Author: Hafiz Noor Shams

I am probably one of many that are blaming Bush for Katrina fallout that is hitting New Orleans. Hey, Al Gore invented the internet and let’s blame Bush. What’s new?

But listening to Ray Nagin during a WWL interview on CNN makes blaming Bush more than a joke. It’s quite hard not to look at the federal government and Bush himself, eventually. The federal government has been slow in reacting and Bush was still on vacation a day after Katrina struck the American south.

However, I cannot take it when I hear some people mutter under their breath that “America deserves this”. Please do realize that not all Americans agree with those hawkish policies. There are innocent people down there regardless how many of us disagree with US foreign and environmental policies.

And no, it has nothing to do with god or some deity up in there sky. Not even some meatball monster with spaghetti all around it.

Today, it’s them. What if tomorrow’s our turn? How would you feel I say that you deserve it?

Please. Quit saying “they deserve it”.

p/s – Saw something like this on CNN news ticker: British Foreign Secy. Jack Straw: EU considering disaster relief, aid to U.S. rather than gasoline.

I’m not sure what to make out of that…

pp/s – New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin was calling for aid but the federal government said earlier that they had yet to receive formal request for help. Also on CNN, CNN International was interviewing Jan Egeland of the United Nations earlier and the United Nations say, they are ready to help but they have yet to receive formal request from the US.

I wonder if what seemingly to be a failure to mobilize rescue effort by almost everybody is actually due to red tape.

ppp/s – a Republican said New Orleans is not worth rebuilding. Something that might worth discussing but I don’t think that Republican appreciates the timing of his remark. He retracts his statement soon after several Democrat senators fired their free bullets.

Hurricane Katrina has frozen New Orleans to a standstill. At first, it was suspected Katrina was an accident but it became clear later that this is a terror act.

Planet Earth has been identified as the mastermind of the dastardly attack. Words have it that al-Qaeda is working with the planet. Through satellite imaging, CIA has been able to prove that al-Qaeda is supplying planet Earth with the lost Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. However, skeptical foreign officials at the United Nations have expressed doubt. Fox News insists that these foreign officials know nothing.

An unidentified White House official informs the __earthinc that President Bush will be seeking the Senate’s blessing to declare war against the planet within the next 24 hours. Furthermore, unnamed source from the Pentagon hints that the name of the operation is Operation Earthling Freedom.

Across the Atlantic and the Pacific, Tony Blair and John Howard have expressed their willingness to join up and rid the world of planet Earth. Several others like Fiji, Malawi, Latvia and Maldives have promised supports.

p/s – Louisanans would probably want to thank President Bush for the New Orleans flooding.

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA 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.

With increasing global temperature mean, some predicts there will be more monster hurricanes on the way. Well, actually, most climate models predict the same thing. So, is the ever increasing storms strength caused by climate change? I don’t know but last year was bad. This year is worse. Next year?

Pity the insurance industry. Estimated loss tops USD25 billion. Incidently, Jeremy Leggett in his book The Carbon War says climate change will affect the insurance industry