My wife and I were turning on the TV in a youth hostel in Stockholm, watching dramatic news footage of Katrina approaching New Orleans the night of August 28th. It was Fox News, and there was footage of Michael Brown, head of FEMA, talking about how ready they were for what may come. I have to say, for once, the overly dramatic news coverage of that network, fit what was to come. And we've watched Brown today saying, in effect, that "all I can say is we're taking care of shit now." How can it take FOUR DAYS to bring basic food/water/etc., when you earlier talked about how prepared your agency was for the worst case scenario? That douchebag needs to be fired immediately.

I am embarrassed for my country right now. I still believe in the idea of America, I still stop when the National Anthem is played, and I believe that our flag means something, but these days it is more of an ideal and not the way things are. If it were up to me, I'd say a good start in sending a message to the world would be to drive all of the Hummers and Excursions and everything else representative of our arrogance into a very large ampitheatre, where molten metal is already spewing orange in some pit that everyone can see, and we melt down all of that shit in a kind of "disco sucks" rally, and we use the result to repair whatever is needed in our public infrastructure. And to drive the point home: "Remember New Orleans. This is what happens when you have 'limited government.' You get what you pay for."