Friday, September 02, 2005

The U. S. State Department drifts into stand-up comedy

xymphora: Negerrein

The U. S. State Department drifts into stand-up comedy

xymphora: Negerrein

Background of FEMA Head

THE NEWS BLOG

Yes, that's right... the man responsible for directing federal relief operations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, sharpened his emergency management skills as the "Judges and Stewards Commissioner" for the International Arabian Horses Association... a position from which he was forced to resign in the face of mounting litigation and financial disarray.

Why does the Washington Times hate America? Lead editorial blasts Bush

AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth

FEMA declares war on Louisianans' property rights

TOTAL INFORMATION ANALYSIS

Feds bar US local govts from aiding New Orleans

TOTAL INFORMATION ANALYSIS

TOPDOG08.COM: Pentagon: Able Danger documents were destroyed

TOPDOG08.COM: Pentagon: Able Danger documents were destroyed

TCS: Tech Central Station - 'The Gift of More'

TCS: Tech Central Station - 'The Gift of More'

Blogger Thoughts: This is putrid. Not the background, not the philosophy. It's the author's context that is just unhinged.

TCS: Tech Central Station - Breaks in the Levee Logic

TCS: Tech Central Station - Breaks in the Levee Logic

Blogger Thoughts: TCS argues every point. What a Repub machine! Can't we use these guys as part of the relief effort?

Republican Congressman trashes White House

AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth

The Head of FEMA is delusional

AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth

Ruppert says this (Katrina and aftermath) is peak oil playing out.

Here's the Truth

Another pile of nonsense

Krauthammer Fantasy
Truth

Katrina (WP)

Why should we expect anything less?

wow

katrina

It's all too odd.

Katrina

Katrina

Katrina

Interesting

Think Progress » BREAKING: McClellan Refuses To Answer Questions About Levee Funding

Think Progress » BREAKING: McClellan Refuses To Answer Questions About Levee Funding

FX Networks (This show aired in June, 05) Category 6 Hurrican...?

FX Networks

Hat Tip to Buzzflash

ABC News: Evacuation Disrupted by Gunshot Report

ABC News: Evacuation Disrupted by Gunshot Report

Ernie Fletcher is BuzzFlash.com's GOP Hypocrite of the Week

Ernie Fletcher is BuzzFlash.com's GOP Hypocrite of the Week

Drive - for Katrina Relief Auction

I will send a signed and mounted A4 print to the winner wherever they may be on this planet. I'll also remove the border with my name on it if you prefer - I know not everyone likes the framing. The print will be high quality and presented on archival quality paper and inks.

Bionic Octopus: Dept. of Truly Shameful Corporate Weaselry

Bionic Octopus: Dept. of Truly Shameful Corporate Weaselry

Quote of the Day

AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth

It's just too sad (NOLU)

AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth

Ted Koppel Rips, Rips RIPS Michael Brown of FEMA on "Nightlin
by Michael in New York - 9/02/2005 12:08:00 AM



Some choice highlights.

Koppel (on the number of people at the convention center -- the mayor says 15,000 to 25,000 and FEMA said only 5000): One of you is wrong. It's either 5000 or 15,000. Do you know?

Brown of FEMA: Blah blah blah. 25,000.... We just learned of the convention center -- we being the federal government -- today.

Koppel: I've heard you say during the course of a number of interviews that you found out about the convention center today. Don't you guys watch television? Don't you guys listen to the radio? Our reporters have been reporting on it for more than just today.

Brown of FEMA: We learned about (the convention center) FACTUALLY today that that's what existed.

(Brown responds to another question by saying troops are going to be moving in soon.)

Koppel: Here we are essentially FIVE DAYS after the storm hit and you're talking about what's going to happen in the next couple of days.... You didn't make preparations for what was going to happen in the event that [a category four storm hit]. Why didn't you?

(Brown then complains that poor people who don't own cars and can't afford hotel rooms didn't jump into their SUVs and head to the Hyatt in Atlanta. He then sidesteps Koppel by implying it was the city's fault for not having buses available for the very poor.)

Koppel: I'm not asking you why the city didn't have buses available. I'm asking you why you didn't have National Guards with trucks to get them out of there. Why you didn't have people with flatbed trailers if that's what you needed. Why you didn't simply get as many Greyhound buses from surrounding states as you could lay your hands on to get those people out of there. Why you haven't done it TO THIS DAY.

Transcript and video coming soon.

Thank God Koppel is there to ask the common sense questions we've been talking about all day. And how soon before Brown gets his Medal of Freedom?

NOTE: One quote caught my ear but I didn't quite focus on it. I've played it again and Brown is laying the groundwork for putting the blame on LA's governor. (It must be a Fox News talking point; my dad made the same argument earlier.)

Brown of FEMA: We work closely with the state government. The federal government didn not just come in here and tell the state governor how or what to do. We came in here and said, 'What do you want us to do? We will help you.' We are now taking it upon ourselves to do what we think needs to be done. And we will continue to do that.

Translation: LA's Democratic governnor screwed things up royally and now we're cleaning up her mess and taking charge.

Goodbye New Orleans


Goodbye New Orleans
Originally uploaded by AnomalousNYC.
During a street fair last weekend, the streets in my neighborhood were blocked. Some kid was huddling under this umbrella and parked in the middle of the street. He sat there for hours. I assumed he was mentally ill. Over the weekend I watched him paint dozens of umbrellas.

Salon.com News | Inside New Orleans

Salon.com News Inside New Orleans


Inside New OrleansSneaking past the police lines, we find a surreal scene where tourists are sleeping on bridges, restaurateurs are eating high on the hog, and looters lurk on every corner.
- - - - - - - - - - - -By Kathryn Jezer-Morton and Gray Miles

Sept. 1, 2005 NEW ORLEANS -- Nineteen miles west of New Orleans, near the LaPlace exit on Interstate 10, there's a roadblock where harried police officials check vehicles and press credentials. We tell an officer we're with the press, although we don't have an official badge. "You'll be in the way," he responds, and turns us back. But we manage to enter the city by state Highway 90, slipping into the cracks of a porous rescue operation.
Passing over flooded thoroughfares, Highway 90 cuts through the suburban community of Metairie. Dodging windfallen corrugated roofing and downed telephone poles, we pass a man determinedly mowing his lawn, and drive by an evacuated hospital, where bewildered people still wearing backless patient tunics wade through flooded streets. A plainclothes detective gives us a hint as to how to proceed downtown, and we ford a street under 3 feet of swamp water.
Along River Road, which runs along the Mississippi, things dry out. Although tree limbs are scattered about, we almost believe that it's not quite as bad as it seems. As we drive through the stately Uptown section of New Orleans, it appears that there is no one around at all. Finally, we come upon a lone pedestrian carrying a garbage bag on his back. He angrily yells at us for a ride, but we don't stop.
On a peaceful, dry side street, an elderly woman is holding court on her front porch while her family mills about on the street. Rose Jerrell, 65, has weathered the storm with her three children and several grandchildren. Now that the weather has blown over, they're sitting on the porch eating corn on the cob and listening to the radio. They're not planning on leaving, no matter how long it will be until services are restored. "We're just fine here," she says. "We don't run from hurricanes. You guys going sightseeing?" she asks us with a grin as we head toward downtown.
The only accessible roads into the city that have not been flooded are in a narrow stretch running along the Mississippi levee, which forms the highest point of land in the area. The Mississippi levee that protects the French Quarter and Magazine Street district from the river is a large earthworks structure, and one of the first levees built in New Orleans. Throughout Katrina, the levee kept the river from overflowing and joining the waters of Lake Pontchartrain coming in from the north side of town. The newer, heavy-duty steel canal floodgates broke under the strain of the battering storm surge.
Surrounding this slice of passable streets are scenes of grim destruction. Smoldering ruins, twisted pieces of corrugated metal, hundreds of downed and uprooted live oak trees litter the streets. On the outskirts of downtown, clusters of shellshocked survivors wander down empty thoroughfares, pushing what's left of their belongings in shopping carts and strollers.
"I don't really know where I'm going," says Kendall, a woman from the Ninth Ward neighborhood, who declines to give her last name. "Wherever they take me, I'm going. Anywhere with electricity. At the Ninth Ward, the water is 20 feet. The water ain't draining. We have got to start all over." She rejoins a long, aimless caravan of New Orleanians from the eastern side of the city, who are congregating in the business district.
The Ninth Ward is one of the most flood-devastated neighborhoods. Lying to the east of the French Quarter, the Ninth Ward, which is predominantly African-American, is one of the poorest parts of New Orleans, and was also the area that sustained the most damage from Hurricane Betsy in 1965, in which 200 residents died.
On our way into the city, most of the media appeared to be gathering on the expressway, waiting for the evacuation to begin before rolling camera. Inside the city, where contaminated floodwater is beginning to stink in the midday sun, a few camera crews remain. The CNN crew stands in the middle of Canal Street, downtown New Orleans' main thoroughfare, bargaining to buy a truck from a soon-to-be evacuee. "How much gas does it have in it?" asks a producer. "Will you throw in the canoe? Can we siphon some gas off another vehicle?"
On Wednesday afternoon, helicopters begin lifting evacuees from shelters to a designated stretch of I-10, where dozens of school buses wait to take people west toward Houston. National Guard military trucks packed with people barrel out of town toward the makeshift transport hub, but tens of thousands of people remain stranded in downtown New Orleans, without any idea of where to go, or how to get there.
Rescue efforts did not begin in earnest until late Wednesday afternoon, although the worst of the storm passed mid-morning on Monday. Initially, Coast Guard helicopters transported a few stranded flood victims to storm shelters around the city, while camera crews beamed the images of rooftop rescues. Mayor Ray Nagin had warned before the storm that shelters would be places of "last resort," and in stifling heat that reached 95 degrees, with no running water or electricity, they became chaotic scenes of desperation.
We talk to a few of the thousands of people for whom no shelter was provided. Tourists have been some of the unlucky ones. "We were kicked out of our hotel several days ago; we were thrown out onto the street with no food or supplies or anything," says Betty Ellanson, a 60-ish woman from Sumter County, Ga. "We're on our own. We've been told that by law enforcement and the National Guard." Ellanson is camping out, sleeping on a cement pedestrian bridge that runs between the convention center and the Riverwalk shopping mall with a makeshift clan of 50 other tourists, who had been expelled from the same hotel for "liability reasons." They have been scavenging the streets for food and water, hoarding peanuts and soft drinks among their Samsonites.
Lacking any reliable source of information about how to proceed, residents from the flooded eastern parts of the city and stranded visitors wander westward in a state of desperation. People shout at cars, pleading for rides to anywhere, and ask each other where they're headed. Several thousand residents forced from their homes line Convention Center Avenue, where rumor has it evacuations were set to begin. National Guard personnel say they had no immediate plans to begin evacuations from that location.
While chatting with some of the National Guardsmen, another guardsman approaches and informs us that a woman is in the middle of a stroke around the corner. The guardsmen shrug. There is no emergency medical tent in the downtown area, and many people in need of medicine have no way of getting what they need, even inside the shelters. On our way into the French Quarter, a wild-eyed man flags down our car, begging us for insulin or information about where some can be found. We cannot help him.
In contrast, some residents of the French Quarter appear comfortable, well-fed and relaxed. About 150 New Orleans police officers have commandeered the Royal Omni Hotel, part of the international luxury chain of Omni hotels that is housed in an elegant 19th century building, complete with crystal chandeliers and a rooftop pool. "All of the officers that are here, I can tell you in a classical sense, are gladiators," says Capt. Kevin Anderson, commander of the Eighth District of the NOPD (French Quarter). "To be able to put your family's concerns aside to protect the citizens of New Orleans, it's just an awesome job," he says.
Across the street from the Royal Omni at the Eighth District police department, several police officers keep a wary eye on the street with shotguns at the ready, while some fellow officers grill sausage links over charcoal barbecues. They are under strict orders not to communicate with the media. Capt. Anderson does confirm, however, that locations where officers were housed came under gunfire on Tuesday night. No officers were injured. "It is a very dangerous situation that we're in," Anderson says.
Apart from rescue operations, the police department patrols for looters, who have ransacked stores in virtually every part of the city. Looters are visible on every street corner. Every kind of business, from rundown corner markets to the Gucci storefront on South Peters Street, has been looted.
We walk half a block down Royal Street from the Eighth District headquarters and come upon Brennan's Restaurant, one of New Orleans' most venerable dining institutions. The Brennans are a high-profile family of restaurateurs and run several of the highest-end eateries in town. Jimmy Brennan and a crew of his relatives are holing up in the restaurant along with the chef, Lazone Randolph. They are sleeping on air mattresses, drinking Cheval Blanc, and feasting on the restaurant's reserves of haute Creole food.
The atmosphere in the French Quarter, while relatively quiet, is decidedly tense, but Brennan isn't worried. "We're not too concerned. The police let us go over to the Royal Omni, to take a shower, freshen up, and we cooked them some prime rib. We take care of them, they take care of us," says Randolph. Two Brennan emissaries whisk past, bearing multilayer chocolate cakes, headed toward the precinct. "This has been working out real well for us," says Jimmy Brennan.
Contrary to many reports, the French Quarter remains undamaged by flooding. The streets are dry and damage to the 18th and 19th century buildings appears to be minimal. Heavily pierced French Quarter denizens are emerging slowly, almost groggily, and some are looking to evacuate. One woman, wearing a black lace slip and fanning herself with a souvenir fan from a production of "Les Miserables," makes her way toward the Superdome, carrying no luggage.
"The Quarter always survives!" declares Finnis, the owner of Alex Patout's restaurant on St. Louis Street, who declined to give his last name. Standing in front of his restaurant, he sips champagne with several friends, insisting that his restaurant's gradually warming walk-in fridges will provide them with sustenance for up to a month.
Indeed, food doesn't seem to concern those who intend to stay through the rebuilding process. Back Uptown, Jerrell and her sons will avail themselves of the local A&P, which has long since had its doors broken off. It will be a long time before it reopens, and until then its shelves will be a lifeline for many.
While the water appears to have ceased rising since Tuesday night, the French Quarter is hemmed in by water on three sides. Four blocks away from the Eighth District headquarters and Brennan's restaurant lie mile-long stretches of the stinking floodwaters of Lake Pontchartrain.
Back on Canal Street, no one seems to be going anywhere. Despite the city having shut off the water supply in an attempt to force evacuation, many New Orleans citizens don't seem intent upon leaving. Others, who wish to leave, are in the dark as to how. With authorities saying that services may not be restored for one to two months, the question of what will become of these thousands of New Orleanians remains the most unresolved issue in Katrina's aftermath.
As the afternoon begins to wane, we hasten to leave the downtown area. Nighttime is pitch-black in New Orleans now, and martial law has not succeeded in quelling the sense that total anarchy is just a few more hot days away.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writerKathryn Jezer-Morton and Gray Miles are freelance journalists based in New Orleans.

Culture of Life Breaking News: THE OUTER DARKNESS

Culture of Life Breaking News: THE OUTER DARKNESS

Details of what is going wrong with the rescue mission here.

THE BRAD BLOG: "MSNBC Cameraman: 'I've never seen anything like this'"

THE BRAD BLOG: "MSNBC Cameraman: 'I've never seen anything like this'"

“There is no police, no authority figures…”

Big Brass Blog

Pic from New Orleans (9/1)

The Irish Trojan's blog - Brendan Loy's homepage (Katrina Blogging)

The Irish Trojan's blog - Brendan Loy's homepage

When Homeland Security might have begun preparation:

Thus, at 11:09 PM on Thursday[8/25], I wrote:

What makes me nervous is that Katrina's southwestward turn and refusal to weaken makes a New Orleans doomsday scenario considerably more plausible than it seemed just a few hours ago. Still unlikely, but more likely than it was.

Cosmic Iguana - Voice of the Evil Doers: US BRIBING SUNNIS TO TUNE OF $75 MILL

Cosmic Iguana - Voice of the Evil Doers: US BRIBING SUNNIS TO TUNE OF $75 MILL

9/11 Commission: The Chickens Come Home to Roost

9/11 Commission: The Chickens Come Home to Roost

Blogger Thoughts: Michael Reagan Idiotcy

Doc: 6 Murders, 12 Rapes Inside Superdome

Doc: 6 Murders, 12 Rapes Inside Superdome: "Doc: 6 Murders, 12 Rapes Inside Superdome"

News Hounds: John Gibson: We Are Seeing Order Restored In New Orleans

News Hounds: John Gibson: We Are Seeing Order Restored In New Orleans

I am amazed that the polling isn't more negative. (CNN 9/1/2005)

The Light Of Reason � Blog Archive � THE LIE EXPOSED: FEAR AS THE MEANS TO ABSOLUTE POWER

The Light Of Reason � Blog Archive � THE LIE EXPOSED: FEAR AS THE MEANS TO ABSOLUTE POWER

Coast Guard rescues 1,250�-�Nation/Politics�-�The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

Coast Guard rescues 1,250�-�Nation/Politics�-�The Washington Times, America's Newspaper: "The Coast Guard also has activated three national strike teams to help remove hazardous materials.
However, Commodore Jim Vass of the 8th Coast Guard Auxiliary District, says the disaster area is too unstable to deploy forces brought in from across the nation.
'There is no gasoline, communications are limited at best, no place to bed and feed our members and a lack of sanitation,' Commodore Vass said. "

Storm Overwhelmed Government's Preparations - New York Times

Storm Overwhelmed Government's Preparations - New York Times

Blogger Thoughts: Looks like mostly lies in this article to me.

The Raw Story | Beyond Abramoff: Gambling lobbyist joined with anti-gambling congressman, derailed gambling bills

The Raw Story | Beyond Abramoff: Gambling lobbyist joined with anti-gambling congressman, derailed gambling bills

Absolutely Worthless Report from Reuters (missing details about why FEMA / Homeland Sec. is slime)

Reuters News Article

NOLU (AP Dispatch)

Courier-Journal.com
"FEMA director Michael Brown said the agency just learned about the situation at the convention center Thursday"

Wait a second. The Super Dome doesn't seem to be mentioned. Any person who has been following this has know about the tense situation at the Super Dome since Sunday night.

Suburban Guerrilla » Nuance

Suburban Guerrilla » Nuance

Department of Homeland Screw-Up

Anderson Cooper just gave it to Landrieu

Paula Zahn is about to kill the head of FEMA

AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth

FEMA Director Mike Brown talks to Paula Zahn moments ago:

Paula Zahn: How can it be that hundreds and hundreds of thousands of victims have not received any food and water more than 100 hours after Katrina hit.

FEMA's Mike Brown: Paula, I think it's so important for the American public to understand exactly how catastrophic this disaster is. I think we have a major American city, a major urban area, that has been totally demolished. And what we're finding is, is that as we continue to do the evacuation and get peoplpe out, people who have completely lost everything, they have no place to go, they have nothing, that we're finding other people who are literally coming out of second stories of homes, there are some even appearing on bridges that are not underwater, that people who were unable or chose not to evacuate are suddenly appearing. And so this catastrphic disaster continu4s to grow.

I will tell you this though, every person in that convention center, we just learned about that today. And so I had directed that we have all available resources to get to that convention center to make certain that they have the food and water, the medical care they need...

A clearly pissed Paula Zahn: Sir, you're not telling me, you're not telling me you just learned that the folks at the convention center didn't have food and water until today did you? You had no idea they were completely cut off?

FEMA's Brown: Paula, the federal government did not even know about the convention center people until today. We have been doing the evacuations from the superdome for several days, we're taking people out from the superdome to Houston and San Antonio. The people from the superdome have been fed [JOHN'S NOTE: THAT'S TRUE?]....

Three more assert Pentagon knew of 9/11 ringleader

Top News Article | Reuters.com

Help is coming, hopefully people won't die in the meanwhile.

THE NEWS BLOG

I have just received word from officers on Fort Rucker

Daily Kos: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation. That the reason why helicopters from Fort Rucker have not been used for rescue and to drop food and water to Katrina survivors is because the Commander of the National Guard has said that he wants no help from the Army until it has been shown that the National Guard can't handle it anymore. He seems to be the only one who doesn't know that THEY HAVE BEEN SHOWN THAT THEY CAN'T HANDLE IT! How has this kind of insanity fruited on the vine?

A Dearth of Answers

A Dearth of Answers

Have you donated money to hurricane relief? - Newsweek National News - MSNBC.com#survey#survey

Have you donated money to hurricane relief? - Newsweek National News - MSNBC.com#survey#survey

Link for Traffic

Hurricane Politics - Newsweek Politics - MSNBC.com

Hurricane Politics - Newsweek Politics - MSNBC.com

Link for Traffic

Democracy Now! | Journalists Under Fire in Iraq: Reuters Chief Debates Pentagon Over Slain and Detained Media Workers

Democracy Now! | Journalists Under Fire in Iraq: Reuters Chief Debates Pentagon Over Slain and Detained Media Workers

WagNews: Is "Peak Oil" a Fraud?

WagNews: Is "Peak Oil" a Fraud?

News Hounds: Praise George Bush and Fox News

News Hounds: Praise George Bush and Fox News

NY Times advanced Bush administration's dubious ... [Media Matters]

NY Times advanced Bush administration's dubious ... [Media Matters]

Don't Give Your Hurricane Donations to the Red Cross

Yahoo! Groups : infowarsnews Messages : Message 493 of 493

Don't Give Your Hurricane Donations to the Red Cross
Establishment charities have history of withholding disaster funds
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones September 1 2005
As the aftermath of hurricane Katrina continues to wreak mayhem and havoc amid reports of mass looting, shooting at rescue helicopters, rapes and murders, establishment media organs are promoting the Red Cross as a worthy organization to give donations to.
The biggest website in the world, Yahoo.com, displays a Red Cross donation link prominently on its front page.
Every time there is a major catastrophe the Red Cross and similar organizations like United Way are given all the media attention while other charities are left in the shadows. This is not to say that the vast majority of Red Cross workers are not decent people who simply want to help those in need.
But what the media fails consistently to remember in their promotion of the organization is that the Red Cross have been caught time and time again withholding money in the wake of horrible disasters that require immediate release of funds.
The Red Cross, under the Liberty Fund, collected $564 million in donations after 9/11. Months after the event, the Red Cross had distributed only $154 million. The Red Cross' explanation for keeping the majority of the money was that it would be used to help 'fight the war on terror'. To the victims, this meant that the money was going towards bombing broken backed third world countries like Afghanistan and setting up surveillance cameras and expanding the police state in US cities, and not towards helping them rebuild their lives.
Then Red Cross President Dr. Bernadine Healy arrogantly responded when questioned about the withholding of funds by stating, "The Liberty Fund is a war fund. It has evolved into a war fund."
Despite the family members of victims of 9/11 complaining bitterly to a House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight panel, the issue seemed to be brushed under the carpet and the mud didn't stick.
The Red Cross' scandalous activities reach back far before 9/11.
After the devastating San Francisco earthquake in 1989, the Red Cross passed on only $10 million of the $50 million that had been raised, and banked the rest.
Similar donations after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the Red River flooding in 1997 were also greedily withheld.
Smaller charities that were involved with the 2004 Tsunami relief project went public to say that large charities like Red Cross and United Way were engaged in secret backroom negotiations with each other that meant a large portion of the donation money was purposefully restricted from reaching the most needy areas affected by the disaster.
The history is clear, the Red Cross and other large so-called charities are in actual fact front group collection agencies for the military industrial complex.
Many informed historians have even alleged that the Red Cross was used as a Skull and Bones cover to overthrow The Russian Czar and pave the way for the rise of the Bolsheviks.
Do not give any money to the Red Cross unless you support the expansion of empire abroad and police state at home. Find a smaller trustworthy organization in the local area of New Orleans and make your donation to them.
--------------------------------------

Officials Struggle to Reverse a Growing Sense of Anarchy - New York Times

Officials Struggle to Reverse a Growing Sense of Anarchy - New York Times

Blogger Thoughts: Everything will be fine as soon as the Haliburton buses arrive (rented after a hefty markup from the local schools, in exchange for deeds to prime Real Estate in Hawaii). Oh yeah, and you can expect Taser's stock prices to be rebounding with the order just placed by Homeland Security. And, by the way, when do we get to see the crowd control high energy microware weapons used to control the security situation?

Bionic Octopus: Look What They're Doing

Bionic Octopus: Look What They're Doing

greatscat! The online magazine: Burn, baby, Burn!

greatscat! The online magazine: Burn, baby, Burn!

Blogger Thoughts: Wonder what Hollywood Directors will consult on how to make the news footage absolutely terrifying to the viewers? Will the violence be associated with

a) Al Qaeda
b) Environmental Action Groups
c) Prison Gangs (Al Qaeda connected of course)
d) Iran
e) Syrians
f) Liberals
g) Anti-War Protestors
h) All of the Above

FEMA Directing Donations To Rev. Pat Robertson : Sploid

FEMA Directing Donations To Rev. Pat Robertson : Sploid

BBC NEWS | UK | London bomber video aired on TV

BBC NEWS | UK | London bomber video aired on TV

Blogger Thoughts: I know others will post / comment about this. I don't have time to do the due diligence this weekend. Suffice it to say at the moment this smells bad to me: bathed in the stink of psyop.

Catastrophe

Bionic Octopus

Read the post at Bionic Octopus

Comments (including this blogger's) below:
Um, yes. Exactly.
Max | 09.01.05 - 5:11 pm | #

--------------------------------

Great post.
warszawa | 09.01.05 - 6:12 pm | #

----------------

There's a possibility that this unrest is being encouraged by the same people who brought us that dandy 9/11 production (and I'm not talkin bin Laden or Al Qaeda). I shudder to think this, but possibly this (public horror at unrest, death, etc.) does two things:

1) transistions the Monkey boy out of power (he's not useful anymore anyway).

2) convinces everyone that the police state ramp up (total enslavement as Alex Jones would say, and I always think Alex: you are being over the top) is needed as planned.

Any other explanations?

Is GOP using the hurricane to promote the repeal of the inheritance tax?

AMERICAblog: Because a great nation deserves the truth

Here's a timeline that outlines the fate of both FEMA

The Washington Monthly: "Here's a timeline that outlines the fate of both FEMA and flood control projects in New Orleans under the Bush administration. Read it and weep:

January 20"

Federal Government Wasn't Ready for Katrina, Disaster Experts Say

Federal Government Wasn't Ready for Katrina, Disaster Experts Say

ABC's Antiwar "Reality Check"

ABC's Antiwar "Reality Check"

World News Tonight minimizes support for withdrawal

A Question of Competence - by Steve Breyman (Iraq)

A Question of Competence - by Steve Breyman

News Hounds: Bill Hemmer & Shepard Smith Deliver the News

News Hounds: Bill Hemmer & Shepard Smith Deliver the News

Blogger Thoughts: Amazing! Fox News Isn't Evil.

TOPDOG08.COM: Who the hell is Rod Isler?

TOPDOG08.COM: Who the hell is Rod Isler?

ABLE DANGER 09/11/2001 WELDON ATTA

xymphora: Public good, and the economics of disaster

xymphora: Public good, and the economics of disaster

Randi Rhodes is on a tear.

Crooks and Liars

Daily Kos: Jack Cafferty on CNN ("This is a disgrace")

Daily Kos: Jack Cafferty on CNN

...Christ, this guy needs to be fired and replaced

Eschaton

Salon.com | Left out in the cold (Poverty)

Salon.com | Left out in the cold

BlondeSense: WTF? (Lovely Condi gets the news spotlight)

BlondeSense: WTF?

BlondeSense: It�s Just About Too Late

BlondeSense: It�s Just About Too Late

Salon.com News | Anatomy of an unnatural disaster

Salon.com News Anatomy of an unnatural disaster

Anatomy of an unnatural disasterWith FEMA gutted for Homeland Security and flood projects delayed for lack of funding, the New Orleans nightmare should surprise no one.
Left: Sheila Dixon weeps as she clutches her 18-month-old daughter, Emily, after being airlifted out of New Orleans on Wednesday.
- - - - - - - - - - - -By Michael Scherer

Sept. 1, 2005 WASHINGTON -- Eric Tolbert, a former top disaster response official in the Bush administration, knew a calamity like Hurricane Katrina would be coming, sooner or later. And he also knew that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where he worked until February, was not ready to properly respond. There were too few full-time employees, not enough contracts in place to provide assistance, and a lack of money to do proper pre-planning. The added burden of the war on terror, he says, diverted funds away from FEMA's core mission.
"FEMA had to compete and had to help finance the creation of the Department of Homeland Security," Tolbert, who now works for PBS&J, a private contractor, said Thursday morning. "They were taking chunks of money out of the budget. We always referred to it as taxes."
Last summer, for instance, Tolbert said FEMA staged a "tabletop exercise" in Baton Rouge, La., to gauge how well it would respond if a Category 3 hurricane hit New Orleans. Officials learned a lot from the role-play, says Tolbert, and then returned to their offices to create a new plan to respond to an actual disaster in the region. "Unfortunately, we were not able to finish the plan," Tolbert said. The funding for it ran out.
FEMA is not the only agency that found itself bled of required funding by White House decisions after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Shortly after the attacks, the Army Corps of Engineers found itself facing deep cuts in funding for the largest flood control and drainage program in the New Orleans area. In the first full budget year after the attacks, the Bush administration funded the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA, at only 20 percent of the Corps' request of $100 million. In fiscal year 2004, the White House funding came in at 17 percent of the request.
For each of these years, Congress, with the support of the Louisiana delegation, appropriated more money, but funding still came in far below the requirements. Work was delayed. Contractors worked without pay. Whole projects were put off. Local project managers complained that New Orleans was competing with the war in Iraq for funding. "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle Homeland Security and the war in Iraq," Walter Maestri, the emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, told the Times-Picayune in 2004. Of the $500 million requested for levees, pumping stations and new drainage canals between 2001 and 2005, only $249 million passed out of Congress. As recently as March, the Corps warned in a briefing memo that the funding shortfalls "will significantly increase the cost of the project, delay project completion and delay project benefits."
"If the Army Corps capabilities for the SELA program had been fully funded, there is no question that Jefferson Parish and New Orleans would be in a much better position to remove the water on the streets once the pumps start working," says Hunter Johnston, a lobbyist for Johnston and Associates who worked to secure the money.
It is too early to tell, however, whether the additional funding would have prevented the levee breaches and overruns that have flooded New Orleans. Scientists, journalists and public officials have been warning for decades that New Orleans could not withstand a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. Even SELA, which was started in the mid-1990s after flooding caused billions in damage, was designed to protect against smaller storms, though planners said it would reduce damages of "larger events."
"If you had engineered everything in America for a Category 5 hurricane, you could not have built anything," said Jimmy Hayes, a former Republican congressman from Louisiana, who now lobbies for federal funding. "There is never enough money."
According to Michael Zumstein, a Corps official working to drain New Orleans, both of the major levee breaches in New Orleans were caused by more water than the Corps' current plans, even if funded, could handle. "It's just the law of physics, that's all," he said, noting that the system was designed to withhold a slow-moving Category 2 or a fast-moving Category 3 hurricane. Katrina was a Category 4 storm when it hit land Monday morning. He said an unexpected break at the 17th Street Canal occurred 700 feet south of a bridge where the Corps recently completed a troubled construction project.
Flooding also occurred on the east side of New Orleans, in the St. Bernard Parish, an area that environmentalists have long warned would be susceptible to flooding because of a poorly designed canal built in the 1960s that joins the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. Since 1998, local politicians have been demanding that the so-called Mississippi River Gulf Outlet be closed, in part because it was allowing saltwater to destroy marshland, increasing the danger of a storm surge. Both the Clinton and the Bush administrations have been slow to respond to those demands, and earlier this week, the storm surge topped levees, flooding the parish, said Zumstein.
The same concerns have been voiced to justify more spending to restore Louisiana's coastline, which has been sinking into the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of one football field every half hour. "Something needed to be done to protect the Louisiana coast for an eventuality not unlike this," says Chris Paolino, a spokesman for Rep. Bobby Jindal, R-La. "For the most part, it has been an unheeded cry by Louisiana." As recently as June, the Bush administration told the Senate that it opposed a provision in the energy bill that gave Gulf states about $1 billion to shore up their coastal protections, including possible levee and pump work. Despite the objections, Congress kept the provision in the final bill, but the money won't begin to arrive in states like Louisiana and Mississippi until 2008.
The scale of such funding is almost laughable now, considering the scope of the devastation in southern Louisiana and Mississippi. Politicians and lobbyists are just beginning to turn their attention to the massive cleanup and reconstruction bill, which will likely take years and cost tens of billions of dollars. But observers like Tolbert hope that the nation's leaders learn some lessons from the experience.
The blame, he says, lies not with the local and federal officials who warned for decades of the coming disaster. It lies with those elected officials who refused to sign the checks. "The country deserves better than that," he says.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writerMichael Scherer is Salon's Washington correspondent.

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