I'm Tired Of These Ungrateful Hurricane Victims

[Tanker]

You know what people are forgetting? OK they are not forgetting they are
actually ignoring the fact. Blanco and Nagin BOTH tested the emergency
evacuation plan of NOLA and found that it failed. WHY??? Because they could
not get all the bus drivers to get their buses rolling. Guess what folks?
They didn't do it this time either. And the sheer fact that if President
Bush ordered the forced evacuation of an American city would like someone
else has said be tantamount to federal martial law and the failure of Posse
Comitadus...As for the Navy...Do you read? Do you actually listen to the
news? The Iwo Jima was on station in 83 hrs. The Truman was on station in 65
hrs. Yes it took them sometime as they were in the ATLANTIC!!

BTW, did you know that the LA National Guard activated itself? Yes! Because
Blanco was sitting on her ass with her thumb buried deep in it! Don't you
find it the least bit funny that after Bush told Nagin he sould have ordered
the manditory evacuation of the city that Nagin orders it evacuated 24hrs
after his meeting with the President? Nagin still couldn't come to terms
with ordering people to leave!!!! And Nagin's original mandatory evacuation
wasn't even manditory because 300,000 still remained....where were the city
and school buses that NOLA's emergency evacuation plans call for to help the
removal of the cities poor? NO WHERE except under water!!

What about the nursing home staffers that fled leaving patients in beds? Did
you know that the VA Hospitals were the only agency that took the warning of
the President the day before land fall and moved its people to safety
patients and all.....My final thought to you is READ THE CONSTITUTION. And
please don't tell me you have. Because then I would tell you that you missed
the little part about the Federal Government meddling in state affairs.


Tanker
--

 

[Bill Sornson]

You know what people are forgetting? OK they are not forgetting they
are actually ignoring the fact. Blanco and Nagin BOTH tested the
emergency evacuation plan of NOLA and found that it failed. WHY???
Because they could not get all the bus drivers to get their buses
rolling. Guess what folks? They didn't do it this time either.

Funny, they always seemed to get 'em rolling on election days.

And the sheer fact that if President Bush ordered the forced evacuation
of an American city would like someone else has said be tantamount to
federal martial law and the failure of Posse Comitadus...As for the
Navy...Do you read? Do you actually listen to the news? The Iwo Jima
was on station in 83 hrs. The Truman was on station in 65 hrs. Yes it
took them sometime as they were in the ATLANTIC!!
BTW, did you know that the LA National Guard activated itself? Yes!
Because Blanco was sitting on her ass with her thumb buried deep in
it! Don't you find it the least bit funny that after Bush told Nagin
he sould have ordered the manditory evacuation of the city that Nagin
orders it evacuated 24hrs after his meeting with the President? Nagin
still couldn't come to terms with ordering people to leave!!!! And
Nagin's original mandatory evacuation wasn't even manditory because
300,000 still remained....where were the city and school buses that
NOLA's emergency evacuation plans call for to help the removal of the
cities poor? NO WHERE except under water!!

He demanded Greyhound buses, while his own municipal and school buses went
unused.

What about the nursing home staffers that fled leaving patients in
beds? Did you know that the VA Hospitals were the only agency that
took the warning of the President the day before land fall and moved
its people to safety patients and all.....My final thought to you is
READ THE CONSTITUTION. And please don't tell me you have. Because
then I would tell you that you missed the little part about the
Federal Government meddling in state affairs.

Nancy Pelosi, after accusing a CNN anchor of being on the White House's
payroll because she DARED to ask about her own record re. funding NOLA and
votes re. FEMA/HLS, then tried to imply that Bush was responsible for that
nursing home tragedy, too. Sadly, by then the anchor was sucking up to her,
so she didn't call her on it.

 

[Mark Hickey]

But Chertoff's Sept. 1 statement ignored the administration's own homeland
security response plan, which directed the federal government to act on its
own authority to quickly provide assistance and conduct emergency operations
following a major catastrophe, pre-empting state and local authorities if
necessary. According to DHS' December 2004 National Response Plan (NRP),
"catastrophic events," such as what occurred in New Orleans, call for
heightened and "proactive" federal involvement to manage the disaster. The
response plan listed "guiding principles" to govern the response to these
major events. The "Guiding Principles for Proactive Federal Response" make
clear that, in these "catastrophic" cases, the federal government will
operate independently to provide assistance, rather than simply supporting
or cajoling state authorities:

<snip>

One of the best articles I've read on the complicated and (obviously)
misunderstood situation was from (believe it or not) the New York
Times. They discuss in detail why the US government couldn't
realistically charge in over the objections of the LA governor, a
tactic last used in the civil rights era and before that, in the Civil
War.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/09/n...38795-dGCl9WlaN8lbkCHBy9hw2w&pagewanted=print

Can you even IMAGINE the uproar had Bush sent military into New
Orleans over the objection of governor Blanco?

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame

 

[Bill Sornson]

One of the best articles I've read on the complicated and (obviously)
misunderstood situation was from (believe it or not) the New York
Times. They discuss in detail why the US government couldn't
realistically charge in over the objections of the LA governor, a
tactic last used in the civil rights era and before that, in the Civil
War.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/09/n...38795-dGCl9WlaN8lbkCHBy9hw2w&pagewanted=print

Can you even IMAGINE the uproar had Bush sent military into New
Orleans over the objection of governor Blanco?

Mark, stop it! You MUST mean he considered the political fallout before
acting then! {Sarcams Mode Activated}

Bill "now you'll probably stop talking to me, too" S.

 

[Petal and Leif]

Note that I said "unprecedented". Meaning -- without PRECEDENT. Nothing
like Katrina, inundating an entire city like New Orleans has EVER happened
on our shores before.

Watch the same Discovery Channel long enough and you'll see a PREDICTION
that a major earthquake will kill thousands of people in Southern
California. It HAS been predicted. It HAS NOT happened. Therefore, it
is NOT unpredicted, but it IS unprecedented.

I sense that we're divided by a common language by your sentence structure
and your spelling of "programme". My statement was accurate, as was
yours.

Ahhh.... sorry. I see there was a language problem here. Not only have I a
slight bit of dyslectia, and in adition, my mother language is norwegian.
Sorry.
Thanks for a good explanation.

Leif

 

[Paul Turner]

One of the best articles I've read on the complicated and (obviously)
misunderstood situation was from (believe it or not) the New York
Times. They discuss in detail why the US government couldn't
realistically charge in over the objections of the LA governor, a
tactic last used in the civil rights era and before that, in the Civil
War.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/09/n...38795-dGCl9WlaN8lbkCHBy9hw2w&pagewanted=print

Can you even IMAGINE the uproar had Bush sent military into New
Orleans over the objection of governor Blanco?

Funny, I thought the NYT article was full of doubletalk. I read it several
times and could not make sense of what the anonymous sources the reporters
quoted were trying to say.

It is absolutely clear, both from that story and from others, that
Governor Blanco asked that the military be sent. The story says she asked
for federal troops on Monday and then asked for 40,000 troops on
Wednesday, August 31. Moreover, the story says that the Justice Department
concluded that troops could be sent even if the state had objected: "On
the issue of whether the military could be deployed without the invitation
of state officials, the Office of Legal Counsel, the unit within the
Justice Department that provides legal advice to federal agencies,
concluded that the federal government had authority to move in even over
the objection of local officials."

What the story claims the Bush administration thought Gov. Blanco would
object to was being asked to yield her command of the Louisiana National
Guard. That's interesting, and I don't know if she should have done that,
but neither this story nor any other explains why that has anything to do
with deploying troops. The key is allegedly the Insurrection Act, but that
seems completely irrelevant. The Insurrection Act (10 USC sec. 331) says:
"Whenever there is an insurrections in any State against its government,
the President may, upon the request of its legislature or of its governor
if the legislature cannot be convened ... use such of the armed forces, as
he considers necessary to suppress the insurrection." It just says the
governor has to request troops; it doesn't say she has to give up command
of the National Guard.

So the story sounds like the anonymous sources are trying to use a red
herring to confuse the reporters, implying that because Gov. Blanco would
not do one thing -- turn the Louisiana National Guard over to the federal
government -- the Bush team could not do something completely different:
send troops. It would be clearer, of course, if an actual spokesman would
explain this for the record. The anonymous sources for this story sound an
awful lot like the anonymous source who earlier told the Washington Post
that the federal response was delayed because Gov. Blanco failed to
declare a state of emergency until after Katrina hit, a story the Post had
to retract since the declaration came August 26.

In sum, I don't think it was a very good story at all. The reporters
needed to ask some questions, not just act as conduits for administration
leaks.

 

[Kurt Ullman]

Heck you watch the Discovery Channel long enough and you'll see
a show about major flooding in Las Vegas and a drought in the Amazon
Rain Forests (g).

 

[Mark Hickey]

In sum, I don't think it was a very good story at all. The reporters
needed to ask some questions, not just act as conduits for administration
leaks.

Oh yeah, the New York Times is infamous for going out of their way to
protect the Bush administration.... (rolls eyes)

The synopsis of the article is "should Bush have employed the
Insurrection Act to restore order to Louisiana's bad management of the
National Guard?". They did a reasonably good job of explaining why it
was considered, and why that option wasn't used.

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

 

[Petal and Leif]

Heck you watch the Discovery Channel long enough and you'll see
a show about major flooding in Las Vegas and a drought in the Amazon
Rain Forests (g).

Well, what they were talking about were true though.... and many lives has
been lost because of lack of action before and during the hurricane. So to
me, there is nothing wrong with what they predicted could happen in New
Orleans.
But you don`t really care, do you?


Leif

 

[Mark Hickey]

Heck you watch the Discovery Channel long enough and you'll see
a show about major flooding in Las Vegas and a drought in the Amazon
Rain Forests (g).

And the eruption of a super volcano in Yellowstone that will kill
millions and essentially wipe out the US economy for years if not
decades. I think there's one about an asteroid hit that'll wipe out
virtually all human life as well (but that should reduce the number of
cars, so those of us who are left should have some great cycling until
the roads crumble). ;-)

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame

 

[Petal and Leif]

And the eruption of a super volcano in Yellowstone that will kill
millions and essentially wipe out the US economy for years if not
decades. I think there's one about an asteroid hit that'll wipe out
virtually all human life as well (but that should reduce the number of
cars, so those of us who are left should have some great cycling until
the roads crumble). ;-)

I think most of us understand that it is more likely that a category 5
hurricane one day eventually would hit the city of New Orleans, than an
asteroid hit our planet. Don`t pretend to be more stupid than what you are.
We know New Orleans is under the water surface, we know it is in the region
that is hit by hurricanes. We know that dikes could break and kill a lot of
people and make a great damage.

I think it is crazy and very very irrisponsible if people look at it the way
you do, like comparing that to an asteroid could hit the earth.


LA

 

[Bill Sornson]

I think most of us understand that it is more likely that a category
5 hurricane one day eventually would hit the city of New Orleans,
than an asteroid hit our planet. Don`t pretend to be more stupid than
what you are.

INVECTIVE! INVECTIVE!

 

[Stephen Harding]

I think most of us understand that it is more likely that a category 5
hurricane one day eventually would hit the city of New Orleans, than an
asteroid hit our planet. Don`t pretend to be more stupid than what you are.
We know New Orleans is under the water surface, we know it is in the region
that is hit by hurricanes. We know that dikes could break and kill a lot of
people and make a great damage.

I think it is crazy and very very irrisponsible if people look at it the way
you do, like comparing that to an asteroid could hit the earth.

And more likely severe flooding of the Mississippi or Ohio Rivers some
spring, a winter storm or just a hot summer over-taxing an already
over-burdened electrical service grid, a Pacific mudslide, hurricanes
in Florida or the SE, and on and on it goes.

Over course we do know Yellowstone is due for a "big one" as is the
San Andreas fault, and an asteroid hit isn't just a supposition but
a future fact.

Everyone plays the odds and when you combine it with a host of other
issues requiring money, you often get away with demoting even Cat 5
hurricane hits on a canal/levee system designed only for Cat 3.

Only after the fact are the geniuses around to tell us the folly of
our ways, and how "obvious" things were.


SMH

 

[Petal and Leif]

Only after the fact are the geniuses around to tell us the folly of
our ways, and how "obvious" things were.

Well, to me you dont have to be a genius to understand that it is wise to
be well prepared for the effects of a category 5 hurricane on the coasts of
Florida and the Golf of Mexico. Before or after this one...
Don`t be surprised if it happen again.


LA

 

[tr2267]

Ah, because he legally couldn't, with the exception of the
California trip.

Bullshit. Every single thing I mentioned Bush could legally do. Let's look
at them one by one.

Legal for president to do? It is preposterous to suggest Bush cannot get on
national TV. And it was already the federal government's responsibility when
the disaster was legally declared an "Incident of National Significance".

Legal for president to do? Again it is preposterous to suggest otherwise.

Legal for president to do? Obviously.

Legal for president to do? Obviously.

Legal for president to do? Obviously.

Legal for president to do? Definitely. The president has _always_ had
the authority to send troops anywhere in the country. Back in 1957
for example Eisenhower used the Alabama national guard to protect
schoolchildren. And the declaration that the disaster was an "incidence
of NATIONAL significance" explicitly game FEMA and the president the
responsibility and authority.

Legal for president to do? Obviously.

 

[tr2267]

Because if he'd done any or all of the above things, extremists of all
stripes would be waxing poetic and using words like Gestapo, Storm Troops,
Jackboots, and Federal usurpation of state and local authority.

On the contrary, everybody would be praising him for his leadership including
the Lousiana governor (who urgently requested help) and New Orleans mayor
(who urgently requested help). Are we seriously to believe the same
president who sent troops uninvited to Iraq was afraid to send troops to
New Orleans, or was the more likely answer that Bush was clueless and just
didn't get it when he went to California instead? And are we seriously to
believe people would object to Bush going on national TV to talk about
the disaster, or ask for the help of cities and towns and corporate CEO's,
or act as commander in chief of the armed forces?

Katrina, like 9/11, was unprecedented in our nation's history. There was a
"failure of imagination" in even comprehending that either could take place
on our soil. The responses you've suggested, while certainly appropriate in
hindsight, were also unprecedented, and similarly unimagined. You've vastly

Any intelligent person could have "imagined" these responses and more.
It was already clear on Tuesday that a major US city would have to be
evacuated and this would create up to a million American refugees. Wasn't
there anybody at all in Bush's plastic bubble full of yes-men who were
capable of understanding the big picture?

overestimated the agility of ANY Governmental agency in responding to ANY
crisis. It takes seven people in any Government organization to do the job
one person could do in the private sector,

This is total bullshit. It depends completely on who the individuals are
and what the mission is. Depending on the situation and individuals it
might take seven people in the private sector to do the job of one person
in the public sector (like invading Iraq). I'll admit though that
the _current_ government under Bush is much less competent than under
previous presidents.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
ttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090802165.html

Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their
posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an
agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically
since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

What has been going on in the US is that almost every government agency has
been purged of experienced career professionals who were replaced by
incompetent personal Bush cronies and partisan political commissars. The CIA
for example has been fucked up by Bush even more than FEMA has. The state
department and many other agencies has suffered the same loss of
competence with experienced professionals replaced by incompetent cronies
and political commissars almost like Stalin's government in 1941.

 

[Petal and Leif]

OK folks, many of us think Bush failed.
I am waiting with exitement to see who will get the contracts of rebuilding
this.
Will it be his.... friends?
Some companies that has contributed to his campaign?
Some former friends that has leadership in companies?
Will Halliburton or one of their undercompanies get any contracts?
If it was possible, I would bet you all a round of beer if I was wrong.
Would you bet against?


LA

 

[Bill Sornson]

On the contrary, everybody would be praising him for his leadership
including the Lousiana governor (who urgently requested help) and New
Orleans mayor (who urgently requested help).

What world do you live in???

 

[Mark Hickey]

INVECTIVE! INVECTIVE!

Some people DO get their knickers all in a knot awfully easy. Imagine
a statement like the above being made over me supplementing a list of
"disaster shows" on Discovery Channel... especially when I had posted
probably 10 comments about how certain an eventual direct hit on NO by
a Cat 4-5 hurricane was...

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame

 

[Mark Hickey]

What world do you live in???

Apparently the one where all local construction is run by the US
government... (a scary world, huh?)

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame