Gary Farber notes that millions of right-wingers have had there hopes dashed with the news that Jane Fonda is cancelling her bus tour.
Damn!
by John Cole| 15 Comments
This post is in: Humorous
by John Cole| 15 Comments
This post is in: Humorous
Gary Farber notes that millions of right-wingers have had there hopes dashed with the news that Jane Fonda is cancelling her bus tour.
This post is in: General Stupidity
Again, I am all sorts of sure there have been numerous cock-ups by the city, the state, and the feds, and I am sure FEMA has done a number of dumb things (and for the love of God, no more emails about the fireman bit- when things calm down, I am sure there will be an honest accounting of everything that did and did not happen). But this kind of stupidity can’t be allowed to fester:
THE HELL III: The details are almost indescribable:
“Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks stepped through the food service entrance of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Monday, flipped on the light at the end of his machine gun, and started pointing out bodies. “Don’t step in that blood – it’s contaminated,” he said. “That one with his arm sticking up in the air, he’s an old man.”
Then he shined the light on the smaller human figure under the white sheet next to the elderly man.
“That’s a kid,” he said. “There’s another one in the freezer, a 7-year-old with her throat cut.”
He moved on, walking quickly through the darkness, pulling his camouflage shirt to his face to screen out the overwhelming odor.
“There’s an old woman,” he said, pointing to a wheelchair covered by a sheet. “I escorted her in myself. And that old man got bludgeoned to death,” he said of the body lying on the floor next to the wheelchair.
Note that these people were not killed by the force of a hurricane, but by the lack of response to it.
Yes- a delay in delivering food and water slit a 7 year old’s throat and bludgeoned an old man in a wheelchair. Thanks Andrew. That statement may be as irresponsible a statement from the press or a blogger that I have ever seen.
And yes, of course, I know I am nothing but a Bush shill for noting that neither Mayor Nagin, Governor Blanco, Michael Chertoff, Mike Brown, or President Bush are responsible for the animals who slit the throat of a 7 yeard old.
Beating The Failure Meme To Death- And Throwing Reason Out in the ProcessPost + Comments (137)
by John Cole| 10 Comments
This post is in: War
News from Iraq is mixed:
Three of the contractors, who worked for the United States embassy office in Basra, were killed instantly by the blast, embassy officials said, and the fourth died at a hospital shortly afterward. Their names and the company they worked for are being withheld until their families are notified.
American soldiers found the hostage, Roy Hallums, a 57-year-old contractor, at an isolated farmhouse 15 miles south of Baghdad after receiving a tip from an Iraqi detainee, military officials said in a statement. He was in good condition and was receiving medical care, the officials said. An Iraqi captive with him whose name was not released was also freed.
“I want to thank all of those involved in my rescue those who continuously tracked my captors and location, and those who physically brought me freedom today,” Mr. Hallums said in a statement issued through the military.
The folks at the Jawa Report are elated by the news of the rescue, as they should be.
by John Cole| 7 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
The waters are slowly receding:
In a herculean task that could take months, engineers struggled to pump out the flooded city Tuesday, and the filthy waters were dropping noticeably. “I’m starting to see rays of light,” the mayor said.
The pumping began after the Army Corps of Engineers used rocks and sandbags over the Labor Day weekend to finally plug the 200-foot gap that let water spill into New Orleans and swamp 80 percent of the bowl-shaped, below-sea-level city in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
On Tuesday, the Corps said the area under water had fallen to about 60 percent.
“I’m starting to see water levels much lower than I’ve seen,” Mayor Ray Nagin said after surveying his city from the air. “Even in areas where the water was as high as the rooftops, I started to see parts of the buildings.”
I really do wonder how long this is going to take to get the city back to some semblance of “normal.” Six months? A year? 5 Years? Never?
And Mississippi, which didn’t get flooded to the extent of NO, but who really got hit much harder by the violence of the hurricane, will take just as long, if not longer.
This post is in: Outrage
Dear Families of Loved Ones Lost In Katrina:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has requested that photographers refrain from photographing the bodies of victims of Katrina:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, heavily criticized for its slow response to the devastation caused by the hurricane, rejected requests from journalists to accompany rescue boats as they went out to search for storm victims.
An agency spokeswoman said space was needed on the rescue boats and that "the recovery of the victims is being treated with dignity and the utmost respect."
"We have requested that no photographs of the deceased be made by the media," the spokeswoman said in an e-mailed response to a Reuters inquiry.
We disagree. We believe that the bloated, decaying corpse of your loved one(s) should be splashed on national television and on the fronts of newspapers, even if you have not been notified of their status, because this government President Bush must be held accountable for Hurricane Katrina. After all, "people have died and suffered because of the dithering of a Republican president, and they’ll do anything in their power to hide and cover that up."
We believe it is important that you "see the results, in some part, of Bush's FEMA handiwork." What we fear is that "an entire city is going to be erased from the map, and you are not going to be allowed to see it."
So, when we demand that those who died in this natural disaster have their bloated corpse bandied about like a political prop, it is really because we care deeply about this country.
Without a shred of human decency,
Attaturk
Oliver Willis
Stirling Newberry
(and many more to come, you can be sure)
by John Cole| 26 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
The NY Times discusses something that has received little attention in the media, but had been discussed here in several threads. In the rush to pump the water out of New Orleans, we are forgetting what is in that water:
While the human and economic toll of Hurricane Katrina continued to mount, New Orleans was beginning to pump back into Lake Pontchartrain the floodwaters that had inundated the city.
But this is not the same water that flooded the city. What started flowing back into the lake on Monday and continued spilling into it Tuesday is laced with raw sewage, bacteria, heavy metals, pesticides and toxic chemicals, Louisiana officials said on Tuesday.
Whether or not the accelerating pumping of this brew from city streets into coastal waters poses a threat to the ecosystems and fisheries in the brackish bay remains to be seen, the officials said.
They added that they could do little more than keep testing and count on the restorative capacity of nature to break down or bury contaminants.
Though the state of the lake was a prime issue, it was just one of a host of problems identified in the storm-ravaged region on Tuesday by Louisiana and federal environmental officials.
For example, the officials said that although two large oil spills, from damaged storage tanks, were under control, thousands of other smaller spills continued to coat floodwaters in New Orleans with a rainbow sheen.
The first samples of the city’s floodwaters were taken on Saturday by the Environmental Protection Agency, and results were expected later in the week, officials said.
“It’s simply unfeasible” to try and hold the pumped water somewhere to filter out pollution, said Michael D. McDaniel, the Louisiana secretary of environmental quality.
“We have to get the water out of the city or the nightmare only gets worse,” said Dr. McDaniel, who is a biologist. “We can’t even get in to save people’s lives. How can you put any filtration in place?”
Just another angle to this never-ending mess.
*** Update ***
Welcome, Guardian readers.
by John Cole| 20 Comments
This post is in: Politics
I don’t know what to make of these comments:
President Bush said Tuesday that his list of candidates to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was “wide open,” and he jokingly but pointedly singled out Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.
Mr. Bush’s mention of Mr. Gonzales as a possibility, in comments to reporters at the end of a cabinet meeting, fueled concern among conservatives, who were already mobilizing against the attorney general. Conservatives say that Mr. Gonzales has not shown himself to be sufficiently opposed to abortion rights and that nominating him would miss an opportunity to move the court fundamentally to the right.
Mr. Bush said that he had yet to make up his mind and that he would “take a good, long look at who should replace Justice O’Connor.” But he mentioned only one name, that of Mr. Gonzales, a longtime friend and aide who, if nominated and confirmed, would be the first Hispanic on the court.
“The list is wide open, which should create some good speculation here in Washington,” Mr. Bush said to laughter in the Cabinet Room, with the attorney general sitting directly across from him. “And make sure you notice when I said that, I looked right at Al Gonzales, who can really create speculation.”
Alberto Gonzalez is not going to be a nominee, so I am not sure what Bush is doing. Maybe he is just tweaking all involved…