I agree that the war in Iraq is important. Cover it.  Ditto for the Gonzo and Rove items.  I'll even say that the Craig brouhaha is okay.

They need help. BIG TIME.

The banana trees, knocked down. Ag industry wiped out.

Bananas are being imported to Grenada. Now THAT is bad.

What can YOU do.

• Hurricanes biting into BP's profits
  
• The majors not necessarily the most successful at exploration
  
• Aggressive bidding for access to Lybia's newly opened reserves
  
• Don't forget natural gas

As I wrote in my previous diary, I think it would make sense to summarise the policy in a few easily understood points.

We need these to be explicit, on target, and simple.

To get there, I'd like all of you to pitch in. I am providing a first draft below, based on the many suggestions I have found in my earlier diaries and prepared jointly with Meteor Blades and Devilstower (who both intend to work with me in a joint effort on this), and I'd like you to critique this mercilessly, with a view to improving it.

More in extended.

We need an independent non partisan commission to get to the bottom of this and recommend ways to fix FEMA and DHS. This isn't about race or class but it sure looks like it's about politics. We all know they're trying to pin their deliberate withholding of aid on Blanco and Nagin. But does anyone have a electoral map to overlay on FEMA's aid map on their homepage?

More on the flip.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4859329

"Morning Edition, September 23, 2005 · In the days before Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, officials in local, state and federal governments held a series of telephone conference calls aimed at coordinating their responses to the storm. The sessions were recorded by Walter Maestri, emergency manager for Jefferson Parish, who shared them with NPR."

I remember watching the NOLA evac and thinking that they were smart about it, at least in getting the CARS out....more below

UPDATE 6:00 EDT: RITA IS A CATASTROPHIC CATEGORY 5 Hurricane. LANDFALL SAT 7 AM Matagorda, TX. Eye Wall Replacement Cycle within 12-24 hrs statistically likely (Which the media may erroneously announce as dramatic weakening event.)

Blogs which are tracking; The Oil Drum, Jeff Masters at The Weather Underground, National Weather Center, IPS MeteoStar.

Latest E-mail 6:00 EDT:

URGENT STORM WARNING: RITA EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CATEGORY 5 - 914MB PRESSURE. Latest RECON: RECON Report 899mb, that is a record drop for two hours. Eye 20NM across - (Katrina's lowest pressure was 902mb) Thermal eyewall; 21°deg / location 24.4N/.86.5W -HEADING 280° 9KTS. MAX sustained flight winds are 161Kts, with sustained surface winds of 165mph -- and gusts to 185mph. The thermal eyewall temp difference is an astounding 21°C. Furthermore, there are no signs yet that Rita has finished intensifying. [NOAA 4 PM storm track]

The following collaborative effort by DarkSyde and Hurricane Meteorologist Steve Gregory is devoted mostly to energy/storm issues.

Will Durst posts daily quips over at The Progressive magazine that are just plain snarky...

"Bush is to leadership what prairie brambles are to mobile surgery rooms."

"Intelligent Design is just creationism with aluminum siding on it."

"You could say the new Iraqi Constitution is going to be a bit short on rights for women. You could also say the Arctic in January is brisk."

"Bush says he doesn't want to play the "Blame Game." Makes sense. Never heard of a chicken who wanted to play the "Extra Crispy" game."

"The good news is, closed circuit videos in and around New Orleans have allowed us to identify the looters: Chevron, Shell, and ExxonMobil."

"Senator Rick Santorum thinks there should be tougher penalties on people who decide to ride Hurricanes out. I guess he means worse than drowning."

"As soon as New Orleans gets back to normal, I plan on volunteering to go down there and help drink their economy back on its feet."

I'll meet you there.  In the meantime, gang, have a lovely last-weekend-of-summer weekend.  Cheers and Jeers turns autumn colors in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!]  RIGHTNOW!  [Gong!!]

"New Orleans itself epitomizes the anguish of Democrats. In 2004 it dodged the hurricane Ivan bullet. This city run by black Democrats only reluctantly opened the Superdome to shelter potential refugees. Despite the Ivan warning they did not develop an evacuation plan for the thousands of residents who don't have cars, the only adequate means of escape. Their plan seemed to consist of hope, denial and wishful thinking that major hurricanes would miss the city and that levees would always hold up.

This is cross posted at ArchPundit, though this version is slightly updated.  

Two pieces of information have become famous in wingnut circles over the last few days, but they are quoted out of context and completely miss the the extent of the preparation the City of New Orleans was undertaking for a hurricane such as Katrina.  

The first piece of information the Right Wing Noise Machine is trying to argue is that the City of New Orleans didn't follow its hurricane plan as contained in the The City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan Annex I: Hurricanes. The second piece of information is that the City of New Orleans had no plan for sheltering its citizens who did not have their own transportation with which to flee with portions of this article from the Times-Picayune from July 24th.

Join me after the jump...

He's not even a horseman.  He was hired by IAHA because, as a non-horseperson, he had no dog in the fight, so to speak

So Brown went from a horse show commissioner who knew nothing about horses to a Federal Emergency Management Agency director who knew nothing about managing emergencies.  At least he's consistent.

• the FT (London), after publishing a shameful defense of Bush's competence last week (critiqued here), has since provided some scathing criticism over the week-end (reviewed here) and has more today (reviewed below);

• the Economist (also from London, but more than half their readers are in the US) has been mysteriously kind to Bush over the past 5 years, and they continue to be so now. Despite calling to vote for Kerry, they have provided excuses for Bush throughout, and keep at it now. There coverage of the economic and financial impact, and even of the political fallout, is nevertheless interesting;

• the Wall Street Journal, or at least its opinion pages, has been consistent in its support of Bush and his policies, and continues on that line. Today's message to help in the aftermath of Katrina: cut taxes! Deregulate oil drilling!

As reported last week by Halliburton Watch, the US Navy has asked Halliburton to repair naval facilities damaged by Katrina under an existing $500 million contract.  Earlier this year the Navy awarded KBR and three other companies $350 million in contracts to repair facilities damaged in 2004 by Hurricane Ivan.  And according to the New York Times, Halliburton is planning to profit further from Katrina:

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 14 [2004]-- Walter Maestri, an emergency manager here in America's most vulnerable metropolitan area, has 10,000 body bags ready in case a major hurricane ever hits New Orleans. As Hurricane Ivan's expected path shifted uncomfortably close to this low-lying urban soup bowl Tuesday, Maestri said he might need a lot more.

Team Bush is in full PR mode, spinning the facts and playing stupid in response to the explosion of criticism it has received about Katrina.

In typical "the Buck stops over THERE" fashion, the administration has launched a coordinated attack on state and local officials, claiming that the man-made disaster after Katrina is the fault of the Mayor and Governor.  The primary fallacy, of course, is that a mayor's response is only as good as the resources and infrastructure available to him.  When a city is evacuated and there ARE no resources or infrastructure to rely on like on 9/11, the mayor...well, he turns to the President and says "FIX THIS."

One look at the Congressional Record below proves that the state officials--particularly Sen. Landreiu--have been BEGGING the Republican Congress and the Republican administration to take action.  The GOP administration was warned--time and time again over the last 4 years as you'll see below--of the devastation.  

Katrina left New Orleans flooded and severely damaged, but feeling for the moment as though it had dodged a bullet.  It was bad, but it wasn't it as bad as it could have been.  Or so it was thought on Monday.

The truth was, though, that Katrina was a storm of surprises--the movement toward New Orleans, the last-minute jog northward on its way to New Orleans, the return back past Mississippi's Gulf coast on its way north.  And though it wasn't immediately obvious in New Orleans, where hope was blooming throughout the day Monday, Katrina would prove, in time, as devastating to the Crescent City as it had to the entire Gulf Coast, from Louisiana to Alabama.