Scott Ott is always a great read. His satire always matches my own thoughts on a wide range of topics. Such is the case today with his post Obama Blames Katrina Survivors for Shattered Faith

Related, a caption contest at the Jawa Report.

… with this:

Illegal immigrants helping to rebuild this shattered city are working in hazardous conditions without protective gear and earning far less than their legal counterparts, a study says.

That’s how the article starts. It just gets worse from there.

Nearly one-third of the illegal immigrants interviewed by researchers reported working with harmful substances and in dangerous conditions, while 19 percent said they were not given any protective equipment, according to the study by professors at Tulane University and the University of California at Berkeley.

Illegal immigrants also were paid significantly less — if at all [If at all??? Jim] — earning on average $10 per hour, compared with $16.50 for documented workers, the study said.

But the worst, at least to me, is this:

“What is fundamentally unfair is these are workers who have responded to a national priority to rebuild this city and yet whose rights are being violated,” said Laurel Fletcher, director of Berkeley’s International Human Rights Law Clinic and one of the study’s co-authors.

No. No. No. It is not those who have come to New Orleans illegally, and those who are employing them in violation of the law who are having their rights violated, it is the American people, and the people of New Orleans. I don’t mean to imply that I think these people should be abused, exposed to hazards, or harmed. I simply mean that they should not be here at all!

The article asserts that these illegal aliens are, “now the backbone of the reconstruction”.

That’s just so wrong.

**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration (CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email the coalition and let us know at what level you would like to participate.

This is not an entry in a recipe contest. In fact you may not want to read it immediately after a meal. No, the stuffed pork I’m refering to here is Senator Mary Landrieu’s shopping list for Katrina relief money. Veronique de Rugy, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute examined the 440 page legislation as reported by Washington Times reporter Wesley Pruden. (h/t: GOP Bloggers). Mr. Pruden prefaced the analysis this way:

Sen. Mary Landrieu, the senior senator from Louisiana who threatened on national television to punch out the president if he didn’t straighten up and come across, has presented the mother of all shopping lists. If Mzz Landrieu gets half of what she’s asking for, Santa Claus should move to Bourbon Street to cut down on his Christmas commute.

Mzz Landrieu wants billions and baubles, and no strings. “Louisiana will be rebuilt by Louisianans,” she says proudly. “New Orleans will be rebuilt by New Orleans. And southern Louisiana will be rebuilt under the leadership of the people who call it home.”

That’s the way it should be, within reasonable limits, but since the rest of us are asked to shut up and just send the money we’re entitled to examine the Christmas list.

Here is a partial listing of the ingredients Miss de Rugy found in this recipe. I’ll just highlight a few of the more interesting ones.

$35 million for the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board; $8 million for direct financial assistance to alligator farmers; $12 million for the restoration of wildlife management areas; $25 million to complete the Sugarcane Research Laboratory; $120 million for a laboratory, facilities and equipment at the Southern Regional Research Center; $28 million for the restoration and rehabilitation of trees; $34 million to support the research and education activities of the Agriculture Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service; $19 million for the acquisition of first-responder mobile communications and to provide public wireless Internet access in a 100-block area of downtown New Orleans; $250 million for assistance to firefighters; $100 million for “early intervention, prevention, and disorder treatment” for children up to 5 years old; another $100 million for early intervention, prevention, and disorder treatment for children older than that; $100 million for assessment, early intervention, prevention, and treatment for “substance abuse” (and we’re not talking red beans and rice, delicious substances though those are); $600 million for early childhood education; $20 million for the establishment of development plans for development districts in the state; $160 million to implement the 2005 recommendations of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission related to the federal city development in Algiers, La.; $7 billion for rebuilding evacuation and energy supply routes (that’s in addition to $5 billion for expansion of road and transit capacity); $150 million for small business loans and tax breaks, and another $50 billion in block grants (this is in case someone forgot to ask for something).

Speaking of incidentals, Sen. Landrieu and her legislation asks for reimbursement of lost business revenue, which is exceedingly nice work if you can get it. This includes $27 million for lost timber revenues from the Pearl River Wildlife Management Area, $250,000 for “lost” milk of dairy farmers, $11 million for cattle farmers, $5 million for “dairy spoilage” (this may be spilt milk), another $5 million for “unspecified livestock-related losses.”

Uh, wow? The American people have been extremely giving of their money and other resources. No one is trying to avoid helping the areas damaged and destroyed by Katrina to rebuild. But to attempt to take advantage of the US taxpayers in this way is beyond belief. Mr. Pruden suggests that, “The speed with which the senator and her list-makers came up with the wish list suggests that someone has been picking numbers out of the air, with the expectation that nobody is looking closely.” We need to look closely. Mark Noonan (GOP Bloggers) has this suggestion.

We have to make certain that this gets around the blogosphere and eventually into the MSM. This is pork – pork designed to slip through because it will be described as aid for the victims of Katrina. Unless we get the word out there, then we’ll be spending $8 million on alligator farmers because we think we’re spending money to help people who lost their homes…

Read his post to find out how to contact your representatives.

Linked with the OTB Beltway Traffic Jam and Supper at Basil’s Blog

First it was the local officials and the press. The left wasn’t far behind (if at all), and even comments from the right started early. Now Congress is weighing in. Democrats are mostly sitting this phase out, not because they don’t think it’s right, but because they don’t think it will be mean enough. So far they’re wrong on that score. For example (source):

“I’m happy you left,” said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn. “Because that kind of, you know, look in the lights like a deer tells me that you weren’t capable to do the job.”

“You get an F-minus in my book,” said Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss.

I’m not debating the job Michael Brown did in the aftermath of Katrina. That’s not the purpose here, and I don’t believe it should be the focus of any investigation yet. There is still time for that. What I am disturbed by is the way Mr. Brown is being treated. Not by TOM or the left. That’s to be expected. But I have been less than pleased by some conservitive bloggers unkind attacks. So have some others.

AJ Strata (The Strata-Sphere) had this to say,

You cannot blame FEMA for coming in expecting to execute Plan A and then be stumped when Plan A is not being executed and Nagin and Blanco are ‘winging it’. FEMA needs direction where to place resources. That is why they ‘coordinate’ resources for the state. The state cannot call on these resources, but FEMA can. But what is someone to do when the local officials are making political decisions instead of running a response plan?

Hindsight is wonderful, but scapegoating with hindsight is disgusting. So while so many stick their noses up at Brown for not being experienced enough, I remind them he is much more qualified than they are on this subject. He is more qualified than I am.

Those are only a few of many good points he makes. I encourage you to read his entire post. He pointed me to MacRanger’s post on this topic, where he said,

Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., cautioned against too narrowly assigning blame.

“At the end of the day, I suspect that we’ll find that government at all levels failed the people of Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama and the Gulf Coast,” said Davis.

Davis pushed Brown on what he and the agency he led should have done to evacuate New Orleans, restore order in the city and improve communication among law enforcement agencies.

Brown said: “Those are not FEMA roles. FEMA doesn’t evacuate communities. FEMA does not do law enforcement. FEMA does not do communications.”

And that is exactly right. FEMA doesn’t provide those functions! FEMA by it’s creation in 1979 specifically works as a liason between local/state governments and the federal government.

Great point. The debate over what was done, right and wrong, needs to be focused around what role each player had. I don’t fault the bat boy when the Phillies lose. (Although a case can be made against the Pittsburgh clock operator). What I’m saying is this, you can’t blame Mike Brown for not doing some else’s job. John Hinderaker at Powerline said it like this,

No doubt FEMA’s performance was imperfect. What else is new? But Michael Brown didn’t flood New Orleans. Nor did he fail to order a mandatory evacuation. Nor, when the order was finally given by the appropriate authorities, was he the one who failed to carry it out competently. I thought it was a mistake when President Bush cashiered Brown, and his performance tonight validates that judgment. FEMA’s position is eminently defensible. But the Bush administration, historically, has failed to defend its own agencies aggressively, and instead has passively yielded to the news cycle.

If you’ll forgive one more analogy, isn’t this like blaming the waitress when your food doesn’t taste good? Resposibility links with the part of a task someone is supposed to cary out. If that waitress put your order in incorrectly, yes the blame is hers. But, if she did her job and the cook is just lousy, the blame goes to them. In evaluating the response to these disasters we need to concentrate on responsibility. Let’s not blame Michael Brown for failures that occured elsewhere.

Mark Noonan at Blogs for Bush looks at this roasting as an extension of TOM’s highly oversensationalized coverage of the storm and it’s aftermath.

What we have here is an outgrowth of the media coverage of Hurricane Katrina – coverage which we now know was almost entirely inaccurate. Outside of the facts that a hurricane hit and flooding resulted, I can’t think of anything else reported which was either relevant or tru[e]. The reporting we did get played entirely to emotion, sensationalism and the quest for high ratings. Part of this phony media narrative of Katrina is the assertion that Michael Brown completely dropped the ball as head of FEMA. Did Michael Brown drop the ball? Only a careful sifting of the facts post-mortem will tell the tale…and it is disgusting that Congress seems more interested in playing to the MSM gallery and public opinion polling than working for truth.

What is amazing here is that Republicans are going along with it – here we have the MSM which played false with the War on Terrorism, the liberation of Iraq, the 2004 election, Tom Delay, etc, etc, etc…and yet after all of these falsehoods and distortions by the MSM, some Republicans are working on the assumption that somehow the MSM got it right about Michael Brown and Katrina.

Good points. Yes, we need to examine this disaster as we do any event like this. But let’s do so with an eye on learning how we can do better, and an understanding of who was responsible for each part of the response.

Linked with the OTB Beltway Traffic Jam and the Mudville Gazette Open Post

RITA BUMP: In light of hurricane Rita heading for Texas and the fact that people are still showing an interest in getting these on their sites, I am bumping this back to the top. Many of you have already made contributions, if possible please give again. If you haven’t given yet, please do if at all possible. Help is still needed and will continue to be needed for some time. The ribbons remains at the top of this blog. Just click on it and make your contribution.

Thanks.

If you would like to add an American Red Cross donation ribbon like the one at the top of this page here is how you can do it:

Save one of these images and upload it to your server.

To put the ribbon on the right side of your page place this bit of code in your css style sheet:

.banner {float:right; position:absolute; top:0px; right:0px;}

And place this right below the <body> tag:

<div class="banner">
<img src="http://YOUR_IMAGE_LOCATION/arc_rib.gif" usemap="#banner" border="0" style="width:200;height:200;" /><map name="banner"><area shape="poly" COORDS="16,1,57,0,199,142,199,185" href="https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp" alt="Donate to the Red Cross Hurricane Relief Effort" title="Donate to the Red Cross Hurricane Relief Effort" /></map>
</div>

To put the ribbon on the left side of your page place this bit of code in your css style sheet:

.banner {float:left; position:absolute; top:0px; left:0px;}

And place this right below the <body> tag:

<div class="banner">
<img src="http://YOUR_IMAGE_LOCATION/arc_rib_left.gif" usemap="#banner" border="0" style="width:200;height:200;" /><map name="banner"><area shape="poly" COORDS="142,1,186,1,2,183,0,139" href="https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp" alt="Donate to the Red Cross Hurricane Relief Effort" title="Donate to the Red Cross Hurricane Relief Effort" /></map>
</div>

UPDATE: I know that some of you will be donating to charities other than the Red Cross. There are dozens of good ones that are contributing to this effort; Instapundit has a list. If you would like a ribbon for one of them, please let me know. I have a template already created so I should be able to get something for you in short order (once I get home this afternoon). I will be creating ribbons for those listed there as I have time. Drop me a line using the contact link at the top of the page and let me know for which charity you would like a ribbon. Include a web address and if you have any graphics you would like to use, include them too.

If you have any questions on adding this to your blog, please use the contact link at the top of the page and I will try to help. If you would like to point your readers to this post, I encourage you to create a trackback. They will appear below:

Added to the lunch menu at Basil’s Blog

No, not the USA. Country music.

NEW ORLEANS (AP)

The Wal-Mart store in uptown New Orleans, built within the last year, survived the storm but was destroyed by looters.

“They took everything – all the electronics, the food, the bikes,” said John Stonaker, a Wal-Mart security officer. “People left their old clothes on the floor when they took new ones. The only thing left are the country-and-western CDs. You can still get a Shania Twain album.”

Well, I thought it was funny.

You need a little bacon with your breakfast, especially on a Saturday morning. The MaryHunter and his cohort Bergbikr have FOUR posts that I found interesting over at TMH’s Bacon Bits.

TMH examines an article by Charles Krauthammer about the Roberts’ confirmation. He then turns his keyboard to Tony Blair’s changed take on Kyoto. His blog partner Bergbikr continues the global warming theme in regard to Katrina and also looks at a quote from Star Parker.

Go on over. Your breakfast will be better if you do.

Byron York takes a look at the MorOn.org Katrina Protest in a piece on NRO.
Their effort will not be turned into a case study of how to stage a successful protest.

The rally — designed to “tell President Bush to stop blaming local officials for his mistakes and acknowledge that budget cuts and indifference by his administration led to disaster in New Orleans and along the Mississippi Gulf Coast” — began at 1:00 P.M. in Lafayette Park, across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. But going on at the same time in the park was “A Day for Darfur,” a protest sponsored by a group called Africa Action, along with several other human rights organizations.

The Darfur demonstration was well organized, with a professional stage, a good sound system, big signs, and a list of speakers that included National Council of Churches head Bob Edgar, Representatives Barbara Lee and Donald Payne, and God’s Politics author Jim Wallis. The rally was coming to its finale when a small group of MoveOn members began to assemble under a shade tree a few dozen yards away.

Representatives of Fenton Communications, fresh from their work assisting anti-war mom Cindy Sheehan in Crawford, Texas, brought boxes of pre-printed signs for MoveOn protesters to hold. One sign said, simply, SHAME, while another said HELP HURRICANE VICTIMS. (That was just as promised; the press release announcing the protest promised “Excellent Visuals — Signs reading “Shame” and “Help Hurricane Victims.”) For their part, MoveOn officials arrived bringing boxes of printed-out Internet petitions signed, they said, by 250,000 people in the previous 24 hours. The petition said, “President Bush should stop blaming the victims of Hurricane Katrina and get to work helping them.” Tom Matzzie, MoveOn’s Washington director, pulled the petitions out of the boxes and stacked them in two piles, each about three feet high, in case anyone from the press wanted to take a picture.

No sound system, lame signs, and an even lamer message. The “highlight” of the rally was three MorOn members from New Orleans; a lawyer, a grad student, and a public school teacher (No. This isn’t the begining of a bad joke. They didn’t go into a bar.) York points out

The three women, while they had lost their homes and more, were not the kind of grievously needy victims who have been on television so much lately. They are, after all, MoveOn members, meaning they are involved in Internet activism, which is usually a middle-class pursuit. And they were all able to leave New Orleans; Renfroe elected to stay, while Augillard and Mayfield left town ahead of the storm. Although they had lost much, their stories did not have the impact of many others that have been told in the press.

While thousands of Americans of every ideology are giving their time, money, and more, this group thinks they are being helpful by pointing fingers and howling. If they want to protest, great. I’ve got no problem with that. I don’t see where it will bring much relief to those who really need it. “Shame” and “Help Hurricane Victims” weren’t the only signs there, York reports.

A man named Kristinn Taylor, an active member of the conservative group FreeRepublic in Washington, stood off to the side with a handmade sign that said, SHAME ON MOVEON — EXPLOITING KATRINA VICTIMS.

You’ve got that right.

A covered dish at Basil’s Blog and linked with the OTB Beltway Traffic Jam

From AHN

Thousands of soldiers from a New Orleans National Guard unit are leaving today to return to the U.S.

Guard officials say 80 percent of the soldiers lost homes and some have not heard from relatives since Hurricane Katrina.

The soldiers have been told if their homes are gone and their families scattered and homeless, the Army will help them.

The uncertainty of what they will come home to has to be more difficult and stressful than anything I can imagine. Please, if you are so inclined, pray for these soldiers, their families and loved ones.

I know that local editors sometimes provide the headlines for wire stories. From my days in radio I know that there is usually an attached headline that goes out with the story. Two online sources have the same AP story with the same stupid headline, “FEMA Chief Sent Help Only When Storm Ended”. Well Hell’s Bells, isn’t that insightful. I guess they think it would have been better to have a headline that read, “FEMA Chief Sent Thousands While Catagory Four Storm Raged – Without State Request”.

Even worse is the article itself. Bryan at Arguing with signposts fisks the AP hatchet job.

The blogs participating in the Labor Day Weekend fund drive have raised over $1.1 Million Dollars for Katrina Relief. TTLB has tracked the donations, and quite frankly I’m sure the amount is understated as only those who donated and the logged the donation were included.

Remember, this is not going to be a short term fix. The people who have been so hard hit by this disaster are going to need help for weeks and months to come. If you have already donated, great. Please consider giving more soon. If you haven’t given yet, I am still recomending the American Red Cross for your donations. You will be able to click on the ribbon at the top of this page at any time. It will remain up at least through the month of September. But for today I would just like to say, “job well done,” to the bloggers and the readers who have done such an outstanding job. It may be a drop in the bucket compared to the large corporations, but every dollar is going to go a long way toward helping our neighbors, our countrymen, who need every bit of help we can give.

Thank You.

Amidst the finger pointing there are two things to remember. Things are getting done, and people are helping out in dozens of ways.

All across the area hit by Katrina the beginning of the rebuilding process can be seen. In some areas power is starting to be restored. In Alabama, according to NBC13.com, Power has been restored to:

• 96% of the Birmingham area
• 99% of Mobile area residents will have power by Wednesday
• In Tuscaloosa, 91% of customers have power.

Cullman County Alabama via the Cullman Times:

After restoring power to its members, Cullman Electric Cooperative will now send a crew to assist a Louisiana co-op in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

“We will be sending four men to help Washington St. Tammany Electric Cooperative,” said Amy Gorham, communication coordinator for Cullman EC.

[...]

Gorham said the local crew will depart Monday morning for Louisiana with a replacement crew leaving the following Saturday.

Cullman EC expected to restore power to all of its members by Friday night. Katrina knocked out electricity to about 26,000 members when her remnants rolled through late Monday night and early Tuesday morning.

“Everyone that has the ability to receive power will have had their power restored by Friday night,” Gorham said.

[...]

Cullman Power Board, who assisted Cullman EC, is now looking at providing aid to utilities in the Gulf Coast region.

“Cullman Power Board has been in contact with the emergency operations center of Tennessee Valley Public Power Association and also Electric Cities of Alabama,” said Mike Manning, general manager of the Power Board. “We’re working with them to determine a place we can send some crews to.”

Ascension Parish public school students will head back to the classroom Tuesday with power restored to buildings and all school buses returned and cleaned up from New Orleans evacuations, an official said Sunday. (2theadvocate.com – Baton Rouge)

And on Bloomberg.com they are reporting that, “Lights flickered on in some parts of New Orleans as rescue and restoration efforts continued a week after Hurricane Katrina hit the city.”

Even more significant are the hundreds of ways people all around the nation and the world are coming to the aid of the storm’s victims. From volunteers at the countless shelters to individuals who are opening their homes, ordinary people are helping out at all levels. And we are opening our wallets as well. Those who have logged their donations at TTLB have raised well over $800,000 for 245 different charities. This effort will be going on through the rest of today. bRight & Early is recomending donations to the American Red Cross. If you haven’t donated yet, please do it today. If you have given, and didn’t log your contribution at TTLB, you can still do that as well. Oh, and if you have given, remember, there’s nothing to stop you from giving even more.

Have a great Labor Day.