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Sonic 'Lasers' to be Deployed in Hurricane Region
MacDork writes "Wired News is running an article about high powered acoustic technology to be deployed in the hurricane Katrina disaster recovery. Apparently, the technology will allow authorities to communicate with others up to a mile away along with providing a non-lethal means of crowd control. No word on additional busses and shelters..."
What gets me is, why weren't the buses rolling in to pick up people and give them rides away from these areas before the hurricane hit. As soon as it was obvious that Katrina was aiming for these areas, why couldn't they have used all these buses to to start moving people out.
And why not move in the food and water before the storm hit, and have it already there for those who will need it. I guess foresight and planning ahead no longer applies, even with all the models and predictions concerning hurricane disasters in that area.
Then, too, there will always be some people who will say, "I'm not leaving. I'll just take my chances." Then these same people yell the loudest about not being helped out of the situation they got themselves into. (Note: I am not referring to those too ill or feeble to move, or who just can't for some reason, nor to those who may be too poor to be able to find the means to leave.)
Sig cancelled due to lack of interest
"In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war."
5 18,372455,00.html
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
You're right -- helicopters are 100 times more expensive, which is why the feds are not usually in charge of disaster recovery. The country is too damn big to have disaster plans for every region, which is why it's the responsibility of local and state governments to have plans. Why the hell didn't the mayor of New Orleans have a plan to get HIS OWN CITIZENS out?? The guy is being a total a-hole blaiming the feds for his own failure, as well as the failure of the governor of Louisiana.
Did you know that it was BUSH who personally called the mayor to order a mandatory evacuation? From this...
"Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding."
In other words, Bush saved thousand, if not tens of thousands of lives. The deaths can be put squarely on the government of Louisiana and New Orleans.
Not that things couldn't have been done faster -- they could have. But Bush is getting way too much of the blame here. The feds are not designed to move fast, combined with the fact that it was an incredible mess, and it doesn't help when people are shooting at the rescuers.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Mod parent down as "clueless."
n s.schools.ap/
Here's why the mayor of New Orleans didn't use the buses: He doesn't run the school district, which has been a complete organizational disaster for some time. Cities and school districts are not the same thing.
For a taste of just how bad the school district has become:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/08/18/new.orlea
The person you label as an "idiot democrat mayor" didn't make the mess. He is a relative political outsider, a former Cox cable executive, who was a Republican until he decided to run for mayor of a traditionally Democrat city.
He has been on a campaign to clean up the extremely corrupt New Orleans government, working actively with the FBI.
Maybe you should read something other than right-wing hate blogs.
Hardly unique to the US. I'm an American, but living in London. People are mugged and stabbed right in front of others in the UK... no one does anything.
I know a lady who was with her two small children and was shoved down in a fast food resturant full of customers and employees so some guy could steal her purse. No one lifted a finger.
Don't think indifference to the pain of others is unique to the US.
In fact (and this is far off topic), I've been to a couple dozen countries and most US states, and the only place in the world I've seen people defend each other, including strangers, is the central part of the US. Try to push over a lady and mug her in a McD's in Iowa... you'll find, at best, your ass kicked, and, at worst, some customer shooting you. You may think it's harsh, but at least people are looking out for each other.
Sarcasm and hyperbole are the final refuges for weak minds
This post is quite wrong on MANY MANY levels.
" continueing concept amongst blacks that they are "victims" of something that happened centuries ago."
Perhaps you are not aware that until the voting rights act of 1965, black were largely disenfranchised and segregated. Hardly centuries ago.
"What we are seeing in N.O. is the result of socialism in America. I can't count the number of times on T.V. I've seen the poor black people complaining about "what is the government going to do", "where is the government to take care of us", "why has the government let us down." Instead of taking personal responsibility for their actions, they have been conditioned by receiving welfare checks and other government handouts, mainly from the Democratic Party, to not think for themselves."
A vast and very child like generalization. Many of these people are working poor who pay taxes. Many of them don't own vehicles. By call them "welfare recipients" you simply reveal your ignorance. What data is this based on? Knowing what I know about the difficulty of receiving welfare after the welfare reform act I doubt that many of them are welfare recipients.
Take a look at the reponse the government had in regards to Hurricane Andrew - it was much better.
As far as your immigrant success stories - yeah sure people come here and are successful. Usually because they have a great deal of money to begin with. Your quote
some literally "off the boat" at Ellis Island in N.Y.
is quite telling. Ellis Island hasn't been used as an immigration facility for 51 years.
Thalasar
Consider that it is mainly the poor neighborhoods inhabited by blacks and Mexicans where law and order are maintained only by the presence of police. Generally speaking, the middle and upper class live outside US cities in comfortable suburbs.
This is America's dirty little secret, and Mother Nature has washed the whole thing out in the open for the rest of the world to see. Almost 30% of New Orleans residents live below the poverty line. Almost all of them are black. The truth is, we have a *huge* number of people in this country who live beneath the poverty line. Many of them canot afford even basic health care or food for their families, so they turn to drug dealing and prostitution to make more money. There are practially NO jobs and nothing for these people to do so they suck off the nipple of the government and sit around idle, getting into all sorts of mischief. Look what's happened to Detroit to get a small taste for what this urban decay looks like.
I'm embarrassed to say also that the most powerful country in the world has no national health care system! Most of the "working poor" in this country such as the Wal-Mart employees have no access to even basic health care for their families. Even Costa Rica has a basic health care plan for all its citizens!
We have already received thousands of refugees here in San Antonio, Texas. I've been listening to the police scanner the last couple of days and it's a complete mess. The last part I heard today, someone was asking where to deliver some insulin, and the reply was that nobody was available to answer the question, because most of the gov't office supervisors were OUT OF TOWN for the 3 day weekend!
These days I am embarassed to be an American, which has become something completely different than what the founding fathers envisioned.
The Bush administration is the only administration we've actually got running the country that we can get rid of.
Clinton has been gone for years. I know Bush people don't know how to run a country, just how to make fun of an expresident who retired more popular than practically any president has ever been. I know Bush people don't know how to run a country, just blame Clinton for everything. Because they call facts that show their incompetence, written by anyone, "biased". Well, the facts are clearly biased against the Bush administration (to paraphrase the Daily Show). Whatever resistance Clinton might have had on that one day (nevermind what subsequently was done, like perhaps fully funding it) 10 years ago, before the past 5 years of Bush's rule, Bush certainly did not reverse that cut. He cut it as much as he could. He cut it, even after he's coasted on the coattails of one day in September 2001, when - after the smoke cleared - he climbed on top of a pile of rubble in NYC, and declared with a bullhorn that "everything changed".
The #1 predicted national disaster, terrorist attack on NYC, had come horribly true - though Bush had not prepared for it. In fact, he deprioritized terrorist attacks during that first year of his administration, while looking for an excuse to invade Iraq from day 1. Four years later (minus only two weeks), National Disaster #2, hurricane devastation in New Orleans, has come true. And Bush stayed on vacation in his Texas estate, then made some BS speeches about Iraq in California, then skimmed back to DC giving just a flyover blink to "Lake George" where New Orleans once stood. While his Secretary of State took in Spamalot on Broadway, then shopped for thousand-dollar shoes on 5th Avenue.
I know it's tough to admit that Bush is a miserable failure. That he's created catastrophe everywhere he's worked, in his whole career, but especially in the US and Iraq. I know it's tough to admit you're complicit in his catastrophes, because you voted for him and defended him. But its time to stop the BS apologies for the Master of Disaster. That old "it's Clinton's fault" BS only worked on a small percentage for a while, back around the turn of the century. It's useless now. Cut your losses and hang the blame on the Commander in Chimp now. Help us replace him with someone who can run the country some other way than into the ground. Or watch as Disaster #3, California Earthquake, kills thousands, millions more, cripples more of our ports and energy, all while we're still bogged down in Iraqmire, the Gulf Swamp, and across the nation that has been wallowing in stagnation and distrust since Bush was installed by the Supreme Court in 2000.
Because who knows - the next disaster could be the one that your local government has been sucking Homeland Security dollars away from New York, New Orleans and San Francisco for. And you'll find yourself screaming in the streets for Bush's head, when they stole the money like the New Orleans disaster plan funds, and abandon you the same way. While some other Bush apologist posts lies, blaming Clinton, for abandoning you when your own life is destroyed by a predicted disaster for which you paid tax money for relief.
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make install -not war