More roaming gators.

Follow-up on the earlier gator farm story: No word on Intracoastal City, but nearly 200 alligators escaped a farm in Moss Point, Mississippi, during Katrina. (Associated Press, in the Sun Herald.) Don't worry, though: alligators are quite docile and shy of people, and they hardly ever eat small children or old ladies.

Meanwhile, the global economy is stinging (iafrica.com):

Hurricane Katrina has had an unforeseen effect on the French fashion industry, which says it fears it will be hit by a shortage of Louisiana alligator hides in coming months.

While there is no shortage of the saurians in the flood waters of New Orleans, where rescuers say they fear the animals are feeding on the bodies of Katrina's victims, the hurricane may have seriously damaged alligator farming.

Well, at least we have our priorities straight.

Lastly, an astute reader pointed out that the swamps of Louisiana are already teeming with alligators; those that escaped found themselves in their natural habitat.

Terrorist bank deals 'impossible to spot'.

Correction—The annual European Money Laundering Conference is actually a bash for bankers and regulators, not drug smugglers and mafiosi as previously reported. The Alarmist apologizes for any embarrassment or disappointment this may have caused. Also, we have two passes to next year's event that we won't be using, if anyone's interested.

9/11 Commission member Douglas Greenburg, speaking to this rowdy crowd in a panel discussion Wednesday, said that terrorist financial activity is practically impossible to spot by looking at the paper trails. (Pakistan Daily Times.) This is because terrorism is cheap and the transactions that fund it are basically ordinary transactions that follow normal patterns of activity.

The awkward implication is that the EU has used terrorism as an excuse to enact new regulations that blow away the privacy of the individual account-holder but which are practically useless against terrorists:

The European Union agreed a new package of rules in June against money laundering and terrorist finance, including enhanced identity checks on customers and more demanding rules on identifying the real beneficial owners of accounts.

But there was an awkward pause when a questioner at the Barcelona conference asked if such rules might have helped to prevent the Madrid attacks and the July London suicide bombings.

Hmm. But then, the EU is by no means unique in this regard.

Life sentence for Mark Scott-Crossley.

A South African farmer who murdered one of his workers last year by throwing him into a lion enclosure will spend the rest of his life in an enclosure of his own. (Reuters.)

Health fact of the day.

“A new flu pandemic could happen at any time and kill between 5-150 million people, a UN health official warned.” (BBC.)

Enjoy your breakfast. I know I will.

Brush fire destroys 9,300 acres near L.A.

The fire is spreading extremely rapidly, blown by wind across thousands of acres of dry brush. The Associated Press is updating its story hourly as the swath of devastation expands. Seven hundred firefighters are now fighting the blaze, but it is only 5% contained. (Associated Press, in the Washington Post.)

Ceuta

Ceuta is a city of some 10 square miles on the Moroccan coast, near the Strait of Gibraltar. It is a fort city, a territory of Spain.

The city is surrounded by parallel 10-foot-high razor-wire fences with watch towers to keep out African refugees, but would-be immigrants still manage to sneak over the barrier. Usually, their hope is to reach the streets of Ceuta undetected and escape to Europe.

In the past few weeks, refugees have adopted a new strategy for crossing the barrier fence (CNN):

Two Africans died and 50 more were wounded early Thursday as they and hundreds of others scaled tall fences in a coordinated effort to enter the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on Morocco's northern coast, a senior Spanish official said. [...]

On two successive nights earlier this week, hundreds of Africans using makeshift ladders moved to scale en masse the fence in Melilla, with many getting through despite efforts by beefed-up Spanish security forces to repel them and leave them on Moroccan soil.

FEMA City

Last year, FEMA set up emergency shelter in a meadow for fifteen hundred people left homeless by Hurricane Charley. The little town of 500 trailers is now a ghetto. Bradenton Herald:

[D]rug use, vandalism, break-ins and fights are widespread. Young people regularly call FEMA City a prison.

The troubles got so bad in the spring that the entire camp was fenced in, a county police substation was set up, and armed security guards were stationed at the one point where residents were allowed to enter and exit. (Emphasis added.)

The director of recovery for Charlotte County told the paper, “[T]his is my advice to New Orleans and the other Gulf Coast towns: Don't make big camps with thousands of people, because it doesn't work. It takes a bad situation and, for many people, actually makes it worse.”

The plan for Katrina: 125,000 trailers.

Update—Credit: Marginal Revolution.

Iran

The Washington Post, last week:

Five weeks ago, Iran's new president bought his country some time. Facing mounting criticism after walking away from negotiations with Europe and restarting part of Iran's nuclear program, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked the world to withhold diplomatic pressure while he put together new proposals.

On Saturday, dozens of international diplomats, including the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, gathered at the United Nations to hear how Ahmadinejad planned to stave off a crisis.

Instead his speech, followed by a confused hour-long news conference, was able to do what weeks of high-level U.S. diplomacy had not: convince skeptical allies that Iran may, in fact, use its nuclear energy program to build atomic bombs.

Ahmadinejad said: “[I]f some try to impose their will on the Iranian people through resort to a language of force and threat with Iran, we will reconsider our entire approach to the nuclear issue.” (Emphasis added.)

Two days later, Iran threatened to refuse IAEA nuclear inspections and to start enriching uranium, a step towards developing nuclear weapons, if the IAEA referred Iran to the U.N. Security Council. (BBC, USA Today.)

The IAEA passed a resolution Saturday requiring that Iran be referred to the Security Council at some unspecified future date. Today, Iran's Parliament fast-tracked a bill to block IAEA inspections. (Reuters.)

Iran shares a border with Iraq to the west and with Afghanistan to the east; the country's entire southern border is on the Persian Gulf. Iran is a charter member of the Axis of Evil.

Polar ice caps gone by 2060

The extent of polar ice is as low as it has been since satellite images first became available in 1978. At the current rate of decline, the polar ice caps will be gone by summer 2060.

But there are good reasons to believe the decline will accelerate. Polar ice is white; it reflects sunlight into space. Liquid ocean water, by contrast, is dark; it absorbs the light and converts it to heat, warming the water and melting more ice. Other positive feedbacks will kick in later. Melting permafrost will release frozen methane, which will work as a greenhouse gas, further accelerating global warming. NY Times:

“Feedbacks in the system are starting to take hold,” Dr. Scambos said. “The consecutive record-low extents make it pretty certain a long-term decline is underway.”

Read more: BBC News, NY Times

Puerto Rican rebel hero gunned down by FBI

Filiberto Ojeda Rios, 72, died Saturday in a gun battle with FBI agents. Ojeda Rios was a popular hero among the 1% or so of Puerto Ricans that favor independence from the United States. He was also a fugitive, wanted in connection with a 1983 armored truck robbery in Connecticut. (Guardian.)

The autopsy revealed the Ojeda Rios did not die immediately after being shot. The FBI, suspicious that the house was booby-trapped, waited a full day before going in. By that time Ojeda Rios had died. (Boston Globe, Newsday.com.)

Alligator farm flooded

In an upbeat piece on plucky Cajuns, the Washington Post casually mentions that Hurricane Rita flooded an alligator farm in Intracoastal City, Louisiana. For some reason the Post doesn't follow up on the obvious consequence of that bit of intelligence: hundreds of gators are loose on the Louisiana coast.

Killer dolphins on the loose

Dolphins trained by the U.S. military to shoot scuba-diving terrorists with dart guns may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, according to this story in The Observer, a UK paper.

Debut

It is 27 September 2005, and according to the United States federal government, the country is at Elevated risk for a terrorist attack.

The United States is at war against insurgents in Iraq. Charges that American troops there are torturing prisoners have become dull with repetition.

Oil is near record prices. This hasn't triggered inflation or recession in the United States yet. No one knows why.

Earlier this year the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that it's okay for a city to seize a person's property and transfer it to private developers.

The avian flu virus H5N1 is still rare in humans, which is good, since it is resistant to antiflu drugs. Scientists peg the virus as the next human pandemic. The U.S. has committed to stockpiling enough flu vaccine, eventually, to innoculate some 6% of the population. No word on why this particular number was chosen; but it might not be worth worrying about. The vaccine reportedly doesn't work very well.

A hurricane struck the Gulf coast this month, killing hundreds (if not thousands) and destroying countless homes. The government response was a complete failure. Meteorologists say we're in for decades of unusually powerful tropical storms.

A second hurricane illustrated something we've been trying to ignore: major American cities can't be quickly evacuated in case of disaster or terrorist attack.

North Korea and the United States don't seem too anxious to start World War III this week, but the overall situation is alarming. If you think President Bush is surrounded by yes men and detached from reality, you have only to look at Kim Jong-Il to kick your ulcer into high gear.

One might be forgiven for thinking that the time for concern has passed and the time for a stiff drink is at hand. If you're just now reaching this conclusion, you are many bottles behind The Alarmist.

We're trying to keep our hats on. But let's be honest. The world has gone off the rails.

Welcome to The Alarmist. Documenting the new normal.