Bush did his job before the weekend, it was up to the governor and mayor from there on ... they refused to listen to him and his aids .. so goes life. 72 hours to evacuate New Orleans ... they waited until Sunday and forgot about all the poor people that had no trans ...
Agreed after the fact more should have been done, thats a given .. and yep the buck stops with the president regardless of who really is to blaim ... but guess what, Bush aint going nowhere until next election so everyone needs to chill ;-)
Re: Welfare, I have to agree, here in this country we pay taxes even though not directly like yall, but trust me we pay alot of tax, but we get no government assistance at all, basically if you dont work, you starve and die. ... here that is.
Just this weekend our power was off basically all weekend, the whole island, this is the capital city in the bahamas, and it was totally in blackout for 2 days. But we are used to it ...no power and no gov help is the norm here ..
Ive been to the US and know what oportunity there is, if you are willing to work for it .. i did 15 hour days no days off and made tons of money ..but i worked for it. i had the choice every day to work or not to, i chose work and making money over staying at home and being poor .. I went from bus boy and cleaning dishes to waiter and then bartender, all due to never saying no to work from the owners of a couple different restaurant / bars. I worked when (yes) americans turned down work, I would work lunches as a waiter, bus boy, and dishwasher when noone else turned up for work, and worked by myself with a manager on duty, covering at times a hundred+ tables in one shift.
Trust me, here in this country it is totally different, average wage is $175, gas is $4.50 all the time (and rising), food is triple the most expensive place in the US ... and we get no assist from the gov at all ....
I hate it when I see people in the US complain when they just dont know how good they got it, even the so called poor.
Isn't it funny how the mayor of New Orleans just bought a home in Dallas and enrolled his kids in school there? Guess he quit like the majority of the N.O. government employees. The rest of the country has to deal with the drain on the economy caused by the residents of New Orleans because this 2 bit shitbag, and his cronies have given up.
The Govenor delayed over 24 hours AFTER the levee broke to call in the national guard
The Red Cross and FEMA were nopt allowed to come in even tho they were available immediately after the hurricane hit
FEMA came in sooner than hurricane Hugo and Andrew (3 days vs 5) but then that was during Clinton's term....
This speaks for itself, it's the mayor's motor pool
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The buses that did run did nothing but take people to the Superdome and we know what happened there, smart move. What you are seeing now is all politics on the left trying to keep whats left of their shrinking voter base, they can't condemn each other so they go for Bush.
Do you see rioting/looting in Mississippi? Alabama? hmmm wonder what the difference was....wait I know! The govenors of THOSE states didn't waste time figuring out how to politicize the situation and immediately called in the feds...
FEMA is a 2500 person government organization that totally relies on state and local governments to send aid, they are not 1st response, have no heavy equipment and is mostly volunteer work, they can't just come in and do whatever they want (by law) and it is up to the Govenor of the state affected to call them in and even after that they MUST rely on state and local governments to tell them where the aid/money must go. In the end it doesn't matter how you "fix" FEMA it all depends on state and local government and in this case they were at fault not FEMA
The REAL failure here is the welfare state has pretty much removed any independent ability by the poor and causing them to rely totally on whatever the state and local government allows them to do.
"WASHINGTON - Mike Brown, the subject of blistering criticism after Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast and overwhelmed the government's response, quit Monday as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency..."
"White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the White House did not seek Brown's resignation..."
"His resignation came three days after he was sent back to headquarters from the Gulf area, where he had been the government's disaster point-man..."
I love how Brown's resignation wasn't "sought" though Bush did tell him to go home and let the military handle things for a while.
The replacement, Dave Paulison is experienced in disaster relief. He's also a really nice guy.
Welcome to Louisiana, its been that way for decades and I doubt this changes anything, strange thing about disasters is in many cases it improves the economy by the rebuilding effort.
Its a major payola town too. You can buy anything.
I went there once and won't ever go back. I hated it. Reminded me of a carnival...not the fun kind..the kind with sleazy toothless ride operators that pick your pocket while you're trying to have fun. We took a carriage ride and got kidnapped to a time-share hotel tour. I had to threathen the "guide" to let us leave. I told him I'd throw him out the window if they didn't show us the way out of the building.
Aside from the human tragedies here, IMO that town needs a good flushing. How stupid will it be to rebuild a city below sea level. Built a new seaport and move the town to higher ground...that's my opinion.
I was listening to an interesting program today on CKNW. One of their reporters actually toured the affected areas and came back with a couple of rather interesting observations.
Apparently it was quite well known that several of the levees and dikes needed work because they were in poor shape but for some reason the local Government couldn't find the where-with-all to address the situation. A few million dollars to shore them up may have drastically reduced the damage. Richmond (a city just south of Vancouver) is currently reviewing their dike infrastructure and disaster preparedness. It took a "gal" by the name of "Katrina" to wake us all up.
Phillip Till (the CKNW reporter) also mentioned seeing some boarded up windows on a house supposedly "prepared" for the storm. It listed the names of the three preceding hurricanes on one sheet of plywood with big lines through each (a "score card"). It also listed "Katrina", but no one's going to be "coming home" to cross her off. They found the bodies of the residents inside. He stated (and I agree) that most of us tend to always think that "bad stuff" happens to "other people" or the "other guy". This is compounded by the fact that most of us mistakenly believe we can best weather a storm or disaster like this surrounded by our families and the things we know and cherish. That doesn't always work. Sometimes it's best to just get the heck out.
He also happened to come up with a really good suggestion. In the wake of this disaster, local phone and cell service was a total shambles, but people were somehow able to still call "long distance" in some areas (go figure). Phillip suggested that the first thing to do is establish a family crisis call centre where members of your family can communicate their survival stories and ensure the information gets passed on to other family members in the area who are also calling. Knowing they're alright and dealing with the aftermath would tend to help aleviate worry.
And the Republicans and Democrats are controlled by Big Business. The rich will always take advantage of the poor. The strong will always take advantage of the weak. Such is the nature of Man (and women).
The first time I went was during Mardis Gras many years ago. It was OK. I rarely drink alcohol but it was very hot outside and someone offered me a tall, cold drink called (of course) a hurricane. It tasted sweet -- more like a soft drink than a killer concoction. I was so thirsty I drank it pretty fast and started another. I don't recall what happened after that. %^)
Other times I've been there to visit friends and listen to jazz. There was always something fun to do at night and people were mostly friendly.
Like anywhere else, you need to be careful or you'll get taken.
I had a similar experience in Orlando. We looked at the place, said we weren't interested and would like to be taken back to our vehicle. They insisted we stay for the entire presentation. I sent the kids to "try out" the kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms, etc., and they relented. :^)
You should have called Jiminex. He's got this hammer and... umm, never mind.
Are you saying the flood was a good thing?
It's might be a good idea to move to higher ground. Unfortunately, the cost would be beyond the national budget. Even with the massive damage seen so far, much of the city can be repaired and rebuilt for far less cost than starting from scratch. Can you imagine the price tag on building a complete new city of 2+ million people?
Obviously, the human cost of repeating earlier mistakes is beyond a price tag, but not in the minds of those who control the national purse strings. The administration only wants to spend unlimited funds on war. "Homeland Security" is a practical joke played on the American people by the Bush administration.
Lookie here, like i said, yall always complaining when you dont know how good you have it ... need to come live in the third world for a while and you WOULD change your mind ..
There's an American citizen who has been sitting in prison without being charged with a crime and whose right of habeas corpus has been suspended who would disagree with you.
This particular individual deserves to be tried and, if convicted, sentenced severely. However, he has not been tried and there are no plans to do so now or in the future.
I blame both parties for allowing things to get so out of hand. The Republican party leadership is only interested in power and money. They're milking the country for everything they can get and the people be damned. The Democratic party is so inept they can't even manage to come up with a plan to oust the bums from the White House, let alone Congress.
The most disgusting thing of all is watching the president try to make political hay, including photo ops of him riding around in a truck through the ruined city, out of the worst natural disaster in US history. That is closely seconded by remarks to the effect that the poor who as always suffered the worst of this nightmare are somehow at fault. Those are human beings whose lives have been destroyed, not political caricatures on some op ed page.
What freedom? Nothing is free here. Tell me what's free under this heading: "A right or the power to engage in certain actions without control or interference"
Here's where freedom is, but you still have to pay taxes to live there:
Freedom, CA (CDP, FIPS 25576) Location: 36.94003 N, 121.78932 W Population (1990): 8361 (2374 housing units) Area: 4.2 sq km (land), 0.0 sq km (water) Zip code(s): 95019 Freedom, IN Zip code(s): 47431 Freedom, ME Zip code(s): 04941 Freedom, NH Zip code(s): 03836 Freedom, NY Zip code(s): 14065 Freedom, OK (town, FIPS 27850) Location: 36.76652 N, 99.11256 W Population (1990): 264 (147 housing units) Area: 0.7 sq km (land), 0.0 sq km (water) Zip code(s): 73842 Freedom, PA (borough, FIPS 27712) Location: 40.68465 N, 80.25336 W Population (1990): 1897 (774 housing units) Area: 1.5 sq km (land), 0.3 sq km (water) Zip code(s): 15042 Freedom, WY Zip code(s): 83120
The levee that broke was recently repaired, the levee system in NO has been in service for decades and is rated for a Cat 3 hurricane by design. The damage was caused by water flowing OVER it not through it although some speculate barges are what broke it in several spots which means it's all Bush's fault created by that evil Karl Rove who is on the New Orleans barge payola
Reality is the US government generally takes care of its citizens, the government here does nothing for its people, and its more expensive to live here than anywhere in the US. You pay tax, and they build roads with that, do this and do that. Poor people in the US would have already starved to death if they lived here, cause their aint no welfare or food stamps in this place.. basically there is absolutely no government assistance here, the past hurricane season wiped out Freeport (2nd City) and closed down numerous hotels, no help from the gov to get them back on their feet, if a major storm hits Nassau now, that would be the end of the bahamas.
Without tax and enforced laws the US would end up just another 3rd world country eventually, like us . .. Next time you visit Ill show you where us Bahamians live, its far from the hotel scene which they keep us out of.
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