From The Onion:
White House officials are confident the President will be able to convince the wildfire to stop incinerating large swaths of land and American homes.
Reporters were given only 15 minutes' notice of the briefing, making it unlikely many could show up at FEMA's Southwest D.C. offices. They were given an 800 number to call in, though it was a "listen only" line, the notice said -- no questions. Parts of the briefing were carried live on Fox News, MSNBC and other outlets.
"And so I think what you're really seeing here is the benefit of experience, the benefit of good leadership and the benefit of good partnership," Johnson said, "none of which were present in Katrina." (Wasn't Michael Chertoff DHS chief then?) Very smooth, very professional. But something didn't seem right. The reporters were lobbing too many softballs. No one asked about trailers with formaldehyde for those made homeless by the fires. And the media seemed to be giving Johnson all day to wax on and on about FEMA's greatness.
Of course, that could be because the questions were asked by FEMA staffers playing reporters. We're told the questions were asked by Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of external affairs, and by "Mike" Widomski, the deputy director of public affairs. Director of External Affairs John "Pat" Philbin asked a question, and another came, we understand, from someone who sounds like press aide Ali Kirin...read on
The manipulation of our media is a major reason why we're in the Iraq war to begin with so this outrageous propaganda presser by FEMA, while shocking---is not surprising. It's a sad state of affairs. Only in this administration could this possibly have happened. After all, it's how they work. Somebody should be fired over this blatant attempt to distort reality.
My heart goes out to the people that have lost their homes or have been slammed by burning embers. Ash has darkened the sky---it's hard to breathe and outside it looks like a day time eclipse.
Joe Gandelman, from The Moderate Voice has been doing a lot of good down in San Diego. He's a professional ventriloquist and has been entertaining kids down there to ease some of the tension..Tell him thanks if you stop by his blog. My eyes have been burning for three days now and I feel like I have the flu, but that's not a big deal. Unfortunately, it's starting to have an impact on a lot of kids too...
Particulates are microscopic pieces of soot, smoke, dust or other materials capable of lodging deep in lungs.---Travis Henson, an emergency room physician at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the northeast San Fernando Valley community of Mission Hills, said larger-than-normal numbers of patients with asthma, chronic bronchitis and emphysema had shown up this week. Henson said he noticed a relatively high number of children with cold symptoms and respiratory problems. Some of these young patients, he said, "maybe have never had asthma before."
Meanwhile, the sickos at Blackwater are using the fires as propaganda...
It seems that some right wing nuts are blaming "environmentalists for the blaze.
