Both Red Cross and Homeland Security have admitted that Red Cross was not allowed into the city of New Orleans ALL WEEK.
I find it very disturbing that people died of dehydration and starvation in the Superdome "shelter", while President Bush's suggestion was "Send cash to the Red Cross". Red Cross was allowed access to the outlying more white communities where they gave out food and water.
What reason do they give for withholding food and water from 50,000 predominantly poor African Americans left in the city because they did not have cars to evacuate?
Red Cross says the reason was that their "presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city."
Kevin Cowan at the Louisianna Office of Homeland Security said they "don't want to put anyone at undue risk". I guess that reference to "anyone" must only refer to white Red Cross workers. Certainly the 20,000 people in the Superdome and the other thousands at the Convention center were put at grave risk by being held at gunpoint with no food, water, or bathroom facilities for days. Ten bodies were found in the Superdome.
So if they were afraid to put the Red Cross workers at risk, why didn't they escort them in with military back-up, or just have the National Guard drive in the darn truckloads of Red Cross food & water?
When there are disasters in other countries, the Red Cross is there right away with food and water, because other countries do not deny them access to the victims.
A few bloggers posted that they had heard on CNN and on Larry King Show, the head of Red Cross saying they weren't allowed in.
I found this news at Dailykos, which has a lot of information now about the disastrous disaster response.
See for yourself on the FAQ section of Red Cross's website:
Here is an excerpt in case they remove it from their website soon:
Disaster FAQs
Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans?
Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.
The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.
A DailyKos blogger called up Homeland Security to verify this statement on Red Cross's web-page. The Federal Homeland Security guy admitted it at first, but would not stand by his statement. On the Red Cross Webpage it says ""state Homeland Security department", so then he called the Communications Center for the Louisianna Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness at 225-925-7500. Lt. Kevin Cowan (Public Information Officer) confirmed that their office did prevent Red Cross from coming in! Read the text of his phone calls here.
He goes on to say
"Orj Ozeppi reports that the Salvation Army is telling people the same thing as the ARC(Red Cross): "if we help, people won't leave." So we have a discrepancy between these relief agencies and LA Homeland Security as to the reason. The relief agencies are consistent. It may be that this policy is just because it's a disaster zone, as the LA Homeland Security guy said, but this question needs to be answered. Was the decision to keep the relief agencies out made to force people to evacuate (and punish those who didn't... perhaps making a lesson of them?) by making conditions intolerable??? If not, why do these relief agencies say so? "In fact, many aid offers have been turned down by President Bush & Homeland Security. Even Homeland Security was blocked by Bush! The Homeland Security division, "NorthCOM" in Colorado, which was supposedly coordinating the relief efforts (Surprise! This must be a stealth mission), said they did not send 9 million meals which were ready before the hurricane hit, because they were waiting for Bush's order.
A Canadian Med-vac team was denied access to the USA. They have now made a deal directly with local officials to come in by ship.
according to the Washington Post, Cuba offered med teams and supplies.
France and Germany offered med teams, tents, water purification equipment, but were initially turned down.
President George W. Bush said in a television interview that the United States could take care of itself. In contrast, Sean McCormack of the State Department said,
"Anything that can be of help to alleviate the tragic situation of the area affected by Hurricane Katrina will be accepted".
Al Gore knows a doctor at one of the hospitals in NO and lined up TWO 747 airliners to fly in and evacuate victims in order to fly critical care patients to waiting hospitals around the nation.
Homeland Security BLOCKED this from happening. Why? Because FEMA is not allowed to help PRIVATELY funded hospitals.
Those people in critical condition, in hospitals were DENIED a free and safe evacuation.
According to nola.com (the N.O. Times-Picayune website), Homeland Security has also declined the Forest Service's offer to put out the fires in New Orleans.
"The Forest Service has offered fixed plane aircraft used to fight forest fires to help extinguish blazes in New Orleans, according to two congressional sources. But the sources said the planes, which can pour large amounts of water on fires, remained grounded in Missouri Friday because the Department of Homeland Security hasn't authorized their use.
"We've been asking them to request that the planes be used, but nothing has happened," said one of the two congressional sources, both of whom asked to remain anonymous. The planes were offered by the Forest Service because of news reports that firefighters in New Orleans lacked adequate water pressure to fight a number of fires in the city."
President Bush is returning to the area to do more cheerleading and take more photo ops to shift the rising tide of public anger.
Meanwhile, our government's disaster response seems more like sabotage than aid.
22 comments:
Susan,
You sould send a shorter version of this to the Herald-Sun and N&O with the recommend ation that readers should start an impeachment campaign. If only part of this is provable, Bush is guilty of criminal negigence at the very least.
Dick Merritt
As far as being branded a "other American" I must tell you it's been going on for some noble Americans for decades. In 1962, 3 days after I was born, I was hand/footprinted and given a CDIB card. It means "Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood". So, I was branded an enemy of the state before I even opened my little eyes.
Welcome to America, now will you please go home?
Here's one you didn't list. Chicago's Mayor Daley offered to send teams and equipment as early as the day the storm made landfall. FEMA rejected his offer. There's something very sinister going on here. Link:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/
hurricane/cst-nws-daley03.html
Or Google "Mayor Daley FEMA" and you'll find it.
The Lies To Hike
The Price Of Oil
From David Icke's Email List
9-3-5
A more appropriate title for this piece would have been "Orchestrating Financial Collapse".
Admittedly the hardest part of observing the unfolding of a prearranged history is connecting the dots. More to the point, to be able to see how all things are connected and work in concert to achieve a desired goal.
So I'd like to throw some things out that the public at large doesn't know and never would. What I am about to tell is common knowledge in oil circles but the worker ants at the bottom of the pyramid never question what they see. I was an eye witness to what I am going to relate and there are a good many others who could come forward if only they will.
In 2000, I worked in the Gulf of Mexico for two different OSV companies that provided support services to the "oil patch". The two companies did very different work for the oil companies so I got to get an eye full.
The first thing that I'd like to expose is the fact that nearly all of the new wells in the gulf are immediately capped off and forgotten about. I saw well after well brought in only to see them capped off and left. Oil or natural gas it didn't matter. I asked a couple of petroleum engineers what exactly was going on and I was told by both (they worked for different companies) that there was no intention of bringing that oil to market until the "price was right".
That wasn't the only bogus thing that was happening. Seismic technology had developed to the point that they could not only tell the companies where the oil was but how much oil was there. All they had to do was go out and stick a straw in and suck it out. They didn't. Once again, the oil prices weren't right. When they are ready and want it they know right where to go get it.
Another lie I'd like to lay to rest is the one about all of the "terrible damage" done to the oil platforms and rigs in the gulf during hurricanes. This is how they justify the price spikes that occur because of lost production. If anyone cared to see this for themselves they could travel the entire Gulf of Mexico in search of destroyed oil rigs and they won't find any- not one. There is a damed good reason that this is so and that reason is that they are built so well that a hurricane can't touch them.
Think about it . If you're going to build something in an area where you are guaranteed to see 150-180 mph winds, storm swells up to 60-80 feet and it will happen year after year, how would you build them? Out of chicken wire and duct tape? Hell no and they don't. The platforms are designed to offer almost no wind resistance and the majority of platforms are at least 120 feet above the water level. They are built so well that several of them have suffered direct hits by watercraft of all sizes with little harm. They were damaged but they were far from destroyed.
The reason that I know how well they are constructed is because for awhile I worked with a company that salvaged derelict oil rigs. When the wells ran dry and the oil companies didn't need them any more the company that I worked for would buy them, take them apart, haul them back to land, refurbish and then resell them. It is an incredible process to take these things apart because they are constructed so
well.
I've worked on the boats that hauled explosives to the job sites to speed the disassembly process.
Another lie regards the "burp" in the supply line. Oil companies are as stingy as any on earth and one of the ways that they cut costs is to eliminate the number of people that they need on a rig to keep it running. Most active wells are totally automated and require almost no human intervention. The oil companies have guys that travel from rig to rig via helicopter to check on things periodically but most never see
a human on them unless something goes wrong or some maintenance is needed.
During a hurricane about the only rigs that need to be evacuated are the drill rigs that have workers on them. The active wells and pumping stations are controlled by remote control from the shore and if it weren't for the evacuation of land based personnel from areas where there is danger from the hurricanes these things could continue to pump right through the worst hurricane.
So, regarding a burp in the supply chain there shouldn't be one and that is because most of the oil from the Gulf of Mexico goes to the refinerys at Port Arthur or other points in Texas and the tankers from the middle east go to Galveston to offload.
When oil moves across the Atlantic during hurricane season the tanker traffic may have to kill some time to let a storm get ahead of them but once it does they haul ass right behind it. Anyone who has seen how fast an oil tanker can move in open water will tell you that they don't dawdle around. Most of them can move around 30-40 knots and for a ship that size that baby is moving on. The only reason they would have to
kill any more time would be if a hurricane suddenly changed course and was headed for Galveston. So far this year that hasn't happened. So why the "break" in supply?
Everything that we hear about oil from the oil companies is a big fat lie. Have we hit "peak oil" as a good many insist that we have? I'll make a wager with anyone who would care to take the bet. I bet that when oil hits $100 a barrel (I have a hunch that's the target price) there will be no shortage. Any takers?
One of the most astounding things to watch when the elite swing into action is what I call conservation of movement. If you had three events that you wanted to set into motion you could apply the necessary pressure separately to all three to get them moving. Or you could do what these guys do and wait patiently until you see the right opportunity to apply the pressure in only one spot that will move the other two with the momentum from the first. The difference is whether something is pushed or pulled along. It"s as graceful as a ballet to watch in motion. No wasted motion, no wasted energy, it would almost be a thing of beauty if it weren't for the rotten purposes behind it all.
So for all of the kiddies that are waiting for their draft notices I would say don't bother, I don't think that there will be a draft. They won't need one. Since the all volunteer military came into being recruitment has always had an inverse relationship to the economy. The better the economy the harder it is to get recruits. We're facing a winter season in North America that may see heating costs equal to a family's house payment. If our weather is being controlled expect it to be a bad one. With $100 dollar a barrel oil on the horizon and the ensuing loss of jobs because of energy costs the military will be one of the only places a young man or woman will be able to eat on a regular basis and keep a roof over their heads.
The beltway fascists have said all along that there would be no draft because they wouldn't need one. Don't you have to wonder how they knew this (what is it you say- just a coincidence nothing to worry about)? God does work in mysterious ways. The neocons need cannon fodder for their war machine and lo and behold mysterious market forces drop it on their doorstep.
For another coincidence take a look at Social Security here in the US.Amazing how the price of oil began a sudden rise when it became apparent that the American people weren't going to allow their retirement money to be "privatized". When the carrot didn't work the stick wasn't far behind.
Copy and paste this story for all to read.
Eyewitness Report
From New Orleans
From Alicia Jrapko
ajrapko@yahoo.com
9-6-5
On Saturday September 3, award-winning filmmaker Gloria La Riva, internationally-acclaimed photographer Bill Hackwell and A.N.S.W.E.R. Youth & Student Coordinator Caneisha Mills arrived in New Orleans as an A.N.S.W.E.R. delegation to document an accurate account of the situation and provide solidarity and support to those in need
The following is an eyewitness report of the crisis in the area written on Sunday, September 4....
_____
Media reports on September 2 describe anarchy and general chaos as the climate in all of New Orleans. The national media reports that hope, supplies and food were now being distributed in the area. However, once we arrived in the Algiers district of New Orleans after seven checkpoints, the reality shows otherwise.
Algiers
While 80 percent of New Orleans was submerged in water, Algiers is one of the few districts that has been spared as it sits higher than most of the city. An historic district established in 1719, Algiers is on the west bank of the Mississippi river, across from the French Quarter. Probably 15% of the residents still remain behind, most of them determined to stay in their homes. The majority of homes are still intact, although many have suffered damage. While their houses survived, the peoples' chance of survival seemed very bleak since there was no electricity or disbursement of food, water or other supplies.
"Imagine being in a city, poor, without any money and all of a sudden you are told to leave and you don't even have a bicycle," stated Malik Rahim, a community activist in the Algiers section of New Orleans. "90% of the people don't even have cars."
One woman told us it was not possible for her to evacuate. She said, "I can't leave. I don't have a car and I have nine children." She and her husband are getting by with the help of several men in the community who are joining resources to provide for their neighbors.
The government claims that people can get water, but residents have to travel at least 17 miles to the nearest water and ice distribution center. Only one case of water is available per family. Countless people have no way to drive.
There is a huge military and police presence but none of it to provide services. All of them, north and south of the river, are stationed in front of private buildings and abandoned stores, protecting private property.
The goods they are driving in are for their own forces.
Not one of them has delivered water to Algiers or gone to the houses to see if sick or elderly people need help. There is no door-to-door survey to see who was injured. The overwhelming majority of people who have stayed in Algiers are Black but some are white. One white man in his late 50s in Algiers pointed across the street to a 10-acre grassy lot. It looks like a beautiful park. He said, "I had my daughter call FEMA. I told them I want to donate this land to the people in need. They could set up 100 tractor trailers with aid, they could set up tents. No one has ever called me back." He is clearly angry.
Although some of the residents do express fear of burglaries into houses, acts of heroism, sacrifice and solidarity are evident everywhere.
Steve, a white man in his 40s, knocks on Malik's front door. He tells us, "Malik has kept this neighborhood together. We don't know what we'd do without his help." He has come in because he needs to use the phone. Malik's street is the only one with phones still working.
Malik and three of his friends have been delivering food, water and ice to those in need three times a day, searching everywhere for goods.
There is a strong suspicion among the residents that this is a deliberately forced removal. Algiers is full of quaint, historic French-style houses, with a high real estate value, and signs of gentrification are evident.
Downtown New Orleans
Although entry is prohibited into downtown New Orleans north and east of the Mississippi, because of extensive flooding and the almost total evacuation, we were able to get in on Sunday.
The Superdome is still surrounded by water and all types of military - helicopters, army trucks, etc - are coming in and out of the area; however, most of the people have already left. On US-90, the only road out of New Orleans, convoys of National Guard troops are pouring into the city, too late for many. According to an emergency issue of The Times-Picayune, 16,000 National Guard troops now occupy the city.
Water is premium and not available. One African American couple approached our car. The woman asked us, "Do you have water you could give us? We have four kids. When they told us to leave before the hurricane we couldn't. We have no car and no money."
Undoubtedly it is similar in the other states that got the direct hit of Katrina, Mississippi and Alabama. On the radio we hear reports of completely demolished towns. What differentiates the rest of the Gulf coast from New Orleans is that the many thousands of deaths in New Orleans were absolutely preventable and occurred after the hurricane. On everyone's lips is the cutting in federal funds to strengthen the levees of Lake Pontchartrain.
Two reporters from New York tell us they just came from the New Orleans airport emergency hospital that was set up.
New Orleans International Airport
The New Orleans International Airport was converted into an emergency hospital center. Thousands of people were evacuated there to getsupplies and food, and for transportation that would take them out of the city. Many people arrived with only one or two bags, their entire lives minimized to a few belongings.
Some people did not want to leave their homes, but say they were forced to do so. For example, one white woman and her husband, Pauline Noble and Jerome Hill, were forced to evacuate. Pauline said, "The military told us that we had one minute to evacuate. We said that we weren't ready and he said they can't force us to leave but if we don't leave anybody left would be arrested . but it was the end of the month. The two of us have been living for a couple of months on $600 a month and rent is $550. At the end of the month, we only had $20 and 1/8 of a tank of gas. There was no way we could leave."
When it became apparent that nobody was coming back to pick them up, the couple walked five miles to the airport to see if they could get help.
Disaster Medical Assistance Teams, doctors, nurses and community organizations came from as far as San Diego, California and Kentucky to provide support during the crisis. None of them were dispersed into the community. When we arrived at the airport on Sunday, September 4, there were approximately 20 medical people for every one patient while people in regions such as Algiers and the 9th ward were left to fend for themselves.
The majority of people in New Orleans blame the local and national government for the catastrophe. One young Black man said, "The government abandoned us . [it's] pre-meditated murder." Another said, "Why would you [the government] protect a building . instead of rescuing people that have been without food or water for three or four days? It seems like that was the plan. . We couldn't starve them out, the hurricane didn't kill them, it seems planned."
Baton Rouge
As we drive to Baton Rouge tonight to visit evacuated people, we hear on local radio that possibly 10,000 people have died in the flooded areas of New Orleans. Tonight in one announcement, we hear the names of some of the missing people still being searched for, a 90-year-old woman named Lisa, a man 102 years old, two women 82 and 85 years old. The elderly, the most vulnerable, left to their own devices.
Bodies are lying everywhere, and hidden in attics and apartments. The announcer describes how one body, rotting after days in the sun, was surrounded by a wall fashioned from fallen bricks by survivors, and given a provisional burial to give her some dignity. The sign placed next to her body said, "Here lies Vera, God Help Us."
At a Red Cross shelter outside of Baton Rouge, we meet Emmanuel, who can't find his wife and three sons after the floods. His story is shocking. His home is near the 17th Street Canal, where the Pontchartrain levee broke through.
"I stayed behind to rescue my neighbors while I sent my wife and kids to dry land," he says. It is difficult for him to relate what happened. He had a small boat so he went from house to house picking up neighbors. While doing so, he encountered many bodies in the water.
"My best friend's body was floating by in the water. One mother whose baby drowned tied her baby to a fence so she could bury him after she returned." Because troops kept driving by him and others without helping them, he had to walk 30 miles north until he was picked up.
This crisis is a crime of the highest magnitude. The Bush Administration is always able to find money to fund wars that will benefit the rich of this country; however, when it comes to providing aid to respond to a disaster of this magnitude, funds, supplies and resources are lacking. From Bush on down, they should be indicted.
Have They No Shame?
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
The Nation
9-7-5
As Republicans desperately cry out of one corner of their mouths to stop the blame game, they have been blaming everyone but themselves since this catastrophe. Let's look at their ever-evolving buck-passing strategies.
Blame the Victims: Both FEMA's Michael Brown and Homeland Security's Michael Chertoff, the Mutt and Jeff of this calamity, have blamed careless, destitute New Orleaners for not evacuating. "Those who got out are fine," Chertoff told NBC's Tim Russert. FEMA sought to excuse its delays in entering the city by blaming the looters.
Blame the Locals: In a stroke of political luck, both the New Orleans mayor and Louisiana's Governor are Democrats. As the New York Times reported, Karl Rove's PR strategy is to shift the blame to the state and city officials. All Sunday, White House officials and Fox News played this card. Expect more of this line of attack.
Blame the City: In perhaps the most bizarre excuse, Chertoff pointed the finger the city of New Orleans itself, saying, "It is a soup bowl. People have talked for years about whether it makes sense to have a city like that."
Blame the Media: Last week, Brown blamed media coverage for the perception that New Orleans had descended into lawlessness. "I actually think security is darn good.... It seems to me that every time a bad person wants to cause a problem, there's somebody with a camera to stick in their face."
Look on the Bright Side: As Americans continued to drown, Chertoff came up with this gem about the rescue efforts: "There were some things that actually worked very well. There were some things that didn't."
Ignoramus Defense: When FEMA's Brown, who was fired from his last job overseeing Arabian horse shows, said he was as "surprised as everybody else" to discover there were desperate people in the New Orleans convention center, CNN Soledad O'Brien asked, "How is it possible that we're getting better intel than you're getting?" But it was left up to our physically fit President for the whopper of the week: "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."
It is likely this last defense will be scrapped for obvious reasons. If only we could do the same to this Administration for painfully obvious reasons.
Penn accuses Bush amid rescue chaos
6 September 2005
The US government was accused of "criminal negligence" as hopes of finding survivors faded and the death toll from Hurricane Katrina continued to rise.
Holidaymakers returning to the UK spoke of the scale of the misery while one said leering police officers demanded young women flash their breasts in return for help.
Oscar-winning Hollywood actor Sean Penn, who has been assisting rescue efforts in New Orleans, said the US government did not "seem to be inclined to help".
"We were pulling drowning people out of the water, it's the ultimate distress and human suffering ... dead bodies," he told GMTV.
Penn said he had spent nine hours on Monday searching the water for people and during all that time he saw just three boats carrying US officials.
"There are people that are dying right now and I mean babies and old people and everybody in between - they're dying. There are people dying and (the US government are) not putting the boats in the water, I think that's criminal negligence. I don't think anybody ever anticipated the criminal negligence of the Bush administration in this situation."
The US authorities were also castigated by British bus driver Ged Scott, from Wallasey, Merseyside, who was on holiday in the New Orleans area.
He stayed in the Ramada Hotel during and after the devastation with his wife, Sandra, and seven-year-old son Ronan. At one stage, Mr Scott, 36, had to wade through filthy water to barricade the hotel doors against looters.
He told the Liverpool Daily Post: "I couldn't describe how bad the authorities were. Just little things like taking photographs of us, as we are standing on the roof waving for help, for their own little snapshot albums.
"At one point, there were a load of girls on the roof of the hotel saying 'Can you help us?' and the policemen said 'Show us what you've got' and made signs for them to lift their T-shirts. When the girls refused, they said 'Fine' and motored off down the road in their boat."
FEMA Deliberately Sabotaging Hurricane Relief Efforts
Multiple parishes revolt, use armed guards to defend against feds
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones | September 6 2005
Numerous credible sources have come forward with examples of how the Federal Emergency Management Agency is deliberately sabotaging Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in New Orleans. This represents a ruthless attempt on the part of FEMA to impose a federal takeover of the area for their own benefit amid a tragedy that has already claimed anything up to 10,000 lives.
The mainstream media has picked up on this story but is whitewashing it as just another 'failure' of the federal government in dealing with the crisis.
In reality the actions are part of a coordinated campaign to deepen the scope of the disaster in order to force through bumper funding increases for FEMA.
Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard (pictured below) appeared on Meet the Press Sunday and broke down in tears as he described FEMA's criminal activities.
"We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast, but the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history."
We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA--we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, "Come get the fuel right away." When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. "FEMA says don't give you the fuel." Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, "No one is getting near these lines."
Why would FEMA, an organization supposedly tasked with helping in a time of crisis, deliberately cut police communication lines? This is a blatant example of sabotage and a sick push to make the disaster worse. In carrying out these actions, FEMA are no better than the animals who shot at rescue workers and helicopters.
The mission of FEMA has never in reality been to bring people food and water and help in times of crisis. Alex Jones has attended numerous FEMA drills where the whole point of the exercise is to round people up, break up families and institute a brutal police state crackdown.
FEMA need to create a chaotic atmosphere in New Orleans so they can legitimize what they are doing.
We now have multiple reports of police being ordered to guard key infrastructures in order to defend them from FEMA federal agents. Sheriffs in numerous different counties are guarding highways to keep FEMA out. FEMA is being treated as the enemy because they are sabotaging key facilities in an effort to intentionally worsen the already desperate scenes of horror in New Orleans.
FEMA is sabotaging lines of communication so their activities cannot be exposed to the wider relief authorities and the media.
Commenting on the sabotage by FEMA of communication lines, Washington insider Wayne Madsen states,
"Jamming radio and other communications such as television signals is part of a Pentagon tactic called "information blockade" or "technology blockade." The tactic is one of a number of such operations that are part of the doctrine of "information warfare" and is one of the psychological operations (PSYOPS) methods used by the US Special Operations Command."
Radio host Carol Baker who has been tracking the FEMA sabotage stated that Plaquemines Parish Sheriff Jeff Hingle had his deputies patrol the county line under orders not to let FEMA in.
As is discussed in the Meet the Press interview, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee also has armed guards patrolling the county line in order to prevent the FEMA sabotage.
FEMA has a number of executive orders that outline the total federal takeover of any US city.
FEMA is clearly using this human catastrophe as a means of executing its decade long plans and providing the pretext for future takeover scenarios of all major American cities.
Amongst a litany of government inaction and outright dereliction, this is the most alarming evidence to emerge yet that clearly indicates an agenda for the federal government to profit and expand its power from exploiting the aftermath of the hurricane.
Red Tape Stops Doctors
In New Orleans
Relief Efforts
PicayuneItem.com
9-5-5
BATON ROUGE, La. - Volunteer physicians are pouring in to care for the sick, but red tape is keeping hundreds of others from caring for Hurricane Katrina survivors even as health officials worry about potential outbreaks.
Among the doctors stymied from helping out are 100 surgeons and paramedics in a state-of-the-art mobile hospital marooned in rural Mississippi.
"We have tried so hard to do the right thing. It took us 30 hours to get here," said one of the frustrated surgeons, Dr. Preston "Chip" Rich of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. That government officials can't straighten out the mess and get them assigned to a relief effort now that they're just a few miles away "is just mind-boggling," he said in a phone interview.
While the North Carolina doctors waited Sunday, the first predictable signs of disease from contaminated water emerged on Saturday: A Mississippi shelter was closed after 20 residents got sick with dysentery, probably from drinking contaminated water.
However, the country's leading health official told The Associated Press in an interview at a triage center Sunday that her biggest concerns are tetanus and childhood diseases.
"Tetanus is something we'd be especially concerned about," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tetanus lives in soil and can enter the body easily through a scratch, and many flood survivors have endured filthy conditions.
Gerberding also urged health care workers in the growing multitude of refugee shelters to try to find out a child's shot history and, "If you can't establish that a child has been vaccinated, then vaccinate. We can't take chances."
Diseases such as measles and whooping cough could rapidly spread in the cramped quarters, thousands of flood victims are now sharing.
So far, there have been relatively few cases of diarrhea and infections, Gerberding said, but "we're early in the process."
The CDC chief, who traveled to Louisiana with Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona and other top health officials, spoke with the AP after visiting an impressive triage center on the basketball court at Pete Marovich Center at Louisiana State University.
Next door in Mississippi, the North Carolina mobile hospital waiting to help also offered impressive state-of-the-art medical care. It was developed with millions of tax dollars through the Office of Homeland Security after 9-11. With capacity for 113 beds, it is designed to handle disasters and mass casualties.
Equipment includes ultrasound, digital radiology, satellite Internet, and a full pharmacy, enabling doctors to do most types of surgery in the field, including open-chest and abdominal operations.
It travels in a convoy that includes two 53-foot trailers, which on Sunday afternoon was parked on a gravel lot 70 miles north of New Orleans because Louisiana officials for several days would not let them deploy to the flooded city, Rich said.
Yet plans to use the facility and its 100 health professionals were hatched days before Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, doctors in the caravan said.
Other doctors also complained that their offers of help were turned away. A primary care physician from Ohio called and e-mailed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services after seeing a notice on the American Medical Association's Web site about volunteer doctors being needed.
An e-mail reply told him to watch CNN that night where HHS Secretary Leavitt was to announce a Web address for doctors to enter their names in a database.
"How crazy is that?" he complained in an e-mail to his daughter.
Dr. Jeffrey Guy, a trauma surgeon at Vanderbilt University who has been in contact with the mobile hospital doctors, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview, "There are entire hospitals that are contacting me, saying, 'We need to take on patients,'" but they can't get through the bureaucracy.
"The crime of this story is, you've got millions of dollars in assets and it's not deployed," he said. "We mount a better response in a Third World country."
Dr. Bill Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of health affairs for the Defense Department, acknowledged there were problems and said it's a priority "to get the medical community at work and up and operating as soon as possible."
Many other doctors have been able to volunteer, and were arriving in large numbers Sunday in Baton Rouge. Several said they worked it out through Louisiana state officials.
On the Net:
Mobile hospital: http://www.carolinasmed-1.org/index.cfm
FEMA Turned Back
Water/Fuel, Cut N.O.
Communications Lines
From ML
9-5-5
It's all there, Jeff, on the Meet The Press Broussard video...
Sunday, September 4, 2005
Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard announced on WWL-TV Saturday Night that residents would be allowed back in the Parish on Monday, but must re-evacuate by Thursday. Broussard had promised earlier in the week that residents would be allowed back on Monday, and seems to have managed to cut a deal with the feds to allow this happen.
Earlier reports on this site have shown that FEMA has barred rescue teams from entering New Orleans. And now the feds are dragging people out of the city by gunpoint. And back in Jefferson, Broussard explained on NBC's Meet the Press this morning that FEMA is making war even on local authorites [VIDEO] :
RUSSERT: You just heard the director of homeland security's explanation of what has happened this last week. What is your reaction?
BROUSSARD: We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast. But the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history. Whoever is at the top of this totem pole, that totem pole needs to be chainsawed off and we've got to start with some new leadership. It's not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans here. Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now.
"Three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA, we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. When we got there with our trucks, FEMA says don't give you the fuel. Yesterday - yesterday - FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards and said no one is getting near these lines"
Broussard ended the interview pleading for help with the moving story of how Jefferson Parish Emrgency Director Walter Maestri's mother died in a nursing home after being promised rescue repeatedly for five days. No wonder he said earlier this week that Jefferson Parish would be better off right now if it were its own country.
Earlier in the week, Maestri explained how FEMA broke signed agreements to have sufficient assets on the ground within 48 hours of an emergency. FEMA assets are blatantly wreaking havoc and making war on the people of Southeast Louisiana. As residents "temporarily" stream back in tomorrow, they should bring with them generators, gasoline, weaponry, and weeks or months worth of provisions. Sherriff Harry Lee needs to deputize every able-bodied male of Jefferson Parish who returns to patrol key infrastructure and keep an eye on all federal thugs who may be provocateuring, sabotaging infrastucture or withholding supplies.
http://www.total411.info/
Guardsmen Played
Cards While People
Died In New Orleans
9-4-5
NEW ORLEANS, United States (AFP) - A top New Orleans police officer said that National Guard troops sat around playing cards while people died in the stricken city after Hurricane Katrina.
New Orleans deputy police commander W.S. Riley launched a bitter attack on the federal response to the disaster though he praised the way the evacuation was eventually handled.
His remarks fuelled controversy over the government's handling of events during five days when New Orleans succumbed to lawlessness after Katrina swamped the city's flood defenses.
The National Guard commander, Lieutenant General Steven Blum, said the reservist force was slow to move troops into New Orleans because it did not anticipate the collapse of the city's police force.
But Riley said that for the first three days after Monday's storm, which is believed to have killed several thousand people, the police and fire departments and some volunteers had been alone in trying to rescue people.
"We expected a lot more support from the federal government. We expected the government to respond within 24 hours. The first three days we had no assistance," he told AFP in an interview.
Riley went on: "We have been fired on with automatic weapons. We still have some thugs around. My biggest disappointment is with the federal government and the National Guard.
"The guard arrived 48 hours after the hurricane with 40 trucks. They drove their trucks in and went to sleep.
"For 72 hours this police department and the fire department and handful of citizens were alone rescuing people. We have people who died while the National Guard sat and played cards. I understand why we are not winning the war in Iraq if this is what we have."
Riley said there is "a semblance of organisation now."
"The military is here and they have done an excellent job with the evacuation" of the tens of thousands of people stranded in the city.
The National Guard commander said the city police force was left with only a third of its pre-storm strength.
"The real issue, particularly in New Orleans, is that no one anticipated the disintegration or the erosion of the civilian police force in New Orleans," Blum told reporters in Washington.
"Once that assessment was made ... then the requirement became obvious," he said. "And that's when we started flowing military police into the theatre."
On Friday, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin denounced the slow federal response as too little, too late, charging that promised troops had not arrived in time.
"Now get off your asses and let's do something and fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country," the mayor said in remarks aired on CNN.
Blum said that since Thursday some 7,000 National Guard and military police had moved into the city. President George W. Bush on Saturday ordered an additional 7,000 active duty and reserve ground troops.
Blum said any suggestion that the National Guard had not performed well or was late was a "low blow".
The initial priority of the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard forces was disaster relief, not law enforcement, because they expected the police to handle that, he said.
The police commander was unable to give a death toll for New Orleans.
"We have bodies all over the city. A federal mortuary team was supposed to come in within 24 hours. We haven't seen them. It is inhumane. This is just not America."
Riley said he did not even know how many police remained from a normal force of 1,700.
"Many officers lost their homes or their families and there are many we have not heard from. Some officers could not handle the pressure and left. I don't know if we have 800 or thousands today."
I go along with the weather-as-weapon theory. Check out statements by Sen. Claiborne Pell about it back in the seventies and Sec. of Defense Cohen in the nineties. The U.N. also has a rule about not using them against ANOTHER COUNTRY, but it says nothing about using it against YOUR OWN country! And how very coincidental that these disasters always seem to be in poor DEMOCRATIC strongholds...New York, New Orleans, poorer Florida. Like the writer who said they want the land I also feel that Bush backers will benefit greatly from this latest opening of prime waterfront property. I am truly frightened for our country...Detroit and California really better watch out.
New Orleans Mayor
To Feds, Bush -
'Get Off Your Asses'
9-3-5
(CNN) -- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin blasted the slow pace of federal and state relief efforts in an expletive-laced interview with local radio station WWL-AM.
The following is a transcript of WWL correspondent Garland Robinette's interview with Nagin on Thursday night. Robinette asked the mayor about his conversation with President Bush:
NAGIN: I told him we had an incredible crisis here and that his flying over in Air Force One does not do it justice. And that I have been all around this city, and I am very frustrated because we are not able to marshal resources and we're outmanned in just about every respect. Listen to the mayor express his frustration in this video -- 12:09)
You know the reason why the looters got out of control? Because we had most of our resources saving people, thousands of people that were stuck in attics, man, old ladies. ... You pull off the doggone ventilator vent and you look down there and they're standing in there in water up to their freaking necks.
And they don't have a clue what's going on down here. They flew down here one time two days after the doggone event was over with TV cameras, AP reporters, all kind of goddamn -- excuse my French everybody in America, but I am pissed.
WWL: Did you say to the president of the United States, "I need the military in here"?
NAGIN: I said, "I need everything."
Now, I will tell you this -- and I give the president some credit on this -- he sent one John Wayne dude down here that can get some stuff done, and his name is [Lt.] Gen. [Russel] Honore.
And he came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing and people started moving. And he's getting some stuff done.
They ought to give that guy -- if they don't want to give it to me, give him full authority to get the job done, and we can save some people.
WWL: What do you need right now to get control of this situation?
NAGIN: I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. We ain't talking about -- you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out here.
I'm like, "You got to be kidding me. This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans."
That's -- they're thinking small, man. And this is a major, major, major deal. And I can't emphasize it enough, man. This is crazy.
I've got 15,000 to 20,000 people over at the convention center. It's bursting at the seams. The poor people in Plaquemines Parish. ... We don't have anything, and we're sharing with our brothers in Plaquemines Parish.
It's awful down here, man.
WWL: Do you believe that the president is seeing this, holding a news conference on it but can't do anything until [Louisiana Gov.] Kathleen Blanco requested him to do it? And do you know whether or not she has made that request?
NAGIN: I have no idea what they're doing. But I will tell you this: You know, God is looking down on all this, and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people, they are going to pay the price. Because every day that we delay, people are dying and they're dying by the hundreds, I'm willing to bet you.
We're getting reports and calls that are breaking my heart, from people saying, "I've been in my attic. I can't take it anymore. The water is up to my neck. I don't think I can hold out." And that's happening as we speak.
You know what really upsets me, Garland? We told everybody the importance of the 17th Street Canal issue. We said, "Please, please take care of this. We don't care what you do. Figure it out."
WWL: Who'd you say that to?
NAGIN: Everybody: the governor, Homeland Security, FEMA. You name it, we said it.
And they allowed that pumping station next to Pumping Station 6 to go under water. Our sewage and water board people ... stayed there and endangered their lives.
And what happened when that pumping station went down, the water started flowing again in the city, and it starting getting to levels that probably killed more people.
In addition to that, we had water flowing through the pipes in the city. That's a power station over there.
So there's no water flowing anywhere on the east bank of Orleans Parish. So our critical water supply was destroyed because of lack of action.
WWL: Why couldn't they drop the 3,000-pound sandbags or the containers that they were talking about earlier? Was it an engineering feat that just couldn't be done?
NAGIN: They said it was some pulleys that they had to manufacture. But, you know, in a state of emergency, man, you are creative, you figure out ways to get stuff done.
Then they told me that they went overnight, and they built 17 concrete structures and they had the pulleys on them and they were going to drop them.
I flew over that thing yesterday, and it's in the same shape that it was after the storm hit. There is nothing happening. And they're feeding the public a line of bull and they're spinning, and people are dying down here.
WWL: If some of the public called and they're right, that there's a law that the president, that the federal government can't do anything without local or state requests, would you request martial law?
NAGIN: I've already called for martial law in the city of New Orleans. We did that a few days ago.
WWL: Did the governor do that, too?
NAGIN: I don't know. I don't think so.
But we called for martial law when we realized that the looting was getting out of control. And we redirected all of our police officers back to patrolling the streets. They were dead-tired from saving people, but they worked all night because we thought this thing was going to blow wide open last night. And so we redirected all of our resources, and we hold it under check.
I'm not sure if we can do that another night with the current resources.
And I am telling you right now: They're showing all these reports of people looting and doing all that weird stuff, and they are doing that, but people are desperate and they're trying to find food and water, the majority of them.
Now you got some knuckleheads out there, and they are taking advantage of this lawless -- this situation where, you know, we can't really control it, and they're doing some awful, awful things. But that's a small majority of the people. Most people are looking to try and survive.
And one of the things people -- nobody's talked about this. Drugs flowed in and out of New Orleans and the surrounding metropolitan area so freely it was scary to me, and that's why we were having the escalation in murders. People don't want to talk about this, but I'm going to talk about it.
You have drug addicts that are now walking around this city looking for a fix, and that's the reason why they were breaking in hospitals and drugstores. They're looking for something to take the edge off of their jones, if you will.
And right now, they don't have anything to take the edge off. And they've probably found guns. So what you're seeing is drug-starving crazy addicts, drug addicts, that are wrecking havoc. And we don't have the manpower to adequately deal with it. We can only target certain sections of the city and form a perimeter around them and hope to God that we're not overrun.
WWL: Well, you and I must be in the minority. Because apparently there's a section of our citizenry out there that thinks because of a law that says the federal government can't come in unless requested by the proper people, that everything that's going on to this point has been done as good as it can possibly be.
NAGIN: Really?
WWL: I know you don't feel that way.
NAGIN: Well, did the tsunami victims request? Did it go through a formal process to request?
You know, did the Iraqi people request that we go in there? Did they ask us to go in there? What is more important?
And I'll tell you, man, I'm probably going get in a whole bunch of trouble. I'm probably going to get in so much trouble it ain't even funny. You probably won't even want to deal with me after this interview is over.
WWL: You and I will be in the funny place together.
NAGIN: But we authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick. After 9/11, we gave the president unprecedented powers lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places.
Now, you mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up -- you mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man.
You know, I'm not one of those drug addicts. I am thinking very clearly.
And I don't know whose problem it is. I don't know whether it's the governor's problem. I don't know whether it's the president's problem, but somebody needs to get their ass on a plane and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out right now.
WWL: What can we do here?
NAGIN: Keep talking about it.
WWL: We'll do that. What else can we do?
NAGIN: Organize people to write letters and make calls to their congressmen, to the president, to the governor. Flood their doggone offices with requests to do something. This is ridiculous.
I don't want to see anybody do anymore goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don't do another press conference until the resources are in this city. And then come down to this city and stand with us when there are military trucks and troops that we can't even count.
Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.
WWL: I'll say it right now, you're the only politician that's called and called for arms like this. And if -- whatever it takes, the governor, president -- whatever law precedent it takes, whatever it takes, I bet that the people listening to you are on your side.
NAGIN: Well, I hope so, Garland. I am just -- I'm at the point now where it don't matter. People are dying. They don't have homes. They don't have jobs. The city of New Orleans will never be the same in this time.
WWL: We're both pretty speechless here.
NAGIN: Yeah, I don't know what to say. I got to go.
WWL: OK. Keep in touch. Keep in touch.
http://www.wwltv.com/
Email From Doctor
In New Orleans Reveals
Much Horror
9-3-5
(9-1-5) --This is a dispatch from New Orleans from Dr. Greg Henderson, a pathologist who recently moved from Wilmington....
Thanks to all of you who have sent your notes of concern and your prayers. I am writing this note on Thurs. at 2 p.m.. I wanted to update all of you as to the situation here. I don't know how much information you are getting but I am certain it is more than we are getting. Be advised that almost everything I am telling you is from direct observation or rumor, from reasonable sources. They are allowing limited internet access, so I hope to
send this dispatch today.
Personally, my family and I are fine. My family is safe in Jackson, Miss.,and I am now a temporary resident of the Ritz Carleton Hotel in New Orleans.I figured if it was my time to go, I wanted to go in a place with a good wine list. In addition, this hotel is in a very old building on Canal Streetthat could and did sustain little damage. Many of the other hotels sustained significant loss of windows, and we expect that many of the guests may be evacuated here.
The first floor of all downtown buildings on Canal street, is underwater. I have heard that Charity Hospital and Tulane are limited in their ability to care for patients because of water. Ochsner is the only hospital that remains fully functional. However, I spoke with them today and they too are on generator and losing food and water fast.
The city now has no clean water, no sewerage system, no electricity, and no real communications. Bodies are still being recovered floating in the floods. We are worried about a cholera epidemic. Even the police are without effective communications. We have a group of armed police here with us at the hotel that is admirably trying to exert some local law enforcement. This is tough because looting is now rampant. Most of it is not malicious looting. These are poor and desperate people with no housing and no medical care and no food or water trying to take care of themselves and their families.
Unfortunately, some of the people are armed and dangerous. We hear gunshots frequently. Most of Canal street is occupied by armed looters who have a low threshold for discharging their weapons. We hear gunshots frequently. The looters are using makeshift boats made of pieces of styrofoam to access. We are still waiting for a significant national guard presence.
The health care situation here has dramatically worsened overnight. Many people in the hotel are elderly and small children. Many other guests have unusual diseases. ... There are (Infectious Disease) physicians in at this hotel attending an HIV conference. We have commandeered the world famous French Quarter Bar to turn into an makeshift clinic. There is a team of about seven doctors and PAs and pharmacists. We anticipate that this will be the major medical facility in the central business district and French Quarter, until we are all rescued.
Our biggest adventure today was raiding the Walgreens on Canal under police escort. The pharmacy was dark and full of water. We basically scooped the entire drug sets into garbage bags and removed them. All under police escort. The looters had to be held back at gunpoint. After a dose of prophylactic Cipro I hope to be fine.
In all, we are faring well. We have set up a hospital in the French Quarter bar in the hotel, and will start admitting patients today. Many will be from the hotel, but many will not. We are anticipating dealing with multiple medical problems, medications and acute injuries. Infection and perhaps even cholera are anticipated major problems. Food and water shortages are imminent.
The biggest question to all of us is where is the National Guard. We hear jet fighters and helicopters, but no real armed presence, and hence the rampant looting. There is no Red Cross and no Salvation Army.
In a sort of cliché way, this is an edifying experience. One is rapidly focused away from the transient and material to the bare necessities of life. It has been challenging to me to learn how to be a primary care physician. We are under martial law so return to our homes is impossible. I don't know how long it will be and this is my greatest fear. Despite it all,this is a soul-edifying experience. The greatest pain is to think about the loss. And how long the rebuild will take. And the horror of so many dead people.
PLEASE send this to all you think may be interested. I will send more according to your interest. Hopefully, their collective prayers will be answered. By the way, suture packs, sterile gloves and stethoscopes will be needed as the Ritz turns into a MASH unit.
Greg Henderson, MD
Petroleum geology
Raining hydrocarbons in the Gulf
Below the Gulf of Mexico, hydrocarbons flow upward through an intricate network of conduits and reservoirs. They start in thin layers of source rock and, from there, buoyantly rise to the surface. On their way up, the hydrocarbons collect in little rivulets, and create temporary pockets like rain filling a pond. Eventually most escape to the ocean. And, this is all happening now, not millions and millions of years ago, says Larry Cathles, a chemical geologist at Cornell University.
"We're dealing with this giant flow-through system where the hydrocarbons are generating now, moving through the overlying strata now, building the reservoirs now and spilling out into the ocean now," Cathles says.
He's bringing this new view of an active hydrocarbon cycle to industry, hoping it will lead to larger oil and gas discoveries. By matching the chemical signatures of the oil and gas with geologic models for the structures below the seafloor, petroleum geologists could tap into reserves larger than the North Sea, says Cathles, who presented his findings at the meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans on March 27.
This canvas image of the study area shows the top of salt surface (salt domes are spikes) in the Gas Research Institute study area and four areas of detailed study (stratigraphic layers). The oil fields seen here are Tiger Shoals, South Marsh Island 9 (SMI 9), the South Eugene Island Block 330 area (SEI 330), and Green Canyon 184 area (Jolliet reservoirs). In this area, 125 kilometers by 200 kilometers, Larry Cathles of Cornell University and his team estimate hydrocarbon reserves larger than those of the North Sea. Image by Larry Cathles.
Cathles and his team estimate that in a study area of about 9,600 square miles off the coast of Louisiana, source rocks a dozen kilometers down have generated as much as 184 billion tons of oil and gas — about 1,000 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent. "That's 30 percent more than we humans have consumed over the entire petroleum era," Cathles says. "And that's just this one little postage stamp area; if this is going on worldwide, then there's a lot of hydrocarbons venting out."
According to a 2000 assessment from the Minerals Management Service (MMS), the mean undiscovered, conventionally recoverable resources in the Gulf of Mexico offshore continental shelf are 71 billion barrels of oil equivalent. But, says Richie Baud of MMS, not all those resources are economically recoverable and they cannot be directly compared to Cathles' numbers, because "our assessment only includes those hydrocarbon resources that are conventionally recoverable whereas their study includes unconventionally recoverable resources." Future MMS assessments, Baud says, may include unconventionally recoverable resources, such as gas hydrates.
Of that huge resource of naturally generated hydrocarbons, Cathles says, more than 70 percent have made their way upward through the vast network of streams and ponds, venting into the ocean, at a rate of about 0.1 ton per year. The escaped hydrocarbons then become food for bacteria, helping to fuel the oceanic food web. Another 10 percent of the Gulf's total hydrocarbons are hidden in the subsurface, representing about 60 billion barrels of oil and 374 trillion cubic feet of gas that could be extracted. The remaining hydrocarbons, about 20 percent, stay trapped in the source strata.
Driving the venting process is the replacement of deep, carbonate-sourced Jurassic hydrocarbons by shale-sourced, Eocene hydrocarbons. Determining the ratio between the younger and older hydrocarbons, based on their chemical signatures, is key to understanding the migration paths of the oil and gas and the potential volume waiting to be tapped. "If the Eocene source matures and its chemical signature is going to be seen near the surface, it's got to displace all that earlier generated hydrocarbon — that's the secret of getting a handle on this number," Cathles says.
Another important key to understanding hydrocarbon migration is "gas washing," Cathles adds. A relatively new process his research team discovered in the Gulf work, gas washing refers to the regular interaction of oil with large amounts of natural gas. In the northern area of Cathles' study area, he estimates that gas carries off 90 percent of the oil.
Ed Colling, senior staff geologist at ChevronTexaco, says that identifying the depth at which gas washing occurs could be extremely useful in locating deeper oil reserves. "If you make a discovery, by back tracking the chemistry and seeing where the gas washing occurred, you have the opportunity to find deeper oil," he says.
Using such information in combination with the active hydrocarbon flow model Cathles' team produced and already existing 3-D seismic analyses could substantially improve accuracy in drilling for oil and gas, Colling says. ChevronTexaco, which funds Cathles' work through the Global Basins Research Network, has been working to integrate the technologies. (Additional funding comes from the Gas Research Institute.)
"All the players are looking for bigger reserves than what's on shore," Colling says. And deep water changes the business plan. With each well a multibillion dollar investment, the discovery must amount to at least several hundred million barrels of oil and gas for the drilling to be economic. Chemical signatures and detailed basin models are just more tools to help them decide where to drill, he says.
"A big part of the future of exploration is being able to effectively use chemical information," Cathles says. Working in an area with more oil by at least a factor of two than the North Sea, he says he hopes that his models will help companies better allocate their resources. But equally important, Cathles says, is that his work is shifting the way people think about natural hydrocarbon vent systems — from the past to the present.
Lisa M. Pinsker
June 2003
Yesterday Condi Rice was shopping on Fifth Avenue. According to several published reports, she spent the Wednesday night at a Broadway show "Spamalot," laughing in tears throughout the show. She was also missing (of course) from the cabinet photos all week long (naturally).
"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..."
And yesterday she was seen shopping in a luxury shoe store on Fifth Avenue.
"Just moments ago at the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue, Condoleeza Rice was seen spending several thousands of dollars on some nice, new shoes (we’ve confirmed this, so her new heels will surely get coverage from the WaPo’s Robin Givhan). A fellow shopper, unable to fathom the absurdity of Rice’s timing, went up to the Secretary and reportedly shouted, “How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!” Never one to have her fashion choices questioned, Rice had security PHYSICALLY REMOVE the woman."
"Today's New York Times. I don't know if anyone delivered the paper to Condoleeza's hotel room this morning," writes blogger Yeshim Deniz
New York Daily News also reported this morning in its story entitled "As South drowns, Rice soaks in N.Y." and asked "Did New Yorkers chase Condoleezza Rice back to Washington yesterday?"
"Like President Bush, the Secretary of State has been on vacation during the Hurricane Katrina crisis, with Rice enjoying her downtime in New York Wednesday and yesterday. The cabinet member's responsibilities are usually international, but her timing contributed to the "fiddling while Rome burns" impression given by her boss during the disaster, which may have claimed thousands of lives.
On Wednesday night, Secretary Rice was booed by some audience members at "Spamalot!," the Monty Python musical at the Shubert, when the lights went up after the performance.
Rice was not present in any of the cabinet meetings this week. She was at a Broadway comedy during this meeting and shopping on Fifth Avenue the next day.
At the State Department's daily briefing yesterday morning, before the New York incident, spokesman Sean McCormack responded to a journalist who asked whether Rice was involved with hurricane relief efforts by saying, "She's in contact with the department as appropriate." He made no mention that his boss had any plans to leave New York.
But yesterday afternoon, Rice had done just that. Department spokeswoman Joanne Moore told us: "The secretary is back in Washington, and she is being briefed on the situation." Moore did not know whether Condi had planned a longer stay here."
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin tells what he thinks about his fellow politicians and people in Washington in this morning's radio interview.
Published Sep. 2, 2005 — Reads 11,564
Who is jamming communications in New Orleans? Ham radio operators are reporting that communications in and around New Orleans are being jammed. In addition, perplexed ham radio operators who were enlisted by the Federal government in 911 are not being used for hurricane Katrina Federal relief efforts. There is some misinformation circulating on the web that the jamming is the resault of solar flares. Ham radio operators report that the flares are not the source of the communications jamming.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is reporting that no aircraft over New Orleans have been fired on over New Orleans or anywhere else in the area. Are the reports of shots being fired at aircraft an attempt by the Bush administration to purposely delay the arrival of relief to the city's homeless and dying poor? The neocons have turned New Orleans into Baghdad on the Mississippi.
Don't Give Your Hurricane Donations to the American Red Cross
Establishment charities have criminal history of stealing disaster funds
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones | Updated September 3 2005
As the aftermath of hurricane Katrina continues to wreak mayhem and havoc amid reports of mass looting, shooting at rescue helicopters, rapes and murders, establishment media organs are promoting the Red Cross as a worthy organization to give donations to.
The biggest website in the world, Yahoo.com, displays a Red Cross donation link prominently on its front page.
Every time there is a major catastrophe the Red Cross and similar organizations like United Way are given all the media attention while other charities are left in the shadows. This is not to say that the vast majority of Red Cross workers are not decent people who simply want to help those in need.
But what the media fails consistently to remember in their promotion of the organization is that the American Red Cross have been caught time and time again withholding money in the wake of horrible disasters that require immediate release of funds.
The Red Cross, under the Liberty Fund, collected $564 million in donations after 9/11. Months after the event, the Red Cross had distributed only $154 million. The Red Cross' explanation for keeping the majority of the money was that it would be used to help 'fight the war on terror'. To the victims, this meant that the money was going towards bombing broken backed third world countries like Afghanistan and setting up surveillance cameras and expanding the police state in US cities, and not towards helping them rebuild their lives.
Then Red Cross President Dr. Bernadine Healy arrogantly responded when questioned about the withholding of funds by stating, "The Liberty Fund is a war fund. It has evolved into a war fund."
Despite the family members of victims of 9/11 complaining bitterly to a House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight panel, the issue seemed to be brushed under the carpet and the mud didn't stick.
The Red Cross' scandalous activities reach back far before 9/11.
After the devastating San Francisco earthquake in 1989, the Red Cross passed on only $10 million of the $50 million that had been raised, and banked the rest.
Similar donations after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the Red River flooding in 1997 were also greedily withheld.
Insight Magazine reported,
“The first days after the bombing,” says one family member, “people from all over the country were sending checks in lieu of flowers and we were getting a lot of checks and cash every day — hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. Then the Red Cross went down to the post office and made arrangements to collect the mail and they would deliver it to us in bulk. All the mail had been opened, and from that point on there never was a dime, even in letters that said money was enclosed.”
The Red Cross has been caught engaging in rampant corruption on an all too regular basis.
3,000 people died after thousands of Canadians were infected with HIV and hepatitis C from tainted blood supplies.The Canadian Red Cross pleaded guilty to the charges earlier this year after they had been directly caught knowlingly shipping out the infected blood.
Smaller charities that were involved with the 2004 Tsunami relief project went public to say that large charities like Red Cross and United Way were engaged in secret backroom negotiations with each other that meant a large portion of the donation money was purposefully restricted from reaching the most needy areas affected by the disaster.
The history is clear, the Red Cross and other large so-called charities are in actual fact front group collection agencies for the military industrial complex.
Many informed historians have even alleged that the Red Cross was used as a Skull and Bones cover to overthrow The Russian Czar and pave the way for the rise of the Bolsheviks.
Do not give any money to the Red Cross unless you support the expansion of empire abroad and police state at home. Find a smaller trustworthy organization in the local area of New Orleans and make your donation to them.
A huge new U.S. military base in Israel nears completion- Rare photos
8/31/2005 10:45:00 AM GMT
The U.S. is currently building a new huge military base in Israel.
Last month Barry Chamish visited the site of the base which he described as massive.
While taking photos of the base, located ten minutes from Ben Gurion Airport, a guard came to Chamish and asked him what he was doing.
"I'm a journalist proving that a huge American military base is being constructed on Israeli soil," Chamish answered.
"What's wrong with that?" he asked. "Who else will protect us from the Palestinians?"
"Where are the Americans?" Chamish asked.
"What do you mean, they're everywhere here. Everyone in charge is American."
If you want to visit the base: take Route 443 to the Rosh Haayin junction, drive ten minutes until you see Rantis Junction. The sign points to Beit Arye, and Halamish. Turn right, the base is a mile away on the left side.
Last year, a new terminal was opened so that the Americans have the old terminal to store and move whatever they're planning to import once Gush Katif and the rest of the settler vermin are removed.
The metal facilities built up on the rocks are huge electronic facilities probably filled with CIA and extensive phone and other electronic monitoring stuff. There is missile launch bunker. Somewhere within a mile to 5 miles are silos with the missiles in them. This kind of a facility is filled with covered electronics that can even be monitored from the U.S. itself. None of those huge buildings is for people to live or work in.
Gee Whiz - Halliburton
Hired To Do
Storm Cleanup
9-3-5
The Navy has hired Houston-based Halliburton Co. to restore electric power, repair roofs and remove debris at three naval facilities in Mississippi damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Halliburton subsidiary KBR will also perform damage assessments at other naval installations in New Orleans as soon as it is safe to do so.
KBR was assigned the work under a "construction capabilities" contract awarded in 2004 after a competitive bidding process. The company is not involved in the Army Corps of Engineers' effort to repair New Orleans' levees.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3335685
The Real Looters Are
Wearing Pinstripes
By Dave Lindorff
9-3-5
Forget the isolated looters. The real villains of the New Orleans tragedy are the oil executives who have chosen this opportunity to gouge us all and put the nation's economy at risk in order to rake in the bucks while the getting's good.
In a crisis, there are always those who will obscenely take advantage of the situation for personal gain.
I'm not talking here about the looters in New Orleans, as ugly and mean as some of their actions have been.
I am talking about the oil industry.
The evidence is clear:
Ten percent of American oil production is off line because of Hurricane Katrina. That has led to a nominal increase in the per-barrel world price of oil, since 10 percent of U.S. production represents only a single-digit portion of world demand. Yet gasoline prices in the US have soared, from about $2..40 per gallon before the hurricane hit to over $3.00 a gallon now nationwide?a jump of 25 percent.
Local gas station owners say that they have to raise their prices immediately because they only keep a few days' supply on hand and need to have the cash to pay for the next delivery, which will be priced at the new higher wholesale rate. I am inclined to believe that, if their new price is only around 20-25 percent higher than before.
But clearly, somewhere between the oil coming out of the ground or into a port terminal, and those retail pumps, some businesses are cleaning up at the expense of the public.
Read that: the oil companies are gouging and profiteering on disaster.
All you need to do is look at the stock pages. Haliburton, the oil services company, is up from 28.69 to 62 over the year. Exxon/Mobil is up from 45.09 to 64.37 over the year. Sunoco is up from 30.26 a year ago to 73.22. The list goes on and on.
Back in World War II, there was an agency--led by a man named Harry Truman--which aggressively prosecuted companies that tried to profiteer on the war. Now profiteering on war, and on national tragedy it seems, is simply seen in Washington as good business, to be rewarded by investors.
Americans are now paying the price for handing all branches of the government over to one party. Even with the Democratic Party little more than an opposition in name only, if it had been in charge of even one of the two houses of Congress, you can bet that the dynamics of competitive politics would have led to hearings into price gouging and disaster profiteering, but with Republicans in charge in both chambers, the odds of that happening are zero. Likewise, with free-market zealots being appointed by President Bush in droves to the federal bench, don't expect any relief in the courts.
The impact of the oil companies' incredible greed will be profound. It's not just that they are picking our pockets at a time of national crisis; their short-term profiteering is likely to send the national economy into a tailspin as higher oil prices stunt consumer spending and push up all energy costs.
So far, the media coverage has focused on the actions of individual looters in the destroyed city of New Orleans. To the extent that gas prices have received attention, the focus has been at the retail end.
Nobody's talking about the middlemen, and especially about the giant corporations that are really raking it in.
When you think about it though, you have to say that the cold, calculating effort by some corporate executives to take advantage of a national tragedy is far more vile and reprehensible than the actions of desperate or even criminally opportunistic individuals in a city that was essentially abandoned for days by federal authorities.
The inaction of the Bush Administration and of the Republican Congress to challenge, or at least investigate, this outrage is equally disgusting.
_____
For other stories by Lindorff, please go (at no charge) to This Can't Be Happening! .
homepage: homepage: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net
The Two Americas
By Marjorie Cohn
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Saturday 03 September 2005
Last September, a Category 5 hurricane battered the small island of Cuba with 160-mile-per-hour winds. More than 1.5 million Cubans were evacuated to higher ground ahead of the storm. Although the hurricane destroyed 20,000 houses, no one died.
What is Cuban President Fidel Castro's secret? According to Dr. Nelson Valdes, a sociology professor at the University of New Mexico, and specialist in Latin America, "the whole civil defense is embedded in the community to begin with. People know ahead of time where they are to go."
"Cuba's leaders go on TV and take charge," said Valdes. Contrast this with George W. Bush's reaction to Hurricane Katrina. The day after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Bush was playing golf. He waited three days to make a TV appearance and five days before visiting the disaster site. In a scathing editorial on Thursday, the New York Times said, "nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis."
"Merely sticking people in a stadium is unthinkable" in Cuba, Valdes said. "Shelters all have medical personnel, from the neighborhood. They have family doctors in Cuba, who evacuate together with the neighborhood, and already know, for example, who needs insulin."
They also evacuate animals and veterinarians, TV sets and refrigerators, "so that people aren't reluctant to leave because people might steal their stuff," Valdes observed.
After Hurricane Ivan, the United Nations International Secretariat for Disaster Reduction cited Cuba as a model for hurricane preparation. ISDR director Salvano Briceno said, "The Cuban way could easily be applied to other countries with similar economic conditions and even in countries with greater resources that do not manage to protect their population as well as Cuba does."
Our federal and local governments had more than ample warning that hurricanes, which are growing in intensity thanks to global warming, could destroy New Orleans. Yet, instead of heeding those warnings, Bush set about to prevent states from controlling global warming, weaken FEMA, and cut the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for levee construction in New Orleans by $71.2 million, a 44 percent reduction.
Bush sent nearly half our National Guard troops and high-water Humvees to fight in an unnecessary war in Iraq. Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Paris in New Orleans, noted a year ago, "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq."
An Editor and Publisher article Wednesday said the Army Corps of Engineers "never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security - coming at the same time as federal tax cuts - was the reason for the strain," which caused a slowdown of work on flood control and sinking levees.
"This storm was much greater than protection we were authorized to provide," said Alfred C. Naomi, a senior project manager in the New Orleans district of the corps.
Unlike in Cuba, where homeland security means keeping the country secure from deadly natural disasters as well as foreign invasions, Bush has failed to keep our people safe. "On a fundamental level," Paul Krugman wrote in yesterday's New York Times, "our current leaders just aren't serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don't like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on prevention measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice."
During the 2004 election campaign, vice presidential candidate John Edwards spoke of "the two Americas." It seems unfathomable how people can shoot at rescue workers. Yet, after the beating of Rodney King aired on televisions across the country, poor, desperate, hungry people in Watts took over their neighborhoods, burning and looting. Their anger, which had seethed below the surface for so long, erupted. That's what's happening now in New Orleans. And we, mostly white, people of privilege, rarely catch a glimpse of this other America.
"I think a lot of it has to do with race and class," said Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. "The people affected were largely poor people. Poor, black people."
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin reached a breaking point Thursday night. "You mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources we need? Come on, man!"
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had boasted earlier in the day that FEMA and other federal agencies have done a "magnificent job" under the circumstances.
But, said, Nagin, "They're feeding the people a line of bull, and they are spinning and people are dying. Get off your asses and let's do something!"
When asked about the looting, the mayor said that except for a few "knuckleheads," it is the result of desperate people trying to find food and water to survive.
Nagin blamed the outbreak of violence and crime on drug addicts who have been cut off from their drug supplies, wandering the city, "looking to take the edge off their jones."
When Hurricane Ivan hit Cuba, no curfew was imposed; yet, no looting or violence took place. Everyone was in the same boat.
Fidel Castro, who has compared his government's preparations for Hurricane Ivan to the island's long-standing preparations for an invasion by the United States, said, "We've been preparing for this for 45 years."
On Thursday, Cuba's National Assembly sent a message of solidarity to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. It says the Cuban people have followed closely the news of the hurricane damage in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and the news has caused pain and sadness. The message notes that the hardest hit are African-Americans, Latino workers, and the poor, who still wait to be rescued and taken to secure places, and who have suffered the most fatalities and homelessness. The message concludes by saying that the entire world must feel this tragedy as its own.
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