Brian Williams:

"I am duty-bound to report the talk of the New Orleans warehouse district last night: there was rejoicing (well, there would have been without the curfew, but the few people I saw on the streets were excited) when the power came back on for blocks on end. Kevin Tibbles was positively jubilant on the live update edition of Nightly News that we fed to the West Coast. The mini-mart, long ago cleaned out by looters, was nonetheless bathed in light, including the empty, roped-off gas pumps. The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions."

so what's your point....

Or are you still claiming 25,000 dead???

"Nearly three weeks after Hurricane Katrina cut its devastating path, FEMA - the same federal agency that botched the rescue mission - is faltering in its effort to aid hundreds of thousands of storm victims, local officials, evacuees and top federal relief officials say...
...The president of St. Tammany Parish, Kevin Davis, is praying that it does not rain in his sweltering corner of Louisiana, because three weeks after the storm severely damaged his drainage system, FEMA has yet to give him approval to even start the repairs.

...Up north in the poor parish of Washington, residents are sleeping in houses that were chopped in half by oak trees. The promised wave of government inspectors have not shown up to assist them.
...In many affected areas, Americans continue to live in conditions unthinkable in most of the industrialized world, like the rural unincorporated areas in Washington and surrounding parishes, where the uprooted trunks of 20-ton trees have left dinosaur foot-size crevices in roads, and homes are still surrounded by a maze of twisting branches.

In Tangipahoa Parish, the parish president, Gordon Burgess, said he called FEMA officials daily to ask when they would arrive to assist residents with housing. Mr. Burgess said the federal workers say, " 'I'll get to you next week,' and then the next week and then you'd never hear from them again."
...Evacuees and local officials also complain that FEMA's request for them to register on line or via phone is unrealistic, given that as of Wednesday 310,000 households in Louisiana were still without telephone service and 283,231 were still awaiting power, or nearly 30 percent of the state's households. And the phone lines are almost always jammed anyway."

there is actually good news out there if you take the time to look for it and take your blinders off...

the article you site says that owners will be allowed to go back in to clean up--with no drinkable water and little electricity. There is quite a difference in those two scenarios. Glad to see that your delusion is holding firm.

shows a woman sitting in front of an establishment drinking an alcoholic beverage. Please explain to me how she does that if a place is closed???

As you note, it's not a good idea for residents to return to New Orleans. Several Superfund clean-up sites were located there, and their pollution would now be widely distributed by the flooding.

From the Christian Science Monitor: "...The most worrisome [Superfund Site] is the Agriculture Street Landfill, located about halfway between the French Quarter and Lake Pontchartrain. For nearly a century, municipal garbage and industrial wastes accumulated there. It was loaded with lead, arsenic, dioxin and carcinogenic hydrocarbons and later sprayed with the now-banned pesticide DDT. Underground fires gave it the nickname "Dante's Inferno."

The 95-acre site eventually was "remediated" under Superfund - fenced off and covered with a mat barrier and two feet of clean soil. As was the case with Love Canal, local residents continued to complain of health problems...."

Nicole is right about EPA not warning New Yorkers about the air and chemical pollution due to the downing of the Twin Towers. I similarly would not expect EPA to properly report contaminations in New Orleans, largely to the politicization of this agency. Hopefully, the main stream media and others will do their own testing, as this is fairly straightforward.

As to Mayor Nagin reopening sections of New Orleans, I can see why he's eager to show the rest of the world that New Orleans is 'open for business'. Otherwise, he's only the mayor of a modern-day Atlantis. Still, it would be crazy for anyone to return. Besides the pollution, you'd have to be concerned about the quality of the water supply, mosquito-borne viruses etc., plus Hurricane Rita is now bearing down on the Gulf Coast.

story which says your claim is not exactly true. I should have known that you only look at the pictures. Either way, the French Quarter was not under water. Also, your point is moot since everybody is leaving again.

"Reading makes a country great" are behind the president that openly claims to be not much of a reader.  Absolutely fucking classic!!!  That doesn't even begin to cover the lost look on his face.

Here's a real picture for you...

Another proud Kennedy Democratic supporter and her reward.