The Guardian reports that the waters of New Orleans are ten times over their toxic limit.

The disclosure from the first tests conducted by the US government into conditions in New Orleans added a growing urgency to an order for thousands of inhabitants remaining in the wretched city to leave or face forced evacuation.

At least three deaths from bacterial infections have been reported from the carnage wrought by Hurricane Katrina. The EPA warned that there was a risk not just from drinking water but from skin contact as well. "Human contact with the floodwater should be avoided as much as possible," said Stephen Johnson, an EPA administrator.

by Last Night in Little Rock

CNN.com reported about an hour ago in its "Breaking News" e-mail alerts that between 25 to 30 bodies have been found in a nursing home in St. Bernard Parish outside New Orleans. (Nothing on CNN.com as of the time of this post.) The NY Times reported today that the elderly in Katrina's path were hard hit.

This apparently is a cost of the Bush Administration's extolation of "personal responsibility" for their own lives. They should have just evacuated, like all the "white people" with cars. They probably were trapped in their rooms or died in their beds. I pray they did not even know what was happening to them.

As Barbara Bush would say, the evacuees are better off anywhere else other than in New Orleans, like a dormitory for 20,000, since they had nothing to begin with. "Let them eat cake."

And so it goes...

Update:

Soledad O'Brien on CNN's Larry King Live reports "more than 30" dead at nursing home.

From CNN tonight:

• FEMA has 25,000 body bags on hand.
• 70% of New Orleans police are homeless.
• New Orleans Remains 60% under water
• 15,000 people are still in New Orleans, many refusing to leave.
• Dr. Henderson was on again. He said people died because of the late response. Mostly old people but babies too. One woman delivered a baby at the Superdome or Convention Center and it died.
• Michael Brown is standing his ground, back giving interviews and refusing to resign

by Last Night in Little Rock

The California legislature today adopted a same sex marriage bill, making California the first state to adopt legislation authorizing gay marriage.

The legislation could be vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has expressed an acceptance of gay marriages but said it's an issue that should be decided by voters or the courts.

"He will uphold whatever the court decides," spokeswoman Margita Thompson said Tuesday after the state Assembly approved the same-sex marriage measure, 41-35. The Senate had approved it last week.

Update (TL): Gov. Arnold now says he will veto the bill.

by TChris

Mara Leveritt titled her proposed book “Losing New Orleans.” She hit on the idea after Hurricane Ivan made a fortuitous change of course, bypassing New Orleans. She started thinking about the people who would be stranded if a hurricane hit the city: the residents of nursing homes, the disabled and hospitalized, the poor. She wondered what would happen to gas prices if pipelines ruptured. She pondered the ability of the levees to keep the water out, and worried that they might trap water inside a flooded city. The ramifications of a full-force hurricane, striking at the heart of New Orleans, seemed to make a grimly fascinating story.

As she researched her book proposal, she discovered that she wasn’t alone in considering the potential catastrophe.

All this was well understood by any officials who had bothered to look. In early 2001, FEMA had issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely U.S. disasters, and that included a terrorist attack on New York City.

by Last Night in Little Rock

Yesterday we reported "word on the street" that a coroner was going on "Larry King Live" to talk about the Federal Emergency Mismanagement Agency's refusal to allow coroners to handle the remains of the dead in New Orleans.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette confirms today that he will be on.

Chai Vang, the Hmong immigrant from Minnesota who killed six hunters in Minnesota Wisconsin last year, is about to go on trial. Jury selection begins Thursday. The Chicago Tribune has a very detailed two part series on the case, beginning today.

Why would an ambitious immigrant, a healer, suddenly turn into a methodical killer? Did the alienation Vang experienced in America play a role in the shootings? Was the clash of cultures a factor?

Vang's lawyers initially said they may raise a cultural defense. That appears not to be the case now. It will be a self-defense case, hinging on who shot first:

Race is one issue that will not go away when examining the New Orleans devastation. Writer Leonce Gaiter, who authored the book Bourbon Street, addresses it today in Katrina's Deck is Full of Race Cards.

The first days were the most telling. Nobody mentioned it. Tens of thousands of people trapped in increasingly filthy conditions—free-flowing feces, dead bodies lying about, grounds soaked in urine—yet nobody mentioned that they were all black. It was obvious to anyone with eyes. The images made you squirm and cringe—hordes of black faces pleading for help—life, food, water—in a major American city. Yet nobody mentioned it. What were they afraid of? Were they scared that the right-wingers would accuse them of playing the race card? Accuse them of suggesting that America had not achieved the colorblind state of utopian bliss that they insist it has; that white people and the American society over which they hold sway are not as perfectly just as they claim?

Finally, a good idea from the government. It will begin handing out debit cards today worth $2,000 to Katrina survivors, beginning with those at the Astrodome and other rescue centers.

The Washington Post has an article today in which lawyers theorize about statutes Fitzgerald might use against Rove and company in the Valerie Plame leak.

While I agree that the federal statute prohibiting leaking a covert operative's identity may be a stretch in this case, I think the new statute bandied about in the article, embezzlement of public property, is an even greater stretch.

Fitzgerald seems to have plenty of choices with perjury, making a false statement to a federal official, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. He may even have conspiracy to out a covert operative.

I doubt Fitzgerald is out searching for statutes to charge Administration officials using some novel theory. If he has the goods on the traditional ones, he'll indict. If he doesn't, he won't.

I've written before about my concern about former Judge and legal analyst Leslie Crocker Snyder's support for the death penalty. Crocker Snyder is running for Manhattan D.A. against long-time holder of the office Robert Morganthau.

Ellis Henican has a very disturbing article about Crocker Synder today.

Leslie Crocker Snyder, the swaggering ex-judge who wants Morgenthau's job, has been a booster of capital punishment, although she rarely mentions the issue these days. Over the years, she hasn't just supported the death penalty. She's promoted it, relished in it. At times, she's seemed to enjoy the idea of putting criminals to death. What other conclusion can we take from page 262 of her high-octane autobiography?

Convicted killer Terrell Martin was such a bad guy, she writes, "I would have been willing to give him the lethal injection myself."

She's no better with drug offenders:

Crooks and Liars has the video.