[Bobboau]

the polititians there are notoriusly corupt, louisiana and NO in particular are probly the most corupt place in the country, and elections are assumed to be rigged.

[Kazan]

Originally posted by DaBrain
I think they would loose even without this disaster.

The approval ratings before the disaster agree


you know what's funny? it's hurricane andrew that largely scuttled bush I

[BlackDove]

I know, I know. Tasteless.

[Ford Prefect]

[Mefustae]

Originally posted by deep_eyes
i bet you 5 dollars that they loose the next election based on the disaster alone.

I'll see that 5 Dollars, and raise it another 5 that they'll just rig te election again...*sigh*

[Mongoose]

All right, enough is enough.  What the hell is with some of you trying to make a political/racism case out of this?  Don't you get it? Thousands of people are dead, and hundreds of thousands are homeless.  A major city is almost completely underwater and will take years to get back to where it was (and you can believe me that it will).  None of that other **** matters at all.  Honestly, I'm so sick and tired of all the "blame Bush" bull**** that's been flying around.  Yeah, as if Kerry had won the last election, he'd have somehow magically teleported every last person out of the region, turned the hurricane around, and even had time to hand-deliver care packages to all those affected.  This is not anyone's fault.  This is something that happened, and all of the federal/state/local/private people down there are trying to do the best they can in one of the worst situations this country has ever seen.  Katrina strengthened so quickly that, by the time we knew what it was capable of, it was too late to do much more than make calls for evacuations and set up places like the Superdome for those who couldn't. I seriously cannot fathom how people are describing the mobilization of tens of thousands of National Guardsmen/relief agencies over the course of a few days into a region that not only has hundreds of miles of decimated coastline, but also tens of thousands of square miles of affected regions inland, "unbelievably slow."  Tell you what:  if the rest of you think you can do a better job than what's going on, let's just ship the next Cat. 5 storm to wherever you live.  Then we'll see how things go.  And for all of you accusing the US of rejecting foreign aid, I haven't seen a single documented case of that, just heresy.  In fact, all of the reports I've seen have been about foreign aid being accepted.  You can bet that, if it was rejected, it'd be front-page news on every news site.  I'm not trying to single anyone out here, but seeing people carry on like this after what just happened completely pisses me off.

[Mefustae]

Woah, woah, mate! What everyone is throwing around here is that the situation could have been handled much much better, both before and after Katrina hit. Look in every Newspaper you can find, across the Globe - especially those still in the disaster zone - are saying how badly this is being handled.

Bush is the dumbass face of the Government handling it so badly, so of course he's going to be bashed, and while I accept your criticism of the people doing the Bush-Bashing (myself included to a degree ), you can't look past the fact that the blame for this debacle is going to be put squarely upon the shoulders of the Administration. There ain't no foreigners to blame this time...

...And c'mon, sure it's a tragic event, but this thread is about the hypocrisy and downright shoddy handling of the crisis, hence the length! If this were a thread simply for posting condolences and mourning, it wouldn't be as long and sure as hell wouldn't be as entertaining...*points to Dove's sadly hilarious picture*

[Kazan]

meustae don't waste your brea... erg keystrokes on Mongoose - he has drank so much of the kool-aid that his brain will never recover

[Mongoose]

Kazan, what the hell are you talking about?

Mefustae, the whole point of my post was that I don't think that the situation was as mishandled as everyone claims.  Of course many things could have been done so much better than they were...that's been the case in every disaster in human history.  People are seemingly forgetting the old adage that "hindsight is 20/20."  As I said above, this storm went from barely category 1 to a monster of a category 5 in a few days.  Most earlier forecasts didn't even expect it to survive its crossing of Florida at hurricane strength.  Given the fact that there were only a few days before the storm hit to make preparations, and given the massive devastation not only in the city proper, but throughout the entire Gulf Coast region, I can't see how things could have gone much better than this, even in the best of circumstances.  One thing I don't think a lot of people are thinking of is how confusing the forecasts were as the storm was making landfall.  The initial reports called for catastrophic flooding in New Orleans, but as the storm actually came ashore, the flooding didn't immediately materialize.  It wasn't until that night that the levees broke and the serious flooding began.  With all of the confusion as to how serious the storm was going to be, with the massive damage that it caused, with the logistics of organizing such a massive relief effort, I'm asking everyone this:  do you honestly think that things could have gone any better?  If you were in the shoes of the mayor of New Orleans a few days before Katrina hit, knowing no more than he did at the time, what specifically would you have done differently?  I see a lot of people *****ing about how things were mishandled, but I've seen very few specific responses not based on hindsight that detail what should have been done differently.

[Mefustae]

If I were the mayor of New Orleans, I would've f***ing tried harder to sure up the levees, which would have made this Disaster a mere Three Mile Island...now, this is hardly the fault of the Mayor, as stipulated in rather interesting article posted by Kazan in another thread;

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/e...t_id=1001051313

You see, it was the runaway Government hell bent on showing their s**t to the other nations of the world that pulled all available funding to pump into their inept war-machine, meaning that (among other things) the Orleans Levee banks were in such a condition that they would not have been able to stand up to Hurricane half the size of Katrina. The fact of the matter is, the current US Administration f***ed up royal, nothing can change the fact that people are dead, and the relief effort is being criticised by nations all over the world...

...Yes, I agree that they've finally got their collective arses in gear and the effort has been stepped up to save the many people still in the affected areas, an act that I for one am glad to see happening. But the inescapable fact is that the Levees were insufficient to begin with, and had the CoE project's funding not been pulled, those Levees would have been sured up the flooding that is still on the rise would not be there...

...as for your challenge, if I was indeed the Mayor of New Orleans, I would not have been able to do much in the days leading up to the Hurricane, but again, that's niether here nor there...

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Mongoose
This is not anyone's fault.  

You keep believing that. You keep believing that this whole thing isn't the fault of the federal government for refusing to fund improvements in the levees that broke and caused the flooding despite being warned that those levees wouldn't stand up to a hurricane.

The rest of us prefer to not stick our heads in the sand.

[Sandwich]

After seeing a picture of a helicopter with a couple of lather largish sandbags hanging from a rope above a broke levee, I can't help but wonder why the rescue services aren't making use of HOVERCRAFTS for pete's sake!

Hovercrafts are funny creatures, they can travel over deep waters, shallow waters, and dry land with equal ease.

The larger they are (thus the larger the cushion of air they sit on is), the more efficient they are at load-bearing vs. fuel expended.

Many models can carry literally hundreds of passengers in comfort, I'd guess that capacity for carrying evacuees would be considerably higher.

They don't fall out of the sky if they're hit by bullets.

Why hasn't anyone else thought of using these wonderful machines??

[Singh]

Originally posted by Sandwich
After seeing a picture of a helicopter with a couple of lather largish sandbags hanging from a rope above a broke levee, I can't help but wonder why the rescue services aren't making use of HOVERCRAFTS for pete's sake!

Hovercrafts are funny creatures, they can travel over deep waters, shallow waters, and dry land with equal ease.

The larger they are (thus the larger the cushion of air they sit on is), the more efficient they are at load-bearing vs. fuel expended.

Many models can carry literally hundreds of passengers in comfort, I'd guess that capacity for carrying evacuees would be considerably higher.

They don't fall out of the sky if they're hit by bullets.

Why hasn't anyone else thought of using these wonderful machines??

Usage wouldn't be recommended in a submerged city area, since the narrow roads would be a problem (not to mention any number of sharp objects are floating around), plus usage in the surrounding area risks deflation of the air bag via trees that aren't totally underwater, since it isn't that efficient in controlling it's movement.

[Mefustae]

Methinks a note of Sarcasm has just gone undetected...

[vyper]

Actually it's not that bad an idea. Given the strength of modern hovercraft skirts, etc, it would be possible. Then again the army trucks seem to be getting through no bother anyway.

[redmenace]

Originally posted by karajorma


You keep believing that. You keep believing that this whole thing isn't the fault of the federal government for refusing to fund improvements in the levees that broke and caused the flooding despite being warned that those levees wouldn't stand up to a hurricane.

The rest of us prefer to not stick our heads in the sand.

It is not the federal goverments job to sure up up those levies. I fail to see why I, living in Virginia, should have to pay for levies in New Orleans, Louisiana. Even if they were re-enforced can you or anyone guarantee they would have stood the hurricaine? Also, why didn't the STATE GOVERNMENT of Louisiana get those people out of the New Orleans  much less reinforce the levies themselves? Why didn't the CITY GOVERNMENT of new Orleans get the people out of there prior to the hurricaine?

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Singh


Usage wouldn't be recommended in a submerged city area, since the narrow roads would be a problem (not to mention any number of sharp objects are floating around), plus usage in the surrounding area risks deflation of the air bag via trees that aren't totally underwater, since it isn't that efficient in controlling it's movement.

Uhm. Air bag? Hovercrafts don't have air bags. They have flexible skirts that hang down around their sides. They'd rip about as easily as you'd be able to poke a hole in a shower curtain with a knife.

[Mefustae]

I'm not going to pretend that I know anything about Hovercraft, but wouldn't...uh..."bad things happen" if the Skirt was raked with small arms fire? I mean, these roaming gangs must have at least Tec9's and Semi-Automatic rifles on them, so doesn't that pose a serious threat to a craft suspended on what is effectively an industrial size balloon of air...? (and yes, I know the two are completely different with almost no similarities whatsoever, but i'd like to see you find an appropriate analogy at 12:30am! )

[karajorma]

Originally posted by redmenace
It is not the federal goverments job to sure up up those levies. I fail to see why I, living in Virginia, should have to pay for levies in New Orleans, Louisiana. Even if they were re-enforced can you or anyone guarantee they would have stood the hurricaine? Also, why didn't the STATE GOVERNMENT of Louisiana get those people out of the New Orleans  much less reinforce the levies themselves? Why didn't the CITY GOVERNMENT of new Orleans get the people out of there prior to the hurricaine?

I'm not saying that the Federal government is the only agency to blame for this but even your comments point to Mongoose being wrong that it wasn't anybody's fault.

If you start getting into "Why should I pay for x when I don't live in y" arguments you end up with all kinds of stupidity. The money that was earmarked to rebuild the levies was redirected to Iraq. Wanna start explaining to the people of New Orleans why they should be paying for that instead of getting their levies fixed? It's a stupid argument. Especially considering that the same government chose to give federal aid to several state projects that wouldn't save thousands of lives.

As for why the state government didn't do those things I'm puzzled too. I'm sure they'll be plenty of blame to go around over this one. I just don't think you can start absolving the federal government of all blame in the matter.

[Blaise Russel]

Originally posted by redmenace
It is not the federal goverments job to sure up up those levies. I fail to see why I, living in Virginia, should have to pay for levies in New Orleans, Louisiana. Even if they were re-enforced can you or anyone guarantee they would have stood the hurricaine? Also, why didn't the STATE GOVERNMENT of Louisiana get those people out of the New Orleans  much less reinforce the levies themselves? Why didn't the CITY GOVERNMENT of new Orleans get the people out of there prior to the hurricaine?

Verily, sir, you are a true gentleman.