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9 Weeks to Pump Out New Orleans?
Cr0w T. Trollbot asks: "It looks like New Orleans is going through something very close to the worst case scenario right now. This somewhat prescient study, written well before the hurricane, describes some of the challenges (engineering and otherwise) facing New Orleans. 'In this hypothetical storm scenario, it is estimated that it would take nine weeks to pump the water out of the city, and only then could assessments begin to determine what buildings were habitable or salvageable. Sewer, water, and the extensive forced drainage pumping systems would be damaged. National authorities would be scrambling to build tent cities to house the hundreds of thousands of refugees unable to return to their homes and without other relocation options.' The hypothetical is looking awful close to reality right now. What can be done about draining and rebuilding New Orleans in light of the massive flooding, and what can be done to prevent and/or lessen such disasters in the future?"
In the long term? Drive your car less. Drive a smaller car. Fly less. Turn off your lights when you're not in the room. Turn off your computer at night. Throw away less stuff. We all know why this is happening to us.
Won't somebody make a contribution to the stupidity relief fund?
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Just make the whole place a water filled fun adventure!
While giving to money to help ease the Katrina-related suffering is eminently laudible, please do not do so through the Salvation Army.
The Salvation Army is an rather strident anti-gay evangelical Christian organization. For example, they lobbied the Bush administration to add anti-gay provisions into the faith-based initiative legislation.
Please give by some alternate means, such as the Red Cross.
Yeah, let's see, how many times have their been major earthquakes in California that caused the kind of damage that Katrina just did? Not too many, Northridge and Loma Prieta were bad, but at least when they were over LA and SF were still above water, more than can be said for New Orleans at the moment. Oh, and how many terrorist attacks has New York had since 9/11? Well, none (and if we're going to talk terrorism what would happen if Al Qaeda set off some truck bombs next to the levees in New Orleans during Mardi Gras?) and the volcanos that Seattle is next to? Well, the only one that erupted and caused any damage was Mount St. Helens, which actually didn't do anything to Seattle as we were out of the path of the ash, Rainier and the other Cascade volcanos are dormant. New Orleans is an incredibly stupid city, it's eight feet under water and built in an area that periodically gets reformatted by hurricanes (where periodically generally equals less than every 20 years) and it's smack dab in the middle of the Mississippi river flood plain. Rebuilding there is like rebuilding on the edge of an active volcano such as Kilauea. People who keep rebuilding in New Orleans are morons, haven't they ever heard the Itsy Bitsy Spider" song?
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Because nothing that happens anywhere is ever the fault of George W Bush, his government, or his policies.
Clear?
I'm getting a strong wiff of a bs rationalization...
Is the military, incl the Army National Guard, getting smaller? Yes it is.
Is it getting smaller, because of planned reductions, or is it getting smaller because they can't retain/recruit people. It is the former.
Those numbers sure sound like they're based on pre-911 peacetime. It should have been obvious to just about anyone, by oh, noon on September 11th, 2001 that we might want some more Guard troops. And as gung-ho on the military as the Republican party is on waging war (though much less gung-ho on paying for medical care and benefits for veterans), I really don't see them calling for more reductions. Unless you're again responding to shortages in the Army by talking about how the Air Force is doing just fine...
For instance, for the Air Guard, FY 2004:
I might not be able to smell bullshit across the room, but I sure as hell can smell it when someone tries to sneak it under my nose. That is the Air Guard. You know, from the Air Force. As if the Air Force is going to have massive recruitment problems when it's the Army taking the brunt of the casualties in Iraq.
Nice try, Sparky.