Katrina Mission Accomplished

A year after Katrina,just like Iraq, it is Mission Accomplished for the Bush team and their disaster/war profiteer pals....while they blame the victims for fraud.....
A review of congressional testimony and other documents by Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch found a total of at least $136.7 million in corporate fraud in Katrina-related contracts. In addition, government investigators have highlighted contracts cumulatively valued at $428.7 million that they found troubling because of lack of agency oversight or misappropriation.Profiting from Disaster: Greed Has Stallled Gulf Coast Recovery ...


Taxpayers around the nation who urged the federal government to pay for relief and reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina probably didn’t expect their money to be spent on $279 meals and $2,500 tarps. But according to a newly released report, corporations hired by the federal government have not only inflated costs but committed labor abuses and delayed the reconstruction process, making millions while local companies and workers have been left behind. Katrina Recovery Funds Wasted by Contractors, Govt.

Ever wonder what happened to all the foreign donations given to the United States in the aftermath of Katrina? It's not good news. It turns out that, like so much of the federal response to the crisis, the largest influx of foreign assistance to the US in memory was met with foot-dragging and clumsy bureaucracy. None of the donated funds has actually made its way to evacuees. What happened to the foreign cash for Katrina victims?

More Than Half of Congress' Katrina Money Unspent

Katrina Victims See Scant Evidence of Bush Funds in New Orleans


See Internationl Relief scams and scandals plaque the US just as they did the victims of the Tusanami in Indonesia and the earthquake in Pakistan. The difference is that under state capitalist regimes in Asia it is government inefficiency in the U.S. it is just the opposite.

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Post Katrina Monster Executed

This hundreds of years old behemoth, compare the size of the guy and the gator, arose from his/her slumbers awakened by the hurricane last year only to arise and surface to be killed for their efforts.

Some days it is better to not have gotten out of bed.

And while this photo and story about the gator in Texas circualte this is also claimed to be a photo from Flordia from a year ago.


Both versions of this story can't be true, obviously — the big gator couldn't have been shot in Texas and Florida — but the emailed image of game warden Joe Goff striding beside the hulking alligator he shot and killed in April 2005 is authentic.Giant Gator Bagged in Texas (or Florida) - Netlore Archive

Of course the reality is all about photoshop and perspective. Sort of like what the Tories have done on their webpage.


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Ignatieff NEP Lite

Liberal Leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff (The Man Who Would Be PET) has announced his Green Plan. Ignatieff proposes carbon tax at pump

In Alberta it reminds everyone, government and NDP opposition of the failed Trudeau NEP....not the NDP NEP which created PetroCanada and which rescued the declining petro industry in Calgary and Fort McMurray. But the Liberals tax and grab NEP....of course for Alberta Liberals, Ignatieff's plan reminds them of the NEP so they have been deafingly silent about it.


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Obama Misses The Real Crisis In Kenya

While lecturing Kenyans on AIDs the reality of poverty and famine in his familial homeland was overlooked by Democratic Senator Obama.

On his arrival earlier in Kisumu, he took an AIDS test at a local hospital with his wife Michelle, setting an example for the tens of thousands of Africans who fear the stigma of being tested for the disease ravaging sub-Saharan Africa

AIDs would be less of a problem if this was not happening;
Nightmare of Seeking Medical Care in N Kenya
or this;
The number of Kenyans in need of food aid has nearly doubled to almost four million,

Issues not addressed by the American Senator, showing that despite have his roots in Kenya, his focus is all American view that the only crisis in Africa is AIDS. Not the alarming poverty and cycle of famine that has succoured a mass of deadly tropical diseases, of which AIDS is only one.



U.S. Senator Barack Obama (C) gestures as holds his step grandmother Sarah Hussein Onyango Obama (R) as he returned to his ancestral rural village Kogelo August 26, 2006. REUTERS/Radu Sigheti
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Nuclear Chickens Come Home To Roost

US built major Iranian nuclear facility The Tehran Research Reactor represents a little-known aspect of the international uproar over the country's alleged weapons program. Not only did the U.S. provide the reactor in the 1960s as part of a Cold War strategy, America also supplied the weapons-grade uranium needed to power the facility—fuel that remains in Iran and could be used to help make nuclear arms.

Iran was under the Shah whom the CIA put in place....and whose CIA trained secret police put opposition activists in jail. Of course that was the Cold War and as a result the CIA created the mess in Iran. Just as they created the situation the mess in Afghanistan; by arming the Mujahadin. Which through internecine conflicts ended up with the dominace of the Taliban and their support from and for Al-Qaeda.

The American occupation of Afghanistan is due to the failure of US Cold War Imperialism.

Also See

CIA

Afghanistan

Iran




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Oh he is a columnist

The bias at the National Pest is rearing its head again.

In a story on the Liberals Retreat to Vancouver, err retreat in Vancouver, John Ivison of the National Post says this; Liberals spent the previous evening patting themselves on the back at an event in Surrey, proud of being, in Michael Ignatieff's words, "the progressive social conscience of this country." But Lyotier's message mocks such complacency. That last sentence is an opinion by the writer, but it ran in the paper as a front page story, NOT identified as a column.

Though once you dig through the NP web site you find out that Ivison is listed as a columnist. Except he also is a reporter. So which is he? When is a column a news story and when is a news story a column?

Such media bias should set off the tinfoil hat crowd, except it's not CBC showing bias, it's the national media voice of the right wing. So I guess Scott Taylor won't be complaining about this. Nor will his pal and National Pest blogger Kinsella.

Also See:

National Post

Kinsella

Blogging Tories


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A new twist on Computer Crime

The media makes a mountain out of a molehill over the arrest of University of Waterloo Engineering student linked to the Tamil Tigers

U.S. prosecutors allege that Sriskandarajah and Mylvaganam used their studies at the University of Waterloo as a cover for terrorist activities.U.S. officials claim the men approached high-tech companies for equipment they claimed was for "school projects" but was actually for Tamil fighters in Sri Lanka, according to a report in The Globe and Mail.RCMP arrest two more in alleged Tamil plot

Let us pause and see what it is he is accussed of doing. Basically, besides being linked to the attempted purchase of weapons in the U.S., which he was not 'directly' involved with, he is accussed of shipping computer software to the Tamil Tigers. Hello, computer software, not guns. Legally purchased military software. Only illegal because the Sri Lankan government bans access to it by the Tamil Tigers.

And he did this PRIOR to the Conservatives banning the LTTE as a terrorist organization. So his arrest is 'after' the fact. The allegations are that he had organized a support group for the Tamil Tigers, however as far as the FBI accusations of his link to the gun buyers in the US, that is still unclear since their information is sealed. However the accusations he is facing in Canada are that he did something perfectly legal at the time, purchase computer software. The allegation that he supplied it to the Tigers is irrelevant since they were not designated a terrorist organization at the time.

His extradition to the United States should NOT BEALLOWED. This should be challenged on the grounds that a Canadian citizen should not be charged in Canada with commiting an offense in the U.S. which is what he is being charged with.

Here is his home page.

Also See:

Sri Lanka A Marxist View

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Tories Green Petro Plan

So where does the Harper Government launch its secret meetings on its Green Plan? In Alberta. And who do they invite? Big Oil and Big Business.

Tories' proposed environmental plan to include strong links to US
The Harper government is developing a major environmental plan that would involve stronger co-ordination with the United States on key aspects of air pollution and climate change policy, CanWest News Service has learned.

In a meeting with Alberta industry representatives last week, senior government officials delivered this message during an eight-slide presentation outlining the highlights of a comprehensive green plan expected to be announced next month. The officials from the office of Environment Minister Rona Ambrose and her department also discussed changes to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to allow federal ministers to transfer powers to the provinces to enforce regulations.

''They clearly indicated this was something they were doing work on,'' said Pierre Alvarez, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, who attended the meeting. ''It's something that we have been asking for at both the federal and provincial level for years now.''

Who don't they invite....Critics frozen out of Tory environmental briefing

The Harper Green plan is all about Greenbacks.Tories Put Endangered Species at Risk

Allowing provinces to enforce the rules, oh please gimme a break, they don't enforce the existing rules.Verbena for Ambrose

Nor does the Environment Minister."No Threat" to Spotted Owls in Canada, says Environment Minister

Also See:

Environment

Kyoto

Green

Oil

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CMA are Businessmen

MD group happy with CMA president Of course they are Doctors are businessmen. Real reform of Public Healthcare in Canada will only occur when they are put on salary like other healthcare workers, as I have said before.

Also See:

Healthcare

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Fighting For Democracy

So what happened to freedom of speech we are supposedly fighting for in Afghanistan, only a day after various pro-war bloggers in Canada wrote about a Canadian Forces blogger, his blog has been censored by the Canadian Military. So much for democracy.

Matt In AfghanistanThe life of an undergrad in a very big desert can be officially listesd as MIA thanks to censorship by the Canadian Military brass. Click on it and see for yourself.

Kinda reminds me of this 'democratically elected' guy
who is allowed to Blog but bans others from blogging.

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