Second time as farce...
A musical based on the sex scandal that turned Bill Clinton into the first elected president ever impeached is set to debut next month on Broadway.
"American Idol" veteran Frenchie Davis will play the role of Clinton's White House secretary Betty Currie in "Monica! The Musical!" - which premieres Sept. 21 as part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival.
Actress Christine DiGiallonardo plays the thong-snapping intern, with actor Duke LaFoon potraying Bill Clinton in all his cigar-savoring glory.
"Monica! The Musical!" reportedly has its own "toetapping" signature song - "Blue Dress."
Other characters featured in the Clinton Sexgate extravaganza include Vernon Jordan, Janet Reno, Ken Starr, George Stephanopoulos and of course - Hillary Clinton.
Producers have invited the real Monica Lewinsky to attend the opening.
No word yet whether Hillary Clinton is planning to see the show.
#2
Gov Richardson gonna be there? The rest of the Clintonistas? "Send In The Clowns" on the musical list? Minimal gag reflex necessary I guess to watch
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/30/2005 19:34 Comments ||
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#3
Who plays the cigar?
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/30/2005 20:14 Comments ||
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#4
Okay, his favorite childhood pet was Duke the dawg and he grew up on Lafoon Ave.
An ostrich has boldly gone where no ostrich has ever gone before. The six-foot-tall bird, who apparently didn't feel like hiding its head in the sand, escaped from the back of a cargo van on the Golden Gate Bridge on Monday, stopping evening commute traffic in both directions and sending dozens of tourists racing for their cameras.
The ostrich, a female, got loose around 4:45 p.m. from the rear of the northbound van, which was heading for a Healdsburg vegetable farm, California Highway Patrol sergeant Wayne Ziese said. A sudden acceleration of the van caused the bird to smash through the rear window and land on the bridge pavement, just north of the toll plaza. "It should never have happened,'' said the driver of the van, Ronald Love. "The ostrich's butt broke the window. You never would think an ostrich could fit through a little window, but she did.''
Clever, clever ostrich.
Love, the owner of Love Farms, had bought the ostrich for $300 a few hours earlier in Watsonville and was taking it to its new home. Love said he had rescued the ostrich from a date with the butcher and was planning to use the bird to produce ostrich eggs, and this is how the bird showed its gratitude. The usual gaggle of afternoon bridge tourists began passionately snapping photographs.
Bridge police officers, Highway Patrol officers and a bridge tow truck driver helped Love corral the ostrich inside a garage used by bridge tow trucks. The ostrich round-up took about 10 minutes. "It was quite an adventure," Love said. "Strange things always seem to happen with ostriches. I guess this proves it.'' Ziese said the bird suffered "minor road rash" but was otherwise not injured. Love was not cited. "We've never had an ostrich on the bridge before,'' Ziese said. "This is a first.''
"Ostriches are usually very gentle,'' said Love. "An ostrich is easier to keep than a goldfish. Unless it's been too long in the back of a van, I guess.''
Veterinarian Dennis Bechtold looked at the dead rabbit in disbelief. The rabbit's wart-like growths made it look like a mythical jackalope - an animal that is half rabbit half antelope. "It was amazing, really," Bechtold said. "Two of (the growths) were in the exact spot that made them look like a jackalope." If it looks like a jackalope, walks like a jackalope, and quacks like a jackalope, it's a jackalope.
The dead rabbit was found in a woman's garden. It had Shope papilloma virus, a highly contagious disease that causes rabbits to grow things on their head and face that look like horns. "I've never seen anything like it before," Police Chief Curt Gullickson said after the woman had called police about the rabbit. Bechtold said the disease does not infect humans or domestic rabbits. He and Gullickson said there may be other rabbits in the area with the same problem. "(People) may see them, and should not be scared of them," Gullickson said. Rabbits with the disease can live with it, but usually die when the growths prevent them from eating.
Posted by: Chris W. ||
08/30/2005 00:30 ||
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Did he turn Muslim yet, or is he switching to camels??
The first official pictures of pop star Michael Jackson since he was cleared of child abuse have been released, showing him in the Gulf city of Dubai. The photos show him smiling and being shown around by United Arab Emirates rally champion Mohammed Bin Sulayem and the son of the king of Bahrain.
His appearance is in contrast to the frail-looking figure that walked out of court in California 11 weeks ago. He is thought to have left the US for the Middle East soon after the verdict. Rest at link...
#3
They use robots on the camels now?
Oh, damn. Nobody told me.
Tito, Jermaine. Back on the plane...
Posted by: Michael ||
08/30/2005 17:58 Comments ||
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#4
You're all very very cruel. He was found not guilty by a fair and true jury and is just trying to be a normal person again...with a camel, in the desert, wearing a burqa - err, wait a minute...
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
08/30/2005 18:14 Comments ||
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#5
Here's an oldie but a goodie:
Michael Jackson's people announced that he's coming out with a new single -- it's a cover of the Elton John classic "Don't Let Your Son Go Down on Me."
Posted by: Tibor ||
08/30/2005 18:20 Comments ||
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#6
I hear that a lot of Arab men, you know, "understand" his passions.
MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- A gunman shot and killed a former Russian sports official who was allegedly linked to the fixing of figure skating results at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported Tuesday, citing police officials. Chevalier Nusuyev, former president of the Russian youth sports federation, died shortly after being taken to a hospital following the attack in southwest Moscow late Monday, the report said.
"He's dead, Ivan"
The unidentified assailant fired on him as he left his office, then escaped in a car. Moscow police did not immediately confirm the killing. Nusuyev was allegedly linked to reputed Russian mobster Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, who in 2003 escaped extradition from Italy to the United States on charges of fixing the figure skating results. Tokhtakhounov spent nearly a year in a Venice, Italy, prison until June 2003 on U.S. charges that he helped secure a gold medal for Russia's Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze in the pairs competition at Salt Lake City in exchange for a victory by the French ice dancing team of Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat.
Our friends the French, again.
The charges Tokhtakhounov faced were based mainly on wiretapped telephone conversations, including with a man identified in Italian police transcripts as "Chevalie" -- allegedly Nusuyev.
I'll wager Alimzhan thinks Nusuyev had something to do with his time in the slammer, and settled the score. So sad.
Nusuyev said he was in Salt Lake City for the games but denied any involvement in the alleged fixing scandal, dubbed "Skategate."
"Nyet!"
Posted by: Steve ||
08/30/2005 12:41 ||
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Let's see how you do this under a barrage of Patriot missiles.
Around 10: 00 o'clock yesterday, we journalists boarded on the No. 4035 large transporter, an aircraft belonging to a transport aviation division of the PLA Air Force, and headed for the designated airdrop and air landing sites at the Weibei Shooting Range to witness from the air the consecutive airdrop of 3 pieces of heavy equipment of the PLA Air Force, the first airdrop with ammunitions by the PLA Air Force, and a debut appearance of a new type of paratroops combat vehicle.
At 10:33am, the No 4035 Transporter carrying journalists took off from the airport and climbed rapidly into the sky. After flying for some time through some dense clouds, it entered the designated airdrop space.
At 11:25am, the transporter began to descend. Navigators Li Hui'an and Chen Zhijian were busy calculating the time and distance, and as we looked down, we could see clearly the vast expanse of green fields peppered with villages under our aircraft. Thrilling journalism.
At 11:35am, the first transporter dropped 3 pieces of heavy equipment one after another. One minute later, the second transporter began its airdrop; still another minute later, the third transporter finished its drop of heavy equipment. Building suspense, I see. Is this ghostwritten by Robert Ludlum?
At 11:38am, the navigator of the transporter on which the journalists boarded pressed the airdrop button, and three combat vehicles promptly slid out of the cargo bay. Oooh! Aaah!
Meanwhile huge parachutes on the heavy equipment dropped from four transporters all opened up. Several dozen seconds later, the heavy equipment fell onto the ground. Instantly, the separation device on parachutes activated and the parachutes flew away. No shock damage? Somewhere out on the net, there's a compliation video of U.S. airdrops gone wrong...it's hilarious, jeeps speeding away unpiloted and such.
In a few minutes, 12 pieces of heavy equipment dropped by four transporters of the PLA Air Force all landed safely at the designated dropping site. There's much more of this sort of thing at the PLA special report on China-Russia Joint Exercises, such as "Chinese, Russian defense ministers join soldiers in lunch" and other page-turners.
#1
Wow...they've caught up to the old Military Airlift Command circa 1960.
I'm impressed.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/30/2005 7:41 Comments ||
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#2
Don't underestimate them - they are busting their asses to catch up and one day they will come close. They have the brains and determination. Its just a matter of time.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
08/30/2005 11:12 Comments ||
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#3
True, Sam. But what happens to them if we start to bust our asses? What percentage of their budget are they using to get close to what takes us less than 4%?
#4
Not much if they get their friends at Loral and the Clintons to give it to them. Campaigns aren't that expensive. And then they can just steal the rest. Cuts down on R & D a whole lot. Then they can buy second hand stuff from the Russkie Going Out of Nationhood Sale. And no pension/healthcare helps too. It's the Wal-Mart-Military.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/30/2005 12:19 Comments ||
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#5
And they have MORALE. Lots of decent Chinese are excited at the recovery of pride in their heritage and country.
We need to recover that too, in the face of the destructive far-left.
#6
gromky---I have the video file at home. The picture of the runaway forklift was a doozy! Forklift breaking off the skid and rolling along in a wide left turn at at least 120kt!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/30/2005 23:34 Comments ||
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No text this time, just a lot of pictures at the link. No matter what you think of the Chicoms or the Russkies, there are some nifty action shots in there.
#1
Article: Hundreds of paratroopers were carried by three transporters into the heart of hostile defenses.
I think nobody does this kind of thing any more. Unless they have a shortage of helicopter transport. It was tried at Crete and Arnhem, with disastrous results, and that was before the era of modern air defenses. (D-Day drops were made at an altitude of 500 to 1000 feet - well within the range of SA-7's and other post-WWII man-portable air defense systems).
#2
I think the arty should be noted for what it didn't elaborate on, which is the likely pre-attack use of AIrborne andor Naval/Submarine Commandos, and of course Fifth Columnists. "Attacking where Enemy forces [read, USA/Allied] are NOT" is still a Commie maxim, besides also establishing Lines of Supply or Attack where the routes are covered or easily supp by massive missle, artillery, or bomber strikes, whether on offense on defense.
#3
The funny, or sad depending on point of view, is that China would never be able to make an amphibious landing on Taiwan. Of course they wouldn't need to. The Taiwanese would sink so many of the amphib-assault ships (and kill everyone aboard) that the ChiComs would just be able to walk across. God, I really hope the Chinese realize the amount of bloodshed (mainly on their side) that would be required to "take" Taiwan by force. Personally, I don't believe they could take Taiwan...destroy it yes, take it no.
#4
If those are the choices, I suspect the Chicoms are indifferent.
What they want is not Taiwan, but an end to Taiwanese independence.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/30/2005 8:49 Comments ||
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#5
They soviets and PLA always did like their action shots. Those things are very important to them. Thing is there is nowhere on the coast of Taiwan where the Chinese could expect not to face fairly well armed resistance. Technology being what it is things would be a whole lot uglier riding in than prior historical landings. Most of those amphib vehicles would not fair well swimming along at a snail's pace with even a couple TOW's on location. They sink alot faster than they sail. If they manage to start a landing I really wonder if they have the capability of sustaining the logistics necessary to resupply the level of force they'd need to have a hope of success. All the armor and grunts in the world don't count for too much a few days after resupply is choked off to a trickle. Providing constant 24/7 air cover and support from afar would not be as easy as we make it seem in our operations. Sure they may well be able to get there but the question is whether they would be able to stay for all too long.
#6
MK: If they manage to start a landing I really wonder if they have the capability of sustaining the logistics necessary to resupply the level of force they'd need to have a hope of success. All the armor and grunts in the world don't count for too much a few days after resupply is choked off to a trickle.
It boils down to gasoline, ammo, food and spare parts. They might be able get gasoline and food once they reach the cities. But first, they have to get off the beaches. And that's a very high hurdle, in an era of artillery-fired cluster munitions. If Taiwan's artillery isn't completely suppressed, the beach landings will be a massacre.
#7
What bugs me is durign the cold war I could look at Soviet/Chinese stuff and instantly identify it as theres. Looking at these pictures its a lot harder, a lot of the stuff looks similar to what the Europeans use. Especially the helicopters and a few of those assault rifles in there.
#8
The helicopter with the enclosed tail rotor firing rockets is the French Aerospatiale(Eurocopter) Dauphine. The US Coast Guard designation is HH-65 Dolphin. The other helicopters are Russian Mi-8/Mi-17. The assault rifles are Chinese 5.8x42mm bullpup QBZ-95.
Posted by: ed ||
08/30/2005 11:54 Comments ||
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#9
I would make a lame joke about a Chinese fire drill, but those toys look pretty serious. Good mil pr0n, at any rate.
#12
Actually, it is kind of standard. I remember being at a highway rest stop, and there's some cop wandering around with a reflective vest that said "POLICE" on the back. No Chinese. I asked my companion what good this would do for anyone except me, and she said that it's considered more modern and spiffy. Kind of like when Westerners get Chinese character tattoos without knowing what they mean.
BERLIN - Germany's environment minister hinted Tuesday that Americans were to blame for Hurricane Katrina due to the U.S. refusal to cut greenhouse gases which many experts say cause global warming. "The increasing frequency of these natural events can only be explained through global warming which is caused by people," said Trittin who is member of the Greens in a ZDF TV interview.
Trittin contrasted Germany's cutting of greenhouse gas emissions by 18.5 per cent since 1990, with the U.S. from which emissions have continued to increase. "A U.S. citizen causes about two and a half times as much greenhouse gas as the average European," said Trittin.
Seems like German ministers release a lot of hot air as well.
Commenting on Trittin's remarks, ZDF said the minister "saw a parallel between the hurricane and U.S. wasting of energy." The German government has been strongly critical of U.S. President George W. Bush's refusal to ratify the Kyoto agreement on global warming. At least 55 people were left dead when Hurricane Katrina swept over the southern coast of the United States on Monday.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/30/2005 10:54 ||
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#1
Can we shoot him now for rudeness above and beyond any bounds of acceptable?
#2
Ah, he's in good company in as much as every nutter haboring a little hatred and envy has a similar angle on what was simply a large hurricane that came too close to a city vunerable to such disasters. Think I'll give the embassy a ring to register my disgust.
#3
Think of all the greenhouses gasses than can be saved by not buying German cars.
Posted by: ed ||
08/30/2005 11:11 Comments ||
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#4
STFU, idiot. The amount of damage done by hurricanes is more related to the level of development of the coastal areas (more people and buildings, more death and destruction), than necessarily to the intensity or frequency of the storms.
#5
Trittin? He's only got one name? What's he like the Prince or friggin Madonna of environment ministers? And I'm sure he's driving to work in some solar powered tricycle, not some behemoth Mercedes limo, right?
#8
Sure, Bobby. Call up Uncle Teddy and ask him what the holdup is on that windmill farm in Nantucket Sound. It's early so he may be relatively sober...
#9
"A U.S. citizen causes about two and a half times as much greenhouse gas as the average European," said Trittin. Funny, this guy's a Green. I'm betting that the members of his party, with its high preponderance of vegetarians, put out more methane per capita than any other political organization.
#10
I thought the U.S is a carbon sink because of all the reforestation that's been going on for the last generation? Certainly the Northeastern States have not been so well forested since the Indians were running things. Germany, on the other hand... the Black Forest is infested with something that is seriously weakening the trees -- there are dead trees everywhere one looks. And our local American Women's Club took it upon themselves to plant trees over a capped off landfill in the area, a shocking idea to our German friends. Not to mention Mr. Wife the engineer did a back of the envelope calculation, and concluded that Germany's feel-good recycling efforts (returning empty glass bottles to the manufacturer, collecting plastics for storage in abandoned East German salt mines, undermining the French paper re-use industry) had a higher economic and environmental cost than no recycling at all.
#11
Trailing Wife, stop with the carbon sink stuff, that's exactly what Gore tried to put into Kyoto but was rebuffed. See the thing is if you count carbon sinks the US could qualify for Kyoto without crippling our economy and what fun would that be?
#13
I read RFK's post on Arianna Huffnpuff's blog. He outright blames the Bush administration and Mississippi Governor Barbour for the hurricane. If only they had listened to him and signed the Kyoto accord everything would be OK. I was VERY surprised at the blasting he got from fellow Democrats in the comments section.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/30/2005 16:33 Comments ||
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#14
Trittin (what kind of name is that, either be Tritium and boost nukes or be Tintin and have an unusual relationship with a small dog) - it is considered good manners to offer condolences when people have died in the midst of a disaster. At least have the decency to wait until the waters have subsided before making asshole comments.
Or I shall taunt you a second time - idiot.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
08/30/2005 18:22 Comments ||
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#15
People like this can't be bothered with teh facts. The facts are "global warming" is a myth. There is no scientific basis for attributing the warming of the earth to human activity. Round them all up and put them in the same place and let them live in the utopia can't create.
PARIS, Aug 30 (AFP) - France needs to adopt US-style fire prevention techniques, including fitting smoke detectors in homes, to avoid future tragedies like three recent blazes in Paris that have claimed the lives of nearly 50 African immigrants, fire officers said Tuesday. "The Anglo-Saxons have a real culture of handling fire risks and smoke detectors are everywhere in private housing," said one officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Claude Coutou, head of the capital's fire prevention brigade. The current French practice of ensuring that only buildings such as hospitals, hotels and retirement homes had detection equipment was insufficient, he said. The law should be extended to private buildings, he said.
Seven people -- four children and three adults, all illegal immigrants from Ivory Coast -- died late Monday when the squat they were inhabiting caught fire. The blaze started in the wooden stairwell, apparently caused by faulty electrical wiring installed by the residents themselves, and quickly spread up the floors, police said. Most of the dead perished on the fourth floor of the building, which is located in the central Marais district popular with tourists. It happened just four days after a similar inferno in which 17 other African immigrants -- 14 of them children -- lost their lives in a building elsewhere in Paris. In April another fire in a rundown hotel killed 24 African immigrants.
Another fire officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Marie Lincheneau, said France had to develop a sense of individual responsibility when it came to preventing fires.
Well, so much for that....
Lincheneau added that existing fire safety laws were often ignored by authorities, building owners and tenants.
"The state bodies need to regularly check the public areas" such as stairwells, hallways and garages, Lincheneau said, adding that: "We can't go into every home and make sure they have detectors and extinguishers."
Posted by: Steve ||
08/30/2005 10:47 ||
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#1
"Anglo-saxons"?!? The mere suggestion of inferiority is telling as to the extent of the problem and the shame. At least in this instance they can recognize and articulate it.
#3
Perhaps what they need to do is import the anglo saxon insurance and tort system so that you don't need "state bodies to regularly check the public areas and every home to make sure they have detectors and extinguishers." Even the insurance companies are dumb when they're French?
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/30/2005 11:43 Comments ||
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#4
The blaze started in the wooden stairwell, apparently caused by faulty electrical wiring installed by the residents themselves,
All together now - "Electrical work is a profession, not a hobby."
#5
Last year they parked their elderly fathers and mothers into the heat wrap for August. This year they're working on the poor. Well, I guess that's one way to reduce government program costs. Wonder what the next group will be for August 06?
#6
Mrs. D. that is all too true. Worse yet when it's a French Canadian subsidiary of a French insurer dealing with Americans and Henri St. H. the poor truck driver who couldn't figure out what the posted height limits for an overpass were in metric. Let's just say that French cultural conceptions of responsiblity and good corporate citizenship looked more than slightly warped from the perspective of a jury of "anglo-saxon" Americans. They were blind to what hit them, not once but twice. Like a dumb animal I'm sure they brushed it off, carefully avoided learning a thing, and bravely chalked it up to the ethnocentric and racist "anglo-saxon" in every American.
France plans to launch a "solidarity tax" on airline tickets as early as next year to help fund the global fight against poverty, Jacques Chirac said yesterday. Saying he wanted his country to be "in the forefront" of efforts to boost aid to Africa, the French president - eager not to be outshone in the aid stakes by Tony Blair's recent drive for the continent - said he had asked the government "to start the necessary procedures without waiting".
Sure. Go right ahead. I'm sure the passengers of Air France won't mind. I'll be flying American, thankyouverymuch.
Mr Chirac, who last month wrote to 145 world leaders seeking their support for the scheme, said in a speech to the annual meeting of France's ambassadors in Paris that Germany, Algeria, Brazil, Chile and Spain would help promote the idea at a United Nations summit in September.
An international ministerial conference on the theme will be held in Paris next February, he added.
Opportunity to natter over a good meal on the Left Bank -- hard to argue with that!
Last January, when the French president formally floated the scheme at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he said a tax of a few dollars on every airline ticket sold could raise up to $10bn (£5.7bn) a year to finance campaigns against diseases in Africa, notably Aids, tuberculosis and malaria.
The Group of Eight rich nations promised last June that it would look into the project, but some countries are keener than others. A number of EU member states, including Greece and Ireland, reject the idea, while the US has said it is not in favour but will not stand in the way of other countries. Britain, which is pressing hard for an international finance facility - a means of doubling aid flows by floating bonds on financial markets - initially responded coolly to Mr Chirac's airline tax plan this year but has since stressed that the two schemes are not mutually exclusive.
France's finance minister, Thierry Breton, outlined the solidarity tax to a UN meeting in June, saying that, with world air traffic growing at an average 9% every year since 1960, it was "one of the most promising solutions for developing the careers of young Eurocrats countries and for the international architecture of aid". Mr Breton said airline tickets were an appropriate commodity to tax because airlines benefit from globalisation and pay low taxes, their passengers "are rarely among the poorest citizens", and such a levy has been proved feasible both practically and legally.
The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, who has set the international body the target of halving extreme poverty by 2015, told the Financial Times last month that he supported the airline tax plan and that the idea "seems to be taking hold".
As long as Koko gets his cut, of course.
Along with several other leaders, Mr Chirac has repeatedly said budgetary increases alone will not finance the extra $50bn needed to meet the UN's Millennium Development goals on poverty, health and education, and that additional innovative solutions were needed.
How about a surcharge on the TGV?
French authorities estimate a tax of about â¬5 (£3.50) per passenger worldwide, with a â¬20 surcharge for business class travellers, would generate revenues of about â¬10bn a year. The contribution could be reduced in poorer countries so as not to penalise passengers there.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/30/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Another lame idea to have me fund the UN without my consent. Chirac missed the day in school when they talked about our aversion to taxation without representation.
#2
France plans to launch a "solidarity tax" on airline tickets as early as next year to help fund the global fight against poverty, Jacques Chirac said yesterday. Saying he wanted his country to be "in the forefront" of efforts to boost aid to Africa,..
Yep, nothing like being in the forefront by relieving others of their money....
#4
So is Chiraq going to levy this little tax on all airline tickets sold in France, including those for non-French carriers, or on all tickets sold for French carriers anywhere? If the former, he'll discover his people purchasing their tickets in nearby countries... if the latter they'll purchase from airlines code-sharing with Air France, et al. Either way, he isn't going to get nearly the funds he'd hoped for, meaning a smaller rake-off for himself and his friends, and a smaller rake-off for France (which could really use some extra funds at the moment!).
#8
Let's really soak the rich by adding new taxes to champagne, bourdeaux, chablis, and brie. What's that you say? They're all made in France? Well, what a co-inky-dink.
Via Drudge. A woman who led an anti-war protest for nearly a month near President Bush's ranch said Tuesday that she's glad Bush never showed up to discuss her son's death in Iraq, saying the president's absence "galvanized the peace movement." Make up your minds, moonbats.
Cindy Sheehan's comments came as war protesters packed up their campsite near the ranch and prepared to leave Tuesday for a three-week bus tour. "I look back on it, and I am very, very, very grateful he did not meet with me, because we have sparked and galvanized the peace movement," Sheehan told The Associated Press. "If he'd met with me, then I would have gone home, and it would have ended there." Very.
Sheehan and about 50 other peace activists arrived in the one- stoplight town Aug. 6, the day after she spoke at a Veterans for Peace convention in Dallas. She and a few others spent that night in chairs in ditches, without food or flashlights, off the main road leading to the president's ranch. "without food or flashlights". Who believes that? Raise your hands.
The Vacaville, Calif., woman vowed to stay until Bush's monthlong vacation ended unless she could question him about the war that claimed the life of her 24-year-old son Casey and more than 1,870 other U.S. soldiers. Two top Bush administration officials talked to Sheehan the first day, but the president never did _ although he has said that he sympathizes with her and acknowledged her right to protest. His vacation is to end Wednesday, two days early, so he can monitor federal efforts to help victims of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast.
Sheehan's vigil attracted crowds of other anti-war demonstrators. Most stayed a few hours or days at the original roadside camp or at the second, larger site about a mile away on a private lot offered by a sympathetic landowner. The massive response has transformed her life, she said. "Massive" media coverage, maybe, but notice there is no number attached to the "crowds" of people supporting her in Crawford.
"I thought our country was going down, down, down. I thought nobody cared about our children killed in the war, but millions care, and millions care about our country and want to make it better," she said. "The love and support I've received give me hope that my life can someday be normal." Down.
The protest also sparked counter rallies by Bush supporters who accused Sheehan of using her son's death to push the liberal agenda of groups supporting her. Critics also said the anti-war demonstration was hurting U.S. troop morale while boosting the Iraqi insurgency. Many Bush supporters pointed out that Sheehan never spoke against Bush or the war when she and other grieving families met the president about two months after her son died last year.
Sheehan said she was still in shock over Casey's death during that meeting. She said she became enraged after independent reports disputed Bush administration claims that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons _ a main justification for the March 2003 invasion.
After leaving Crawford, protesters will spread their message on a three-week "Bring Them Home Now Tour" with stops in 25 states. Buses on three routes will meet in Washington, D.C., for a Sept. 24 anti-war march. Sheehan will leave the tour next week to spend time with her family, including her mother who recently suffered a stroke, which caused Sheehan to miss a week of the protest. She plans to attend the march in the nation's capital, hoping to reunite with people who converged on the Texas roadside that came to be known as "Camp Casey."
"When I first started here, I was sitting in the ditch thinking, `What the heck did I do? Texas in August, the chiggers, fire ants, rattlesnakes, uncomfortable accommodations' _ but I'm going to be sad leaving here," Sheehan said. "I hope people will say that the Camp Casey movement sparked a peace movement that ended the war in Iraq." But they won't, because the war will not end until we win, with or without fools like you.
Posted by: Chris W. ||
08/30/2005 21:10 ||
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The detection of bird flu in a dead seagull in northern Finland provides additional evidence for a worldwide spread of H5N1, setting the stage for a major pandmeic. Although H5N1 wild bird flu has yet to be confirmed, the official statement that the bird flu is not H5N1 has been the common initial official comment on H5N1 when it is reported for the first time. At Qinghai Lake the H5N1 was initial said to not be bird flu.
In Russia and Kazahkstan, H5N1 was said to be H5N2. In Mongolia, after H5N1 had been confirmed at Qinghai Lake, Chany Lake and Kazakhstan, the H5 result was still interpreted as an indication that H5N1 was not H5N1. Thus, the statement that H5N1 was possible but not likely, was a clear statement that the bird flu was almost certainly H5N1. Not mentioned in most of the media reports was the fact that indeed, 50 dead gulls had been found in Oulo.
H5N1 in northern Finland is not a surprise, Birds from northern Siberia migrate to warmer locations in Europe. and these bird fly over Finland. This is right time of migration from northern Siberia and infections in Russia strongly suggest the birds in northern Siberia are H5N1 positive.
Birds in northern Siberia also migrate to Alaska, and birds from Alaska spread out across North and South America. Thus, H5N1 in northern Siberia can widely disperse H5N1. H5N1 can replicate easily in a wide variety of tissues and has gained significant evolutionary advantage. Consequently, it is being established in a number of regions, and this increased gene pool will increase the chance of recombination and acquisition of the mammalian receptor binding domain,
The receptor binding domain can be acquired from mammalian sub-strains, but can also be collect from the mammalian sequences in birds. Thus, an expanded host range offers many unique opportunities for recombination.
As H5N1 becomes endemic to more areas, its gene pool enlarges, facilitating productive recombinations. The prior acquisitions of mammalian polymorphims increase the frequency of more recombinations.
Recombinations in birds would be cause for concern, because an efficient transmitted H5N1 could spread among birds, and then infected many people in many locations. These simultaneous outbreaks would limit an effective containment strategy, that depends on treatment within one to two weeks of symptoms.
Thus, H5N1 is poised to go global and increase its geographical reach. Establishment in local birds would create an endemic reservoir, which could be lethal for years to come.
NEW ORLEANS â With much of the city flooded by Hurricane Katrina, looters floated garbage cans filled with clothing and jewelry down the street in a dash to grab what they could. In some cases, looting today took place in full view of police and National Guard troops. At a Walgreen's drug store in the French Quarter, people were running out with grocery baskets and coolers full of soft drinks, chips and diapers. Staples of the local diet, now doubt. That fancy cajun stuff must be reserved just for tourists.
When police finally showed up, a young boy stood in the door screaming, "86! 86!" â the radio code for police â and the crowd scattered.
Denise Bollinger, a tourist from Philadelphia, stood outside and snapped pictures in amazement. How often does a tourist from Philly get to document a third-world uprising?
"It's downtown Baghdad," the housewife said. "It's insane. I've wanted to come here for 10 years. I thought this was a sophisticated city. I guess not." Must be Bush's fault then. Obviously, this woman is not up-to-date on moonbat left definitions of "sophistication."
Around the corner on Canal Street, the main thoroughfare in the central business district, people sloshed headlong through hip-deep water as looters ripped open the steel gates on the front of several clothing and jewelry stores. One man, who had about 10 pairs of jeans draped over his left arm, was asked if he was salvaging things from his store. "No," the man shouted, "that's EVERYBODY'S store." But only honest people will have to pay for it, through higher insurance costs.
Looters filled industrial-sized garbage cans with clothing and jewelry and floated them down the street on bits of plywood and insulation as National Guard lumbered by. Ingenious. I guess these Guardsmen aren't trained to resist amphibious assaults.
Mike Franklin stood on the trolley tracks and watched the spectacle unfold. "To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back at society," he said. Being required to pay for your own jewelry and threads is oppression. Franklin must be a recent poli-sci or human services grad.
A man walked down Canal Street with a pallet of food on his head. His wife, who refused to give her name, insisted they weren't stealing from the nearby Winn-Dixie supermarket. "It's about survival right now," she said as she held a plastic bag full of purloined items. "We got to feed our children. I've got eight grandchildren to feed." Her neighbors are eating jeans and jewelry, I suppose.
At a drug store on Canal Street just outside the French Quarter, two police officers with pump shotguns stood guard as workers from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel across the street loaded large laundry bins full of medications, snack foods and bottled water. "This is for the sick," Officer Jeff Jacob said. "We can commandeer whatever we see fit, whatever is necessary to maintain law."
Another office, D.J. Butler, told the crowd standing around that they would be out of the way as soon as they got the necessities. "I'm not saying you're welcome to it," the officer said. "This is the situation we're in. We have to make the best of it." Free for all
The looting was taking place in full view of passing National Guard trucks and police cruisers. Wouldn't want to oppress anybody.
One man with an armload of clothes even asked a policeman, "can I borrow your car?"
Some in the crowd splashed into the waist-deep water like giddy children at the beach. What? He can't steal one of his own to cart the stuff away?
#3
Mike Franklin stood on the trolley tracks and watched the spectacle unfold. "To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back at society," he said.
Hey! Let's all head over to Mike's house and pick it clean! He'll "understand". Won't you, you liberal dipshit!
#4
AP photo:
"A looter carries a bucket of beer out of a grocery store in New Orleans on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005, as floodwaters continue to rise in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina made landfall on Monday. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)"
This must be a key ingredient in the famous blue jean and jewelry gumbo that the starving people of New Orleans are mixing up in a desperate bid to survive.
#7
Atomic Conspiracy---I was thinking the same thoughts this morning when my colleague was telling me about the looting and the plastic garbage can amphib operations in Operation Brewski. My grandmother lived through the 1906 quake and she told me that looters were shot. Martial law was established toot sweet in SF right after the earthquake.
PC treatment of looters during emergencies condones the activity of looting during normal times.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/30/2005 18:49 Comments ||
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#8
I am hearing that martial law has been declared, along with a 'prison riot and hostage situation' in Orleans Parish...may God have mercy on the Big Easy.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/30/2005 19:22 Comments ||
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#9
Some officers joined in taking whatever they could, including one New Orleans cop who loaded a shopping cart with a compact computer and a 27-inch flat screen television.
Just taking what you need to get by, right officer?
I figured this was only a matter of time. I know a few folks from down there and they've always said the New Orleans PD was the worst big city police force in the country.
This is going to be grim.
#10
stealin a TV cuz you need food and water and ...there's no power, and....oh nevermind. I could see stealing food if you and your family's starving and isolated....the TV is kinda hard to justify
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/30/2005 19:37 Comments ||
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#11
Given everything that's floating in that water right now (cholera or dysentary, anyone? Exotic chemical brews?) I'd rather not let it touch my skin for fear of what exactly I'd be bringing home. Food and fluids are one thing, jeans and jewelry may well not be worth the final price the looters pay.
#12
well at least they won't have a West Nile/mosquito-borne illness problem because.....oh...nevermind
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/30/2005 20:49 Comments ||
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#13
wonder how many vaults, safes, and gun stores will be cleaned out by the Big Squeezys finest?
/damn cynicism
Posted by: Red Dog ||
08/30/2005 21:08 Comments ||
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#14
I'm just a civilian, but what happened to the maxim "when the lootin' starts, the shootin' starts." Had the governor said that, I think things would have never gotten to this point.
#15
Just heard the LA AG interviewed on Hannity. Mt takeaway: "We got to save people's lives. Property comes next." nstated, the insurance companies will pay and it's mouse nuts compared to the cost to rebuild NO. We don't need a riot on top of everything else. Besides, if these Beauzeaux haven't gotten out yet, they may not survive what's coming next.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/30/2005 21:51 Comments ||
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#16
Let them have their blue jeans and jewelery, what of any value could be left after a 4 day warning? They will be lucky to survive the next month, they should be looting penicillin and food.
BATON ROUGE, La. Aug 30, 2005 â With water rising in the streets of New Orleans and conditions rapidly deteriorating, Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Tuesday that the tens of thousands of people now huddled in the Superdome and other rescue centers would have to be evacuated. "The situation is untenable," Blanco said at a news conference. "It's just heartbreaking."
Because of two levees that broke Tuesday, the city was rapidly filling with water, the governor said. She also said the power could be out for a long time, and the storm broke a major water main, leaving the city without drinkable water.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/30/2005 16:46 ||
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#1
Two levees?? Holy crap. NO is finished if they can't fix the breaks. Welcome to New Orleans Atlantis!
#2
...Just heard at 2045 EST that they have given up on any attempts to repair the levees.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/30/2005 20:32 Comments ||
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#3
Good-bye New Orleans, hello New Venice!
Posted by: Charles ||
08/30/2005 21:46 Comments ||
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#4
Don't get too excited. This probably just means another two weeks added onto whatever it was going to take to clean the place up before. NO will come back, whether it is an economically justified decision or not.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/30/2005 21:57 Comments ||
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#5
Mrs D - you need some coffee - NO is dead for 4+ months as a town
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/30/2005 22:05 Comments ||
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#6
So now it's 4 1/2 + months.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/30/2005 22:24 Comments ||
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BILOXI, Mississippi (Reuters) - "It was like our tsunami," Vincent Creel, a spokesman for the Mississippi Gulf Coast city of Biloxi, said on Tuesday. When Hurricane Katrina roared ashore on the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday, it sent a 30-foot (9-meter) storm surge into Biloxi. Many people were probably trapped in their homes by the ferocious wall of water.
"It's going to be in the hundreds," said Creel, when asked how many people may have died. Police said around 30 people died in one Biloxi apartment complex alone when the storm surge brought it crashing down. "Camille was 200, and we're looking at a lot more than that," Creel said, referring to Hurricane Camille, which devastated the area in 1969 and killed 256 people. But Katrina's storm surge beat all the high-water marks left by Camille, one of the strongest hurricanes ever to hit the United States, residents and local officials said. "The cadaver dogs are due in this afternoon," said Creel.
Biloxi, a waterfront city of about 50,000 people, was a seafood-industry hub and sleepy summer resort for southerners early last century. It began to boom in the 1990s when Mississippi legalized dockside gambling, which opened a new economic frontier in the poorest U.S. state. Now, the town faces a long recovery. All that was left on Tuesday of hundreds of homes were the foundations. Waterfront casinos had been crushed, their top floors stripped off. The beach was littered with steel girders. City parks were 4-feet deep in debris.
Dazed and tear-streaked survivors wander aimlessly, asking the few police or firefighters around where they could find some food and water. They tell stories of people hanging from trees for three hours half a mile inland, waiting for the swirling water to recede. "We almost drowned in our house," said Linda Boldt, 57. "We just moved here from Florida to get away from the hurricanes. We have no place to stay. Our car, our truck, our van full of furniture. We lost everything." She waved at others combing through the rubble-strewn streets. "I don't know what's going to happen to these people," she said.
Creel said the power grid of Biloxi and its water and sewage systems were destroyed. "We've had widespread looting," he added. He said even the police and fire department had raided a grocery store for supplies as emergency teams worked triple shifts to hunt for survivors. "We're essentially looting ourselves but we're keeping track of it."
Several police officers and firefighters said they had left their families when the storm came in and they were called out to search and rescue operations. "There's a lot of guys out there who don't even know where their family members are right now," said one police officer. Cay Wiser, another survivor, pointed to the town around her. "It's demolished, but we're alive," she said. She forecast a lengthy effort to rebuild. "It'll probably take us years, maybe several years."
I hope we can get these folks evacuated and taken care of. I do wonder what in the world they were thinking sticking around, but there's been a lot of hype in the past about 'killer hurricanes' that hasn't turned out.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/30/2005 16:11 ||
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#1
How many days warning did the Gulf States get? Not really fair to compare it to the tsunami. Of course if that gets more relief money go ahead, I can't blame you.
#3
Ya know, if we had as much warning for tornados as there is for hurricaines, we'd just put the wheels back under the house and get the hell out of the way.
#4
WCR:
Dunno about that. Can you outdrive a tornado? The tornado-trailer attraction is comparable to the strong nuclear force, so it's going to home in one you.
After a controversial run-in with bloggers last year that helped sink "60 Minutes Wednesday," CBS has hired a "nonbudsman" to write a blog that will go behind the scenes at the news division.
Former "Hotline" editor Vaughn Ververs will report his findings on "Public Eye," which debuts next month. Ververs will be a kind of media reporter, mostly focused on CBS News, reporting and writing about how the news is gathered, produced and placed. In addition to providing Journalism 101, "Public Eye" also could offer extended versions of segments that appeared on CBS, interviews with correspondents and producers and maybe even the daily story meeting for the "CBS Evening News."
"This is a way to open up the process (of network news)," Ververs said.
Although he's a CBS employee, Ververs doesn't answer to CBS News president Andrew Heyward. His boss is CBS Digital Media head Larry Kramer, who has a long career in journalism. Ververs has no power to change policy or the direction of stories. "I'm not here to set the rules," Ververs said. "I'm not even here to voice my opinion. That's not my job."
Heyward, who coined the term "nonbudsman," makes it clear that he's not looking for someone to just pat CBS News on the back. "It's going to be an honest, fair, unvarnished look at what we do, and that means that it's an experiment," Heyward said. "It's a risk. Not everybody approves of what we do. But I'm banking on the fact that people will also see how much effort we make about being fair and being ethical..." Of course it's nothing more than a poor effort to whitewash their soiled image, and give them a 24/7 way of putting out spin in the face of their next disaster. And they will crank out spin in nauseating volume.
A 16-year-old boy has devised a way to charge his cell phone with the help of his hamster. Peter Ash of Lawford, Somerset designed a hamster wheel that utilized gears and turbines to charge his cell phone. According to his tests every two minutes of wheel time gives his phone 30 minutes of talk time.
GULFPORT, Miss. - Rescuers in boats and helicopters searched for survivors of Hurricane Katrina and brought victims, wet and bedraggled, to shelters Tuesday as the extent of the damage across the Gulf Coast became ever clearer. The governor said the death toll in one Mississippi county alone could be as high as 80. Power was out to about 800,000 customers statewide, according to officials of electric companies and rural power associations.
"The devastation down there is just enormous," Gov. Haley Barbour said on NBC's "Today" show, the morning after Katrina howled ashore with winds of 145 mph and engulfed thousands of homes in one of the most punishing storms on record in the United States.
Barbour said there were unconfirmed reports of up to 80 deaths in Harrison County - which includes devastated Gulfport and Biloxi - and the number was likely to rise. At least five other deaths across the Gulf Coast were blamed on Katrina. Barbour and emergency officials were to tour the coast later Tuesday. "We know that there is a lot of the coast that we have not been able to get to," the governor said. "I hate to say it, but it looks like it is a very bad disaster in terms of human life. The beach is essentially destroyed on the coast."
Katrina was downgraded to a tropical storm late Monday. Southern Co. officials said power was out to all of its 195,000 customers in south Mississippi served by Mississippi Power Co. Farther north, Entergy Mississippi officials reported power was out to 260,400 customers. The Electric Power Associations of Mississippi said power was out to about 400,000 customers throughout the storm damaged area from the coast to north Mississippi.
Jack Crochet, 56, Biloxi, walked down a buckled and sand-covered U.S. 90 Tuesday carrying a bottle of champagne. He shook his head, looked at the debris and said: "This is all that's left of my house." Crochet weathered the storm in his home near the beach in Biloxi. His home also was near an apartment complex where dozens of people were believed to have been killed. "We thought everything was going to New Orleans," Crochet said. "I've been through Camille and Betsy, but this storm surge here, when it came in, it looked like a tidal wave. "There's just nothing left," Crochet said. "It's never going to be the same. It's over."
Also in Biloxi Tuesday, 30-year-old Paul Merritt surveyed the damage with his 18-year-old wife, Carla, and their 3-month-old son, Brandon. He said the water rose to the second story of his town house, which is less than a block off the beach. "I've never seen destruction of this magnitude," Paul Merritt said. "You see this stuff on TV and you hope that it never happens to you. Everything's gone. Our pets are dead. The water got up to the second level of my [home]."
His 25-year-old brother, Jacob Merritt, said the roof was ripped apart in his apartment complex in Biloxi. He sat in a cinder block Tuesday in the rubble of a beach-front hotel, Star Inn, and clasped his head in his hands. He said he had pulled out 12 people from a building during the hurricane, and he believes they all lived but had minor injuries. After the storm, "there was a lot of looting going on," Jacob Merritt said. He said he saw people stealing beer and cigarettes from the Circle K convenience store.
Tree trunks, downed power lines and trees, and chunks of broken concrete in the streets hampered rescue efforts. Swirling water in many areas contained hidden dangers. Crews worked to clear highways. Along one Mississippi highway, motorists themselves used chainsaws to remove trees blocking the road. More than 1,600 Mississippi National Guardsmen were activated, and the Alabama National Guard planned to send two battalions to Mississippi.
Teresa Kavanagh, 35, of Biloxi, shook her head is disbelief Tuesday as she took photographs of the damage in Biloxi. "Total devastation. Apartment complexes are wiped clean. We're going to rebuild, but it's going to take long time. Houses that withstood Camille are nothing but slab now," she said.
The Hard Rock and Beau Rivage casinos took severe damage. There is debris all around Beau Rivage and the neighboring, Windjammer Condominium's bottom floors are completely washed away. All that remains of the Sun Tan Hotel is the toilets. Katrina's tidal surge damaged major bridges to three coastal counties, including those linking Biloxi with Ocean Springs and the connection to Bay St. Louis.
Those are the only east-west roads, have to come down from I-10 to the north. Those are mostly narrow roads with a lot of small bridges if I remember correctly. Likely a lot of them blocked by downed trees. I was stationed at Keesler 85-89, rode out Hurricane Eleana there. That was only a cat 1 storm, still tore the place up.
The storm swept sailboats onto city streets in Gulfport and obliterated hundreds of waterfront homes, businesses, community landmarks and condominiums. The concrete Eight Flags display marking the historic Gulfport-Biloxi boundary - a signature of both coastal communities - was gone. A foot of water swamped the emergency operations center at the Hancock County courthouse - which sits 30 feet above sea level. The back of the courthouse collapsed under the onslaught.
In Biloxi, the mayor's office said the storm's surge put at least five casinos out of commission. Treasure Bay's pirate ship was beached. Beau Rivage still stood, while Hard Rock Casino - scheduled to open in early September - was half destroyed. Hard Rock's signature guitar, touted as the world's largest, survived the lashing.
Barbour warned evacuated residents to stay away, saying most could not get to their homes, anyway. "It will be unsafe to return to the coastal area for several days," Barbour said Monday during a televised news briefing in Jackson. "Be patient. Don't be in a hurry to go back."
Jim Pollard, spokesman for the Harrison County Emergency Operations Center, said about 30 of the dead were in Biloxi, and said many were found in St. Charles Apartments, a complex near the beach.
Just like Camille, some people never learn
Gulfport's Forest Heights subdivision, which is several miles from the beach but south of Interstate 10, flooded with four to six feet of water. Young children clung to one another in a small blue boat Monday night as neighbors shuffled children and elderly residents out of the neighborhood. People gently helped a 64-year-old woman with an oxygen tank get into a boat. "Everything is flooded. Roofs are off and everything," said Shun Howell, 25, who was trying to leave with her 5-year-old son. She said cars in the neighborhood were flooded or flipped over. "We're going to need some serious help to start over," Howell said. "Everything is ruined."
Posted by: Steve ||
08/30/2005 11:23 ||
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#1
We can only hope that the insurance companies refuse to finance rebuilding on the same locations. Its the beginning of the lots-of-hurricanes side of the weather cycle, which should last about a generation, suggesting this kind of thing is going to happen an awful lot in the coming years. Let the survivors take their money and start over inland and off the Mississippi floodplain.
#2
I want to see an effort made by the Pentagon like they did for the Tusnami. Our people deserve that if not more.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
08/30/2005 15:15 Comments ||
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#3
Why yes Sam. However, other than the local National Guard, do you really think the MSM wants our national military to get any good press? But do look forward to all the 'failures' and SNAFUs given broad coverage.
#4
I watched Fox and ABC this morning, and I am shocked at the coverage now 6 hours later. This is bad news getting worse.
New Orleans will not be a functioning city for 2 months at least. No school districts for 2 months at best. No water, food, gasoline or commerse anywhere near city. It will be days before they can even start removing the water, and that process, under ideal conditions, witj all pumps running, estimated to take 2 weeks! They are going to have to clear everyone out in New Orleans, it looks like to me.
Because hurricanes form over warm ocean water, it is easy to assume that the recent rise in their number and ferocity is because of global warming. But that is not the case, scientists say. Instead, the severity of hurricane seasons changes with cycles of temperatures of several decades in the Atlantic Ocean. The recent onslaught "is very much natural," said William M. Gray, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University who issues forecasts for the hurricane season.
From 1970 to 1994, the Atlantic was relatively quiet, with no more than three major hurricanes in any year and none at all in three of those years. Cooler water in the North Atlantic strengthened wind shear, which tends to tear storms apart before they turn into hurricanes.
In 1995, hurricane patterns reverted to the active mode of the 1950's and 60's. From 1995 to 2003, 32 major hurricanes, with sustained winds of 111 miles per hour or greater, stormed across the Atlantic. It was chance, Dr. Gray said, that only three of them struck the United States at full strength. Historically, the rate has been 1 in 3. Then last year, three major hurricanes, half of the six that formed during the season, hit the United States. A fourth, Frances, weakened before striking Florida. "We were very lucky in that eight-year period, and the luck just ran out," Dr. Gray said. Global warming may eventually intensify hurricanes somewhat, though different climate models disagree.
In an article this month in the journal Nature, Kerry A. Emanuel, a hurricane expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote that global warming might have already had some effect. The total power dissipated by tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic and North Pacific increased 70 to 80 percent in the last 30 years, he wrote. But even that seemingly large jump is not what has been pushing the hurricanes of the last two years, Dr. Emanuel said, adding, "What we see in the Atlantic is mostly the natural swing."
Posted by: Steve ||
08/30/2005 11:18 ||
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#1
I posted something about ten days ago, an interview with Gray. He's the guy who invented the system to forcast the number and severity of storms months before the season starts. When he started arguing against global warming while Clintons (yeah, two)and Gore were in power, his 20 years of NOAA funding went away.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/30/2005 19:11 Comments ||
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The Pentagon is making significant changes in strategy and would rely largely on sensors, smart bombs, high-speed transport ships and other hi-tech assets in any conflict with North Korea.
The shift is being undertaken as the U.S. cuts the number of troops in South Korea by one-third and begins moving the remaining soldiers farther from the demilitarized zone to improve their chances of surviving a North Korean attack.
Discussing the new military technology available to the U.S., Gen. Leon J. LaPorte, the senior American commander in South Korea, told the New York Times: "We have better intelligence. We have precision-guided munitions. We have better weapons systems. We have better communications.
"So we are able to not only accomplish our current mission, but increase our capabilities â at the same time reducing the number of personnel it takes to do this."
The shift in war plans incorporates advances in technology and combat skills that were utilized during the U.S. rush to Baghdad in 2003, according to Michael E. O'Hanlon, a scholar at the Brookings Institution and an author of Crisis on the Korean Peninsula: How to Deal With a Nuclear North Korea. Satellite-targeting of bombs allowed U.S. forces to attack Iraqi Republican Guards units even when ground forces were slowed by sandstorms.
In Korea, "there are a large number of targets that we have a chance of taking out in the opening days of a battle, but not the opening minutes, because of our precision-strike capabilities and I.S.R. (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance)," O'Hanlon said.
"Even if artillery is pulled back inside caves, we have a pretty potent capability."
The new plans would include moving Army units and the new Stryker infantry fighting vehicles on C-17 cargo jets from Washington state to reinforce South Korea in just 11 hours, the Times reports.
High-speed troop transports can bring marines from Okinawa in less than a day, Gen. LaPorte said. Heavy equipment for the troops is already positioned in South Korea. Gen. LaPorte could also call on fighter aircraft and bombers based in Japan, Guam, Alaska, Hawaii and the continental U.S.
As for the Pentagon's decision to move ground troops farther from the border of North Korea â which has an estimated 12,000 artillery pieces and rocket tubes close to the demilitarized zone - Gen. LaPorte stated: "Why would we want to have our valuable resources underneath the artillery of North Korea? Our high-value assets are now disposed where they would not be under immediate fire."
#1
A 4x4 pressure treated stake driven into the skull of lil kim with a sledge hammer would about do it. Just need to refine the munitions delivery system.
#2
Somebody should tell that Brookings guy the problem is not how to deal with the North, but how to live with the South. We should not spend another cent on them till they decide the Norks are the enemy. If they want to reunite with their brother, let's get out of the way.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/30/2005 11:06 Comments ||
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#3
Screw this. Let the damn South Koreans defend their own, ungrateful, hateful and downright rude asses.
#7
GS:
Maybe we could do a swap. We pull our guys out of Korea and send them to Iraq, while they pull theirs out of Iraq and go home. Not that we don't appreciate their help, but it seems kind of inefficient to send our troops over there and theirs to Iraq.
Those were the words of Mayor C. Ray Nagin and based upon a major breach of a levee system, water is flowing into New Orleans flooding it beyond recognition and could very well destroy New Orleans, Jefferson and the surrounding areas. In a most frightening interview with WWL TV, Mayor C. Ray Nagin gave the worse-case scenario of events that anyone could possibly imagine. In the beginning of the interview, he stated that New Orleans is devastated.
Of most importance is the breach of the levee between Jefferson and Orleans Parish. âWe probably have 80 percent of our city under water with some sections of our city the water is as deep as 20 feetâ. Both airports are underwater. The twin spans are destroyed. The Yacht club is burned and destroyed. Mayor Nagin also stated he was not sure of the structural soundness of the highrise. He stated that it is possible that the highrise bridge in east New Orleans could be unstable.
The Mayor also stated that all of Slidell (a city which he has no jurisdiction) is under water. Nagin also stated that there was no clear path in and out of New Orleans, that I-10 is underwater. Nagin stated that FEMA is coming into town tomorrow and that New Orleans will need to obtain major federal help to rebuild the city of New Orleans.
As corroboration, a spokesperson from Tulane University said that they were about to move all of the patients from the hospital due to rising water at one inch every five minutes. She said white water was pouring down Canal Street (which would be from Lake Ponchatrain-related to the breach in the levee) from the canal separating the two parishes.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/30/2005 08:46 ||
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#1
If this is accurate about Pnchatrain water pouring in unabated from the canal, then New Orleans is history unless they can dam off the breach or the canal. This will put 20 feet of water in a lot of places, and that in itself is enough to erode and "float" the foundations of most of the buildings in NO. Once that happens, the buildings are gone - those left standing will have to be torn down after things are drained, for safety. This is going to punch a major hole in the economy, at least regionally if not nationally.
#4
If the city is destroyed, cut the dikes upstream and let the Mississippi run the way it wants to - eighty or so miles to the west down the Atchafalaya. They let the Mississippi overbuild itself into a towering, unnatural channel due to the dikes necessary to preserve the city and the port. Don't do that again - don't try to constrain the Mississippi into a main channel again - we'll just have the same damned problem again in fifty years.
If you have to rebuild the port of New Orleans, do it on the cheap, as far upstream as possible. Or, even better, shut it down and redistribute to other, less vulnerable Gulf ports. Leave the suburbs to wither into a tourist-driven backwater.
If we're lucky, the existing bed of the Mississippi will provide some really cracking delta bottomland for agribusiness.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
08/30/2005 10:03 Comments ||
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#5
I smell an opportunity. New Orleans needs dirt. We need a place to dump all that dirt from the construction of a sea level canal between Brownsville, TX, and San Diego, CA. It's a match!
#6
apparently they aren't even sure exactly where the breach or seepage is coming from, so they can't do immediate repairs. Martial law has been declared
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/30/2005 10:40 Comments ||
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#7
Stephen Green at Vodkapundit has links to pictures. Heartbreaking. The damage along the Mississippi and Alabama coasts is really bad. I got in touch with my aunt in Mobile this morning. She said it's worse than Frederick. I was there during Frederick and that was really bad.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/30/2005 10:41 Comments ||
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#8
Raise the city up 20-30 feet so that we'll be good for a couple of centuries.
That's what they did in Galveston after the 1900 huricane. It'll take time and money, but you can lift any building. Or convert the second floor into a new ground floor.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/30/2005 10:42 Comments ||
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#9
Martial law has been declared
Frank, where did you see that?
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
08/30/2005 10:49 Comments ||
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#10
Vodkapundit appears to be empty. Nothing there at blogspot. Does he have a different addr?
Posted by: Analog Roam ||
08/30/2005 11:08 Comments ||
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#12
Martial law has been declared
All over Fox news
Posted by: Steve ||
08/30/2005 11:17 Comments ||
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#13
Vodka Pundit was down first thing this morning and came back up but appears to be down again. Instapundit is down as well. Storm related?
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/30/2005 11:47 Comments ||
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#14
From the pictures and video this morning it looked like pretty widespread looting. 3dc says the Mayor has ordered the total evacuation of New Orleans but I don't have any link.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/30/2005 11:50 Comments ||
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#15
http://tinyurl.com/a6cuw
That link takes you to a page that lists streaming video/live feed. I'm watching/listening to WDSU-TV, which was in NoLa. These folks know a lot more about things than the national guys.
#18
WUSD in New Orleans has a live video stream and they are reporting martial law has been declared.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/30/2005 12:27 Comments ||
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#19
sorry, WDSU
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/30/2005 12:28 Comments ||
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#20
There is no reason to declare Martial Law JUST to keep people from the coming back. The state police on the freeway can do that.
There is realdevastation information in NO, that someone don't want getting out to the media. But, Martial Law can't stop the text messaging. IMO, they declared Martial Law because the government don't the public to see that FEMA and other agencies, were really UNprepared for this destruction. The the truth is that there a major catastrophe that started last night with the levies breaking and there are a lot of people that are since dying and will be dead soon. Right now..
..there are people stuck in attics that cannot be saved, there are too many of them. Water is rising at an astonshing 1ft per hour. This water will be over the roofs soon. Some of the ones that are being saved have severed limbs and may need amputation at a higher level. The national media won't show it. Not that we need to see it but at least report it.
..the hospital's in downtown NO are flooding rapidly with over 1000 patients on life support that may be dead soon. The ambulances cannot get to them. The agencies are trying to airlift the patients but the airlift capacity is not there for all the patients.
..the poor people in the Superdome are stuck in a oven with no working toilets. People are not allowed to leave the Superdome and have no where to go.
..the mayor of NO is ordering evacuations but that's code word for quarantine.
..the French Quarter, where people were having hurricane parties and survived the strong winds, now have massive flooding and cars are floating.
The real truth is that Martial Law has been declared because the levies cannot be stopped and downtown is being Quarantined for diseases, toxic waste, dead bodies floating, etc. The national media is hiding the truth about the real reason for Martial Law. The media is just reporting what the city officials are telling them about NO. They are now allowed, due to Martial Law, to carry out independent investigation within the city. If the Army Corps Engineers cannot fix the multiple levies that are breaking, life cannot be sustained in the city. Clean water is running out.
The only way that I will take back anything that I have written above, is if I get text messaging that states otherwise. Again, the whole city is being quarantined because of the devestation that is happening right now. Over 1 million people are going to need food/shelter/medical attention/water .
The other day the BBC's Have Your Say page on Katrina had a post from a Sam Morrison, or possibly PR:
The scene here looks like something from the apocalypse. People are running around the city, terrified about what to do. Those who are leaving have clogged the roadways so extensively that little hope remains for those who have not yet decided to leave. Gas stations are breeding grounds for fighting and riots, as people are resorting to a state of martial law in order to get the precious gasoline they need to move their vehicles. This truly is the worst part of the storm and it only looks to get worse. God be with everyone who is trying to escape the madness.
I don't think that fellow's quite clear on the meaning of "martial law".
#23
as noted above Fox is backing off the Martial Law for NO only - teh MS parishes are in worse condition actually, except for the Canal St now flooded and French Quarter water rising. Also, 10 is cut off and they may not be able to evacuate anyone else in NO... Some looting and hot tempers at ice distribution center shown on Fox...
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/30/2005 13:34 Comments ||
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#24
by the way, PR - cell service (including texting) is out - no need to restrict info when the towers are shorted out. It's nature, not some dark conspiracy to withhold the bad news. It's already out
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/30/2005 13:37 Comments ||
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#25
Then why are they blinding the satellites? The Man has got his heel on the cajuns neck.
Posted by: A L Chappeau ||
08/30/2005 13:51 Comments ||
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#26
Frank,
"It's nature, not some dark conspiracy to withhold the bad news."
Agreed. But, the extent of the bad news can be held back and that's not conspiracy. I just don't want anyone sugar coating what's happening right now, in NO. Only Fox is retracting the words "Martial Law," local NO media have not retracted from it or at least, yet. Not all cell towers were shorted, early this morning.
Currently, correct me if I am wrong, they are not allowing news helicopter flyovers in NO. All I see is old video.
#27
It looks like the media is showing new video and is taking NO seriously. This was not the case early morning. I never thought I would be so glad to say that I am wrong about how this situation is being handled. Also, local online media is stating that they are very satisfied at the way FEMA and the always brave US Coast Guard is doing the best they can, under the circumstances.
#28
Where the hell is the USS Comfort and all the helos used in the tsumnai effort??!!!???
The gov had better kick it up a notch and take care of our own like they did for Indonesia.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
08/30/2005 15:18 Comments ||
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#29
the city will be uninhabitable for weeks (til the water's pumped out) and months before power and decontamination and fresh water is done. The City is effectively done. Nobody's candycoating it, they're just beginning to realize the extent of the damage and implications. Jobs will be lost, entire school districts shoved somewhere else, no tourism for up to 6 mos +. They're f*&ked. I feel so badly for them and Mississippi, which, being more rural, will take longer to assess. Highway 10 looks smashed...all the highway section across Pontchartrain has missing and displaced deck sections/piers....Watch Fox helicopter shots....live and old shots
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/30/2005 15:18 Comments ||
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#30
FEMA gamed this exact situation as have other emergency agencies over the last couple of years. Everyone was as ready as they could be. Where you are going to see failures will be the hospitals and nursing homes who did inadequate planning, all the morons who did not evacuate or move to a shelter, and the media who will be chasing their own tails repeatedly.
No matter how you plan, or stock up, or anything to do with readiness, nature can always be bigger, larger and tougher. This hurricane was 1,000 miles wide. That is so huge that the human mind can barely comprehend it.
#31
Wow. CNN does just made the Katrina-Iraq connection. Wolf Blitzer asked the CNN Pentagon correspondent if there are enough National Guard troops available because of Iraq. The answer was that there is more than enough troops available.
The perfect opportunity to do some Bush bashing.
What took them so long?
Posted by: Rafael ||
08/30/2005 15:26 Comments ||
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#34
Rafael, CNN was asking that question on Sunday night before the storm hit: "Did the President's was in Iraq divert resources from planning from a hurricane in NO?"
#35
Tidbits on WWLTV.com blog:
3:07 P.M. - Governor Blanco: We are looking for ways to get people out of the Superdome and out of New Orleans said Governor Blanco as she tried to keep from crying.
2:39 P.M. - Jeff Parish councilman Tom Capella says pumps working near Veterans and West Esplanade and water is receeding there. He says break in levee at 17th Street canal continues to pour water into Lakeview.
2:30 P.M. - Coast Guard says it has rescued 1,200 people so far in Louisiana.
2:09 P.M. - Video on WAFB-TV shows the Twin Spans between I-10 and Slidell broken in dozens of spots.
2:07 P.M. - (AP) -- A top casino executive is calling on the Mississippi Legislature to enact emergency legislation to keep the state's coast gaming industry alive. Treasure Bay Casino President and CEO Bernie Burkholder says most of the casino hotels on the coast survived Hurricane Katrina, but several gambling barges suffered extensive damage. He says it could take several years to rebuild.
2:01 P.M. - Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard says there is no plumbing and the sanitary situation is getting nasty. He told WAFB-TV that he is carrying around a bag for his own human waste.
1:26 P.M. - Officials at LSU and local hospitals say they are triaging thousands of people being brought from outside the Baton Rouge area for medical care. The people are being bused in.
1:08 P.M. - "I'm very hopeful, with the devastation we've had, that the number (of deaths) will be much more reasonable than people think. There are not thousands of people floating around." -- Terry Ebbert, New Orleans' homeland security chief.
1:05 P.M. - (AP) -- With much of the city emptied by Hurricane Katrina, some opportunists took advantage of the situation by looting stores. At a Walgreen's drug store in the French Quarter, people were running out with grocery baskets and coolers full of soft drinks, chips and diapers. When police finally showed up, a young boy stood in the door screaming, "86! 86!" -- the radio code for police -- and the crowd scattered. Around the corner on Canal Street, the main thoroughfare in the central business district, people sloshed headlong through hip-deep water as looters ripped open the steel gates on the front of several clothing and jewelry stores. One man, who had about 10 pairs of jeans draped over his left arm, was asked if he was salvaging things from his store. "No," the man shouted, "that's EVERYBODY'S store."
12:44 P.M. - (AP) The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port did NOT suffer major damage as a result of Hurricane Katrina. And a port official says the flow of oil could resume within "a matter of hours" once its power supply is restored.
11:58 A.M. - Homeland security chief optimistic that 3,000 pound sandbags can plug 200 foot levee break at 17th Street Canal.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/30/2005 16:11 Comments ||
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#36
I'm waiting for the Islamic websites to start cheering and saying this was the wrath of Allan.
Oh, and you think the US will get anywhere near as much aid from the rest of the world as we alone gave after the tsunami?
#37
Oh, and you think the US will get anywhere near as much aid from the rest of the world as we alone gave after the tsunami?
We will get $0 aid from the rest of the world. This might just be the turning point in American generosity. Pull the aid packages, foreign aid and others to pay for NO. Not one more American red cent for the other countries. I'm so sick and tired of paying for other countries problems and not getting anything when we need help except hate.
#41
Jobs will be lost, entire school districts shoved somewhere else, no tourism for up to 6 mos +. They're f*&ked. I feel so badly for them and Mississippi, which, being more rural, will take longer to assess
The hospitality industry is such a hugh economic engine in that area it is painful to even consider...Tourists come to NO for conventions, sporting events, embarking cruises, casino visits. The subsets of industries just to service hospitality, and service sector jobs disrupted or washed away is very hard to even begin to fathom. Plus the housing loss, the big spend people who have means will have to have to pay, and those that don't will have to have provided.
Not taking away the shock of losing the WTC,are the clean up efforts for NO going to be ten fold, or greater than what NYC faced in the fall of 2001?
#43
depends Capsu - if the Jersey Girls show up or not
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/30/2005 18:52 Comments ||
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#44
Just got word that the sandbagging have failed. Working pumps will/have stop functioning. The levies have been breached, again. The rescuers were passing up dead bodies to save the ones in the attic. There are still thousands still stuck in the attic and probably dead by now. There is nothing to do but save as many people as possible. NO is a gonner.
#45
Well, I'm praying for those folks--God be with them.
I only visited NO twice, but I really enjoyed it and think it's just a wonderful city.
Commander's Palace, the Quarter, chicory coffee and beignets at the French market, breakfast at Brennan's, hurricanes (ahem), riding the streetcar along St. Charles and Dixieland jazz-love it all!
#46
Heard on TV that the water has stopped rising.
Posted by: john ||
08/30/2005 20:32 Comments ||
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#47
Don't believe it, that's PC talk. What they mean is that, the lake will equalize with the city. The lake is rising. Then in a couple of days, as the Ohio River Valley is being flooded, the water will come down the Mississippi River, if the levies are not fixed, (they won't be)it will the Miss. Rvr's turn to flood the city.
Previous construction created artifical Miss. Rvr tributaries the in the basin which goes through NO. The unnatural Miss. Rvr divertion within the proximity of NO, should concern the Army Corps Eng.
#48
different levee system, PR - sorry. Lake's levee is leaking. River's levee is holding, to date, with no reason why it won't
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/30/2005 21:25 Comments ||
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#49
Frank,
Once again you are right, for now. But, you are missing my point. I doubt the river levee will hold up when the flood waters from the huge rainfall from TS/TD Katrina drain South into the Gulf. Although, the Miss. Rvr. flooded in 1993, the river levee saved NO but, things different after this powerful storm. We won't know anything until 3 or 4 days go by. The media needs to start talking about this possibility, right now.
#50
granted - let's see how both do - I'm a little distressed by someone's post that the patch on teh Lake levee failed? Not the way to design a city....have they never played Sims with their kids?
/sarcasm
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/30/2005 21:44 Comments ||
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#51
I would like all of you to know that the "Global Warming Warning" blame has been uttered by Germany's rabid leftist environment minister Trittin, who has less than three weeks before he's run out of office. He does in no ways represent the true sentiments of the German people.
For those who haven't been watching CNN all day the magnitude of this natural disaster is still beyond comprehension. A week ago we had serious floods in the Alps which now seem to be rather trivial in comparison.
Let me express my sincere condolences to all who lost beloved ones and all my best hopes for those who lost their house, their property, their jobs. In true American spirit, you will fight back. I have no doubts that you will.
#52
When I went to work this morning the worst damage on TV was a yacht clubhouse on fire. What a drastic turn of events. I don't know how long it will take the water to recede, but reports of people not being able to return to their home for a month or more seem extreme. Pray that the death toll is nowhere near some of the speculation in the media.
PS. TGA, wasn't the German floods that got Schroeder reelected also blamed on global warming and the Americans?
Posted by: ed ||
08/30/2005 22:43 Comments ||
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#53
TGA - God bless you. Herr - du kannst brucken bauen.....
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/30/2005 22:51 Comments ||
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#54
Sorry, TGA no Omlauts. Es tut mir leid.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/30/2005 22:56 Comments ||
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#55
It would be presumptiuous of me to accept your wishes for the victims. I appreciate your thoughts and sincerity, and I too, hope to God these people receive relief ASAP. Felt the same for the Tsunami victims....grief transcends
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/30/2005 23:05 Comments ||
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#56
@ed, I don't remember well. We just had some serious floods in the Alps (well don't seem so serious in comparison now) and Global Warming was mentioned.
Btw I find Global Warming a real possibility. How much we are responsable of it is quite another debate.
A few days ago they ran a BBC documentary about "global dimming" (soot in the atmosphere actually leads to cooling and in some ways offsets global warming).
The real problem is not climate change. We always had that. But now it's the first time that climatical changes hit a highly developed world. And so, unfortunately, we will see more disasters like that. And millions of people affected in zones that, given the climate, should not be densely populated.
Hurricanes of course have always existed. And will long after we are gone.
#57
Instaguy has a list of good charities you can pick from to donate - I use Catholic Charities -low o/h and the money gets to all creeds. choose your own and help as you see fit
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/30/2005 23:24 Comments ||
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#58
My engineer colleague got a call from his son at Tulane Univ hospital. The water was up to the car tops and the power went out. His son is a 3rd year surgical resident. They are moving patients out. Helos come every 25 minutes, so it is slow. They are taking them to Lafayette. A number of transplant patients in the mix, too. This doctor and his med student wife will leave after all the patients are safely evacuated. They figure that it will be at least 2 months before Tulane is back in operation. No cell phone no mo'.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/30/2005 23:46 Comments ||
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Announcing itself with shrieking, 145-mph winds, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast just outside New Orleans on Monday, submerging entire neighborhoods up to their roofs, swamping Mississippi's beachfront casinos and killing at least 55 people.
Jim Pollard, spokesman for the Harrison County emergency operations center, said 50 people were killed by Katrina in his county, with the bulk of the deaths at an apartment complex in Biloxi. Three other people were killed by falling trees in Mississippi and two died in a traffic accident in Alabama, authorities said.
For New Orleans â a dangerously vulnerable city because it sits mostly below sea level in a bowl-shaped depression â it was not the apocalyptic storm forecasters had feared.
But it was plenty bad, in New Orleans and elsewhere along the coast, where scores people had to be rescued from rooftops and attics as the floodwaters rose around them. An untold number of other people were feared dead in flooded neighborhoods, many of which could not be reached by rescuers because of high water.
"Some of them, it was their last night on Earth," Terry Ebbert, chief of homeland security for New Orleans, said of people who ignored orders to evacuate the city of 480,000 over the weekend. "That's a hard way to learn a lesson."
"We pray that the loss of life is very limited, but we fear that is not the case," Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said.
Katrina knocked out power to more than a million people from Louisiana to the Florida's Panhandle, and authorities said it could be two months before electricity is restored to everyone. Ten major hospitals in New Orleans were running on emergency backup power.
The federal government began rushing baby formula, communications equipment, generators, water and ice into hard-hit areas, along with doctors, nurses and first-aid supplies. The
Pentagon sent experts to help with search-and-rescue operations.
Katrina was later downgraded to a tropical storm as it passed through eastern Mississippi, moving north at 21 mph. Winds were still a dangerous 65 mph.
Forecasters said that as the storm moves north through the nation's midsection over the next few days, it may spawn tornadoes over the Southeast and swamp the Gulf Coast and the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys with a potentially ruinous 8 inches or more of rain.
Oil refiners said damage to their equipment in the Gulf region appeared to be minimal, and oil prices dropped back from the day's highs above $70 a barrel. But the refiners were still assessing the damage, and the Bush administration said it would consider releasing oil from the nation's emergency stockpile if necessary.
Katrina had menaced the Gulf Coast over the weekend as a 175-mph, Category 5 monster, the most powerful ranking on the scale. But it weakened to a Category 4 and made a slight right-hand turn just become it came ashore around daybreak near the Louisiana bayou town of Buras, passing just east of New Orleans on a path that spared the Big Easy â and its fabled French Quarter â from its full fury.
In nearby coastal St. Bernard Parish, Katrina's storm surge swamped an estimated 40,000 homes. In a particularly low-lying neighborhood on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, a levee along a canal gave way and forced dozens of residents to flee or scramble to the roofs when water rose to their gutters. Across the region, the fierce winds of Katrina blew out windows in hospitals, hotels and high-rises.
"I've never encountered anything like it in my life. It just kept rising and rising and rising," said Bryan Vernon, who spent three hours on his roof, screaming over howling winds for someone to save him and his fiancee.
Across a street that had turned into a river bobbing with garbage cans, trash and old tires, a woman leaned from the second-story window of a brick home and pleaded to be rescued.
"There are three kids in here," the woman said. "Can you help us?"
Blanco said 200 people have been rescued in boats from rooftops, attics and other locations around the New Orleans area, a scene playing out in Mississippi as well. In some cases, rescuers are sawing through roofs to get to people in attics, and other stranded residents "are swimming to our boats," the governor said. In one dramatic resuce, a person was plucked from a roof by a helicopter.
A fire later tore through a yacht club near Lake Pontchartrain.
Elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, Mississippi was subjected to both Katrina's harshest winds and highest recorded storm surges â 22 feet. The storm pushed water up to the second floor of homes, flooded floating casinos, uprooted hundreds of trees and flung sailboats across a highway.
"Let me tell you something, folks: I've been out there. It's complete devastation," said Gulfport, Miss., Fire Chief Pat Sullivan.
In Gulfport, young children clung to one another in a small blue boat as neighbors shuffled children and elderly residents out of a flooded neighborhood.
"Everything is flooded. Roofs are off and everything," said Shun Howell, 25, who was trying to leave with her 5-year-old son. "Everything is ruined."
In some cases, debris was stacked 4 to 5 feet, covering cars. Houses were washed from their foundations.
In Alabama, Katrina's arrival was marked by the flash and crackle of exploding transformers. The hurricane toppled huge oak branches on Mobile's waterfront and broke apart an oil-drilling platform, sending a piece slamming into a major bridge.
Muddy six-foot waves crashed into the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, flooding stately, antebellum mansions and littering them with oak branches.
"There are lots of homes through here worth a million dollars. At least they were yesterday," said a shirtless Fred Wright. "I've been here 25 years, and this is the worst I've ever seen the water."
It was Katrina's second blow: The hurricane hit the southern tip of Florida as a much weaker storm Thursday and was blamed for 11 deaths. It was the sixth hurricane to hit Florida in just over a year.
Calling it a once-in-a-lifetime storm, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin had issued a mandatory evacuation order as Katrina drew near. But the doomsday vision of hurricane waters spilling over levees and swamping the city in a toxic soup of refinery chemicals, sewage and human bodies never materialized.
Forecasters said New Orleans â which has not been hit directly by a major storm since Category 3 Hurricane Betsy struck in 1965 â got lucky again.
"The real important issue here is that when it got to the metropolitan area, it was weaker," said
National Hurricane Center deputy director Ed Rappaport, who estimated the highest winds in New Orleans were 100 mph.
A giant water main broke in New Orleans, making it unsafe to drink the city's water without first boiling it. And police made several arrests for looting.
At New Orleans' Superdome, home to 9,000 storm refugees, the wind ripped pieces of metal from the roof, leaving two holes that let water drip in. A power outage also knocked out the air conditioning, and the storm refugees sweltered in the heat.
Katrina also shattered scores of windows in high-rise office buildings and on five floors of the Charity Hospital, forcing patients to be moved to lower levels. White curtains that had been sucked out of the shattered windows of a hotel became tangled in treetops.
In the French Quarter, made up of Napoleonic-era buildings with wrought-iron balconies, the damage was relatively light.
On Jackson Square, two massive oak trees outside the 278-year-old St. Louis Cathedral came out by the roots, ripping out a 30-foot section of ornamental iron fence and straddling a marble statue of Jesus Christ, snapping off the thumb and forefinger of his outstretched hand.
At the hotel Le Richelieu, the winds blew open sets of balcony French doors shortly after dawn. Seventy-three-year-old Josephine Elow pressed her weight against the broken doors as a hotel employee tried to secure them.
"It's not life-threatening," she said as rainwater dripped from her face. "God's got our back."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/30/2005 00:11 ||
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#1
I fully expect the EU, the UN, and various other nations to spring into action in order to send aid to the United States.
/Nobody
Posted by: Chris W. ||
08/30/2005 0:43 Comments ||
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#2
Look for near-riot conditions as they keep the people in the Superdome for days and days. I was in N.O. during Hurricane Georges, which was much less severe, and they didn't let the people out of the Superdome and release the city's curfew for three days.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/30/2005 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[3 views]
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#1
Damn! Bushitler will do anything to get the anti-war bunch off his back. Even order a cat.5 hurricane. He is one evil, devious, son of a bitch! Now he gets to declare disaster areas, give out aid, act like a bigshot, er, um?
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/30/2005 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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#1
Much better than the 50,000 predicted. And it sounds like property damage isn't nearly as bad as feared as well -- we got really, really lucky this time.
#2
They haven't got into eastern Louisiana and western Mississippi yet. They had a 20 foot storm surge around Pass Christian and Gulfport. I think it's going to be very bad there.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/30/2005 8:38 Comments ||
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#3
Word coming out of Gulfport, they have about 30 dead in one apartment complex that collapsed. Looks like a replay of Camile. Helicopters up now, lots of flooding around NO, many houses seen on fire. I'd guess short circuits, but power is out. Gas leaks or someone left a pilot light on the stove. Too much water, fire trucks can't get in. Fire could jump roof to roof and spread.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/30/2005 10:02 Comments ||
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#4
Mississippi is saying it has 80 missing and possibly dead in Harrison County, which includes Gulfport and Biloxi.
I'm going to say the total is going to be around 3-400 when it's all over. It's a terrible tragedy (and still haven't heard about My friend's mom, who was in a nursing home in Nwalins), but it could have been worse.
BOISE, Idaho (AP) - The state is supporting an Energy Department proposal to start producing plutonium-238 for NASA and national security agencies at a federal nuclear research compound in eastern Idaho.
But in comments submitted Monday to the government, the state called on the Bush administration to spell out a plan to transfer the highly radioactive waste created at the Idaho National Laboratory to disposal sites out of state. The state also wants the Energy Department to allow independent monitoring of air emissions and workplace safety at the proposed $300 million production facility.
With those caveats, the administration of Gov. Dirk Kempthorne said it will endorse the government's plan to consolidate U.S. production of plutonium-238 ``space batteries'' at the 890-square-mile complex outside of Idaho Falls. ``It's a concept we can support, but there are some details that still need to be worked out and DOE needs to improve some of its evaluation and communication,'' said Kathleen Trever, Kempthorne's coordinator for oversight of the lab.
Note to Nevada about the Yucca Mt. waste facility: this is how it's done.
Plutonium-238 is not used for nuclear weapons, but its steady, virtually infinite release of heat during decay makes the isotope valuable as a heat source to produce electricity in spacecraft and for some satellites that are unable to rely on the sun as an energy source. It is many times more radioactive than weapons-grade plutonium-239, however, and ingesting a speck can be fatal.
The United States stopped producing plutonium-238 when it shut the last weapons reactor at the Savannah River complex in South Carolina in the mid-1990s. Instead it has relied on existing stockpiles and a supply provided by Russia that is limited to use by NASA in the space program. The Bush administration wants to use an existing reactor at the lab to make 11 pounds of plutonium-238 annually for 35 years, beginning in 2010.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/30/2005 00:00 ||
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[1 views]
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#1
"You say you want to drop a few billion on our state economy? Well...ok."
#5
Steve, I'm a proud citizen of Nevada, the Battle Born state. Most of us are really unenthusiastic about Yucca Mountain. Actually, we hate the idea. Do you know why? It's because Californians always dumps their sh!t in our state, that's why. When the "ecologically sensitive" inhabitants of the Idiot State want to build a coal power plant, why, they look to Nevada. When they have more trash than they can put in their landfills, why, they take it to Nevada. When California has more maximum security prisoners than its prisons can hold.... you guessed it. Nevada.
I doubt it has ever occurred to most Californians that with every passing year the majority of us hate the majority of them a little bit more. After all, there are 30+ million of them and only 2+ million of us. Several urban Californians (I work in San Francisco some of the time) have even expressed surprise to me that anybody even lives in Nevada. I mean, itâs just a wasteland, right? The ignorance, arrogance, and craven decadence of your average Tarnished State city dweller never fails to amaze and appal me. Truly, they are the most worthless variety of American.
Californians have completely destroyed their own home and are looking outwards for new places to culturally, legally, and literally trash. Something like 95% of our state is still pristine wilderness; most of us hope to keep it that way. So screw them and, if the rest of you want to dump your garbage in our state, screw you too. I donât have a problem with nuclear power but what gave other Americans the notion that my home is a junkyard? If you live in New York, keep your radioactive waste in New York.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
An ostrich has boldly gone where no ostrich has ever gone before. The six-foot-tall bird, who apparently didn't feel like hiding its head in the sand, escaped from the back of a cargo van on the Golden Gate Bridge on Monday, stopping evening commute traffic in both directions and sending dozens of tourists racing for their cameras. 
MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- A gunman shot and killed a former Russian sports official who was allegedly linked to the fixing of figure skating results at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported Tuesday, citing police officials. Chevalier Nusuyev, former president of the Russian youth sports federation, died shortly after being taken to a hospital following the attack in southwest Moscow late Monday, the report said. 
BERLIN - Germany's environment minister hinted Tuesday that Americans were to blame for Hurricane Katrina due to the U.S. refusal to cut greenhouse gases which many experts say cause global warming. "The increasing frequency of these natural events can only be explained through global warming which is caused by people," said Trittin who is member of the Greens in a ZDF TV interview. 
France plans to launch a "solidarity tax" on airline tickets as early as next year to help fund the global fight against poverty, Jacques Chirac said yesterday. Saying he wanted his country to be "in the forefront" of efforts to boost aid to Africa, the French president - eager not to be outshone in the aid stakes by Tony Blair's recent drive for the continent - said he had asked the government "to start the necessary procedures without waiting".
A woman who led an anti-war protest for nearly a month near President Bush's ranch said Tuesday that she's glad Bush never showed up to discuss her son's death in Iraq, saying the president's absence "galvanized the peace movement."
BATON ROUGE, La. Aug 30, 2005 â With water rising in the streets of New Orleans and conditions rapidly deteriorating, Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Tuesday that the tens of thousands of people now huddled in the Superdome and other rescue centers would have to be evacuated. "The situation is untenable," Blanco said at a news conference. "It's just heartbreaking." 
A 16-year-old boy has devised a way to charge his cell phone with the help of his hamster. Peter Ash of Lawford, Somerset designed a hamster wheel that utilized gears and turbines to charge his cell phone. According to his tests every two minutes of wheel time gives his phone 30 minutes of talk time.
The Pentagon is making significant changes in strategy and would rely largely on sensors, smart bombs, high-speed transport ships and other hi-tech assets in any conflict with North Korea.
