Carbon Dioxide - 381 ppm - 3.0 ppm/y

In article ,
h (Rand Simberg) wrote:
On Fri, 17 Mar 06 16:50:15 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Lloyd Parker) made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

And of course, Bush responded admirably to it, right?

It wasn't Bush's job to respond to it.

Sure it was. It was a national disaster, and he's the president.

No. Just because presidents have gotten photo ops in the past by
going to national disaster sites doesn't mean that it's their job. It
certainly says nothing about it in the Constitution.

"The Buck Stops Here" has been replaced with "Blame Somebody Else"?

FEMA is a federal agency. Bush is head of the executive branch.


The federal government didn't
do that great a job, but it rarely does, federal government being what
it always is. It certainly didn't anticipate how completely
incompetent the local government would be, though perhaps it should
have.
FEMA was supposed to manage emergencies. That's its name.

It has never been chartered to be a first responder. That has always
been understood to be a local responsibility. FEMA's position has
always been that locals are on their own for the first few days.

"FEMA’s continuing mission within the new department is to lead the effort to
prepare the nation for all hazards and effectively manage federal response and
recovery efforts following any national incident. FEMA also initiates
proactive mitigation activities, trains first responders, and manages the
National Flood Insurance Program and the U.S. Fire Administration."

Not much leading, not much managing, and certainly not much proactive anything
went on.