Katrina's POLITICAL aftermath (keep the political discussions HERE)

That's when I start my finger-pointing, because a few days in and around this ground zero have convinced me that there are two things the federal government failed to do, and that for these failures there's ultimately no one to blame but the president.

First, an administration that since Sept. 11, 2001, has told us a major terrorist strike is inevitable should have had in place a well-elaborated plan for evacuating a major American city. Even if there wasn't a specific plan for New Orleans -- although it was clear that a breach of the city's levees was one of the likeliest natural catastrophes -- there should have been a generic plan. George W. Bush told us time and again that our cities were threatened. Shouldn't he have ordered up a plan to get people out?

Second, someone should have thought about what to do with hundreds of thousands of evacuees, both in the days after a disaster and in the long term. As people flooded out of New Orleans, it was officials at the state and local level who rose to the challenge, making it up as they went along. Bring a bunch of people to the Astrodome. We have a vacant hotel that we can use. Send a hundred or so down to our church and we'll do the best we can.

Hang around for the last graf of that one, it's a doozy.

in other news, Al Gore can be very funny when he wants to be. He still needs an editor, but still damn fine public speaking presence.

pics later.

Are you accusing them of miscounting hurricanes?

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml

When critics of the administration bring up the global warming issue in relation to Katrina, it only weakens their argument. Stick to the topic at hand.

Bit of bad planning, that.

so there was a few angry people turned away. Enough stuck around(incl. yrs truly) making noise that the organizers(the Oregon League of Conservation Voters) when and asked the former Vice President if he'd speak again, immediately afterwards. He agreed, so we got in line again for the 2 hour wait.

Photos here

1) It was inevitable that eventually New Orleans would get a category 4 hurricane. This is not a new mutant strain of hurricane, and they just happen to come around every so many years.

2) Much of the "disaster," at least in New Orleans, was not the direct result of the hurricane's strength (though it was indirectly) but of poor planning, weak levees, the geography and demography of New Orleans, and sheer incompetence on the part of the federal government.

3) Bush did not singlehandedly cause global warming, nor could he singlehandedly have any noticeable impact on it during his administration. Even if he had signed Kyoto the day he stepped into office, it would take a long long time before the impact would be felt, and it certainly wouldn't reverse global warming by itself.

So again, as much as I wish Bush would take greater heed of global warming, I think it's totally specious to make it one of the main issues here, when we're really talking about failures of leadership, disaster prevention, and crisis management.

and really, at this point, al gore? if democrats can't find a better figure to rally behind, we deserve to lose.

"...one must recognize that there are limits to what powers the federal government should exercise in a crisis. Yes, it is the right and duty of the president to override state drug policy, to determine who can or cannot marry, to indefinitely detain citizens without due process and to torture and kill prisoners as he sees fit, but disaster relief is a matter that should be left to the states. Yes, the images of the drowned, the diseased, and the desperately dying drove much of the country to outrage, but how much more outraged would America have been if FEMA had fed the Superdome refugees without the full oversight and authorization of the State of Louisiana? Had the president sent rescue helicopters to evacuate New Orleans the day the levees burst, he might have saved thousands of lives, but he would also have overstepped his authority - and if there's one thing George W. Bush refuses to countenance, it is abuse of power."

also see fafblog's Do-It-Yourself Emergency Management Guide!

!!!

Oh, very witty, Alfred. What incredible insight.

xpost no, like Harding

http://thousandrobots.com/blog/files/palpatine_02.jpg

here and here

Did you see this fuck on "Larry King Live"? Jimmy Kimmel ran excerpts of it last night. While footage of a man chest-deep in water ran, Simmons was saying that New Orleans could be "The Venice, Italy of the World!" A.) It's probably rather short-sighted to be calling New Orleans that right now as well as being a little tasteless and B.) as Kimmel already pointed out, isn't Venice, Italy already "The Venice, Italy of the World"?

"'I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week.' And he said 'What didn't go right?'"

He inspires confidence, our president.

I shit you not. The clip could've been played out of context, but I saw what I saw.

also, dig this shit: FEMA is now fucking with people moving out to the different ememgency centers. Ed Schultz is on the air screaming about this. "These are not detainees, these are americans!"