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...was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional."

If you've been following the hearing to determine what happened with the (lack of) Katrina response, you'll recognize this as Brownie's defense. Additional mistakes he admits:

"Not having more media briefings"

"Not trying to work out the differences between Nagin and Blanco"

Somehow, in his list of mistakes, Brownie completely missed his failure to deploy the resources quickly enough. Instead, he claims that such actions are not the job of FEMA. According to him, it is unreasonable to expect FEMA to respond to EVERY federal disaster in EVERY community. This would make sense if there were other large scale federal disasters going on at the time...but there weren't.

Brownie also says that the lack of a mandatory evacuation, before the hurricane hit, largely accounted for the disaster. Again, this would make sense if the mandatory evacuation was ordered after the hurricane hit, but it wasn't. The voluntary evacuation order came on Saturday, the 27th, the mandatory evacuation order came on Sunday, the 28th and the hurricane made landfall on Monday, the 29th. So, apparently, Brownie didn't even bother to read up on the timeline before his testimony!

And finally, for those of us who don't know what FEMA is, he clarifies it for us. "FEMA is a coordinating agency, we are not a law enforcement agency." So, that means that FEMA should have COORDINATED some emergency response resources. Hmmm...interesting that it didn't happen sooner than 72 hrs. after the disaster.

Ok, let me clarify: The government at all levels deserves some blame. However, Brownie's incompetence is nothing short of astounding!

...Tyra's boobs are real.

Tyra Banks, apparently in her own little world, was concerned that all of us were talking about her breasts, so she decided to use up one of her shows to convince the public that she had no implants. After a touch-test and sonogram, Dr. Fisher from Extreme Makeover declared that they are, in fact, real.

It's nice to know that some people haven't lost sight of the important issues in life...

Since I talked about the Hurricane Katrina Benefit I was planning a few blogs down, I thought I'd give you the results.

We had about 90 people at the event, pre-sales were approximately $1800 and sales on the day of the event came to about $1800. It was very successful, because almost all of the food was donated, so almost all of the $3600 donated will go to the relief fund. Our church is sending the money to the Episcopal Relief and Development Fund, and I heard (I haven't verified this) that only 4% is taken out for overhead. That means 96% of our money will actually go to the victims. This is better than the numbers for the Red Cross!

All in all, it was a wonderful time. Everyone had fun...yet they knew that they were supporting a great cause!

I found these on www.moxiegrrrl.com. This one is our president's hotmail account. Well, not really...but it's pretty funny! Click on the box to open his inbox.

Also, google "failure" and hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button.

Happy Sunday!

Today, Bush ruled out raising taxes to pay for the hurricane relief. He said that government spending needs to be cut, instead.  It's going to be hard, since his colleague Tom Delay has already figured out that no more government spending can be cut...The government is running as efficiently as possible.

Of course the government is not running as efficiently as possible and Delay's statement of "victory" made me laugh. However, in a way, he's right. Whether or not government spending can be cut, it won't be to an extent large enough to pay off the current loans (especially with a war going on). The amount of money donated to the hurricane relief will be added to our already enormous deficit. And at some point in the future, this large national debt will have to be paid off. What will happen then? Our kids will have to pay the taxes that we should have paid...in addition to the taxes they will be paying anyway.

Is everyone ok with that?

Today, the Senate Republicans voted against creating an independent investigation into the government's (federal, state & local) response to the Katrina disaster. Senator Clinton made the proposal, 44 Senators (43 Democrats and 1 Independent) voted for it and 54 Senators (of the 55 Republican Senators) voted against it. It was a truly partisan vote.

But what I find interesting is how different this vote is from the public's. According to a CNN/USA Today Gallup poll taken about a week ago, 70% of the public would like to see an independent investigation. The public has no doubts of its necessity.

So, if the Senators' job is to serve us, why aren't they doing what their constituents request?

I realize that Roberts was nominated for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for convenience purposes, but does anyone fully realize that this means he will be the most highly regarded judge in our nation?

Does anyone really think he has the skills and experience to fill those shoes? There's a possibility that he might have some potential after a few more years of judging, but as of now, he's really young, somewhat insecure, has less than perfect speaking skills and doesn't appear to have organized his thoughts on many important issues yet. It seems to me that his nomination for Chief Justice is extremely premature.

Roberts as a potential Supreme Court Justice doesn't bother me. Although he's more "conservative" than I'd like, he seems like he'd give a good amount of attention to each issue. And I realize that there are many other judges on the extreme right of the political spectrum. I'm glad we're not dealing with one of them. However, I think the Chief Justice position would have been better filled with an existing Supreme Court member.

This blog is going to stand out from all the rest, because for once, I don't have a clear-cut opinion. The issue is the gay marriage bill recently passed by the California Senate. Accordingly to Ahhnold on Wednesday, it will be vetoed.

My initial reaction was to support the bill. If Ahhnold was opposing it, it was clearly to please the extreme right. Then, I thought...Well, if California voters chose to leave marriage between a man and a woman, then letting the legislature override their desires would undermine the concept of a democracy. On the other hand, we vote for our Congressmen, so when we do that, aren't we giving them the liberty to serve us in the best way they see fit?

So, I'll leave it to you. What should Ahhnold do, in this case?

Well, just in case you've been wondering how torn up the Bush family is over the hurricane disaster, you can rest assured that they haven't watched the news or read anything about it. Laura Bush thinks that it was Hurricane Corrina that devastated New Orleans and neighboring areas!

But I'm not complaining too much. Her response is a lot better than that of Barbara Bush, who thinks that the victims of the hurricane are better off now, because they were underprivileged, anyway. That's right Mrs. Bush. These people lost their homes, friends and family members, but they're actually happy, because now, they get to stay with strangers in Texas!

Is this family completely devoid of emotion?

"Brownie" has been removed from the relief efforts. Not sure what this does (too little, too late)...but at least we can rest assured that his incompetence won't be negatively affecting the relief efforts anymore!

I also want to add that I don't understand why he is being kept as the director of FEMA. If he can't handle the biggest disaster to hit our country in years, what's the point of him heading up the Federal Emergency Management Agency?

UPDATE (9/12/05): Brown has resigned.