Would it be possible for people to call me this weekend and check up on me?

Sure. Will you e me your #? I'm at e dot juliana at gmail dot com.

I'm around this weekend Tom. Catch me on IM and we'll make a time.

A good round-up from CNN of the disconnect between the Federal level bullshit and the real nitty gritty:

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NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Diverging views of a crumbling New Orleans emerged Thursday. The sanitized view came from federal officials at news conferences and television appearances. But the official line was contradicted by grittier, more desperate views from the shelters and the streets.

These conflicting views came within hours, sometimes minutes of each of each other, as reflected in CNN's transcripts. The speakers include Michael Brown, chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, evacuee Raymond Cooper, CNN correspondents and others. Here's what they had to say:

Conditions in the Convention Center

FEMA chief Brown: We learned about that (Thursday), so I have directed that we have all available resources to get that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water and medical care that they need. (See video of CNN asking why FEMA is clueless about conditions -- 2:11)

Mayor Nagin: The convention center is unsanitary and unsafe, and we are running out of supplies for the 15,000 to 20,000 people. (Hear Nagin's angry demand for soldiers. 1:04)

CNN Producer Kim Segal: It was chaos. There was nobody there, nobody in charge. And there was nobody giving even water. The children, you should see them, they're all just in tears. There are sick people. We saw... people who are dying in front of you.

Evacuee Raymond Cooper: Sir, you've got about 3,000 people here in this -- in the Convention Center right now. They're hungry. Don't have any food. We were told two-and-a-half days ago to make our way to the Superdome or the Convention Center by our mayor. And which when we got here, was no one to tell us what to do, no one to direct us, no authority figure.

Uncollected corpses

Brown: That's not been reported to me, so I'm not going to comment. Until I actually get a report from my teams that say, "We have bodies located here or there," I'm just not going to speculate.

Segal: We saw one body. A person is in a wheelchair and someone had pushed (her) off to the side and draped just like a blanket over this person in the wheelchair. And then there is another body next to that. There were others they were willing to show us. ( See CNN report, 'People are dying in front of us' -- 4:36 )

Evacuee Cooper: They had a couple of policemen out here, sir, about six or seven policemen told me directly, when I went to tell them, hey, man, you got bodies in there. You got two old ladies that just passed, just had died, people dragging the bodies into little corners. One guy -- that's how I found out. The guy had actually, hey, man, anybody sleeping over here? I'm like, no. He dragged two bodies in there. Now you just -- I just found out there was a lady and an old man, the lady went to nudge him. He's dead.

Hospital evacuations

Brown: I've just learned today that we ... are in the process of completing the evacuations of the hospitals, that those are going very well.

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta: It's gruesome. I guess that is the best word for it. If you think about a hospital, for example, the morgue is in the basement, and the basement is completely flooded. So you can just imagine the scene down there. But when patients die in the hospital, there is no place to put them, so they're in the stairwells. It is one of the most unbelievable situations I've seen as a doctor, certainly as a journalist as well. There is no electricity. There is no water. There's over 200 patients still here remaining. ...We found our way in through a chopper and had to land at a landing strip and then take a boat. And it is exactly ... where the boat was traveling where the snipers opened fire yesterday, halting all the evacuations. ( Watch the video report of corpses stacked in stairwells -- 4:45 (continued...)

( continues...) )

Dr. Matthew Bellew, Charity Hospital: We still have 200 patients in this hospital, many of them needing care that they just can't get. The conditions are such that it's very dangerous for the patients. Just about all the patients in our services had fevers. Our toilets are overflowing. They are filled with stool and urine. And the smell, if you can imagine, is so bad, you know, many of us had gagging and some people even threw up. It's pretty rough.(Mayor's video: Armed addicts fighting for a fix -- 1:03)

Violence and civil unrest

Brown: I've had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot, or you know, they're banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I've had no reports of that.

CNN's Chris Lawrence: From here and from talking to the police officers, they're losing control of the city. We're now standing on the roof of one of the police stations. The police officers came by and told us in very, very strong terms it wasn't safe to be out on the street. (Watch the video report on explosions and gunfire -- 2:12)

The federal response:

Brown: Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well.

Homeland Security Director Chertoff: Now, of course, a critical element of what we're doing is the process of evacuation and securing New Orleans and other areas that are afflicted. And here the Department of Defense has performed magnificently, as has the National Guard, in bringing enormous resources and capabilities to bear in the areas that are suffering.

Crowd chanting outside the Convention Center: We want help.

Nagin: They don't have a clue what's going on down there.

Phyllis Petrich, a tourist stranded at the Ritz-Carlton: They are invisible. We have no idea where they are. We hear bits and pieces that the National Guard is around, but where? We have not seen them. We have not seen FEMA officials. We have seen no one.

Security

Brown: I actually think the security is pretty darn good. There's some really bad people out there that are causing some problems, and it seems to me that every time a bad person wants to scream of cause a problem, there's somebody there with a camera to stick it in their face. ( See Jack Cafferty's rant on the government's 'bungled' response -- 0:57)

Chertoff: In addition to local law enforcement, we have 2,800 National Guard in New Orleans as we speak today. One thousand four hundred additional National Guard military police trained soldiers will be arriving every day: 1,400 today, 1,400 tomorrow and 1,400 the next day.

Nagin: I continue to hear that troops are on the way, but we are still protecting the city with only 1,500 New Orleans police officers, an additional 300 law enforcement personnel, 250 National Guard troops, and other military personnel who are primarily focused on evacuation.

Lawrence: The police are very, very tense right now. They're literally riding around, full assault weapons, full tactical gear, in pickup trucks. Five, six, seven, eight officers. It is a very tense situation here.

The numbers are down.

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Hot off the presses, today's numbers in this tracking poll have just been crunched.

SurveyUSA. 9/2. 1,200 respondents each day.

Is the federal government doing too much? Not enough? Or just the right amount to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina?

9/2 9/1 8/31
Not enough 68 59 50
Right amount 26 32 40

Thinking just about the President of the United States ... Do you approve or disapprove of President Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina?

9/2 9/1 8/31
Approve 40 46 48
Disapprove 53 44 39

Bush's numbers are tanking. The American people were willing to give Bush the benefit of the doubt on 8/31, but his rank incompetence has quickly whittled that away. These numbers should only continue to sink.

Would it be possible for people to call me this weekend and check up on me?

Sure. Just email me your phone number (hillaryre at gmail.)

What's happened in New Orleans will resonate as a direct indictment of Bush's leadership. And that's pretty much all he's got going for him.

I saw that the New Hampshire Union-Leader hammered him, saying the leadership he showed during 9/11 was nowhere to be found with this hurricane.

First off, the Union-Leader is hella conservative. Second off, they wrote this in Wednesday's edition.

Just. Wow.

Horse's mouth news - this is really good stuff: [link]

I'm just so disgusted I could spit. I haven't been this mad in ages. Most of what I would otherwise say has already been said here a few times. The whole response is just mind-boggling. I am especially pissed at how some are trying to blame this on the poor people who couldn't make it out and are doing their best to survive. My God. They knew there were lots of poor people without access to transportation out of there. Why the *&^%$ didn't they provide busses BEFORE the hurricane. Why weren't the hospitals evacuated before the hurricane? It's one thing when people refuse to evacuate, but honestly, shouldn't people who are willing to evacuate but don't have the means be helped out a bit?!

And who the *&&%$%#$ turns down help in a case like this?! It sure wasn't the people who are begging for it. If we can handle this ourselves, WHY AREN'T WE?

Sorry for the rant, but while there are sympathetic people here, I can't yell out loud at work, so some virtual yelling was necessary.

Brown: I've just learned today that we ... are in the process of completing the evacuations of the hospitals, that those are going very well.

The hell. If you are supposed to be in charge of something like this, you fucking do not "just learn" that "we" are in the process of doing anything. You do not get to be part of that "we," and you damn well better be questioning why you're not.

Tom, I would be happy to call this weekend. Just email my profile addy with your phone number.