Now if Michael Brown hadn’t already shown his utter incompetence and stupidity, he now wants us to believe that there are no dead bodied in New Orleans.

From Editor and Publisher:

Forced to defend what some critics consider its slow response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said on Tuesday it does not want the news media to take photographs of the dead as they are recovered from New Orleans.

FEMA, which is leading the rescue efforts, rejected requests from journalists to accompany rescue boats as they went out to search for storm victims, Reuters reported.

So in other words, Mickey thinks that by muzzling the press and photographers, he can soften the hatred being directed against him. Afterall, why show the public photographs of dead bodies? Let’s have them believe that all is well in NO.

A FEMA spokeswoman told the wire service that space was needed on the rescue boats and assured Reuters that “the recovery of the victims is being treated with dignity and the utmost respect.”

“We have requested that no photographs of the deceased be made by the media,” the spokeswoman told Reuters via e-mail.

The FEMA soundbytes are also too absurd to bear. And in case no one told FEMA, ie Michael Brown, the press can take pictures of whoever they choose. I hate to break it to Mickey, but he cannot forbid journalists from taking photographs. Maybe he doesn’t have to allow them in FEMA boats, but all his idiocy means is that they’ll just go on their own. And they’ll probably do a better job than FEMA in search and rescue. Afterall, it would be difficult to do a worse job.

I know that George Bush is not single handedly responsible for the disastrous aftermath in New Orleans, as in the levees giving way. Right after the storm, conditions in the city were not all that bad. Katrina swerved, and headed for Mississippi instead, battering NO with her Western side, which is traditionally less destructive than the Eastern one. But then the levee broke (Dubya just can’t figure out how it happened!) and that’s when the real problems began.

Now Bush says he doesn’t think that anyone expected the levees to give way. I suppose that’s a reasonable assumption, considering that it was a well known fact that the levees were build to withstand only up to a category 3 storm–and a weak one at that. Anyway, while many factors do play into this, much of the blood is on Bush’s sticky little fingers.

Here is the shameful timeline of FEMA and George Bush, and how they helped destroy the city of New Orleans:

January 2001: Bush appoints Joe Allbaugh, a crony from Texas, as head of FEMA. Allbaugh has no previous experience in disaster management.

April 2001: Budget Director Mitch Daniels announces the Bush administration’s goal of privatizing much of FEMA’s work. In May, Allbaugh confirms that FEMA will be downsized: ”Many are concerned that federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program….” he said. ”Expectations of when the federal government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level.”

2001: FEMA designates a major hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three ”likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country.”

December 2002: After less than two years at FEMA, Allbaugh announces he is leaving. He is succeeded by his deputy, Michael Brown, who, like Allbaugh, has no previous experience in disaster management. (Good choices, wouldn’t you say?)

March 2003: FEMA is downgraded from a cabinet level position and folded into the Department of Homeland Security. Its mission is refocused on fighting acts of terrorism. (As though natural disasters are just going to step aside and stop occurring)

2003: Under its new organization chart within DHS, FEMA’s preparation and planning functions are reassigned to a new Office of Preparedness and Response. FEMA will henceforth focus only on response and recovery. (Did they mean the new Office of Un-preparedness?)

Summer 2004: FEMA denies Louisiana’s pre-disaster mitigation funding requests. Says Jefferson Parish flood zone manager Tom Rodrigue: ”You would think we would get maximum consideration….This is what the grant program called for. We were more than qualified for it.”

June 2004: The Army Corps of Engineers budget for levee construction in New Orleans is slashed. Jefferson Parish emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri comments: ”It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay.”

June 2005: Funding for the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is cut by a record $71.2 million. One of the hardest-hit areas is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which was created after the May 1995 flood to improve drainage in Jefferson, Orleans and St. Tammany parishes.

August 2005: While New Orleans is undergoing a slow motion catastrophe, Bush mugs for the cameras, cuts a cake for John McCain, plays the guitar for Mark Wills, delivers an address about V-J day, and continues with his vacation. When he finally gets around to acknowledging the scope of the unfolding disaster, he delivers only a photo op on Air Force One and a flat, defensive, laundry list speech in the Rose Garden.

The End

But hey, Bushis standing by his man Brown, telling him last week that he’s “doing a heck of a job.”

Here’s one for NICU nurses, and anyone else interested in medical technology. It may surprise you to learn just how far back the use of infant incubators goes. I always tended to think of them more as a mid-20th century invention, considering the dismal survival rate of premature babies prior to that. But live and learn. The first experiment in baby incubators dates to the 19th century. Scientists and doctors, in fact, have been playing around with different ideas for substitute wombs for over 150 years.

On Sept 7, 1888, a tiny infant made neonatal history. Edith Eleanor McLean, who weighed in at just 2 pounds, 7 ounces, became the first occupant of what was called the “hatching cradle,” the first incubator used in the U.S. She was born at the State Emigrant Hospital, Ward’s Island, in New York City, but I was unable to find any information concerning her gestational age. Judging by her size, I am assuming that she was born prematurely, rather than just being an undernourished small for gestational age type.

The device was a box, measuring 3 feet by 4 feet, and was warmed by 15 gallons of water. I’m assuming that the water needed to be continually reheated, and that it needed some sort of power source to keep the water hot. It built by William Champion Deming, M.D., who was in charge of the maternity ward. However, incubators were developed for infants in France as early as 1857.