Edgewise

And Mike Brown, the inept director of FEMA, has been sent home.

Spin, spin, they will not release the numbers of the dead they found, so of course it's "better" than their estimates, because we have no idea of their "estimates". Such an easy obvious PR spin. Let's say they set their expectations high, let's guess they "thought" they would find 200,000 dead but are now finding much less, like 30,000. That's much better than the number they "thought" they'd fine. It' s like saying I made alot of money this week, more than I expected, and someone asks you "how much did you make" and you say "I'd rather not say." Speculation and spin, number crunching and manipulation, what the elite and illuminated are genius at.

and speaking of manipulation of numbers, see this paragraph from a times-picayune article:

"Although body-recovery operations were still under way, the death toll represents the number of bodies that have been counted where the deaths were a result of Katrina’s winds, rains or floodwaters, or those who died as a result of medical equipment that became inoperable during the hurricane."

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/

so that sure sounds like those who died after the fact, prior to rescue, are not being counted in the official toll. to quote a diarist at dkos, those are "weasel words."

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/11/23446/3765

Yeah, I'm sure they'll spin the numbers.

The estimates I was thinking of were the mayor's 10,000 and the preparation of refrigerated trucks and or morgue spaces for up to 25,000.

It will be hard for the media to avoid counting up all the dead, though, and in fact it's newsworthy if a significant fraction died of neglect after the storm had passed.