WELL, THIS WILL HELP: A finger-pointing storm erupts in Congress. Congress, of course, is in no position to point fingers. While we’re assigning responsibility, perhaps those who had committee assignments relating to the Katrina response should lose those assignments, and their seniority. . . .

UPDATE: Here’s another idea — maybe members of Congress should give up some existing pork-barrel projects to fund Katrina reconstruction.

Defund things we don’t need to pay for things we do! That’s so crazy it just might work!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Varifrank predicts an invasion of lawyers that will destroy existing political arrangements in Louisiana.

ACCORDING TO THE WASHINGTON POST, the problem with New Orleans flood-control wasn’t insufficient money, but an excess of pork-barreling that diverted the money from where it was needed to where Louisiana politicians wanted it:

In Katrina’s wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush’s administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large.

Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state’s congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana’s representatives have kept bringing home the bacon. . . .

Pam Dashiell, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, remembers holding a protest against the lock four years ago — right where the levee broke Aug. 30. Now she’s holed up with her family in a St. Louis hotel, and her neighborhood is underwater. “Our politicians never cared half as much about protecting us as they cared about pork,” Dashiell said.

I think we should set up an independent commission to look at Congress’s responsibility for this tragedy. Oh, and somebody send a copy of this story to Paul Krugman.

UPDATE: Nick Gillespie: “Let’s hope the pols involved get investigated along with everyone else.”

Maybe this idea will catch on. In the meantime, folks might want to start comparing what members of Congress are saying now with how they talked, and voted, before Katrina.

SHAMELESS EXPLOITATION.

OUTDOING FEMA AND THE NEW ORLEANS CITY GOVERNMENT:

When their homes began to sink in Katrina’s floodwaters, elders in the quarter here known as Uptown gathered their neighbors to seek refuge at the Samuel J. Green Charter School, the local toughs included.

But when the thugs started vandalizing the place – wielding guns and breaking into vending machines – Vance Anthion put them out, literally tossing them into the fetid waters. Anthion stayed awake at night after that, protecting the inhabitants of the school from looters or worse.

“They know me,” he said. “If a man come up in here, we take care of him.”

In the week after Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast, Anthion and others created a society that defied the local gangs, the National Guard and even the flood.

Inside the school, it was quiet, cool and clean. They converted a classroom into a dining room and, when a reporter arrived Monday, were serving a lunch of spicy red beans and rice. A table nearby overflowed with supplies: canned spaghetti, paper towels, water and Gatorade, salt, hot sauce, pepper. . . .

In the days after the storm, the Samuel J. Green school also served as their base for helping others in the neighborhood.

They waded through filthy water to bring elderly homebound neighbors bowls of soup, bread and drinks. They helped the old and the sick to the school rooftop, so the Coast Guard could pluck them to safety by helicopter – 18 people in all.

All the while, they listened to radio reports of the calamity at the Superdome and the Convention Center. They heard that evacuees were dying and left to rot. There were reports of looting, gunshots, rapes, and no food or water. “There was no way we were going down there, to be treated like that,” said Sarge.

Life at the school seemed far more civilized.

Bravo. (Via Daily Pundit).

DEREK LOWE sees a major step toward nanotechnology.

JOSEPH BRITT: Don’t forget about Darfur. It is, in fact, worse than a hurricane.

MY FOCUS ON KATRINA and Katrina Relief has led me to drop the ball on linking to various blog carnivals. Here’s a make-up post for at least most of them:

The Virginia Blog Carnival; The Carnival of the Vanities; The Carnival of Liberty; Grand Rounds; The Carnival of the Capitalists; The Carnival of the Liberated; Blawg Review; The History Carnival; The Carnival of Revolutions; Haveil Havalim; The Carnival of the Recipes; The Carnival of the NBA and, last but not least, the Carnival of the Podcasts.

Sorry it’s just a bunch of links and no witty banter, but I’m pretty tired and a bit ill, so this is the best I can do this week. I’ll try to do better next time.

UPDATE: I forgot the Carnival of Personal Finance!

THE BEST ARGUMENT YET for seeing heads roll at FEMA:

Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: “What are we doing here?”

As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters – his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week – a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta. . . .

The firefighters, several of whom are from Utah, were told to bring backpacks, sleeping bags, first-aid kits and Meals Ready to Eat. They were told to prepare for “austere conditions.” Many of them came with awkward fire gear and expected to wade in floodwaters, sift through rubble and save lives.

“They’ve got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified,” said a Texas firefighter. “We’re sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven’t been contacted yet.”

This does sound like a bureaucracy that doesn’t understand the urgency of the situation.

UPDATE: Of course, there seems to be a lot of dumb decisionmaking at all levels:

The Fox News Channel’s Major Garrett was just on my show extending the story he had just reported on Brit Hume’s show: The Red Cross is confirming to Garrett that it had prepositioned water, food, blankets and hygiene products for delivery to the Superdome and the Convention Center in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, but were blocked from delivering those supplies by orders of the Louisiana state government, which did not want to attract people to the Superdome and/or Convention Center.

That’s consistent with this report. Apparently, they wanted people hungry, thirsty, and anxious to leave.

Video of the Red Cross story here, from Ian Schwartz.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Readers who are telling me that it was the Department of Homeland Security that was behind blocking the Red Cross are confused. Here’s the Red Cross statement:

Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?

Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.

The state Homeland Security Department had requested–and continues to request–that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

That’s the state DHS, not a federal agency. This is also made clear in the video linked above.

FRANK RUMMEL is blogging from the ongoing Cambridge conference on Scientifically Engineered Negligible Senescence.

SOME KATRINA LESSONS: We’re going to see a plethora of commissions and inquiries (most about as useful and non-partisan as the 9/11 Commission), but here are a few lessons that seem solid enough to go with now:

1. Don’t build your city below sea level: If you do, sooner or later it will flood. Better levees, pumps, etc. will put that day off, but not prevent it.

2. Order evacuations early: You hate to have false alarms, but as Brendan Loy noted earlier, even 48 hours in advance is really too late if you want to get everyone out.

3. Have — and use — a plan for evacuating people who can’t get out on their own: New Orleans apparently had a plan, but didn’t use it. All those flooded buses could have gotten people out. Except that there would have had to have been somewhere to take them, so:

4. Have an emergency relocation plan: Cities should have designated places, far enough away to be safe, but close enough to be accessible, to evacuate people to. Of course, this takes coordination, so:

5. Make critical infrastructure survivable: I think that one of the key failures was the collapse of the New Orleans Police Department’s radio system. Here’s the story on why:

Tusa said the police department’s citywide 800 MHz radio system functioned well during and immediately after the hurricane hit New Orleans, but since then natural gas service to the prime downtown transmitter site was disrupted and the generator was out. Transmitter sites for the police radio system “are also underwater with the rising water and [are] now disabled,” Tusa said.

Owners of the sites that housed police radio transmitters would not allow installation of liquefied petroleum gas tanks as a backup to piped gas, meaning generators did not have any fuel when the main lines were cut, Tusa said.

Radio repair technicians attempting to enter the city were turned away by the state police, even though they had letters from the city police authorizing their access, Tusa said.

This is absurd, and I’m pretty sure it’s the major factor leading to the disintegration of the New Orleans Police Department. That sort of gear should be survivable — and there should also be a backup plan for how to get messages back and forth if the radios go out anyway: Messengers, broadcasts on commercial radio, etc.

(There should be a separate post-disaster communications plan for survivors, too — so that they can locate relatives and let people know they’re alive).

Other crucial infrastructure should be hardened as much as possible, too. There’s only so much you should do, but disaster survivability should be considered at every stage of design, procurement, and construction.

6. Stock supplies and prepare facilities: The Superdome didn’t have adequate food, water, and toilet facilities, even though everybody knew it was going to be a shelter of last resort. The Convention Center was worse. All public buildings that might be used for refugees should be ready. We used to stock fallout shelters that way; we could do it again.

7. Be realistic: Here’s what the Los Angeles Fire Department tells people about an earthquake aftermath:

To those of us who live and work in the Greater Los Angeles area, earthquakes and other natural emergencies are a reality. In order to deal with this situation, emergency preparedness must become a way of life. In the event of a major earthquake or disaster, freeways and surface streets may be impassable and public services could be interrupted or taxed beyond their limits. Therefore, everyone must know how to provide for their own needs for an extended period of time, whether at work, home, or on the road.

That’s just how it is. People need to be encouraged to do this. Whenever I say this, I get responses along the lines of “poor people can’t afford to stockpile food.” But here’s a family survival kit for $50 and it’s pretty good. Most poor people in America can afford food (that’s why so many poor people are fat). They do have other problems that make preparation less likely, though (if you’re the kind of person who thinks ahead and prepares for emergencies, you’re much less likely to be poor to begin with) and local authorities have to be ready — see the stockpile advice above.

8. Put somebody in charge: Politicians and bureaucrats thrive on diffusion of responsibility, because it helps them escape blame (as they’re trying to do in the fingerpointing orgy that’s going on now). Somebody needs to be clearly in charge. Right now it’s mostly state governors, but this needs to be made inescapably plain, regardless of where it is. I don’t agree with Mickey Kaus that we should ignore federalism and just put the President, or the FEMA Director, in charge and empower them to override state and local officials, but even that would be better than leaving no one in charge.

There’s much more to be done on this topic, but it awaits clearer information on who dropped what balls when. However, it’s worth noting that structural problems are always soluble when the people involved are willing to cooperate, and that no structure works well when it’s staffed by idiots or people who don’t take the problem seriously. Which raises another point:

9. Make people care: Actually, Katrina may have done this. Most people — and politicians are worse, if anything — have short time horizons. Disasters are things that just don’t happen, until they do. Planning for them is ignored, or even looked down on, often by the very same people who are making after-the-fact criticisms that there wasn’t enough planning. People usually get better after a big disaster, for a while. Beyond that, voters and pundits need to treat the subject with the importance it deserves instead of — as is more typical — treating it as the silly obsession of a few paranoid types.

I’m sure there’s a lot more to be learned, but this is a start. If you think I’ve missed something important, send me an email.

UPDATE: Aaron Taylor emails: “I’d add: Err on the side of overwhelming law enforcement presence.”

Yes, and show zero tolerance for truly lawless activity. The “broken windows” theory applies in spades, I think, when windows are already broken . . . .

And reader Deena Bevis emails:

Clear chains of command are definitely essential, but so is oversight/accountability. New Orleans didn’t have any of that until it failed. We need a system that tells us if someone in that chain of command is failing to complete their responsibilities, and we need to know that BEFORE something happens.

Basically: States and the feds should grade each other on disaster preparedness, and those reports ought to be public.

I’m afraid log-rolling and backscratching might interfere, but it’s a thought.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails:

I read your post on lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina. I am a nuclear engineer working at a Midwest nuclear plant. We are required to have emergency plans. They are relatively detailed and many aspects are regulated. This includes communications, getting information to the public, recommendations to take shelter or evacuate, and coordination with federal, state, and local authorities. We are required to perform drills and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission grades us annually on one of them.

I’m not sure how well all of these steps would scale up to a large geographical area or the legality of grading states and localities on how well they execute their emergency plans. But people are acting as if this is an entirely new concept and it isn’t. Why do we need another worthless commission to tell us what we already know and some of us already do.

Jim Hogue writes:

Maybe it’s time to put that little Civil Defense logo (or something similar) back on AM/FM radios so people will know exactly where to tune in the event of an emergency?

And speaking of “In the event of an emergency” I haven’t heard anything about the Emergency Alert System in relation to Katrina. Was it on? Did it work? Did it provide any useful information? I would think that a system that’s been tested weekly since the 50’s would have been pretty reliable.

Beats me. Emily Bennett has another communications question:

I find myself wondering if passenger cars equipped with OnStar could be used for communications in an emergency situation. OnStar constantly advertises its ability to get emergency personnel to its subscribers, and it seems to me that an ambitious FEMA or Homeland Security employee might begin talks with the OnStar folks to see if OnStar equipped vehicles could help manage evacuation traffic flows, provide communications to rescue personnel, and assist some of Bill Whittle’s sheepdogs.

Probably not enough bandwidth and switching ability, but I could be wrong.

Reader Jay Johnson emails:

Having made it through the F4 tornado that blew through Jackson, TN in 2003 relatively unscathed, brought the importance of having an emergency kit such as that to light for the missus and me. We did go to our friendly, neigborhood “Everything’s a Buck” store, and stocked up on things like cheap canned meals (beef stew, soup), dry foods, matches, water, batteries, cheap flashlights, copies of important papers, a change of clothes, a sealed container with purely emergency cash, some rudimentary tools (hammer, phillips and flat screwdriver, adjustable wrench, and a couple of pocket knives), and cheap first aid kits. It doesn’t cost much, and an ounce of prevention is worth the extra peace of mind that comes from it.

Of course, nothing can completely prepare you for such an event, but everyone should do something to prepare for their short term survival in this spot.

Indeed. Reader Jeanne Jackson makes a point that seems trivial but isn’t, in light of experience:

One important item you missed is providing evacuation plans for citizens with pets. One reason many people remained behind in New Orleans was that the emergency shelters barred pets, as did the buses, etc. for transporting evacuees. For many pet owners, especially childless and/or older people, pets are surrogate children. It is cruel, heartless, and unnecessary to insist, as a condition of rescue, that one’s beloved dog or cat be abandoned to its fate. Were I to be told I must abandon my dogs in order to get out of a life-threatening situation, I, too, might choose to remain behind and take my chances.

I think you should leave the dog behind. But lots of people feel differently, and evacuation plans should recognize that.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Harvey Schneider has some excellent advice for individuals:

One of the things my family has done is designated a contact person in the event of a catastrophe. My entire family (Mother, 2 Brothers, 2 Sisters in law, sister, brother in law, 4 nephews and 2 nieces) lives in Orange County California. We have designated a family friend in Phoenix Arizona as the person for everybody to contact as soon as possible and to leave any messages regarding health or other vital matters. Also, in the event that the entire area is unlivable, we have agreed to meet at our friends house in Phoenix and make further plans from there.

Good point. Meanwhile, Jim McMahon writes:

I would add another player to your list of lessons learned – listen to the insurance companies.

They assess and manage risk for a living. Since insurance rates are based on risk of loss, the easiest scorecard available to judge how well any particular area is prepared is the cost of commercial and homeowners insurance.

For disaster mitigation purposes, I would suggest an expanded system similar to car crash test ratings, where the disaster risk of a community or neighborhood is scored based on the lessons you list, including:

The inherent environmental risk of the area (flood plains, forest fire fuel, earthquake susceptibility)
Preparedness of the local & state gov – budgets, experienced people, drills, publicity
Individual preparedness based on site inspections, nature & number of voluntary associations, etc.
The costs of maintaining and replacing infrastructure.

These ratings can then be used as promotional tools by highly rated areas, and as cattle prods during elections. I would expect that most of the components of these ratings are already compiled and ready to use, needing only the imprimatur of the Fed.

Then FEMA’s job becomes one of ongoing improvement of ratings in high-risk areas. They can grant tax breaks for real estate developments and local policies that improve the risks, and restrict the use of highway funds to prevent the construction of the Foghorn Leghorn Memorial Bike Path, Library and Fan Cub until the essential infrastructures are at their target ratings.

I’m sure some wags & wastrels will have issues with this, but show me another low-government way to honestly rate how well the lessons have been learned.

Well, insurance companies do have money riding on the outcome, which encourages honesty.

Christopher Johnson has more thoughts:

I would only add that churches ought to be urged to stockpile both food and other emergency supplies for people who don’t have or can’t immediately access their own. Many churches are very strong buildings, they’re in just about every neighborhood and people aren’t afraid of them. I know that if I needed immediate help to get me through the next few days after losing everything I owned, I would much more likely to try a church for help than to take my chances with a government bureaucracy.

Good suggestion.

MORE: Reader Jeff Cook emails:

5. “Make critical infrastructure survivable: I think that one of the key failures was the collapse of the New Orleans Police Department’s radio system.”

No, sorry. The collapse was in incident command.

It is axiomatic (lesson #1) that the first thing to fail in ANY emergency is communication. The NOPD incident command training should have taught them this. There is no way to assure that radio communications will continue after winds and power outages. This is the kind of thinking that has Blanco and Nagin in their bunkers giving orders and then wondering why they weren’t carried out instantly. No one was listening. My experience has been that even seasoned dispatchers, who may or may not have power and transmitting ability themselves, have a hard time keeping channels clear in an emergency. I’ve seen communication break down during DRILLS.

This is why you need AT LEAST 72 hours notice for evacuation and why the NOPD should have default posting positions and “runners’ assigned in the event of communications failure. There is no fail-safe communications system and there never will be. If they harden this technology for floods and hurricanes, will they survive an EMP? a nuclear device? Well, dammit why not??!! Who throws the switch from natural gas to lpg? How long does lpg in the tank last? Who refuels them? Are the refuelers available during a hurricane? Is it in our response plan to throw the switch? Is the switch thrower a police employee or a private contractor? Do they know their responsibility? Is the switch thrower even still employed? Answers to these questions can never be known for any extended period, especially when elected officials try to be the incident commanders. What can be known is that communications fail. Always.

Plan, plan, plan, practice, review, plan, plan, plan, ad nauseum.

They also appear to have forgotten lesson #2. “It is always easier to scale back than to scale up once the emergency has begun.”

I’ve heard the words “incident command” and “unified command” exactly once each in the mainstream media since the blame-laying began. That tells me that all the really knowledgeable people are too busy to comment right now, and haven’t been interviewed yet.

Finally bear in mind that emergency response and incident command is very, very, very difficult even in the best circumstances, which never exist.

Very interesting.

IS IT THE vindication of Tom Ridge?

I’LL BE ON MICHAEL GRAHAM’S SHOW shortly, talking about Katrina. Click on the link to listen live.

VIA EMAIL, A BIZARRE CORRECTION FROM THE LEGAL TIMES:

CLARIFICATION: In the Aug. 29, 2005, issue, the “Inadmissible” item “Warning: This Case May Contain Conflicts” (Page 3) stated that George Mason law professor Ronald Rotunda “may have his own conflict of interest” in commenting on John Roberts Jr.’s involvement in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. That was not meant to suggest that Rotunda violated any specific legal ethics rule.

Likewise, I believe the Legal Times may be controlled by baby-eating space aliens. This is not, however, meant to suggest that the Legal Times is controlled by any specific baby-eating space aliens.

MAX BOOT:

SOMETIMES I HAVE a strong urge to resign in disgust from the Amalgamated Federation of Pollsters, Pundits, Politicians and Pompous Pontificators. This is one of those times.

No sooner had Hurricane Katrina roared through Louisiana and adjacent states than every blockhead with a microphone or a word processor felt compelled to spout off about What It All Means — and, more important, Who Is to Blame. . . .

Ordinary people are sitting at home, transfixed by the spectacle unfolding on their television screens. Their hearts are breaking as they watch the horrifying spectacle of an entire city drowned. Many have already contributed what they can to the American Red Cross, to the Salvation Army, to the other armies of compassion, and only wish they could do more.

What must they think of the talking heads who treat this as if it were another bit of minor grist for the political mills? As if this were another story about some politician’s war record or a nominee’s nanny issues. The callowness now on display goes a long way toward explaining why politicians and the media are held in public esteem somewhere above child molesters and below bankers.

Sounds like he’s channeling Foamy the Squirrel. But hey, when you’re right, you’re right, even when you’re a talking cartoon squirrel.

UPDATE: Judging from the latest Gallup Poll Max and Foamy may be onto something.

And then there’s this:

Geraldo Rivera arrives in a Fox News truck. An elderly woman with blond hair grips his elbow. She’s wearing thick dark glasses and a pink shirt. He carries her small white dog in his arms. He’s wearing thigh-high waders unzipped to below his knees. We shake hands. “Her relative called one of our stations,” Geraldo tells me, explaining how that call went to another station, and then another, and finally to him.

The woman had been stranded in her home for six days. Geraldo picked up the woman and her dog and brought them here. The woman looks frail on his arm, though not as bad perhaps as a lady collapsed on a chair nearby, unable to move. Or a woman in a wheelchair being lifted from the truck, carrying her prosthetic leg on her lap.

“That’s the second time he brought her here,” one of the doctors tells me, nodding toward Geraldo.

“What?”

“They did two takes. Geraldo made that poor woman walk from the Fox News van to the heliport twice. Both times carrying her dog.”

“Are you serious?” I ask. He says he is.

Jeez.

MORE: On Geraldo, according to Howard Kurtz: “Fox News says that’s absolutely, positively not true.”

ADRIAN MOORE WRITES on why we’re so short of refineries.

EVERYONE IS RESPONSIBLE BUT NO ONE IS TO BLAME: The Volcker Report is out.

“MR. BUSH: Tear down this levee!”

MORE KELO BACKLASH:

Three states have already passed new laws in response to the Kelo decision.

The statutes in Alabama and Texas sharply curtail eminent-domain condemnations for private development. “We don’t like anybody messing with our dogs, our guns, our hunting rights or trying to take property from us,” said state Sen. Jack Biddle, a sponsor of the Alabama law. Delaware’s new statute permits condemnation but sets new procedural requirements for local governments.

Larry Morandi, an analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures, predicts a rush of new laws next winter, when 44 state legislatures will be back in session.

“Most if not all state legislatures will be dealing with eminent-domain laws next year,” Morandi said. “The outcry has been so sharp that many states already have task forces or study committees at work on this issue this summer. Most of the proposed legislation is designed to restrict the kind of governmental action that the court upheld in Kelo .”

I’m glad to hear it.

WANKER OF THE DAY? Heh.

TELLING THEM WHAT THEY WANT TO HEAR? Austin Bay notices something interesting.

GETTING THE GULF BACK ON THE GRID: Xeni Jardin reports:

Hurricane Katrina wiped out communications systems throughout the Gulf states, and much of the impacted region remains cut off from voice and data service. But some connectivity is coming back from unexpected sources, thanks in part to tech industry volunteers who’ve teamed up with the Federal Communications Commission.

On Friday, the FCC held a conference call with wireless internet service providers and infrastructure experts to coordinate volunteer efforts for storm-ravaged areas. FCC staff asked organizers to help gather data from those offering to donate resources — from satellites to power generators to spare parts — to help reconnect the effected areas.

Very interesting.

UNSCAM UPDATE: Claudia Rosett has more on the latest oil-for-food developments. Excerpt:

The problem here is that whatever the truth about the secretary-general’s family ties to U.N. business, he was responsible for a great deal more than simply that particular U.N. contract. Even after the many scandals broken so far, a full account of the U.N.’s management of Oil-for-Food — starting with Annan’s starring role as head of the organization — would be an eye-popping thriller, and probably the healthiest thing to hit the U.N. since its founding. Oil-for-Food was not a bookkeeping exercise. It involved oversight of Saddam Hussein, an oil-rich war-mongering tyrant who gamed every angle of one of the most corruption-prone relief programs ever devised. Out of more than $110 billion in oil sales and relief purchases supervised by the U.N., Saddam by some estimates grafted out anywhere from $10 to $17 billion. While the U.N. praised the program, Saddam used his ill-gotten money not only for palaces, but to rebuild despite U.N. sanctions his networks of secret bank accounts, illicit political payoffs and arms traffic — and squirreled away billions that congressional investigators say may be funding terrorism today.

She seems to expect a whitewash, though.

MICKEY KAUS: “The U.S. should take Fidel Castro up on his post-Katrina offer to send over 1,586 doctors from Cuba. It could be a PR victory–how many do you think will go back?”

I HAVEN’T PAID MUCH ATTENTION to the Air America scandals, but Michelle Malkin and Brian Maloney have been working hard on the story. It looks like their effort has paid off.

UPDATE: A follow-up here: “In this case, smoking guns seem to abound.”

THE FASHION DEATH PENALTY: “Perhaps a simple, ‘you know, David Bernstein had that look twenty years ago,’ will do.”

I should think so.