|
|||
Proudly afflicting the comfortable [and collecting shiny things] since 2003 | |||
Send Magpie an email! RSS Feeds Click button to subscribe. Need a password? Click the button! Cost of the Iraq War [US$] (JavaScript Error)
[Find out more here]BLOGS WE LIKE 3quarksdaily New! Alas, a Blog alphabitch Back to Iraq Baghdad Burning Bitch Ph.D. blac (k) ademic Blogs by Women Body and Soul BOPNews Broadsheet Burnt Orange Report Confined Space Cursor Daily Kos Dangereuse trilingue Daou Report Echidne of the Snakes Effect Measure Eschaton (Atrios) fafblog feministe Feministing Firedoglake Follow Me Here gendergeek General Glut's Globlog Gordon.Coale I Blame the Patriarchy Juan Cole/Informed Comment Kicking Ass The King's Blog Left Coaster librarian.net Making Light Marian's Blog mediagirl Muslim Wake Up! Blog My Left Wing NathanNewman.org New Pages NewsHog The Next Left Null Device On Topic with Doug Krile New! Open Source Politics Orcinus Pacific Views Pandagon The Panda's Thumb Pedantry Peking Duck Philobiblon Pinko Feminist Hellcat Political Animal Reality-Based Community Riba Rambles The Rittenhouse Review Road to Surfdom Romenesko Ruminate This SCOTUSblog The Sideshow Sisyphus Shrugged skippy Suburban Guerrilla Talk Left Talking Points Memo TAPPED This Modern World veiled4allah Wampum War and Piece New! Whiskey Bar (Billmon) wood s lot xymphora MISSING IN ACTION General Glut's Globlog Little Red Cookbook Respectful of Otters WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE? Magpie is a former journalist, attempted historian [No, you can't ask how her thesis is going], and full-time corvid of the lesbian persuasion. She keeps herself in birdseed by writing those bad computer manuals that you toss out without bothering to read them. She also blogs too much when she's not on deadline, both here and at Pacific Views. Magpie roosts in Portland, Oregon, where she annoys her housemates (as well as her cats Medea, Whiskers, and Jane Doe) by attempting to play Irish music on the fiddle and concertina. If you like, you can send Magpie an email! WHO LINKS TO MAGPIE? Ask Technorati. Or ask WhoLinksToMe.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
Saturday, September 3
US Chief Justice William Rehnquist dead at 80.
Rehnquist's death gives Dubya another Supreme Court opening to fill. The NY Times article on his death is here. | | Posted by Magpie at 10:30 PM | Get permalink
This Dubya photo-op about takes the cake.
It beats out his strutting around in that flight suit by miles. Check out this excerpt from a press release by US senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, which we found here, on the website for KTAL television: But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast black and white, rich and poor, young and old deserve far better from their national government. Landrieu also laid into Dubya for not yet having appointed a cabinet-level official to oversee Katrina relief and recovery work, and blasted FEMA for refusing yet more offers of aid: I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate significant numbers of victims far more efficiently than buses FEMA again dragged its feet. Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency. For more FEMA incompetency, see this earlier post. | | Posted by Magpie at 5:05 PM | Get permalink
Who's doing and who's out to lunch.
Over at our other roost, Natasha presents the results of her Saturday project: This afternoon, I decided to see how the most prominent of my local public and corporate citizens are stacking up on showing a bare minimum of compassion. The test? Considering that it's a Saturday and I spend a lot of time online, I went looking for mentions of this disaster and links to relief organizations on their websites. It's very literally, the absolute least anyone with an internet presence can offer. The list resulting from Natasha's research is interesting, to say the least. For example, several members of Washington's congressional delegation don't seem to have been paying attention to the news lately. Via Pacific Views. | | Posted by Magpie at 5:01 PM | Get permalink
If you're still wondering ...
... about the connection between the Iraq war and the piss-poor response to Hurricane Katrina, a look at this clutchful of background articles compiled by the Project on Defense Alternatives should clear things up considerably. Via BOPNews. | | Posted by Magpie at 4:51 PM | Get permalink
Some good news from New Orleans.
AP reports that the last of the people sheltering at the Superdome have been evacuated | | Posted by Magpie at 4:43 PM | Get permalink
This goes way beyond incompetence.
The feds are flirting with criminal neglect as they continue to refuse offers of aid for the Gulf Coast disaster area, both from within the US and from abroad. First, we see that FEMA has refused firefighting and police assistance from Chicago: Frustration about the federal response to Hurricane Katrina has reached Chicago City Hall, as Mayor Richard Daley today noted a tepid response by federal officials to the city's offers of disaster aid. Daley's remarks came on the same day that secretary of state Condoleezza Rice had only lame excuses when pressed by reporters for a reason why the US had not (as of Thursday) accepted any of the numerous offers of disaster aid from other countries. If you read the transcript of her Thursday press conference, you'll see that the reasons rice offered boiled down to 'The proper bureaucratic rules need to be followed.' | | Posted by Magpie at 4:26 PM | Get permalink
Dubya and Katrina.
A view from the Lebanese press: Via BeirutSpring.com and The Sideshow. | | Posted by Magpie at 10:26 AM | Get permalink
Why hasn't the Red Cross been helping people in New Orleans?
Rivka explains. | | Posted by Magpie at 10:21 AM | Get permalink
Can we say 'complacent'?
Dubya administration officials say that the US economy will not be badly affected by Hurricane Katrina. Three or four months of sub-par performance is the most likely scenario, they say. Treasury Secretary John Snow said he had discussed the disaster with Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Remember: This is the same administration that ran the economy into the ground while denying that anything was wrong. And which said that Iraq was going to be a cakewalk. Via BBC. More: For a more realistic view of the US economy after Katrina, we suggest reading this Washington Post article. | | Posted by Magpie at 9:39 AM | Get permalink
On the other hand ...
... the head of a major international energy watchdog isn't as confident that Katrina will be just an economic blip. According to Claude Mandil of the International Energy Agency, a worldwide energy crisis could result if damage to Gulf Coast refineries causes the US to up its purchases of European gasoline: "If the crisis affects oil products then it's a worldwide crisis. No one should think this will be limited to the United States.... They are already buying gasoline in Europe. If the refineries are damaged, that will only increase. Then this will become a worldwide crisis very quickly." Via Reuters. | | Posted by Magpie at 9:38 AM | Get permalink
No comment.
From Dubya's Saturday radio address about the Katrina disaster: In America, we do not abandon our fellow citizens in their hour of need. Via White House. | | Posted by Magpie at 9:32 AM | Get permalink
What he said [again].
From a commentary on the Katrina disaster by BBC reporter Matt Wells: The only difference between the chaos of New Orleans and a Third World disaster operation, he said, was that a foreign dictator would have responded better. And that's just how Wells gets started. Read the rest of it here. | | Posted by Magpie at 9:23 AM | Get permalink
'The inevitable result.'
The KnightRidder Washington Bureau has an excellent piece on how the Dubya administration's obsession with protecting the US from terrorists has destroyed the feds' ability to respond to natural disasters. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, once a powerful independent agency focused solely on responding to earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters that occur on average about four times a month, was placed within the huge Department of Homeland Security after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Several US senators have announced that they will be holding hearings to investigate the slow and inadequate federal response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. It's going to be interesting to say what version of the usual 'i'm not responsible' and 'nobody could have expected what happened' defenses will get used. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:32 AM | Get permalink
Democracy continues to bloom in Iraq.
The Iraqi government is getting rid of independent labor unions. Via House of Labor. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:18 AM | Get permalink
And now for something completely different.
Powerwalk Right In the Middle, a mashup of John Lennon, Dr. Hook, and Stealers Wheel that made us grin about a mile wide. [MP3 player req'd.] Via The Anti-Hit List. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:02 AM | Get permalink
No big surprise here.
We've been wondering how long it would take for Dubya's administration to find a way to use Hurricane Katrina as a method for tossing money at Halliburton. And tonight we find the answer here: The Navy has hired Houston-based Halliburton Co. to restore electric power, repair roofs and remove debris at three naval facilities in Mississippi damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Via Houston Chronicle. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:01 AM | Get permalink
The effects of Katrina, beyond black and white.
Rene P. Ciria-Cruz takes a look at how ethnic news organizations are covering Hurricane Katrina's effects on their communities. Besides sampling the angry response of African American media to the (at best) fumbling response of Dubya's administration to the disaster, the article also looks at the Katrina coverage in Asian and Latino media. Some 300 Koreans living in New Orleans have evacuated to Baton Rouge and Houston where they are being lodged in Korean churches or in the homes of Korean hosts, report the Korea Times and the Korea Daily. Others fled as far as Philadelphia. An official from the Korean Council of Houston said there were many Koreans in Biloxi, where more than 30 deaths have been reported. The majority of Koreans living in the Gulf region as small-business owners and many fear not only the loss of their homes, but also their livelihoods. Via Pacific News Service. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:00 AM | Get permalink
Friday, September 2
Guess what month it is?
And guess which US government agency is sponsoring it? [Hint: It's the one with the color-coded warnings.] Here's the answer. And yes, it's for real. Via Gordon.Coale. | | Posted by Magpie at 4:08 PM | Get permalink
Hell must have froze over today.
While we were perusing the CNN website, we found this revealing summary of how the official picture of New Orleans compares with the view of local officials, reporters, and others who are actually there. Uncollected corpses Real news from CNN. Imagine that! | | Posted by Magpie at 3:32 PM | Get permalink
This pretty much says it all.
Doesn't it? We got this from BOPNews, who got it from Out Loud, who doesn't know the graphic's origin. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:53 PM | Get permalink
What he said.
From an article by former NY Times editor Howell Raines: Every great disaster - the Blitz, 9/11, the tsunami - has a political dimension. The performance of George Bush during this past week has been outrageous. Almost as unbelievable as Katrina itself is the fact that the leader of the free world has been outshone by the elected leaders of a region renowned for governmental ineptitude. Louisiana's anguished governor, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, climbed into a helicopter at the first possible moment to survey what may become the worst weather-related disaster in American history. She might even have been able to stop the looting in New Orleans if the 141st Field Artillery of the Louisiana Army National Guard had not been in Iraq for the past 11 months. They are among thousands of Southern guardsmen who could have been federalised by the stroke of a pen had they not been deployed in a phony war. Even Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi, a tiresome blowhard as chairman of the Republican National Committee, has shone a throat-catching public sorrow and sleepless diligence that puts Bush to shame. In the first part of the piece, Raines reflects on what the city of New Orleans has meant to US music, literature, and history. There are a lot of policymakers and media blowhards(especially the ones who're suggesting that the city not be rebuilt) who ought to read it. Via UK Guardian. Thanks to ChrisW for the tip! More: CJR Daily thinks that the first part of Raines piece goes way over the top [scroll down]. We still think it has a certain charm. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:36 PM | Get permalink
Take a look at this screen grab from CNN.
How many things are wrong?
Oh yeah, we forgot the biggest thing that's wrong:
Via Think Progress. | | Posted by Magpie at 11:52 AM | Get permalink
Remember how Dubya said that 'no one could have anticpated the breach of New Orleans' levees?
Well, even Mr Bill anticipated it in this 2004 public service announcement for the effort to save Louisiana's wetlands. Warning: The humor of the PSA is a little bit creepy given this week's events. Via Scott Bateman. | | Posted by Magpie at 10:28 AM | Get permalink
What's wrong with the federal response to the disaster in New Orleans?
Listen to this Thursday interview with New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin that was broadcast on WWL radio. Nagin minces no words. [MP3 player required] CNN has a transcript of the interview here. [Magpie reader ChrisW suggests that this is a better transcript.] Via MetaFilter. More: And things appear not to have changed much since yesterday. Here's part of an Interdictor post from earlier this morning. Teams Alpha and Bravo finished the medium range recon and there are 3 separate locations on fire. We have pictures coming shortly. The Interdictor, for those who don't know, is blogging from New Orleans. Still more: The Interdictor reports seeing two military helicopters and 'what looks like a whole batallion of troops' heading to the New Orleans convention center, where thousands of people have been stuck for days without food, water, or assistance. | | Posted by Magpie at 10:03 AM | Get permalink
We were going to call this 'No Comment.'
But we just have to say something about the following: Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies And, no, we are not making this up. You'll find the memo posted on the White House website here. So while southern Louisiana, Missisippi, and Alabama are dealing with the worst natural disaster in US history, our Dear Leader won't give extra paid leave to the federal employees whose lives have been disrupted by the disaster. By contrast, the governor of Kansas has issued an executive order giving 20 days of paid leave to state employees who are trained volunteers so that they can go work in the disaster area. Yeah, we're sure most of the federal workers need time off to get their lives in order again not to volunteer in the relief effort. But given the magnitude of the disaster, wouldn't compassion dictate offering federal workers some additional paid leave without having to rob other workers to provide it? Dubya's handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster isn't just incompetent, it's inexcusably cheap-ass. Via Uggabugga. | | Posted by Magpie at 1:15 AM | Get permalink
California's senate OKs same-sex marriages.
By a 21-15 vote, California's state senate has passed a bill that would make same-sex marriages legal. This is the first time that any body of a state legislature has voted to approve such marriages without a court ruling forcing them to do so. The bill now goes to the state assembly, where its future is uncertain the assembly rejected the bill on an earlier vote during the current legislative session. Several lawmakers said they believed their vote on the bill would be one of the most important they cast as lawmakers. Via SF Chronicle. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:01 AM | Get permalink
Blogging from New Orleans.
The Interdictor has been online from downtown New Orleans almsot continuously during and since the hurricane hit. Here's the final post from Thursday, posted at 10:46 pm CDT: The following is the result of an interview I just conducted via cell phone with a New Orleans citizen stranded at the Convention Center. I don't know what you're hearing in the mainstream media or in the press conferences from the city and state officials, but here is the truth: There's lots of good stuff at the Interdictor. Check it out. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:00 AM | Get permalink
Thursday, September 1
Fats Domino 'rescued but missing.'
It doesn't quite make sense to us, either, but that's how the BBC puts it. | | Posted by Magpie at 11:49 PM | Get permalink
No comment necessary.
Here's an excerpt from an interview that MSNBC's Alison Stewart did with NBC photojournalist Tony Zumbado earlier today. Zumbado had been shooting video at the New Orleans Convention Center. ALISON STEWART: Tony, I know you've seen a lot of things in your career, but have you ever seen anything like that? CJR Daily has more details on the interview, along with some trenchant comments about what images of New Orleans should and shouldn't be shown by the media. | | Posted by Magpie at 5:47 PM | Get permalink
Why did Dubya's adminstration cut funding for the Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans district?
Don't ask. Scott McClellan just finished meeting with the press, and he got a lot of questions about the Bush administration's decision to cut funding for the New Orleans district of the Army Corps of Engineers and the president's slow trek back to Washington after disaster struck. Via Salon. [Paid sub. or ad view req'd.] | | Posted by Magpie at 11:46 AM | Get permalink
Another casualty of the hurricane?
Legendary R&B performer Fats Domino is among the missing in New Orleans. Via AP. | | Posted by Magpie at 11:37 AM | Get permalink
How badly is the Gulf oil infrastructure damaged? [Part 2]
The US Energy Department says that some of the oil refineries that were damaged by Katrina may not re-open for months. Via Reuters. | | Posted by Magpie at 11:34 AM | Get permalink
Q: What does the disaster in New Orleans have to do with 9/11?
A: In both cases, Dubya's administration wants the US public to believe that 'nobody could have anticipated' the disaster. Going back to May of 2002, then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice offered this response to charges that the administration could have anticipated the 9/11 attacks: 'I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Centre, take another and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked plane as a missile. All this reporting,' she insisted, 'about hijacking was about traditional hijacking.' Her remarks came despite, for example, warning that 'suicide bombers belonging to al-Qaeda's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C4 and Semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the CIA or the White House - Ramzi Yousef had planned to do this against CIA headquarters.' There were other warnings [see this UK Observer article for examples, too, but Dubya's administration chose to ignore them. We've been waiting to see when the administration would use a similar excuse to explain the lack of preparation for a hurricane disaster in New Orleans, and the slow response of federal authorities to that disaster. And, as an obvious sign that the administration is afraid to be caught with that huge bag it's holding, Dubya himself used the 'nobody could have expected it' excuse in an interview with Diane Sawyer this morning: "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached. And as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded. And now we are having to deal with it and will." Nobody could have anticpated it? How about the author of this October 2001 article in Scientific American? Or the producer of this September 2002 report on PBS? Or the authors of this June 2003 series of articles in the New Orleans Times-Picayune? Or the producers of this Science Channel documentary that aired this past June?Or those of this Newhouse News Service article published on the eve of the disaster? That list, of course, ignores the extensive scientific literature on how coast erosion increased the hurricane danger to New Orleans, and the reports issued by the Army Corps of Engineers about the possible dangers to the city. So we'd suggest that Dubya stop trying to make excuses and actually try to do something constructive to assist the millions of people affected by Hurricane Katrina, instead of trying to control the damage that he and his handlers fear that yet another failure will do to his poll standings. | | Posted by Magpie at 10:04 AM | Get permalink
How badly is the Gulf oil infrastructure damaged?
And how much of a hit will the US economy take as a result of that damage? Watching CNN earlier tonight and reading various press accounts of the hurricane aftermath, we've noticed that little of the coverage has dealt with what has actually happened to the oil platforms and other oil industry infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico. At the Oil Drum, an anonymous and 'quite reliable' oil industry insider offered this description on Wednesday night: There are MANY production platforms missing (as in not visible from the air). This means they have been totally lost. I am talking about 10's of platforms, not single digit numbers. Each platform can have from 4 to 100+ wells on it. Most larger ones have 20-30 wells in this area, with numerous caisson wells. They are on their sides, on the bottom of the gulf - they will likely be left as reef material, provided we can get permission. MMS regulations require us to plug each of the wells that were on these platforms - HUGE cost now, as the platforms are gone... Hopefully, MMS will grant `abandon in place' status for these wiped out structures. This is not good, folks. What will this mean for the availability and price of oil/gas in the US? And for the US economy in general? Economist James Hamilton, who specializes in the oil industry, offers a grim view here and here. One of the questions I am almost always asked by reporters is, "will the price Americans pay at the pump go even higher?" My stock answer is, "I'm not sure." But in the present circumstances, having just seen a 55 cent per gallon rise in the price of September gasoline futures, the question is a no-brainer-- American consumers are in for a huge shock at the pump within a very short period. Despite Dubya's assertion that the US will be a 'stronger place' after the country deals with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we suspect the next few months [at the minimum] are going to be a rough ride. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:23 AM | Get permalink
'Casual to the point of carelessness.'
While we heard Dubya's speech on the Hurricane Katrina disaster earlier today on the radio and were very unimpressed with what the prez had to say to the nation we didn't actually see any of it until tonight. Watching the president recite a catalog of the stuff that the feds are sending to the Gulf Coast, we were struck by his almost total lack of affect. There was absolutely no sense that this man had an ounce of feeling for the people whose lives have been turned upside down in the past few days; no evidence that he really understood long-term problems that Katrina has dumped on the nation. And we certainly noticed that he didn't ask for even the smallest amount of sacrifice on anyone's part. We weren't alone in thinking that Dubya delievered a pretty poor performance. The NY Times has an uncharacteristically blunt editorial on Dubya's speech. Here's how it ends: It would be some comfort to think that, as Mr. Bush cheerily announced, America "will be a stronger place" for enduring this crisis. Complacency will no longer suffice, especially if experts are right in warning that global warming may increase the intensity of future hurricanes. But since this administration won't acknowledge that global warming exists, the chances of leadership seem minimal. Now go over here and read the rest of it. It's worth your time. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:01 AM | Get permalink
Q: What does the Iraq war have to do with the disaster in New Orleans?
A: This is what. Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA [Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project] dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars. Via Editor and Publisher. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:00 AM | Get permalink
Wednesday, August 31
With all the terrible afternath of Katrina ...
... the death of hundreds of Iraqis today shouldn't get lost in the shuffle. [Photo: Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters] Trampled, crushed against barricades or plunging into the Tigris River, more than 700 Shiite pilgrims died Wednesday when a procession across a Baghdad bridge was engulfed in panic over rumors that a suicide bomber was at large. Via AP and Reuters. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:28 PM | Get permalink
More eerie reading.
In June 2003, the New Orleans Times-Picayune published a five-part series on the danger that the city would face if it was hit directly by a strong hurricane. The paper's general conclusions about the city's situation were dead-on:
We were particularly struck by this feature about what would have happened if Hurricane Georges had hit New Orleans in 1998, instead of veering away at the last minute. The 'Washing Away' series is well worth reading. Maybe now it will have the influence on legislation and policy that it should have had when it originally appeared. Via Romenesko. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:08 PM | Get permalink
Ooooooh, Photos from a NOAA-43 hurricane hunter's flight into Hurricane Katrina, taken by one of the people on the mission. [Photo: Mysterious Chicken] The photos of Katrina (when it was a category 5 storm) are at the end of the set. They were taken on Sunday, the day before the hurricane hit the Gulf Coast. Via MetaFilter. | | Posted by Magpie at 11:44 AM | Get permalink
Another resignation from Dubya's administration.
This time it's Susan Wood, who was head of the Office of Women's Health in the US Food & Drug Adminstration. Wood quit her position resigned because of the FDA's continued refusal to make emergency contraception more easily available. The last straw for Wood was the FDA's decision last Friday to postpone indefinitely any action on making the morning-after pill (Plan B) available to women without having to get a doctor's prescription. According to the FDA, it needs to figure out how Plan B can be kept out of the hands of young teenagers. [A 'problem' we find of dubious importance, given the long experience in the US of limiting sales of tobacco and alcohol to minors.] "I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled," wrote Wood.... "The recent decision announced by the Commissioner about emergency contraception, which continues to limit women's access to a product that would reduce unintended pregnancies and reduce abortions, is contrary to my core commitment to improving and advancing women's health." As is usual when the administration is embarassed by a public resignation over policy matters, the FDA has had no comment. Via Feminist Daily News. | | Posted by Magpie at 11:20 AM | Get permalink
We're so glad the prez has time ...
... to play his new guitar. It's not like he had anything more important to be doing yesterday. Via AP. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:47 AM | Get permalink
More expensive than Vietnam.
The US is spending money faster on the war in Iraq than it did on the Vietnam War, says a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies. According to the report, the current monthly cost of operations in Iraq is US$ 5.6 billion; the average cost of operations in Vietnam was US$ 5.1 billion after adjusting for inflation. While the Vietnam War ate up a larger proportion of the US annual GDP than the amount going to Iraq (12 percent for Vietnam vs. 2 percent for Iraq), that comparison doesn't take into account the fact that the Iraq war is being financed by deficit spending. According to the IPS report, that deficit spending may nearly double the projected federal budget deficit over the next decade. Other findings of the report are:
A PDF file containing the full report can be downloaded here. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:25 AM | Get permalink
Tuesday, August 30
While Dubya cuts his vacation short ...
... and makes sure that he can be seen looking 'presidential' while the US Gulf Coast reels from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, lets not forget that his administration cut US$ 72 million in funding for the Army Corps of Engineers' New Orleans district and shelved a study on how to protect New Orleans from a category 5 hurricane. Via Think Progress and BOPNews. | | Posted by Magpie at 7:54 PM | Get permalink
Predicting the disaster in New Orleans.
We knew we'd seen something about what could happen if the Crescent City suffered a direct hit from a strong hurricane on television in the last couple of years, but we couldn't figure out where. Thanks to a reader of Boing Boing who remembered the same program, we can point you to this transcript of a report by Daniel Zwerdling called 'The City in the Bowl.' It aired on Bill Moyers' progam 'Now' in September 2002. It makes for very eerie reading. DANIEL ZWERDLING: Maestri says consider this troubling fact: more than a million people live in this area, and they're stuck in a geological trap. Part of what made the damage in coastal Louisiana so severe has been the severe coastal erosion over the past half-century or so, caused by the damming and channelization of the Missisippi River and its tributaries. The load of silt that used to come down the river with the floods each year is no longer being deposited in the Missisippi's delta; instead, the bulk of it is flushed out to sea. With each year that passes, the Gulf of Mexico encroaches further into what used to be land. And with the loss of land, New Orleans and other inland communities lose more of the wetland buffer that has historically protected them from the worst effects of hurricanes. On its Science of the Deep series, the Science Channel in the US aired an excellent documentary on the problem this past June, called 'Coastal Crisis.' We suspect they will be airing it again soon, and that watching it is also going to be an eerie experience. | | Posted by Magpie at 7:46 PM | Get permalink
Dubya has another little gift for the US.
New figures show that the US poverty rate has risen for the fourth year in a row, to 12.9 percent. That means that about one in eight people in the US is living below the poverty line. And, in case you were happy that you dodged that particular bullet, here's a figure that affects more of us: the growth in the median household income has stalled. (We suppose that Dubya will go on TV to brag that it's not actually dropping.) Via AP. | | Posted by Magpie at 9:20 AM | Get permalink
Now we see why Pat Robertson wanted Venezuela's president killed.
He's a dangerous man especially if you're an oil company with windfall profits at stake. With the prospect of very high heating oil prices in the US this winter, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez says that his country is ready to provide low-cost heating oil to poor, elderly, and unemployed people in the US. "In the United States, there are also many poor people and every year an important number (of them) freeze to death. Therefore, we're going to offer them heating fuel up to 40% cheaper" [than the going market rate] said the controversial leader during his weekly Sunday radio and television program "Alo Presidente!" Chavez has the means to fulfill his promise: Venezuela's government oil company owns the Citgo in the US. The low-cost heating oil will make its way to consumers via Citgo's US oil refineries and its extensive network of gas stations. Via MercoPress. More: According to this Reuters story, Venezuela will sell up to 66,000 barrels per day of heating fuel to poor people in the US. This is 10 percent of Citgo's daily production. Distribution details are still being worked out. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:01 AM | Get permalink
Ooooooh, shiny!
Cats in sinks. Lots of them. From the looks of the photo above, it appears that our kitty Medea has been moonlighting in someone else's sink. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:00 AM | Get permalink
Monday, August 29
Bits & pieces.
| | Posted by Magpie at 11:33 AM | Get permalink
Do you want fries with that?
The sign below was spotted in front of a butcher shop in Baton Rouge, Louisiana during the hours before Hurricane Katrina's arrival. We hope the sign and shop are still intact, and that the butcher and photographer are safe. | | Posted by Magpie at 11:06 AM | Get permalink
Speaking of kidnappings in Iraq.
Reuters is demanding that the US military release one of its photojournalists. Haider Kadhem was arrested by US forces after he and a sound technician drove into a gun battle. The technician, Waleed Khaled, was shot dead by a US sniper. Kadhem was 'merely' wounded in the back. "Reuters demands the immediate release of Haider Kadhem," Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger said. US authorities have refused to tell Reuters or Kadhem's relatives where he is being held or which unit is holding him. Reporters without Borders has additional details on the shooting incident here. | | Posted by Magpie at 10:36 AM | Get permalink
Silencing another critic.
A vocal critic of the US military's decision to give Halliburton a no-bid contract for billions of dollars worth of work in Iraq has been fired by her Pentagon superior. According to Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, he removed Bunnatine Greenhouse from her post as the US Army Corps of Engineers top procurement official because of bad performance reviews. Bunnatine's lawyer, however, says that she was fired because of her record of blowing the whistle on sweetheart contracts such the one awarded to Halliburton. Bunnatine has said publicly that the Halliburton deal invovlved 'the most blatant and improper abuse' of the contract process that she had seen in 20 years of government work. Greenhouse has been the Army Corps' top procurement official since 1997. Then-commander Gen. Joe N. Ballard has said he wanted Greenhouse a black woman to provide a jolt to the clubby, old-boys' network that had long dominated the contracting process at the Corps. Via Washington Post. | | Posted by Magpie at 2:26 AM | Get permalink
Iraq is now the deadliest war ever for journalists.
According to Reporters without Borders, 56 journalists or assistants have been killed since the war in Iraq began, with the deaths occurring at a much faster rate than during the Vietnam War. While 63 journalists lost their lives in Vietnam, those deaths came over a period of 20 years. The 56 deaths in Iraq have happened in less than 3 years. | | Posted by Magpie at 2:12 AM | Get permalink
Hurricane Katrina may just now be hitting the Louisiana coast...
... but the storm is already having an effect on oil prices, which briefly surged to over US$ 70 per barrel. According to the BBC, some industry experts are worried that it could break the US $100 level in the near future. | | Posted by Magpie at 1:56 AM | Get permalink
Sunday, August 28
Busy busy busy.
Those GOP budget-slashers in the US Congress have a whole raft of lovely bills coming the nation's way by the middle of next month:
On top of those budget bills, energy committes in both house are readying legislation that will open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Isn't life wonderful in the US of A? Via Washington Post. | | Posted by Magpie at 3:07 PM | Get permalink
Hurricane Katrina.
It's a category 5 storm now, and is one of the strongest on record. And it's heading straight for New Orleans. Like several other bloggers, we're wondering how well Louisiana is going to handle Katrina's aftermath with a considerable chunk of its National Guard members in Iraq. | | Posted by Magpie at 12:08 PM | Get permalink
Those damn secularists are at it again.
Or that's what a fundamentalist Christian education group is claiming, anyway. The LA Times reports on a lawsuit against the University of California, which wants the court to order UC to give credit for high school science courses the embrace the creationist worldview. The suit was filed by the Association of Christian Schools International, which claims that the university's year-old policy of refusing to give credit for classes that use textbooks that challenge the reality of evolution discriminates against 'Christian' schools and attempts to secularize the schools. The suit specifically objects to UC's refusal to accept courses that use science books pubished by Bob Jones University Press and A Beka Books. The Questionable Authority went looking to see just what was in some of these books, and found some interesting stuff in this 10th-grade biology text: Biology for Christian Schools is a textbook for Bible-believing high-school students. Those who do not believe that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God will find many points in this book puzzling. This book was not written for them.... And these all come from what's supposed to be a science text, not a religious tract. We took a quick run through the catalog for the Bob Jones University Press and found these additional gems:
It looks to us like UC has good reasons to be leery of courses that use texts that contain stuff like what we've just presented. And it looks to us that the ACSI's claim of religious discrimination is no more than a smokescreen for yet another attempt to get the fundamentalist Christian worldview into all schools, not just the 'Christian' ones. | | Posted by Magpie at 10:53 AM | Get permalink
Bits & pieces.
| | Posted by Magpie at 9:35 AM | Get permalink |
NEWS HEADLINES Mail & Guardian [S. Africa] NEWS LINKS BBC CBC Agence France Presse Reuters Associated Press Aljazeera Inter Press Service Watching America International Herald Tribune Guardian (UK) Independent (UK) USA Today NY Times (US) Washington Post (US) McClatchy Washington Bureau (US) Boston Globe (US) LA Times (US) Globe & Mail (Canada) Toronto Star (Canada) Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) AllAfrica.com Mail & Guardian (South Africa) Al-Ahram (Egypt) Middle East Times (Egypt) Arab News (Saudi Arabia) Daily Star (Lebanon) Haaretz (Israel) Hindustan Times (India) Japan Times (Japan) Asia Times (Hong Kong) EurasiaNet New Scientist News Paper Chase COMMENT & ANALYSIS Molly Ivins CJR Daily Women's eNews Raw Story The Gadflyer Working for Change Common Dreams AlterNet Truthdig Truthout Salon Democracy Now! American Microphone New! rabble The Revealer Current Editor & Publisher Economic Policy Institute Center for American Progress The Memory Hole IRISH MUSIC TheSession.org The Irish Fiddle Fiddler Magazine Concertina.net Concertina Library A Guide to the Irish Flute Chiff & Fipple Irtrad-l Archives Ceolas Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann BBC Virtual Session JC's ABC Tune Finder SHINY THINGS alt.portland New! Propaganda Remix Project Ask a Ninja grow-a-brain Boiling Point Bruno Cat and Girl Dykes to Watch Out For Library of Congress American Heritage Dictionary Dictonary of Newfoundland English American's Guide to Canada Digital History of the San Fernando Valley MetaFilter New! Blithe House Quarterly Astronomy Pic of the Day Earth Science Picture of the Day Asia Grace Gaelic Curse Engine Old Dinosaur Books ARCHIVES |