Picasso Dreams

Fukushima: A disaster that even publicity whores won't touch

 

 

In 1947 Albert Einstein wrote: 

"Through the release of atomic energy, our generation has brought into the world the most revolutionary force since the prehistoric discovery of fire. This basic power of the universe cannot be fitted into the outmoded concept of narrow nationalisms. For there is no secret and there is no defense, there is no possibility of control except through the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world.

"We scientists recognize our inescapable responsibility to carry to our fellow citizens an understanding of the simple facts of atomic energy and its implications for society. In this lies our only security and our only hope—we believe that an informed citizenry will act for life and not death."

Chernobyl children in a cancer ward (via www.reedperry.com)

Fukushima.  Is that Japanese for Facebook?  No one seems to know what it is.  We do not have an informed citizenry to defend ourselves from this Extinction Level Event.  We have Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber.  We have Kim Kardashian comparing her fake two-month marriage and subsequent staged divorce to the ordeal of a cancer patient.  Tell that to the little children of Fukushima, you ignorant, publicity whore.  More people have seen her sex tape than have seen the news about Fukushima.  The average male high school student watches 2 hours of porn every week.  An 18 year-old today has spent an average of 10,000 hours playing video games.   The average male high school student in the US cannot find Japan on a map and has no idea that there are three reactors with missing corium (because it has melted through the containment vessels and into the earth, and even TEPCO now admits it cannot find the corium) and the Spent Fuel Pool in Building #4 is on the verge of collapse, an earthquake away from killing us all in a relatively short period of time.

TEPCO says that it will be several years before they begin the removal of the spent fuel rods, but TEPCO says that in about five years (realistically a year) they will run out of workers unless there is a way to reduce the radiation, which they have not been able to do.  TEPCO also said that they would take care of this problem in ten years, after the technology to do so has been developed.   In short, it is FUBAR and run by men without souls.  I think their future plans involve the use of child slave labor.  The kids are gonna die, so what's the harm, right? 

Children of Chernobyl with severe deformities, (via www.reedperry.com)

I was thinking about Princess Diana last night, wishing she was alive today because she was one of the most outspoken celebrities to use her position for the good of humankind. The most famous woman in the world would not have sat in silence as millions of people were poisoned by the Fukushima catastrophe. Sadly, there is no one willing to follow in her footsteps, not even her children.  Prince Harry  is heading to Afghanistan to take part in a continued war/occupation against a nation with a pipeline and mineral problem that can only be solved by bombing the country into oblivion.  I am sure that she would have been horrified that her son would willingly go off to a participate in the slaughter of innocents and the harvest of opium in a senseless war.  But all war is senseless, isn't it?

Where is Angelina Jolie? She goes around the world touting CFR BS about saving the children and refugees, and yet she and her more famous husband have not said a peep.

  Mental retardation is one of the  most common results of DNA damage from radiation (via www.reedperry.com)

To great fanfare, The Huffington Post listed the 11 Most Inspiring Celebrity Activists Of 2011.  Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga, Bono, Scarlett Johansen, Angelina Jolie, 50 cent, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, Ellen Degeneres and Sheryl Crow made the list – and these people have remained silent about the worst catastrophe facing humankind.  Sheryl Crow urged everyone to use a single piece of toilet paper to save the environment (while flying around the world as a Global Warming activist) and yet she says nothing.  She had a brain turbo that she says was caused by cell phone use, and yet she says nothing about Fukushima, a disaster that will cause death by cancer for hundreds of millions of people.  I would think that she would have some sympathy for all of the children of Fukushima, almost half of whom have enlarged thyroids.   A photo taken by a school 60 kilometers from the Fukushima melththroughs shows 400 microsieverts/hour.  3.75 Sieverts in a short amount of time is instant death from radiation poisoning.  At this constant rate, half the children of teh Fukushima prefecture and surrounding areas will be dead in a year.  Who will take care of the sick and dying?  The Japanese government has turned its back on the population, espousing a "Just have happy thoughts and you won't get cancer" policy.  Hospitals have refused to treat the residents of Fukushima.  You cannot go into a hospital in Japan and have your blood tested for radiation.  It's the infamous, "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.  It seems to have worked because the majority of the world's population has forgotten about it.  

Funny how many people commemorate the death of Princess Diana and yet those who loved her for her activism remain oblivious about the issues she was passionate about.

Harry Belafonte recently lashed out against Beyonce and Jay-Z for being socially irresponsible (to which Beyonce’s reps answered with a pathetic list of charitable contributions given her fame and fortune), but Harry Belafonte hasn’t said anything publicly about Fukushima.  Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, two of the most philanthropic celebrities in the history of celebritydom, have not spoken out about Fukushima, either.  How can it be that no one knows what is happening over there?  

Sometimes I think I am trapped in a nightmare because surely we are not living on the set of Idiocracy, are we?

Police State USA: FM 3-39.40 Internment and Resettlement Operations

The Red Cross, United Nations, Department of Homeland Security, and FEMA have partnered with the US (and foreign) military to find a way to deal with Ron Paul supporters once and for all.  It's called FM 3-39.40 Internment and Resettlement Operations in which the PTB plan to place OWS protesters, tax protesters, military protesters, NPR listeners, peace activists, the Dalai Lama, 9-11 investigators, the Kennedy family, and any person who wishes to overthrow a tyrannical government.  

It's all in black and white and you can read the entire full text of FM 3-39.40 as a  .PDF file here- US Army-InternmentResettlemen Operations.   Save it before it disappears down the memory hole.

Madison Ruppert from End the Lie, appears to have gone over the doccument with a fine tooth comb.  Ruppert writes:

In the Army Regulation 190-8 document also called “Enemy Prisoners of War, Retained Personnel, Civilian Internees and Other Detainees,” which is available on the Air Force’s website, some details are given on what exactly Civilian Internees are and how they are treated.

Chapter 6 of the document, entitled “Administration and Operation of CI Internment Facilities,” beginning on page 23 of the PDF (page 19 of the document), delves into some of these issues.

Beginning with section 6-3, we learn that Civilian Internees have no real right to property under this military rule.

While they pretend to give the detainees property rights, it is clear that they can strip you of your belongings at any time for any reason.

Sub-section b. states, “The personal effects that detainees are allowed to retain, but are taken from them temporarily for intelligence purposes, will be receipted for and returned as soon as practical.”

Essentially, they can claim your belongings are needed for intelligence purposes and hold them until it is deemed practical to return them.

When that would be is anyone’s guess but the language is clearly ambiguous enough to allow the military to strip Civilian Internees of any and all personal belongings for however long they please.

Section 6-4 goes over the so-called “Internee Committee” which is a two-three person committee which is “empowered to represent the camp to the protecting powers, International Committee of the Red Cross, or other authorized relief or aid organizations and U.S. military authorities.”

Once again, the military is able to determine what exactly you can do and this language clearly allows the military to deny access to any outside relief or aid organizations by saying that they are not authorized. 

Here are a few things to come - if you let it happen:

From Chapter 3:

PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS OFFICER

3-55. The PSYOP officer in charge of supporting I/R operations serves as the special staff officer responsible for PSYOP. The PSYOP officer advises the military police commander on the psychological impact of military police or MI actions to prevent misunderstandings and disturbances by detainees and DCs. The supporting I/R PSYOP team has two missions that reduce the need to divert military police assets to maintain security in the I/R facility. (See appendix J.) The team—

• Assists the military police force in controlling detainees and DCs.

• Introduces detainees or DCs to U.S. and multinational policy.

3-56. Develops PSYOP products that are designed to pacify and acclimate detainees or DCs to accept PSYOP team also supports the military police custodial mission in the I/R facility. The team— U.S. I/R facility authority and regulations.

• Gains the cooperation of detainees or DCs to reduce the number of guards needed.

• Identifies malcontents, trained agitators, and political leaders within the facility who may try to organize resistance or create disturbances.

• Develops and executes indoctrination programs to reduce or remove antagonistic attitudes.

• Identifies political activists.

• Provides loudspeaker support (such as administrative announcements and facility instructions when necessary).

• Helps the military police commander control detainee and DC populations during emergencies.

• Plans and executes a PSYOP program that produces an understanding and appreciation of U.S. policies and actions.

  Note. PSYOP personnel use comprehensive information, reorientation, and educational and vocational programs to prepare detainees and DCs for repatriation.

3-57. The PSYOP officer is an integral part of the I/R structure. The PSYOP officer often may work in close conjunction with the behavioral science consultation team, if available, for behavioral assessments and recommendations. The behavioral science consultation team may develop behavioral management plans and perform many other functions to assist the PSYOP officer if directed. The I/R facility commander may designate a location in which PSYOP personnel can conduct interviews of the various categories of people associated with I/R. This location must be separate and away from the interrogation areas. 

...and...

1. COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AGENTS

   3-59. Counterintelligence agents may be attached or in direct support of a mission to an I/R battalion or military police brigade to assist the facility commander with intelligence requirements for the facility and surrounding area and to ensure the safety and security of personnel operating in and around the facility.

Note. Counterintelligence agents may serve as a central repository for information and intelligence on safety and security issues related to the facility.

3-60. Such responsibilities may include—

• Identification of detainee agitators, leaders, and their followers.

• Identification of existing clandestine detainee organizations, to include—

  • Strength.

  • Objectives.

  • Member identity.

• Identification of existing underground communications systems—

  • Between compounds and internment facilities.

  • With indigenous civilian personnel.

  • For overt attempts by detainees or local indigenous people to communicate with each other.

• Identification of suspicious activities by local people near the internment facility (such as photographing or sketching the facility).

• Identification of the existence of fabricated weapons, stores of food, and supplies of clothing in the compound.

• Identification of plans by detainees to conduct demonstrations, to include—

  • Date and time.

  • Number of detainees involved, by compound.

  • Nature of the planned demonstration (passive, harassing, or violent).

• Identification of detainee objectives, propaganda, and attempts to weaken or test internment facility authority and security, establish control in individual compounds, and orchestrate mass escapes. 

Americans Are Not Stupid - with Subtitles

Total Ignorance

Slow Death - Japan is awaiting nightmare

Slow death

reposted from Fukushima Diary

 

Dörte Siedentopf has been travelling in regions around Chernobyl for 20 years to help victims, she is member of the IPPNW and speaks about the slow death in Belarus and what could happen in Japan after Fukushima. Peter Poprawa interviewed her on n-tv.

She says:

 Of course workers in the plant suffer from radiation but also thousands and hundreds of thousands of persons who suffer from low radiation. We tend to forget that low radiation that accumulates in people’s bodies causes ailments.

The body cannot distinguish between Caesium (cesium is US spelling) and Potassium, so the body accumulates Caesium via breath and food. You cannot protect yourself from that. After ingestion, the body integrates Caesium in its cells and destroys the energy balance of the cells. That is, of all kinds of cells! The cells die afterwards.

Children are more endangered than adults, because their cells divide themselves constantly. Because they grow, they need permanent energy and have to deal with the impairment of their cells. With children, ailments will start earlier, one to four years afterwards, such as in the case of Chernobyl. Adults have a latency period for Cesium of 20-25 years. It is a slow death, adults who survived 25 years become ill now. The children got sick much earlier and often died.

Cesium also accumulates in reproductive cells, also in the ovaries and women’s human eggs. Those do not reproduce, so they are damaged for the whole span of life. Men’s sperm does reproduce, but they also hand on damaged information. Either infertility will occur or damaged information will be handed on. Responsible persons should have brought women and children to the south a long time ago. There will be a lot of cases of leukemia. The cesium cloud is a catastrophe for Japanese people and we still do not know much about other radionucleotids.

Children are also more apt to accumulating Iodine in their thyroids. The numbers of cases of thyroid cancer will rise.

Strontium is similar to potassium. The body cannot discern between them. So people absorb it via food. It will be integrated in bones and teeth and will affect bone marrow, where blood is produced. There are stem cells that are transformed into white blood cells and blood plates. Strontium will stay there for the whole life span and emits Beta-radiation.

Half life time means that only half of the radiation has disappeared. You have to multiply the half life time by ten in order to know approximately, when it disappeared from the environment. In the case of Strontium and Cesium that would be 400 years.

People will suffer from cancer. And from ailments that are related to strontium. Strontium affects the heart muscle. Children die from cardiac insufficiency by the age of 2,3 or 4 years (that was the case in Chernobyl). Kidneys and liver stop working, blood will be affected. Those effects on the blood are also known as “Chernobyl Aids” with deadly consequences.

I am visiting the region around Chernobyl for 20 years and people still do not want to talk about the accident and their future. They live with the death. There is no family that is not confronted with death. Young people suffer from ailments that we knew only from the elderly. People leave their house and drop dead. Cardiac Insuffiency. Also strokes with 20, 25 or 30 years are not rare.

Half of the fuel rods in Fukushima seems to contain plutonium. Even if you ingest only a small amount of plutonium, lung carcinoma will develop. The body can do nothing against that. It is not curable.

(Source)

(Source)

Where Your Tax Money Goes

Reason # 8,297,675,316 to stop paying taxes.

The Nuclear Disaster: Alternative v. Corporate Media

The Fukushima disaster could very well lead to an extinction level event.  There is no solution to this disaster, which is far larger than Chernobyl.  The Pacific Ocean has been poisoned with radiation.  Look at the ocean currents - pretty soon the fish will be contaminated and Japan, a net importer of food with a seafood-based diet, will not be able to feed its population non-glowing fish.  The radioactive waters will flow to Alaska, British Colombia, Washington and Oregon.  Don’t forget that BP, Halliburton, Schlumberger, Trans Ocean and company poisoned the Gulf of Mexico (don’t worry, though, as the US government has purchased much of the toxic fish and seafood from the Gulf to be served to the military, prisoners, and school children).  The radiation is already in Vietnam, Russia, China and the Philippines, though these governments all claim it is just trace amounts and no harm will come to humans.  Governments and politicians  never lie, so we must take their words at face value, right?  Radiation - and not just  the “friendly” radiation with a half life of eight days, is in the US, Europe, and even Australia.  No one wants to talk about it that way, and given that we have been raised culturally with the idea there will always be a Knight on a White Horse (or Steven Segal, Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger) to save the maiden or the world from the forces of evil, our natural response is to wait for the hero to come in and solve our problems so that we can continue to live in the land of McDonalds, while cheering on our overpaid sports “heroes” in air-conditioned stadiums funded by taxpayers, and vacationing in that famous mouse money trap in Florida.  (Sorry, Laurie!)  I do have some (a tiny, tiny bit) sympathy for those who don’t know what is going on in the world.  It’s not that people don’t want to be informed - they read newspapers, blogs, and magazines and watch televised news that is “fair and balanced”, and yet the vast majority of Americans have little idea about the crisis in Fukushima.  Many, many people believe it is over, just like they believe the Gulf of Mexico disaster is over.  They believe experts who claim that Fukushima poses no more risk than getting a chest X-Ray every year.  Move along, nothing to see here.

I rarely read mainstream news articles.  They aren’t worth my time - I can rip apart the accuracy of just about every article put on the front page.  There is a huge disconnect between the news I read (and share) and what passes for news in the corporate media.  As an example, listed below are news articles that I have read (or at least thoroughly scanned) over the past two day.  If I hosted my own news blog, these articles would be my front page posts today:

No end in sight for Fukushima disaster as bureaucrats battle the laws of physics

Record Levels Of Radiation Detected In Pacific - Heading Toward US

Fukushima: A Month of Media Disinformation

Japan raises Fukushima to Level 7, same as Chernobyl

Japanese Government:  No need to change the way the crisis in Fukushima is being handled

Japan TV: Temperature in spent fuel pool at No. 4 “much higher than the normal level” — “May be boiling”

Nuclear engineer: Enormous amount of plutonium at No. 4 spent fuel pool in danger of catching fire; Pool is cracked and leaking

No, Japan's Nuclear Reactors Are Not "Stable"

Very large spike of I-131, Cs-137 levels 100 miles from Fukushima after radiation skyrocketed off the chart at No. 1 reactor following recent quake

Japan gov’t worried reactor buildings are in danger of collapse — “We must devise some ways” to reinforce structures despite high radiation

TEPCO: Nuclear fuel rods in No. 4 spent fuel pool are “confirmed to be damaged” — First time damage revealed at any pool

Highly radioactive “lake” has built up in the depths of Fukushima

Japan Nuclear Radiation In Drinking Water In 14 US Cities And In Milk ABOVE EPA Limits

Fukushima Fallout Found in Southern Hemisphere

Top Hawaii health official calls out Forbes’ journalist for reporting Hilo milk exceeds EPA radiation level… then admits he is “technically correct”

Europeans warned to avoid drinking milk or eating vegetables due to high radiation levels

NYT exposes “gleeful” radiation expert trying to calm public with bananas — Felt like a “Wizard-of-Oz effort” to distract from fuel rods behind the curtain

Cesium-137 forecast shows high altitude radiation cloud concentrating over California, western US on April 12

UPDATE - Radiation continues to spike near  Ibaraki, Japan. IS THE TOKAI REACTOR IN TROUBLE?

World's largest bond fund bets against US debt

Largest Banks Are Hiding $1 Trillion In Fraudulent Loans

The Real Housewives of Wall Street

Governor BOE: The Democratic System is a Fraud Created to Disable Opposition to Bankers' Rule

Jesse Ventura - The Wall St. Plan For The Extreme Nanny State

States Trying To Criminalize Alternative Health 

Longtime oil industry champion now calls BP liars — “They lied. About everything."

US officials caught spending Gulf oil spill clean-up funds on gadgets

Daughters of BP worker thought to have flu, but now believed to be exposure to crude oil — “My little girls have more toxins in their blood than I have”

Physician: Many more people are sick from suspected oil-related illnesses but scared to speak out or seek medical help

Researchers discover bacteria responsible for spawning deadly 'super superbugs' in New Delhi water supplies

Netanyahu Vows More Gaza Raids

Plague found in pets in 2 NM counties

Israel targetting ambulances, women and children in Gaza 

CNN Censors Ron Paul From Republican Poll

San Francisco to require ID scans, photos of everyone who goes to a venue

POLICE BRUTALITY IS LEGAL: Police Officers In ALA Who Severely Beat Up A Suspect Got They Job Back

15% of American Girls Reach Puberty At Age SEVEN

4 Best Methods For Off-the-Grid Food Production

Fracking: Lax Regulations & Poisoned Water

25 Facts That Prove The US Health Industry Is One Huge Scam

Yes, a little heavy on the doom, but I don’t believe we can solve our problems until we address them.  The mainstream media prefers to bury these truths.  I scanned Google News, Yahoo News, the Drudge Report, Fox News and the New York Times for information on Fukushima and the radiation dangers.  It’s frustrating beyond belief.  Look carefully at the links below and see if you can find anything about Japan.  It’s been the same all week - I check for news on the big, corporate sites and I get nothing substantial, if anything at all.  Half the time Japan and/or Fukushima doesn’t make the top stories, although I keep seeing the name Justin Bieber a whole lot. He is evidently mega newsworthy.  Here are today’s headlines from the aforementioned “news” sites.  Look what the corporate media is feeding you.  Click on the links to Japan (if you can find them)  and see how the articles downplay the disaster.  

According to Google news, here are the stories we need to read to stay informed of world events:

Obama's debt cutting goal: $4 trillion in twelve years

Mother, 3 children drown after she drives van into river

International Conference Pledges Additional Aid to Libyan Rebels

Texas Rangers' Josh Hamilton still calls injury play 'dumb'

JPMorgan 1Q No Banking Bellwether: Analysts

Jennifer Lopez named People's most beautiful

Kobe Bryant gets technical and throws out homophobic slur

Charlie Sheen -- Persona Non Grata at 'Men'

Detained Mubarak, Sons Face Questioning in Egyptian Corruption Probe

Cisco Refocuses on Switch Business as It Scraps Flip Camera

Marine accused in DIA rape appears in court

Ivorian ports to reopen this week: Ouattara spokesman

Long Island Serial Killer: Dive Team Searches Hemlock Cove

Analysis: Belarus bomb heralds hard times for opposition

Internet Explorer 10: Microsoft ramps up its release schedule

Japan cuts economic view, quake to squeeze profit margins

Justin Goldman chooses Henrik Lundqvist, New York Rangers

Pancreatic Cancer Drugs Sutent And Afinitor Recommended By FDA Advisory Committee

Netanyahu cancels meeting with Justin Bieber

Netanyahu cancels meeting with Justin Bieber

DeLeo releases House version of state budget

Survey: Kids lack exercise, healthful foods

Yemen's rival military factions clash for first time

According to Yahoo News, these are our must read stories:

Watch: Obama outlines deficit plan

Obama sets goal of cutting deficit by $4 trillion in 12 years

Mother drives van into Hudson River, killing self and 3 kids

Yale student dies in chemistry lab machine shop accident

Trump surprises in new poll of GOP White House hopefuls

Pink diamond expected to fetch $15 million fails to sell

Kentucky parents say TSA frisked their 6-year-old daughter

Bronx boy shot dead by gun-toting teen

Bloomberg and Bill Clinton Merge Climate Groups

Police: Homeowner Shoots Intruder To…

What does the Drudge Report have to say?

Hoyer joins Obama in calling past vote on debt ceiling 'mistake'

Left's angst grows over president's 'shift to center'

Lightning Rod

Storm Clouds Ahead

AP POLL: Support for Obamacare drops to 35%

RISE OF NEW WORLD POWER[WITHOUT USA]

UPDATE: PARENTS FURIOUS AFTER TSA FRISKS 6-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER

   'Such pretty hair, you have'

Woman raped in deserted Denver airport concourse

   met at airport bar

Trump will ask voters to 'invest' in White House bid

Ron Paul: The Nanny State Can't Last

PAPER: Will Mitch Daniels seek presidency? Sounds like it

REPORT: Sen Inhofe intentionally landed plane on closed runway

FAA TAPES: 'Scared The Crap Out Of' Airport Workers

DEFICIT ROCKETS 16% IN FIRST HALF OF YEAR

IMF: US 'lacks credibility' on debt

'Stringent Austerity Measures' Needed

Inflation Actually 'Near 10%'

FED OFFICIAL: Big banks are 'government-sponsored entities'

BoA: Buy Crude, Could Hit $160

DC First to Legalize Gambling Online

Justin Bieber under siege in Israel

Netanyahu cancels meeting

UPDATE: Seattle school renames Easter eggs 'Spring Spheres'

BOOK: Larry Flynt exposes sex lives of former presidents

CNN mulling Chris Rock for 7 p m  show?

Yale student dies in 'terrible' lab accident

Hair got caught in lathe

GOP Set To Raise Debt Limit From Level GOP Leader Called 'Beyond Comprehension' in 2010

Graham vows to shut down Senate -- over $40,000 pet project!

MYSTERY: White House visitor logs still leave many out

SNAP: Teacher Ousted For Asking Students To Remove Underwear To See Who Soiled Pants

Obama to push new state of Palestine in September? 

Fayyad to request $5 billion for launch

Mubarak still in hospital, health 'unstable'   

   detained for investigation

U N  PLAN: GIVE BUGS, TREES SAME RIGHTS AS HUMANS   

REPORT: Syrian soldiers shot for refusing to fire on protesters

In new protest, women block main highway   

Clinton urges Arab leaders to move faster

500,000 flee Libya fighting; Exodus picks up pace   

New battles

REBELS: Female snipers from Colombia fighting for Gadhafi   

China blocks coastal waters, enlarges military

Judge: Students can wear 'I Heart Boobies' bracelets   

GEERT ON THE GRILL: Dutch anti-Islam politician's speech trial resumes   

AP: GE to return $3 2 billion to US Treasury - 'HOAX'

NO SPACE SHUTTLE FOR HOUSTON

Political calculations?

Male-female pay gap? Study finds women make 8% more than men   

'Elections Shouldn't Matter as Much as They Do'

Hillary Clinton campaign still owes consultant $329,000

Citing Pledge of Allegiance, Harry Reid omits 'under God'

Japan Tries to Explain Delays in Reporting Radiation

Russia's nuke chief says Japan exaggerating

CONFIRMED: No  4 rector's spent nuke fuel rods damaged

32 more bodies found in Mexico, ups total to 120

U S  Warns of Mexico Peril

REPORT: NJ Wastes Millions on Clothing Allowances for State Workers

Teacher Critically Wounded Breaking Up Fight Between Students in High School Cafeteria

Feral pigs rampage through Texas city

And Fox News?

“President Obama meets with congressional leaders ahead of his much-anticipated speech about tackling the nation's debt as Republicans warn they won't consider plan if it includes tax increases.”

• POWER PLAY: Potential Pitfalls
• OPINION: What If Obama Did a 180?
• Things You Could Buy With Budget Shortfall

• YOU DECIDE: Would You Agree to New Taxes to Pay Down National Debt?

Tragedy in Hudson River As Mom Kills Self, 3 Kids

Are N.Y. Beach Murders the Work of Confessed Killer?

Mubarak, Sons Detained in Corruption, Abuse Probe

Evacuees Slam Japan Nuclear Plant Operator
- Japan Determined to Reopen Schools

Plane Forced to Land in Reno Without Air Controller

Woman Raped in Deserted Denver Airport Concourse

March Retail Sales Rise Slightly Less Than Expected

FOX + Pawlenty Clears Up Non-Announcement

Belarus President: Subway Bomb Suspects Confess

Study: WH Visitor Logs Transparent, to a Point

General Electric Gets Punked by Prankster Group

Yale Student Dies in Chemistry Lab Accident

Pelosi: 'Elections Shouldn't Matter as Much'
- VIDEO: Tea Party Takes Free Speech Fight to Court

FOX + Calif. Teachers Union Supporting Cop Killer

NFL Player Reportedly Arrested After Car Chase

Sidney Harman, Newsweek Owner, Dies at 92

Ivory Coast President: Gbagbo Will Face Charges

Russia Space Chief Promises New Spaceship

'Sex Slavery' Ads Just Stupid?

Volcano Bigger Than Thought

HuffPost Sued for $105M

Too Fat for 'American Idol'?
Injured Eagle Receives TLC
Entrepreneur's Sweet Revenge
Purge Your Inner Hoarder
Nude Mariah's Hubby Hand Bra
Rare Bibles Tour Country
Gaga Slams Plastic Surgery
Eliminate Body Odor for Good
Menounos' 'Guide to Life'
Catch This: Fan Gets Tasered
Flying Plane With Mouse Click
Yale student killed in hair-pulling lab accident

Emergency Landing at Reno Airport After Air Traffic ...

5th Grader to Be Honored for Saving Classmate's Life

Ill. VA resuming some minimally invasive surgeries

5 large states, 5 different paths to fix budgets

Diplomats say Palestinians ready for statehood

Wounded Iranian Exiles Forced Back to Iraqi Camp

US offers 2 planes to fight border fires in Mexico

Putin explains delay in decision on 2012 vote

Bahrain opposition: 4th supporter dies in custody

Sidney Harman, Media Owner, Husband to Ex-Rep. Jane Harman, Dies

Cost of Military Ops in Libya Released 

Obama Outlines New Deficit-Reduction Plan

Does Libya Need More Than Military Action?

'Raising Taxes Doesn't Solve This Problem' 

Bloggers Have More Influence on Purchases Than Celebrities, Study Says

Woman Claims She Was Kicked Out of 'Idol' Front-Row Seat ...

Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher's Anti-Sex Slavery Campaign ...

Another Star Knocked Out of the `Dancing' Ballroom

Netanyahu Reportedly Calls Off Meeting With Bieber

Toddler First in World Diagnosed With Extra DNA Strand

CDC: More Women Taking Calcium Supplements

Hospitals in New York Could Face Checks for Infant X-Rays

What Causes a Parent to Harm Their Child?

Honey May Stop Antibiotic Resistance

How to Purge Your Inner Hoarder

Iceland's Penis Museum Gets First Human Specimen

If a Tree Falls on Your House, What Do You Do?

Five Iconic Baseball Stadiums to Visit This Season

The School of Extreme Butchery

Rebels Hijack Qaddafi's Phones, Build Own Network

"Rick-Rolling" Oregon Lawmakers a Hit on YouTube

Yellowstone's Supervolcano More Massive Than Expected

Russia Space Chief Promises New Spaceship

Injured Bald Eagle Receives Much Needed TLC

Would You Agree to New Taxes If the Money Was Used to Pay Down ...

France Could Find Better Ways to Counter Extremists Than ...

France Is Brave and Right to Ban the Burqa

Why 'The Donald' Trumps Obama's Cult of Celebrity

Obama Has Been Given a Second Chance on the Debt -- He ...

U.S. panel seeks improved safety after Crippen death

AHL Checkers buy house for young fan

Top 10 fantasy keepers for the 2011-12 season

Smith to attend NFL mediation session

NFL's rookie pitch: divert 300M from 1st rounders

General Electric Gets Punked By 'Yes Men'

10 Craziest Tax Deductions for 2011

Markets Sell Off Even as Oil Plummets

T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless to Intro New Unlimited Plans

More Americans Say U.S. on Wrong Track, Poll Finds

Get Kate Middleton's Beauty Routine

10 Ways to Get Your Home Ready for Spring

Working Mom? Get 6 Affordable Spring Ensembles

Beat Daytime Sleepiness

How to Get a Bright Eye for Spring

But these are websites frequented by “conservatives”.  Surely the “liberal” New York Times has something to say about the radiation crisis, right?  Well, not on the front page of their website, which calls these stories “news”.

Obama Urges Cuts and Taxes on the Rich

Mubarak Detained to Face Questions

Libyan Rebels Meet Delegates in Qatar

Boy, 10, Escapes as Mother Drives Her Family Into Hudson

Quarterly Profit Surges 67% at JPMorgan

Seeking Execution Drug, States Cut Legal Corners

Sidney Harman, Newsweek Chairman, Is Dead at 92

Is Sugar Toxic?

Report Criticizes Banks on Mortgages

Belarus Says Bomb Suspect Confessed

Rival Yemen Military Factions Clash

Bomber Strikes Elders in Afghanistan

ArtsBeat: Jackson and Cameron to Speed Up 3-D

The Caucus: Video| The 2012 Money Primary

Green: Reducing an Airport’s Carbon Footprint

Urban Realist With a Humanist Streak

How to Save a Trillion Dollars

Friedman: Pray. Hope. Prepare.

Dowd: Give Doctors Orders

Editorial: Budget Battles

Op-Ed: Calling Card

Bloggingheads: Is Obama Too Reasonable?

Portugal’s Unnecessary Bailout

Diplomacy Breaks Down Amid Bieber Fever in Israel

Obviously the most important theme amongst these fine purveyors of faux journalism is Justin Bieber.  No, he didn’t get a haircut.  According to the headlines, the boy who will likely be the next Gary Coleman, Lindsey Lohan, Britney Spears, and/or Michael Jackson was snubbed by Netanyahu in Israel.  My god, the world might stop rotating on its axis!  Poor Justin Bieber!!!

I thought maybe Thomas Friedman’s editorial,  “Pray. Hope. Prepare”, would deal with Fukushima, but all I could see during the quick scan was “Egypt.”  Of course, I wouldn’t expect anyone like Friedman the Poseur to deal with Fukushima, let alone tell the truth.  The truth is too disturbing.  There is no end.  There is no money to solve this.  There are not enough people willing to sacrifice their lives in a suicide mission to try to stop the radiation.  The core of Reactor 2 is sitting on the ground, burning a hole into the cement.  When (not if) it hits the water table, it is FUBAR.  It will create a chain reaction.  Four of the reactors in meltdown, and Five and Six are plagued with problems.  There are other nuclear disasters in Japan as well, even closer to Tokyo.  It will be like a chain of dominos when it finally blows.  Japan will be devastated.  The Japanese government will not say anything because they don’t have a  solution.  Short of relocating the entire population to a less radioactive land, they are SOL.  

This is happening because we chose to not stay informed.  We chose not to involve ourselves in the development of our shared resources.  We don’t want to be known as liberal tree-huggers, so we ignored every little environmental group that tried to bring awareness to these issues.  “Go back to your weed and tie-dye,‘ is the typical response.  It’s still that response.  After the Gulf of Mexico Oil Disaster (the on-going disaster - that thing is not capped and the sea floor is leaking methane like crazy), I thought people would wake the fuck up.  No, they went back to their same old lifestyles, disposable plastic and take-away GMO meals.  The events that are unfolding now are not random - it is because humanity has lost its consciousness.   Things will get worse, much worse.  I still believe tin a beautiful future for humanity, but I don’t know that I will ever live long enough to see it.  I mourn for my nieces and nephews.  What kind of world have we left them? How sad is it that a child has no hope for a brighter future.  If he does, it’s a delusion.  People have no idea what is happening now and what is about to happen in the very near future.  They believe that denial will somehow manifest itself as reality.  Chuck Norris Justin Bieber will save the day. 

I know this is depressing.  I don't even know how to respond when people ask if there is hope.  I have to believe that life will find a way and that humans will find a way to reconnect with the divine (and I don't mean finding Jesus).   I am in awe of "life" and "nature" I am trying to enjoy the "salad days" while I still can.

Love to you.  Love to humanity.  Love to all.

Revelations

Despite the title, this is not religious. It is a micro-documentary about the Gulf Oil Disaster and how it will affect the United States and the planet.

Americans don't know why we celebrate the 4th of July

This is the most distrurbing video I have seen in a very long time.. Can I please have a refund for al the school taxes I have paid over the last couple of decades?

Thoughts on the Oilocolypse

Looking out at the turquoise water surrounding Anna Maria Island, one would be hard pressed to believe that a disaster of elephantine proportions lurks just beyond the sinking sun on the horizon.

 

 

The infamous blowout started spewing thousands of barrels of raw crude into the Gulf a few days after I returned from a book buying trip in Florida.  At first, the story did not receive much attention by the money-hungry press ready to capitalize on any disaster in a desperate attempt to increase their market share, hence the lack of concern that led me to naively believe that BP would cap the well and we would be dealing with a spill smaller than the Exxon-Valdez.  After all, BP is a billion dollar oil company with dozens of deep-well rigs around the world.  Surely they have prepared for this, haven’t they?  Is this not a critical risk factor that highly paid executives are on the look for?  I was expecting to read about the friendly oil-eating bacteria advertised by some petrochemical company several years ago and how this miracle of science would clean up the leaking crude.  By Day Five, I feared the worst, that BP would not be able to plug this leak and it could not stop the environmental damage.  

Each morning I turned on my laptop, hoping to discover that something worked, only to be left sad, disappointed, angry and outraged.  I said a prayer each night, naively hoping for resolution, but knowing it will be a prayer unanswered.  After I read a story about oil droplets in the rainwater (fallout from the burning of the crude, or so I am told) in the Tampa area, I knew that I had to return to my second home of fourteen years, Anna Maria Island.  My mom and sister live there, as does a little bit of my heart and a drawer full of clothes in “my” room.  I needed a few more memories of soft white sandy beaches and crystal clear water before it is lost forever.  I was on a plane to the States a few days later.

The artist in me loves flying over the Caribbean on my flights from Managua to Miami.  Shortly before nearing Cuba, the water changes and little atolls dot the turquoise waters.  This time I was fortunate that my seatmate was a no-show, giving me access to the window seat.  I wanted to photograph the azul colors of the sea below, a final memento before the sea turns to black, red, and brown.  (I have captured enough photos to warrant an album, which I have labeled "Scenes from the Sky".)

I didn't expect to see any part of the oil spill from my vantage point in the sky.   Near the Florida Keys, I noticed long black streaks, coral carved out by the channel current, no doubt, but strikingly similar in appearance to oil plumes.  It was surreal. A few miles later I noticed was a light sheen on the water.  I tried to photograph it, but the sheen made it difficult to use the autofocus on my camera.

A few days ago the Coast Guard finally admitted that there was a sheen along the Florida Keys.  I took these photos on May 26th.  I cannot say for sure this is the oil sheen, but if you click on the high-resolution photos, you can see a wake of clear water for a large distance behind the boats. This was the only portion of the trip where the water looked affected by something.  I would not put it past the Coast Guard to lie on behalf of their masters.

 

 

 

 

As I disembarked, I asked the captain if what I had seen was the oil sheen or just channels giving it the appearance of oil.  He hesitated for a moment, then said that it was “probably just channels”.  I asked him if he had flown over the oil disaster yet and he said no.  A flight attendant chipped in that her colleague had recently passed over it and said it was a disaster of epic proportions.  A flight attendant on the return flight said that she won’t look out the window at the Gulf and have asked passengers to close the window screens.

I wandered around the now familiar airport (20 trips to the US in five years), looking for evidence that people were aware of what was happening in the Gulf.  The magazine covers were devoid of anything significant, instead heralding the fake recovery.  As I ate the now traditional Pizza Hut cheese pizza (because the Miami airport food choices suck) accompanied by a Sam Adam wheat beer, I listened to the 30-minute CNN loop.  The only thing I recall was a ten second mention of a delay in the top kill and something about hearings to determine how to stop this in the future.  I looked around at my fellow customers.  No one looked up at the mention of the oil disaster.  

The top kill was supposed to be in the works at that point.  I was waiting on pins and needles to see if it was successful, though I had my doubts from the beginning, hence the reason I was sitting in an airport bar at that very moment.  Of course you know the obvious now, a delay and another failed attempt.

Later on, I tried to engage some of my fellow passengers to Tampa in a conversation about the month long surge of crude emanating from the ocean floor.  

“It’s criminal,” one man said.  

“Plug the hole with BP executives,” said another.

Both agreed that the loop current would keep the crude off of Florida beaches, unless there is a hurricane they conceded.

The conversation didn’t seem to generate much interest to many people traveling to a beautiful city is a few hundred miles from the heart of the spill.  Most people seemed bored or anxious about the ten minute boarding delay than the dispersant-contaminated water.

The drive from Tampa to the island was bittersweet.  The afternoon sun cast a golden glow on the green water.  I felt like I was in high school again (I went to high school in Florida), soaring over the Sunshine Skyway bridge while listening to the ’80’s station on the XM stereo in my rental car.  LIfe is beautiful.  Life is good.  I marveled at roads without potholes, gas powered motors, and speed on highways.  I tried to take it all in, knowing that there is a real possibility that on the next trip, oil will likely have made it to shore and the crystal clear water will be a murky reddish brown.  I don’t know if I could come back if that happened.  

I made it to the island in time for sunset.  I walked to the Sandbar and drank a mango margarita on the beach (technically illegal - isn’t it amazing that a government can fine and imprison a human being for drinking alcohol in public?), enjoying the salmon colored rays of light on the water.  For a few moments I did not have a care in the world, despite the ever encroaching sludge many miles away.   I returned to the house in a tranquil state, planning to return to the beach later that evening to meditate.

My brother-in-law was at the house when I returned.  I asked if there was any news about the top kill attempt to plug the hole and he replied (and i paraphrase), “They’re never going to cap that well.  They can’t.  If they do, they lose the lease.”

“What?”

“The reason for the slant drilling is so that they have two more access points before they ‘try’ to cap the blowout.  Without new access points, they lose the lease, no more oil.”

“Where did you hear this?” I asked.

“There was an oil insider on the Bubba the Love Sponge show talking about this.”  

I would not blame anyone reading this for rolling their eyes now.  “Bubba the Love Sponge” doesn’t exactly conjure up feelings credibility if you live outside the Tampa Bay area.  I often find him newsworthy and entertaining and usually listen to his show if it happens to be on when I am driving. 

I am not willing to spend the $10 to become a member and hours researching the transcripts of the show for the quotes, but if someone is so inclined, they can go to www.BTLS.com and get to work.

However, the idea that BP won’t cap the well until they have relief wells in order to maintain the lease explains perfectly why there has been no real attempt to cap the blowout despite tens of thousands of valid ideas offered to BP, many of which do not involve dropping a nuclear bomb in the well.

I spoke to many people on the trip (Florida being a very friendly place and all) and was surprised just how many people knew about the capping/oil lease situation, and my guess is the majority are not regular listeners of the Bubba the Love Sponge show.  I have tried to find this story on various search engines, but nowhere can I find any mention of the lease agreement.  Seems that when it comes to MMS, reporters are are more interested in the crystal meth and hookers than the terms of the BP oil and gas lease in the Gulf.  

Since it’s all about money, I wonder if BP has to pay MMS a royalty on the oil released into the Gulf?  If so, this could add to the list of reasons they continue to lowball the blowout estimates.

If the US government demands a cap, then the US would be assuming the financial burden of the leaking well should a cap fail and worsen the situation.   (And should the US try to take over BP for its assets as many suggest, the US would then be responsible for the cleanup.)  And the bankrupt US will lose out on the royalties from the largest oil field in the Gulf of Mexico.  We know the US government is beyond broke and virtually busted, so in their opinion it is best to allow up to four million gallons of raw crude and and who knows how many millions of gallons of dispersants to flow into the Gulf unabated because of corporate greed.  Not that the government would do any better managing the situation.  The highest elected and appointed officials (many with large war chests) and some of the highest grossing executives in the world have no plans for a disaster like this.  Nothing.

Well, except for Halliburton, who must have thought a little more about their shoddy workmanship because on the 9th of April, they announced their purchase of Boots & Coots, an oil emergency rescue response company, for a mere $232 million.  “The deal is expected to boost Halliburton’s bottom line during the first year after closing. “ How convenient for Halliburton.

Speaking of Halliburton, on the comment section of Florida Oil Spill, Jerry writes:

The BP oilwell blow out (not a spill) could have been prevented by BP had they installed a drillable bridge plug which is very common in oil well plugging operations around the world including the Gulf of Mexico. This tool is designed specifically for plugging an oil well and can be drilled out of the casing when the oil company wants to produce the oil well or re-enter the oil well. This tool is set inside the oilwell casing and is run on drill pipe but can also be run on wireline.

This product (Halliburton EZ Drill Bridge Plug) cost is low and is manufactured by Halliburton but other companies also offer similar products. I have installed this tool many times in oil wells around the world when I worked for Halliburton in several countries.

Why BP would not have incorporated this tool in their plugging process is a very BIG question.

No wonder Halliburton believes their $232 million investment in the oil cleanup and recovery company will pay out the first year.  

How many ecosystems have been permanently fucked up by corporate greed and political and social control of the masses.  Surely DARPA has the answers, but you cannot control the population if they have access to free energy and cheap and ready access to fresh water, so the government-funded projects that could benefit humanity sit on a shelf, with the developer holding a bag of cash if he is not making an appearance in the obituary column.

via The Independent UK  (because they are doing a better job of reporting on the spill than their colleagues in the United States):

The well-entrenched bureaucracy deliberately ensures that any efforts are hindered. What have Obama and Congress and all the people feeding off the gumint’ titty done to streamline the bureaucracy?  

A hundred miles across, most of Plaquemines is marshland, but marshland of enormous economic and ecological importance, as it is the nursery for the fish, shrimp and oysters that sustain the state's whopping seafood industry, and is also the winter refuge for hundreds of thousands of ducks and geese that arrive from all over America. Furthermore, it is an essential protective zone for New Orleans, just to the north, when tropical storms and hurricanes blow in. It is known as "the speedbump for New Orleans".

In the past few days the oil, which seven weeks ago began pouring from BP's crippled seabed well 40 miles out, has finally started to come ashore in quantity, and Plaquemines is where it has made landfall. It has begun to collect on the beaches of the barrier islands just off the marshes on either side of the Mississippi, leading to the pictures of desperately oiled birds that have gone round the world, and it is beginning to seep into the marshes themselves.

PJ Hahn has feared for weeks that this would happen, as he has held a key concern from early on: the protective booms were not working. The long floating barricades that are meant to hold back oil on the water were insufficient in this case, because there are enormous quantities of oil under the water, which are getting through. But PJ has had a plan: to constrict big sand berms (man-made ridges) just outside the barrier islands where the oil can be allowed to wash ashore and then easily removed. The scheme, for 20 miles of berms, is beginning this weekend; it will cost $240m (£170m), which BP will pay; it will take a month to complete.

Yet it has taken a month to obtain permission for it, from all the agencies that have had to be consulted, and the very thought of this delay sets PJ's cold blue eyes on fire. "It shouldn't take a month to get a permit! We need this stuff to start happening now, we don't have time to wait. This is waiting, right here," – and he jabs his finger down on a photo of a dead brown pelican he took on Sunday, a bird so obscenely dolloped in crude oil that it looked like it was part of a stew.

In the comment section of the article above, a reader writes:

It was suggested weeks ago that a fleet of say a dozen oil tankers could suck up the oil + sea water - and separate it onboard (imperfectly) and discharge the separated sea water back into the sea.

When full each oil tanker returns to port to discharge its contents to eventually be refined after further separation.

This seems like an exceedingly sensible idea to clean up as much of the mess as quickly as possible - though obviously not perfect.

However, what I have read is the the US Environmental Protection Agency has rejected the plan, because it would entail breaking pollution laws - the pollution laws being that an oil tanker cannot discharge contaminated sea water - even though the sea water would be going back much cleaner from the very place it came from.

The National Iranian Drilling Company has has repeatedly offered its services to the US to help battle the oil, in spite of the US insisting on sanctions against a country that has absolutely no nuclear weapons program (while it’s neighbor, Israel, has an untold number of nuclear warheads and refuses to even acknowledge their existence, let alone allow inspection).

The National Iranian Drilling Company (NIDC) has renewed its offer to assist the US in reining in an ecologically disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Mehran Alinejad, the head of special drilling operations at NIDC, pointed to the experience gained by Iranian experts in containing huge oil leaks during the eight-year Iraqi-imposed war in the 1980s, and said, "Iranian technical teams have had major achievements in oil well capping and the Gulf of Mexico oil rig is not a great feat in comparison." 

"There is, at any rate, an ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and its negative consequences will affect everyone. That is why if we receive a suitable response from relevant [American] officials we can examine the issue and contribute to its resolution," Alinejad was quoted by IRNA as saying.

Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) admitted that the well casing was actually pierced.

Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL): Andrea we’re looking into something new right now, that there’s reports of oil that’s seeping up from the seabed… which would indicate, if that’s true, that the well casing itself is actually pierced… underneath the seabed. So, you know, the problems could be just enormous with what we’re facing.

Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC: Now let me understand better what you’re saying. If that is true that it is coming up from that seabed, even the relief well won’t be the final solution to cap this thing. That means that we’ve got oil gushing up at disparate places along the ocean floor.

Sen. Nelson: That  is possible, unless you get the plug down low enough, below where the pipe would be breached.

Low enough is more than a thousand feet below the sea floor (which is a mile underwater).   

If you want to freak out a little more, check out this excerpt from the comment section of  the Alexander Higgins blog.  

The Orlando seismic station has been going off the chart since March.  So much so that the Orlando station released a PR indicating fissures have had formed along the gulf cost bend.

In the Yucatan the TIEG seismic station has also gone off the charts.  The Gulf of Mexico without seismic tremors releases 2 Exxon Valdez spills a year naturally. 

When all is said and done, we will probably learn that the volcano in Iceland that connects  through the mid Atlantic ridge Haiti (earthquake) then doglegs west through the Central American isthmus where it splits north to the Baja Plate and south to Peru (recent quakes) and Chile (recent quakes).

Other oil platforms have been reporting seabed "ruptures".  Most recently Diamond. The source of the oil can be chemically traced. The Coast Guard has said that not all the oil is coming from Horizon. 

And lets not forget that the Gulf of Mexico is the biggest dead zone on the planet. That is due to the farm and industrial runoff that flows down the Mississippi. People don't swim in, drink or eat from the waters of the Mississippi.

And the birds and animals.  What about them?  AP writer Rich Matthews dove into the Gulf with his scuba gear to get a closer look.  

I make my way to the back of the boat unaware of just how covered I am. To be honest, I look a little like one of those poor pelicans we've all been seeing for days now. The oil is so thick and sticky, almost like a cake batter. It does not wipe off. You have to scrape it off, in layers until you finally get close to the skin. Then you pour on some Dawn dishwashing soap and scrub. I think to myself: No fish, no bird, no turtle would ever be able to clean this off of themselves. If any animal, any were to end up in this same puddle there is almost no way they could escape.

Read his full account here.

What happens in the worst case scenario?  Some people believe we have hit the worst case scenario, with four million gallons of crude leaking from several leaking wells spewing sludge into the Gulf waters each day and night with no end in sight.

From Bloomberg:

The ultimate worst-case scenario is that the well is never successfully plugged, said Fred Aminzadeh, a research professor at the University of Southern California’s Center for Integrated Smart Oil Fields who previously worked for Unocal Corp. That would leave the well to flow for probably more than a decade, he said in a telephone interview.

The US government is doing nothing.  Obama is too busy bent over with his pants down to his knees while his BP and Israeli masters continue to screw the country in plain sight of the Prozac-popping public.  So many people do not understand the gravity of this situation.  Many refuse to look at the photos because, “They’re too depressing.”

There no guarantee and little chance that the relief wells will be able to stop the cruse from gushing below the surface.  We have all sorts of other incidents going on as well, like another BP leak in Alaska, a Chevron leak in the Gulf, 

George Ure, Clif and webbots at HalfPastHuman talk about a giant coastal event and the displacement of 220 million people.  Is this it?  Is it combined with the leaking Three Gorges Dam in China that just forced teh displacement of 300,000 people?

Obviously the governments want to maintain their power and control over the population and thus we cannot expect Obama and Congress and FEMA and the EPA to do a damn thing.  Hell, the EPA told BP to stop using toxic Corexit 9500 and BP said, “No!” and continues to pour something far more lethal than raw crude into the Gulf to hide the enormity of the disaster.  

We are talking about is the poisoning of the Gulf and the Atlantic coast.  We are talking about the destruction of the already bankrupt Gulf economies.  Florida cannot survive this.  The beaches will be littered with oil and dead zones all around.  The water will not be inhabitable for swimming and there’s nothing to catch in terms of fish.  The Gulf fishing industry is dead in the water, which will be felt in food prices shortly.   There will be a migration away from the Gulf area and the underwater housing market might as well sink into the well.   This will result in more bank failures and the FDIC ran out of money a long time ago.

The danger of hurricane season is that the storms will pick up the crude and the dispersants and dump them several states away, poisoning a land that is already poisoned by humans.  Between the Gulf States exodus, seismic activity and the absolute certainty of a bankrupt Florida (and likely BP - no more money for clean ups) and the likely loss of Florida agriculture from a dispersant-tossing hurricane that crosses the state from the Gulf) and the already bankrupt US economy (so bad that a school district New Jersey is resorting to asking kids donate their allowance to teachers to make up for budget shortfalls) and the government debt and obligations...my dog, what a clusterfuck. 

Will this disaster bring about the end of government as we know it?  Is this the disaster that the ruling elite want to create their world order?  At what point do the sheep stop funding a bunch of overpaid, ignorant bureaucrats who sit on their fat asses all day and impede efforts to clean up the Gulf?  Bureaucracies kill empires.  At some point, the people stop working like slaves to feed a machine that is no longer of value to them.  This is happening now, accelerated by this disaster and a few more to come this year.

If the shit really hits the fan, just rememberer how little the government an big corporations have done in the past.  Remember Katrina.  Remember the Gulf.  Remember PJ Hahn.

It’s time to start a revolution.

Gulf of Mexico oil spill: Pictures and first-hand commentary

These are photos and commentary are from William Gibson's first-hand account aboard an unnamed oil skimmer on the Gulf of Mexico.

Please read the full account with larger photos here.  

A bird, covered in oil on the lower half, showed up on the second day to take a moment of respite on the deck. It would later die. 

No environment rescue boats are allowed in the zone - fuckers  . BP has the policy that all workers are to have a "hands off" view of all birds and marine life. We did rescue a brown pelican covered in oil on the last day out since it was caught in the boom zone, but the crew members took their time about it. The poor bird covered in oil sat in a box for 6 hrs plus time on a crew boat - they refused a helicopter (despite the fact there is a helicopter that flies over every 2 mins in the area at all times). 

 

 

I have no clue where it was sent or how it fared. Hopefully they sent it to Venice where several groups are there to clean birds. 

 

There were frequent migratory birds from South America that showed up on the decks covered in oil or were overcome with the petrol fumes. Their corpses popped up all over the place.  

  

 

 

 

Marine life, like a pod of dolphins, were swiming in and out of the oil, lots of jelly fish covered in oil. The extent of the damage there goes unseen due to the nature of the sea - a hidden locker full of mystery. 

Now going out to the oil spill I expected images of what I remembered back when the Exxon Valdez spilled those millions up in Alaska decades ago. What I found out was that oil has multiple characteristics as it becomes aged by sea, wind, and air - and not all of it skimmable. Mitigation efforts have ranged the gambit of skimming, burning, and spraying these damn dispersant's. While dispersant's may remove the visible aspect of a oil spill they cause oil to miscilize - rather than simply disappearing - and sink further down into the water column. It doesn't make it go away, it's still in the marine environment, but they would rather have there than wash up on the beaches. What's out there is a mix of traditional black "honey" oil that floats on the surface in a traditional slick, to a reddish goo, small chunks that look like diarrhea, or a rainbow colored sheen. Skimming boats want the kind that floats, the honey oil (I think they get money for every barrel they recover), but the other kind of oil - the vast majority - is not really skimmable since it doesn't congeal in the boom pocket to skim up. That oil will eventually sink to the sea floor or wash up on the beaches. 

Honey oil.

 

 

 

 
Please see all of William's photos (unbelievable number) and commentary at http://www.doomers.us/forum2/index.php/topic,67380.0.html

From their own mouths: Global Warming is a fraud

From Information Liberation:

"We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public's imagination... So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." - Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports

"It doesn't matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true." - Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace

"We've got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy." -Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation

"No matter if the science of global warming is all phony... climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world." - Christine Stewart, fmr Canadian Minister of the Environment

"The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe." - emeritus professor Daniel Botkin

"We require a central organizing principle - one agreed to voluntarily. Minor shifts in policy, moderate improvement in laws and regulations, rhetoric offered in lieu of genuine change - these are all forms of appeasement, designed to satisfy the public’s desire to believe that sacrifice, struggle and a wrenching transformation of society will not be necessary." - Al Gore, Earth in the Balance

"Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsiblity to bring that about?" - Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme

"A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation." - Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies

"The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are." - Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund

"Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control." - Professor Maurice King

"Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class - involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing - are not sustainable." - Maurice Strong, Rio Earth Summit

"Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it." - Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

"The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet." - Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

"Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun." - Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University

"The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil." – Sir James Lovelock, BBC Interview

"My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world." -Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!

"A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal." - Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major UN donor

"... the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion." - Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind

"If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels." - Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, patron of the World Wildlife Fund

"I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems." - John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

"The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing." - Christopher Manes, Earth First!

"Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing." - David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club

A Modest Zionist Proposal: The Genocide of the Palestinians

Imagine the outrage of the ADL and Israel if the term "Jew" or "Jewish" had been used instead of Palestinian.  Meanwhile, Tom Segev says that the Jewish people do not exist.

Genocide announced!
Bombs would fall under other circumstances, but when influential rabbis call for the total annihilation of the Palestinians the world watches without blinking

Saleh Al-Naami, Al-Ahram Weekly

April 10, 2008

"All of the Palestinians must be killed; men, women, infants, and even their beasts." This was the religious opinion issued one week ago by Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, director of the Tsomet Institute, a long-established religious institute attended by students and soldiers in the Israeli settlements of the West Bank. In an article published by numerous religious Israeli newspapers two weeks ago and run by the liberal Haaretz on 26 March, Rosen asserted that there is evidence in the Torah to justify this stand. Rosen, an authority able to issue religious opinions for Jews, wrote that Palestinians are like the nation of Amalekites that attacked the Israelite tribes on their way to Jerusalem after they had fled from Egypt under the leadership of Moses. He wrote that the Lord sent down in the Torah a ruling that allowed the Jews to kill the Amalekites, and that this ruling is known in Jewish jurisprudence.

Rosen's article, which created a lot of noise in Israel, included the text of the ruling in the Torah: "Annihilate the Amalekites from the beginning to the end. Kill them and wrest them from their possessions. Show them no mercy. Kill continuously, one after the other. Leave no child, plant, or tree. Kill their beasts, from camels to donkeys." Rosen adds that the Amalekites are not a particular race or religion, but rather all those who hate the Jews for religious or national motives. Rosen goes as far as saying that the "Amalekites will remain as long as there are Jews. In every age Amalekites will surface from other races to attack the Jews, and thus the war against them must be global." He urges application of the "Amalekites ruling" and says that the Jews must undertake to implement it in all eras because it is a "divine commandment".

Rosen does not hesitate to define the "Amalekites of this age" as the Palestinians. He writes, "those who kill students as they recite the Torah, and fire missiles on the city of Siderot, spread terror in the hearts of men and women. Those who dance over blood are the Amalekites, and we must respond with counter-hatred. We must uproot any trace of humanitarianism in dealing with them so that we emerge victorious."

The true outrage is that most of those authorised to issue Jewish religious opinions support the view of Rabbi Rosen, as confirmed by Haaretz newspaper. At the head of those supporting his opinion is Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, the leading religious authority in Israel's religious national current, and former chief Eastern rabbi for Israel. Rosen's opinion also has the support of Rabbi Dov Lior, president of the Council of Rabbis of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), and Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of Safed and a candidate for the post of chief rabbi of Israel. A number of political leaders in Israel have also shown enthusiasm for the opinion, including Ori Lubiansky, head of the Jerusalem municipality.

There is no dispute among observers in Israel that the shooting in Jerusalem three weeks ago that killed eight Jewish students in a religious school was pivotal for Jewish authorities issuing religious opinions of a racist, hateful nature. The day following the Jerusalem incident, a number of rabbis led by Daniel Satobsky issued a religious opinion calling on Jewish youth and "all those who believe in the Torah" to take revenge on the Palestinians as hastily as possible. A week following the operation, a group of leading rabbis issued an unprecedented religious opinion permitting the Israeli army to bomb Palestinian civilian areas. The opinion is issued by the "Association of Rabbis of the Land of Israel" and states that Jewish religious law permits the bombing of Palestinian civilian residential areas if they are a source of attacks on Jewish residential areas. It reads, "when the residents of cities bordering settlements and Jewish centres fire shells at Jewish settlements with the aim of death and destruction, the Torah permits for shells to be fired on the sources of firing even if civilian residents are present there."

The opinion adds that sometimes it is necessary to respond with shelling to sources of fire immediately, without granting the Palestinian public prior warning. A week ago, Rabbi Eliyahu Kinvinsky, the second most senior authority in the Orthodox religious current, issued a religious opinion prohibiting the employment of Arabs, particularly in religious schools. This religious opinion followed another that had been issued by Rabbi Lior prohibiting the employment of Arabs and the renting of residential apartments to them in Jewish neighbourhoods. In order to provide a climate that allows Jewish extremist organisations to continue attacking Palestinian citizens, Rabbi Israel Ariel, one of the most prominent rabbis in the West Bank settlement complex, recently issued a religious opinion prohibiting religious Jews involved in attacks against Palestinians to appear before Israeli civil courts. According to this opinion, they must instead demand to appear before Torah courts that rule by Jewish religious law.

Haaretz newspaper noted that what Rabbi Ariel was trying to achieve through this religious opinion has in fact already taken place. The first instance of such a court in Kfar Saba ordered the release of a young Jewish woman called Tsevia Teshrael who attacked a Palestinian farmer in the middle of the West Bank. And there are Jewish religious authorities that glorify killing and praise terrorists, such as Rabbi Yitzhaq Ginsburg, a top rabbi in Israel who published a book entitled Baruch the Hero in memoriam of Baruch Goldstein, who committed the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre in 1994 when he opened fire and killed 29 Palestinians as they were performing the dawn prayer in Hebron in the southern West Bank. Ginsburg considers his act "honourable and glorious".

The danger of these religious opinions lies in the fact that the religious authorities issuing them have wide respect among religious Jewish youth. And while only 28 per cent of Israel's population is religious, more than 50 per cent of Israelis define themselves as conservative and grant major significance to opinions issued by Jewish religious authorities. According to a study conducted by the Social Sciences Department of Bar Elon University, more than 90 per cent of those who identify as religious believe that if state laws and government orders are incongruous with the content of religious opinions issued by rabbis, they must overlook the former and act in accordance with the latter.

What grants the racist religious opinions a deeper and far-reaching impact is the fact that for the last decade followers of the Zionist religious current, who form nearly 10 per cent of the population, have been seeking to take control of the army and security institutions. They are doing so through volunteering for service in special combat units. The spokesperson's office in the Israeli army says that although the percentage of followers of this current is low in the state's demographic makeup, they form more than 50 per cent of the officers in the Israeli army and more than 60 per cent of its special unit commanders. According to an opinion poll of religious officers and soldiers supervised by the Interdisciplinary Centre Herzliya and published last year, more than 95 per cent of religious soldiers and officers say that they will execute orders from the elected government and their leaders in the army only if they are in harmony with the religious opinions issued by leading rabbis and religious authorities.

Wasil Taha, Arab Knesset member from the Tajammu Party led by Azmi Bishara, says that these religious opinions lead to the committal of crimes. He mentions religious opinions issued by a number of rabbis in mid-1995 that led to the assassination of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin at that time. "If that's what happens when religious opinions urge attacks against Jewish leaders such as Rabin, what will the situation be like when they urge attacks against Palestinian leaders and the Palestinian public?" he asks. "We, as Arab leaders, have begun to feel a lack of security following this flood of religious opinions, and we realise that the matter requires a great deal of caution in our movements as we are certain that there are those who seek to implement these opinions," he told Al-Ahram Weekly.

Taha dismisses those who ask about the role of the government and Israeli political cadre in confronting these extremist religious opinions. "The ministers in the Israeli government and the Knesset members compete to incite against the Palestinian public and don't hesitate to threaten expulsion of the Palestinians who live on their land in Israel and carry Israeli citizenship outside of Israel's borders, just as former deputy premier Avigdor Lieberman and representative Evi Etam did," Taha said. He notes that Palestinian citizens within Israel have begun to take extreme precautionary measures since the issue of these religious opinions, including security measures around mosques and public institutions and informing officials of public demonstrations so that members of Jewish terrorist organisations can be prevented from attacking participants. Taha holds that the sectors of the Palestinian population most likely to be harmed by these religious opinions are those living in the various cities populated by both Jews and Palestinians, such as Haifa, Jaffa, Lod, Ramleh and Jerusalem.

Palestinian writer and researcher Abdul-Hakim Mufid, from the city Um Fahem, holds that the religious opinions of rabbis have gained major significance due to the harmony between official rhetoric and that of the rabbis. Mufid notes that official Israeli establishments have not tried to confront the "fascist" rhetoric expressed in these religious opinions even though they are capable of doing so. "Most of the rabbis who issue tyrannical religious opinions are official employees in state institutions and receive salaries from them. And the state has not held these rabbis accountable or sought to prohibit the issue of such opinions," he told the Weekly.

Mufid points out that when the official political institution is in a crisis, the Zionist consensus behind these religious opinions grows more intense, and offers as an example the religious opinions relied upon by Rabbi Meir Kahane in the early 1980s to justify his call to forcefully expel the Palestinians. Mufid adds that Israel in practice encourages all those who kill Palestinians, and points to the way that the Israeli government dealt with the recommendations of the Orr Commission that investigated the Israeli police's killing of 13 Palestinians with Israeli citizenship in October of 2000. The government closed the file even though the commission confirmed that the police had acted aggressively towards the Palestinian citizens. Mufid suggests that what makes the racist rhetoric the rabbis insist upon influential is the silence of leftist and liberal voices, and the lack of any direct mobilisation against it.

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly

The suffering in Palestine continues while the world remains silent.  It was cool to wear your "Free Nelson Mandela" shirt in the '80's (I had one - and a pin I wore on my denim jacket), but there is no boycott of Israel, no demands that the Israelis abandon their illegal occupation of Palestine, and no more shouts of, "Tear down this wall!"

Meanwhile...

In a statement to Asharq Al-Awsat, he added, “Reprimanding a child everyday, threatening to arrest his brother or using other immoral threats destroys one’s soul and is a motive to commit suicide.” He pointed out that the Israeli intelligence agencies are continuing to create new methods to force detained children to become spies in order to destroy the Palestinian social fabric. Al Khuffash added that the [Israeli] Shabak security service depends on detained children in order to plant the biggest number of spies amongst Palestinian people. All detained children are invited to join Shabak and they are beaten and threatened with rape to convince them to go down the road of treason.

Zionists are insane.

What is a Billion?

The next time you hear a politician use the word "billion" in a casual manner, think about whether you want the "politicians" spending YOUR tax money. A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases.

A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

C. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

D. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

E. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it. While this thought is still fresh in our brain, let's take a look at New Orleans It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division

Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D), is presently asking the Congress for $250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans. Interesting number, what does it mean?

A. Well, if you are one of 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, child), you each get $516,528.

B. Or, if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787.

C. Or, if you are a family of four, your family gets $2,066,012.

Tax his land,

Tax his wage,

Tax his bed in which he lays.

Tax his tractor,

Tax his mule,

Teach him taxes is the rule.

Tax his cow,

Tax his goat,

Tax his pants,

Tax his coat.

Tax his ties,

Tax his shirts,

Tax his work,

Tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco,

Tax his drink,

Tax him if he tries to think.

Tax his booze,

Tax his beers,

If he cries,

Tax his tears.

Tax his bills,

Tax his gas,

Tax his notes,

Tax his cash.

Tax him good and let him know

That after taxes, he has no dough.

If he hollers,

Tax him more,

Tax him! until he's good and sore.

Tax his coffin,

Tax his grave,

Tax the sod in which he lays.

Put these words upon his tomb,

"Taxes drove me to my doom!"

And when he's gone,

We won't relax,

We'll still be after the inheritance TAX!! 

Accounts Receivable Tax

Building Permit Tax

CDL License Tax

Cigarette Tax

Corporate Income Tax

Dog License Tax

Federal Income Tax

Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)

Fishing License Tax

Food License Tax

Fuel Perm it Tax

Gasoline Tax

Hunting License Tax

Inheritance Tax

Inventory Tax

IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax),

IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax),

Liquor Tax,

Luxury Tax,

Marriage License Tax,

Medicare Tax,

Property Tax,

Real Estate Tax,

Service charge taxes,

Social Security Tax,

Road Usage Tax (Truckers),

Sales Taxes,

Recreational Vehicle Tax,

School Tax,

State Income Tax,

State Unemployment Tax (SUTA),

Telephone Federal Excise Tax,

Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax,

Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax,

Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax,

Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax,

Telephone State and Local Tax,

Telephone Usage Charge Tax,

Utility Tax,

Vehicle License Registration Tax,

Vehicle Sales Tax,

Watercraft Registration Tax,

Well Permit Tax,

Workers Compensation Tax.

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, and the US was the most prosperous nation in the world.

There was no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and there was not a need for two family breadwinners to pay the household expenses.

What happened? Can you spell 'politicians!'

Eyewitness Report from New Orleans

http://www.rense.com/general67/eyewit.htm

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.