Thanks to Charles and his Lizard Army you can check it out, straight from Reuters.com:

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - New Orleans began the gruesome task of collecting its thousands of dead on Sunday as the Bush administration tried to save face after its botched rescue plans left the city at the mercy of Hurricane Katrina.

The story will probably change in the near future, but as of right this minute it is still up. You can see a screen shot here.

The Drudge Report has gathered an interesting article highlighting the wonderful event that took place on NBC Friday night. It seems that rapper Kanye West was on hand to participate in a fund raising special for hurricane victims, when he decided to deviate from the script.

According to the Washington Post, instead of a description of the levee breaks around New Orleans, Mr. West regaled us with:

West: I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, "They’re looting." You see a white family, it says, "They’re looking for food." And, you know, it’s been five days [waiting for federal help] because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite because I’ve tried to turn away from the TV because it’s too hard to watch. I’ve even been shopping before even giving a donation, so now I’m calling my business manager right now to see what is the biggest amount I can give, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help — with the way America is set up to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, the Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way — and they’ve given them permission to go down and shoot us!

But wait, there’s more!

West: George Bush doesn’t care about black people!

Perhaps Mr. West has been in contact with the Reverend Jackson. NBC finally cut away from Mr. West, and later said that the person manning the edit button on the live broadcast was on the lookout for expletives and not political diatribes. The comments were also partially edited when the special was re-broadcast on the West Coast. NBC released this statement:

"Kanye West departed from the scripted comments that were prepared for him, and his opinions in no way represent the views of the networks. It would be most unfortunate if the efforts of the artists who participated tonight and the generosity of millions of Americans who are helping those in need are overshadowed by one person’s opinion."

Unfortunately, Mr. West’s comments have overshadowed the event, and President Bush again takes the blame for Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Evidence suggesting poor performance of Louisiana officials in handling the disaster is largely ignored.

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As you know, the finger-pointing for the New Orleans flooding and its disturbing aftermath has been going on for days. President Bush has already been accused of indirectly causing the storm and the AP implied he cut budgets which caused the flooding. Unfortunately for Louisiana officials, more information comes to light that questions the handling of the disaster at the local and state levels.

LST reader Russell Jumonville sent us a heads-up about this excerpt from the Louisiana Emergency Operations Plan (Pdf file):

5. The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating.

This bit of information demonstrates, along with other entries in the document, that Louisiana government was fully aware of the risks and steps to be taken in the event of a powerful hurricane strike in the New Orleans area. While many families heeded evacuation warnings and left the city, school buses were simply left sitting in their lots to be flooded out by rising waters instead of ferrying to safety residents who were otherwise unable to leave. At its face this would appear to be a significant failure of local leaders to care for the persons in their charge who were least able to care for themselves.

How long before President Bush gets the blame for this as well?

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255 buses left abandoned and unused in New Orleans:

[Hat-tip JunkYardBlog, via LGF]

Reasonable estimates are that 13,000 people could have made it out, if these had been deployed effectively. Read the whole thing.

We can’t help but notice that in the in-box of our email, in comments submitted (but not published) for the site, and even elsewhere on the Internet, more and more people seem to be claiming that the area around the Astrodome has seen a dramatic increase in serious crimes being committed by NOLA evacuees that the mainstream media is refusing to report.

What particularly intrigues us is how often the people making these claims say they are learning about these things by "monitoring police scanners".

Well, this is real simple.

Plenty of cops read LST and listen to KSEV, and we do a great job protecting whistle blowers. If you wear a badge and are able to document that any of this is true, approach us via lsteditors@gmail.com– we will protect your identity.

Or, if you happen to be spending all day listening to police scanners– because, I guess, you are disabled and therefore incapable of heading down to the Astrodome and volunteering to help– get yourself a cheap tape recorder, hook it up to your scanner, and let us know when we can swing by and pick up your blockbuster evidence for broadcast. Again, lsteditors@gmail.com

Unless one of these two things happen, I’ll continue to dismiss these rumors for what I think they are– racist bullshit.

Which reminds me– does anyone know if David Duke made it out alive?