Floods lowering .. debt rising ... Dollar sinking ... Dubya ... ????

The US National Debt is now nearly £8 Trillion

US TREASURY SECURITIES OUTSTANDING, AUGUST 31, 2005 (Millions of dollars)
Public 4,614,279
Intra Gvt 3,312,654
TOTAL 7,926,933

Statutory Debt Limit Total = $8,184,000 Balance of Statutory Debt Limit $ 315,605

National Debt increase is $596 Billion for fiscal '04… a record .. so far.

So after taking out £60Bn for Katrina (Iraq war - Congress appropriations to end Fiscal 2005 =$200Bn) , Dubya has $315Bn - £60Bn = $ 255Bn "walking about money" in the Treasury cookie jar, which at an annual burn rate of ...say $ 600 Bn is at most 5 months increased expenditure (up to Feb 2006 latest) so he needs to go to Congress before then to lift the ceiling on the Statutory Debt Limit. Nota Bene : Contracting cronyism defines this administration. FEMA are being given $60 billion to one of its most cronyfied outposts.

Remember gadfly Rep Waxman (Dubya's nemesis ?) wrote to Appropriations Committee Chair Lewis on Sept 8th. about a provision in the Katrina Emergency Supplemental Appropriations that would extend from $15,000 to $250,000 the purchasing limit for an individual transaction for federal employees with government-issued credit cards. (There are about 500,000 of these credit cards in use in the federal government !!!!)

With the mid-term Congressional Elections looming Dubya is going to have to do some fancy financial juggling - you can bet he's going to get splinters in his fingers scraping the bottom of the pork barrel to keep/win some friends.

Dubya is also going to have to keep an eye on those Bond Auctions to make sure the Central Banks fall in line in taking up the slack for Uncle Sam... and the almighty dollar is getting that sinking feeling .. especially against Far Eastern currencies and the Euro. (Which is why the yield on 30yr bonds has started to rise)

Deficits elsewhere are soaring, in the Tri-State area alone, New York State owes $4.2 billion; New Jersey, $4 billion; Connecticut, $1.3 billion.

A Billion here a Billion there and soon .... you are talking serious money.The late Sen. Everett Dirksen, R-Il (Attrib)

Mathematical note: The word "billion" comes from the french (bi- million) where it stood for a"million-million". In the United States it was "mis-translated" and has ended up representing a "thousand million".To give an idea what a billion is; at 10.40 a.m. on April 20, 1902, (ish) exactly a billion minutes had elapsed since the (alleged) birth of Christ. In the US a Trillion is (confusingly) one million million = 1 followed by 12 zeroes = one thousand billion. In the UK a Trillion = one billion billion = 1 followed by 18 zeroes and is (more correctly) known as a Quintillion.

Doctor gives Cheney impossible medical advice:

Ben Marble, MD, comes from Alabama. He is an ER doctor who doubles as lead guitarist for Dr O and you can hear his Garage band here.( cool (?) titles like "Jesus loves me but I hate myself", "4 More Wars")

Ben Marble MD got his 15 minutes of fame, not as a rock star, but when he told Dick Cheney “To Go Fuck Himself” whilst the photo op. cameras rolled and the journos listened, on the road outside his devastated NOLA house (see pic of his garden pool) … there is more here. Whilst Veep Cheney can use this language to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee on the floor of the House ; Dr M got ‘cuffed by the local gendarmerie, but was released later (wrong color).

His NOLA street was shut down for a Cheney photo-op and he had to drive 20 miles out of the way to get to his house. When he discovered his problems were cause by Veep Cheney , he strolled on down to the photoshoot. The rest is history.

He has a website called hurricanekatrinasucked.com with more pictures of his neighborhood and the damage to his house. He is also selling a DVD of film of the incident and a sound track on his site, and on E-bay.

Human Interest : Dr M's family is safe, he has a daughter born during the hurricane.More

This won't change anything....but DR M feels a lot, lot better.

If you got here from Dr Marble's site please go to the top by clicking on "Postman patel" sign in for an e-mail as the site updates. Have a look around. Comment.

Nobody could have foreseen the post Katrina problems ...could they ?

In June, Pleasant Mann, a 16-year FEMA veteran who heads the agency's government employee union (see pic) , wrote members of Congress to warn of the agency's decay. "Over the past three-and-one-half years, FEMA has gone from being a model agency to being one where funds are being misspent, employee morale has fallen, and our nation's emergency management capability is being eroded," he wrote. "Our professional staff are being systematically replaced by politically connected novices and contractors."

But the merger into DHS has compounded the agency's problems, says FEMA employee and union president Pleasant Mann. "Before, we reported straight to the White House, and now we've got this elaborate bureaucracy on top of us, and a lot of this bureaucracy doesn't think what we're doing is that important, because terrorism isn't our number one," he says. "The biggest frustration here is that we at FEMA have responded to disasters like Oklahoma City and 9/11, and here are people who haven't responded to a kitchen fire telling us how to deal with terrorism. You know, there were a lot of people who fell down on the job on 9/11, but it wasn't us."

The FEMA program administrator says the crux of the problem is that the agency is buried in DHS, which is regarded as a "do-nothing agency" among FEMA's action-oriented staff. "You know, FEMA could do well by itself, and FEMA was starting to do well by itself. But that's changed."

Being wise after the event ? Monday morning quarter backing? …No. This was written by Jon Elliston a North Carolina-based writer who specializes in national security issues. Eileen Loh Harrist also wrote about “Homeland Insecurity “ , claiming that Louisiana should have been high on the list for FEMA's biggest disaster mitigation grant program -- so why did the state get nothing?

You can find both these articles here. The “Best of New Orleans” published 28th September 2004. Essential and detailed background reading to understand the continuing shambles that is NOLA today. (Thanks to Rob Kettenburg)

NOLA ...Low wages / High Stakes

In Feb 2001weeks after being installed in office, President Bush proposed repealing the Davis-Bacon Act in the context of his budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2002. The Davis-Bacon Act requires the payment of prevailing wage rates, as determined by DOL, to workers on federal construction projects of a certain size. The President also proposed raising the Davis-Bacon threshold from $2,000 to $1 million. He failed to get it through.

Seizing the opportunity afforded by the national disaster President Bush issued an executive order (Sept 8th) allowing Federal contractors rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to pay below the prevailing wage in designated affected areas. (Daddy did it for Hurricane Andrew)

In a notice to Congress, Bush said the hurricane had caused "a national emergency" that permits him to take such action under the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act in designated areas of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. (Note this includes Broward and Dade in FL, with minimal problems - helping BRo. Jeb ?). It also appears that this EO removes the need for employers to secure details of nationality - ie. will allow us eof illegal immigrant labour.


Democratic Congressman George Miller of California said "The administration is using the devastation of Hurricane Katrina to cut the wages of people desperately trying to rebuild their lives and their communities."

Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, famous swimmer, and a man familiar with minimum wages and claimed supporter of unionised labour said, “"I regret the president's decision,"… why ? Because it is an attack on the wages of workers ? No…"One of the things the American people are very concerned about is shabby work and that certainly is true about the families whose houses are going to be rebuilt and buildings that are going to be restored,"

If we are going to have Disneyfied NOLA let’s make sure it’s not shabby.

Pres Kabacoff and Ed Boettner,’ s Historic Restoration, Inc, are busy already in controversially re-shaping and re-designing New Orleans, with their Operation Rebirth, which they hope will become a road map to create the new New Orleans. The study, which seeks to reinvigorate rundown stretches of the city, envisions an "Afro-Caribbean Paris," with garden-lined boulevards.

"There's now the possibility of getting substantial federal aid to do what would have been impossible before Katrina," says Mr. Kabacoff, whose firm, Historic Restoration Inc., is operating from a temporary office in Houma, La., about 50 miles southwest of New Orleans.

Nevada based Las Vegas Sands Inc.,(“ great entertainment options including the "Just for Laughs" Comedy Club, live entertainment nightly in the Empress Lounge, a jumpin' casino with all the latest and most popular slots and table games “ says their website), looks to enter the New Orleans market, “ if the conditions are right”. Sands and other casino operators (Harrah’s - here for news of their hurricane problems in Gulfport /NOLA / Gulfport) have experience constructing major projects that include hotels, shops, restaurants and entertainment, plus casinos. "It's clear we have the capability for large-scale projects," Sands spokesman, Ron Reese is quoted saying.(pic shows Sinatra one time Sands owner, playing Chemin De Fer / Baccarat)

I can't wait to visit.

The Mom & Apple Pie Constitution

The BBC have published a translation of the proposed Iraqi Constitution which is well worth looking at. You could be forgiven for thinking that Blue Peter ( a children's program for non UK readers) had a hand in it.

It would be tedious to take it line by line but the following few paragraphs (suitably annotated ) give a flavour. (pic (c) courtesy of Kinkos copyshop (now owned by Fed-Ex)

"Article (29): 1st - (a) The family is the foundation of society and the state should preserve its (the family's) existence and ethical and religious value.(unless you are a Jew - we kicked them out in the 30's and don't want THEM back again)

(b) The state shall guarantee the protection of motherhood, childhood and old age and shall take care of juveniles and youths and provide them with agreeable conditions to develop their capabilities. (and apple pie available every night ?)
2nd - Children have the right to upbringing, education and care from their parents; parents have the right to respect and care from their children, especially in times of want, disability or old age.(...and George Bush is a boy genius, and Donald Rumsfeld a military mastermind)

3rd - Economic exploitation of children in any form is banned and the state shall take measures to guarantee their protection.( so don't you work on Daddy's farm no mo' - even if it's the only way we get food on the table ? )

4th - Violence and abuse in the family, school and society shall be forbidden.(see Article 35 below)

Article (30): 1st - The state guarantees social and health insurance, the basics for a free and honourable life for the individual and the family - especially children and women - and works to protect them from illiteracy, fear and poverty and provides them with housing and the means to rehabilitate and take care of them. This shall be regulated by law. (now that's something even the US citizen doesn't get or even hope to get)

Article (31): 1st - Every Iraqi has the right to health service, and the state is in charge of public health and guarantees the means of protection and treatment by building different kinds of hospitals and health institutions. (now that's something even the US citizen doesn't get or even hope to get)

2nd - Individuals and associations have the right to build hospitals, dispensaries or private clinics under the supervision of the state. This shall be regulated by law.

Article (32): The state cares for the disabled and those with special needs and guarantees their rehabilitation to integrate them in society. This shall be regulated by law.(especially those injured by the Coalition of the Willing in liberating their country)

Article (33): 1st - Every individual has the right to live in a correct environmental atmosphere. (so that means the US military are going to clean up the Depleted Uranium shells and debris ?)

2nd - The state guarantees protection and preservation of the environment and biological diversity.( FOE and Green peace will be overjoyed )

Article (34): 1st - Education is a main factor for the progress of society and it is a right guaranteed by the state. It is mandatory in the primary school and the state guarantees fighting illiteracy.(which is more than you can say for PUblic Schools in the US)

2nd - Free education is a right for Iraqis in all its stages.( they of course have had this for decades - recognised by UN as the best education system in the Mid East ...until the US military invaded - "The Education system in Iraq, prior to 1991, was one of the best in the region, with over 100% Gross Enrolment Rate for primary schooling and high levels of literacy, both of men and women. The Higher Education, especially the scientific and technological institutions, were of an international standard, staffed by high quality personnel". (UNESCO Fact Sheet, 28 March 2003))"

3rd - The state encourages scientific research for peaceful purposes in a way that benefits humanity and it promotes excelling, creativity and the different
manifestations of excellence.

4th - Private and national education is guaranteed and regulated by law.

PART TWO: Freedoms

Article (35): 1st - (a) The freedom and dignity of a person are protected.(Whoop de dooooo!!!)

(b) No one may be detained or investigated unless by judicial decision.(tell that to the Alabama farm boys behind their shades, wielding their M-16's and uninhibited power and violence)

(c) All forms of torture, mental or physical, and inhuman treatment are forbidden. There is no recognition of any confession extracted by force or threats or torture, and the injured party may seek compensation for any physical or mental injury that is inflicted. (perhaps we could suggest President Karimov gets to sign off on this one...as well as the CIA rendition teams / the UK Foreign Office ?)

2nd - The state is committed to protecting the individual from coercion in thought, religion or politics, and no one may be imprisoned on these bases. (Abu Ghraib ?)

3rd - Forced labour, slavery and the commerce in slaves is forbidden, as is the trading in women or children or the sex trade.(well that will ensure that the UN are kept out of the post war re-settlement) "

The State Department would like to thank the Boy Scouts of America, PETA and that guy from Star Wars with the brown dressing gown, for help in producing this Constitution.

It's a good job the finest legal minds (AG Gonzales etc., ?) have been able to help in drawing up this Mom and Apple Pie enthusiasts constitution, Hamilton , .... a mere amateur.

USA Gas prices before and after Katrina

USA Today have two very interesting nationwide US maps of gas prices, before and after Katrina here. Week Aug 23/31 National Avg = $2.71 Sept 3/5 =$3.04 = Average 11% rise.

This means gas in the US costs about 78 cents a litre retail, in the UK and Europe it is about $1.70 per litre retail.

Pic shows those heady days when gas cost less than beer.

...how thinly spread the US military is..."

Bush's Gang of mad beekeepers
Canadian Spectator Feb 2003

“The course is charted, arrogant use of the military is all the US ruling class has to maintain its dominance. After Iraq, asymmetric warfare, "terrorism," will be directed at Americans, American institutions, American targets, and American allies. When the rest of the world recognizes how thinly spread the US military is, thinly spread physically, and economically, because it is not a sustainable institution in its current incarnation, rebellions will occur. Indeed they have already started. The response of the weakening US will be to lash out, often with unforeseeable consequences, just as the consequences of this impending invasion are unforeseeable, and unknown.”


Louisiana National Guard
Hundreds Begin Trip Home From Duty in Baghdad
By Ellen Knickmeyer Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, September 8, 2005; Page A15
BAGHDAD, Sept. 7 -- Hundreds of Louisiana National Guard soldiers deployed in Iraq were in Kuwait on Wednesday as a first stop on the way home, where the majority of their 3,700-member brigade was likely to help with hurricane relief, U.S. military officials said….

A Mississippi National Guard unit based south of Baghdad also had hundreds of members affected by the hurricane. They are not due to return until January.

Bush asks Congress for $50Bn from the Cookie jar

Condi offered to pray in AL last week, Cheney is due to visit the Gulf later this week to prey with advisors.

Pets left behind not starving .....

Ex National Guardsman strums into action ....

" Do you know that my life is in tatters, my baby has no food, we have no water and New Orleans is a flooded, poisoned lake ?"

"No! but if you whistle it, I'll just strum along"

FEMA to Mac, Linux users: drop dead

A stupid usability flaw in the FEMA website is causing frustration for some of the Hurricane Katrina survivors fortunate enough to have computer and internet access. Bottom line: if you're not using Windows + IE Ver. 6 , it appears that you won't be able to file a disaster assistance claim on Fema.gov.

Anon. comments ..” The browser requirement is, of course, a violation of the Section 508 regulations for accessibility and usability of US federal government websites. I'd suggest a complaint to the FEMA IG, but then there are better reasons to complain to the IG about the agency's inability to do its job.”

You can jiggle around it using Firefox extensions, Opera user definable profiles etc., but no gurantees. You can of course apply to FEMA for forms by post, but if your address is 6 feet under water.....

Looks like FEMA are ready for anything ...

From boing-boing.

NOLA, a solution ...a Modest Proposal

Signed on April 30, 1803, the Louisiana Purchase treaty included over 600 million acres at a cost of less than 3 cents an acre. For President Thomas Jefferson it was a diplomatic and political triumph. In one deal the purchase of Louisiana ended the threat of war with France and opened up the land west of the Mississippi to settlement.

There were two conventions, one for the payment of 60 million francs ($11,250,000) and the other for claims American citizens had made against France for 20 million francs ($3,750,000).15 Million very big ones.

The original documents related to the Louisiana Purchase are kept at the Library of Congress in Washington DC.

Of course, the deal went through quickly but Jefferson admitted that he had stretched his power "till it cracked" in order to buy Louisiana, the largest single land purchase in American history.

There were those who objected to the purchase on the grounds that the Constitution did not provide for purchasing territory. However, Jefferson ignored this criticism and temporarily cast aside his idealism and the Constitution to tell his supporters in Congress that "what is practicable must often control what is pure theory." The majority agreed. (Sounds like justifying the illegal invasion of Iraq all over again)

Surely some lawyer somewhere could make a case to hand Louisiana and it's stinking, foetid, diseased swamped city, back to the Cheese eating surrender monkeys, and leave them with the problems of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. After all Jefferson only charged Livingston with buying a small plot on the lower Mississippi for $2 million, so that the Americans could build their own seaport.

When Jefferson sent Monroe to Paris offer $10 million for New Orleans and West Florida the perfidious French had already wined and dined Livingstone and he had agreed to buy the whole of Louisiana for $15 million.

So the Texan Terrorist writes off $15 MN and leaves the problem to someone else … sounds like a very good deal to me Dubya. ...see what your legal friend the Attorney General says, he can mis read historical documents pretty well..the Geneva Convention etc.,

Gulf Energy Hit 70% Oil 50% Gas production stopped - Bloomberg

Bloomberg reports today : The storm devastated energy production in the Gulf of Mexico, source of about a third of the oil consumed in the U.S. and about one-fifth of the natural gas. By yesterday, 70 percent of the region's crude-oil production was out of action, while more than half of gas production was shut, the Minerals Management Service in Washington said.....

The average U.S. pump price for regular gasoline rose to a record $3.057 a gallon on Sept. 5, according to the AAA. Prices consumers paid ranged from $3.89 a gallon in Summit, New Jersey, to $3.76 in Arlington, Virginia, to $3.05 in O'Fallon, Missouri, according to Web sites GaspriceWatch.com and Gasbuddy.com.

Condi has heard the cry...Wait and He will come...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Imelda Marcos Rice, granddaughter of a Presbyterian minister , attended a service in her native Alabama at the Pilgrim Rest AME Zion church outside Mobile, Rice nodded in agreement as the Rev. Malone Smith Jr. advised the congregation, "Wait for the Lord."
"Nobody, especially the President, would have left people unattended on the basis of race," the administration's best shod,highest-ranking, most travelled, black fshionista said as she toured damaged parts of her native Alabama.

"There are some things the president can do; there are some things the government can do," Rev. Smith told about 300 worshippers during a rollicking two-hourwhoop-de-do service. "But God can do all things. I want you to know he's never late. He's always on time."

"The Lord is going to come on time — if we just wait," she said on her regal tour.

Perhaps she’s heard Dubya cry out many a time…”Lord I’m comin’ ”

One from the archives

04/08/04 The Economic Consequences of the War on Terror
THE BIG BANG THEORY – The Bigger the Bang, the Louder the Silence by Edward Teague

"The National Weather Service in the US expects a major Hurricane every 70-80 years. One is overdue. If a Force 4 or 5 step Saffir Simpson hurricane force scale hits the Gulf of Mexico this year, the impact on gas and gasoline supplies in the US will make 9/11 look like a tea party in terms of economic cost to the US economy. An economy already saddled with massive and rising double deficits on trade and internal budgets. Interest rates will rise, the dollar dive further and electors will freeze in their November homes, just when they are about to go out and vote. Alex, the first in the new season's Atlantic alphabetic tagging, a puny 90 miles per hour hurricane started the season rather late this week off the Carolina coast – keep watching!"

http://www.williambowles.info/env/big_bang.html

Light relief in the middle of flood relief

How many members of the Bush administration does it take to change a light bulb?(From Boadicea.blog-city.com)

ANSWER - Ten.

1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed;

2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed;

3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb;

4. One to tell the nations of the world that they are either for changing the light bulb or for eternal darkness;

5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for removing the faulty light bulb and installing the new light bulb;

6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a step ladder under the banner 'Bulb Accomplished';

7. One administration insider to resign and in detail reveal how Bush was literally 'in the dark' the whole time;

8. One to viciously smear No. 7;

9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a strong light-bulb-changing policy all along;

10. And finally, one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light bulb and screwing the country."

India source of mad cow disease ?

In a report in the journal Lancet on Friday Sept. 2nd. , Professor Alan Colchester of the University of Kent in England and his daughter Nancy, of the University of Edinburgh, suggest mad cow disease (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD ))may have originated from animal feed contaminated with human remains washed ashore after being floated downriver in Indian funerals.

“Existing theories of the original causes of BSE, the bovine disease, we don’t find convincing,” the Colchester duo say. “We have identified the fact that a large amount of imported animal feeding material was brought into Britain during the period when BSE must first have occurred and the largest source coming to the UK was from the Indian subcontinent.” Colchester and his daughter say they doubt BSE resulted from scrapie because material infected with the disease has been fed to cattle for many decades without any sign of BSE arising.

They go on to suggest that it may have been caused by the tonnes of animal bones and other tissue imported from India for animal feed which also may have contained the remains of humans infected with CJD. Scrapie, BSE and CJD are all illnesses caused by brain proteins that transform themselves into infectious prion agents.

“BSE was acquired from a human prion disease, the route of infection was oral, through animal feed containing imported mammalian raw materials contaminated with human remains, and the origin was the Indian subcontinent, from which large amounts of mammalian material were imported during the relevant time period,” they say. “Human remains are known to be incorporated into meal made locally, and may still be entering exported material.”

Their controversial hypothesis is backed by a long list of references of evidence about the pollution of Ganges from human corpses; the inclusion of human remains in material used in processing mills, scavenged by local peasants to supplement their income; and statistics about the long history of these exports to Britain. In 10 years, more than a third of a million tonnes of material from these areas was imported into the UK,” Colchester said. The paper also points to established fears by the British authorities in the 1960s that these untreated exports could be infected with anthrax and foot-and-mouth disease (but not prion disease, of which there was no knowledge at the time).

Indian neurologists Susarla Shanka and P. Satishchandra of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore, rebut the idea in another article in Lancet and say the Colchesters’ evidence is not a smoking gun. They note that incidence of prion disease is no higher in India than elsewhere and that no study has ever been done to established whether putrefied human tissue, taken from the Ganges, contains prion disease or if it could be transmissible.They say there is only one one case of scrapie, which was probably imported, which has been reported from the Himalayan foothills.

They call for extra work to substantiate the Colchesters’ theory, warning also that “scientists should proceed cautiously when hypothesising about a disease that has such wide geographic, cultural and religious implications.”

India, a desperately poor country has been exporting animal feed to the UK ? We should remember what The Rt. Hon. Stephen Dorrell, Minister of State for Health Her Majesty's Government said on 3rd December 1995 "There is no conceivable risk of BSE being transmitted from cows to people."


Meanwhile the US Government (USDA) closed its investigation into the nation's
first domestic case of mad cow disease on Tuesday, saying it could not pin down
how a Texas 12-year-old Brahma cross cow was infected with the brain-wasting ailment.

Officials continue to believe the cow ate contaminated feed before the United States banned ground-up cattle remains in cattle feed.

On June 9 2005 the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) held a panel discussion led by the Secretary of Agriculture, Mike Johanns. The discussion, titled, “The Safety of North American Beef and the Economic Effect of BSE on the U.S. Beef Industry,” was at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul. The American Meat Institute was there (AMI) it is the major industry group, with it’s HQ in Washington DC, an area more used to pork barrels than sides of beef., unless presented as a succulent filet mignon.These groups represent “companies that process 70 percent of U.S. meat and poultry and their suppliers throughout America,” according to its website. Members include Tyson, Cargill, Hormel, Smithfield, Kraft, Sara Lee and other major players in the $78 billion beef industry.

Other participants at this brainstormer included the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, National Meat Association, Ranchers-Cattlemen’s Action Legal Fund (R-CALF), American Farm Bureau Federation, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Farmer’s Union, National Milk Producers Federation, National Renderers Association, and of course the AMI. Not one health, consumer or animal welfare group was included.

The main success of these lobbyists is the stalling of the USDA proposed ban on recycled cow offal in animal feed.This it is claimed (although now standard in most of the world) would eliminate $72 million in annual income to the livestock industry, according to the AMI. To maintain the high-protein diet for cattle without the use of this waste would require “an additional 5 million bushels of soybeans or 140,000 acres of soybean production.” Even worse, the banned cattle tissues would then need to be disposed of, at an estimated cost of $55 million per year – and that’s assuming that “landfills will accept slaughter waste and adequate space is available.”

The main failure of this lobbying is that US beef is refused import licences almost worldwide and packing plants in the US are closing.

…Perhaps they should start looking for feed from India …?

Bush acts fast to stall criticism of emergency funding in LAit by

FEMA have announced the following measures for Federal financial help ......

Federal Register Notice Billing Code 9110-10-P / EFFECTIVE DATE: August 29, 2005.

SUMMARY: This is a notice of the Presidential declaration of a major disaster for the State of Louisiana (FEMA-1603-DR), dated August 29, 2005, and related determinations.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Magda Ruiz, Recovery Division, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Washington, DC 20472, (202) 646-2705.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Notice is hereby given that, in a letter dated August 29, 2005, the President declared a major disaster under the authority of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 5121-5206 (the Stafford Act), as follows:

Consistent with the requirement that Federal assistance be supplemental, any Federal funds provided under the Stafford Act for Public Assistance, Hazard Mitigation and the Other Needs Assistance under Section 408 of the Stafford Act will be limited to 75 percent of the total eligible costs. For a period of up to 72 hours, you are authorized to fund assistance for debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance, at 100 percent of the total eligible costs. Federal funding for debris removal will remain at 75 percent. ...... Covering Counties - see map above.

The time period prescribed for the implementation of section 310(a), Priority to Certain Applications for Public Facility and Public Housing Assistance, 42 U.S.C. 5153, shall be for a period not to exceed six months after the date of this declaration. (Feb 28th ?)

Critics have pointed out that the initial delays may have been prompted by the desire to reduce cost as fundingunder the Stafford Act as in the first 72 hours was for 100% . President Bush has moved swiftly to stifle public criticism, as FEMA have made a further and welcome announcement today.

FEMA Urges Patience While Search Continues for Stranded Victims and Supplies Stream In Release Date: September 2, 2005 Release No HQ-05-190

President Bush has authorized 100% reimbursement to Louisiana for debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance. The government normally pays 75 percent of these costs.

The Texan Terrorist will be very sensitive to criticism, but one must carefully examine why the refugees have been scattered so far and wide. With 6 months closure on claims, it is going to be difficult to produce documentation on land/ property ownership etc.,... no doubt there will be some very helpful lawyers who will pitch into to San Antonio, Houston eager to help...

Breaking News.....Dubya and the First Lady not Condi stooopid Laura Bush will be making a State visit to Baton Rouge on Labor Day ... maybe he is getting to understand what trouble he has on his hands.Last night slim svelte, opinionated TV's Oprah Winfrey arrived in New Orleans with 33 supply trucks. She said: "It's like a war zone."

Lafayette company to the rescue of the gas guzzlers

C & C Technologies, of Lafayette, are an international company Thomas Chance, is President. He is going to be a very busy man.

Initially, C & C was operated out of a home office with five employees, but has now grown to over 200 employees in seven locations. C & C is headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana, “the Heart of Cajun Country”, and has additional offices in Houston, Singapore, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

C & C is known throughout the world as a technological leader in the survey field. Innovations such as C-Nav, Globally-corrected GPS and the C-Surveyor™ AUVs have made groundbreaking advancements to the survey industry.

C & C is presently finishing up the customization of its next generation Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV), the C-Surveyor II. (pic shows Ver. 1 the predecessor) Once completed, C-Surveyor II will embark on several months of Gulf of Mexico projects.

The company has undertaken 78 projects and more than 43,000 linear kilometers of commercial underwater mapping to date, C & C Technologies claims undisputed worldwide leadership in AUV survey services. C & C's AUVs collect detailed data including multibeam bathymetry and imagery, chirp side-scan sonar, and chirp sub-bottom profiler data. Sub-sampled data is then acoustically transmitted from the AUV to the support vessel in real-time, thus allowing for on-board engineers to make informed route decisions and perform on-the-fly quality assurance.

Because of the experience from Hurricane Ivan, which slammed into the Gulf last September, there is a great deal of concern centered on the underwater pipelines that link the 4,000 platforms in the gulf to the mainland. These were be broken, buried, uprooted or damaged by last year's storm, and a similar result is expected this time from underwater mud slides or swells throughout last Monday. The damage from Ivan took months to repair.

Off-shore oil rigs pump crude oil from under the floor of the Gulf of Mexico - 1.5 million barrels a day, the equivalent of what is brought in by tanker from Saudi Arabia.

If you want more information visit the company website or send an email to info@cctechnol.com.com or contact Rick Davey at (+44) 1284-388631.

NOAA Satellite images published of Louisiana underwater

Too detailed a picture ? Go to NOAA for stunning satellite images, probably best to download and then use whatever you have to zoom.

LA Times / AP pic.