Warnings to Beef Up New Orleans' '60s-Era Levees Unheeded Officials at the Army Corps of Engineers knew it for years, and emergency managers and hurricane experts issued dire warnings: The hurricane levees surrounding the New Orleans area were built to withstand only a relatively weak Category 3 hurricane -- not anything like Hurricane Katrina, a Category 4 mega-storm.
So it was no surprise that the system failed when Katrina's storm surge topped levees in the 17th Street and London Avenue drainage canals in New Orleans, broke through t... (more)
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Clinton, Bush slashed spending on leveesWhile the Bush administration is sure to get most of the heat for cuts in proposed expenditures to maintain and upgrade New Orleans flood control system, the Clinton administration repeatedly cut congressional allocations for the projects and the recommendations on spending by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Most of the attention to date has focused on the fact that last year the Army Corps of Engineers sought $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans, while the Wh... (more)
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New Orleans had many warnings: Just a year ago, Hurricane Ivan caused disaster plan reviewA year ago, New Orleans reviewed its hurricane disaster plans after Hurricane Ivan gave the city a major scare forcing the evacuation of nearly 1 million people from the area.
What happened last September bears striking similarities to the problems encountered before Hurricane Katrina struck. The only difference was Ivan missed the city.
There were hours-long traffic jams. Those who had money fled, while the poor stayed. The warnings were the same: Forecasters predi... (more)
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Condi Returns to D.C. After Bloggers and 'Post' Expose VacationAll day Thursday, from the New York Post to several popular blogs, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice came under attack and ridicule for having fun in Manhattan while New Orleans sank and exploded in violence. By nightfall, she had cut short her vacation and returned to her post in Washington.
The Post started it with an early morning Page Six item about Rice playing tennis with Monica Seles at a court near New York's Grand Central. Then Drudge revealed that she had attended a Bro... (more)
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Across U.S., Outrage at ResponseThere was anger: David Vitter, Louisiana's freshman Republican senator, gave the federal government an F on Friday for its handling of the whirlwind after the storm. And Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland and the former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, declared, "We cannot allow it to be said that the difference between those who lived and those who died" amounted to "nothing more than poverty, age or skin color."
There was shock at the slow respons... (more)
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Footage shows bombers not 'duped'
For many, the most disturbing aspect of Mohammsd Sidique Khan's pre-suicide bombing video message was that it was delivered in a Yorkshire accent. But the tape will be the subject of intense analysis to glean information about the July 7 attacks and those connected to the four suicide bombers.
The analysis will be carried out by members of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch and the Special Branch, MI5 and experts from GCHQ. Details will be passed on to the US an... (more)
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Al-Qaeda may have more film of London bombersAL-QAEDA is reported to have more home-made film from the July 7 bombers.
The additional footage is believed to include the gang’s leader, Mohammad Siddique Khan, directly confessing to the attacks on London which killed 56 people. Another of the cell, Shehzad Tanweer is also said to appear, according to a source involved in obtaining the film for the Arab satellite channel, Al-Jazeera.
Police and intelligence experts who were yesterday studying the material, ... (more)
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Charles Clarke: 'Big brother's here now'Home Secretary Charles Clarke last night tried to breathe new life into his bid to introduce national identity cards and declared: "Big Brother society is already here and my job is to control it."
He told the EDP that the argument that cards would infringe civil liberties was "ridiculous" - and promised to present new proposals about the cost and make-up of the ID cards "within a couple of weeks".
He attacked the "Big Brother state" accusation head-on, insisting: "... (more)
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EU dismisses military threat against IranThe European Union reiterated that it wants to resume nuclear talks with Iran, denying that anybody was threatening military action against the Islamic state.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, speaking after hosting a two-day meeting with his EU counterparts, said leaders will study closely a report to be published this weekend by the UN nuclear watchdog into Iran's nuclear plans, AFP reported.
The United States suspects that the Islamic republic is trying to de... (more)
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Popular Science: New Orleans named as Prime target Months ago It takes Scott Kiser only a split second to name the one city in the U.S., and probably the world, that would sustain the most catastrophic damage from a category-5 hurricane. "New Orleans," says Kiser, a tropical-cyclone program manager for the National Weather Service. "Because the city is below sea level—with the Mississippi River on one side and Lake Pontchartrain on the other—it is a hydrologic nightmare." The worst problem, he explains, would be a storm surge, a phenomenon in ... (more)
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The modern rules of advertising?Men are tired of their portrayal in advertising, according to a new book by Michael Buerk. But images of men behaving stupidly is not the only cliche which irritates writer John Camm.
Dad in muddy boots walking blithely across a kitchen floor just cleaned by an exasperated mum who just gives a frustrated but loving smile to her giggly children, who cry out: "Da-a-ad!".
Just one advertising cliche, and just one where no-one behaves like people really do.
... (more)
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Ex-officials say weakened FEMA botched responseGovernment disaster officials had an action plan if a major hurricane hit New Orleans. They simply didn't execute it when Hurricane Katrina struck.
Thirteen months before Katrina hit New Orleans, local, state and federal officials held a simulated hurricane drill that Ronald Castleman, then the regional director for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, called "a very good exercise."
More than a million residents were "evacuated" in the table-top scenario as 120 ... (more)
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The questions a shocked America is asking its PresidentWhy has it taken George Bush five days to get to New Orleans?
President Bush was on holiday in Texas when Katrina struck. He then spent Monday on a pre-arranged political fundraising tour of California and Arizona, which he did not cancel or curtail. On Tuesday he surveyed the hurricane damage - but only from the flight deck of Air Force One, prompting criticism that he was too detached from the suffering on the ground. He didn't give a speech until Tuesday afternoon - 36 h... (more)
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Lobbying against AmericaThere's no denying both political parties in Congress are now owned lock, stock and barrel by corporate interests. Our nation's elected officials in Washington have formed a partnership with the corporate supremacists and special interest groups in an effort to drive profits to the bottom line of U.S. multinationals at the expense of hard-working Americans.
Congress over the past few months has all-too-willingly approved corporate-friendly -- and often corporate-written -- transpo... (more)
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The big disconnect on New Orleans: The official version; then there's the in-the-trenches versionDiverging views of a crumbling New Orleans emerged Thursday, with statements by some federal officials in contradiction with grittier, more desperate views from the streets. By late Friday response to those stranded in the city was more visible.
But the conflicting views on Thursday came within hours, sometimes minutes of each of each other, as reflected in CNN's transcripts. The speakers include Michael Brown, chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Homeland Security Di... (more)
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Marsha J. Evans, President and CEO of the American Red Cross Salary for year ending 06/30/03 was $651,957American National Red Cross
emergency relief
Washington, DC
http://www.redcross.org
Top Person: Marsha Evans
Top Salary:* $651,957
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Top Salvation Army Commissioner salary: $13,000 per year plus housing -- President of the United Way: $375,000 base salary plus benefits -- Red Cross President: $450,000 plus benefits.Christmas is the time of the year when we give the most to charity. Perhaps it is because it is a joyful season, and our hearts are open. Perhaps it is because as we look back over the year about to end, we realize how richly God has blessed us. Perhaps the reason is something as pragmatic as tax deductions. Whatever our motivation, it is essential, more than ever, that we be able to trust the charity to which we give our hard-earned dollars.
If we have learned anything since 9/11... (more)
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Bush Strafes New Orleans - Where is our Huey Long?The National Public Radio news anchor was so excited I thought she'd piss on herself: the President of the United had flown his plane down to 1700 feet to get a better look at the flood damage! And there was a photo of our Commander-in-Chief taken looking out the window. He looked very serious and concerned.
That was yesterday. Today he played golf. No kidding.
I'm sure the people of New Orleans would have liked to show their appreciation for the official President... (more)
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Troops begin combat operations in New OrleansCombat operations are underway on the streets “to take this city back” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“This place is going to look like Little Somalia,” Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome. “We’re going to go out... (more)
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New Orleans police begin to show signs of stressAfter days of attempting to return order to an unruly, hurricane-ravaged city, New Orleans police on Friday began to openly lose their tempers, complaining that they've become easy targets for looters with guns and that outside help was slow in coming.
One officer has already been shot in the face, others have ducked bullets while conducting rescue missions and the entire 1,700-officer department has been forced to work in the dark, without emergency radio communications, since H... (more)
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New Orleans on a hair-triggerNEW ORLEANS - I wheeled the car around and headed back to the scene of the shooting, looking for Toronto Star photographer Lucas Oleniuk, when the officer turned, spotted me and pointed the shotgun right at the windshield.
"Stop the car right now. Back up, or I'll shoot," he screamed.
A couple of others cocked their weapons and trained their guns on the car, purpose in their eyes.
Instinctively, I raised my hands above the wheel and gunned the Pont... (more)
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“Hurricane Pam” Reveals Administration’s IncompetenceWhile President Bush has maintained that nobody could have “anticipated the breach of the levees,” more and more information is being revealed to demonstrate that the adminstration was fully aware of the catastrophic damage that could result if a h... (more)
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Katrina and the Authorities"This is a national disgrace," said New Orleans' emergency operations chief Terry Ebbert. "We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."
We are getting used to national disgraces and the official whitewashing that follows. Katrina is truly a natural calamity, but human failure is also present. We can only hope that investigative reporters will do their jobs in the months to come, because we cannot expect much from official i... (more)
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'I Hate the Federal Government'"I hate the federal government," were the first words my father uttered. After two days, he finally got through to us on his cell phone. He, like the rest of my family, lives in Petal, a small city outside of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Official reports of Hurricane Katrina’s path on August 29th are still sketchy, but it appears the eye of the storm either went just to the west of Petal, or right through it. Regardless, the Petal police chief was quoted the following day as saying, "Petal is... (more)
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It Never Was 'Can-Do' GovernmentEach Monday and Friday, I make sure that I read the latest rants from Paul Krugman in his New York Times column. While I generally agree with him when he speaks of the war in Iraq, when it comes to everything else, he is little more than an ignorant statist – granted, an ignorant statist with a doctorate in economics from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I expected him to write about what is becoming our own Gulf War, and he did not disappoint.
Krugman ... (more)
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New Orleans Isn’t AnarchyThere are reports of rapes, beatings, looting, and widespread shooting at police and rescue officers in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Wire articles refer to the situation as "anarchy." These reports are probably exaggerated as to number, but there is no doubt that statists will use this situation as an example of what happens when there isn’t enough nanny government.
The truth is just the opposite: This is what happens when nanny government promises to protec... (more)
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Big Government + Hurricane Katrina = DisasterHurricane Katrina hammered and shattered the Gulf coast. Big Government made it worse. A disaster.
If the New Orleans levees and pumps were privately owned, they may have been upgraded and fortified to deal with the city’s worsening flood risk.
Instead they are owned, maintained, and funded by the city and other government agencies. In typical Big Government fashion, politicians stumbled and delayed. They left New Orleans residents in harm’s way despite ... (more)
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