MERGED==> The politics of Katrina + Trent Lott + Michael Moore

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sharky

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The politics of Katrina

I think I opened a bit of a pandora's box in the other thread. Let's leave that thread to check in on people and humanitarian efforts. Melon posted a story that I think would be better suited for a thread like this. Also, I'd like some more info on oil and gas if anyone can provide such as what the government can do to control prices. Gas was already expensive before this and it sounds like there were people who couldn't afford the gas prices to leave and may have died because of that. And yet, these oil companies continue to make record profits.

Oh, and I'm going to find the picture of Bush playing a guitar he was given at some social function yesterday with a presidential seal on it. Does anyone remember the story of Nero playing fiddle as Rome was burning? Looks like the same.
 
Thanks for making this thread sharky. I was going to post an article in humanitarian thread that might offend. Anyway here's the article. It's by Richard Louv.

"In denial about the forces of nature

Denial and deflection are part of human nature – perhaps even a survival tool, at times, usually the wrong times.

Before Hurricane Katrina reached New Orleans and Biloxi, Miss., with the full force yesterday, it jabbed at South Florida, leading the state's governor, Jeb Bush, to ask for federal disaster assistance for Miami-Dade and Broward counties, where, as NBC reported, "some residents said they were caught off-guard by the gathering storm?"

Off guard? How could anyone living in a region of the country so historically battered by such storms be surprised?

Consider the headline that appeared in the Florida's Gulf Breeze News last week: "Hurricane devastation provides opportunity for beach-wide architectural design standards." Um. How about last year? Or the year before that?

True, in 1993, after Hurricane Andrew, Florida adopted the first building code in the United States to mandate windborne debris protection for all new construction. But acceptance of the code has been gradual, at best. In 2002, the St. Petersburg Times quoted a Florida Home Builders Association official who pled puzzlement: "We used to have 467 building codes. Now we have one code with 467 interpretations."

Yet, the industry's own Institute for Business and Home Safety had just issued a report saying that if the new codes had been in place in 1992, Andrew would have caused $10 billion less damage, about a third less than the total.

Apres Andrew came the deluge. In 2002, The Times-Picayune of New Orleans published a prescient series called "Washing Away." For the Big Easy, perhaps better named the Big Breezy, it was "only a matter of time before south Louisiana takes a direct hit from a major hurricane," the newspaper warned. "Billions have been spent to protect us, but we grow more vulnerable every day."

Indeed, in 2001, Louisiana officials "found a disturbing flaw last year in their plans to open 'refuges of last resort' for people stranded in a major hurricane: Only a few interior areas in a handful of public buildings could be trusted to withstand the 155-to 200-mph winds of a Category 5 storm," the Times-Picayune reported. That finding set the stage for the decision to evacuate millions of residents over the weekend – and gave context to this week's images of the refugee-filled Superdome, its roof shredded.

Also, the Army Corps of Engineers recognized that Category 3 or weaker hurricanes could compromise the hurricane levees built to protect the New Orleans area. A Category 5 hurricane, or even a Category 4, was almost unthinkable. To prepare, officials offered such prevention proposals as: a giant wall, more than 30 feet high in places (two-thirds higher than the current levees); strictly enforced building standards; homes retrofitted with roofs fortified to resist high winds and equipped with steel storm shutters; the raising of many homes and highways, beyond the levees, onto pilings at least 15-feet high; and the creation of elevated community shelters capable of withstanding 175-mph winds.

In addition, a governor's committee and Louisiana legislators pushed for a $14 billion, 30-year Coast 2050 plan to rebuild the coast by diverting water and silt from the Mississippi River across marshes and reconstructing barrier islands. In essence, the plan was to undo damage than human development had done to the natural barriers to hurricanes. Today, that still sounds like a good idea. But where will the money for any of that will come from, given the post-Katrina cleanup costs?

Forget nature; the real problem is human nature.

Most people living on the Gulf Coast simply prefer to take their chances. So do Californians who live on the slippery bluffs of Malibu.

And San Diegans? Even after the devastating 2003 firestorms that marched from Cuyamaca to Scripps Ranch and back again, we seem to prefer denial and deflection.

Instead of investing in the creation of new firefighting technologies – including the use of unmanned aerial vehicles that could spot and even fight fires – we look to old technology, but even avoid simple fees that would upgrade our old-fashioned, out-dated firefighting tools. When it comes to enforcing tougher fire-resistance building standards, we wiggle and dissemble like teenagers facing homework on a sunny weekend. We prefer our risks manageable, and our thinking small.

Instead of preparing for true dangers posed by natural forces, people prefer to obsess about the relatively smaller threats of terrorism (but refuse to pay adequately for prevention in that arena, as well).

Or, more often, we fixate on the smallest of societal risks. Less than a month before Katrina's bad breath battered Florida, Broward County schools, in an effort to cut down on injuries and lawsuits, erected "Rules of the Playground" at 137 elementary schools. No more swings, teeter-totters or hand-pulled merry-go-rounds. And "no running," the new signs said, even as Katrina approached.

Kids running. Now there's a manageable threat."
 
jkid said:
Consider the headline that appeared in the Florida's Gulf Breeze News last week: "Hurricane devastation provides opportunity for beach-wide architectural design standards." Um. How about last year? Or the year before that?


Gulf Breeze is a suburb of Pensacola. Prior to Hurricane Ivan (September 2004) and Hurricane Dennis (July 2005), the Pensacola area had not recently experienced a hurricane with significant damage. Most of the repairs underway today in the area are still from Hurricane Ivan damage. What other storm from "last year" or "the year before that" is this author referring to? Richard Loux should have done a bit more than skim the headlines of a small town weekly newspaper before making such uninformed commentary. There was nothing to rebuild with new standards until Ivan rearranged everything.

~U2Alabama
 
One thing I'm interested is in how places like Taiwan and Japan and surrounding islands handle things like building codes. I mean, they get enough typhoons each year that it isn't a matter of "if" or hoping that they dodge a bullet. They get at least one or more each year, and I wonder how they handle it? Is there something we can perhaps learn from Asian Pacific islands?

But Jesus...we have people living in trailer parks in hurricane territory. They might as well put a bulls eye on themselves.

Melon
 
I can't believe the lack of a concrete plan to deal with this situation. I understand it is widespread, I understand it is catastrophic, but hurricanes are an annual threat to this area. Each state and the federal government seem to be totally at a loss as to where to start. I am frankly amazed and disappointed at the efforts of the US in addressing this problem. America is the Bill Gates of the world with some of the greatest minds, technology, financial and military resources at its disposal. But everyone seems to be standing still. I would have thought that the Asian tsunami would have been a good practice run in dealing with disasters at this level. Apparently not. Where are the helicopters, warships, hovercraft, zodiak boats,? As people said regarding the tsunami, this is a unprecented scenario and requires unprecented solutions otherwise the deathtoll will continue to rise as trapped people die before rescue, unclean water and lack of medical support for everyday problems like heart attacks or injury.

I am frustrated at hearing about the logistics and lack of communication as a roadblock to a solution. When coming up with contingency plans for a direct hit from a Cat 4-5 hurricane, the planners should automatically assume the worst and work from there. Assume no phones, no cells, no water, no power, widespread destruction, flooding, deaths, and stranded people. Determine who gets called, who provides what assistance, and what they need to minimize the number of people who die. Screw the buildings, lives are the priority, aren't they? Any plan which involved a tightly communicated organized endeavour should have been tossed in the trash because no disaster relief at this level works like that in the early stages. I have heard that cities have contingency plans for terrorist attacks and other natural disasters, if the plans are anything like the one for the Gulf coast, God help us.

Like didn't anyone ever consider what to do to fix a broken levee, instead of saying let's try this and see if it works. I can only imagine the horrors if there wasn't advance warning of Katrina. I heard some emails on CNN earlier today bitchin about foreign aid to help the hurricane victims with remarks about "the South Korea army being in New Orleans to help" "Saudi Arabia helping". Many countries have offered assistance but keep in mind, the US has more money, resources, people, military than many other countries combined so assistance will be coming but unlike the tsunami where the Western world contributed a great deal to the situation, any help coming from other countries will pale in comparison to the resources of the US or they should unless for some reason your government doesn't do everything possible to save its own citizens.

Sorry about the rant but it is frustrating to see so many people suffering.
 
capt.capm10208301856.bush__capm102.jpg


"President Bush plays a guitar presented to him by Country Singer Mark Wills, right, backstage following his visit to Naval Base Coronado, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Bush visited the base to deliver remarks on V-J Commemoration Day."

This is especially what pissed me off. I understand our veterans deserve recognition for V-J Day, but what the hell is he doing smiling and playing guitar while NOLA goes under? There was a hospital worker on TV today saying rescue crews did not get out early enough to help evacuate patients. Imagine what would have happened if Bush cut his vacation short on Sunday night to get a task force together knowing what was ahead. He had 29 DAYS of vacation!!!!! Was losing two really going to hurt that bad?

Just remember -- don't trust any of his promises. He told us he was going to get bin Laden soon as he stood on a mound of rubble three days after 9/11. If soon means four years and counting, NOLA has a long time to wait before they get everything they need.
 
What ticks me off is that the Feds, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Louisiana state government, will probably insist on rebuilding the city back to it's previous state without making any serious improvements to the situation.

Like maybe possibly considering relocating it to some nearby piece of land that's not below sea level...

It wouldn't be that much more effort. They're going to pretty much have to rebuild it from the ground up anyway.

And I hope that local, state, or federal agencies prevent at least some homes from being rebuilt on the beachfront. Would prevent people from getting wiped out it exactly the same way again. And it will happen again; Mother Nature doesn't give a second's consideration to the indomitable human spirit when she decides to rearrange the landscape.
 
sharky said:
what the hell is he doing smiling and playing guitar while NOLA goes under?

I think playing the guitar might be a charitable desription of what he's doing with that instrument. :wink:

Seriously, I do think it's appalling that the President takes almost a full month of vacation time even with all the chaos and devastation taking place first in Iraq and then in New Orleans.
 
So now we are going to politicize natural disasters....

Disappointing to say the least.
 
Dreadsox said:
So now we are going to politicize natural disasters....

Disappointing to say the least.

I doubt anyone is saying that the fact of the hurricane is anyone's fault. But we have the right to ask questions about why funding to repair the levees was cut. If that is "political" then so be it. I would have thought it is a natural part of living in a democracy...the right to ask one's government to live up to higher standards of civilian protection.

Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?
'Times-Picayune' Had Repeatedly Raised Federal Spending Issues
By Will Bunch

PHILADELPHIA - Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city, the waters may still keep rising in New Orleans late on Tuesday. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until it's level with the massive lake.

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:

"That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount. But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said."

The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late.

One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer: a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday.

The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. ... In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."

Local officials are now saying, the article reported, that had Washington heeded their warnings about the dire need for hurricane protection, including building up levees and repairing barrier islands, "the damage might not have been nearly as bad as it turned out to be."
 
Projects like the ones mentioned in the previous post would certainly not have been done by now if funded in 2004. Everyone knows how efficiently and smoothly the federal bureaucracy is run If these had been funded a couple of decades ago then maybe disaster could have been averted. If we want to blame presidents and politicians then the blame should go back years and years.
 
RFK Jr wrote an article essentially blaming it on Bush policies and the gov of Mississippi, it was on Drudge yesterday but I can't find it right now. People will always politicize things like this, for better or worse

No One Can Say they Didn't See it Coming"

By Sidney Blumenthal (former Clinton advisor)

In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.


Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane Katrina has left millions of Americans to scavenge for food and shelter and hundreds to thousands reportedly dead. With its main levee broken, the evacuated city of New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico. But the damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act of nature.

A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which before the hurricane published a series on the federal funding problem, and whose presses are now underwater, reported online: "No one can say they didn't see it coming ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developers almost certainly also contributed to the heightened level of the storm surge. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands surrounding New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot. Bush had promised "no net loss" of wetlands, a policy launched by his father's administration and bolstered by President Clinton. But he reversed his approach in 2003, unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency then announced they could no longer protect wetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce.

In response to this potential crisis, four leading environmental groups conducted a joint expert study, concluding in 2004 that without wetlands protection New Orleans could be devastated by an ordinary, much less a Category 4 or 5, hurricane. "There's no way to describe how mindless a policy that is when it comes to wetlands protection," said one of the report's authors. The chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality dismissed the study as "highly questionable," and boasted, "Everybody loves what we're doing."

"My administration's climate change policy will be science based," President Bush declared in June 2001. But in 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency submitted a study on global warming to the United Nations reflecting its expert research, Bush derided it as "a report put out by a bureaucracy," and excised the climate change assessment from the agency's annual report. The next year, when the EPA issued its first comprehensive "Report on the Environment," stating, "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment," the White House simply demanded removal of the line and all similar conclusions. At the G-8 meeting in Scotland this year, Bush successfully stymied any common action on global warming. Scientists, meanwhile, have continued to accumulate impressive data on the rising temperature of the oceans, which has produced more severe hurricanes.

In February 2004, 60 of the nation's leading scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, warned in a statement, "Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking": "Successful application of science has played a large part in the policies that have made the United States of America the world's most powerful nation and its citizens increasingly prosperous and healthy ... Indeed, this principle has long been adhered to by presidents and administrations of both parties in forming and implementing policies. The administration of George W. Bush has, however, disregarded this principle ... The distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease." Bush completely ignored this statement.

In the two weeks preceding the storm in the Gulf, the trumping of science by ideology and expertise by special interests accelerated. The Federal Drug Administration announced that it was postponing sale of the morning-after contraceptive pill, despite overwhelming scientific evidence of its safety and its approval by the FDA's scientific advisory board. The United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa accused the Bush administration of responsibility for a condom shortage in Uganda -- the result of the administration's evangelical Christian agenda of "abstinence." When the chief of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the Justice Department was ordered by the White House to delete its study that African-Americans and other minorities are subject to racial profiling in police traffic stops and he refused to buckle under, he was forced out of his job. When the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting oversight analyst objected to a $7 billion no-bid contract awarded for work in Iraq to Halliburton (the firm at which Vice President Cheney was formerly CEO), she was demoted despite her superior professional ratings. At the National Park Service, a former Cheney aide, a political appointee lacking professional background, drew up a plan to overturn past environmental practices and prohibit any mention of evolution while allowing sale of religious materials through the Park Service.

On the day the levees burst in New Orleans, Bush delivered a speech in Colorado comparing the Iraq war to World War II and himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt: "And he knew that the best way to bring peace and stability to the region was by bringing freedom to Japan." Bush had boarded his very own "Streetcar Named Desire."

RFK Jr article

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/afor-they-that-sow-the-_b_6396.html
 
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Ft. Worth Frog said:
Projects like the ones mentioned in the previous post would certainly not have been done by now if funded in 2004. Everyone knows how efficiently and smoothly the federal bureaucracy is run If these had been funded a couple of decades ago then maybe disaster could have been averted. If we want to blame presidents and politicians then the blame should go back years and years.

I agree, to a point. But this administration should have bucked the trend, right? :wink:

But we are talking about the President here who cares the absolute least about the environment.

Melon
 
from my girlfriend, Wonkette:



The President's Response to Insurgent Katrina

Fox News and others are reporting that the President just got "his own bird's eye view" of Katrina's damage as Air Force One flew over the devestated region. Shortly after, Bush gave prepared remarks to the press pool:

We are making progress in New Orleans. The flood is in its last throes. Clearly, the hurricane has a hateful ideology and does not like our freedom or our dryness. We cannot surrender to it. In New Orleans, they are working on a draft evacuation; it is an evacuation process, and we must expect that if we are to bring American-style democracy to the Mississippi Delta.

The president added that "to pull out now would only give aid to the elements."
 
Dreadsox said:
So now we are going to politicize natural disasters....

Disappointing to say the least.



yes, it's terrible when people politicize disasters and massive death, like, say, 9-11 ...

i don't think anyone is politicizing Katrina itself, but they are politicizing (and in some cases, rightfully so) the following:

1. rising ocean temperatures, due to global warming, might not increase the number of hurricanes but they absolutely do increase the strength of the hurricanes

2. the diminishing wetlands around New Orleans is an issue -- wetlands are a natural barrier to floods

3. despite continuous warnings that hurricanes could hit New Orleans -- i remember hearing, and this might be wrong, that a hurricane hitting NO was one of the three most likely natural disasters to hit the US according to FEMA in 2001 -- the Bush administration and Republican controlled Congress in recent years have repeatedly denied full funding for hurricane preparation and flood control.

4. the 3,000 Louisiana National Guard troops in Iraq who are needed more at home than over there.



also, don't think it's just the left politicizing this. take (not seriously) for example this:

"Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city. From 'Girls Gone Wild' to 'Southern Decadence', New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. May it never be the same. Let us pray for those ravaged by this disaster. However, we must not forget that the citizens of New Orleans tolerated and welcomed the wickedness in their city for so long," - Michael Marcavage, in a statement from the evangelical Christian group, "Repent America."

http://www.repentamerica.com/pr_hurricanekatrina.html



as well as:

From: Columbia Christians for Life
Subject: Hurricane Katrina satellite image looks like 6-week fetus
To: Columbia Christians for Life

Satellite picture of Hurricane Katrina at NOAA.com looks like a 6-week unborn human child as it comes ashore the Gulf Coast, vicinity states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida at 12:32 PM, Monday, August 29, 2005



Hurricane "Katrina" (reportedly means "Pure" in Russian) - satellite image - Monday, 29 Aug 05, 12:32 PM (EDT) - coming ashore Gulf Coast - satellite image looks like 6-week fetus

check out NOAA website: www.noaa.gov/

The image of the hurricane above with its eye already ashore at 12:32 PM Monday, August 29 looks like a fetus (unborn human baby) facing to the left (west) in the womb, in the early weeks of gestation (approx. 6 weeks). Even the orange color of the image is reminiscent of a commonly used pro-life picture of early prenatal development (see sign with picture of 8-week pre-born human child below). In this picture, and in another picture in today's on-line edition of USA Today*, this hurricane looks like an unborn human child.

Louisiana has 10 child-murder-by-abortion centers - FIVE are in New Orleans
www.ldi.org ('Find an Abortion Clinic [sic]')
 
When I can't send any relief money because it costs me $4 a gallon for gas and I have to decide between someone without water and me without a way to get to food, you tell me what I should be doing?

I saw 3000 people die in NYC and I aM sick of hearing "freedom" over and over and over again to justify a war in Iraq in their names while their murderer is still free. If that wasn't a political move, I don't know what is.
 
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Maybe our oil companies can make a substantial donation on our behalf.

Melon
 
melon said:
Maybe our oil companies can make a substantial donation on our behalf.

Melon

I know this is hard, Melon, but in a time like this we should think rational. Oil companies donating money.

That being said, the government better give them some money quick to 1) fix the oil rigs and 2) get the refineries running.
 
sharky said:
I know this is hard, Melon, but in a time like this we should think rational. Oil companies donating money.

I'm sorry my very scathing sarcasm isn't apparent in textual formats. :sexywink:

Melon
 
But Europe was unnerved by how ill-prepared the world's biggest economy was for Hurricane Katrina's rampage.

I must say I agree. Did we do anything in terms of disaster preparation, or have we just spent billions of dollars trying to prevent the exact circumstances of 9/11 from ever happening again? Because, you know, each disaster is unique.

Melon
 
I have to agree with my fellow Canadian, Trevster2k, here. That this happened is a unimaginable tragedy for the American people and a collosal failure and embarassment for the various levels of government involved.

It is inexcusable.
 
It doesn't help that the WH's principals have taken so long in showing a sense of urgency.

And it doesn't help when Condi's reportedly doing this:

http://www.gawker.com/news/condolee...king-condi-rice-spends-salary-on-shoes-123467

"According to Drudge, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has recently enjoyed a little Broadway entertainment. And Page Six reports that she’s also working on her backhand with Monica Seles. So the Gulf Coast has gone all Mad Max, women are being raped in the Superdome, and Rice is enjoying a brief vacation in New York. We wish we were surprised.

"What does surprise us: Just moments ago at the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue, Condoleeza Rice was seen spending several thousands of dollars on some nice, new shoes (we’ve confirmed this, so her new heels will surely get coverage from the WaPo’s Robin Givhan). A fellow shopper, unable to fathom the absurdity of Rice’s timing, went up to the Secretary and reportedly shouted, “How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!” Never one to have her fashion choices questioned, Rice had security PHYSICALLY REMOVE the woman.

"Angry Lady, whoever you are, we love you. You are a true American."

And it doesn't help when US authorities are so disorganized, they won't allow other countries, such as Canada and its DART team (which helped out with the Indonesian tsunami victims), to help out in the rescue efforts:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/31/235829/261

Time to give Haliburton some contracts to rebuild New Orleans.
 
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i feel fairly certain that those 3,000 Louisiana National Guard troops would have been far more useful in New Orleans than in Baghdad.
 
The City of New Orleans is claiming that the flooding is the federal government's fault. It's crazy. They weren't prepared. There's never been a storm like this, this is worse than Camille. And we didn't start to really get hit like this in Birmingham until Ivan less than a year ago.
 
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