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Three weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck, red tape and poor planning have left thousands of evacuees without basic services, according to local and state officials, public policy experts and survivors themselves.

Hundreds of thousands of people from New Orleans and Gulf Coast communities have fled, sometimes to neighboring states and beyond, moving in with friends and family or into shelters, public housing and hotels funded by the Red Cross. With little guidance from federal and state governments -- and no single person or entity in charge of the overall operation -- cities and counties have been left on their own to find survivors homes, schools, jobs and health care. A patchwork of policies has resulted, causing relief agencies to sometimes work at cross-purposes.

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Iraq and New Orleans now seem to be morphing into a single entity, New Oraq, to be devoured by the same limited set of corporations, let loose and overseen by the same small set of Bush administration officials. In George Bush's new world of globalization, first comes the destruction and only then does one sit down at the planetary table to sup.

In recent weeks, news has been seeping out of Iraq that the "reconstruction" of that country is petering out, because the money is largely gone. According to American officials, reported T. Christian Miller of the Los Angeles Times last week, "The U.S. will halt construction work on some water and power plants in Iraq because it is running out of money for projects." A variety of such reconstruction projects crucial to the everyday lives of Iraqis, the British Guardian informs us, are now "grinding to a halt" as "plans to overhaul the country's infrastructure have been downsized, postponed or abandoned because the $24bn budget approved by Congress has been dwarfed by the scale of the task."

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One thing is clear: There are very few politicians in Washington that haven’t been on the receiving end of campaign donations from Enron or its equally troubled auditor, Arthur Andersen. Over the last decade, both companies have been among the most prolific givers to federal candidates and parties, while at the same time spending millions of dollars on lobbyists to advance their agenda on Capitol Hill.

Between 1989 and 2001, Enron contributed nearly $6 million to federal parties and candidates, more than two-thirds to Republicans. More than $2 million of that money came during the 1999-2000 election cycle alone, when the company became one of the biggest boosters to President Bush’s campaign for the White House.  Enron’s PAC and its employees contributed $114,000 to Bush during the 2000 campaign, while former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay served as one of Bush’s Pioneers, individuals who raised at least $100,000 for the campaign.

Andersen, meanwhile, was an even bigger supporter of Bush, having contributed $146,000 via its employees and PAC in 1999-2000. D. Stephen Goddard, relieved of his managerial duties in Anderson’s Houston office in January, also was one of Bush’s biggest individual donors during the election. All told, Andersen has contributed more than $5.2 million in soft money, PAC and individual contributions to federal parties and candidates, more than half to Republicans.

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WASHINGTON - August 3 - Halliburton's board of directors has given nearly $300,000 to Republican candidates and political action committees over the 2004 campaign season, a HalliburtonWatch analysis reveals. The board, comprised mostly of individuals from the energy industry, gave $296,065 (or 99 percent) to the Republicans and $4,000 (or 1 percent) to the Democrats. Halliburton's political action committee gave another $133,500 to political campaigns, with $120,000 (or 90 percent) going to the Republicans. The dollar amounts are current through June 30, 2004 and were obtained from the Center for Responsive Politics.

The biggest political donor on Halliburton's board is Ray Hunt, who is the chief executive officer of Hunt Oil, a privately-owned oil company with operations in the middle east, Africa and South America. Its major oil production operations are located in the United States, Canada and Yemen.

Hunt, who inherited his "success" from his wealthy father H.L. Hunt, is notorious for protecting his inheritance by supporting pro-oil causes around the world, including fellow oil man President George W. Bush, who appointed Hunt as finance chairman of the Republican National Committee's Victory 2000 Committee. During the 2000 campaign, Hunt was designated as one of the 241 Bush "Pioneers" because he raised more than $100,000 in campaign donations from his family, friends and colleagues. Former President George H.W. Bush's press secretary in the White House, Jim Oberwetter, had worked for Ray Hunt for nearly three decades.

Federal election records show that Hunt and his wife have so far donated $120,000 of their own money to the 2004 election cycle. All of that money went to Republican candidates or Republican political action committees.

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Sept. 26, 2005 issue - Adversity builds character," goes the old adage. Except that in America today we seem to be following the opposite principle. The worse things get, the more frivolous our response. President Bush explains that he will spend hundreds of billions of dollars rebuilding the Gulf Coast without raising any new revenues. Republican leader Tom DeLay declines any spending cuts because "there is no fat left to cut in the federal budget."

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Bush is not the only one to blame. Congressional spending is now completely out of control. The federal coffers are being looted for congressional patronage, and it is being done openly and without any guilt. The highway bill of 1982 had 10 "earmarked" projects—the code word for pork. The 2005 one has 6,371. The bill, written by the House transportation committee, is called the Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, or TEA-LU (in honor of chairman Don Young's wife, Lu). This use of public office for private whims would seem more appropriate in Saudi Arabia than America. Perhaps next year's bill will include a necklace for Mrs. Young.

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Juju - 1.) a magic charm or fetish 2.)Magic 3.)A taboo connected woth the use of magic

The dictionary never lies.... I am magical (;