WHAT THE HELL KIND OF GOD DO 'THEY' BELIEVE IN

by the 'they' i am NOT referring to all muslims. i am referring to the terrorist fanatics

Al-Zarqawi: Katrina an answer to prayers
Al Qaeda leader says God granted wish of Iraqis, Afghans
(CNN) -- An Islamist Web site on Sunday posted a recording from al Qaeda's leader in Iraq saying Hurricane Katrina was an answer to the prayers of Iraqis and Afghans who have suffered under U.S. occupation.

The audio message thought to be from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi came on the fourth anniversary of al Qaeda's terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001.
The voice on the recording was verified to be al-Zarqawi by a CNN Arabic speaker familiar with many of his previous statements.
The United States and the Iraqi government call Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi the most wanted terrorist in the country. The United States has posted a $25 million reward for information leading to his capture.
In the recording, al-Zarqawi said, "I believe the devastating hurricane that hit the United States occurred because people in Iraq or Afghanistan -- maybe a mother who had lost her son or a son whose parents were killed or a woman who was raped -- were praying for God and God accepted their prayers."
The reference to Hurricane Katrina means the recording was made after August 29, when the powerful storm hit the U.S. Gulf Coast. (Special coverage)
Marking the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks Sunday, President Bush attended a ceremony on the south lawn of the White House, where he and other members of his administration observed a moment of silence.
In Louisiana, New York firefighters and police officers helping victims of Katrina held their own 9/11 services. (Full story)
Those observances came as the co-chairmen of the bipartisan 9/11 commission told CNN that the government's response to Katrina showed little was learned from the 2001 attacks about how to handle disasters.
Recent European intelligence reports reviewed by Time magazine suggested that al-Zarqawi's authority is expanding beyond Iraq and that he now rivals Osama bin Laden in influence among Middle Eastern and European jihadists. (Full story)
The last time bin Laden released a statement late last December in an audiotape on which he praised al-Zarqawi and designated him the al Qaeda leader in Iraq.
Al-Zarqawi's group, Al Qaeda in Iraq, has been behind many of that country's worst insurgent attacks, beheadings and kidnappings......................

please let your voice be heard for those without voices

(note: i am NOT a fan of everything peta does. i.e. throwing blood and/or paint on fur wearing humans. i believe in EDUCATION and conversation. i am also a believer in what goes around COMES AROUND - i don't wish the furwearers ill will. if they don't get the point in this life, they sure will in the next one. i am a fan of MOST of peta's work though)

September 9, 2005, 12 p.m.: Officials Shooting Dogs in Louisiana—Feds Must Hear from You Today!
In the latest and most graphic display of our government's abandonment of animal-handling guidelines in disasters that were created with PETA's help years ago, some law enforcement agencies are now shooting dogs left stranded in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana.
Revolting video footage posted on the Web site of the Dallas Morning News shows officers shooting dogs. At least one of their victims survived the gunshots and was apparently left to die a slow, agonizing death amid debris from the storm.
Of course, shooting is not an approved, reasonable, or reliable method of animal control. In fact, The 2000 Report of the AVMA [American Veterinary Medical Association] Panel on Euthanasia—the veterinary medical authority on euthanasia—states, "[G]unshot should not be used for routine euthanasia of animals in animal control situations." This dangerous method often fails to achieve instantaneous unconsciousness; animals can be injured by initial gunshots and suffer tremendously before dying, as seems to be happening in St. Bernard Parish. Gunshot is also categorized as an inhumane method of killing in The Humane Society of the United States' "General Statement Regarding Euthanasia Methods for Dogs and Cats."
This horror for animals, which is but the latest of many to be seen in Katrina's wake, underscores the urgent need for you to call on those in charge, today, to end immediately their callous policies toward animals suffering and to make the plight of animals affected by these disasters a part of planned investigations and hearings.

preparing BEFORE disaster strikes....

Easy Ways to Help Companion Animals
There are many ways to help companion animals. You can help them out of dangerous situations and assist others who are working to rescue them every day.
Volunteer at your local animal shelter. Most animal shelters welcome volunteers, who help walk dogs, clean cat cages, and dole out love and attention to the lost and homeless animals who wait to be reunited with their caretakers— or find new ones. Contact your local shelter for details on how to sign up.
Organize a fundraiser to support your local animal shelter or low-cost spay and neuter programs. Round up others to hold a car wash, bake sale, dog walk, or rummage sale. Donate profits to your local animal shelter or to support low-cost spay and neuter programs.
Get Strays off the Mean Streets
Don't drive past lost animals you encounter in the streets— you might be their only hope for safety. Here are some tips:
Many normally friendly dogs become fearful when they are lost. Position yourself between the dog and traffic. Turn off the car, close the door quietly, move slowly, speak softly, and avoid making eye contact. Carry dog treats or cans of cat food in your car to entice the animal. If the dog runs, stop and kneel down, or walk in the opposite direction. Be patient— it may take awhile for the animal to muster up the courage to come near. Try to herd the dog toward a residential area, ideally into a fenced yard, where you can close the gate and prevent escape.
If you are near a pay phone or have a cell phone, call the humane society, animal control, or police and ask for help. Be insistent.
If the animal is injured, stop the car, put on the flashers, and set out flares. Wrap gauze or a necktie around the animal— s muzzle to prevent biting (injured animals sometimes bite out of fear), or if the animal is small, wrap him or her in a towel. Pull even apparently dead animals out of the roadway— they may be alive but unconscious. (Gently touch the edge of the eye. If it flickers, the animal is alive.) Get injured animals to a veterinarian right away.
Carry This Rescue Kit in Your Car
LeashCat carrierPop-top canned cat foodDog treatsTowels and gauze or strips of clothPhone numbers of local animal shelters, emergency vets, and wildlife rehabilitators
Click here for more information about how to save strays.
Click here for information about how to help feral cats.
How to Help a Neighborhood Backyard Dog
Many dogs spend their entire lives in "solitary confinement," trapped at the end of a chain or in a small pen, suffering through frightening thunderstorms, suffocating heat, and bitter cold, often without vital medical care, aching for friendship.
You Can Help
Let neglectful neighbors know exactly what needs to be done in a noncritical way so as to try to avoid triggering their resistance. If you're not comfortable confronting them face to face, get some of PETA's "Chained Dog" brochures from our Literature Department, and leave one on their doorstep. The owner may surprise you by fixing the problems, but if she or he is not receptive, check your state's anti-cruelty statutes at www.animal-law.org/statutes. Codes for particular cities are available at http://www.municode.com/—and all should be available at your local library. The law usually allows people to keep dogs outdoors— chained, penned, or otherwise confined in all weather, as long as certain conditions are met, e.g., shelter from rain. Identify the violations and call in an investigator from your humane society, animal control, or sheriff's office to achieve compliance. See PETA's factsheet, "What to Do If You Spot Animal Abuse" for details. Be persistent. You may save a life!
You can improve the lives of dogs and cats suffering from cruelty and neglect. Click here to support PETA's work for companion animals.

poll info

Newsweek flash: Bush approval 38%, 57% have lost confidence in U.S. to deal with disaster
RAW STORY
From a poll running in Monday's editions of Newsweek, acquired by RAW STORY.
#
FIFTY-SEVEN PERCENT OF AMERICANS HAVE LOST CONFIDENCE IN GOVERNMENT TO DEAL WITH ANOTHER NATURAL DISASTER; 52% DO NOT TRUST PRESIDENT TO MAKE RIGHT DECISIONS IN A CRISIS

BUSH'S JOB APPROVAL AT RECORD LOW: 38 PERCENT
SIXTY-SIX PERCENT DISSATISFIED WITH DIRECTION OF COUNTRY
SIXTY-FIVE PERCENT OF MINORITIES BELIEVE RACE WAS THE REASON FOR SLOW RESPONSE: 47 PERCENT SAY 'MAJOR REASON;'
64 PERCENT OF WHITES SAY IT WAS NOT A REASON AT ALL
New York-President George W. Bush's approval ratings have fallen across the board in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and a seemingly flawed government response to the disaster, according to the latest Newsweek Poll. Bush's job-approval rating dropped to 38 percent, the lowest ever in the Newsweek Poll. Sixty-six percent of those polled say they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time; just 28 percent are satisfied, another record low in the poll.
A 52-percent majority of Americans say they do not trust President Bush to make the right decisions during a domestic crisis, 45 percent do. The same number-52 percent-do not trust him to make the right decisions during an international crisis, again, 45 percent do. In addition, 57 percent of Americans say the slow response in New Orleans has caused them to lose confidence in the government to deal with another major natural disaster, 41 percent say it has not; 47 percent say it has made them lose confidence in government to prevent another 9/11-type attack; half (50%) say it has not, the poll shows.
The president's ratings on issues having little if anything to do with domestic disasters also declined. Bush's approval on handling terrorism and homeland security is 46 percent, a five-point drop from the August 2-4, 2005 Newsweek Poll. For the first time in the Newsweek Poll, more Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of terrorism and homeland security (48%). And almost half (49%) of all those polled say taking military action against Iraq two years ago was not the right thing to do; 46 percent say it was. This is the first time ever in the Newsweek Poll that more Americans have said going to war was not the right thing to do than said it was.
A plurality of Americans also rates the federal government's response to the problems caused by Hurricane Katrina as poor (40%). Thirty-two percent say the Feds' response was "only fair;" and 21 percent believe the response has been "good," the poll shows. State and local governments did not fare better: 35 percent say they did a poor job and 34 percent say they did a fair job.
However, views are starkly different when examined by political party. Fifty-three percent of Democrats polled say the federal government did a poor job vs. just 19 percent of Republicans. Thirty-seven percent of Republicans believe the federal government did a good job and 11 percent believe it did an excellent job. The Democrats are more forgiving of local and state governments, though not as forgiving as the Republicans are of the Feds. Twenty-four percent of Democrats believe the state and local governments did a good job and four percent say an excellent job. Thirty percent of Democrats believe the local and state governments did a poor job, vs. 43 percent of Republicans; 35 percent of Dems and 29 percent of Republicans say they did a fair job........................

get it right!

now THIS made me LAUGH AND LAUGH Correction of the Day: A Real Killer By E&P Staff Published: September 11, 2005 7:55 PM ET
NEW YORK From today's New York Times:"An article on Aug. 28 about Jay-Z's transition from performer to recording executive misspelled part of the name of a hip-hop artist with whom Jay-Z had a meeting. "He is Ghostface Killah, not Killer."

who in their right mind

is the operative phrase here. HE (rush that big tub o' guts) is NOT in his right drug addled mind.......this is JUST sickening

Rush Limbaugh's homepage More Insanity

Rush's hompe page leads with this:

The Left Celebrates Katrina Destruction,
Terror Attack They've Been Waiting For

Rush: "I got a sneaking suspicion that the left's reaction to this is something that they had in the works ever since 9/11. I think the left has been waiting for the next terrorist attack. They've got their battle plan in motion, and they knew when the terrorist attack came that they were going to jump on Bush's case as being ill-prepared, unprepared, lousy, having done nothing, make the case for bigger government, roll out all the video of all the disasters and misery," and so forth and so on."

The right wing apologists keep sinking into the mud of desperation. Who in their right mind would think that any American would be celebrating a national disaster like Hurricane Katrina or another terrorist attack?

nora ephron heard from

from huffington post via crooks and liars For some time I've been wondering whether anyone is going to explain the true mystery of what happened after Hurricane Katrina struck. I read thousands of words on the subject in this morning’s New York Times, and I still don’t get it. Where was the President? And more to the point, where was the Vice President? And don’t tell me Crawford Texas and on a ranch in Wyoming. For days there was an absolute vacuum at the top. Why? What was going on?
You’ll be happy to hear that I have a theory. Is it possible that the President and the Vice President have fallen out? I mean, I’m just asking. But if you remember September 11, 2001 -- and I’m sure you do -- the President had no idea what to do, but the Vice President did. The Vice President took over. He didn’t even consult with the President. He put the President on Air Force One and the President spent the day flying from one airport to another, which was something that even the President eventually understood made him look as if he wasn’t in charge.The relationship between Cheney and Bush has always reminded me of a moment I witnessed in the movie business many years ago. I had written a script for an actress, and she had decided she wanted to direct it. This was a terrible idea, because she was famous for dithering, but there was no question that the studio would make the movie if she directed it. “Don’t worry about it,” the producer of the movie said to me when I asked if she was remotely capable of directing a movie. “We can walk her through it.”
It’s always been clear to me that five years ago, when all those Republican guys got together and realized that George Bush could be elected president – and that he wasn’t remotely capable – they came to an understanding: they would walk him through it. I’m sure it seemed like a swell idea, especially because it meant that they’d be in a perfect position to convince him to do all sorts of exciting things they had always wanted to do.....................

my SOUL is new orleans

Charmaine Neville's New Orleans Story: Horror and Heroism The singer's five days in hell. It is just one more tale -- although one of the most horrific -- that everyone ought to ponder in considering which officials and agencies failed in their hurricane rescue and relief mission, from the top down, in a depraved disregard for life. By Greg Mitchell (September 07, 2005)

Every time you think you've heard it all about the horrors of New Orleans in the
past week, something like Charmaine Neville's experience comes around the bend,
or the blog, and smacks you over the head like a club. It's a story of dead
babies in the water, alligators eating people, heroism (she commandeered a bus
to save dozens) and despair (she was raped).Yes, she is a singer and one of the
famous Nevilles. Her father, Charles Neville, performs with uncles Aaron, Art
and Cyril in the Neville Brothers band. The Boston Globe has declared that there
are "simply no limits to her skills," and The New York Times said she
"electrifies audiences." As a frequent visitor to New Orleans, and a JazzFest
attendee, I know the Nevilles’ work well. But that connection matters little
when you consider her story. It is just one more tale -- although surely one of
the most horrific -- that everyone ought to ponder in considering exactly which
officials and agencies failed in their rescue and relief responsibilities, from
the top down, in a depraved disregard for life.As far as I can tell, Charmaine's
story first appeared in print earlier this week in The Advocate of Baton Rouge.
It is just starting to make the rounds of the Web (such as at Daily Kos) in an
even more powerful form -- a six-minute video that appeared on Baton Rouge TV
station WAFB. Here, she speaks to a priest or minister, shortly after her rescue
and relocation to that city, where she was reunited with her son. To really feel
her story in all its dimensions, you have to watch the tape. (It's found here.) But her saga in a crude nutshell goes something like
this:Neville makes, or made, her home on Pauline Street in New Orleans'
poverty-stricken Ninth Ward. When the hurricane warnings came, she, like many of
her neighbors, felt she did not have the resources to flee. She had no money, no
car, so she barricaded herself in the house, with an elderly man, and prayed.
Barely surviving the storm, she found shelter at the school across the street
from her home. In a flat-bottom boat she helped rescue nearby residents,
including stranded policemen. With a crowbar, she smashed a hole in the roof so
people could climb to safety. For the next day or two, she waded back and forth
in waist-deep water to bring food and drinking water to the growing number of
people in the school, but conditions worsened and desperation grew by the hour.
Neville and others tried to get the attention of helicopters from the school's
roof. Time after time they signaled for helicopters to help them but there
weren’t nearly enough in the air. And they dropped no food or water, either. "We
couldn't understand why they couldn’t help us,” she says on the video. The
National Guard, she recalls bitterly, was absent."When we realized they weren't
going to pick us up, we had to leave," she told The Advocate. "So we just
started walking, in water, with dead bodies, and fish this big, and alligators,
filth, trash. The smell was horrible." On the video tape she gets more specific:
There must have been hundreds of bodies in the water. Some of them were babies.
The alligators were chomping on bodies. Gangs and looters descended. Old ladies
and children were raped, herself included. Others were murdered.Some of her
neighbors committed suicide, she said: "Because nobody was coming to help them,
they were killing themselves. Some people that just went crazy." Helicopters
would pass over and "we would do the SOS on our flashlights" but they never
stopped. Thousands were still trapped in their homes -- old, young, pregnant,
children. Some men fired guns as choppers approached, but they "weren't trying
to hit the helicopters. They figured maybe they weren't seeing us. Maybe if they
heard this gunfire, they would stop, but that didn't help us."On the video she
continues, "I want people to understand is that if we had not been left down
there like the animals that they were treating us like, all of those things
wouldn't have happened." At first, Neville thought her group could find refuge
at the Superdome or the Convention Center. She escorted dozens, including "two
old women in wheelchairs with no legs," to dry ground in the French Quarter, but
didn't find any help there, either. Finally at the French Market, Neville helped
commandeer a city bus. She broke a window to get in, loaded up dozens of people,
some in wheelchairs, and off they went. “And we drove and we drove,” she says on
the tape, bursting into tears, “and millions of people were trying to get me to
help them to get on the bus with them ...."After she found shelter in a Baptist
church, this Neville sister was evacuated to Baton Rouge. "There are many, many
heroes that have come out this,” she told The Advocate. “People talk about what
I did. I didn't do nothing. Everybody did something." Referring to getting
raped, Neville said, "What he took from me
was nothing, because he can't take my spirit, he can't take my soul. My soul is
New Orleans."

mardi gras in the village......

Pardon my French: What I'm trying to say, in a pidgin sort of Cajun way, is "Let the bad weather roll!" This is actual Mardi Gras headgear worn by Louisiana National Guard soldiers last February in Baghdad. It now rests atop dunces George W. Bush and Mike Brown as they were pictured in a recent Bush Beat item about their not listening to earlier forecasts of an earlier hurricane

.Morning Report 9/10/05 The Bush Krewe
A heck of an idea: Mardi Gras in New York City

Now that we know for sure that the Bush regime has absolutely no idea what to do about New Orleans — except to profit from those po' folks — it's time to let others do the brainstorming.
Bush Beat reader Aria Smith, a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology here in Manhattan who has a personal stake in the Hurricane Katrina tragedy, wrote me this morning with a damned good suggestion:
Hi. I was just thinking. We all know that there's no possible way that New Orleans will have a Mardi Gras next year. I've heard people talking about having Mardi Gras in other places, and I think the perfect place would be in the Village. That way they could raise money for the hurricane victims. True, in February it's freezing up here so maybe they could do it before then. I have family in New Orleans. Some have been found and some have not. But I'm just trying to think of a fun way to raise money and any way to help, since Bush doesn't seem to be doing much. I have no idea who you would talk to to get something like that started. I just thought it would be a good, and fun, idea.
Thanks for writing, Aria. That's a great idea. All we have to do is make sure we don't ask for a parade permit. The last time half a million people gathered on the streets of New York City, it was in protest of the Republican National Convention, and the organizers unfortunately went along with the city, the cops, and the federal government and got co-opted. The protesters were penned in and herded around like so many sheep. In fact, they were initially corraled right around where your school is, at Seventh Avenue and 29th. Maybe we'd have better luck if, as you suggest, we focus on having our party a little bit south of there, in the Village. .................

a woman after my own heart

(a grrrl gotta do what she gotta do)


Liquid City
Behind the Bar Ex-dominatrix bartender would rather watch Law & Order reruns
by Corina ZappiaSeptember 9th, 2005 4:50 PM

Mishelle Meow at Hank's Saloon is the kind of bartender we like: sassy, seeing right through your needling reporter questions, and quite intent on getting you very, very drunk. The Brooklyn native's done it all, from bartending at the now-defunct Mother, strip-joint Pussycat Lounge, and Coyote Ugly, to a seven-year stint as a dominatrix and video-set extra. We talk to her about crappy owners, female-bartender cattiness, and why smacking ugly dudes is all too easy.
Preferred drink? Dirty, nasty Jim Beam on the rocks, or really, really nice, fancy Patron Silver.
Does a drink say something about the person? I was working during the day at this old man's bar, and this big construction guy orders an Alien Secretion, or some variation of a melon ball—like vodka, Midori, sour mix, and pineapple juice. I was like, "You gotta be fucking kidding me."
Maybe he just liked the drink? Who cares? C'mon, you're like this big, burly, testosterone, "I lift heavy things for a living" guy, and you're going to drink some pussy-ass . . . I expect some 15-year-old girl who's out with a fake ID to drink that shit.
What about chicks? I hardly ever give chicks shit, because you really want girls to be in the bar. And that's where some female bartenders go wrong, because they don't cater to women. They just think like, "Oh, guys are going to stare at me and give me money." You want girls to be in there, and you don't want to upstage them. You want to be flirty with them too . . . I hate that girl cattiness............

another 'untruth'? say it ain't so

Army changes story about soldier's death

Army knew for a year he was not killed in action


Saturday, September 10, 2005; Posted: 1:48 p.m. EDT (17:48 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Army said Saturday it knew for more than a year that 1st Lt. Kenneth Ballard was not killed in action in Iraq, as it initially reported.
The family was not told the truth until Friday.
Ballard's mother, Karen Meredith, of Mountain View, California, is a public critic of the war. She traveled last month to Crawford, Texas, to participate in the protest outside President Bush's ranch by another grieving mother, peace activist Cindy Sheehan.
On Memorial Day in 2004, the day after Kenneth Ballard died, the Army informed his family that he had been killed by enemy fire while on a combat mission in the south-central Iraqi city of Najaf.
The Army disclosed Saturday that Ballard, 26, actually died of wounds from the accidental discharge of a M240 machine gun on his tank after his platoon had returned from battling insurgents in Najaf.
An Army spokesman, Col. Joseph Curtin, said separate investigations by the local commander and by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division concluded within days Ballard's death was an accident.
The tank backed into a tree and a branch hit the mounted, unmanned machine gun, causing it to fire, Curtin said. Ballard was struck at close range and died of his wounds, he added.
Reason for year's delay unknown
For reasons that are not clear, the Army did not correct the public record and inform the family until Friday...............

i am sorry for your loss ms meredith.

one man's photos of nawleans

a remarkable slide show of a resident's photos, before, during and after

Stars gather for hurricane relief

Ellen DeGeneres and Jack Black mingle backstage during the "Shelter from the Storm" appeal Friday.

i've not seen the concert yet. i do have it on tape. i know how much i love both randy newman AND dr john though. i wish they could have gotten together under better circumstances

Friday, September 9, 2005; Posted: 11:38 p.m. EDT (03:38 GMT)

NEW YORK (AP) -- With the floodwaters of Katrina yet to recede, Randy Newman sang about a long-ago hurricane in "Louisiana 1927" to open a benefit program spread across dozens of television networks Friday. Dr. John ended a show suffused with the spirit of a musical city singing a song that's only a wish now: "Walkin' to New Orleans." The hourlong "Shelter from the Storm" appeal was an echo of a somber event held four years ago to benefit victims of the September 11 terrorist attack, with the same producer. This time the telethon had more determination than shock and featured native jazz, gospel and swamp-rock sounds. "Tonight let's show people on the Gulf Coast that they have friends all over the world, friends who care, who understand and are there to give them shelter from the storm," said comic Ellen DeGeneres, who was raised in New Orleans. ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, UPN and the WB -- the six biggest broadcast networks -- aired it along with several cable networks. Viewers in nearly 100 countries were able to tune in. Contributions were being solicited for the American Red Cross or the Salvation Army..............

just because you're trying to stop us from seeing them

doesn't mean WE DON'T KNOW THEY ARE DEAD............ (thank you for this cnn)

U.S. drops banning media from body hunt
CNN filed suit for access to search for New Orleans' dead

Saturday, September 10, 2005; Posted: 11:05 a.m. EDT (15:05 GMT)

HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- Rather than fight a lawsuit by CNN, the federal government abandoned its effort Saturday to prevent the media from reporting on the recovery of the dead in New Orleans.
Joint Task Force Katrina "has no plans to bar, impede or prevent news media from their news gathering and reporting activities in connection with the deceased Hurricane Katrina victim recovery efforts," said Col. Christian E. deGraff, representing the task force.
U.S. District Court Judge Keith Ellison issued a temporary restraining order Friday against a "zero access" policy announced earlier in the day by Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who is overseeing the federal relief effort in the city, and Terry Ebbert, the city's homeland security director.
In explaining the ban, Ebbert said, "we don't think that's proper" to let members of the media view the bodies.
The judge was to consider granting a permanent injunction Saturday when the government announced its decision not to fight CNN's lawsuit.
In an e-mail to CNN staff, CNN News Group President Jim Walton said the network filed the the lawsuit to "prohibit any agency from restricting its ability to fully and fairly cover" the hurricane victim recovery process.
"As seen most recently from war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, from tsunami-ravaged South Asia and from Hurricane Katrina's landfall along the Gulf," Walton wrote, "CNN has shown that it is capable of balancing vigorous reporting with respect for private concerns."

we are NOT going to die!

3 days of death, despair and survival
'We're gonna die, why don't we just end it quicker?'
By Jennifer PangyanszkiCNN


Friday, September 9, 2005; Posted: 11:00 p.m. EDT (03:00 GMT)
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (CNN) -- Trapped inside the darkened, stifling hot attic of her flooded home in New Orleans with her two teenage daughters, Debbie Este watched her own mother die as they waited for help she thought would never come.

For three days they waited, sweating and stripped nearly naked because of the 110 degree heat, with no food and running out of water. The rising water reached the attic and threatened the survival of anyone inside the yellow-sided, single-story house. During half the time they were trapped, the body of Debbie's mom, Melissa Harold, 68, who didn't make it through the ordeal, lay lifeless on the attic floor. Debbie and her girls -- Tiffany, 16, and Amanda, 13 -- could hear the churn of helicopters overhead, evacuating neighbors near their house on Arts Street. The sound only reminded them that nobody had come to their rescue. Their own screams for help were unanswered. Fear got the better of Debbie. She felt so hopeless, she thought about using painkillers she had with her to end her and her daughters' plight. "I said nobody's going to come save us up here and I don't wanna die like this, three days laying in this stinky, dirty water," Debbie Este said this week. "I couldn't take it anymore. We're gonna die, why don't we just end it quicker?'" At that time, stories of life and death and desperation were taking place across New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina's fury swept through the Gulf Coast, raising the waters and breaching the levees that kept the city and its homes above water. For the Estes, one family member was left dead and Debbie and her two daughters made it out alive, joining the hundreds of thousands of displaced people. Before their eventual rescue and relocation to a shelter in Baton Rouge, however, the three trapped survivors had to rescue themselves from succumbing to Debbie Este's desperation. Debbie, who is 47 and uses a wheelchair, had carried her painkillers -- 60 Loratab 10s -- into the attic. And she asked the girls to swallow the pills with her to end the suffering. "She kept on saying, come on and take 'em," said Tiffany, who marked her 16th birthday in the Baton Rouge River Center shelter on Monday. "I just kept telling her we were going to be saved, but really, I didn't know." Amanda swayed her mother from suicide by talking about her future. "I said I want to finish school and have a job and have kids and have a husband," Amanda said. "She was miraculous. I couldn't believe it," Debbie said of her younger daughter. "I was so proud of her. She just screamed like that for hours and hours. Her and Tiffany kept saying we weren't going to die up here." Tiffany doesn't remember much else, having slept most of the time, even though her mom regularly woke her up, afraid she had died. "After my grandma died, I just went to sleep. She thought I'd died, but I was just sleeping.".......................

a very cool story

this story is a couple of days old, i just never got a chance to post it and it NEEDED to be posted. i also saw deamonte on the news. what a kid! he is someone i'd share a sandbox with ANY DAY.

Survivor Story: 6-Year-Old Leads Five Toddlers, Baby To Safety


WLEX-TV
In the chaos that was Causeway Boulevard in New Orleans last Thursday, one group of survivors stood out: a 6-year-old boy walking down the road, holding a 5-month-old, surrounded by five toddlers who followed him around as if he were their leader.
They were holding hands. Three of the children were about two years old, and one was wearing only diapers. A three-year-old girl, who wore colorful barrettes on the ends of her braids, had her 14-month-old brother in tow. The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he told rescuers his name was Deamonte Love.
Thousands of human stories have flown past relief workers in the last week, but few have touched them as much as the seven children who were found wandering together Thursday at an evacuation point in downtown New Orleans. In the Baton Rouge headquarters of the rescue operation, paramedics tried to coax their names out of them; nurses who examined them stayed up that night, brooding.
Transporting the children alone was "the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, knowing that their parents are either dead" or that they had been abandoned, said Pat Coveney, a Houston emergency medical technician who put them into the back of his ambulance and drove them out of New Orleans.
"It goes back to the same thing," he said. "How did a 6-year-old end up being in charge of six babies?"
So far, parents displaced by flooding have reported 220 children missing, but that number is expected to rise, said Mike Kenner of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which will help reunite families. With crowds churning at evacuation points, many children were parted from their parents accidentally; one woman handed her baby up onto a bus, turned around to pick up her suitcase and turned back to find that the bus had left..........................

uh oh

The Next Storm, Brewing by Andrew Wahl

unbelievably GREAT animation from

mark fiore

whoopsi gras..........

yeah fewer poor people!

yeah, i wanna live in a neighborhood full o' the rich powerful good ol' white boy network! (NOT) (more on what i posted a few moments ago)

Rich Whites Plot to Prevent Blacks from Returning to NO Chilling. We cannot allow this plan to stand.
"The green expanse of Audubon Park, in the city's Uptown area, has doubled in recent days as a heliport for the city's rich -- and a terminus for the small armies of private security guards who have been dispatched to keep the homes there safe and habitable. Mr. O'Dwyer has cellphone service and ice cubes to cool off his highballs in the evening. By yesterday, the city water service even sprang to life, making the daily trips to his neighbor's pool unnecessary. A pair of oil-company engineers, dispatched by his son-in-law, delivered four cases of water, a box of delicacies including herring with mustard sauce and 15 gallons of generator gasoline."How do they want the city rebuilt?"The power elite of New Orleans -- whether they are still in the city or have moved temporarily to enclaves such as Destin, Fla., and Vail, Colo. -- insist the remade city won't simply restore the old order. New Orleans before the flood was burdened by a teeming underclass, substandard schools and a high crime rate. The city has few corporate headquarters."The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."I'm going to be writing a lot more about this. New Orleans, if it is rebuilt, must remain the beacon of culture and life it once was. Or at least, it must echo that life......

i'm too sexy for my shirt..........

and apparently for the catholic church as well.......

Too "sexy" to teach religion Italy academic told
Reuters, UKSep. 6, 2005 Philip Pullella today.reuters.co.uk

ROME (Reuters) - Was it her looks or lifestyle that led the Roman Catholic Church to cause a minor media frenzy by firing an Italian religion teacher this year?Caterina Bonci said Church authorities decided she was just too attractive and dressed too sexy to teach religion after 14 years on the job.The Church says it sacked the 38-year-old blonde from the central Adriatic city of Fano because she is divorced.No matter who is right, Bonci has been all over the Italian media demanding to go back to her job teaching religion to children in state schools on behalf of the local diocese.She said she has never hidden her 2000 divorce from Church authorities, dresses down when teaching and defended her right to dress how she likes in her private life."I don't see what it matters if a teacher is good looking or not as long she is qualified," she told Reuters by telephone."In school, I dressed normally. In my private life, I have every right to dress any way I want."Local media quoted lawyers for the diocese as saying she was fired because she was divorced and so should not be teaching religion for a Church that does not recognise divorce.Even Italy's leading newspaper, Corriere della Sera, gave readers a break from pages of stories about scandal at the Bank of Italy and government bickering with the teasing headline:"Teacher in mini-skirt fired by diocese".Bonci said she separated from her husband in 1995 and divorced in 2000 and that both events had not affected her job or raised eyebrows from her employers at the time.She said reports that fathers accompanied their children to religion classes so they could look at her meant little to her as long as the children came to class."When a woman is considered too sexy and attractive in a small town it becomes a big thing," she said.Bonci has now become a minor celebrity on the Adriatic coast and national television talk shows are queuing up to interview her, but she says she want only one thing."I would like my job back. I think it is my right," she said. .......

damn straight it's YOUR RIGHT! (sisterhood is powerful)

it is HARDLY shocking, please you know it and i know it

UN hits back at US in report saying parts of America are as poor as Third World
By Paul Vallely
Published: 08 September 2005

Parts of the United States are as poor as the Third World, according to a shocking United Nations report on global inequality. Claims that the New Orleans floods have laid bare a growing racial and economic divide in the US have, until now, been rejected by the American political establishment as emotional rhetoric. But yesterday's UN report provides statistical proof that for many - well beyond those affected by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - the great American Dream is an ongoing nightmare. The document constitutes a stinging attack on US policies at home and abroad in a fightback against moves by Washington to undermine next week's UN 60th anniversary conference which will be the biggest gathering of world leaders in history. The annual Human Development Report normally concerns itself with the Third World, but the 2005 edition scrutinises inequalities in health provision inside the US as part of a survey of how inequality worldwide is retarding the eradication of poverty. It reveals that the infant mortality rate has been rising in the US for the past five years - and is now the same as Malaysia. America's black children are twice as likely as whites to die before their first birthday. The report is bound to incense the Bush administration as it provides ammunition for critics who have claimed that the fiasco following Hurricane Katrina shows that Washington does not care about poor black Americans. But the 370-page document is critical of American policies towards poverty abroad as well as at home. And, in unusually outspoken language, it accuses the US of having "an overdeveloped military strategy and an under-developed strategy for human security". "There is an urgent need to develop a collective security framework that goes beyond military responses to terrorism," it continues. " Poverty and social breakdown are core components of the global security threat." The document, which was written by Kevin Watkins, the former head of research at Oxfam, will be seen as round two in the battle between the UN and the US, which regards the world body as an unnecessary constraint on its strategic interests and actions. Last month John Bolton, the new US ambassador to the UN, submitted 750 amendments to the draft declaration for next week's summit to strengthen the UN and review progress towards its Millennium Development Goals to halve world poverty by 2015. The report launched yesterday is a clear challenge to Washington. The Bush administration wants to replace multilateral solutions to international problems with a world order in which the US does as it likes on a bilateral basis..............................