Katrina

Hurricane Katrina passed through the southeast a couple of days ago and is now nothing but a rainstorm in northern New York and Canada. Having said that the southeast is a warzone. Pick the news site of your choice, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox, or MSNBC, the lead stories are all about the aftermath of Katrina. The flooding in New Orleans is still getting worse and the death toll is expected to be in the thousands. President Bush decided he would cut his one month vacation two days short because he figured that he should actually look like he's doing something in the aftermath of the hurricane. All of the groups that I belong to are recommending to those people that want to help to donate money to the Red Cross. The National Guard is trying to handle rescue and relief efforts. They are also trying to prevent looting (unlike they did in Baghdad after the fall of the government). However, many of the units that would be available under normal circumstances are in Iraq. National Guard leadership has complained to the Pentagon that they are hard pressed to act in the southeast because they don't have the troops available. I hope everyone that lives down there can soon return to a normal life.

I was going to talk about some lighter subjects like mishaps that have happened at Fox and CNN while reporting on the hurricane, however it didn't seem appropriate.

In Iraq, two more people were killed today which brought the American casualty total for August to 83 and 1882 in total.