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Mayor Orders Mandatory Evacuation of New Orleans
Pickens writes "City officials ordered everyone to leave New Orleans beginning Sunday morning — the first mandatory evacuation since Hurricane Katrina flooded the city three years ago — as Hurricane Gustav grew into what the city's mayor called 'the storm of the century' and moved toward the Louisiana coast. 'This is the real deal. This is not a test. For everyone thinking they can ride this storm out, I have news for you: that will be one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your life,' said New Orleans mayor, C. Ray Nagin. Already, hundreds of thousands of residents had begun streaming north from New Orleans and other Gulf Coast areas stretching from the Florida Panhandle to Houston. Bush administration officials took pains not to be caught as flatfooted as they were in Hurricane Katrina, announcing that President Bush had called governors in the region to assure them of assistance and that top federal emergency officials were in the region to guide the response. 'We could see flooding that is worse than what we saw with Katrina,' said Louisiana Governor Jindal."
The US Geological Survey will be running a real-time "Map of Hydrologic Impacts" to monitor flood levels, and the National Weather Service has charted direction and wind-speed probabilities. Reader technix4beos points out the need for IRC transcription of FEMA and NOAA feeds.
It's below sea level in one of the most hurricane prone places on earth. Why are rebuilding and living there?
Make it an industrial zone and be done with it. Use the money to permanently relocate the population, not rebuild their soon-to-be blown away homes again.
Here's a hurricane music video...
If that weren't racist, it would be really funny. Or, if I weren't so politically correct, that would be really funny.
That frickin falling tree will knock out your INTERNET ACCESS dweeb!
That's fricking news to some of us!
Get the freaking hint - New Orleans is in one of the worst possible places, stop spending federal money rebuilding it. If people want to live there, let them suffer the entire burden of living there! If you want to spend federal money, spend it on relocation allowances and get people permanently away from the problem!
You must be new here.
I guess you don't know about all that "science" stuff that allows us to figure out where a hurricane is going to go and how strong it will be.
Hey, I'm interested in this kind of stuff. It shows what The US Geological Survey guys can do in real time. Also it is interesting to those nerds concerned about getting to work on time, do you remember all those facts about how much US oil comes out of the gulf? I am SO glad I get a bus pass from where I work. You have to realize that there is more to nerds then PCB's and software.
I really just curious - do feds or anyone from government did their work _after_ Katrina? Or it was like - ohh, shit happened, my bad - and life moved on and no one prepared for "second coming"?
I hope Gustav will pass easy. That is shame that so beautiful city have to struggle to survive again in such short time.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Uh, it's not the USGS, it's NOAA.
Please turn in your nerd card immediately.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Make sure to read Naomi Kleins book "The Shock Doctrine" or at least one of her online articles: The Shock Doctrine in Action in New Orleans.
Are the mayor really allowed to do this? Last time New Orleans had an evacuation there where looting of the abandoned properties. Should it not be up to the owners to them self decide if staying behind to defend it is worth the risk or not?
Disclaimer: I am European. I don't think the government would have any problem doing it here. But are not Americans more concerned about their liberty (for example to risk drowning and looters) then we are?
Spelling/grammar nazis welcome (English is not my first language and I am trying to improve my spelling/grammar)
As much as I think living in hurricane zones is a bad idea, New Orleans is a major US port that has to have onsite personnel to manage shipments going in/out of the Mississippi river.
That personnel has to have a nearby place to live, shop, & recreate.
If New Orleans does get smashed up again, I would hope they could do as old European cultures did: build the new city on a layer above the old one, using the old city as both foundation and a riser.
Alas, construction of that magnitude is far too costly and takes far too long. Ironicly, its probably cheaper to just repair/rebuild the existing site after each major storm and just hoping they get a decades-long break again.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
I tried to RTFA, but I couldn't because I wasn't registered. Don't give me that bugmenot crap either.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
So New Orleans is likely to be flooded yet again, but this is not a unique occurance. Florida is often trashed by hurricanes, and here in the UK much of our housing is on flood-plains, and some of our villages are crumbling into the sea due to coastal erosion.
You can't beat nature, but we've all got to live somewhere, and there is normally a very good reason for a settlement to be where it is.
It's a balancing act. Sometimes you need to put resources into sustaining a town/city, and elsewhere this may be inappropriate. The big question is 'Who decides?'
Smivs on the intertubes!
Last time New Orleans had an evacuation there where looting of the abandoned properties.
Nice way to completely gloss over the fact that there were houses turned at 90 degree angles off their foundations, that people starved to death, drowned in >9 feet of storm surge, and weren't able to return to the city for weeks and lost everything they owned.
The threat to human life from one of these storms is beyond measure. Last time the citizens of the city decided "hey, let's ride out the storm", we couldn't even send in the national guard to save them for 5 days.
So sure, if it's not legal, all the mayor then needs to do is get it declared a state of emergency, declare martial law, and then send out the troops to enforce a mandatory evacuation. It's easier if people comply and get the hell out of there so they don't die.
Or Michael Moore.
(And I think he's got a case. The toots he makes after All-You-Can-Keep-Down-For-A-Dollar night at the local tacqueria probably DOES kill the ozone layer and contribute to global warming).
We do have a pressing need for personnel who can type fast, have a good ear for "American" dialect, and is willing to spend several hours transposing into IRC.
Please head to the linked wiki (either wiki.interdictr.com or gustavwiki.com ), or directly to the irc.freenode.net and join #interdictor
Cheers, see you there.
user@host$ diff
Unless a FEMA limo drives me out this city. I'm Black, I demand it! If not, I'll stay and loot!
Why mod Funny? I am sure this is happening. I am sure there will be chopper rescues on CNN. And I am sure we will pay for people who refuse to take care of themselves. (Not just those unable to) We saw it in Houston the first time, and most people I know used up all the compassion they had then...
Link from the summary: http://water.usgs.gov/waterwatch/gustav/
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
There must be an ulterior motive, because I heard President Bush didn't care about Black people.
heh, atm (Score:2. Flaimbait) I wonder how high a flaimbaiter can go? :-P
Old "doesn't care about black people" reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIUzLpO1kxI)
Here in Lincolnshire, UK, we are in another flood-zone - all below sea level. Recently, when the area was flooded, we were paying for people who have no house insurance and got flooded. My question is, why the hell should I be paying for insurance, when people who don't just get me to pay it with my taxes instead?
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
"that will be one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your life"
It's interesting how the mayor has to overstate the odds of a disaster occurring to get people to do what's in their best interests. If he were actually say the truth, like, "at this point there's a 25% chance that the path and intensity of Gustav will cause a surge that will cause the levees to fail," people would ignore the evacuation orders, even though they now know what a levee failure entails. So now, there's a 75% chance that the levees will hold and next time he'll have to say something like, "this will be the very, most colossal mistake you can make in this or any other life," in order to get people to move.
The other day, my 8-year old had the audacity to tell me, "well, I crossed the street by myself once, and I didn't get hit," so I sat her down and explained acceptable risk, how to calculate expected values, damage quantification, and how many trials it would actually take before a statement like that would validate my letting her cross the street alone. Her eyes glazed over after a few minutes, but at least she'll think twice before crossing the street again. Going forward, every stupid risk she takes is going to be another math lesson, and I'll make her write down the probabilities and calculate the expected damages before she gets out of time out. Hopefully, she'll grow up to be both safe and smart, unlike the idiots who elect to stay behind in NOLA and (probably) live to convince others to ignore evidence and go with their guts.
Ah, you must be a Republican. How charming.
Right--because it's the republicans who are racist.
...and guess what. All democrats. Learn your history. Stop being a drone.
Hmm...who blocked the schoolhouse steps and had to be removed by the national guard....democrat.
Who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights act? Hmm--that would be Sam Ervin, Albert Gore Sr. and Robert Byrd. Senator Byrd was a former member of the KKK.
There's no place like
http://www.dshield.org/diary.html?storyid=4954 (dshield.org)
"Here we go again - Hurricane Relief Sites
Remember three years ago when hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the US Gulf coast? On the day Katrina hit New Orleans hundreds of donation sites appeared online, many if not most were scam sites. Well this time around it looks like the people who like to register domain names in anticipation of a storm's arrival have already started registering them for Gustav and Hanna. I'm not suggeting that they are up to no good, but simply pointing out that the rush has started and we need to make sure our users are aware of the potential for scam sites appearing online in the next few days."
Can anyone explain why this has the "big brother" tag? Is it simply because of the evacuation order? If so, why?
Should be my choice to stay or not. Sure i might die, but its MY property, my life, my choice.
I thought this was America?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It is truly saddening to read some of the comments. You write about wanting to displace people just because New Orleans is below sea level. You say that people are themselves responsible if they continue to live in a city which is below sea level. Let me remind you that there are locations in the Netherlands which are more than two times below sea level compared to that of New Orleans. New Orleans is of course much more prone to storms than the aforementioned place but I do not see why technology could not solve this [reinforcement] issue. New Orleans is after all an important city.
The forecasted track for Gustav is very similar to Andrew (1992). If I recall correctly, no formal evacuation of New Orleans was done for Andrew. Looks like we are having a Katrina induced over-reaction.
Journal
Where in the world *isn't* there a natural disaster waiting to happen. If it isn't hurricane, it's general flooding. If not flooding, then earthquakes. If not earthquakes, then wildfires, or tornadoes, or whatever your local flavor of emergency is. Make sure you're willing to pay for your emergency before you decide you don't want to pay for theirs.
Since the 1960s, yes, this is true.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Have any of you ever been to New Orleans? Met the people there? Know the history and the tradition of the place? Experienced the pride of people who have lived in a city with so much history?
Give me a break. What's next, are you going to tell the people in San Francisco they have to move because an earthquake is coming in a few years? How about the midwest where tornados wipe small towns clean every few years? Where are you going to move them?
We took this country and made it what it is - in many cases we had to work hard to make a place for our people to live. There's hardly a location in the US that isn't threatened by some natural disaster or another. We adapt and we make it work.
Move them out? Are you kidding? "Oh, we can't afford you anymore, you need to move." If they were to give me a choice of where my taxes went, I'd tell them to take all that money that is being spent "protecting" us in Iraq and send it down to protect one of the most beautiful and unique cities in the world.
You all go hide in a corner somewhere lest a drop of rain fall on you. I intend to enjoy the natural diversity of this great country we live in.
Racists are racists. There are republican and democrat racists. Let's not discriminate on which racists we choose to hate. Plenty to go around.
Here's a nice documentary about the real problems behind the hurricanes.
...and guess what. All democrats. Learn your history. Stop being a drone.
Apparently you think history stopped in 1964. Maybe you should pay attention to what happened since then: pretty much all the Democrats who opposed integration and civil rights legislation had become Republicans by the end of the 1960s. One of the very few exceptions was, yes, Robert Byrd, who has over and over recanted his racist views, apologized for the evil he did, and worked hard for racial equality. For decades now, the KKK crowd has been the property of the Republican Party.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Byrd's a Republican now? Shit, when did he switch parties?
Isn't there a huge surplus of houses in the US stuck in various stages of construction due to the subprime mortgage deal ?
Don't we need more food ?
Let's see if we can move everyone into these abandoned housing developments, we can setup camps and the people can finish construction on the homes themselves. The key is that they're already partially built & not in a disaster area.
Now we have a huge chunk of land that's already below sea level. We can form the land into a mangrove farm where fish and other salt tolerant plants & animals can thrive. Then blast the levies and let the whole place flood.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
The whole 'why don't they abandon New Orleans' thread here is both incredibly silly and rather offensive. It is worth keeping in mind that N.O, was the site of a revolutionary war with the Brits, back in the day. This is evidence of the importance of the place, both then and now. Nobody ever seems to suggest that San Francisco should be abandoned, due to earthquake potential. Also, New York is hit by hurricanes too, but nobody suggests abandoning it either.
People also forget that what happened to N.O. in 2005 had far less to do with Katrina than it had to do with faulty levees. When Katrina hit N.O. back then, it was effectively a category 1, not more. The claims from the Corps of Engineers about cat 3 protection were just wrong.
My guess is that the 'abandon New Orleans' crew are just ignorant of the facts, or politically motivated. In 2005, we heard such comments from a n umber of politicians, mostly Republicans. For those of us who live in Louisiana and who know and visit N.O.on a regular basis, we know that it is a wonderful, vibrant and unique city. Yes, 2005 was a huge trauma, but as a tee-shirt that produced at the time said the city was 'bent, but not broken'.
So, rather than carping about things which seem to be poorly understood, why not do something useful? For instance, I will be riding out the storm up the road in Lafayette. The two TV stations KATC and KLFY will be broadcasting live to the web. As we have generators, we should be able to see what is going on by watching these feeds. However, guess what, we cannot see the KATC feed (generally, the better of the two, especially for weather) due to the fact that they have decided to go the Silverlight route and this is a Linux only household. If people want to do something useful, please take a moment and e-mail them a complaint at webteam@katc.com. This would be much more useful than carping on about New Orleans, when the whole issue about that place is so poorly understood.
And immediately right after LBJ (Democrat) worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963 he told his advisors that he signed the South to Republicans.
Ever since, the South has been voting Republican.
So yes, they are still racist.
Who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights act?
Check the vote breakdown by party and region. It was predominantly SOUTHERNERS of BOTH parties who opposed the bill. Remember them? They were the folks who started a civil war to keep slavery around. The vote breakdown was very clearly along regional lines not party lines.
However if you insist on defending the republicans on this issue, a few southern democrats actually voted for the act - no southern republicans did. Furthermore most of the northerners who voted against the act were republicans. So yeah, in general if someone was racist in 1964 odds were better that they were republican than democrat. Odds also tell us they were likely from the south regardless of party affiliation.
If you look at the whole area, you'll notice that New Orleans is just a small suburb of a much larger inhabited area. There are cities all around Lake Pontchartrain. The north shore is much higher and safer. In the greater scheme of things, New Orleans is not important and can easily be abandoned to the sea. There is no good reason for anybody to live there and I suspect that the only reason they do, is because the accommodation is cheap. So, yes New Orleans keeps getting the news attention, but it really isn't important and should be abandoned.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
The tree takes out your internet access? I am on Comcast with packet filtering and bandwidth restrictions. That tree is a blessing you insensetive clod!
OH NOES!!111! TEH NEGROES ARE COMING TO HOUSTON!!!
Better stock up on ammo you racist prick. Can't have anyone with skin darker than yours in your city.
Amazing on how you cry racism without even knowing my race, and when my posts said nothing about race. (You do understand that I quoted someone else, don't you?) So if someone ignores another merits, and dismisses them totally based only on race, what is that called again?
Who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights act?
Because that is more important than who wrote it ?
Or more important than Mike Mansfield and Hubert Humphrey
But again, the President is the one who introduced the bill, based on promises that were made during the campaign. When the bill got passed, it was after deliberations in both the house and senate, where 20% of the republicans in the house voted against it. Why did you feel it was needed to list 3 Democrats who voted against it, instead of listing the 46 that voted for it?
It has been discussed that the main reason that the Republican party voted 'yea' in such high numbers was purely for political advantage. The perceptions of the constituents at the time, were much more closely tied into how their representative worked with the President, and not against.[1] And my personal opinion, is that the distinction is not between 'D' and 'R', but between 'The South' and the rest of the U.S. Attaching political distrinction will wind up giving you a hodge podge of data points that looks random with both republicans, and democrats, both opposing the Civil Rights Act. When the distinction is made using the geographical area represented, the connection becomes much more relevant. Where were all of your examples from again? I suppose it doesnt help too much if one of your examples 'opposed' the civil rights act because he already believed the constitution guaranteed these rights to ALL. Or that the other one of your examples admitted his opposition to be the 'biggest mistake in his career' when he supported the 1965 Voting Rights Act?
Trying to point out that a few racists were also in the democratic party does not accomplish anything. "But mommy, he did it too" stopped being a valid point of argument for most people when their age rolled over to double digits. Since 100% of the Republican party didnt support the Civil Rights Act either, it would be a trivial exercise to pull out a handful of names with an 'R' next to their names. Neither of those things would change the fact that John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, was the one who brought the legislation to both the house and senate. The Civil Rights Act was introduced by a Democrat, supported by a majority of Republicans, and was pushed through a filibuster(by other southern democrats) with the help of the above linked Democrats that wanted to see the presidents ideals codified into law. It was a GREAT example of what can be accomplished when two political sides work together, and overcome two geographic sides that wont.
Being blatantly partisan helps nobody, except those in politics. Are you in politics? Drone indeed
You will be known by the company you keep...
If you want to judge each group only by the extremists, we are all screwed.
The National Hurricane Center did an excellent prediction job, just as they did with Katrina. The storm is almost exactly on the predicted track from the last three days. It's all done on Linux. The forecaster's desktops run Red Hat Linux. The back end systems run Linux. The supercomputing clusters run Linux.
I've worked as a real estate lawyer in the New Orleans area after Katrina. Let me tell you a couple things. 1. Stop it with the "these guys rebuilt in a flood zone" thing. A number of the folks impacted are Cajuns or Acadians. If a Cajun's home floods they either raise it or move to higher ground. 2. Prior to Katrina many of the flooded areas were classified as flood zone X (does not need flood insurance) by FEMA (those maps have now been changed). 3. Many of the people in New Orleans can't financially afford to leave. Unless you're home was a total loss and you got a buyout, if you have a mortgage, not enough in insurance to pay it off and can't sell the house, that doesn't leave many options. If the government offered to buy out every flooded home owner that was classified as "in Hurricane Zone X" or "behind a federal levee, does not need flood insurance" and got flooded you'd see a lot less people trying to rebuild. Oh and one more thing, by and large it was the Federal Levee system (maintained by the Corp) that failed, not the state system that failed.
It cost but it was up and running to transfer the Mississippi basins falls export harvest from river barge to ocean going bulk carrier.
That's because the _Port_ of New Orleans is important, as is the off shore oil terminal, the city not so much.
The USA has plenty of other tourist traps.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
They know that they ruined our economy and their boy made policies that tanked us. They know that he screwed up Karina and will probably screw up this one. They know that they're to blame for the current state of the country. They know that because of them we are closer than we ever were to a police state. And they know that they have started the destruction of America and her freedoms and turned this country into a fascist corporate run state!
You guys need to stop rubbing it in!
Byrd's a Republican now? Shit, when did he switch parties?
When his party changed around him, Byrd saw the error of his ways, apologized, and set to work trying to undo the damage he had done. Most of his "Dixiecrat" contemporaries, like Thurmond and Helms, never did ... so they went over to the Republicans, who welcomed them with open arms.
It's simultaneously amusing and sad how Republicans have to reach back decades to find slurs for Democrats, while the current Republican Party presents such a target-rich environment for those Democrats with the guts to take advantage of it.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Since the 1960s, yes, this is true.
[citation needed]
There's no place like
You do realize that the political parties have shifted, right?
You do realize that's bullshit, right? I can call myself a democrat and in the same breath say that I'm for drilling domestically, love the war, and support bush--but that doesn't make me a democrat. Same thing goes for people who say they are republican. What matters is your record. In the case of these douchebags, it's their voting record.
There's no place like
The South is still full of rabid racists and various crazies.
You don't have to go south to find racists, and nuts.
As someone who has lived in 7 states I have seen them all over.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
In New Orleans, without electricity the pumps stop and the city defaults to it's flooded state. California's default state is "normal" with the earthquake being the anomaly. California doesn't drop chunks into an abyss every time the power drops out.
And immediately right after LBJ (Democrat) worked with Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963 he told his advisors that he signed the South to Republicans. Ever since, the South has been voting Republican. So yes, they are still racist.
You have a few facts messed up:
You're telling me that the South suddenly switched from voting Democrat to Republican. It appears (at least to me) that you are trying to link the switch to racism--i.e. that the Republicans were all for slavery, oppressing blacks, etc... and that's why the south started voting for them.
The problem with that is that when it came to a vote, 40% of the House Democrats voted against the Civil Rights Act, compared with the 80% of Republicans that supported it. Support from Republicans in the Senate was even higher.Republican support in the Senate was even higher.
So you're telling me that after that vote, the south switched to voting republican?
Or maybe you are talking about the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Oops--probably not. Republican support was 82% in the house and 94% in the senate.
Let's not forget a quote from LBJ (democrat): "These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they've got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don't move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there'll be no way of stopping them, we'll lose the filibuster and there'll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It'll be Reconstruction all over again."
Sounds like another racist Democrat.
Digging around my research notes, I came across this gem--which I'm sorry I failed to write down the attribution: "Little known by many today is the fact that it was Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois, not Democrat President Lyndon Johnson, who pushed through the civil rights laws of the 1960â(TM)s. In fact, Dirksen was key to the passage of civil rights legislation in 1957, 1960, 1964, 1965 and 1968. Dirksen wrote the language for the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Dirksen also crafted the language for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in housing."
So once again, which party is the 'racist' party? Even your own examples don't stand up to research and history...
There's no place like
he didnt say there were links, he was just saying that people in the KKK vote republican not democrat
You just don't understand. Nagin and Landreaux are Democrats. That means that their intentions were good and that is what is important results don't matter, just intentions. /s
Bush is a Republican that means that he is evil. His intentions were obviously evil. Results only matter when they demonstrate that his intentions were evil. If the results of his actions are good, they can and should be ignored.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_Democratic_Party
You do realize that while the name stays the same over the decades (and centuries), their views change, right? That was more 40 years ago.
The South is still full of rabid racists and various crazies. They used to vote Democrat, now they vote Republican. You will be known by the company you keep...
You are exactly right that the name stays the same, but the views change. Democrats believe whatever is popular at the moment. When slavery was an issue, they were for slavery...until it was outlawed. Then they started talking about how they were against it all along. Then there was the voting rights act. Against it. Until it passed. Now they're all for it. They'll try to get a black man to believe they were his best friend all along.
As far as the south voting Republican because they are racist--well, that's a bullshit statement. It's like the Slashdot article a while back where Canadian (iirc) police did a study of pedophiles and found they all watched Star Trek. It's not because Star Trek supports or promotes pedophilia. They watch for some other reason. Same with the Republican party. Who cares if a bunch of racists vote Republican. I don't see any Republicans in the house or senate that are trying to pass bills to bring back slavery, or to oppress blacks, or to oppress minorities, etc...so they must be voting for some other non-racist reason. Maybe they all share a common trait of not believing in global warming. Who knows.
There's no place like
Karma be damned! I refuse to be suckered into donating money again to help people who stayed behind to loot. Most of what happened the last time around disgusted me and the Federal government was not to blame. It was, in large measure, the failing of people to take the warnings seriously and the finger-pointing ineffectual local government (read that as the mayor). And then, we have the opportunist dregs of society.
If I could target my donations, I would. Until then..no money.
-- Posted from my parent's basement
You (especially US inhabitants) can live without food for days, if not weeks.
However, you'll perish within 24-48 hours without contamination-free drinking water.
1. Get a few liters of it, NOW !
2. Get out of the line of Gustav.
Oh gawd, the Nanny State argument. Folks aren't capable of behaving "properly," so we (the government) shall remove all your freedoms and protect you from yourself. Slippery slope, well lubed.
One of your fundamental freedoms is to choose your life path. Life involves risk, and certain benefits are garnered by taking risks. I'm an SCCA member, and I race. The chance of injury or death in a race is not zero. Why doesn't the government protect me from myself in this regard? "Clearly" I would be safer if I didn't race, right? If folks choose to try to ride-out a storm, the government's obligation ends at informing them of the evacuation.
Care to cite the links between the KKK and the Republican party. Apparently I'm uneducated since I failed to find any.
Don't try to pretend I said something I didn't. I said "the KKK crowd" rather than just "the KKK" quite deliberately; there aren't really any links between any political party and the KKK itself any more, because except for a few die-hards the KKK as an organization has been pretty much defunct for decades -- thanks in large part to the efforts of Democratic Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and Democratic Attorneys General Kennedy, Katzenbach, and Clark. By "the KKK crowd" I mean, of course, the sorts of people who would be Klansmen if it were still socially acceptable ... including, again, almost all the ex-Dixiecrats except Byrd, who nearly alone among his contemporaries had the guts not only to admit that he was wrong, but also work to do something about it. Meanwhile, Thurmond's and Helms' spiritual heirs go Republican in overwhelming numbers.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
When the bill got passed, it was after deliberations in both the house and senate, where 20% of the republicans in the house voted against it. Why did you feel it was needed to list 3 Democrats who voted against it, instead of listing the 46 that voted for it?
Why do you feel the need to list the 46 democrats who voted for it, and fail to list the 138 republicans who voted for it. The total was 96 democrats against the bill, and 34 republicans against the bill. Seems to me like 96 democrats is more than 34 republicans.
It seems like the rest of your argument about "But mommy, he did it too" gets shot down when the numbers show Democrats were the largest opponents of the bill.
It was a GREAT example of what can be accomplished when two political sides work together, and overcome two geographic sides that wont.
No argument there.
Those names you pull out with an 'R' next to their names will get as big a denouncement as the rest of them. But in the context of the Voting Rights Act, there are only 34 compared with the 96 with a 'D'.
Regardless of political affiliation though, anyone who votes against the freedom of people should be disparaged.
The Declaration of Independence says "all men are created equal", not "all white men are created equal".
There's no place like
Have any of you ever been to New Orleans? Met the people there? Know the history and the tradition of the place? Experienced the pride of people who have lived in a city with so much history?
Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes. I've also been to places like China where they REALLY have a lot of history so a little perspective please?
What's next, are you going to tell the people in San Francisco they have to move because an earthquake is coming in a few years?
Building a major city on an active fault-line does not strike me as the brightest idea ever. Living there without proper planning is even dumber. Equally stupid is building a significant portion of an important port city below sea level when there is no actual need to build in that exact spot. They don't have to move but we (the taxpayers) shouldn't necessarily have to bail them out from their lack of foresight either when the inevitable comes. I do not support rebuilding the parts of New Orleans that are under sea level - it's just stupid and unnecessary. Other areas I'm fine with supporting, just not the egregiously stupid ones.
Tragedies happen but maybe we should try to avoid some of the more predictable major ones? Or failing that, at least do a competent job of planning for them. Sometimes people have to live in a dangerous place but there is no excuse for stupid zoning (below sea level!) and a lack of planning for predictable natural disasters. Live in a tornado zone? Have a underground shelters nearby everywhere. Earthquake prone? Enforce appropriate building codes and tear down dangerous structures even if they are old and historic. Sentiment has a time and place but not when lives are at risk.
I'm just waiting for when Miami inevitably gets leveled by a hurricane. It will happen sooner or later.
California doesn't drop chunks into an abyss every time the power drops out.
Thankfully not, what with rolling blackouts.
Anti-black/Jew contingents?
What do they have against Sammy Davis Jr.?
The idea being that if you live in a area prone to a natural disaster, it makes zero sense for the feds to pay to support your rebuilding there.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It isn't just the hurricanes, the sinking city, and the eroding coast line. The Mississippi river wants to switch course to the Atchafalaya basin. This is currently being prevented by the Army Corps of Engineers at the Old River Control Structure. The question is how long this will work. From what I've read, the river will eventually change course, with Morgan City replacing New Orleans as the port city for the river.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_River_Control_Structure
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Blue Screen of Death
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Funnily enough, I happened to be in Louisiana during Katrina and happened to be working for the government at the time. A small portion (like 25%) of our state's national guard was in the process of standing down from Iraq when Katrina hit, and they were actually rotated into the city during the aftermath because our governor wanted to try and save face and look tough by deploying "combat hardened troops" that will "shoot to kill." One of the main Reserve bases in Louisiana, funnily enough, is IN New Orleans and the other 75% of our National Guard was sitting on their asses waiting for orders, as they were under control of the state government, not the federal government. Bush moving in and federalizing those troops would have been seen as a huge violation of states rights and an assurpation of power, as essentially the only legal basis he could have used for it would have been to declare the state of Louisiana to be rebelling and essentially removed the state government from power. In hindsight, that probably would have been a better option.
FEMA, funnily enough, responded more quickly to Katrina in New Orleans than they did to Andrew in Homestead, FL. The cynic in me would say that's because of the demographic differences between the two locations, but such baseless theorycrafting serves no one. FEMA (and pretty much any federal disaster relief agency) is in fact paralyzed without local and state government support and cooperation, as their primary role is organization and logistics; ie: figuring out who needs what and seeing that they get it. They need state and local governments (like the national guard, state police, etc.) to provide the actual manpower to accomplish anything, and in the case of Katrina our lovely (and unsurprisingly deposed) governor just sat around and dithered while people died. She even admitted herself (not realizing that the cameras were on) that she should have sent the guard in earlier and when the president offered to take over for her (since she was obviously in over her head) she told him she'd think about it and get back to him in 24 hours.
But of course, it's obviously Bush's fault, he's such a big meanie that Blanco was too scared to call and ask for help...
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Biofuel algae farm.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Disasters occur everywhere, but in different degrees.
You're trying to conflate "disasters occur everywhere" with "disasters are likely to occur everywhere at the same degree."
Our point is that places where disasters occur at a high degree should not be rebuilt, especially not with civilian populations.
It's not really that hard, but you're making it out to be rocket science.
Anti-Globalism, Traditionalism, and FreeBSD.
http://crime.about.com/b/2006/10/24/houston-homicide-rate-attributed-to-katrina.htm
Anti-Globalism, Traditionalism, and FreeBSD.
Where it's going, yes. How strong it will be, not so much
oO0Oo
Well, I wasn't alive in 1965, but I fail to see how that has any bearing on which party is more racist NOW.
I can speak from experience about which party is the 'racist' party NOW - in 2008. I know several racist people, and they are all huge GOP supporters. In fact, I don't know any people that I would qualify as racist that support the democratic party.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7503327.stm
Of particular interest is the part where it speaks of how "the victim had not obeyed a mandatory evacuation order"....
If you don't have to obey it, then what exactly does it mean when they say it's "mandatory"? Does it mean that you are legally required to evacuate? Or is it just an official admission of sorts that if you stay, no immediate help will be available should you need it?
(,,,of course--the other time, Nagin did his "mandatory gun confiscation" and we all saw how legal that turned out to be...)
~
Hmm. Thoughtful, well-written with a balanced perspective, and a coherent argument with facts to back it up. How the hell did this get on /. ?? I wish I had points to give.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Yeah, because you don't see these things repeated over and over in the media.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
As much as i hate the south I must say that they have made major progress on race relations, unlike so many northern cities.
Xavier Rabourdin for president 2012
All the Gustav-related nerdiness you could ever wish for over at the Wunderground. Shame the data's not live RSS streaming feeds or somesuch... unless anyone would like to whip up a 'NOLA catastrophe II: this time it's personal" feed? Where's Spider when you need him?
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
"Mississippi got hit just as hard as Louisiana, and got just as little help from the feds."
And disaster relief needs scale linearly with population?
It's odd how 2 minutes research reveals the truth.
"He ran a gas station down in St. Louis No, Mahatma Gandhi was a great leader of the 20th century."
-Senator Hillary Clinton
And where pray tell, do you expect all the people that work the ports, the oil rigs and all the infrastructure to live? The tourist industry and all, is just a part of the city...MOST people in this area do not work that industry...it is stuff that supports this important port, energy creation (oil import, drilling and refinement)...seafood industry...
Real people have to live near there to make these things work. Until this can all be 100% automated, you're gonna need nearby cities for the people. It isn't like NOLA came to be where it is on a whim....it is older than the US itself...and was established precisely because of its strategic location.
Don't forget MUCH of the natural protection NOLA had in the past against Hurricanes, we the wetlands, which have been destroyed in large part by all the canals and pipelines to bring in and process oil and other goods...which DO serve the rest of the US on an economically significant level. So, sure, with the sacrifices that NOLA and southern LA has given to help serve the rest of the US...there is reasonable expectation to receive help when needed.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
"It's simultaneously amusing and sad how Republicans have to reach back decades to find slurs for Democrats, while the current Republican Party presents such a target-rich environment for those Democrats with the guts to take advantage of it."
I can find plenty of deserving slurs for Democrats in the here and now, thanks. And your "target rich environment" the past few days seems to include starting rumors that Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy with Trig, that the baby actually belongs to her daughter, and that Hurricane Gustav killing people in the gulf is a good thing because it'll help Democrats. God, according to this ex-DNC chairman, is on your side. The hurricane is proof.
So, when hurricanes kill people, and Pat Robertson claims it's the wrath of God, that's just horrible. But if it gets votes for the Democratic Party, it's proof that God is on your side? No, no hypocrisy here.
Your "guts" prove nothing but that you can be just as scummy as anyone else in politics.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
For decades now, the KKK crowd has been the property of the Republican Party.
The Ku Klux Who? The KKK is largely a bogieman, with splinter groups vying for the name. There are still stumblefucks calling themselves the KKK, shaking in their sheets during "demonstrations" hoping they don't get their asses kicked (I've seen and was thoroughly underwhelmed by a public KKK march - if you can call less than 10 dumbasses a march). But the KKK now largely serves as a Hollywood punchline and a red herring diversion from the real racism remaining in our culture.
And the Republican party is not nearly far enough to the right for white nationalist groups. Calling the GOP the white party or the home of the KKK is race baiting on par with calling black repubs Uncle Toms. There's plenty of racism on both sides of the aisle.
because it's their home and this isn't china where the government can forcibly move millions of people at their whim.
If people choose a really stupid place to be their home, how much sympathy should they get? Every place has drawbacks... a hurricane zone, a tornado zone, a flood zone, below sea level, etc. But no place seems to have such a geographic death wish as New Orleans. No bedrock, a bowl surrounded by water, below sea level, sinking more every year. Its an utterly stupid place to put a city. Why should other people pay for keeping them there? We can't forcibly move them, but when can tell them "if you insist on living in this place, you're on your own".
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Yup. Lots of people who grew up in the 50's and 60's were infected by largely, I'd contend, culturally born racial prejudiced. Some were Democrats, and some were Republicans. I'd ask carriers of the contemporary cultural infection of rabid partisanship to do some research on how the Yea and Nay votes on the 1964 Voting Rights Act actually returned by party. Hint. The Act would not have carried without the heavy percentage of positive Republican votes. (Dems. 153-91 (63%-37%), Repubs. 136-35 (80%-20%), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964. Partisan vitriol and slavish repetition of propaganda used to annoy me. Now it bores me.
The "tourist trap" (i.e., historical) part didn't get flooded anyway, because the original inhabitants of the city were smart enough to build on the high ground.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"And here I thought we had this thing called a "nation" which embodied some elements of teamwork and shared pain/shared gain."
That only goes so far here. This is America, and you're still expected to do what you can for yourself first. This isn't a socialist country where we care for each other's every need. If you've got a disaster, we'll pitch in and help, but when you're told to do things like, oh, get the fuck out of town, and you don't do it, then you can't blame the "Nation" for that. And it's not the "Nation's" responsibility to put you up in a FEMA trailer 3 years after Katrina. And yet there are still people that live in them, people perfectly capable of going out and getting their own place, and a new job. I'd say we go above and beyond in "Shared Pain/Gain". If you want any more, move to Sweden.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Two of the models show the storm passing almost directly over Crawford, TX. Maybe Gustav'll stir up some brush around the ranch and give the POTUS a chance to demonstrate to the world that he's good for something.
Wow. I started to say something, but how does one answer mindless prejudice? --- "The great tragedy of science, a beautiful hypothesis, slain by an ugly fact!" -- Huxley
by hand picking 3-4 names from a group of people you cant prove zit.
i can pick many republicans here who went into inexplicable shit during their careers, including racism.
its the actions of the republican party that makes people think they are racist. excuse me, but im turkish, but im even appalled at how new orleans was treated by your republican administration.
Read radical news here
No, I think that Microsoft should stay exactly where they are. Heh.
Eric Baird
FYI, the same thing happens to the subway system in New York.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I'm sick of people calling out Bush for a slow response to Katrina. There's plenty to dislike about Bush we don't need to make crap up.
For anyone who for some reason doesn't know this: The federal government cannot go in and provide aid in a place like post-Katrina New Orleans unless the governor asks for it. It's against the law and the very basic nature of our country for the federal government to just go and do that kind of stuff. The governor in Louisiana was slow to ask for aid and was therefore slow to get it.
Bush actually tried to pass a law that would allow the federal government to quickly respond to such disasters and he was accused of trying to take over with an oppressive hand.
Seriously, I dislike Bush as much as the next guy but I'm not so stupid that I can't see the reality of a situation.
or else!
I'm genuinely scared to live in a world where everyone is so hostile towards people in life threatening situations.
That said, your point is completely accurate.
99.9% of individuals in the deep south are severely racist, both Dem & Rep, today as well as in the past. Even the black community has a deep hatred of whites and are racist.
But in the 60's when the Dem party was moving away from the KKK ideology, the southern Dems crossed lines to become Rep. All of these have remained the most evil and dangerous assholes on the planet.
Point & Fact: everybody feels some form of racism for some one else they don't know or understand, myself included.
But I have been trying to overcome this with looking at others (all races) from a candid perspective and have been able to see beauty in most people/races. It is there if you care to look close enough. This is the first step to recovery and becoming human once again.
This world would be a much better place if we all put out an effort to treat each other with honesty, kindness, dignity & respect.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
The problem happens when you start losing inland ice. Water (and ice) are heavy ... not quite as heavy as rock, but heavy nonetheless. If you lose a few hundred metres of ice off the top of a landmass, it's almost like shaving off a similar amount of rock. Once the big icy paperweight is taken off the top, the ground beneath rises to restore the balance of forces, and if you have corners and edges of tectonic plates trying to rise against their neighbours, quickly, it sets up geological forces in non-geological time that require resolution. There have already been a few earthquakes blamed on dam construction, where the additional weight of the water has depressed a whole region.
So if we start losing significant amounts of landlocked ice, we might have to be prepared for some of these old hotspots to start kicking off as the new plate stresses try to sort themselves out.
Eric Baird
There is no US port in the worldwide top-five by any measure. By the 2006 numbers, there isn't even one in the top-ten gross tonnage anymore.
nationalism and xenophobia tend to be conservative/reactionary traits. so naturally there are more racists amongst the republicans since they're the "more" conservative faction in the bipartisan system. but i agree that there are racists in both parties. but, statistically, you'll find a higher concentration of republicans in the more bigoted/racially homogeneous states.
it's probably not correct to call all republicans racists, or all racists republicans though. just as it's incorrect to equivocate 'democrat' with 'liberal'.
...we could fix the problem with a Netherlands' style levee system.... Oh wait, the environmentalists and the Democrats destroyed that idea back in the 70s.
"So you're telling me that after that vote, the south switched to voting republican?"
Yes. Johnson carried every state but Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and "We Don't Recognize MLK Day" Arizona, which all went to the Party of That Damned Yankee Lincoln. This is the first time in the century that had passed since the formation of the Republican Party that the Deep South ever voted for a Republican candidate. Not 1928, not 1952 or 1956, and not even in 1948, no matter how much they hated Truman.
On the other side of the Mason-Dixon, Goldwater in 1964 was also the first Republican candidate who didn't carry a single New England state. Maine and Vermont were the only states to never vote for FDR.
"Or maybe you are talking about the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Oops--probably not. Republican support was 82% in the house and 94% in the senate."
1965, the 89th House. Compare the colors of the Deep South to its colors in the 88th. I'll save you the trouble of searching: the Deep South had been that lovely shade of blue seen in the 88th all the way back to, well, pretty much the 1st.
"Sounds like another racist Democrat."
Considering that he mentioned Reconstruction, the native Texan sounded like another racist Southerner. And he still went ahead with civil rights legislation because, ultimately, it got him re-elected.
"Little known by many today is the fact that it was Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois,"
Today, both Illinois Senators are Democrats. Johnson's home state is now represented by two Republicans.
"So once again, which party is the 'racist' party?"
Easy: the one the South votes for. The party of Truman and Johnson was no longer the party of Jackson and Davis, so Southerners started to vote for the party of Goldwater and Reagan instead. Lincoln Chafee's loss in 2006 marks the first time New England didn't have any Republicans in the Senate in the history of the Republican Party, and I wouldn't hold my breath hoping for Mary Landrieu, the last remaining Democratic Senator from Goldwater country, to hold onto her seat this year.
Now, if you're trying to hide behind the fact that the political makeup of Congress didn't change immediately you're seriously downplaying the power of incumbency and nepotism in federal politics. Members of Congress leave office not by losing elections, but by being either incarcerated or dead; the aforementioned holdouts of Chafee and Landrieu came to power based on who their respective daddies were. Looking at the presidential elections, where voters are presented with two new faces at least every eight years, is a more accurate barometer of political opinions, and 1964 was the first time in over a century that a Republican won even one state in the Deep South.
Seriously, this is the first time I've done one of these kinds of posts.
I second that position, having lived in Connecticut for almost two years, now residing in Washington state. I met a *lot* of racists in New England... if anything, they seemed more open about it than those I knew growing up in Georgia. They're alive and well in WA too, spreading the Pacific Northwest brand of bigotry.
(active duty radioman, USN)
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
What matters is your record. In the case of these douchebags, it's their voting record.
Voting records apply to people, not parties. A party is a collection of people with similar (read: not necessarily the same) views. And the difference reinforces my point that the parties have shifted. Those that call themselves and are Democrats in this day and age mostly vote against Bush and against the war, etc. Not all, but most. And so if you assess the views of the party based on its members, as is the only way to judge a party, then it holds that the Democratic party has these views.
You do realize that's bullshit, right?
No, actually. Anyone can easily see that the parties have virtually switched places when it comes to social issues.
This holds for the Republicans as well. If you want to know how a party leans, don't look in the history books. Look at its members.
The evacuation is over. The airport has closed, the buses have stopped running, the last train is gone, and the roads are empty. 5% - 10% of the population remains.
"We can ... be on the road in about 10 minutes. ....I *expect* exactly zero assistance from the government."
I guess you're expecting the government to have maintained "the road" so you can drive away on it? ;-)
Well, I wasn't alive in 1965, but I fail to see how that has any bearing on which party is more racist NOW.
I can speak from experience about which party is the 'racist' party NOW - in 2008. I know several racist people, and they are all huge GOP supporters. In fact, I don't know any people that I would qualify as racist that support the democratic party.
Unfortunately you aren't providing any facts. I could just as easily use your 'argument' in my favor without you being able to refute it.
I can speak from experience about which party is racist now. I know 10 democrats, and they are all racist. As a matter of fact, I know 50 Republicans, and none of them qualify as racist.
Ooh--refute that jumble of vague non-verifiable facts and selective statistics.
There's no place like
Yeah, I sure hate it when those moonbats start talking about science. It's so pesky and ungodly, I mean we all know God said he would never flood the world again.
+++ATH0
Your polished version of the truth. Read a more honest description here.
Stereotyping is alright if you are a Democrat?
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
"So once again, which party is the 'racist' party?"
Easy: the one the South votes for.
Since I have been researching this topic since I first posted this morning, this is the dumbest quote I've heard yet.
So you're saying whomever the south votes for is automatically the 'racist' party and since they currently vote republican, the republicans are racist. Great logic.
You've brought up some good information, but I've spent all freakin' day researching this topic and I really need to get some real work done. I'll give your links a read next weekend.
There's no place like
while i agree with most of what you post, I think there is a big gap here. Being from the south, not so "deep", but with an accent, I was amazed when I moved to Boston and realized that I was surrounded by some of the most racist people I had ever met. Saying 99 % of the south is severely racist is wrong, but it would be true that there is a constant racial tension, and the things that like-skinned people say when together in a homogenous group are absurd and offensive. The reason that there is so little black-white racial tension in a place like new hampshire is simple... they dont allow black people in. The common defense that I saw in the north east is that new englanders arent racist because they arent southerners, and it is the southerners who are racist. I was frightened by this...
If you want to know how a party leans, don't look in the history books. Look at its members.
Agreed. However I still fail to find very many racist Republicans in the part--today, or 60 years ago.
There's no place like
Because if you've ever built something out of large sums of Legos, you'd realize that there is a 100% chance that a vital piece will go missing, even though you just saw it a minute ago.
Well if you want a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Duke who spoke at the RNC in 1992 when he ran for President as a Republican.
Look man, it didn't start with Katrina. Back in covered-wagon times our entire expansion westward consisted of white guys trekking west and expecting the army to come get rid of the indians so they could live safely on this empty (cough cough) land. They didn't do it themselves--it was all done on the government teat. The growth of the railroads similarly dependent on government largesse. Our entire national identity, that of tough self-sufficiency, is a lie we tell ourselves. When we overthrew Saddam, the explosives and nuclear material was left unguarded, and US Marines were put on post guarding oil wells. Why don't Chevron and Exxon fight their own wars? Same reason people expect to live where they want, and have the taxpayer bail them out when things to badly. It's no different, and the saps in New Orleans (who I agree are dense for living below sea level) are no more guilty of that feeling of entitlement than Chevron or Exxon management.
Or Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Tennessee... I would continue inserting states but I'm bored and going to do other things.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
I hate Hillary as much as the next guy, but if you say you've never told a joke playing on a stereotype, you are full of shit.
It was actually refreshing to see a politician take their PC head out of their ass.
"The cup is in turn designed for holding hot or cold liquids, and has an open rim and closed base." --US Patent #5425497
Are you talking about racist stereotypes?
I've never told a joke playing on a stereotype to a political party fund-raiser. Further consider that the party benefiting from the fund raiser has stereotyped the other party as racist, but this contradiction is rarely commented on. So who's full of shit?
Why don't you post some of your stereotype jokes? You know, the non-politically correct ones you find so refreshing and funny.
I'm sure you will select them carefully if you post them in a public forum.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
Yeah but the Dutch have pumps and walls so why not New Orleans?
Because they (New Orleans) suck at it, with a lot of documented proof?
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
At least not on the personal level. I firmly believe that racism is what both Gun Control and "Affirmative Action" have in common. Along with a number of other related feel good programs.
What this really sounds like is a case of "I'm not from/living in the South so therefore I'm better than you".
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
While it's nice to see my state get some attention, I wish the media outlets would recognize that there are more cities than NO. I'm in Lafayette right now, right about dead center for the track, yet none of the big media companies even have anyone out here (as far as I know, I'm not watching all channels at once). It's like Rita - I still think people forget that there were two strong hurricanes that year.
Actually FEMA has always suffered from "feature bloat," as any problem that Congress didn't want to deal with was randomly assigned to the agency. Its original purpose was actually to deal with civil defense against the Communists (the 'terrorists' of our parents' days), so it being subservient to DHS is actually closer to its original mission than what it's been tasked with lately.
Honestly FEMA was even more incompetent before 9/11 than it was during Katrina. The response to Hurricane Andrew was even worse, and even slower, and every other disaster they tried to help with in the nineties was exactly that, a disaster. The difference in those cases was there were State and Local officials actually trying to do something in the meantime, instead of sitting around shouting expletives and crying. Really, the difference was that those disasters didn't happen in Louisiana.
And there is the entire problem with your "FEMA is bollocks" argument. Rescuing people is the job of the Coast Guard, State, and Local Officials. They have the agility and the manpower to accomplish that. FEMA's job is to support them by providing them whatever resources they request. The problem is, our glorious governor didn't actually request any help. She just assumed they would take care of it. She also apparently forgot that the state's National Guard is under her command, not theirs. There's nothing FEMA could have done to change what happened in Louisiana short of deposed the State government.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
The Microsoft campus is built on solidified mud that flowed down during the last big eruption of Mount Rainer.
Which was when? According to wikipedia the last eruption was over 150 years ago and the last mudslides 500+ years ago. Volcanoes, like hurricanes, are to some degree predictable. So, having to evacuate and rebuild parts of your city once every 500 years (if not longer) does not seem so unreasonable. In fact, looking at the last few thousand years of recorded history, if you can go 500 years without your country being invaded and someone burning your city down you are doing pretty well!
However I still fail to find very many racist Republicans in the part--today, or 60 years ago.
Try looking in the sticks in the south. Everyone I know there is Republican, and appalling racist.
So you're fine with the statistic that 100% southern republicans are racist and 93% southern democrats are racist...but totally ignoring that it's 10 republicans verses 87 democrats. Statistics like that lie. You'd think based on 100% verses 93% that the republicans are bad--until you look at the actual numbers of 10 verses 87.
What you have just described is called the base rate fallacy. You also appear to have a confirmation bias and are anchoring when choosing your data to examine. Most importantly you completely fail to understand the concept of conditional probability.
Assume (hypothetically) only 11 out of 91 southern democrats voted against the bill (that's 12%) which is still greater than the total number of southern republicans in 1964. It doesn't prove that a randomly chosen southern democrat in 1964 was more likely to be racist - it proves just the opposite. The fact that there were a larger absolute number of racist democrats at the time does nothing to change the conditional probabilities of a random southern congressman being a racist. Given that a 1964 congressman was a southerner, the probability that a randomly chosen democrat was racist was lower than the probability that a randomly chosen republican was racist. This can be formally proven with mathematics if you like. It's not "lying with statistics", it is a cold hard fact based on conditional probability.
If it helps you sleep better at night to revel in the fact that there were some asshole democrats who were/are racist that is pathetic but your choice. But you ought to actually understand statistics before you attempt to argue using them.
I live "be prepared". I have what is commonly referred to as a "bug out bag". Enough food and water to last 6 days for my wife and I as well as a WIDE assortment of other items. A small list: 1. duct tape 2. mosquito nets, ponchos, and wide brimmed hats, sun screen 3. nail clippers 4. tooth brushes and paste 5. sanitary wipes 6. safety goggles, gloves, ear plugs 7. emergency whistles 8. waterproof matches 9. a knife 10. a compass 11. 2 led flashlights 12. dry socks 13. an electric lamp 14. a handcrank/solar radio/light 15. water purification pills / canteen 16. first aid kit the list goes on. About 80 items in all in a MOLLE system back pack ready to go at a moments notice. I also own and S&W M&P 40 and a Ruger 22 rifle. A .22 is good for hunting small game and the pistol for personal protection.
Every person/family should have such an emergency kit, especially if you live in an area with seasonal risks (i.e. FL where I live)
We have disasters everywhere. Hurricanes in the gulf, earthquakes in the west, tornadoes in the midwest, terrorists out east.
And, we help each other. If you can't deal with sharing the burden of disasters, get your Libertarian ass off to your own island and live by your own independent self.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Governor Jindal is very sharp. He's on top of this, very well organized, and he lays it out to the public clearly.
Mayor Nagin is a moron. Once again he's got that "deer in the headlights" look on his face. "Anyone caught looting will be sent directly to Angola." Um, yeah, hey Ray, ever hear of Due Process?
Where do you think they lived?
Remember the port and the off shore oil terminal were up and running within weeks of Katrina, back to capacity within months.
A small town worth of people will keep them staffed nicely. We can build that small town gold plated flood protection.
The fact will remain that large parts of NO were rundown slums. Nobody builds new rundown slums, even in flood plains.
Those residents will have to find slums in new cities where they can afford to live.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Is this some kind of new meme or something?
No, just an old twitter
Make SELinux enforcing again!
USGS and NOAA have an agreement to share information and data. USGS installs sensors (permanent and temporary stream gauges) which NOAA and other agencies leverage for their predictive analysis.
New York City, one of the few places on Earth where the cost
of a parking space is more than a Mortgage in the Southwest.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
There's a difference between racist stereotypes and racial stereotypes. Believe it or not, people of different cultural backgrounds actually do behave differently, and racial stereotypes are often as not founded in reality.
So Hilary tells a joke about an Indian guy. Big fucking deal. It wasn't a particularly good joke, but it wasn't really derogatory either.
Yes, she should have known better, but this is hardly proof of bigotry. Get over it.
"The cup is in turn designed for holding hot or cold liquids, and has an open rim and closed base." --US Patent #5425497