Found on Flickr's Anti-Bush League group:

 

Commentary By Bill Maher

(to see the commentaries as well, click here)

 

Bill Maher declares

"Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's no more money to spend--you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one's speaking to you. Mission accomplished.

"Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you're saying: there's so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don't. I know, I know. There's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.

"But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.

"On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

"So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: 'Take a hint.' "

From the Interpol website:

 

The Interpol General Secretariat Financial Crime Fraud Section is carefully monitoring the developments in the disaster areas of the Gulf Coast region in U.S after Hurricane Katrina and South Asia after the Tsunami disaster. These human tragedies of previously unimaginable dimensions have caused loss of life and suffering of hundreds of thousands of people in the affected regions.

 

Previous experience shows that criminals never stop their activities and take advantage of all situations which present a possibility to make profits, even when it is to the detriment of those who are in desperate need of financial and other assistance.

 

Under the leadership of international humanitarian aid and charity organizations, enormous amounts of money have been already gathered and continue to be collected in order to supply survivors with drinking water, food, medicine and life-saving goods. Prompted by the media and humanitarian associations, people worldwide are donating money to a wide range of charity organizations. The permanent staff as well as a large number of volunteers working for these organizations are collecting donations publicly, at special events as well as door-to-door.

 

Counting on an individual's willingness to help, and recognizing the difficulties for private citizens to differentiate criminals from legitimate collectors, increasing numbers of criminals are trying to collect donations for their own purposes while impersonating officials of charity organizations.

 

Donors hesitate to suspect humanitarian workers as criminals. This opens the doors for the criminals and allows people to become easy victims of fraud.

 

An increasing use of the Internet has been noted, whereby offenders promise to donate money from the proceeds made through the normal sale of goods or through Internet auctions. Such promises may incite customers to buy even though any donation actually made by the seller may be impossible to confirm.

 

 

To make sure that donations reach those in need and does not fall into criminal hands, Interpol General Secretariat recommends the following:

I have added some photos to my Flickr pages:

 

Worldcon (some of them you have already seen on this blog)

 

Turkey (the travel back from Diyarbakir to Istanbul)

 

I also want to quote something I found thanks to Romenesko newsletter. You can read on Boing Boing:

 

 

Flickr user dustin3000 uploads two similar news photos that show flood victims in New Orleans wading in chest-deep water. In each, a person appears to be dragging a bag or box or two of food or beverages.

The images were shot by different photographers, and captioned by different photo wire services. The Associated Press caption accompanying the image with a black person says he's just finished "looting" a grocery store. The AFP/Getty Images caption describes lighter skinned people "finding" bread and soda from a grocery store. No stores are open to sell these goods.

Perhaps there's more factual substantiation behind each copywriter's choice of words than we know. But to some, the difference in tone suggests racial bias, implicit or otherwise.

Link to comparison, and here are the originals: one, two. (Thanks, Howard)

(to read the comments, go to the Boing Boing page)