grow a fucking backbone

this morning, NPR had a professor from NYU give a commentary on FEMA and he had a few interesting points. i didn't agree with all of his conclusions, but the problems FEMA was facing prior to the Bitch only helped to undermine its response.

he said that we can't blame homeland security for this, which i disagree with. homeland security which has control over FEMA undermined itself to some degree, so there is a degree of responsibility that lies there.

the problem was that this wasn't the first time FEMA fucked up. hurricane andrew was the last major blunder, and as the professor pointed out, it took several years for FEMA to fix itself and actually make itself efficient.

he figures that the problem with FEMA is that it is a political dumping ground for people given government appointments. i can't argue with that. so that brings us to my simple minded conclusion.

the problem is two-fold - first, because FEMA has become a dumping ground for appointments, the president (in this case, the professor stated FEMA's troubles really started in 2002 when the qualified people were replaced, so we can thank Dumbass Dub for this ultimately, so shit really does roll downhill...) wanting to pay back his 'political capital' (i love how Dumbass Dub pointedly stated after the last election he has a ton of this. yeah. right. and i won a $250 million lottery on friday night.), appoints people to meaningless jobs. (you'll have to ask Dumbass Dub how he defines 'meaningless'.) you see, he doesn't care if the person isn't qualified (as illustrated by the Arabian Horse judge who thankfully stepped down recently). he just makes an appointment and passes it off to the second half of the problem.

well, i suppose there are more steps and i'm over-simplifying it, but i don't care. i'm on a wonderfully underinformed tear right now.

the 2nd half of the problem is congress. they take these appointees and then go thru a confirmation process. so now a different set of monkeys are responsibile for deciding whether the appointee is worthy of the job or now. so they hold a confirmation hearing. (much like the John "i'm gonna screw the supreme court because i take it in the ass from Dumbass Dub" Roberts. the only good thing was when Dumbass Dub announced the appointment (to replace O'Connor), Johnny Boy's son started dancing around being a distraction. way to go kid!)

the idea of a confirmation hearing is to deterine whether or not the person being appointed/nominated is going to be able to do the job. something tells me that the repubican congress held a mass hearing for the Dumbass Dub appointees that has invitations something like this:

Nominees and Appointees, you are invited to a PARTY!
When: the first friday of every month, 1pm until ???
Where: Watergate Hotel, Grand Ballroom
Who: republicans and appointees/nominees only
What to expect: a gourmet lunch, booze, broads, booze, booze and more booze
Cost: nothing! thank the taxpayers if you like.

Afternoon adgenda:
1pm: lunch
2pm: beer
3pm: hard liqour
4pm: boobs
5pm: hard liqour, questions for nominees/appointees, more boobs
6pm: more booze, even more boobs
7pm: vote
8pm: PARTY!

then in a handwritten note for presidental appointees and nominees:

Hey, just a heads up - the more boobs you sign, the better the job you'll get.

PS - remember, only boobs on the broads.

so, where does that leave us? well, the up or down vote on nominees is then based on how many are standing, and how many are on the floor with their face in a pool of puke. questions generally range in the scale of:

q: do you think you'll *hic* do a good job?
a: *hic*yeth*hic* i will do a good job*hic*

so, where does that leave us? a congress that rubberstamps unqualified people into government positions. i realize that this happens regardless, but there really does need to be a qualification process.

like, if you are going to be the head of FEMA, that you've had some sort of experience handling situations that required you to coordinate several diverse groups. successfully.

oh well. we're screwed. you see, because congress is so afraid of Dumbass Dub, they just assume that the person is qualified so they just say 'yea' w/o actually following thru.

gotta love it.