September 10, 2005

The Empire of Darkness Series #27: The New 9-11 That Backfired

Hello everyone!

After absorbing like everyone else the shock of all the pictures and news about the very large swath of destruction cut by Hurricane Katrina as well as the resulting thousands of deaths and over 500,000 refugees it left behind, I could not help but turn my attention to the flow of reports coming in my emails revealing how this catastrophic storm was in fact a man-made disaster designed in part to deflect people's attention away from all the news reports that were contributing for the precipitous fall of the Bush failed presidency in opinion polls and to shore up his popularity in 9-11 fashion, just to mention a few of their presumed objectives— gluttonous greed of their corporate oil sponsors and various fascist agendas also certainly came into play.

Except this time, the public reaction and media coverage did not go according to plans as a wave of compassion-driven support engulfed most of the US, coupled with searing rage at the utterly lagging, incompetent and outright malicious reaction of the entire federal government, especially the much-maligned FEMA, which failed to come to a timely rescue of some of its poorest citizens, but also in some cases deliberately made things worse, according to many eyewitnesses accounts, as if to make sure the human cost of this tragedy was going to be large enough to shock everyone numb and subdued.

The initial obvious lack of humanity of Bush and his cohort who continued their "normal" life in the first few days as if nothing serious happened and the continuing mismanagement of relief operations that in so many instances only exacerbated the crisis have only contributed to further awaken the US public to what most of the rest of the planet already realized about this dismally dangerous and terminally corrupt illegal government.

Their complete and permanent downfall through massive popular rejection is not only imminent but unavoidable.

Contributing to the end of the Empire of Darkness on Earth through networking anything from this compilation - including this URL http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/Archives2005/EmpireDarkness27.htm for the whole enchilada - and envisioning a world of peaceful, harmonious coexistence among all humans and with every other life forms would help hasten such a positive outcome.

Much Love to all of you!

Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator

P.S. The new Meditation Focus #136 will be issued tonight...

In case you did not see them, check also my 2 previous compilations on this topic:

Miscellaneous Subjects #217: Was Katrina on Scalar Steroids? (September 2, 2005)
http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/Archives2005/MiscelSubjects217.htm

The Writing on the Wall Series #43: Has Katrina Blown Away The Bush/Oil Cartel Stubbornness? (August 31, 2005 )
http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/Archives2005/WritingWall43.htm

You are welcomed to network anything from this compilation, but please also include the following:

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This compilation is archived at http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/Archives2005/EmpireDarkness27.htm

STATS for this compilation: Over 35,450 words and 150 links provided - THIS IS MY LARGEST COMPILATION EVER... Nearly 100 pages long!

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"Further research also revealed the fund (Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund) was set up months in advance of Hurricane Katrina. "This is premeditated mass murder, just like the Florida Hurricanes last year before the presidential election, to put people in a state of vertigo and mass confusion," states John Joseph Kennedy. "The man-ufactured tornados, tsunamis and hurricanes are the ultimate weapons of mass destruction."

Carol Adler - Taken from "Fooling with Mother Nature - Katrina was not a 'natural disaster' after all" below.


"The debacle is a monumental failure of government at all levels, an inability to serve the citizens when that service is most needed."

- Doug Thompspn - taken from http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_7357.shtml


Worthy of Your Attention

Hurricane Katrina - Help Urgently Needed
http://southernmutualhelp.org/RuralRecoveryFund.cfm
Southern Mutual Help Association must call upon all of you to help us. Louisiana is in the midst of a catastrophe. Not only is New Orleans devastated but so are so many of the surrounding rural communities. Fishers and family farmers already under the stress of international trade agreements, have now lost homes and the very means of creating a livelihood to recover. Many rural small businesses are destroyed. The crops in many areas are gone — cane, citrus, soybeans. The fisheries are destroyed in large areas of Louisiana's coast. This is a crisis for small farmers, farm workers and fisher families. SMHA knows from our lengthy recovery from hurricane Andrew in August of 1992 that rural areas are last and receive the least. Focus will understandably be on urban areas such as New Orleans, on oil and gas installations, on search, rescue and the basics of life like water, food, shelter, medical treatment. Many agencies and generous souls will be seeing to those needs. SMHA is still assessing the situation of directly impacted rural communities and families. We already know the Acadiana region around Lafayette will have approximately 150,000 refugees looking first for where to be for the time away from their homes (likely to be lengthy), and secondly how to possibly recover and rebuild their future. SMHA as a rural development organization needs your help in the recovery effort. SMHA needs money. It will take millions for dollars in grants and specially structured loans to help rural families recover. After Andrew, SMHA learned a great deal. Specially trained volunteers like doctors, nurses, carpenters are helpful especially if they can be responsible for their own expenses, transportation and shelter out of the impacted area. Too many volunteers and clothes are simply a burden. Well-handled money is the most urgently needed response and helps the most. SMHA has, as you know, 36 years of responsibly handling money and achieving mission. We have created a special Rural Recovery Fund that will support these efforts. Please give generously to this fund. You may use the links below to donate with your credit card, or mail checks made to "SMHA - Rural Recovery Fund" to:
Southern Mutual Help Association, Inc.
3602 Old Jeanerette Rd.
New Iberia, LA 70563
Louisiana and the rural poor need you now...

Katrina: Missing Persons list
http://www.nola.com/forums/searching/index.ssf?initial=true

Katrina: Tell Them You're OK
http://www.nola.com/forums/imok/index.ssf?initial=true

One picture is worth a thousand editorials
http://www.freedomforceinternational.org/pics/Pecking_order.jpg

"The records of Sister Lúcia, kept at the archives since the incident, revealed that the children did not interact with an apparition of the Virgin Mary but with a hologram of an extraterrestrial projected on a beam of light from a spacecraft hovering high above them. The archives clearly showed that the entities encountered at Fátima were not deities from Heaven but rather alien beings visiting our planet from “elsewhere” in the vast Cosmos. This finding was supported by hundreds of other facts from the time of the apparitions. Fátima, the authors discovered, was the first major UFO case of the 20th century."
- Taken from "New History Reveals the Truth About the Fátima Incident" posted at http://two.guestbook.de/gb.cgi?gid=456912&prot=ccbcsw

Heru's update for September 2005
http://www.returnoflight.com/Updates/sept05.htm
(...) I would say that in November and December, early December, just about every hot spot on this planet (the middle East, North Korea, Taiwan, Nigeria and other places in Africa, Iran) all of this will heat up and it will look like at any moment any one of them could explode and spiral out of control. But that it won't happen. And in the meantime, there will be growing resistance to the governmental policies such as the government in the US. The resistance is beginning, and the heart of the resistance is beginning to find its voice and its strength. It will not back down, and it will grow.(...) Do not immerse yourself in the fear mongering and the rumors of war. For embedded in the media are many subliminal controlling images designed to keep you from your own true power. Therefore create peace in your hearts, and enjoy that peace. And as you do, it will radiate out from you. CLIP

Katrina Timeline
http://www.thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline
Comment on the timeline at http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/07/the-katrina-timeline/

Hurricane Watch Posted for Southeast Coast (Sept 10)
http://tinyurl.com/cxz53
CHARLESTON, S.C. - A hurricane watch was posted Saturday for the Southeast coast as Ophelia strengthened into a hurricane once again and meteorologists said its meandering course could take a sharp turn toward land. (...) If Ophelia makes landfall in South Carolina it would the third hurricane in 13 months to strike the state. Hurricanes Charlie and Gaston hit the South Carolina coast last season in the same general area.Ophelia is the seventh hurricane in this year's busy Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1 and ends Nov. 30. Peak storm activity typically occurs from the end of August through mid-September.

Global Activity tropical cyclones around the world
http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/hurr/glob.rxml
Even though Atlantic Ocean hurricanes receive a lot of attention, only 12% of tropical cyclones seen world-wide are located here. These dangerous storms can be found in three of our four oceans, and in both hemispheres. The diagram below shows the regions of the Earth where tropical storms originate. Approximately 96 tropical cyclones are reported annually.

Tropical Storms, Worldwide
http://www.solar.ifa.hawaii.edu/Tropical/tropical.html


CONTENTS

1. Fooling with Mother Nature - Katrina was not a 'natural disaster' after all
2. After Katrina fiasco, time for Bush to go
3. Antiwar Groups Hope to Pack 100,000 Around White House
4. Washing Away the Conservative Movement
5. FEMA Deliberately Sabotaging Hurricane Relief Efforts
6. Bush's Hurricane Response a Disaster
7. Eyewitness Report From New Orleans Gives Credence To Allegations That Katrina Was An 'Artificially Enhanced' Catastrophe
8. Katrina Environmental Issues 'Almost Unimaginable'
9. Incompetence or Conspiracy? Genocide in New Orleans
10. 'They're not giving us what we need to survive'
11. What's going on in New Orleans?
12. BUSH TO LEAD INVESTIGATION OF BUSH
13. A Fun Mail Art Project for Our Country
14. The Positive Outcomes of Hurricane Katrina
15. Floor Statement of Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich about Hurricane Katrina
16. HURRICANE VIGIL
17. KATRINA & CONSCIOUSNESS


See also:

Two in three Americans critical of Bush's handling of hurricane: poll (Sept 08, 2005)
http://www.terradaily.com/2005/050908164850.blb84xye.html
More than two thirds of Americans believe President George W. Bush did not do enough in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, according to an opinion poll published Thursday. The poll, which revealed deep divides between whites and blacks, showed 67 percent of those questioned thought Bush could have done more and that just 28 percent believed he had done all he could to manage the disaster response. The poll, conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press Tuesday and Wednesday among 1,000 Americans, showed Bush's approval rating dropping to 40 percent and his disapproval rating climbing to 52 percent.It said the figures were among the bleakest of his presidency. "The American public is highly critical of President Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts," the center said in a statement. And for the first time since the attacks of September 11, 2001, a majority of Americans said it was more important for Bush to focus on domestic policy than the war on terrorism.Perceptions of the disaster response differed considerably between racial groups, with 71 percent of blacks saying the disaster showed that racial inequality remained a major problem in the country, while 56 percent of whites said the issue was not a particularly important lesson of the disaster. Some 66 percent of blacks thought that the government's response to the crisis would have been faster if most of the victims from the storm had been white. Seventy-seven percent of whites disagreed. Bush's administration has faced some of its most outspoken criticism to the disaster, with critics saying the federal response was too little too late and rebutting his contention that the disaster could not have been predicted. While the final death toll from the catastrophe is unknown, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin warned the human cost could reach 10,000. Hundreds of thousands have been evacuated from the region and remain in temporary shelters.

Bush faces new questions on relief (September 9th, 2005 )
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4014
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - With President George W. Bush promising to speed help to anxious and frustrated survivors of Hurricane Katrina, questions emerged on Friday over the qualifications of those leading the relief effort. Many of those at the top of the U.S. agency charged with managing disaster relief had no emergency oversight experience but did have political ties to Bush, the Washington Post reported. (...) The Washington Post reported that five of eight top FEMA officials had come to their jobs with virtually no experience in handling disasters. The agency's top three leaders, including Brown, had ties to Bush's 2000 presidential campaign or the White House team that lays the groundwork for presidential trips. Brown's biography on the agency Web site said he had once served as an "assistant city manager with emergency services oversight," but Time quoted an official in Edmond, Oklahoma, as saying the job was actually "assistant to the city manager," with little responsibility. (...) The official death toll surpassed 300 in the two hardest hit states when Louisiana officials said they had confirmed 118 deaths, on top of 201 in neighboring Mississippi. Thousands more may still be missing but the extent of the carnage remains unknown.

After Katrina: The Toxic Timebomb (Sept 7, 2005)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article310814.ece
The devastation of Hurricane Katrina has created a vast toxic soup that stretches across south-eastern Louisiana and Mississippi, and portends the arrival of an environmental disaster to rival the awe-inspiring destruction of property and human life over the past week. Toxicologists and public health experts warned yesterday that pumping billions of gallons of contaminated water from the streets of New Orleans back into the Gulf of Mexico - the only viable option if the city is ever to return to even a semblance of its former self -would have a crippling effect on marine and animal life, compromise the wetlands that form the first line of resistance to future hurricanes, and carry deleterious consequences for human health throughout the region. The full extent of the danger is unknown and unknowable, but the polluted waters are known to contain human and animal waste, the bodies of people and animals, household effluence, and chemical and petrochemical toxins from the refineries that dot the Gulf coast in and around New Orleans. Even before the pumping is complete, a process city officials said yesterday would take at least three weeks (some engineers believe it could last months), the consequences for all living creatures - humans, animals, fish and micro-organisms - are likely to be dire. "We're talking about a mass of decomposing dead bodies and animals. This is going to produce a horrible festering of unknown consequences," said Harold Zeliger, a chemical toxicologist and independent consultant based in New York State. CLIP

The Entire Community Is Now a Toxic Waste Dump
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/090905HA.shtml
In Katrina's aftermath, oil spills dominate the landscape, some miles long and up to 200 yards wide. Refineries and industrial plants are leaking a stew of chemicals, creating one giant superfund site.

In The Mirror Of The Water - by John Kaminski (7 Sept 2005)
http://warfolly.vzz.net/water.html
New Orleans as a portrait of ourselves and our future - (...) Take a taste, a gargantuan, thirst-quenching slug of that delicious elixir brewed by humanity's most successful citizens, that Cajun cabernet of pesticide-fouled Mississippi River water curdling in the backwater blender of the Gulf of Mexico dead zone, spiced by fragrances from all across the periodic table of toxic elements and spiced with a disease-bearing melange of decomposing dead animals.Savor the bouquet. See how it tinkles on your tongue and wafts into your hairy nostrils. Close your eyes and you can envision the perfect portrait of human civilization. They say we are 89 percent water. The quality of the water within us is directly correlative to the ingredients of the potion in the cauldron of New Orleans. (...) Because so many ordinary people have tried to help New Orleans storm victims and been thwarted by bureaucratic officialdom, one can only draw the conclusion that the government has severely limited its rescue efforts because there is no place in corporate society for these people, and they need to be eliminated.I thought it was very cool that so many of those like DU activist Dennis Kyne and others who went to Texas to support antiwar mom Cindy Sheehan smoothly moved their operation to New Orleans to help out.This small remaining segment of morally decent Americans knows — much more authentically that the government could ever pretend to know — that when people are dying you don’t argue about causes or rules. Perhaps that is the true test of being human. CLIP

A Very, Very Good Idea (Sept 9) http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_7357.shtml
Ben Marble, a Gulfport resident who says he’s a doctor, had the guts to wade into Vice President Dick Cheney’s carefully-staged photo op Thursday and say what many residents of the Gulf Coast wanted to say to the politicians who sat on their butts while the people of Mississippi and Louisiana lay dead and dying.“Go fuck yourself Mr. Cheney,” Marble screamed just off camera as the event played out live on CNN. “Go fuck yourself you asshole!” Secret Service agents subdued Marble and CNN yanked the video off its web site but copies of it float around the Internet and Marble, who’s homeless after Katrina destroyed his Gulfport home, is offering a copy for sale on EBay. Republicans, of course, jumped in with carefully-crafted indignation over Marble’s “inappropriate remarks” to Cheney, forgetting the Vice President used the same words to tell off a Senator just last year.Cheney offered his outburst of obscenity because that Senator had the gall to question his relationship with scandal-scarred Halliburton, the company he used to run and that’s now ripping off taxpayers in Iraq. All Marble had to be upset about was loss of his home, death of close friends and family and destruction of the city he loved. Yet Marble, who also plays with punk rock bands in the Gulfport area, could become the symbol of frustration felt not only by residents of the hard hit area but every American who recoils in shock and anger at the government’s lackluster and uncompassionate response to the horror, death and destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Jefferson Parish president Aaron Broussard cried without shame on national television this week, saying the federal “bureaucracy has committed murder here in the Greater New Orleans area.” CLIP

Here's How You Can Make an Immediate Difference in Louisiana (Sept 7)
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=184
There is much to be said and done about the manmade annihilation of New Orleans, caused NOT by a hurricane but by the very specific decisions made by the Bush administration in the past four and a half years. Do not listen to anyone who says we can discuss all this later. No, we can't. Our country is in an immediate state of vulnerability. More hurricanes and other disasters are on the way, and a lazy bunch of self-satisfied lunatics are still running the show. So, in the next few days, I will write to you about what must be done about Bush and Co. But today I want you to join with me in bypassing the colossally inept and incompetent Bush administration and get help DIRECTLY to the people of the New Orleans area -- right now. CLIP - More details also at http://www.michaelmoore.com/

The Militarization of New Orleans. From Victims to Vandals: Mass Media and New Orleans (September 8, 2005) http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=PET20050908&articleId=902
Briefly, but dramatically, the political failures that turned New Orleans and many other Gulf cities and towns into a human catastrophe, shattered the bonds of conformity between the mass media and the government. Critical reporters described the failure of the government's Homeland Security to evacuate vulnerable poor people and the absence of basic food and water for the victims. The media contrasted Bush partying with Republican cronies in California, Vice President Cheney on the golfing green, Secretary of State Rice shopping in Manhattan and Homeland Security boss Chertoff claiming that disaster relief was in excellent shape with the cries of desperation and destitution of tens of thousands of poverty-stricken and hungry African Americans and poor whites barely surviving in a dark, filthy convention center and sports arena. By Day Four of the disaster, the critical impassioned voices were replaced by measured voices of official compassion. Photo opportunities of Bush abounded; the National Guardmen were arriving and the Government was responding. The "news" was about the heroic aid workers with photogenic white guards and nurses cradling black infants, bringing relief to the "refugees" and ending the growing lawlessness, violence and "looting" among the survivors. Interviews with top military officials focused on the threats to the soldiers from violent elements among the "refugees". Visual images of armored troop carriers, heavily armed Special Forces against a backdrop of angry desolate people, resonated with the war propaganda from Iraq. What was an exercise in humanitarian aid was converted into a counter-insurgency operation. By the end of the sixth day the mass media converted the national government's political failures to protect citizens into a successful military occupation. (...) The mass media made an abrupt turn, adapting and shaping the images of the Administration's catastrophe. In seven days the magic of the media transformed the Bush team from incompetent and ignorant leaders to decisive and caring officials. At the same time the desperate, dying and furious were converted into an unruly, crime-ridden, ungrateful and chaotic mob. The political message was clear: Repression and militarization were priority conditions for survival and humanitarian aid. The city had to be under de facto martial law before it could be saved. Viet Nam and Falluja come to mind. After all, counter-insurgency is what we do best. According to the President, his Cabinet members and the media: "America is rising to the occasion." We won't forget the 10,000's of dead and injured, we'll even lower the flag for a few days - that is if the Congressional Black Caucus raises the issue. As the President would say, "Let's move on. We've got a war to win in Iraq." In the other America, the victims, their friends, their brothers and sisters are not deceived. Certainly the Europeans, Africans, Asians and Latin Americans have images etched in their collective memory: of frantic, desperate New Orleans poor with faces staring angrily at an indifferent government. But will white America remember who are the criminals and who are the victims?

THE MAN WE ELECTED PRESIDENT IN 2000 ACTUALLY DID HELP IN NEW ORLEANS
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2005/09/man-we-elected-president-in-2000.html
My friend Suzi sent me this today. Kind of makes you stop and think-- especially in light of the fact that EVERY recount conducted before Rehnquist and Co. stopped the official state of Florida recount has shown that Gore won Florida-- and thus the presidency-- by a SUBSTANTIAL margin. So while Bush was golfing in San Diego, campaign fund-raising, plotting to find as bad a Supreme Court Chief Judge as Rehnquist, trying to burnish his shattered image as a leader, etc, the man we actually did elect president in 2000 was taking some action. This is a letter Suzi sent me from a friend of hers: Here is a story you will not hear on the endless media reports about Louisiana, because the man involved will do no interviews and has only told the press that he wants no mention of his action, lest it be "politicized". Al Gore, private citizen with, certainly, a certain clout, began an initiative on Thursday, September 1st. He personally and privately rented an American Airlines jet and crew, got a doctor friend of his and several nurses, and on Saturday morning, he flew to Louis Armstrong airport in New Orleans, gathered up 140 elderly and ill people from the triage center there and flew them to the Knoxville, Tennessee airport. They were met by relief workers who unloaded the plane and took the people to area hospitals which were on alert and ready to welcome the people. After being checked out, those who were able were taken to a Red Cross shelter set up at a local church. Mr. Gore and his doctor had intended to make a second trip on Saturday, but the undertaking - the loading on and the loading off took several hours each, and by the time he could go back to N.O., it was getting dark and, of course, there are no landing lights at the airport in N.O. Sunday, they flew to Dallas and collected another planeload of refugees and brought them to Chattanooga. That's as far as my information goes. I only know this because the local paper was at the Knoxville airport and got pictures of the people and Mr. Gore moving among them, helping them off the plane. His doctor spoke briefly to the local press, saying, "Al called and asked for help. So here I am." This is the man we elected president.

IRAN OFFERS US KATRINA OIL RELIEF
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4218986.stm
Iran has offered to send 20m barrels of crude oil to the US to help with the consequences of Hurricane Katrina. The two countries have had no diplomatic relations for decades, but America did send help to Iran when a severe earthquake hit Bam in 2003. Speaking on state-run radio, Iran's envoy to OPEC said his country was ready to send up to five shiploads of crude oil to the US. But he said this could only happen if US sanctions were lifted first.

Huge oil spill
http://www.timesofoman.com/newsdetails.asp?newsid=19363
NEW ORLEANS - Two oil storage tanks, damaged by Hurricane Katrina, have spilled millions of barrels of oil into a marsh south of New Orleans, officials said yesterday.The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality believes the two tanks, located in an oil storage, each contained two million barrels of oil, said spokesman Rodney Mallett. The spill occurred near Venice, 120km south of New Orleans, in a peninsula that includes a wildlife refuge. “We flew over in a plane and noticed an oil lake near Venice,” said Rodney Mallett, a DEQ spokesman. The oil spilled into a marsh between the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico.

Group: Internal memos show oil companies limited refineries to drive up prices
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Group_Internal_memos_show_oil_companies_limited_refineries_to_drive_up__0907.html
The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) today exposed internal oil company memos that show how the industry intentionally reduced domestic refining capacity to drive up profits.

Republicans Eye Expanding US Offshore Drilling
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/090905EB.shtml
Barely a month after President Bush signed a $14.5 billion energy bill into law, Hurricane Katrina's destructive dance through the US oilpatch is being seized on by Republicans as a reason to open more federal offshore waters to drilling.

New Orleans a 'ghost town' for 9 months (04 September 2005)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article310186.ece
New Orleans will have to be abandoned for at least nine months, and many of its people will remain homeless for up to two years, the US government believes.The bleak assessment will deepen the biggest crisis faced by President George Bush, who last week called the devastation of Hurricane Katrina a "temporary disruption". As the relief effort finally got under way yesterday for the tens of thousands of people left without food, water, medicines or the rule of law for five days, the federal official in charge of disaster recovery told foreign diplomats that reconstruction cannot begin until next summer.The President is now facing a political hurricane of his own, with gathering criticism, even from inside his own party, for failing to heed warnings of the city's vulnerability, cutting spending on its defences to pay for the wars on terror and in Iraq, and responding sluggishly to the worst natural catastrophe ever to hit his country. Ray Nagin, the Mayor of New Orleans, said that every day of delay has caused hundreds of deaths. Louisiana's junior Senator, Republican David Vitter, gave the Bush administration "an F grade" for its handling of the crisis. Senator Chuck Hagel, a leading contender for his party's nomination to succeed Mr Bush, said, "There must be some accountability."The criticism is all the sharper because the President did nothing to alter his holiday schedule for 48 hours. Vice-President Dick Cheney remains on holiday in Wyoming. Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, returned to Washington after being seen shopping for $7,000 shoes in Manhattan as New Orleans went under. CLIP

Police violence against journalists in New Orleans in Katrina aftermath (Sept 9, 2005)
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=14894
Reporters Without Borders voiced concern today about police violence against journalists covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, especially about the attacks on reporters and photographers that took place on 1 September. "We understand that the security forces are overwhelmed and we are aware of the great tension and the difficult conditions under which they are having to work in areas hit by Katrina, but it is very worrying that this is reflected in violence against journalists," the press freedom organisation said. "We believe that is essential that news coverage should be completely free and unobstructed in such a serious situation," Reporters Without Borders added. Reporter Tim Harper and photographer Lucas Oleniuk of the Canadian Toronto Star daily were the victims of police violence while covering a clash between police and looters. The police threatened them several times at gunpoint and, when they realised Oleniuk had photographed them hitting looters, they hurled him to the ground, grabbed his two cameras and removed memory cards containing around 350 pictures. His press card was also torn from him. When he asked for his pictures back, the police insulted him and threatened to hit him. Harper said in a report about the police violence in the Toronto Star that, given the situation in New Orleans, there was not doubt that the police saw journalists as an obstacle to their efforts to regain control of the city. CLIP

Journalist Groups Protest FEMA Ban on Photos of Dead
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090805N.shtml
"It's impossible for me to imagine how you report a story whose subject is death without allowing the public to see images of the subject of the story," Larry Siems of the PEN American Center told Reuters.

First Estimate Puts Storm's Economic Toll at $100 Billion (September 3, 2005)
http://tinyurl.com/8vm2r
A risk management firm yesterday offered the first estimate of economic losses from Hurricane Katrina - $100 billion - and said that private insurance would probably cover less than a quarter of that. Federal money and charitable contributions may need to do the rest. Saying the damage already appeared far greater than expected, Risk Management Solutions in Newark, Calif., said that insured losses would range from $20 billion to $35 billion, much higher than the firm's initial estimate of $10 billion to $25 billion. The new figures suggest that Hurricane Katrina will cost the insurance industry more than any other natural disaster on record (...) Risk Management Solutions estimated that the flood in New Orleans had inundated 150,000 properties, making it the most damaging flood in the nation's history.

Global Warming May Spawn More Super-Storms
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0921-01.htm

Katrina fuels global warming storm (Sept 9, 2005)
http://tinyurl.com/cko4a
OSLO (Reuters) - Hurricane Katrina has spurred debate about global warming worldwide with some environmentalists sniping at President George W. Bush for pulling out of the main U.N. plan for braking climate change.Experts agree it is impossible to say any one storm is caused by rising temperatures. Numbers of tropical cyclones like hurricanes worldwide are stable at about 90 a year although recent U.S. research shows they may be becoming more intense.Still, the European Commission, the World Bank, some environmentalists, Australia's Greens and even Sweden's king said the disaster, feared to have killed thousands of people in the United States, could be a portent of worse to come."As climate change is happening, we know that the frequency of these disasters will increase as well as the scope," European Commission spokeswoman Barbara Helfferich said. "If we let climate change continue like it is continuing, we will have to deal with disasters like that," she said. She said it was wrong to say Katrina was caused by global warming widely blamed on emissions from cars, power plants and factories. Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf told reporters he was deeply shaken by the damage and suffering of millions of people. CLIP

How German TV saw Bush (5 Sept 2005)
http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_71924.asp
German TV, however, filed a much different report. ZDF news reporter Christine Adelhardt reported the president's visit to be a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open-air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was hastily set up for his photo-op and then torn down immediately after he and the herd of "news people" had left. And those women Bush hugged for the camera were not even Biloxi locals. Some have even speculated that they were looters who were just individuals wandering in the area that were quickly recruited as props for Bush's faux compassion photo-op. And as we watched the CNN video of loaders and dozers seemingly hard at work to repair the 17th Street levee where Bush was visiting, he told us and the world that progress was flowing - but according to Senator Mary Landrieu, the crew that was working so hard yesterday left and has never come back.

The Voice of the White House
http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a1802.htm
(...) It is well known here that the Bush family and many of the top advisers at the White House are racists but instead of detesting Jews, in this case, they all detest blacks. CLIP

Wake up and smell the fascism!
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm
In "Fascism Anyone?," Laurence Britt identifies 14 characteristics common to fascist regimes. His comparisons of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet yielded this list of 14 "identifying characteristics of fascism." Recommended by "Nelly Lewin" lewin.nelly@wanadoo.fr>

911 A US Plot Australian Newspaper Claims
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16541783%5E601,00.html
(...) Using pictures to support its arguments, which include claims that there were no remains of a plane found inside the Pentagon, the paper accuses Australia of only now "catching up with the debate" about what really happened on September 11, 2001. "It is not seen as 'patriotic' to challenge the widely accepted theory, however things are changing," the newspaper states. (...) The newspaper devotes a feature to supporting claims made by a US author, David Ray Griffin, that a plane never crashed into the Pentagon and that the story was an elaborate hoax by the US. The feature says: "The hole created in the (Pentagon) facade was not big enough to fit the nose of a plane let alone an entire (Boeing) 757 -- the question is how could such a big airplane have created such a small hole?" CLIP

Top Politicians, Economists State 9/11 Possibly an Inside Job (Sept. 8, 2005)
http://www.WantToKnow.info/050908insidejob911
When four planes tragically crashed four years ago on September 11th, the course of history was inalterably changed. Yet questions about what actually happened on that fateful day are asked with increasing frequency, even by some top government officials and other respected public leaders. Read the statements below (links to sources provided) from a former chief economist of President George W. Bush, an assistant secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan, a current U.S. Senator, a sitting Congresswoman, a renowned theologian, the head of advanced space programs for the Department of Defense under Reagan, a British cabinet minister under Prime Minister Tony Blair, and more. Each of these prominent leaders now claims that there are serious problems with the official government story of 9/11. Some of these highly respected individuals even believe that 9/11 may have been an inside job. CLIP

New Report Details Bush Administration Secrecy
http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/0914-05.htm
WASHINGTON - September 14 - Today Rep. Henry A. Waxman released a comprehensive report on secrecy and the Bush Administration. The 81-page report systematically examines how the Administration has implemented the major laws that govern access to government records. It finds a consistent pattern: laws designed to promote public access to information have been undermined while laws that authorize the government to withhold information or operate in secret have repeatedly been expanded."The Bush Administration has an obsession with secrecy," said Rep. Waxman. "It has repeatedly rewritten laws and changed practices to reduce public and congressional scrutiny of its activities. The cumulative effect is an unprecedented assault on the laws that make our government open and accountable." CLIP

UN Report: Parts of America Are as Poor as Third World
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090805L.shtml
Parts of the United States are as poor as the Third World, according to a shocking United Nations report on global inequality.

Exploiting September 11th
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090705A.shtml
Scott Galindez asserts that if Osama is still alive, he is now George W. Bush's #1 supporter. Galindez reminds us that once again, on Sunday, the Bush administration will be exploiting 9/11 to justify a war that there is no justification for. A war based on lies and evidence fixed to meet the policy. A war that accomplished many of Osama bin Laden's goals.

The Rebellion of the Talking Heads
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090705C.shtml
Newscasters, sick of official lies and stonewalling, finally start snarling. In the last couple of days, many of the broadcasters reporting from the bowl-shaped toxic waste dump that was once the city of New Orleans have stopped playing the role of wind-swept wet men facing down a big storm to become public advocates for the poor, the displaced, the starving, the dying, and the dead.

Who killed John-John? - Division 4 team names Clintons, Bush 41, 43 in JFK Jr. assassination
http://www.tomflocco.com/fs/PurgeTheEvil.htm
"I know I'm risking my life in allowing you to interview me; but I'm aware there is an operational grand jury and indictments regarding the White House, so now is the time. I'm tired of knowing all the details and perpetrators of the murder of an innocent and good man without seeing justice. John's death has caused tremendous trauma throughout the Kennedy family," said a 40ish ex Division 4 operative who consented to discuss the investigation and his part in writing the JFK Jr. plane crash preliminary and final reports authorized by the FBI. (...) During three exclusive interviews with TomFlocco.com, the ex-operative told us the final classified report specifically said “JFK Jr.’s plane broke in half just aft of the cabin. The damage was caused by a plastique (C-4) shape charge which was formed along the bottom of the fuselage and up along both sides of the walls. The charge was caused to be set off or exploded with a large spark generated by a barometric switch device triggered by the altitude of the plane. In other words, the assassins chose the altitude for the explosion of the plane--a standard procedure to make the target’s murder look like an accident.”Delbert said his team and their witnesses and families have been in physical jeopardy since 1999 “because the media did not report the truth about what happened;” and that all involved are now placing their lives in the hands of Fitzgerald and his deputies to prosecute the evidence--charges that will serve to mitigate compromised media outlets now protecting the White House with spin and insinuations that Fitzgerald is using the “perjury trap” to manufacture crimes instead of genuinely seeking evidence. Sources close to one grand jury indicate the spin will not work this time. The U.S. intelligence community is monitoring the work of all the prosecutors and grand juries. Serious crimes with supporting evidence involving three branches of government and the media have already threatened the long term survival of the Republic. (...) Delbert said the team's probe was rigorous. We found it staggering:“
a) 30-40 witnesses were thoroughly interviewed
b) Ten individuals said they actually saw JFK Jr.‘s plane explode in mid-air Essex County Airport in Caldwell, New Jersey
c) Two witnesses told the team they saw George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush at the Essex County, New Jersey airport with Israeli Mossad agent Michael Harari and another Mossad agent who were both seen standing next to JFK Jr.’s Cessna--all four were at the airport just two days before the doomed plane took off with JFK, Jr., his pregnant wife and her sister
d) Several witnesses testified they overheard the murder plot being discussed in the White House oval office
e) One ‘company’ (CIA) witness at the scene saw the bodies and the damaged plane and told the team a mid-air explosion caused the crash
f) Approximately 150 witnesses gave individual depositions and signed statements for the final report
g) Three flight instructors who worked with JFK Jr. testified he was an excellent pilot and had logged a huge number of flying hours since being licensed--he loved to fly and was that good.”Delbert told us “At the end of July, 1999, during the final phase of our investigation, we talked to several individual sources in the White House who consented to be interviewed as witnesses.” “We included their testimony in the final draft of the report which was classified until 2025--not currently available to any living individual,“ said the former operative.“Since concrete evidence of a plot involving three presidents and a current senator in the assassination of John F. Kennedy’s son--who the report said they perceived as a political threat and future rival--would not exactly inspire public confidence in the government, it’s probable that the American people will never see our final un-redacted report,” said Delbert, “unless there are grand jury murder indictments and a public trial.” CLIP

US Launches Siege of Tall Afar - ANOTHER BARELY REPORTED MASSACRE UNDERWAY!
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090305B.shtml
In the largest urban assault since the siege of Fallujah last November, more than 5,000 US and Iraqi troops entered this northern city before dawn Friday. But the 45-minute firefight at day's end suggested that the insurgents who have controlled much of Tall Afar for almost a year would not relinquish it easily.

US Preparing Massive Assault on Tal Afar (Sept 8)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090905I.shtml
The United States is considering an all-out military attack in the coming weeks against the town of Tal Afar in northern Iraq, which it sees as a stronghold of rebellion, a US general said on Thursday.

US and Iraqi troops attack insurgent stronghold (10/09/2005)
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=66484394&p=66484696
US and Iraqi troops swept into the insurgent stronghold of Tal Afar early today, conducting house-to-house searches and battering down walls with armoured vehicles in a second bid to clean the city of militant fighters.South of Baghdad, Police made yet another gruesome discovery, uncovering the bodies of 18 men who had been handcuffed and shot to death.“Two days ago gunmen in police uniforms broke into their houses in a Shiite neighbourhood of Iskandariya,” said police Capt. Adel Kitab said.Iskandariya is 30 miles south of Baghdad. Dozens of bodies, apparently killed in summary executions in growing tit-for-tat vengeance killings by Shiite and Sunni “death squads” have been reported in recent weeks. (...) US forces cleared Tal Afar of militants last year but quickly withdrew, leaving behind a force of only 500 that was unable to block the militants’ return.In a bid to soften resistance, the US military had carried out repeated air and artillery strikes against the city, where most of the population of 200,000 was reported to have fled to the surrounding countryside.

What happened in Tall Afar (19 September 2004) WHAT THEY DID A YEAR AGO!
http://justworldnews.org/archives/000885.html
The WaPo's Steve Fainaru, embedded with some US military in northern Iraq, has a telling story deep in today's paper that recreates some of the details of the battle in which, just last week, US forces recaptured control of the Iraqi city of Tall Afar (popn. 250,000-plus) from the "insurgents" who had previously controlled it. Like this: he tells us that during the battle, US forces turned off basic services, including water and electricity for "at least three days". An action like that constitutes a clear collective punishment of the city's people and is quite possibly a war crime. I can tell you from my own experience in war-time Beirut, most people can survive a cutoff of electricity, somehow, for some time. But a cutoff of water kills people. Especially as existing supplies become increasingly degraded and disease-ridden. CLIP

Judge Overrules Brussels Ban on Vitamins EU Supplements Directive (9-7-5) http://www.rense.com/general67/euu.htm
A controversial EU directive that could ban thousands of popular vitamin and mineral supplements has been declared illegal by a European Advocate.The judgment is a victory for health food manufacturers and retailers who appealed to the European Court of Justice to overturn the proposed law. The new rules governing vitamins and minerals are due to come into effect on 1 August and are designed to improve the safety and efficacy of products sold by the industry, worth millions of pounds. Only named ingredients with proven scientific benefits have been included on an EU "positive" list of approved substances that would be allowed in health supplements.More than 300 different vitamins and minerals are not on the positive list, meaning that 5,000 supplements will be banned if the proposals become law, according to campaigners, who have been led by Carole Caplin, Cherie Blair's former lifestyle adviser. Popular supplements that will be outlawed include certain vitamin C brands, some calcium capsules and copper tablets. CLIP

Global Warming Causes Soil To Release Carbon, Study Says (September 08, 2005)
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=8740
LONDON — Global warming is causing soil to release huge amounts of carbon, making efforts to fight global warming tougher than previously thought, scientists said on Wednesday. A study in the journal Nature looked at the carbon content of soil in England and Wales from 1978-2003 and found that it fell steadily, with some 13 million tonnes of carbon released from British soil each year. The team from Britain's National Soil Resources Institute at Cranfield University said its results implied a similar process would be under way in other temperate areas across the globe. "Our findings suggest the soil part of the equation is scarier than we had thought," Professor Guy Kirk, of Cranfield University, told journalists at a science conference in Dublin. "The consequence is that there is more urgency about doing something." Since the carbon appeared to be released from soil regardless of how the soil was used, they concluded that the main cause must be climate change itself. Though they could not say where all the missing carbon had gone, much of it may be entering the atmosphere as the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane, which scientists say has caused global warming. CLIP

Omega-News Collection 3. September 2005
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/948240/

Omega-News Collection 10. September 2005
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/964874/