Former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush came close to tears on their tour of tsunami-wrecked Asian coasts Saturday after meeting Thai children who lost their parents in the disaster.

"It's very moving," Bush said after a little girl whose mother died in the Dec. 26 tsunami handed him a picture she had drawn of that day, showing her fishing village beneath the killer wave and a woman floating, eyes closed, in the water.

"I'll never forget this," he said.

Clinton also fought back tears as he spoke to reporters after receiving a similar drawing from another child of Ban Namkhem, where an estimated 1,500-2,000 people -- more than a third of the village -- died when the wave crashed ashore. - reuters

Flashback - family values pointer - 11/13/03 litlle old Jeb Bush's humanitarian streak: Gov. Jeb Bush joked during a Florida Cabinet meeting Wednesday that the people of San Francisco may be endangered and, "That's probably good news for the country." source

In its Targeting Poor People report on the eve of the tsunami's six-month anniversary, Oxfam said: "In some cases there has been a tendency to focus on landowners, business people and the most high profile cases, rather than prioritise aid to poor communities." Official figures list 180,355 dead around the Indian Ocean shore after a magnitude-9.3 tremor off Sumatra sparked the tsunami, although tens of thousands are still listed as missing. Explaining why it felt poorer people suffered most from the tsunami, Oxfam's report said "fragile houses were washed away while the brick houses of richer people were more likely to withstand the force". - the australian

Bush gets something right for once: "A lot of people are working hard to help those who have been affected, and I want to thank the people for their efforts. The results are not acceptable." GW Bush [more bullshit]

Hey! Gaddaffi, thanks for pretending to be a terrorist for soooo long! Muammar Gaddafi, pictured being welcomed back into the fold by U.S. Republican Reps. Curt Weldon and Nick Smith earlier this month, has agreed on the importance of combating terrorism. His compliance in opening up Libya to nuclear weapons inspectors has been spun as a major triumph in the 'war on terror'. The motives, however, are rather more cynical. - Libya Curt Weldon? where have i heard that name before?

what exactly are drones gonna do? why did they not send a chopper to rescue these people straight away?

Weldon is also a member of GLOBE Interestingly Weldon served six years as the Chairman of the Military Research and Development Subcommittee, is vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security and is resonsible for overseeing the development and testing of key military systems, weapons programs, and technologies that fulfill military needs. Congressman Weldon is a member of Global Legislators for a Balanced Environment (GLOBE) and is a champion of wetlands preservation. He received the Thomas Jefferson Award in recognition of his record of promoting economic prosperity and free enterprise. - via Global Elite

Is he a member of GLOBE or 'GLOBALISATION'???

As a congressional membership organization with a history of successfully advocating environmental action, GLOBE USA occupies a unique niche in the contemporary environmental debate. GLOBE USA was established to build a global community that supports environmental protection, while also valuing economic prosperity for all and the promotion of democracy. - globe ABOUT

Jonathan Weisman and Jim Vandehei, Washington Post - September 15, 2005 KAT0915

WASHINGTON, D.C. - President Bush tonight will call for an unprecedented federal commitment to rebuild New Orleans and other areas obliterated by Hurricane Katrina, putting the United States on pace to spend more in the next year on the storm's aftermath than it has over three years on the Iraq war, according to White House and congressional officials.

With the federal tab for Katrina already nearly quadruple the cost of the country's previous most expensive natural disaster cleanup, Bush plans to offer federal assistance to help flood victims find jobs, get housing and health care, and attend school, White House aides said. In a primetime speech tonight from the flood zone, Bush will commit the federal government to what many predict will become the largest reconstruction effort ever on U.S. soil. Republicans said Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and Bush's chief political adviser, is in charge of the reconstruction effort.

Soaring costs

The president will call on Washington to resist spending money unwisely, but some in his own party are already starting to recoil at a price tag expected to exceed $200 billion -- about the cost of the Iraq war and reconstruction efforts. As emergency expenditures soar -- with new commitments as high as $2 billion a day -- some budget analysts and conservative groups are warning that the Katrina spending has combined with earlier fiscal decisions in ways that will wreak havoc on the government's finances for years to come.

Bush and Republican congressional leaders, by contrast, are calculating that the U.S. economy can safely absorb a sharp spike in spending and budget deficits, and that the only way to regain public confidence after the stumbling early response to the disaster is to spend whatever it takes to rebuild the region and help Katrina's victims get back on their feet.

"I think absolutely it's going to convert the political landscape in Washington," Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said of Katrina's impact. "We do have a social safety net in this country. Those aren't just words. Government has a role to play in people's lives."

According to a CBS-New York Times poll released Wednesday, Americans say rebuilding New Orleans is more important to them than cutting taxes or changing Social Security.

On message

Bush, who prides himself on being a direct communicator, has struggled to convey a clear message since the storm hit. He began this week by dismissing questions about what went wrong as a "blame game." But on Tuesday, he said he took responsibility for any failures on the federal end.

Hours before Bush speaks, the Louisiana congressional delegation will present its tab for reconstruction and rebuilding efforts, which could put pressure on Bush to spend money in areas not currently on his agenda. White House officials have told Congress that the $51.8 billion approved late last week will only get the disaster relief effort through the first week of October, and senior congressional appropriations aides have told the White House they need to see the next request next week. Republicans say the next bill could top $50 billion. But the scale of the disaster has not even come into focus, largely because many agencies have not been allowed into the disaster zone to assess the damage, according to congressional appropriations aides.

Nearly 1,000 drinking water and sewer systems -- 391 in Mississippi, 606 in Louisiana and one in Alabama -- remain shut down. Repairing and rebuilding such systems could cost between $3 billion and $10 billion, much of it on the tab of the Environmental Protection Agency. Even before Katrina struck, the federal highway emergency relief fund faced a $120 million backlog of road repairs. Between crumbled bridges and washed-out highways, the fund's deficit will be in the billions, said appropriations aides.

The Air Force will be seeking up to $4 billion to repair damaged Gulf State facilities, a House Appropriations Committee aide said. Another $2 billion to $4 billion will be needed to finance the mobilization of the National Guard, the evacuation of military personnel and military family support programs. Damage to national parks, forests and wildlife refuges are estimated to be as high as $300 million.

On Wednesday, the spending continued as the Senate approved a measure to provide emergency housing vouchers to more than 350,000 families made homeless by the hurricane. Any displaced family regardless of income would be eligible for the program, expected to cost $3.5 billion over six months. - startribune.com