From The Onion:
White House officials are confident the President will be able to convince the wildfire to stop incinerating large swaths of land and American homes.
Good thing we'll never have another hurricane again, huh? Just one more bright spot in the Bush legacy:
WASHINGTON — The economic crisis is jeopardizing the nation's ability to handle public-health emergencies and possible bioterrorist attacks, according to government leaders and a new report.
Federal and state governments are cutting programs that help communities respond to disease outbreaks, natural disasters and bioterrorism incidents, and that "could lead to a disaster for the nation's disaster preparedness," a report released Tuesday warns.
"The economic crisis could result in a serious rollback of the progress we've made since Sept. 11," 2001, said Jeffrey Levi, executive director of the Trust for America's Health, a non-partisan research group. Federal funds are down, 11 states have already cut public-health budgets, and more could follow as the economic crisis worsens.
If emergency medical supplies are not maintained or if hospitals can't handle a huge influx of patients, the result will be more deaths and illnesses, Levi said.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff underscored the concerns in an interview Tuesday with USA TODAY editors and reporters. His top concern, Chertoff said, is a "mass event: a big outbreak of plague or some other kind of biological weapon or a nuclear explosion."
With the Santa Ana winds kicking up this fire raging in Sylmar is very dangerous.
UPDATE: I was just outside for some coffee and it's ugly. The sky is tinted with a weird shade of orange from the smoke and breathing is very difficult.
Officials are reporting that we could have serious power outages in LA.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued an emergency declaration for the Sayre fire in Los Angeles, while Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa declared a state of local emergency Saturday. An estimated 10,000 residents have been evacuated from the Sylmar area, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department as the fire continued to burn Saturday, with ten-percent containment.
{snip}
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) had to take several power lines out of service starting at 5 a.m.. Saturday as the fire moved toward the I-5. All in-basin natural plants were activated by the LADWP by 6:30 a.m. From 9:40am - 10:05 a.m. areas throughout the Valley and Southern California - including Sherman Oaks, Mid City, Crenshaw and Harbor City experienced rolling black outs. Power was restored to those areas thereafter. According to Joe Ramallo, DWP, approximately 1,000 customers remained without power in the fire-ridden areas.
This blaze comes just 24 hours after massive fires broke in both Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo.
For more information and the latest updates on the Sayre Fire, residents should call the LA Fire Department hotline at: (800) 439-2909.
Richard Dreyfuss, appearing on MSNBC to discuss the new documentary he narrates, America Betrayed, on Hurricane Katrina, the worst man-made disaster in American history, seized the opportunity in front of a cheering crowd of onlookers to blast George W. Bush and the Republican party for all the damage they have inflicted upon this country over the last 8 years.
Download | play 
Download | play
Dreyfuss: I don't think the Europeans have any confidence in our government. I think that the last eight years has destroyed two hundred years of respect and dedication. And I think we have been the point of meaning and admiration in the world for very specific reasons, and George Bush trashed it.
O’Donnell: So, you don't think that John McCain would be able to manage this government well, would have a different response than George Bush to a Hurricane Katrina?
Dreyfuss: I think the Republican party is corrupt through and through. And even the republicans like Buckley before he died said 'we should lose this election, go into the wilderness, and get cleansed', and I believe that's true. I think that they have been in office too long. I think that they are too adept at thievery, at moving the Constitution into places it never meant to go. I think that they have an extraordinary ability to divide rather than unite. And I think that I'm tired of being called a traitor, because I like my flag and I support the troops.
In what I must say seems to echo a theme similar to that of Naomi Kline's must-read book, Shock Doctrine, America Betrayed promises to go beyond Katrina and delve into the Oklahoma City bombing, the 9/11 attacks, the war in Iraq, and offer "a long, hard look at how this country handles disaster, which ones they indirectly cause and how corporate America and their friends in the White House profit from those disasters in the long run."
Can't wait to see this one.
(AFP/Getty Images)
Worldwide---we've got cyclones, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes and now floods.
- Authorities closed a bridge connecting Illinois to Iowa over the swollen Mississippi River, as levees along the country's second-longest river were being topped with sandbags Tuesday to defend against rising water.
With some 2500 National Guard already deployed across the state trying to keep the floodwaters at bay, experts believe the Mississippi, the country's second longest river, could crest during the next two days.
Iowa Governor Chet Culver warned the Mississippi would be the next battleground, as floodwaters from the state's Cedar, Iowa and Des Moines rivers poured into it.
"It's likely we'll see major flooding in every city on the border, from New Boston on down. We're very concerned about that," he said.
This is a nightmare. Keep an eye out for Locust swarms....
Since I've been a person that has experienced two major quakes in California, I can tell you this is an absolute nightmare. And the destruction obviously was nothing like what is being reported there.
A massive earthquake struck central China on Monday, killing more than 8,500 people, trapping nearly 900 students under the rubble of their school and spilling ammonia from a chemical plant, state media reported.
The 7.8-magnitude earthquake was among the worst to strike China in decades, devastating a hilly region of small cities and towns in Sichuan and nearby provinces. The official Xinhua News Agency said 8,533 people died in Sichuan and dozens of other deaths were reported elsewhere.
Xinhua said 80 percent of the buildings had collapsed in Beichuan county in Sichuan province after the quake, raising fears the overall death toll could increase sharply.
A chemical plant collapsed in Shifang city, to the northeast of the quake's epicenter, burying hundreds of people and sending more than 80 tons of toxic liquid ammonia leaking from the site, state media report..read on
