Posted by R. Neal

Here's a great article in this week's Rolling Stone:

Natural disasters have a way of exposing the cracks in the foundation of our civilization -- the scary things that we all suspect to be just under the surface, but that, in ordinary times, we would prefer not to think about. The sudden visibility of poverty in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina laid waste to the city is the most vivid example of this effect. So, too, is the fact -- now plain for all to see -- that the Department of Homeland Security, the arm of the federal government responsible for ensuring our safety in times of national emergency, has become little more than an arm of big business, a radical experiment in President Bush's brand of market-based government.

The report delves deeply into the incompetence, cronyism, and corruption of the Bush administration's Department of Homeland Security, with some interesting observations on the history and current state of FEMA.