Feeling safer yet?

If I had any confidence in the Bush administration, it would be shaken. But as it is, I'm not really surprised by this.

Undercover investigators carried all the bomb components needed to cause "severe damage" to airliners and passengers through U.S. airport screening checkpoints several times this year, despite security measures adopted in August 2006 to stop such explosive devices, according to a new government report.

Agents were able to smuggle aboard a detonator, liquid explosives and liquid incendiary components costing less than $150, even though screening officers in most cases appeared to follow proper procedures and use appropriate screening technology, according to an unclassified version of a report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress's audit arm.

After all, stories of undercover agents, news organizations and even private citizens sneaking banned items past airport screeners abound. So yeah, it’s troubling that six years after 9/11 airport screeners appear to see less than WWE referees. But given the incometence of the Bush administration and the failures of its anti-terror efforts, it’s hardly surprising.

And when it’s revealed that six years after anthrax attacks killed five people and scared the crap out of everyone who receives mail, the government is ill equipped to deal with another such attack, it’s just, sadly, par for the course.

The United States has done too little to prepare for another potential domestic anthrax attack six years after spore-laden mail killed five people, a former CIA director and other experts said on Wednesday.

"I think we're very poorly prepared," James Woolsey, who headed the CIA from 1993 to 1995, said at a news conference to unveil a report by a security consulting firm warning of U.S. vulnerability to another anthrax attack.

Frankly, I’d like to know exactly what the Bush administration is equipped to deal with. Even protecting a major American city destoryed by a hurricane two years ago ... well, you already know where this is headed, don’t you?

Dozens of construction projects launched by the Army Corps of Engineers to protect the New Orleans region from the most catastrophic floods are behind schedule by an average of nearly eight months, an internal audit shows. Local officials are concerned the completion date will have to be pushed back a second time.
The audit reviewed 60 ongoing projects to make southern Louisiana's flood protections far more robust than when Hurricane Katrina destroyed the system in 2005. USA TODAY got a copy of the Army Audit Agency's report under the Freedom of Information Act.

Nearly 85 percent of construction contracts for upgrades to the region's flood-control system are behind schedule by an average of about 230 days, the audit says. About 74 percent of pre-construction design contracts for other improvements also are lagging, by an average of 122 days, or about four months.

So the government has done pretty much nothing to protect us from pretty much anything over the last several years. But at least it isn’t actively poisoning its citizens. Is it?

"It seemed like some mornings it was just criss-crossing the whole sky. It was just like a giant checkerboard," described Bill Nichols. He snapped several photos of the strange clouds from his home in Stamps, in southwest Arkansas. Nichols said these unusual clouds begin as normal contrails from a jet engine. But unlike normal contrails, these do 'not' fade away.

Soon after a recent episode he saw particles in the air. "We'd see it drop to the ground in a haze," added Nichols. He then noticed the material collecting on the ground.

"This is water and stuff that I collected in bowls. I had it sitting out in my backyard in my dad's pick-up truck," said Nichols as he handed us a mason jar in the KSLA News 12 parking lot back in September after driving down from Arkansas.

KSLA News 12 had the sample tested at a lab. The results: A high level of barium, 6.8 parts per million, (ppm). That's more than three times the toxic level set by the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA.

The source of this toxic dusting is unknown, so I can’t say with any certainty that the government is behind it. But if someone else is doing it, the government failed to prevent it.

Is there one thing, one fucking thing, that this administration has done right? The Bush administration’s record of failure on every single score is incredible. And unprecedented, which is why there can be no doubt that George Bush will go down in history as the worst president this country has ever had. And probably ever will have. Imagine what kind of monster a future president would have to be to make this legacy of failure look good by comparison.

It’s going to be a very long 431 days.