72 Hours of Preparedness

Finally a good editorial from the Sacramento Bee. The article points out the necessity of all to prepare for a disaster. New Orleans has demonstrated that in the midst of a disaster it may be several days before we receive aid. Are you prepared?

Daniel Weintraub: First responders in a major disaster: You and I
By Daniel Weintraub -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Story appeared in Editorials section, Page B7


Now that the dust, or the muck, has begun to settle in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, this is a good time to consider how Californians might respond to a disaster of similar proportions. The first and most enduring lesson from Katrina may be this: Be prepared to take care of yourself, and your neighbor if possible, for at least three days after any major disaster. Don't expect to get help from anyone, including government. If help comes, great. But don't assume that it will.


The same lesson should apply to disaster preparedness on a broader scale. If California government officials know that the state's infrastructure is vulnerable and needs to be fixed, they can't use the lack of sufficient assistance from the federal government as an excuse to delay. They must act now to prioritize the state's needs and attack them rather than waiting for help and pointing fingers later.

Katrina exposed vast weaknesses on both fronts along the Gulf Coast and especially in New Orleans. City and state officials did not do enough to protect their fellow citizens from disaster or prepare to respond if one hit. Evacuation plans were not followed, buses were left unused in parking lots that later flooded, police could not or would not show up for duty, the American Red Cross, designated by the law as the first responder for evacuees, was blocked from entering the city with food and water, and the governor refused to sign a request turning over control of the National Guard to President Bush.

Given the scope of local and state incompetence, if not corruption, the president should have acted sooner to try to take over the response, even if it meant going public with delicate, behind-the-scenes negotiations and declaring the obvious: Louisiana officials were overmatched and needed to be shoved aside, even if they resisted.

We can only hope that California would do better in a similar predicament. But there is no way to know how any person or agency would react under the kind of pressures experienced in New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast region in recent weeks.

California has had its share of disasters, but nothing in its modern history can compare to the flooding of an entire metropolitan area on top of the typical wind and water damage that comes from a devastating hurricane.

The closest scenario imaginable might be the "Big One," a catastrophic earthquake that levels much of Los Angeles or San Francisco. A Bay Area quake of that magnitude is especially horrifying to consider because of its potential to bust the levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and unleash flooding that would not only take lives but could cripple California's water supply system for months or even years.

Such a quake would probably collapse thousands of buildings, unleash fires that could not be controlled, sever communications and power lines, and overwhelm first responders for days.

California's official state emergency plan is built on the assumption that disaster response is best coordinated at the lowest level of government involved in an emergency. Local authorities, the plan says, will maintain "control and responsibility" within their jurisdictions unless superseded by statute or agreement.

The plan calls for local government to request assistance from the state if needed, but also allows the governor to declare a state of emergency if he determines that the local authority is "inadequate" to cope with the disaster.

While the president, too, can declare an emergency, as Bush did in this case, he lacks the authority to take over for local law enforcement except in the limited case of an "insurrection." It might be a good idea to change that and allow a president to step in and federalize disaster response - including the use of the military to enforce the law -- if he determines that local and state officials are overwhelmed.

As New Orleans demonstrated, the most important function the government can perform is to restore and maintain security. That is the first role of government in good times but especially in bad. Once security is compromised and order crumbles, the worst elements of society are going to plunge into the vacuum and take advantage of it. And if people fear for their lives from their fellow man, in addition to the elements, everything else that needs doing is going to be impaired.

Disaster preparedness and response need not be inconsistent with limited government. If providing for public safety is the first job of any government, then even the smallest agency should be doing everything it can to prepare to maintain the peace, before it does anything else.

Yet no matter how well government prepares or responds, there is still the chance a disaster will strike that simply cannot be managed from above. Each of us has a responsibility to be ready to take care of ourselves and our loved ones. Even San Francisco, a city that prides itself on its sense of community and its extensive public services, has established a Web site titled www.72hours.org to drive home the point that its citizens must plan to fend for themselves in a disaster.

Go there now, and be ready.

Invalidating the Voters

I am sick and tired of our Legislature ignoring the spoken will of the California voters. We voted on this issue with Proposition 22 and 61.2% of the voter said no to gay marriage in California! Obviously our elected officials at the Capitol think we are not intelligent enough to decide this issue; even when we send a resounding message with 60% of the vote they still do not listen. I have had it with our elected officials in Sacramento; not content enough with bankrupting this state financial, now they feel the need to cirumvent us and bankrupt us socially! I call on Governor Schwarzenegger to veto this and respect will of your constituency. Do not invalidate my vote! The text below was posted on SacBee.com!

California Senate approves bill allowing gay marriage
By STEVE LAWRENCE, Associated Press Writer
Last Updated 1:10 pm PDT Thursday, September 1, 2005
SACRAMENTO (AP) - Handing gay rights advocates a major victory, the California Senate approved legislation Thursday that would legalize same-sex marriages in the nation's most populous state.
The 21-15 vote made the Senate the first legislative chamber in the country to approve a gay marriage bill. It sets the stage for a showdown in the state Assembly, which narrowly rejected a gay marriage bill in June.


"Equality is equality, period," said one of the bill's supporters, Sen. Liz Figueroa, D-Sunol. "When I leave this Legislature, I want to be able to tell my grandchildren I stood up for dignity and rights for all."
But Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, R-La Mesa, suggested that a "higher power" opposed the legislation.

"This is not the right thing to do," he said. "We should protect traditional marriage and hold all of those values and institutions that have made our society and keep our society together today."

But Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, said a number of churches supported the bill: "I don't think anyone should claim God as being on their side in this debate," she said.

California already confers many of the rights and duties of marriage on gay couples, who can register as domestic partners. Massachusetts became the first state to recognize gay marriages when the state Supreme Court legalized same-sex weddings there in 2003.

Several senators equated the struggle for gay marriage to other civil rights movements. They said arguments against the bill were similar to earlier arguments in support of slavery and opposing interracial marriage.

"This is probably the most profound civil rights movement of our generation, without a doubt," said Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough.

Gay rights advocates called Thursday's California vote historic.

"It will make all California families safer and more secure if it becomes law," said Seth Kilbourn, director of the Human Rights Campaign Marriage Project in New York. "The fact they debated and voted on this relatively quickly today sends a message that there is momentum for this bill."

Senate approval gave the bill's author, Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, another chance to send the legislation to the desk of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Legislature is expected to adjourn next week.

A telephone call seeking comment from the governor's office was not immediately returned Thursday.

After the Assembly rejected his bill in June by four votes, Leno amended the measure's provisions into another one of his bills that had already passed the Assembly and was awaiting action in the Senate. That's the bill the Senate approved Thursday and sent back to the Assembly.

Sen. Sheila Kuehl, one of six gay members of the state Legislature, told the chamber that gay couples have the same hopes for their relationships as heterosexual couples.

"Gay and lesbian people fall in love. We settle down. We commit our lives to one another. We raise our children. We protect them. We try to be good citizens," said Kuehl, D-Santa Monica. "This is a bill whose time has come."

The vote came as a state appellate court is considering appeals of a San Francisco judge's ruling overturning California laws banning recognition of gay marriages. At the same time, opponents of same-sex marriage are trying to qualify initiatives for the 2006 ballot that would place a ban on gay marriages in the state Constitution.

Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, agreed that gay couples are entitled to certain rights but not the right to marry.

"Can't you see that marriage is a fundamentally different institution?" he said. "Marriage is the institution by which we propagate our species and inculcate our young."

Is a Fatwa on violence and terrorism good enough?

Reuters recently reported that "top US scholars issued a fatwa...against terrorism...and called on Muslims to help authorities fight the scourge of militant violence." Is this "fatwa" a sufficient condemnaton of the violence and global gurilla war that radical Islam is fighting against the West? Futhermore, Why was this idict issued 4 years after 9/11? Why do these same scholars and religious leaders refuse to specifically denounce Osama Bin Laden and associates?

"Ibrahim Hooper, spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said it was the first time Muslims in North America had issued an anti-terrorism edict, although they had repeatedly condemned such acts of violence." Why should we take any of this rhetoric seriously when they have done nothing but sit on their hands while fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters were killed in the World Trade Center, Pentagon, Spanish trains, and the Underground of London. Where was this condemnation when our Embassy was stormed in Tehran, when the USS Cole was attacked, or when the Marines were killed in Beirut. Frankly, this is too little too late!

This fatwa is meaningless, "because Islam is not based on a world-wide hierarchical structure, the edicts are not globally binding, and only affect the community whose religious leaders have issued the rulings." Last time I checked most of the criminal and butchers responsible for the cowardly acts mentioned above came mostly from the Middle East and more specifically the Whabbist controlled Saudi region! It is interesting to note that within the last few weeks Sheikh Mohammed Omran, of Melbourne, Australia went on record defending the actions of Osama Bin Laden and his network; Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammad calls for all of Europe to surrender or be slaghtered by the "sword of Islam," and Abu Hamza, the cleric accused of tutoring Richard Reid before he tried to blow up a Paris-to-Miami jetliner with explosives hidden in his shoe, urged a crowd of 200 outside his former Finsbury Park mosque to embrace death and the "culture of martyrdom." This propaganda can be allowed any longer! We can not as a society, who believe in and support the sanctity of life, allow this rehtoric continue. We need to wake up a realize that the only difference between these barbars and the Nazi's is that they have cloaked their treachery in religion!


God Bless our Troops and Godspeed!

Secretary of State Testifies Regarding Our Borders

This is an article from Yahoo News and it illustrates the serious nature of this issue.

"By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer

MEXICO CITY - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) said Thursday that al-Qaida and other terrorist groups are doing everything they can to get into the United States through Mexico and Canada.

Rice, on her first trip to Mexico since taking over at the State Department, in late January, echoed concerns raised by government officials in congressional testimony last month about the motives of the terrorist network blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Indeed we have from time to time had reports about al-Qaida trying to use our southern border but also trying to use our northern border," Rice told reporters. "There is no secret that al-Qaida will try to get into this country and into other countries by any means they possibly can.

"That's how they managed to do it before and they will do everything that they can to cross the borders," she said.

Recent intelligence from current investigations, detentions and other sources suggests that al-Qaida has considered using the Southwest border to infiltrate the United States, according to testimony from a top Homeland Security Department official last month before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"Several al-Qaida leaders believe operatives can pay their way into the country through Mexico, and also believe illegal entry is more advantageous than legal entry for operational security reasons," James Loy, deputy secretary at the time, said in his testimony.

Rice made the one-day trip to Mexico to meet with President Vicente Fox (news - web sites) and Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez. Emerging from her meeting with Derbez, Rice announced that the two countries had settled a decades-old, cross-water debt.

Mexico will transfer enough water to the United States to cover a debt that Texas has claimed that Mexico has owed under a 1944 treaty. That water-sharing pact requires Mexico to send the United States an average of 350,000 acre-feet of water annually from six Rio Grande tributaries. The United States in return must send Mexico 1.5 million acre feet from the Colorado River.

"I'm delighted that we have been able to reach this understanding," Rice said.

Rice also was announcing a $10 million grant to support the expansion of a Mexican program that provides citizens with banking services and small business loans.

Rice said progress has been made in securing the border since Sept. 11, 2001. But she also said the United States is obligated to alert its citizens of concerns.

"We and the Mexicans have a robust dialogue about border security, and I believe we're going to continue to have that," she said. "This is not a matter of pointing fingers. This is a matter of really trying to get the best possible coordination and work that we can so that there's safety for citizens in both countries, on both sides of the border."

She said Washington does not support vigilante groups that are recruiting volunteers to patrol the border for undocumented Mexican crossers.

President Bush (news - web sites)'s former national security adviser faced a diplomatic test in her first visit to Mexico. She discussed with Derbez immigration, border issues, free trade and economic growth.

Recently, Mexican politicians have accused the Bush administration of interfering with Mexico's internal affairs. They have denounced U.S. officials' comments about human rights abuses, drug trafficking and possible election related instability.

Mexico was angered by a recent U.S. travel warning for Americans going to Mexico's northern border. Yet both Rice and Derbez praised relations in a news conference.

Mexican officials called the atmosphere one of friendship and cooperation. Rice spoke of "a close neighbor and friend" and said the neighbors "shared a partnership of prosperity."

A few months and a few concerns

It has been a few month since I wrote about my excitement that President Bush was reelected. I have to tell you that since that day, I have become frustrated with President Bush and his administration. My frustration stems from seemingly careless way that the War on Terror is being waged. I agree that this war is the "war" of my generation and must be fought. This is a fight against those that would destroy this nation and any other nation that embraces freedom and liberty. Without due diligence in this matter our country will lose this fight for it's life. Our enemy will stop at nothing short of reducing our biggest cities to rumble, economy to ruin, and destroy our way of life, but what is bothering me is the enormous effort that is being put into fighting abroad and ignoring the threats that exist right here in our own country. I speak of our borders. This administration seems content to go across the street and fight the bully head on in their front yard while we leave the back door of our country not only unlocked but wide open. What good is fighting a war on terror on battlefield if our enemy can learn some Spanish and crawl over the border in Nogales. If Bush recognizes the seriousness of this fight against terror and Islamofascism so much that he is willing to risk American GI's to defeat it, then why is he content to leave our borders unsecure?

Looking forward

I was tremendously heartened by the re-election of our Commander and Chief George W. Bush. This was a resounding triumph for our nation. We told the world, the UN, our European critics, and our enemies abroad and within, that we will NOT cower or surrender to the threats and demands of a terrorist on a video, threats found on a laptop, or the judgment's of the international community. The previously "silent majority;" the socially conservative have come forward and started to take back their nation. Despite what the "ministry of the mainstream media" claims, we are a nation of socially conservative workers that that stood up for what is right, moral, and just.

As we enbark on this journey, W: Term II, let us hold the House Representatives, our Senators, and the Bush administration accountable for their time in Washington. Let us demand that our borders be protected and secured, our language is preserved, our tax code reflect and protect our most valuable asset: small business and the middle class, that we are given the opportunity to control our social security, and that we continue to supply our intelligence and our armed forces the tools and funding to continue to spread freedom and justice across the globe.

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God Bless America
God Bless the Troops and Godspeed!