Aircraft sat as California wildfires took hold

Here is a few paragraphs from a CNN article, remember bush was praising a good governor while making fun of Louisiana's governor.

Los Angeles, California As wildfires were charging across Southern California, nearly two dozen water-dropping helicopters and two massive cargo planes sat idly by, grounded by government rules and bureaucracy. How much the aircraft would have helped will never be know, but their inability to provide quick assistance raises troubling questions about California's preparations for a fire season that was widely expected to be among the worst on record.

It took as long as a day for Navy, Marine and California National Guard helicopters to get clearance early this week, in part because state rules require all firefighting choppers to be accompanied by state Forest "fire spotters" who coordinate water or retardant drops. By the time those spotters arrived the powerful Santa Ana winds stroking the fires had made it too dangerous to fly.

In lieu of the republicans splitting their drawers and requiring the Democrats to apologize about their statements. How about sending all our representatives and senators a little note calling for the president to apologize in his off hand slur about the La governor, when these couple of paragraphs show that Arnold wasn't the big shit bush made him out to be.

makes any sense unless you link the article.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wildfires/2007-10-25-wildfires-grounded-side_N.htm

"Republican U.S. Rep. Brian Bilbray was among the lawmakers who learned late Tuesday night in a briefing with state officials that 19 military helicopters were not in use because there were no spotters.

Alarmed, he quickly helped broker an agreement to waive the spotter requirement, allowing flights to begin Wednesday.

"We told them, 'You don't want the public to be asking why these units weren't flying while we had houses burning,"' Bilbray told the AP."

Brokered. Right.

Are there any Republicans left who aren't either morally bankrupt or mentally incompetent?

No, seriously....

As the Santa Barbara County Fire Chief said on NPR, dropping water and chemicals in that fast a wind is like shooting a squirt gun into a fan! Even if they could find a pilot crazy enough to fly in wind like that, it would do no good!

<http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?AERONET_La_Jolla/2007294/AERONET_La_Jolla.2007294.aqua>

AERONET_La_Jolla - Date: 2007/294 - 10/21 (October 21, 2007)
True color - Satellite: Aqua - Pixel size: 2km


Click the links at the top of this picture (at the NASA site that is linked above) that say 1km or the 250m if you have a fast connection.

See all that brown dust blowing across the Salton Sea, off the coast below Orange County and off of Baja California (Mexico), that's dirt, not smoke, being blown by the 80 to 110MPH winds!

NPR Link: <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15620609>