New Orleans Evacuated Today

ya it was
it really showed what was going on down there
its worse than it looks
some of the things that were discussed were horrifying

My aunt got a FEMA loan when she lost her house in an earthquake in 1989. Her stuff was rained on, then looted... the key word here is that the money she got was a *loan*, low interest as it may have been.

Yeah, rack up that credit card debt in addition to being displaced by natural disaster. :rolleyes:

[QUOTE=Dr.Jekyll&Mr.Hyde]From what I've read and heard there were warnings and predictions for a decade.[/QUOTE]
Absolutely. I noted this article because of how accurate this prediction was. Did you read the opening few paragraphs? I'll say it again: Yikes.

I didn't think I'd be saying this so soon, but I found gas for $2.97 a gallon close to home and I was happy.

[QUOTE=Smartazboy][URL=http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/chitribts/20050906/ts_chicagotrib/achildinchargeof6babies]A-fuckin-mazing.[/URL][/QUOTE]
Ok, This article.........God damn, people piss me off! Who would pick up seven children, drop them to safety and promise the parents to return to get them also and then doesn't. How the hell can someone not think to get the parents of these kids? How!!!!???? How can they just drop them and leave them to wander the streets, but not think to get the parents?

This whole mess, the lack of engeneered thought, the total disregard for human life and essentials just pisses me off. The officials can't understand why these victims resorted to animalistic behaviors? They can't understand that? Jesus Christ! They left them with nothing other than to live off natural instinct.

Morning rant time again...

[URL=http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8693]Ben Stein gives us a preview[/URL] of the political damage control that we should expect for the next few years as the Reps hope we have short memories and forget this fiasco by 2008.

Most of it is common sense crap that nobody with any sense is arguing anyway, like "George Bush did not cause the hurricane." No shit, Ben. But he makes some particularly laughable and logically backwards claims:

[QUOTE=Ben Stein]There is no overwhelming evidence that global warming exists as a man-made phenomenon. There is no clear-cut evidence that global warming even exists. There is no clear evidence that if it does exist it makes hurricanes more powerful or makes them aim at cities with large numbers of poor people. If global warming is a real phenomenon, which it may well be, it started long before George Bush was inaugurated, and would not have been affected at all by the Kyoto treaty, considering that Kyoto does not cover the world's worst polluters -- China, India, and Brazil. In a word, George Bush had zero to do with causing this hurricane. To speculate otherwise is belief in sorcery.[/QUOTE]
Bull-fucking-shit. The overwhelming majority of the scientific community agrees that it's happening, and that we're to blame.

Granted, Bush didn't cause global warming, but he's not doing nearly enough to promote the things we should be doing if we are to reverse it. If we're going to ignore the effect that the warmer water has upon feeding these storms, then things will only continue to get worse.

[QUOTE=Ben Stein]George Bush had nothing to do with the hurricane contingency plans for New Orleans. Those are drawn up by New Orleans and Louisiana. In any event, the plans were perfectly good: mandatory evacuation. It is in no way at all George Bush's fault that about 20 percent of New Orleans neglected to follow the plan. It is not his fault that many persons in New Orleans were too confused to realize how dangerous the hurricane would be. They were certainly warned. It's not George Bush's fault that there were sick people and old people and people without cars in New Orleans. His job description does not include making sure every adult in America has a car, is in good health, has good sense, and is mobile.[/QUOTE]
Again: no shit, Ben. It's the fact that he took FOUR DAYS to do anything that has people pissed. Local and State governments fucked up the days leading up to this, including their neglect in asking for federal aid prior to the hurricane. But after the ineptitude of those governing bodies became evident, it WAS his duty to step in IMMEDIATELY.

This is the fucking information age. There were people in the Navy who stocked up ships in anticipation of this, even though they weren't ordered to do so - they were literally waiting for a phone call. That's it. A few phone calls could have sent them in days earlier. There's no excuse for not picking up the phone, even if you're out on your ranch in Texas, even if you're on vacation.

[QUOTE=Ben Stein]George Bush did not cause gangsters to shoot at rescue helicopters taking people from rooftops, did not make gang bangers rape young girls in the Superdome, did not make looters steal hundreds of weapons, in short make New Orleans into a living hell.[/QUOTE]
Again: no shit, Ben. Nobody said Bush made these people act like assholes. What is clear is that he did not do everything in his power to swiftly take action to maintain some semblance of order. Had the mere illusion of authority been present, things would have gone differently.

[QUOTE=Ben Stein]George Bush is the least racist President in mind and soul there has ever been and this is shown in his appointments over and over. To say otherwise is scandalously untrue.[/QUOTE]
Sure. Bush loves minorities. After all, a minority elected him the first time around. (credit Dennis Miller on that one).

I believe everyone is racist in varying degrees, some clearly more than others. Bush is less of a racist than he is a class-ist. He consorts with, as he puts it, "the haves, and the have-mores." He is particularly callous on the issue of poverty, posessing no understanding, nor any desire to understand the plight of those who are trying to get out of poverty via any means other than illegal activities, athletic stardom, or music contracts.

His treatment of those in poverty in New Orleans exemplifies this class-ism. It IS the government's job to protect those who cannot protect themselves. Those who could protect themselves either got out of the city or fortified themselves in their homes. All levels of the government failed to help the rest - starting at the local levels. One look at a field of drowned school buses makes you scratch your head and wonder - did they really not have the resources to evacuate people?

But the fact that the locals screwed up doesn't excuse the slow response at the federal level. The federal level is our last resort, where we're supposed to have the most competent people available to make up for the failings at lower levels. They proved to be just as inept, and that makes our whole country look inept.

[QUOTE=Ben Stein]If the energy the news media puts into blaming Bush for an Act of God worsened by stupendous incompetence by the New Orleans city authorities and the malevolence of the criminals of the city were directed to helping the morale of the nation, we would all be a lot better off.[/QUOTE]
I couldn't disagree more. This nation needs a fucking wake-up call, not a morale booster. I generally despise the media, and I'll be first in line to blame them for distortions, generalizations, and sanitizing what's really going on down there. But in general, I applaud what the media has done over this past week. They've definitely toned down and sanitized some of the tragedy, but they did their job with respect to identifying a huge problem and bringing national focus upon it.

These excuses that keep coming down, this bullshit about how the reserves couldn't get in there and do anything, that it's too dangerous - fuck that. The media is in there, virtually defenseless, rode out the storm, and survived just fine. They aren't armed with anything but cameras.

You're telling me that the federal goverment doesn't have the foresight or the resources that the news media has to be on the scene and anticipate a disaster? Fuck, maybe we should let the media run the country then.

[QUOTE=Ben Stein]The entire episode is a dramatic lesson in the breathtaking callousness of government officials at the ground level. Imagine if Hillary Clinton had gotten her way and they were in charge of your health care.[/QUOTE]
I don't care for Hillary much, but I don't see what the fuck she has to do with any of this. Talk about hypocrisy - he whines for a whole article about the attacks on Bush being cheap shots from afar - and then adds this bullshit. Fuck off.

Well put, Jase. I just found [URL=http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3004197]this[/URL] article this morning -- stating the feds asked 1,000 firefighters to basically act as PR men and hand out flyers, while people needed help. I don't see federal help improving any time soon -- not on their own accord, at least.

[QUOTE=jase]Morning rant time again...
[URL=http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8693]Ben Stein gives us a preview[/URL] of the political damage control that we should expect for the next few years as the Reps hope we have short memories and forget this fiasco by 2008.
[/QUOTE]
What an ass. I agree that the "masses are asses" and all that shit. But who the fuck does he think he's talking to?!?! Anyone with the limited intelligence to find his article and the slightest interest in reading it has to understand that natural disasters are just that, NUTURAL. 8 fucking points out of his 12 are completely absurd. And the rest are entirely meaningless.
Fuck you, Ben Stein, for wasting my time. 3 minutes of my life I will never get back. Asshole!!

Someone should remove him from his home in Malibu or the one in Beverly Hills and drop him in some toxic New Orleans flood waters for a week. See if he changes his tune.

[URL=http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050908/ap_on_go_pr_wh/katrina_washington]More shopping sprees[/URL]

I hate how everytime he is replying to criticism, he has this fucking pathetic grin.

Oh wait, he always has that.

i think that whoever decided to build a city 15 feet below sea level RIGHT NEXT TO THE OCEAN is to blame for the mess, if anyone at all.

[QUOTE=big S]i think that whoever decided to build a city 15 feet below sea level RIGHT NEXT TO THE OCEAN is to blame for the mess, if anyone at all.[/QUOTE]
well actually the oldest parts of the city are actually on higher ground then the rest of the city. also the city has been sinking for the last 200 years.

what needs to happen if that they need to rebuild it so that it is above sea level. this has been in major cityies before such as chicago after the fire and seatle (where you can actually tour the old city underground).

[QUOTE=big S]i think that whoever decided to build a city 15 feet below sea level RIGHT NEXT TO THE OCEAN is to blame for the mess, if anyone at all.[/QUOTE]
that's half the reason i don't have much sympathy for the people. if you live in a desert and it's august and you die of heatstroke, i don't care much either. however, i do expect someone to come clean up your body and make sure your kids aren't running around, forming their own little governments while stealing guns and supplies, ya know?

[URL=http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001055768]FEMA blocked photos of dead[/URL]
I can understand resticted them to not show faces or names before family is consented. but there's few pictures out there right now that don't have bodies in them because they're everywhere.

[QUOTE=mr_hash]well actually the oldest parts of the city are actually on higher ground then the rest of the city. also the city has been sinking for the last 200 years.

what needs to happen if that they need to rebuild it so that it is above sea level. this has been in major cityies before such as chicago after the fire and seatle (where you can actually tour the old city underground).[/QUOTE]
Tour the city underground? WOW!!! I want to tour the underground city. It'd be like that episode of Futurama when Fry and Lela and Bender went under New New York to Old New York!

Mike Brown, FEMA Director, just had his head lobbed off, figuratively speaking. SOMEONE under Bush has to be blamed... No shocker there.

admeral thad allen will be taking over the katrina releif efforts. thank god cause "brownie" has just been fucking this shit up for too long.

you knew he was going to be canned, i just hope prosecution weeds out everything that went wrong and it all doesn't get thrown on this asshole's back--there's a lot of people to blame for the shit that happened.

he's still being retained as the head of FEMA he's just not in charge of anything happening with katrina. the guy should just resign already.

why would he resign? in the words of bush, "what didn't go right?"

[QUOTE=big S]i think that whoever decided to build a city 15 feet below sea level RIGHT NEXT TO THE OCEAN is to blame for the mess, if anyone at all.[/QUOTE]
well you can't have a isolated port for all the goods that are delivered in gulf without some labor work, and population, now can you?

[QUOTE=alex cassun]why would he resign? in the words of bush, "what didn't go right?"[/QUOTE]

IF he'll take the fall, he'll be "promised" something good, career-wise. If he doesn't, well, John Dean (circa '74) is doing all right these days, but still... You know, for those that remember Dean, that is.

further proof that [url=http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/k.html]get your war on[/url] is the greatest funny thing ever.

so in his speech Bush actually took responsibility and also said that racism played a role in poverty. and plans to spend about 200 billion rebuilding the area.

Don't be surprised if the rate of [URL=http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=topNews&summit=AutosSummit05&storyid=2005-09-22T180558Z_01_SPI252271_RTRUKOC_0_US-KATRINA-CRIME.xml]sex crimes[/URL] increases a bit.