(no subject)
There's lot about the situation in New Orleans and nearby areas that's just not right. Here's a few things I've noticed.
Blaming those who stayed. Why do people do this? Some people didn't have money and/or transport. Tourists got stranded. A report on NPR (or was it Air America?) mentioned several people who stayed in town because they'd been told they would be fired if they didn't show up for work the next day. I'll bet they weren't the only ones. Why aren't the talking heads casting some blame in the direction of the companies that do this?
If we've had people working seriously on civil defence since 9/11, why did the evacuation plan not have provisions for people without cars? As others have observed, the results of a major hurricane in New Orleans aren't too different from the results of a so-called dirty bomb (major areas rendered uninhabitable, less the radioactivity). This tempts me to conclude that the evacuation plan was incomplete.
President Bush claimed that no one thought the levees would fail. Does he even know or care when he's lying anymore? Let's see, flood control in the area had been underfunded since 2001 (something to do with a war and tax cuts), the local press had numerous articles about the levee work that wasn't getting done, and an official list of the top three potential US disasters included a hurricane flooding New Orleans. But in the alternate universe when our president gets his facts, nobody expected it.
Why on earth would we turn down help offered by Canada? Earlier today there were stories about offers of specialized help from Canada being turned away. I've heard recently that decisions been reversed. Wou
FEMA's web page listing disaster relief charities has assassin Pat Robertson's Operations Blessing listed in slot three. See for yourself:
http://www.fema.gov/press/2005/katrinadonations.shtm
but if you google on "operation blessing diamond", you'll come up with links like this one
http://www.skeptictank.org/robem2.htm
which describes activities more like diamond mining and snuggling with dictators than charity. It's too much to hope that this outfit will get audited, but I'll go ahead and hope anyway.
Blaming those who stayed. Why do people do this? Some people didn't have money and/or transport. Tourists got stranded. A report on NPR (or was it Air America?) mentioned several people who stayed in town because they'd been told they would be fired if they didn't show up for work the next day. I'll bet they weren't the only ones. Why aren't the talking heads casting some blame in the direction of the companies that do this?
If we've had people working seriously on civil defence since 9/11, why did the evacuation plan not have provisions for people without cars? As others have observed, the results of a major hurricane in New Orleans aren't too different from the results of a so-called dirty bomb (major areas rendered uninhabitable, less the radioactivity). This tempts me to conclude that the evacuation plan was incomplete.
President Bush claimed that no one thought the levees would fail. Does he even know or care when he's lying anymore? Let's see, flood control in the area had been underfunded since 2001 (something to do with a war and tax cuts), the local press had numerous articles about the levee work that wasn't getting done, and an official list of the top three potential US disasters included a hurricane flooding New Orleans. But in the alternate universe when our president gets his facts, nobody expected it.
Why on earth would we turn down help offered by Canada? Earlier today there were stories about offers of specialized help from Canada being turned away. I've heard recently that decisions been reversed. Wou
FEMA's web page listing disaster relief charities has assassin Pat Robertson's Operations Blessing listed in slot three. See for yourself:
http://www.fema.gov/press/2005/katrinadonations.shtm
but if you google on "operation blessing diamond", you'll come up with links like this one
http://www.skeptictank.org/robem2.htm
which describes activities more like diamond mining and snuggling with dictators than charity. It's too much to hope that this outfit will get audited, but I'll go ahead and hope anyway.