(More..)

I can see from this selfless public servant’s letter that while there may be a shortage of armor plate in Iraq–there are ample supplies of boilerplate in D.C.

[Quote:]

At least 648 people were killed in a stampede on a bridge Wednesday when panic engulfed a Shiite religious procession amid rumors that a suicide bomber was about to attack, officials said. It was the single biggest confirmed loss of life in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.

Scores jumped or were pushed to their deaths into the Tigris River, while others were crushed in the crowd. Most of the dead were women and children, Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said.

Tensions already had been running high in the procession in Baghdad’s heavily Shiite Kazimiyah district because of a mortar attack two hours earlier against the shrine where the marchers were heading. The shrine was about a mile from the bridge.

Abdul-Rahman said 648 were killed and 322 injured, with survivors rushed in ambulances and private cars to several hospitals, where officials scrambled to compile accurate casualty figures.

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, declared a three-day mourning period.

Thousands of people rushed to both banks of the river to search for survivors, and bare-chested men jumped in to try to recover bodies.

[..]

“We were on the bridge. It was so crowded. Thousands of people were surrounding me,” said survivor Fadhel Ali, 28, barefoot and soaking wet. “We heard that a suicide attacker was among the crowd. Everybody was yelling, so I jumped from the bridge into the river, swam and reached the bank. I saw women, children and old men falling after me into the water.”

A large collection of pictures here

Into the eye of Katrina: an impressive Flickr set taken from the NOAA-43 and NRL-P3 Hurricane Hunters as they fly into the hurricane’s eye. The set owner studies hurricane rainband intensity using ELDORA radar aboard the specially equipped planes. It’s a rough flight, but once inside, the results are awe-inspiring.

[Quote:]

When FBI supervisors in Miami met with new interim U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta last month, they wondered what the top enforcement priority for Acosta and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would be.

Would it be terrorism? Organized crime? Narcotics trafficking? Immigration? Or maybe public corruption?

The agents were stunned to learn that a top prosecutorial priority of Acosta and the Department of Justice was none of the above. Instead, Acosta told them, it’s obscenity. Not pornography involving children, but pornographic material featuring consenting adults.

[Quote:]

It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.<

-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004.

[..]

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security — coming at the same time as federal tax cuts — was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

President Bush plays a guitar presented to him by Country Singer Mark Wills, right, backstage following his visit to Naval Base Coronado, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Bush visited the base to deliver remarks on V-J Commemoration Day. (AP Photo/ABC News, Martha Raddatz)

Is this the same man who flew up to the White House on zero notice for Ms. Schiavo?

[Quote:]

U.S. President Bill Clinton said his administration was doing all it could to answer the threat from Hurricane Floyd off America’s Southeast coast during a press conference with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jenny Shipley in Christchurch, New Zealand, Wednesday, Sept. 15, 1999. Clinton is cutting his overseas trip by a day so he can return to Washington to deal with the pending hurricane. He and other Pacific Rim leaders were in New Zealand to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

Because, you know, getting back from New Zealand a day early is so much easier than a trip from Crawford, TX.

[Quote:]

New Orleans resembled a war zone more than a modern American metropolis Tuesday, as Gulf Coast communities struggled to deal with the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

[..]

The death toll from the storm so far is estimated at 70 — mostly in Mississippi. Officials stressed that the number is uncertain and likely to be much higher.

[..]

Mayor Ray Nagin told CNN that at least 30 buildings had collapsed, but that no attempt had been made to determine a death toll.

“There are dead bodies floating in some of the water,” Nagin said. “The rescuers would basically push them aside as they were trying to save individuals.”

Nagin said that as of late Tuesday “a significant amount of water” is flowing into the bowl-shaped city and sections of the city now dry could be under 9 or 10 feet of water within hours.

“The bowl is filling up,” he said.

[Quote:]

De politie Rotterdam-Rijnmond heeft dinsdag een nieuw opsporingsmiddel ingezet. De politie heeft 17.000 mensen een sms-bericht gestuurd waarin de politie vraagt om medewerking bij het achterhalen van relschoppers rond de wedstrijd Feyenoord-Ajax in april.

In de sms staat: “Tijdens de voetbalrellen van 17 april 2005 was u nabij stadion De Kuip. De politie doet hiernaar onderzoek en vraagt uw medewerking. Zie politie: www.politie-rijnmond.nl.” De politie heeft alleen de nummers van sms-ontvangers achterhaald, niet hun namen.

Ik ben benieuwd of je dit ook tegen de politie kan gebruiken.. “nee, hoor, ik heb een alibi, ik was thuis, vraag het de telecomproviders maar…”

[Quote:]

The new version, aimed squarely at the hearts, minds and wallets of the teenage-to-mid-30′s set that Hollywood prizes, has blockbuster written all over it. Peter Jackson, the maestro behind the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, is directing; Naomi Watts is stepping into Fay Wray’s shoes as the imperiled, scantily clad heroine; and the film is rumored to be embroidered with mind-blowing special effects.

But even the mighty Kong may not be safe from the clutches of a nebulous, tech-savvy network of film pirates who specialize in stealing copies of first-run movies and distributing them globally on the Internet or on bootleg DVD’s. While Hollywood has battled various forms of film looting for decades, this time seems different. Piracy in the digital era is more lucrative, sophisticated and elusive than ever – and poses a far bigger financial threat.

“Piracy has the very real potential of tipping movies into becoming an unprofitable industry, especially big-event films. If that happens, they will stop being made,” said Mr. Jackson in an e-mail message from New Zealand, where he is putting the final touches on his version of “King Kong.” “No studio is going to finance a film if the point is reached where their possible profit margin goes straight into criminals’ pockets.”

[..]

“It’s hard to say exactly what amount of money is involved, but it’s huge,” said Bob Wright, chairman and chief executive of NBC Universal, the parent company of Universal Pictures and a division of General Electric. “There is a very dark, black cloud in this game. It’s not in the hands of kids who live next door to you; it’s organized groups and organized crime.”

Good, because that means you can stop suiing the kids next door and start working on those organized groups instead, right? Right? And it also means you’re going to stop nagging the cinema visitor with those “don’t bring a camera you fucking criminal” slide shows before the movie, right? Right?

/cue crickets chirping….