Just saw this on the box at lunch: Michael Brown just resigned from FEMA. Well, we saw that coming. UPDATE: “The focus has got to be on FEMA, what the people are trying to do down there,” Brown told The Associated Press. His decision was not a surprise. Brown was abruptly recalled to Washington on Friday, a clear vote of no confidence from his superiors at the White House and the Department of Homeland Security. Brown had been roundly criticized for FEMA’s bearish response to the hurricane, which has caused political problem for Bush and fellow Republicans. “I’m turning in…
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A young Nicaraguan man named Alvaro R. Morales Villa documented the New Orleans he has grown to love in an amazing, amazing, amazing series of photos at this Kodakgallery.com slide show. If you love good photographs that tell a compelling story, go to the site, change the settings to “5 second delay” (the longest, as there’s some text to read) and click “slideshow.” Because the young man spent so much time going around documenting New Orleans “before” and “after,” he inevitably fell in with journalists. The story he tells in pictures is incredible, but at some point he has to…
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These are the eleven Republicans who voted against the $51.8 billion Katrina aid bill. Remember, the National Republican Congressional Committee issued a press release attacking 65 Democrats (like Utah’s Rep Jim Matheson) for voting against this bill, when actually they voted for the final version (they had voted against some procedural action on it earlier in the day, but the NRCC couldn’t be bothered to correct its release). These eleven congressmen, Republican conservatives all, just voted against the $51 billion package ( H. R. 3673) for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Horrible human beings, all. Rep. Joe Barton – TX…
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It really was a swell bash and a lovely party, and lots of friends and family came to my sister Timmy’s house to help Mom celebrate her 90th birthday, which we celebrated last Saturday. There was lots of great food, and clearly shown in this picture, plenty of drink (well, boxes of wine are kind of an inside joke in the family). I’ve uploaded all the photos (even the action-shotty ones) as a set on my Flickr page. There was even a fun game to play – some sort of “ring on a string” thing where a metal ring was…
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CBS News | Brown Plucked From Katrina Duty | September 9, 2005?13:24:54 This was breaking news just a couple of hours ago; Michael Brown has been removed from running FEMA (Correction: from running the Katrina rescue/recovery effort. Expect his final departure soon though). The Google link for all the stories is here. Since then, rather a lot has happened. His replacement: Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, and also in command of Task Force Katrina is General Russell Honore. I saw both in a rather hectic-looking live press conference earlier today – the closed captioning concluded with a slightly…
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The family cabin up Lamb’s Canyon in Utah was in use when we drove up for a look around last weekend; I was happy to see that almost everything is still maintained in the traditional way. That is, aside from the modern abominations of electricity (EE-LECK-TRICITAH!). One of my younger cousins had some guests “up” with her so we walked around, took photos, then drove back down. The pictures may not look like much, but that’s because the memories that crowd into the corners (along with the friendly ghosts) are not so easily digitized. The horseshoes hang on the wall…
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The former First Lady’s remarks were aired this evening on American Public Media’s “Marketplace” program. She was part of a group in Houston today (Monday) at the Astrodome that included her husband and former President Bill Clinton, who were chosen by her son, the current president, to head fundraising efforts for the recovery. Sen. Hilary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama were also present. In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: “Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we’re going to move to Houston.” Then she added: “What…
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Top FEMA leaders short on experience – Yahoo! News Michael Brown, who heads FEMA as undersecretary of homeland security for emergency preparedness and response, already has endured sharp criticism for comments he made last week that seemed to suggest he did not understand that thousands of victims of Hurricane Katrina had taken refuge at the New Orleans convention center. Before joining FEMA in 2001, Brown, a protege of longtime Bush aide Joseph Allbaugh, was commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association and had virtually no experience in disaster management. An official biography of Brown’s top aide, acting deputy director Patrick…
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Bush breaks HIV funding promise The Replenishment Meeting was widely billed as the first significant test of the promises made by world leaders at the recent G8 meeting, during worldwide MakePovertyHistory protests. The 3.7bn US dollars pledged by donors will be just enough to sustain current programmes. However there is no funding for new prevention, treatment or care programmes for 2006 and 2007. It is suggested that 7 billion US dollars was needed to adequately address funding needs. The US contribution is just 0.6 billion dollars for the next two years. For the first time since the establishment of the…
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I ran across this article about the one thousand firefighters that FEMA had sequestered for training in Atlanta in the Salt Lake Tribune, and then finally this morning I heard a piece on NPR on how the highly trained firefighters have been deployed in teams of two to affected areas… where they’re handing out FEMA flyers and referring questions about other services as best they can. It still seems like they could have used these guys to do rescue and recovery work, and find another thousand or so faceless bureaucrats to run around shining people on with “information packets.”