Hurricane Katrina: A sign from God.

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You can help. MoveOn.org just launched a website, www.hurricanehousing.org, to connect your empty beds with hurricane victims who desperately need a place to wait out the storm.

You can post your offer of housing (a spare room, extra bed, even a decent couch) on http://www.hurricanehousing.org or search there for housing if you need it.

MoveOn will pass requests from hurricane victims or relief agencies on to volunteer hosts, who can decide whether or not to respond to a particular request. The host remains anonymous until they reply to someone looking for housing.

The ______(this was my brother's name) just posted an offer. We hope you will too, or pass this on to people you know in the Southeast:

Housing is most urgently needed within reasonable driving distance (about 300 miles) of the affected areas, especially New Orleans.

I just saw a video of Bush, the former GOVERNOR OF TEXAS, who said the following with regard to Hurricane Rita:

What I am going to do is observe the relationship between the state and local government, and I want to watch that relationship. It's an important relationship, and I need to understand how it works better.

Wonder what he was watching before/when he was governor of that very same state! Better yet, I seriously wonder what he's been watching for the past 5 years!

That is such a typical party line statement, it took my breath away. I am not saying that questioning and challenge is not good. It is. But just joining in without question is frightening. It reminds me of Nazi Germany. By the way, Not in Our Name is not what they seem to be. I really question your causes, but certainly not your right to participate in them. I would hardly wear being arrested, for whatever reason, as a badge of honor. It isn't. There are many ways to support a cause and do it legally.

The organization itself is not broad-based at all, but is, rather, one of a
small group of radical sects devoted to causes far removed from the antiwar
effort. Not In Our Name is in fact two groups, which began as one. The
group relies on tax-exempt foundations that in the past have been - and
today still are - affiliated with a variety of radical causes, including the
defense of convicted murderer Mumia Abu-Jamal, support for Fidel Castro's
regime in Cuba and involvement with figures linked to Middle Eastern
terrorism.
The organization was created in March 2002 by a gathering of left-wing
activists that included representatives from the Revolutionary Communist
Party, the All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party, Refuse and Resist!, the
International League of Peoples' Struggle and the National Lawyers Guild,
among others.

There had been concern among organizers that some of those who might be
inclined to sign the statement )in opposition to a war on Iraq) might not
want to be associated with Not In Our Name's activist wing. So the group
created two separate entities, one called the Not In Our Name Statement
(which handles the manifesto and the collecting of celebrity signatures) and
the other called the Not In Our Name Project (which handles street
demonstrations and other protests).

Today, the staffs and finances of both groups are managed independently.
Still, both parts of Not In Our Name need to raise money. Rather than
creating foundations to collect cash, they formed alliances with so-called
fiscal sponsors - that is, already established foundations that could use
their tax-exempt status for fundraising.

THE Not In Our Name statement that appeared in the Times included a small
box asking that donations be sent to something called the Bill of Rights
Foundation. Last year, the foundation agreed to serve as Not In Our Name
Statement's fiscal sponsor, but a look at the group's Internal Revenue
Service records shows that until recently, it has had nothing at all to do
with the peace movement. Rather, almost every dollar raised by the group for
several years went to the legal defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted
cop-killer whose case has become a cause c�l�bre among some on the Left.

In 2001, for example, the foundation spent a total of $102,152, of which
$95,737 went toward Abu-Jamal's legal expenses. In the year 2000, the
foundation spent $75,956, of which $57,722 was for Abu-Jamal. And in 1999,
the foundation spent $155,547, of which $139,126 went to Abu-Jamal's
lawyers.

At the end of 2001, Abu-Jamal changed his legal and finance team, leaving
the Bill of Rights Foundation without its main cause. In 2002, it hooked up
with Not In Our Name Statement. Foundation president Judith Levin sees the
Abu-Jamal case and opposition to a possible war as closely linked. They're
related as a matter of principle, she explains. The connection is the
violation of civil rights of people in this country.

FOR its fund raising, the Not In Our Name Project is allied with another
foundation, this one called the Interreligious Foundation for Community
Organization. Founded by several New Left leaders in 1967 to advance the
struggles of oppressed people for justice and self-determination, IFCO was
originally created to serve as the fundraising arm of a variety of activist
organizations that lacked the resources to raise money for themselves.

In recent years, IFCO served as fiscal sponsor for an organization called
the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom (their partnership ended
when the coalition formed its own tax-exempt foundation). Founded in 1997 as
a reaction to the 1996 Anti-Terrorism Act, the coalition says its function
is to oppose the use of secret evidence in terrorism prosecutions.

Until recently, the group's president was Sami Al-Arian, a University of
South Florida computer-science professor who has been suspended for alleged
ties to terrorism. (He is still a member of the coalition's board.)
According to a New York Times report last year, Al-Arian is accused of
having sent hundreds of thousands of dollars, raised by another charity he
runs, to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Times also reported that FBI
investigators suspected Mr. Al-Arian operated 'a fund-raising front' for
the Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine from the late 1980s to 1995.
Al-Arian also brought a man named Ramadan Abdullah Shallah to the University
of South Florida to raise money for one of Al-Arian's foundations - a job
Shallah held until he later became the head of Islamic Jihad.

TODAY, IFCO sponsors Refuse and Resist!, an antiwar group with ties to the
Revolutionary Communist Party, and also devotes substantial energy to
supporting the Castro regime in Cuba. Cuba is a particular favorite of
IFCO's executive director, the Rev. Lucius Walker, who, addressing a
solidarity conference in Havana in November 2000, proclaimed, Long live
the struggle of the Cuban people! Long live the creative example of the
Cuban Revolution! Long live the wisdom and heartfelt concern for the poor of
the world by Fidel Castro! Both IFCO and the Bill of Rights Foundation are
tax-exempt 501(c)(3) charities, which means that all contributions made to
them - whether for antiwar protests, Cuban solidarity rallies, or the
defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal - are fully tax-deductible.

The groups have been quite successful. The most recent IRS records available
for IFCO, from the year 2000, show that the foundation took in $1,119,564 in
contributions. For their part, organizers of the Not In Our Name Statement
report that they have taken in more than $400,000 in recent months for the
purpose of publishing their statement. It is not possible to say who is
giving the money, or whether it comes from many people or just a few;
federal laws do not require tax-exempt foundations to reveal their donors -
or even whether donations are received from inside or outside the United
States.

'WE who sign this statement call on all Americans to join together, says
the Not In Our Name manifesto. To hear the group's leaders speak, one might
think that is actually happening, that there really is a broad-based
movement represented by these activists. But a look at the people and
organizations involved in Not In Our Name suggests otherwise - no matter how
many celebrity signatures they might collect.

Byron York is National Review's White House correspondent. From the Feb. 24
issue

A profound tragedy is unfolding in New Orleans, the most beautiful city in America, with the richest cultural history and the most wonderful style of living. I lived in New Orleans for seven years. I was married there. My children were born there. I have many friends there.

My daughter, her husband and their little baby managed to get out of the city ahead of the flood on Sunday, driving 14 hours into Texas with the few belongings they could stuff into their car. They have no idea what has become of their house and their possessions, not to mention their friends, their pets, their jobs, their way of life.

Tragedies happen, and my daughter and her family are happy just to be alive. Their losses and those of hundreds of thousands of other innocents deserve mourning, prayer and respect.

That is why the response of environmental extremists fills me with what only can be called disgust. They have decided to exploit the death and devastation to win support for the failed Kyoto Protocol, which requires massive cutbacks in energy use to reduce, by a few tenths of a degree, surface warming projected 100 years from now.

Katrina has nothing to do with global warming. Nothing. It has everything to do with the immense forces of nature that have been unleashed many, many times before and the inability of humans, even the most brilliant engineers, to tame these forces.

Giant hurricanes are rare, but they are not new. And they are not increasing. To the contrary. Just go to the website of the National Hurricane Center and check out a table that lists hurricanes by category and decade. The peak for major hurricanes (categories 3,4,5) came in the decades of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, when such storms averaged 9 per decade. In the 1960s, there were 6 such storms; in the 1970s, 4; in the 1980s, 5; in the 1990s, 5; and for 2001-04, there were 3. Category 4 and 5 storms were also more prevalent in the past than they are now. As for Category 5 storms, there have been only three since the 1850s: in the decades of the 1930s, 1960s and 1990s.

But that doesn't stop an enviro-predator like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from writing on the Huffingtonpost website: Now we are all learning what it's like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged. Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and - now -- Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children.

Or consider Jurgen Tritten, Germany's environmental minister, in an op-ed in the Frankfurter Rundschau. He wrote (according to a translation prepared for me): By neglecting environmental protection, America's president shuts his eyes to the economic and human damage that natural catastrophes like Katrina inflect on his country and the world's economy.

The bright side of Katrina, concludes Tritten, is that it will force President Bush to face facts. When reason finally pays a visit to climate-polluter headquarters, the international community has to be prepared to hand America a worked-out proposal for the future of international climate protection.

He goes on, There is only one possible route of action. Greenhouse gases have to be radically reduced, and it has to happen worldwide. In other words, thanks to Katrina, we'll finally get Kyoto enforced. (He might start at home, by the way. Europe is not anywhere close to reducing CO2 to Kyoto standards. In fact, the U.S. is doing much better than many Kyoto ratifiers.)

Ross Gelbspan, in a particularly egregious, almost giddy piece in the Boston Globe that was reprinted in the International Herald Tribune, wrote that the hurricane was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service Katrina, [but] its real name was global warming. He also finds global warming responsible for droughts in the Midwest, strong winds in Scandinavia and heavy rain in Dubai. The reason for all this devastation, of course, is that the Bush Administration is controlled by coal and oil interests.

And the Independent, a widely read British newspaper, reported today that Sir David King, the British Government's chief scientific adviser, has warned that global warming may be responsible for the devastation reaped by Hurricane Katrina. King contended that the increased intensity of hurricanes is associated with global warming.

The Kyoto advocates point to warmer ocean temperatures, but they ought to read their own favorite newspaper, The New York Times, which reported yesterday:

Because hurricanes form over warm ocean water, it is easy to assume that the recent rise in their number and ferocity is because of global warming. But that is not the case, scientists say. Instead, the severity of hurricane seasons changes with cycles of temperatures of several decades in the Atlantic Ocean. The recent onslaught 'is very much natural,' said William M. Gray, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University who issues forecasts for the hurricane season.'

An article on TCS quoted Gray last year as saying that, while some groups and individuals say that hurricane activity lately may be in some way related to the effects of increased man-made greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide,�there is no reasonable scientific way that such an interpretation�can be made.

Indeed, there is no evidence that hurricanes are intensifying anyway. For the North Atlantic as a whole, according to the United Nations Environment Programme of the World Meteorological Organization: Reliable data�since the 1940s indicate that the peak strength of the strongest hurricanes has not changed, and the mean maximum intensity of all hurricanes has decreased.

Yes, decreased.

Not only has the intensity of hurricanes fallen, but, as George H. Taylor, the state climatologist of Oregon has pointed out, so has the frequency of hailstorms in the U.S. (see Changnon and Changnon) and cyclones throughout the world (Gulev, et al.).

But environmental extremists do not want to be bothered with the facts. Nor do they wish to mourn the destruction and death wreaked on a glorious city. To their everlasting shame, they would rather distort and exploit.

Katrina Pushes Bush Down Further

CNN) -- An atheist sign criticizing Christianity that was erected alongside a Nativity scene was taken from the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington, on Friday and later found in a ditch.

An employee from country radio station KMPS-FM in Seattle told CNN the sign was dropped off at the station by someone who found it in a ditch. "I thought it would be safe," Freedom From Religion Foundation co-founder Annie Laurie Gaylor told CNN earlier Friday. "It's always a shock when your sign is censored or stolen or mutilated. It's not something you get used to." The sign, which celebrates the winter solstice, has had some residents and Christian organizations calling atheists Scrooges because they said it was attacking the celebration of Jesus Christ's birth.
"Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds," the sign from the Freedom From Religion Foundation says in part. The sign, which was at the Legislative Building at 6:30 a.m. PT, was gone by 7:30 a.m., Gaylor said. The incident will not stifle the group's message, Gaylor said. Before reports of the placard's recovery, she said a temporary sign with the same message would be placed in the building's Rotunda. Gaylor said a note would be attached saying, "Thou shalt not steal."

"I guess they don't follow their own commandments," Gaylor said. "There's nothing out there with the atheist point of view, and now there is such a firestorm that we have the audacity to exist. And then [whoever took the sign] stifles our speech."

Gaylor said that police are checking security cameras pointed at the building's entrances and exits to see if they can see anyone stealing the sign.

"It's probably about 50 pounds, " Gaylor said. "My brother-in-law was huffing and puffing carrying it up the stairs. It's definitely not something you can stick under your arm or conceal."

The Washington State Patrol, which is handling the incident, could not be reached for comment.

Dan Barker, a former evangelical preacher and co-founder of the group, said it was important for atheists to see their viewpoints validated alongside everyone else's.

Barker said the display is especially important given that 25 percent of Washington state residents are unaffiliated with religion or do not believe in God. (A recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found 23 percent of Washingtonians said they were unaffiliated with a religion and 7 percent said they didn't believe in God.)
"It's not that we are trying to coerce anyone; in a way our sign is a signal of protest," Barker said. "If there can be a Nativity scene saying that we are all going to he**ll if we don't bow down to Jesus, we should be at the table to share our views."

"Most people think December is for Christians and view our signs as an intrusion, when actually it's the other way around," he said. "People have been celebrating the winter solstice long before Christmas. We see Christianity as the intruder, trying to steal the holiday from all of us humans."

The scene in Washington state is not unfamiliar. Barker has had signs in Madison, Wisconsin, for 13 years. The placard is often turned around so the message can't be seen, and one year, someone threw acid on it, forcing the group to encase it in Plexiglas.

In Washington, D.C., the American Humanist Association began a bus ad campaign this month questioning belief in God.

"Why believe in a God?" the advertisement asks. "Just be good for goodness sake."

That ad has caused the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to field hundreds of complaints, the group said, but it has heard just as much positive feedback, said Fred Edwords, the association's spokesman.

Edwords said the ad campaign, which features a shrugging Santa Claus, was not meant to attack Christmas but rather to reach out to an untapped audience.

Edwords maintains the campaign began in December mostly because the group had extra money left over for the year. The connection to Christmas is a coincidence, he said.

"There are a lot of people out there who don't know there are organizations like ours to serve their needs," Edwords said. "The thing is, to reach a minority group, in order to be heard, everyone in the room has to hear you, even when they don't want to."

The ad campaign, Edwords said, is to make people think. He said he doesn't expect to "convert" anyone.
But the Christian Coalition of America is urging members to oppose the advertisements.

"Although a number of humanists and atheists continue to attempt to rid God and Christmas from the public square, the American people are overwhelmingly opposed to such efforts," Roberta Combs, the group's president said in a press release.

"We will ask our millions of supporters to call the city of Washington, D.C., and Congress to stop this un-Godly campaign."

As far as the criticism goes, Edwords said there are far more controversial placards in Washington.
"That's D.C. -- this is a political center," he said. "If I can see a placard with dead fetuses on it, I think someone can look at our question and just think about it."

The anger over the display in Olympia began after it was assembled Monday. The sentiment grew after some national media personalities called upon viewers to flood the phone lines of the governor's office.

The governor's office told The Seattle Times it received more than 200 calls an hour afterward.

"I happen to be a Christian, and I don't agree with the display that is up there," Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire told The Olympian newspaper. "But that doesn't mean that as governor, I have the right to deny their ability to express their free speech."

For some, the issue isn't even that the atheists are putting their thoughts on display, but rather the way in which they are doing it.

"They are shooting themselves in the foot," said iReport contributor Rich Phillips, who describes himself as an atheist. "Everyone's out there for the holidays, trying to represent their religion, their beliefs, and it's a time to be positive."
The atheist message was never intended to attack anyone, Barker said.

"When people ask us, 'Why are you hateful? Why are you putting up something critical of people's holidays? -- we respond that we kind of feel that the Christian message is the hate message," he said. "On that Nativity scene, there is this threat of internal violence if we don't submit to that master. Hate speech goes both ways."

bill with pork in it either but we see how well that went down. Obama does nothing to hide his lies. The media and kool-aid drinkers do it for him so he blatantly lies for all to see and yet his robots still refuse to see it.

Our country is in serious trouble and all Obama cares about is spending spending spending for his own personal agenda. Just another politican looking out for his own personal interests without giving a second thought to the Americans who are suffering.

But am I the only one who finds it disgraceful that Americans are reduced to BEGGING this president, via a petition, to PLEASE do SOMETHING to help keep Americans safe? Every other word out of his mouth has to do with the "war on terror" (or whatever his phrase de jour currently is). Yet, after four years, he STILL couldn't care less if our borders are secure.

This is not a new issue. This is what some of us on these boards have been saying for a long time now. After 9/11, experts in terrorism said we MUST secure our borders. Instead, Bush chose to spend billions of dollars on his war against Iraq and throwing Americans to the wolves.

As I said, I will gladly sign this petition, not believing for a nanosecond that it will do any good because this president simply doesn't CARE. And all that does is give me one more reason to loathe and despise him, and it increases the personal terror I feel daily at the fact that our safety lies in his thoroughly incompetent, ignorant, uncaring hands.

Hurricane Katrina: A sign from God.

The Post-Katrina Era

McCain Katrina

Katrina Pushes Bush Down Further

Last Katrina child goes home

A mother and her missing daughter are reunited seven months after a hurricane devastated New Orleans