I’ll be posting about Katrina throughout the day, but all in this entry. Scroll down for the newer stuff.

- On the web you will find liberal and conservative blogs soliciting donations for the victims. I came across two conservative blogs bragging how much more they were giving than liberal bloggers, and apparently liberals are trying to organize a donation response. I’m not kidding. I’d call this “ghoulish,” but I don’t want to insult my more restrained and sensible friends in the ghoul community.

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- If you’re not devoted to the idea of using your charity to prove that Your Sort of People are the most generous and righteous, you might want to go on over to the iTunes Music Store. If you’ve bought something there before, you can just click the Red Cross symbol, sign in, and click the amount you’d like to donate. Your money, all of it, will be sent to the Red Cross.

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- It’s tempting to blame the horrifyingly limp and lethargic federal response to Katrina on President Bush, and not all of it is merited. A lot of it, though… Look, America elected a president who freely admitted he wasn’t a Detail Guy, that he was more a Broad Strokes bloke. Great. But in a moment like this, faith, conviction, and a good heart aren’t as helpful as a head for details.

The relief effort requires the participation of FEMA (part of Homeland Security), the Army and other military branches (DoD), local and state officials, and independent relief organzations, just to name a few. There is only one man in America with the power and responsibility to oversee and coordinate all of that, and we would’ve been much better off with either of our two previous presidents.

So there’s a lesson here. Whethere you’re conservative, liberal, or other - next time, let’s elect a guy who Knows a Lot of Stuff.

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There must have been a plan, right? Somewhere, there has to be an approved plan concerning what resources needed to be put where in the event of a massive hurricane approaching New Orleans. I’d imagine that this is going to become important as we look into this - who had the plan and why wasn’t it implemented on Saturday? I hate to harp on it, but clearly, one of FEMA’s pre-identified Top 3 threats to the US (along with “terrorist attack on New York” and “West Coast Earthquake”) must have had a plan of some sort associated with it.

Unless that plan was “Don’t put adequate safeguards or emergency supplies in place - that will only anger the storm.” In that case, well done.

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Watching the c overage of the hurricane on CNN and MSNBC, I made a shocking discovery: The news networks really still do know how to report news. They have the resources and the ability. Most of the time, they’re just busy with more important things, like celebrity trials and the Perils of the latest Pauline.

On the downside, I saw Lou Dobbs draw a sad comparison between the atrocities in the streets of New Orleans and the noble deeds of New Yorkers on 9/11. I was in New York on 9/11. Though it was one of the most horrible days of my life, the tragedy was localized, the aftereffects predictible. We pulled together, yes, but we had homes, food, and water. We weren’t living on the streets in standing pools of human waste with no communication and no end in sight. Not to excuse the villainous behavior down there, but it’s just not a fair comparison.

So, today’s challenge is to deprive Lou Dobbs of food, water, sanitation, hope, and family. See how long before his feral, savage nature is unleashed. I’d guess it’d take about 25 minutes.