Oh, Halliburton’s hand is not out to give, but to take. I searched Google News, with many search term combos, for any report of Halliburton’s donations to Katrina’s victims. Nothing. But, when I changed my search to “Halliburton Katrina,” look what came up:
As my aunt used to say, some of us are takers, some of us are givers. Did any of you hear that auto mechanic on MSNBC yelling about Bush’s speech? “He ain’t gonna be president no mo’.” (Poor guy. He thinks that being angry at Bush will get rid of him?) I’ve asked Crooks & Liars to get us the video ASAP. MORE BELOW:
MSNBC reporter: Bodies are all over. The reporter says she has seen one body that’s been in the street for three days. People are hanging out of office building windows, waving frantically for rescue. But no one can get to them.
In the meantime, more from my Halliburton Katrina search results at Google News:
And do you think that Halliburton’s Web site has a SINGLE WORD about Katrina or the Red Cross? No.
Meanwhile, people wander the streets and freeways aimlessly. They don’t know where to go. One 50+-year-old woman was just on MSNBC begging the stores to open so she could get a loaf of bread.
I literally CANNOT wait — I must have missed this — tell your friend at crooksandliars (sorry, I forgot his name), I visit the site more and more and click on ads there too — he rocks and rolls with the video!
I figured as much. Fuckers will profit from this too. Damn!
OK. You’ve done it now! My outrage meter just roared back to life over the idea that Halliburton is gonna get richer off the destruction of New Orleans! And I have to stifle it, too. If Hubby knew how enraged I was at this moment he’d be giving me the “blogs are no good for you” lecture. I must be calm, must disassociate emotional reaction, must smash that meter back into submission, mustn’t feed the Dark Wolf… O Gawd! I want to scream with rage! I HATE THESE PEOPLE!
Yup… here at my house we call it “BTSD”
Bush
Traumatic
Stress
Disorder
Me too. I am seething with anger. You should have seen that auto mechanic … oh my god … he wasn’t just angry. He was, most of all, desperate and frantic and worried and frightened.
I’m nearly mad with anger. If I end up seeing the cardiologist again — ha! — I’ll tell him the only thing that’ll cure me will be to bury the GOP in 2006 and 2008.
As we learned in Iraq, we can’t have a bunch of carpenters, construction workers and tradespeople fumbling around with reconstruction. This — like all of life — calls for a real corporation.
I can barely imagine how much more efficient the new city will be.
Is Paul Bremer busy?
You made me laugh! Now stop that!
They’ll probably turn the whole city into a cheap version of Holiday Inns with faux “old town” looks…. the kind of crappy looking places you see in too many tourist sections.
Here’s what it’ll be —
Roll video of gleaming latte bars and smiling white yuppies in sidewalk cafes…
That is, the poor folks who are most devastated by this? Those who couldn’t leave – who are, at best, roasting in the Superdome, waiting to be shifted off to Dome2 in Houston. (Whose idea was that, anyway?) Or at worst, still in their flooded homes.
Somehow I don’t think much of any post-hurricane gentrification will do a lot for the poor.
I just heard on MSNBC that Charity Hospital, the state hospital, has not been evacuated or received aid, even though nearby Tulane University hospital has already been evacuated. I guess that solves the problem of where all the ‘undesirables’ will be in the "Newer Orleans:" they will be in the cemeteries….God.
C-posted at DailyKos.
I was reading a list of corporations who are sending various forms of vital aid — Food Lion, Annheuser Busch, Kellogg’s — and Wal-Mart was not among them.
WTF? When are they going to step up to the plate?
They probably consider their debt paid, since a lot of the “looters” were “looting” their recently submerged stores.
I did hear Ed Schultz on the radio say that Wal-Mart donated $1 million. If true, that’s nice … but they can afford more.
I heard some of the oil companies were doing pretty well this year.
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It’s getting too hot in Baghdad!
Iraq Occupation and Reconstruction
Washington (CS Monitor) Oct. 10, 2003 — Yet some key Iraq contracts already were bid secretly, or on a sole-source basis, to companies with strong ties to the Bush administration. These included a $1.39 billion contract to a subsidiary of Halliburton, an energy giant formerly chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney.
Another $680 million contract for Iraq’s power grid, water system, and airport facilities went to Bechtel Group Inc., after a secret bidding process. Together, the six companies invited to bid on the Bechtel contract contributed $3.6 million to federal election campaigns, two-thirds to Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Democrats call it favoritism, collusion, and even war profiteering.
WHERE IS THE CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT?
NewsMax Wires ◊ June 25, 2001
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This whole situation has sent my blood pressure through the roof!
These people are beyond disgust!
And don’t forget – all those “Christians” strongly supporting them and condemning the poor folks of New Orleans who are desperate for food and water and medicines!
Who’s going to hell! It’s sure obvious to me!
Frankly, it’s what I expect. I made a few comments about Halliburton likely getting no-bid contracts for handling clean-up, evac, rebuilding of levees, providing meals to the de-homed, temporary schools for the children, and I had friends raining down disapproval for being so snarky.
But I do think that they are likely to benefit.
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… has won a contract for a large-scale gas processing plant, the largest single plant of its class in the world, from Petropars Ltd., a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company, planned in the Bandar Assaluyeh region.
The contract signing ceremony for this project was held on May 17, 2003 in Teheran.
The joint venture will provide design, procurement, construction and commissioning services for a natural gas processing plant with a throughput of 3,000 mmscfd and offsite utilities. The value of the contract is approximately US$ 1,200 million. Completion is scheduled for end of 2006.
The plant consists of three sets of 1,000 mmscfd capacity production facilities to manufacture LPG and condensate from a natural gas recovered from the 6th, 7th and 8th mining areas of Iranian state-owned South Pars gas fields, 100km offshore from Iran.
The project has been given top priority in the Iranian government’s third five-year plan and is an important energy-related project aiming for a stable energy supply for Japan, in which both Japanese and Iranian governments cooperate to promote development.
VP Cheney, ex-Halliburton – “On any playing field, I’ll be on the winning side”.
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There are almost no words. How was this allowed to happen?
This is worse than all those older French people dying a couple of summers ago – huge tragedy, both of them… but this one, we knew was coming. We had warning of the anticipated devastation and knew what the needs would be, worst-case-scenario and still… this situation was allowed to develop. And to keep developing, as people die while waiting for, and pleading for help. It is unforgivable. And the world watches us in all our incompetency, sigh.
The thousands of people on the ground can truly be called heroes, I think. And it’s good to see the non profit orgs that have revved up and stepped into the breach – this is where the religious groups also sometimes shine… not when they are out preaching hate and blaming people for being in the way of death and destruction, but when they are following the actual Jesus said stuff, and helping the poor and afflicted.
Too much bad news… between this and the deaths of the people on the bridge in Iraq and everything else that is going on… I’m crabby, depressed, angry, and ready to punch the next right winger that complains about looters instead of screaming about the people still out there to be rescued, or that blames the victims for being left in the city to be victimized.
That might be the difference between paying relgion lip service and really meaning it?
I dropped this exact comment in Jerome a Paris diary on Oil… But I think it is pertinent here, as well, considering Halliburtons gouging on Iraq gas shipments:
I had already figured that they would give these big contracts to one of “their own”… Can’t have it going directly to small companies that actually do the work, generate the jobs, and drive the economy without having their corporate buddies get a cut. That would be highly ethical! Nevermind that it would cut out much of the waste and disorganized chaos the bush admin. corparate buddies are known for.
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NEW ORLEANS – Authorities all but surrendered the streets of New Orleans to floodwaters, looting and other lawlessness Wednesday as the mayor called for a total evacuation and warned the death toll from Hurricane Katrina could reach into the thousands.
The frightening estimate came as desperation deepened in the city, with gunfire crackling sporadically and looters by the hundreds roaming the streets and ransacking tiny shops and big-box stores alike with seeming impunity.
“We know there is a significant number of dead bodies in the water,” and other people dead in attics, Mayor Ray Nagin said. Asked how many, he said: “Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands.”
That would make Katrina the deadliest natural disaster in the United States since at least the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
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