Squink,
When California’s power system took a shit and we needed assistance, all we heard from the Prez was how it was a State problem, not a Federal problem…and that was in reaction to requests from our state government to help with the price-gouging and unregulated pricing. Prior to that, he didn’t say much at all, and he certainly didn’t compose a speech regarding it.
Sam
Unregulated? I do not think that word means what you think it means.
How does “poorly regulated and skyrocketing” work for you? In a time of need, our out of state power producers jacked the price of power way up, sticking it to the people of California. “Unregulated” might have been a bit of an exagerration, sorry you took it to heart.
But this really isn’t the place to discuss 2001’s power crisis, is it? It’s just the reason I though Bush’s speech was lame.
Sam
Because I’ve been through power blackouts before, and I still don’t see what’s the big deal over this one, other than the size of it. Anyone who absolutely depended on having electricity would have had plans for backup generators and whatnot long before this happened, and folks with non-critical matters could simply put out a few candles, keep the refrigerator door closed, and wait it out. As for the problem with stranded people on the streets, that’s a screwup of the hotels IMO – the mayor could’ve ordered the hotels to open their doors and provide temporary housing for everyone, after all.
Geez, it’s just a power outage. Deal with it.
…maybe he gets game face tips from Al Leiter.
Corbonite, Tars Tarkas and An Arky - I think you summed it up pretty nicely.
Aside from his speaking ability or lack thereof, his choice of WHEN to open his mouth and show himself is peculiar, indeed…Bush has given an abysmally low NINE (9) press conferences since stealing office in 2000. Yet he sees THIS as an unmissable opportunity to speak to us?
What an intelligence-insulting asshole.
Oh, okay, I think I get it. Let me try…
I think Bush’s speech was lame because of George Washington’s response to the Whiskey Rebellion. But I reckon this wouldn’t be the place to discuss that.
I could refer people who are upset about being without power for a day to the Kansas City ice storm of Jan-Feb 2002, where tens of thousands of people lost power for days, including many of my friends - my manager had no power for 6 days. And this wasn’t in Summer, it was when the temperature was from a high of 33 F to a low of 20 F - and even gas furnaces need electricity for their fans, so these people had no heat during this time. I only lost power for 11 hours or so, and was lucky. But I was amazed at how cold that house got. I knew that a power outage was coming, so I had set my thermostat at 90 F to “pre-heat” the house, and it still had dropped to 50 F inside by the time the power came back on.
It has been worse for people. It sucks for New York, it really, really sucks to be without power for a significant time. There’s no sugar-coating that. And I do feel very badly for New Yorkers, especially New York Dopers who had to be without power.
All I’m saying is that it was not a National Emergency, and Bush shouldn’t even have bothered to speak on it. Hell, by most of his detractor’s standards, he should have been spending more time reading “How to Leverage your WORD POWER!” than speaking on TV anyhow…you guys can’t have it both ways. 
OK Lib,
Forgive me for not contributing to your “criticize me” pit thread, but you can add “Deliberately Obtuse” to the list of faults.
It was a waste of a press conference, and the difference in treatment of millions of Californians and millions of Nor’Easters was apparent.
And No, the political particulars of California’s situation are not, IMO, a topic for debate in this thread. It just seems like a worthless hijack to me.
Sam
I think he should have spoken as a safety precaution. Public reaction is a very unstable thing, as long as there is a reasonable chance that a terrorism scare might be needlessly generated, it makes good sense from a public safety point of view. The important message - “this is a fuck-up, not an attack” - was worthy of being delivered from as highly placed a source as possible: the President. Until God shall cease to avert his eye, that man is…you know…him.
Moreover, even had he known that he would utterly flummox the statement, it was still his duty to make it.
If anything astonished me about his whole episode, its all the horrible shit that didn’t happen. The people, for the most part, simply muddled through. These sudden, spasmodic breakouts of calm and decent behavior are very surprising, as a pessimist, I love surprises.
:rolleyes:
Any in a city of 1 million plus? 5 million plus?
**
Well the last citywide blackout was a crime fest. Social conditions are completely different now, but we still didin’t know what the fuck to expect.
**
Some did, some didn’t. In a city as big and as dense as NYC, somethimes the space simply isn’t available.
**
First off seeing that this doesn’t happen often, people lacked even the most basic supplies, which is no fault but our own. I didn’t see a single person walking around my building with a flash light for example. Perhaps up in the country if you need to get something out of the car, you grab a flashlight and go, but here, you don’t, because the street lights are fine. We don’t prepare for these things, because they never happen.
The other bigger problem is that you are obviously unaware of how much we depend on mass transit here. If the subways are down, pretty much the only thing you can do is walk home, or at least walk out of Manhattan to a bus, but they were fucked up as well. Now basically the mindset of people was to get to where ever the hell they were going before dark, because the freaks come out at night.
So to put this in perspective, people had no fucking idea what was going on, couldn’t contact friends or loved ones, were hearing a bunch of contradictory shit, were wondering how the fuck they were going to get home, and were concerned for their safety once it got dark.
No big deal to you, but that’s only because you’re a grade A asshole.
**
Yeah right, that’ll never happen. Also they were actually kicking people out of their hotel rooms, because they were getting too hot without air conditioning.
**
And we have.
Hey! Some of us freaks is friendly!
Just the ones that play Ukuleles. 
In short: elf6c made a joke, the fact that you didn’t get it or have no sense of humor reflects negatively on you.
I thought it was hysterical.
Since the man didn’t steal any office, the only asinine insult to intelligence is your false assertion.
The Emperor has no flight suit.
Bullshit. I recognized it as a joke and it was an insulting joke. I got it, but since it was an unfunny joke, I did not laugh. The insult was obvious. The joke, as bad as it is, merely serves as an invalid jab at the target. I summed up the facts of the matter. Had your reading ability been any better than your obviously pathetic sense of humor, you would’ve realized that.
elucidator: Are you merely unoriginal or stupid to boot? That lame joke’s been done and its defendse is pathetic.