I was in Chicago with no web access while the hurricane news was worsening. The last you heard from me I said I wasn't impressed with the response but there could be things happening in areas I didn't see. Well, now we know there were, and they were all bad.

I'm not going to add much to the mountain of words that have been written about the total government failure on all levels. Maureen Dowd said it all, along with the mayor of New Orleans, who was quoted somewhere as saying, "Fire all those idiots and send me better idiots." I'll just add this: isn't it reassuring to know that if a dam breaks or a power plant blows up near you, the government will be all ready to go with an equally efficient and effective response?