theweaselking | (no subject)

I have been listening to streaming feeds of police/National Guard scanners and ham radio nets since the disaster (very often you get news there that isn't reported widely).

FEMA is not letting groups in that aren't on their preferred contractor list, even turning away a Florida group with *500 floatboats* that could have been used in rescue ops. They have turned away people with buses who are willing to drive them et al.

FEMA attempted to shut down the one ops center in the NOLA area where the state and local authorities were coordinating rescue efforts--a member of the National Guard got into an angry shouting match telling them that they would have to shut down rescue efforts *indefinitely* if that area was closed.

FEMA is also promoting blatantly dominionist groups (including Pat Robertson's own "Operation Blessing"--which has been used, among other things, to ferry blood diamonds out of Africa under the name of "charity shipment") over known, reputable charities like Americares and Mercy Corps.

Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice were actually shopping and attending PLAYS while it was being widely broadcasted that the levees had failed and New Orleans was under eight feet of water.

Shrub McChimpy actually was goofing off and playing guitar badly during a press conference where people were asking about things, as if he wasn't taking this seriously at all (then again, a lot of dominionists have literally been praying that New Orleans would be smited for *years*).

Trent Lott, known dominionist, even claimed that FEMA was doing a "great job" even though his house was in one of the areas of Mississippi that got smited (yes, Mississippi got it WORSE than New Orleans did) and there are entire *counties* in Mississippi who have asked for assistance for the past six days from FEMA and heard *NOTHING* above the county level regarding mutual aid or assistance.

Ham radio operators are *still* the main method of communication between stricken areas (even more so than the National Guard nets).

We won't go into how conditions have been allowed to deteriorate in both the Superdome and Convention Center to the point mass deaths and rapes are occuring. In the Convention Center, which (according to local NOLA media) has damn near turned to Thunderdome, there was a member of Spain's Parliament who was trapped on the second floor for *five days* and the US government claimed they were unaware of this till *yesterday*.
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From that same location, he's got links to support this:

some press is *already* reporting this:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/florida/orl-caneboats0205sep02,0,4766048.story (on the caneboaters blocked by FEMA bureaucracy)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/florida/orl-mcanejim0205sep02,0,6532046.story (on general chaos with rescue efforts)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-katrina-hospitals-hk4,0,1849193.story
(on general chaos with rescue efforts with hospitals)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/college/chi-050902daley,0,7648200.story (on FEMA refusal of aid by the city of Chicago)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/college/la-me-littlesaigon3sep03,0,6493095.story (on concern for Vietnamese relatives)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.storm03sep03,0,215324.story
(on other countries offering aid and generally being spurned)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/college/chi-0509030218sep03,0,3308899.story
(on race being a possible issue with delivery of aid)

Multiple threads on fark.com detail the scanner traffic and the confusion thereof:

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1648778
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1649156
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1649139
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1649227
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1649711
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1649832
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1650126
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1650403

A large number of scanner feeds and general info on scanner traffic is available at http://www.radioreference.com/wiki/index.php/Hurricane_Katrina

http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=914&mode=&order=0&thold=0 details the communication problems occuring. (As it is, we are rather lucky that New Orleans' main radio station went down or we'd be unable to hear them at all. New Orleans used an EDACS ProVoice trunked system, which is a closed, closed-source digital trunked system; most places that use digital trunking use an open standard called APCO-25 that generally *is* receivable on scanners (albeit expensive ones). The NPSPAC channels are open and conventional.)

http://www.livejournal.com/users/alobar/1280191.html actually has a report on how people are being held back from rescue. (Further news on Alobar on his LJ, http://www.livejournal.com/users/alobar/)

http://www.horsesass.org/ also details this (and this ties into the following, below).

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/2/34622/68348 tells about how FEMA's director literally ran an Arabian horse registry into the ground to the point its owners had to eventually merge it with another Arabian registry (after having fired Brown). Other links here:
http://www.bridleandbit.com/story048.htm
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:64HpVqsWBccJ:www.awhitehorse.com/editorials/brown_resignation.html+IAHA+%22mike+brown%22&hl=en&client=firefox-a
http://www.nharab.org/november.htm#Letter
http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=100857&format=text

(Did I mention they actually ended up *suing* Mike Brown thanks to his incompetence?)

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001054151 details the reaction from the conservative press (even known dominionist asskisser rags like the Washington Times are flaming Bush over this)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/01/AR2005090101482.html posts on the senator who stated New Orleans should be abandoned and not rebuilt.

http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=100937&format=text notes how people are dying thanks to the delay in getting aid and FEMA blocking aid.

http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=100931&format=text also details this info.

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_09.html also details some of the general clusterfuckage.

http://www.bayoubuzz.com/articles.aspx?aid=4900 notes how even the governor (whom, no offense, has also been less than helpful) is even now protesting the slowness of aid.

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http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/08/30/katrina.lott/ notes how Lott's house got smited. http://www.livejournal.com/users/alobar/1281619.html#cutid1 shows the general reaction of the president to aforementioned smitagel

Further commentary here: http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2005/09/we-told-you-so.html

The sick thing is there WAS an emergency plan (that apparently got blown to hell): http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov/newsrelated/incaseofemrgencyexercise.htm

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=2368706&PageNum=0 is news from Russia on how we've turned them down; according to Alobar's Livejournal (http://www.livejournal.com/users/alobar/1281401.html) the Canadians are sneaking over anyways.

http://euronews.net/create_html.php?page=detail_info&article=307287&lng=1&PHPSESSID=f0052ebd9afa331be41a7ba71e88416a details more on the mounting criticism over lack of help.

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More info from the press:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/opinion/01thu1.html flambes Shrub's general handling of the situation as does http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/03/national/nationalspecial/03assess.html and http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/03/opinion/03dowd.html

Other notes:
http://www.pacificviews.org/weblog/archives/001454.html

Contrary to presidential spin, the pissing contest in Iraq *is* hurting emergency preparedness: http://rempost.blogspot.com/2005/09/background-articles-on-iraq-war-new.html

More on FEMA's territorial pissing (and preventing aid from coming in from anywhere but their preferred contractors):

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/012104.html

Canadian press is reporting: http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=aa7eaee1-ddaf-4784-846e-ec814c6b3649
http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=97eeb058-920d-4d53-bf14-dc1d06e8ed65

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/31/AR2005083102257.html writes on concerns re preparedness.

More on the lack of response:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001054581

Even CNN has reported on the general fuckups in disaster aid:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/03/katrina.unusedgear/index.html

The quote where Trent Lott thinks things are going swimmingly:

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/trent-lott-thinks-bush-is-doing-dandy.html

International press has taken note:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article309938.ece

Apparently, despite the pissing match going on with FEMA doing the moral equivalent of waving its cock about, they STILL can't manage to keep enough security to keep from having FEMA uniforms stolen: http://www.wdsu.com/news/4932913/detail.html

And the criticism has started among the dominionist-friendly *themselves* (one wonders how much further this is going to get Frist on the shitlist of dominionists in general): http://www.wdsu.com/news/4933030/detail.html

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the clusterfuckage goes even deeper, as it turns out:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_09/007042.php

It turns out that the feeding station photo op that Shrub McChimpy did in Missouri and LA...was *STAGED*, and they *TORE THE EMERGENCY FEEDING STATION DOWN AFTER HE LEFT*.

Larry King confirms the refusal of aid by agencies: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/02/lkl.01.html

Further confirmation that blocking of aid is FEMA's doing:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/3/02454/07418 (Also reported on in http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002485.html and presumably in the original German media as well)

It turns out they also faked attempts at levee repairs for the same photo op: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/bush-faked-levee-repair-for-photo-op.html

More info on the general clusterfuckage:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/3/171718/0826

Contrary to FEMA and the government's claims, here's documentation Louisiana's government asked for help as early as *AUGUST 28th*: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/2/22509/76629

The president took his sweet fuckin' time giving the orders to give in as is: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/3/115611/4051 (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4605183 also reports on this)

Condi Rice goes shopping whilst New Orleans drowns:
http://www.gawker.com/news/condoleezza-rice/index.php#breaking-condi-rice-spends-salary-on-shoes-123467

The article detailing how Shrub McChimpy was fucking around whilst New Orleans drowns:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/31/1442/53877

Info on how the government claimed it didn't know about the mess in the convention center (where a goodly number of people have *DIED* due to lack of water and food): http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/01/pzn.01.html

Per the Department of Homeland Insecurity's own website, yes, it IS their own fault:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/3/134955/1356

A federal investigation may begin on this lovely series of fuckups: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/2/192916/4102 (One hopes sincerely that the present administration doesn't do what it's tended to do--either ignore the people responsible, or outright sack the people responsible and replace them with dominionists)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/ gives LOTS of info as to how Michael Brown was (to put it mildly) amazingly unqualified for the job of being director of the agency that is supposed to be managing emergency management functions (including in the event of terrorist attack or nuclear war) for the entire country...

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/03/katrina.chertoff/ asks how DHS could *not* have expected the levees to break in New Orleans (especially since quite literally *every* science magazine and television network has had a disaster special to the theme of "New Orleans Is Fucked Without Lube If It Gets Hit With Much More Than A Tropical Storm", and New Orleans' city government literally begged FEMA over a year ago for increased funding for levee shoreups; dear gods, my *mother in law* is not exactly a civil engineer, weather geek or emergency management geek and SHE still knew that New Orleans could flood if hit with a Cat4/Cat5 hurricane due to the levees failing)

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/omg-theyve-locked-everyone-in.html discusses how it is being reported that people are being locked in the Convention Center of Death and not being allowed to leave (on literal pain of being shot). (There is also video in multiple formats of this at http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/02.html#a4763 for perusal. Folks not using MacOS or Windows should be able to play it using Video Lan Player (do a search on Google).) (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/3/25746/97675 also reports on this.)

This is getting pretty goddamn vomitous at this point

News from other sources: The US Army calls the natives of New Orleans "the insurgency"

US Senator Mary Landrieu from Louisiana points out that the levee repair efforts were *faked* to make a good photo op for Bush.

But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast – black and white, rich and poor, young and old – deserve far better from their national government.

And if all the American news wasn't enough, the Ganges River has changed it's course, flooding 20 towns so far. "About 100 shops and scores of houses in these villages have been washed away."

I have seen the future.

And it doesn't make sense.

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