Is this for real?

[Guitar Shark]

Originally posted by FORD
However it's my understanding that much of that funding was diverted to the useless, illegal, immoral occupation of Iraq, which would make the Defense Department more to blame than the Corps of Engineers itself.

LMFAO...

I can use some entertainment today... what's your source for this "understanding"?

[Ellyllions]

I mean, post fucking-9/11, is it too much to ask that the Feds can respond to a major catastrophe a little better?

Nagin has his failings in this, but who had the resources?

One more thing, we gotta make up our minds what we want. Do we want the feds to have the power to take over for our State governments in the event of an emergency or not?

Legislation recently passed that the feds could activate a State's National Guard revolves aound LA's Governor failing to do just this. She wouldn't activate them!!! A state Governor has to ASK the feds for help. Hence, State's INDEPENDENCE TO GOVERN ITSELF! .

Yet she turned up her nose while 10,000+/- people in the Superdome waited in squalor.

But it's the Feds?

[Guitar Shark]

There's enough blame to go around at all levels of government for the horrible response to Katrina. Federal, state local... failure on every level.

[Ellyllions]

Originally posted by Guitar Shark
There's enough blame to go around at all levels of government for the horrible response to Katrina. Federal, state local... failure on every level.

Amen!

So should this lawsuit be brought about?

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Ellyllions
Promised? Weren't police officers going house to house telling those who didn't have transportation that the busses would be by? I mean thats the report we heard over and over the day the forecast models showed what was coming.

What "report?" From where? What station?

The plan was to get people to the infamous Superdome, then to get help.

There was a meltdown in planning, but Katrina was actually forecast to miss New Orleans, not hit it dead center...

So who lied to the media? Yet media helicopters showed us the bus parking lots full of flooded school busses. And how much time did the city have to plan for this? It's kind of like a train coming, it doesn't pop from around a corner. Nagin AND his governor deserve the lions share of the before and the immediate after storm situation.

And how would have busing people out have stopped the flooding of the city? Over 1000 died, do you think that the numbers would have been any different had the buses been running? How the fuck are the buses supposed to run in the middle of a hurricane?

And New Orleans had called for an evacuation during a previous hurricane threat a few years back, just as Nagin had. But nothing happened, so people decided to ride this one out and yes many were too poor to get out.

This is a completeist statement. Just because I'm talking about Nagin doesn't mean that I'm solely blaming him. This is an article about him. He's the ultimate topic.

No. You're just accusing him of being a part of some conspiracy to drown poor blacks so rich white people could build houses in the lowest part of the city.

How would I reconcile it? Politicin' at it's finest. Say what you need to and then do what you want. Honesty isn't an issue.

Oh, that's rich! Thanks for the lecture Bush-voter.

A great bit of help from some of the country's race issues at use. That's how I reconcile it. Don't act like it never happens. Just because he's black doesn't mean he thinks they're all equal. You can see it in his voice. He breaks out that victim card anytime it's useful to him. I know you're not blind.

Oh yeah, sorry, you're absolutely "right."

Mayor Nagin intentionally allowed poor black people to drowned so he could build condos in the 9th Ward, that's just brilliant.

BTW, do you have any actual evidence to support this?

I completely agree that those levees should've been attended too and WAY before 2001. The whole Country took for granted that was a "safe" area because of complacency.

NO! The "whole country" did not!! There were many engineers in NO screaming about them for years, and the Times Picyune had a long-running series on it.

I agree the lawsuit is stupid, but clearly, there's a double standard when it comes to response in Florida and New Orleans...

The only reason anyone is even looking to the War for the dollars is because the issue is a political "hot bed" ( 'Why isn't the SPCA better funded?' "Because all the money is going to Iraq." )

Oh, another rich statement!

Feel free to lecture me on facts an issues connected to the industry I work in. The FACT is that building materials have gone up considerably, and domestic Federal projects now routinely run out of money and must shutdown, due to Iraqi "reconstruction."

So let's summarize yuour arguments here:

1.) Mayor Nagin intentionally allowed his city to flood, and didn't bus out the poor blacks, so they could be lkilled and ethnically cleansed by Hurricane Katrina.

-But-

2.) Domestic infrastructure projects are routinely shut down due to lack of federal funding, but it has nothing to do with funding of the war in Iraq by sending monies to corrupt black hole contractors..

It all just started in 2003 magically!!

Yeah, um, okay.

Blood is on Nagin's hands too. He should've had a better evac plan that included emergency procedures IN THE EVENT that the levees (of a city below sea level (fucking "duh")) failed. It was a major failure for all suppoed responding resources.

Yeah, especially those that failed to insure the levees were up to snuff. Which wasn't necessarily the USACE.

But for Nagin to bring this kind of inflated lawsuit is ridiculous! Simply money hungry pandering victim mentality STUPID!

You're right! he should sue the Bush Administration...

[Ellyllions]

There's only one thing left for me to say in our argument Nick because basically you lost all credibility in this when you tried the "Bush-voter" thing.

That one thing is this....

I don't have any evidence to support what I stated about Nagin. Iwas just speaking my ponderings. If you think I'm wrong, stupid, or just plain dumb...so what. But this I'm sure of, Nagin's a creep, and this lawsuit is bullsit.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Ellyllions
There's only one thing left for me to say in our argument Nick because basically you lost all credibility in this when you tried the "Bush-voter" thing.

Oh sorry! Who'd you vote for?

That one thing is this....

I don't have any evidence to support what I stated about Nagin. Iwas just speaking my ponderings. If you think I'm wrong, stupid, or just plain dumb...so what. But this I'm sure of, Nagin's a creep, and this lawsuit is bullsit.

I never said any of the above. The lawsuit is stupid, Nagin is a bit of a jerk with an exaggerated bad reputation. But what happened with the levees is what is inexcusable...

[EAT MY ASSHOLE]

Originally posted by Guitar Shark
There's enough blame to go around at all levels of government for the horrible response to Katrina. Federal, state local... failure on every level.

I blame you.

[Nitro Express]

Chocolate city? Who in the fuck does Nagin think he is? Willy Wonka? Fuck dude, just have your Ompa Loompas fix your damn city.

[Satan]

The problem with the school buses was one of the Republicons favorite words...

Privatization.

If such a flood happenned in most other cities, it would be a simple matter of contacting the school district who owns the buses, commandeering them in the name of an emergency and loading them up.

That's not how it works in New Orleans. The buses are owned by "independent contractors". Which means a lot more phone calls, and a hell of a lot more people involved in the plan.

Some things simply shouldn't be privatized. Mass transportation is one of them. Emergency management is another.

[Guitar Shark]

Originally posted by Satan
The problem with the school buses was one of the Republicons favorite words...

Privatization.

If such a flood happenned in most other cities, it would be a simple matter of contacting the school district who owns the buses, commandeering them in the name of an emergency and loading them up.

That's not how it works in New Orleans. The buses are owned by "independent contractors". Which means a lot more phone calls, and a hell of a lot more people involved in the plan.

Some things simply shouldn't be privatized. Mass transportation is one of them. Emergency management is another.

What a bunch of BS.

The New Orleans Emergency Plan clearly placed this burden on Nagin, and when asked about it, he didn't identify "privatization" as the reason why he didn't do it. His excuses ranged from a lack of drivers to racism.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46269

Yes, the federal response to the tragedy was horribly insufficient... but that doesn't change the fact that Nagin and Blanco are TOOLS.

[FORD]

Privatization was the REASON for the lack of drivers.

When you have a school district owned bus system, you also have professionally trained drivers. In the case of New Orleans, the individual bus owners didn't.

Furthermore, the school buses were considered inadequate for emergency evacuation - especially that of children and the elderly - because they have neither air conditioning nor bathrooms (unlike a chartered Greyhound type bus) and long delays of traffic were expected in evacuating the city.

[Guitar Shark]

Originally posted by FORD
Privatization was the REASON for the lack of drivers.

Funny, but Nagin disagrees with you. He blames fear of the storm, not privatization.

His quote from the article I posted:

Sure, there was lots of buses out there," Nagin said. "But guess what? You can't find drivers that would stay behind with a Category 5 hurricane, you know, pending down on New Orleans. We barely got enough drivers to move people on Sunday, or Saturday and Sunday, to move them to the Superdome. We barely had enough drivers for that. So sure, we had the assets, but the drivers just weren't available."