Whether it's true or not (I'm inclined to think it is, but can't prove it) the perception of the Bush administration is going to be worse than merely incompetent. It's going to look supremely uncaring.

I think the message America got in its imagery this week can be summed up as: Bush says, "Fuck you" to the poor. "Double Fuck You, if you're poor and black."

The spin will be interesting. I mean, I've already heard the right wing response which started with "they were too stupid too leave" followed by "those animals need to be shot" followed by "we're not going to subsidize rebuilding New Orleans because it's a poor investment." But I don't think that'll play after seeing people left in such desperate straits for so long.

It's just going to ring fundamentally wrong and unfair.

Ford is being nice. Every little bit.... [link]

My favorite by accidentally hitting a talk radio station on the way to work:

"I don't know why people are blaming the Bush Administration. Everyone knows that Louisiana political structure is corrupt."

As if Bush and friends aren't? As if LA, MS, and AL aren't poor states which don't really have high tax revenues anyway.

Bush cops to it:

President George Bush has conceded the initial response to Hurricane Katrina was "not acceptable" but has said every effort is being made to save lives.

ita, some links in this article here: [link]

Plenty of stuff on the net, but not much of it useful and not much of it including good drawings, but some of those articles do.

12:49 P.M. - BILOXI, MS (AP): President Bush has been trying to console people who lost their homes, and everything else but their lives, to Hurricane Katrina.

Visiting Biloxi, Mississippi, Bush spoke with a tearful woman who told him, "We don't have anything." They stood alongside the ruins of homes that had been reduced to pieces amid fallen trees and other debris.

He walked through the debris with the woman and a girl, his arms around their shoulders, and told them to "hang in there."

Right.

*********

The BBC's Matt Frei, in New Orleans, says conditions in the city's convention centre, where up to 20,000 more are stranded, are the most wretched he has seen anywhere, including crises in the Third World.

"You've got an entire nursing home evacuated five days ago - people in wheelchairs sitting there and slowly dying," he says

I just talked to my mom who was extremely offended to hear me criticizing the "relief effort" (what a joke). She thinks they're doing everything they can. I just want to shake her! I need to stop discussing anything political with my parents. I never seem to learn this lesson.

Ellen Degeneres has set up a page where you can donate to the relief fund. Warner Bros. is matching donations through the website up to $500,000.

Wouldn't it be great if we were living in a parliamentary system about now so the opposition could call for a vote of no confidence, like, now?