The New York Times Sept. 5 made it official: the oil shock has arrived. Online at the International Herald Tribune:

When Hurricane Katrina ripped through the oil rigs and refineries along the Gulf Coast last week, it set off the first oil shock of the 21st century.

"This is a lot like 1973," said Daniel Yergin, who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of oil, "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power," and is the chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "Since Monday, we've had a supply shock on top of a demand shock."

A Sept. 8 Wall Street Journal story, run in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, finds that New Orleans' "old-line" elite is already charting a racially-purged future for the city:

[I]n an exclusive gated community known as Audubon Place, is the home of James Reiss, descendent of an old-line Uptown family. He fled Hurricane Katrina just before the storm and returned soon afterward by private helicopter. Mr. Reiss became wealthy as a supplier of electronic systems to shipbuilders, and he serves in Mayor Nagin's administration as chairman of the city's Regional Transit Authority. When New Orleans descended into a spiral of looting and anarchy, Mr. Reiss helicoptered in an Israeli security company to guard his Audubon Place house and those of his neighbors.

Another chilling story of the authorities breaking up an inspiring citizens' self-help effort in New Orleans. EMSNetwork News Sept. 6 runs a first-hand account by Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky, paramedics from California and both shop stewards with SEIU Local 790, who were attending an EMS conference in New Orleans and led a procession of some 200 refugees from the city. At the advice of a local police commander they marched along the Pontchartrain Expressway towards the Greater New Orleans Bridge over the Mississippi, where they were told evacuation buses were waiting. Instead they were met with gunfire over their heads and ordered back. Online at TruthOut:

From Reuters, Sept. 8, via TruthOut:

Baghdad - The United Nations raised the alarm on Thursday about mounting violence in Iraq blamed on pro-government militias and urged the authorities to look into reports of systematic torture in police stations.

In a bi-monthly human rights report, released on a day when 14 more victims of "extrajudicial executions" were found near Baghdad, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq also said "mass arrests" by US and Iraqi forces, and long detentions without charge, could damage support for the new political system.

From the Boston Herald, Sept. 7, emphasis added:

Oil companies came under new fire yesterday when it emerged that ExxonMobil's profits are likely to soar above $10 billion this quarter on the back of the fuel crisis.

That's $110 million a day, and more net income than any company has ever made in a quarter. It's also a stunning 69 percent increase over the same period a year ago and a 34 percent jump from the $7.6 billion Exxon made just last quarter.

"Do you realize President Bush has just given a tax break to ExxonMobil?" thundered Rep. Ed Markey (D-Malden). "Of all the companies in the history of the world that needed a tax break, this month, ExxonMobil should be at the bottom of the list."

A Sept. 5 interview with Charmaine Neville, a member of the third generation of New Orleans' legendary Neville musical family, contains a first-hand account of how she helped many of her neighbors escape the stricken city—first with a flat boat, then with a commandeered bus, and with no help from the authorities. "Alligators were eating people. They had all kinds of stuff in the water. They had babies floating in the water. We had to walk over hundreds of bodies of dead people... [W]e couldn't understand why the National Guard and them couldn't help us, because we kept seeing them but they never would stop and help us." She sheds some light on the reports of residents firing on rescue helicopters:

Juan Gonzalez of the NY Daily News Sept. 6 calls out FEMA for promoting the newsworthy Rev. Pat Robertson's private charity for Katrina disaster-relief donations—and recalls the group's links to the sleazy African diamonds trade, unearthed by a law enforcement investigation a few years back...

Saudi special forces overran a seaside villa in Damman Sept. 6 where Islamic militants had been holed up, ending three days of heavy fighting that left at least nine dead. For two nights, special forces pounded the villa with rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire before launching the major assault. One of the five militants killed in the fighting was identified as No. 3 on the country's most-wanted list, Zaid Saad Zaid al-Samari, a Saudi sought in connection with terror attacks launched in the kingdom. King Abdullah, who took over the throne last month after the death of his half brother, Fahd, has vowed to push ahead with the crackdown on Islamic militans, and some suggest he plans to intensify it. (AP, Sept. 7)