he packed up and headed back to Washington to address the problem. To his credit, Bush did cut his five-week vacation two days short (after giving a speech linking Iraq with 9/11 and World War II ). But long before that, he did the real disservice to the people of hurricane-stuck Louisiana: for fiscal 2006, Bush and the GOP cut $71.2 million in federal funding to the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, funds earmarked for hurricane and flood protection projects . At the time, Sen. Mary Landrieu said, "I think it's extremely shortsighted. When the Corps of Engineers' budget is cut, Louisiana bleeds. These projects are literally life-and-death projects to the people of south Louisiana and they are (of) vital economic interest to the entire nation." With New Orleans 80% under water , untold dead, and damage estimates soaring past $25 billion , we'll soon see how right Landrieu, unfortunately, was. 8.30.2005 A Japanese teacher, after 34 years of service, may lose her job because, as a pacifist, she refuses to stand and sing the national anthem, which calls for the "eternal reign" of the emperor. Kimiko Nezu has been transferred 4 or 5 times in the past few years, has had her salary temporarily cut, and was suspended for a month for violating a Tokyo school board rule that the anthem (the World War II hymn "Kimigayo") must be respected. "They are trying to weed us out of society," Nezu said. "The pacifists, the