I am thoroughly disgusted...

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I am thoroughly disgusted...

Postby MM_Dandy » Fri Sep 02, 2005 5:52 pm

We all know that Nancy Lieder is truly evil.
But, if you weren't convinced when she spewed the Columbia vomit, or unashamedly using the war casualties for her own means, she has now, predictably, jumped all over the Katrina tragedy.

There was once a time I felt a little sorry for her because she is clearly suffering mental disorders. I feel nothing but contempt and disgust for her now, diseased mind or not.

In fact, I'm appalled at the way many on GLP talk about the disaster. They're like dogs foaming at the mouth, and the speed and voracity with which they attack the federal government makes my stomach turn. Hindsight is 20/20, and nobody ever considered a levy break, the collapse of I-10, the ignorance of stupid people with guns, total collapse of the local infrastructure, etc.

Putting the National Gaurd in before the storm would just them in the same situation that the refugees are. Having them on stand by to go in as soon as possible now seems prudent, but like I said, hindsight is 20/20. Let me be clear, I have absolutely no idea what these people have been through, and I know if I were there I would be itching to get the hell out of there. But I cannot imagine taking a gun and shooting at the rescue helicopters trying to evacuate hospital patients.

It is a natural disaster. You're just wasting time and acting irrationally by pointing fingers and saying that somebody else should have done this or that. Let Bush worry about whether or not he could have done more. I'm willing to bet that he wishes the government would have done more, as well. He's on our side, for crying out loud. This government works for us, especially in situations like this. Wanna bitch and moan about the public services they are providing, fine. But you'd better have a pretty damn good idea as to how much time it takes to coordinate the troops, vehicles, supplies, and other logostical problems I have no clue about. You better have a better way to get the supplies in to New Orleans. You'd better have an idea what it takes to airlift supplies to what is virtually tiny specks of islands in a lake. You'd better have a viable solution to the jackasses shooting at rescuers and you'd better not bitch when the troops we send in die. Otherwise, shut the fuck up.

As far as I'm concerned, we (the US government, coperations, and non-profit organizations) are doing a pretty damn good job. They need our help, our reasonable suggestions, and moral support. They sure as hell don't need the shit that flows from the mouths of people like Nancy Lieder.

I apologize for the offensive language, folks, but I needed to vent. Thanks, Lance, for the place and opportunity to do this. If nothing else, it should help my blood pressure a little.
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Postby Lance » Fri Sep 02, 2005 6:53 pm

Those levees were designed to withstand a Cat 3 hurricane, not a direct hit by a Cat 4 or Cat 5. Over the past 5 years, the administration has cut $30 Million from the budget to upgrade them. *Source: CNN

This was a catastrophic disaster without a doubt. But nothing about this should have been a surprise.



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Postby MM_Dandy » Fri Sep 02, 2005 8:56 pm

Are they talking about levy failure or submersion? Everywhere I've looked, the emphasis was that the tidal surge would easily clear the levies (which it did), but I haven't seen where they thought that the levies would break.

To be fair, we have no way of knowing what the extent of the flooding would have been had the levies remained intact. It could just as easily be as bad, anyway.

I also concede that it was predicted to be extremely catastrophic (especially in New Orleans). Still, I don't think you can blame the government for being under-prepared. Louisiana was declared a federal disaster area almost two days before Katrina made landfall. Also, the extent of such a disaster has hardly been experienced before (at least in the U.S.). Compared to other similar disasters, we're not responding badly -- in fact, I'll still argue that they are doing quite well.
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Postby ktesibios » Fri Sep 02, 2005 11:00 pm

Hmm... couldn't be anticipated?

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...

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.


http://service.spiegel.de/cache/interna ... 55,00.html

And then there's this:

When did this calamity happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.


http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/ ... index.html

Given that the requirements for hurricane/flood relief- emergency housing, medical supplies, emergency power, water purification and so on- are similar to what would be required in the event of a bioterror attack, it would make a lot of sense for DHS to have pre-positioned resources for quick deployment in an emergency.

Declaring an emergency in advance is not a bad idea, since a hurricane is one of the very few disasters which gives advance warning, but using that lead time to get personnel and supplies loaded up and ready to go is a better one. DHS has held drills and simulations of "dirty bomb" and bioattack scenarios for training purposes; perhaps it might have occurred to someone that having hardware and people appropriate for disaster relief mustered, equipped and ready to sail or fly in advance would, even if Katrina had suddenly dissipated without making landfall, have been an excellent drill/test/exercise.

Instead, what we appear to have gotten for all the dough sunk into establishing what is supposed to be a central coordinating agency for coping with national emergencies is an ad hoc, muddle-through-somehow-after-the-shit-has-hit-the-fan response.

One wonders if this could possibly be linked to the fact that the current head of FEMA is a lawyer whose last job was running the International Arabian Horse Association (into the ground) and whose only known experience with emergency preparedness or disaster relief was a municipal-level job some thirty years ago:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases ... 203-6.html

It's possible for a CEO to be an utter shvazool and still be successful provided that he has the knack of hiring real professionals for critical tasks and taking their expertise seriously. Unfortunately the current administration has established more of a history of placing cronyism and ideological and personal loyalty above professionalism in making these decisions (vide Gen. Eric Shinseki).

Give the loons at GLP a little time and they'll settle down to squabbling over whether the hurricane was caused by Planet X, incoming meteors, HAARP or chemtrails. What's much more significant is the fact that even the talking heads at the reliably pro-administration CNN- at least some of the ones who have been at the scene- have been calling "bullshit" on gummint spin.

And the Good Grey Times- our reputed newspaper of record- has been weighing in, and not in terms comforting to the PTB:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/opinion/02fri1.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/opini ... le_popular

Even David Brooks, one of the most stuffedest shirts in the world, is writing about how floods

expose the underlying power structures, the injustices, the patterns of corruption and the unacknowledged inequalities.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/opini ... le_popular

And, just in case anyone wants to dismiss criticism of Federal response to this horror as the frothings of us America-hating latte-drinking liberals, check out the far-right Washington Times on the subject:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20 ... -2051r.htm

And even the thoroughly reactionary Manchester Union Leader has written

GOVERNMENT authorities have responded inadequately to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, which is all the more reason for private citizens to band together and do what they can to help.


and

There was plenty of forewarning for this disaster. New Orleans’ vulnerability was no secret. Katrina was polite enough to telegraph days ahead and tell everyone when and where she was coming. State, local and federal officials have no excuse for being so unprepared.


Of course, winger publications are and will be primarily concerned with deflecting blame away from Dear Leader onto subordinates and other, preferably Democratic, politicians, but there's no mistaking it:

This is an accountability moment, and being an apologist for the status quo ante is likely to be a mighty lonely gig for the forseeable future.
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Postby Halcyon Dayz, FCD » Sat Sep 03, 2005 1:15 am

What I wonder about is that an industrialised nation failed to build
proper defences for a major coastal city and its inhabitants.

I mean, big storms do happen, it's just a matter of time.
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Postby twinstead » Sat Sep 03, 2005 4:00 am

Seriously, the ineptness of the response to the hurricane, no matter if it was anticipated or not, is bad; it's third-world in its scope.

The local, state, and federal folks didn't have a clue for 4 or 5 days, all the while people were suffering.

And now there are stories of the governor of NO picking and choosing who will be rescued. Stories about tourists and others stranded in luxury hotels driving past suffering refugees at the convention center.

I believe the New Orleans situation is a disgrace.
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Postby Bill EE » Sat Sep 03, 2005 6:31 pm

As I wrote in another post - this was a complete failure on the part of the local and state governments. They have known for at least 40 years this was possible and failed to do anything effective. The mayor and state offical should have had food and water in both the Superdome and Convention centers - instead they asked the residents to bring their own (and we are talking about the poorest of the poor). They failed to provide backup generators to all the pumping station around the city. It was a Charlie Foxtrot - but it happens. I was in the floods of 1983 and it three days for "help" to get to us and no hurricane was involved - we had our hurricane rations so we ate, drank, and listened to the radio.

What pisses me off is the GLP people going on about how:
1) "This was a population reduction experiment - to kill the "useless eater""
2) George Bush ordered no evacuation but he brave general is disobeying his order today and moving ahead.

and much more that just turns my stomache.
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Postby Lance » Sat Sep 03, 2005 6:36 pm

I haven't heard anything about Gretna.

Do you think there still is a Gretna? I can't imagine all those shotgun shacks standing up to a good sized rock, much less Katrina. Of course, Gretna gave me the heebie geebies even in broad day light.
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Postby Мастер » Sat Sep 03, 2005 9:08 pm

Bill EE wrote:What pisses me off is the GLP people going on about how:
1) "This was a population reduction experiment - to kill the "useless eater""


Well, that's just getting silly. The US has a population of about 280 million, if the life span is 75 years, roughly 10,000 people should die every day (of course, the age distribution is not uniform, but let's not quibble). What are they talking about with the hurricane, possibly a few thousand deaths? It will take a lot of hurricanes to reduce the population much...

What they should be talking about is the fast food or tobacco population reduction experiments...
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Postby twinstead » Sun Sep 04, 2005 12:26 am

Actually, the only thing that disgusts me more than the woefully pathetic lack of initial support for the hurricane victims is the reaction to the storm on sites like GLP.

Everything from HAARP causing/intensifying/steering the storm, to God's retribution on America for 'killing millions of innocent Iraqis', to the purposeful destruction of the levees to flood NO, and everything in between, the GLP crowd is again showing its complete, utter idiocy.

Every natural disaster is now suspect in their eyes. Many of them can seriously picture GWB bleary-eyed and laughing maniacally, in front of a computer screen holding a joystick directing major hurricanes to exactly where he wants them to go.

It's sickening.
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Postby Bill EE » Sun Sep 04, 2005 1:02 am

I'll let you know if I hear about Gretna but, if I remember correctly, it is on the west side of the river and on higher ground so I don't think flooding is an issue. Wind damage?
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Postby Мастер » Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:53 am

twinstead wrote:Every natural disaster is now suspect in their eyes. Many of them can seriously picture GWB bleary-eyed and laughing maniacally, in front of a computer screen holding a joystick directing major hurricanes to exactly where he wants them to go.


Even with the ability and inclination, methinks hurricanes are not the most effective weapon for a Republican president:

http://presidentelect.org/e2004.html
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