MaxedOutMama

The 23,000 New Orleans evacuees who have been holed up at the Superdome with little air conditioning, food and water, will be bused 12 hours to Houston to be housed for an indefinite period at the Houston Astrodome, Gov,. Kathleen Blanco said Wednesday.

Department of Social Services Secretary Ann Williamson said the buses should start rolling later Wednesday. About 475 vehicles have been arranged to ferry the evacuees to Houston.

Until engineers can repair breaks in the huge levees that separate New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain, the city will essentially be an arm of the Gulf of Mexico, subject to the ebb and flow of the tides.

And because the tidal pull weakens the levees and widens the breaks, experts said Tuesday, that will make it all the more difficult to repair them.

• One challenge was that the narrow canal is not accessible by barge, in part because a newly built low bridge and hurricane barrier sits 700 feet down the canal toward the lake end.

“We can’t get at it,” he said.

• Another problem is that whatever is done to block the breach also must not block the canal itself, because that would impede the pumping of the floodwaters.

Maurice Roos, chief hydrologist for the state Department of Water Resources, said it usually took two to four weeks to fill large levee breaks and stop the flow of water, but that's just part of the problem.

"The question is how fast can you drain the area that's flooded,'' Roos said. "The longer the water is there, the worse the damage.''

Late Tuesday, Gov. Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher described a disturbing scene unfolding in uptown New Orleans, where looters were trying to break into Children's Hospital.

Bottcher said the director of the hospital fears for the safety of the staff and the 100 kids inside the hospital. The director said the hospital is locked, but that the looters were trying to break in and had gathered outside the facility.

Meanwhile, Blanco said officials are working rapidly to fill the hole in the 17th Street Canal, where a 500-foot breach is allowing water to pour into the city. Areas of the city that were dry or had low water early Tuesday were slowly filling up with the water by Tuesday evening.

If you are from the area, please call 1-866-453-1925 to let someone know that you're OK. Even if you fled before the storm, friends and relatives might not know you're safe. We hope to share that information when we can.

If you work for The Sun Herald, call 1-800-346-2472 to let us know where you are.

An emergency management official has confirmed more than 100 dead from Hurricane Katrina in the Biloxi-Gulfport area.

"We are very, very worried that this is going to go a lot higher," said Joe Spraggins, civil defense director for Harrison County, home to Biloxi and Gulfport. "We're just estimating but the number could go double or triple from what we're talking now."

Tonight they put the plan into action. They were filling 3,000-pound cargo containers full of sand, rock or other heavy materials. They intended to fly these containers and 180 concrete barriers by helicopter to the site, and place them into the breach.

Succeeding will be difficult from the air alone, engineers said. And, after the corps drops each cargo container and concrete barrier into the breach, water will flow through the remaining hole faster and with more force.

Corps of Engineers officials said their analysis indicated that a limited amount of water washed over the top of the levee in waves, scouring and weakening the foundation on the levee's dry side.

Suhayda said that's possible. But another possibility is that, during the half-day floodwaters built up in Lake Pontchartrain and the canal, water may have percolated through the earthen part of the berm, undermining it.

And there's another reason why scientists worry more about hurricanes every single year. There's always been a huge natural buffer that helps protect New Orleans from storms. There are miles of wetlands between here and the Gulf of Mexico: they slow hurricanes down as they blow in from the sea. But that buffer is disappearing. Every year, a chunk of wetlands the size of Manhattan crumbles and turns into open water.

Joe Suhayda explains, "So the hurricane can move closer to the city before it starts to decrease. So in effect, the city is moving closer to the Gulf as each year goes by."

And he says, it's partly because of those levees along the Mississippi River. When they stopped the river from flooding, they also prevented the wetlands from getting the regular doses of floodwater and mud that they need to survive. Studies show that if the wetlands keep vanishing over the next few decades, then you won't need a giant storm to devastate New Orleans — a much weaker, more common kind of hurricane could destroy the city too.

Houck says before people built these walls, the giant Mississippi helped build America. Every day, the river and its tributaries washed millions of pounds of soil from all over the country down to the Gulf of Mexico.

"You can imagine what it would take in dump trucks to bring half a million tons of silt to south Louisiana," says Houck. "Well, it would take about two hundred thousand, two-and-half ton dump trucks every day, driving from Minnesota, from Rapid City, from Pittsburgh, from Denver. And in so doing, it brings down these enormous, enormous loads of earth to the mouth of the Mississippi."

Every year or so, Houck says, it would rain so much that the river would gush out of its banks, and all that mud and goo would spread out along the coast.

"And that's what built south Louisiana," Houck says. "The Mississippi built five million acres of land. A huge amount of land was wetland."

But when French settlers showed up in the 1700s, they tried to stop the Mississippi from flooding: they started building these walls. Eventually, the U.S. Army took over the job, and every time they thought they'd conquered nature, the river proved them wrong. So the army built more walls and they built them higher, they've built two thousand miles of levees as of today along the Mississippi River and its branches. And Houck says, the army has finally won the war—they've tamed the Mississippi.

"And so," describes Houck, "the project was—from an engineering point of view— brilliant, brilliant. It was hugely successful. From an environmental standpoint, it was a disaster."

7:59 P.M. - Mayor Nagin: Pumps at 17th street canal has failed and water will continue pouring into the city. Nine feet of water is expected on St. Charles Avenue that will be nine feet high. Water is expected to spread throughout the east bank of Orleans and possibly Jefferson Parish.

6:41 P.M. - Efforts to stop the levee break at the 17th Street Canal have ended unsuccessfully and the water is expected to soon overwhelm the pumps in that area, allowing water to pour into the east bank of Metairie and Orleans to an expected height of 12-15 feet.

Back in New Orleans, medics converted part of the Superdome -- already the steamy home of 10,000 people -- into a triage center for scores of the injured and sick, many of them found on rooftops and street corners. Some were sent to hospitals in Baton Rouge.

The narrow, debris-filled streets of the tourist-oriented French Quarter filled with more than two feet of water. Terrified by what they heard on the radio, some people ran down the streets, screaming and warning others.

''Get out of town if you can,'' said Ed Freytag, a city worker at the temporary City Hall complex in the Hyatt Regency.

''People are afraid of drowning,'' said Greg Reaves, 45, who tried to flee the city but turned around after confronting high water on Interstate 10. ``I think that's what's causing the panic.''

Of most importance is the breach of the levee between Jefferson and Orleans Parish.
“We probably have 80 percent of our city under water with some sections of our city the water is as deep as 20 feet”.
Both airports are underwater
The twin spans are destroyed.

Katrina's core roared very close to the below-sea-level city of 485,000 people, slamming eastern sections with one edge of its destructive eye wall. Winds of 100 mph rocked the area. Its storm surge and torrential rain submerged vast regions, with 40,000 homes flooded in St. Bernard Parish alone.

Moreover, it pummeled 270 miles of coastline across four states, striking particularly hard at Gulfport, Miss.

Pat Sullivan, Gulfport's fire chief, said downtown buildings were ''imploding'' and the business district was largely under water. ''It's complete devastation,'' he said.

"... Rev. Jesse Jackson offered support for President Hugo Chavez on Sunday, saying a call for his assassination by a U.S. religious broadcaster was a criminal act and that Washington and Venezuela should work out their differences through diplomacy.

The U.S. civil rights leader condemned last week's suggestion by Pat Robertson that American agents should kill the leftist Venezuelan leader, calling the conservative commentator's statements "immoral" and "illegal."

How is Robertson different here from the Ayatollah Talibanskys over there?

If we truly are "at war with terror" it's time to arrest Robertson, ship him off to Gitmo, torture him, hold him incommunicado, until everyone forgets who he was, and it will all be in complete compliance with the "Patriot Act."

Like it or not, what he said was legal.

First amendment, freedom of speech, and all that BS. I've read the transcript of what he actually said, and heard it repeated ad nauseum on CNN, and what he said doesn't rise to the level of a terrorist threat. He clearly said that Chavez should be killed, and that the United States should do it. He did NOT call on his followers to kill him, did not say that he was going to have Chavez killed, and did not offer any kind of bounty or reward for killing Chavez. He simply said that the world would be better off if someone offed the guy.

There are people here on DU who have made the exact same comments about people in our own government. We may not like Robertson or what he says, but we need to remember that the 1st amendment was drafted to protect UNpopular speech, not the speech we all agree with. If we start imprisoning people for expressing political views we don't agree with, we'll be forging a political sword that could easily be turned back against us.

The Biloxi River is flowing over the bridge on Interstate 10, to what one observer guessed was perhaps 6 feet.

Reports from Harrison Central 9th Grade School in North Gulfport are that three of four walls there have collapsed.

At least three firehouses in Gulfport have taken significant damage. The company at Station 8 in Lyman was involved in a rescue operation of some sort, one spokesman said he thought it was an apartment complex.

Red Cross official said virtually all their shelters have received some sort of damage, including broken windows, leaky windows, no power and the like, but there have been no injuries. The most significant damage was at Lyman Elementary, where they lost two buildings.

This lets people know about the storm and what percentage of the Cellular South wireless network is up in specific geographic areas. This will be important as people try to contact family and friends.
Tanya Rankin (601.573.7134) is the contact at Cellular South. It will be important for people to use text messaging as much as possible instead of voice to help the network.

The fire station just north of the railroad tracks on Kelly Ave. just east of downtown Gulfport is taking on water. People on Second Street are calling to be evacuated from their attics.

Wolf River is 23 feet, the highest it's ever been
The tidal surge is 28 feet, and has been taking some homes off their slabs.
There are reports of some people being trapped in their attics/ on their roofs.

Some people who stayed in St. Bernard Parish were forced up into their attics to escape the floodwaters, said state Sen. Walter Boasso, who heard from local officials that some houses in Chalmette had water rising beyond the second floor.

“We know people were up in the attics hollering for help,” said Boasso, who evacuated to Baton Rouge and was camped out at the state Office of Emergency Preparedness....

Boasso said extensive flooding in the Lower 9th Board and St. Bernard Parish
could be blamed on water going over the tops of the levees.

Portions of the telephone system in metropolitan New Orleans failed about 9:30 a.m., further isolating the city as Katrina's center passed....

Bu mid-morning, dialing into and out of the New Orleans area was becoming increasingly difficult.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL.
PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD
FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

A HURRICANE WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR THE NORTH CENTRAL GULF COAST FROM MORGAN CITY LOUISIANA EASTWARD TO THE ALABAMA/FLORIDA BORDER...INCLUDING THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS AND LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN.

HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 105 MILES FROM THE CENTER...AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 230 MILES. SUSTAINED TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS ARE ALREADY OCCURRING OVER THE SOUTHEAST LOUISIANA COAST.

COASTAL STORM SURGE FLOODING OF 18 TO 22 FEET ABOVE NORMAL TIDE
LEVELS...LOCALLY AS HIGH AS 28 FEET...ALONG WITH LARGE AND DANGEROUS BATTERING WAVES...CAN BE EXPECTED NEAR AND TO THE EAST OF WHERE THE CENTER MAKES LANDFALL.

Yesterday, I think we got a down-payment on the miracle we'd been asking for: some lab results showing that recent chemo and radiation have beaten back a key part of the leukemia, achieving a 99.7% (!!) reduction in blast cells in his spinal column and stabilization of his blood chemistry. If anyone had told me this last week, I would either have said "no way", or rushed up and hugged them flat.

So scratch "I think", and "down payment" in that last paragraph. We've had a miracle. No, this may not change the big picture, which remains tenuous. We're trying to keep that in mind and not allow ourselves to get too 'high'. Still, this strong positive movement shows that doctors aren't always right, and that low odds still mean... odds... a shot... some skin in the game. Hope.

I've lost track of the number of countries and prayer groups making his case with the Big Guy. It has been tremendously humbling and inspiring to all of us.

To those of you steeped in this kind of thing - for whom prayer is a regular routine - thank you. To those of you who feel kinda funky and self-conscious and doubting about whether God exists, how to pray and/or whether prayer means anything at all, much less whether it works - THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!!!

Pauline Kael, in her review of Henry V, praises the tracking shot's powerful panorama of carnage but disdains the musical soundtrack -- in her view, it "trivializes" and "cheapens" the impact of the scene. Kael does not elaborate on why she feels this way, but we can assume that she at least was judging the music in its traditional role as an obligatory generator of affect, in which case a critic doesn't necessarily have to explain their assessment of music's effect....

If we are inclined to continue to trust the score as being "sincere," then "Non Nobis" can be interpreted as a sincere (and out-of-fashion) paean to glorious victory. (Indeed, some critics did seem inclined to do so; they could not understand why the film, in their eyes, took this seemingly pro-war tone, and some went so far as to call Kenneth Branagh a Thatcherite.)

We all have different morals, different public policy goals, etc. Why must judges use his? Or mine? If not prohibited in the Constitution, what makes either view "right?" If expressing a valid syllogism, how can judges overturn state law--even were they to disagree? Example: adultery hurts children, therefore we criminalize it. Boomr disputes. But he would acknowledge that the logic is valid, even while disputing the premise. The judiciary's role in interpreting the law under rational basis scrutiny is essentially confined to logic, not wisdom....

I'm supporting non-religious laws "geared solely towards the protection of the citizens and the land within our borders." Boomr doesn't share my morals. But neither the Constitutional language, nor boomr's expanding non-textual rights, give him the legal authority to enshrine his while forbidding mine.

However the responsibility for amending the constitution is a legislative responsibility, not a judicial one. Even if a certain provision/article of the constitution is out-of-step with modernity or even outright unjust; Jurists should interpret it as it is written. If the provision/article is unjust, the decision will highlight the injustice. And the outrage(d) electorates will force their elected legislators to amend the provision/article. This process ensure(s) that legislators are responsible toward the electorates and ensure(s) that the new article/provision receive have consensus within society.

Activist judges by interpret(ing) the constitution as they see fit, prevent the constitution from being properly amended. The greatest harm of judicial activism is that (it) takes the debate away from the public realm and prevent(s) the people from participating in the constitutional process.

LTC Erik Kurilla or SGT Daniel Lama
Patient
9040 Jackson Avenue
Madigan Army Medical Center
Tacoma, WA 98431

The Pentagon canceled its contract with the private firm shortly after the analysts — who were working on identifying al Qaeda operatives — produced a particularly controversial chart on proliferation of sensitive technology to China, the sources said.

Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, the veteran Army officer who was the Defense Intelligence Agency liaison to Able Danger, told The Post China "had something to do" with the decision to restructure Able Danger.

Sources said the private contractors, using sophisticated computer software that sifts through massive amounts of raw data to establish patterns, came up with a chart of Chinese strategic and business connections in the U.S.

H5N1 in Scandinavian countries would be particularly dangerous. In 2003 there was an outbreak of H7N7 in the Netherlands. Over 30 million birds were culled. However H5N7 isolates were found, indicting H7N7 had reassorted with H5N2. Reassortment, or swapping of whole genes, happens during dual infections, when the same host is infected with two different viruses. The H5N7 isolated in 2003 from a mallard duck in Denmark was novel and signaled new genetic combinations between H5 and H7 viruses.

Dual infections can also lead to recombination, where portions of genes are swapped. H7 is dangerous to humans because it can be easily transmitted human to human, which is a property that is lacking in H5N1. However, a dual infection involving H5N1 and H7N7 could lead to recombination where H5N1 acquires the human receptor binding domain on H7.

George Galloway, the anti-war MP for Bethnal Green and Bow who rocked the US Senate earlier this year, is to be accompanied on a speaking tour of America by the actress and activist Jane Fonda.

Few things are more likely to antagonise US conservatives than the combination of Mr Galloway and Ms Fonda - still hated by the right because of her outspoken opposition to the war in Vietnam - joining to condemn the American presence in Iraq. But Mr Galloway can expect a thunderous reception from those he impressed with his performance before a Senate committee last May.

The woman involved used an acquaintance to play Kennings, going so far as to take him and the little girl to a church in Detroit this spring, where they spoke to a group of children inspired by their story.

The acquaintance--Patrick Trovillion, a registered nurse from Marion--said he was led to believe he was playing a cocky soldier in a legitimate movie. He was shocked to learn Thursday night that it was a farce and that his character had died.

We understand that you don't give a damn about Iraqis. Quit pretending you do. Standing in 'solidarity' with organizations that promote terror or anti Semitism does not make you avant garde, informed or progressive.

But the anti-war activists were unapologetic when asked whether they considered such signs as "Maimed for Lies" offensive to wounded war veterans and their families.

Hanson goes on to discuss the coalition that has formed between the paranoid left and the paranoid right, so read it all. He is absolutely correct that the glue that holds this misalliance together is a shared paranoid style.

There is a reason that human beings experience suspicion, distrust and hypervigilance. That reason is because there is REAL danger in the world. Our ancestors in the caves knew this to be true. They lived with continual danger just to survive every minute of every day. Those who did not have the psychological capacity to perceive the danger in the environment surely died out long ago.

But this important psychological trait which senses danger and strives to protect the ego; and which is accentuated in children and early in life, is appropriately balanced out by the development of the rational faculty--the intellect. As that faculty develops, the ego mostly abandons paranoia and projection because they are extremely maladaptive in almost all cases in an adult trying to deal with reality.

The Prime Directive of the Left --as Hanson notes --is a nothing more than a desperate psychological strategy to deny the reality of Islamofascist terror; distort the struggle to eliminate it and to blame America for its very existence.

Moody's cut Ford's senior unsecured ratings by one notch to "Ba1," the highest junk rating, from "Baa3." It cut the senior unsecured rating on Ford's finance arm, Ford Motor Credit by one notch to "Baa3," the lowest investment-grade rating, from "Baa2." The rating outlook for both companies is negative, meaning another rating cut is likely over the next 12 to 18 months.

Moody's cut GM's senior unsecured debt rating by two notches to "Ba2," the second-highest junk rating, from "Baa3." It cut the rating on General Motors Acceptance Corp. by two notches to "Ba1," the highest junk rating, from "Baa2." GMAC is GM's finance arm.

The appeasers then made the same mistake that appeasers do now. They assumed that the opposition was somewhat reasonable, had a limit to his demands, and would become responsible when those demands were at least partially met. In reality, Hitler had and militant Islam has ultimate goals that are unreasonable and cannot ever be made right. We fundamentally cannot coexist with either of them, therefore they must be destroyed.