# Dear God, it's Shagnasty Again. This is Starting to Get Personal and We Want to Kick Your Ass Now. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 3, 2010, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-god-its-shagnasty-again-this-is-starting-to-get-personal-and-we-want-to-kick-your-ass-now/538098 "2010-05-03T01:07:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-god-its-shagnasty-again-this-is-starting-to-get-personal-and-we-want-to-kick-your-ass-now/538098/41 "2010-05-29T22:54:41Z")
It is also different from Katrina in that there are not thousands of refugees crying into cameras and taking a crap en masse in the Superdome, looking more and more forsaken by the day. No, people are seeing their livelihoods destroyed, but it is not as if an overnight disaster has taken their homes and nobody is there to hand out water &etc. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-god-its-shagnasty-again-this-is-starting-to-get-personal-and-we-want-to-kick-your-ass-now/538098/42 "2010-05-29T23:01:34Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > So, **Shagnasty** , what, exactly, do you think Obama should have done? **Broomstick** , you are a pilot. Tell me what skill you should maintain at all times for when the inevitable unexpected happens. It is called ‘situational awareness’ an I right? It doesn’t matter who caused what. You use what resources that you have available to do the best you can and the federal government has lots of direct and indirect tools at their disposal to improvise in such an event. This could be a dirty nuke in Manhattan or a massive earthquake in California. Obama can’t handle any of these. Most people couldn’t either but most people didn’t sign up for the job as POTUS thinking that they could either. This is a Chernobyl level disaster except it is happening in slow motion. That would seem to make things easier but it apparently doesn’t. This is the third massive disaster the U.S. has faced in the last decade that federal leadership needed to take charge of: 9/11, Katrina, and the Gulf Oil volcano. If you want visuals, here are the good and bad ways for leaders to address such a thing. [Rudi Giuliani on 9/11/2001](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vCg8Fp8aw8) [Barack Obama on May 10, 2010](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbg5kiXzmSw) ---
**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-god-its-shagnasty-again-this-is-starting-to-get-personal-and-we-want-to-kick-your-ass-now/538098/43 "2010-05-29T23:43:46Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > No one has any idea how to stop it. Killing the well from the bottom (via relief well) _will_ work. It just takes a while to get down there. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-god-its-shagnasty-again-this-is-starting-to-get-personal-and-we-want-to-kick-your-ass-now/538098/44 "2010-05-30T00:18:04Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > So, **Shagnasty** , what, exactly, do you think Obama should have done? I get the impression around the intarwebs that the answer goes something like this: He shoulda fixed Bush’s Mineral Management Service, had it humming and prevented the disaster from ever ocurring in the first place. That he didn’t do that is not only an indictment of Democrat leadership, but final proof that government regulation of any sort is ineffectual and should be eliminated wholesale. Only when the Market determines acceptable safety standars will we be free from such unforseeable catastrophes as the destruction of the Deepwater Horizon. I know that doesn’t make a fuck of a lot of sense, but it does absolve conservatives and their philosophies from any responsibility in the debacle, and **that** is _very_ important nowdays. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-god-its-shagnasty-again-this-is-starting-to-get-personal-and-we-want-to-kick-your-ass-now/538098/45 "2010-05-30T02:12:02Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > **Broomstick** , you are a pilot. Tell me what skill you should maintain at all times for when the inevitable unexpected happens. It is called ‘situational awareness’ an I right? It doesn’t matter who caused what. You use what resources that you have available to do the best you can and the federal government has lots of direct and indirect tools at their disposal to improvise in such an event. This could be a dirty nuke in Manhattan or a massive earthquake in California. Obama can’t handle any of these. Most people couldn’t either but most people didn’t sign up for the job as POTUS thinking that they could either. > > This is a Chernobyl level disaster except it is happening in slow motion. That would seem to make things easier but it apparently doesn’t. This is the third massive disaster the U.S. has faced in the last decade that federal leadership needed to take charge of: 9/11, Katrina, and the Gulf Oil volcano. One thing I learned as a pilot is not to act randomly because it might make the situation _worse_. You’re quite vague on this “situational awareness” thing, and “vast resources” - how about something _specific_. Like, I dunno, an assertion that there could have been more hardware deployed early on. I have no clue if there was such hardware available, or if it would have been of benefit deployed in addition to what’s already there, but that’s an example of a specific action. I agree - this is a massive, massive disaster. But it’s not like a coupe of guys with snorkels and shovels can go down there and fix things. With Katrina you could argue that people in boats should have gone to rescue folks in the Superdome, or there should have been air drops of food, water, and toilet paper, or whatever. That’s a concrete step that could have been taken but wasn’t. For the “Gulf oil volcano” - well, I don’t know what could/should have been done. I was hoping you’d have something specific, but I guess you don’t. So if you don’t know, how can you judge whether or not Obama’s response was appropriate or not? ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2010, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-god-its-shagnasty-again-this-is-starting-to-get-personal-and-we-want-to-kick-your-ass-now/538098/46 "2010-05-30T03:35:48Z")
I’m thinking that what should be examined here are the regulatory services. Check for in-bed-ness, and a ‘okay, worst case happens _here_, what do you do’ test. But that’s just me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-god-its-shagnasty-again-this-is-starting-to-get-personal-and-we-want-to-kick-your-ass-now/538098.md?page=2)