The Cloaca Maxima, 1872 Friday marked Mexico‘s Day of the Dead, which was celebrated as hundreds of thousands of people attempted to flee the flooded state of Tabasco by boat, helicopter, jet ski, tractor, or by swimming through murky, snake-infested currents.AP via Yahoo! The town of Orme, Tennessee, which has suffered from a prolonged drought, announced that it had run out of water.APFormer FEMA director Michael D. Brown, who now works for a disaster recovery company, was made available for comment regarding the wildfires raging in California,.PR Newswireand the ten-year-old boy who started a fire that spanned 60 square miles …

The Cloaca Maxima, 1872 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hailed by his countrymen as the “Socrates of the Third Millennium” for “disarming other speakers through his sharp reasoning,” gave a speech on Monday in which he claimed that Iran had no homosexuals and disavowed reports of his nuclear ambitions. “Let me tell a joke here,” Ahmadinejad said. “I think the politicians who are after atomic bombs, or testing them, making them, politically they are backward, retarded.” On Tuesday he met with Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, addressed the United Nations (where he announced that he would disregard any resolutions adopted by the …

In the midst of a brief thunderstorm that transfixed the New York City subway system and killed one motorist, a tornado formed over the Atlantic Ocean, grazed the north coast of Staten Island, and blew into Brooklyn, felling 292 trees, ripping roofs off dozens of buildings, and displacing 200 people from their homes. New York TimesNY1Losses among lenders to American debtors led to a one-day plunge of 387 points in the Dow Industrial Average. The Federal Reserve injected $62 billion into the market–its largest intervention since September 19, 2001–and its international counterparts followed suit. Hedge funds were in the red. …

“Into the palace parlor they stepped; her hand in his paw the old bruin kept,” 1875 The U.S. military announced that July was the least deadly of the past eight months for American troops in Iraq, with only 75 soldiers killed. AP via BreitbartSeventy-six U.S. senators had visited Iraq, and 3 percent of Americans approved of how Congress was handling the war, which was costing the United States and Great Britain more than $4,000 each second.The HillZogbyDaily MailIt was estimated that 90 percent of Iraq’s artists had fled the country or been killed,Washington Postand Iraq’sgays were being targeted for murder, …

An American cattleman. President Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the Palestinian unity government and declared a state of emergency after masked Hamas gunmen seized control of the Gaza Strip. Hamas looters broke into former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat’s home and stole military outfits, photographs of his daughter, and his Nobel Peace Prize. “I see Iraq here,” a bystander in Gaza said. “There is no mercy. We are afraid. See how ferocious this fight was? There is no future for us.”New York TimesThe Jerusalem PostNew York TimesIsrael and the United States tacitly agreed on a policy to treat the West Bank and …