Stone Cold

Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone's new movie on the last two cops rescued at Ground Zero won't be an exploitative "Towering Inferno," with filmmakers promising 9/11 families the flick won't depict horrific images from the terror attack.
At a forum last month at Manhattan's Essex House, a dozen or so survivors and family members told the famed director of "JFK" and other history-based flicks that they don't want to see planes crashing into the Trade Center, bodies tumbling or the Twin Towers imploding.

"None of that will be recreated," Michael Shamberg, co-producer of the film, who attended the meeting and has held several similar forums since August, told The Post.

He's been scouting and shooting scenes for the movie in New Jersey, and his cast is supposed to include Nicholas Cage among others. Earlier coverage is here.

UPDATE:
Michelle Malkin wonders if others are worried about where Stone is headed with this project. I think it's pretty clear - based on his prior work, expect the 'facts' to be played with fast and loose because the facts will get in the way of a good yarn.

NYT Still Advocates Moral Equivalence

Palestinian terrorists kill five Israelis who were busy eating at a falafel stand and Israel takes out a bunch of terrorists in response. Yet, the New York Times sees the action and reaction as two sides of the same coin. They think that this latest violence puts the cease fire in doubt.

What cease fire? Israel has repeatedly been attacked by Palestinian terrorists month after month. Sure, some of them have not resulted in casualties, but why should that be the indication? The terrorists have been trying to kill Israelis at every opportunity. Terrorists have repeatedly fired missiles and rockets into Israeli territory hoping to kill Israelis. Only luck and the poor aim of the terrorists have resulted in limited Israeli casualties.

Israel responds to all the attacks with what must be done - killing the terrorists before they can strike again. That's why they've killed terrorists getting ready to deploy more missiles to strike at Israel or going after the terrorist leaders themselves.

Then, there's the issue of the security fence and how it has reduced the violence against Israel. The fences have worked, but some still complain that it is too restrictive on the Palestinians. Unless and until the Palestinians can be shown to have cracked down on the terrorists in their midst and that they are truly partners in peace (complete with the fulfillment of all the responsibilities set forth under Oslo, the Road Map and all the other 'agreements'), Israel must do what is necessary to protect its people from further attack.

We would not expect anything less from our own government, so why should the NYT force some silly standard of conduct on the Israelis.

But, this is what passes for reporting on Israel at the New York Times.

UPDATE:
Linked to the following blogs: MacStansbury, The Junction, The The Florida Masochist, The Blue State Conservatives, Publius Rendezvous, Point Five, Ipso Facto, and Real Teen. Also, Two Babes and a Brain, Common Sense Run Wild, Jo's Cafe Saturday Special, and the Indepundit.

Still Want That Discount?

MTA riders are going to be getting a discount come December's holiday season. Reduced fares and extended run monthly tickets. That costs $50 million this year. Yet, many stations that were supposed to have elevator and escalator repairs and replacements are still not completed. In other words, disabled riders can't fully utilize the system because of cost overruns and other problems.

The authority has promised to make 67 "key stations," as determined by ridership, accessible by 2010, and 100 by 2020. Currently, of the 468 subway stations, only 60 are accessible, including 45 key stations.

Mishaps in transit-construction projects are nothing new, but elevator and escalator projects are a sensitive legal area because of the requirements imposed by the Americans With Disabilities Act.

At West Fourth Street, a busy transfer point in Greenwich Village, three new elevators opened in April, more than a year behind schedule.

They broke down repeatedly, and this month they were closed, a development first reported last week by WCBS-TV.

Yesterday, two subway riders who use wheelchairs, Michael A. Harris and Edith M. Prentiss, filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Manhattan, accusing the authority of violating their rights under the disabilities act by failing to repair and reopen the elevators.

So, what could that $50 million do? How about make needed repairs to those subway stations so that riders can benefit from the escalators and elevators that were put in but broke down.

The $50 million was supposed to be a 'gift' to the riders, but this 'gift' is going to cost far more than it's worth.

Tough Times in the Big Easy

So it begins. In order to clean up New Orleans and make it an attractive place to do business in the future, the police department has to clean up its act. So, the firing of 45 officers who abandoned their posts during and after the storm is a first step. As is the firing of six civilians.

More than 200 remain under investigation.

Additionally, 15 officers are under investigation for looting. Riley said he also has received 45 letters of resignation from officers citing "personal reasons," ranging from relocation with family members to landing new jobs.

What is missing from this picture? The size of the police force before and after these actions were taken.

From the official NOPD website, I came up with a figure of 1640 officers in 2002. That's the latest figure I could find quickly. So, out of 1640 officers, a total of 305 are under a cloud of suspicion, fired, or resigned. That's 18% of the police force. A CNN article cites a figure of 1450 officers, which would mean that with the 305 officers who have either been fired, quit, or still under investigation, more than 21% of the force is under a cloud.

And that number is expected to rise.

UPDATE:
Cross posted at Carnival of the Trackbacks, Wizbang style.

Technorati: flood aid; hurricane katrina; katrina aid; hurricane rita; slidell; biloxi; gulfport; pascagoula; nagin; blanco; barbour; hurricane rita; hurricane wilma.

This Is Why Darth Rove Succeeds

Because Yoda is too busy rolling with the homies. That's why.

H/T: Mister Snitch.

Friday, it is.
Humor, we must find.
Haiku, Yoda does.

UPDATE 10/29:
Cross posted at Stop the ACLU, Conservative Cat, Basil's Blog, TMH's Bacon Bits, and Big Dog Weblog. Added to The Jawa Report.

It's About the Infrastructure

Recovering from Katrina, Rita, and Wilma is going to take time, but the priorities must be on infrastructure. Railways, roads, bridges, tunnels, water, sewage, sanitation, and electrical systems must all be restored or replaced.

The railway CSX is going to be spending $250 million to repair and replace tracks throughout the Gulf Coast. Getting that piece of infrastructure repaired will speed the recovery process.

Meanwhile, the Louisiana Attorney General is issuing subpoenas relating to deaths at various medical facilities and nursing homes in the aftermath of Katrina. 34 people were killed at the St. Rita's Nursing Home and the owners were charged with negligent homicide. Other facilities may be facing similar charges, particularly for aiding in euthanizing patients, which is illegal in Louisiana.

Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti Jr. has issued 73 subpoenas in an investigation into allegations that euthanasia may have taken place at one of the hospitals flooded by Hurricane Katrina, he told CNN Wednesday night.

The subpoenas were served on employees of all levels at Memorial Medical Center, which is owned by Tenet Healthcare, because "cooperation, lately, has not been as good as I had hoped," Foti said.

The subpoenas require that people appear before investigators for questioning.

"Some people were not coming forward. We learned Tenet sent out a letter that had a chilling effect," Foti said. "We had no choice but to issue these subpoenas."

The cost to replace one hospital in New Orleans is estimated at $395 million or $285 to repair it. For a single hospital.

For Charity, south Louisiana's only trauma center which was shut down by Hurricane Katrina, repairs would cost 65 percent of the replacement costs.

It would be an even higher percentage — 68 percent — for University Hospital: $172 million to replace it and $117.5 million to fix, he said.

At Charity, which held the trauma center, the basement — holding the morgue, electric systems and pumps — filled during the floods. Administrators say it is no longer fit for hospital use.

Also, we're hearing more and more about how obvious the problems with the levees were. That's yet another piece of infrastructure in Louisiana that must be repaired or replaced.

Conditions suspected of causing the 17th Street Canal levee wall failure that flooded much of New Orleans should have been obvious to the engineers who designed the structure, a team of LSU researchers said after viewing documents obtained by The Times-Picayune.

The team said the soil analyses of the levee and the ground beneath it show a picture of such weak support that failure of the wall under maximum loads was almost a given for the design that the Army Corps of Engineers chose to use: a single wall of steel sheet pile that was not driven to reach below the bottom of the canal.

Mississippi is trying to get federal funding for repairing and replacing US 90 instead of deferring routine work elsewhere to complete the repairs. Also, recovery in Waveland, MS is still quite slow despite pledges to move quicker. The area still doesn't have basic services restored - and that's nearly two full months after the hurricane hit.

UPDATE:
Photos from South Florida showing the widespread damage - some minor - some not so minor. Cross-posted at Mudville Gazette.

UPDATE:
A Federal memo slams Gov. Blanco for delays in collecting bodies of those killed by Katrina.

The 38 pages of e-mail between FEMA representatives and Pentagon officials contradict the contention by Louisiana's Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco, two weeks after Katrina hit on Aug. 29, that the federal government was moving too slowly to recover the bodies.

They also underscore ongoing political tensions between the Republican Bush administration and Democratic state and local officials over the botched response to Katrina, which killed more than 1,000 people in Louisiana. They were released by a House panel that many Democrats have shunned, chaired by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., that is investigating the government's sluggish preparations and reaction to the storm.

The memos indicate that morgues were not ready to receive bodies until Sept. 7 _ two days after the first memo complaining about Blanco's inaction, and nine days after Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast.

Technorati: flood aid; hurricane katrina; katrina aid; hurricane rita; slidell; biloxi; gulfport; pascagoula; nagin; blanco; barbour; hurricane rita; hurricane wilma.

In A Tizzy

Everyone is waiting with baited breath over whether Fitzgerald will indict someone relating to the outing of Valerie Plame. So far, the media seems to be weighing in that Libby will be indicted, but Rove doesn't get charged. Some in the media add the caveat "yet" to Rove, but I think it's farfetched that if there's no evidence in nearly two years of investigations, none is likely forthcoming no matter how hard one looks.

If someone was looking to find evidence of the original 'crime,' it's not likely to be found in today's announcements either. We're being told that the crimes are perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements.

The official announcements are at 2PM EDT. Til then, everything remains speculation. Heck, even those outlets that were saying Libby or Rove would be indicted have backed off to one extent or another.

UPDATE:
Breitbart is reporting that Libby was charged with obstruction of justice, making a false statement and perjury in the CIA leak case. Rove was not indicted.

Expect Libby to submit his resignation, but the Administration will continue without any hesitation. They've got more important things to deal with at this point in time - choosing another Supreme Court nominee and fighting and winning the war on terror (both on the ground and in the media).

UPDATE:
The letter of resignation has been submitted. So much for the big wait, the perp walk, and all the rest.

UPDATE:
Linked to Basil's Blog, NIF, Stop the ACLU, Templar Pundit, bRight and Early, Cao's Blog, Jo's Cafe, Indepundit, and Political Teen. Captain Ed, and and Michelle Malkin have had updates and thoughts on the indictment watch. They're both going to be underwhelmed by the Libby indictment.

I think a lot of people are going to be underwhelmed by all this. The sound and fury, signifying Scooter? Scooter?! Well, someone's scalp is going to be nailed to the bedpost. But it's not the one that folks on the Left hoped for. The prayers from those on the Right came through this time.

UPDATE:
The indictment is here. Tom Maguire has yet to weigh in with his response. He's been at the forefront of the coverage in the blogosphere.

UPDATE:
Tigerhawk offers some predictions and doesn't forsee any bombshells from the indictment. I don't either. Tom Maguire thinks Libby should come up with an insanity defense. I'd go with the dog ate my homework defense personally.

UPDATE:
Submitted to the Jawa Report's Link Dump.

Putting the Port Authority Jury Verdict Into Context

"It's really hard to get your mind around," said Mark Geistfeld, a law professor at New York University. "It's more of a sociological question than it is a legal question. It's their way of expressing their outrage about the way in which the Port Authority conducted itself."

The same verdict, Mr. Geistfeld said, might not have been possible 12 years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the 1993 attack, when Americans were less attuned to the reality of terrorism, and the twin towers were still standing.

In practice, any apportionment of fault of 51 percent or more has the same outcome - making the defendant liable for 100 percent of damages that may be awarded in connection with the 1993 bombing.

Stephen Gillers, another NYU law professor, compared the verdict to a landlord-tenant case in which a tenant was mugged in a dark elevator. "From a moral perspective, you're going to blame the mugger," he said. "From a legal perspective, the law says, Is there anything the landlord could have done to prevent this?"

The lawyers said that the jurors, motivated by understandable sympathy for the victims, might have been doing all they could to ensure that someone would pay. And certainly the terrorists, who have been convicted and are serving prison terms, would not be the ones to do so.

I had made these observations when news of the verdict came down. It's an example of the jury seeking out the deep pockets and send a message. However, the message received will be different than the one sent. The Port Authority, if it is forced to pay that sum of money ($1.8 billion to 400 plaintiffs of the 1993 trial), expect that cost to be passed on to everyone who uses the Port Authority's infrastructure. PATH, tunnels, bridges, airports. Taxpayers one and all. And no matter how much you think that the Port Authority was negligent in the matter, everyone will pay for their negligence.

Just thought you should know.

Just Who Exactly Would Take Down Assad?

In another WaPo article, we learn:

The brother is an impetuous officer, who wields control over the praetorian Republican Guard. The sister is nicknamed "the Iron Lady." Her husband is a burly general who rose methodically through the ranks of Syria's feared intelligence services. Presiding over them is Bashar Assad, the Syrian president who runs what some have called "a dictatorship without a dictator."

Diplomats and analysts say that together, the four represent the corporate leadership of Syria, a country facing its greatest crisis in decades following the release of a U.N. investigation that implicates senior officials in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. In this crisis, they say, the Assad family circle is a source of the president's strength. It may also be his weakness. If his relatives are directly linked to the killing, the scandal could bring down his government.

Why are we calling this group a corporate leadership? Aren't their words and deeds more in step with the Gang of Four that dominated China? There's nothing corporate about the way the Syrians operate. They run the country as a glorified gang, and use threats, intimidation, and violence to coerce opponents into giving up (or killing those who don't).

That's what happened to Rafik Harari, who was assassinated by the Syrians because he dared to speak back to the Syrians who had dominated Lebanon for a generation.

But the real question is who exactly would take down Assad and his cronies. Surely it isn't going to be the UN. Russia may come to its aid once again, although France has realized that its interests are more in line with the US. And it isn't likely to be a spontaneous revolt by the Syrian people. The military has too strong a grip, especially through the intelligence services.

So, that means that Assad may be taken out via a coup. And that would mean the military being in charge of things and that's not all that different than the current situation. Only the names will have changed, but the attitude, means, and actions will not have changed one bit. It is possible that those who depose the current regime will make conciliatory gestures towards Lebanon, or even Israel, but the Assad regime is so strongly entrenched that it is unlikely that someone is going to stick their neck out at this juncture.

Media Coverage of UNSCAM Sparse

Newsbusters has been covering UNSCAM lately, and found that the networks aren't all covering the story the way you'd think they should. After all, this is a multibillion dollar scandal, involving lots of powerful people, multiple countries, and deals directly with Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

NBC covered the story that I addressed yesterday - namely that the Volcker report named more than 2,000 companies involved in the schemes and scandal, with the most companies coming from Russia, followed by France. ABC and CBS? They didn't even run the story during their evening newscasts. Why? It's most certainly newsworthy. They could have snuck in a few seconds of airtime somewhere. Curious.

CNN, meanwhile, decided to focus on Oliver Wyatt, who pleaded guilty last week to charges stemming from UNSCAM. He's a Texas oilman. So instead of covering the breaking news of the 2,000 companies involved, with the highest numbers coming from the two countries that most vigorously defended Saddam and resisted the US attempts to enforce UN resolutions, CNN focused on the guy from Texas who gave himself up to investigators. Curious.

Raging Right Wing Republican has been providing regular updates and Spartacus has a chart to simplify how oil for food worked.

UPDATE:
Cross posted for your pleasure at: The Political Teen, Two Babes and a Brain, and more to come...

Technorati: UNSCAM, Oil for Food, and Kofi Annan

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 61

Workers preparing to deconstruct the Deutsche Bank Building did uncover human remains on the roof. The remains were found several weeks ago and the Medical Examiner's office made the confirmation today. Talk about a grim milestone. More than four years after the attacks, and they're still finding body parts and fragments.

Workers on the roof of the skyscraper, the former Deutsche Bank Building at 130 Liberty Street, came across the fragments last month as they were cleaning gravel in preparation for the building's demolition. The 10 small pieces of bone, ranging from half an inch to two inches, some perhaps from a rib cage, were turned over to the medical examiner's office.

"Our rigorous protocols automatically assume findings of this nature to be human remains and therefore require that they be treated with the utmost care, dignity and respect," said Stefan Pryor, president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which owns 130 Liberty Street.

Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner, Dr. Charles S. Hirsch, said yesterday that preliminary information about the discoveries, made on Sept. 22, 26 and 29, "is that the bones are human."

Protective scaffolding will be erected around the building beginning next week. The demolition of the building is all the more difficult because of contamination from the collapsing WTC towers. Asbestos, mold, and other contaminants made it prohibitively expensive to try and reopen the building.

There are still 1,152 victims whose remains have never been identified.

It does not end.

9/11 workers got some much-needed relief from Senator Hillary Clinton who save a $125 million fund for health care that could have been folded back into the federal budget. The money was appropriated by the federal government after 9/11 but has gone unspent thus far. The money is essentially a contingency fund in case workers who were at Ground Zero during the cleanup and recovery come down with ailments associated with the cleanup.

Technorati: World Trade Center, WTC, Pataki, LMDC, urban policy, Freedom Tower, IFC, International Freedom Center.

Power to the People

I came across Rantingprofs earlier today, and the blog has some interesting points, some of which I've made in my hurricane coverage.

You know, here's the thing: how much time it's reasonable for the power companies to take pretty much depends on how many customers lost power in the event, don't you think? When my building loses power, I pretty much want the lights back on in thirty minutes, chop chop, people. When there's an accident that cuts this half of Chapel Hill out, I understand that may take a few hours.

But when a hurricane (or, more often, this far inland, an ice storm) takes out several hundred thousand customers, that's just going to take a few days. It's always miserable if you're the last of those customers, and patience is going to fray at the end of that week, but it's a bit unreasonable to expect them to have things back to normal after two days. Or three. And in Florida five million lost power.

(And as CBS noted, but I'm not sure the other two did, there's more than enough gasoline in the area. The problem is having the juice to run the pumps. So even that problem is directly related to electricity.)

The question is this: how can the media simultaneously amaze us with the size, the ferocity, the destructiveness, of these events.

And then turn around and within 24, 36, 48 hours, start right in on stories about the lack of responsiveness when things aren't back to normal?

This particular posting discusses the difficulties in restoring power. Florida was hit by Wilma two days ago, and some people were complaining about the lack of food and water. These are people who were told to stockpile at least three days worth of food and water. Gasoline can't be distributed from gas stations unless they've had power restored or generators to power the pumps. We're talking about six million people without power at the moment in Florida.

And that's not counting the hundreds of thousands who remain without power in Louisiana, Mississippi, or Alabama as a result of Rita and Katrina.

Here's the thing. Restoring power is all about logistics (hey, what is it with those fancy facts and stuff). You have to restore power generation systems, high voltage transmission lines, substations, and then the local grid. If the transmission lines are out, no power can be restored even if your local area was unaffected. It's really that simple. But one that the media isn't willing to tackle.

The power companies have been working nonstop throughout the Southeast since the end of August, and it's been a losing battle since every few weeks another hurricane comes to take out power once again. Crews from around the country are providing mutual assistance, but even with the extra help, it takes time.

Meanwhile, the president of the levee board in New Orleans resigned. Something about a scandal (or two). Go figure. And Whiplash Nagin's latest town hall meeting saw more anger directed his way. Again. Go figure. And it gets better:

The session was supposed to start at 2 p.m., but it was past 2:30 before Nagin, clad in a New Orleans Saints sweatshirt, walked in to a chorus of catcalls about the delay. "You were late for Katrina, too," one man shouted.

Responding with a smile, Nagin told the crowd, "We are going to rebuild this city. We are going to do it together."

Elsewhere, Mississippi's Gaming Commission has approved the first land-based casino. All of Mississippi's casinos were badly damaged by Katrina, many had their barges tossed on land and thoroughly destroyed. The railway CSX is going to be spending $250 million to repair and replace tracks throughout the Gulf Coast. Getting that piece of infrastructure repaired will speed the recovery process.

CSX Transportation officials said the reconstruction is expected to be completed in March or April.

Until then, rail traffic will use CSX's western gateways including East St. Louis, Ill., Memphis, and Montgomery. CSX also is accommodating businesses that use rail service by trucking their materials to accessible rail locations when possible.

It will cost $250 million to make repairs on the 100-mile route between New Orleans and Pascagoula, which includes six major bridges and about 40 miles of track that was completely removed from the road bed, said CSX spokesman Gary Sease.

Technorati: flood aid; hurricane katrina; katrina aid; hurricane rita; slidell; biloxi; gulfport; pascagoula; nagin; blanco; barbour; hurricane rita; hurricane wilma.

North Korean Blovations

As a public service announcement, North Korea's totalitarian leadership wants to remind the world that it still exists, and puts on a show.

Never mind that the country is in the depths of a severe famine that essentially requires the entire population to go work in the fields to make sure that whatever crops are planted get harvested (at the receiving end of a rifle might I add). And the Washington Post eats this stuff up hook, line, and sinker:

Meanwhile, modest economic reforms made in North Korea since 2002 appear to have somewhat eased the country's bitter poverty and once-rampant starvation. That at least seemed true within the relatively affluent capital of Pyongyang, where people look to be well fed, many buildings have been newly refurbished and street vendors are surprisingly outgoing and eager to make sales to foreign visitors.

I see that they didn't bother to check out the prison camps that are really a gulag archipelago. Nor do they question the fresh coat of paint. North Korea's propaganda campaign is nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig, yet these reporters can't get enough of this crap that passes for reporting.

In fact, one would be hard pressed to tell the difference between this report and an old school Pravda piece that the Soviet Union would run about how well their 5-year plans were going and running the US into the ground economically.

During a 40-hour, strictly monitored visit by a reporter accompanying a South Korean tour group, there were odd scenes mixed with a feeling of real change.

How can you get real reporting when everyone has a minder and is strictly monitored. Anyone who strays even slightly from the script may never be heard from again. How's that for change and freedom.

UPDATE 10/28:
Newsbusters picks up on the WaPo piece and skewers it pretty thoroughly. As it should be.

Technorati: north korea.

UNSCAM: The Business Connection

More than 4,500 companies took part in the United Nations oil-for-food program and more than half of them paid illegal surcharges and kickbacks to Saddam Hussein, according to the independent committee investigating the program.

The country with the most companies involved in the program was Russia, followed by France, the committee says in a report to be released Thursday. The inquiry was led by Paul A. Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

The findings are in the committee's fifth and final report, a document of more than 500 pages that will detail how outside companies from more than 60 countries were able to evade United Nations controls and make money for themselves as well as for the Hussein government.

Three investigators who described their findings in interviews declined to name the companies, though they said the companies would be identified in the document on Thursday. They refused to speak on the record about the report until it is released.

As anyone who has followed this scandal would know, the fact that the largest number of companies implicated in UNSCAM are Russian and French is no surprise at all. Those two governments were the staunchest supporters of the status quo and opposed US action on Iraq. Their actions were blatant political and opportunistic moves to protect their economic interests in Iraq, not doing the right thing by the Iraqi people, or the UN. Their actions undermined the UN's ability to act in Iraq.

Several automakers are implicated in this, including Daimler-Chrysler.

About half of the 4,500 companies in the U.N. oil-for-food program, including Volvo and DaimlerChrysler, paid a total of $1.8 billion in kickbacks and illicit surcharges to Saddam Hussein's government, a U.N.-backed investigation said in a report released Thursday.

Claudia Rossett weighs in, as does Roger L. Simon. And this comes on the heels of George Galloway potentially committing perjury in his testimony before Congress. He had claimed that he had never received any monies from UNSCAM, and yet the bank account records of his wife show a different story. The Environmental Republican also weighs in, and posts a funny cartoon about Kofi.

UPDATE:
Ranting Profs dissects the NYT coverage even though it starts on page A1. Not that I'd blame them for doing so. The key paragraph is indeed buried in the middle of the paper on A10:

The investigators said Thursday's report would detail how Mr. Hussein first steered the program to gain political advantage with political allies and countries in a position to ease the United Nations sanctions. Both Russia and France are veto-bearing members of the Security Council.

That's right folks, Saddam sought out to buy the votes of Russia and France in so many words.

Secular Blasphemy also weighs in. They're not surprised at the money flowing into oil companies or the Russians and French, who were among Iraq's biggest trading partners.

Technorati: UNSCAM, Oil for Food, and Kofi Annan

The Battle For Ground Zero, Part 60

The New York Times continues to push for housing at Ground Zero. Go figure. They still don't like to announce the fact that they're in the real estate business and new office space downtown would compete with their Midtown headquarters that itself is struggling to find clients and that used both eminent domain condemnations and Liberty Bonds to be built.

And they're pointing out that the Deutsche Bank building was envisioned as being turned into residential space. Last time I checked, that building was not a part of the WTC before 9/11 and that its future was only recently decided (it will be demolished because the damage sustained in the attacks was too great to be rehabilitated.

Also, the Times casts a blind eye to the fact that 90 West Street was just reopened as a residential building. Before 9/11, that building was a major office building.

Such is the myopia of the Times these days.

A Congressional investigation into the collapse of the WTC towers and changes to building codes is going too slowly for some.

"A lot of people are impatient, understandably," said Representative Sherwood Boehlert, Republican of central New York, the chairman of the committee. "And a lot of people want action as quickly as possible."

The criticism emerged at a hearing during which the National Institute of Standards and Technology formally released its final report on the collapse of the twin towers, a $16 million study that has produced more than 10,000 pages of findings detailing exactly why the towers were able to stand after being hit by planes, but ultimately collapsed.

The study, which used computers to meticulously reconstruct the attack and the resulting fires and structural damage, also examined the evacuation of the towers and the response by the New York City Fire Department and other emergency personnel.

The report includes 30 recommendations for improving building safety, including requiring more-reliable emergency-communications systems and wider stairwells or more robustly built elevators that can be used during catastrophic emergencies to evacuate towers.

But the recommendations are not detailed enough, or sufficiently documented, to be rapidly incorporated into standard building code publications that local and state governments use to guide them in drafting local codes, the members of Congress said. Some of the code-writing officials present at the House hearing Wednesday agreed.

"N.I.S.T. has fallen short of making this a true reference manual for the protection of big buildings," said Representative Anthony D. Weiner, Democrat of Brooklyn and Queens.

Considering that there are literally hundreds of building codes around the country that are highly tailored to the specific situations encountered (earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding, ground conditions, and historical considerations), why was anyone thinking that NIST would provide a specifically tailored set of recommendations. They produced guidelines that localities would have to tailor.

"Why on earth would you expect the Landmark Center on Six Forks Road in Raleigh to have the same standards, preparation against terrorist attack, as the John Hancock Center would have?" asked Representative Brad Miller, Democrat from North Carolina, referring to his old six-story law office building in North Carolina and the iconic tower in Chicago. "It has got to be a balance of cost against risk."

Building code officials said the full array of recommendations made by the institute would most likely add a few percent to the cost of designing and building new towers. But so far, officials of the institute have not recommended which buildings might merit having the more stringent requirements.

7WTC has been built to much higher standards than any other structure in NYC, which added to its cost - and that has translated into higher rental costs. We're going to see a similar effect when the Freedom Tower is finally built.

Meanwhile, Gov. Pataki wants to make sure that some of the nearly $1 billion MTA surplus is spent on projects in Lower Manhattan. That's all well and good, but let's make sure that the safety and security of the system are provided for first and foremost. As we've seen over the past week, a major disruption to seven subway lines was caused by improper wiring of a single light socket.

Also, Charles Millard thinks that everyone should back off and let Silverstein do his thing and actually build stuff downtown. He's got a point. Silverstein is the only one who has actually rebuilt an entire building. Other structures that were damaged have been restored, most recently 90 West St., but Ground Zero itself remains untouched by a permanent structure. Fiterman Hall and the Deutsche Bank building remain standing despite the fact that both are so badly damaged that they need to be torn down. The Deutsche Bank building will be demolished beginning next year, but Fiterman Hall is still awaiting a disposition - and where's the Governor and Mayor standing on that issue? *crickets*

Technorati: World Trade Center, WTC, Pataki, LMDC, urban policy, Freedom Tower, IFC, International Freedom Center.

Supreme Court Nominee Harriet Miers Withdraws

Not a big surprise considering the amount of consternation, concern, and anger fostered by her nomination by President Bush. It will be interesting to see how he follows up.

My guess? Michael Luttig or someone of that caliber. I don't think it will be someone from within the Department of Justice or White House itself. Too many potential problems with recusals. The Volokh Conspiracy has more. Apparently Bush reluctantly accepted the withdrawal.

UPDATE:
Mary Katherine Ham at Wizbang has more coverage. She provides a roundup of soundbites from across the political spectrum, and Harry Reid's comments are especially interesting. He seems to think that Miers' nomination failed because of pressure from the far right wing. That may well be true, but so what? It's not like the far Left wing hasn't sought to pack courts around the country with like minded judges and whined when they didn't get their way.

It's called politics, and in this case, President Bush lost contact with one of his core constituencies. The next nomination will likely reengage those constituencies, and sincerely and truly annoy the lefties. I think the President will relish that battle far more than the one he got over Miers. After all, it's the kind of fight that will unify his backers rather than divide his backers as the opposition salivates over picking off the scraps.

UPDATE:
Orin Kerr of the Volokh Conspiracy thinks that the system worked as it should:

My immediate reaction is that the system worked. Harriet Miers is by all accounts a good person and a solid lawyer, but wasn't particularly well-suited for the unique environment of the Supreme Court. As I noted last week, I think the tipping point was sometime last Thusday or Friday, when it became clear on the Hill that Miers just wasn't going to be able to deliver the kind of performance at her hearings that she needed to deliver to get confirmed.

That may be the case, but the proof will be whether Bush nominates someone whose credentials are sterling and can withstand the rigors of running the gauntlet.

Seeing the humor in the situation are Point Five and Scrappleface. Llama Butchers may have a funny name, but they're working the crazy genius angle in Miers pick that keeps everyone off base, including allies to the President.

UPDATE:
Here are still more people commenting on the Miers nomination:

Blogs for Bush: The White House Of The Blogosphere posted Miers Withdraws

bRight & Early chimes in with What Now?

California Conservative posts The Miers’ Withdrawal: Reactions From The Blogosphere

Decision '08 posts Miers Withdraws!

Donkey Stomp posts Miers Withdraws

Don Surber sends up Miers Withdraws. Happy?

Gop and the City spoofs with Icy Hot Judgaz Member Withdraws Nomination

NIF chimes in with Another day in the neighborhood

North Canton Airline and Storm Door Company chimes in with Miers takes a miss, Senatorial Deathmatch Coming Soon to a new Season on Fox!

Oblogatory Anecdotes chimes in with Lessons Learned From The Miers Debacle!

Outside The Beltway chimes in with Harriet Miers Withdraws from Supreme Court Fight

Pajama Pundits chimes in with Miers Withdraws

RandyThomas.info chimes in with Genevieve Wood on Harriet Miers

Right Thoughts posted Buh-bye now.

Sortapundit chimes in with Start Talking About Facial Hair and Meat! Now!

The Unalienable Right posts Harriet Miers withdraws, Democrats call people names, situation normal

Stop The ACLU posted Miers Withdraws

Weapons of Mass Destruction posted Miers Takes The Hint

UPDATE 10/28:
Stop the ACLU provides another roundup of the Miers withdrawal. Discarded Lies was none too thrilled about how this went down. And that's putting it mildly.

Fools Leading Fools

Susan Estrich is peddling a Hillary Clinton book. Bill O'Reilly is a Fox News personality whose audience far outweighs my own. The exchange between the two caught Flopping Aces' attention with good reason.

It was a classic.

Breaking News: Jury Finds Port Authority Negligent in 1993 Bombing

The six-person jury ruled that the Port Authority, the agency that owned the World Trade Center, was negligent by not properly maintaining the parking garage, where terrorists detonated more than a half-ton of explosives in a Ryder van. It said the negligence was a ``substantial factor'' in the allowing the bombing to occur.

The jury took just one day to reach its verdict. Several separate trials will now be held to determine money damages.

As the NYT notes:

At the heart of the case was a 1985 Port Authority security report, which said the garage was vulnerable to attack.

Eerily prescient, it held that car bombs were "fast becoming the weapon of choice for European terrorists," and that the public parking area in the trade center was "a definite security risk" because a vehicle filled with explosives could easily enter and park there.

The report recommended closing the public parking area of the garage, and suggested providing guards at entrances, restricting pedestrian entry and conducting random searches of vehicles.

The defense said the Port Authority had nonetheless decided not to close the garage because officials believed the risk of a bombing was low in the garage, compared with the shopping and pedestrian areas. Lawyers for the agency also argued that the bombing was not preventable, and that Port Authority should therefore not be held responsible for the deaths and injuries.

What's missing in these other pieces is the key issue - determining the liability of the various parties involved in the suit. And The New York Sun provides that tidbit - noting that the jury found the Port Authority 68% liable for the bombing. In other words, the Port Authority was twice as responsible for the terrorist act as the terrorists themselves. My guess is that the jury decided that the Port Authority was the deep pockets in this case, and acted accordingly. They saw the 1985 memo and figured that the Port Authority should have closed the parking garage, as if that would somehow stopped the terrorists from considering attacking the World Trade Center complex. Back at that time, it would not have been out of the realm of possibility for the terrorists to have driven the truck bomb into the lobby of one of the towers and blown itself up - trapping thousands and causing tremendous mayhem. Yet, the devious nature of the terrorists and their willingness to utilize all kinds of attacks was insufficient to sway the jury otherwise.

Six people were murdered, and over 1,000 were injured in the 1993 bombing. The terrorists involved in that attack are being held in prison. Their spiritual leader, Sheik Abdul Rahman, was represented by Lynne Stewart, who herself was found guilty earlier this year of passing on messages to Rahman's followers in violation of agreements with prosecutors. Her conviction was upheld earlier today.

That group of terrorists begat the 9/11 terrorists, who sought to complete what the 1993 bombers could not accomplish - to destroy the World Trade Center.

And this trial will have repercussions on the 9/11 trials that will eventually make their way to court. The government had arranged a victims compensation fund to resolve potential litigation and most families did agree to give up the right to sue the government entities involved, including the Port Authority, but a few decided that preserving the right to sue was important. Some of the same legal theories will be pursued in any trial relating to 9/11 as with the 1993 attack.

UPDATE:
The Port Authority plans to appeal the verdict. No kidding. You knew that was coming considering that the jury found that the Port Authority was more liable for the bombing than the terrorists themselves.

UPDATE 10/27:
Suitably Flip finds the decision abhorrent.

UPDATE 10/27:
Ace's Dr. Reo Symes wonders why the Port Authority got tagged with 68% responsibility for the terrorist bombing that killed six. I'm sure a lot of people are wondering that. After all, it's not like the Port Authority was alone in operating parking garages under or near major landmarks. And before the 1993 attacks, few if any provided the kind of security measures that became the norm after the attack.

Technorati: World Trade Center, WTC, terrorism, abdul rahman.

The Mugshots That Weren't

Funny stuff.

Grilling Government on Hurricane Response

Louisiana state officials grilled NOLA city officials over the hurricane response. The results were less than spectacular.

Having heard many evacuees say they don't think the city wants them to return, Rep. Arthur Morrell, D-New Orleans, said he couldn't blame them for their attitude and asked what the city is doing to encourage its former residents to come back.

Ebbert said Nagin's "No. 1 priority in his battles with the federal government" is providing the basic services and temporary housing that will let more and more people return.

But Rep. Charmaine Marchand, D-New Orleans, and other legislators said the city needs to move faster to make trailers and other types of temporary housing available in the city.

Of course Nagin wants to push the responsibility onto the feds. He's a politician first and foremost. And the feds weren't there to respond either. How convenient.

However, everyone failed to realize that folks don't want to go back to New Orleans at this point because the infrastructure is so mangled that a minor rain will result in significant flooding. The levee system is coming under increased scrutiny and the consensus forming is that they were structurally deficient and incapable of handling a Cat 3 as originally planned. Yeah, I'd want to go back to living under sea level knowing that the one thing keeping where I live from being an aquarium is incapable of doing the job.

Patterson, NY is donating a fire engine to Waveland, MS. The replacement cost for a fire engine, plus the additional equipment sent down with the engine, would be $500,000. We've seen similar actions taken by fire and police departments around the country as spare or older equipment is sent down to areas affected by the hurricanes to restore basic fire and police service.

Of course, for those who are struggling to deal with the current conditions, the help is coming way too slowly.

Thousands are still waiting for a travel trailer from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and an untold number are living amid debris in tents or under tarps.

"We're not in recovery. We're still in relief," said Kevin Bailey, a volunteer from Ohio. That's not a message that is getting out to the rest of the country, he said.

"What's got homeowners so upset is FEMA and the (local governments) haven't been issuing any (building) permits," said Waveland resident and local builder Pete Grisham.

Before a crowd of upset homeowners Tuesday, the Hancock County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to begin issuing building permits using standards for elevation set before Katrina. The county ordinance could be revisited based on new flood advisory maps from FEMA, but board chairman Rocky Pullman said some of the figures he has seen are "astronomical."

FEMA rules prohibit allowing trailers from being placed on homeowner lots until utilities are restored. The problem is that some areas haven't seen all the necessary utilities restored. Thus, everyone is waiting on utility restoration before other steps can proceed. Would it make sense to provide the trailers to those homeowners without utilities on the grounds that it is better than living in a tent?

UPDATE:
Florida Governor Jeb Bush takes responsiblity for the slow recovery after Wilma came ashore. Getting power restored is the key to getting things back up and running smoothly, from providing food and water to getting gas stations working.

Frustration with Florida's relief effort flared Tuesday, when trucks carrying the first wave of relief _ food, ice and water _ either arrived much later than local officials expected or didn't show up at all.

Myriad problems affected supply deliveries, according to local and state officials. Cell phone service was down or spotty, complicating communications between government officials and truck drivers. Some drivers got lost on their way to distribution points and had to be brought there by police escort.

Local governments prematurely released distribution sites and times, causing crowds to gather hours before any supplies got there. In many cases, there simply was not enough ice, water and meals ready-to-eat to go around, or it took far too long to get the supplies to the proper places, officials said.

And Florida has had the most experience with hurricanes and dealing with the aftermath. Their problems show the limits of government at all levels to deal with these kinds of disasters.

In the meantime, the advice that every was told all along still holds true - everyone should make sure to have at least three days worth of provisions in case of a severe storm like this hurricane.

Technorati: flood aid; hurricane katrina; katrina aid; hurricane rita; slidell; biloxi; gulfport; pascagoula; nagin; blanco; barbour; hurricane rita; hurricane wilma.