tagged w/ New Orleans
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Richard Simmons, real name Milton Teagle Simmons is a famous American fitness personality. Richard Simmons was born on 12th July 1948 in New Orleans, Louisiana.Richard Simmons, real name Milton Teagle Simmons is a famous American fitness... more
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This weekend marks the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s ravages of New Orleans, a city that not long ago appeared to be completely lost. Only five years have passed since rotting corpses were floating through the city’s streets, since hundreds of thousands of survivors sat in hotel rooms and shelters and the homes of relatives, finding out from news coverage that they had been forced to join the ranks of the homeless.
The unbelievable devastation of New Orleans is almost beyond human comprehension. The virtually complete destruction of the entire city by Hurricane Katrina, the loss of huge numbers of lives, the ruination of the property and lives of so many, especially the poor and disadvantaged, is a tragedy of historically monumental proportions.
Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast with devastating force at daybreak on Aug. 29, 2005, pounding an area that included the fabled city of New Orleans and wreaking large-scale damages on neighboring Mississippi. In all, more than 1,700 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of others were displaced as refugees. Packing a terrifying punch of 145-mile-an-hour winds when it made landfall, the category-4 storm's surge pushed a 29-foot wall of water ashore when the hurricane struck the Gulf Coast, the highest level ever measured in the United States. Levees failed in New Orleans, resulting in political and social upheavals that continue a half decade later.
This commemorative piece presents a number of historic high-resolution photographs, a memorable slide show and two emotionally moving documentary short films.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/08/28/a-remembrance-of-katrinas-wake-portraits-of-tragic-loss/This weekend marks the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s ravages of New... more
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by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Joe Miller, Sarah Palin’s choice candidate for one of Alaska’s Senate seats, does not believe in climate change. That didn’t bother Alaska voters: this week, Miller bested Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the state’s Republican primary.
If that weren’t worrisome enough, it also emerged that the fossil fuel industry spent eight times more than environmental groups on lobbying in 2009, the year the House passed the climate change bill. It’s been a bad year already for environmental causes, and as the November election edges closer, progressives might want to start working overtime to regain momentum on climate and energy issues.
Murkowski was solidly against the idea of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulating carbon. But she was willing to talk about cap-and-trade programs, and at the very least, she was willing to admit climate change was happening. Depending on how November’s election shakes out, the shift towards climate-denial in Congress may only worsen. A slew of Republican candidates are convinced that, as one put it, “only God knows where our climate is going,” as Care2 reports.
A tougher tomorrow
Current political trends bode badly for the planet. If Congress couldn’t pass climate legislation while are in Democrats control of the House and Senate, there’s little hope that lawmakers will step up when facing opponents who don’t believe in climate change.
Carla Perez has a few ideas about how progressives and environmentalists can fight back — and they begin with accepting that, yes, giving up fossil fuels would mean sacrifice, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Perez, a program coordinator at social justice group Movement Generation, appeared recently on National Radio Project’s Making Contact and imagined how life would look without fossil fuels:
No iPods. No iPads. No plasma TVs. No motorized individual vehicles. No plastic bags. No pleather boots for $9.99 from Payless…. Then again, no island of plastic twice the size of Texas. No plumes of sulfuric acid over Richmond, California. No skyrocketing rates of cancer and diabetes concentrated in native and people of color communities all over the world. No spontaneous combustion of flames off of contaminated rivers.
“How bad would it be?” she asked.
Target practice
To move from iPods to environmental justice, though, people like Perez will have to keep politicians like Joe Miller out of Washington. In an interview with Yes! Magazine, Riki Ott, a marine biologist and Exxon Valdez survivor, makes a good point about the challenges that environmental advocates face.
“This BP disaster, like the Exxon-Valdez, is more than an environmental crisis—it’s a democracy crisis,” Ott says. “Right now we’re playing the game: Going through regulatory arenas, tightening some laws. But that’s not good enough. The real question is, how do we get control of these big corporations?”
Electing politicians that don’t take corporate money or listen to industry lobbyists will help. Another way to move away from the dominance of fossil fuel companies is offering real alternatives to using their products.
Brave new NOLA
In New Orleans, in the five years since Katrina hit, the people rebuilding the city have worked to create greener alternatives, as Campus Progress reports. Here’s just one example:
Go Green NOLA encourages homebuilders to think small, since smaller homes use less energy. The group also makes suggestions such as installing windows and insulation systems with special attention to local weather and climate — think: humidity, and lots of it—and using shade trees and other landscaping to help beat back the southern sun.
Change can happen without devastation preceding it. In Massachusetts, the Green Justice Coalition worked to ensure that environmental justice provisions made it into the state’s $1.4 billion energy efficiency plan, The Nation reports. What’s more, the coalition made certain that Massachusetts citizens would feel the impact of the new plan directly:
There will be a financing plan to make energy-saving home improvements more affordable. Many of the 23,300 jobs to be generated by the plan will go to contractors who pay decent wages and meet “high road” employment standards. Finally, four pilot programs across the state will test a radically new outreach model by going door to door and mobilizing low- and moderate-income families in building greener neighborhoods.
Women lead the way
Progress doesn’t happen on its own, of course. At RH Reality Check, Kathleen Rogers suggests that female leaders make all the difference. “Women get the connections between climate change, public health and economic growth, because climate change is disproportionately affecting women,” she writes. “A new generation of women entrepreneurs, leaders and civil society, have demonstrated the potential for being the solution to the climate crisis. But they must be mobilized and given an opportunity to influence government and business.”
Rogers is right. Leaders are out there. Just listen to the whole of Carla Perez’ comments on Making Contact. The Green Justice Coalition’s Phyllis Evans also gets it. And even Sen. Murkowski was willing to work on climate change compromises, on some level.
Of course, it’s not just women who can lead the country and the planet away from current environmental and democratic crises. Paths forward are emerging; anyone can follow them.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Joe Miller, Sarah Palin’s choice... more
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Spike Lee on BP and New Orleans
10:05am
Filmmaker Spike Lee discusses his new documentary on New Orleans made five years after Hurricane Katrina.Spike Lee on BP and New Orleans
10:05am
Filmmaker Spike Lee discusses his new... more
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A panel of scientists told Congress the entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear from the world map if temperatures rise by as little as 2C –3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, with severe consequences for the rest of the world.The fall-out would be felt thousands of miles away from the Arctic, unleashing a global sea level rise of 23 feet. Low-lying cities such as New Orleans would vanish.A panel of scientists told Congress the entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear... more
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New Orleans protester on 07-10-2010 lets loose about the BP dispersant, Corexit.
Coffee TV Crew: Perry Goodfriend, Susie Kim, Annabel Park, George SosaNew Orleans protester on 07-10-2010 lets loose about the BP dispersant, Corexit.... more
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Coffee TV toured the Gulf Coast in July 2010 collecting stories about how the Oil Spill was affecting the lives of ordinary people. We came upon a lively scene in the French Quarter, during (and after) which, we spoke to local resident, Hancock Walker.
Coffee TV Crew: Perry Goodfriend, Susie Kim, Annabel Park, George SosaCoffee TV toured the Gulf Coast in July 2010 collecting stories about how the Oil... more
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Disasters attract a lot of well-meaning professionals and volunteers. But they also attract flocks of vultures, would-be contractors or fly-by-night operators who do shoddy work or just take the money and run. How much of our donations or recovery money has gone to these kinds of rip-off artists? We have no way of knowing. How much farther along would New Orleans be in recovery if we were not redoing the initial rehab work?Disasters attract a lot of well-meaning professionals and volunteers. But they also... more
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(CNN) -- Federal officials announced indictments Tuesday against four police officers and two supervisors in the investigation surrounding the post-Katrina deaths of civilians on New Orleans' Danziger Bridge.
At least three New Orleans police officers were in FBI custody Tuesday afternoon, an attorney for one of them confirmed. Kenneth Bowen, Anthony Villavaso and Robert Gisevius surrendered to authorities.
Announcement of the charges stemming from a federal civil rights investigation was made by Attorney General Eric Holder in New Orleans.
"Put simply, we will not tolerate wrongdoing by those who have sworn to protect the public," Holder told reporters.
Holder promised the Justice Department will help restore the troubled New Orleans police department.
"Today marks an important step forward in administering justice, in healing community wounds, in improving public safety and in restoring public trust in this city's police department," Holder said.
He was joined by the Justice Department's civil rights chief, Thomas E. Perez, and U.S. Attorney Jim Letten, the top federal prosecutor in New Orleans.
The shootings occurred at the bridge on September 4, 2005, six days after Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast.(CNN) -- Federal officials announced indictments Tuesday against four police officers... more
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A media blackout has kept the world in the dark about how bad things are going on in the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists fear an enormous rise in pressure on the seabed in light of the BP Oil Spill may release a catastrophic amount of methane, enough to poison the entire neighboring ocean and release a toxic bubble of methane 20 miles in diameter that would displace a trillion cubic feet of water and create a towering supersonic tsunami that would annihilate every coast of the Gulf of mexico and continue well inland. The rest would die to toxic methane in an extinction event not unlike the Permian extinction 251 Million years ago.
Find out the truth that BP is desperately trying to keep withheld from the public.
http://www.helium.com/items/1882339-doomsday-how-bp-gulf-disaster-may-have-triggered-a-world-killing-eventA media blackout has kept the world in the dark about how bad things are going on in... more
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(AP) Tens of thousands of people dressed in Hawaiian shirts and parrot hats sang and danced on a broad beach Sunday at a free Jimmy Buffett concert meant to show not all the tourists are covered in oil on the Gulf Coast.
The show, which was telecast live on the CMT cable channel, came on a particularly good day: The skies were mostly clear and only a little oil was washing in on the white sand about 100 miles north of the Deepwater Horizon site. A sand-filled barrier erected by the Alabama National Guard kept members of the audience from getting near the surf just in case.(AP) Tens of thousands of people dressed in Hawaiian shirts and parrot hats sang and... more
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Beginning in August, NASA will be flying into hurricanes to help study how they form and how some rapidly strengthen while others weaken and die.Beginning in August, NASA will be flying into hurricanes to help study how they form... more
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Crews connecting oil vessel to ruptured well
By the CNN Wire Staff
July 6, 2010 9:11 p.m. EDT
(CNN) -- Crews are in the process of connecting the vessel Helix Producer to the ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, said the man leading the federal response to the Gulf oil disaster. The hookup has been partially completed despite rough seas.
The vessel should draw up to 53,000 barrels of oil a day when it becomes operational, newly retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Tuesday afternoon in Houston, where he traveled to meet with BP officials. He also said progress continues to be made on two relief wells.
Despite rough weather in the Gulf of Mexico, Allen believes that the placement of a new containment cap and the deployment of key air and sea resources will eventually stop the massive amounts of oil now gushing from the well.
Once the Helix Producer is fully connected to the well and operational, officials will decide within 10 days whether to proceed with replacing the containment cap, Allen said.
Federal estimates say between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels (about 1.5 million to 2.5 million gallons) of oil have been gushing into the Gulf daily since April 22, when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank in the Gulf, two days after it exploded in flames.
High seas continue to hamper cleanup efforts. Allen said officials are closely watching a weather system near the Yucatan Peninsula.
Allen is meeting with BP in Houston about several "significant" developments. "You can't be successful if you can't coordinate, collaborate and integrate together," he said.
Allen told CNN earlier Tuesday that officials will be monitoring weather patterns to determine if and when they would try to install the cap, a process that will involve unbolting the jagged edge that exists on the structure now. Once completed, the new containment cap, he said, will achieve a perfect seal and keep oil from escaping.
Allen said the new cap "would let us get to a capture rate of 80,000 barrels a day." Crews currently are capturing up to 26,000 barrels a day.
Another tool in the effort to contain and stop the oil flow is a relief well that is "very close" to being completed, Allen told CNN, guessing it will be ready sometime in early or mid-August. Over the next week, relief well rig workers will drill 100 feet at a time until they can intercept the wellbore at just the right place, he added.
In early June, during an exclusive 48-hour embed with Allen, CNN's Kyra Phillips visited the site of the oil disaster and gained access to the Development Driller III -- the rig that is drilling the primary relief well some 16,000 to 18,000 feet below the sea floor.
"The intention is to intercept the wellbore, well down below the surface near the reservoir, then pump heavy mud in to counteract the pressure of the oil coming up," he told her. "That will allow them to basically plug or kill the well. Once that's done, you could do things like remove the blowout preventer, bring it to the surface and try to find out what happened."
Also, a massive airship, or blimp, and a ship that can suck oil out of the ruptured well are expected to arrive in the Gulf region at the end of the week to aid in oil disaster response efforts. Their arrival is being delayed because of rough weather, said Stephanie Hebert, spokeswoman for the cleanup effort.
The U.S. Navy airship will be used to detect oil, direct skimming ships and look for wildlife that may be threatened by oil, the Coast Guard says. It had been scheduled to reach the Gulf on Tuesday. The 178-foot-long blimp, known as the MZ-3A, can carry a crew of up to 10. It will fly slowly over the region to track where the oil is flowing and how it is coming ashore.
The Navy says the advantage of the blimp over current helicopter surveillance operations is that it can stay aloft longer, with lower fuel costs, and can survey a wider area.
The Coast Guard has already been pinpointing traveling pools of oil from the sky.
"The aircraft get on top of the oil. They can identify what type of oil it is and they can vector in the skimmer vessels right to the spot," Coast Guard Capt. Brian Kelley said.
But the problem since last Wednesday has been the ability to clean it up before it approaches land. Bad weather has made that task more difficult.
Tammy Mitchell of the Unified Command's Joint Information Center in Houma, Louisiana, said she believes no skimmers, aerial dispersants or onshore activity were deployed or operated Tuesday in Louisiana because of the weather. Teams are on a 48- to 72-hour standby watch because of the weather.
Poor conditions also canceled a boat tour for BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles, although he did manage to meet with workers.
Suttles said improvements have been made in cleanup operations. "The program will more effectively deploy boats to oil recovery activity and better utilize local commercial and charter fishing vessels to advance the effectiveness of the Gulf of Mexico response."
Meanwhile, Bob Grantham, spokesman for TMT Offshore Group, said progress has been made in testing the company's A Whale oil skimmer, the world's largest.
The delay from high seas "has allowed us to make valuable observations and to develop some additional technological innovations designed to improve the channeling of oily water into the ship's large capacity tanks," Grantham said in a statement issued Tuesday. "Over the next few days, we will have our first real opportunity to test the new technology under conditions that we hope will maximize the effectiveness of collection and ultimately decanting."
Earlier, officials said A Whale's abilities so far are "inconclusive," meaning the massive converted oil tanker -- which is 3.5 football fields long -- has yet to prove its Taiwanese owner's claim that it can skim between 15,000 and 50,000 barrels of oil off the sea in a day.
The Coast Guard said the testing period for the A Whale has been extended through Thursday.
So far, crude oil floating in the sea has not been concentrated enough for A Whale to skim effectively, according to oil company BP, even though it appears the ship has been surrounded by pools of oil just a few miles from the gusher.
"We've got oil coming up from over a mile below the surface. And it doesn't always come up in one spot. It's not always predictable. So, in fact, we need to locate the oil first, and then assign the ship to the areas of heaviest concentration," BP spokesman Hank Garcia said.
Bad weather has hindered cleanup efforts, he said. "When you've got 6-foot, 8-foot seas, it's not going to lend itself to good capture of the oil."
On Monday, authorities said tar balls linked to the crude gushing from BP's ruptured deepwater well had reached Louisiana's Lake Pontchartrain and hit the beaches near Galveston, Texas.
The Coast Guard reported over the weekend that a shift in weather patterns could send more oil toward sensitive shores in Mississippi and Louisiana, and bad weather over the past few days has significantly hampered cleanup efforts.
Anne Rheams, executive director of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, said Monday that the pattern was expected to persist for at least three more days.
The National Hurricane Center said Tuesday afternoon that a low-pressure area located near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula in the southern Gulf of Mexico was producing showers and thunderstorms, but it was not likely to develop into a tropical cyclone in the next 48 hours. A system that had hovered over the Louisiana coast Tuesday morning moved inland.
CNN's Allan Chernoff contributed to this report.Crews connecting oil vessel to ruptured well
By the CNN Wire Staff
July 6, 2010 9:11... more
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http://www.neworleans.com/community/cityvoices/428956-fishing-closures-come-to-lake-pontchartrain-as-tar-balls-reported-in-rigolets-.html
Tar Balls Reach Lake Pontchartrain
Tropical systems find marshes and beaches
Oil arrives, Lake Pontchartrain reaches
New Orleans shore next possible landfall?
Raft of recent storms, out-floats a tar ball
Weekend on the fourth, fisherman's holiday
Rigolets Marina samples from the bay
Weather permitting, cleanup crew cleans
Beyond St. Tammany then on to Orleans
As the current spat of disgruntled goes
Diverse oil spreads in a spate of flows
Technical resources remove what they can
Are the natural ones no match for man?
Protected shore with barges and boom
Closed out fishing, oiled waterways loom
As storm systems go, still in flows the oil
Outward hope glows to instill less turmoil
copyright 7.06.10
smokeyroad
all rights reservedhttp://www.neworleans.com/community/cityvoices/428956-fishing-closures-come-to-lake-pon... more
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(NaturalNews) It's hurricane season in the Atlantic, and that means Mother Nature could be whipping up fierce storms and sending them charging into the Gulf Coast any day now. In a normal hurricane season, that's bad enough all by itself... remember Katrina? But now there's something even more worrisome in the recipe: There's oil in the water.
So what happens when a Katrina-class hurricane comes along and picks up a few million gallons of oil, then drops that volatile liquid on a major U.S. city like Galveston or New Orleans?
Now, before we pursue this line of thinking any further, let's dismiss the skeptics out there who think oil can't drop from the sky because oil doesn't evaporate. Actually, if you look at the history of hurricanes and storms, you'll find thousands of accounts of lots of things that don't evaporate nonetheless falling out of the sky. The phrase "raining cats and dogs" it's entirely metaphor, you know: There are documented accounts of all sorts of things raining down from the sky: Fish, frogs, large balls of ice, and so on.
If rain storms can pick up fish out of the ocean, then drop them on land, then they certainly have the capacity to pick up oil, too.
Besides, as any chemist will tell you, the various petrochemicals found in crude oil evaporate even without a storm picking them up! Oil, in other words, does evaporate into the air. Or, more accurately, some of the lighter chemicals in crude oil evaporate even at temperatures of around 100 degrees (F). Those are Gulf Coast temperatures.
These chemicals burn
Now, these lighter chemicals that more easily evaporate also happen to have lower flash points, meaning they catch on fire more easily and at lower temperatures than other elements in the oil. The flash point for gasoline, for example, is much lower than diesel fuel. That's because gasoline is "more flammable" and is a lighter fuel than diesel.
The EPA classifies oils into Classes A - D. Class A is the lightest kind of oil, which the EPA describes as follows (http://www.epa.gov/oem/content/lear...)
"These oils are highly fluid, often clear, spread rapidly on solid or water surfaces, have a strong odor, a high evaporation rate, and are usually flammable. They penetrate porous surfaces such as dirt and sand, and may be persistent in such a matrix."
That same EPA document makes it quite clear that the more volatile oils can evaporate from crude oil, rendering the remaining oil heavier and more "tar-like."
And we already know these oils can catch on fire. That's the whole point of tapping crude oil, of course: To pump it into engines then catch it on fire in order to turn the energy of that mini-explosion into force (to drive the eight pistons in your gas-guzzling SUV, for example).
How the fire happens
So let's say the oil blowout continues, and the Gulf of Mexico is carrying millions of gallons of crude oil as a massive hurricane approaches. It's a hot July day in the Gulf of Mexico, with temperatures soaring towards 110 degrees, accelerating the evaporation of volatile oils which get mixed in with hurricane-force winds.
The hurricane makes landfall in New Orleans, let's say, dumping potentially hundreds of thousands of gallons of what is essentially "volatile fuel" on the city of New Orleans. Now, at first it's just a wet, slippery toxic mess that kills trees and grass. But what happens after the storm when the sun dries out the city?
All the dead trees killed by the oil turn into kindling. The sun evaporates off the rain water, leaving behind fuel. A few days of sun baking and you have a city doused in fuel, ready to burst into flames. It's every fireman's worst nightmare. The whole city is essentially turned into a giant match.
Now, sure, the more volatile fuels might evaporate, but as they do, they'd fill the city with explosive fumes. One spark, one fire, one lightning strike and your whole city literally goes up in flames. The BP oil spill, in other words, provides the fuel that could turn an ordinary hurricane into Mother Nature's arson attack on an entire city.
Like a nuclear bomb
This would not be an ordinary city on fire, either: It would be a city doused with volatile fuels that soaked it to the core. The sewers would explode like massive terrorist bombs, ripping to shred any underground infrastructure (fiber optics, water delivery, electrical infrastructure, etc.). The pavement itself would be on fire, as would parks, grasslands and forests. The city would burn from top to bottom, and there would be no point even trying to put out the flames. All we could do is evacuate and watch it all burn to the ground.
And in the aftermath, you'd still have oil covering the beaches, oil in the ocean, and the threat of more firestorms yet to come. It could be just the first of many such incidents striking the Gulf Coast.
Think this couldn't happen? Sure, and BP said the oil was a "tiny" little leak that didn't matter, either. They said the oil rigs would never explode. They said they would cap the blowout. They said they would protect the shores. And all along the problem just got worse and worse until even the press noticed that these corporate criminals just couldn't stop lying.
Now, BP is at least $20 billion in the hole in an effort to compensate some of the Gulf Coast businesses for the damage they've caused. But how will they compensate people if an entire city burns to the ground?
The answer? They won't. That would be the end of BP. Immediately bankruptcy. B.P. = "Bankruptcy Protection," after all.
No more payments go out to anyone. BP goes belly up just like all the fish being murdered by CorExit dispersant chemicals in the Gulf right now. The company goes down in flames just like New Orleans (or some other major city on the coast).
Of course, the scenario I'm describing here is theoretical, and I hope it's a worst-case scenario, too. But it is possible. Catastrophe is what happens at the intersection of poor planning and bad luck. BP has given us poor planning, and now Mother Nature may be about to deliver a heavy-handed dose of bad luck in the form of a seasonal hurricane that takes oil from the Gulf and dumps it on land.
We can only hope that these two elements do not collide on our shores. For if they do, we may witness loss on a scale our world hasn't seen since the dropping of atomic weapons on civilian populations in World War II. If a hurricane drops oil on New Orleans (or any other Gulf Coast city) and it goes up in flames a few days later, the aftermath will, indeed, resemble the effects of a nuclear bomb explosion.
You probably don't want to be anywhere near that. Needless to say, if it starts raining oil in your neighborhood, that might be a good time to grab whatever you value and get outta Dodge.(NaturalNews) It's hurricane season in the Atlantic, and that means Mother Nature... more
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New York Giants third-round draft pick Chad Jones involved in serious car accident in New Orleans
Kevin Armstrong
NY DAILY NEWS
June 25th 2010,
Former LSU safety Chad Jones, who the Giants selected in the third round of April’s NFL Draft, lost control of his black SUV and crashed into a streetcar pole in New Orleans around 6:15 Friday morning. He was listed between critical and stable condition, according to New Orleans EMS spokesman Jeb Tate. Two passengers were also injured.
Click to see (VIDEO) NY Gaints Rookie Chad Jones Car Wreck Video…May Lose Leg...http://ctpatriot1970.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/ny-gaints-rookie-chad-jones-car-wreck-video/New York Giants third-round draft pick Chad Jones involved in serious car accident in... more
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NEW ORLEANS – A federal judge struck down the Obama administration's six-month ban on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, saying the government rashly concluded that because one rig failed, the others are in immediate danger, too.
The White House promised an immediate appeal. The Interior Department had halted approval of any new permits for deepwater drilling and suspended drilling of 33 exploratory wells in the Gulf.
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama believes strongly that drilling at such depths does not make sense and puts the safety of workers "at a danger that the president does not believe we can afford."
Several companies that ferry people and supplies and provide other services to offshore drilling rigs asked U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans to overturn the moratorium.
They argued it was arbitrarily imposed after the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 workers and blew out the well 5,000 feet underwater. It has spewed anywhere from 67 million to 127 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.
Feldman sided with the companies, saying in his ruling the Interior Department assumed that because one rig failed, all companies and rigs doing deepwater drilling pose an imminent danger.
"The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is an unprecedented, sad, ugly and inhuman disaster," he wrote. "What seems clear is that the federal government has been pressed by what happened on the Deepwater Horizon into an otherwise sweeping confirmation that all Gulf deepwater drilling activities put us all in a universal threat of irreparable harm."
His ruling prohibits federal officials from enforcing the moratorium until a trial is held. He did not set a trial date.
The Interior Department said it needed time to study the risks of deepwater drilling. But the lawsuit filed by Hornbeck Offshore Services of Covington, La., claimed there was no proof the other operations posed a threat.
Company CEO Todd Hornbeck said after the ruling that he is looking forward to getting back to work.
"It's the right thing for not only the industry but the country," he said.
Earlier in the day, executives at a major oil conference in London warned that the moratorium would cripple world energy supplies. Steven Newman, president and CEO of Transocean Ltd., owner of the rig that exploded, called it an unnecessary overreaction. BP PLC was leasing the rig.
"There are things the administration could implement today that would allow the industry to go back to work tomorrow without an arbitrary six-month time limit," Newman told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.
The moratorium was declared May 6 and originally was to last only through the month. Obama announced May 27 that he was extending it for six months.
In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal and corporate leaders said that would force drilling rigs to leave the Gulf of Mexico for lucrative business in foreign waters.
They said the loss of business would cost the area thousands of lucrative jobs, most paying more than $50,000 a year. The state's other major economic sector, tourism, is a largely low-wage industry.
Tim Kerner, the mayor of Lafitte, La., cheered Feldman's ruling.
"I love it. I think it's great for the jobs here and the people who depend on them," said Kerner, whose constituents make their living primarily from commercial fishing or oil.
But in its response to the lawsuit, the Interior Department said the moratorium is needed as attempts to stop the leak and clean the Gulf continue and new safety standards are developed.
"A second deepwater blowout could overwhelm the efforts to respond to the current disaster," the Interior Department said.
The government also challenged contentions the moratorium would cause long-term economic harm. Although 33 deepwater drilling sites were affected, there are still 3,600 oil and natural gas production platforms in the Gulf.
Catherine Wannamaker, a lawyer for environmental groups that intervened in the case and supported the moratorium, called the ruling "a step in the wrong direction."
"We think it overlooks the ongoing harm in the Gulf, the devastation it has had on people's lives," she said. "The harm at issue with the Deepwater Horizon spill is bigger than just the Louisiana economy. It affects all of the Gulf."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spillNEW ORLEANS – A federal judge struck down the Obama administration's... more
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Thang Nguyen has been gardening his canal-side backyard in east New Orleans for 35 years.
East New Orleans is lush and crumbling. Sometimes it feels like the built environment -- the convenience stores, sugar factories, distant oil refineries, houses, brick apartments, parking-lot pavement -- is no different than the vegetation: all bloom and decay, the life cycle spinning in time lapse.
Between Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne, a lagoon inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, and about 10 miles east, Chef Menteur Highway runs for almost 40 miles across the Rigolets (rig-o-lees), a wild and undeveloped tract of pine forests and swamp. Strip malls cling like painter’s tape to the side of the highway, and between the asphalt and behind it, the wetland jungle seems to breathe its hot, wet air onto everything.
On Chef Menteur clings Village de l’Est, a neighborhood of vinyl-sided or light-colored brick ranch houses in a perfectly mid-century suburban layout with sidewalks, a few main avenues, and a couple shopping centers. A low mound on the north side of town, covered in tangled weeds and shrubs, marks the levee that holds in the Pontchartrain overflow.
A farmer shows off his baby onions and cucumbers, some of the rare recognizable vegetables grown here.Six thousand Vietnamese people live in this American village. The Vietnamese moved here with the Catholic Church in 1975 following the Vietnam War. Many were fishermen, and the nearby Gulf offered a work environment similar to their homeland. They also went to work in factories, hotels, and restaurants throughout New Orleans. Everyone, especially the elderly, knew how to grow things -- that’s what they did back home. In their little square suburban backyards, they grew vegetables and fruits from seeds brought over from Vietnam. Some even crossed the levee and planted in that no-man’s-land. The wet fields, Delta soils, and thick, heavy air accommodated the same plants they grew in Vietnam.
Katrina hit Village de l’Est hard. A commitment to return to their homes following the flood and a rock-solid work ethic helped speed recovery, but it was the talent for growing their own food in community spaces and backyards that really guaranteed it.
My Tran works with the Mary Queen of Vietnam Church, the strongest entity in the community (90% Catholic, 10% Buddhist). Most of the elderly generation attend mass every morning from 6:30 to 7:30 a.m. My’s parents arrived here with the rest of the influx in ’75. They farm a plot in the community space along a black-water canal. In their conical straw hats, with banana leaves silhouetted against the hazy blue sky, water lilies choking the still canal, and a hundred shades of green surrounding them, the scene could be frozen on a Vietnam postcard. But the stories of hard work and scrappiness sound like the American Dream.
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Since the ’70s, the food economy here has been largely a local one. Backyards produce enough for the family's own consumption and more: they sell the excess the local Pho restaurants and food markets. Without stringent regulations or organic certifications, the Saturday open-air farmers market still welcomes all comers. It looks and acts like a Vietnamese marketplace.
The Minh Canh grocery store off Alcee Fortier Street too could be transplanted straight from Vietnam. I can’t recognize most of the items. Fresh produce -- mainly greens –- sit in boxes scattered about. There’s a buzz in here, the type of movement and noise that seems both chaotic and comfortable.
After walking through some backyards overflowing with greens, potatoes, and fruits, and then eating the produce at the nearby Pho restaurant, Dong Phuong, and seeing it sold at Minh Canh, I have to say: This place feels like the model for sustainable local food -- although no one here calls it that. It’s just what they do. There’s soil and there’s sun and there’s water. Why wouldn’t you grow food there?
cont.Thang Nguyen has been gardening his canal-side backyard in east New Orleans for 35... more
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Five current or former New Orleans police officers were charged Friday in the shooting death and burning of a New Orleans man during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
According to earlier published reports, police were using a school as a temporary headquarters on Sept. 2, 2005, when a group of men drove up looking for help for 31-year-old Henry Glover, who had been shot.
One of the men reportedly later told investigators that Glover was still in the back seat when a police officer drove off with his car. Glover's burned remains later were recovered from the charred car when it turned up on a levee near a police station.
Prosecutors would not provide details Friday of what they believe happened.
In indictments Friday, former officer David Warren was charged with violating Glover's rights by allegedly shooting him to death. Along with a charge of unlawful use of a firearm he faces a possible life sentence and a $250,000 fine.
Warren was immediately arrested after the indictment was handed up and is in federal custody, the Department of Justice said in a news release. U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said a federal judge would be asked to order Warren jailed until trial.
Letten also said that under some circumstances, prosecutors can seek a death sentence for a civil rights violation. However, he said the case would require more review before a recommendation to seek the death penalty might be made.
Others charged were former Lt. Robert Italiano, Lt. Dwayne Scheuermann, Lt. Travis McCabe and Officer Gregory McRae.
Scheuermann and McRae are charged with obstructing justice and burning Glover's body and the car in which he was found. They also are accused of assaulting residents who tried to help Glover. If convicted, they each face a maximum sentence of 60 years in prison and $1 million in fines.
Italiano and McCabe are charged with obstruction of justice for their alleged roles in submitting false reports of the incident and lying to investigators. Italiano, if convicted, faces a maximum prison sentence of 25 years and a $500,000 fine. If convicted, McCabe could get 30 years in prison and a $750,000 fine.Five current or former New Orleans police officers were charged Friday in the shooting... more
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