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Catastrophes

  • Blackwater Down
    24 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    by Jeremy Scahill
    The men from Blackwater USA arrived in New Orleans right after Katrina hit. The company known for its private security work guarding senior US diplomats in Iraq beat the federal government and most aid organizations to the scene in another devastated Gulf. About 150 heavily armed Blackwater troops dressed in full battle gear spread out into the chaos of New Orleans. Officially, the company boasted of its forces "join[ing] the hurricane relief effort." But its men on the (…)

  • Public Pressure Mounts for Bush to Curtail Iraq War After Katrina Disaster
    24 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    by Beth Gorham WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush says he can wage war in Iraq and still pay most of the huge bill for rebuilding the hurricane-lashed Gulf Coast. Most Americans don’t agree with him. And for the first time, Bush is facing a serious revolt in his own party over how to pay for hurricane relief.
    Republicans already edgy about the estimated $200-billion US price tag to clean up after Katrina were bracing for more damage by week’s end as hurricane Rita hurtled toward Texas (…)

  • Healthcare swept away
    24 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    By Derrick Z. Jackson
    ONE OF THE most sordid stories to come out of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was the discovery of 154 bodies in hospitals and nursing homes. They account for 21 percent of the currently counted fatalities in Louisiana. Despite the heroism of doctors and nurses, The New York Times wrote, ’’the collapse of one of society’s most basic covenants — to care for the helpless — suggests that the elderly and critically ill plummeted to the bottom of priority lists as (…)

  • Journalist Jim Pinkerton of Newsday Thinks that Katrina Victims are "Whiners"
    24 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    3 comments

    by Mary MacElveen
    Dear Folks,
    So, Jim Pinkerton thinks that Katrina victims are whiners? If you wish to send him an email, here are his email addresses, jim@jamesPPinkerton.com or pinkerto@ix.netcom You may also wish to remind him that aid from other countries such as Venezuela and Cuba were offered at no expense to tax payers, but this federal government said, “Thanks but no thanks”
    My letter to Jim Pinkerton:
    Dear Jim,
    We have corresponded on a cordial level in the past, but I (…)

  • Rita and Katrina have ideologues spinning
    24 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    4 comments

    by Don Williams
    This is what we’re up against.
    If an unpleasant possibility rears its head in the real world-one that runs counter to pet policies of ideologues—they simply decree it isn’t so and move on. That’s how ideologues so often operate. Take these lines from a column that ran in newspapers, including this one Sept. 9. Charles Krauthammer wrote: “This kind of stupidity merits no attention whatsoever, but I’ll give it a paragraph. There is no relationship between global warming and (…)

  • Rita : bus fire kills 20 people
    23 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    10 comments

    Bus fire ’kills 20’ Rita evacuees
    A bus carrying elderly evacuees from Hurricane Rita has caught fire on a gridlocked motorway, killing up to 20 people, a police spokesman says.
    The bus was engulfed in flames, causing a 17-mile (27-km) tailback on the Interstate 45 highway, the main route north from the Gulf Coast to Dallas.
    Oxygen used by the elderly people could have contributed to the blaze, a police spokesman told AP news agency.
    He said early indications were that the cause of (…)

  • The Reason The Hurricanes Will Intensify The Anti-War Effort:
    22 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    5 comments

    I really wish I didn’t have to say this, but it needs to be said...
    The Reason The Hurricanes Will Intensify The Anti-War Effort:
    They say Katrina & Rita are going to detract attention from the effort to end the war. I say Bullshit. They are going to cost so damn much money that they are going to force the Bushwackers to BRING THEM HOME to deal with it financially and physically. There are too many links between the subjects. 1. The war in iraq is about oil. Even Bushwack himself (…)

  • Bush Is Insane
    22 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    22 comments

    President compares hurricane and terrorism
    by Jennifer Monroe
    WASHINGTON, D.C. — (OfficialWire) — 09/22/05 — Well, it was bound to happen. In the face of incoming Hurricane Rita, George W. Bush on Wednesday linked the American response to terrorism and its response to Hurricane Katrina, declaring that the United States is emerging a stronger nation from both challenges, and saying that terrorists look at the storm’s devastation "and wish they had caused it."
    Congress MUST invoke (…)

  • Last Gas...
    22 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    5 comments

    "And they said her name was Rita..."
    She came ripping up the gulf like a bad Godzilla swarm, Mother Nature’s take on B-flick horror, Headed straight for the refineries like a tight-wound white steamroller, Storm surges higher than twenty feet.
    Those silvery Moonlight beaches of Galveston I remember will never be the same.
    The pundits were screaming five bucks plus and lines at the pumps, The stocks were at the bottom and digging for China, Guess they had a bamboo handle on the shovel, (…)

  • KATRINA RELIEF AND FEDERAL SPENDING AND DEFICITS
    22 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    2 comments

    By Jim Horney, Robert Greenstein, and Richard Kogan
    Some conservative lawmakers and pundits are arguing that while the funding for relief and recovery efforts from the hurricane may be money that the nation has to spend, the costs will swell federal spending to dangerous and unprecedented levels. This claim is being used both to advance calls for sharp cuts in other domestic programs - in order to offset the costs of relief and recovery efforts - and to reject any suggestion that the tax (…)