Gag Barbara With a (Silver) Spoon.

Dear Non-College-Graduate and Unrepentant Me-First-ist Barbara Bush:

I'm wondering, why does your beautiful little mind feel "sort of scarey" about the prospect of people of color moving into your white-bread neighborhood? Are you afraid property values will go down?

Are you the one who taught your pig-headedly-ignorant, egomaniacal, animal-abusing, borderline-sociopathic son that "poor people are poor because they're lazy"*?

(*See below: "Bubble Boy Deja Vu: MIA All Over Again")

Are you the one who taught your Bubble Boy not to bother about counting body bags, perhaps because those persons they contain are dead already, so therefore one's beautiful mind might as well be pointed elsewhere as the dead can provide one with no particular advantages?

Are you the one who taught Bubble Boy that being an abortionist of the post-born was karmically correct but that, on the other hand, all the embryoes in test tubes with big round sad eyes are the ones who much more truly deserve Bubble Boy's help and compassion? Just asking.

Say, Babs, considering your remark that it was "scarey" that all these black folk might be movin' into your Texas neighborhood, what's your response to Rep. Baker of Baton Rouge's comments: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

Do you agree? I'm betting you do.

You know who else agrees with Rep. Baker that God did this, and agrees with you, that this Katrina disaster is "working very well'?

Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.

Yo. Politics does make strange bedfellows.

Miz Bush, here's another fun fact about New Orleans. It's going to be hard to identify corpses there from dental records--because so many people in Louisiana can't afford to go to the dentist. Bet that's a state of affairs you personally have never had to worry about, eh? Yes, and as the Grover Norquistian destruction of this country continues on unabated, I have been noticing that dental care, once even within the reach of the moderately poor, now counts as a luxury item that the middle classes have to scrimp and save toward--a thousand dollars a pop.

Oh, and tell me, Babs, I'm worried, why don't your grandchildren have jobs? They wouldn't be lazy, would they? They better watch out, or they'll end up in New Orleans without health care, dental care, livin' in a swamp. Gee. Wait. No, that probably won't happen to them, will it? Why would that be? If they're not working, they're lazy, if they're lazy, they're poor, and deserve to be poor. What am I missing here?

Say, Missy Babs, what about this one? Do you find this a scarey story? Suburban police officers from Gretna, LA, deliberately prevented a minimum of two hundred New Orleans citizens from fleeing Hurricane Katrina over the Crescent Connection Bridge into the city of Gretna. Gretna Police confiscated their food and water, threatened them with guns, and fired shots over their heads to prevent their flight into their city. Wasn't that nice and neighborly and Christ-ist and right-to-life-ist, protecting property over people?

Here's a simile, Babs. Do you know what "simile" means? Bet your dumb angry son neither knows nor cares.

Anyhow, Babs, that's kind of like the Brooklyn, NYC cops preventing citizens of Manhattan from fleeing the World Trade Center disaster by escaping over the Brooklyn Bridge, turning them back, and making them go back into Manhattan. Do you think this would have been the right thing to do? Do you think that happened because New York is not a slave state? Do you find this story "scarey" or not? If not, why not?

Hey, Babs. One more story for you.

Your son, the apparently terminally spoiled brat, Bubble Boy personally saved no one from Hurricane Katrina. He was on an important vacation followed by important photo opportunities, after all. I liked the implication in the Newsweek story that Bubble Boy's temper tantrums are so bad these days that it took his staff until Thursday to grow enough cojones to draw straws and be the one to tell him that his response to Hurricane Katrina was--uh--totally inadequate.

Here are examples of people who actually did something to save people: Harry Connick (drove in water truck), Sean Penn (went out in boats), three college students from Duke in a Hyundai (drove in supplies and drove out evacuees), Oprah Winfrey and friends (33 trucks filled with supplies) and the real winner, Al Gore. Remember him? The guy who beat your son in Florida before your minions on the Court selected Bubble Boy as Preznit? Mr. Gore, in addition to having correctly predicted the super-importance of the Internet well before the general public figured it out, was himself personally responsible for planning and executing the chartered plane evacuation of 270 people from New Orleans.

Gore started his disaster response planning before your Bubble Boy even got back from vacation! Gag me with a spoon, Barbara, but doesn't that blow your beautiful body-bag-averse little mind?

If This Doesn't Make You Weep, You're a Black-Heart Neo-Con. It's Diagnostic

Well, I still haven't had time to do the drowning Grover Norquist in the toxic water bathtub of New Orleans thing yet, but I came across a Mark Fiore cartoon that looked like it might do as part of the No Blood for Hubris Mental Health Interlude, Part Deux.

Oh, and then it ended.

Not funny. Painful. I remember that guy, Arron Broussard, the President of Jefferson Parish.

Beautiful work, Mark Fiore.

Oh, and, really, this is diagnostic.

Responses to this piece instantly will reveal all those who still buy the Bubble Boy line hook, line, and sinker, those who are official Pod Persons, Stepford Republicans, as in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Krypto Zombies. Deserving of the deep, wrathful vengeance of New Orleans' Voodoo Queen, Marie Leveaux. Which might arise at any time, so get ready to duck, black-hearts. Karma's comin.'

On the other hand, what was it that Tendzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama said?

Ah, yes. He said, "Compassion, compassion, compassion."

You hear this clip to the end, you don't feel nothin, you're in big trouble and ready for the George Bush/Go Fuck Yourself Dick Cheney Heart of Darkness Award, major dudes and dudettes.

Compassion, compassion, compassion.

Bubble Boy to New Orleans: DROP DEAD

Here's the real smoking gun for Bubble Boy.

Forget the Rovian spin-attempts to swift-boat the Governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans. Maybe Karl, too, was vacationing so hard he failed to note that TV viewers and blogtopians heard their pleas for help in real-time, and heard their frustration at not receiving any aid.

Number one: Bush.

There were nine million MREs all ready to be delivered by thousands of troops to New Orleans--delivery was held up by Bush himself. Bush failed to authorize NorthCom, the Northern Command located in Colorado, to act at once.

Lt. Cmdr. Sean Kelly, as interviewed on the BBC last night, stated that their emergency planning for the hurricane began well before Katrina hit. NorthCom rightly anticipated that there would be a major disaster, and had millions of meals-ready-to-eat available and thousands of troops ready to deliver help to survivors. He had ships such as the USS Bataan following the storm into the port, ready to act at once to provide medical care and with the capability of delivering 100,000 gallons of water per day.

When asked by the BBC interviewer why there had been such a long delay in receiving and distributing aid to survivors, Lt. Cmdr. Kelly said that NorthCom was unable to act on its own, without authorization from the President.


Said Kelly:

Northcom started planning before the storm even hit. We were ready when it hit Florida, because, as you remember, it hit the bottom part of Florida, and then we were planning once it was pointed towards the Gulf Coast.

"So, what we did, we activated what we call 'defense coordinating officers' to work with the states to say, 'OK, what do you think you will need?' And we set up staging bases that could be started.

"We had the USS Bataan sailing almost behind the hurricane so once the hurricane made landfall, its search and rescue helicopters could be available almost immediately. So, we had things ready.

"The only caveat is: we have to wait until the president authorizes us to do so. The laws of the United States say that the military can't just act in this fashion; we have to wait for the president to give us permission."

That lack of authorization is what held up emergency intervention.

Bush failed to authorize the military to go in in a timely fashion.



Number two: feckless FEMA.

Headed by noted Arabian horse-fancier Michael Brown, handpicked by Bush, Bush's charming FEMA, instead of helping aid to reach victims, actually prevented aid from coming in, and sent other aid back.

Wal-Mart sent aid--food and water-- and FEMA stopped it, saying it wasn't needed.

Oh, gee. Can you say "criminal negligence"?

Others sent diesel fuel, FEMA stopped it, and sent it back.

FEMA cut lines of emergency communication with Jefferson Parish. The Sheriff had to repair the lines FEMA cut, and had to send armed guards to keep FEMA from cutting them again.

Trucks bringing in water? FEMA made them wait for two days, while people died from dehydration.

And it happened again and again: check out the video at crooks and liars of Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, in a heart-rending, shocking speech that deserves watching and re-watching and passing on: "Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us."

It's all on Bubble Boy.

How many deaths were there due to the long delay? Tens, hundreds? How many are still happening? The USS Bataan remains in the New Orleans harbor, still able to provide water, food, and medical care for victims. As of this writing, it still hasn't received orders to do so.


I'd call this a high crime. How about you?

In Nightmares Begin Responsibility

Nightmares: Bush failures during Katrina.

K: NorthCom started planning before the storm even hit.

We were ready for the storm when it hit Florida because, as you remember, it crossed the bottom part of Florida, and then we were plaining, you know, once it was pointed towards the Gulf Coast.

So what we did was we activated what we call defense coordinating officers to work with the state to say okay, what do you think you'll need, and we set up staging bases that could be started. We had the USS Baton sailing almost behind the hurricane so that after the hurricane made landfall it's search and rescue helicopters would be available almost immediately. So we had things ready.

The only caveat is, we have to wait until the President authorizes us to do so. The laws of the United States say that the military can't just act in this fashion, we have to wait for the President to give us permission.


U.S. Xpress driver from Chattanooga, TN, fills water truck on Monday. FEMA does not permit driver to enter New Orleans until Friday.

About 100 people have died at the Chalmette Slip after being pulled off their rooftops, waiting to be ferried up the river to the West Bank and bused out of the flood ravaged area, U.S. Rep. Charles Melancon, D-Napoleonville, said Thursday.

About 1,500 people were at the slip on Thursday afternoon, where critical supplies like food and water are scarce, he said. Melancon expressed serious frustration with the slow pace of getting these items to the people waiting to finish their journey to
safety.

In St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, just south of New Orleans, victims of the hurricane are still waiting for food and water and for buses to escape the floodwaters, Melancon said. And for the entire time Bush was in the state, the congressman said, a ban on helicopter flights further stalled the delivery of food and supplies.

“I thank the president for his visit today, but it was more show than substance,” Melancon said. “Frankly, we needed action days ago.”

Bubble Boy Deja Vu--MIA All Over Again!!

On Monday before Hurricane Katrina, Boy George, Dirty Bush, just had to go to Rancho Cucamonga. On Tuesday, after the hurricane, he had to go to San Diego.

On both days, he had to not go to New Orleans.

That's 'cause Bubble Boy's trying to complete this five-week lap of a tough, compulsory, multiple-vacation-per-year performance schedule. Having vacations is--well, it's hard work.

I mean, it's hard trying to forget about Cindy Sheehan. It's hard trying to forget about having successfully created an Islamic State. It's hard going to barbeques filled with Fourth Estate Propaganda Stenographers, and it's real hard clearin' that brush.

It's hard trying to pump some empathy out of a charred, black heart. Pumpin' oil out of that charred, black heart, that might work, mm-hm.

It's just SO parallel with the tsunami thing, Bubble Boy's total utter lack of empathy thing.

When there was that tsunami thing, there was that stunning lack-of-any-empathic-sympathy-thing thing.

Remember that? Hundreds of thousands dead, and Bush responds as if he were popping a zit or adjusting his jock strap. Took his handlers three, four days to beat some pretense of empathy into him, and it didn't really take, did it?

With the Hurricane Katrina disaster, Bubble Boy Bush's response once again is--disaster.

Mr. President Heart-of-Darkness is, empathetically speaking, Missing in Action, once again.

Does Bubble Boy feel guilty for having sent all those National Guard people away from their state into the deserts of Iraq? Nah.

Does he feel guilty for having slashed FEMA funding to protect New Orleans from disasters just like the one that just happened? Nah.

Does he think going back to Washington will make him look like he's leaderish? Sorta, but mostly Bubble Boy desperately needed an excuse permanently to end his miserable 2005 Crawford vacation and make Cindy Sheehan and her Cindy-Sheehan-thing thing GO AWAY.

Bubble Boy said it at Harvard, his professor Professor Tsurumi, recalled it, and here it is: poor people are poor because they're lazy.

Wooh-hooh!

If they die because they're poor and therefore lack cars, money, resources, highground property, etc., in order to escape hurricanes like in New Orleans and Mississippi, it's their own damn fault, mm-hm.

Hey. Don't get all snivelly-liberal about it, dudes and dudettes. GOD smote the poor in New Orleans, not Bubble Boy. So don't expect Bubble Boy to feel bad about it.

Our Bubble Boy?

Shee-it. Nah. He don' feel bad about nothin'.