Is this the moment
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- mrdobolina0
sputnik, he sent 3000 louisiana national guardsmen to iraq.
do you think that their presence on the ground right now might make a bit of a difference?
no president has ever sent the national guard to foreign lands to fight bullshit wars.
- ilovepill0
is everyone here so sad they have to complain on how bush is treating this country, blame fucking the entire state of florida!!!!! those motherfuckers have the sole holding of one of the most potent ganja plants on the planet called crippy and they wont share the recipe dammit!!!!
:)
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Bush should be on the ground in mississippi or louisiana right now, any way you look at it. He is the leader of the fucking country, other Presidents ALWAYS go to the site, immediately after the hurricane.
mrdobolina
(Sep 1 05, 13:04)
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Exact-i-fucking-lutely.This is what I mean - forgetting all the money not spent on preparation for this very forseebale event, forget the whatever % of LA Nat'l Guard serving honorable in Iraq, forgeting tha inability to control the weather, etc., giving th ebenefit of the doubt that this IS a disaster of monstrous proportions that any administration would have difficulty dealing with. I will grant each and everyone of those caveats.
Heck, I am sure Bush feels bad about this. And I am sure he's praying about it.
The whole point is there is a total vacuum of leadership. You got the resources there, but no one is guiding where shit should go. FEMA has been underfunded and politicized. Condi the freaking Sec of State is in New York shoe shopping.
Why is Bush or even one of his secretary's not on the FUCKING GROUND. It's called leadership. You lead from the front people. You inspire. You embody what is best and give hope.
Bush does a flyby and then he's going to give some speech?
Nobody is at home...
- mrdobolina0
January 2001: Bush appoints Joe Allbaugh, a crony from Texas, as head of FEMA. Allbaugh has no previous experience in disaster management.
April 2001: Budget Director Mitch Daniels announces the Bush administration's goal of privatizing much of FEMA's work. In May, Allbaugh confirms that FEMA will be downsized: "Many are concerned that federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program...." he said. "Expectations of when the federal government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level."
2001: FEMA designates a major hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three "likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country."
December 2002: After less than two years at FEMA, Allbaugh announces he is leaving to start up a consulting firm that advises companies seeking to do business in Iraq. He is succeeded by his deputy, Michael Brown, who, like Allbaugh, has no previous experience in disaster management.
March 2003: FEMA is downgraded from a cabinet level position and folded into the Department of Homeland Security. Its mission is refocused on fighting acts of terrorism.
2003: Under its new organization chart within DHS, FEMA's preparation and planning functions are reassigned to a new Office of Preparedness and Response. FEMA will henceforth focus only on response and recovery.
Summer 2004: FEMA denies Louisiana's pre-disaster mitigation funding requests. Says Jefferson Parish flood zone manager Tom Rodrigue: "You would think we would get maximum consideration....This is what the grant program called for. We were more than qualified for it."
June 2004: The Army Corps of Engineers budget for levee construction in New Orleans is slashed. Jefferson Parish emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri comments: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay."
June 2005: Funding for the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is cut by a record $71.2 million. One of the hardest-hit areas is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which was created after the May 1995 flood to improve drainage in Jefferson, Orleans and St. Tammany parishes.
August 2005: While New Orleans is undergoing a slow motion catastrophe, Bush mugs for the cameras, cuts a cake for John McCain, plays the guitar for Mark Wills, delivers an address about V-J day, and continues with his vacation. When he finally gets around to acknowledging the scope of the unfolding disaster, he delivers only a photo op on Air Force One and a flat, defensive, laundry list speech in the Rose Garden.
A crony with no relevant experience was installed as head of FEMA. Mitigation budgets for New Orleans were slashed even though it was known to be one of the top three risks in the country. FEMA was deliberately downsized as part of the Bush administration's conservative agenda. After DHS was created, FEMA's preparation and planning functions were taken away.
Actions have consequences. No one could predict that a hurricane the size of Katrina would hit this year, but the slow federal response when it did happen was no accident. It was the result of four years of deliberate Republican policy and budget choices. It's the Bush administration in a nutshell.
- Nac0
dobs...that last link is members only
- mrdobolina0
sorry homey
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Funding cuts led way to lesser leveesBy Andrew Martin and and Andrew Zajac
Washington bureau
Published August 31, 2005, 10:24 PM CDTWASHINGTON -- Despite continuous warnings that a catastrophic hurricane could hit New Orleans, the Bush administration and Congress in recent years have repeatedly cut funding for hurricane preparation and flood control.
The cuts have delayed construction of levees around the city and stymied an ambitious project to improve drainage in New Orleans' neighborhoods.
For instance, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers requested $27 million for this fiscal year to pay for hurricane protection projects around Lake Pontchartrain. The Bush administration countered with $3.9 million, and Congress eventually provided $5.7 million, according to figures provided by the office of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.).
Because of the budget cuts, which were caused in part by the rising costs of the war in Iraq, the corps delayed seven contracts that included enlarging the levees, according to corps documents.
Much of the devastation in New Orleans was caused by breaches in the levees, which sent water from Lake Pontchartrain pouring into the city. Since much of the city is below sea level, the levee walls acted like the walls of a bowl that filled until as much as 80 percent of the city was under water.
Similarly, the Army Corps requested $78 million for this fiscal year for projects that would improve draining and prevent flooding in New Orleans. The Bush administration's budget provided $30 million for the projects, and Congress ultimately approved $36.5 million, according to Landrieu's office.
"I'm not saying it wouldn't still be flooded, but I do feel that if it had been totally funded, there would be less flooding than you have," said Michael Parker, a former Republican Mississippi congressman who headed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from October 2001 until March 2002, when he was ousted after publicly criticizing a Bush administration proposal to cut the corps' budget.
A corps plan to shore up the levees began in 1965 and was supposed to be finished in 10 years but remains incomplete. "They've never put enough money in to complete it," Parker said. He complained that the corps' budget has been regularly targeted by the White House because public works projects are perceived as pork and aren't considered "sexy."
"Go talk to the people who are suffering in New Orleans," Parker said. "Ask them, `Do they think it's pork?' "
Joseph Suhayda, an emeritus engineering professor at Louisiana State University who has worked for the Army Corps of Engineers, said the corps simply didn't have enough money to build the levees as high as the designs called for.
"The fact that they weren't that high was a result of lack of funding," he said, noting that part of the levee at the 17th Street Canal--where one of the breaches occurred--was 4 feet lower than the rest. "I think they could have significantly reduced the impact if they had those projects funded. If you need to spend $20 million and you spend $4 or $5 million, something's got to give."
Officials for the Army Corps of Engineers declined to comment on the reasons for the budget cutbacks.
Fred Caver, who retired in June as the corps' deputy director of civil works, said there is always competition for funding and "you're never going to get everything you want."
But he said a reluctance to invest in unglamorous public works projects and especially heavy demands on the budget, from the war in Iraq and entitlement programs, have added to the difficulty in securing funding for corps projects.
Scott Milburn, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, declined to comment about the specific allegations regarding funding for hurricane-related projects in Louisiana. However, he said, "The president signed into law a $100 million increase for the corps for the current fiscal year compared to the previous year's level."
Historically, New Orleans has built bigger and more ambitious levees every time the city floods, Suhayda said.
"They would live with the conditions that they had until there was an event," he said. The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 prompted a major upgrade to the levees around New Orleans, he said. The levees were upgraded again to handle a Category 3 storm after Hurricane Betsy hit New Orleans in 1965.
In the years since then, local officials have warned that a catastrophic storm was inevitable and sought more funding to improve the area's hurricane preparedness to handle larger storms. In July 2004, for instance, federal, state and local officials staged a simulation in which a "Hurricane Pam" slammed into New Orleans with 120 m.p.h. winds and created havoc that was eerily similar to that of Hurricane Katrina, including widespread building damage and death.
"Since 1995, we've been replaying these scenarios out in various degrees. As we got together to do these, the people in the parishes would say, `Make them as bad as possible so we can get some attention,' " said Suhayda, who participated in the Hurricane Pam exercises.
"Unfortunately, our way for dealing with these disasters is after the fact," he said.
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gruntt, I wasn't talkin to you
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Bush should be on the ground in mississippi or louisiana right now, any way you look at it. He is the leader of the fucking country, other Presidents ALWAYS go to the site, immediately after the hurricane.
mrdobolina
(Sep 1 05, 13:04)
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He was on Ground Zero like the next day? Acting like a hero for his people?
oh wait, i forgot, that terrible event actually was useful for his foreign policy..
Nola is just not important enough for the most incompetent pres the US has ever had.
*sigh
- mrdobolina0
I read something that said only 10% of the nation's refining is done down there.
- ********0
I read something that said only 10% of the nation's refining is done down there.
mrdobolina
(Sep 1 05, 13:54)true statement, very little of it is. Obviously, 'Crude Oil', chemically, is not the petrol you put into your vehicles hombres.
It's funny you get people that think that though, same with those that think diamonds come cut straight out the ground. lolz
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Next time you see Mocambique getting BLASTED with torrential flooding think of Nola. Same scenario. Little you can do until things subside a bit. Crazyness.
Yep, 'Lord Of The Flies'
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10% is still a huge chunk of an industry that is already overburdened. Source oil isn't the problem at the moment, refining the stuff is.
Let me clue you in - the US economy is running on fumes and the kindness of the Chinese to cover our debts.
A major shock to the flow of refined oil - and yes 10% for a few months is significant - could throw everythign outta whack. Add on the typical human emotional reaction - and we have one huge problem.
Further - New Orleans IS THE major seaport in the Southern US - and on eof the busiest. With it out of commission expect problems up and down the material/wholesale/retail chain - as transportation costs of said material increase as well.
Oh, and 90% of the South East gets it's refined gas that runs from Houston, through New Orleans along the Gulf Coast Guess what has run dry people.
Not pretty.
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