Touch of Grey

The silver lining on this whole Katrina thing, which I will admit is looking a little tarnished, is that the quoted and quoting classes are pulling out all the stops to see who can say the silliest thing.

For example. The New York Times editorialized,

But this seems like the wrong moment to dwell on fault-finding, or even to point out that it took what may become the worst natural disaster in American history to pry President Bush out of his vacation.

Oh, you sneaky Times! You thought you could use that reverse psychology stuff on us naive readers and we'd never notice your fault-finding and pointing out. Well, you can't get by us that easily!

And on Fox News there's this:

"We are gravely concerned about the potential for cholera, typhoid and dehydrating diseases that could come as a result of the stagnant water and the conditions," said [Health and Human Services Secretary Michael] Leavitt.

However, officials at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health experts said cholera and typhoid are not considered to be high risks in the area.

Nice. Way to make up stuff, man. And can you say, inappropriate use of the word "gravely"?

Biloxi, MS mayor A.J. Holloway called the disaster "our tsunami," and I don't mean to be all on this guy's case, I know he's had a rough couple of days, but he's totally shooting himself in the foot. Because the hurricane is like the tsunami in that they both involved large amounts of water, but it's not like the tsunami in that 300,000 people died there, and it seems likely that the death toll from Katrina, while tragic, will be at least 100x smaller. "Our tsunami but a hundred times less terrible" - I don't think that's really the point he's going for.