Talk about the pot and the kettle.
Talk about an unoriginal observation.
Hey, I calls 'em as I sees 'em.
What is it about the drinking water in Pennsylvania that compels you to talk in cliches?
Anticipated responses.
a) I know you are but what am I?
b) Hey, I resemble that remark!
c) I’m rubber, you’re glue.
Um, I think it’s asbestos.
LOL. You’re too funny for me to stay irked at, dammit.
So Askia has recanted the ten hour time frame, and described “aid” as dropping leaflets into 10 feet of toxic water, or some such. When I asked him to show evidence that Bush had deliberately withheld supplies, or withheld them through infifference, none was forthcoming.
For a more reasoned critique of the President, but without the claims of indifference to blacks, read this opinion piece by Kathleen Parker, a generally conservative columnist who calls 'em as she sees 'em.
From the piece–
*But Bush did fail to act swiftly and unequivocally. When he did act, at least initially, it was without authority, without competence and – never more important – without apparent empathy. You do not have to let a tear drip all the way down your cheek while the cameras are rolling to convincingly communicate empathy. But you do have to choose your words carefully in order to convey emotions appropriate to the moment.
To wit: You do not talk about Trent Lott’s lost house and his beloved front porch when thousands are rotting in a stinking incubator without food, water, medicine, air or bathroom facilities. You do not talk folksy about “cuttin’ those ribbons” when businesses are back up somewhere in the future when in the present people are fishing the grim remains of loved ones from gutters and attics.
Here’s what you do, and what Bush should have done: You kick a–.
The man at the top of the food chain does not have to play by bureaucracy’s rule. As commander in chief, Bush should have helicoptered into New Orleans (he could have worn his flight suit from his Operation Mission Accomplished jet carrier landing), parked himself next to the Superdome and started ordering his generals to get the job done.
Whatever needed doing. However possible.
Instead, he came too late to the disaster and caused even supporters to cringe with every ill-chosen word. He lost not only the politician’s fantasy photo op, but he let slip the rarest of opportunities – that of saving human life and the nation’s pride. By his performance in this time of extreme stress, Bush may have revealed a truer self than we were meant to see.
*
Hey maybe with Askia’s letter-dropping scheme the starving people still surviving in the floodwaters can take their chances eating the disease-ridden soggy letters so that they won’t have to loot!
Well, at least they’ll be getting plenty of fiber.
Hmmm. Shall I start calling you “boy” now?
And we all know that you can parrot “Monday. Thursday.” at will. You have amply demonstrated that fact. Would you care to answer any of the questions put to you in this thread (by me and others) with actual facts, or are you going to fly through this thread by the seat of your arrogance (and ignorance)?
And with all the dysentery that’s going around due to the lack of sanitation, they won’t have to worry at all about constipation!
catsix. You laugh, but if the letter drop scheme had been initiated in New Orleans within the first 24 hours as I suggested, concurrent with other relief efforts converging on the city, it would have 1) dramatically demonstrated Bush’s interest and authority 2) helped inform the panicky and confused New Orleans flood victims what was going on 3) warned the looters and shooters to knock it off. You can’t stop a thief. You can prosecute. Few flood victims were starving in the first 96 hours, though many were dehydrated and hungry.
Contrapunctal. The floodwaters weren’t uniformly 10 feet high or particularly toxic in the first 24-48 hours after the storm. The leaflets were designed to inform the peoples of New Orleans what was going on. In a crisis, what tends to exacerbate the kind of panic we saw was lack of communication. The Kathleen Parker piece is interesting. Would that President Bush done that, he might have proved himself a “uniter” I could muse voting for.
Weirddave. If you’re asking my permission to call me ‘boy’, the answer is hell no. If you do so in your daydreams my *dream-self * will slap you black. You may, however, call me, “Askia.” Or “Sir.” Or "My Poor Righteous Teacher." Or "Him Whose Sapient Opinions And Perspicacious Musings Put My Pitiful Thoughts To Shame." Any other variation will be met with the ample hostility I reserve for flagrant fools who tease me about the wrong shit. I give as good as I take, but calling me certain names is a no-go. I’ve got a lock on the “son” and “daddy” thing. Think of something else and quit biting my style. You are not raza, ese.
Do you have any fucking basis whatsoever for this? Do you even know the first thing about disaster management?
No? You pulled it out of your ass much like every other absolutely ridiculous piece of bullshit you’ve spewed into this thread?
You’re every bit as full of shit as the guy who faked his resume to become director of FEMA.
Here’s my basis: I just did some out of the box thinking about the difficulty of communicating with tens of thousands of people in a contained area. Then I recalled the leaflet drops in Vietnam and realized it could be done, and with today’s printing technology, much faster than 40 years ago. But suppose you start by telling me why you’re so sure I’m full of shit for just coming up with an idea and we’ll go from there. I see no reason why logistically it wouldn’t work.
Well it did work so well in Vietnam at demoralizing the enemy that all those thousands and thousands of leaflets they dropped so crushed the morale of the Viet Cong that we roundly won that war and…
What? We lost?
Damn.
Whatever its long-term failure as a military tactic, it was very successful as a means of accurately communicating with many thousands of people in a widespread area with no electricity needed to have the message understood ungarbled. This is what Bush failed to do. This is what a carefully crafted message to flood victims might have achieved.
I thank you for lowering your tone from vitirol and abuse to mere sarcasm.
How about “fuck you, asshole”. I’ll call you anything I damn well please. You don’t have a lock on anything, especially not reality or the truth. Not one single person on a message board with thousands of members has thought you anything but a buffoon in this thread. Not one single member has supported your asinine arguments here. Not one single member has posted one word of support for you in this thread, yet you persist in spewing your fetid effluence all over the place. You are a child. Go back to your momma little boy, maybe she cares what you think, nobody around here does.
:dubious:
Dude, some days it’s just not worth chewing thru the restraining straps, is it??
Woo-boy. I had to go walk that one off. :: Wipes tear of laughter. ::
David. Please. Please stop with the jokes. My stomach can’t take your lame ass whitebread suburban idea of vulgar faux-witted Pitting any more. “fuck you, asshole?” “buffoon?”
Look, Potsie Webber. Seriously. Leave me be. Aiight? Just go. I’m suge Knight: you’re Pee Diddy or whatever the fuck that talentless fuck is calling himself. Quit following me around the fucking boards if you don’t like what I have to say. Put me on the ignore list. I’m at a Dopefest go to the other side of the room. Do not try and match wits with me youngblood, do not try to rally your imaginary allies to your side. I may not be completely in the right here, but I do value my opinion, and I will at least listen and engage respectfully with people who have differing ones than me – usually. You, not so much. Now I have no fucking idea what axe you have to grind with me and our opinions on racism that has you fucking bent out of shape, or what kind of victory against me you think you’re trying to win here, but if it’ll make you leave me the fuck alone, here. HERE’S IT IS. You’re right, I’m wrong. My gift you, Weirddave. All yours. Now keep your distance, O magnificent one.
Your nasty little energy-draining schtick is tiring. Tiring. I don’t even have the imagination left in me to insult you the way you deserve or curse the failed abortion that kept you alive all those years ago to plague me now. You shit-eating fly. Please. Just. Stop. Typing. At. Me.
GAH.
Has anything regarding the “logistics” of dropping a shitload of paper into floodwaters up to 20 feet deep given you pause, O Sentient One?
Alternate proposal for spreading the good word to Katrina victims, Askia-style:
Messages of hope in hundreds of thousands of little bottles. The airlines could supply lots of mini-drink bottles. They’d float, right?