Katrina.

What a disaster Hurricane Katrina caused. My heart goes out to everyone affected in the Gulf Coast area. Please consider donating to the various charities that help in disasters. In my opinion, the best places to donate are the local charities preparing trucks to go on down there and help out.

Since Katrina hit, I've seen a few articles blaming Bush for a lot of it. At first, I'm thinking well that's a bit of a stretch, come on now. However, when you read into it, you see some valid points being made. Most of it centers around the fact that W cut funding that was supposed to go to New Orleans. Shipping off a few thousand of the state's National Guard off to Iraq also didn't help.

From the looks of it, chances are there would still be a disaster happening down there. However, if Orleans got that funding to strenghten the levees, things probably would not be near as bad. Remember the fears of the hurricane hitting New Orleans directly pretty much didn't happen. It was the rain and water that flooded 80% of the city already below sea level.

On a related note, some of the looting is pretty disturbing. There's one thing to take essential things like food, liquids, clothing before it goes rotten or washes away. It's another thing to walk out of stores with a couple big screen plasma televisions.

Don't get me started on some of the reporters. One on Fox News, Shepherd Smith, was on the phone, talking about how he was trapped in a hotel with thousands of New Orleans citizens. The guy was practically begging to be helicoptered out. He said it would be unfair for him to remain there any longer because he and his crew would be taking needed food and water from others in the hotel. Why do I think that wouldn't exactly have been the response of the top reporters of the previous generation? If Smith and his crew stayed, but offered transportation that would have been given to him and his crew to the most elderly or needy citizens at the hotel, then he could stay and do his job and a few lives could be saved. Instead, he wanted out. He came there for a photo op, not to be stuck in a hotel without food and water and flushing toilets. Someone like Peter Jennings (R.I.P.), wouldn't have been worried about clean underwear and a five-star meal. He wouldn't have been admitting on national TV he wanted a proverbial lifeboat before the women and children. Shephard Smith, you sir, are a jackass.

"No one can say they didn't see it coming"

In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.

How New Orleans Was Lost
Chalk up the city of New Orleans as a cost of Bush's Iraq war. There were not enough helicopters to repair the breached levees and rescue people trapped by rising water. Nor are there enough Louisiana National Guardsmen available to help with rescue efforts and to patrol against looting. The situation is the same in Mississippi. The National Guard and helicopters are off on a fool's mission in Iraq.

Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?
In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.