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Cpl. Barrett Helzer from Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, kneels in front of Canadian soldier Pvt. Alexandre Douville as he fires an 84mm high explosive anti-tank round from a Carl Gustav recoiless rifle. June 2013.U.S. Marine Corps Photo.

In Norway they may think that President Barack Obama has a great knack for peace, but around here his forte seems to be stirring up strife. New Orleans is mad because Obama's visit tomorrow will be little more than a whistlestop. The Mississippi Gulf Coast is mad because New Orleans gets all the attention, such as it is, while the lingering effects of Katrina over there are ignored. And from southwest Louisiana comes the cry, "What about Rita, Gustav and Ike? The president really needs to take a look at Cameron Parish." Obama is also being denounced for an apparent...

BATON ROUGE -- Nearly five months after Hurricane Gustav, the public relations battle between Gov. Bobby Jindal and FEMA continues over who was to blame for the exasperating depletion of emergency food and water supplies soon after the storm. At stake is a clear understanding of how to prepare for disasters. FEMA's argument, contained in a retort to comments made by Jindal last week, is that basically the responsibility for the problem lies with the storm victims of Louisiana, who gobbled up food and water at an "extraordinary" rate after Gustav swept through. The federal agency said it worked closely...

ATLANTA -- The pipeline that brings gas to Atlanta from the Gulf Coast is back to 100 percent capacity, Energy Department officials said Tuesday. In addition, 13 of the 15 refineries knocked off line by Hurricanes Ike and Gustav are up and running again. The bad news for metro Atlanta drivers is that even with the Colonial Pipeline running at full steam it will be one to two weeks before supplies across metro Atlanta return to normal. Motorists are rising before dawn so they can be at filling stations when the delivery truck arrives. Some are skipping work or telecommuting....

Schooled In Disaster by: Lance Nation, September 30, 2008 In the recent Senate Hearing, the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs attempted to establish whether the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina were effectively implemented along the gulf coast when Hurricane Gustav and Ike hit Louisiana and Texas this past summer. “I have some good news about the federal response,” stated Houston’s Mayor Bill White in his opening testimony. “President Bush, Secretary Chertoff, Administrator Paulison, and the most senior members of [the Federal Emergency Management Administration] and the Corps of...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- At least 49 offshore oil platforms, all with production of less than 1,000 barrels a day, were destroyed by Hurricane Ike as it raced across the Gulf of Mexico, and some may not be rebuilt, the Interior Department said Thursday. It said in the latest hurricane damage assessment that the platforms altogether accounted for 13,000 barrels of oil and 84 million cubic feet of natural gas a day. There are more than 3,800 production platforms in the Gulf producing 1.3 million barrels of oil and 7 billion cubic feet of gas each day. Most remain shut down.

In 2005 I began the laborious process of documenting Hurricane Katrina, its effect, the pathetic situation in New Orleans, levees that broke even though endless money had been thrown at the problem, school buses left to ruin in the flood waters, poor people herded into the SuperDome and the lying media who desperately wanted riots and disorder which never really came although they reported it. President Bush was blamed for Katrina only a)Presidents, save possibly future President Obama the Messiah, cannot stop hurricanes, and b)this sort of thing is a local job with the feds expected to come in much...

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin tore through the Republican National Convention like a lead sled in the Iditarod dogsled race, while Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who chose to forgo a scheduled convention speech by staying away to deal with Hurricane Gustav, catapulted to the top tier as a GOP presidential candidate in 2012 or 2016. Indian American Republicans who attended the convention Sept. 1-4 unanimously raved to India-West about Senator John McCain’s vice presidential choice and Palin’s stiletto-like jibes at Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama in her acceptance speech. “She sent a vibrant message to Middle America that she connects...

(English-language translation) HAVANA (AP) - Cuban dissidents sent U.S. President George Bush a letter asking him to temporarily suspend some of the sanctions against the island so aid may be sent following hurricane Gustav. "We ask you that, at least for two months, you lift the restrictions of the embargo that concern the relations between the exiled Cubans and those who live in the island," read a letter signed by Martha Beatriz Roque and Vladimiro Roca on behalf of a small group called Agenda for the Transition. The dissidents asked for permission to send money and packages and for Cuban-Americans...

BATON ROUGE -- At 2 a.m. Aug. 31, with Hurricane Gustav a day away from landfall, Gov. Bobby Jindal called a meeting of the state's high-level emergency command group to face another crisis in the massive evacuation of southern Louisiana. Hearing the news that Gustav was a potential monster storm, several hospitals in the New Orleans area had decided Saturday to evacuate rather than ride out the tempest, and suddenly ambulances with critical-care patients were lining up at Lakefront Airport awaiting airlift for the community's most helpless people. But there weren't nearly enough planes. Jindal knew the storm's initial high...

Excerpt - Even as residents who fled the city ahead of Hurricane Gustav continued to return, Mayor Ray Nagin said Saturday that it appeared the city would need to start worrying about Hurricane Ike. Hurricane Ike grew to Category 4 strength Saturday and could head into the Gulf of Mexico by early next week, putting residents along the Gulf Coast on alert less than a week after Gustav made landfall in south Louisiana. Nagin told reporters he's worried about fast-moving Ike and about the wherewithal of residents who one week ago began leaving ahead of Gustav. Reactions of residents who've...

In the summer of 2007, I constructed a profile and analysis on Michael Moore that illuminated the sociopathic tendencies that encompass the actions of one of the most infamous documentary creators of modern times. Within the article, Michael Moore: A Criminal Profile, which was first released in the New Media Journal and then later around the world, I took careful pains to make sure that readers understood that Moore carries the tendencies of the sociopath while not accusing him of the crimes that some sociopaths actually commit. The thrust of the article was to introduce people to the moral wasteland...

Republican presidential nominee John McCain will not be elected on his oratorical skills — compared to his opponent, they are weak and flat. He may, however, win over voters with the power of his personal story. So it went in his acceptance speech. His words lit up the Xcel Center in Minneapolis, and he himself grew noticeably more enthused as he talked about his experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, how he fell in love with America and became a more humble man while held in Hanoi. The Republican National Convention started out as a bust, with a...

(SNIP) "This is not Jefferson Parish's responsibility; it was dumped on us by the State of Louisiana at the last minute," said Bonano. "Obviously people at the state level were making decisions for us without even asking us. We're up to our eyeballs in issues right now trying to get these people out of here." (SNIP) "We thought that with my brother being disabled, this would be easier. But it was chaotic. Next time we'll use our own transportation." Holmes said she and 3,000 other people were housed in a vacant Sam's Club warehouse, where they slept on cots and...

Been away for awhile, busy at work. I wanted to point out today some observations I made about the republican convention. The news media and Katie "Koran" Couric have presented the Democratic convention in glitz and glamor with touching family scenes with Obama and his little girls and with big talk about the past 8 years being crap. (never mind that the 8 years previous with Clinton, the fact we are at war, and the rat congress are mostly to blame. Especially Clinton and the Dems. Lets not forget the RINOS.) All the Democrats are bringing up how their policies...

The curfew for East Baton Rouge Parish is still in effect from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., Baton Rouge Police Chief Jeff LeDuff said Saturday. Although more and more people are getting power, a large percentage of people still don’t have it, LeDuff said, adding that the nighttime hours are the most dangerous.

For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretarySeptember 6, 2008 President's Radio Address   President's Radio Address  Audio  En Español       In Focus: Energy      In Focus: Hurricane PreparednessTHE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Throughout the past week, Americans anxiously watched weather conditions in the Gulf Coast region. The people of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas were well prepared for Hurricane Gustav -- and the coordination between these States and the Federal government was strong. Now, we're focusing on the relief effort. Gustav caused damage to infrastructure, forced tens of thousands into shelters, and left more than a million people without power. The Federal government is...

Ike heading towards the gulf.

The GOP presidential candidate attracted roughly the same number of viewers to his convention acceptance speech Thursday as Obama did before the Democrats last week, according to Nielsen Media Research. It marked the end of an astonishing run where more than 40 million people watched political speeches on three nights by Obama, McCain and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The Republican convention was the most-watched convention on television ever, beating a standard set by the Democrats a week earlier.

ST. PAUL -- Fox News "opinionater" Bill O'Reilly finally got his man. Barack Obama appears on his show this evening at 9 p.m. after an earlier taped one-on-one session with the self-proclaimed king of pithy comments. Here is a clip of Obama and O'Reilly going to eyeball to eyeball on tonight's show which is sure to raise a lot of eyebrows among the left and the right