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A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State

H/T to a former Navy shipmate for this article e-mailed to me. He offered it without comment, and if you check it out, you'll see that it speaks for itself. (by the way, he's in the Houston area, a lot closer to the action than the Chief is up in South Dakota.)

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists?myself included?did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.

The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.

The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over four days last week. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.

From Rush Limbaugh: Congress is going to do all this investigating but they're not going to look at themselves. No spending could occur unless they vote on it, no priorities can be determined without Congress making them. All anybody else...

Base-closure panel finds overestimation of savings

The final Base Re-alignment and Closing Commission report has been sent to the President. The final version notably maintains Ellsworth AFB of South Dakota as a going concern. Hopefully, the report is accepted.

The Pentagon overestimated savings from base closings by $30 billion and some of its plans for streamlining the Army, Navy and Air Force might have made the services less efficient, a federal commission that reviewed the process said yesterday.

With its five months of work complete, the Base Realignment and Closure Commission voiced its concerns even as it approved roughly 86 percent of what Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld recommended as he sought to save money by getting rid of extra space in the domestic military network. That's on par with previous years, when commissions changed only about 15 percent of what the Pentagon proposed.

Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Inter prize Institute has a great piece on the Broken Yardstick that is the official poverty rate. (TH to Real Clear Politics). Here's the problem:According to the latest poverty rate estimates - released by the...

Doug Wiken has a comment on Mount Blogmore where he downplays lying under oath when the issue of Bill Clinton?s impeachment was brought up. Then he dismisses immoral behavior:We can be appalled by Clinton?s lack of sexual discretion and can...

Hugh Hewitt (HT to Power Line):The Fox News Channel's Major Garrett made another appearance on the program this evening, following up on his blockbuster story yesterday. Among other things, Garrett got confirmation from the head of the Red cross --on...

Just now during the Notre Dame - Pitt game, ABC broke in to announce that Chief Justice Rhenquist has died....

Rush Limbaugh?s points out FEMA?s slow past: U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings, now retired, used his political muscle to move military support instead behind [the mayor's] efforts. 'To me, it's a reminder that our country can do much better,' said Charleston...

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