New Orleans is a strategic port for one. The oil that we produce in South LA has to be produced by people who work in the refineries and oil rigs. The seafood that we send to the rest of the country has to be harvested by someone. People have lived here for a very long time and they will probably continue to do so. There is important work to be done here.

The damage that has been done to our state by the oil producers and the Army Corps of Engineers is immesurable. We would be a lot more secure from hurricanes without the Army Corps of Engineers and the oil companies ruining our marshes that protect us from hurricanes naturally.

Blog Post from Greg Palast on the second anniversary of Katrina:

http://skeptically.org/bw/id15.html

Link to the book by the professor:

http://search.barnesandnoble.c…..0143112136

Excerpt from Greg Palast Blog post above:

“By midnight on Monday, the White House knew. Monday night I was at the state Emergency Operations Center and nobody was aware that the levees had breeched. Nobody.”

The charge is devastating: That, on August 29, 2005, the White House withheld from the state police the information that New Orleans was about to flood. From almost any other source, I would not have believed it. But this was not just any source. The whistle-blower is Dr. Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, the chief technician advising the state on saving lives during Katrina.

I’d come to van Heerden about another matter, but in our talks, it was clear he had something he wanted to say, and it was a big one. He charged that the White House, FEMA and the Army Corp hid, for critical hours, their discovery that the levees surrounding New Orleans were cracking, about to burst and drown the city.

Understand that Katrina never hit New Orleans. The hurricane swung east of the city, so the state evacuation directors assumed New Orleans was now safe – and evacuation could slow while emergency efforts moved east with the storm.

But unknown to the state, in those crucial hours on Monday, the federal government’s helicopters had filmed the cracks that would become walls of death by Tuesday.

Van Heerden revealed:

“FEMA knew at 11 o’clock on Monday that the levees had breeched. At 2 p.m. they flew over the 17th Street Canal and took video of the breech.”

Question: “So the White House wouldn’t tell you the levees had breeched?”

Dr. Van Heerden: “They didn’t tell anybody.”

Question: “And you’re at the Emergency Center.’

Dr. Van Heerden: “I mean nobody knew. The Corps of Engineers knew. FEMA knew. None of us knew.”

I could not get the White House gang to respond to the charges.

PS. Thanks for the pics Christy!

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2005/09/17/926/91543

The Bush Library will not be complete without a copy of “My Pet Goat”.

Thanks for sharing about Project Rising Sun, it’s indeed a example of people doing the right thing.