Budget cuts delayed New Orleans flood control work
Fully funding the project would have cost less than what we spend in half a week on Iraq. Heck, the losses to fraud from just the shady Iraqi weapons deals would have covered the dikes, dams, pumps and levees twice over.
Katrina dealt the nation a strategic blow. We’ll all be paying for it for months and years to come. We’ll all be paying for the decision not to defend our ports and coasts.
Not very surprising.
Just as the 9/11 was our own fault due to our foreign policy; and women getting raped because they ask for it by the way they dress.
In fact, Bush is, at this moment, planning strategy for the upcoming war on hurricanism. Thousands of U.S. troops are being massed in the middle of the Atlantic ocean.
As far as New Orleans goes: it will forevermore be known as New New Orleans.
In an attempt to get some of the factual answers (I certainly don’t know the answers) to a lot of the questions posed in this thread I started a parallel thread in GQ if anyone is interested in joining in to answer them…or just follow along. Afaict none of these questions have been factually answered here…and the answers given don’t really cut to the heart of exactly who is to blame, if anyone. Blaming Bush (or anyone else) seems pre-mature until we have some hard answers.
-XT
Not sure if this has been mentioned or not, but even if all of the funding had been passed, the levees would only have withstood a category three storm.
Here
Airman is correct. Note that
Indonesia has been subsidizing fuel prices, and is now going through a currency crisis because of this.
I suspect ** Airman doors ** is right. If the USA sustantially reduced its oil consumption, oil would be available at a cheaper price. It being a commodity much sought after and very necessary in many uses, someone, somewhere, would buy it and use it.
When does Georgie Bush start owning up to his share in this and the larger mess that our country is experiencing elsewhere? This fucked up administration has led us down fucked up path after fucked up path and STILL will not own up to it. In the face of overwhelming evidence, his administration calls global warming “junk science” and backs out of Kyoto. HE IS AT LEAST PARTIALLY TO BLAME! He’s a fucken oil man who has profited off this nation’s hunger for oil and has done nothing about it. Even though making this country greener would help the environment and cut the purse strings of the terrorists, he still does nothing. At the very least doing nothing does not absolve you from culpability regardless of how you Republican fuckwits try to spin your way out of it.
The buck should stop with Bush. He was willing to take credit for “mission accomplished” but not when shit goes sour. Shit is going sour fast. When is your little Chickenhawk chickenshit boy of a president going to take responsibility like a man? The president isn’t to blame for the economy, emergency relief, and a losing war in Iraq? So tell me… What good is having him?
And we are “shrill” if we complain about him. He’s only our president, he doesn’t bear the responsibility for not having contingency plans for emergencies. We can’t blame him for all the blunders his administration is responsible for. IF HE CAN’T HANDLE THE JOB, LETS GET SOMEONE IN THERE WHO CAN. I have news for you fucken chickenshit Repukes, the tables are turning and the people are getting pissed. I’M GETTING PISSED!
As Jim Ladd said on KLOS tonight: WAKE UP MR. PRESIDENT!
Could you be more dishonest?
Bush did not back out of Kyoto. The United States was never committed to Kyoto. The Senate voted 95-0 against the ratification of the treaty in the form it took, and they did this back in 1997. That’s 95-0, as in a whole boatload of Democrats and not a single Senator of either party.
Bush is not an oil man anymore. he is divested from all of his businesses to eliminate conflict of interest, as is Cheney, although Haliburton still owes him a considerable sum of money that is not variable based upon stock performance.
Oil is by far the most efficient fuel available right now. Hydrogen would require stupendous amounts of energy for what would be a negligible return, and the production of hydrogen would actually double the amount of carbon in the atmosphere (according to Patrick Bedard in this month’s issue of Car and Driver). Hydroelectricity requires dams, and environmentalists protest the building of dams regularly. Wind is variable and as such is unreliable as a consistent means of supply, and nuclear is looked upon with suspicion and has the potential in its current form for catastrophic damage (although I still think we should go that way, but not without being informed of the risks).
He is to blame for the war in Iraq and he shoulders that burden regularly. Trying to deflect criticism is not the same as not accepting responsibility. He took responsibility for emergency relief, signing the disaster orders three days before Katrina hit. And as for the economy, Alan Greenspan has served under both Bush and Clinton and he is not unhappy with the way things are, and he is one man who should know.
I voted against him, you voted against him, 49% of the voters went against him, and yet he won. That is what our democracy is based on. I’m sorry you didn’t like the results. I didn’t either. But this is what we have, and crying over it is pointless and counterproductive.
He is awake. Whether he’s doing the right thing is up to you. I think in some respects he’s doing fine, but in others (like Iraq) he is not.
You need to calm down and use some critical thinking before you go berzerk. And you need to research some stuff before you shoot off about stuff you don’t or can’t understand.
Food, like oil, is a commodity that the world depends on. In fact I’ll go out on a limb and say that food is an even more important commodity. When we’re well fed we tend to focus on things like manufacturing and trading with each other. Life is good for most of us.
Are we suggesting that if we were to reduce our food consumption by 25%, the price of food would decrease worldwide to the point of fattening up some very hungry Central Africans, because they could now afford to eat? Or will we just produce less food? Cheap food is just as hard to get as cheap oil when you don’t have anything to begin with in the first place. I thought that demand was ‘sposed to decrease as supply increased. Are we holding the rest of the world back because we like to drive our SUVs through the drive through window and supersize our lunch? I need someone to correct my apparent ignorance on this, please.
To add to that, in Europe, prices for a liter of fuel just before Katrina ranged from 1 euro per liter (Spain) to 1.40 euro per liter (The Netherlands).
A gallon is 4.2 liters. Go ahead, do the math. Then compare with this thread:
So, to follow the logic, apparently Europe has been helping the U.S. drive inefficient cars and consume fuel.
The U.S. could very well learn from some South-American countries, where up to 70% of the cars are in fact not running on Fuel. In fact, the E.U. could learn from that very well too, as we already have very many diesel cars which could be converted in a blink. And we can all plant those flowers on our fields (I think Germany has started doing so recently).
There are ways and alternatives aplenty Airman (wind energy is being used a lot here to full effect), but you’ll just have to admit Airman that until recently vested interests in the U.S. have no incentive to do anything about the current situation, as that’s where big parts of the money come from. The largest refinery capacity is in the U.S. and ironically the New Orleans area itself is very dependent on that economic reality and provides a significant amount of the U.S. own energy resources.
The difference between food and oil is that you can always grow more food. Oil is nonrenewable and diminishing (if you believe in Peak Oil, that is). Therefore it can be said that demand is up but supplies are diminishing. If demand diminishes it would still be enough to meet the supply because supplies from this point on will be down (again, if you believe in Peak Oil). Oil demand will never again be low enough that supply will outstrip it, whereas food production can almost always be increased.
[nitpick]A US gallon is 3.785 liters[/nitpick]. Maybe you converted imperial gallons? Nope, that’s 4.546 liters, so I don’t know where you got 4.2 liters from. 
Also, a liter of normal unleaded (called Euro95 here in the Netherlands, and it has 95 octane so it might be comparable to Super in the States) is up to 1.51[sup]5[/sup] Euros as of today. Cite.
Shit, I don’t know, can you think for yourself instead of digesting whatever bullshit comes down the pipe our Republican masters?
Here is the RESOLUTION that you are referring to and here is some analysis of it. Read it yourself by all means.
Bush, Cheney, and Rice amongst many others were and will be oilmen after they are booted the fuck out of office in '08. Rice had a supertanker named after her for Christ’s sake! What kind of bullshit are you slinging here? Think I’m fucken stupid and I’m not going to refute this tired old Republican bullshit spin?
Man this really refutes my argument about doing nothing. You are right, alternative energy is more expensive. But the fact still remains that Bush is, in a very real sense, not doing much about developing alternative sources of energy. His solution? Drill more oil in Alaska. This is not going to help our current situation of dependancy on oil. Let’s give the crack addict cheaper crack, that’ll cure him.
So you are blaming Greenspan now? After Greenspan told Clinton to reduce the debt that Bushie’s Daddy and Ray Gun ran up, the economy prospered. Now, little Georgie is running the largest government ever and cutting taxes, Greenspan tells him to do the same thing and he does another half-assed job of it. Deficit is BAD for the economy and Bushie controls the size of government. Man, Republicans will go to great lengths to pass the buck. THEY SHOULD MAN THE FUCK UP, TAKE SOME RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR ACTIONS.
Yeah I voted against the fuckwit and I’m glad you did. I’m not crying that he’s there, I’m complaining because he is doing a shitty job running this country. Sure, it’s not all his fault, but blaming it on Clinton or someone else other than yourself when you have been president for 5 years is kinda getting suspect. Watch and see what happens if he keeps it up. He also must carry the ultimate responsibility. He’s the president, we are at war, a hurricane is coming, and he won’t cut his five week vacation short.
I’m sick and tire of this slimy little weasel of a man ducking responsibility. He’s a liar, a coward, and a poor excuse for a human being. The perfect politician.
First off, a German official saying that is indeed poor form. Even though it is true.
Very basic facts.
High surface water temperatures are the engine of hurricane severity. The typical hurricane is going to be more like this in the future as a consequence of global warming and Bush’s administration has not meaningful engaged in any global effort to reduce it. Whether or not this particular hurrican would have been this severe or not is just speculation, but that the future is more likely to contain events like this because of our inaction today is inescapable.
The war in Iraq diverted monies from better protecting NO from an identified high risk event.
Readiness for dealing with the consequences of a disaster was put into the hands of political flunkies.
We are now seeing a major disaster with much greater cost in human life and suffering than it would have been if we had funded the levee project and had more professional leadership at FEMA. We can expect to see more hurricanes like this in the future. The Bush administration has contributed to this grim state of affairs.
It is indeed rude of a German official to point any of that out. But it doesn’t make any of any less true.
First off, a German official saying that is indeed poor form. Even though it is true.
Very basic facts.
High surface water temperatures are the engine of hurricane severity. The typical hurricane is going to be more like this in the future as a consequence of global warming and Bush’s administration has not meaningful engaged in any global effort to reduce it. Whether or not this particular hurrican would have been this severe or not is just speculation, but that the future is more likely to contain events like this because of our inaction today is inescapable.
The war in Iraq diverted monies from better protecting NO from an identified high risk event.
Readiness for dealing with the consequences of a disaster was put into the hands of political flunkies.
We are now seeing a major disaster with much greater cost in human life and suffering than it would have been if we had funded the levee project and had more professional leadership at FEMA. We can expect to see more hurricanes like this in the future. The Bush administration has contributed to this grim state of affairs.
It is indeed rude of a German official to point any of that out. But it doesn’t make any of it any less true.