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Both the Red Cross and the Salvation Army will be on the ground in the devastated areas as soon as it’s safe.

If you can afford it, they both do good work during hurricane recovery. It would be wonderful if they had less to do.

Update: If you wouldn’t mind, could you send some good thoughts to the men and women of the Louisiana and Mississippi Guard who have been deployed to the Persian Gulf. From personal experience it is really tough to know your family and friends need your help and you can’t be there.

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While I’m generally breathing a sigh of relief, I feel a good deal of concern for those in the path of this storm. Anntichrist S. Coulter of Blonde Sense lives in Louisiana, and I hope she has high ground to move to if this comes close.

At the moment, I’m reminded of Hurricane Camille in August of 1969. My Dad was in Biloxi, Mississippi when it hit and I drove through a month or so later. It looked like carpet bombing with destruction continuing well inland.

Katrina is now a Category Five with sustained winds at 175 miles per hour. There will be massive waves and a storm surge. New Orleans is six feet below sea level on average and needs levees and pumps to keep from flooding in normal times. If this storm comes anywhere close it will flood.

Katrina is a larger storm than Camille and will affect a wider area. Local officials are asking the Federal government to move MASH units into the area for assistance after the storm moves through.

Pensacola is still closing down and buttoning up because of this storm. It is due in 200 miles West of me, but there will be effects felt here.

We can hope that it will lose some strength before making landfall tomorrow, but you can’t count on it.

Update: the fourth most powerful Atlantic hurricane on record. Miles O’Brien of CNN is moving to Baton Rouge. He concluded his satellite truck would be under water if he stayed.

Update: [8PM CDT] The first rain/storm bands are coming on shore at my place.

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On May 1^st, 2003 the Shrubbery made a landing aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and told us the “Mission” had been “Accomplished”. This makes Rumsfeld’s war-on-terror memo on October 16^th, 2003 even more weird. Why does Rumsfeld need “metrics” five months after the job is supposedly finished?

My point is that these people don’t have a compass. There is no course to stay. Their only goal is to make a lot of money for their friends. Bush has no great belief or goal in his life; he borrows beliefs from others without ever bothering to understand them.

Only a great writer or total hack would have scheduled the “Mission Accomplished” speech on May Day.

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‘Eyes in the sky’ for homeland security indicates I’m not the only one who thinks that airships are worth a look.

I would note that they want to make them bigger [and more expensive] than I would think necessary, but then I’m a believer in Jerry Pournelle’s concept of “Good Enough” – it doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to get the job done.

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Bush supporters gather in Crawford to protest a Gold Star mother, which is to be expected. I mean a guy with control over nuclear weapons really needs to be protected from a mom who wants him to answer a question. I know there were a number of questions I didn’t want my Mother to ask over the years.

Unfortunately one group forgot that people require the intellectual maturity of a 10-year-old to understand sarcasm, so there was a problem.

You wonder if they have seen this: Poll: 90 percent support right to protest war.

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Not for the queasy without a sense of humor, I think Culture Ghost is being given a unsubtle hint in One Day late Cat-Blogging.

It’s not a horse’s head in his bed, but…

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There was time when the heroic pet would brave all dangers, like the heroine in Lassie Come Home, to return home for a reunion.

But today’s dogs avoid a long walk home by nipping aboard the 20:38. I admit that knowing which train to take and getting off at the right stop is pretty good, but where’s the mythic quality in taking a local train?

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