Public Announcement: Green Buildings Open House October 3, 2005

With the great increase in fossil fuel prices, there is renewed interest in energy efficiency and solar energy use.

Tomorrow, the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA), along with the American Solar Energy Society, is holding a Green Buildings Open House.

Homes and other structures equipped with photovoltaic electricity and other innovative systems and features are open for tours.

For info go to: http://www.nesea.org/

To find buildings to visit in Delaware and nearby states go directly to:
http://www.nesea.org/buildings/openhouse/listings.php?action=Search

One of the houses belongs to Marian Peleski, producer of "Progressive Voices."

And, have a pleasant weekend

Alan Muller

Green Delaware is a community based organization working on environment and public health issues. We try to provide information you can use. Please use it. Do you want to continue receiving information from Green Delaware? Please consider contributing or volunteering. Reach us at 302.834.3466, greendel@dca.net, www.greendel.org,

Box 69, Port Penn, DE, USA, 19731-0069

New Orleans: Hell, Yes, I’m Now Playing the Race Card!

The racist agenda of the Bush administration’s New Orleans reconstruction plan just came into sharper focus. Alphonso R. Jackson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, just mouthed it:

A Bush Cabinet officer predicted this week that New Orleans likely will never again be a majority black city, and several black officials are outraged.

Alphonso R. Jackson, secretary of housing and urban development, during a visit with hurricane victims in Houston, said New Orleans would not reach its pre-Katrina population of "500,000 people for a long time," and "it's not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again." …

Mr. Jackson, whose remarks were reported by the Houston Chronicle, said New Orleans might reach a population of 375,000 people sometime late next year with a black population of about 40 percent at the highest, down from 67 percent before Hurricane Katrina sent a storm surge that overwhelmed New Orleans levees and flooded 80 percent of the city. (link)

By abolishing the prevailing wage requirement for both construction and service industries in the reconstruction effort, Bush has made the ability of African Americans to return to their city, New Orleans, unaffordable. Secretary Jackson’s statement is merely the logical conclusion of the administration’s racist reconstruction policy.

This is a clear case of how goals can masquerade as predictions.

Public Announcement: We Need You NOW to Stop Cherry Island Landfill Expansion

Every person's comments are needed NOW to oppose expansion of the toxic, defective, Cherry Island garbage dump

Please send comments before the afternoon of Monday, October 3, 2005, to Robert.Haynes@state.de.us

Comments are also needed from New Jersey residents

Dear Green Delaware members and supporters:

Most of you already know that the Delaware (we call it the "Dirty") Solid Waste Authority (DSWA) wants to expand the notorious Cherry Island garbage dump on the Delaware River in the City of Wilmington.  It would like, eventually, to pile garbage 300 feet high.

The same Dirty Authority is trying hard to avoid meaningful recycling programs because it wants every ton of garbage it can get.

A public hearing on this expansion proposal was held some weeks ago and the official public comment period closes on Monday, October 3, 2005.

The Dirty Authority has had the same management team in place since 1976 and has accumulated lots of money and political power--which it uses in the most unscrupulous and self-serving manner.

For example, it employs a top-level corporate PR firm, Sam Waltz and Associates, who received $62,939.45 from the Dirty Authority in FY 2003.   Mr. Walz has had his employees, clients, and other associates--without disclosing the relationship--send in "public comment" letters to state regulators promoting the dump expansion and (even more undesirable) garbage incineration.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars are being spent to mislead the people of Delaware into thinking the Dirty Authority is serious about recycling.

The Dirty Authority also employs lobbyist Ned Davis, whose firm was paid $13,500 dollars in FY 2003, to influence Delaware legislators, and probably other elected officials, in favor of the selfish interests of the Dirty Authority.

Governor Ruth Ann Minner, who appoints the members of the Authority Board and designates its Chair, has ignored all requests to appoint community representatives and persons familiar with waste management issues to the Board.  The Board remains dominated by political hacks; some have served since the 1970s.

Numerous organizations, especially those supposedly representing the low-income "environmental justice" communities closest to the garbage dump, have remained silent.  We believe organizations receiving state funds have "gotten the word."

The Editorial Board of The News Journal, Delaware's most influential paper, has been promoting the schemes of the Dirty Authority but has declined to meet with the "other side."

Under these circumstances, YOUR VOICE IS MUCH NEEDED.

If you have not yet done so, please send in comments against the dump expansion.  This is not at all hard to do:

Comments can go by email to the Hearing Officer, Mr, Robert Haynes, at Robert.Haynes@state.de.us.  Please send copies to Green Delaware (greendel@dca.net) and Governor Minner (leann.walling@state.de.us).  (Request a return receipt if your email program has this capability.)

At a minimum, all you need to say is:

 "A permit should not be granted allowing expansion of the Cherry Island Landfill." 

The cost of the proposed project is over sixty million dollars and this should preferably be spend on waste reduction and recycling. 
Some other points are mentioned below.

Please forward this email to others who might be willing to comment.

Comments on behalf of organizations have extra impact.

Note that the Cherry Island garbage dump has also been a nuisance across the Delaware River in the State of New Jersey. People living near the river in Salem County have literally been "stunk out of their homes," and authorities have claimed to be helpless because the problem comes from Delaware.

Comments from New Jersey residents would be very helpful.

For more information see www.greendel.org or contact Green Delaware (information below).

From a press release:

The Cherry Island garbage dump, operated by the Delaware Solid Waste Authority,  is a world-class example of how NOT to dispose of garbage (municipal waste): 

o       It has no liner to protect the groundwater under it;
o       It is right on the banks of the Delaware River and might fall in someday;
o       It produces huge quantities of "landfill gas;"
o       It harms the health and quality of life of nearby residents in two states;
o       It is a gross example of "environmental injustice" or "environmental racism;"

o       Its so bad that even DSWA contractors are opposing the expansion.

Green Delaware and the Let My People Coalition want the dump repaired (so it doesn't continue to poison residents, pollute air and water, and threaten to fall into the Delaware River) but not expanded.

 **********************************

Green Delaware is a community based organization working on environment and public health issues.  We try to provide information you can use.  Please use it.  Do you want to continue receiving information from Green Delaware?  Please consider contributing or volunteering.  Reach us at 302.834.3466, greendel@dca.net, www.greendel.org, Box 69, Port Penn, DE, USA, 19731-0069

Hot Tub Tom’s Goose is Almost Cooked*

Tom DeLay likes to think ahead, an admirable trait if employed for salutary or benign reasons, a damnable one if used for corruption. Allegedly, DeLay’s goal was twofold:

1. To maintain the Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
2. To deepen his support among Republicans within the House of Representatives.

DeLay’s solution was masterful: get more Republican Texans elected to the House of Representatives. But the solution faced two obstacles:

1. Many districts in Texas are heavily Democratic.
2. Potential Republican candidates would need money to win.

DeLay overcame the first obstacle by working with Republican controlled Texas state legislature to redraw some districts in Texas in 2002 to create Republican majorities within them even though the Texas districts had been redrawn according to the Texas census one year before. Democrats in the Texas State House of Representatives attempted to block the passage of the redistricting plan by fleeing to other states in an attempt to deny the formation of quorum in the Texas House. Although not a member of the Texas state legislature, DeLay contacted the following federal agencies in attempt to locate the missing Texas Democrats:

• Three Federal Aviation Administration offices (in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Fort Worth, Texas and Washington, D.C.)
• Four Federal Bureau of Investigation offices (in Dallas, Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas, Austin, Texas and Ardmore, Oklahoma)
• Two United States Marshal offices (in the Western and Northern Districts of Texas)
• The United States Attorney's office in San Antonio, Texas The Office of Legislative Affairs at the United States Department of Justice
• The Air and Marine Interdiction Coordination Center (in Riverside, California) (link)

Senator Joseph Lieberman requested the Bush administration to investigate the propriety of DeLay asking Federal agencies to meddle in a state government’s affair. Liberman would have been better off making his request to a post. Nothing happened.

The districts redrawn, DeLay’s next move was to get money to the prospective Republican congressional candidates. Corporations, of course, have the deepest pockets. The only problem was that Texas law doesn’t allow corporations to donate funds directly to political candidates, but it does allow corporations to make contributions to political action committees (PACs). According to the indictment yesterday, Delay conspired with others to get corporations to make donations to his PAC and then to launder those funds through the Republican National Committee (RNC) as political contributions from the RNC to the Texas Republican congressional candidates:

The indictment accused DeLay of a conspiracy to “knowingly make a political contribution” in violation of Texas law outlawing corporate contributions. It alleged that DeLay’s Texans for a Republican Majority political action committee accepted $155,000 from companies, including Sears Roebuck, and placed the money in an account.

The PAC then wrote a $190,000 check to an arm of the Republican National Committee and provided the committee a document with the names of Texas State House candidates and the amounts they were supposed to received in donations.

The indictment included a copy of the check.

“The defendants entered into an agreement with each other or with TRMPAC (Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee) to make a political contribution in violation of the Texas election code,” says the four-page indictment. “The contribution was made directly to the Republican National Committee within 60 days of a general election.” (link)

That is the basis for the indictment (found here) and if DeLay is convicted, he could face up to two years of incarceration and a $10,000 fine.

The Republican Response: “The Indictment is Political”

The indictment was brought by Travis County, Texas, District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat. According to many Republicans, the “D” after Mr. Earle’s name automatically means his prosecution of DeLay is political:

Kevin Madden, DeLay’s spokesman, dismissed the charge as politically motivated.

“This indictment is nothing more than prosecutorial retribution by a partisan Democrat,” Madden said, citing prosecutor Ronnie Earle, a Democrat.

Madden later added: “They could not get Tom DeLay at the polls. They could not get Mr. DeLay on the House floor. Now they’re trying to get him into the courtroom. This is not going to detract from the Republican agenda.” (link)

Republicans tout Earle’s previous prosecution of four Republican politicos as evidence of a political agenda, but most fail to acknowledge that he has prosecuted eleven Democrat politicos as well. Moreover, DeLay’s indictment is consonant with his political resume, which is lousy with allegations of lies, half-truths, and corruption:

• In 1988 DeLay defended Dan Quale’s entrance into the National Guard, arranged by his parents, as a way to avoid serving in the Viet Nam war. In this context, DeLay claimed that he also tried to join the National Guard when he was in college but was turned down because ethnic minorities had already filled most of the available positions. However, the Washington Post subsequently revealed that he had in fact received student deferments while he was in college and even managed to maintain his student deferment after he was expelled from Baylor University for chronic drunkenness. (link)

• In 1999 DeLay led the way to impeach President Clinton for perjury. But it was soon discovered that DeLay had arguably committed perjury himself when he was deposed in a lawsuit in 1994. The lawsuit was brought by a former business partner against DeLay and a third partner “had breached the partnership agreement by trying to force him out of the business without buying him out.” The business was Albo Pest Control. During the deposition, taken under oath, DeLay claimed that “he didn't think he was an officer or director of Albo and believed he had resigned two or three years [before]. Yet his own congressional disclosure forms, including one filed subsequent to the deposition state that he was either president or chairman of the company between 1985 and 1994.” (link)

• On September 30, 2004, the House Ethics Committee unanimously admonished DeLay because he "offered to endorse Representative [Nick] Smith's son in exchange for Representative Smith's vote in favor of the Medicare bill. (link)

• On October 6, 2004, the House Ethics Committee unanimously admonished DeLay on two counts. The first count stated that DeLay "created the appearance that donors were being provided with special access to Representative DeLay regarding the then-pending energy legislation." The second count said that DeLay "used federal resources in a political issue" by asking the Federal Aviation Administration and Justice Department to help track Texas legislators during the battle over Texas redistricting. (link)

• The House Ethics committee at the time of the latter admonishment deferred action on another count related to fund raising while that matter was subject to state criminal action. That state investigation eventually led to the felony indictment on September 28, 2005. (link)

• On August 11, 2005, the Federal Elections Commission audited Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee, a PAC founded by DeLay, and found that it failed to report more than $300,000 in debts owed to vendors and incorrectly paid for some committee activities with money from another DeLay-connected political committee. (link)

• On September 8, 2005, a federal grand jury indicted Texans for a Republican Majority [DeLay’s PAC], which illegally accepted a political contribution of $100,000 from the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care, and the Texas Association of Business on four indictments, including charges of unlawful political advertising, unlawful contributions to a political committee and unlawful expenditures such as those to a graphics company and political candidates. (link)

Readers should take note of the dates of these allegations and findings (1988, 1989, 1994, 1999, 2004, 2005) because they all follow 1985, the year DeLay became a born-again Christian.

Apparently, many people make “political attacks” on Tom Delay, even the Republican members of the House Ethics Committee.
_________________

*”Hot Tub Tom” was the nickname given to DeLay while he attended Baylor University because of his reputation for being a playboy.

Oil & Renewable Energy Facts

• World oil consumption increased by 3.4 percent in 2004, the fastest rise in 16 years.

• However, oil production is falling in 33 of the 48 largest oil-producing countries. These include six of the 11 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

• In the continental United States, oil production peaked at eight million barrels per day in 1970 and fell to 2.9 million barrels daily last year.

• Production of biofuels, wind power, and solar energy are all growing at rates of 20-30 percent per year.

• The costs of renewable energy were falling fast. Wind power cost 46 cents per kilowatt-hour in 1980 but now costs less than six cents. (link)

Alan Loudell Will Appear on WDEL Beginning Monday

Here is the scuttle buff: Beginning Monday Loudell will have a noon news broadcast for one hour and another hour later, probably after Hannity. In short order, WDEL’s news coverage will experience a meteoric rise in quality and make WILM's seem comic in contrast.

WDEL already shows more diversity in their talking heads than WILM, which is an easy accomplishment given WILM's political one-dimensionality.

All that WDEL needs now is MORE GERRY FULCHER and less evening sports broadcasting and more talk radio.

Public Announcement: 2nd Annual Women’s Arts Retreat

2nd Annual Women’s Arts Retreat –
“Create-away Weekend”, Oct 22 & 23, 2005

Sponsored by: Holly Branch, National League of American Pen Women

The Holly Branch, National League of American Pen Women, invites you to attend a 2 day retreat at the "Biden Conference Center”, Cape Henlopen State Park, Lewes, DE, Saturday, October 22 and Sunday, October 23, 2005. You do not need be a member to register.

All women artists will benefit from this retreat by focusing on their craft while connecting with other like artists. Artists will gain knowledge in the development of their particular art form. Professional workshops in poetry, memoirs, creative writing, publishing and the visual arts will be offered along with creative art time, critiques, discussions and networking with other women artists. Artists will enjoy experiencing their creativity time indoors as well as the many private natural spaces near the center. Ocean views, sand dunes, loblolly pines and an abundance of nature will inspire creativity. All artists, regardless of experience level, are encouraged to register.

Retreat registration includes Saturday night dormitory style accommodations in the Biden Center, with hearty continental breakfast, catered lunch, snacks and beverages each day.

The fee is $150/175.
Registration form is at http://americanpenwomen.org/artsretreat.gif

More Info: http://americanpenwomen.org/events.shtml#war

Or National League of American Pen Women,
Maria Bessette, President, Holly Branch
Dover, DE
302-674-8511, 302-241-5919 or via email to: penwomen@delaware.net

* * * *

Artist Info : Maribeth Fischer, Rehoboth, DE

Creative Non-fiction Workshop
For all writers

Essential fiction-writing tools for the non-fiction writer
Balancing the personal and factual
What comes first - interesting facts or the writers’ own story?
Examples from other nonfiction writers
Experiment with specific techniques
Guided exercises for to incorporate into your own specific essays and memoirs

Participants do not need to bring work-in-progress, but should have a clear idea for an essay or section of a memoir they would like to start.

Maribeth’s literary essays have appeared in such journals as The Iowa Review and The Yale Review, Robert Atwan’s Best American Essays notable writer, Pushcart Prize for “Stillborn,” as well as a Smart Family Prize winner. Her first novel, The Language of Goodbye, was awarded Virginia Commonwealth University’s First Novel Award in 2002. Her second novel, What Survives, is forthcoming from Simon and Schuster and she is now working on her third book, The Year of Perfect Happiness.

Maribeth is the founder of the Rehoboth Beach Writers’ Guild as well as the “Writers at the Beach: Pure Sea Glass,” writing conference. She teaches workshops in writing and gives workshops on Writing and Healing to medical professionals and caretakers of those who ill or disabled.

JoAnn Balingit, Newark, DE

Jump-start Your Poems beginners & experienced:
About free-writing
formal play discussion
seizing opportunities for poems
creative time
critique session
revising poems
writers’questions
counsel to review and renew your poetry (writers option)

Participants may bring two poems or submit them to JoAnn in advance of retreat. Warm-up exercises can be done prior to the event.

JoAnn is a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership program at the University of Delaware. A writing instructor and former school librarian, she gives many writing workshops. She is a past DDOA Individual Artist fellow and currently teaches poetry classes at The Wellness Community in Wilmington.

Her poems have appeared in Salt Hill, DIAGRAM, Pearl, Can We Have Our Ball Back?, Rolling Stone Magazine, Returning a Borrowed Tongue (Coffee house Press, 1995), North of Wakulla: An Anhinga Anthology (Anhinga Press, 1989). She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by the editors of DIAGRAM in 2004.

Barbara Kirchner, Jarrettsville, MD

Visual Art Sessions, all levels of experience:

demonstrations using painting techniques in oil, watercolor and pastel
palette knife painting techniques
management and importance of color
insight into illustrating books and publications
working in miniature
critique session

Artists should bring completed work and one in progress. Bring your art supplies to sketch and paint in your preferred medium. Don’t forget your camera.

Barbara has received national recognition for her work through juried and one-artist exhibitions. She works in oils, watercolors, collage and other media, although she prefers pastels. Her works are in private and corporate collections. She is an active member of the Maryland Pastel Society, Baltimore Watercolor Society, NLAPW, Charcoal Club of Baltimore and Fine Arts Club of Baltimore.

She has presented art demonstrations for Maryland Art League, Howard County Art Guild, Harford Community College and College of Notre Dame.

Barbara provides private instruction in her studio that can accommodate 12 students.

Jean Hull Herman Wilmington, DE, The Editor’s View & Poetry Writing Workshops

How do we do it? Why do we do it? Who do we publish, why? Details about publishing, using Möbius as an example. There are VERY few journals that handle the amount and scope of poetry Möbius does. MÖBIUS is that rara avis, a literary print journal, poetry only, that has survived, even prospered.

She will also touch on -- with humor -- the reasoning behind and questions relating to the theme "Everybody Knows Somebody Who Writes Poetry."

Jean will devote 1-2 hours on the process of writing and will work with individual artists who prefer to work one-on-one.

Jean is past Editor of Möbius, The Poetry Magazine, a speaker of the Delaware Humanities Forum Speaker's Bureau and a member of the Diamond State Branch of NLAPW.

Jean and Mobius, the Poetry Magazine, won first place awards in the 2002 Delaware Press Association Communications Contest. The book title, Starving the Marvelous won 2003 first place nationally in the National Federation of Press Women for creative verse.

PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CALL WITH QUESTIONS OR SUGGESTIONS

Upcoming Poetry Reading by Delaware Poet Frank Giampietro

Poet Frank Giampietro will read from new work on Friday, September 30, 6:45 p.m. at the new (& amazing) O'Brien Arts Center, St. Andrews School, Middletown, DE. His reading is entitled "This is not a Poetry Reading" and is rumored to include multimedia! All are welcome; light refreshments. Please come!

Frank Giampietro holds a Master of Arts Degree in English from Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland and a Master of Fine Arts Degree in creative writing from Vermont College. His first manuscript "Begin Anywhere" was a semifinalist for the 2003 Akron Poetry Prize. His poem "The Afterlife" was nominated for a 2003 Pushcart Prize. He is a contributing editor for Hunger Mountain: the Vermont College Journal of Arts and Letters and a 2005 Delaware Division of the Arts fellow in poetry.

His work has been published or is forthcoming in journals including Amoskeag, Barrow Street, CutBank, Eclipse, Exquisite Corpse, Georgetown Review, MARGIE: The American Journal of Poetry, Poetry Motel, Tulane Review, 32 Poems, Homestead Review, Diner, Poetry Bone, Spire, Stray Dog, and White Pelican Review.

Direction to St. Andrews

FROM THE NORTH on I 95 (or from the south via DE Rte 1)
Exit at 4-A (sign to Christiana Mall) and follow signs to Route 1 South. Stay on Route 1 going over the bridge with the yellow arches and continue through the tollbooth ($1.00).

Remain on Route 1 until Route 299 (Middletown/Odessa Exit). Take a right onto Rte. 299 towards Middletown. At the second light, turn left onto Silver Lake Road. Proceed until it ends at Noxontown Road. Cross Noxontown Road and enter through the stone pillars. Park in the circle in front of Founders� Hall.

FROM Rte 896 South

From Newark continue on Route 896 for 10 miles to a traffic light where the road becomes Rt. 301/71. (Do not turn left where sign points 896 to Rt. 13.) Continue through the traffic light for 3 miles to the next light. Immediately after Dunkin Donuts bear to the left. Go left across railroad tracks until you reach the third traffic light in the center of town. Turn left onto Main Street, Route 299 East. At the third light take a right onto Silver Lake Road. Proceed until it ends at Noxontown Road. Cross Noxontown Road and enter through the stone pillars. Park in the circle in front of Founders' Hall.
______________
Note from Dana: I know Frank well. He is, indeed, an excellent poet.

Goldfish Believe in Intelligent Design Too

I saw the cartoon years ago, and I think of it always when I read news accounts about the current creationist rave “Intelligent Design” (ID), the notion that “life on earth is too complex to be explained by random genetic mutation and therefore a guiding force must be involved” (link). Two goldfish are swimming in their bowl, and one goldfish says to the other, “There must be a God. After all, someone changes the water everyday.” The goldfish employ the same illogic as the IDiacs: when a phenomenon is presently unexplainable in evidentiary and technological terms, the God hypothesis wins by default. That’s sheer nonsense.

The IDiacs obsess on the notion of “random” mutation as the basis for their criticism of evolutionary theory. But the notion of randomness they employ is deceitful. As any mathematician knows, although the sequence of events resulting in the present order of the universe (including our genes) is infinitesimally small, the probability that the universe would assume some order is 1 (or certain). Once some first order of the universe occurs, all subsequent re-orderings of the universe preceding the present one become increasingly more probable.

Of course, the damning reason against treating ID as a viable scientific theory is that whereas the “gaps” in evolutionary theory are in principle potentially discoverable by scientific means, discovering the Intelligent Designer is not. Besides, do spiritual persons really want to suggest that their Intelligent Designer could be discovered slithering on a slide beneath a microscope?
_________
A good overview of ID can be found here.

Limbaugh in the Morning Makes WILM's Agenda Transparent

The Debut of New Castle County’s Prostitution Referral Service

Worldwide humiliation is just a click away for men and women convicted of prostitution in New Castle County.

County police launched a Web site Monday that features the names and photographs of the 10 people most recently convicted of prostitution and related charges. (link)

It is humiliating enough in the USA when we regressively behave like medievalists, but it is unspeakably mortifying when we act less astute than them:

The Middle Ages in Europe witnessed a universal paradox of tolerance and condemnation with regards to prostitution. While technically a sin (because it hinged on the act of fornication), prostitution was recognized by the church and others as a necessary, or "lesser evil" (Karras, 246). It was accepted as fact that young men would seek out sexual relations regardless of their options, and thus prostitution served to protect "respectable" townswomen from seduction and even rape. (link)

There are, of course, more “options” these days for “young men” (and some aging ones too, apparently, from examining the mug shots at the prostitution-outing NCC Police website) than in the middle ages and for “young women” as well. Furthermore, the entire notion that rape stems from the same psycho-social forces as consensual sex (even purchased consensual sex) we now know is poppycock. Still, the medievalists recognized that people will “seek out sexual relations regardless of their options” even if it means (and, for some, especially if it means) paying for it.

Apparently, New Castle County government believes providing the names and locations of prostitutes and their patrons will somehow deter both from participating in the trade. An enterprising prostitute, however, might find the mug shot and disclosure of her location a helpful advertisement happily billed to the taxpayers’ account.

In any case, the website seems like a lot of hullabaloo when decriminalizing and regulating prostitution would be saner, less expensive, healthier, and even a beneficial source of tax revenue. But the Puritans among us love unwinnable wars, like the war on drugs.

As long the USA makes self-actualizing pleasures (education, vocations less exploitive and demeaning, expanded and accessible cultural opportunities, etc.) unaffordable, inconvenient and unessential for many, people will seek out narrower pleasures. The reason is so simple it is surprising that people miss it. Everyone needs pleasure and they need it often.

The News Journal's Ron Williams as Poser

There are two earmarks of political posers:

1. They never disclose their real agenda.
2. They sensationalize relative minutia in order to conceal their real agenda.

Ron Williams’ barely tacit support of the former Tom Gordon and Sherry Freebery New Castle County administration is one of the biggest open secrets in the state of Delaware. Although Gordon and Freebery's trials are still pending, if the numerous published accounts about their shenanigans are true, they certainly must qualify as one of the most corrupt and politically thuggish administrations in the history of New Castle County politics.

Instead of telling us clearly and honestly about his apparent oath of fidelity to "Gordonbery," Williams spends his time attacking the Coon's administration by dramatizing disputable (but not illegal) policies (often marginal ones) and gaffes in tones nearly resonate of discussions about crimes against humanity. Williams also attacks those who have been most critical of Gordon and Freebery on largely niggling grounds: e.g., WDEL's Gerry Fulcher performance as a talk show host. Williams' object couldn't be more transparent: he is trying to create a consensus that Gordon and Freebery’s critics are buffoons and Gordonbery’s alleged crimes are relative misdemeanors compared to the (hyped) activities of the Coons' administration.

His latest foray involves his continued defense of one of the alleged darlings of the Gordonbery administration, NCC Police Chief David McAllister:

But Police Chief David McAllister's tour of the Coons administration recently has consisted of sitting home doing not much of anything and drawing $500 a day in taxpayer-paid salary. (link)

The reason for McAllister being placed on a leave of absence? Williams explains:

The administration's ostensible reason for forcing McAllister to take leave was so that there could be an investigation of the police contractual duty fund, the account whereby cops who work off-duty jobs get their checks. The chief is technically responsible for the account, thus his recusal. (link)

Then Williams also alleges:

Although Coons''chief administrative officer, Dave Singleton, denied it when asked, the county is spending considerable tax dollars on a private investigator--a former Wilmington detective--to scrutinize McAllister's professional and private background. (link)

It's difficult to know what to make of Williams' claim that NCC has "hired" a private detective or if true what Williams means by "Singleton, denied it," but two things are perfectly clear: if the Coon's administration had placed McAllister on unpaid leave during the investigation and if NCC fired McAllister based on allegations unsubstantiated by an external investigation, Williams would scream bloody hell. The truth is the Coon’s administration is doing precisely what one would expect of a government laboring under multiple lawsuits (the legacy of the previous administration): proceeding carefully.

No one is fooled by Williams’ shoddy apologetics. Whatever the Coons' administration does will reap the ire of Ron Williams because his agenda is to exact revenge for Gordonbery. The only question that is really interesting is why is Ron Williams so maniacally loyal to Gordonbery? It’s time for him to stop playing games with us and fess up.

Jingoism and Meteorology: Five Minutes of Sean Hannity Tonight

On the way home from work tonight, I tuned in to WDEL and listened to Sean Hannity. He was interviewing someone (I didn’t catch the name) who apparently wrote that the intensity (not the number) of hurricanes have increased since the onset of global warming. The interviewee cited the article in Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science which demonstrates, quite unmistakably, the claim. The interviewee claimed to have twenty years experience in the field. Predictably, Hannity would shout him down whenever he tried to talk about the scientific facts and resisted Hannity’s attempt to talk about hidden liberal agendas, etc.

The interviewee challenged Hannity to a formal debate on the topic, an arena which Hannity couldn’t control by throwing tantrums and pushing the mute button on air. Needless to say, Hannity didn’t agree to debate him and skipped over the challenge when the interviewee repeatedly made it. Finally, the interviewee resorted to stating the self-evident: he called Hannity a coward.

The interviewee repeatedly asked Hannity if hurricanes are related to warm ocean water. Hannity’s response to this was to ask the interviewee questions like “Do you think Ted Kennedy is a good Senator?” Hannity, again showing his cowardice, never directly answered the question.

Hannity’s only appeal to anything remotely resembling a scientific response was to site a chart on the National Hurricane Center website (most likely, this one). He claimed the chart indicates that the intensity of hurricanes have not increased since the onset of global warming. How did he arrive at this astounding conclusion? Well, scientist Sean Hannity made the calculations himself. This was his refutation to the real scientists who wrote the above-mentioned article in Nature.

Clearly, Hannity is a buffoon. He made an elementary mistake, although the interviewee didn’t catch it, undoubtedly distracted by Hannity’s rapid fire irrelevances like who he voted for in various elections. When accessing the impact of GLOBAL warming, it is not enough to merely examine the hurricanes that have struck the United States, which is what the NATIONAL Hurricane Center records. Hurricanes happen in others nations too. Often they are called typhoons. Obviously, Hannity works from the jingoistic assumption that the only data that matters in assessing a global phenomenon is what occurs to the United States. To hell with the rest of the world.

This is precisely why people like Sean Hannity are dangerous.

Progressive Voices Tonight: Initiatives and Referendums for Delaware?

Note: Tonight's show starts at 7:30 p.m. (NOT 7:00) and ends at 8:00.From anywhere in he world you can listen on line at http://www.wvud.org/listen_online.htm.

Email questions and comments to pvoices@gmail.com

We read emails during the show and respond if possible.

Tonight's Guest: Frank Sims chairs the Independent Party of Delaware and is an advocate of Initiative and Referendum. I and R can provide ways for "laws" to be put on the ballot and passed by the people, bypassing the legislature.For more information see http://www.independentpartyofdelaware.org/pubschl/pubschl.html

Frank has written:"The American way of life is not just our cars and homes and money. It's our democracy, too. If you let them steal it, sooner or later, we won't have anything left ..."

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On Progressive Voices you hear from people who believe in democracy, a healthy environment, the right to organize, peace, and other "progressive" values. If you are interested in appearing on Progressive Voices contact Alan Muller at 302.834.3466, amuller@dca.net, or Marian Peleski, msmarian@comcast.netFeedback on the show is also welcome.

Green Delaware is a community based organization working on environment and public health issues. We try to provide information you can use. Please use it. Do you want to continue receiving information from Green Delaware? Please consider contributing or volunteering. Reach us at 302.834.3466, greendel@dca.net, www.greendel.org,

Box 69, Port Penn, DE, USA, 19731-0069

Dana Garrett of Delaware Watch will co-host the show

More Accounts of USA Torturing Detainees in Iraq

I predict considerable denial and hysteria on WILM’s Newstalk AM with John Watson tomorrow morning. The reason is that three more soldiers—this time 2 sergeants and 1 captain in the U.S. Army—are speaking out about widespread abuse and torture of Iraqis during the years of 2003 – 2004. Watson often greets such news (if he dares to mention at all) with immediate denial and by shouting down anyone on the phone that raises the topic and believes it. Apparently Watson believes it is blasphemy or somehow impossible in the nature of things for the US military to be capable of war crimes. What’s more likely is that Watson, like many Americans with a hawkish reactionary bent, would have his little bubble of USA inherent moral superiority burst if he admitted that the USA, like any nation in the world, is capable of committing moral outrages.

Oh, but it has committed moral outrages, quite a few in fact, and this time the reports are about the treatment of Iraqi detainees at the Forward Operating Base Mercury near Fallujah, a base that held detainees before (now get this) they were transferred to the torturous hell of Abu Ghraib.

What were the tortures (or “discomforts” as Watson prefers to call them) the soldiers witnessed? Oh, merely, “beatings [that] were so sever…they resulted in broken bones ‘every other week’.” According to the Human Rights Watch report, many of the tortures were

normally ordered by Military Intelligence before interrogations and involved 12 to 24 hours of stress positions, sleep or liquid deprivation, and physical exercises sometimes to the point of unconsciousness, and "f**king", which referred to beating or torturing detainees severely. (link)

These prisoners are called “PUCs,” or "Persons Under Control. “Front-line and other soldiers were invited to take part” in the tortures. In fact, they were encouraged to beat up prisoners as a way to relieve stress:

The beatings and other abuses served mainly to relieve stress, according to the three soldiers. "On their day off people would show up all the time," said one sergeant. "Everyone in camp knew if you wanted to work out your frustration you show up at the PUC tent. In a way it was sport." (link)

And if the detainees were injured during these “stress relief” exercises, then that was no problem because “a physicians' assistant would administer an analgesic and sign off on a report stating that the injury took place during capture.”

The three soldiers who questioned the abuse tried to report it, especially the Captain, but they were warned off from reporting:

The captain, referred to as "Officer C" in the report, said he had made persistent efforts over 17 months to raise concerns about the abuses and obtain clearer rules about the treatment of detainees but was consistently told by higher-ups to ignore abuses and to "consider your career".

"In many cases, he was encouraged to keep his concerns quiet; his brigade commander, for example, rebuffed him when he asked for an investigation into these allegations of abuse," according to the report. Only when he began taking his concerns to members of Congress, according to the report, did the Army agree to investigate his complaints. (link)

The soldiers were supposed to meet with Senators John Warner and John McCain who have sponsored legislation “that would require the Pentagon to abide by the Geneva Conventions and the Army Field Manual in its treatment of all detainees.” The administration opposes the legislation, particularly Vice President Cheney, and the administration also opposes calls for an independent investigation into (what is now) “hundreds” of allegations of abuse since the first ones surfaced concerning Abu Ghraib.

The soldiers tortured the detainees using this principle:

"They wanted intel (intelligence). As long as no PUCs came up dead it happened. We heard rumours of PUCs dying so we were careful. We kept it to broken arms and legs and shit (like that)." (link)

How merciful of them.

It’s now time for all hawkish patriots like Watson to come together and deny. Your country needs your lack of moral and intellectual integrity.

Guess Who the Fringe Group is Now

Today a pro Iraq war rally was held in Washington DC. The rally was scheduled to be held one day after the anti-Iraq war rally held in Washington DC, London and many cities across the USA. The anti-Iraq war rally yesterday drew hundreds of thousands of people.

Although the organizers of the pro Iraq war predicted a smaller crowd than the anti-Iraq war rally yesterday, the pro-war grouped hoped to get a crowd of 20,000 people. Instead they got about 400.

Support for Bush's war is over.

I predict that many Congressional Republicans will campaign in the 2006 elections on a phased withdraw from Iraq. The political debate will shift in the USA from "if" we should withdraw to "how soon" we should withdraw. And few Republicans will want Bush and Cheney to campaign for them.

Britain to Quit Iraq

Britain will start a “major withdraw” from Iraq beginning in May 2006. There are several reasons for the withdraw. One is internal to Labor politics:

The increasingly rapid pace of planning for British military disengagement has been revealed on the eve of the Labour Party conference, which will see renewed demands for a deadline for withdrawal. It is hoped that a clearer strategy on Iraq will quieten critics who say that the government will not be able to 'move on' until Blair quits. Yesterday, about 10,000 people demonstrated against the army's continued presence in the country. (link)

Approximately 300,000 people gathered to protest the war in the Washington DC yesterday as well and thousands more throughout various USA cities, but it would be naïve in the extreme to think that the USA government would similarly respond to the democratic will of the American people, confirmed by multiple polls, that they no longer support the continued presence of USA troops in Iraq.

Another reason for the withdraw is the Iraqi backlash the British are receiving for springing two of their soldiers from jail in Basra in an armed attack in violation of Iraq’s sovereignty. The soldiers had allegedly tried to plant bombs while out of uniform:

The disclosures follow rising demands for the government to establish a clearer strategy for bringing troops home following the kidnapping of two British SAS troopers in Basra and the scenes of violence that surrounded their rescue. Last week Blair's own envoy to Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, warned that Britain could be forced out if Iraq descends so far into chaos that 'we don't have any reasonable prospect of holding it together'.

Continued tension between the Iraqi police force, the Iraqi administration and British troops was revealed again yesterday when an Iraqi magistrate called for the arrest of the two British special forces soldiers. who were on a surveillance mission when they were taken into custody by Iraqi police and allegedly handed on to a militia. (link)

Although the withdraw is supposedly tied to Iraq’s ability to assume responsibility for its own security, Britain fully intends to withdraw knowing that insurgent resistance and al-Qaeda terror will likely continue:

Each stage of the withdrawal would be locally judged on regional improvements in stability, with units being withdrawn as Iraqi units are deemed capable of taking over. Officials familiar with the negotiations said that conditions for withdrawal would not demand a complete cessation of insurgent violence, or the end of al-Qaeda atrocities. (link)

Japan’s forces, located in the same area as Britain’s forces, are also expected to withdraw as a consequence of Britain leaving.

I am still trying to ascertain what occupying forces will remain in Iraq after Britain leaves besides the USA and Mongolia. As long as we have the Mongols, we should be okay.

Public Announcement: Giant Rats in Wilmington

Workers at Odds with City of Wilmington

Giant inflatable rats symbolize dispute with Mayor "Bully" BakerDrinking water facility remains unprotected.

September 23, 2005. Members of the Laborers International Union of North America, Local 199 (Wilmington), are conducting an "informational" action in front of the Redding (City/County) building in Wilmington, Delaware.

12 and 20 foot inflatable rats, mounted on trucks, symbolize the workers unhappiness with Mayor James Baker of Wilmington. The Laborers are concerned that a contract for repairs to Cool Spring Reservoir, part of the City water supply system, has been rebid and will go to a contractor employing fewer Wilmington residents--and union members--than the original low bidder. The action began on Wednesday, September 21, 2005, continued Thursday, and continues Friday, September 22. This sort of "action" is common in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but unusual in Delaware, where "The Delaware Way" is supposed to mean that disagreements aren't aired in public.

Brian McGlinchey, a director of governmental affairs for the Laborers, said "our workers have a right to express their opinions." He said the demonstrators had encountered no problems with the police.

In a prepared statement Wilmington Mayor James M. Baker accused the union of giving out "inaccurate and misleading information." Baker said the action is "unfortunate and is intended to intimidate." (In our experience, "Bully" Baker tends to consider all disagreement with Baker intolerable.)

The City apparently considered the original lowest bit to be too high and had concerns about the qualifications of at least one of the contractors.

The Laborers want the City to give preference to contractors who hire local people and have a record of good labor practices.

The Cool Spring Reservoir is a large open tank resembling a giant swimming pool surrounded by a chain link fence. It holds "finished" (already treated) drinking water. Dangerous contamination could enter the water accidentally or intentionally. For example, birds can poop in it, people can throw items over the fence into the water, and so on. The reservoir is North of 10th Street between Van Buren and Franklin Streets.

Wilmington has a long history of incompetence in the operation of water and sewer systems. For example, Wilmington drinking water was treated with waste materials from DuPont's Edge Moor plant. The wastes contained dioxins, other toxic chemicals, and radioactive elements such as uranium and thorium. At the other end, so to speak, Wilmington dumps hundreds of millions of gallons of raw, untreated sewage into the Brandywine Creek and Christina Rivers. See, for example, Alert 99: Mayor "Bad Faith" Baker and Wilmington's sewer crisis, Wednesday, June 13, 2001.

See a picture of what Wilmington does with it's sewage: (This is City of Wilmington Combined Sewer Overflow #29. It is located outside of the City limits in a New Castle County park.)

Green Delaware is a community based organization working on environment and public health issues. We try to provide information you can use. Please use it. Do you want to continue receiving information from Green Delaware? Please consider contributing or volunteering. Reach us at 302.834.3466, greendel@dca.net, www.greendel.org, Box 69, Port Penn, DE, USA, 19731-0069

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(Photo: Ernie Lehman, The Progressive Line.

Are the Dead of New Orleans Being Fed to Hogs?

If I told you that FEMA hired a mortuary firm that has long political and financial ties to the Bush family and whose parent company has a reputation for hiding and dumping bodies, would you believe it? You should:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has hired Kenyon International to set up a mobile morgue for handling bodies in Baton Rouge, Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina, RAW STORY has learned.

Kenyon is a subsidiary of Service Corporation International (SCI), a scandal-ridden Texas-based company operated by a friend of the Bush family. Recently, SCI subsidiaries have been implicated in illegally discarding and desecrating corpses. (link)

SCI head Robert Waltrip’s interests in the political careers of the Bush family are substantial:

Waltrip, chairman of SCI, is a longtime friend of Bush's father, former President George Herbert Walker Bush. The firm's political action committee donated $45,000 to George W. Bush's 1994 gubernatorial campaign.

The company also contributed more than $100,000 for construction of the George H.W. Bush presidential library. (link)

But Kenyon claims that it is the biggest mortuary service in the world, one well equipped and experienced to deal with the dead in a natural disaster:

Kenyon bills itself as the world's leading disaster management company. It provided morgue support services following the 9/11 plane crash in Pennsylvania and the Asian tsunami. As North America's largest funeral and cemetery company, SCI operates 1,500 mortuaries and cemeteries nationwide.

The company's website claims the firm is dedicated to "compassionately supporting families at difficult times, celebrating the significance of lives that have been lived, and preserving memories that transcend generations, with dignity and honor." (link)

It’s the irony of Kenyon’s claim to “preserv[e] [the] memories” of the dead with “dignity and honor” that make FEMA’s choice flabbergasting to those who know Kenyon’s legal history:

The Menorah Gardens cemetery chain, owned by SCI, desecrated vaults, removed hundreds of bodies from two cemeteries in Florida and dumped the gruesome remains in woods frequented by wild hogs, investigators discovered in 2001. In one case, a backhoe was used to crack open a vault, remove corpses and make room for more dead bodies.

SCI paid $100 million to settle a lawsuit filed by outraged family members of the deceased….SCI also owned fifteen funeral homes named as defendants in a lawsuit filed on behalf of family members alleging "macabre mishandling, abuse and desecration of bodies" by Tri-State Crematory in Georgia. The lawsuit accused SCI-owned funeral homes of sending bodies to the unlicensed, unregulated crematorium, where never-incinerated corpses were found piled outdoors and stuffed in sheds in 2000.

Some vaults designed to hold one body each had 67 sets of human remains stuffed inside, investigators discovered. SCI was among the companies ordered to pay settlement fees to family members, a legal source has confirmed to RAW STORY. (link)

When the initial reports estimated thousands dead in New Orleans (10,000 was the highest estimate), we all were relieved to read the reports that the estimates were grossly exaggerated:

While the house-to-house searches could go on for weeks, early evidence suggests ost people were able to flee before the water got too high or were rescued from their rooftops before they ran out of food and water to drink. (link)

But under counting the numbers killed in New Orleans would have all the same propaganda utility the USA has found in under-counting (and now refusing to count) the numbers killed during war:

Body count figures have a long history in military planning and propaganda. The military gathers such figures for a variety of reasons (determining the need for continuing operations, estimating efficiency of new and old weapons systems, planning follow-up operations, etc. Body counts were frequently released to "prove" that the U.S. was winning the Vietnam War; however, the accuracy of these counts was frequently questioned. Further controversy plagued body counts from the Gulf War, especially in the bulldozing Iraqi trenches incident.

In the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US military adopted an official policy of not counting civilian deaths. This claim to be making no attempt to calculate the numbers of noncombatant casualties of war was actually a refusal to release these numbers to the public, based on the knowledge that civilian casualty figures are 'bad publicity,' (link)

On September 22, 2005, the official count of the New Orleans dead was 755. But will we ever really know?

Did Jesus Have an Explusion Policy?

I know hate when I see it:

A 14-year-old student was expelled from a Christian school because her parents are lesbians, the school's superintendent said in a letter.

Shay Clark was expelled from Ontario Christian School on Thursday. "Your family does not meet the policies of admission," Superintendent Leonard Stob wrote to Tina Clark, the girl's biological mother.

Stob wrote that school policy requires that at least one parent may not engage in practices "immoral or inconsistent with a positive Christian life style, such as cohabitating without marriage or in a homosexual relationship," The Los Angeles Times reported in Friday's edition. (link)

I don't care if the parents knew the policy when they signed her up for the school. I think it is irrelevant to the principle that this child should not pay the consequences for the behavior of her parents that the Chrisitan school finds offensive. Yet these Christians are acting in accordance with the Old Testament: the nonmsense about the "sins" of the parents being visited on the children.

If it had not been for the advances in secular and humanist thought, I have no doubt that USA fundamentalist Christians today would be just as murderous and vengeful as the Taliban.

Delaware Man Killed in Iraq

On WDEL’s website:

Three members of the Pennsylvania National Guard, including one from Delaware, ave [sic] died in Iraq along with a Vermont soldier. Officials say the four were on routine patrol with their convoy Monday in Al Anbar Province when they were killed by a roadside bomb. In a news release today, Pennslyvania [sic] Governor Ed Rendell identifies the Delaware soldier as 36-year-old Sergeant Michael Egan of New Castle. The deaths made Monday the second-costliest day of the war for Pennsylvania. Last month, five soldiers were killed in a single day. The total number of Pennsylvania soldiers killed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom now stands at 98, including 14 from the Pennsylvania National Guard. (link)

Very, very sad.

Condolences to Sergeant Egan’s family and the family members of the lost soldiers from Pennsylvania as well.

Yet Another Phony Investigation Ordered by Bush

The public groundswell of concern about the probable price-gouging of gasoline has finally forced Congress and George Bush to call for an investigation. But like most of Bush’s investigations, this one will also be token and phony.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will perform the investigation. If a President whose family made its fortune in big oil appointing an executive branch agency to investigate big oil doesn’t sound fishy enough, then note that a former Chevron-Texaco lawyer, Deborah Majoras, heads the FTC.

A possible outcome of a Majoras investigation? Something on the order of "high gas prices result from the gasoline trucks use to deliver government-subsidized milk to children at schools" will do. And be sure to ignore the predictions that big oil’s profits are expected to swell 71% in the third quarter of this year. That's not relevant.

Rita is Now a Category-5 Hurricane

Hurricane Rita is now a category-5 hurricane and is bearing down on Texas with 165 mph winds. It could cause more problems for coastal Louisiana as well.

Today radio knee-jerk Mike Gallagher suggested that Rita's danger was being hyped by the media. Rita was a category-4 hurricane when he recorded his broadcast this morning but was rebroadcast "live" this afternoon on WILM. (If you wonder how an advertised live broadcast can be pre-recorded, you are not the only one.)

Hey, Mikey, is a Category-5 hurricane dangerous enough for you, you irresposnible twit?

Mike Gallagher is Dumb

My New Castle County Environmental Nightmare

Today’s News Journal contains an article about DuPont’s employees weathering Katrina in its DeLisle, Mississippi titanium dioxide plant, a plant very much like its Edge Moor plant in Fox Point. The employees gathered in DuPont “severe weather dome” engineered to withstand winds of 400 mph. Apparently, some would like to see a similar dome placed at the Edge Moor plant. But DuPont claims, probably correctly, that the Edge Moor plant is located 75 miles from the ocean and the likelihood of a hurricane maintaining the wind strength experienced in DeLisle is minimal.

But what about it’s huge dioxin pile on the banks of the Delaware River that it wants to cover with plastic? Some are raising the question:

Delaware officials still are considering a permit for one 15-acre, 500,000 ton waste pile at the Edge Moor plant. Opponents say it could release pollutants to the environment in the event of catastrophic flooding. (link).

Flooding is my concern asa well. But I also include the Cherry Island landfill in my nightmare. It is poised squarely on the edge of the Delaware River. Both (the dioxin pile and Cherry Island) ravaged by the storm surges of a powerful hurricane might create a toxic brew that even DENRC would define as catastrophic.

Now the Looting Begins

I wasn’t completely taken in. In fact, when Bush strolled to the podium to give his speech to the American people in New Orleans, I expected that he wouldn’t wear a coat and tie. Honestly, I predicted the blue shirt and the rolled-up sleeves, the stock attire for the politician who wants to appear as though his work is physical. But I never expected this:

As all of us saw on television, there is also some deep, persistent poverty in this region as well. And that poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. (Link)

Wow. This statement was direct, utterly true, and although a commonplace for people who have long understood the mutually reinforcing relationship between racism and poverty, these words had the force of discovery. Perhaps to stave off the temptation to doubt Bush is beyond learning, I instantly hypothesized how Bush could have gained a genuine insight. I reasoned it probably would take a category 4 hurricane, a ruined city, perhaps thousands dead, photographs of ignored bloated corpses, and film of stranded and desperate poor minorities to jolt someone as long privileged and unsubtle as George Bush into learning that racism and poverty kill.

Man, was I dumb. Under George Bush’s leadership, New Orleans devolved quickly into yet another opportunity for wealthy elites to loot.

The no-bid reconstruction contracts that had already begun before Bush’s speech continued after it. Five large no-bid contracts have been granted so far.

Bush had previously waived the law requiring contractors working on federal contracts to pay prevailing wages in a region (already well below the national average in New Orleans), but now he has also “temporarily suspended government requirements that its contractors have an affirmative action plan addressing the employment of women, members of minorities, Vietnam veterans and the disabled” (link).

The upshot is that mega corporations can charge inflated prices while underpaying poor minorities to reconstruct their own areas, minorities these corporations need not plan to hire in any case.

Public Announcent: Bush to Allow Wal-Mart to Define "Organic"

The following action alert was sent to me by Ellen Lebowitz:

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) needs your immediate help to stop Congress and the Bush administration from seriously degrading organic standards. After 35 years of hard work, the U.S. organic community has built up a multi-billion dollar alternative to industrial agriculture, based upon strict organic standards and organic community control over modification to these standards.

Now, large corporations such as Kraft, Wal-Mart, & Dean Foods--aided and abetted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are moving to lower organic standards by allowing a Bush appointee to create a list of synthetic ingredients that would be allowed in organic production. Even worse these proposed regulatory changes will reduce future public discussion and input and take away the National Organic Standards Board's (NOSB) traditional lead jurisdiction in setting standards. What this means, in blunt terms, is that USDA bureaucrats and industry lobbyists, not consumers, will now have more control over what can go into organic foods and products.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept. 20, acting in haste and near-total secrecy, the U.S. Senate will vote on a "rider" to the 2006 Agriculture Appropriations Bill that will reduce control over organic standards from the National Standards Board and put this control in the hands of federal bureaucrats in the USDA (remember the USDA proposal in 1997-98 that said that genetic engineering, toxic sludge, and food irradiation would be OK on organic farms, or USDA suggestions in 2004 that heretofore banned pesticides, hormones, tainted feeds, and animal drugs would be OK?).

For the past week in Washington, OCA has been urging members of the Senate not to reopen and subvert the federal statute that governs U.S. Organic standards (the Organic Food Production Act - OFPA), but rather to let the organic community and the National Organic Standards resolve our differences over issues like synthetics and animal feed internally, and then proceed to a open public comment period. Unfortunately most Senators seem to be listening to industry lobbyists more closely than to us. We need to raise our voices.

In the past, grassroots mobilization and mass pressure by organic consumers have been able to stop the USDA and Congress from degrading organic standards. This time Washington insiders tell us that the "fix is is already in." So we must take decisive action now. We need you to call your U.S. Senators today. We need you to sign the following petition and send it to everyone you know. We also desperately need funds to head off this attack in the weeks and months to come. Thank you for your support. Together we will take back citizen control over organic standards and preserve organic integrity.

Take action here:
http://www.demaction.org/dia/organizations/oca/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1242

Take action now at http://www.democracyinaction.org/oca/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1242
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Comment from Dana: The USA is a nation where nearly everything is for sale. Even the meaning of words.

Public Announcent: Common Cause of Delaware

Common Cause of Delaware

1304 N. Rodney St., 3rd Floor, Wilmington, Delaware

For immediate release: September 18, 2005

Contact: John Flaherty(302) 521-0394 e-mail: jdf0000@aol.com

COMMON CAUSE COMMITTEE TO EXAMINE

MEDIA PUBLIC INTEREST RESPONSIBILITY

Common Cause of Delaware will announce the formation of a public oversight committee to monitor the community broadcasting responsibilities of local broadcast media at a press conference on Tuesday, September 20, 10:00 a.m., 1304 N. Rodney St., Wilmington.
The public is invited to attend.

The public oversight committee will be charged with conducting in-depth studies to ascertain if all aspects of local broadcast media are in compliance with the Communications Act of 1934 and its predecessor, the Radio Act of 1927.

The Acts mandate that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulate broadcasting in the “public interest, convenience, or necessity.

Common Cause previously has expressed concern with the Clear Channel purchase of local radio station WILM and the change to national syndicated programs.

According to Common Cause lobbyist, John Flaherty, "We are posing the question: 'Are local broadcasters shirking their responsibility to serve the local community and instead chasing an elusive market that may or may not be in the public interest?'"

The FCC has the authority to revoke station licenses that are found to violate their public interest obligations. "We intend to pursue this issue vigorously, Flaherty said."

Cutbacks in local talk radio as well as rumored cuts to other public interest areas have alarmed many Delawareans.

Common Cause is a nonpartisan, nonprofit citizens' lobbying organization dedicated to government reform and accountability.

Iraqi Police Arrest British Soldiers for Planting Bombs

In the ongoing love fest between the Iraqi people and their occupying “liberators,” Iraqi police in Basra have arrested two British soldiers on suspicion of planting bombs:

Heavy clashes erupted Monday between Iraqi police and British soldiers based in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, witnesses said….

Monday's clashes stemmed from the arrest by Iraqi police on Sunday of two British soldiers, whom Iraqi police accused of planting bombs. Iraqi officials described the two as undercover soldiers dressed in civilian clothes and said a shooting incident broke out when police stopped their civilian vehicle. (link)

Why did “heavy clashes” break out over two arrests? Because the British tried to “win the release” of their undercover soldiers. Winning their release apparently minimally involved using an armored vehicle:

Witnesses said the clashes developed amid British attempts to win the release of the two Britons. Fighting in the city continued into Monday evening, and witnesses saw a British armored vehicle in flames after it was allegedly set on fire by Iraqi police. Police convoys circulated in downtown Basra, urging residents to help stop the British from freeing the two soldiers. (link)

Obviously, Iraqi sovereignty doesn’t include arresting their occupiers on suspicion of committing potentially violent crimes.

MBNA to Katrina Victims: 2 Months & That’s It

As reported here before, most credit card are giving Katrina victims 3 months of non-payment on their credit cards before they incur penalties. Hardly a spectacular display of generosity since their places of employment, much less their homes, won’t be up & running for several months.

But Delaware’s MBNA has decided to out-Scrooge these Scrooges. MBNA is offering them 2 months.

But MBNA is trembling at the prospect that people who have lost everything might incur more debt than they can repay as they try to rebuild their lives. A MBNA spokesman said, “[I]t is too early to tell what the company will do then.”

Apparently, not revictimizing the victims isn’t an option.

Another Possible Bad Political Deal for Delaware

It’s official. Delaware’s Attorney General Jane Brady wants the vacant judgeship in Superior Court. This would spare her running against Delaware’s Senator Joe Biden’s son “Beau” for Attorney General in 2006, a relief to Brady since she barely eked out a reelection victory in 2002. If Governor Miner did nominate Brady to the judgeship, she could then appoint Beau Biden to serve as Attorney General until 2006. This would spare Beau from the objection that he has zero experience prosecuting cases when the 2006 election rolls around.

As a deal, doesn’t it work out nicely? An incumbent, Brady, still maintains a place of influence in state government without suffering a repudiating defeat and the Biden family gets to become a political dynasty merely by appointment. It’s the kind of convenient arrangement that characterizes much of Delaware politics. That’s also why it stinks.

To begin with, if Jane Brady’s performance as an Attorney General is a guide, she would make a lousy judge. Too many important people have gone unprosecuted by Brady that arguably are potential candidates. Gordon and Freebery come to mind. And I still have heard nothing about Brady looking into the dubious mayoral election in Smyrna as she promised . Then there is Brady’s tendency to rarely see a freedom of information request she likes. Her successful drive to prosecute more children as adults pleases only those who long to live in a police state.

As for Beau, the first thing that comes to mind is who the hell is he? Okay, he is Joe Biden’s son. But after you’ve said that can you think of a single qualification for the job beyond the mere fact that he is a lawyer? He is known by virtue of his family’s name and not by a single accomplishment that qualifies him to be appointed to the position.

I want Governor Minner to appoint someone who would make a good judge in Superior Court. And if Beau Biden wants to become the next Attorney General of the state, then let him earn it in a democratic election and not through political aristocratic inheritance.

Chavez is Correct: The UN Should Leave the USA

When Hugo Chavez addressed the UN General Assembly he made a proposal that I have endorsed for several years (and I am not the only one):

The leftist leader told a U.N. summit on Thursday that fighting the war without U.N. authorization showed Washington did not respect the world body. He recommended moving U.N. headquarters to a country that has more regard for the organization.

"That's why we propose to this assembly that the United Nations leave this country, which is not respectful of the very resolutions of this assembly," Chavez said. (link)

The USA has a long history of not respecting UN resolutions, although it is not the least bit reluctant to cry foul when its official enemies do the same, and it has withheld payments to the world body when it didn’t obey its wishes. Chavez is correct. The UN headquarters should be moved to another nation. After all, the United States thinks nothing of bugging the phone systems of Security Council members. Nations that want to organize to reduce conflict and need in the world deserve to have their deliberations located somewhere that accords them more respect.

An example of how the USA manipulates the UN for its own purposes is best illustrated in the bone fide representatives of other nations it permits to attend UN events, which it is required to do under the UN Charter, and those it doesn’t.

Consider the case of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. After his recent election to the Presidency in Iran, some claimed, with little evidence, he participated in the 1979 hostage taking at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. President Bush himself announced that he had to grant President Ahmadinejad a visa to attend the United Nations World Summit:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been granted a U.S. visa to travel to the United Nations despite concerns he may have been involved in the 1979 hostage taking at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, the State Department said Wednesday.

Ahmadinejad plans to attend a summit meeting of world leaders at the U.N. next week. President Bush is scheduled to address the summit next Wednesday.

As host country of the United Nations, the United States is obligated to provide travel documents to officials from member states who wish to visit the U.N. (link)

But this isn’t a rule that the USA keeps with all UN sanctioned events held at the UN in New York:

Cuba complained to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday that the United States had barred its national assembly speaker from attending a meeting of parliamentarians at U.N. headquarters in New York.

Washington denied a visa request from Ricardo Alarcon of Cuba to attend last week's second World Conference of Speakers of Parliament, a meeting sponsored by the Inter-Parliamentary Union. (link)

The USA also denied Alacron’s visa in 2000 for the same event. The USA’s excuse for the denial?

While the United States. as host country for the United Nations, is obliged to give visas to foreign officials for official U.N. business, a U.S. official said the conference of parliamentarians was not a U.N. affair even though it used U.N. facilities. (link)

That is pure bunk. It is an UN affair. It required a UN resolution to convene it:

The Second World Conference of Speakers of Parliament is convened pursuant to the decision taken by the IPU [International Parliamentary Union] Governing Bodies in September 2003 and resolution 59/19 adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in November 2004. The Conference is convened in order to express the voice of parliaments, the representatives of the world's peoples, take stock of action effected by parliaments since the first Conference in 2000 and examine how the IPU can provide support for international cooperation and the United Nations. (link)

In fact the resolution, as if anticipating the USA acting in a politicized and unfriendly manner, specifically states:

Calls upon the host country to extend the usual courtesies to participants of all parliamentary delegations of States Members of the United Nations at the second World Conference of Speakers of Parliament…. (link)

Although the International Parliamentary Union (IPU) is not a division of the UN, the level of its cooperation and identification with UN them makes virtually indistinguishable. The IPU’s international address is located in the United Nations facilities in Geneva and the IPU has offices in the UN headquarters in New York. It even issued documents about the World Conference of Speakers of Parliament on the UN’s letterhead. Moreover, the IPU explicitly lists close cooperation with the UN as part of its governing statutes:

The Union, which shares the objectives of the United Nations, supports its efforts and works in close cooperation with it. It also co-operates with the regional inter-parliamentary organisations, as well as with international, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations which are motivated by the same ideals. (links)

Clearly, the USA is not meeting its obligations as the host nation of the UN. But in case further evidence is required, note that the USA also denied visas for Chavez’s security detail when he traveled to the UN last week even though the USA knows that many Venezuelan and Cuban exile terrorists in Miami, Florida want Chavez killed. Of course, we must now include Rev. Pat Robertson who has openly advocated for the terrorist murder of Chavez as well. It is natural to ask: Did the USA hope Chavez would come to the USA unprotected so that he might be harmed by a would-be assassin? Did the USA deny visas to Chavez’s security detail on the hope Chavez would cancel his trip to the UN?

In either case, it is clear that the USA uses its power as a host to subvert the deliberations of the UN and doesn’t take the business of the UN seriously.

The UN should kick the dust of the USA off its feet and leave the USA as soon as possible.

WDEL’s Rick Jensen

Friday afternoon was the first time I heard WDEL’s Rick Jensen for any sustained period of time. I understand that he has something of a cult following, but that is hardly surprising since right-wingers are characterized by the attributes of a true believer, cult-like allegiances being one of them.

Jensen was on with Gerry Fulcher, who is a liberal. Jensen gets credit for sharing his air time with a political counterpart and for giving up his morning slot the politically moderate Al Mascitti.

Jensen’s preoccupation on Friday was the bad treatment Bush had been receiving from the media about Katrina and Iraq. The press had to be treating him badly, he argued, because Bush’s approval ratings were poor. I found his argument so irrational I was surprised he wasn’t too embarrassed to mention it on the air. It assumes two propositions that on their face are totally ridiculous:

1. The natural unpropagandized state is for Americans to like Bush.
2. If Americans don’t approve of Bush, it can only result from bad press about him and not any of his actions.

These are odd assumptions to make about a President who lost the popular vote the first time he ran and only eked out a two percentage point victory for his second term. It’s hardly natural for Americans to be crazy about George Bush.

Furthermore, Americans don’t think Katrina and Iraq are the only areas where Bush underperforms. It’s the economy as well:

BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It's not just the mishandling of the hurricane, Kitty. In the latest "Washington Post"/ABC News poll, 54 percent of Americans disapproved of the way President Bush has handled Hurricane Katrina; 58 percent disapprove of his handling of the economy; 62 percent disapprove of Iraq; and 72 percent disapprove of the president's performance on gas prices. The message here: the hurricane is only one of the president's problems. And it's not the biggest problem. A bigger problem, we find, is growing pessimism about the nation's economy. And that is directly tied to increasing gas prices. Most Americans now believe that gas price increase is not temporary, but permanent. No more cheap gas. (link)

Given that the income has only increased for top wage earners under Bush and the projected budget deficient of 300 billion dollars (already the highest in US history) could now easily double because of the Katrina recovery are not given the media coverage they deserve, I say Jensen should be ecstatic at the kindness of the media. Otherwise Bush’s approval ratings could approach single digits.

Hurricane Intensities & Global Warming

Marian Peleski sent me this report of a study linking an increase in hurricane intensities with the rise in global warming.

Another account of the same study can be found here.

And some scientists believe that global warming has reached the tipping point where it is irreversible.

A Hospice for Chronic and Terminally Ill Children Opens in Delaware

There is a wonderful yet poignantly sad story in today’s News Journal about a mother who lost her 3-year-old child to brain cancer (link). She has employed her grief to open the second only hospice for children in the nation. It is also the “first facility to combine chronic and terminal patients.”

The facility, Exceptional Care, is located in Newark, DE. The facility has not yet received all the funds it needs to operate. Those who wish to help can contact Exceptional Care here:

To make a donation, volunteer or get more information, write to Exceptional
Care, 11 Independence Way, Newark, DE 19713, or call (302) 894-1001.

Katrina’s Aftermath: Blame Those Damned Environmentalists

Failing miserably to shift the blame for the Katrina’s relief effort onto state and local officials, Bush apologists have apparently decided to test-drive a new scapegoat: environmentalists.

The Clarion-Ledger has obtained a copy of an internal e-mail the U.S. Department of Justice sent out this week to various U.S. attorneys' offices: "Has your district defended any cases on behalf of the (U.S.) Army Corps of Engineers against claims brought by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps work on the levees protecting New Orleans? If so, please describe the case and the outcome of the litigation." (link)

Claiming that the e-mail was prompted by a “congressional inquiry” (identifying information withheld of course) the source of the question appears to be the National Review (a conservative publication):

Whoever is behind the e-mail may have spotted the Sept. 8 issue of National Review Online that chastised the Sierra Club and other environmental groups for suing to halt the corps' 1996 plan to raise and fortify 303 miles of Mississippi River levees in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas.

The corps settled the litigation in 1997, agreeing to hold off on some work until an environmental impact could be completed. The National Review article concluded: "Whether this delay directly affected the levees that broke in New Orleans is difficult to ascertain." (link)

Actually, the answer isn’t difficult to ascertain to this transparent bit of mudslinging:

The levees that broke causing New Orleans to flood weren't Mississippi River levees. They were levees that protected the city from Lake Pontchartrain levees on the other side of the city. When Katrina struck, the hurricane pushed tons of water from the Gulf of Mexico into Lake Pontchartrain, which borders the city to the north. Corps officials say the water from the lake cleared the levees by 3 feet. It was those floodwaters, they say, that caused the levees to degrade until they ruptured, causing 80 percent of New Orleans to flood. (link)

Beyond that trumping fact, the lawsuits brought by the Sierra Club were not brought in opposition to levee construction on the Mississippi per se:

Bookbinder [a spokesperson for the Sierra Club] said the purpose of the litigation by the Sierra Club and others in 1996 was where the corps got the dirt for the project. "We had no objections to levees," he said. "We said, 'Just don't dig film materials out of the wetlands. Get the dirt from somewhere else.' "

If you listen to what some conservatives say about environmentalists, he said, "We're responsible for most of the world's ills." (link)

Perhaps the Bush cultists should try pinning it on the ACLU next.

The Katrina Aftermath & the Real World

Meanwhile, back in the world of those really investigating what went wrong in the Katrina aftermath, a NPR report indicates:

In the days before Hurricane Katrina hit land, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, FEMA Director Michael Brown and other top Homeland Security officials received e-mails on their blackberries warning that Katrina posed a dire threat to New Orleans and other areas. Yet…little was done. (link)

The source of this claim? Only the FEMA emergency management specialist whose job it was to run the unit that “alerts officials of impending crises and manages the response.” His name is Leo Bosner. According to Mr. Bosner:

As early as Friday, Aug. 26, Bosner knew that Katrina could turn into a major emergency. In daily e-mails -- known as National Situation Updates -- sent to Chertoff, Brown and others in the days before Katrina made landfall in the Gulf Coast, Bosner warned of its growing strength -- and of the particular danger the hurricane posed to New Orleans, much of which lies below sea level.

But Bosner says FEMA failed to organize the massive mobilization of National Guard troops and evacuation buses needed for a quick and effective relief response when Katrina struck. He says he and his colleagues at FEMA's D.C. headquarters were shocked by the lack of response. (link)

Mr. Bosner’s emails/ National Situation Updates can be found here:

Friday, Aug. 26 E-mail
Saturday, Aug. 27 E-mail
Sunday, Aug. 28 E-mail
Monday, Aug. 29 E-mail

Bush’s FDA Appoints a Veterinarian as Acting Director of Women's Health

His name isn’t “Brownie,” but he is just as qualified for his new post:

Symbolic of the importance the Bush Administration places on women's health, a male veterinarian has been appointed by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Lester Crawford as acting director of the Office of Women's Health. Norris E. Alderson, PhD, has spent the majority of his career at the FDA holding various positions in the Center for Veterinary Medicine (link).

The previous head, Susan Wood, MD, resigned from the position when the FDA indefinitely deferred decision on an emergency contraceptive that could be sold without a prescription. The contraceptive proved safe in previous tests.

After his appointment, Mr. Anderson stated that he also believes in contraception. In fact, he intends to introduce a program to spay women who have too many litters.

Abu Musab Zarqawi Thanks Bush for Occupying Iraq

Al Qaeda's top operative in Iraq issued a statement today thanking US President George Bush for invading and occupying Iraq. He especially appreciated Iraq’s recent elections:

“President Bush, your fraudulent elections were most helpful,” the statement read. “Recruiting Iraqis for Al Qaeda has never been so easy since the elections.”

There seems to be some independent verification of Zarqawi’s claim:

Mowaffak Rubaie, Iraq's national security advisor and a former Shiite activist, said "there's no doubt" that once-nationalistic elements of the insurgency were drifting toward Zarqawi…(link)

Some US officials in Iraq have provided further evidence:

Details of a growing Iraqi dimension to Zarqawi's group were provided by three U.S. officials with access to classified intelligence data and who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject…

A significant Iraqi presence in the Zarqawi group carries ominous implications, both for the Bush administration and the fledgling, popularly elected government it supports in Baghdad.

The Iraqis under Zarqawi's wing could provide him with better intelligence, and give legitimacy to a group viewed by many Iraqis as unwanted outsiders. In addition, Iraqi recruits are being exposed to the workings of a highly efficient extremist group. (link)

But Zarqawi’s also expressed concern about the effect the aftermath of Katrina might have on the occupation. He is afraid the Katrina recovery effort “might move [Bush] to compassion for the American people” and cause him to withdraw US troops from Iraq in order to concentrate US resources on the American people:

“If I had known the storm might cause you to leave and harm our recruitment drive, I wouldn’t have asked Allah to punish your nation.”

Obviously, Zarqawi has a lot to learn about our President.
_________
Note to Readers: the alleged statements from Zarqawi above are my satire intended to illustrate how our presence in Iraq only breeds new terrorists. The rest of statements are true as indicated by the links. I apologize for any confusion.

Governor Minner Evokes the “Do a Study” Ploy

It’s becoming a frequent tactic used by state agencies in Delaware. When public opposition is white hot against a proposal that will benefit a polluter at the expense of the environment and public safety, call for a study of the issue so that public ire can cool down. The result is nearly a certainty: After the public has moved on to other concerns and is barely noticing, then the government of Delaware can enact the polluter’s wishes. But in case the public remains interested in the issue, the so-called “objective” results of the study provide Delaware’s government with the political cover necessary to enact the polluter’s wishes. Either way the polluter’s wishes are enacted at reduced political risk. That is the objective. DNREC recently employed the “Do a Study” Ploy on behalf of DuPont, which wants to cover its dioxin pile on the banks of the Delaware River at considerable savings, and now Governor Minner is using the same ploy on the Cherry Island Landfill expansion proposal (link):

Gov. Ruth Ann Minner said Thursday she will commission a broad study of alternatives to dumping most state trash in landfills, potentially stepping up public debates about recycling, large-scale composting and waste incineration.

The decision comes as the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control considers a compromise plan to increase the maximum height of Cherry Island Landfill in east Wilmington to 195 feet. (link)

What “compromise” the News Journal article referring to? A compromise between expanding the Cherry Island landfill to twice its height and what? We are not explicitly told. But the News Journal article does offer some hints:

DSWA [Delaware Solid Waste Authority] officials said they would support expanded recycling efforts, but also called for reconsideration of a law that virtually bans waste-to-energy, or incinerator, projects that could ease pressure on Cherry Island. (link)

For many years the DSWA has advocated for a waste-to-energy incineration plant in the vicinity of the Cherry Island Landfill even though local environmental organizations like Green Delaware, Environmentalists for Truth and the Delaware Clean Air Council have provided ample evidence from scientific literature that waste-to-energy incineration plants release pollutants harmful to human health. Apparently, the so-called “compromise” primarily consists in adding incineration to Delaware’s waste disposal regimen and reducing, but not eliminating, the expansion of the Cherry Island landfill. In short, Delawareans who live near the landfill will be able to inhale its toxins in two forms: raw (the present arrangement) or well done through incineration. How sweet of the DSWA.

Apparently, Governor Minner is now publicly endorsing trash incineration as well:

"The development and implementation of a comprehensive recycling program will continue to be a priority, as will pursuing alternative energy sources through technology." (link)

The verbiage about expanding recycling efforts is just that. The state of Delaware and the DSWA have deliberately squandered attempts to expand recycling in Delaware for several years. But now that the Cherry Island landfill has nearly reached its legal limit in size, under its present configuration, the DSWA, DENRC, the state legislature and the Governor will offer a token expansion of recycling in Delaware but claim that time constrains them to adopt waste incineration and further expansion of Cherry Island. This is no more of a “compromise” than the one offered by a thief who puts a gun to your head, steals all of your money but allows you to keep some pocket change. There is no compromise possible between being treated criminally (including moral crimes) and morally. That applies to robbers and government agencies that permit their citizens to be harmed through pollution.

Apparently, state Sen. Peterson understands the reason for the study correctly:

Sen. Karen E. Peterson, D-Stanton, called the study an authority-backed attempt to delay recycling programs.

"I think we've probably studied this issue enough," Peterson said. "It seems to me the authority is trying to get us into a crisis situation where they say 'Oh, the landfill is full. Now we need to do something drastic like an incinerator.' They're just trying to drag us to that point." (link)

Senator Peterson’s insight is one Delaware environmentalists have been offering for years. Hopefully, it isn’t too late.

A Horror Story: Bush Puts Rove in Charge

Whatever the merits of Bush’s Gulf Construction plan that he announced last night is totally mitigated by the person he has placed in charge of the entire project: the arch dirty political trickster Karl Rove, his White House deputy chief of staff and his principal political adviser (link).

Reasons for putting Rove in Charge

• Government contracts will be awarded largely on the basis of political patronage.

• Political consequences will be the primary focus of the Gulf Coast reconstruction effort. The effort will be directed toward preserving Republican majorities in Congress and to enhance Bush’s approval ratings and, thereby, salvaging his extremist legislative agenda.

• By appointing Rove to lead this massive effort, Bush gets political cover for pardoning him if he is indicted. “I don’t think a person leading the largest reconstruction effort in US history should be distracted by battling a court case against him” Bush can say.

This will be the largest and most expensive political spin campaign and all of it will be paid for by borrowed money. Our grandchildren will inherit the bill.

Allan Loudell is Joining WDEL

I just got this in an e-mail:

As an employee of WDEL/WSTW and Delmarva Broadcasting, I thought I would pass it on that Pete Booker announced this morning that Allan Loudell will be joining our WDEL team beginning this coming Monday. In the interest of keeping the spread of information closest to truth, call News Director Chris Carl or Program Director Rick Jensen at 478-2700 with any questions.

Mascitti & now Loudell on WDEL! WILM is so toast now!

What a coup!

Opinions Are Not Dogma: The Ridiculous Silence of Supreme Court Nominees

All nominees to the Supreme Court have done it. From the most pharisaical to the most liberal, they have all selectively declared and withheld their opinions on controversial matters of constitutional interpretation and prior court decisions. John Roberts is not alone.

Yet it is not exactly clear why they must go through the charade of withholding their opinion. They don’t claim they are without opinions on these matters. After all, if they didn’t have an opinion, they could simply say, “I haven’t made up my mind on that one.” Instead they claim they must be reticent in order to be objective. But why are silent opinionated nominees more objective than vocal opinionated ones? I don’t get it. Arguably, if anything, silent opinionated nominees might be inclined to maintain their silence under phony pretexts (e.g. silence = objectivity) because they don’t want to disclose their real attitude: namely, they have opinions and are not open to having them challenged. That prospect is hardly comforting in confirming nominees for lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court.

Besides, having and expressing an opinion doesn’t mean that nominees cannot be open to arguments or case-specific circumstances that might cause them to moderate or even change their opinions later on. Opinions are not dogma. Most people change their opinions on matters when someone points out their fallacies of reasoning or provides them with convincing contrary evidence. It’s that quality—the quality of openness—that is most important in human beings and in judges. That’s why I want to know both what a nominee’s opinions are and the evidence indicated in their professional lives that they are characterized by open-mindedness.

Interestingly, a recent poll indicates that most Americans want to know Supreme Court nominees' positions:

Americans say that senators voting on Supreme Court nominees should consider the candidates' positions on issues like affirmative action and abortion before voting on whether they should be confirmed, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

Asked whether it was important that senators "know his position on issues such as abortion and affirmative action" before voting on Judge Roberts's confirmation, 46 percent said it was "very important," and 31 percent said it was "somewhat important." About 9 percent said it was "not very important" while 13 percent said it was not at all important, with the rest having no opinion. (link)

Clear Channel is Pushing Rush on WILM

Katrina Flashback Iraq

Remember how, during the USA invasion of Iraq, the US forces secured the oil fields and held them? Remember how the USA forces also secured the Oil Ministry in Baghdad but ignored the civilian hospitals already flooded with casualties and besieged with looters? Those of us who knew beforehand that one of the principal objectives of the invasion was to control Iraq’s vast oil reserves were not the least bit surprised.

This is surprising. A version of these priorities was replicated in Katrina’s aftermath:

Shortly after Hurricane Katrina roared through South Mississippi knocking out electricity and communication systems, the White House ordered power restored to a pipeline that sends fuel to the Northeast.

That order - to restart two power substations in Collins that serve Colonial Pipeline Co. - delayed efforts by at least 24 hours to restore power to two rural hospitals and a number of water systems in the Pine Belt. (link)

The order came from the office of the political and diplomatic architect of the Iraq invasion: Dick Cheney. Yes, Dick, who, like his boss, was busy vacationing at the time:

Dan Jordan, manager of Southern Pines Electric Power Association, said Vice President Dick Cheney's office called and left voice mails twice shortly after the storm struck, saying the Collins substations needed power restored immediately. (link)

Cheney’s office emphasized that big oil’s uninterrupted profit needs should be taken with the utmost importance:

Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Mike Callahan said the U.S. Department of Energy called him on Aug. 31. Callahan said department officials said opening the fuel line was a national priority. (link)

The workers literally had to stop trying to restore power to area hospitals to obey what they understood to be a “presidential directive.” As a consequence, power to the hospitals wasn’t restored until six days after the storm.

A case of compassionate conservatism at work.

I Miss You Already Jeff Wallace

Congressional Republicans Suspend Votes on Tax Cuts

Taking Responsibility Rove Style

To the extent that I, Dana Garrett, am powerful, I take responsibility for failing to stop the Tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands of people. To the extent that I, Dana Garrett, influence the feeling of good will in the world, I take full responsibility for North Korea’s President Kim Jong Il’s distrust of the USA’s motives and his resulting nuclear weapons production. To the extent that I, Dana Garrett, eat Chinese food, I take responsibility for John Doe in Anytown USA eating a bad egg roll last Friday night.

Now if anyone were to point out that my relative abilities to act powerfully, to affect good will in the world, and to influence the success of Chinese restaurants in the nation are, though real, negligible to prevent Tsunamis, the paranoia of dictators and Chinese restaurants from operating in Anytown USA, they would be indisputably correct. They would also be correct in saying that I have not really taken responsibility for my actions by prefacing it with “To the extent that...” After all, how I define the “extent” could let me off the hook, which is precisely what I did above. To truly take responsibility I would need to identify specifically what I did or didn’t do (in realistic terms) and to confess to having failed in that regard. That’s why my hypothetical confessions above are merely meaningless redundancies. All I really said by them was “To the extent I am responsible, I am responsible.”

Yet when George Bush said today "To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right [regarding the relief effort after hurricane Katrina], I take responsibility," the collective sigh of relief, coming mostly from the media but even from many on the left, was deafening. Why was anyone relieved? His statement was utterly vacuous because he told us nothing of the “the extent” to which the federal government didn’t do its job. As far as any of us know, he believes the federal government is doing a good job (“You’re doing a helluva a job, Brownie”) and its failures are comparatively negligible.

All of the rest of his statements today are the same:

He said Katrina had "exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government". (link)

What “problems” and what makes them “serious?” And why are those terms qualified by “at all levels of government?” The answer to the last question is predictable. We know it already. It’s the spin that has been wending its way through Republican pundits and Bush hacks for the last two weeks. “All levels” principally means the local and state governments. It also could mean the federal government but only to the “extent” it reacted to the promptings of the local and state governments. Bush’s statements tell us nothing about how the federal government failed and it leaves considerable room to officially shift the blame to the governments of New Orleans and Louisiana later on.

Now consider this statement:

He was asked if the faltering initial response to Katrina should cause concern at America's ability to cope with a terrorist attack.

"That's a very important question and it's in the national interest that we find out what went on so we can better respond," he replied. (link)

Oh, wow, Bush has confessed that a question is good one, but he has given us no sense whatsoever of the answer. As far as we know, he believes the answer is (or, more accurately, “will be” after the Republicans in Congress hold their kangaroo hearings) we are indeed prepared to cope with a terrorist attack although we might improve in some relatively minor areas.

Nothing. George Bush has told us nothing. The question is why.

Probably at Karl Rove’s scripting, George Bush has indulged the sound of taking responsibility without actually taking responsibility. We are supposed to focus on the phrase “I take responsibility” without noticing the qualifying preface: “To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right.” By providing us with the sound of taking responsibility, he can stop the debate that has focused considerable attention on his policies, his vacation habits, his dysfunctional relationship with his staff, the hurricane timelines that damn the federal government’s response, his appointments of political cronies who were unqualified to lead FEMA and so on. All these debates and inquiries can end because we now have someone who has taken responsibility (for the time being). And once the relief and recovery efforts end, Bush tells us, we can then determine the details of what really happened.

Don’t believe it.

What Bush isn’t saying is that it will take several years for New Orleans to recover, well beyond the end of his presidency. But even if a meaningful investigation were to occur before then, nothing prohibits Bush from playing his usual games of withholding certain documents and invoking executive privilege to silence pertinent testimony, all the while claiming that he is cooperating fully, etc., etc.

All that Bush did today was release a little pressure off the dour mood of the nation, a mood that is driving his poll numbers down. Predictably, his address to nation from New Orleans Thursday Night will do significantly more of the same. Thursday night will be an orgy of non-confession confession. Then we can return to focusing on sports teams, the children’s exigencies at school and in their neighborhoods, the new unfolding dramatic series on HBO, even as, for months upon indistinguishable months, more bodies are peeled from the New Orleans mud, bodies scarcely noticed and mourned except by a radical and easily dismissed “anti-American” few.

“Brownie” Quits & Bush Knows Little about It

The embattled Mike Brown “resigned” today as FEMA’s head. When President Bush was asked by a reporter about his resignation, Bush responded, “Maybe you know something I don't know” (see video here). “Maybe” grossly underestimates the probability.

The best that could be said about Bush is he has known little about Brown for some time. On this reading, Bush probably didn’t know that "Brownie" (Bush's term) was wholly unqualified for the job and his “qualifications,” to say the least, were embellished.

Brownie's Previous Emergency Management Experience

Brown claimed that he once served “as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight”:

The White House press release from 2001 stated that Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing the emergency services division." (link)

But it turns out that Brownie fudged the facts:

In fact, according to Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, Brown was an "assistant to the city manager" from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself, and had no authority over other employees. "The assistant is more like an intern," she told TIME. "Department heads did not report to him." Brown did do a good job at his humble position, however, according to his boss. "Yes. Mike Brown worked for me. He was my administrative assistant. He was a student at Central State University," recalls former city manager Bill Dashner. "Mike used to handle a lot of details. Every now and again I'd ask him to write me a speech. He was very loyal. He was always on time. He always had on a suit and a starched white shirt." (link)

Excepting his professional attire, it’s difficult to imagine why George Bush would consider Brownie’s college internship qualified him to head the agency that handles the nation’s most catastrophic emergencies. But, then, anything is possible.

“Professor” Brownie

According to Brown’s resume, he served a stint as Central State University’s "Outstanding Political Science Professor." The academic title sounds impressive. The only problem is that Brownie confused “professor” for "student":

However, Brown "wasn't a professor here, he was only a student here," says Charles Johnson, News Bureau Director in the University Relations office at the University of Central Oklahoma (formerly named Central State University). "He may have been an adjunct instructor," says Johnson, but that title is very different from that of "professor." Carl Reherman, a former political science professor at the University through the '70s and '80s, says that Brown "was not on the faculty." As for the honor of "Outstanding Political Science Professor," Johnson says, "I spoke with the department chair yesterday and he's not aware of it." Johnson could not confirm that Brown made the Dean's list or was an "Outstanding Political Science Senior," as is stated on his online profile. (link)

Brownie the Nursing Home Director

Brownie’s resume indicates that he is a charitable sort, especially charitable to old folks…excepting the 40, mostly elderly, patients who died in New Orleans waiting to be evacuated. According to his resume, Brownie “has been director of the Oklahoma Christian Home, a nursing home in Edmond.” The only problem is that no one who works for Director Brownie at the home knows him:

But an administrator with the Home, told TIME that Brown is "not a person that anyone here is familiar with." She says there was a board of directors until a couple of years ago, but she couldn't find anyone who recalled him being on it. . (link)

Of course the veracity of Brownie's resume had nothing to do with Bush's "right" to give Brownie the position. Bush has the power to appoint any lying nincompoop he wants.

Brownie the Horse Judge

Prior to coming to FEMA, Brownie was employed as the Arabian Horse Association Judges & Stewards Commissioner, a stretchable qualification if one of his responsibilities was rescuing horses during catastrophic emergencies. The only problem is that even as a horse judge Brownie was asked to resign:

Before joining the Bush administration in 2001, Brown spent 11 years as the commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association, a breeders' and horse-show organization based in Colorado.

“We do disciplinary actions, certification of (show trial) judges. We hold classes to train people to become judges and stewards. And we keep records,'' explained a spokeswoman for the IAHA commissioner's office. ``This was his full-time job . . . for 11 years,'' she added.

Brown was forced out of the position after a spate of lawsuits over alleged supervision failures. (link)

Brownie et al

If you think that Brownie’s appointment as FEMA’s head was an example of political cronyism, he’s not the only high official in FEMA who is wholly unqualified for the job:

Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

FEMA's top three leaders -- Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler -- arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative. (link)

And to think that USA citizens were bamboozled into reelecting George Bush on the grounds he would best protect the nation during a national crisis. He can’t even direct someone to check an applicant’s references.

How Does a President Know So Little?

How can the President of the United States with numerous sources of information available to him not know the details of his FEMA Director resigning, or that his FEMA director wasn’t qualified for his job, or that a hurricane’s passing has left tens of thousands of his citizens dead, stranded or imperiled? How could a president not know what the rest of us could see on our televisions or read in our newspapers or on the internet?

These questions suggest that George Bush is mostly oblivious about the administration he runs and the nation he leads. But that is the charitable view of Bush. To assume otherwise--to assume that Bush does knows these pertinent facts but they do not influence him--compels us to conclude that Bush doesn’t care, that he is corrupt, and the suffering of his own people doesn’t move him. Oblivious or psychopathic, or perhaps some fusion of both, seem to be the only options available to us.

Newsweek has chosen the charitable view. According to their sources, Bush is a tyrant away from the public view and his closest aides avoid brining him bad news. Bad news makes him explode. The aftermath of Katrina is evidence of how Bush’s irritability breeds a fear and reluctance in others that keeps him oblivious:

It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS. The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug. 30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans, was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington. The president's chief of staff, Andrew Card; his deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin; his counselor, Dan Bartlett, and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, held a conference call to discuss the question of the president's early return and the delicate task of telling him. Hagin, it was decided, as senior aide on the ground, would do the deed. (link)

If bad news means George Bush could explode because he will lose 2 days from a month-long vacation, then 3 more years of a Bush presidency places all of us at great risk. I believe George Bush should be impeached. Short of that outcome, our only hope is that no one inside the White House ever has to weigh the consequences of delivering “bad news” to Bush when he has been on vacation for only a week.

Delaware Senator Joe Biden's Opening Statement at John Roberts' Confirmation Hearing

Dear Friends,

I've included my opening statement from today's confirmation hearings for Judge John Roberts to become Chief Justice of the United States, which I hope you will enjoy reading. As I argued in my opening statement, the Constitution provides for one democratic moment before a lifetime of judicial independence, when we the people of the United States are entitled to know as much as we can about the person we are entrusting with safeguarding our future and the future of our children and grandchildren.

This is that moment. That's what these hearings are about.

Thank you,
Joe Biden
U.S. Senator

OPENING STATEMENT AT THE CONFIRMATION HEARINGS

FOR JOHN G. ROBERTS, JR.

by Senator Joe Biden

Judge Roberts, welcome.

Judge, as you know, there is a genuine intellectual struggle going on in our country over whether our Constitution will continue to protect our privacy and continue to empower the federal government to protect the powerless.

For 70 years, there has been a consensus in our Supreme Court on these issues. And this consensus has been fully embraced by the American people.

But there are those who strongly disagree with this consensus -- and they seek to unravel it. And, Judge, you have the unenviable position of being right in the middle of this fundamentally important debate.

And, quite frankly, we need to know on which side you stand. For whoever replaces Chief Justice Rehnquist, as well as Justice O'Connor, will play pivotal roles in this debate.

But for tens of millions of our people this is more than an academic debate.

For the position you take in this debate will affect their lives in very real and personal ways -- for the next three decades. There is nothing they can do about it after this moment.

I believe in a Constitution -- as our Supreme Court's first great Chief Justice, John Marshall, said in 1819 -- and I quote "intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs."

At its core, the Constitution envisions ever increasing protections of human liberty and dignity for its citizens and a national government empowered to face unanticipated "crises."

Judge, herein lies the crux of the intellectual debate I referenced at the outset -- whether we will have ever increasing protections for human liberty and dignity or whether those protections will be diminished.

In 1925, the Constitution preserved the rights of parents to determine how to educate their kids, striking down a law that required children to attend public schools. In 1965, the Constitution told the state to get out of a married couple's bedroom, by striking down a state law prohibiting married couples from using contraceptives. In 1967, the Constitution defended the right of a black woman to marry a white man. And in 1977, the Constitution stopped a city from making it a crime for a grandmother to live with her grandchildren.

And, fortunately, even when the Supreme Court, at first, took our Constitution away from the promise and hope of our Constitution's ennobling phrases; in the end, we have kept the faith.
In 1873, for example, the Court said states could forbid women from being lawyers. It took a hundred years to undo this terrible mistake. But the Court eventually got it right.

In 1896, the Supreme Court said "separate but equal" was lawful. It took 58 years for the Supreme Court to outlaw racial segregation, throwing that doctrine in the dustbin of history. But the Court ultimately got it right.

In the early 1900s, the Court rendered the federal government powerless to outlaw child labor and to protect workers. It took until 1937 for the Supreme Court to see the error in its ways. But the Court finally got it right.

At every step, we've had to struggle against those who saw the Constitution as frozen in time. But time and again, we have overcome, and the Constitution has remained relevant and dynamic thanks to a proper interpretation of the ennobling phrases purposefully placed in our great "civic Bible."

And once again -- when it should be even more obvious we need increased protections for liberty -- as we look around the world and see thousands persecuted for their faith, women unable to show their faces in public, and children maimed and killed for no other reason than which tribe they were born into.

And once again -- when it should be obvious we need a more energetic national government to deal with the challenges of a new millennium -- terrorism, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, pandemic disease, and religious intolerance.

Once again, our journey of progress is under attack from the Right.

There are judges, scholars, and opinion leaders -- good and honorable people -- who believe the Constitution provides no protection against government intrusions into our highly personal decisions -- decisions about birth, marriage, family, death, and religion. There are those who would slash the power of our national government, fragmenting it among the states. Incredibly, some have even argued that the Constitution eliminates the federal government's ability to respond to disasters like Katrina.

Judge, I don't believe the Constitution these individuals long for could have led to the America our Founders envisioned. Like the Founders, I believe our Constitution is as big and as grand as this great nation.

Our constitutional journey did not stop with women barred from being lawyers, with 10-year-olds working in coal mines, or with black kids forced into different schools than white kids just because the Constitution nowhere mentions "sex discrimination," "child labor," or "segregated education."

Our constitutional journey did not stop then, and it must not stop now. For we will be faced with equally consequential decisions in the 21st Century: can microscopic tags be implanted in a person's body to track his every movement; can patents be issued for the creation of human life; can brain scans be used to determine whether a person is inclined toward criminal or violent behavior?

Judge, I need to know whether you will be a Justice who believes that the constitutional journey must continue to speak to these consequential decisions -- or that we've gone far enough in protecting against government intrusion into the most personal decisions we make.

Judge, that's why this is a critical moment. Those elected officials on the Far Right, such as Mr. DeLay and others, have been unsuccessful at implementing their radical agenda in the elected branches -- so they pour their energy and resources into trying to change the Court's view of the Constitution.

And now they have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity -- the filling of two Supreme Court vacancies, one of which is the Chief Justice's -- the first time that's happened in 75 years.

Judge, I believe with every fiber of my being that their view of the Constitution and where the Country should be taken would be a disaster for our people.

Like most Americans, I believe the Constitution recognizes a general right to privacy. I believe the rights of women must be nationally and vigorously protected.

I believe the federal government must act as a shield to protect the powerless against major economic interests.

I believe the federal government should stamp out discrimination -- wherever it occurs.
And I believe the Constitution inspires and empowers us to achieve these goals.

Judge, if I looked only at what you've said and written in the past, I'd feel compelled to vote NO.

You dismissed the Constitution's protection of privacy as a "so-called right," you derided agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission that combat corporate misconduct as "constitutional anomalies," and you dismissed "gender discrimination" as merely a, and I quote, "perceived problem,"

This is your chance to explain what you meant by what you have said and what you have written.

The Constitution provides for one democratic moment before a lifetime of judicial independence, when we the people of the United States are entitled to know as much as we can about the person we are entrusting with safeguarding our future and the future of our children and grandchildren.

This is that moment. That's what these hearings are about.

Public Announcement: Code Orange Ozone Advisory for Delaware Today

Called For Monday, September 12, 2005

Ozone will increase to the code orange range today with temperatures in the upper 80's, light winds and sunny skies.

Ground-level Ozone is forecasted to be at unhealthful levels for sensitive children and adults and people with respiratory ailments. This is not a notification for an Ozone Action Day, but the ozone levels are expected to rise to a level that is still important to your health and well-being.

Green Delaware is a community based organization working on environment and public health issues.  We try to provide information you can use.  Please use it.  Do you want to continue receiving information from Green Delaware?  Please consider contributing or volunteering.  Reach us at 302.834.3466, greendel@dca.net, www.greendel.org, Box 69, Port Penn, DE, USA, 19731-0069

On the Future of the Progressive Radio Broadcast

Alan Loudell is Leaving WILM & Common Cause Calls for a Meeting

I suppose the handwriting was on the wall once Clear Channel acquired WILM. I, like many others, knew that Clear Channel would make some changes at WILM, ones that many in the moderate to left community would probably dislike, but we had no idea Clear Channel would wreck WILM entirely. Why should they? After all, WILM was a frequent award winning news radio program.

That wasn’t the least bit surprising. Under the leadership of Allan Loudell, WILM held the best radio interviews I had ever heard (I have lived in several states). As one drove to his or her job each morning, it was nothing to hear Loudell interview high-profile international reporters, scholars and academics noted for their expertise in various regions of the world community, and high public officials both in the United States and internationally. Moreover, it ceased to be surprising to hear those Loudell interviewed comment on the intelligence of his questions, the nuances on issues only a few would know, or a question they had never considered before. I once heard Joe Biden comment in another venue about the sophistication of WILM’s news programming. The word “sophistication” is apt. And it was happening in Delaware and we all knew it was principally because of Loudell:

"From my perspective, Allan is probably unequaled in the network of contacts nationally and internationally he has established as news sources," said Peter Booker, president and general manager of Delmarva Broadcasting, owner of WDEL/1150, WILM's main competitor. (link)

After 18 years at WILM, Loudell is leaving:

"I decided to leave because of a difference of opinion on some things," Loudell said. He said he had a job opportunity elsewhere, but would not elaborate. (link)

Although the loss of Loudell is death the knell for any quality news programming from WILM, Clear Channel is so huge it doesn’t need to care:

Before passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, a company could not own more than 40 radio stations in the entire country. With the Act’s sweeping relaxation of ownership limits, the cap on radio ownership was eliminated. As a result, Clear Channel has dominated the industry by growing from 40 radio stations nationally in the mid-90s, to approximately 1225 stations nationally by 2003. The station also dominates the audience share in 100 of 112 major markets. In addition to its radio stations, Clear Channel also owns television station affiliates, billboards, outdoor advertising, and owns or exclusively books the vast majority of concert venues, amphitheaters, and clubs in the country. According to NOW with Bill Moyers, in 2000 Clear Channel purchased the nation’s largest concert and events promoter, and in 2001, the Clear Channel did 70% of national ticket sales. (link)

As evidence that what you don’t know can hurt you, Clear Channel is beginning to dominate the radio media market in Delaware. Besides WILM, it also owns WDOV-AM, WDSD-FM, WJBR-AM, and WRDX-FM.

Clear Channel’s size means that it can often ignore community tastes and standards and use its media outlets to pursue its ideological agendas. Its agendas are arguably pro censorship and distinctly pro Republican:

Clear Channel has been criticized for censoring opinions critical of George W. Bush and other Republicans. Clear-Channel-owned KTVX was the only local television station which refused to air the paid political message of Cindy Sheehan against the war in Iraq. Some Utahns consider this to be another act of censorship of grass-roots free speech. (link) (Also see here)

Organizations have sprung up across the nation to resist Clear Channel’s monopolizing tendencies (e.g. here) and some have come up with strategies to resist Clear Channel. Now Common Cause of Delaware is joining the fray. They have scheduled a meeting about it tomorrow night:

IS CLEAR CHANNEL SHIRKING ITS PUBLIC INTEREST RESPONSIBILITY?

Common Cause of Delaware is concerned that Clear Channel, owner of radio station WILM, is shirking its responsibility to serve the public interest because of recent changes at the station. That question will be discussed at the monthly meeting of Common Cause of Delaware on Monday, September 12, 7:00 pm, 1304 N. Rodney St. in Wilmington. The public is invited.

For many years, 1450 AM WILM News radio has served our local community with one of the largest Radio News Teams between Philadelphia and Washington. The news department has been led by nationally-recognized newsman Alan Loudell, who has resigned because of disagreements with the new management. This news team has provided Delaware's with serious in-depth coverage of local news as well as international newscasts, local and national news stories, opinions and culture reporting.All of this changed last year when Clear Channel Radio purchased WILM. One of the most respected public interest shows in the country, the WILM midday report with Alan Loudell, is coming to an end. Cutbacks in local talk radio as well as rumored cuts to other public interest areas have alarmed many in New Castle County.The Communications Act of 1934 and its predecessor, the Radio Act of 1927, mandates that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulate broadcasting in the “public interest, convenience, or necessity.” This continues to be the mandate of the FCC, which can revoke station licenses found to violate their public interest obligations.

Clear Channel Radio consists of over 1,000 stations across the U.S. and more than 110 million listeners each week. Common Cause is a nonpartisan, nonprofit citizens’ lobbying organization dedicated to government reform and accountability.

Another Typhoon & China Evacuates Over 1 Million People

This is their second hurricane and mass evacuation in as many weeks:

MORE than a million people were evacuated from their homes in China's eastern province of Zhejiang as Typhoon Khanun hit the region overnight, state media reported.

Typhoon Khanun was expected to batter major cities in the coastal province and neighbouring Shanghai, Xinhua news agency said, citing local meteorological bureaus.

Strong winds and torrential rains brought by Khanun have already inundated some counties and towns in Zhejiang and caused blackouts in parts of the province, but there were no reports of any injuries so far, it said.

More than a million residents in areas affected by the typhoon have been moved to safer places, and more than 37,625 ships and boats have returned to harbour, according to Zhejiang authorities. The commercial metropolis of Shanghai had evacuated more than 100,000 people and upgraded its typhoon emergency warning from yellow to red, Xinhua said. (link)

How can they do it but not us?

Bill Maher Gets it Right

From Crooks & Liars via Liz Allen:

 

http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Real-Time-George-Must-Go.wmv

 

 

Remembering A Comforting Word from the Right

From William F. Buckley:

The relevant factor in the Gulf catastrophe is indeed the individual's capacity to reject despair and to cope, however aimlessly, with what is brought on -- the bus that will at some point be there, the bean soup that will quiet the hunger, and soon, someone's hand to share, and mitigate the loneliness.

2 Million Fish Die in Sussex County Delaware

It happened in a few short hours: “2.1 million menhaden died over the course of a few hours Thursday in tributaries of Rehoboth Bay,” the News Journal reports. This a large kill not simply because of the large numbers killed but also because the menhaden population has been declining due to overfishing. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation called for a cap on "menhaden harvesting" earlier this year.

According to Robin Tyler, a senior scientist with the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC), the “three kills were extraordinary because never in the 25 years that state environmental officials have monitored fish kills have there been three on one day -- two of them massive.” She also stated that “officials thought they had a pretty good understanding of what was causing fish kills in the bays. But Thursday's kill will force some rethinking.”

DNREC, often among the last to believe that pollutants and other toxins can adversely effect living organisms, would do well to spend less time “rethinking” and, instead, read the rest of the News Journal article:

The Inland Bays contain an excess of nitrogen and phosphorus from sewer plants, septic systems, runoff from farms and developments. (link)

They Fly Canada’s Flag in Parts of Louisiana Now

While the Bush administration was still trying to determine when it would send aid to help the people in New Orleans and the surrounding region, frantic Louisiana state officials were already seeking international help:

B.C. Solicitor General John Les said the province decided to send Vancouver Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) after officials in Louisiana asked for help. (link)

By now the story of how the Vancouver Urban Search & Rescue (VUCR) arrived at St. Bernard Parish 5 days before USA rescue teams is infamous. St. Bernard Parish was one of the hardest hit in the area. VUCR reported water levels as high as 12 feet in some areas (link). Perhaps more ignominious is the account of how USA officials at first wouldn’t let them team into the Parish when they first arrived.

Their mission accomplished (they saved 117 people), VUCR team has returned to Canada but not before seeing Canada’s flag flying above the St. Bernard Parish fire station they used as their temporary headquarters. But it turns out that the Canadian flag isn’t flying merely over the fire station:

A Canadian search-and-rescue team had made it to the flooded New Orleans suburb of St Bernard Parish five days before the US military, Louisiana state Senator Walter Boasso said.

"We've got Canadian flags flying everywhere," he said. (link)

Did Katrina Put God Back in Our Schools?

I turned to Hannity’s program on WDEL tonight just long enough to hear the Rev. Franklin Graham boast about his extraordinary concern for the victims who fled New Orleans. Graham is the son of evangelist Billy Graham and heir apparent to Billy’s Christian proselytizing empire. I found Graham’s concern surprising since he recently revealed that New Orleans got it in the neck because the USA has forcibly removed the omnipresent Almighty from our public schools:

"This happens in our country when we have taken God out of our schools and God out of our, out of society.” (link)

What good news for Democrats and Republicans alike. The tragedy at New Orleans isn’t the federal, state or local officials’ fault. It’s God’s fault. What a relief.

Too Bad We Were in Iraq, a Lt. General Says

Perhaps the wingnuts, chickenhawks, and reactionary talk show hosts believe they know better than a Lt. General actually serving in Iraq, but no rational person would take them seriously:

The deployment of thousands of National Guard troops from Mississippi and Louisiana in Iraq when Hurricane Katrina struck hindered those states' initial storm response, military and civilian officials said Friday.

Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said that "arguably" a day at most of response time was lost due to the absence of the Mississippi National Guard's 155th Infantry Brigade and Louisiana's 256th Infantry Brigade, each with thousands of troops in Iraq.

Louisiana National Guards of the 256th Brigade Combat team leave the plane at the airport in Alexandria, Louisiana upon their arrival, Friday, Sept. 9, 2005. The first contigent of about 100 National Guards left Kuwait Thursday to return to the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina. Guard officials say 80 percent of the returning force lost homes, jobs and family in the storm and flooding.

"Had that brigade been at home and not in Iraq, their expertise and capabilities could have been brought to bear," said Blum. (link)

That's only to state the obvious: thousands of more troops available who could have arrived at least a day earlier after Katrina struck. Only the brainwashed would dispute it.

But searching for Saddam's vast stockpiles of WMD takes a lot of time.

What a Great Idea!

Now this inventor is a genius!

South African anti-rape condom aims to stop attacks

KLEINMOND: A South African inventor has unveiled a new anti-rape female condom that hooks onto an attacker's penis and aims to cut one of the highest rates of sexual assault in the world.

"Nothing has ever been done to help a woman so that she does not get raped and I thought it was high time," Sonette Ehlers, 57, said of the "rapes", a device worn like a tampon that has sparked controversy in a country used to daily reports of violent crime.

Police statistics show more than 50,000 rapes are reported every year, while experts say the real figure could be four times that as they say most rapes of acquaintances or children are never reported.

Ehlers said the "rapes" hooks onto the rapists skin, allowing the victim time to escape and helping to identify perpetrators.

"He will obviously be too pre-occupied at this stage," she told reporters in Kleinmond, a small holiday village about 100km east of Cape Town. "I promise you he is going to be too sore. He will go straight to hospital."

The device, made of latex and held firm by shafts of sharp barbs, can only be removed from the man through surgery which will alert hospital staff, and ultimately, the police, she said.

It also reduces the chances of a woman falling pregnant or contracting Aids and other sexually transmitted diseases from the attacker by acting in the same way as a female condom. (link)

Rape is widespread throughout the world and the United States:

According to the FBI's report: Victims and Offenders, UCR Supplement to Incident-Based Data, the statistical victim of sexual assault is white, female, and under 18 years of age. The typical offender is white, male, and over 18 years of age.The Dept. of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics latest annual report notes that:In 2002, 1.8 rapes or sexual assaults occurred to women and .3 to men for each 1000 people over the age of 12.The total number of rapes reported during 2002 remained at about 1.1% at 247,730. This number includes 31,640 men.

Sexual offenses against women were committed by:

• Strangers: 61,000 (28%)
• Intimates/Partners: 21,920 (10%)
• Relatives: 3,850 (2%)
• Friends/acquaintances: 123,850 (57%)
• Unknown: 5,470 (3%)

Sexual offenses against men were committed by:

• Strangers: 15,140 (48%)
• Friends/acquaintances: 16,500 (52%) (source)

Importantly, these statistics only account for reported rapes. The same source indicates that 64% of rapes in the USA go unreported.

Rape and other forms of sexual assault are also highly prevalent during times of war and can serve as part of a military's strategy to intimidate an occupied people into compliance. In some cultures rape can become a form of genocide because the men of the conquered nation won't have sexual relations with women raped by members of the occupied forces.

Ms. Ehlers may have invented a device that could greatly reduce rape throughout the world. I'm thinking a possible Nobel Prize winner....

Public Announcement: Minner Administration (DNREC) Schedules Arsenic "Workshops"

Minner Administration (DNREC) Schedules Arsenic "Workshops"

Proposed levels are double what legislators wanted in SB 68

No public hearings planned:

Kent County, in Dover: Thursday, September 8, 2005 @ 6:00 p.m., DNREC Auditorium, Richardson and Robbins Building, 89 Kings Highway

New Castle County, in New Castle: Wednesday, September 14, 2005 @ 6:00 p.m., DNREC's Lukens Drive Office, 391 Lukens Drive

Sussex County, in Georgetown: Thursday, September 22, 2005 @ 6:00 p.m., Delaware Technical & Community College, Room 529 at the William Carter Partnership Center, Jack F. Owens Campus, Route 18.

(Read more of this important Green Delaware alert here)

Ah, Those Brilliant Moments of Serendipity

If DuPont Volunteers to Fix It, Is the Fix In?

I would love to be the kind of person who automatically trusts a chemical corporation when it volunteers to reduce pollutants. I would also like to believe a government organization that monitors these corporations when it tells me “Not to worry. They really will reduce the pollutants.”

But, then, I would also like to believe that substance-abuse addicts can instantly decide to give up their addictions and sociopaths can will a conscience for themselves into being. It would also be great if there were a Santa Claus.

The problem is that addicts, sociopaths, chemical corporations like DuPont and government organizations like DNREC all have a record, a rather disturbing one in fact, and in some cases one so atrocious it warrants a presumption of doubt. So when DuPont says it will spend 10 million dollars to reduce “dioxins and other toxic or hazardous compounds…by 90 percent” and DNREC says there is no need to read the fine print because you can believe them, then I get suspicious. I get suspicious because DuPont is a repeat offender and DNREC is a lousy probation officer, one that requires a man getting dissolved by acid to rouse anything resembling outrage.

But I really want to believe them. I’d much rather be reading a good book right now than typing up this post and, besides, I happen to live near the DuPont Edge Moor plant that apparently cranks out hundreds of thousands of tons of gunk each year.

But it is precisely because DNREC Secretary Hughes says DuPont can skip the lengthy and thorough Costal Zone Act Review for its proposed pollutant reduction program because a “[DNREC] review found that the proposal would not increase production or pollution at the site” that I say, "Great if it is true, but is it?"

After all, DuPont already has a 16-acre 500,000 toxic pile at the Edge Moor site that it wanted to sell as a “soil substitute”—yes, a soil-substitute—until the Feds declared it bad dirt. And DNREC seems content to just let them cover it up. (link)

It makes me nervous.

Changing the New Changes at WDEL?

Apparently, Not Everyone Wants a Hug

A few days after hurricane Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast, President George Bush visited the devastated region to provide hugs to the victims and accolades to his self on how well his administration is handling the crisis. Bush made another trip a few days afterwards, which was the correct thing to do.

This week he assigned Vice President Cheney to the hug detail, but the architect of the administration’s phony case for invading Iraq soon learned that not everyone wants a hug. During a press conference in Mississippi, a citizen walked up to him and said, "Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney!! Go fuck yourself!!!” (link)

Apparently, the sentiment is catching on. A just released CBS poll reveals that only 38% of Americans approve of President Bush’s handling of the crisis while 58% disapprove. The same poll indicates that the vast majority of Americans believe that the federal government’s, local and state governments’, and FEMA’s responses to Katrina were inadequate. A Zogby poll produced similar results.
____________
Cheney’s reception in Mississippi can be viewed here and here.

Public Announcement: Local Presentation about Palestinian Refugees

Out of Place, Out of Time
Palestinians in a Beirut Refugee Camp
A film by Stefan Markworth

Hosted by Phillip Bannowsky and Joan French
Sponsored by the Phoenix Community in Delaware, Inc.
Sunday, September 18, 2005, 7:00 p.m.
New Ark United Church of Christ Wells Hall, 300 E. Main Street, Newark, Delaware (map)
$5 donation requested. Coffee and dessert will be served

Newark, September 8, 2005—Out of Place, Out of Time, a character-driven documentary by Stefan Markworth about Palestinian Refugees, will be the focus of a forum sponsored by the Phoenix Community in Delaware, Inc. Hosting the discussion will be Phoenix Board members Phillip Bannowsky and Joan French, who taught for two years in Beirut and came to know personally many of individuals featured in the film. The discussion will highlight what the sponsors characterize as the inadequacies of the Israeli settler pullout in Gaza while Israel still occupies Palestine and denies hundreds of thousands of Palestinians access to their land.

Australian film maker Stefan Markworth spent several months with the residents of the Bourj El Barajne Palestinian refugee camp south of Beirut, Lebanon in 2003. Stuck in refugee limbo for over fifty years and forbidden by Lebanon to immigrate or work in any but the most menial jobs, four generations of Palestinians are shown dreaming of careers, marriage, and home.

“The Gaza pullout has been rightly characterized as mere theater.” asserts Bannowsky. “While it demonstrates that the expropriation of Palestinian land can indeed go into reverse, it leaves in place hundreds of thousands of Israelis in illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the continued occupation of Palestine, and the forced exile of the majority of Palestinians. The confusion in the United States regarding Palestinian realities reflects the overall confusion regarding Arabic and Muslim affairs elsewhere, such as in Iraq.” The Bourj el Barajne camp is also featured in Bannowsky’s one-man poetic monologue and slide show, “Arabia and the American Dream,” to be presented by the Philly Fringe at the Ethical Society Building in Philadelphia on September 13 at 8 p.m.

The Phoenix Community has announced other events in its Fall program. In October, the Phoenix Community will be joining with the Delaware A. Philip Randolph Institute to inaugurate a series of discussion among community leaders regarding Liberation Theology. On November 6, Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela will be featured. The December 4 program will present a forum on progressive politics and the Democratic Party.

The Phoenix Community in Delaware, Inc. is an ecumenical ministry with a global perspective since 1954.

Contacts: Phillip Bannowsky, 302-731-2622 (h); 302-981-9941 (m)
Rev. Robert W. Andrews 302-292-1406

Bush to Chavez: We’ll take the gas but nothing to help the victims

Apparently, Bush, an oil man, cannot resist the offer of extra Venezuelan gasoline but will pass on the aid that would directly help Katrina’s victims:

An offer of aid from the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, which included two mobile hospital units, 120 rescue and first aid experts and 50 tonnes of food, has been rejected, according to the civil rights leader, Jesse Jackson.

Mr Jackson said the offer from the Venezuelan leader, whom he recently met, included 10 water purification plants, 18 power generation plants and 20 tonnes of bottled water. (link)

Yes, I repeat, Bush accepted part of Chavez’s offer (the gas) but rejected the rest of his offer (link).

The difference? I believe it is obvious. The gasoline will be sold on the “open [big oil] market,” but the humanitarian aid would be donated (link). Direct humanitarian aid would not further enrich corporate oil elites.

Governor Testosterone Will Veto Homosexual Marriage Bill

Silly me for thinking there could be any good news in America that would positively effect millions of people. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vowed to veto the bill passed by the California Legislature to allow homosexual marriage.

Although the Governor promised to veto the bill, he wanted to reassure his constituents that he likes gays, even knows some personally, but he cannot bring himself to sign into law what Californians have previously rejected by proposition. The Governor didn’t explain how this logic squares with the principle that rights cannot be decided by referendum, a principle that underpins the USA Bill of Rights.

“If only they had passed a bill allowing men to have sex with hot sixteen-year-old babes,” Governor Testosterone said. “Now that I would have signed.”

Censorship Step Two: New Orleans Police Violence Against Reporters

Reporter Tim Harper and photographer Lucas Oleniuk of the Canadian Toronto Star daily were the victims of police violence while covering a clash between police and looters. The police threatened them several times at gunpoint and, when they realised Oleniuk had photographed them hitting looters, they hurled him to the ground, grabbed his two cameras and removed memory cards containing around 350 pictures. His press card was also torn from him. When he asked for his pictures back, the police insulted him and threatened to hit him.

A second incident involved Gordon Russell of the New Orleans-based Times-Picayune daily as he was covering a shoot-out between police and local residents near the convention centre where hurricane victims were awaiting evacuation. The police detained Russell and smashed all of his equipment on the ground. Russell was forced to flee to avoid further violence and reportedly left the city the same day. (link)
___________
Photo unrelated to story. Photo taken in New Orleans. (source)

25,000 Body Bags

What a Difference a Vacation Can Make

Bush’s briefing on Hurricane Isabel.








Bush’s briefing on Hurricane Katrina.





Any questions?

________________
Source: Daily Kos.

Now the Censorship Begins

In a move characteristic of the Bush administration when photo opportunities become inopportune, FEMA has requested that no photographs be taken of the effort to recover Katrina’s dead:

Agency Blocks Photos of Flood Dead

The US Government agency leading the rescue efforts after Hurricane Katrina does not want the news media to take photographs of the dead as they are recovered from the flooded New Orleans area.The Federal Emergency Management Agency, heavily criticised for its slow response to the devastation caused by the hurricane,
rejected requests from journalists to accompany rescue boats as they went out to search for storm victims.

An agency spokeswoman said space was needed on the rescue boats and that "the recovery of the victims is being treated with dignity and the utmost respect".

"We have requested that no photographs of the deceased be made by the media," the spokeswoman said in an e-mailed response to a Reuters inquiry.

The Bush administration also has prevented the news media from photographing flag-draped caskets of US soldiers killed in Iraq, which has sparked criticism that the Government is trying to block images that put the war in a bad light. (link)

Readers would be justifiably skeptical of the administration’s concern for treating the victims with “dignity and the utmost respect” now they are dead when the administration didn’t even possess the elementary compassion to provide them with food, water and a way out of New Orleans while they were alive. It’s more likely that the Bush administration wants to conceal the visual images described by the survivors who witnessed the carnage first-hand:

Michelle Andrews] slept on a 30ft high covered walkway before being rescued by a television crew four days later. "There were dead bodies, including babies, all over the streets and armed looters running around. The smell was awful. It was like a horror movie." (link)

Some estimates place the number of possible dead victims as high as 10,000.

In a blatant effort to manage the political damage for the President and themselves, the Republicans in Congress have vowed to hold Congressional hearings on the response to the catastrophe. In an even more blatant effort bury the political damage, one that could easily cause people to die from laughter, President Bush has vowed to hold and run an investigation himself. Of course, both offers cannot be taken seriously by anyone who has a sliver of objectivity and justice.

Hillary Clinton among others (including WILM’s John Watson today) have called for an independent commission to investigate the rescue and recovery effort, one akin to the 9/11 Commission. Such an investigation might result in a public slap on the hand and the reshuffling of a few government agencies, but it would hardly address issues of justice for thousands dead and their families.

I believe an independent special prosecutor should be appointed because I see no reason why this federal statute doesn’t apply:

a) Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice. It is of two kinds:
Voluntary - Upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion.
Involuntary - In the commission of an unlawful act not amounting to a felony, or in the commission in an unlawful manner, or without due caution and circumspection, of a lawful act which might produce death.

(b) Within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States,

Whoever is guilty of voluntary manslaughter, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both;

Whoever is guilty of involuntary manslaughter, shall be fined
under this title or imprisoned not more than six years, or both. (emphasis mine) (link)

It’s Bush’s Fault

I know, I know, it’s not politically correct to hold President Bush responsible for the operations of his administration and his own actions. Call me a sinner or un-American if you must, but I state unequivocally that the responsibility for the inept and lazy response to the devastation in New Orleans rests squarely on the shoulders of George Bush and his administration.

The latest revelation is that FEMA head Michel Brown waited 5 hours after Katrina struck before he requested that FEMA workers be sent to the area and he wanted to wait two days before the FEMA workers would arrive:

Internal documents which came to light on Tuesday reveal that Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown waited until about five hours after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast before he asked his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security workers to support rescuers in the region. Brown, in asking Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff to have workers sent to the hurricane zone, is also said to have given the workers two days to arrive. (link)

That’s scandalous, of course, but it is largely irrelevant. The real scandal is that, as a part of his declaration of a Federal Emergency for Louisiana, George Bush ordered Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency three days before Katrina struck to “coordinate all disaster relief efforts” in Louisiana. The evidence is posted on the White House’s website:

Statement on Federal Emergency Assistance for Louisiana

The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing.

The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures…

Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent Federal funding. (link)

The President’s call upon the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) follows from the new National Response Plan (NRP) issued in December 2004, which became effective March 1, 2005. As the DHS website unmistakably delineates, “natural disasters” fall squarely within the bailiwick of DHS’ responsibility:

In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort. (emphasis mine) (link)

The NRP talks of “Incidents of National Significance” for which DHS is responsible to “prepare for,” “respond to,” and “recover from”:

When an incident or potential incident is of such severity, magnitude, and/or complexity that it is considered an Incident of National Significance, the Secretary of Homeland Security initiates actions to prepare for, respond to, and recover from the incident." (NHP, p. 15)

Clearly, Bush’s “Statement of a Federal Emergency,” issued 3 days in advance of Katrina making landfall was an “Incident of National Significance” that DHS & FEMA were responsible to “prepare for” and “respond to.” “Respond to” isn’t merely an after-incident designation. It especially means a proactive response. Under the section entitled “Proactive Federal Response to Catastrophic Events,” the NHP states:

The NRP establishes policies, procedures, and mechanisms for proactive Federal response to catastrophic events. A catastrophic event is any natural or manmade incident, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, and/or government functions. A catastrophic event could result in sustained national impacts over a prolonged period of time; almost immediately exceeds resources normally available to State, local, tribal, and private-sector authorities in the impacted area; and significantly interrupts governmental operations and emergency services to such an extent that national security could be threatened. All catastrophic events are Incidents of National Significance. (NHP, p. 43)

While the nation debates if FEMA head Michael Brown or DHS Secretary Chertoff should be fired, the NHP clearly identifies the person responsible for “ensuring” that a quick response occurs:

The President leads the Nation in responding efficiently and ensuring the necessary resources are applied quickly and effectively to all Incidents of National Significance." (NHP, p. 15)

At a minimum, George Bush needs to be impeached.

Finally! California Passes Bill Permitting Homosexual Marriages!

Finally, some good news. The California Legislature votes to EXPAND human rights in California:

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 6 - California lawmakers on Tuesday became the first in the country to legalize same-sex marriage, with the State Assembly narrowly approving a bill that defines marriage as between "two persons" instead of between a man and a woman.

Unlike Massachusetts, where gay men and lesbians are permitted to marry because of court rulings, the legislators in California voted to amend the state's family code without the threat of legal action.

"Do what we know is in our hearts," Assemblyman Mark Leno, an openly gay Democrat from San Francisco who sponsored the bill, said Tuesday night in a debate on the bill. "Make sure all Californians, all California's children and families, will have equal protection under the law." (link)

But will Governor Testosterone sign the bill? The signals are mixed:

The measure now goes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, who has supported domestic partnership legislation in the past but has not taken a public position on the marriage bill.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Schwarzenegger, Margita Thompson, said after the vote that the governor believed that the issue of same-sex marriage should be settled by the courts, not legislators, but she did not indicate whether that meant he would veto the legislation. The bill did not pass with enough votes to override a veto.

"The governor will uphold whatever the court decides," Ms. Thompson said. (link)

But Arnie might as well sign the bill. His abysmal performance as Governor has shrunk his approval ratings to his Republican base, which is 1 supporter out of 3 (link). A legacy of expanding civil rights would somewhat redeem the history of this almost certain one-time Governor.

Delaware Organizations Calls for Removal of DSWA Head N.C. Vasuki

RELEASE FROM: Green Delaware, Environmentalists for Truth, Cragmere Civic Association, and others

PRESS CONFERENCE: Wednesday, September 7, 2005, 10:30 a.m.

WHERE: 1308 N. Rodney Street, Wilmington, Delaware

WHAT: Delaware celebrates the Global Day of Action against incineration by calling for the removal of N.C. Vasuki, head of the Delaware Solid Waste Authority since 1975.

Delaware is known for having some of the strongest laws in the world to protect its citizens from the harm inevitably caused by incineration. These laws were passed over the opposition of the Delaware Solid Waste Authority (DSWA).

A garbage incinerator built in the late 1980s for the DSWA--at Pigeon Point near Wilmington--was one of the highest-polluting garbage burners ever built anywhere.

But the DSWA is campaigning for yet another incinerator, while refusing to implement real "zero waste" programs, let alone basic recycling.

The DSWA promotes this illegal and toxic technology on its web site, and has it's PR man, Sam Waltz, send in bogus "public comment" letters to Delaware environmental regulators promoting incineration.

Vasuki, CEO of the Dirty Solid Waste Authority since 1975 is an incurable incinerator promoter. We believe Delaware will never complete a journey towards sound waste management as long as the Dirty Authority uses it's considerable resources to poison the waters of discussion and policy-making about waste.

We invite all individuals and organizations to join the call for "recycling Vasuki."
Email greendel@dca.net or call 302.834.3466.

All are invited to attend the Sept 7 press conference.

Barbara Bush on the Poor

According to some psychologists, an indicator of good mental health is the tendency to view the failings of others not as deliberate and malicious but as the actions of persons who tried their best however limited:

Barbara Bush…said the relocation to Houston is "working very well" for some of the poor people forced out of New Orleans.

"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality," she said during a radio interview with the American Public Media program "Marketplace." "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." (link)

Perhaps George Jr. got it honestly. Perhaps his flyover before his golf outing the next day and his sloth in helping the “underprivileged” in New Orleans are the best he can do.

Perhaps. But George Bush’s best is not nearly good enough for a President.

Disaster as Photo-Op

Why did the federal government wait so long to get involved in the rescue efforts for Katrina? One theory is Karl Roove used one of his best stunts from his playbook, but it miscarried with Katrina. With Bush’s approval ratings sagging before Katrina hit, the theory suggests, Rove recommended the delay so that the scenes of suffering would trickle in and then Bush would swoop in carrying relief in his angelic wings. The public was then supposed to respond with recollections of the heroic Bush astride the rubble of the twin towers after 9/11. Bush’s poll numbers would then soar to Olympian heights. The only problem? Everyone in the twin towers were most likely dead. But the people in New Orleans were still alive but their lives were imperiled.

Of course, the theory is speculative but it does describe the kind of person who thinks purely in terms of political advantage. Lacking empathy, the “factor” of public concern and outrage about stranded, endangered human beings wouldn’t occur to such a person.

Now some evidence is emerging that supports the theory:

In a press release issued Saturday, September 3rd, 2005, Democratic Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana claims that President Bush staged a photo opportunity, at the breached 17th Street levee, by having equipment quickly moved into the background during the event. Senator Landrieu says the equipment was dispersed elsewhere the next day. Landrieu says in her press release, " ... 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 ..." The President and Senator Landrieu toured the 17th Street levee on Friday, and held the photo-op. Senator Landrieu said she believed the repair effort was legitimate, at that time. Less than 24 hours later, she discovered only "one lonely crane" working on the site, while giving an aerial tour for ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos. A video of her tearful comments, during that tour, has been circulating around the internet (WMV). (link)

Shocking. Just shocking.

Public Announcement: Protest Today at Fox Point State Park

WHO: Delaware Citizens for Clean Air & Green Delaware
WHAT: Protest at Fox Point State Park
WHEN: Tuesday, September 6, 2005, 10:00 a.m.
WHY: Fox Point state park is located next to one of the worst toxic hotspots of Delaware: The DuPont Edge Moor titanium dioxide plant. This site probably contains the worlds greatest dioxin waste accumulation. Fox Point park is also near the Conectiv Edge Moor Power Plant, the Cherry Island Garbage Dump, the Wilmington sewage treatment plant, and an asphalt shingle plant.

The park itself is built on toxic waste covered over with a "membrane" and some soil.

CONTACT: Jake Kreshtool, Delaware Citizens for Clean Air, 302.764.3619
Alan Muller, Green Delaware, 302.834.3466

Today's event will focus on the Dangers of the DuPont plant and the irresponsibility of DuPont in refusing to clean up the Dioxin Pile.

The groups are urging the public NOT to use the part but to use other state parks.
All citizens are invited to attend and show their concern.

Signs will include:

GOV. MINNER'S CHOICE: HUMAN HEALTH AND SAFETY OR LOWER COST PRODUCTION

REP. MCWILLIAMS SAYS: "LETS STUDY IT SOME MORE"

DEADLY CHEMICALS IN FOX POINT AREA

PLEASE TRY A DIFFERENT STATE PARK

DUPONT STOCKHOLDERS: AREN'T YOUR NEIGHBOR'S LIVES WORTH 38 CENTS A SHARE?

HEALTH ADVISORY AHEAD

IN FOX POINT AREA: RADIOACTIVE URANIUM, RADIOACTIVE THORIUM, DIOXINS, ARSENIC, PCB'S–HEXACHLOROBENZENE

41000 POUNDS OF TOXIC DUST BLOWN INTO OUR AIR EACH YEAR

SUGGEST YOU DON'T INHALE UNTIL YOU PASS THE PAVILIONS

EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CHEMICAL PILES IN AREA!

Green Delaware is a community based organization working on environment and public health issues. We try to provide information you can use. Please use it.

Do you want to continue receiving information from Green Delaware? Please consider contributing or volunteering. Reach us at 302.834.3466, greendel@dca.net, www.greendel.org, Box 69, Port Penn, DE, USA, 19731-0069

Canadian Mounties Arrive in Parts of New Orleans Ahead of US National Guard

More evidence of USA lethargy in rescuing persons trapped in New Orleans:

Sheriff Stephens, interviewed on the Cajun Queen, also said federal assistance had been minimal. "I have Royal Canadian Mounties who have gotten here faster than the federal government," he said. "I have made more life-and-death decisions in the last four or five days than I have in 22 years."

The Canadians were actually members of a 47-member search-and-rescue team sent from the municipal government in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Its members have gone from house to house, extracting survivors who have weathered the storm and its bitter aftermath. (link)

* * *

One thing I’ve noticed in the photographs of the New Orleans victims. Most of the few white persons stranded in the city were elderly. I wondered if many of them resided in nursing homes. One tragic story about this has already emerged:

According to the three men who run the [Bernard Parish]--the parish president, the sheriff and the fire chief, who said they saw it themselves--hundreds of residents were killed, including 31 found in a nursing home. (link)

* * *

It appears that the poorest areas in New Orleans are being neglected by the rescuers:

JOHN HAMILTON: I'll tell you, Juan, I saw an awful lot of boots on the ground in terms of National Guard. I saw guns in the air. I'll tell you what I didn't see. I didn't see looting. I didn't see violence. I didn't see rapes occurring. I'm not going to say that these acts and these events didn't occur, but we certainly didn't see any the entire time we were in New Orleans. We made it all the way downtown through all the looded areas, all around the city.It's my sense, Juan, that the news media reports about violence and looting, and sometimes couched in racist terms, has led to a situation where rescue operators are unwilling to go into areas of the city which are in dire need of rescuers. I'm thinking of areas like the Ninth Ward, the poorest and blackest area of New Orleans. Now, after Sharif and I went to the airport, we traveled as far east as we could. We made it as far as the 17th street canal, which separates Jefferson Parish from Orleans Parish, beyond which is completely flooded. We looked at the homes there, first story homes barely had rooftops above the water line. Second story homes were like first story homes. It was a bizarre version of Venice, Italy. I traveled on boat with four volunteers who were rescuing people. I expected to find a massive operation pulling people -- this was Saturday. Pulling people still out of their homes, trapped in attics. What I saw from the federal government was a grand total of three boats, border patrol agents on three boats. Two air boats and one flat bottom boot. I saw far more of a response from citizens who had just taken it upon themselves to go and pluck people out of their homes. They plucked about a dozen out on Saturday. We heard report of 40 more people in their homes. (link)

Progressive Radio Broadcast Tonight:The State of Workers in DE

Join us Monday from 7:00 to 8:00 P.M. on WVUD, 91.3 FM Newark, Delaware. (http://www.wvud.org/)

From anywhere in he world you can listen on line at http://www.wvud.org/listen_online.htm.
Email questions and comments to pvoices@gmail.com.

We read emails during the show and respond if possible.

Our guests Monday, Sept. 5, 2005, will be John Kowalko and Martha Denison.

Kowalko is a member of the International Association of Machinists and was recently a candidate for the Delaware House of Representatives. He has articulated "progressive" views on a variety of issues.

Denison has been president of her union local and has been active for many years in union and Democratic Party politics. She has worked with Green Delaware on many environmental issues including sewage dumping and incineration.

Background:

The first Monday in November has been celebrated in the U.S. as "Labor Day" since the 1880s. (Most of the world celebrates the "labor movement" on May Day (May 1st)).

Everybody seems to agree that organized labor (unions) is in crisis in the United States. The percentage of workers who are "organized" (belong to unions) is only about one-third of what it was several decades ago. The political power of unions has, on the national scene, greatly declined.

Inequality of income is growing--the rich get richer and the rest of us have a lower proportion of the national wealth.

The Bush administration is openly the servant of corporations and the rich.

But, many working-class people support Bush, seemingly against their own interests.
Unions in Delaware try to maintain and increase their members' earnings, but are rarely visible as supporters of democracy, a clean environment, freedom of speech, and other positive values.
Some previous Labor Day messages from Green Delaware:

http://www.greendel.org/item.xhtml?name=article_labor2000 (2000)

http://www.greendel.org/item.xhtml?name=newsletter_0028

http://www.greendel.org/item.xhtml?name=newsletter_0039 (2001)

What underlies all this? WHY is the US labor movement in decline? Does it really matter to the general public? What roles to unions play in Delaware politics? We'll see what Kowalko and Denison have to say......

Progressive Voices stays at one hour.

Our hosts, WVUD, have decided that Progressive Voices and other "public affairs" programs will continue to have one hour. Thanks to all those who shared their views on this with WVUD. An email from a WVUD official stated:

"Our Public Affairs shows have been rapidly gaining steam recently, and it is my belief that we should not hold them back. We've seen huge increases in listener response as well as recognition from activists, both well-known and local, from all over the country that deal with issues that radio stations owned by corporations (like Clear Channel) cannot express"

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

On Progressive Voices you hear from people who believe in democracy, a healthy environment, the right to organize, peace, and other "progressive" values.

If you are interested in appearing on Progressive Voices contact Alan Muller at 302.834.3466, amuller@dca.net, or Marian Peleski, msmarian@comcast.net

Feedback on the show is also welcome.

Green Delaware is a community based organization working on environment and public health issues. We try to provide information you can use. Please use it. Do you want to continue receiving information from Green Delaware? Please consider contributing or volunteering. Reach us at 302.834.3466, greendel@dca.net, www.greendel.org, Box 69, Port Penn, DE, USA, 19731-0069

New Orleans Hospital Forced to Kill Patient

Decision to end a life in city of woe

ARRIVING in New Orleans last Sunday, I have spent a week reporting the unfolding misery and ruined lives in the aftermath of the hurricane.

But nothing, in the plethora of grim tales of disaster, compares with a terrible incident recounted to me as the week drew to a close. There was a 380-pound man stranded on the seventh floor of a New Orleans hospital. Unable to get him down five flights of stairs to the second-floor exit, through which other patients were being evacuated onto rescue boats to escape the rising floodwater, a female manager took a shocking decision. She ordered that he be given euthanasia.

A bearded, middle-aged doctor, who is still wearing his green hospital garb, tells me the sad story as he and his colleagues sit at the muddy, squalid refugee-receiving post on New Orleans' I10 Highway. He does not want to give me his name and will not identify the patient out of respect.

But he wants people to know what happened in there. His lower jaw quivers as he recalls the events of Wednesday night.

"We had minutes to get out, and I asked, 'What are we going to do about this guy, because he's a big man. It was going to be tough getting him down those stairs - the elevators weren't working. That woman turned to me and said straight out, 'We're going to help him to heaven'. It makes me want to break down, how that man's life was taken away." (link)

Public Announcement: PAL Center Seeking Donations for Katrina Victims

We all want to help in whatever way we can the horrific tragedy in New Orleans. Under the leadership of Charles Potter Jr, there is something we can all do. Bring canned food, baby formula, womens personals, toothpaste/brushes, soap, whatever that can be boxed up for transport to:

The Pal Center
28th & North Market Street (see map here)

TIME: Sunday evening until 8:00 pm & Monday fromt 8:30 am - 8:00 pm.

Types of Items Needed: Flashlights, batteries, baby items, canned food, bedding, women’s personal items, small toys/books.

Please spread the word to all your friends, neighbors organizations to help get these basic essentials to New Orleans.

Tune in today from 12:00 to 1:00 Channel 28 the Charles Potter tv show for more updates...

Get on the phone call your church, your neighborhood planning councils, call everyone you know to help us in this endeavor.

If you live outside Wilmington, and want to start something...do so...find a church in your community to collect items, and we will get a truck to pick them up....help, help!

There Are Thousands of Cindy Sheehans Now

90 Days: The Limit of USA Capitalism’s Generosity

In a move that will undoubtedly be hailed as a sterling example of the magnanimity of USA capitalism, some banks and finance companies are offering the victims of hurricane Katrina 90 days before they need to pay up:

With tens of thousands of homeowners in four states displaced by Hurricane Katrina, some banks and finance companies are allowing customers to forgo monthly mortgage payments for 90 days without incurring late fees or other penalties.

This forbearance, as the industry calls it, is also being extended by some banks to home equity lines, credit card balances and student and auto loans. (link)

Some obvious questions:

• Since places of employment were annihilated as well as homes, where will these people be working in 90 days to pay on their loans?

• Since some estimates place the date at as much as 2 months before the waters in New Orleans can be pumped from the streets before the long and arduous process of rebuilding the city can begin in earnest, will the people of New Orleans even realistically be in their homes and at their places of employment in 90 days since problems of vital infrastructure will remain like electricity, clean water, and a functioning sewage system?

• Even though USA construction companies are astonishingly quick at building new homes, homes and places of businesses in Mississippi and in small coastal cities have been reduced to their foundations by the thousands. Is it realistic to believe that most of these structures can be rebuilt within 90 days?

I believe the real reason that lending institutions are making this illusory display of generosity is because they are sweating Rep. John Conyers bill to alter the recently passed “Bankruptcy Abuse and Consumer Protection Act”:

When Congress passed a controversial bankruptcy bill back in April, it did not approve a proposed amendment that would have made it easier victims of natural disaster to gain protection from creditors. Now, in the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, some lawmakers will ask their colleagues to reconsider….

The Bankruptcy Abuse and Consumer Protection Act, which passed earlier this year, came under intense fire from advocates for low-income people because of provisions that will make it harder for the heavily-indebted to find debt relief through bankruptcy. The legislation, which takes effect in October, will force some debtors to set up a repayment plan, instead of having their debt wiped away. The Act was heavily supported by the credit card industry, which, according to the government watchdog group Center for Responsive Politics, spent more than $40 million in political fundraising and lobbying for the changes. (link)

Now legislators who supported this bill have political cover. They can claim that changing the bankruptcy bill isn’t necessary because the victims of Katrina have been given 90 days forbearance.

Delaware’s federal legislators Castle, Biden and Carper voted for the Bankruptcy Abuse and Consumer Protection Act.
_____________
See also here.

The Unfeeling President

The Unfeeling President

By E.L. Doctorow

I fault this president for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer the death of our 21-year-olds who wanted to be what they could be. On the eve of D-Day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could bear.

But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the weapons of mass destruction he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man.

He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the 1,000 dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be.
They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or wives and children who will suffer to the end of their days a terribly torn fabric of familial relationships and the inconsolable remembrance of aborted life . . . they come to his desk as a political liability, which is why the press is not permitted to photograph the arrival of their coffins from Iraq.

How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets nothing. He does not regret that his reason for going to war was, as he knew, unsubstantiated by the facts. He does not regret that his bungled plan for the war's aftermath has made of his mission-accomplished a disaster. He does not regret that, rather than controlling terrorism, his war in Iraq has licensed it. So he never mourns for the dead and crippled youngsters who have fought this war of his choice.

He wanted to go to war and he did. He had not the mind to perceive the costs of war, or to listen to those who knew those costs. He did not understand that you do not go to war when it is one of the options but when it is the only option; you go not because you want to but because you have to.
Yet this president knew it would be difficult for Americans not to cheer the overthrow of a foreign dictator. He knew that much. This president and his supporters would seem to have a mind for only one thing -- to take power, to remain in power, and to use that power for the sake of themselves and their friends.

A war will do that as well as anything. You become a wartime leader. The country gets behind you. Dissent becomes inappropriate. And so he does not drop to his knees, he is not contrite, he does not sit in the church with the grieving parents and wives and children. He is the president who does not feel. He does not feel for the families of the dead, he does not feel for the 35 million of us who live in poverty, he does not feel for the 40 percent who cannot afford health insurance, he does not feel for the miners whose lungs are turning black or for the working people he has deprived of the chance to work overtime at time-and-a-half to pay their bills - it is amazing for how many people in this country this president does not feel.

But he will dissemble feeling. He will say in all sincerity he is relieving the wealthiest 1 percent of the population of their tax burden for the sake of the rest of us, and that he is polluting the air we breathe for the sake of our economy, and that he is decreasing the quality of air in coal mines to save the coal miners' jobs, and that he is depriving workers of their time-and-a-half benefits for overtime because this is actually a way to honor them by raising them into the professional class.

And this litany of lies he will versify with reverences for God and the flag and democracy, when just what he and his party are doing to our democracy is choking the life out of it.

But there is one more terribly sad thing about all of this. I remember the millions of people here and around the world who marched against the war. It was extraordinary, that spontaneous aroused oversoul of alarm and protest that transcended national borders. Why did it happen? After all, this was not the only war anyone had ever seen coming. There are little wars all over he world most of the time.

But the cry of protest was the appalled understanding of millions of people that America was ceding its role as the last best hope of mankind. It was their perception that the classic archetype of democracy was morphing into a rogue nation. The greatest democratic republic in history was turning its back on the future, using its extraordinary power and standing not to advance the ideal of a concordance of civilizations but to endorse the kind of tribal combat that originated with the Neanderthals, a people, now extinct, who could imagine ensuring their survival by no other means than pre-emptive war.

The president we get is the country we get. With each president the nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our malleable national soul. He proposes not only the laws but the kinds of lawlessness that govern our lives and invoke our responses. The people he appoints are cast in his image. The trouble they get into and get us into, is his characteristic trouble.

Finally, the media amplify his character into our moral weather report. He becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail. How can we sustain ourselves as the United States of America given the stupid and ineffective warmaking, the constitutionally insensitive lawgiving, and the monarchal economics of this president? He cannot mourn but is a figure of such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves.
___________

E.L. Doctorow is a novelist.

This article was sent to me by GreenDel.

If Only George Bush were a Communist

If only George Bush were a communist, then perhaps he would care more for the American people:

China evacuates 600,000 as typhoon nears

September 1, 2005 - 11:40AM

Nearly 600,000 people have been evacuated as Typhoon Talim, packing winds of up to 185 kilometres per hour, heads for southern China.

Authorities issued a top-level "black alarm" as heavy rain and moderate gales swept through Fujian province's capital, Fuzhou.

A total of 286,000 people were evacuated in the province, and rescue teams were standing by for emergencies, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Just to the north in Zhejiang province, more than 291,000 people were moved away from the coastline, rivers, ageing reservoirs, mountain villages and dilapidated housing, according to the official China News Service. (link)

Let’s review the salient details for those who fantasize about the inerrant goodness of the USA government and its leader George Bush. China took the following steps as its hurricane approached:

1. It evacuated people (600,000 of them) before the hurricane made landfall.
.
2. Rescue teams were standing by before the hurricane made landfall.

Are you getting this yet, wingnuts? This is what you do when you care for people in your country.

New Orleans Burns and FEMA Ignores Offers to Help

From The Times-Picayune:

Forest Service offers planes to help fight fires

The Forest Service has offered fixed plane aircraft used to fight forest fires to help extinguish blazes in New Orleans, according to two congressional sources. But the sources said the planes, which can pour large amounts of water on fires, remained grounded in Missouri Friday because the Department of Homeland Security hasn’t authorized their use. The department is overseeing federal hurricane relief and rescue operations."We’ve been asking them to request that the planes be used, but nothing has happened,” said one of the two congressional sources, both of whom asked to remain anonymous. The planes were offered by the Forest Service because of news reports that firefighters in New Orleans lacked adequate water pressure to fight a number of fires in the city.There was no immediate comment from the Forest Service, which is part of the Agriculture Department, or the Department of Homeland Security. (link)

House Speaker Hastert Might Permanently Cancel Mardi Gras

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Dennis Hastert dropped a bombshell on flood-ravaged New Orleans on Thursday by suggesting that it isn’t sensible to rebuild the city."It doesn't make sense to me," Hastert told the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago in editions published today. "And it's a question that certainly we should ask." …

Hastert said that he supports an emergency bailout, but raised questions about a long-term rebuilding effort. As the most powerful voice in the Republican-controlled House, Hastert is in a position to block any legislation that he opposes."We help replace, we help relieve disaster," Hastert said. "But I think federal insurance and everything that goes along with it... we ought to take a second look at that." (link)

“For advocating the annihilation of New Orleans on a Biblical scale, House Speaker Hastert has won a free lifetime membership in the Christian Coalition,” said Christian Coalition spokesperson Pat Robertson.

Katrina by the Numbers: It’s About the Oil Stupid

I heard the leftwing pundits mention it last night, but I wasn’t sure I believed it. It appears, however, it is true. During President Bush’s statement introducing the role that former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton will play in the disaster relief, President Bush spent more sustained time speaking about the impact of Katrina on oil production and delivery than on the human beings killed, dying, stranded and starving as a result of the deadly hurricane. The transcript of the President’s remarks can be found here.

As I look at the transcript, the longest sustained sequence Bush spent on the human crisis began with “Our first priority, of course, is to save lives” and ended with “We're working hard to restore electric power, repair transportation infrastructure, restart energy production, and of course, strategize as to how to provide housing for these folks.” The longest sustained sequence he spent on oil production and delivery began with “And finally, we're moving forward with a comprehensive recovery strategy” and ended with “Don't buy gas if you don't need it.”

Those two sequences total exactly 700 words. Therefore, on my reading, Bush’s sequence on the human crisis totaled 289 words, whereas his sequence on the “oil crisis” totaled 411 words. That means 70% of these two sequences was focused on oil production and delivery and 30% was focused on dead and desperate USA citizens.

I find his real priorities to be unspeakably appalling.

Public Announcement: Two Weekly Peace Vigils Held in New Castle County

Each Friday from 5:00 PM - 6:00PM a peace vigil is held in Newark DE.  The peace vigil is held at the entrance to Old College at the intersection of Main Street and South College Avenue (get map here).

 

All are welcome and participants are encouraged to bring signs if they can. 

 

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The second peace vigil is sponsored Delaware Pacem in Terris.  It is also held each Friday from 5:00 PM - 6:00PM.  It is located in Wilmington DE, specifically at Delaware Ave near Trinity Episcopal Church and the I-95 overpass (get map here).

 

All are welcome.

Friendly Advice for WDEL

Comparing Clinton and Bush on Hurricane Disaster Management

Let me say at the outset I am not a fan of President Clinton.  I didn’t vote for him in 1996.  I campaigned for Jerry Brown in 1990 and I voted for Ralph Nader in the general election in1996.  But there is considerable right-wing misinformation about trying to circumvent the criticism Bush deserves about his mismanagement of the aftermath of Katrina.

 

One bit of misinformation spread by the right is that Bush couldn’t have possibly evacuated the people of New Orleans and other effected areas in the Gulf coast region.  Let’s test that claim against President Clinton’s performance when Hurricane Floyd was bearing down on the coastlines of the Carolinas Georgia and Northern Florida in September of 1999:

 

One of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic has battered the Bahamas and is poised to strike the east coast of the United States between North and South Carolina.

 

President Clinton has described the evacuation of two million people in the region as "the largest peace-time evacuation in our history".

 

Those residents who have stayed - from Florida up to New England - have been preparing for the potentially devastating effects of Hurricane Floyd's 125mph (200km/h) winds.

 

Mr Clinton - who cut short a trip to New Zealand - has declared a federal state of emergency in the Carolinas as well as Florida and Georgia. (link)`

 

Although Floyd swerved at the last moment and skirted the coastline, the evacuation order was made well in advance of the hurricane’s expected landfall.  In fact, the evacuation was “the largest peacetime evacuation ever in the U.S., with millions fleeing from coastal areas in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas” (link).”

 

Did Bush order an evacuation because of Katrina, a storm that was more powerful than Floyd?  No, it was the New Orleans Mayor:

 

At a news conference 10 a.m. on August 28, shortly after Katrina was upgraded to a Category 5 storm, New Orleans mayor C. Ray Nagin, calling Katrina "a storm that most of us have long feared", ordered the first ever mandatory evacuation of the city. He established several "refuges of last resort" for citizens who could not leave the city, including the massive Louisiana Superdome, which housed over 9,000 people along with 550 National Guard troops when Katrina came ashore. (link)

 

No further comment is necessary.

 

How Biden, Carper and Castle will have Harmed the Victims of Katrina

New Orleans Refugees are Being Turned Away at the Astrodome

It broke on CNN, but was reported here. The refugees sent on buses from New Orleans to the Astrodome are now being turned away from the Astrodome. The Astrodome had agreed to take 24,000 refugees but now refuses to take more than 10,000.

Is this the example of good planning for the relief effort that Bush and his sheeple have boasted about?

“Shoot and Kill”: Widespread "Sanctioned" Murder is Possible in New Orleans

In breaking news certain to please WILM’s local reactionary talking head John Watson, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco has given National Guard troops "shoot and kill" orders for looters. In fact, Governor Blanco fully anticipates that the troops will kill looters:

Announcing the arrival of 300 Arkansas National Guard troops in New Orleans fresh from service in Iraq, Blanco said, "these troops are battle-tested. They have M-16s and are locked and loaded."

"These troops know how to shoot and kill and I expect they will," she said. (link)

Blanco’s insidious orders follow a day in which many New Orleans Police Officers have quit their jobs:

Despair is also affecting those in New Orleans charged with protecting the city, said State Police Superintendent Col. H.L. Whitehorn.

Some New Orleans police officers have resigned rather than face the violence in the city.

"It's my understanding those who have resigned said they have lost everything and it's not worth being shot at and losing their lives," Whitehorn said. (link)

Clearly, the lack of preparation by both state and federal authorities for the probable aftermath of Katrina have resulted in a situation where it has lost control and the government now intends to resort possible mass murder to restore order.

Blanco’s order to shoot and kill looters is the practical application of President Bush’s “zero tolerance” policy for looters announced earlier today. Bush’s policy for American looters contrasts with his policy for Iraqi looters after Baghdad fell to USA invading forces:

Declaring that freedom is "untidy," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday the looting in Iraq was a result of "pent-up feelings" of oppression and that it would subside as Iraqis adjusted to life without Saddam Hussein. (link)

One cannot help but note that the New Orleans looters tend to be a few shades darker than were the Iraqi looters.

Perhaps it’s time for the American people to realize that their pent-up feelings of alarm and oppression would subside without George Bush.