All My Fault!

[82Rigger]

Joy,

No Mardi Gras??? NO MARDI GRAS???????

Daaaaaaamn!

What's he gonna do wit all dem BEADS????

[SuperScout]

How dare you, question the judgment of those wonderful people of Swampland USA who had the temerity to spend money on a so-called Super Dome in lieu of fluffing up the levees! Where are your priorities, man?

And you certainly have your nerve, questioning the proactive positions that the governor of Swampland took, prepositioning her Natural Guard people in stragetically located places! I can just hear her now, "Where are my people? I must lead them! Where should we go?"

Lastly, how 'bout that Mayor of the Swamp? Charismatic leadership just ooozing out of every pore, but too corrupt, lazy, or intellectually challenged to do anything about the gang problems (or did they just crop up with the rising algae level?), or the inept police department who didn't even confront the thugs, but ran like dogs, dogs carrying stolen merchandise.

In all seriousness, rebuilding NO where it currently festers will be a criminal act of stupidity, tradition, tourism, and beads be damned. Maybe they can haul in about 25' feet of fill material, and then build on top of that, but rebuilding in a cesspool does not strike me as being real cool.

[82Rigger]

The idea of hauling in fill is sound and based on experience.

After the Galveston hurricane of 1900, the entire city was raised 17 feet. Buildings were raised on jacks and seawater was used to pump in fill. Fire hydrants, plumbing, everything was raised.

It worked. So far.

[SuperScout]

Of course it will work, but the thought is too practical for immediate grasping and implementation. If they do back-fill that swamp, I can just see some enterprising Coon Ass advertising the newly formed hill as "Cajun Country's Answer to Aspen," complete with snow machines and boogy boards.

[82Rigger]

Brice,

Cajuns on skis and boogie boards.

That image is just too much for my mind to download. TILT!

But I see your point....it won't work because it makes too much sense.

Okay...just some thoughts coming off the top of my head...play with these:

The ports and the related industry need to be by the intracoastal waterway...but the residences and most non-industry related businesses don't.

Fill the damned bowl. Restore the ports and industry HIGHER.
But nobody LIVES in it. Everybody goes HOME...home being AWAY from the coast. PD and FD and shift workers in there and that's all.

And that could, to a degree, go for the whole Gulf Coast...no residences within XX distance of the Gulf of Mexico. No more Biloxis and Gulfports and Camilles.

Feasible, or no?

[exlrrp]

Well, Brice, Its your usual good try on blaming everybody but Republicans for everything which is your usual modus operandi but it just doesn't wash (pun intended)
Lets see, according to your diatribe its all :
Bill Clinton's
Mary Landrieu's
LBJ's
Gov Blanco's
Poor people's
Architect's of the Superdome's
Mayor of New Orleans'
Corps of Engineers'
Gasoline producer's

All THEIR faults, but of course, NONE of the Congress's fault (which has been solidly Republican since '98) nor George W Bush's fault (who has been president since 2000) even though these are the people who run the whole show.
So the people who have been in complete control of the federal government for almost 4 years, who created a Cabinet department specificallyt for Homeland Security, who control FEMA and all other federal agencies--its not THEIR faults, its the (see list above)'s fault.
(Of course, its Bill Clinton's fault, Brice,. I knew you wouldn't leave him out--you forgot Monica--its her fault too, right? And you forgot Hilary too and John Kerry)

The Buck always starts here, doesn't it ? How is this going to improve the situation?

"? Now. Shut up and help."
I agree with this--you go first!
Stay good
James

PS: Louisiana has a Republican senator and Republican Representatives--were they all asleep on the job too?

[SuperScout]

Why do you liberals insist on having your panties in such a tight knot that it blocks your sense of humor where it is designed to exist? Or are you going to go the Jesse Jackson Jr. route and try to blame Katrina on the Bush Administration?

If the shoe fits, I always say, then put the sucker on and wear it.

I would have responded earlier, but I was making yet another delivery of donated goods, mostly from our pantry, to a disaster relief collection facility, right after I donated a pint of blood. If you're waiting for me to go first, you're already late.

Now kindly read what the Chief of Police of NO has to say:
New Orleans Police Chief Edwin Compass said Friday that hurricane rescue efforts were hampered when relief workers came under attack by the city's criminal element, prompting conditions that resembled "urban warfare." [Let's see, who is the mayor?]

"We have never had an urban warfare battle like this on any front in the history of our nation," Compass told NBC's "Dateline."

"You're fighting in buildings that are pitch black with darkness. These individuals have root - the criminal element have looted all the gun shops and gun stores in this city, so they're armed, they're dangerous." [Anybody out there waiting to be invited to an ambush?]

Federal Emergency Management Agency Chief Michael Brown, under fire for his agency's slow response, echoed Chief Compass's complaint, telling CNN: "We are working under conditions of urban warfare."

Though the city's crime rate is ten times the national average, [anybody out there going to blame this on GWB too?] U.S. news outlets downplayed the connection between New Orleans' outsized criminal element and delays in rescue efforts. [Could this be because the U.S. news outlets want to blame GWB for every ill in the world, or are too lazy to find out facts for themselves?]

Saturday's London Times, however, painted a bleak picture of the challenges faced by local police as they tried to restore order. [Maybe the U.S. news outlets should listen to their British brothers.]

"One New Orleans police officer wept as he described seeing bodies riddled with bullets, and the top of one man's head shot off. He said some looters were armed with AK-47 rifles, and compared the situation with Somalia, with police outnumbered and outgunned by gangs in trucks . . .[Anybody out there remember "Blackhawk Down"? Can't blame GWB for that one, either.]

"An effort to remove patients and staff from Charity Hospital, in the city centre, was suspended after it came under sniper fire . . .

"'It's a war-zone, and they're not treating it like one,' he said, referring to the federal government . . . Gunmen continued to fire on troops and rescue helicopters, and police officials said that many officers had stopped reporting for duty, cutting manpower by 20 per cent."

[Seascamp]

Data point, the highest death rate among my colleagues has occurred in Louisiana. Always the same story; robbed and shot whilst leaving a work site. Lots of very expensive equipment taken, my colleagues killed of left for dead. One of them, Rick, survived a head shot but is not the same but things being as they are, still has a good job but expectations are lowered and never goes out to do field work anymore. In Monroe, I spent a couple days in ICU after being ambushed while working on a new power plant commissioning project. The Unions are absolutely brutal there and will take down a Tech Rep if they think they can get away with it. Never saw it coming, and the next thing I was aware of was bouncing off wire troughs, pipes, ducting, from the turbine deck to the boiler feed water pump, condenser and boiler areas, and four stories down.

The whole episode was billed as an ?accident? and that was total BS. No way could I go from the turbine deck, through a deck hatch, across a cat walk with safety chains accidentally, no way. Fortunately one of the ?membership? found me some ten hours later and I was hurting for certain. Maybe some guilt thing enabled that discovery, who knows. I won?t go back; I owe it to my children and now my grandchild to not take unnecessary risks. So Am I surprised at the level of gangland violence in New Orleans? Not really, comes with the territory there and has been ignored, state wide. Externalization and political opportunism are on the plate now, and that just guarantees the problem will be perpetuated, ad nausea. By the way, the safest places to work and the best industrial Unions are in Texas and Oklahoma. I would trust my very life to the shop stewards there, and have.

Scamp

[Arrow]

? And, finally, as Chairman of the National Association of Gasoline Producers it is my fault that I had the bad judgment to put so much of my drilling, refining and transportation assets in a hurricane-prone area like the Caribbean basin. What?was?I?thinking?

? If I could re-do that whole thing, I would have put all that equipment in Lake Erie and Lake Michigan. There may not be any oil there, but hurricanes are very rare. Scout

question: Govenor! When the President declared a state of emergency 2 friggin days before the storm, why the hell didn't YOU, THE GUVNOR, ACTIVATE THE NG'S AND PRE-POSITION THEM FOR IMMEDIATE DEPLOYMENT??????? And Mr. Mayor.......think you could next time get a few Porta-potties for the great big SUPERDOME? Oh, never mind. Pack

The amazingly heavily armed and well coordinated gangs have the Cops treed, the Mayor going totally non-linear and just pure chaos coming down. Maybe there will be a lesson learned in all this and one of them has to be recognition that there really is a ?Mad Max? threshold and the gangs and freelance thugs will come boiling out of the sewers like rats and there will be a plague upon the land. I?m sure they all didn?t arrive with the wind and perhaps other cities will learn and pay attention to the incredible threat that lies just below the surface of apparent tranquility. Scamp

What Scout, Paco, & Scamp said....

Good grief Scamp, scary what a guy can run into just doin' his job!

A couple more data points...


http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs0/666/


August 1 2005 Report On Gang Activity In New Orleans

[exlrrp]

Originally posted by SuperScout Why do you liberals insist on having your panties in such a tight knot that it blocks your sense of humor where it is designed to exist? Or are you going to go the Jesse Jackson Jr. route and try to blame Katrina on the Bush Administration?

If the shoe fits, I always say, then put the sucker on and wear it.

I would have responded earlier, but I was making yet another delivery of donated goods, mostly from our pantry, to a disaster relief collection facility, right after I donated a pint of blood. If you're waiting for me to go first, you're already late.

Now kindly read what the Chief of Police of NO has to say:
New Orleans Police Chief Edwin Compass said Friday that hurricane rescue efforts were hampered when relief workers came under attack by the city's criminal element, prompting conditions that resembled "urban warfare." [Let's see, who is the mayor?]

"We have never had an urban warfare battle like this on any front in the history of our nation," Compass told NBC's "Dateline."

"You're fighting in buildings that are pitch black with darkness. These individuals have root - the criminal element have looted all the gun shops and gun stores in this city, so they're armed, they're dangerous." [Anybody out there waiting to be invited to an ambush?]

Federal Emergency Management Agency Chief Michael Brown, under fire for his agency's slow response, echoed Chief Compass's complaint, telling CNN: "We are working under conditions of urban warfare."

Though the city's crime rate is ten times the national average, [anybody out there going to blame this on GWB too?] U.S. news outlets downplayed the connection between New Orleans' outsized criminal element and delays in rescue efforts. [Could this be because the U.S. news outlets want to blame GWB for every ill in the world, or are too lazy to find out facts for themselves?]

Saturday's London Times, however, painted a bleak picture of the challenges faced by local police as they tried to restore order. [Maybe the U.S. news outlets should listen to their British brothers.]

"One New Orleans police officer wept as he described seeing bodies riddled with bullets, and the top of one man's head shot off. He said some looters were armed with AK-47 rifles, and compared the situation with Somalia, with police outnumbered and outgunned by gangs in trucks . . .[Anybody out there remember "Blackhawk Down"? Can't blame GWB for that one, either.]

"An effort to remove patients and staff from Charity Hospital, in the city centre, was suspended after it came under sniper fire . . .

"'It's a war-zone, and they're not treating it like one,' he said, referring to the federal government . . . Gunmen continued to fire on troops and rescue helicopters, and police officials said that many officers had stopped reporting for duty, cutting manpower by 20 per cent."

Why Brice, I didn't wait for you to start helping, I was really referring to the Shut Up part. I believe in a certain code that prevents me from describing my charitable contributions--its sort of a humility thing about not signing your name to good deeds--so I won't--but rest assured there has been action here in OR too.

"If the shoe fits, I always say, then put the sucker on and wear it."
Not if I don't like that kind of shoe and I don't think it looks good on me.
There's plenty of blame to go around, much of it bipartisan, but where we're going to start is with Michael Brown, the man our President selected to run FEMA.
Browns qualifications for the job? He'd been a Bush fundraiser--he had NO experience for the job at allwhen he was appointed counsel to the previous political hack Bush appointed. He was appointed to FEMA without ever having rum an organiazation at all. Browns prior experience had been as general counsel to the Arabian Horse Association of America--a HORSE lawyer with no previous experience in disaster management at all. Our nations safety is in the hands of political hacks, placed there by GW Bush..
We also must raise the question as to why our president AND vice president were on vacation at the same time as were Bush's major aides. Why, if we're in the middle of WWIII, as you have alleged, was our leader on a 5 week vacation? And the Vice president also? And all their major aides? Seems like dereliction of duty if the country's in WWIII as youve said.
And why was he bike riding when New Orleans was underwater? ((answer: LA's a Blue State!) Thats the question everybody wants to know.What took him so many days to react? And why was he so unprepared? And why has federal funding for levee maintainance and constructiuon been consistentely cut during the last 4 years?
The Bush Administration has already started to pump out disinformation about this to cover their negligence, among other outrageous lies that Gov Blanco was late declaring it a state of emergency--not so, she declared it on 8/26.
And if youre trying to say that New Orleans was under a state of siege, then why did it take days and days to get NG and federal troops in? They should have been lined up and ready to go--they had plenty of warning.

There's lots of truth to be discovered here, and it won't be pretty for lots of people. But the Bush administration failed notably here--iimagine if this had been some kind of nuclear incident--it would have been total panic.
The Homeland Security Dept failed notably in coordinating rescue efforts that they had had plenty of warning of.
George Bush is president of all this country, not just the Red States. He has a responsiblity to all of us and unfortunately spends too much of his time on vacation to perform it.
5 weeks vacation while we're in the middle of WWIII? that about says it all. No wonder the feds were late getting in
Stay good
James