NoCalMike

I definately have an interest in this.....this will probably get tivo'd while I watch ECW first.

I swear, if HBK wins the handicap match.....ugh...

I hope the Colts win next week, not that I care about Indy or Manning, but I don't want to witness another Superbowl featuring Tom Brady driving for that winning field goal position......

So I looked ahead on my guide for the ECW description for Tuesday and it says "ECW Champion Lashley hunts for Test" Now correct me if I am wrong here, but shouldn't it be RVD that is pissed at Test for ruining his chance at the ECW Title? Lashley might be mad that his match was interfered with, but he is still champ and should be content enough. It is this kind of stupid booking that makes it harder to watch. So now RVD just kind of gets lost out of the title picture, even though two weeks in a row his title match has resulted in a No Contest.....if RVD is not involved in the ECW Title match at Royal Rumble and they just go with Lashley/Test I hope the match gets shit on by the fans as much as it deserves to be.

I think the kid in the adoption skit was the same kid from Problem Child.

Not half as bad as I would have expected.

To me The Rock really shined more as a heel, and maybe his first his initial chase and capture of the WWE title. After that The Rock kind of became a characture of himself in his promos. It was still a joy to watch him work, and would beat the hell out of anything currently on RAW.

People used to say the same about Jessica Simpson, before she became a big star and was still trying to sell herself as the "pure" pop star, she had a weird jaw-line, and it made her face look kind of man-ly, then suddenly it dissapeared, which of course led to rumors of plastic surgery.

I think it just hurts that Triple H is in the position he is, as far being Steph's husband and Vince's son in law, because the truth to the matter is, Triple H hasn't done anything spectacular during his career to warrant the entire booking committe shitting their pants if he gets injured. It's not like he spikes the ratings, sells the most merch, or puts on epic matches. I mean I understand from Stephanie's point of view, as his wife and the mother of his child, why it would suck to see my husband injured again, for general reasons beyond wrestling, but as far as business goes, I don't get why they are all running around like chickens with their heads cut off......

I thought Triple H actually liked Punk, but of course what he says to Punk's face, and what he says in production meetings could be quite different, plus when he got the ovation he did at Survivor Series, it probably sent the mod squad into damage control mode....

It's being remade.....LOL. From bloody disgusting............http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/7992

Up in here in Northern California, well I guess it is the valley technically, it never snows either, but we are having freeze/snow warnings for the next three days......

It's funny that they specifically say that "CM Punk only got over because of Heyman, which was a fluke" when correct me if I am wrong, but Paul Heyman is known for getting people over. That is one of his best qualities as a booker/promoter, getting people OVER That was why ECW was successful in the first place, because he got mid-card talent over and made people believe their were ME talent. Goddamn these stooges can be fucking stupid sometimes. Paycheck aside, it must be mentally draining working for a company with such good-ol boy, hierarchy mentalities, that would purposely cut the legs off people who get over on their own, and instead lift and push people that the fans don't care about to the point of nasuea until the fans are almost forced to like them because it is made clear THAT is all they are going to get. It's almost like CM Punk is being punished because he is gettng over as CM Punk, I bet if Vince re-packaged him as a garbage man, or a pig farmer and THEN he got over, Vince would be perfectly fine with it.... The "paying the dues" explanation is the worst of all because it seems to only apply to people who have made a name for themselves outside of WWE. I thought "paying your dues" had to do with the industry itself, not WWE's political oligarchy, I guess not. CM Punk is just the new RVD to Vince/Gerwitz/Stephanie etc.., except this is worse because CM Punk is younger, and a better worker, but he will never get a fair shake in this company.

ECW might not be great, but I'd easily put it's hour of wrestling up against any other hour of WWE Programming that is currently being aired. Also, Lashley isn't that good, but RVD seems to be carrying him in the matches just fine. You don't have to be a Five Star ring technician to have an entertaining match. Not everything is going to be a five star classic, but to complain about their two matches, I couldn't imagine how you feel about what the matches on RAW have been like lately, besides maybe the women's matches.

Yeah, like Larry Elder, who I believe now actually converted to being a Republican.

It's funny you mention that, because my mother always did that and I never knew why since most houses I went to, people never put it in the fridge....

Before living on my own I never realized how fast bread goes, even if it tightly wrapped back up and put in a bread box........goddamn moldy bread, nothing like getting the craving for a simple sandwich and having the buzz killed because of a few green spots on the load of bread........Yup, that's it.....

Breakfast: Nothing Lunch: Left-over Stuffed Raviolis Dinner: Not sure yet

I have a feeling that Wrestling Society X is going to be one of those promotions where in the beginning it ends up better then anyone expected, but because it is only a hybrid wrestling production and the main focus is on pushing music talent, eventually the better performers will be gone and it dies out....of course if Paul Heyman gets a full WWE Release....haha just kidding....

Dude, all the guys when they got shocked screamed and hollared like the shit hurt....then Trish elects to get shot with the prongs and get shocked, and she downright sounds like she is having an orgasm...... http://www.uselessjunk.com/article_full.php?id=14413

Somalia is oil-rich.....always gotta be looking out for those oil interests!! Dubya, just continuing what his daddy started....remember this...from 1993? http://www.netnomad.com/fineman.html THE OIL FACTOR IN SOMALIA FOUR AMERICAN PETROLEUM GIANTS HAD AGREEMENTS WITH THE AFRICAN NATION BEFORE ITS CIVIL WAR BEGAN. THEY COULD REAP BIG REWARDS IF PEACE IS RESTORED . By MARK FINEMAN DATELINE: MOGADISHU, Somalia Far beneath the surface of the tragic drama of Somalia, four major U.S. oil companies are quietly sitting on a prospective fortune in exclusive concessions to explore and exploit tens of millions of acres of the Somali countryside. That land, in the opinion of geologists and industry sources, could yield significant amounts of oil and natural gas if the U.S.-led military mission can restore peace to the impoverished East African nation. According to documents obtained by The Times, nearly two-thirds of Somalia was allocated to the American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips in the final years before Somalia's pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown and the nation plunged into chaos in January, 1991. Industry sources said the companies holding the rights to the most promising concessions are hoping that the Bush Administration's decision to send U.S. troops to safeguard aid shipments to Somalia will also help protect their multimillion-dollar investments there. Officially, the Administration and the State Department insist that the U.S. military mission in Somalia is strictly humanitarian. Oil industry spokesmen dismissed as "absurd" and "nonsense" allegations by aid experts, veteran East Africa analysts and several prominent Somalis that President Bush, a former Texas oilman, was moved to act in Somalia, at least in part, by the U.S. corporate oil stake. But corporate and scientific documents disclosed that the American companies are well positioned to pursue Somalia's most promising potential oil reserves the moment the nation is pacified. And the State Department and U.S. military officials acknowledge that one of those oil companies has done more than simply sit back and hope for pece. Conoco Inc., the only major multinational corporation to mantain a functioning office in Mogadishu throughout the past two years of nationwide anarchy, has been directly involved in the U.S. government's role in the U.N.-sponsored humanitarian military effort. Conoco, whose tireless exploration efforts in north-central Somalia reportedly had yielded the most encouraging prospects just before Siad Barre's fall, permitted its Mogadishu corporate compound to be transformed into a de facto American embassy a few days before the U.S. Marines landed in the capital, with Bush's special envoy using it as his temporary headquarters. In addition, the president of the company's subsidiary in Somalia won high official praise for serving as the government's volunteer "facilitator" during the months before and during the U.S. intervention. Describing the arrangement as "a business relationship," an official spokesman for the Houston-based parent corporation of Conoco Somalia Ltd. said the U.S. government was paying rental for its use of the compound, and he insisted that Conoco was proud of resident general manager Raymond Marchand's contribution to the U.S.-led humanitarian effort. John Geybauer, spokesman for Conoco Oil in Houston, said the company was acting as "a good corporate citizen and neighbor" in granting the U.S. government's request to be allowed to rent the compound. The U.S. Embassy and most other buildings and residential compounds here in the capital were rendered unusable by vandalism and fierce artillery duels during the clan wars that have consumed Somalia and starved its people. In its in-house magazine last month, Conoco reprinted excerpts from a letter of commendation for Marchand written by U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Frank Libutti, who has been acting as military aide to U.S. envoy Robert B. Oakley. In the letter, Libutti praised the oil official for his role in the initial operation to land Marines on Mogadishu's beaches in December, and the general concluded, "Without Raymond's courageous contributions and selfless service, the operation would have failed." But the close relationship between Conoco and the U.S. intervention force has left many Somalis and foreign development experts deeply troubled by the blurry line between the U.S. government and the large oil company, leading many to liken the Somalia operation to a miniature version of Operation Desert Storm, the U.S.-led military effort in January, 1991, to drive Iraq from Kuwait and, more broadly, safeguard the world's largest oil reserves. "They sent all the wrong signals when Oakley moved into the Conoco compound," said one expert on Somalia who worked with one of the four major companies as they intensified their exploration efforts in the country in the late 1980s. "It's left everyone thinking the big question here isn't famine relief but oil -- whether the oil concessions granted under Siad Barre will be transferred if and when peace is restored," the expert said. "It's potentially worth billions of dollars, and believe me, that's what the whole game is starting to look like." Although most oil experts outside Somalia laugh at the suggestion that the nation ever could rank among the world's major oil producers -- and most maintain that the international aid mission is intended simply to feed Somalia's starving masses -- no one doubts that there is oil in Somalia. The only question: How much? "It's there. There's no doubt there's oil there," said Thomas E. O'Connor, the principal petroleum engineer for the World Bank, who headed an in-depth, three-year study of oil prospects in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia's northern coast. "You don't know until you study a lot further just how much is there," O'Connor said. "But it has commercial potential. It's got high potential . . . once the Somalis get their act together." O'Connor, a professional geologist, based his conclusion on the findings of some of the world's top petroleum geologists. In a 1991 World Bank-coordinated study, intended to encourage private investment in the petroleum potential of eight African nations, the geologists put Somalia and Sudan at the top of the list of prospective commercial oil producers. Presenting their results during a three-day conference in London in September, 1991, two of those geologists, an American and an Egyptian, reported that an analysis of nine exploratory wells drilled in Somalia indicated that the region is "situated within the oil window, and thus (is) highly prospective for gas and oil." A report by a third geologist, Z. R. Beydoun, said offshore sites possess "the geological parameters conducive to the generation, expulsion and trapping of significant amounts of oil and gas." Beydoun, who now works for Marathon Oil in London, cautioned in a recent interview that on the basis of his findings alone, "you cannot say there definitely is oil," but he added: "The different ingredients for generation of oil are there. The question is whether the oil generated there has been trapped or whether it dispersed or evaporated." Beginni 1986, Conoco, along with Amoco, Chevron, Phillips and, briefly, Shell all sought and obtained exploration licenses for northern Somalia from Siad Barre's government. Somalia was soon carved up into concessional blocs, with Conoco, Amoco and Chevron winning the right to explore and exploit the most promising ones. The companies' interest in Somalia clearly predated the World Bank study. It was grounded in the findings of another, highly successful exploration effort by the Texas-based Hunt Oil Corp. across the Gulf of Aden in the Arabian Peninsula nation of Yemen, where geologists disclosed in the mid-1980s that the estimated 1 billion barrels of Yemeni oil reserves were part of a great underground rift, or valley, that arced into and across northern Somalia. Hunt's Yemeni operation, which is now yielding nearly 200,000 barrels of oil a day, and its implications for the entire region were not lost on then-Vice President George Bush. In fact, Bush witnessed it firsthand in April, 1986, when he officially dedicated Hunt's new $18-million refinery near the ancient Yemeni town of Marib. In remarks during the event, Bush emphasized the critical value of supporting U.S. corporate efforts to develop and safeguard potential oil reserves in the region. In his speech, Bush stressed "the growing strategic importance to the West of developing crude oil sources in the region away from the Strait of Hormuz," according to a report three weeks later in the authoritative Middle East Economic Survey. Bush's reference was to the geographical choke point that controls access to the Persian Gulf and its vast oil reserves. It came at the end of a 10-day Middle East tour in which the vice president drew fire for appearing to advocate higher oil and gasoline prices. "Throughout the course of his 17,000-mile trip, Bush suggested continued low (oil) prices would jeopardize a domestic oil industry 'vital to the national security interests of the United States,' which was interpreted at home and abroad as a sign the onetime oil driller from Texas was coming to the aid of his former associates," United Press International reported from Washington the day after Bush dedicated Hunt's Yemen refinery. No such criticism accompanied Bush's decision late last year to send more than 20,000 U.S. troops to Somalia, widely applauded as a bold and costly step to save an estimated 2 million Somalis from starvation by opening up relief supply lines and pacifying the famine-struck nation. But since the U.S. intervention began, neither the Bush Administration nor any of the oil companies that had been active in Somalia up until the civil war broke out in early 1991 have commented publicly on Somalia's potential for oil and natural gas production. Even in private, veteran oil company exploration experts played down any possible connection between the Administration's move into Somalia and the corporate concessions at stake. "In the oil world, Somalia is a fringe exploration area," said one Conoco executive who asked not to be named. "They've overexaggerated it," he said of the geologists' optimism about the prospective oil reserves there. And as for Washington's motives in Somalia, he brushed aside criticisms that have been voiced quietly in Mogadishu, saying, "With America, there is a genuine humanitarian streak in us . . . that many other countries and cultures cannot understand." But the same source added that Conoco's decision to maintain its headquarters in the Somali capital even after it pulled out the last of its major equipment in the spring of 1992 was certainly not a humanitarian one. And he confirmed that the company, which has explored Somalia in three major phases beginning in 1952, had achieved "very good oil shows" -- industry terminology for an exploration phase that often precedes a major discovery -- just before the war broke out. "We had these very good shows," he said. "We were pleased. That's why Conoco stayed on. . . . The people in Houston are convinced there's oil there." Indeed, the same Conoco World article that praised Conoco's general manager in Somalia for his role in the humanitarian effort quoted Marchand as saying, "We stayed because of Somalia's potential for the company and to protect our assets." Marchand, a French citizen who came to Somalia from Chad after a civil war forced Conoco to suspend operations there, explained the role played by his firm in helping set up the U.S.-led pacification mission in Mogadishu. "When the State Department asked Conoco management for assistance, I was glad to use the company's influence in Somalia for the success of this mission," he said in the magazine article. "I just treated it like a company operation -- like moving a rig. I did it for this operation because the (U.S.) officials weren't familiar with the environment." Marchand and his company were clearly familiar with the anarchy into which Somalia has descended over the past two years -- a nation with no functioning government, no utilities and few roads, a place ruled loosely by regional warlords. Of the four U.S. companies holding the Siad Barre-era oil concessions, Conoco is believed to be the only one that negotiated what spokesman Geybauer called "a standstill agreement" with an interim government set up by one of Mogadishu's two principal warlords, Ali Mahdi Mohamed. Industry sources said the other U.S. companies with contracts in Somalia cited "force majeure" (superior power), a legal term asserting that they were forced by the war to abandon their exploration efforts and would return as soon as peace is restored. "It's going to be very interesting to see whether these agreements are still good," said Mohamed Jirdeh, a prominent Somali businessman in Mogadishu who is familiar with the oil-concession agreements. "Whatever Siad did, all those records and contracts, all disappeared after he fled. . . . And this period has brought with it a deep change of our society. "Our country is now very weak, and, of course, the American oil companies are very strong. This has to be handled very diplomatically, and I think the American government must move out of the oil business, or at least make clear that there is a definite line separating the two, if they want to maintain a long-term relationship here."

Do you have a source on this? I was pretty sure the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage laws applied in that reconstruction. http://www.sptimes.com/2005/10/23/Worldand...ding_New_.shtml Who's rebuilding New Orleans? Locals angrily point out migrant workers, saying they're taking jobs to the exclusion of residents who can't afford to come home. By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN, Times Staff Writer Published October 23, 2005 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Times photo: Willie J. Allen Jr.] Migrant workers rest outside the downtown post office in New Orleans, where they're pressure washing the mold from walls and floors. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW ORLEANS - As military helicopters thumped overhead, R.J. Rouzan paced and waved his arms inside an office in City Hall. National Guard troops that morning last week had blocked him from visiting his property in the Lower 9th Ward. Something to do with needing a permit. City officials didn't know what he was talking about. Then, in the middle of an argument that seemed to be about red tape, Rouzan veered suddenly toward a subject that has angered many local residents. "They let trucks full of illegal aliens in there and not the property owners?" Rouzan yelled at a weary-looking receptionist. Immigrant workers - some in the country illegally - have been pouring into New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city. While no one knows how many Hispanic workers are in New Orleans, teams of Mexican and Central American laborers drawn from around the United States appear throughout the city. Wearing white protective suits and yellow boots, they pressure wash mold-infested rooms, tear out Sheetrock, rip down soaked insulation and empty rotten shrimp from refrigerators. They retire at night to downtown or outlying hotels paid for by contractors, sometimes four or more to a room, or in tents in city parks. They are some of the more visible occupants of a half-empty city. In an address to business owners and contractors during a "Back to Business" forum this month at the Sheraton, Mayor Ray Nagin said he knew what group members were thinking: "How do I ensure that New Orleans is not overrun by Mexican workers?" They answered with applause. Rouzan wasn't there. But he feels their frustration. Rouzan, a black owner of construction and trucking businesses, said his employees are scattered across several states. Without a place to stay, they can't come back to work. Watching Hispanic workers take similar jobs, Rouzan seethes. "They are allowing people to come in who are getting jobs while we as homeowners who built this city, they don't let us get access to our property," Rouzan said. The city has long celebrated its French, Caribbean, African and Spanish roots, a famous mix of cultures that gave birth to jazz, jambalaya and lavish Mardi Gras parades. But this recent and sudden influx of immigrants seems a little too much, too fast for some who worry the laborers are taking the place of displaced working-class black residents. Those residents wonder, whose city is this going to become? * * * Hector Hernandez and his co-workers sprawled across the sidewalk one day last week, taking their 15-minute break in front of the U.S. Postal Service building across from the Superdome. Their work suits and stained boots reeked of mold. Behind them a nose-burning odor seeped through the vents from the basement of the building, which they had been cleaning most of the past month. A hose pumped out the water that remained. "We change boots every day," Hernandez, 44, of Honduras, said in Spanish. Inside, they wear respirators as they clear out stinking garbage and pressure wash the walls and floors, he said. They get paid $8 an hour and labor 11 hours a day, six days a week. Subcontractors pulled them together for Belfor USA, an American subsidiary of a multibillion-dollar international company specializing in restoration after disasters. Before New Orleans, they had separately held construction, farm or factory jobs from Texas to North Carolina, they said. Hernandez sends the money he earns back to his three children in Honduras, which he left in search of work after Hurricane Mitch pummeled the Central American country in 1998. He spent several years in Mexico before arriving in North Carolina last year. The men hadn't heard about the mayor's comments. They shrugged. "There's a lot of work here for everyone," Hernandez said. Other workers were more indignant. "It's not fair," said Jairo Lopez, 19, just after finishing a lunch of beef, rice and beans at the Kenner Supermarket y Restaurante, a Hispanic business in Kenner just west of the city. He had heard about the mayor's comments on a Spanish-language radio news station. "Everyone needs to work, and it's not our fault if (local residents) don't have jobs here," Lopez said. "The people who lived here are in other states." Relying on Hispanic immigrants to rebuild after major catastrophes is nothing new for the country - Hispanic workers helped reconstruct the Pentagon after Sept. 11 and Homestead after Hurricane Andrew. But for New Orleans - whose racial tensions were exacerbated by Katrina - the phenomenon of Hispanic day laborer pickup sites dotting streets is entirely new. Just 3 percent of New Orleans' population, or 15,000 people, was Hispanic in 2000, according to the U.S. Census. Civic and immigration experts say that number will balloon, thanks in part to twin acts by the Bush administration. After Katrina, President Bush, arguing for rapid cleanup efforts, suspended portions of the Davis-Bacon Act that required construction workers be paid the prevailing regional wage. Also, the Department of Homeland Security temporarily halted punishment of employers whose workers can't provide proof of citizenship. While most immigrants interviewed by the St. Petersburg Times said they plan to go back to where they were before Katrina when the work is over, the demand for service jobs will remain long after the construction work is done. In part, that's because residents aren't coming back. A poll done by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation showed that less than half of the Katrina evacuees living in Houston-area shelters plan to return. * * * Renee Langie and husband Burnell walked inside their home across the front door, which lay across the threshold like a plank. In knee-high rubber boots, they climbed gingerly over the matted sofa blocking the entry way of their home in the Lower 9th Ward, the mostly black section of town that flooded twice - once after Katrina and again during Hurricane Rita. The visit last week was their first time back after both. A police escort, obtained by some residents, helped them get by the National Guard checkpoint. The pungent smell of mold - worse than a refrigerator full of rotting vegetables - penetrated their paper masks as they entered the three-story brick home on North Claiborne Avenue. The neighborhood around their house - the house once owned by Burnell Langie's grandparents, the house where they were raising their two children, the house where they sold snow cones from the front lawn - was ghostly. Shotgun houses, washed off their slabs, sat on other houses. Cars stood upright against fences. Garbage, refrigerators, random furniture littered yards and empty fields. Gray trees stooped over brown grass, both dead. "Oh, my God," Renee Langie, 43, kept repeating, taking pictures of soot-covered walls and blackened keyboards, picture albums, laser printers, chairs, splintered wood, all heaped in random piles in the living room where the draining water left it. "This is unreal. This is unreal. Do you see this?" Her husband didn't answer. Burnell, 45, made his way up the steps. He had one thing on his mind: his grandmother's diamond Hamilton watch. He reached into the top drawer of his gun cabinet bolted to the wall in his bedroom, where the water level got chest high. There it was, untouched, still in its case. He grabbed it and breathed a sigh of relief. Back outside the couple said they won't come back here permanently, though they'll keep the five pieces of property they own, four of which are in the Lower 9th Ward. They've already put their teenage children in schools in Texas and don't want to uproot them again. They can run their production business, Rhema Word Enterprises, from there. They worry about other black residents who want to come back but can't and are now resettling elsewhere. "From an African-American perspective, we had a lot of history," she said about the area. Part of that could have been preserved if the federal government had obtained temporary housing fast enough to ensure work for local working-class black residents, they said. They could have jumped on the lucrative construction jobs she and her former neighbors see going to immigrants, she said. "There could have been jobs right here for people to get," she said. "This is our city, we should be rebuilding it." The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which oversees housing for evacuees, says it has procedures to follow. Housing priorities are set by the state and local governments, said FEMA spokesman James McIntyre. Employers with existing, displaced workers from the area can get help with housing through the Louisiana Economic Development Office and FEMA, he said. But only if they are doing "infrastructure-related jobs." Contractors who bring outside workers into the area must find housing on their own, he said. "People without jobs have to go through the standard housing process," McIntyre said. But FEMA estimates that 100,000 families in the region need temporary housing. But only 3,105 families have been placed in travel trailers and another 70 in mobile homes, McIntyre said. The nearest trailer settlement to New Orleans is 80 miles away in Baker. "We try to house people as close to the area as we can get," he said. "We are not particularly housing people seeking jobs." * * * Signs for workers crowd medians all over the city. Mike Dunbar, a black business owner whose company removes Sheetrock and insulation, put up some of them. But he won't hire immigrants. "I'm not prejudiced," he said. He worries if Hispanic workers settle into the area, black residents won't have jobs when and if they return. So far he's hired only nonimmigrant workers from Georgia and Texas because his former employees have not returned. "I think some people aren't going to come back," said Dunbar, 42. "I think housing is the No. 1 problem. When we came back, we didn't have anywhere to live. That's holding a lot of them from coming back. You can work, but you need some place to stay." Those who can't find a place to sleep are missing out on roofing jobs that can pay $25 an hour. Dunbar houses his 12 workers in rental apartments owned by his father. He stays there, too, while his wife and children are in Alabama. So far he has resisted the calls offering immigrant laborers. But if he's forced to, he'll hire them. "I have to feed my family," he said. Rouzan, the frustrated property owner and businessman at City Hall, said he's going to hold out for his construction employees or other American workers. "I want people I can talk to and whose money is going to circulate back into the local economy," Rouzan said. * * * Mealtimes at the Kenner Supermarket y Restaurante last week were packed. Diners eat plates of bistec, rice, beans and plantains. They stare blankly at telenovelas or the news in Spanish blaring from the wall television. In the grocery half of the store, shoppers order beef at the deli. In the aisles, they fill baskets with tortillas, corn mix, milk or sometimes just a six pack. Immigrants who stay do make a contribution to the city, said 53-year-old Obed Irula, the owner whose business has more than doubled since Katrina. Irula, from Honduras, arrived in the New Orleans area to join other family members in 1998 before Hurricane Mitch hit. Since then, he's watched the city's Honduran population swell. Many bought homes. "If Latinos come to work, they work hard," Irula said. Carlos Banuelos, resting at a bus stop downtown last week after a day cleaning at the Hyatt, said he likes New Orleans. After leaving Mexico for the United States in 1973, he picked strawberries in Plant City and worked on farms across the country. He lived in Chicago and worked construction before a company hired him at $12 an hour for demolition work at the Hyatt in New Orleans. With so many jobs available, he planned to leave the next day to get his wife in Chicago. "I'm going to bring my wife here to work for a different company out of Pennsylvania," he said, before taking a stroll along the city's Riverwalk. "Maybe we'll stay here and buy a house in the future." Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report, which used information from Times wires. --------------------And this....leads to this.................... http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July06/Flaherty10.htm According to a powerful new report released last week by the Advancement Project, the National Immigration Law Center and The New Orleans Workers Justice Coalition, Black and Latino workers in Post-Katrina New Orleans have faced a shocking catalog of abuses, including wage theft, widespread and massive health and safety violations, racism and discrimination, law enforcement violence, and more. Through first hand accounts, the report paints a detailed and dramatic picture of declining worker’s rights in the city. Despite a huge need for labor to restore the city, and billions of dollars spent on rebuilding, Black and Latino workers have been pitted against each other in a race to the bottom, while well-placed businesses and contractors have gorged on huge profits. With housing still unavailable for many, profiteering and displacement has been the rule. Pre-Katrina, Latinos made up 3% of New Orleans population (although a larger percentage in New Orleans’ suburbs). Most were long-term residents, and there was very little in the way of social services and infrastructure specifically for the recent immigrant community. When thousands of immigrant workers arrived for work in the city’s reconstruction, they faced hostility and exploitation, with few allies and very little infrastructure of support. Simultaneously, African-American workers from New Orleans have faced personal loss and displacement, combined with a legacy of workplace exploitation that goes back to New Orleans' status as a center of the southern slave trade. The demonizing of immigrant workers, while blatant violations of worker’s rights were ignored, set the stage for the abuse that followed. In October, Mayor Nagin asked a gathering of businessmen, “how do I ensure that New Orleans is not overrun by Mexican workers?” Later, in a mayoral debate, he added, “Illegal is illegal, so I'm not supportive of illegal aliens or illegal immigrants working in the City of New Orleans.” For the most part, the New Orleans media has followed this same framework. Progressive organizers in the Black community have also expressed reservations about the new arrivals. “I’m not disputing the desirability of all oppressed peoples uniting against a common oppressor,” Mtangulizi Sanyinka, project manager of New Orleans’ African American Leadership Project tells me. “But right now this idea of Black-Brown unity is more of an idea than a reality. “You have to put this into perspective,” continues Sanyinka. “Latinos are working in horrible conditions that ought to be illegal, and being exploited. At the same time, many black people resent Latinos for coming in and working under those conditions. Its like when you have a strike, and a group is brought in as strikebreakers.” “Who is to blame?” Sanyinka asks, “Who is always to blame; those that control the money and power. When you see Blacks and Latinos on the street, they don’t act antagonistic. It’s not a personal antagonism. But there is an institutional antagonism.” Its not just poor Black and Latino workers that have been exploited in New Orleans -- the Black middle class has also been devastated. The United Teachers of New Orleans -- UTNO, the teachers union -- was the largest union in the city, and a majority of those represented were Black workers. The School Board voted in the fall to lay off all but 61 of the 7,000 employees, and last week let the teacher’s union contract expire with little comment and no fanfare. “Elites of the city may prefer the teachers don’t come back,” Jacques Morial, community advocate and brother of former mayor Marc Morial, said at a recent forum. “Because they represent an educated class of Black New Orleans, with steady income, seniority and job protection.” Rosana Cruz, Gulf Coast field coordinator for the National Immigration Law Center, is sympathetic to the apprehension from the Black community. “There are anxieties that are incredibly valid about a cultural genocide of this city,” she tells me. “This is a city that was built on racism. The organizing we’re doing is a counter to the racism dividing immigrants and African-Americans against each other.” “It’s a conversation that’s so juicy,” Cruz adds, discussing the media complicity in framing the debate as Black versus Latino. “Whenever white folks get to not be the bad folks, when communities of color are pitted against each other, it spreads like wildfire. When the boss starts making people compete, its no accident. It’s not immigrant workers who started this discourse of, “we like to work harder than anyone else,” it’s the business community. Its not immigrant workers that left people on rooftops or didn’t have an evacuation plan, or left the school system to decline. It’s the elites of this city. Immigrants and people of color have been used throughout history to break unions. As long as people keep talking about Black-Brown tension, no one’s talking about the real power brokers in this city.” “We have to redirect the conversation to white accountability,” Cruz adds. “What it means to be an antiracist white ally is central to this discussion. There needs to be a focus on the real stakeholders here, the real players. We’re talking about fundamental issues to our society. What are the sources of power, who is benefiting, and how can they be held accountable. It’s not just about immigrant workers. Both immigrants and African-Americans are dealing with a lot of the same issues, whether is right of return or housing or voting or law enforcement violence, all these issues have connections. Trying to bridge this artificial divide is key.” On May First in New Orleans, thousands of Latino workers demonstrated for immigrants’ rights, filling several blocks of Canal Street in the heart of New Orleans’ business, hotel and tourist districts. While small compared to the hundreds of thousands who marched in cities such as Dallas and Los Angeles, the March was still one of largest the city has seen in decades. “Being part of the Latino community in New Orleans, we’ve always had issues of visibility around immigrants,” said Cruz. “Now for five thousand people to come out and do something so public and visible … it’s amazing and beautiful.” Despite the media, politicians and contractors pitting workers against each other, the Mayday march demonstrated that these alliances are both possible and important. As the march flowed through the city, residents I spoke with expressed their support. Jerome Smith, a Black community organizer from New Orleans’ Treme neighborhood, came to express his support for the immigrants’ rights struggle. “I heard from Houston evacuees they were excited by your walking out (of schools and jobs during the national day of action) and wanted to join but didn’t know to get involved,” he told the crowd. “I want you to know that your struggle is in the heart of my people.” “Cheap labor from Blacks has been integral to this city’s history and still is,” Smith told me later. “Its woven into the fabric of this city. And now, corporations are benefiting from exploiting Latinos just like the old money of this city benefited from slavery.” Out of town visitors to our city are still shocked by the miles of darkened streets, the piles of trash and the shuttered storefronts. Just over a third of the city’s 3,400 pre-Katrina restaurants have reopened, and a much smaller percentage of other businesses are back. With most businesses that have reopened concentrated in white areas such as the French Quarter, the Loyola/Tulane area, and the Garden District, historically underserved neighborhoods are even more devastated. For a rebuilding with justice, a wide and united movement is needed, now more than ever. Walking along with the mayday March, I met Taz, a young African American from New Orleans who had heard about the march through friends. “This is what this city needs,” he told me, excited at the huge exuberant mass. Wanting to join in, Taz asked what the marchers were chanting. When told they were chanting, “the people united won’t be defeated,” in Spanish, Taz nodded and smiled. “Yeah, that’s right, we wont be defeated.”

Sometimes I will dream that I am taking a never-ending piss, and it keeps going on and on, until eventually my brain tells me to wake up and go to the bathroom.

So I am assuming that the new XBox 360s will still be compatible with 1080i, for those of us 1080p-less?

The thing is whenever there is a poll, around 75% of americans say they want something done about illegal immigration, so that is a lot more people then the 1 million or so you see marching in Los Angeles and Arizona. Also, many of the hispanics(among other races) that came here legally are very anti-illegal. They might sympathize with why the illegals do it, but when it is put to a vote, they still would vote against it. The illegal immigration problem is a political issue waiting for someone to feast on, and when someone does come up with a solution that includes going after big business, they will reap the votes from the american people. We need a politician brave enough to target the incentives for illegals. Without the incentives, there is no reason for an illegal to risk death by crossing a desert. Something sickening happening too is all the illegal labor that was being used for the reconstruction of New Orleans because it was cheaper to employ them then any residents that stayed behind or tried returning to the city. It's not just small business using illegal workers. This is a big time money grabber situation for large corporations, and they are getting away with because of the business lobby's control over government. It sucks because if the Democrats, or Progressives just sucked it up and grabbed this issue by the neck, they would probably get a lot of suprising voters turn out and vote for them come 2008.