09-02-2005, 12:39 PM | #41 | |
An enigma in a conundrum
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Indeed. I am working on that. Thanks.
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09-02-2005, 12:41 PM | #42 | |
An enigma in a conundrum
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Vizzini: "HE DIDN'T FALL?! INCONCEIVABLE!!" Inigo: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." |
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09-02-2005, 12:42 PM | #43 |
Elf Lord
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Don't feel too badly; we've all put our feet in our mouths at times . I am very, very strongly opposed to the massive waves of guilt and misery that can follow such mistakes.
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09-02-2005, 12:48 PM | #44 | |
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09-02-2005, 01:18 PM | #45 |
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Back on topic please guys .
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09-02-2005, 01:28 PM | #46 | |
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09-02-2005, 01:33 PM | #47 | |
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You GO, girl!! You ROCK!! GOOD for you!! Slam the door in the face of those greedy bullies!!
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09-02-2005, 01:40 PM | #48 |
Elf Lord
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That's a cool story .
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
09-02-2005, 07:37 PM | #49 |
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Grieve and then get outraged
I can't understand why it's taking so long to help those people. This storm hit on Monday, and it seems that serious aid is not starting to arrive until today. It's incompetence on a frightening scale. Remember, FEMA is also the agency that's supposed to deal with terrorist attacks. If they couldn't adequately respond to a disaster that was predicted for years and to which they had several days' warning, how is our nation possibly prepared for a surprise nuclear attack on one of our cities? They've had four years to work out the kinks in the system!
Hurricane Katrina is a tragedy that no human could have stopped. The botched rescue and relief operation, however, is a second tragedy that is entirely of our own making. Don't get me wrong - the individual police officers and rescue workers have been doing a superhuman job, but they have been acting without much coordination and without enough backup. Even President Bush has admitted that the situation has been so far "unacceptable." Unacceptable? Try appalling, ineffective, sickening, un-American. Some government officials have insinuated that the residents who are trapped are there on their own volition. That's an inane and deeply troubling sentiment. Only people with cars could evacuate. New Orleans has a 23% poverty rate; poor people don't have cars and have to rely on public transportation. They were largely shepherded into the Superdome without much thought or left to their own devices. Where was the National Guard when hundreds of thousands of people lacked transportation to evacuate? Where were the buses and boats and cars and military vehicles? The government could've gotten many more of those people out beforehand. You always have the stubborn types who insist on riding out storms, and those who couldn't bear to leave their possessions, but the vast majority simply had no way to get out without government help. How did anyone expect them to comply with the evacuation order? No one should be left behind on account of economic status or education level. We sent aid to tsunami victims halfway across the globe very quickly. Somehow, it's been 5 days and we still don't have the situation in our own country even remotely under control. The blame doesn't belong to other nations - countries and groups all over the world including the UK, Germany, Japan, NATO, and even Sri Lanka (still recovering from the tsunami) have donated or pledged aid. Let's not use this occasion to criticize our foreign aid operations or allies. I've had a lot of problems with the news media recently, but they've done an outstanding job in covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I can't fathom how camera crews have been able to get to the Superdome for days, and yet food and supplies were unable to arrive. Relief is (maybe) starting in earnest now, but there's still many trapped in New Orleans. Someone (the president? the head of FEMA? head of homeland security?) just has to take charge and get the supplies and transportation needed for these people. If CNN can get there, so can rescuers.
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09-02-2005, 08:21 PM | #50 | |
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09-02-2005, 10:29 PM | #51 |
An enigma in a conundrum
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The Tsunami victims didn't get their aid in 5 days.
The president isn't Kreskin and couldn't know exactly what would be needed and where. Assets could not be put in harms way and had to wait until the storm passed and then assembled. P.S. The city and state should have had an emergency plan in place to blend with the federal help but it seems they didn't. They just sat in a city built below sea level for years and laughed off natures attempts to wipe them off the map. This time around nature won. The improvements needed could have been in place if they had taken the threat seriously all these years.
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09-02-2005, 10:32 PM | #52 |
An enigma in a conundrum
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Great News About Fats Domino
I realize there are few of us on this board who grew up with this mans music but he is a legend and so this story.
September 02, 2005 7:46 PM EDT BATON ROUGE, La. - Fats Domino and his family spent two days with Louisiana State University's quarterback after being rescued from the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina, then moved on. "I'm not sure where they are headed, but I just feel better knowing that they are OK," an LSU news release quoted quarterback JaMarcus Russell as saying. The 77-year-old R&B singer and his family are friends with the family of Russell's girlfriend, sports information director Michael Bonnette said. "It was kind of a friend of a friend thing," Bonnette said. Domino apparently was rescued by boat on Monday. After that, Bonnette said, he was brought to the Superdome, where he eventually was put on a bus to an evacuee triage center in LSU's basketball arena. Domino, who had checked in under his given name of Antoine Domino, was reunited there with his family. Then he, his family and a dozen other people from New Orleans went to Russell's apartment just off the LSU campus. Russell was on the lookout for them and finally made contact with them Wednesday night, Bonnette said. The news release quoted Domino as thanking Russell and saying, "Tell the people of New Orleans that I'm safe. I wish I was able to still be there with them, but I hope to see them soon." The quarterback told Bonnette that, all told, about 20 people had been staying in the two-bedroom apartment. Russell said he had spent most of the two days helping them with errands that included grocery trips and a 2 a.m. pharmacy run to get medicine for Domino. Domino and the others had no set destination when they left, Bonnette said.
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09-02-2005, 11:35 PM | #53 | |
Queen of Nargothrond
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I have to agree with Spock. The state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans bears a good part of the responsibility and the blame for not being better prepared and ignoring warnings 3 years back that told them the levies were incapable of withstanding anything greater then a catagory 3 hurricane. Considering the area they are in, and below sea level, they failed in their own abilities to protect themselves. Not everything is the fault, or resposibility of the federal government.
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Everyone would like to snap their fingers and all this misery go away. Not that easy. Btw Ben, the storm hit on Monday. The levies broke on Tuesday, so it has actually been three day, not five.
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09-02-2005, 11:44 PM | #54 |
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I'm with SGH and Spock on this one. I think most of the blame lies squarely on New Orlean's shoulders.
That doesn't make it any less sad, of course, but I don't feel there's much blame to actually be placed on the government/president's shoulders. |
09-03-2005, 02:20 AM | #55 | ||
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I believe it's a head-in-sand, close-your-eyes mentality to think that the federal relief and preparation efforts have gone as well as they could have. A quick check of your favorite news outlet, from FOX to CNN to ABC, has shown images of people without food, without adequate shelter, without working bathrooms, of riots. Of course the problem can't be solved by the snap of a finger, but that doesn't mean that serious mistakes were not made. Why has aid taken so long in the richest, most powerful country in the world? It's mind-boggling.
Again, the hurricane itself was no one's fault. Of course I don't blame President Bush or Governor Blanco or Mayor Nagin or any other human being for this force of nature. However, I think it's a little strange to argue that President Bush and his administration bear no blame for the chaos in New Orleans. I don't think they're the sole culprit, but from what I've read, the federal government has been asleep at the wheel. Here are some specific problems I have with Bush's personal handling of the disaster. Can anyone honestly tell me this is the proper way for the president to behave?
Does that sound like a leader? Does this sound like the guy who rallied the nation after 9/11? Does anyone think that this man famous for his resolve in the face of national disaster has been doing anything of the sort for the hurricane? I don't like many of Bush's policies, but he's still the president of the United States. I expect him to be out there, well, leading! I know he can't pull a rabbit out of his hat, but the president and his crack team of advisors shold have been on the problem from the very beginning. Where was the urgency? Please, Tessar, or anyone. Please explain how Bush has done a good job on leading the nation through what is possibly the most devastating catastrophe to befall the nation under his watch. The country re-elected him because of his strong leadership skills. I'm a little confused on what you guys mean with your Bush defense. Are you saying that he's done a good job this week or that the president doesn't need to lead the nation through one of the worst disasters in decades? Mike Parker, former head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that handles the infrastructure of the nation's waterways, and a former Republican congressman, said that if flood-control efforts had been fully funded by the administration, "Levees would have been higher, levees would have been bigger, there would have been other pumps put in Here are the specific problems I have with the Bush administration's policies and relief efforts regarding the hurricane in New Orleans. (Keep in mind that FEMA said in 2001 that a hurricane hitting New Orleans was one of the top three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters, along with a terrorist attack on NYC):
Why were these projects not funded? I don't know. Maybe they thought they were getting rid of pork. Maybe it was to pay for Iraq. The Bush administration has had notice since 2001 that a hurricane in New Orleans was likely and catastrophic, and yet they've been cutting up budgets. All I know is, policies have consequences. Grover Norquist, a top Republican strategist, famously wants to cut government down to the size where it can "drown in a bathtub." If the government goes down the drain, a lot of other people can drown too. Now, I'm not entirely clear on how disaster management is divided between the feds, states and cities. I was under the impression that the federal government, and especially FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) took the lead in these cases because I remember hearing about them in other natural disasters. Why else would people care about President Bush's terrorism prevention programs if the federal government didn't have a heavy say in preparation and relief efforts for disasters? I mean, disasters all happen in individual states and cities. Spock, Tessar, and SGH seem to think New Orleans bears much of the blame. Where did you read this? I mean, I've been following this pretty carefully and I haven't read how New Orleans made a wrong choice in terms of funding their hurricane buffers. Tessar - please point me to data to back up for your claims, and then we can see how the federal government and the city government stack up using actual numbers and budgets. Here's the lead editorial of the Washington Times from 9/2. Keep in mind that the Washington Times ed board is as conservative and Republican as you can get: Quote:
Personally, I think there should be a bipartisan congressional inquiry into the preparedness and response to Katrina, as some Republicans and Democrats have suggested. If officials and agencies didn't have their act together, I want to know who specifically cut the needed funds and who didn't have a plan. I don't care if it's Democratic Mayor Nagin or Republican President Bush, or the entire Democratic Party - whoever sold the city of New Orleans short should have to answer for themselves. If it turns out Democrats bear most of the blame for the botched operations, I'll excoriate them. I promise. We just need to know what went wrong with our response. Quote:
More tomorrow.
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09-03-2005, 09:37 AM | #56 |
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Also, the FEMA director did not know about the convention center until yesterday, even though it was on TV all week on all the networks.
I read today that most nursing homes were forgotten about and not evacuated or rescured. Condi Rice was spotted going to Spamalot on Tuesday.
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09-03-2005, 10:44 AM | #57 |
An enigma in a conundrum
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Bm, you've obviously got a bias that fact and statement cannot change and so I shall not even try.
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09-03-2005, 11:27 AM | #58 |
Quasi Evil
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Fact? Ha Id say you guys pretty much handed him a softball and he rightfully blasted it out of the park. To blame the city of New Orleans for all this? Come on... The federal response has been a joke. Even they admit that. We had people on the ground in south east asia after the Tsunami in 24 HOURS and we cant do that here? Frighteningly embarrassing. People are dieing in an american city like something out of some third world african refugee camp for gods sake. Maybe we should have asked the UN for help since we couldnt handle it?
But Im willing to give Bush some leeway on this. Killer hurricanes dont hit New Orleans that often and he had his focus in other places (although it IS almost criminal that some of those funds that could have gone to the leeve building actually went to pay for tax cuts for the rich...). But hindsight is 20/20. Unfortunately for him we DID get a killer hurricane that hit New Orleans and now he has serious egg in his face for cutting funding to what may have been termed "pork" a month ago but now is clearly priorty one stuff. If the response had been quicker and better you could explain away the fund cutting. But of course now this is going to plague him and you will hear plenty of shouts about the current administration not caring about a "poor black sinful" city. Its already started in fact. I dont really believe thats true myself but hes sure doing a good job making it look that way. Now if only we could put as much energy into really helping people that need it as we do in assigning blame...
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Last edited by Insidious Rex : 09-03-2005 at 11:28 AM. |
09-03-2005, 12:21 PM | #59 | |||||||||
Elf Lord
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There probably was some incompetence in people thinking it just "wasn't going to happen," when the scenario was being examined. I don't know how much of that goes right up to the high levels of the Bush Administration, and how much was, again, "local bureaucracy". Quote:
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In my opinion, the scenario was not considered likely. There were some serious mistakes made, though like you, bmilder, I don't know how much to point at the federal government and how much to point at the bureaucracy. I will briefly point something out, however. An important point, in my opinion. The National Geographic movie "Cyclone" was released in the year 1995, during Clinton's presidency. It outlined a scenario precisely like what has actually occurred. It said that a hurricane of the level of Andrew would overrun inadequate levies and swamp New Orleans, if it hit that area. It's been reported on the news that the surge of the water that was occurring because of Katrina's winds did mean it made landfall with the force of a category 5 hurricane. The movie I watched graphically showed animation of water near the rooftops of some buildings and described the death trap that New Orleans could become for many thousands of people. That National Geographic presentation has been constantly in my mind during this catastrophe, because what has actually happened is exactly the "nightmare scenario" that the film portrayed. This warning was made during Clinton's presidency. The problem was not started with the Bush Administration, but is embedded in the city itself. Of course you can argue that the Bush Administration added to the problem, but it cannot be argued that it is "primarily responsible," or "grossly negligent," in any way that previous governments weren't. This needs to be kept in mind as blame is assigned. Quote:
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 09-03-2005 at 03:50 PM. |
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09-03-2005, 01:29 PM | #60 |
Queen of Nargothrond
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I think another thing we need to remember in what resulted in such a slow respons also, was after the hurricane hit New Orleans, it was reported and thought that they had "dodged a bullet". Also, after the levies broke, there was only one way in and one way out, and that was by air.
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