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Too Many People in Nature's Way
Ant writes "Wired News report that the dead and the desperate of New Orleans now join the farmers of Aceh and the fishermen of Trincomalee, villagers in Iran and the slum dwellers of Haiti in a world being dealt ever more punishing blows by natural disasters... ... "We rely on technology and we end up thinking as human beings that we're totally safe, and we're not," said Miletti, of the University of Colorado. "The bottom line is we have a very unsafe planet."
By one critical measure, the impact on populations, statistics show the planet to be increasingly unsafe. More than 2.5 billion people were affected by floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters between 1994 and 2003, a 60 percent increase over the previous two 10-year periods, U.N. officials reported at a conference on disaster prevention in January.
Those numbers don't include millions displaced by last December 2004's tsunami, which killed an estimated 180,000 people as its monstrous waves swept over coastlines from Indonesia's Aceh province to Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, and beyond. By another measure -- property damage -- 2004 was the costliest year on record for global insurers, who paid out more than $40 billion on natural disasters, reports German insurance giant Munich Re. Florida's quartet of 2004 hurricanes was the big factor.
But generally it's not that more "events" are happening, rather that more people are in the way, said Thomas Loster, a Munich Re expert. "More and more people are being hit," he said..." I'd also like to point out a project here to find housing for Katrina's victims; it tries to combine lists of sites offering housing, and do a meta-search.
The population is growing. It can't be that unsafe.
We'll all be a doublin', doublin', doublin'
.well, 24/7.
We'll all be a doublin' in 32 years.
Film at. .
KFG
"The bottom line is we have a very unsafe planet."
Well that tears it. I'm leaving. Anyone coming with me?
Perhaps we shouldn't rebuild on the lands that keep getting destroyed... I hear that's what they did in the days before governmental disaster relief.
Latewire
nature should get out of the way or face lawsuits
Its all Bush's fault. /. mantra
The new
Hmm, sound like a good idea?
It's not just how many people there are, but how stupid they are. On the bright side, it kicks evolution into action. And guess what, "They will rebuild", the mind boggles.
Deleted
It's called Far Side now. And I think the "cast," as it were, is a perfectly reasonable size.
Note to mods: I'm probably being sarcastic.
..is:
To what degree have we done this to ourselves?
Throw off the shackles of technology, and the evils of harnessing energy, and return to the forests!
I mean, I'm willing to sacrifice everything I love to save The World(TM). Aren't you?
As populations grow, they are going to move into more and more dangerous areas. Given the relative shortness of the human lifespan, any major environmental disaster that occurs with periodicity of more than 30-40 years is going to have humans living in its path. (because humans tend to forget things through generations) Unfortunately since these events are so rare, it is hard to prepare for them. That said, people seem to focus on these things right after a disaster. Remember the New Orleans disaster is one of the largest distructive forces to hit the continental US, regardless of population.
-Sean (OutdoorDB - the Outdoor Wiki)
About Katrina, I found this link very interesting...
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
As far as I know, we will have 20 billion in the near future. That's why I think we have to push on Mars research so that we would have a second choice. Plus, as time goes further, more and more problems face us.
Waik, http://waik.sourceforge.net
but generally it's not that more "events" are happening, rather that more people are in the way
Exactly. I don't think our planet is any more unstable then 100, 1000 or 10000 years ago. Yeah, maybe we have global warming but even so it makes much, much more of a difference that a hurricane making landfall at the Mississipi estuary affects several million people today compared to 10,000 in 1803 or maybe a couple hundred in 500 BC.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I haven't seen Hemos post this many articles in a row since the early days. Where are the E2 links, H-dawg?
Of course we should be listening to the insurance company tell us the "truth" about the disaster. They have no reason to lie to protect themselves. Why would an insurance company try to cover its ass in the wake of a disaster? Insurance companies, especially in countries the other side of the world from teh disaster, care only about the welfare of the victims, not their own welfare and liability. Yes, put the insurance companies in charge of how to remake our society in the wake of the worst disaster in American history. We can trust them to take care of us. :P.
--
make install -not war
Although i agree with the statements made here, that natural disaters and all. The tsunami wasn't caused by climate change, where as the huricane and other floods etc probably have been.
Maybe it is time to America to Stop rejecting proposals to reduce emissions and to do what the world is asking. Most other countries seem to do alot more, and the states will probably have to have some more Natural Disasters before the Muppets in The white house will understand this.
You still believe in Superman or Spiderman or US power?
"You know what the problem with Hollywood is? They make shit. Unbelievable, unremarkable shit."
2.4 billion victims and $40 billion in insurance pay-outs is still far less expensive than joining the Kyoto protocol.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
I put up a forum where people can offer or ask for assistance (mostly non-money help). It's called HurricaneVolunteer.com
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
But generally it's not that more "events" are happening, rather that more people are in the way
Simple answer is this. Don't build in these bad areas. Only fools or risk takers build in those places.
Of course then we're dumb enough to help them recover again and again and again. So I guess we're all just as foolish.
I have to say what shocked me more than the scale of the devastation, was the reports of rioting and looting. Natural disasters are more common than many people think, they're usually not as large of course but they happen every day. I'd just assumed that nothing short of a global disaster would result in the rioting and breakdown of order that followed Katrina, scary stuff..
By one critical measure, the impact on populations, statistics show the planet to be increasingly unsafe. More than 2.5 billion people were affected by floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters between 1994 and 2003, a 60 percent increase over the previous two 10-year periods, U.N. officials reported at a conference on disaster prevention in January.
I wonder how true this really is relatively speaking. I mean, first of all, the population has grown enormously in the past twenty years. Not to mention, our ability to estimate the sizes of populations, and the number of people affected by natural disasters has no doubt improved in the last twenty years. There are problably other factors as well.
There are no doubt more people at risk of natural disasters than before, but that's probably just because there's so many more people. And the fact is, this planet is having trouble sustaining this many people as it is, so it's no wonder that the more the population grows, the harder it is to keep everyone safe and healthy.
You had people all over the US talking about how third world uncivilized people deserved the tsunami. And people like michael savage etc. saying no federal aid should be sent to help other countries. Being libertarian, I can agree that with the concept of federal assistance being bad, I dont see why he has a vitriolic resentment of it considering how miniscule the foreign aid budget is (especially after you deduct military assistance to high income countries that somehow counts as "aid"). After the tsunami, I even came across a weblog (ernie i think) that said something to the effect of "those civilizations have been around for thousands of years longer than us and didnt advance so they deserved it. Too bad, f*ck 'em".
/fox) reported a blatant lie that foreign countries didnt step up to offer aid and assistance for new orleans.
d /index.html
.. but a vast majority of people are there because they didnt have the means (no cars & buses) to evacuate in time ..let me stress that not every new orleans person is involved in looting.
Like every single individuals and kids who died or were orphaned had done stuff to deserve what happened to them.
And then there was the radio show host who said he didnt care about people who couldn't swim.
About new orleans, you the media (sean hannity
Here's a report that contradicts what sean hannity was saying:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/05/katrina.world.ai
The point I am making is that you have a large segment (thankfully not the majority) of the US population who thinks the rest of the world is all evil and can go to hell. These same people are now sayuing "screw new orleans bunch of savages". Sure there are scumbags causing trouble there
We as a species keep populating like rabbits. This is natures little check and balance. Eventually when humanity tops the huge digits and we run out of land to expand on we start going up. Then you'll have supercities where an earthquake will cause 50 million deaths and be minor, because there will be 50+ billion people on the planet.
Every area of the planet is considered unsafe, sure there are parts more likely or unlikely to have a natural disaster occue, but is history has shown us anything, nature has a few tricks up it's sleeves.
There are also more people NOT being affected by natural disasters.
By way of example our individual physiologies as systems experience runaway in terms of sexual orgasam ( ya sex, more people ) and in terms of death.
We're not only pushing the envelope in terms of population, we're also pushing the food chain that sustains us. The oceans are being fished clean to feed the growing population. It's not unlikely that the ocean food chain will collapse in our lifetime. Add in global warming and the projected more frequent, more violent storms; mix in our proclivity to live in large numbers on the coast lines, and, the recipe for disaster is all but made, no need to add in a killer like a super volcano.
The lesson of New Orleans is that we can't handle relatively mid range disasters. We speak of the first world in terms of Super Powers in quasi mythological terms that suggest we control nature. We're just outlaw apes broken free of our natural constraints and deluded in belief systems that talk to our immortality as mirror images of the creator of the universe.
The joke about to go very bad. May you live in interesting times.
cheers
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
The poster seems to imply there's nothing wrong, and accepts the fact our planet is "just very unsafe".
I thought these disasters are getting progressively worse and more frequent due to the effects of global warming and pollution as there's been proven there are links.
The heatup we have now is from the past generation. I don't want to, but will, see the results of our generation...
And I refuse to hear it's "normal as climates change" as it's natural. Climates don't drasticly change over a course of a century as far as I know. But I wont take the risk personally to stand fully behind the other conception.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
Don't build in these bad areas. Only fools or risk takers build in those places.
So how do we go about emptying San Francisco?
People who disagree with you are not automatically evil, greedy, or stupid.
Looking at recent events, such as the Tsunami and New Orleans flooding, it's an eye-catching number... but do the math. The Tsunami triggered by an 9.6-ish-on-the-richter-scale earthquake only managed to snuff out 0.0025% of the earth's population. Looking at New Orleans alone, since estimates are in the thousands, if 10,000 people died, that's about 2% of the population. If nature really doesn't want us around, either it's not trying very hard, or it's just a work in progress while Yellowstone prepares to blow its top again....
There's a lot of people who would even say that Nature's fury can't compare that to the fury of our fellow man. I'd have to wonder about that: Lung Cancer deaths related to smoking kill off about 440 people per day in the United States alone. Compare that to the rougly 2 and a half US soldiers per day killed in Iraq.... I'd say we are far better at intentionally killing our own selves than we are at killing others, and natural disaster takes a distant 3rd... or at least, disasters can't compare to other natural causes such as disease.
Quoth Cthulhu: "I'm just growing a few extra appetizers, I have some friends coming over in about 50 years, and we're gonna have a party..."
Amsterdam is as much as 20 feet below sea level if they can manage to keep their levee system safe then america can keep its levee's safe. cmon the most powerfull nation on earth you can do it just ask europe how.
I Predict A Riot
Not worth my time, but
WRONG!
Insightful my ass!
More like spiteful.
If I calm down maybe I'll give you a lesson on the great port cities of the world, their history of natural disasters, and their history of rebuilding (w/o governmental disaster relief funding.)
a lack of preparation? New Orleans has known for a long time how vulnerable it was, but the levee system wasn't built to sustain anything above a category 3 storm.
The first rule of risk management is that the amount of time, effort, and money that you spend on security should be proprortional to the probability of a breach times the amount of damage it would cause. I guess Louisana didn't get the memo.
You heard wrong, unless by "before government disaster relief" you mean "before there were governments and we all ate sticks and berries and ran from sabretooth tigers."
Serious. Check out the history of the Yangtzee and Ganges rivers going back almost 5,000 years, and the Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia at the very dawn of civilization. Cities are generally built where they are useful, not where they are safe.
Those with a Libertarian or Conservative leaning sometimes forget that Taxes purchase something useful for you: civilization.
The government diaster relief you deride so much makes civilization happen in North America. Just the cost of doing business here. Move to Somalia if you want to live someplace where there's no tax burden.
SoupIsGood Food
This guy's website and ideas is a bit "out there", but he is a scientist and some of the results from his research are interesting:
http://www.preparingforthegreatshift.org/
It occurs to me that one application of technology to ameliorate the less desirable effects of nature is in Early Warning Systems as built on top of a GIS. (Good example here)
Not to contradict Miletti, but there are very clear cases where technology in the configuration I described above has done real work averting disasters.
There's such a system deployed by the Civil Defense in Peru, that's one I know about. We're demoing another one at a GIS conference in Cairo next week, that's another. If I understand things correctly, even Homeland Security has done work in this area.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
I always thought that this is obvious and that only space travel can save us from our own population and from starting to eat dead people because, one day, there are too/soo many of them and burying them would be a waste of energy.
But It seems that this is still news the very day it will happen...
This should be self-evident. As more and more people join us here on earth, they have to fill in the less favorable areas, since the favorable ones have already been taken. Of course, what humanity considers "favorable" is sort of dubious, as we see with the people in California living on top of the San Andreas fault, and with the people in New Orleans living next to the sea, below sea level. But weather doesn't need to change for the planet to become "more dangerous," we just need more people living in dangerous areas. And as we run out of less dangerous areas, the dangerous areas are all that will be left, so of course the global per capita danger level will increase.
rooooar
Planning so so poorly thought out, a kid playing SIM City would come up with better plans. And that is exacly my point. We have simulation software that is inextensive. Tons of historical data to pull from. We know how to design better levee systems, bridges and canals. But the political system fails us again and again.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
If you mean, have we created the environment which attacks us, no, not really. Bear with me, and read on...
The most devastating hurricane on record (Andrew, IIRC), swept across a huge area of eastern Florida and destroyed everything in its path, at a cost of, well, very little really. You see, Andrew hit in 1922, when there was nothing there but fishermen.
Now that the coast of Florida is almost entirely condos (made of crap) and marinas full of boats (made of fibreglass), even a medium sized hurricane costs millions.
Now, have we done it to ourselves? Only by taking our very expensive possessions and plonking them down in an area of the planet that has always had storms.
New Orleans is just bad luck compounded by delay. There've been bigger storms, they just don't often hit big cities.
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
"The bottom line is we have a very unsafe planet."
Perhaps the government should file an administrative order against God, making him build a newer, safer one.
perhaps we should rethink our post-modernist ways. we can't control the earth, we are not omnipotent. we can no more change the climate than we can change the earth's rotation. man is not supreme, and i don't mean in a religious sense. modern man has made himself into a god,we can cure, solve, fix, alter, or redo anything. in truth, we can't. it is humbling, no?
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
From an agrarian point of view the answer is obvious - river floodplain silt is usually excellent for growing (ask the Egyptians and the Dutch.) But how many of the people trapped in New Orleans were agriculturalists? I suspect none.
Living as I do at an elevation of 80M above mean sea level, on a slope with excellent drainage, I take a very philosophical view of this. But I can't help thinking that we are still organising our world according to the preoccupations of much less advanced societies- and that the time to start doing something was over a hundred years ago, but the longer we leave it the worse it will get. London and New York could suffer various degrees of damage when the Azores slippage occurs. The effect of losing two of the world's major financial markets would not be good, considerably worse than losing some refinery capability (if Bush wasn't making so much money out of the windfall profits to the oil companies, he _could_ ration US fuel supplies and reduce prices, but you cannot dole out access to cash and credit and keep a modern society running.) How much would it actually cost in real money - not virtual profits - to plan to relocate the world's major financial and trade centers to safer locations?
The present situation is predicated on the idea that the rich will always suffer minimally in disasters. If my house is swept away or flattened I will have several options as to where to live while it is rebuilt, while the poor won't. But there are disaster scenarios that impact the rich as well as the poor, by making their savings and investment worthless and creating a breakdown in society which will enable criminals to steal possessions - think of the Jews in 30s Germany. If we don't guard against these, we are truly asking for it.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
I cant think of any place on earth that has not hosted a natural disaster at one point in history.
Be it flood, tornado, drought, blizzard....
Though i agree one should not willingly move into places that are OBVIOUSLY at risk, there really is no 100% safe place either.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
at least it's not boring here, like it would be in some 'safe' places. Adds a certain air of curiosity - you never know what next gigantic natural process will wipe out another batch of puny humans off the face of the earth.
You can't handle the truth.
It is certainly his fault that the disaster recovery wasn't handled well - the aftermath of Katrina was absolutely awful and Bush seemed asleep at the wheel. That is unforgivable. Disasters have happened all over the world this year - in Portugal and Romania, fire and flooding respecitvely. The people from other countries in Europe, and the governments of those countries, helped the victims. Spanish and French rescue efforts were underway very quickly when the fires in Portugal were blazing - yet in the USA, help was very slow coming from the US itself, and when Europe initially offered the US help, they were turned down - why? What the hell? What the hell is going on with Bush?
Don't criticise Slashdot readers for criticising Bush - they are quite right to. Slashdot's audience, being geeks, are generally more intelligent and well-informed than the average US consumer: Think about it - could there possibly be a reason why so many Slashdotters are criticising Bush? I'll leave you to ponder it.
Liberal Ontarians and French Quebecers are draining Western Canada's wealth. Stop them now! Support Western separatism.
.."statistics show the planet to be increasingly unsafe".. Um, I grew up watching Land of the Lost. Based on my observations, it's safer now. Much safer.
Face it, we are doomed. For the most part, our civilization (or at least North America) is composed of a large majority of people depending on a small minority of people to provide us with food, clothing, and shelter. Combined with a large dependence on electricity and technology, this is a formula for disaster that we have never dreamed of.
New Orleans is but a small drop in the bucket to how our society is so fragile that we could not survive a larger more widespread natural or man-made disaster. Days after the huricane and people are screaming in the street for help, angry that their various governments are not doing more to help.
What is sad is not the lack of quick response which simply cannot come quick enough in many cases, but the simple fact that these people can't survive more then a few days without external help. If the Red Cross or other government agency doesn't get there in time these people will die because they are dependent on a framework of society that only works if everything else is working. The electricity, technology, and retail and monetary supply chain. We have NO SURVIVAL SKILLS!
I won't be naive to say that the people in New Orleans should have seen this coming and prepared better. Everyone is at risk, not just those living in a flood plain, earthquake zone, or tsunami threatened area. A few years ago, power was lost to 1/4 of North America, and that is when I relealized that we are completely inadequate of surviving more then a few days of inconvenient disaster. When the power went out, I realized I did not have more then a few days worth of food that wouldn't spoil, probably a weeks worth of fresh water, and no money in my pocket to buy the things I needed once the retail supply chain adapted to having no electricity, the banks are useless without electricity. Had the power outage lasted more then a few days and/or been more widespread, I would be at a loss to be able to provide for myself for long without dependence on some external help.
So, I think the lessen to learn from all this is to gain some survival skills. Most seem to feel this is spending a few days in the woods camping and living off of nature, but try to live more the a few days in a large urban city without money, food or water!
Stock pile at least a week or two of food that will not spoil, a few large jugs of water, matches, and hide some money somewhere as well as all the other usual survival paraphenalia like batteries, radio, flashlights, candles, warm clothing, etc. Get a network of friends and family together that are as prepared as you so you can depend on and help support each other in an emergency, especially if there is property damage and someone loses their survival supplies and needs food and shelter.
We have heard this all before and all think it is a great idea, but seldom do we take the time and make the effort to prepare for the inevitable. With terrorism and changes in the global weather, at any point our society could be pushed over the edge and plunge into a disaster we are ill-prepared to handle. To rely on government or other agencies for support, especially only a few hours or even days after a disaster is unaceptable, we should be able to survive on our own for at least several days without straining emergency agencies and allow them a chance to set up and establish a supply chain.
What has happened in New Orleans is a disaster and I urge everyone to lend a hand or donate some money to help those people out. But don't think that just because your not there that something like that won't happen where you are. I could be as simple as a power outage for your life to change, or the unimaginable could happen. If you feel that you will be taken care of by your government or by some external agency if something should happen and don't have any survival gear prepared, I feel sorry for you, but I will help you out if I can.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
we occupy more and more space, we displace other species, we use more and more land to grow food, it all helps us with population growth and population growth prompts us to get into this 'more and more' cycle. The modern medicine is so advanced, more people live into their old age - something that only few privileged could do prior to the past century.
Everything is about demographics - wars, technology revolution/evolution, scientific discoveries, number of people killed in natural and other disasters.
There are many of us and many will die because we are so concentrated - we are easy to kill. Short of completely gutting the planet and turning it into a 'space-station' where every aspect of existance can be controlled, we can't stop this trend. But even if we do this - gut the planet, make many controlled space stations out of it, we still will not be able to control everything. New bacteria/viruses etc. and wars and technical malfunctions will always kill more and more people.
You can't handle the truth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/opinion/02fische tti.html?n=Top%2FOpinion%2FEditorials%20and%20Op-E d%2FOp-Ed%2FContributors
http://www.coast2050.gov/watermarks/wrda.htm
Consider: raise everyone's health care and car insurance rates and use the money to cover the losses on the recreational business ventures covered by disaster insurance. Indeed even the normal people in the disaster area are typically losing as we've all heard the stories of homeowners who had insurance, just not the right kind of insurance.
In a way, insurance money from disasters probably goes to the bank account of some real estate conglomerate safely seated in New York.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
Oh, come on! Don't you mods know that Far Side used to be called Nature's Way? Sheesh.
Note to mods: I'm probably being sarcastic.
I better buy a helmet!
the scene when Tidus and company take the shoopuff ride thru the river. Then tidus sees a sunken city, and Waka told him it was a city build over a river (on a gigantic bridge). Eventually, the bridge collapsed and the city ended up below the river.
- So, why do you think they built a city over the river? asks Waka.
-Because it might be... convenient?
- No! Because they thought they could defy nature! And this is the lesson they learned.
And New Orleans had plans to redo the levee's to Cat5 strength. Wouldn't have been completed until 2020 or so. Katrina got there first.
If the build takes 15 years, what are the odds of a Cat5 coming along within that timespan to put you back to square one?
This was a horrific storm. Worse than Hurricane Camille by leaps and bounds. I'm sure you've all seen the anarchy in New Orleans. It is not like that on the MS Coast. But, it is still very, very bad.
It pains me to ask, but if anybody could help my family with some paypal donations it would be appreciated beyond my words to explain. I don't normally ask for hand-outs... but we seriously need help. We've fled to Jackson since the storm because of the threat of malaria and cholera (sp?)... almost didn't make it here because there was practically no gas. We are currently staying with friends... but, can't stay here forever.
We have major roof damage with no insurance and the house is unlivable. I was supposed to have a paycheck direct deposited, but it never showed up. At this point, I don't know if it will. If anybody can help us with a few dollars through my paypal donate button on my website I would be truly thankful. I'm not looking for tons of money, just enough to help me and my wife and kids get through the next couple of weeks.
Thanks and God Bless.
_________________
Tom & Isabelle Parker
http://mambo.tparker.net
http://music.tparker.net
All men aren't pigs... we just smell that way.
Maybe we should bomb this "Nature" country, after all, that "Katrina" terrorist obviously came from there, so the government seems to support terrorism.
they don't keep getting destroyed, they are being destroyed by human influence. I am not sure if US media conveyed that knowledge to the US citizens, though. But all experts seem to agree that all the causes for the strong impact were human made (ie destruction of the buffering marshes).
Over the last century most of the tax revenue has been pushed from the local level to the federal level. In part due to really bad local corruption (Louisiana has a notably bad record). So yes, the Federal government is getting a big chunk of the pie but it does little good at the local level.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Yesterday, I heard on the news that some of the dyks around New Orleans where build to resist water levels that only occure once every thirty years. So really, it is no surprise that they did break now. Here in the Netherlands, dyks are build to resist water levels that only occure once every tenthousand years. The only conclusion that I can draw from this, is that this disaster is not a natural disaster but a human engineerd disaster.
Everyone loves to throw numbers around, of course, and 2.5 billion people affected is a lot, too, but... wouldn't it be more realistic to measure the *percentage* of earth's population affected by these things? Otherwise, the fact that the number of peopl who're affected by natural disasters like this is pretty much worth nothing - of course there are going to be more affected people if there are more people in general.
The percentage of affected people would be much more informative, especially if also coupled with a comparison of the damage done (again, the *real* damage, not just a raw dollar amount that doesn't take inflation etc. into account).
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
In recent news, George Bush declared War on Natural Terrorism - a form of terrorism that takes affects through natural disasters. The enemy is yet to be located, but when that is done, it's marine deployment time.
Although this sounds impressive and devastating: "... 2.5 billion people were affected by floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters between 1994 and 2003..."
The problem is the word "affected". I had a cold last year, was I one of the people "affected" by natural disasters? How are they defining whether or not someone was affected? You could say anyone who donated money to a relief fund was affected, or are they only referring to the number of people injured or that had property damage. What about someone who hid out in his bomb shelter for a week. Was that person affected? Does emotional disurbance count as being "affected"?
I'd prefer a concrete statistic, like number of people killed, number of homes destroyed. Saying that x people were "affected" doesn't tell us anything useful.
Reports like these remind me that we're not in the information age, we're in the data age. The information age will be next when we start compiling all this data into useful information.
Pico del Teide
Compaired to Venus? Mercury? Omicron Persei 8? I think not!
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
My God! Considering the magnitude of the disaster in a city of which I have many fond memories, it had not ocurred to me that someone might be deranged enough to blame Southern Decadence. For those unfamiliar, "Southern Decadence" is the rather tongue in cheek name for a sort of Gay Mardis Gras that occurs in late summer in the French Quarter of New Orleans. It has all of the "good feelings and camaraderie" aspect to it that Mardis Gras does. And everyone is welcome. Gay or just "Gay Friendly", it doesn't matter a whit. (Many people are from out of town, but many are not, and I worry about those who are New Orleans residents.) And yes, there is lots of drinking, just like at Mardis Gras. I would say that I feel sorry for the proprietors of repentamerica.com. But the sad fact is that they are probably perfectly alright with their self-righteous, jaundiced outlook. And what's with that business about "just days before Southern Decadence"? No one shows up early for Southern Decadence. It's like Mardis Gras. It's fun, but it lasts "just long enough" without any prelude.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Meanwhile, the Americans whistle and pretend they can keep dumping massive greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere without having any impact at all.
Maybe other nations need to start sending them the cleanup bills.
The planetary hazards have been here for millions of years. I believe the collective human population to be increasingly stoopid.
Well there's a rocket leaving soon with all the smartest people in the world:X
;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treehouse_of_Horror_
If you hurry, you can meet up with Tom Arnold, Pauly Shore, Rosie O'Donnell and Dr. Laura.
typo correction: "correction"
States along the Gulf get hit by destructive hurricanes than California gets hit by destructive earthquakes: why is California spending so much more on mitigation than Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida?
Depending on how you look at it, California isn't mitigating more. Only 13% of Californians have earthquake insurance. That's clear indication that Californians themselves take a relaxed attitude about earthquakes.
Why do we keep building on flood plains and omitting the obvious - that they will flood?
Anyone who has played Empire Earth knows the answer to this.
You build cities on the best agricultural land in order to discourage farming. This forces people to move to cities for work. This makes industrialization easier, makes controlling the population easier, and generally enables a more hierarchical society, what some might call "civilization".
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Last year Cuba evacuated about 1.5 million people BEFORE a devastating hurricane hit the island. Death toll: 1 casualty. Now there's a government who actually cares. When you're poor in the US you have to freedom to die alone or die together in the local stadion.
It's called the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. It's been prophesied in the Bible, the Book of Mormon and by prophets and apostles old and new.
The entire city of New Orleans has been destroyed. Wiped out. This is an act of God, just as the Tsunami was in Asia.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Now that's a scientific point of view I expect from Slashdot. Not objective but a liberal left leaning slant. Nevermind that hurricanes run in 30 year cycles, or the last model I read about suggested that hurricanes would move north in the Atlantic, not increase in intensity. Grow up!
This is nature's way of keeping balance of the numbers of different species. Humans are already overpopulating the planet, more humans would only not speed the destruction of this planet, but speed up the extinction of other species.
We already now this is going to end in a catastrophe, a couple of million less humans will give this planet more time.
yea.. go mod me as a troll.. you know it's true.
Actually, they did get the memo years ago. But they thought that the first rule of risk management is don't talk about risk management.
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
The population can grow as long as there is energy available to support it. Energy, and oil specifically allows us to insulate ourselves from nature's forces by building habitat, artificially increasing food production etc. Whether it is safe isn't even part of the equation.
When we no longer have the means to protect ourselves (i.e. oil runs out), then Nature will be far more punishing than a hurricane, tsunami or earthquake. Just imagine other cities in the state of New Orleans because there is no electricity, water, gas or food production. All of those comforts are entirely dependent on a shrinking supply of oil.
Saying natural disasters are killing more and more people and trying to draw a conclusion from it is about as smart as saying that new movies sell more tickets than movies in the sixties, therefore more people go to see movies, or movies are better, or really saying anything other than that there simply are more people on earth than there used to be.
"Quoting yourself is stupid." -Me
humans,
quit your bitching. You don't know how lucky you are.
out.
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
Its very sad what has happened in New Orleans and my pprayers go out to all teh victims of the natural disaster. I only hop ethat if something like thsi happenns again our Government is faster to respond.
What governmental disaster relief?
The New Orleans Times-Picayune (which in 2002: published this report which predicted much of the current disaster.) has a scathing open letter to the president that spells out a lot of the FEMA incompetence.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
If you ever read any of the annual reports of insurance companies, they will plainly state that certain areas are becoming liability-heavy. To them, paying out a lot of money due to more regular floods/hurricanes is bad for business so they're going to be the first to confirm that the problem really is as bad as people think. They might try to screw you for the smallest settlement, but they're more than happy to jump straight to the point about reality in their statements because it really does affect their bottom line.
"What will happen when the volcano on La Palma collapses? Scientists predict that it will generate a wave that will be almost inconceivably destructive, far bigger than anything ever witnessed in modern times. It will surge across the entire Atlantic in a matter of hours, engulfing the whole US east coast, sweeping away everything in its path up to 20km inland. Boston would be hit first, followed by New York, then all the way down the coast to Miami and the Caribbean."u nami.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2000/mega_ts
The bottom line is we have a very unsafe planet.
All we need now is a comet to come crashing into the Earth before someone come to the conclusion that we live in a very unsafe solar system.
How is this interesting? This is a flame bait if I ever seen one.
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
I just saved 15% on my auto insurance.
Who moderates this shit insightful??? If you actually knew anything about Jesus Christ, you'd know that he would never do anything like this.
But hey if you get sick or hit by a car, I will be sure to come by the hospital and tell you that you deserve to die because God obviously made a car hit you.
Without the barrier islands, New Orleans needs even bigger and stronger levees to stay above water. The existing system was intended to resist only a Cat 3 hurricane, and that was with the barrier islands in place to slow down the storm surge. With them gone, a relatively minor hurricane could swamp the city again. And minor hurricanes come through all the time. There might even be another one this year. So the city really can't be reoccupied until new, stronger, levees are in place.
There will be some rebuilding. The central business district and the tourist areas will probably be fully protected and rebuilt. There will be housing for oil industry and port workers, but probably not in the low-lying areas. But when rebuilding is over, the population of New Orleans will be much smaller than it is now.
A similar hurricane, in 1900, flattened Galveston, TX. A hurricane with 120 MPH winds killed 6000 people and levelled much of the town. The entire town, 500 city blocks, had to be jacked up several feet, and a huge seawall built. The jacking and filling job took eight years. Building the seawall took from 1900 to 1962. Sixty two years. And Galveston wasn't below sea level.
Ever after, Galveston was a smaller and less important city than it was before the 1900 hurricane.
That is why the rates of reproduction are so high, to cover the loses due to natural causes, such as incurable diseases and natural disasters. If instead of trying to cure diseases or prevent disasters we increase the reproduction rate the result is better for the species because 1) we can maintain the same population number 2) the populationm is made up of younger individuals, which is better for the mankind,it says so in any book of mathematical demography. For a population to be OK, we need to reduce the percentage of old individuals (either by letting the old die of diseases or disasters or by increasing the production of the young, it does not matter how, the result would be the same, a younger population)
New Orleans is built on delta silt, notoriously unstable and has been documented for decades to be slowly sinking, eventually turning into Venice of the Gulf. For decades the artifically channeled river continues to silt up, raising the water level ever higher, faster than dredging or levy improvements can check.
shh... don't tell holland that it is impossible to live safely on delta silt. They'd have to move their whole country and give up their elaborate system that supposedly protects them from storms.
Oh and by the way, the levees in New Orleans didn't fail. What failed where flood walls. You see the storm surge was higher than the flood walls, and it began to flow over the top of them. This flow ended up washing out the foundation of the flood walls and they collapsed.
Although the worst part of Katrina's storm surge didn't hit New Orleans (It was 30 feet in Mississippi, the highest ever recorded... higher than the Tsunami), but what did hit was higher than the system could cope with.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
If there are no people this will be the safest planet to not live on...
You know, if you don't trust me or don't want to help, that's fine. Do nothing.
At the very least, spare me your snide comments. I just watched my home town of 40 years practically blow away with the sand... having jerks rub salt in the wounds we received by making hateful comments is just plain evil. I've seen enough evil for one week...
Didn't expect to find it here at Slashdot.
All men aren't pigs... we just smell that way.
There is a lot of talk and headscratching about the ferocity of nature, etc., but I would like to point out that much a lot of the deaths of New Orleans (and the tsunami as well) are caused by failure of society as well.
In both cases you have a lot of poor people living close by the coast and the governments that do not really care what happens to them.
If Katrina hit Amsterdam, for example, it would still be a disaster but not nearly as bad as NEw Orleans was. Thats because Amsterdam is the biggest city in Holland, and they spent the necessary money to protect themselves and take care of their environment, they make sure they are surrounded by farmland that can soak up flood waters very quickly.
However, it is obvious that New Orleans' levys were a low priority and all kinds of construction projects were being approved which destroyed the wetlands around the city. But what is most amazing is that there was no evacuation plan, there was no emergency response from the state or the federal government for several days after the disaster hit. The only way people could leave was if they had their own cars and money for gas, and the poor did not so they were stuck.
And bush sent the Guard in only four days after the disaster hit and then he sent them "to prevent looting" and not to help the thousands of people that were stuck in the flooded city. The governer could not send the LA Guard in because they are in Iraq.
Now there is a huge debate about whether these huricanes are caused by global warming. But even if we stop activities that contribute to global warming, there would still be natural disasters. That cannot be helped.
But what we can do is organise our society so we are able to prevent damage as much as possible and quickly help the victims if disaster strikes. That was obviously not done in this case.
In 1953, the dyks weren't high enough: http://www.thehollandring.com/1953-ramp.shtml That disaster is what prompted Holland to upgrade their system to what it is today... something that is an excellent model for what can be done in Louisiana .
I suspect that after this disaster, New Orleans will expand their levee system (the levees didn't fail, but some areas still had flood walls which did fail). And I suspect the new system will be able to withstand over 30' storm surges.
But by the time such a new system is completed (20+ years from now). I doubt New Orleans will remain a major city. Baton Rouge will probably take over as the largest city in the region just like Houston took over from Galveston after the 1900 hurricane.
But New Orleans will continue, and it will continue on as the great center of American culture that it has been for almost 200 years.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
die, yep...
When I was going through university - I was forced to take english literature (for 3 years). Started with old english authors and then moved on through all the authors. Since I wasn't a christian - I had no idea of what the early authors were talking about (from Jonathan Swift on, the authors made sense--- interesting enough Yahoos are the jerk-offs in Gullivers Travels). What didn't I understand about the early authors content? That the christian church and the authors decided that Earth was (and still is?) - the centre of the universe! And that whatever we "small ants" did on the surface of this planet would impact the entire universe - rather than visa-versa! Its obvious that the "We Are Causing Global Warming Gang" still believe that earth is the centre of the universe - and that we humans must be overly significant. Just like planners/politicians who decided to build a city below sea level and not engineer for that fact!! (And god will keep the sea out?) Well it looks like god will only keep the sea out - if you are white. And it looks like when god isn't happy with you (if you are black)). Neither is the ruling class - the elites and their puppets, the politicians - happy with you (if you are black). Imagine if Kenny Bunk Port got hit with the same hurricane - how many minutes it would take for Bush to get the cans of caviar and cases of chanpagne to the whiteys at Kenny Bunk Port.
It seems to me that Malthus will always be relevant in this respect. We have to have a way of limiting our population growth or nature will do it for us.
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
about illegal immigration. California is being forcefully taken over and will be a defacto Mexican state within a few years. they already suffer more actual bona fide "terrorism" from illegal invaders in the form of gangs than then anything like 9-11.And they don't care enough to deal with it, do they? They play act at controlling the borders, but aren't really doing much about it. And for that matter, most of california is a desert, just wait until the other states populations rise enough for the water shortages go from critical, where they are now, to OMG THERE AIN'T ENOUGH! Then they will act surprised and demand that big brother "save them".
Any place that doesn't care about its own borders will also not care about anything else like earthquakes that much. Or Hurricanes.
Every state and every nation has a choice, give a crap about the future and about the now and how things are done, or ignore the critical things in favor of the trivial and mundane. Critical things take work, mundane and trivial are much easier to deal with, so that is where the effort goes. Critical things take brains, trivial and mundane take cockroach reaction to stimuli. Critical things don't show up in a quarterly "bottom line" profits spreadsheet, trivial and mundane do. In california and lousisiana and most other places, the trivial and mundane rules. Like another poster commented, pro football is more important, drinking and getting stoned and partying were MUCH more important in NOLA (I defy anyone to deny that about New Orleans), staying stuck in poverty for generations and blaming it on "the man" were more important. In Cal the latest fashion and pimping your ride and living in a severely over priced trophy home are more important right now then actually dealing with anything honestly important. they will wait until disaster strikes, whether it is a switch to violence with the illegals on a mass scale, or another giant earthquake really borking something like Diablo Canyon, or half the state burning down if they get several years in a row drought, or whatever...
Then mother earth goes "tough titty, THIS is what is important" and whacks humans down a little.
Humans are too cavlier and..well.. retarded for their own good. We aren't near as smart as we think we are.
Simply assuming anything is silly which is why it's a good idea to do as much investigation as we can, the Earth definitely does go through cyclical warming and cooling periods caused by a number of environmental factors and it would be silly to assume that our activities are not one of those environmental factors today.
That is exactly the shortsighted approach that has gotten urban areas into trouble in the past. Very rarely does it pan out. Bribing businesses with lower taxes and "supplementing education budgets" with gambling revenue are two of the biggest crackpipes politicians are smoking. Sure it sounds good in the press but at best you are platering cracks in a craking dam. Does it even make economic sense that a business would entirely base its location off of taxes? Doesn't make sense for many businesses. Rememebr that the economic equations may have lower taxes on one side but the other factors I mentioned (increased costs for transportation, labor and utilities not to mentioned distance from customers) on the other side of the scale. Maybe for some narrow wedge of the economy for unskilled manufacturing and most of theose jobs have gone to the third world.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Okay, not exactly, but it's sounding like that.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
"And again, verily I say unto you, O inhabitants of the earth: I the Lord am willing to make these things known unto all flesh;
... the world" (D&C 1:34-36).
"For I am no respecter of persons, and will that all men shall know that the day speedily cometh; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand, when peace shall be taken from the earth, and the devil shall have power over his own dominion.
"And also the Lord shall have power over his saints, and shall reign in their midst, and shall come down in judgment upon
God is not a respecter of persons, but He will bless and protect those who believe on His name and love Him.
As for His second coming, Jesus Christ has said in Matt. 24:6-7:
"Ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
"For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places."
Has this not happened? Is this not happening?
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
I was watching a rerun on Friday(?) night on the Discover Channel. The documentary, updated that day for Katrina, was not new, and was a complete rundown of what would happen if a Cat 5 hit NOLA.
But they mentioned the other city in the crosshairs. New York City. It's in the elbow of two long pieces of land, both aimed at the Atlantic ocean.
If a hurricane comes up the water, which it will, NYC is going under as surely as New Orleans did. It's only a matter of time.
Will we move NYC?
Maybe they should just give it a symbol and it can be referred to as "The city formerly known as New Orleans".
Here's a video of a concrete house that's been through two hurricanes without a scratch. You can see blown out screens on the porch but the houses came out fine. This is actually the company headquarters of the company that makes the concrete dome kits in Florida (www.aidomes.com).
Concrete Dome
Both types of homes are cheap to build, will withstand far more wind than traditional bricks and sticks construction and are more energy efficient.
What else do both of those type homes have in common? It's very difficult to get them financed. You can't go through a traditional mortgage because Fannie Mae won't touch the loans, which means you have to get a portfolio loan like we did which is prime plus. Then you get to fight with the insurance company for coverage. Our house won't burn or get blown down, but the original quote was higher than for a conventional house!
As long as we have a such a backward attitude toward home construction and financing more survivable housing structures, then you can expect a lot of flying lumber every time a hurricane lands somewhere. We build the same type homes in danger areas, then act surprised when they don't survive.
True a concrete home will flood just like conventional construction but at least the shell will be in good condition. Rip out the insides, sand blast it clean, rebuild the interior. If you build it right you can even replace the HVAC ducts and wiring conduit to prevent mold growth. It'll be just like new.
These days you can actually watch the lumber in conventional homes get thinner by the day but we're just so stuck in that brick box with a tar paper roof mentality.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
We need to act NOW, we should have started to act a loooong time ago. In the UK one of the reasons that petrol prices are so high is to discourage use, there are all sorts of other action being taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions -- it is not enough, but at least we are trying. The USA is doing nothing just in case it hurt's it's economy ... using the excuse that this or that effect is not 100% proven -- sorry: the big picture is well understood, the risks are so huge that to argue over uncertainties is irresponsible.
Sorry guys: time to wisen up; take a hit on your economy today or face many, many more things like this ... which will end up costing much, much more.
No: this is not a troll. My view is shared by many people in Europe. I know that citizens of the USA don't want to think about it, but the problem won't go away just because you shut your eyes to it.
Lobby your senator to ratify the kyoto agreement.
The article's point was that things are more disastarous because humanity has such density. This means that while the insurance cost was high to the insurance companies, the insurance companies at the same time have a larger customer base to support these situations. The article didn't conclude that over the long haul natural disasters have increased in power or frequency, simply that more people and property are in the way and produce horrificly worse numbers.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I'll believe it when god starts getting a little selective in its smiting.
New Orleans may have some wild parties, but so do other places. And New Orleans also has a lot of 'God Fearing(tm)' people.
Like the article said. There aren't more natural disasters, we're just paying more attention because there are more people living where they happen to happen.
There's a risk assessment tool that has a x-y graph. One axis is probability, the other is consequence. Going up the diagonal has high probability and high consequence. AS population grows we're putting more poeple along that axis. Not only are we putting communities where they're more liekly to have trouble, we're putting htem in places where the consequences are going to be more grave.
- Sig this!
"Yes and all that. But should he really have been on vacation? umm, how much taxes do you guys pay for all his vacations anyways?"
Unfortunately it's hard for a natural disaster and a president to get a schedule they can agree on.
This thread is about the impact of a natural disaster, and how it may have been be avoided or minimised.
Three issues seem to be important to consider.
The first is the advisability of building below sea level and relying on dams. A lot of better informed people than me are currently discussing the civil engineering aspects of this.
The second is the political issue of how the rescue was handled, and the mistakes made. Everyone has incompetent politicians, and I suspect this subject is best discussed by those with local knowledge of the people involved.
The third is the issue of how the NO people behaved during the crisis. And here the world's press is having a field day. I can think of no other disaster where rape and murder were so immediate a problem.
While these reports are not yet fully confirmed (and I hope they will prove to be exaggerated), what we are reading astounds most of the world. I have seen right-wing blogs discussing the emergency, and suggesting that getting a gun and shooting anyone who approaches is the correct 'survivalist' thing to do. This seems to be what has actually happened in some sections of the city. I wonder how many of these reports refer to armed looters fighting, and how many are the simple shooting of strangers, or anything moving.
The American 'self-sufficiency' dream combined with the love of guns seems to produce a very ugly society, unlike anything elsewhere in the world, with the possible exception of Israel and the Middle East.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
What was Bush doing while people drowned?
What was Bush doing while people starved?
What was Bush doing while people thirsted?
What was Bush doing while people were stranded?
What was Bush doing while the lucky few sat on an Interstand waiting for help and living in their own filth?
What was Bush doing while rape gangs and other criminals totally took over part of America?
How many days in a row was Bush doing this?
Same questions around this time several years back:
What was Bush doing while people burned?
What was Bush doing while people jumped from on top of a highrise to avoid burning?
What was Bush doing while people inhaled smoke?
What was Bush doing while buildings burned and crumbled?
What was Bush doing while our national airspace was totally compromised?
What was Bush doing when and after he was told the Nation was under attack?
One answer prevails through all the years and trials and crises:
N O T H I N G
Yet you morons still kept asking for him, you reap the seeds you sow. You voted for him, now deal with the problems he brings (and ignores) and enjoy your mud pies and shit sandwhiches washed down with muddy flood water and a side of bloody oil. Maybe next time, you will vote *smarter* and think about whom you are empowering.
Hey, everybody: You are not your fucking car, you are not your fucking possesions, and you are NOT fucking consumers! You are citizens, and if you would fucking realize that maybe our government and society would start to suck a little less! OKAY?!
Sorry, but I couldn't help it -- maybe if more people realized this then they would have put more money into disaster planning instead of casinos and parties!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Imagine the insurance claims when a 2km asteroid plows into the Pacific. That 2004 was so costly in insurance claims is all the more reason to promote space industrial development. Hurricane Katrina is equivalent to ~100m asteroid, this is a localized disaster. Imagine this kind of damage on a national or planetary scale provided by a several km impactor.
As more people live in more coastal cities, resources from space (beamed power, comm, transport, eventually food and plastics) will provide fast response and rebuilding after disasters. Imagine the new power grid consisting of wire grids spread over an area taking microwaves from orbit. Or getting space-dropped shipments of grain anywhere on Earth.
Vernor Vinge's books feature a deep future where Earth has been repopulated several times after biosphere-destroying disasters. Carl Sagan said that the dinosaurs went extinct because they didn't have a space program. We need to work toward becoming a multiplanet species and to create industry in freefall.
Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Especially since the disaster only gave him a one week notice.
So basically the foreign aid situation was one of pride. Granted no one really comes out and says that pride underlied their reasons, but it's there.
Today when we get live pictures from disaster affected areas around the world we naturally assume there are much more disaster. However if such a cataclism as Katarina was to happen a hundered years ago it could have wiped out the entire city with only a few photos made weeks later and articles written about it reaching only a small part of people around the world.
And Mitchel Cohen writes. . .
I wouldn't take it personally. I sypathise with your situation but you have to look through our eyes as well. We live in a world were they're shysters (not saying you're one), as witnessed by previous disasters, and quite frankly there is no way to seperate the good from the bad. That's why we all donate to social organizations like the Red Cross, and churches. Let them vet who needs help and who doesn't. I recommend since you have a temporary reprise to contact all the social organizations you can think of, and maybe network with family associates to get what you need. And Good luck!
haha, your link is pwned. suck it.
This is America. Poor people have cars, most of them fairly nice cars with shiny rims. I'm sending money to help them, but I still think they're stupid.
Hello?!!
That was a very tackful way to put it!
I bet that we only have a very unsafe planet because we MADE a very unsafe planet!
But there is always the violence of the nature with its unstoppable force, to calm down the arrogance of the human race, to remind us of who's the guest and who's the owner in this world...
Actually, those funds were to be disbursed for fiscal year 2006. Iraq or no Iraq, the work would not have been done. And supposedly the levees that were breached last week were not on the list for improvement anyway.
If you can set aside your anti-Bush venom for a few moments, you might ask why Bill Clinton did not fix this problem back in the days of wine and roses. Nobody ever had a more fortunate time in the Presidency than his two terms in the 90's, what with all the budget surpIuses and peace and relatively minor terrorist problems. But he did fuck-all about it. Too distracted getting his dick sucked, I guess.
Does Clinton hate black people too? That's the logical corollary to all the accusations flying around about Bush.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Then what explains Bill Clinton's failure to fix these problems? He had eight years of peace and prosperity, even budget surpluses. It would have been much easier to fix the problems then, than after 9/11 and several years of recession.
Does Bill Clinton hate black people too? By the logic of the arguments I've heard put forward against Bush, there can be no other conclusion.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Can somebody tell me why USA are the only country that don't want to sign the Kyoto Protocol... this is the pay for your indifference towards the world
After being into the disaster area (S and SW of N.O.) several times in the last week, I've been very impressed with how Verizon coverage has hung in there over my Cingular work cellphone. Obviously, they both cut out before getting as far south as Grand Isle. This was also true on a recent trip to the Covington (NE of NO) area as well.
Blog: http://richardrandomrants.blogspot.com/
Garner Ted Armstrong, is that you??
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
...for astounding ignorance and stupidity.
I'm especially impressed at how, with your vague generalizations, you lump the frighteningly fierce nuclear power in with feeble, marginal alternatives like bio diesel.
Uranium is very plentiful. They use it in bullets!
You can go ahead and reveal more of your ignorance by protesting that this is "depleted", non-radioactive uranium, but it's still perfectly good fuel for the right kind of reactor. If you build breeder reactors, you only need to supply it enriched uranium for kindling, after they get started, they make their own.
Raw fuel supply has never been a significant expense in nuclear power, and won't be for thousands of years. Safety and weapon proliferation are the only realistic concerns with nuclear power.
The Mississippi River extends through a number of states, and controlling the flood plain is NOT a local problem. New Orleans is on land that was deposited by the river, and is part of a much larger system that extends well beyond Louisiana. It obviously calls for coordinated regional flood management, and the federal government accepted the responsibility, which was assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers. In general, ACE performed the job well, and in exchange, New Orleans has been a major economic asset for the entire nation, acting as a natural transshipment point for much of the nation's shipping.
BushCo had other political priorities, such as diverting infrastructure funding to support an unnecessary invasion of Iraq. One of the honchos of the ACE (#2?) resigned partly because of the defunding of crucial work in New Orleans. Before 2000, in the previous series of projects, over $400 million had been spent for work related to New Orleans, and the plans had scheduled about $250 million for the last few years--though BushCo had cut it drastically. In exchange for those prior investments, New Orleans had provided billions of dollars of real value to the national economy.
BushCo's plan for next year was to continue cutting the funding, even though this is the kind of funding where the need accumulates. Cutting the money in previous years has only increased the need for more spending--and BushCo responded with even less. The inevitable result was a disaster like this one. Now we get to spend billions of dollars for repairs. However, the human costs are the largest.
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
..but is there some rule that says it must be rebuilt below sea level, so it becomes another disaster-waiting-to-happen right from the start?
Just because it was built below sea-level it is not a disaster-waiting-to-happen. Holland is proof that you can have a system of levees and pumps and live safely on a river delta below sea level.
For example, they could drain Lake Pontchartrain to the low tide level like the Zeider Zee in Holland... and put up flood gates to keep the high tides out, lower the gates to allow water out of the Lake at low tide. And dredge the bottom of the lake to build the city high enough that water will flow down into the lake from the city... thus having passive flood control. And where you need pumps, use windmill to help pump water (so as not to be dependent on electricity).
You could also use dredged mud to expand the swamps around lake Pontchartrain so as to build a natural barrier to disperse the energy from hurricanes.
That's just one solution. There's lots of ways to make New Orleans safe... and safer than many other major metropolitan areas.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
That's pretty funny, but I think it's true that lawsuits (or the fear of them) played a role in this disaster too.
The city of New Orleans had 400 municipal buses and 2500 school buses, enough to take 100,000 people to Baton Rouge in a day and a half. The only one that was used was commandeered by a 20-year-old civilian, Jabbar Gibson (bless his soul), and driven to Houston with 70 strangers aboard. The rest were not only unused, but now lie destroyed by the flood waters. Why?
The answer could be simple ignorance and incompetence on the part of local Democrat politicians (at the risk of being redundant). However, the buses were part of the official State of Louisiana Emergency Operations Plan: see page 13, paragraph 5:
I have a more likely theory to explain this appalling failure on the part of the local pols: I bet the Mayor and Governor were afraid there would be a traffic boo-boo, and everyone aboard would sue the city for millions.
(Especially if the evacuation turned out to be a false alarm. Which is why the incompetent Democrat schoolmarm of a Governor went out of her way at the Aug. 28 press conference to state that she and the Mayor were only evacuating the city at the express urging of none other than President George W. Bush.)
If you are a lawyer, you had better think long and hard about the damage your profession is doing to the American way of life.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Whenever people begin with that nonsense of how they think, because of their religious upbringing mind you, that Man can not affect the world that God created; I simply point to that enormous portion of North Africa known as Sahara to remind them of what HUMANS can do to our planet.
Doubt me? Look it up. Sahara is a human creation. Let that be a reminder to you. Now fast forward the tape to current date. What are we facing, this time?
... one more of those "oh my god, there is so much danger, you all have to fear and follow only ME" things of the bush-administration. ;))
;)
but this is only the feeling i get from listening to american news nearly all day...
Do you know what some europeans are mostly wondering about?
"Why do most americans build their house out of *wood* and *chipboard*??"
anyone here to explain it?
I mean: Wouldn't a fat wall out of concrete be the better solution?
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
There are lots of cities that don't need to be kept on life support 24/7 - the fact that New Orleans needed so much cash every single year should have been the first clue that maybe the planners should have rethought the city. Note that the city of New Orleans was declining in population (down some 2% and some between 1990 and 2000) - the leaders should have encouraged this trend rather than fight to reverse it.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
This comment reminds me of the story of the guy falling from a skyscraper. On crossing each floor you could hear him saying "So far so good".
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
Right, the only mode of transportation in the world is a car.
The day Bush came to office, the mean elevation above sea level just automatically sunk to a level below sea level. And the thermostat in the Gulf was turned waaaay up. But in 2008 when a Democrat is elected, the city will once again be above sea level and the Gulf will be near freezing.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=htt p%3A//www.theonion.com/content/node/30975&ei=ZsUcQ 7qXGs6GswGp4u22Cw
We need to understand that the capability has been there from the start to drive water and food right up to the convention center, as those roads have been clear -- it's how the National Guard drove into the city.
Maybe the problem was getting 100,000 containers of bottled water with a few days notice, not actually transporting that water to the dome.
[sic]!? lol
venerability - Commanding respect by virtue of age, dignity, character, or position.
I think maybe you meant VULNERABILITY.
polititians. Nope. Politicians.
acknowlage. Nope. Acknowledge.
imminent. YES!!!!
Yeah I knew what you meant, but the reasoning in this post makes as little sense as the spelling does.
We have the parent comment moderated up at insightfull. The following comment moderated as insightfull and both contain nothing but raw hate. They are about as insightfull as a baseball bat bashing against a skull and have about the same intellectual requirements. This thread and the community moderation of it just goes to show that the "Geeks" who read Slashdot have the same type of religous biases the fundamentalists do but are less honest about admitting it.
P.S. I live in florida what made our state so different than Louisiana. We weathered 4 major huricanes last year. Large portions of our population live only on the water. Somehow even though we had people that were without power for weeks, and Fema's response was if anything abit slower we didn't resort to shooting the people coming in to help us. Also ask yourself LA didn't get the brunt of this Missisipi did but they managed. One last thing why did Texas have such excellent preparations that they were able to handle the refugees faster than LA was ??
You can spend more and make it a dual-use room for more mundane purposes such as document storage or a wine cellar. Insurance may give you a discount, and you may be able to get funding to offset the costs.
Something to look into considering most Slashdot readers spend more than that on their computers.
The document covers hurricanes as well as tornados, but living near Xenia, OH (Google devil winds) I haven't looked into that part.
http://www.fema.gov/fima/tsfs02.shtm
Vuja De: That sinking feeling that this is going to happen again. Often occurs in meetings with Product Managers.
So, humanity has settled all the really good land, and cheaper land is being settled by the poor as global population increases.
If a city's population increases 10% in 5 years, as people move off the land to seek jobs, the poor are going to buy the cheap land that noone else wants to buy - because when you've got nothing to begin with, having a job and a house is just brilliant, even if you're living below water level.
If there's been no inundation for 100 years, then it's never going to happen - right? And when you've got thousands of people who started with nothing and have built up their entire lives on that false belief, you end up with shock and disbelief and a deep-felt sense of betrayal.
You just lost EVERYTHING because of government inaction? No - you just bought the demo.
Why do these catastrophes affect the poor? Because they've put their entire lives into the opportunities that come from living near a population centre. They can afford to take the risk on marginal land, because it is better than having nothing at all - better than no hope at all. When the wind/wave/flood comes, they're back where they started.
Of course they're bitter.
With each breath in, a flower somewhere opens; with each breath out, a flower withers away. In between lies beauty.
It's called a rubber, in popular parlance. You folks would rather spin your little fantasies about technological solutions than stand up to the religious weenies and point to the real source of the problem: too many people, and the demonization of birth control by a bunch of farm state morons who think that technology means praying to God for rain.
Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam rexque futurus.
The outward expansion to areas linke Markham is a pretty typical. City center expands, matures and decays. Outlying areas become more attractive so other centers are developed. City, hopefully, begins redevelopment efforts to keep what business is left and attract new business. In the end, Toronto is on the water and will be redeveloped at a faster pace. But pitting place A vs place B really doesn't make sense. There is plenty of commerce to go around. I'm make you a deal - round up all the liberals and we'll ship them to Detroit. We'll bait them along with a trail of tax reciepts like breadcrumbs. They couldn't possibly screw things up worse. I live in Florida now so I couldn't care less.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
The reason there were so many casualties is that people that live in cities are stupid.
1. They look to someone else to wipe their rear end when they take a dump. I'll apply this in real world terms.
Car breaks, they pay somebody to fix it. Toliet breaks they pay somebody to fix it. Hackers fix it themselves. Country people as well.
2. When all the wildlife starts hauling a$$ city people don't know what this is. They are cluesless. Just like the tsunami. Animals run like hell inland. City folk just bitch about not having gas because god help them if they have to flap their feet to get out of Dodge county.
3. Having an Xbox, DirectTV, and grovy hairstyle is more important than saving up cash to buy gas.
Studying the lastest trends in music and having nice rims on your financed ride as well as 18'' subs in the back is more important than learning how to live off the land.
Look, learn to fend for yourselves and not rely on the freaking govornment. I live in huricane alley, I've been witness to the crap a huricane can spew. There was no Helicoptors flying in where i lived. I took many cold showers and spent many dark humid nights with a window open because our County wasn't declared a vital area to receive power. I went almost a month without electricty and still made it for class 2hrs away at my college.
So you stupid city dwellers in the bayou can suck on my A$$. I"m sad to see all the death but its nobody's fault but their own. Now maybe they'll learn basic boy scout techniques to fend for themselves.
Sadly they won't. STupid a$$es
I'm going to be polite about it and pretend you're just ignorant and deluded, not a malicious liar (though I think there is more evidence for the latter than the former). Therefore I'm going to put the response in the form of the famous real estate joke:
Q: What three things determine the value of a piece of property?
A: Location, location, and location.
New Orleans is at a unique location, and that is why it has been so valuable for hundreds of years. Value that extended far beyond the state of Louisiana, but especially for the entire Mississippi River basin. Given a small and reasonable investment, it would have and should have continued to generate substantial profit.
Except for Dubya's extraordinary incompetence and string of miserable failures, this was a crisis that the city could have avoided. The economic and human losses are stupdendous, but merchandise will continue to be shipped. (Worth noting that those added shipping costs will now have negative impact.)
However, I think the cultural aspects may be least replaceable. "Old" New Orleans was one of the most unique and original American "melting pot" creations. That need not have been lost, but I think many aspects are probably gone forever.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
U.s. is quick to buy oil from Quatar, semiconductors from India, rocket
launches from Russia, coal from south Africa, but still acts suprised
by the downside of globalization. U.s. is going to have to start
sharing the flooding, humanitarian crisises, terrorism, and poverty
that everyone else has been dealing with.
Tax revenue once made by u.s. is now made by India. Public works
projects once funded by u.s. are now funded by China. A levi that
might be built in Louisiana now has to be built in Mumbai because
that's where TI is. Earthquake retrofitting that might be done in
Calif* now has to be done in Singapore because HP is there. Healthcare
needs to be shared. Energy needs to be shared. Your CIA said by 2015
u.s. would be sharing widespread poverty and humanitarian crisises that
have plagued its exporters for a long time.
It's going to take pain to live in a global economy.
Bush was not mentioned in the parent comment or the parent comment of the parent comment. In fact the governor was criticized (and no mention of his party affiliation) As far as I know, there was one person Keynes?!?(spell?) one non-victim who said GWB hated black people. One. Accusations flying around Bush? I think you're being way too defensive.
I don't go with the idea that this was some kind of intentional attack on the people of NO, but there is something strange about the delay in providing support, which is still going on.
On UK TV tonight UK journalists were moving through NO providing bottled water and rescuing people, while the military patrolled the streets but did nothing to help. They were astounded at the lack of rescue services around, since they knew that many were waiting to go in. They commented that military helicopters seemed to be the primary rescuers, and few boats or wheeled vehicles were in evidence, though these would be quite practical to use.
I reckon I could get 100,000 bottles of water at 2 hours notice, by comandeering it from supermarket warehouses and bottling plants outside the disaster zone.
"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this (she chuckled slightly)--this is working very well for them." http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/artic le_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001054719
...who was a Republican until just before the mayoral election.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I'm sure Venice will be only too happy to help with gondolier training.
Actually I'm being more than half serious. New Orleans will never be the same again. Too many people will decide that the new lives which they will carve out for themselves elsewhere are not too bad. They'll prefer to stay where they find themselves rather than return to a radically changed situation which only has geographic location in common with what was their previous lives.
I disagree that the ACE "did their job well." Several articles -- Google gives me this one and this one -- are pointing out that the construction of the levees directly caused wetland loss, which made New Orleans more vulnerable to big storms. So if the ACE's job was to build levees, then I guess they did good. But if their job was to protect New Orleans, I'd say they did more harm than good.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
You've been watching too much TV. The three things that determine the value of a piece of property are suitability, desire, and ability to pay. Location is one aspect of this, but is far from being the only aspect.
You're on the right track but the train ain't quite yet pulled into the station. At the founding of the port of New Orleans people did the best with what they had, and did a pretty decent job of it. At some point, however, people decided they were tired of the river meandering forth and back and took a few steps to prevent this from happening again, locking themselves into a position which simply could not reasonably be held forever.
Nobody is disputing the value the port provides to the nation. Only short-sighted buffoons such as yourself declare that the city as developed should have been sustained regardless of cost, effort, or perhaps better location, location, location elsewhere in the region. Keep reading... the crux of your complaint is revealed below.
In the times of Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton you would have been squarely on the side of the federalists. It isn't that the city was wiped out - you can't honestly say that you really care much about the city or the people, can you? - it is that it happened on Bush's watch that gets your goat. Please be honest: since 2000 has the phrase "we were robbed" or some reasonable facsimile thereof even once crossed your mind? The city of New Orleans wasn't wiped out during Clinton's watch because they were lucky. They weren't wiped out during the watch of King George I because they were lucky. They weren't wiped out under Ronnie's watch because... well, I hope you get the point.
But as an exposed Bush-hating federalist your vision of America is clear: you hate the concept of local government control and want the centralized government to control all aspects of life, safety and security, don't you?
But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt: what specific mistakes did Bush make and what should he have done differently? Do you know? Or is this (as I strongly suspect) just a case of "let's stick it to George! That'll show him!" If you can't identify his mistakes, how do you know that he made them? Bush made lots of mistakes - it shouldn't be difficult to identify them. How many can you name?
BTW: I'm curious as to that about which I "lied maliciously".
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
Thermonuclear war. Get your facts straight. Within an hour every square foot of the earth's surface can be obliterated by nuclear weapons. And there's people who have been in the past willing and able to go that far--it's a miracle we've gotten this far. I know you're probably too young to remember the cold war, but back during those days everyone knew that their death-by-nuke wasn't all that far away...and the only thing that's changed since then is that back then, the world didn't have to deal with Mr. Bush with his finger on the red button.
Now, Global Warming/destruction of the ocean is important--don't get me wrong, and getting rid of nuclear weapons may never be either feasible or a good idea, but they could eradicate us, much faster than global warming can.
"On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Let me stress that not every new orleans person is involved in looting.
I'd also like to ask a simple question that most news reports I've read fail to address. You're stranded in a city that's virtually abandonned; you have no electricity and your supply of food has run out. Is it looting to break into a supermarket to feed yourself? What about to get up batteries for your radio so you can listen for emergency broadcasts?
Sadly most of those in this situation are already living at or below the poverty line, and are now vilified for simply supporting themselves. That said, those who are truly looting -- attempting to profit at the expense of the victims of this natural disaster deserve to be vilified. That includes not only the guy robbing people on the street, but any corporates and other businesses who're taking the opportunity to price gouge.
If you are just lying, then you already know it, and I'm not going to waste my time beyond asking you to designate me as a foe. If I had my druthers, all liars would mark me a foe and I'd be able to greatly reduce the amount of time required to filter out their garbage. (Interesting that since I switched to this "truth-based" sig, far more people have been marking me one way or the other.)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Go move to the states, traitor
d:
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
...to simply shrug off it's inhabitants. It was here before us. It does not depend on us for it's existence. We don't even amount to a film of dust on it. Overall, we are not very good tenants either.
"The corruption and graft you talk about is usually done by "well off" people with power and connections. It's these people who are preying on the poor, uneducated, and disadvantaged."
"Usually" being the operative word. There's more [color-on-color] preying than you can imagine. It's just the rich are more visable.
"You want people to stop looting? Provide the means for them to eat, and to leave the area."
Well that explains those shooting at rescuers. They just want to leave.
"How simple it would have been for the State and/or US government to have provided buses for people before the hurricane hit, and throughout this week. Even evacuating 100,000 people trapped there -- that's 3,000 buses, less than come into Washington D.C. for some of the giant antiwar demonstrations there. Even at $2,500 a pop -- highway robbery -- that would only be a total of $7.5 million for transporting all of those who did not have the means to leave."
To borrow an answer.
"Irrelevant. I took a look at some statistics, which showed that 60% of
children in New Orleans where considered 'poverty level'. That means 60%
of the parent had to be too. There where 3 million people there. 60% of 3
million is 1.8 million people. It would have taken 10,000 buses, each
with 60 people on board, making three trips each, assuming each trip,
given the distance they would have to have gone, time around the city
picking up people *and* traffic (only two roads in an out), took 8 hours,
to evacuate 1.8 million people. Now, if it was 1/10th that in actuality,
then 'maybe', but at least some of the needed buses were likely already
in use to do that. Maybe LA or NY had 10,000 buses. New Orleans probably
didn't even have 1,000 and they didn't know until roughly 24 hours before
the storm that this was going to be a category 4-5, and not a lesser
storm, which would not have required an evacuating at all."
The reason for New Orleans was during it's founding, 1718, the mouth of the Mississippi was hard to find, often silted over. Hence the easiest way to get to the River was to sail into Lake Ponchartrain, and portage over to the River. New Orleans is on the smallest piece of land between the Lake and the River. That's also why btw the Industrial Canal links the Lake and the River. Canal Street gets it's name from an abortive 19th Century canal that was to be dug from the Lake to the River.
New Orleans was during the Nineteenth Century a rich city, THE shipping point for the Midwest. Free Men of Color even lived in the City before the Civil War and some even had slaves (weirdly enough). While Segregation was a fact (Plessy of Plessy versus Ferguson was a New Orleans Native and his tomb in in St. Louis Cemetery) it was never as rigidly enforced as other cities, due to the nature of the Port City and the Catholicism mixed with voodoo that still is part of life there.
The problem is that the city has been sinking into poverty for at least a hundred years. Hostility to economic development, toleration of the APPALLING Housing Projects, inability to provide much public infrastructure including education and public safety, and rampant corruption have driven the middle class and much of the working class, black and white alike, out of the City.
Neglect of the wetlands and levees has been going on for generations. President Clinton and Bush both cut funding for levee repair, and New Orleans has a separate Levee Board (to spread out the corruption) for each single levee. All of these things were exacerbated by the outing by Hustler of Rep. Livingstone's affair during the Clinton Impeachment, with the result that pork went to Alaska instead of Louisiana in a Republican Congress. Note too that the NYT opposed levee funding because it was "bad for the wetlands" which was Clinton's reasoning for the cuts he made.
In the meantime, New Orleans found $200 million for a Canal Street Streetcar system, and who knows how many hundreds of millions to lure the Charlotte Hornets to New Orleans complete with a new arena.
The problem with New Orleans is basically one of a political and cultural leadership that has refused to tackle the crime, levee, and evacuation problems that ended up in a perfect storm. A city like say, Boston or Dallas or LA would not have let things get so bad.
Does New Orleans need to be where it is? Yes. The existing rail and shipping nexus are too important, and the potential of the location too high. However, it needs Dutch style competence in all aspects of Government, instead of the usual "Louisiana Logic" that St. Expedite will save you "real fast."
And yes, there really is a St. Expedite.
The problems with Katrina in New Orleans, and why Mississippi had problems also with aid arriving, but had no horrors of crime and deprivation stem from geography and leadership.
In Florida and Mississippi, the hurricanes that hit do not destroy the redundant Interstates which means that you can bring in massive truckloads of supplies and relief from outside the Hurricane devastation quickly. New Orleans is geographically isolated, the main East-West Interstate, I-10 was just GONE, and so was the bridge over Lake Ponchartrain from the North. That meant only from the South could relief come into the City.
Politically, Mississippi and Alabama and Florida have marginally better leadership. MS and AB declared martial law immediately after the hurricane and there was no looting (which was unimportant of itself) and therefore no widespread breakdown of social order (which was critical to getting aid in quickly).
Blanco and Nagin's inability to provide social order led to horrific delays in aid reaching those who needed it most. For example the Red Cross was outside the city in Jeff Parish by Tuesday, but the National Guard (which reports to Blanco) did not let them in due to the horrific security situation. This did not happen in MS and AB because of better governm
in less than a generation.. Globally.. Its already almost there in most of the developed world. If we can only survive the next 30 years or so, we will turn the corner and technology will start to catch up with the world's population.. Assuming we dont have a war.. If we do, we could be annihilated.. All of us.. And then some... Even the 75% of the people on Earth who know or care next to nothing about the US could end up dying..
I am pretty sure I am pissed off on how Bush has handled the rescue and recovery effort thus far. But as so many of you Deaniacs fail to realize is that both parties do bad bad bad bad things.
Are you kidding? Garner Ted never got straight to the point like that.
I used to catch him on car radio at night years ago. Even though it held my attention for the full half hour, at the end I had no idea what he had said.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Oh, I see: the poverty in New Orleans which exacerbated the effects of the flood damage is the South's own responsibility because they have a racist society. I suppose that poverty and racism have been abolished everywhere else in society except the South, then? Wow. I can't believe that people still think this way in 2005. I encourage you to evacuate your bubble and visit the South sometime. But why do that when you can make smug accusations blaming others?
Ironically, these so-called "racist" Southern states like Texas, Alabama, Florida, and Tennessee have contributed more to the relief effort than any other region. How have YOU helped? How many beds has YOUR state provided for the storm's refugees?
Right, right. Yep, the Bush administration has been filling New Orleans with people it didn't like, and secretly creating an environment where they would all be wiped out. I'm amazed you're not the political editor for CNN!
The levees haven't seen improvement for 40 years, which includes the Johnson, Carter, and Clinton administrations too. I guess everyone shares a bit of responsibility, don't they? Or do you seriously not see it that way?
I don't know where to begin to tear this idiotic nonsense apart. You are not only stereotyping entire states as one party or another (which is patently stupid), you are confusing "they" in your rhetoric with a combination of public and private enterprises, only a small minority of which is the Federal Government. The overwhelming majority of funds for rebuilding come from insurance claims, charity, and personal finances. The Federal Government is not, and should not be, responsible for "rebuilding" areas affected by a natural disaster.
Let's see, you've managed to call the South racist, blame the Bush Administration for the New Orleans levee system, and spout absolute falsehoods about who pays for rebuilding. Why should we listen to you? You're a flame.
I heard Wal-Mart managed to send 13 trailers of supplies to New Orleans.
I can't believe the US Gov hasn't done much better.
I would have thought by now that the US would finally have got the message. If you keep on burning fossil fuels and pollute the atmosphere with your huge energy consumption, it will come back to bite you. (It has now in New Orleans and Florida). The annoying thing is that it isn't only limited to you guys, you will drag the rest of us down too!! PLEASE Get your act together before this planet ends up like Mars.
Martley, Near Worcester UK.
The nature of threats are changing over time. Global climate change is one of them, and in part believed to be responsible for more and more hurricanes.
As a countermeasure, many countries, but not the US (yet?), have signed the Kyoto Protocol.
Get your local rep to do something about it!
About what?
And I thought you weren't gonna argue with me? hmmmmmm?
Oil offers a magnitude more energy than the next best alternative and you fail to realize that oil is required to create the alternatives. You have to build power plants, build alternative fuel cars, build hydro-electric damns. The energy to do all that has to come from somewhere FIRST before you can even begin to build something new.
A concise outline of the relevant problems can be found here:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
That is a dynamite link!
I voted against Bush- 90% because of Supreme Court issues (didn't make a difference- I'm in a gerrymandered 70% Red district). I don't like the thought of being in a pro-corporate/pro-christian supreme court environment the rest of my life. (for all of christianity's good points- it is usually corrupted when it gets power).
That being said- I am not buying the dem's laying this on Bush for 1 second. At most the man is 5-10% responsible. More likely he is under 5% responsible. I would lay primary responsibility on the mayor, the governor, FEMA, and (this has gotten a lot of heat) the people themselves for not taking enough personal responsibility for their fates.
All that being said- the government effort really only ran about 24 hours slow. With the "katrina got past and all is well- uh oh a levee broke" I can understand the stutterstep a bit.
But someone else said this is our dunkirk and we didn't call for the boats and there I agree. I did what I could as a private citizen but if the government had said, "We need everyone within 100 miles of NO to get their boats and start hauling people out NOW" then I believe people would have responded and filled the gap. It didn't have to be this bad- it was this bad partially because we depended on the government too much.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
LOL! Oh yeah, that was him all right. Lo these many decades later, all I remember was that he'd continually hammer on the "wars and rumours of wars" verse, and every time I hear that phrase, I think of ol' Garner Ted.
:)
The things we remember from our childhood... it's downright horrifying.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
The world is NOT "more unsafe," there are just more people living in the already unsafe AREAS.
YHL HAND.