The Gulf and New Orleans DID Dodge The Bullet

With a little more perspective it is becoming more evident that while Katrina was and is Huge disruption to the vital Gulf region and its crown jewel; New Orleans, it is not quite the end of the world. Not to diminish the suffering and loss of life and property there, but we now have before us an unprecedented opportunity to rebuild the area better than it was before. Thankfully the death toll is nowhere near as bad as once feared. That still doesn't diminish the huge property losses but it is very good news.

The real story with Katrina appears to be how well the evacuations DID work. If they had not, far more people than did would have perished.

The MSM and its hangers on have put on a spectacular display of hyperventilation, see Celine Dion, as they are wont to do. But it becomes more self evident every day that it will not be as bad as the MSM would have you believe. This piece in the Cristian Science Monitor has a great table accompanying the article that shows the death toll so far to be still well below 1,000 which is great news compared to the figures being spewed out by the MSM earlier.

Excellent points by Stephen Moore in the WSJ about the HUGE spending spree the drunkards in congress are about to strap your children with. Read the whole thing, it is amazing.

"... Conspicuously missing from the post-Katrina spending debate is a question for some brave soul in Congress to ask, What is the appropriate and constitutional role here for the federal government? Before the New Deal taught us that the federal government is the solution to every malady, most congresses and presidents would have concluded that the federal government's role was minimal. One of our greatest presidents, Democrat Grover Cleveland, vetoed an appropriation for drought victims because there was no constitutional authority to spend for such purposes. Today he would be ridiculed by Ted Kennedy as "incompassionate."

We all want to see New Orleans rebuilt, but it does not follow that this requires more than $100 billion in federal aid. Chicago was burned to the ground in 1871; San Francisco was leveled by an earthquake in 1906; and in 1900 Galveston, Texas, was razed by a hurricane even more ferocious than Katrina. In each instance, these proud cities were rebuilt rapidly and to even greater glory--with hardly any federal money..."

Moore also points out that with the likely $200 Billion flowing into the Gulf under the guise of aid we could just cut a check for each of the 500,000 families that were dislocated by the Hurricane. The checks would be for $400,000.00 EACH.

Meanwhile the great state of Mississippi quietly goes about the business of getting on with the process of recovery and rebuilding. MS Gov Barbour is managing this without all the histrionics of his LA neighbors to the west.

It will be interesting to watch now as LAs neighbor to the west as Texas Gov Perry prepares his state for hurricane Rita.