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PATH: BS | National Security
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Katrina: The Screw-Up That Keeps Getting More Screwed Up
Posted by ueberbill
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| Hurricane Katrina, the overplayed pop song of natural disasters, was the most devastating bitch-slap ever delivered to America. From personal experience (I live here) the region is not even close to recovering. Why is that? Racists think it's black people. Other racists think it's white people. Municipal politicians blame state politicians. State politicians blame federal politicians. Federal politicians blame black people (just kidding--they blame the state and municipal politicians, of course). It's not any of that--that is a distraction. I'll boil it down for you in one word--money. Here's some more: moolah, greenbacks, cheddar, dough, cash, a wad, bread, and that sign you make when you rub your index finger and thumb together. The Gulf Coast is broke. We need cash from any and all sources. Seeing the great need for recovery in this culturally rich region, the federal government has taken the important step of turning down, wasting, or just ignoring over $800 million in aid. Say what? |
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The Department of Homeland Security, the new government meta-agency tasked with keeping our entire country safe from terrorist attacks both foreign and domestic, has come up with one humdinger of an idea. Having apparently run out of ideas on how to predict the next terrorist attack, they are turning to a group of people who are experts at making stuff up. When you're the government agency looking for some ideas about the future of terror, who do you turn to? Science fiction writers, of course.
In what the mainstream media has largely ignored, President Bush signed an executive order on May 9th effectively making Congress and the rest of government obsolete in the event of another attack or national catastrophe. Bush basically becomes a dictator, in complete charge of the U.S. government.
If you're the President and your generals are so upset with you that they're quitting service so they can go public with how badly you've screwed up the military, Mr. George W. Bush, you might be having a bad day...
Picture this: you are a law-abiding citizen of the United States of America (well, the important laws, anyway). You make a phone call to anywhere--could be a cousin in Turkey, a friend in New Jersey, your congressman in D.C. You later find out that the phone company you used to place that call has been feeding all or some of this information to the government without any form of oversight and in violation of communications privacy laws. You're pissed and you're thinking about suing, right? Not so fast.
In the face of seemingly crazy characterizations of the "enormous successes" in Iraq, Washington Post reporter, Dan Froomkin is wondering, is Dick Cheney unravelling, or as we here at BSA wonder, has he completely lost his mind?
The Bush administration has condemned a recent missile test conducted by China in which one of that country's older weather satellites was blown into as many as 300,000 pieces (technically known as "smithereens"). The reason for the criticism should be obvious to anyone- it might impede our ability to spy with impunity!
Evidently Iran has been getting those e-mails telling you how cheap it is to buy surplus goods from the government and they didn't get caught in their spam filters. Unfortunately the goods it's been buying are jet parts and missile components.
The Port of Miami was hit by its second terrorism scare in two days Monday when a package that was to be loaded onto a cruise ship tested positive for plastic explosives. Authorities later determined it was just a box of sprinkler parts.