I am happy to have gotten word from a friend who lives (lived?) in New Orleans. He, his wife, and the dog are all safe and staying with relatives. They said they expect to find nothing in their house when they return, but seem to have gotten all of the important stuff out in time.

Having said that, it’s time for a series of short gripes on the situation in New Orleans.

The president has refused offers of foreign aid. Ask yourself why.

The National Guard has actually been keeping people from receiving supplies of food and water. Instead of dispersing it to the people at the bridge (which is where they were told to gather in order to be bussed out of the city), they guardsmen instead throw the crates of supplies off the bridge to the ground below, destroying much of it. An effort was attempted by the people there to offer carrying the goods to the people below. They were met with leveled rifles and told to stand back.

In the city proper, water was dropped off on the streets near National Guard units for the relief of the people and again, they were met with leveled rifles when attempting to retrieve said water.

The people at the bridge are being ignored by the busses which are transporting people out of the city. With this in mind, some of the people have taken to attempting auto theft in order to get people out of the city. The theft has been met with little resistance except, apparently, it the upper class neighborhoods which are, from reports of people there, patrolled by SWAT teams.

The police have been one of the largest groups of looters in the city (and I don’t just mean taking food and supplies, but things like big screen TV’s and breaking open ATM’s and safes). It looks like the motto is now “To protect and serve…ourselves…to your stuff”.

The greatest part is how the politicians (especially our Commander-in-Chimp), are all congratulating themselves on a job well done in taking action, only to say that things “could have been better” (paraphrase) when they were nailed to the wall by absolutely pissed off press members.

Now, I realize that things can’t be done overnight. However, they knew the storm was coming. They knew there would be problems, and still it took them days to activate units.