NEW ORLEANS - To help weather an anticipated six major tropical storms this season, FEMA delivered 280 tons of sand to New Orleans today to fortify levees, unfortunately without sandbags.

Acting FEMA Director David Paulison personally supervised the sand delivery, hauled by approximately 350 large dump trucks from the Nevada desert.  The Acting Director called the dumping "a major success."

"We have successfully hauled and dumped almost 600,000 pounds of sand here today," Paulison said at a press conference at the dump site.  "And I am absolutely convinced that once we find sandbags into which to put this sand, and people to put this sand into those sandbags, as well as haul them the five to seven miles to the actual levees, New Orleans will be well prepared to face this season's disasters."

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow was quick to herald the dumping as a "major achievement" of the Bush Administration's second term.  "Not only has this president proven that he can pick up sand in the deserts of Nevada and drive it across the country," Snow said, "but he's demonstrated he can dump it a reasonable distance from the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River, and the Gulf of Mexico. If this isn't a major achievement, then I'd have to look up a word in a thesaurus for another word that meant approximately the same thing."  The entire White House Press Corps stood up and applauded.

Wall Street began by lighting its own farts before going on a drunken rampage throughout the midday trading session.  Shares of construction and re-construction companies were driven to dizzying heights before having the rug yanked from underneath them in brisk early afternoon profit taking.  Several traders called the spectacle "way cool."