Michael Moore Today
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
Vacation is Over... an open letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush
Friday, September 2nd, 2005
Dear Mr. Bush:
Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.
Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?
Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!
I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?
And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!
On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.
There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.
No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!
You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.MichaelMoore.com
P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.
Chief Justice Rehnquist Dies at His Home
Chief Justice Rehnquist Dies of Cancer
By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer Sun Sep 4, 2:43 AM ET
WASHINGTON - Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist died Saturday evening of cancer, ending a 33-year Supreme Court career during which he oversaw the court's conservative shift, presided over an impeachment trial and helped decide a presidential election. His death creates a rare second vacancy on the nation's highest court.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/rehnquist
Superdome evacuation completed
Conditions had become intolerable for thousands
Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS - The last 300 refugees in the Superdome climbed aboard buses Saturday bound for new temporary shelter, leaving behind a darkened and stinking arena strewn with trash.
The sight of the last person — an elderly man wearing a Houston Rockets cap — prompted cheers from members of the Texas National Guard who were guarding the facility.
“I feel like I’ve been here 40 years,” said Louis Dalmas Sr., one of the last people out. “Any bus going anywhere — that’s all I want.”
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3967
Landrieu Blasts Bush on Katrina Response
Landrieu Implores President to “Relieve Unmitigated Suffering;” End FEMA’s “Abject Failures”
KTAL-TV
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La., issued the following statement this afternoon regarding her call yesterday for President Bush to appoint a cabinet-level official to oversee Hurricane Katrina relief and recovery efforts within 24 hours.
Sen. Landrieu said:
“Yesterday, I was hoping President Bush would come away from his tour of the regional devastation triggered by Hurricane Katrina with a new understanding for the magnitude of the suffering and for the abject failures of the current Federal Emergency Management Agency. 24 hours later, the President has yet to answer my call for a cabinet-level official to lead our efforts. Meanwhile, FEMA, now a shell of what it once was, continues to be overwhelmed by the task at hand.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3965
Mystery unfolds over hunt for WMD in Iraq
By Charles J. Hanley / Associated Press
Beneath the giant dome of a Baghdad palace, facing his team of scientists and engineers, George Tenet sounded more like a football coach than a spymaster, a coach who didn't know the game was over.
"Are we 85 percent done?" the CIA boss demanded. The arms hunters knew what he wanted to hear. "No!" they shouted back. "Let me hear it again!" They shouted again.
The weapons are out there, Tenet insisted. Go find them.
Veteran inspector Rod Barton couldn't believe his ears. "It was nonsense," the Australian biologist said of that February evening last year, when the then-chief of U.S. intelligence secretly flew to Baghdad and dropped in on the lakeside Perfume Palace, chandelier-hung home of the Iraq Survey Group.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3964
Dangerous Incompetence
-- a message from Cindy Sheehan
George Bush has been an incompetent failure his entire life. Fortunately, for humanity, he was just partying his way through school, running companies into the ground and being an alcoholic and cocaine abuser for most of that time and his incompetence was limited to hurting the people who worked for him and his own family. The people in his life who were hurt by his incompetence probably have been able to "get on" with their lives. Now, though, his incompetence affects the world and is responsible for so many deaths and so much destruction. How many of us did not foresee the mess he would make of the world when he was selected the first time? We saw what he had done to Texas. How many of us marveled and were so discouraged and amazed when he was "re-elected" the second time? We saw what he had done to the world. Dangerous incompetence should never be rewarded, let alone be rewarded so handsomely as in George's case.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=494
Veterans for Peace from Camp Casey, Crawford to Camp Casey Covinton, Louisiana to Provide Hurricane Relief
Hurricance Relief from Camp Casey, Crawford Supporters to Camp Casey Covington, LA!
The "White Rose" Bus of the Veterans For Peace Chapter 116 of Mendocino County, which drove Cindy into and out of Crawford left the Bring Them Home Now Tour on Thursday to bring direct relief to the community of Covington, LA. Working with Annie and Buddy Spell, Alex and Ella and other supporters from Camp Casey, Crawford, they were able to get through and set up Camp Casey Covington in Reverend Peter Atkins Park. Yesturday they moved into the Covington Pine View Middle School on 28th Street.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=3963
Seattle Post Intelligencer
New Orleans turns to its dead
By ALLEN G. BREED
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
NEW ORLEANS -- With the last weary refugees rescued from the Superdome and convention center, New Orleans turned its attention Sunday to gathering up and counting the dead across a ghastly landscape awash in perhaps thousands of corpses.
No one knows how many people were killed by Hurricane Katrina and how many more succumbed waiting to be rescued. But the bodies are everywhere: hidden in attics, floating in the ruined city, crumpled in wheelchairs, abandoned on highways.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Hurricane%20Katrina
Whistle-blowers awarded damages
11 get $4.7 million for raising safety concerns at Hanford
By LISA STIFFLER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Eight years after Hanford pipefitters blew the whistle on a hazardous-waste cleanup contractor over safety problems, the workers Friday were awarded more than $4.7 million in damages.
The 11 workers claimed that they were laid off and harassed for their actions, and a Benton County Superior Court jury agreed, awarding back wages and, in most cases, damages for emotional distress. The individual awards ranged from $89,700 to $553,700.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/239293_hanford03.html
Machinists hold fast on picket lines
Boeing strikers vow to be out for as long as it takes
By JAMES WALLACE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER AEROSPACE REPORTER
Ian Erskine and Bill Cromer work at The Boeing Co.'s huge Everett plant, where until Thursday they and other Machinists assembled the company's biggest jets -- the 747, 777 and 767.
But production of all Boeing jetliners, those twin-aisle planes in Everett as well as the single-aisle 737 at the company's Renton plant, was abruptly halted early Friday when Erskine, Cromer and about 16,500 other Boeing Machinists in the Puget Sound region went on strike.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/239290_boeunion03.html
Boeing strike's ripples are small -- for now
By KRISTEN MILLARES BOLT
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
When the 16,500 Machinists in the Puget Sound area decide to curtail their spending, the region's retailers and restaurants feel it.
While Salo and his peers are reviewing their expenses and future spending, so, too, are the many manufacturing companies that rely on Boeing for a steady stream of orders for parts and service work.
Depending on the strike's duration, it may not be all bad news.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/239269_bizimpact03.html
Other unions vow to help -- but not strike
Boeing security officers uneasy about having to police a Machinists' picket line
By JOHN COOK
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Security officers, truck drivers, engineers and other unionized workers at The Boeing Co. will pledge their support to the striking Machinists, but they are not permitted under current contracts to launch "sympathy strikes" against the aerospace giant, union leaders said Friday.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/239264_otherunions03.html
The Moscow Times
Thousands Mourn in Beslan School Gym
By Francesca Mereu
Staff Writer
Relatives grieving inside the burnt-out gym at Beslan School No. 1 on Thursday morning. Photographs of the dead covered what remained of the walls.
BESLAN, North Ossetia -- With the air thick with grief and anger, thousands of people gathered at Beslan's School No. 1 on Thursday to commemorate the 331 hostages, half of them children, who died in last year's attack.
Mourners passed through two metal detectors at the entrance to the schoolyard, and police officers searched them for weapons, a grim irony that angered some victims' families.
"My daughter and her two children were in this damn school," screamed Zoya Gadiyeva, who was holding portraits of her daughter and 6-year-old granddaughter, both of whom died.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/09/02/001.html
'Fear Is the King of This Town'
By Francesca Mereu
Staff Writer
Marianna Kokayeva, left, posing with her cousins Isolda and Ilya and her aunt, Veta. They all were held as hostages.
BESLAN, North Ossetia -- Former child hostages are wetting their beds at night. Some are overeating to cope with painful memories. Many are obsessed with water.
The Ossetian spirit of joy and hospitality in this small town of 30,000 has turned into fear and anger a year after the school seizure -- fear of another attack and anger that half of the town received cash and other gifts while the rest got nothing.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/09/02/002.html
Only 3 Beslan Mothers Will Meet With Putin
By Francesca Mereu
Staff Writer
Mamsurov, left, visiting the gym on Thursday with his son Zelim and Kozak.
BESLAN, North Ossetia -- The Beslan Mothers' Committee said only three of its members would go to Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin on Friday, and they would tell him that he also was responsible for the deaths of their children.
"As the head of state, he was responsible for our children. ... He must tell us why the border was not secure, why the terrorists were allowed to cross it. Who ordered the tanks to fire incendiary grenades on a school? It will not be an easy discussion, but he will be forced to listen to us," Susanna Dudiyeva, the head of the committee, said at a news conference in Beslan on Wednesday.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/09/02/012.html
New School Year Starts Amid High Security
By Oksana Yablokova and Nabi Abdullaev
Staff Writers
A policeman with a metal detector at School No. 1741 in southwest Moscow.
On the first anniversary of the Beslan school seizure, children in Moscow and around the country began a new school year Thursday amid heightened new security measures aimed at preventing further terrorist attacks.
Top law enforcement officials last month ordered schools nationwide to install new security measures, including alarm buttons, surveillance cameras, metal detectors and fences.
But by Thursday, only some of the country's wealthier regions and large cities, such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, had fully complied with the order.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/09/02/003.html
Time to Tell the Truth About Beslan
Editorial
We look forward to hearing from you.President Vladimir Putin cannot be commended for his decision to face the grief-stricken mothers of Beslan on Friday. He should have done it long ago.
It is his duty to meet the victims of a terrorist attack of such mind-boggling proportions that we are all still struggling to come to terms with it a year later.
It is the duty of the head of the state to ensure that 1,000 people are not taken hostage and that innocent children are not slain.
It is Putin and his ministers who did not learn the lessons of Dubrovka in 2002, instead fooling themselves into believing that they had won that standoff and that the terrorists would not dare to try such a bold hostage-taking attack again.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/09/02/005.html
Russia to join WTO only on favorable conditions - deputy foreign minister
RIA NOVOSTI. September 4, 2005, 3:29 PM
MOSCOW, September 4 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will join the World Trade Organization (WTO) only on favorable economic conditions, a senior Russian diplomat said.
"I would like to emphasize that joining the WTO is not an end in itself for Russia and we are not concerned about the deadlines," Alexander Yakovenko, Russia's deputy foreign minister, said in an interview whose transcript has been posted on the foreign ministry's Web site. "We will join this organization when the coordinated conditions of our membership fully meet the interests of strengthening Russia's economy."
The deputy foreign minister added that the bilateral and multilateral talks on Russia's accession to the WTO had intensified recently. At present, Russia has concluded negotiations and signed respective agreements with 19 WTO members on their access to the Russian product market, and with 13 WTO members on their access to the Russian services market. The working group on Russia's accession to the WTO is currently preparing the final report that establishes Russia's obligations in the scope of all WTO agreements.
"It is not a secret, though, that the moist complex problems remain unsolved and it will be difficult to reach an agreement on these issues," Yakovenko said referring to import duties in such sensitive for Russia branches of economy as the airspace and car-manufacturing industries, the access of foreign banks and insurance companies to the Russian financial market, and the state subsidies in agriculture.
Other controversial issues include customs regulations, veterinary controls, protection of intellectual property, and regulations of the pharmaceutical market.
"Unfortunately, certain WTO members continue to put forward the demands that exceed the standard accession requirements (the so-called WTO-plus requirements)," the Russian diplomat said. "They include such sensitive issues as the regulation of prices on fuel-carriers, export duties, and the activities of companies partially owned by the state."
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/doc/HotNews.html
Russia's oil is key to development of global economy
RIA NOVOSTI. September 4, 2005, 4:14 PM
TOKYO, September 4 (RIA Novosti, Andrei Fesyun) - The future development of the global economy is impossible without Russia's energy resources, a Russian oil expert said in an interview with RIA Novosti.
Gennady Shmal, president of the Union of Oil and Gas Industrialists of Russia, said, "The goal of our participation [in the Days of Russia's Oil and Gas organized in the context of the EXPO-2005 international trade show in Japan] is to show how Russia's energy sector influences global economy and demonstrate the capabilities of the Russian energy industry in terms of cooperation with large Japanese companies."
According to the expert, "Russia should be more aggressive in the Far East considering high demand for energy supplies on the part of Asian countries, primarily China, and also knowing that the prices for fuel-carriers in the region are 10%-20% higher than those in Europe."
"The East for us begins in the Urals," Shmal said. "We should not look only at the West, at Europe, which has been already saturated with oil and gas pipelines; we must construct pipelines in Siberia trying to correct the existing economic imbalance."
Russia has unique experience in the construction of oil and gas infrastructure and wants to attract the interest of Japanese corporations to joint projects in the energy sphere, the expert said.
Despite the resistance of certain Japanese government officials, "the current situation has changed and new opportunities for future cooperation have appeared," he added.
Business presumes mutual efforts, Shmal said. "We are always ready to cooperate if Japan wishes to do the same."
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/doc/HotNews.html
The Washington Post
Many Evacuated, but Thousands Still Waiting
White House Shifts Blame to State and Local Officials
By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Spencer Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 4, 2005; Page A01
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 3 -- Tens of thousands of people spent a fifth day awaiting evacuation from this ruined city, as Bush administration officials blamed state and local authorities for what leaders at all levels have called a failure of the country's emergency management.
President Bush authorized the dispatch of 7,200 active-duty ground troops to the area -- the first major commitment of regular ground forces in the crisis -- and the Pentagon announced that an additional 10,000 National Guard troops will be sent to Louisiana and Mississippi, raising the total Guard contingent to about 40,000.
… Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.
The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301680.html
72% Say Gas Scalping Is Tied to Storm
Majority in Poll Blame Gouging on Government's Handling of Price Surge
By Richard Morin and Claudia Deane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 4, 2005; Page A27
An overwhelming majority of Americans believe oil and gas companies are gouging consumers in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina but offer mixed reviews of President Bush and the government's initial response to the deadly storm, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The survey conducted Friday night found that 72 percent of the respondents say oil companies and gas suppliers have taken advantage of the storm emergency by raising gasoline prices, which spiked virtually overnight last week to $3 dollars a gallon or more in many areas. Eight in 10 say the federal government's handling of surging gas prices was "not so good" or "poor," the survey found.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301164.html?nav=hcmodule
240,000 Evacuees Strain Capacity
By Lisa Rein and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 4, 2005; Page A01
HOUSTON, Sept. 3 -- Thousands of evacuees, exhausted and frustrated after days trapped in flooded New Orleans, continued to pour into Houston and other cities in Texas on Saturday, rapidly filling enormous arenas and small shelters in an extraordinary exodus of humanity that has quickly strained the capacity of the Lone Star State.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301664.html
At Smaller Shelters, Some Large Problems
Present and Future Both Bleak for Many
By Robert E. Pierre
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 4, 2005; Page A25
DONALDSONVILLE, La., Sept. 3 -- The exodus from New Orleans continues, but for those lucky enough to have escaped, another journey to find shelter has begun.
For days, the focus has been on mega-shelters such as Houston's Astrodome and LSU's Pete Maravich Center. But in towns like this one along the Mississippi River, a patchwork of shelters has popped up in civic centers, gyms and churches.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301619.html
continued …
