Joe M. Allbaugh, a Bush campaign hack without any crisis management experience who was named director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, disparaged federal disaster assistance as "an oversized entitlement program" before Congress in 2001. The public's expectations of government in a disaster situation, he said, "may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level." He advised stricken communities to rely for help on "faith-based organizations … like the Salvation Army and the Mennonite Disaster Service."

(link goes to LA Times article about the ill advisedness of shrinking FEMA)

As Hurricane Katrina bore down on the Gulf Coast three weeks ago, veteran workers at the Federal Emergency Management Agency braced for an epic disaster.

But their bosses, political appointees with almost no emergency management experience, didn't seem to share the sense of urgency, a FEMA veteran said.

"We told these fellows that there was a killer hurricane heading right toward New Orleans," Leo Bosner, a 26-year FEMA employee and union leader told CNN. "We had done our job, but they didn't do theirs."

No kidding.

If getting a blowjob from an intern counts as "high crimes and misdemeanors," what's "appointing dozens of unqualified cronies to important posts, resulting in thousands of deaths of American citizens"?

Oh, I know! A moral rebirth in America!

As for the rest of it...we do have a car. Possibly two cars. Four people, five cats. Odds are good that we have a half tank in each car, but a full tank? Unlikely. The Twin Cities has a huge traffic congestion problem, which makes it unlikely that a even a full tank of gas would be sufficient. Walk out? 150 miles? With cats? Not possible. Leave the cats behind? Extremely unlikely.

I have no idea what my household would do with 24 hour notice. We couldn't even pray, what with being atheists or agnostics. Of course, round here it's more likely to be the New Madrid fault giving way really spectacularly, and that's not likely to come with any warning at all.

They are gutting things from the inside -- you really don't think they meant us to take Homeland Security seriously, do you? (They sure don't.)

To paraphrase Dorothy Dunnett, don't listen to what they say, watch their hands...