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Two of Abe's quick points: 1) The coverage of Hurricane Ophelia hit an old sore spot with me. What's the point of having the TV reporter out in the hurricane? I know TV wants visuals above all else, but this...

Methinks that Instapundit is right on the money: THE PRESS WANTS TO SHOW BODIES from Katrina. It didn't want to show bodies, or jumpers, on 9/11, for fear that doing so would inflame the public. I can only conclude that...

Power Line: Happy Anniversary, Guys...

Kaus has it about right: Sure, the Bushies are using the federalism issue, and Louisiana's potentially bruised feelings, as an excuse--especially when they talk about how "it would have been perceived" if Bush had seized control of the relief effort...

1,100-pound elk bagged in New Mexico. The photo of this behemoth has to be seen to be believed....

Here is some more truth that Chad Schudlt can?t handle: Kofi Annan is sitting there presiding over the absolute worst scandal in world history. The Volker Commission is pretty much establishing he was asleep at the wheel (story), and nobody,...

NASA to Unveil Plans to Send 4 Astronauts to Moon in 2018

NASA briefed senior White House officials Wednesday on its plan to spend $100 billion and the next 12 years building the spacecraft and rockets it needs to put humans back on the Moon by 2018. The U.S. space agency now expects to roll out its lunar exploration plan to key Congressional committees on Friday and to the broader public through a news conference on Monday.

Phew! It's about time. The only concern the Chief has about this is why take so long to get back there, when we did it for the first time in less than a decade - well, I guess it is NASA, after all.

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.

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