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Robert Kennedy Jr., attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, blamed President’s Bush’s failure to sign the Kyoto Treaty for the damage done by Hurricane Katrina. “The Kyoto Treaty clearly forbids hurricanes from coming ashore,” said Kennedy. “Without the protection of this vital document, the United States will continue to remain vulnerable to bad weather.” Kennedy’s words were echoed by Juergen Trittin, Germany’s environment minister. “The increasing frequency of these storms can only be explained by America’s failure to sign the Kyoto Treaty,” said Trittin. “For this, I blame George Bush.” Kennedy went on to demand immediate tax increases on...

Advanced Search Is Bush to Blame for New Orleans Flooding? He did slash funding for levee projects. But the Army Corps of Engineers says Katrina was just too strong.September 2, 2005Modified: September 2, 2005 eMail to a friend Printer Friendly Version Summary   Some critics are suggesting President Bush was as least partly responsible for the flooding in New Orleans. In a widely quoted opinion piece, former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal says that "the damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act of nature," and cites years of reduced funding for federal flood-control projects...

Early questions were raised about proper funding for the Army Corps of Engineers, which is in charge of many hurricane-protection programs across the United States. Some early claims blamed President Bush for cutbacks in funding, but corps officials stated that a decrease in funding was not to blame. The levees themselves were only designed to protect New Orleans from a Category 3 hurricane and that this decision was made by the corps decades ago "based on a cost-benefit analysis." Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, chief of engineers of the corps was quoted as saying, "I don't see that the level of...

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/011542.php I bring this up because I saw a lot of ambulances, police cars, and fire equipment flooded in the Katrina footage. It will be interesting to see what the NO preplanning was since their director of emergency response is all over the tv blaming Bush. We went through Frances (cat 4) and three weeks later Jeanne (cat 3) last year and I think Palm Beach County and Jeb Bush did a pretty good job. It's up to local and state people to tell the feds what they need and to run the emergency command centers, not just throw their...

didn't take long for the media to blame the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina on global warming, even though most climate experts dispute the idea. In the Boston Globe - owned lock, stock and barrel by the New York Times, an avid promoter of global warming – Ross Gelbspan led off by informing his readers, "The Hurricane that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service. Its real name is global warming." He went on to claim: "As the atmosphere warms, it generates longer droughts, more-intense downpours, more-frequent heat waves, and more-severe storms. Although Katrina began as...

The Congressional Black Caucus press conference is exploding in indignation at the President's lack of response. First, Elijiah Cummings blasted him. Now it is Jesse Jackson Jr's turn.

The media continues search for ways to pin the blame for Hurricane Katrina's devastation on President Bush, with television anchors now getting into the act. Appearing Thursday on CNN's "American Morning," Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour was aggressively grilled over whether the "federal government" [i.e., the Bush administration] "dropped the ball" on disaster preparation efforts. Story Continues Below "We knew it was a strong storm developing for several days before it ever made landfall," AM host Miles O'Brien told Barbour, before asking, "Do you have the sense that the federal government has dropped the ball here, sir?" Barbour rebuffed O'Brien's attempt...

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Critics Say Bush Undercut New Orleans Flood Control By Jim VandeHei and Peter Baker Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, September 2, 2005; Page A16 President Bush repeatedly requested less money for programs to guard against catastrophic storms in New Orleans than many federal and state officials requested, decisions that are triggering a partisan debate over administration priorities at a time when the budget is strained by the Iraq war. Even with full funding in recent years, none of the flood-control projects would have been completed in time to prevent the swamping of the city, as Democrats yesterday acknowledged. But they...

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the U.S. occupation forces in Iraq should be "held accountable" for Wednesday's deadly stampede in which nearly 1,000 Iraqis died, AFP reported. “It is certain that Iraq’s occupiers, who have imposed their evil presence in Iraq under the pretext of bringing security, are responsible for such devastating accidents and they must be held accountable,” Khamenei said. “I urge Iraqis to maintain their unity and disappoint the enemy, which aims to create disunity by such plots,” he added. At least 1,000 Shiite pilgrims died and 800 others wounded on Wednesday in a stampede during...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday that a lack of funding for hurricane-protection projects around New Orleans did not contribute to the disastrous flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina. In a telephone interview with reporters, corps officials said that although portions of the flood-protection levees remain incomplete, the levees near Lake Pontchartrain that gave way--inundating much of the city--were completed and in good condition before the hurricane. However, they noted that the levees were designed for a Category 3 hurricane and couldn't handle the ferocious winds and raging waters from Hurricane Katrina, which was a Category 4...

This is long but an interesting, if blunt, perspective on the magnitude of Katrina's aftermath. Not sure who the writer is but this has been posted on some bulletin board discussions of the disaster. Lead, Follow, Or... by Jeffers Ok, the President has spoken, and I believe it is now time for all of us to being speaking bluntly. It has been my policy for the last few days to look for and point up the brightest news I could find, because I knew what we might be facing long before Katrina ever made landfall. In my opinion, the time...

One of the many markers distinguishing civilized from primitive and traditional societies is that the former possess the concept of luck, both good and bad, while the latter do not. There is no word for luck in the language of many American Indian tribes such as the Navaho, African tribes such as the Azande, Amazon tribes such as the Yanomamo, or New Guinea tribes such as the Dobu. The concept is absent, literally inconceivable, in their thinking about the way the world works. How could something, anything, happen out of sheer blind chance? Whatever happens to anybody, good or bad,...

BERLIN, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Germany said on Wednesday the United States was partly to blame for record oil prices and should look to extend its refining capacity after Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc at U.S. refineries, hitting output. Economy Minister Wolfgang Clement told German radio that the damage to U.S. refining capacity caused by the storm would likely prompt American industry to buy more oil in Europe, which could further inflate prices. "On this I must say the United States has had insufficient refining capacity for a long time, and this is presumably now impaired, so the situation is coming...

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Even before feeling the economic effects of Hurricane Katrina, more than two-thirds of Americans said this week that high gas prices were causing them financial hardship -- 18 percent claiming serious hardship, 51 percent moderate hardship. The CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll was conducted nationwide Sunday through Tuesday. Hurricane Katrina's impact on oil pumping and refining facilities when it struck the Gulf Coast on Monday is bringing even higher gas prices, increasing whatever hardship people were feeling already. There is already evidence of political repercussions. More than three-quarters of the poll's respondents disapproved of the way President Bush is...

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is blaming Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, along with President Bush, for causing Hurricane Katrina. "As Hurricane Katrina dismantles Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, it’s worth recalling the central role that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour played in derailing the Kyoto Protocol and kiboshing President Bush’s iron-clad campaign promise to regulate CO2," Kennedy blogged Tuesday on HuffingtonPost.com. The influential Democrat's enviro-conspiracy theory had the sinister Gov. Barbour engineering Bush's energy policy on behalf of "the president’s major donors from the fossil fuel industry." Kennedy charges that in March 2001, the former Republican National Committee chairman issued "an urgent memo to...

Gasoline prices are at record highs again. One thing is certain: Oil companies are not the culprits. In California, where gas prices are among the nation's highest, the oil industry has been repeatedly investigated yet no evidence of "price manipulation" has ever been found. Though other factors cause high gas prices, such as high taxes and increasing world demand, environmental regulation is among the primary reasons. Furthermore, 18 different gasoline formulations are in use across the United States, making it much more costly to produce and distribute gasoline. These blends aren't needed due to requirements of automobile engines, nor are...

First it was nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. Then he was AWOL. After that came Plamegate. So, what pray tell will be the next left-wing attack on our president? Potentially, the manner in which the Vioxx story was covered this weekend by the New York Times gives us some clues. To begin with, a front-page article Saturday by Alex Berenson reported the surprise verdict that gave the widow of a man who died after taking Merck’s painkiller an astounding $253.5 million award including $229 million in punitive damages. Just in case people missed it, the Times ran another article by...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, just one day after praising Sacramento politicians for trying to negotiate a deal on his reform agenda, took a combative tone Friday and insisted that the Nov. 8 special election "is not a referendum on me'' but on the state's lawmakers "who created the problems in California.'' The California governor, at an appearance at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, vowed to pass his self-styled reform agenda of shortened teacher tenure, a budget cap and a new political redistricting plan "no matter how many unions or special interests get in my way.'' But the governor's critics have a different...

Scott Peterson’s mother is to blame for the murder of his pregnant wife, a forensic psychiatrist maintains in the case’s latest true-crime book. Without ever examining Peterson himself, Dr. Keith Ablow concluded that the Modesto man is innocent by reason of insanity - brought on by his mother, Jackie Peterson. “He was not only insane, he was not really a person,” Ablow wrote in “Inside the Mind of Scott Peterson.” The book should have been released Monday, a publicist said, though some stores stocked it several days earlier. Peterson was convicted last year of the Christmastime 2002 murder of his...