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Monday, September 5, 2005 |
That everything turns around oil is obvious by now. Look at those oil prices now (see picture) and a few days ago.
But what's more, the evacuation of the oil platforms in the region was started quite early, on August 26 already 12 platforms and 9 rigs were evacuated, on August 29, in total 615 platforms and 96 rigs, while tens of thousands of people were left stranded in New Orleans. The reconstruction of the damaged oil rigs has already started.
11:32:12 PM 
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You should watch Celine Dion's plea for help.
ArizonaDailyStar: "Thousands of people are feared dead in the rubble of storm-shattered New Orleans, but at the New Orleans zoo only three of its 1,400 animals died in the wrath of Hurricane Katrina.
The only fatalities so far were two otters and a raccoon, zoo curator Dan Maloney said Sunday.
He said the zoo had planned for years for the catastrophic storm that has long been predicted for New Orleans, which is mostly below sea level and almost surrounded by water.
While many human storm victims had no water or food, the zoo laid in enough provisions to keep its animals alive for days."
ArizonaDailyStar: "There may be no better way to explain the desperation on the city's ravaged streets than this: In the past few days, two police officers took their lives with their own weapons and dozens have turned in their badges.
Exhaustion was evident in the officers' faces and even their dress. Many were wearing T-shirts and blue jeans brought in by fellow officers.
On top of law enforcement, officers have had to forage for food and water and even for places to relieve themselves.
They also have had to deal with personal losses."
So that is why we have seen police officers 'looting' stores. They needed the stuff to keep going.
3:52:55 PM
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Is governing just a matter of propaganda or make-believe, or a game of replacing reality by something less dangerous? It seems like it.
Jean Baudrillard: "The objective profile of the United States, then, may be traced throughout Disneyland, even down to the morphology of individuals and the crowd. All its values are exalted here, in miniature and comic-strip form. Embalmed and pactfied. Whence the possibility of an ideological analysis of Disneyland (L. Marin does it well in Utopies, jeux d'espaces): digest of the American way of life, panegyric to American values, idealized transposition of a contradictory reality. To be sure. But this conceals something else, and that 'ideological' blanket exactly serves to cover over a third-order simulation: Disneyland is there to conceal the fact that it is the 'real' country, all of 'real' America, which is Disneyland (just as prisons are there to conceal the fact that it is the social in its entirety, in its banal omnipresence, which is carceral). Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation. It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology), but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle."
So, to eradicate the reality of a war in Iraq, the Commander-In-Chief, George W. Bush, lands in full combat gear on an aircraft carrier and declares victory.
When hurricane Katrina has done its damage, the president replaces the awkward reality of neglect, racism and greed, by one that shows he is hugging a black American, complimenting officials for their work not done, showing us that all is being done to help suffering people - but only for the time he is on tv. After that, the simulacra can be removed. The troops are only there to let Americans know everything is under control, when chaos reigns.
FromTheRoots: "I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has yet to accept the aid.
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."
ChicagoTribune: "While federal and state emergency planners scramble to get more military relief to Gulf Coast communities stricken by Hurricane Katrina, a massive naval goodwill station has been cruising offshore, underused and waiting for a larger role in the effort.
The USS Bataan, a 844-foot ship designed to dispatch Marines in amphibious assaults, has helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and water. It also can make its own water, up to 100,000 gallons a day. And it just happened to be in the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina came roaring ashore."
Yahoo: "A top New Orleans police officer said that National Guard troops sat around playing cards while people died in the stricken city after Hurricane Katrina."
It looks like a great show has been set up to reassure the American people, but not much is really being done. New Orleans is evacuated, but the problem has been moved to other places. There is a shortage of relief help and doctors.
TruthOut: "Last September, a Category 5 hurricane battered the small island of Cuba with 160-mile-per-hour winds. More than 1.5 million Cubans were evacuated to higher ground ahead of the storm. Although the hurricane destroyed 20,000 houses, no one died."
Favouritism has replaced the appointment of competent officials. People who donated for Bush's election campaign get government jobs. The whole system is corrupted by now.
BostonHerald: "The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows.
And before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a deputy director in 2001, GOP activist Mike Brown had no significant experience that would have qualified him for the position.
The Oklahoman got the job through an old college friend who at the time was heading up FEMA."
NYTimes: "Reeling from the chaos of this overwhelmed city, at least 200 New Orleans police officers have walked away from their jobs and two have committed suicide, police officials said on Saturday.
Some officers told their superiors they were leaving, police officials said. Others worked for a while and then stopped showing up. Still others, for reasons not always clear, never made it in after the storm.
The absences come during a period of extraordinary stress for the New Orleans Police Department. For nearly a week, many of its 1,500 members have had to work around the clock, trying to cope with flooding, an overwhelming crush of refugees, looters and occasional snipers."
MSNBC shows images of 'looting' police officers, who are not doing anything to prevent looting. Is this an outrage? I wouldn't know. Maybe they were just collecting stuff for people in need. Can we expect morality from people who are left to their own resources? Police officers were hit by the hurricane as well, maybe also lost their houses and property. And there is that MSNBC prat feigning moral indignation. The only thing that is for sure is that we have a serious problem here. Something is rotten in the United States, and it is coming from up high.
ICH: "Lack of health insurance kills Americans. More Americans die from political decisions concerning health care policy on a weekly or monthly basis than died in the 9-11 terrorist attacks. The Bush Republicans are the chief reason that only the United States and South Africa do not provide government guaranteed health care to all citizens among the 50 most economically advanced nations globally."
Send in the clowns.
12:38:51 PM
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