spanky?

this is more appropriate for a PM. Try to stay on topic.

Short-term disabilities?

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, and not to my knowledge.

The Root of Nagin's Failure
 

NO is a cesspool of government sponsored crime and corruption. The legacy of Clinton lives on in Nagin and the NOPD.

Let's take a break from the joy of Bush bashing to reveal the dirty little secret of New Orleans: Its local government deserves an F for its planning and response to Katrina. And one other thing: The New Orleans police force would be a joke if it weren't a disgrace.

It is a perennial contender for Murder Capital.......if New York had New Orleans' murder rate, we would have more than 4,200 murders a year.

That the New Orleans police are hardly the Finest was proven by a shocking report yesterday: Nearly a third of New Orleans cops - some 500 of the 1,600 - are now unaccounted for. The department says some quit, but it doesn't know where most of them are.

The top cop, Eddie Compass, has responded by offering all officers paid vacations to Las Vegas and Atlanta. Yes, that's right - he is pulling all cops off the street, even while bodies lie in the open. Never in New York.

Then there's Mayor Ray Nagin, a Democrat, who has blamed everybody but himself. Maybe he has forgotten his plans for dealing with Katrina........ "Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm's way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation."


By all means, let's investigate what went wrong in New Orleans. Let's start in City Hall.

Why wasn't Nagin planning on using the municipal and school district buses pursuant to the 2000 evacuation plan and Orleans Parish School Board meeting of June 2005????

Maybe he was too busy cavorting with Blanco:


http://www.americaswetland.com/photo...coBracelet.jpg

http://updata.outthebox.net/admin/im...Mardi_Gras.gif

His decision to leave a lifetime judicial appointment for heading DHS suggests his judgment is perhaps not what it might previousl appeared to be.

WTF?
 

Now FEMA is trying to prevent journalists from covering the hurricane aftermath. Is this America?

WTF?
 

Cite please?

The only thing I've read is that they are trying to prevent the press ghouls from publishing macabre photos of the dead.

I can respect that, too. Maybe he thought he'd get bored doing the same job for the rest of his life.

Now for something completely different
 

I just finished a phenomenal book I don't think has been mentioned here before:

"Island at the Center of the World" by Russell Shorto

It details the long-lost history of the Dutch colony of New Netherland - before the English (twice) took it over and relegated the early history of NYC to the dustbin.

Even the back story on this book - and the ancient documents on which it was based - is absolutely fascinating.

Highest recommendation for anyone interested in American history, New York, or American politics.

WTF?
 

"The U.S. agency leading Hurricane Katrina rescue efforts said Tuesday that it does not want the news media to photograph the dead as they are recovered."
-- Reuters

"We are in Jefferson Parish, just outside of New Orleans. At the National Guard checkpoint, they are under orders to turn away all media. All of the reporters are turning they’re TV trucks around."
-- Bob Brigham

"'[FEMA has] people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified,' said a Texas firefighter. 'We're sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven't been contacted yet.' The firefighter, who has encouraged his superiors back home not to send any more volunteers for now, declined to give his name because FEMA has warned them not to talk to reporters."
-- Salt Lake City Tribune

courtesy of Kevin Drum, who has links

Honestly, I hope these are isolated aberrations. But stop and remember that the three most senior people at FEMA are veterans of the Bush-Cheney campaigns.

eta:

"While we were attempting to take pictures of the National Guard (a unit from Oklahoma) taking up positions outside a Brooks Brothers on the edge of the Quarter, the sergeant ordered us to the other side of the boulevard. The short version is: there won't be any pictures of this particular group of guard soldiers on our newscast tonight. Rules (or I suspect in this case an order on a whim) like those do not HELP the palpable feeling that this area is somehow separate from the United States.

At that same fire scene, a police officer from out of town raised the muzzle of her weapon and aimed it at members of the media... obvious members of the media... armed only with notepads. Her actions (apparently because she thought reporters were encroaching on the scene) were over the top and she was told. There are automatic weapons and shotguns everywhere you look. It's a stance that perhaps would have been appropriate during the open lawlessness that has long since ended on most of these streets. Someone else points out on television as I post this: the fact that the National Guard now bars entry (by journalists) to the very places where people last week were barred from LEAVING (The Convention Center and Superdome) is a kind of perverse and perfectly backward postscript to this awful chapter in American history."

-- Brian Williams

WTF?
 

Even Ty once censored pictures of dead people on this board. turn about is certainly fair play.

WTF?
 

If this isn't the pot calling the kettle black. I think you owe the board an apology. again.

WTF?
 

I don't see this as a problem. Would you prefer the media profit from the "rubbernecks" who want to see little James' drowned grandmother (of course, before James and his family does)

If the media being present is hampering rescue efforts - then keep them the fuck out.

No shit. This is fucking ridiculous. Then again, who is responsible for these stupid PC bullshit "harrassment" requirements in the first place? It sure wasn't the Federalist Society.
[/QUOTE]

WTF?
 

Yes. I am opposed to the government deciding what the press should and should not be able to run. I object to the media profiting from certain reality TV programs, but I certainly don't think FEMA out to be deciding what is in good taste there either.

If they want to exclude everyone, maybe that's plausible. But (a) this quote and the next suggest that media are being treated differently, and (b) this is America.

For that matter, although it's probably a good idea for the mayor to tell everyone to get out of NO, what gives him the right to tell people to get out of their houses? Property rights, anyone? I'm asking because I'm curious.

It is ridiculous that FEMA would waste the firefighters' time by sending them to sexual harassment training, it is ridiculous that they would tell firefighters not to talk to the media -- this being America and all -- and it is ridiculous that they would send the firefighters to NO -- which was begging for help at the time -- only to serve as the backdrop for Bush's appearance there.

etfs

WTF?
 

Public safety?

More seriously though, property rights are a fiction after 200 plus years of liberal corruption of our constitutional and babyjesus given rights. In many places one can barely wipe one's arse in one's own home without the government regulating and permitting the installation of the toilet paper holder. The only real protection of property rights is the second amendment, which I see is being exercised by the good people of New Orleans with some frequency. Bravo Brave Patriots!!

WTF?
 

So you think the mayor etc. etc. should let people stay in their homes if they want to? I mean, arrest the looters and other criminals by all means, but people who are just sitting in their houses and don't want to leave -- force to evacuate, or no?

How do you spell "blameworthy"????
 

B-L-A-N-C-O.

BREAKING NEWS:

Red Cross Says "We Were Kept From Superdome By State"

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - A report on Fox News from correspondent Major Garrett Wednesday night reveals a major break into what exactly went wrong at the Louisiana Superdome in the days after Hurricane Katrina struck the city.

An American Red Cross representative tells Fox News that the Louisiana State Homeland Security Department refused the relief organization permission to take food and water to the Superdome because they did not want to "encourage people to go there."

They State office of Homeland Security wanted to get people out and were afraid that providing support would be a "magnet" attracting more displaced citizens of New Orleans.

Ty, apology please?

MORE TO FOLLOW..................

WTF?
 

I think if he was going to force people to evacuate he should have done it in the 48 hours pre-Katrina with the buses at his disposal per the plan that had been put in writing.

At this point it is fully informed assumption of the risk and he should put his resources to better use.

Of course, how he can get anyone out is a good question since 1/3 of his police force is AWOL and the other 2/3 is on a muni-government paid vacation in Las Vegas. Does he think he has the authority to command the Guard or the troops on the ground? He is certainly equal parts stupid and delusional enough to think so, but he doesnt.

Plus, his pal in negligence, Blanco, has put the kibosh on his order, no?

How do you spell "blameworthy"????
 

I guess it's Blanco's fault too that when Chertoff and Brown were interviewed on TV this weekend, they didn't know anyone was at the Superdome. She hyp-mo-tized them, or something.

How do you spell "blameworthy"????
 

Excellent deflection from her negligence or idiocy, which obvloisly was primary to the deaths of some, to the Feds.

Have you no shame? No objectivity whatsoever?

hank, can I get a ruling?

WTF?
 

I have problems with most Fed regulations.

It is ridiculous to me - as a NYer with firemen in my family - that so many outside firemen would have to be flown in to replace corrupt the NOPD and NOFD (the acronym, when read differently, is apt) that disappeared on the job.

These heroes are here to work - not to give the Olbermann's a scoop.

I've only seen this nonsense on lefty blogs so I doubt its veracity. Its absurd to me.

This is now a HazMat area of epic proportions. They should be able to bar whomever they please. I'm waiting for the first "bacterial disease" class action suit against everyone.

I'm all for property rights. I also draw the line at untenable, uninhabitable situations like this. Anyone at this point, 8 days later, that hampers rescue options, denies care or delays evacuation deserves what they get.

This is assumption of risk at its finest. After a certain cutoff point - anyone that refuses to leave - let 'em starve, drown or fester.

WTF?
 

I'd make them sign a medical waiver and legal disclaimers and say sayonara.

These idiots will be the first to sue for cholera.

WTF?
 

Dissent. Penn will sue the Feds for cholera first. And also for failing to regulate the placement of the drain plug in his boat.

How do you spell "blameworthy"????
 

Ty - you know this is highly inaccuarate.

The media questioned these guys about "conditions" at the Superdome - and, unfortunately, in today's beurocracy, media travels much faster than proper government channels.

How do you spell "blameworthy"????
 

I saw interviews on the local news last night with a SF-based SAR team that was at the Superdome with supplies days ago, giving food and water to people. So I will charitably suggest that things may be more complicated than your post suggested.

WTF?
 

http://img277.imageshack.us/img277/9862/wo1kg.jpg

How do you spell "blameworthy"????
 

cite please? I have been searching the internet, including the Mercury News, and can find no mention of this SAR team.

WTF?
 

You and both know that there was plenty for them to do, even without 80% of NO being under water.

And there's just no good reason for FEMA to tell them not to talk to the press.

The lefty blogs are all getting it from an article in the Salt Lake City Tribune, which I posted here yesterday. Kinda makes you wonder why only lefty blogs are picking up on the news, huh?

It is absurd, though. As you said above, those guys volunteered to work, not to do PR for FEMA or to sit in a Sheraton in Atlanta.

They should bar everyone or no one, but they shouldn't be singling out journalists, which is what two of those sources said. I take it you agree with that.

No one is under an obligation to keep bringing 'em water. I just question on what authority the government can force people to leave their homes. Unless it's going to tear them down to build a hotel, I mean.

How do you spell "blameworthy"????
 

I saw the clips, and they seemed pretty clueless.

WTF?
 

I am not sure I am for it, but isnt the rationale public safety?

How do you spell "blameworthy"????
 

There were a number of interviews with these people on KTVU, Channel 2 in SF, the local FOX affiliate (!). I was watching the news after the Giants lost to the Dodgers on a Jeff Kent HR. I'm not sure that it was a SAR team -- their function might have something related. I think it included a doctor and chaplain, inter alia.

eta:

This account from someone who was at the Superdome makes clear that there were National Guardsmen there handing out food and water.

WTF?
 

I don't know. But given the anti-administration sentiment on those sites, I wouldn't be surprised if an inaccurate story was spread like wildfire.

For instance, the "Bush plays guitar" nonsense started on Kos and spread everywhere - I even received an email discussing it today - when it was debunked 8 days ago

This is why I've withheld comment on this fucking nightmare until today. It's waaaay too early to tell who ALL fucked up and why - while people are homeless and hungry.

They should bar everyone that isn't a rescue worker, yes.

Martial law? Disaster area?

Hell, call an ex parte takings hearing.

WTF?
 

Here is the story as I posted it (sorry for the formatting), and here is a link to a more legible version on the newspaper's site.

etal

In other news . . .
 

You'll be disappointed to know that John Bolton is doing his level best to prevent reform.

WTF?
 

Still bitter about Waco?

Governments can evict people from unsafe buildings, can't they?

The problem here is that threat isn't credible. Anyone who stays, and gets sick, will eventually show up at a hospital.

WTF?
 

I agree that forcing people to leave is a good idea. I was just asking why it's OK. What gives the government the authority to evict people from unsafe buildings? (Not a rhetorical question -- I'm asking.)

In other news . . .
 

I just read the first of you evidentiary "blogs" that I have ever read. I will never read another. Do you even read this stuff before you post it?

The reform Club's article speaks of is how to eliminate corruption in the programs where money flows. The "obstruction" you cite, is trying to change the programs to which money will flow. Unless I'm whiffing here, I can chalk up another win.

In other news . . .
 

My God, son, you have a win-loss record that looks like mine!

Congratulations!

WTF?
 

You mean, as a matter of natural law?

Laws exist to compel people to do lots of things, such as get immunizations. Is it the absence of a carrot (such as being allowed to enroll in school) that troubles you?

Or are you saying just compensation is due for a temporary "taking"?