The mentally ill among us.

Exhibit A:

Cynthia McKinney, Green Party candidate for president.

"McKinney Accuses Government of Slaughtering Prisoners, Dumping Bodies During Katrina." FOXNews.com, 10/2/08.

Exhibit B:

Spike Lee, eminent filmmaker and analyst.

Spike Lee says the thought of “a conspiracy to actually blow up those [New Orleans] levees so that they would flood the poor black districts in New Orleans” during Hurrican Katrina is “not far-fetched.”

"Spike Lee: 'Not Far-fetched' to Say New Orleans Levees Deliberately Destroyed." By Brent Baker, NewsBusters, 10/24/05.

Mr. Lee refines his theory by mentioning what “happened” with Hurricane Betsy in 1965 “where a choice had to be made” to flood one ‘hood to save another neighborhood, presumably a white one, since Lee goes on to say that a call to the police from Beverly Hills and a call to the police in Compton will, he implies, result in the police responding to the Beverly Hills problem.

Evidently the police responsible for Compton – 20 miles from Beverly Hills – would be paralyzed so long as there is a problem needing resolution in Beverly Hills. Police everywhere, it would seem, would be incapable of simultaneous action unless and until the BH cops were successful in stopping the crime there.

Evidently, too, water gushing into the black neighborhoods in New Orleans would not flow into white neighborhoods. White neighborhoods were either (a) above sea-level and thus unreachable by the sea water regardless of what was done to the levees in the black areas (making it pointless to dynamite any levees), or (b) they were also below sea level but could not be reached by water flowing into the black areas because either (1) water does not obey the laws of physics during hurricanes or (2) there were interior levees in New Orleans separating white areas from black areas.

Implicit in Lee’s theory (and Louis Farrakhan’s, let it be known) is that allowing water to flow into black neighborhoods would relieve the pressure of the sea waters sufficiently to reduce the pressure on the levees protecting the “white” areas. Thus, 250 zillion tons of sea water would no longer be a threat to those levees protecting the privileged, rich, and/or white areas of New Orleans – provided that 1 zillion tons of sea water were let into black areas. No more pressure from the remaining sea water!

See this 1927 account of when levees actually were dynamited in Louisiana to save (all of) New Orleans inundating the homes of “Cajans" and “small truck-farmers” and “marshland trappers” of unspecified race. "At New Orleans." HP-Time, 5/9/27.

Presumably lots of people noticed the detonation of “48 charges of dynamite” that proved to be insufficient to blow the levees in one detonation. These 48 charges were followed by five more discharges using 1,500 pounds of dynamite that successfully created an initial gap and a further 3,000 pounds of dynamite that widened the gap created to 1,200 feet.

Exhibit C:

Lewis Farakhan, eminent spiritual leader.

Also a proponent of the conspiracy-to-blow-up-the-levees-to-flood-poor-black-districts-in-New-Orleans theory. Brent Baker, supra.