AP Photo
Chertoff: Katrina scenario did not exist - "Defending the U.S. government's response to Hurricane Katrina, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff argued Saturday that government planners did not predict such a disaster ever could occur. But in fact, government officials, scientists and journalists have warned of such a scenario for years."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/03/katrina.chertoff/index.html
Warnings went ignored as Bush slashed flood defence budget to pay for wars - "Funding for flood prevention was slashed by 80 per cent, work on strengthening levees to protect the city was stopped for the first time in 37 years, and planning for housing stranded citizens and evacuating refugees from the Superdome were crippled. Yet the administration had been warned repeatedly of the dangers by its own officials. In early 2001, at the start of Mr Bush's presidency, his Government's Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) warned that a hurricane hitting New Orleans would be the deadliest of the three most likely catastrophes facing America; the others were a massive San Francisco earthquake and, prophetically, a terrorist attack on New York." -- So two of the three catastrophes have happened during Bush's term. I'm staying out of San Francisco.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article310195.ece
New Orleans had many warnings - ""If the government asks people to evacuate, the government has some responsibility to provide an option for those people who can't evacuate and are at the whim of Mother Nature," said Joe Cook of the New Orleans ACLU."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46130
The ugly truth - "The decision to subject an entire population to poverty, ignorance, injustice and government corruption as a way of life has its ugly moments, as the world is now seeing. New Orleans officials issued an almost cynical evacuation order in a city where they know full well that thousands have no car, no money for airfare or an interstate bus, no credit cards for hotels, and therefore no way to leave town before the deadly storm and flood arrived. The authorities provided no transportation out of the danger zone, apparently figuring the neglected thousands would somehow weather the storm in their uninsured, low-lying shacks and public housing projects. The poor were expected to remain invisible at the bottom of the pecking order and somehow weather the storm. But the flood confounded the plan, and the world began to see a tide of human misery rising from the water - ragged, sick, desperate and disorderly. Some foraged for food, some took advantage of the chaos to commit crimes. All in all, they acted exactly the way you could predict people would act who have been locked up in a ghetto for generations."
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/343324p-292991c.html
Evacuees anguished at leaving pets behind - "At the hospital, a doctor euthanized some animals at the request of their owners, who feared they would be abandoned and starve to death. He set up a small gas chamber out of a
plastic-wrapped dog kennel. "The bigger dogs were fighting it. Fighting the gas. It took them longer. When I saw that, I said, 'I can't do it,' " said Bennett's husband, Lorne. ... The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals picked up two cats and 15 dogs, including one Kennedy found tied up beneath the overpass next to an unopened can of dog food with a sign that read, "Please take care of my dog, his name is Chucky."" - (AFP Photo)http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/04/katrina.pets.ap/index.html
AP Photo
New Orleans,city of dead - "Bodies are everywhere in the city, according to National Guardsmen, officials and rescuers. The dead are found hidden in attics, floating among the toxic waters, on the sides of roadways and highways."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46136
Some Police were Looting? -- Check out the video.
http://www.zippyvideos.com/8911023771013466/countdown-looting-in-walmart
Guardsmen 'played cards' amid New Orleans chaos: police official - ""We expected a lot more support from the federal government. We expected the government to respond within 24 hours. The first three days we had no assistance," he told AFP in an interview."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/usweatherpolice
New Orleans mayor fears CIA to take him out - "New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he's feeling better about his city, he feels confident he has gotten the attention of Gov. Kathleen Blanco and President Bush, but he said he fears the Central Intelligence Agency may take him out because he's been yelling at these officials. He didn't say it once. He said it twice."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46134
Law Officers, Overwhelmed, Are Quitting the Force - "Reeling from the chaos of this overwhelmed city, at least 200 New Orleans police officers have walked away from their jobs and two have committed suicide, police officials said on Saturday."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/national/nationalspecial/04police.html?ei=5090&en=8bf8550c348bbc33&ex=1283486400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
WMD existed in "virtual reality" - "Now, drawing from findings of the Iraq Survey Group and other official investigations, from U.N., U.S., Iraqi and British documents, from Associated Press interviews and on-scene reporting, from books by Blix and others, it's possible to reconstruct, step by step, much of the "ordinary reality" of this extraordinary story, one that changed the course of history."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002470836_wmd04.html
Babes in Warland - "When the birthday party settled into eating pizza and birthday cake, a second feature began. A series of large screen TVs came to life to show Chuck E. Cheese TV. The program was, at first, MTV-like. Performers in large animal garb sang and danced through an idyllic scene with herons and alligators. A man clad in a blazing yellow shirt and red vest skipped across the screen, singing and snapping his fingers to the lively music. The scene shifted to a person dressed in a dog costume fishing in the lake with 3- and 4-year-old children and then shifted again from pictures of the children to mothers holding small babies. Although it was disjointed and a bit crazed, it was what one might expect at Chuck E Cheese. Then my jaw dropped: the MTV segment shifted to a promotional piece compiled by the Department of Defense! The promo showed happy, smiling soldiers in Iraq handing out toys and candies to delighted children. This was followed by a series of scenes showing war planes, tanks and more happy soldiers. This production lasted for 5 minutes of the 15-minute CEC TV show. Throughout the segment, the large animated puppets' eyes shifted toward the TV as they nodded in approval and clapped. Then their eyes shifted back to the children, who were spellbound by the movie."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090205C.shtml
Who will be the next chief justice? - "The death of William H. Rehnquist opens up the chief justice seat on the Supreme Court for the first time in two decades. How President Bush fills that opening raises some interesting questions."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/09/04/rehnquist.next.ap/index.html
Report: Gov't Secrecy Grows, Costs More - "The government is withholding more information than ever from the public and expanding ways of shrouding data. Last year, federal agencies spent a record $148 creating and storing new secrets for each $1 spent declassifying old secrets, a coalition of watchdog groups reported Saturday."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5254148,00.html
Quote of the Day
"Sometimes I feel I'm living in someone else's dream."
~ Blue Rodeo
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