Pot, met kettle

From the administration that gave us "heckuva job Brownie" comes this compelling proof that Americans do not in fact have any sense of irony. The following is a quote from US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Scot Marciel about the response to the cyclone in Burma:

"Every day that goes by and more people suffer, increasingly the blame falls on the government."

He is of course correct; both in the case of Burma and the American gulf coast where there are still families living in toxic trailers nearly three years after Hurricane Katrina. Our thanks to Mr. Marciel, a suspiciously French sounding name, for confessing the administration's failings!

If this were a real emergency...

...the US border patrol would still check your ID before allowing you to flee the storm. Nice.

Paging John Hagee

Dear Mullah Hagee,

With the death toll in the recent terrible earthquake in China now estimated to be approaching 50,000 souls I am hopeful that you can explain to me how much worse the tragedy would have been had there been plans for a gay pride event in Sichuan province.

Sincerely,

Yank in London (an apostate Christian)

"A little poison won't hurt 'em. They's mostly poor folks and poor folks is used to poison!"

Hey! What do you know? The US Federal Emergency (Mis)Management Administration has finally admitted that the trailers it has been using to house refugees from the Katrina disaster contain dangerous levels of formaldehyde and might actually do something about it! (Note to FEMA: just making the families homeless is not an adequate response.)

Heckuva job indeed Brownie et al.

Headline of the day

Perhaps ice was never mentioned in the Book of Mormon. A newspaper out of Utah breathlessly reports that "Water freezes in flooded Nevada town"!

The levee I drove MY Chevy to most was certainly not in Nevada...

...but this one is. Who knew?

Today in infamy

Three years ago today was the Boxing Day tsunami that so devastated South and South East Asia. There are still many homeless and suffering.

Spare a prayer

The death toll continues to shoot upwards in Bangladesh after it was struck by Cyclone Sidr with over three thousand now confirmed dead and millions homeless.

The only reasonably good news for the Bangladeshi people is former American FEMA head Michael Brown is not believed to be included in the assistance being sent by the US.

Spare a thought for Bangladesh

The death toll has already reached 500 after the category 4 Cyclone Sidr struck the lowlands of Bangladesh yesterday. Nearly a million people have had to be evacuated and 1,000 fishermen are still listed as missing. The situation will undoubted grow much worse over the coming days. The only thing they have going for them is that they don't have to rely on "Heckuva Job" Brownie.

Catastrophe in the making?

The delta region of Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable areas in the world, it is home to tens of millions of people and it is about to be hit by Category 4 Cyclone Sidr. This does not bode well.