Warren Haynes with the Allman Brothers

This is Warren with David Schools in the parking lot at Red Rocks in Denver

What a shock, eh? Speaking of New Orleans…..shout out to Chicher…..hope all’s good!!

A company with close connections to the family of President George W. Bush installed faulty pumps at New Orleans levees and the Army Corps of Engineers, under pressure from the White House, ignored warnings that the pumps would fail during a storm.

The company, owned by a former business partner of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — the President’s brother — is just the latest politically-connected government contractor to deliver failed equipment or flawed services.

More at CapitolHillBlue

Levees.org, a nonprofit flood-control advocacy group, kicked off a national television advertising campaign on Tuesday featuring activist actor and comedian Harry Shearer asking, “Don’t we all deserve levees that work?”

The campaign aims to explain to other communities protected by levees that they could experience a catastrophic flood like New Orleans experienced during Hurricane Katrina.

“Too many people don’t understand that what happened here was a case of engineering failures and poor decision-making, and too many people don’t understand that what happened here could happen there as well,” said Sandy Rosenthal, the organization’s executive director.

She said the spots are part of her organization’s larger campaign to hold accountable those responsible for preventing flooding. It’s also part of an effort to expand Levees.org membership into other states where levees may be in similar states of disrepair.

The 30’second and 15’second spots point out that the Army Corps of Engineers recently informed communities in 28 states that they had found serious flaws in more than 120 levee sections.

A more extensive five-year study of the adequacy of levee designs nationwide is expected to begin later this year.

“Are you as safe as you think you are?” Shearer asks, as a picture of him standing on a levee fades

to a photograph of a flooded New Orleans house with a car propped askew on a telephone pole. “What happened here in New Orleans could happen anywhere … to you.”
More at Nola.com

This is such a sad case. Here these parents think they’re helping their son by sending him off to a boot camp, and he’s murdered by the people who are supposed to be helping him. Then the coroner states he died due to an illness he had, not the beating. Kudos to Crist for agreeing the state should pay….but bottom line is, no amount of money can ease the pain these parents must endure, knowing what their son went through.

TAMPA, Fla. - Gov. Charlie Crist said Wednesday the state should give $5 million to the family of a teenager who died last year after he was manhandled by juvenile boot camp guards.

Crist’s comments came hours after prosecutors released an enhanced video of the beating of Martin Lee Anderson, 14, and more than 20,000 pages of evidence in the manslaughter case against seven former guards and a nurse.

The family had sued for $40 million, but said in a letter to Crist that a $10 million payment would be a fair resolution - half from the state and half from Bay County, which ran the camp.

“I think it’s real important that the state do the right thing, and I think the right thing to do is honor their more-than-reasonable request. Justice delayed is justice denied,” Crist said in Tallahassee. The payment would have to be approved by the Legislature.

After meeting with the boy’s family, the governor’s office said, Crist sent letters to the House and Senate urging them to approve the payment this session.

Read more at Yahoo

NELSONVILLE, Ohio –A 13-year-old boy is charged in juvenile court with 128 felonies in what police call a small-town crime spree.
The boy, in juvenile detention pending a pretrial hearing later this month, faces delinquency counts of burglary, theft, vandalism and witness intimidation.

“In my 30 years of doing this, I’ve never had a juvenile that young with so many charges,” Athens County Prosecutor C. David Warren said Tuesday.

Police accuse the boy of breaking into homes and businesses in Nelsonville, a small, rural town 55 miles southeast of Columbus, and of stealing checks from elderly residents, Warren said.

He also is accused of beating one of the witnesses who turned him in, Warren said.

At least three other youths, one of them 10 years old, also have been charged, Warren said.

The boy could be freed at 21 even if he is convicted of all 128 counts, prosecutors said.

More at Boston.com

Oh I’m loving this!!!!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Brushing aside a veto threat, the House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to overturn a 2001 order by President George W. Bush that lets former presidents keep their papers secret indefinitely.

The measure, which drew bipartisan support and passed by a veto-busting 333-93 margin, was among White House-opposed bills the House passed that would widen access to government information and protect government whistleblowers.

“Today, Congress took an important step toward restoring openness and transparency in government,” House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman said.

The presidential papers bill nullifies a November 2001 order, criticized by historians, in which Bush allowed the White House or a former president to block release of a former president’s papers and put the onus on researchers to show a “specific need” for many types of records.

Among beneficiaries of the Bush order was Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, a former vice president and president.

Read more at Reuters

But of course……they can have all the time in the world. We’ll just send our wounded back, we’ll extend tours, we’ll send guys back time after time after time…..no problemo.

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration is allowing the Iraqi government more time to achieve political goals that were described as key benchmarks of the new American strategy in Iraq, in an acknowledgment that movement toward reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites remains a long way off.

A “notional political timeline” that the administration provided to Congress in January called for the four most significant objectives to be met by this month, but in interviews this week, administration officials said it could be the end of the year at the earliest before all of them are fulfilled.

The slower pace of progress puts the administration in a difficult position, given the growing congressional criticism of the new strategy, which includes an increase of more than 20,000 American troops. Congressional Democrats are seeking passage of legislation that would impose a timetable for withdrawal of American troops, and for evidence that political benchmarks are being met.

A House bill under consideration this week lists benchmarks for Iraqi political progress, and would require that President George W. Bush certify by July 1 that progress was being made toward them. The bill would basically give Bush and the Iraqi government an Oct. 1 deadline to meet the benchmarks.

Administration officials have never rescinded their earlier timeline, and indeed the Iraqi government had already missed most of the deadlines when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave Congress the notional timeline, which extended from September 2006 to March 2007.

Read more at the International Herald Tribune

This is so friggin stupid. Like we have no bigger problems to contend with than dying and sick people using weed to ease their pain. Unbelievable. How about we let cops worry about the rising murders, robberies and violent crimes in this country, rather than worry about if sick and dying people are smoking marijuana. How about we keep this stuff out of our court systems…..you know….the one’s that are already ovewhelmed with real crimes. I say legalize medical marijuana and be done with it. My best wishes to Angel Raich and anyone else who uses marijuana for medicinal purposes!!!

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) — A California woman whose doctor says marijuana is the only medicine keeping her alive is not immune from federal prosecution on drug charges, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The case was brought by Angel Raich, an Oakland mother of two who suffers from scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea and other ailments. On her doctor’s advice, she eats or smokes marijuana every couple of hours to ease her pain and bolster a nonexistent appetite as conventional drugs did not work.

The Supreme Court ruled against Raich two years ago, saying that medical marijuana users and their suppliers could be prosecuted for breaching federal drug laws even if they lived in a state such as California where medical pot is legal.

Because of that ruling, the issue before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was narrowed to the so-called right to life theory: that marijuana should be allowed if it is the only viable option to keep a patient alive.

Raich, 41, began sobbing when she was told of the decision and said she would continue using the drug.

“I’m sure not going to let them kill me,” she said. “Oh my God.”

Source: CNN

And so do the majority of Americans! 79% on C-Span poll say he’s got to go. 67% on AOL poll. 74% on MSNBC poll. 94% on CNN poll. And oh…..Bush “is not happy” about the firings. Yah, he’s not happy because it came to light what they were up to! Who’s he kidding……NO ONE! Well wait, there’s always those 30 some percenters. Like Patriots landlords!

NEW YORK The New York Times got the editorial ball rolling on Monday, calling for the firing of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales due largely, if not completely, to the burgeoning scandal involving the forced departure of eight U.S. attorneys. Today the notion spread across the country.

“We haven’t seen a renegade U.S. Justice Department like this since John Mitchell ran it for President Nixon,” declared the Sacremento Bee. “With a new Congress beginning to exercise serious oversight, the problems at the Justice Department and with its leader, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, are becoming clearer by the day. And what is becoming most clear is that Gonzales must go.”

The Washington Post implies the same thing. The Los Angeles Times agreed but placed much of the blame on President Bush. The Philadephia Inquirer demanded: “U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales should resign. If he ever does, the nation could take it as a clear sign that President Bush finally grasps the need to preserve core civil liberties while guarding against terrorism.”

The Buffalo (N.Y.) News: “He should go. The country needs an attorney general who wants to uphold the law, not subvert it.”

From Florida Today in Melbourne: “He should be removed and replaced with someone willing to protect the Constitution. Chances are Bush won’t do that.”

More at Editor and Publisher

WASHINGTON - The deficit in the broadest measure of trade set a record for the fifth consecutive year even though the imbalance in the final three months of 2006 shrank, reflecting a lower foreign oil bill.

The Commerce Department reported that the imbalance in the current account jumped by 8.2 percent to $856.7 billion, representing a record 6.5 percent of the total economy. For the fourth quarter, the deficit shrank by 14.6 percent to $195.8 billion, the smallest quarterly imbalance since the summer of 2005.

Even with the fourth quarter improvement, administration critics say the soaring deficit for the whole year shows the failure of President Bush’s trade policies to protect American workers. They contend that America is going into hock to foreigners at an alarming rate even though they have been more than willing so far to hold American assets in return for sales of televisions, cars and other goods to U.S. consumers.

The current account is the broadest measure of trade because it covers not only trade in goods and services but also investment flows between countries. It also represents the amount of U.S. assets that have been transferred into foreign hands to cover the gap between American exports and imports.

More at Yahoo