Hurricane Katrina
GWhyte
Food or Water
By The Associated Press
Hurricane Katrina Leaves Thousands of African-Americans Without Shelter,
Food or Water
By The Associated Press
http://www.blacknews.com/pr/katrina101.html
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Rescuers along the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast pushed
aside the dead to reach the living Tuesday in a race against time and rising
waters, while New Orleans sank deeper into crisis and Louisiana's governor
ordered storm refugees out of this drowning city.
Two levees broke and sent water coursing into the streets of the Big Easy a
full day after New Orleans appeared to have escaped widespread destruction
from Hurricane Katrina. An estimated 80 percent of the below-sea-level city
was under water, up to 20 feet deep in places, with miles and miles of homes
swamped.
"The situation is untenable," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. "It's just
heartbreaking."
One Mississippi county alone said its death toll was at least 100, and
officials are "very, very worried that this is going to go a lot higher,"
said Joe Spraggins, civil defense director for Harrison County, home to
Biloxi and Gulfport. In neighboring Jackson County, officials said at least
10 deaths were blamed on the storm.
Several victims in Harrison County were from a beachfront apartment building
that collapsed under a 25-foot wall of water as Katrina slammed the Gulf
Coast with 145-mph winds. And Louisiana officials said many were feared dead
there, too, making Katrina one of the most punishing storms to hit the
United States in decades.
After touring the destruction by air, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said it
is not of case of homes being severely damaged, "they're simply not there.
... I can only imagine that this is what Hiroshima looked like 60 years
ago."
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said hundreds, if not thousands, of people may
still be stuck on roofs and in attics, and so rescue boats were bypassing
the dead.
"We're not even dealing with dead bodies," Nagin said. "They're just pushing
them on the side."
The flooding in New Orleans grew worse by the minute, prompting the
evacuation of hotels and hospitals and an audacious plan to drop huge
sandbags from helicopters to close up one of the breached levees. At the
same time, looting broke out in some neighborhoods, the sweltering city of
480,000 had no drinkable water, and the electricity could be out for weeks.
With water rising perilously inside the Superdome, Blanco said the thousands
of refugees now huddled there would be evacuated within two days. She said
officials are working on a plan to get the people to other shelters.
The dome, which became a shelter of last resort for some 20,000 people, is
currently without electricity and has no air conditioning. Broken toilets
have also made for extremely unsanitary conditions, Blanco said.
"Conditions are degenerating rapidly," she said. "It's a very, very
desperate situation."
She asked residents to spend Wednesday in prayer.
"That would be the best thing to calm our spirits and thank our Lord that we
are survivors," she said. "Slowly, gradually, we will recover; we will
survive; we will rebuild."
A helicopter view of the devastation over the New Orleans area revealed
people standing on black rooftops baking in the sunshine while waiting for
rescue boats. A row of desperately needed ambulances were lined up on the
interstate, water blocking their path. Roller coasters jutted out from the
water at a Six Flags amusement park. Hundreds of inmates were seen standing
on a highway because the prison had been flooded.
Sen. Mary Landrieu quietly traced the sign of the cross across her head and
chest as she looked out at St. Bernard Parish, where only roofs peeked out
from the water.
"The whole parish is gone," Landrieu said.
All day long, rescuers in boats and helicopters pulled out shellshocked and
bedraggled flood refugees from rooftops and attics. Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu
said that 3,000 people have been rescued by boat and air, some placed
shivering and wet into helicopter baskets. They were brought by the
truckload into shelters, some in wheelchairs and some carrying babies, with
stories of survival and of those who didn't make it.
"Oh my God, it was hell," said Kioka Williams, who had to hack through the
ceiling of the beauty shop where she worked as floodwaters rose in New
Orleans' low-lying Ninth Ward. "We were screaming, hollering, flashing
lights. It was complete chaos."
Frank Mills was in a boarding house in the same neighborhood when water
started swirling up toward the ceiling and he fled to the roof. Two elderly
residents never made it out, and a third was washed away trying to climb
onto the roof.
"He was kind of on the edge of the roof, catching his breath," Mills said.
"Next thing I knew, he came floating past me."
Across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, more than 1 million residents
remained without electricity, some without clean drinking water. An untold
number who heeded evacuation orders were displaced and 40,000 were in Red
Cross shelters, with officials saying it could be weeks, if not months,
before most will be able to return.
Emergency medical teams from across the country were sent into the region
and President Bush cut short his Texas vacation Tuesday to return to
Washington to focus on the storm damage.
Federal Emergency Management Agency director Mike Brown warned that
structural damage to homes, diseases from animal carcasses and chemicals in
floodwaters made it unsafe for residents to come home anytime soon. And a
mass return also was discouraged to keep from interfering with rescue and
recovery efforts.
That was made tough enough by the vast expanse of floodwaters in coastal
areas that took an eight-hour pounding from Katrina's howling winds and up
to 15 inches of rainfall. From the air, neighborhood after neighborhood
looked like nothing but islands of rooftops surrounded by swirling,
tea-colored water.
In New Orleans, the flooding actually got worse Tuesday. Failed pumps and
levees apparently spilled water from Lake Pontchartrain into streets. The
rising water forced hotels to evacuate, led a hospital to boatlift patients
to emergency shelters, and drove the staff of New Orleans' Times-Picayune
newspaper out of its offices.
Officials late Tuesday began the process of using helicopters to drop
3,000-pound sandbags and dozens of giant concrete barriers into the breach,
and expressed confidence the problem could be solved. But if the water rose
a couple feet higher, it could wipe out water system for whole city, said
New Orleans' homeland security chief Terry Ebbert.
A clearer picture of the destruction in Alabama became to emerge Tuesday:
cement slabs where homes once stood, a 100-foot shrimp boat smoldering on
its side, people searching for swept-away keepsakes. The damage in some
areas appears to be worse than last year's Hurricane Ivan.
In devastated Biloxi, Miss., areas that were not underwater were littered
with tree trunks, downed power lines and chunks of broken concrete. Some
buildings were flattened.
The string of floating barge casinos crucial to the coastal economy were a
shambles. At least three of them were picked up by the storm surge and
carried inland, their barnacle-covered hulls sitting up to 200 yards inland.
One of the deadliest spots appeared to be Biloxi's Quiet Water Beach
apartments, where authorities estimated 30 people were washed away, although
the exact toll was unknown. All that was left of the red-brick building was
a concrete slab.
"We grabbed a lady and pulled her out the window and then we swam with the
current," 55-year-old Joy Schovest said through tears. "It was terrifying.
You should have seen the cars floating around us. We had to push them away
when we were trying to swim."
Said Biloxi Mayor A. J. Holloway: "This is our tsunami."
Looting became a problem in both Biloxi and in New Orleans, in some cases in
full view of police and National Guardsmen. One police officer was shot in
the head by a looter in New Orleans, but was expected to recover, Sgt. Paul
Accardo, a police spokesman.
On New Orleans' Canal Street, which actually resembled a canal, dozens of
looters ripped open the steel gates on clothing and jewelry stores, some
packing plastic garbage cans with loot to float down the street. 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!"
Looters at a Wal-Mart brazenly loaded up shopping carts with items including
microwaves, coolers and knife sets. Others walked out of a sporting goods
store on Canal Street with armfuls of shoes and football jerseys.
Outside the broken shells of Biloxi's casinos, people picked through slot
machines to see if they still contained coins and ransacked other
businesses.
"People are just casually walking in and filling up garbage bags and walking
off like they're Santa Claus," said Marty Desei, owner of a Super 8 motel.
Insurance experts estimated the storm will result in up to $25 billion in
insured losses. That means Katrina could prove more costly than
record-setting Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which caused an inflation-adjusted
$21 billion in losses.
Oil prices jumped by more than $3 a barrel on Tuesday, climbing above $70 a
barrel, amid uncertainty about the extent of the damage to the Gulf region's
refineries and drilling platforms.
By midday Tuesday, Katrina was downgraded to a tropical depression, with
winds around 35 mph. It was moving northeast through Tennessee at around 21
mph, with the potential to dump 8 inches of rain and spin off deadly
tornadoes.
Katrina left 11 people dead in its soggy jog across South Florida last week,
as a much weaker storm.
Associated Press reporters Holbrook Mohr, Mary Foster, Allen G. Breed, Brett
Martel, Adam Nossiter and Jay Reeves contributed to this report.
GWhyte
Aug 31st 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda
http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4339099
Officials say they can only guess at the death toll after Hurricane Katrina
struck the Gulf of Mexico coast, but it is already known to be in the
hundreds. Besides its devastating cost in lives, Katrina could do
substantial damage to the American economy
AROUND four-fifths of New Orleans was under water on Wednesday August 31st,
two days after Hurricane Katrina slammed into Louisiana, with winds roaring
up to 140mph. Much of the city is below sea level and its ageing levees-a
system of flood walls, earthworks and pumping stations designed to hold the
waters back-could not resist Katrina's might. "The devastation is greater
than our worst fears," said Louisiana's governor, Kathleen Blanco. "It's
totally overwhelming."
As the hurricane travelled on across Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama, it
left a trail of death and devastation. Officials say it is impossible to
know how many people have been killed in the disaster, but the official
count has already moved into the hundreds; at least 30 died in a single
catastrophic collapse of a seaside apartment building in Biloxi,
Mississippi. There is no tally of the dead and wounded in New Orleans yet
but reports of bodies floating in the floodwaters herald a dreadful
accounting to come. With many roads blocked by the floods and fallen trees,
rescue workers are struggling to reach the uncounted number in need of food,
medical attention and uncontaminated drinking water.
America's National Hurricane Centre reports on Katrina. For information on
the oil industry see America's Energy Information Agency, Alexander's Gas &
Oil Connections and the Joint Oil Data Initiative. The New York Mercantile
Exchange has the latest energy prices. The Central Bank of Indonesia has
raised its interest rates.
More than two million people were left without electricity on Tuesday, and
some are warning that it could be a matter of months, not days or weeks,
before service is restored to everyone. With average temperatures in the
humid New Orleans area around 23-30蚓 (73-86蚌) in September, that means
long hot days of misery ahead for battered residents.
More worrisome still is the toll of disease. Floodwaters can be contaminated
with a toxic mix of industrial chemicals and raw sewage. Doctors worry that
this may mean an increase in the sorts of gastrointestinal diseases commonly
seen only in the poorest countries. The water is also an excellent breeding
ground for mosquitoes, particularly in the warm, wet climate of the Gulf
Coast, which could mean a spike in mosquito-borne illnesses such as West
Nile virus.
With the waters still rising on Wednesday, officials were working feverishly
to get everyone out of New Orleans. Despite evacuation efforts ahead of the
storm, thousands had remained behind in the city. Many have had to be
plucked off roofs and out of attics as the waters lapped at the eaves. As
many as 20,000 have taken refuge in the Superdome stadium, and plans are
afoot to bus them to Houston's Astrodome. Looting has broken out in some
parts of New Orleans, presenting emergency services with a difficult choice
between rescuing flood victims and preserving public order.
Once the floodwaters have receded-which may take weeks-insurers expect a
deluge of claims. Estimates of the losses range from $9 billion to $25
billion. The high end of this range would make Katrina the most expensive
natural disaster in America's history for underwriters, topping the $21
billion paid out after Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
To the insurers' losses must be added the cost to the government of rescue
operations, plus many uninsured losses that will ultimately be met by
private individuals or the taxpayers. For instance, homeowners' insurance
typically does not include flood coverage, which is underwritten by the
federal government, and business-interruption insurance may not cover losses
from looting. There will undoubtedly be wrangling between insurance
adjusters, homeowners and the feds over what water damage was due to the
storm, and what is attributable to the rising flood.
The ripples widen
Nor will the effects of Hurricane Katrina be limited to the Gulf Coast and
the offices of a few agitated insurers. Analysts are busy rewriting their
forecasts of America's fourth-quarter GDP growth to take into account the
expected economic repercussions of the devastation. The affected area's
ports move a large fraction of the nation's imports-including critical oil
and gas supplies-as well as roughly half its exports of agricultural
commodities like corn and soyabeans. Action Economics, a market-analysis
firm, has already nudged its forecast for GDP growth down to 4.4% from 4.6%,
at an annualised rate, for the current (third) quarter.
While big hurricanes like Katrina destroy wealth, they often have a net
positive effect on GDP growth, as the temporary downturn immediately after
the storm is more than made up for by the burst of economic activity that
takes place when the rebuilding begins. In the case of Katrina, however, any
output boost may be modest thanks to the effect on the area's energy
infrastructure. In a research report from Merrill Lynch, David Rosenberg
says that while rebuilding could add $40 billion to America's GDP,
disruptions to energy supplies could raise prices enough to claw back $30
billion of that gain.
The Gulf of Mexico provides about a tenth of all the crude oil consumed in
America; and almost half of the petrol produced in the country comes from
refineries in the states along the gulf's shores. The Department of Energy
reports that nine refineries, processing 1.8m barrels per day, have been
shut down, though it is not known how long they will be out of commission.
Oil companies are busy assessing how much damage was done to drilling rigs,
refineries and port facilities; but even if the infrastructure is largely
intact, shipping delays threaten to idle refinery production.
This is bad news considering that refineries have been running flat out in
recent months to keep up with high demand. The White House has said it will
tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to supply refiners caught short by the
hurricane, but the pipeline and refinery shutdowns in the region mean that
petrol may hit $3 a gallon heading into this weekend's Labour Day holiday;
motorists are already paying that much in some cities.
As the extent of the damage became apparent, the oil price hit a new
nominal record of just under $71 a barrel on Tuesday. Though in real
(inflation-adjusted) terms prices are still lower than in the wake of the
Iranian hostage crisis in 1979, that reassuring mantra has worn thinner in
recent months as real prices have edged closer and closer to those
historical highs. Furthermore, while much of the recent oil-price increase
was demand-driven, and thus expected to have relatively benign economic
effects, any sizeable outages owing to Katrina could cause a supply shock
similar to those that repeatedly battered the world economy in the 1970s.
Those fears may be overdone, not least because Katrina is neither as
powerful nor as enduring as the OPEC-induced shocks of earlier decades.
Indeed, the market signs are that the rise in oil prices resulting from
supply interruptions in the Gulf of Mexico will be fairly modest and
short-lived. But with oil breaching $70, some analysts think that consumer
spending is bound to suffer-especially since the refinery troubles have
caused petrol futures to keep climbing even as crude oil prices have fallen
back. Another report by Mr Rosenberg calculates that every one-cent rise in
the price of a gallon of petrol takes $1.3 billion out of consumers'
pockets, which could trim as much as a full percentage point off consumer
spending this winter. That would not be good for the GDP numbers.
It would also be bad news abroad, where many nations, particularly in Asia,
are already heavily dependent on robust American demand for their exports.
Those countries are also being hit by higher oil prices. Indonesia's central
bank was forced to tighten the money supply sharply on Tuesday, raising
interest rates by three-quarters of a point and increasing banks' reserve
requirements, to stem a near-10% drop in the rupiah. Partly thanks to lavish
fuel subsidies, Indonesia's oil imports, financed in dollars, have touched
off fears of a balance-of-payments crisis, driving the currency sharply
downwards. On Wednesday, Indonesia's president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono,
said that the government would need to curtail its fuel subsidies in order
to stave off a currency crisis. While rich countries are much less dependent
on oil than they used to be, thanks to increases in fuel efficiency and a
shift from manufacturing to services, middle-income countries are still big
energy guzzlers: India and South Korea use more oil per dollar of GDP today
than they did in the 1970s.
There are also fears that Europe's recovery could be choked off in its
infancy by the steady upward march of prices for petrol and heating oil.
That would weaken another of Asian exporters' main markets and leave the
world economy looking vulnerable. If Katrina has damaged America's capacity
to pump and refine oil, forcing Americans to shop abroad for more fuel to
feed their appetites, it could be a long cold winter for everyone
GWhyte
Friday, September 02, 2005
Day Five And No Help For New Orleans.
DAY FIVE since the New Orleans Levy broke, and still no help.
Let's talk about help for a second.
From the Associated Press: NEW ORLEANS (AP) - New Orleans descended into
anarchy Thursday as corpses lay abandoned in street medians, fights and
fires broke out, cops turned in their badges and the governor declared war
on looters who have made the city a menacing landscape of disorder and fear.
"They have M-16s and they're locked and loaded," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said
of 300 National Guard troops who landed in New Orleans fresh from duty in
Iraq. "These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than
willing to do so, and I expect they will."
Brilliant, Governor. How do you tell the looters from the citizens who don't
want to be raped, murdered and robbed when your only tool is to shoot? How
does 300 do the trick when you could have had thousands of good guys?
Appearing on ABC's "Good Morning America," Michael Brown, Director of FEMA
said he "never thought I'd see" the lawlessness that has overtaken the city
and interrupted emergency relief efforts.
Madame Governor and Mr. Director, please understand that some do have the
kind of vision needed. I am not very surprised to hear that officials did
not anticipate the numbers of opportunistic predators who come alive when
they know no one will stop them. People who are on their best behavior while
separated from us by a thin blue line might as well be murderers freed from
their cells by open doors and no guards. They could be on their best
behavior only until local armed resistance is underwater. They've always
been there, Mr. Brown, just waiting.
They've always been there.
Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve
order in the world as well as property . . . Horrid mischief would ensue
were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them. - Thomas Paine, Thoughts
on Defensive War (1775)
Part of the affliction of Potomac Fever, the official disease of Washington,
is that officials are out of touch with our realities. Officials could not
see this coming?
We already know that help is 72-hours or more away. As I mention often, it's
going to be more like days and days. Weeks to get services up, depending on
the nature of the disaster, and probably even longer in this case. But Day
Five with such violence is another issue. There could have been good
planning such that the violence would be a much lesser problem. New Orleans'
case of disaster and aftermath is a classic example of what happens when
officials do not listen to constituents, evidenced by the degree of surprise
of officials. (Is out of touch with our realities strong enough?)
On looting - used unwisely as a euphemism for all of the rapes, robberies
and murders occurring - the best thing to do under looting sieges is to
permit the looting: you have to choose the hill you want to die on if you
can, and for now, the safety of persons is more important than toasters and
microwaves. The looting may stop when supplies empty out, but the violent
crimes will continue until stopped. 300 soldiers fresh from Iraq isn't going
to do it.
New Orleans is the perfect case study to appreciate what can happen - what
does happen - when armed resistance and civilian authority in general are
neutralized as they have been with the flood which separates the citizens
from their armed protection. Violent predators then have nothing to fear
from unarmed citizens.
And that's the key. Criminals do not fear police, but they do fear armed
citizens.
At this point, the liberal gun-grabbers and terribly misguided officials
(who are so surprised) still fail to see the main purpose of armed citizens,
namely, neighborhood security because law enforcement cannot be everywhere.
This is the case-study value of New Orleans. Mississippi doesn't have this
problem; their guns were not lost to flood.
The part that tells the story is the number of rapes and murders within
crowds at places of refuge.
But then, would there be Shoot-outs? Chaos? A) An armed citizenry would
probably not even see shoot-outs when the thugs understand armed resistance
of equal or superior force, and; B) chaos is what you have now without armed
resistance! If you believe that the soldiers arriving with M-16's will do
any good at all, where is that same sense in appreciating an armed citizenry
a whale of a lot sooner than five days?
Choose.
Officials need to understand what guns are all about. For us, it's about
personal and neighborhood security with an authority we already possess.
Reasonableness can prevail when the good guys have superior force, and in
large numbers of individuals throughout a neighborhood.
For officials, it's all about mismanaging a crisis planning so as to be
needed; political prestige. But that prestige vanishes when you have the
chance and you bungle it. Day Five, and still no help. You blew it.
The key is to listen to constituents and to untie the hands of citizens to
act in their own defense as a matter of official policy. Too often, it is
officially discouraged, and the New Orleans' lawful guns' being underwater
shows what happens when the citizenry is disarmed.
This case study should stand for a very long time in the minds of both
officials and citizens as a lesson against freezing the People out of the
disaster planning and aftermath process.
As I mentioned in a previous piece, police and fire personnel themselves may
be stricken in time of disaster. In New Orleans' case, they are, as some
turned in their badges because what they were defending was utterly lost and
because of the futility in facing being outgunned. Their homes were drowned
and destroyed along with everybody else's, a component that some official
didn't anticipate. But a lot of EMS personnel understand the psychology.
Citizen input, too, might have.
I can imagine that some citizen input was heard, but was it really?
Officials do not need to listen to tesimonty out of courtesy, they need to
act on our tesimony.
One of my greatest quarrels with our government is precisely that: how they
freeze the People out of the planning process. The refusal to take our
realities seriously. The refusal to plan and to actually anticipate disaster
and its peripheral effects, such as a disarmament of the armed populace,
just to be the go-to people.
The idea of Martial Law, for instance, which sweeps up the innocent with the
criminal because officials can't tell the difference, is a zero-tolerance
policy of a sort, and runs counter to the citizens' active participation in
their own recovery. The idea of putting 300 soldiers fresh from Iraq armed
with rifles doesn't impress me, but worries me on whether they can tell the
good guys from the bad guys. An armed citizen can tell the difference, and
doesn't necessarily have orders to shoot to kill. There is such a thing as
middle ground where no one has to get hurt.
As we see, five days now into the flood since the levy broke, help is still
not on scene. Choppers are shot at, which delays their arrival. Some
choppers are effecting safe landings. Those shooters would be less of a
problem over five days if a Minuteman sort of contingent were on scene or
assembled from within the populace with a constant presence. Citizens
already have the authority to do such in the public interest similar to the
authority they have to give first-aid without being doctors. Necessity, a
legal concept as an affirmative defense to tort, is a broad authority in
cases such as these, not for looting, but for recovery.
But, nooo, officials won't see the value of the Minutemen or the importance
of other citizen involvement. It would empower the people and take some of
that prestige away from the officials. Empowering the People means
surrendering some of that prestige.
Now they have to take the heat for freezing the people out of the process,
and the blame is entirely theirs.
In the planning process, the People need to keep their weapons -- you might
say they need to keep their powder dry -- and there should be positively no
instruction or policy which in any way interferes with any community's
individual use of those weapons, if necessary. That judgment belongs
entirely to the individual on a case-by-case basis in peacetime as much as
time of disaster and civil disturbance.
Cities should have their own contingency plans, period. Food, water,
everything stored locally. Not a big deal. Earthquake-proof, waterproof,
thug-proof. That's a lot of groceries, but good planning and citizen input
could have made this disaster a lot less tragic.
For a policy of Martial Law which doesn't care whether someone is killed in
enforcing the peace(shooting looters), it's likely a safer bet that
individuals who have a better handle on life-threatening face-to-face
situations may even save the lives of all involved with judgment instead of
knee-jerk policy. As I said, they do not have orders to shoot to kill.
More citizen input, Governor. More control by local citizens, Mr. Brown.
It's good for the country.
______________________________
John Longenecker is author of The Battle We Fight - Battling Potomac Fever
To Recapture Our Homes And Communities available at all booksellers. His
website is www.NationwideConcealedCarry.com
GWhyte
September 2, 2005
http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/s/salvato/2005/salvato090205.htm
by Frank Salvato
For the second time in four years the United States is dealing with a
disaster of unparalleled proportions. The first disaster, generated by the
evils of terrorist heretics on September 11 th, 2001, took over 3000 lives.
The latest devastation, caused by an act of God in the form of Hurricane
Katrina, could very well surpass the loss of life that occurred at the hands
of terrorists on September 11 th. Once again, the power of nature dwarfs the
powers of men, even evil ones.
Before I address the main topic of this article, I would like to take this
opportunity to urge everyone to do everything and anything that they can to
help those affected by Hurricane Katrina. Log on to www.fema.gov for a list
of emergency response organizations and directions on how to help. Every
dollar counts, so please don't hesitate.
In the face of the massive devastation throughout Louisiana, Mississippi,
Alabama and Florida the extreme liberal left has decided that the best way
to help the victims of this catastrophic natural disaster is to politicize
it. One truly has to question whether these people are capable of any
humanity at all.
It wasn't two hours after initial reports of the destruction that took place
in New Orleans and Gulfport that I received an unsolicited email from a
woman named Darlene. She was forwarding a blog piece that took issue with,
among other things, President Bush's fiscal policies in the face of the
catastrophe on the Gulf Coast. Darlene's forwarded article blamed the as of
yet unrealized lack of federal emergency management resources in the wake of
Katrina on the Iraq war budget, the Bush tax cuts, the Democrat-obstructed
energy bill and the big kahuna of enviro-nuts, global warming and President
Bush's refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol.
To point a finger at non-existent short-falls in national emergency
preparedness is lunacy enough, but to insist, in hindsight, that the country
shouldn't have handled its fiscal or national security business as it did is
just plain ignorant.
With regard to global warming, Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute cites
records showing that almost three times as many major hurricanes hit
Bermuda, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico in the half-century between 1701 and
1850 - during the depths of the Little Ice Age - as in the much warmer
half-century from 1950 to 2000. He further cites records which indicate that
both the Arctic and the Antarctic have been cooling in the last several
decades.
In light of historical evidence to the contrary it is hard to argue that
global warming was in any way the cause of Hurricane Katrina. But that doesn
't stop the extremists on the left from saying that it still isn't so.
A piece that ran in the Boston Globe by Ross Gelbspan blamed the ravages of
Hurricane Katrina - as well as every other catastrophic meteorological
event - on global warming, big oil and, you guessed it, President Bush. It
didn't seem to matter to him that his assertion that "the year began with a
two-foot snowfall in Los Angeles," is proven inaccurate by the weather
records from that time period. Los Angeles had no snowfall recorded in
January of 2005. In fact, throughout recorded history the record for
snowfall in Los Angeles during the month of January is only 9.6 inches, a
far cry from two-feet, and it didn't occur in 2005.
Even the Germans, premier platinum-card carrying passengers of the
five-year-long hate-Bush party train that they are, jumped onto the
criticism bandwagon. In an article entitled, Katrina Should Be a Lesson to
US on Global Warming that appeared on August 30 th in their publication
Spiegel, it is stated, "Regardless of how one views it, Katrina has not only
devastated parts of Louisiana and Mississippi and killed dozens, it also has
threatened the US and its trading partners with economic instability."
How very self-serving of the Germans to care so little about those who have
been left homeless and the hundreds, if not thousands, left dead at the hand
of Mother Nature. Then again, they are one of the leaders in the movement to
make every nation but a minute cog in the global community. What are a few
thousand American lives in the grand global scheme of things when economic
opportunism is the order of the day? I will wait with baited breath to see
how much aid Germany sends to the United States in light of this
humanitarian crisis. I will bet that it isn't nearly as much as the American
people gave to them in the form of the Marshall Plan.
It is absolutely incomprehensible that living, breathing, allegedly caring
human beings would focus their energies on finger-pointing and "The Blame
Game" while so many whose lives have been destroyed desperately need help
and humanity. By kowtowing to the most narcissistic and base political
motives, those who are doing anything but trying to help during this time of
crisis have displayed their truly selfish, ignorant nature.
Those of us who realize the urgency of the current tragedy need to focus our
resources on helping Katrina's victims. Let's leave the ignominious
politicizing of tragedies to the not so compassionate liberal left. They
seem to be very good at it.
Related Reading:
Hurricanes not due to Global Warming. Oops.
http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=3485
Katrina and the waves
http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002330.html
Katrina's real name
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/08/30/katrinas_real_name/
Katrina Should be A Lesson To US on Global Warming
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,372179,00.html
Marshall Plan: An Overview
http://www.answers.com/marshall+plan?gwp=11&ver=1.0.4.128&method=3
Frank Salvato
Copyright © 2005 Frank Salvato
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Frank Salvato is the managing editor for TheRant.us. He serves at the
Executive Director of the Basics Project, a non-profit, non-partisan,
socio-political education project. His pieces are regularly featured in
Townhall.com. He has appeared on The O'Reilly Factor and numerous radio
shows. His pieces have been recognized by the Japan Center for Conflict
Prevention and are periodically featured in The Washington Times as well as
other national and international publications. He can be contacted at
op...@therant.us
GWhyte
September 2, 2005
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by Justin Darr
http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/c-e/darr/2005/darr090205.htm
Two days. 48 hours. 2,880 minutes. This was all the time it took for the
fabric of civilization to unravel in New Orleans. Streets which just last
week were lined with the fans of Blues clubs and theaters are now patrolled
by gangs of what in any other country would be called terrorists looking for
their next innocent victim or store front to pillage. Rapes and gang wars in
the Superdome, gun fire at rescue helicopters, and the efforts to search and
rescue trapped survivors of hurricane Katrina have been abandoned in a near
hopeless effort to restore some semblance of public order. Think of it. In
just two days time, authorities have been forced to desert innocent people
to almost certain death because New Orleans has become unsafe for rescue
operations. Two days.
How could this have happened so quickly? Early reports of looting where
portrayed by the media as desperate, hungry people breaking into grocery
stores. In my opinion, this is not looting but survival. However, as the
full scope of events has become clearer, it is evident that the mayhem in
New Orleans is not a result of trapped residents trying to stay alive, but a
carnival atmosphere where the bodies of the dead are pushed aside in order
to steal their stereos.
I was originally going to write nothing about hurricane Katrina. Times of
national tragedy are no time for partisanship. However, what is happening in
New Orleans goes beyond the simple red state/ blue state debate. This
disaster has exposed something putrid in our society. For this to happen so
quickly indicates that there is something fundamentally flawed in our
culture that should not be brushed under the rug by political correctness or
blamed on any simple politician or political party. What is happening in New
Orleans can and will happen again unless we take sober steps to first
understand why these events have occurred, and then act to prevent them.
These are the politically correct facts as we know them. Almost everyone who
could evacuate New Orleans before the hurricane did. Those who stayed where
the very poor or ill who did not have the means to leave.
The reality is that the poor residents of the New Orleans could have
evacuated the flood zone on a public bus before the hurricane for about the
cost of a bottle of water. The total disabled population of New Orleans who
might not have been able to evacuate is estimated at around 55,000
residents. So, the question must be asked why up to half a million people
did not evacuate the city. The sad answer is that many of these residents
remained because they where waiting for the government to aid them.
Many trapped in New Orleans right now are in a state of shock. They expected
the nanny state which provides them with housing, medical care, food, and
education to also come forward and provide them with the means of escaping a
natural disaster. When a state of emergency was declared in August 26^th ,
they waited. When the inbound lanes of the highways around New Orleans where
rerouted outbound to allow for faster evacuation by road, they waited. If
things where really that bad, the government would come through for them and
tell them where to go, what to do, and provide the means to make it happen.
Many residents in New Orleans remained because they have been so
indoctrinated into the idea that they will be taken care of by the
government that they are incapable to looking out for themselves.
Now the government has failed them. In a culture where all the comforts of
life have been provided to people as entitlements, their sudden absence has
unleashed a violent backlash against the society these people feel has let
them down. In other words, if some people do not get what they feel they are
entitled to get, then something unfair must have happened, so now they have
the right to go out and take it.
Let me stress again, these people are not out just trying to get baby food
and Grandma's insulin. They are stealing electronics, guns, furniture, beer
trucks, and Nikes. Along with the end of social service entitlements has
come the end of the rules of behavior these entitlements require. So, if the
government is not giving you anything, some of these people feel that they
do not have to follow the laws of civilized society.
The nanny state has created a class of people in America not only unable to
take care of their own needs, but incapable to existing within normal
society. In your neighborhood, laws and peaceful coexistence are not
maintained by government or the police, but by the people themselves. You
obey the law and live a civil existence because you understand that this is
the only way you will have a good life. You feel that way because you have
worked hard and are unwilling to jeopardize everything you have earned by
acting foolishly. But those who have always been given everything and told
that everything they do wrong is a result of their being a victim, there is
no similar prohibition.
New Orleans is a warning to us all. We must change our culture from one of
entitlement to one of responsibility now, or we may have no culture left in
the future.
© 2005 Justin Darr
Justin Darr
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www.justindarr.com/
Justin Darr is the Managing Editor of www.RepublicanVoices.org, and a
freelance writer living in the Philadelphia area. He is published in over 80
publications across North America, Europe, and in the Far East. Justin Darr
is a proud member of the Moveoff Network, http://moveoff.net.