After the Tom Cruise thing, I don't know if this is true, but if it is (or even if it isn't) it's pretty funny.

[Update late Sunday evening]

It seems to be real. Here's another story with a picture of him bailing. It also has a moronic quote from Celine Dion (who despite this should be thanked for her generous contribution).

"All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I'm fine" - Jeff Spicoli

Maybe Penn could teach Bush and company a few things about bailing.

At least he was there.

Why are we still reading reports of medical personnel and transportable hospitals and other forms of aid, a lot of it funded by taxpayers, being denied access?

Denied access by whom?

This argument has played out in several blogs. The truthful part of Billg's end will end up with "Bush should have acted like a dictator, the law be damned" and/or "Halliburton!!!!".

Denied access by FEMA. My state, for example, has moved a 113-person mobile hospital and well-stocked pharmacy and staff to Mississippi, only to be told to keep it out of the impacted area.

Chicago, days ago, pffered FEMA a wide range of aid equipment and personnel. FEMA told them no, just send one truck.

I don't need blogs to tell me that. The stories of FEMA incompetence and deleliction of duty have been widely reported.

At this point, only the camp followers who have prostituted themselves to the ideological pimps of failed American conservatism will defend this adminstration.

Can anyone imagine the arrogance of Bush staying on vacation, then going on a PR trip, after 9-11? And, then, when he finalay got around to paying attention, flying to New York and telling people to give to the Red Cross? Just utterly contemptible. A an American, I'm embarrassed to watch.

Gee, as an American I could easily say that I'm ashamed to watch a fellow American so distorting reality and refusing to apportion blame properly, instead seeking only to bash "conservatives" and "Bush."

Pathetic.

Rand, your slur exemplifies my argument. The Goldwater-Reagan-Bush stream of conservatism -- fertilized and watered by racist antipathy to the gowth and diversification of democracy in the 1960's -- has spent the last decades asserting that government is itself evil, that anyone who doesn't agree with them or worship as they do is both wrong and unAmerican.

The contempuousness of that, alone, ought to be apparent to any thinking individual. But even those blinded by ideology ought to be able to recgonize simple incompetence fueled by arrogant indifference when it is so amply on display.

I've every reason to respect the office of the president. I've every right to disagree with the individual who sits in the office at any given time. It's obvious i disagree with Bush. But this isn't a matter of policy disagreement. His performance this week has brought shame to his office and to this country. The performance of the incompetents he has hired has brought death to untold numbers.

What's "pathetic" is the ability of anyone to see all that and choose to ignore or even defend it.

Rand, your slur exemplifies my argument.

My slur?

I'm supposed to take this seriously as part of a an illogical comment in which you imply that I'm a racist?

I've every right to disagree with the individual who sits in the office at any given time.

Who said you didn't? It's always hilarious when, in defense of the asinine things they write and say in the face of legitimate criticism, people change the subject, set up a strawman, and whine about their "rights."

"The Man" isn't stifling your dissent, Bill. You seem to continue to post your insipidities here completely unhindered (just as no one ever stops Sean Penn from making a glorified ass of himself). No one said you don't have a right to think and write idiotic things. We're merely exercizing our right to point out the idiocy, and political blindness of them, when you can't be bothered to come up with any criticism of the local officials whose decisions killed thousands of their constituents, and are unable to recognize the authority and responsibilities of the various levels of government.

As someone named Bill, I'm ashamed to see another bill misstate so much in so few words. Bush called the governor and asked her to make the evacuation mandatory, reported by the AP How many lives did that save? The mayor ignored the city evac plan, it's on the city website. How many lives did that cost? I've read where some of those military people involve in the Andrew mobilization said this one was even faster. I'm neither an ideologue or a pimp just someone not blinded by irrational hatred and willing to sort out the facts.

"The Goldwater-Reagan-Bush stream of conservatism -- fertilized and watered by racist antipathy to the gowth and diversification of democracy in the 1960's -- has spent the last decades asserting that government is itself evil, that anyone who doesn't agree with them or worship as they do is both wrong and unAmerican."

It shouldn't be shocking that someone would think that someone who disagrees with their opinion is wrong. That's what having an opinion means.

"The Goldwater-Reagan-Bush stream of conservatism"

Who would find this lumping-together more offensive - Goldwater or Bush?

Billg "forgets" that Mississippi was actually harder hit by the hurricane than LA. Moreover, their local govts are functional, so a clinic there does more good.

Of course, billg might claim that Mississippi cheated by having a repub governor.

As to the reports of FEMA incompetence, what's been reported is that bad things happened. When the details come out, those bad things happened because LA and NO govts don't have the brains to move buses to above sea level when a levee breaks. I will admit that sending NO police to vegas might turn out to be a good idea, but if they're so incompetent/corrupt that NO is better off without them, perhaps they should have been moved aside earlier.

But, it is nice to see that billg is still yanking his Moby.

billg, I have a reasonable explanation why your state's generous donation might have been turned back.

Everyone in the disaster zone needs x pounds of logistic support per day. This is obvious but anyone who has not dealt with logistic details more complex than getting the family to the beach tends to discount how hard it is to do right.

Food, fuel, a place to sleep, housing .. it adds up.

It sure might be possible that your donation was sent elsewhere because the zone they wanted to enter was full up. I'm saying it is possible it's not incompetence but the opposite.