Speaking as a longtime resident of New York City, there are in my opinion no words strong enough to adequately describe what an utterly appalling outrage this is. This is an affrontery, an INSULT—a slap in the face and a stab in the back to every man, woman, and child of this great city. Only two years after Dubya brought a caravanserai of neocons to this city for the Republican National Convention and exploited 9-11 for all it was worth so that he could get re-elected, the Bush administration has decided that we really don’t matter that much??? INGRATE! HYPOCRITE! Thanks for nuttin’, Dubya!  Bush is always running his mouth off about terrorism and the need for security, but he’s not “walking the talk’—not by cutting funds to port cities like New York and New Orleans and leaving them even MORE vulnerable than they already are.

NO ICONS IN NEW YORK?? Puh-leeeeeeeze..what sort of icons do Kentucky or Wisconsin have that represent the United States the way that the Statue of Liberty does?? Oh, wait a minute...I get it. The Statue Of Liberty is too closely associated with immigration—it’s not POLITICALLY CORRECT anymore! Could this possibly have anything to do with the fact that New York is a “blue state” while Kentucky is a “red state”? I mean, let’s be realistic here—what is the statistical likelihood that Islamic terrorists are going to attack KENTUCKY? And for that matter...what about DC, for crying out loud? The Capitol Building, the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial? You can’t GET images much more iconic than that and our federal government is BASED there—yet their funding got cut too.

Are we still certain that the President is entirely compos mentis? I for one am inclined to wonder. Forget about the coffee...wake up and smell the freaking Thorazine, people! If I were anymore suspicious and paranoid than this administration has already encouraged me to become, I might be inclined to think that there’s more to this than meets the eye...that we’re being deliberately left vulnerable to another hit before the election so that Bush and the GOP can regain their flagging popularity. I wouldn’t put it past them—hell, I consider these folks capable of virtually ANYTHING at this point. I keep trying to convince myself that things can’t possibly get any worse...and then along comes Dubya to prove me wrong.