Rooster "Crowing"
"Okeydoke"
History
1777, British troops occupied Philadelphia during the American Revolution.
1789, Thomas Jefferson was appointed America's first secretary of state.
1888, poet T.S. Eliot was born in St. Louis.
1937 Great blues singer Bessie Smith dies in Clarksville, MS after injuries from an automobile accident. Supposedly, she bled to death after being denied a blood transfusion at a whites-only hospital.
1950, United Nations troops recaptured the South Korean capital of Seoul from the North Koreans.
1952, philosopher George Santayana died in Rome at age 88.
1955, following word that President Eisenhower had suffered a heart attack, the New York Stock Exchange saw its worst price decline since 1929.
1960, the first televised debate between presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon took place in Chicago.
1962 Sonny Liston KO's Floyd Patterson to win the Heavyweight Boxing Championship. He is later KO'd by Cassius Clay who converts to Islam and changes his name to Muhammad Ali
1980, the Cuban government abruptly closed Mariel Harbor, ending the "freedom flotilla" of Cuban refugees that had begun the previous April.
1981 Tennis star Serena “Mica” Williams who will become a noted champion singles and doubles player, is born in Saginaw, MI.
1986, William H. Rehnquist was sworn in as the 16th chief justice of the United States, while Antonin Scalia joined the Supreme Court as its 103rd member.
1991, four men and four women began a two-year stay inside a sealed-off structure in Oracle, Ariz., called Biosphere Two. (They emerged from the Biosphere on this date in 1993.)
Missing in Action
1966 BALLARD ARTHUR T. SPARTANBURG SC 03/04/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 2000
1966 MOSBURG HENRY L. PUTNAM OK
1966 PHILLIPS MARVIN F. GRUETLI TN
1967 GEIST STEPHEN J. SILVER SPRINGS MD
1967 HUDDLESTON LYNN R. RALLS TX
1967 MOE HAROLD JOHN EAU CLAIRE WI
1968 OLSON BARRY A. ALBERT LEA MN
1972 WALSH JAMES P. WINSTED CN 02/12/73 RELEASED BY PRG (CAMB) 151099 ALIVE IN 99
September 25
1963 CHENEY JOSEPH C. NOT ON OFFICIAL DIA LIST
1966 BURGESS RICHARD G. ALOHA WA 03/05/73 RELEASED BY PRG ALIVE IN 98
1966 BOSSMAN PETER R. WEST SENECA NY
1966 CUSHMAN CLIFTON E. GRAND FORKS ND
1966 DUCAT PHILLIP A. FORT WAYNE IN
1966 REITER DEAN W. MANCHESTER MO
1972 CHAN PETER SAN FRANCISCO CA FELL OVERBOARD/ORISKANY
September 24
1965 FLYNN GEORGE EDWARD III NEW ORLEANS LA 06/09/74 REMAINS RECOVERED
1965 OSBORN GEOFFREY H. WINTER PARK FL
1966 WHITTLE JUNIOR L. INDIANAPOLIS IN SWIMMING SOUTH CHINA SEA DROWN
1968 BREINER STEPHEN E. DECATUR IN
1968 DRABIC PETER E. UNION BRIDGE MD 03/73 RELEASED BY PRG ALIVE IN 98
1968 MC CONNELL JERRY JAMICA NY
1972 BORAH DANIEL V. JR. OLNEY IL "ALIVE IN CHUTE, NO MORE CONTACT" REMAINS IDENTIFIED 18 APRIL 1997 -- DISPUTED
September 23
1968 CALLAHAN DAVID F. JR. WINDSOR VT
1968 OSBORNE DALE H. SALT LAKE CITY UT 02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV INJURED ALIVE AND WELL 98
Michael Moore Today
My First Time
A message from Cindy Sheehan
The rumors are true this time. I was arrested in front of the White House today. It was my first time ever being arrested.
We proceeded from Lafayette Park to the Guard House at the White House. I, my sister, and other Gold Star Families for Peace members and some Military Families requested to meet with the President again. We again wanted to know: What is the Noble Cause? Our request was, to our immense shock and surprise, denied. They wouldn't even deliver any letters or pictures of our killed loved ones to the White House.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=510
How Many More Mike Browns Are Out There?
A TIME inquiry finds that at top positions in some vital government agencies, the Bush Administration is putting connections before experience
By Mark Thompson, Karen Tumulty, Mike Alan / TIME Magazine
In presidential politics, the victor always gets the spoils, and chief among them is the vast warren of offices that make up the federal bureaucracy. Historically, the U.S. public has never paid much attention to the people the President chooses to sit behind those thousands of desks. A benign cronyism is more or less presumed, with old friends and big donors getting comfortable positions and impressive titles, and with few real consequences for the nation.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4275
Nigerian villagers 'beaten by oil rig troops'
IDAMA, Nigeria (AFP) - Nigerian soldiers posted to protect an oil plant owned by the US giant Chevron invaded a nearby village and severely beat some local people during a hunt for stolen weapons, witnesses said.
Three men -- Ababia Youngana, 33, Thompson Walson, 25 and Preye Kigigha, 28 -- showed reporters fresh scars they said they had received on Saturday when soldiers beat them with rifle butts and whipped them with electrical flex.
Youngana's eye was swollen shut. "I can open it now, but I can't see. It's blinded," he said.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4271
U.S. Companies Lag in Responsibility, Accountability - Study
By Abid Aslam / OneWorld.net
WASHINGTON, D.C - U.S. companies remain less accountable than European and Asian ones despite recent years' damaging revelations of management chicanery involving finances, labor relations, environmental performance, and consumer protection, a global survey said Friday.
The findings, to be published in the Oct. 3 international editions of Fortune magazine, came on the heels of fresh demands by international pressure groups for legally binding global social and environmental standards to help stop what they termed corporate abuses.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4253
Frist's Political Future Darkens Over Questions on Stock Sales
By Laura Litvan and Otis Bilodeau / Bloomberg
Sept. 26 -- At the start of this year, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was looking at a bright political future. He led his party to an expanded majority in the Senate in November and emerged as a leading Republican hopeful for the 2008 presidential race.
Less than nine months later, that picture appears darker. Frist, 53, now faces inquiries into his stock sales by the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission that threaten to undermine him politically and provide Democrats fresh ammunition with which to question their opponents' ethics.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4267
Many Contracts for Storm Work Raise Questions
By Eric Lipton and ROn Nixon / New York Times
WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 - Topping the federal government's list of costs related to Hurricane Katrina is the $568 million in contracts for debris removal landed by a Florida company with ties to Mississippi's Republican governor. Near the bottom is an $89.95 bill for a pair of brown steel-toe shoes bought by an Environmental Protection Agency worker in Baton Rouge, La.
The first detailed tally of commitments from federal agencies since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast four weeks ago shows that more than 15 contracts exceed $100 million, including 5 of $500 million or more. Most of those were for clearing away the trees, homes and cars strewn across the region; purchasing trailers and mobile homes; or providing trucks, ships, buses and planes.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4259
Staying Behind, to Help a City That Needed Him
By Ralph Blumenthanl / The New York Times
HOUSTON
Abe Doumani, an "essential person" by declaration of Mayor Bill White, mopped the floor of his Shell station yesterday at a busy intersection.
While others had evacuated, joining the chaotic exodus of about 2.5 million people who fled Hurricane Rita, Mr. Doumani knew he was too vital a player to leave.
He dispenses that rarest and most prized of all commodities: gasoline.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4260
Hackberry: Population Zero
By Scott Gold / Los Angeles Times
HACKBERRY, La. — Roger Thibodeaux gunned the engine but lowered his voice.
"What we're doing here is illegal," he said. "But we need to know what's in there. We need to know what the rest of our lives are going to be like."
Thibodeaux, 43, and Mike Daigle, 52 — two grizzled friends who live hard and work hard, one on a drilling rig, the other on a shrimp boat — had driven as close as they could Sunday afternoon to the region where Hurricane Rita cast a wall of water into Louisiana. Like thousands of others, they pleaded and cajoled, but authorities told them they could not go home.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=4264
The Seattle Post Intelligencer
Judge OKs $25.5M settlement in WWII case
By CURT ANDERSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
MIAMI -- Amid objections from some Holocaust survivors, a federal judge Monday approved a $25.5 million settlement between the U.S. government and Hungarian Jews who lost jewelry, artwork and other treasures when a Nazi "Gold Train" was commandeered by the U.S. Army during World War II.
Despite the objections, Judge Patricia Seitz said the agreement represented a "historic" chance to right a 60-year-old wrong committed by some U.S. troops and never adequately addressed by the federal government.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Gold%20Train
Five die using generator in Texas outage
By APRIL CASTRO
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
BEAUMONT, Texas -- Quanishia Haynes gave a friendly honk as she drove past her father's apartment Monday morning, just hours after he returned to southeast Texas after fleeing to escape Hurricane Rita.
Haynes realized something was wrong the instant her 12-year-old sister came out the front door vomiting. She and her boyfriend rushed inside and found the bodies of her father, his girlfriend's sister and three children.
The five were killed by carbon monoxide from a generator they were running indoors after the hurricane knocked out power. The deaths raised Rita's death toll to seven.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Rita%20Apartment%20Deaths
Nagin reopens New Orleans' Algiers section
By JULIA SILVERMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
NEW ORLEANS -- With Hurricane Rita gone, the mayor picked up where he left off with his plan to reopen New Orleans, inviting people in one largely unscathed neighborhood to come back Monday and "help us rebuild the city."
A line extended out of a Winn-Dixie supermarket as locals stocked up on ice, milk and other staples in Algiers, the first New Orleans neighborhood officially opened by Mayor Ray Nagin.
At a Texaco station, owner Mohammed Mehmood returned to find damage both from the storm and from looting. His gas pumps were vandalized, his computers did not work and his ceiling was about to collapse.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Rita%20New%20Orleans%20HK2
Eleven priests in Chicago area removed
By MEGAN REICHGOTT
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
CHICAGO -- Eleven priests suspected of sexual misconduct with minors more than 20 years ago have been barred from clerical work, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago said Monday.
The men cannot present themselves as priests, engage in public ministries or act as an agent of the archdiocese, although they have not been removed from the priesthood, said Chancellor Jimmy Lago.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Priest%20Abuse
Judge won't stop killing of Calif. pigs
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES -- Thousands of wild pigs on Santa Cruz Island can be destroyed, a federal judge ruled Monday, but a businessman pledged to continue his fight to save the animals.
The National Park Service and The Nature Conservancy, which co-own the island, say the pigs must go because they're damaging archaeological sites and threatening native species like the endangered Santa Cruz Island fox.
The pigs are descended from animals that ranchers brought to the island in the 1850s.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Pig%20Killing
Group calls for licensing Afghan opium
By STEVE GUTTERMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Emmanuel Reinert, Executive Director of The Senlis Council, a leading international drug policy group, adresses journalists in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday Sept, 26, 2005. The group said that Afghanistan could reduce its destabilizing heroin trade by licensing an opium crop to produce medical morphine for export, but the United Nations dismissed the idea as unlikely to work. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghanistan could reduce its destabilizing heroin trade by licensing an opium crop to produce medical morphine for export, a drug policy group said Monday, but the United Nations dismissed the idea as unlikely to work and the government called it premature.
The Senlis Council, a France-based group founded in 2002, released results of a study examining the potential for licensing poppy cultivation in Afghanistan - which produces an estimated 87 percent of the world's supply of both opium and its derivative, heroin.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Afghan%20Opium%20Initiative
Typhoon Damrey slams into southern China
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SHANGHAI, China -- Typhoon Damrey slammed into southern China's resort island of Hainan on Monday, killing at least nine people, collapsing houses and sweeping away rice, rubber and banana crops.
Packing winds of up to 125 mph, Damrey made landfall north of Hainan's Wanning City before dawn, the official Xinhua News Agency said. It was the island's strongest typhoon since 1973, the agency said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=China%20Typhoon
Supreme Court may hear abortion case
By GINA HOLLAND
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is asking the Supreme Court to reinstate a national ban on a type of late-term abortion, a case that could thrust the president's first court picks into an early tie-breaking role on a divisive and emotional issue.
The appeal follows a two-year, cross-country legal fight over the law and highlights the power that Bush's nominees will have. Just a few months ago, there would have been five votes to strike down the law, which bars what critics call partial birth abortion.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1154&slug=Scotus%20Abortion
A look at U.S. military deaths in Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
As of Monday, Sept. 26, 2005, at least 1,919 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,494 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The figures include five military civilians.
The AP count is two above the Defense Department's tally, last updated at 10 a.m. EDT Monday.
The British military has reported 96 deaths; Italy, 26; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Slovakia, three; El Salvador, Estonia, Thailand and the Netherlands, two each; and Denmark, Hungary, Kazakhstan and Latvia one death each.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20US%20Deaths
Jordanian terrorism trial of 17 begins
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
AMMAN, Jordan -- Seventeen men pleaded not guilty Monday to planning attacks on U.S. troops in Jordan and neighboring Iraq.
Some of the defendants said at the start of their trial, held in a military court, that they believed jihad, or holy war, was not a crime.
The men - aged between 22 and 36 - are mostly Jordanians of Palestinian origin. They are charged with different counts, including conspiring to commit terrorism and attempting to harm Jordan's relations with a foreign country - a reference to Iraq, where the suspects allegedly planned suicide operations against U.S. forces but did not manage to travel there.
If convicted, they face up to 15 years in jail.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Jordan%20Terrorism
Spain convicts suspected al-Qaida leader
By MAR ROMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Accused cell leader, Imad Yarkas, right, looks on in the National Court in Madrid, Monday, Sept 26, 2005, where he was sentenced to 15 years in jail for conspiracy in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States and 12 years for being a leader of a terrorist organization. Yarkas and 23 other suspects who stood trial were expressionless as the verdicts were read out in the National Court at the conclusion of Europe's biggest trial of al-Qaida suspects. (AP PHOTO/Juanjo Martin,Pool)
MADRID, Spain -- A Syrian-born businessman was sentenced to 27 years in prison Monday after being convicted of leading a terrorist cell and conspiring to commit murder in the Sept. 11 attacks. He was cleared of a more serious charge in Europe's biggest trial of suspected al-Qaida members.
Another man accused of helping one of the hijackers set up a key meeting was acquitted of being an accessory to murder but was convicted of collaborating with a terrorist group. Sixteen other people were convicted of collaborating with or belonging to the terror cell.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Spain%20Sept%2011%20Trial
Al-Jazeera TV condemns Spain conviction
By MAAMOUN YOUSSEF
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
CAIRO, Egypt -- The pan-Arab TV channel Al-Jazeera condemned a Spanish court's finding Monday that one of its journalists had collaborated with terrorists, accusing the judges of violating legal principles.
"It was a black day in the history of Spanish justice," Al-Jazeera news editor Ahmed al-Sheik told the channel from Madrid minutes after the court sentenced Tayssir Alouny to seven years' imprisonment for collaboration with a terrorist organization.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Sept%2011%20Trial%20Al%20Jazeera
Iran criticizes threat of U.N. action
By GEORGE JAHN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Iran's Vice President Reza Aghazadeh speaks on Monday, Sept. 26, 2005, during the 49th regular session of the International Atomic Energy Agency general conference in Vienna, Austria. Disputes about Tehran's nuclear aims spilled over Monday into a 139-nation meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, with an Iranian vice president deriding the "absurdity" of a threat to refer his country to the U.N. Security Council. (AP Photo/Hans Punz)
VIENNA, Austria -- Iran's vice president on Monday blasted the "absurdity" of moves toward referring his country to the U.N. Security Council for its nuclear activities but stopped short of announcing that Tehran had retaliated by resuming uranium conversion.
U.S. and British representatives at a 139-nation meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency asserted that only Iran - and its disregard for international concerns about its nuclear program - was to blame for a weekend decision that clears the path for hauling Tehran before the Security Council as early as next month.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apeurope_story.asp?category=1103&slug=Nuclear%20Agency
Rwanda genocide convicts serve sentences
By GABRIEL GABIRO
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
NTEKO, Rwanda -- Some 774 Rwandans convicted by community courts for their role in the 1994 genocide begin excavating stones for road construction as punishment for their role in the killings of more than a half-million people in this small central African nation.
The community service is intended to foster reconciliation after the slaughter of members of the Tutsi ethnic minority and political moderates from the Hutu majority. The killings were orchestrated by the extremist Hutu government then in power.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apafrica_story.asp?category=1105&slug=Rwanda%20Genocide%20Convicts
Robots to face off for $2M Pentagon prize
By ALICIA CHANG
AP SCIENCE WRITER
LOS ANGELES -- Wanted by the Pentagon: A muscular, outdoorsy specimen. Must be intelligent and, above all, self-driven. When 20 hulking robotic vehicles face off next month in a rugged race across the Nevada desert, the winning machine (if any crosses the finish line) will blend the latest technological bling and the most smarts.
The military sponsors the race to speed the development of unmanned vehicles for combat. The project had an inauspicious start: Last year's inaugural contest ended soon after it began when the robots careered off course or abruptly stalled. One even got tangled in barbed wire.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1501&slug=Robot%20Race
Feds cut back habitat for snowy plover
By JEFF BARNARD
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday announced that West Coast beach-front critical habitat for the threatened western snowy plover will be cut back by nearly 40 percent, continuing a Bush administration policy of reducing habitat protections for threatened and endangered species to reduce economic losses.
The bulk of the cutbacks came from beaches in California on Monterey Bay, Morro Bay and the San Diego Bay island city of Coronado, where a report had estimated that protecting nesting areas from development and human contact would cost nearly $200 million over the next 20 years due primarily to limiting recreation.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1501&slug=WST%20Snowy%20Plover%20Habitat
Invasive mosquito species found in Midwest
By JIM SALTER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
ST. LOUIS -- A species of mosquito common in the eastern U.S. and capable of carrying the West Nile virus has made its way to the Midwest for the first time, a finding made by a college undergraduate, Washington University officials said Monday.
Stephanie Gallitano, a Washington University junior chemistry major from Chicago, was studying the egg-laying habits of mosquitoes native to Missouri this summer at the Tyson Research Center in Eureka, Mo. She took eggs to a lab and some developed into a type of insect she didn't recognize.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apscience_story.asp?category=1501&slug=Mosquito%20Concern
The Cheney Observer
In 1 year, Halliburton's stock doubles as troop deaths double
Halliburton Watch
WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 (HalliburtonWatch.org) -- Since the beginning of the Iraq war, Halliburton, the Texas energy giant once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, has seen its stock price more than triple in value. When the U.S invaded Iraq in March of 2003, Halliburton's stock was selling for $20 per share. The stock price at the close of market activity on Monday was $66.
In the last 12 months, the total number of U.S. service members killed in Iraq almost doubled as Halliburton's stock doubled. Halliburton's stock rose from $33 per share in September 2004 to $66 yesterday while U.S. deaths in Iraq increased from 1,061 to almost 1900.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m16102&l=i&size=1&hd=0
Many Contracts for Storm Work Raise Questions
By ERIC LIPTON and RON NIXON
WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 - Topping the federal government's list of costs related to Hurricane Katrina is the $568 million in contracts for debris removal landed by a Florida company with ties to Mississippi's Republican governor. Near the bottom is an $89.95 bill for a pair of brown steel-toe shoes bought by an Environmental Protection Agency worker in Baton Rouge, La.
The first detailed tally of commitments from federal agencies since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast four weeks ago shows that more than 15 contracts exceed $100 million, including 5 of $500 million or more. Most of those were for clearing away the trees, homes and cars strewn across the region; purchasing trailers and mobile homes; or providing trucks, ships, buses and planes.
More than 80 percent of the $1.5 billion in contracts signed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency alone were awarded without bidding or with limited competition, government records show, provoking concerns among auditors and government officials about the potential for favoritism or abuse.
Already, questions have been raised about the political connections of two major contractors - the Shaw Group and Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton - that have been represented by the lobbyist Joe M. Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former leader of FEMA.
"When you do something like this, you do increase the vulnerability for fraud, plain waste, abuse and mismanagement," said Richard L. Skinner, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, who said 60 members of his staff were examining Hurricane Katrina contracts. "We are very apprehensive about what we are seeing."
Bills have come in for deals that apparently were clinched with a handshake, with no documentation to back them up, said Mr. Skinner, who declined to provide details.
"Most, if not all, of these people down there were trying to do the right thing," he said. "They were under a lot of pressure and they took a lot of shortcuts that may have resulted in a lot of waste."
Congress appropriated $62.3 billion in emergency financing after Hurricane Katrina struck. So far, a total of $15.8 billion has been allocated from a FEMA-managed disaster relief fund, of which $11.6 billion has been committed through contracts, direct aid to individuals or work performed by government agencies.
An examination of the contracts granted to date and interviews with state and federal officials raised concerns about some of the awards.
Some industry and government officials questioned the costs of the debris-removal contracts, saying the Army Corps of Engineers had allowed a rate that was too high. And Congressional investigators are looking into the $568 million awarded to AshBritt, a Pompano Beach, Fla., company that was a client of the former lobbying firm of Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi.
The investigators are asking how much money AshBritt will collect and, in turn, what it will pay subcontractors performing the work, said a House investigator who did not want her name used because she was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
The contracts also show considerable price disparities: travel trailers costing $15,000 to $23,000, housing inspection services that documents suggest could cost $15 to $81 per home, and ferries and ships being used for temporary housing that cost $13 million to $70 million for six months.
For some smaller companies, the recovery work will be an extraordinary test. For example, Aduddell Roofing and Sheet Metal, an Oklahoma City business run by a former steer wrestler, shares with a partner a $60 million contract to install temporary roofing on houses in Mississippi. Aduddell's single biggest contract before this was for $5 million, company executives said.
Some businesses awarded large contracts have long records of performing similar work, but they also have had some problems. CH2M Hill and the Fluor Corporation, two global engineering companies awarded a total of $250 million in contracts, were previously cited by regulators for safety violations at a weapons plant cleanup.
The Bechtel Corporation, awarded a contract that could be worth $100 million, is under scrutiny for its oversight of the "Big Dig" construction project in Boston. And Kellogg, Brown & Root, which was given $60 million in contracts, was rebuked by federal auditors for unsubstantiated billing from the Iraq reconstruction and criticized for bills like $100-per-bag laundry service. All of the companies have publicly defended their performance.
Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, complained that FEMA and other federal agencies were delivering too much of the work to giant corporations with political connections, instead of local companies or minority-owned businesses.
"There is just more of the good-old-boy system, taking care of its political allies," Mr. Thompson said. "FEMA and the others have put out these contracts in such a haphazard manner, I don't know how they can come up with anything that is accountable to the taxpayers."
As of last week, the federal government was spending more than $263 million a day on the recovery effort.
"There was a crisis situation and a lot of very quick contracting was done," said Greg Rothwell, the chief procurement officer at the Department of Homeland Security. "We will be looking at every invoice we get to make sure we were not paying extraordinary prices."
While several federal agencies have approved contracts, FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers, by design, have spent the most so far, according to the list of contracts from federal government agencies assembled by The New York Times.
Much of the spending has been in large amounts, but the contracts also include entries like $80,000 from a company called Bama Jama for clothing adorned with the E.P.A. logo and $3,300 for Doc's Laundry and Linen in Baton Rouge.
Rapidly buying the goods and services needed to respond to an emergency is difficult for any government agency.
Federal contracting rules allow agencies to approve deals without standard competitive bidding in "urgent and compelling circumstances."
To provide some safeguards, federal agencies can hold an open competition in advance for products routinely needed in emergencies. Such agreements are known as "indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity," or I.D.I.Q. contracts.
The Defense Department relied on that type of contract in assigning Kellogg, Brown & Root to perform more than $45 million in repairs to levees in New Orleans and military facilities in the gulf region.
Records show, however, that FEMA did not use this approach for the blue sheeting used to cover holes in roofs, a standard item in the disaster tool kit. Instead, the agency bought $6.6 million of the material from All American Poly of Piscataway, N.J., on Sept. 13, without full competitive bidding.
Before signing contracts with mobile-home and travel-trailer makers worth in excess of $1 billion, FEMA said it did solicit bids. But the awards were made without the standard open competition required for government contracts.
Mr. Rothwell, of the Homeland Security Department, said FEMA needed to expand its number of I.D.I.Q. agreements so that when disasters struck it could bring in contractors more quickly and at a competitive price.
The two most expensive services the government has signed contracts for so far are manufactured housing and debris removal, which alone have totaled $2 billion, according to contracting records.
The debris contracts have attracted the scrutiny of investigators from the House Homeland Security Committee, in part because of the price agreed to by the Army Corps of Engineers.
AshBritt, which has won the biggest share of those contracts, is being paid about $15 per cubic yard to collect and process debris, federal officials said. It is also being reimbursed for costs if it has to dispose of material in landfills.
But three communities in Mississippi, which found their own contractors rather than accept the terms offered by AshBritt, have negotiated contracts of $10.64 a cubic yard to $18.25 a cubic yard, including collection, processing and disposal.
And other experts have questioned AshBritt's fees. "Let me put it to you this way: If $15 was my best price, I would rebid it," said Mike Carroll, a municipal official in Orlando, Fla., with experience in hurricane cleanup.
AshBritt has cleaned up debris for FEMA and other government agencies after other hurricanes. Besides possessing a huge roster of subcontractors and the logistics expertise to route hundreds of trucks, the company is also politically well connected.
According to Senate filings, AshBritt paid about $40,000 in the first half of 2005 to Barbour Griffith & Rogers, the Washington lobbying firm co-founded by Governor Barbour of Mississippi, who is also a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.
AshBritt officials declined to comment on the Hurricane Katrina contracts. Jean Todd, a federal contracting officer who helps oversee the AshBritt deal for the Army Corps of Engineers, said she was determined to ensure that the price was fair.
"We have auditors that will be looking at all of this," Ms. Todd said.
FEMA has led the effort to line up contractors to install tens of thousand of temporary homes. The scale of the job is still unclear - depending on demand, FEMA may downsize its plans - but the agency has been rushing to buy as many travel trailers and mobile homes as it can. It has signed five contracts each worth more than $100 million with major manufacturers. And it has scoured the country, buying up whatever it can find on dealers' lots.
That has turned into a bonanza for businesses like Wagner's RV Center in Suamico, Wis., which sold 69 trailers to FEMA for $1.3 million.
"In a single sale, we cleared out most of our leftover inventory from the 2005 model year," said Leonard Wagner, the owner of the RV center. "That does not happen very often."
For some small businesses, what started off as big contracts have quickly grown into giant ones. Aduddell Roofing, the Oklahoma City business, was first hired with a partner on a $10 million contract. In a matter of weeks, that deal had grown into a $60 million contract.
The project is being run by Timothy Aduddell, the company's president, who until recently was on the professional rodeo circuit, said Ron Carte, the chief executive of Zenex International, the company that owns Aduddell.
"You have to be there to see it," Mr. Carte said of the hurricane work. "As Mr. Aduddell says, 'It's pretty cowboy.' "
Eric Dash and Leslie Eaton contributed reporting from New York for this article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/26/national/nationalspecial/26spend.html?pagewanted=print
Appropriate questions
We need to find out what went wrong in Katrina response
By AMY JORGENSEN, Columnist
September 25, 2005
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there has been much finger pointing, especially toward the Bush administration. Some of you may argue this is not the time to point fingers, but if not now, when? Now is the time to determine who was at fault, because if we don't understand what went wrong in New Orleans and what continues to go wrong, the problem will never be fixed.
The first problem clearly was a lack of preparation. We can speculate that the people of New Orleans were left to die in a flooded city because they were black and poor. We can wonder how things would have been different if New Orleans had been a more affluent, more white city. Or we can examine the facts about how the Federal Emergency Management Agency prepared for previous hurricanes. Before Hurricane Charley hit Florida, FEMA took action. According to a Homeland Security press release dated August 2004, "Twenty semi-trailers containing cots and blankets, emergency meals, portable toilets, personal wash kits, sleeping bags, 6-8 person tents, plastic sheeting and roofing, bottled water and mid-range generators are being staged in Georgia for rapid deployment to Florida. FEMA has also deployed large sea containers with building materials for immediate home repairs."
Why were these same precautions not taken for Hurricane Katrina? It's a question that deserves an answer. Another problem is how the aftermath of Katrina is being handled. Last week, several companies received contracts to repair the damage in New Orleans, and President Bush has pledged to spend as much of the nation's money as necessary to accomplish that goal. Considering that the companies receiving those contracts included Halliburton (once run by Vice President Cheney), Bechtel (whose CEO is on Bush's Export Council) and Shaw (whose lobbyist was formerly Bush's campaign manager), we can safely assume those decisions weren't made because of his compassion for the people of New Orleans, especially since none of those companies had to bid on the contracts. They were awarded without any competition. What's worse is that Bush suspended the Davis-Bacon Act in areas hit by Katrina. The Davis-Bacon Act guarantees that employees fulfilling a federal contract must be paid the prevailing wage of that community. With suspension of the act, companies in charge of the rebuilding efforts can pay their employees lower wages and keep more of the taxpayers' money as profits.
Furthermore, of those three companies, only Shaw is based in Louisiana. The rebuilding efforts could have been handled, or at least bid on, by local companies so that those in and around the devastated areas could benefit financially from the reconstruction. Instead, billions of dollars are going to companies such as Halliburton, which has already demonstrated its efficient spending in Iraq. According to a Pentagon audit released in June, Halliburton has spent more than $1.5 billion in Iraq on expenses that were either "questioned" or "unsupported." We can expect similar results in New Orleans.
When our leaders show such poor judgment, we have to hold them accountable and ask the tough questions. Finger pointing may not do much to help the people of New Orleans, but it can help them, and us, understand why this tragedy happened and how it can be prevented from happening again.
http://www.courierpress.com/ecp/editorials/article/0,1626,ECP_768_4104611,00.html
Lawrence rally attracts 400 anti-war protesters
March simultaneous with Washington event
By Mike Belt (Contact)
Sunday, September 25, 2005
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President Bush hasn’t heeded their call for two years, but that didn’t stop about 400 people from marching through downtown Lawrence on Saturday while calling for American forces to be brought home from Iraq.
“I think it’s good to speak out,” said Bob Marvin, one of the marchers. “I’m glad people turned out for this.”
The marchers consisted of people of all ages, including a few children. Some families brought their dogs. They carried signs critical of the Bush administration’s war effort, including ones that proclaimed “How Many Should Die For 0 WMD,” and “Quagmire Accomplished.”
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/sep/25/lawrence_rally_attracts_400_antiwar_protesters/?city_local
Efforts Of Advocacy Group Stymied
By SHERRI ACKERMAN sackerman@tampatrib.com
Published: Sep 26, 2005
TAMPA - After 30 years with virtually unfettered access to confidential client records, the Statewide Advocacy Council is finding less cooperation with government agencies overseeing Florida's most vulnerable residents.
The council was created 30 years ago by lawmakers to investigate complaints made against agencies charged with the welfare of abused and abandoned children, and the elderly, disabled and mentally challenged.
In the past two years, some of those agencies have limited the council's ability to get records. Council members say no harm has come to clients as a result.
"Abuse claims are still being investigated," council Chairman Craig Rappel said last week during the group's board meeting in Tampa. "It just takes a lot more work now."
Some members also are upset with the abrupt appointment in July of a new executive director for the council, Sherri McVay.
McVay is a health care lawyer who worked for Gov. Jeb Bush's father and brother, George W.
She replaced William Marvin, who headed the council for 13 years.
http://news.tbo.com/news/MGBUDN262EE.html
Gov. Bush wants Polk declared disaster area
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TALLAHASSEE - Gov. Jeb Bush asked the Small Business Administration to declare Polk County a disaster area so residents forced out of their homes by flooding could qualify for low-interest loans.
More than 300 homes west of Lake Wales have been flooded since July, when Saddlebag Lake overflowed. After pleading for months, residents got help last week when the county began pumping water out of the lake.
Years of above-average rainfall, last year's hurricanes and this summer's showers caused the lake to overflow.
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/12733692.htm
Cost of Freedom Guest: Don't Worry! Be Happy! Your Heating Bill's Only Going up 30 to 70 Percent!
When I was a young girl about 13 years of age, my mother taught me a basic lesson in economics. In the early 60's, the news was filled with reports that a beef shortage was going to hike the price of a pound of ground round by 40% a pound. Ground round was a staple of our family's diet, so Mom told me we wouldn't be eating beef for a while until the price came down. Then she explained something I've never forgotten. "The prices are raised way up," she said, "so that, when they fall back again, even though they're higher than they were before, everyone is relieved. It's just a sneaky way to increase prices." We ate tuna fish casserole until, sure enough, a month or so later the "crisis" was over and prices came down, but not to their pre-crisis levels. My mother was a very smart woman
Yesterday during the second hour of the 9-24-05 edition of the Cost of Freedom, Neil Cavuto and his guest said things that that brought back memories of my mother's words.
http://www.newshounds.us/2005/09/25/cost_of_freedom_guest_dont_worry_be_happy_your_heating_bills_only_going_up_30_to_70_percent.php
Cheney's Medical Record
September 24, 2005
Charles Laramie
I have been thinking about this scenerio for awhile and the headline in the Rutland Herald today "Cheney to undergo procedure" has me writing about the possibility.
There has been a little speculation about who will be the Republican candidate for president in 2008 but not a lot. This is what I think could happen. Due to Mr. Cheney's less than steller medical record he decides to resign the Vice-Presidency early in 2006. The Republican Party picks a replacement they think stands a chance of winning in 2008. This would give the new Vice-President the experience and exposure necessary to win. Is this a likely scenerio?
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050924/RTD/50924002
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