Important, good things:

In Puddinhead's hometown, Hurricane Katrina evacuees are starting to find more permanent housing and jobs. Yay!

Mike Brown, the Arabian-horse-overseer-turned-FEMA-director, has been canned.

Major pumps in New Orleans proper are starting to work again. People are returning; so is air traffic.

Bush claims to accept responsibility for screwed-up Federal response. This may be sincere, or it may be one of those nothing-to-lose tactics. We can later gauge sincerity on action taken, like, say, if he fires Cherthoff and reorganizes FEMA and/or DHS.

Irritating things:

As you may have noticed, coverage of the Supreme Court confirmation hearings are blowing any and all Katrina coverage out of sight. It's going to go on forever and mean nothing, since we all know he's going to get confirmed anyway, and the blowhards running the hearings seem to think they don't have anything more important to do. This is the gang of clowns that reconvened in an emergency session for Terri Shiavo but wouldn't bother with an enormous natural disaster? It would be nice for them to put forth responses appropriate to a given problem, as compared to responses appropriate for a given polling focus group. As such, Puddin fears there will be little or no political fallout from the hurricane disaster. That, and that mightily-yawping press of last week is probably going back into hiding any day now.

Crappy things of a personal nature:

This site, Sell the Ranch, appears to have been looted here, with the guy selling products and ignoring my emails. At a time like this, I am pretty pissed off to have to deal with intellectual property theft from someone who feels the same way I do. Couldn't you just have linked to me, buddy? It hurts, but it's probably time to break out the lawyers.

A novel idea

At the moment, there are uncountable displaced refugees from the Gulf Coast region of the United States scattered all over the south. Tens of thousands more are trapped in hellish conditions in New Orleans, Biloxi, and other cities. The performance of federal agencies in the wake of this disaster have, in themselves, been a disaster.

Enter President George W. Bush, who clearly has been concerned from the outset. Here's his picture a day after the hurricane struck. Bush's poll numbers have been dropping through the floor, and Heaven knows he deserves them for a dismal performance as President. The guy can't even be bothered to tour the damage on the ground, let alone be accountable for funds diverted from the Army Corps of Engineers [that could have prevented the levee breaks in New Orleans proper] or for National Guardsmen sent off on some foolish military venture abroad rather than being at home where they might be needed. It is horrible for everyone involved, and Bush looks like an ass.

However, musing about it yesterday, I came upon a winning strategy for our president to salvage his PR and actually contribute in some small way towards relieving the suffering of this national tragedy.

President Bush needs to auction off his ranch in Crawford and give the proceeds to the relief effort.

Just imagine! Here's how his speech could go:

Hurricane Katrina has displaced, maimed, killed, and blighted hundreds of thousands of individuals. Many of the surviving have lost their cars, homes, neighbors, and entire livelihoods. There has been some discussion in the media and elsewhere that I, as your president, have been reluctant to call for personal sacrifice in order to address our nation's problems. This discussion is not entirely unfounded.

As such, effective immediately, I am putting up my own ranch and home in Crawford up for auction and will put the proceeds towards the relief effort. As many Americans have lost their homes, so too shall I lose mine. No one can dispute how much I love that place; I have spent nearly a quarter of my presidency working and living there. I encourage my more fortunate Republican friends to bid as much as they are able for the property to live on and otherwise enjoy. For my well-heeled political opponents, I also encourage you to bid as highly as possible, such that you might bask in the irony of living in my home, perhaps even spraypainting "stinkypants" all over the walls of my former living room. There has been a divisiveness in this country over the past several years, and while it has caused much ill, I would be pleased if it could be put to use by the factions competing over my ranch. This would drive the sale price ever higher, ultimately benefiting those truly in need.

While political disputes and haggling might add to the dollar value sent to relieve the suffering, there is a larger moral issue here: it is simply not right that, as your highest elected official, I should live so richly while the collapse of the infrastructure that was my responsibility has plunged so many of you into squalor. I hope that this sacrifice will help.

The moving trucks arrive tomorrow. The bidding starts at one million. I will match whatever price is paid for the house in donations.

Would this not fix everything? Well, not everything. But it would immediately dispel notions that the man is selfish and unengaged [true or not]. Moreover, the White House press corps would, for the next three summers, be relieved of spending five weeks in infernal Crawford, holed up in hotels in Waco. Additionally, we all know some uber-rich Republican is gonna buy it and give it right back to Bush at the end of his presidency anyhow. It would really just mean that Bush wouldn't get to summer there for the next three years. Or, given the guy's integrity and unwillingness to avoid the appearance of impropriety, he could probably just skip one summer and move right back in. Even if the worst happens and the ranch falls into the hands of his enemies, who wouldn't buy President Bush another ranch in Texas? The place is swimming with rich white Texans who love him. So, on a purely selfish level, the strategy is winner because he won't really lose anything.

On the political front, he'd look like a god. Who wouldn't love a guy who gave up his house to save the starving? Moreover, the actual funds generated for the relief effort would be substantial and might actually do something. While they won't stop the death and shootings and mayhem that are sure to follow in the upcoming weeks, at least they can be put towards rebuilding infrastructure or some other project to make it less bad next time. Don't get me wrong, I hate Bush and put him below Reagan on my most-loathed-Presidents list. But I'd applaud like a drunken monkey if he did this.

The point of this blog is to raise awareness of the idea. Tell your friends. Shout it from the rooftops.

Sell the ranch, Mr. President!

[Of course, he won't.]