Katrina's aftermath

but i want to! i have rights, you know.

1:47 P.M. - Governor Blanco: Superdome now under control, evacuations resume.

Cyrus Chestnut

I've got it! He was going to do a chromatic slidedown! Fancy!

Well then, stomp your cowboy boots on the floor instead!

More on Rice on Broadway in Drudge today:

"Eyewitness: Sec of State Condi Rice laughs it up at 'Spamalot' while Gulf Coast lays in tatters. Theater goers on New York' City's Great White Way were shocked to see the President's former National Security Advisor at the Monty Python farce last night -- as the rest of the cabinet responds to Hurricane Katrina..."

Even Drudge is running this at the top of a column.

xpost

Is it really, though?

Also, from the radio feed:

"armed civillians surounding police officers by the canal by the mariot"

Indeed.

Hurricane Politics -- As Katrina forced President Bush to cut short his vacation, the White House is facing a perfect storm of trouble at home and abroad.

WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY
By Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey
Newsweek
Updated: 10:54 p.m. ET Aug. 31, 2005
Aug. 31, 2005 - On Tuesday, President Bush called an abrupt end to his five-week “working vacation” at his Texas ranch and announced he would return to the White House two days early to oversee federal response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. “These are trying times for the people of these communities,” Bush said Tuesday during a visit to a naval base in San Diego. “We have a lot of work to do.”

For the White House, it was interesting timing. Over the last month, administration officials have deflected criticism of Bush’s monthlong stay at his Texas ranch by making the case that technology has made it possible for Bush to run the country from anywhere, even the so-called Western White House. Indeed, the Bush ranch is equipped with highly secure videoconferencing equipment and phones, and, according to White House officials, Bush has made use of them just about every day this month to talk to senior aides back in Washington and other administration officials scattered throughout the country.

Yet Bush usually hasn’t had to go far to reach his top aides. For the last month, Karl Rove, his closest political adviser, and Joe Hagin, Bush’s deputy chief of staff, have alternated turns living in a trailer just down the driveway from Bush’s main ranch house. Other officials have come to the ranch to meet with Bush face to face, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney. All three visited Crawford to discuss war strategy with Bush earlier this month. In other words, Bush’s days in Texas aren’t all that different from his time in the Oval Office, top aides say. Vacation or not, Bush is always running the country no matter where he is. “When you’re president, you’re president 24/7,” White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters Wednesday.

So why is Bush going back to Washington now? When asked yesterday what Bush could do in Washington for hurricane relief that he couldn’t do from his Texas ranch, McClellan told reporters no less than five times that it was the president’s “preference” to return to the White House. Asked if the decision was more “symbolic” than logistical, McClellan said, “I disagree with the characterization.”

From the moment Katrina set aim for the Gulf Coast, White House officials have had two other storms on their minds: last year’s devastating tsunami, to which Bush was criticized for responding too slowly, and the political turmoil that Bush faces here at home over the war and the economy. Indeed, August has not been a good month for the Bush administration. White House officials had hoped to capitalize on a slow news cycle to tout the president’s second-term agenda and his accomplishments so far. Yet a spike in casualties in Iraq this month has deepened already widespread worries about the war. That bad news was only compounded by the stampede in Baghdad on Wednesday that left more than 800 Shia pilgrims dead after rumors of a suicide bomber sparked panic.

That dismal news from Iraq, combined with rising gas prices here at home, has sent Bush’s poll numbers plummeting to new lows. An ABC News/Washington Post survey released Wednesday has Bush’s approval rating at 45 percent — down 7 points since January and the lowest every recorded this president by that particular poll.

Bush and other administration officials repeatedly say they don’t pay attention to polls, but they do admit paying close attention to the images of the war and the presidency that Americans see on TV. That’s partly why Bush abruptly called reporters to his ranch Sunday morning to make a statement about Hurricane Katrina as it inched toward the Gulf Coast states. The message: that Bush was ahead of the storm and would be there to respond to its certain devastation. It was in strong contrast to last December’s tsunami, when Bush didn’t make a public statement about the tragedy until three days later, well after the death toll had reached into the tens of thousands.

As Bush returns to Washington to deal with Katrina’s aftermath, it’s a chance for him to look presidential and to briefly turn public attention from a troubled war to the homefront. Already, the White House has promised to send billions of dollars in aide to the affected region, and tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is expected to shave a few cents off record-high gas prices.

Later this week, Bush is expected to travel to the affected region, where his poll numbers have taken a hit over concerns about the war. In Louisiana, more than a quarter of the state’s National Guard troops are currently in Iraq—a stat that had local officials concerned considering the role the guard typically plays in helping the state weather such storms. A Survey USA poll released earlier this month found Bush’s approval rating in Louisiana had dipped to 48 percent — down 5 points since July.

Beyond the poll numbers, the Bush administration faces some immediate, urgent challenges—and serious questions about its response to the disaster. For all the president’s statements ahead of the hurricane, the region seemed woefully unprepared for the flooding of New Orleans — a catastrophe that has long been predicted by experts and politicians alike. There seems to have been no contingency planning for a total evacuation of the city, including the final refuges of the city’s Superdome and its hospitals. There were no supplies of food and water ready offshore — on Navy ships for instance — in the event of such flooding, even though government officials knew there were thousands of people stranded inside the sweltering and powerless city.

Then there’s the speed of the Bush administration’s response to such disasters. Just one week ago the White House declared that a major disaster existed in Louisiana, specifically most of the areas (such as Jefferson Parish) that are now under water. Was the White House psychic about the disaster ahead? Not exactly. In fact the major disaster referred to Tropical Storm Cindy, which struck the state a full seven weeks earlier. That announcement triggered federal aid for the stricken areas, where the clean-up had been on hold for almost two months while the White House chewed things over.

Now, faced with a far bigger and deadlier disaster, the Bush administration faces at least two difficult questions: Was it ready to deal with the long-predicted flooding of New Orleans? And is it ready to deal with the long-predicted terrorist attack that might some day strike another of our big cities?

Then there’s the speed of the Bush administration’s response to such disasters. Just one week ago the White House declared that a major disaster existed in Louisiana, specifically most of the areas (such as Jefferson Parish) that are now under water. Was the White House psychic about the disaster ahead? Not exactly. In fact the major disaster referred to Tropical Storm Cindy, which struck the state a full seven weeks earlier. That announcement triggered federal aid for the stricken areas, where the clean-up had been on hold for almost two months while the White House chewed things over.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- New Orleans' Charity Hospital halted efforts to evacuate its patients after it came under sniper fire, according to Dr. Tyler Curiel, who witnessed the incidents.

The attack came as New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin issued "a desperate SOS" for the thousands of people stranded in an around the city's convention center with no food or water and fading hope.

Curiel and his National Guard escorts, were returning to the hospital after dropping off patients at nearby Tulane Medical Center, when someone started shooting at their convoy of Humvees.

"We were coming in from a parking deck at Tulane Medical Center, and a guy in a white shirt started firing at us," Curiel said. "The National Guard (troops), wearing flak jackets, tried to get a bead on this guy. "

The incident happened around 11:30 a.m. (12:30 p.m. ET). About an hour later, another gunman opened fire at the back of Charity Hospital.

"We got back to Charity Hospital with with food from Tulane and we said, 'OK the snipers are behind us, let's move on,'" Curiel said. "We started loading patients (for transport) and 20 minutes later, shots rang out."

The National Guard soldiers told staff to get away from the windows, and evacuations were halted.

Charity Hospital has no electricity, no water and the only food available is couple of cans of vegetables and graham crackers.

Evacuations by boat were halted after armed looters threatened medics, and overturned one of their boats.

The sniper attacks were the latest incidents of violence that have disrupted efforts to help people in the flooded city.

I've been wondering the exact same thing, Ambrose.

also, for those of you watching the 24/7 newsfeeds, can you keep a count of how many Admin/RNC folks use the "This is not a time for finger-pointing or politics" line, either in part or word-for-word?

Once the dam is built to block water from Lake Pontchartrain from flowing into the canal, engineers will try to repair the levee breach.

xpost!

when my dad was basically a pitchman for the evil empire (read: Lockheed), he explained that the agents they worked with monitored events like this very closely to find evidence of infrastructural weakness and an inability to reach interior parts of the homeland. international intelligence treats any country's ability to move heavy equipment as a proxy for their ability to move tanks, personnel etc. and was something the U.S. watched very closely in the USSR in the late eighties.

It's a shame we didn't learn as much about ourselves through political paranoia.

ok for example, in Russia, the biggest country geographically in the world, if shit goes down in Vladivostok, if there was a terrorist attack or earthquake or something, then what would happen is that local resources would be pathetically unequipped to deal with the situation, and assistance on a national scale would be necessary. its a 10 day train ride, maybe a 7 hr flight from moscow to vladivostok, so that gives a rough time frame of travel times. but in russia nothing would be done anyway by central gov. or very little. two years ago, all power was lost in many cities in siberia in winter, there was no heating, in -50c temperatures. what did the gov. do? putin said the governor of the provice was a prat, or something. some lame ass officical said h was going to negotiate with the energy company to get them to put the power back on. that was about it. the thing is, in russia, i would expect that response. but in a situation which is a lot worse, i get the impression of a similar response from the US government. so i repeat: what exactly are they thinking? and is what they are doing all that is possible given the logistics of organising support, given that this has been an active situation since tuesday? im not asking those with predjudice, or a mocking euro-sneer, im asking those in the US know.

This thread has become massive.. and I blame myself most for bringing up the political side.. hence why I started that thread.

There are ILXORs unaccounted for... we need a clearer way for such info to be brought to attention here.. information about the state of things should remain here, as usual.

What you don't understand is that the party currently in power wants to shrink the federal government and "reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

How do I set that, again?

They say "come get us" and expect it to happen. I don't know if that's an unreasonable expectation, but I don't think it is, in the richest nation on earth. That the help isn't coming is a tragic, tragic fuckup by selfish, foolish politicians.

time for "show only 50 newest messages"

this thread is getting too large too quickly. it's easy to step away from the computer for an hour and see over a hundred new messages when you get back -- setting it to show only the 50 newest means there are several others we're not seeing. a sequel thread would be nice.

Analysis: When is looting okay?

Searching for former Red Sox pitcher
Name: Dick Bresciani

Phone: 617-226-6710

e-mail: [email protected]

I am a vp of the Boston Red Sox. One of our ex great people and pitchers Mel Parnell lives on 700 Turquoise St. We are unable to reach him by phone and are concerned. Is there any way you can contact him for us? is my direct line. Thank you.

read some interesting stuff about how the government's practice of allowing wetlands to be developed has hurt too, wetlands help stem the tide in nature i guess.

i love it when a plan comes together. go america.

this sucks.

Meanwhile, to give you an idea of what kind of charming people are out there:

Name: Paula Drake

Phone: 630-513-6245

I have as much sympathy as anyone for what you are going through. I have family and friends both in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. But What I am seeing on the news with the looting, shooting at the police, shooting at the people trying to help, really makes me sick. What part of ''You need to get out of town'' did these people not understand? Both the Gov. and mayor told the people that it was going to be a bad storm and they needed to leave. As I tell my children when they talk back to me, ''What part of NO do you not understand, and at 10 and 11 they know where the line is drawn. These people that decided to stay home put not just their lives, but the national guard and the coast guard who then had to go out and try to save them at what cost to the tax payer. Then when they do get picked up they complain about the ''service'' at the dome as if it a hotel. This is a deaster area, they don't get room service. Then when I see the people looting for TVs and racks of clothing I wonder, what are they doing, are they planning a yard sale? I saw a lady yesterday yelling at a newman, ''Its hot here in the projects, and I needs me some water and some food''....I really did expect her to complain about her power being off and her welfare check being late....Give me a break, It sad and its a mess and I will help the in the areas where I can see people trying to help themselves. But I will not help gang members be relocated to another city....If the shoot at a police officer they should be shoot, If they shoot at a gardsman the same.....There should be NO TOLERANCE for this trpe of behavior. I'd sound like a racist if I said this is WHY they needed a master....

Yeah, you would, wouldn't you.

http://theposies.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=134