It should be no surprise that the U.S. has snubbed Cuba’s offer to aid us in the aftermath of Katrina. What would be a wonderful opportunity to get our two nations talking again was destroyed by Mr. Diplomat himself, Dubya. Well, I guess that once again, the president lied. The Bush administration assured the public that international aid offers will be kept free of politics, but I guess that referred to everyone except Cuba.

In separate Washington press briefings, both the White House and State Department spokesmen this week downplayed the Cuban government’s offer to send some 1,600 medics, field hospitals and 83 tons of medical supplies to ease the humanitarian disaster.

“When it comes to Cuba,” said McClellan, “we have one message for Fidel Castro: He needs to offer the people of Cuba their freedom.”

Uh, Mr. McClellan, I think that Fidel Castro may also have a message for you; instead of offering tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, how about using the money to prepare yourselves for an emergency? How about taking care of the American public? You sure did a good job with the victims of hurricane Katrina.

You see, in Cuba, people would never have to wait 4 days to get rescued, or go without food and water while politicians gave eachother high-fives and congratulated themselves on what a good job they were doing. Even though their performance was dismal. Cuba has a spectacular system in place for natural disasters, and if we weren’t so snobby, we could learn a lot from them.

Read the story at MSNBC.com

Michael Incompetent Brown has resigned his post from FEMA, just a scant 3 days after he was thrown out of Louisiana and “relieved of his command” of hurricane Katrina.

So why the song and dance? Uh, Michael is being recalled to Washington because we have important work for him to do there…or, Michael Brown is still the director of FEMA and there are no plans to replace him.

Why the idiocy? Why not just say that the dork is being zapped, and he’s outta here. Then again, how would Dubya justify his inane comment about “Brownie doing a heck of a job.” Remember? Those fatal words uttered from his spiny lips only about 10 days ago. So now why would such a stellar employee need to resign?

But we know the answer to that. It’s called trying to save face for appointing a brainless and inexperienced dork simply because he’s good pals with people in power.

“Michael Brown’s departure from FEMA is long overdue, and his resignation is the right thing for the country and for the people of the Gulf Coast states,” Representative Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat and House minority leader, said in a statement. “President Bush’s next FEMA director must be a qualified emergency-response professional with the leadership experience to manage this disaster and future emergencies.”

“The events of the last 10 days have shown that Mr. Brown has repeatedly exercised poor judgment and has failed in his basic responsibilities,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and other Democratic leaders wrote in a Sept. 9 letter to Bush. “His continued presence in this critical position endangers the success of the ongoing recovery efforts.”

Reid said today, “I’m glad he’s gone.”

I’m glad he’s gone too. So are the people in hurricane stricken areas and anyone else who lives in a region prone to a natural disaster. The only sad news is that he lasted this long in the post. Think of how many people might still be alive, and how much suffering may have been avoided, if a competent person had been in charge.

Read the whole story on Bloomberg.com

So far, the official estimates are still way off. Overestimated, fortunately. While it is sad to find even one body, 279 is a lot better than the 10,000 predicted.

From Katrina Bog:

2:02 P.M. – (AP) Forty-five bodies have been found at a hospital that was abandoned more than a week ago after it was surrounded by floodwaters unleashed by Hurricane Katrina, a state health official said Monday.

The bodies were located Sunday at Memorial Medical Center, said Bob Johannesen, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Hospitals. Johannesen said the bodies were those of patients, but he had no other information.

The Louisiana death toll rose to 279 on Monday, up from 197 on Sunday, Johannesen said.

On Sunday, reporters were kept at a distance from Memorial Medical by law enforcement officers as workers removed bodies from the hospital, situated in the city’s Uptown section.

The 317-bed hospital, owned by TenetHealthcare Corp., remained closed Monday and was still partially surrounded by floodwaters.