[Xantar]

My dad works at the National Archives, and I went on a tour of the place some four or five years ago. One of the things they showed me was a sort of disaster map of New Orleans. It had plans for what to do in case of a gas attack, where to place the police when a riot erupts for some reason, how to deal with an earthquake etc. The person who showed me the map pointed out that the city is in a basin without all that much protection from the ocean. His words were something like, "The government's worst nightmare is that a hurricane hits New Orleans. The engineers have worked out that in that case, the city would literally disappear."

You would think that when Katrina was identified and marked two days before it hit the coast, the government would have woken up and thought, "Oh no! This is the big one! It's unacceptable to have any human beings in the city when it arrives."

I prefer not to cast blame because there will be plenty of time for that later. But I also wanted to alert you all to something:

If you receive an e-mail urgently asking for money to be sent to a relief fund for Katrina, DO NOT REPLY. Do not click any of their links or send any money to any addresses they give you. Those e-mails are spammers trying to cash in on the disaster and steal your money or credit card number. Real charities do not spam your inbox. Ever.

You know, as much as I hate murder and terrorism, there are times when I really think somebody should blow up a spam king's house...