Circumstances and demographics.

Dean's remark is being reported as an indictment of the federal response, not circumstances and demographics that have existed for decades. And Juan, looking at this from England, sees what he thinks is discrimination in the federal response and finds that disgusting, and thus agrees with Dean. No one was referring to "circumstances and demographics", but about the federal response being "disgusting" because it was supposed to be based on "skin color, age and economics".

The whole issue of race did not come up until someone from the NAACP stood up and said something, and that was based on what he was seeing in the media. Then every 5 minutes after that the media was trying to ask anyone of importance about a "race issue". What you don't see from the media is people of different races working together.

I've lived there, I have friends an family there. I know how most of the people are there. They would give you the shirt off their back, regardless of race.

Some of those people chose to ride the storm out. Someone always does. Some could not leave for whatever reason. Attempts were made to evacuate those people. You can't make someone leave if they don't want to. I saw that several days later they did a "mandatory" evacuation. Did that get everyone else out that could travel? Probably not.

The levy break was not anticipated. Funding for those same levies had decreased the last few years. If it hadn't broken then perhaps the damage wouldn't have been so catastrophic. The levies have been a topic of conversation for many years, as the whole city is beneath sea level.

With all the arguing over the federal response to Katrina you all seem to have forgotten the victims in this.

How about the innocent Australian man imprisoned awaiting arraignment and the hundreds of other inmates of the new orleans goal.
When the guards locked them in their cells and ran away, leaving them trapped and drowning without food or water for four days during the hurricane.

Think of the victims.

---

With all the arguing over the federal response to Katrina you all seem to have forgotten the victims in this.

How about the innocent Australian man imprisoned awaiting arraignment and the hundreds of other inmates of the new orleans goal.
When the guards locked them in their cells and ran away, leaving them trapped and drowning without food or water for four days during the hurricane.

Think of the victims.

How insulting! How can you suggest that we, who are talking about the ugly political rhetoric that has surfaced around this disaster, are not thinking of the victims? Most people are capable of more than one thought.

Here is an unsolicited email I received. You guys can decide what it's worth yourselves.
===========================

*Please Read The real truth about the City Of New Orleans*

The mainstream press is hard at work blaming President Bush for the high
death toll and "slow response" to the Katrina disaster. Here are some facts
that are being under-reported or not reported at all in the mainstream
press:

*Fact: Liberal groups - including the New York Times - successfully opposed
funding for better levees on environmental grounds. *Today the New York
times blamed Bush and Republicans for not funding better levees

*Fact: The New Orleans levee commission had money to buy real estate outside
the city and a casino - but not enough money to improve the levees

Fact: National Guard Units are under the command of state Governors, not the
President. *Furthermore, Federal law absolutely prohibits the use of Federal
troops to enforce state or local laws. Therefore, by law, their was nothing
President Bush could have done to stop the looting, raping, and murders that
followed the storm.

*Fact: President Bush declared Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama federal
disaster areas THREE DAYS before the storm hit. *Among other things, this
provided federal money for these sates to active their National Guard Units.
Mississippi and Alabama activated their units and moved them north, out of
the storm area. The Democratic Governor of Louisiana did not activate any of
her National Guard Units until after the storm. By then communications were
poor and many units equipment was under water.

*Fact: The only person with the authority to order an evacuation of New
Orleans was its' Mayor. *In spite of having three days warning, he did not
do so until less then 24hrs before the storm hit. *Why did he finally give
the order that saved thousands of people? President bush called him
personally and begged him to do so.

Fact: The City of New Orleans had 560 buses available to evacuate those who
had no transportation of their own. NOT ONE was used. *Instead, the city
simply told everyone to flee and told those who could not get out to go to
the Superdome and Convention Center. The person who abandoned the poor and
largely black people without transportation was their own black mayor!

*Fact: Nearly half the New Orleans Police Department deserted their posts,
leaving the city even more vulnerable. *This department has been the most
corrupt department in the nation for decades. Officers dealing drugs was
very common and one cop even committed murder on duty. He would never have
been caught without an FBI investigation. A better police department would
have gone a long way towards keeping order. (Note: Many New Orleans Officers
DID do their duty - they have proven their character by their actions - and
should be the core of a new police department!)

*Fact: The Governor of Louisiana waited for days before giving the National
Guard orders to shoot lawbreakers in New Orleans. *When she gave those
orders and announced them on radio and TV, the looting and general
lawlessness basically stopped. When you shoot looters instead of letting
them go, most will not take that risk.

*Fact: It is not reasonable to expect federal resources to be immediately
available. *Local resources MUST be able to handle disaster until federal
resource arrive. State and Local officials MUST be able to handle the
situation for 48 to 72 hours before federal resources arrive.

*There clearly were problems with FEMA and other Federal agencies.* These
problems must be corrected. But the facts are clear: Had city and state
officials done their jobs, everyone could have been out of New Orleans
before the storm ever hit!

It's time for the media to stop blaming President Bush and place
responsibility where it really belongs!
**************************************
From a Tulane Student re problems with disaster relief
*Fire the Mayor and the Gov...Not Bush!* So many people are still missing
b/c of Katrina. The following was written by a Tulane U student and posted
on the Tulane Missing Person Msg Board. Wish it could be sent to everybody
who thinks Presidents Bush and the country failed them.......**

For all those who blame Bush, only the Governor can call out the National
Guard...I have not found anything that tells us when the Louisiana Governor
called them out... Bravo to Texas for stepping up so quickly and generously.

In case you aren't familiar with how our government is SUPPOSED to work.
The chain of responsibility for the protection of the citizens in New
Orleans is:

1. The Mayor
2. The New Orleans director of Homeland Security (a political appointee of
the Governor who reports to the Governor)
3. The Governor
4. The Head of Homeland Security
5. The President

What did each do?

1. The Mayor, with 5 days advance, waited until 2 days before he
announced a mandatory evacuation (at the behest of the President). The
he failed to provide transportation for those without transport even
though he had hundreds of buses at his disposal.

2. The New Orleans Director of Homeland Security failed to have any plan
for a contingency that has been talked about for 50 years. Then he
blames the Feds for not doing what he should have done. (So much for
political appointees)

3. The Governor, despite a declaration of disaster by the President 2
DAYS BEFORE the storm hit, failed to take advantage of the offer of
Federal troops and aid. Until 2 DAYS AFTER the storm hit.

4. The Director of Homeland Security positioned assets in the area to be
ready when the Governor called for them

5. The President urged a mandatory evacuation, and even declared a
disaster State of Emergency, freeing up millions of dollars of federal
assistance, should the Governor decide to use it.

Oh and by the way, the levees that broke were the responsibility of the
local landowners and the local levee board to maintain, NOT THE FEDERAL
GOVERNMENT.

Observations:

The disaster in New Orleans is what you get after decades of corrupt
government going all the way back to Huey Long. Funds for
disaster protection and relief have been flowing into this city for
decades, and where has it gone, but into the pockets of the politicos
and their friends. Decades of corrupt government in New Orleans has
sapped all self reliance from the community, and made them dependent
upon government for every little thing.

Years ago the wetlands and swamps that nature designed to absorb the
onslaught of hurricanes that regularly hit the coastal regions were built
upon by developers bent on making a profit. Of course, government
gave them permits to do so and thus the natural barriers were virtually
eliminated.
Political correctness and a lack of will to fight crime have created the
single most corrupt police force in the country, and has permitted gang
violence to flourish. The sad thing is that there are many poor folks
who have suffered and died needlessly because those that they voted into
office failed them.
***************************

Google's swift growth is challenge to Microsoft

By David Sheets
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

September 12, 2005

Serious discussion about Google's threat to Microsoft's domain began in earnest recently when, within 48 hours, the Mountain View-based Google unveiled two technology advances: a well-received upgrade for its desktop search tool and a formative step into text and voice messaging called Google Talk. The upgrade for Google Desktop Search effectively addresses several problems that many users of Version 1.0 found either irritating or scary. For instance, Desktop Search now sifts through a wider variety of file types and e-mail programs (it used to work with only Microsoft's Outlook or Outlook Express) and it includes protections against someone coming along after you've run a search and peeking at the results.

That last matter was a big deal. Anyone who sat down at your computer after you used Desktop Search could see where you visited and how you got there, including passwords and secure logins. Now, Desktop Search has an "omit" feature so certain files and Web destinations don't reappear in the search results. Furthermore, Desktop Search appears as a "sidebar" on the screen, instead of in a Web browser. With it, users can automatically start programs needed to open files. (Apple Computer Inc. unveiled a similar search tool, called Spotlight, in May as part of its Mac OS X Tiger operating system).

Google Talk, meanwhile, enters a field heavily trodden by America Online, Microsoft and Yahoo! Unlike them, however, the new Talk incorporates text messaging and voice chat that's compatible with a wide range of competitors, such as Apple's iChat and Cerulean Studios' Trillian but without the display ads and pop-up windows common with AOL's Instant Messenger.

However, Web searches and desktop searches aren't what ought to worry Microsoft about Google; it's everything else the company's doing. In 2001, it acquired Deja, the former Usenet archive, for better access to Internet newsgroups. In 2003, it snagged Pyra Labs and Genius Labs, two Weblog providers, to take advantage of the blogging boom. Last year, it snapped up Keyhole Corp., a digital mapping company, to bolster its Google Maps search tool.

Everything else Google needs it manages to devise on its own. The company employs a concept known as "Twenty Percent Time," whereby every Google engineer is encouraged to spend 20 percent of their working time developing ideas that interest them, not just those affiliated with larger projects. The Google News headline compiler and Gmail Web-based mail program (now available to anyone) grew out of this practice.

Above all, Google acts quickly, responding to trends almost as soon as they become apparent. By one estimate, the company unveils a new idea every six months. Google already is either developing or acquiring the tools to hitch a ride on the still-rising wave of mobile networking.

Microsoft, by comparison, appears stuck in neutral. The company seems overwhelmed by efforts to either patch or upgrade its products against repeated security threats. Its oft-delayed replacement for the aging Windows XP operating system, named Vista, won't be available publicly until mid-2006, at best. According to some tech trade publications, malicious programmers already have found ways to compromise Vista's security.

Microsoft remains strong. The Redmond, Wash.-based company, with 57,000 employees, grossed about $30 billion in the past year.

Google, with 4,000 employees, grossed almost $5 billion.

Cyber anxiety - Internet giants Google and Yahoo! go astray

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL

September 12, 2005

Anyone anywhere in the world who sits down at an Internet-connected computer has a profound stake in the integrity and good faith of the handful of American companies that have come from nowhere in the past decade or so to dominate the basic functions of the World Wide Web. Unfortunately, recent news involving two of these cyberspace giants – Google and Yahoo! – raises fundamental concerns about their judgment.

The first case began with a thoughtful article by reporter Elinor Mills that was posted July 14 on CNET.com, a journalistic Web site devoted to technology. Before Mills got to her main focus – the trillions of bits of data that Google could correlate about its hundreds of millions of users, if it wanted – she listed some information about Google CEO Eric Schmidt that she had been able to gather after using the Google search engine for a half-hour. It mentioned a handful of routine personal details (he is an "avid pilot," etc.), noted that Al Gore had attended a fund-raiser he held, and said he lived in Atherton – but didn't give out a street address. Mild stuff.

Yet the CEO of Google responded to being "Googled" in print by throwing a fit. CNET was banned from receiving any official communications from Google for a year.

This reaction is so out of proportion that it suggests what really rankled Schmidt was the article's suggestion that it was tough to reconcile Google's New Age-y corporate "do no evil" slogan with its practice of recording whose computer is being used and what is being sought every time its search engine is used. The potential for abuse of this information is staggering – if not by Google itself then by a rogue employee, hacker or government investigator.

Whatever the reason for Schmidt's freakout, it belies the dreamy idealism of Google's slogan – and makes one wonder if a company run by a bully can be trusted with anything, much less the biggest trove of data around.

The second case involves court documents showing Yahoo! turned over e-mail logs that enabled the Chinese government to track down and jail dissident journalist Shi Tao for 10 years for the offense of posting on the Internet a government memo of no consequence about limits on media coverage of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Yahoo! won't explain the circumstances that led it to cooperate with Beijing. But even if Yahoo! is compelled to assist investigations as a condition of doing business in China, the least the company can do is explain its policy and conduct it with complete transparency. This way, Yahoo! users in oppressive regimes will know the risks they face and react accordingly. Instead, the way things now stand, Yahoo! is a silent partner to the secret police of the world.

Like Google, Yahoo! has had great success in selling itself as a paradigm of corporate enlightenment. But both companies will find that image fading fast if they don't get their acts together. If Internet users don't trust the companies they use for e-mail and searches, it's not like they don't have other options.

Here is an unsolicited email I received. You guys can decide what it's worth yourselves.
===========================

*Please Read The real truth about the City Of New Orleans*

***************************

Misfit, could i get a copy of that email it was Great!!

---

BOINC SYNERGY is an International Team and We Welcome All BOINC Participants!
BOINC Synergy Click to Join BOINC Synergy

When Big Mama Barbara opens her mouth
You can almost see Geogies' mouth moving
For a redneck rich kid from the oilpatch without a clue,
He's certainly's doing well for himself.
Being President and all
But he needs to muffle Mama
Specially with her 'underpriviledged' and 'better off' comments-
George needs to remember he's stated in public
That he learned everthing he knows from Momma.
Maybe George should just shut up
And let the Haliburton guy do the talkin'...cc

---

With all the arguing over the federal response to Katrina you all seem to have forgotten the victims in this.

How about the innocent Australian man imprisoned awaiting arraignment and the hundreds of other inmates of the new orleans goal.
When the guards locked them in their cells and ran away, leaving them trapped and drowning without food or water for four days during the hurricane.

Think of the victims.

How insulting! How can you suggest that we, who are talking about the ugly political rhetoric that has surfaced around this disaster, are not thinking of the victims? Most people are capable of more than one thought.

Ohh i believe you can have more than one thought but you obviously cannot understand satirical humor or even recognise sarcasim.

With all the arguing over the federal response to Katrina you all seem to have forgotten the victims in this.

How about the innocent Australian man imprisoned awaiting arraignment and the hundreds of other inmates of the new orleans goal.
When the guards locked them in their cells and ran away, leaving them trapped and drowning without food or water for four days during the hurricane.

Think of the victims.

How insulting! How can you suggest that we, who are talking about the ugly political rhetoric that has surfaced around this disaster, are not thinking of the victims? Most people are capable of more than one thought.

Ohh i believe you can have more than one thought but you obviously cannot understand satirical humor or even recognise sarcasim.

Boy, I guess I don't understand satire! Now, what was satirical about, "you all seem to have forgotten the victims in this", or "leaving them trapped and drowning without food or water for four days during the hurricane"?

Here is an unsolicited email I received. You guys can decide what it's worth yourselves.
===========================

*Please Read The real truth about the City Of New Orleans*

All appears to be quite true, especially about the NOPD; I have sources
about that issue which have worked for the NOPD. However, it also appears that Bush has gotten stung
because of his political appointment of that resume chancer, Brown. At least
his current appointment has the proper credentials. Let's hope that when all
is said and done, everyone will learn from this experience, and positive
changes will be made.

If not, who knows how the next victims of a disaster, natural or terrorist, will fare.

The politico's of Louisiana and Mississippi are, obviously, not on par with his honor, the ex-mayor of
New York City.

---

Account frozen...

Here is an unsolicited email I received. You guys can decide what it's worth yourselves.
===========================

*Please Read The real truth about the City Of New Orleans*

All appears to be quite true, especially about the NOPD; I have sources
about that issue which have worked for the NOPD. However, it also appears that Bush has gotten stung
because of his political appointment of that resume chancer, Brown. At least
his current appointment has the proper credentials. Let's hope that when all
is said and done, everyone will learn from this experience, and positive
changes will be made.

If not, who knows how the next victims of a disaster, natural or terrorist, will fare.

The politico's of the Louisiana are not on par with his honor, the ex-mayor of
New York City.

When u right! U Right ! Hopefully we all can learn from this Disaster! and be Better prepare!!

---

BOINC SYNERGY is an International Team and We Welcome All BOINC Participants!
BOINC Synergy Click to Join BOINC Synergy

Misfit, could i get a copy of that email it was Great!!

Sorry, but it was eaten by my Trash folder. :(
But feel free to copy it. That was the email in its entirety minus the forwarding headers.

No home for hacks - FEMA fall guy wrong for job from the start

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL

September 13, 2005

It is a sad comment on our political culture that the transgression that appears to have sealed FEMA chief Michael Brown's fate was not necessarily his tentative, uncomprehending response to the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina, but evidence that his resume was exaggerated. If reporters hadn't poked holes in Brown's official history last week, he might have hung on much longer than yesterday, when he resigned three days after being recalled to Washington. R. David Paulison, a career firefighter with a reassuring background – head of FEMA's emergency preparedness force and the U.S. Fire Administration – is now acting director.

Whatever it was that roused the Bush administration to oust Brown, we hope this president and those who follow him have learned a basic lesson: Don't put unqualified people in uniquely difficult and sensitive posts.

No case can be made that Brown ever should have been tapped to run FEMA in the first place. Before using his college friendship with Joe Allbaugh, the confidant of George W. Bush named to run FEMA in 2001, to secure a FEMA post, here was Brown's career highlight: 10 years helping pick judges for horse shows. Before that, he had an undistinguished legal and political career.

When FBI agents came to Oklahoma City in 2002 to do a background check on Brown, they spoke to lawyers at a firm that hired him but later let him go. According to The St. Petersburg Times, when firm partner Stephen Jones was told Brown was up for a job as FEMA's No. 2 official, he said, "You're surely kidding?" Political appointees aren't always a bad idea.

They are often chosen not just as a payoff but to jolt a complacent bureaucracy by putting a can-do outsider in charge. But given Brown's background – either his version or the one reporters cite – it's plain he was a pure patronage pick. And not the only one at FEMA. Allbaugh did fine running the agency, but the men he left in charge after his 2003 exit included not just Brown but three former Republican media operatives, including Brown's top two aides.

This is indefensible. The stakes are too high to have the Federal Emergency Management Agency run by people with no experience managing emergencies. The next time an administration needs to find a job for a friend of the friend of the president, here's hoping the chit-casher is dispatched to some remote embassy, not to disaster-relief headquarters.

Meanwhile, it will not reassure Californians to know that our acting regional director, Karen Armes, holds a college degree in recreation administration and came to FEMA after stints as a number cruncher for the military.

Surely she has a veteran crisis manager as a top aide, right? Well, no. She is also deputy director as well as acting regional director and has been for 17 months. Perhaps the Bush administration has some benign explanation for this, and perhaps Armes is a dynamo, whatever her background. But at this point, neither FEMA's bosses nor its overseers deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Katrina aid - Disaster funds should be closely monitored

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL

September 13, 2005

When government auditors finally got around to looking at contracts issued by the Coalition Provisional Authority for Iraq's reconstruction, they discovered that hundreds of millions of dollars had been misspent by contractors. In one case, contractors were paid twice for the same work, costing American taxpayers tens of millions of dollars until the error was discovered.

The same thing could happen in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Washington so far has allocated a staggering $62 billion to rebuild New Orleans and other Gulf Coast regions. Right now, Washington is spending more than $500 million per day in the region, and rebuilding efforts have hardly begun. Already, powerful lobbyists, noticeably two former heads of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, are acting on behalf of huge companies such as the Bechtel Group, Fluor Corporation and Halliburton, which hope to secure huge government contracts.

A Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown & Root, has been awarded contracts to repair U.S. Navy facilities in Mississippi. A Baton Rouge construction and engineering company, The Shaw Group, announced it had received two contracts worth about $100 million to repair levees and do other work.

So far, fewer than a dozen contracts have been awarded. They were done without competitive bidding and with so-called "cost-plus" provisions that allow companies to pass along all their costs, including a pre-determined profit, to the government.

FEMA, which will allocate most of the $62 billion and whatever amount follows, says such practices are necessary if the reconstruction process is to proceed with the aim of getting victims lives back in order as quickly as possible. It further says, with some justification, that huge multinational corporations, such as Bechtel and Halliburton, are really the only ones capable of such a large undertaking.

Perhaps FEMA would inspire a bit more confidence if it had not handed out $30 million for hurricane assistance last year in Miami-Dade County, which wasn't hit by a single hurricane.

This is America's largest reconstruction effort in modern times, and FEMA does not have a track record in handling such huge sums of taxpayer money. In 2003, the agency, now a part of the Department of Homeland Security, spent $87 million for procurement, a small amount by federal government standards.

Members of both parties in Congress are calling for a new agency or individual to oversee Gulf Coast reconstruction efforts. Looking at what happened to large amounts of taxpayer money in Iraq, and what could happen here, that may not be a bad idea.

Expecting the worst during disasters

DANIEL WEINTRAUB
THE SACRAMENTO BEE

September 13, 2005

Now that the dust, or the muck, has begun to settle in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, this is a good time to consider how Californians might respond to a disaster of similar proportions.

The first and most enduring lesson from Katrina may be this: Be prepared to take care of yourself, and your neighbor if possible, for at least three days after any major disaster. Don't expect to get help from anyone, including government. If help comes, great. But don't assume that it will. The same lesson should apply to disaster preparedness on a broader scale.

If California government officials know that the state's infrastructure is vulnerable and needs to be fixed, they can't use the lack of sufficient assistance from the federal government as an excuse to delay. They must act now to prioritize the state's needs and attack them rather than waiting for help and pointing fingers later.

Katrina exposed vast weaknesses on both fronts along the Gulf Coast and especially in New Orleans. City and state officials did not do enough to protect their fellow citizens from disaster or prepare to respond if one hit. Evacuation plans were not followed, buses were left unused in parking lots that later flooded, police could not or would not show up for duty, the American Red Cross, designated by the law as the first responder for evacuees, was blocked from entering the city with food and water, and the governor refused to sign a request turning over control of the National Guard to President Bush.

Given the scope of local and state incompetence, if not corruption, the president should have acted sooner to try to take over the response, even if it meant going public with delicate, behind-the-scenes negotiations and declaring the obvious: Louisiana officials were overmatched and needed to be shoved aside, even if they resisted.

We can only hope that California would do better in a similar predicament. But there is no way to know how any person or agency would react under the kind of pressures experienced in New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast region in recent weeks.

California has had its share of disasters, but nothing in its modern history can compare to the flooding of an entire metropolitan area on top of the typical wind and water damage that comes from a devastating hurricane.

The closest scenario imaginable might be the "Big One," a catastrophic earthquake that levels much of Los Angeles or San Francisco. A Bay Area quake of that magnitude is especially horrifying to consider because of its potential to bust the levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and unleash flooding that would not only take lives but could cripple California's water supply system for months or even years.

California's official state emergency plan is built on the assumption that disaster response is best coordinated at the lowest level of government involved in an emergency. Local authorities, the plan says, will maintain "control and responsibility" for emergency management within their jurisdictions unless superseded by statute or agreement.

The plan calls for local government to request assistance from the state if needed, but also allows the governor to declare a state of emergency if he determines that the local authority is "inadequate" to cope with the disaster.

Currently, no such mechanism exists at the federal level, where the president's powers are limited except in the case of an "insurrection." It might be a good idea to change that and allow a president to step in and federalize disaster response including the use of the military to enforce the law – if he determines that local and state officials are overwhelmed.

As New Orleans demonstrated, the most important function the government can perform is to restore and maintain security. That is the first role of government in good times but especially in bad.

Once security is compromised and order crumbles, the worst elements of society are going to plunge into the vacuum and take advantage of it. And if people fear for their lives from their fellow man, in addition to the elements, everything else that needs doing is going to be impaired. It's silly to say that disaster preparedness and response is inconsistent with limited government.

If providing for public safety is the first job of any government, then even the smallest agency should be doing everything it can to prepare for the worst. Yet no matter how well government prepares or responds, there is still the chance a disaster will strike that simply cannot be managed from above. Each of us has a responsibility to be ready to take care of ourselves and our loved ones.

Even San Francisco, a city that prides itself on its sense of community and its extensive public services, has established a Web site titled www.72hours.org to drive home the point that its citizens must plan to fend for themselves in a disaster. Go there now, and be ready.

Whatever happened to that multibillion dollar bailout the airlines got?

---

me@rescam.org