President on down), and nobody really seemed to give a damn what happened until AFTER it happened.

I know. Nobody could forecast that the levees would break and the city would flood. But they did know that millions of people would be without water, electricity, and that transport would likely be disturbed. Many buildings would be damaged or destroyed, and so on. They also know that New Orleans is a “rough” city with a high crime rate, and that without enough security, the city could turn to crap fast.

The flooding just made it all that much worse. It would have been bad enough without the flooding, and still would have required security, FEMA, evacuations, assistances, and so on. It is unavoidable.

Still, nothing happened.

Then the hurricane came. Nothing happened.

Then the floods came, and FEMA basically said “oh my god, we need to do something”.

2 days later, they got to it.

O’Reilly and his conservative cronies can attempt to re-write history all they like, but the commander in chief was on vacation through the whole process. The VP is still on vacation at this point. The guys who are suppose to say “the buck stops here” instead said “the buck is on vacation, call me next week”. There was a huge vacuum of responsilibity, and they guys at the top of the ladder lead by example: they stayed on vacation.

President Bush has finally got on the case, making his first flyover long after the flooding, and since then making 2 on the ground visits. His photo-ops and his glad handing are nice for the cameras, but they have done little to drive the relief effort. It has taken a week for some order to come to the mess… so now they are getting things done. There are troops on the ground, the levees are getting blocked off, and the water has started to pump out. People are still in their houses, they are still hungry, and they are still being allowed to stay (which is beyond me!).

There is one guy at the top in charge of it all. The failures of others down the chain of command reflect on the guy at the top. We can try to sponge the responsilbiites off to the different players in the game, but the Federal government, FEMA, Homeland Security, and in the end the commander in chief need to accept that they dropped the ball and people suffered as a result.

On vacation. Natural disaster, thousands dead, federal response slow… and the VP? Taking his summer break in Wyoming.

How could you people elect Bush/Cheney?

First off, let me make this clear: I REALLY FUCKING HATE BASEBALL AS A SPECTATOR SPORT. There, got that off my chest. Seriously, baseball is dead dull boring, it even makes accounting seem interesting, mostly because baseball is stats numbers and tons of tons of NOTHING GOING ON. Baseball is rarely exciting, rarely thrilling, maybe only slightly interesting in the 15th inning of the deciding game of the world series 2 outs bases load… and even then, it’s pitch and catch played so slowly that I nod off between pitches.

Anyway, that’s not what this rant is all about, thankfully!

Actually, I was reading this about steroids and I couldn’t help but laugh. Why are the rules of life different for a baseball player than for me? If my previous employers had caught me taking drugs on the job they would fire me AND call the police.

Professional sport needs to take the same idea: When a player tests positive, say nothing. Contact the police. Arrange for search warrants for home, stadium, car, and other personal areas. Then have the police execute the warrants with full media in attendance. Then when you find the drugs, perp walk the millionaire fucker to jail – and then ban his useless drug using ass from the game for life.

50 games, 20 games, 100 games… it’s all useless taps on the hands for millionaire babies that play these sports. Ban their asses for life and give them a nice solid prison record, then we have something to talk about.

Until then, there is a major double standard that really stinks.

Just wanted to welcome you to this section… EVERYTHING IN THIS SECTION IS OPINION. Rants, rages, opinions, and so on. I don’t apologize for anything I write in here, honestly I am not promoting this blog anywhere, so if you happen to come across this, you have been looking for it. To bad, you get what you get.

If I swear, cuss, or cry, well… whatever!

Enjoy it for all it is worth.

Alex