Helping them anyway
I picked up Bill Maher's New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer in a bookstore today, and, I swear to God, the first page I randomly opened the book to was page 76, which contains this:
New Rule: Don't live close to the sea. If you build your home in a place where weather knocks houses over, weather will knock your house over. People who live in the Land of Oz have houses drop on them all the time. You don't see them marching into Emerald City demanding a handout, do you? I'm sorry a big wind came and blew everything away but the La-Z-Boy and the orange velvet pool table, but hurricanes are God's way of saying, "Get off my property!"
I took it as a sign and I bought the book.
There are good (or at least logical) reasons not to give the victims of Hurricane Katrina a penny.
Being surrounded by water (the Mississippi River, the large Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico) and much of it being below sea level, New Orleans never should have been established in the first place. Duh.
The Gulf Coast states that have been hit by Katrina, all red states, went to George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. The red-staters don't even know their enemies from their friends, and consequently they vote against their own best interests. How fucking stupid is that?
I'll back up my assertions in the last paragraph. This is a piece by Salon.com's Tim Grieve that was posted today:
We made a little joke the other day. George W. Bush was in Crawford, Texas, in August 2001 when he got that presidential daily briefing [titled], "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." He went fishing. So we wondered the other day whether the president had gotten another PDB when he was down in Crawford this August -- one [titled], "Hurricane Katrina Determined to Strike in U.S."
Metaphorically speaking, it turns out, Bush did get such a PDB -- and he got it years ago. Experts have warned for years that New Orleans is particularly vulnerable to hurricane damage. And as the folks at the Center for American Progress note, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report in early 2001 that identified the three catastrophes most likely to hit the United States: a terrorist attack on New York, an earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane in New Orleans. [Emphasis mine.]
As of this week, FEMA is now two-for-three. That leads us to think that the residents of the city by the Bay might think about scoring some flashlights and bottled water just about now. But it also leads us to wonder what the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress did with the warning that FEMA provided.
Here's what: They cut funding for flood and hurricane projects planned by the New Orleans district of the Army Corps of Engineers. According to one published report, the New Orleans district had $147 million to spend on such projects in 2001. In fiscal year 2005, which ends next month, the district will have had about $82 million, a drop of about 44 percent. [Emphasis mine.] As we reported earlier this week, the Bush administration proposed further cuts for the district for fiscal year 2006.
Would more funding have made a difference in New Orleans? We don't know. But we do know, from what we're seeing so far, that the president didn't make much of an effort. He'll be Johnny on the spot as he flies back to Washington today -- after squeezing in another night of vacation and goofing around with a guitar -- and we're sure to see him looking presidential as he chums it up with rescue workers in Louisiana at some point in the next few days. We've seen this movie before.
The president is a great one for delivering the "I care" message after disaster strikes. He's even pretty good at doing the Chicken Little about threats -- Iraq, the bankruptcy of Social Security -- that aren't quite as serious as he makes them out to be. But it would be nice if, just once, the president, confronted with real warnings about a serious threat, could actually bring himself to do something before it's too late.
So in Louisiana in November 2000 and November 2004 they voted for the presidential candidate who is at least in part responsible for the mess they find themselves in now. Smart.
If and when (I guess it's more a question of "when" than "if") FEMA's predicted massive earthquake strikes in my neck of the woods, Northern California, the red-staters, I surmise, will chalk it up as God hating the fags (and the fag-lovers) and taking His wrath out upon them.
Even if it weren't for the religious nutjob thing, I just can't see red-staters sending much money to a blue state in crisis, especially to the "liberal" bastions of California or New York, although we blue-staters are pouring money into the red states, not just in our federal tax dollars (most of the blue states get back less in federal funding than they pay in federal taxes, and most of the red states get back more in federal funding than they pay in federal taxes), but also in donations to organizations that assist in natural disasters, such as the American Red Cross. (California and New York alone, being the nation's most populous states, must bring in the lion's share of such donations.)
So really, I had no reason to give the $25 that I gave today to the American Red Cross for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, except, I suppose, that it's the right thing to do to help people in serious crisis, even if their crisis could have -- should have -- been prevented and even if you have serious doubts that those people would help you out in a crisis. It is, I know, what Jesus would do.
And, being the bleeding-heart moonbat that I am, as the news reports about the devastation in the Gulf Coast states worsen, I'll probably break down and give more.
9:01:32 PM 
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