And you forget that over 90,000 square miles of the US was DEVASTATED by Hurricane Katrina????
That is an area equal the the size of GREAT BRITAIN!!! All you fixate on is what the media tells you to. How, exactly do you respond when an area the size of Great Britain is completely destroyed?
Do you also recall how, on Monday following the storm, how EVERYONE in the media was rejoicing that "Whew, New Orleans dodged the bullett again"?
We forget that National Guard troops were stationed in Jackson, Baton Rouge, and other key points BEFORE the storm hit? We forget that rescur workers arrived, in mass, on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, only to have their boats commandeered by thugs, to be shot at, to be lucky to have escaped with their lives in New Orleans?
I think what the Media does not tell people, and that those who wish to promote their own agenda here fail to realize is that the way things work is that the LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNMENT is solely in charge to contain the situation for 72-84 hours following a crisis. At that point, FEMA and the other Federal branches are up and ready to roll.
Sadly, the local and state Governments failed their people. They did not follow the agreed upon evacuation plans.
Do you also realize that Mayor Ray Nagin told EVERYONE, both SAturday and Sunday, to bring food, water, and clothing for 3-4 days? These people knew full well that there was not adequate food and water at the Convention Center, or the Superdome! Yet, they still chose to go there instead of fleeing...
Again, if the entire area of Great Britain was destroyed, how would you handle it? That is what we are dealing with here in the US, and it sickens me that people want to use it to further a political agenda, and that the media buys into it, because "If it bleeds, it leads..."
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You say Bush did "nothing", but he contemplated seizing control of Hurricane relief fro Gov. Blanco. Did you know that?
WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 - As New Orleans descended into chaos last week and Louisiana's governor asked for 40,000 soldiers, President Bush's senior advisers debated whether the president should speed the arrival of active-duty troops by seizing control of the hurricane relief mission from the governor.
For reasons of practicality and politics, officials at the Justice Department and the Pentagon, and then at the White House, decided not to urge Mr. Bush to take command of the effort. Instead, the Washington officials decided to rely on the growing number of National Guard personnel flowing into Louisiana, who were under Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's control.
The debate began after officials realized that Hurricane Katrina had exposed a critical flaw in the national disaster response plans created after the Sept. 11 attacks. According to the administration's senior domestic security officials, the plan failed to recognize that local police, fire and medical personnel might be incapacitated.
As criticism of the response to Hurricane Katrina has mounted, one of the most pointed questions has been why more troops were not available more quickly to restore order and offer aid. Interviews with officials in Washington and Louisiana show that as the situation grew worse, they were wrangling with questions of federal/state authority, weighing the realities of military logistics and perhaps talking past each other in the crisis.
To seize control of the mission, Mr. Bush would have had to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows the president in times of unrest to command active-duty forces into the states to perform law enforcement duties. But decision makers in Washington felt certain that Ms. Blanco would have resisted surrendering control, as Bush administration officials believe would have been required to deploy active-duty combat forces before law and order had been re-established.
While combat troops can conduct relief missions without the legal authority of the Insurrection Act, Pentagon and military officials say that no active-duty forces could have been sent into the chaos of New Orleans on Wednesday or Thursday without confronting law-and-order challenges.
But just as important to the administration were worries about the message that would have been sent by a president ousting a Southern governor of another party from command of her National Guard, according to administration, Pentagon and Justice Department officials.
"Can you imagine how it would have been perceived if a president of the United States of one party had pre-emptively taken from the female governor of another party the command and control of her forces, unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result?" asked one senior administration official, who spoke anonymously because the talks were confidential.
Officials in Louisiana agree that the governor would not have given up control over National Guard troops in her state as would have been required to send large numbers of active-duty soldiers into the area. But they also say they were desperate and would have welcomed assistance by active-duty soldiers.
"This event has exposed, perhaps ultimately to our benefit, a deficiency in terms of replacing first responders who tragically may be the first casualties," Paul McHale, the assistant secretary of defense for domestic security, said.
Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, has suggested that active-duty troops be trained and equipped to intervene if front-line emergency personnel are stricken. But the Pentagon's leadership remains unconvinced that this plan is sound, suggesting instead that the national emergency response plans be revised to draw
WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 - As New Orleans descended into chaos last week and Louisiana's governor asked for 40,000 soldiers, President Bush's senior advisers debated whether the president should speed the arrival of active-duty troops by seizing control of the hurricane relief mission from the governor.
For reasons of practicality and politics, officials at the Justice Department and the Pentagon, and then at the White House, decided not to urge Mr. Bush to take command of the effort. Instead, the Washington officials decided to rely on the growing number of National Guard personnel flowing into Louisiana, who were under Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's control.
The debate began after officials realized that Hurricane Katrina had exposed a critical flaw in the national disaster response plans created after the Sept. 11 attacks. According to the administration's senior domestic security officials, the plan failed to recognize that local police, fire and medical personnel might be incapacitated.
As criticism of the response to Hurricane Katrina has mounted, one of the most pointed questions has been why more troops were not available more quickly to restore order and offer aid. Interviews with officials in Washington and Louisiana show that as the situation grew worse, they were wrangling with questions of federal/state authority, weighing the realities of military logistics and perhaps talking past each other in the crisis.
To seize control of the mission, Mr. Bush would have had to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows the president in times of unrest to command active-duty forces into the states to perform law enforcement duties. But decision makers in Washington felt certain that Ms. Blanco would have resisted surrendering control, as Bush administration officials believe would have been required to deploy active-duty combat forces before law and order had been re-established.
While combat troops can conduct relief missions without the legal authority of the Insurrection Act, Pentagon and military officials say that no active-duty forces could have been sent into the chaos of New Orleans on Wednesday or Thursday without confronting law-and-order challenges.
But just as important to the administration were worries about the message that would have been sent by a president ousting a Southern governor of another party from command of her National Guard, according to administration, Pentagon and Justice Department officials.
"Can you imagine how it would have been perceived if a president of the United States of one party had pre-emptively taken from the female governor of another party the command and control of her forces, unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result?" asked one senior administration official, who spoke anonymously because the talks were confidential.
Officials in Louisiana agree that the governor would not have given up control over National Guard troops in her state as would have been required to send large numbers of active-duty soldiers into the area. But they also say they were desperate and would have welcomed assistance by active-duty soldiers.
"This event has exposed, perhaps ultimately to our benefit, a deficiency in terms of replacing first responders who tragically may be the first casualties," Paul McHale, the assistant secretary of defense for domestic security, said.
Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, has suggested that active-duty troops be trained and equipped to intervene if front-line emergency personnel are stricken. But the Pentagon's leadership remains unconvinced that this plan is sound, suggesting instead that the national emergency response plans be revised to draw
You think that's scary.. I know in advance that this is going to be at least a 5 page topic soon.
A little clairvoyant, are we? ;)
...as an analogy...It has since come out and it is a FACT that President Franklin Roosevelt was told by USA Intelligence sources that the Japanese were definitly going to attack Pearl Harbor, and he did NOT stop it, and let it happen, because he thought the USA should get involved in WW2...and wanted to defennd the allied powers (UK, France, etc) and kick Hitler's ass before he invaded the USA...
No, that is a complete falsehood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt#Pearl_Harbor
But I'm sure, if pressed, I could come up with a few more legitimate or scholarly sources than Wikipedia. There were rumors that Pearl Harbor might be attacked, and the State Department heard these, but the line about FDR letting it happen is incorrect.
I hate it when rumors, innuendo, or bias cloud one's judgement.
At the end of the day it's still that bast*** osama bin arsehole who is to blame.
yes for sure. but you have to ask questions about a USA administration that is/was openly friends with the rest of the Bin Laden family
A Barrier That Could Have Been
Congress OKd a project to protect New Orleans 40 years ago, but an environmentalist suit halted it. Some say it could have worked.
By Ralph Vartabedian and Peter Pae
Times Staff Writer
September 9, 2005
In the wake of Hurricane Betsy 40 years ago, Congress approved a massive hurricane barrier to protect New Orleans from storm surges that could inundate the city.
But the project, signed into law by President Johnson, was derailed in 1977 by an environmental lawsuit. Now the question is: Could that barrier have protected New Orleans from the damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina?
"If we had built the barriers, New Orleans would not be flooded," said Joseph Towers, the retired chief counsel for the Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans district.
Tower's view is endorsed by a former key senator, along with academic experts, who say a hurricane barrier is the only way to control the powerful storm surges that enter Lake Pontchartrain and threaten the city. Other experts are less sure, saying the barrier would have been no match for Katrina.
The project was stopped in its tracks when an environmental lawsuit won a federal injunction on the grounds that the Army's environmental impact statement was flawed. By the mid-1980s, the Corps of Engineers abandoned the project.
The project faced formidable opposition not only from environmentalists but from regional government officials outside of New Orleans who argued that the barriers would choke commerce and harm marine life in ecologically sensitive Lake Pontchartrain.
The barrier would have protected New Orleans from storm surges barreling into the lake through two narrow passages — the Rigolets and the Chef Menteur Pass.
During Hurricane Katrina, the lake — swollen 12 feet — was slammed by 135 mph winds against the city's storm walls and levees. The barriers failed in five places and the city was flooded. On the city's eastern flank, the surge approached the city through a network of canals from Lake Borgne, which was also swollen and raging.
After the damage caused by Betsy, a Category 2 hurricane when it hit the Louisiana coast in 1965, the Army Corps of Engineers designed and began clearing sites for the so-called Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Barrier Project. It required miles of levees and two massive storm gates that could close off the Rigolets and Chef Menteur Pass if a hurricane was approaching.
Although the largely forgotten project has been moribund for more than two decades, it has attracted renewed interest and regained credibility since Katrina left about 80% of New Orleans underwater.
J. Bennett Johnston, a former powerful Democratic senator from Louisiana and now a lobbyist in Washington, is working on Capitol Hill to resurrect the barrier.
"It ought to be part of the deal," he said. "It would have prevented the huge storm tide that came into Lake Pontchartrain."
The barrier would have run from a point near the Mississippi state line, known as Apple Pie Ridge, southwest across the marshlands all the way to the main levees of the Mississippi River, roughly 25 miles. Most of the barrier would have consisted of levees, roughly 9 feet to 14 feet high. In addition, two massive control structures were to be placed on the inlets to Lake Pontchartrain.
The Rigolets, the larger of the two inlets, would have required an 800-foot-long structure with floodgates and a massive locks that could close if a hurricane or other storm surge were approaching the coast.
Similar floodgates protect the Netherlands from North Sea surges.
Towers, the corps' former chief counsel, said the project was estimated to cost $85 million in 1965, or just over $500 million, adjusted for inflation. Estimates of the costs of Katrina's damage and reconstruction exceed $100 billion.
The project was stopped on Dec. 30, 1977, by U.S. District Judge Charles Schwartz Jr., who said the corps' e
Congress OKd a project to protect New Orleans 40 years ago, but an environmentalist suit halted it. Some say it could have worked.
By Ralph Vartabedian and Peter Pae
Times Staff Writer
September 9, 2005
In the wake of Hurricane Betsy 40 years ago, Congress approved a massive hurricane barrier to protect New Orleans from storm surges that could inundate the city.
But the project, signed into law by President Johnson, was derailed in 1977 by an environmental lawsuit. Now the question is: Could that barrier have protected New Orleans from the damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina?
"If we had built the barriers, New Orleans would not be flooded," said Joseph Towers, the retired chief counsel for the Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans district.
Tower's view is endorsed by a former key senator, along with academic experts, who say a hurricane barrier is the only way to control the powerful storm surges that enter Lake Pontchartrain and threaten the city. Other experts are less sure, saying the barrier would have been no match for Katrina.
The project was stopped in its tracks when an environmental lawsuit won a federal injunction on the grounds that the Army's environmental impact statement was flawed. By the mid-1980s, the Corps of Engineers abandoned the project.
The project faced formidable opposition not only from environmentalists but from regional government officials outside of New Orleans who argued that the barriers would choke commerce and harm marine life in ecologically sensitive Lake Pontchartrain.
The barrier would have protected New Orleans from storm surges barreling into the lake through two narrow passages — the Rigolets and the Chef Menteur Pass.
During Hurricane Katrina, the lake — swollen 12 feet — was slammed by 135 mph winds against the city's storm walls and levees. The barriers failed in five places and the city was flooded. On the city's eastern flank, the surge approached the city through a network of canals from Lake Borgne, which was also swollen and raging.
After the damage caused by Betsy, a Category 2 hurricane when it hit the Louisiana coast in 1965, the Army Corps of Engineers designed and began clearing sites for the so-called Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Barrier Project. It required miles of levees and two massive storm gates that could close off the Rigolets and Chef Menteur Pass if a hurricane was approaching.
Although the largely forgotten project has been moribund for more than two decades, it has attracted renewed interest and regained credibility since Katrina left about 80% of New Orleans underwater.
J. Bennett Johnston, a former powerful Democratic senator from Louisiana and now a lobbyist in Washington, is working on Capitol Hill to resurrect the barrier.
"It ought to be part of the deal," he said. "It would have prevented the huge storm tide that came into Lake Pontchartrain."
The barrier would have run from a point near the Mississippi state line, known as Apple Pie Ridge, southwest across the marshlands all the way to the main levees of the Mississippi River, roughly 25 miles. Most of the barrier would have consisted of levees, roughly 9 feet to 14 feet high. In addition, two massive control structures were to be placed on the inlets to Lake Pontchartrain.
The Rigolets, the larger of the two inlets, would have required an 800-foot-long structure with floodgates and a massive locks that could close if a hurricane or other storm surge were approaching the coast.
Similar floodgates protect the Netherlands from North Sea surges.
Towers, the corps' former chief counsel, said the project was estimated to cost $85 million in 1965, or just over $500 million, adjusted for inflation. Estimates of the costs of Katrina's damage and reconstruction exceed $100 billion.
The project was stopped on Dec. 30, 1977, by U.S. District Judge Charles Schwartz Jr., who said the corps' e
According to the 9/11 Comission report, Bush received a memo on early August 2001 warning him of the possibility of possible terrorist attacks involving hijacked planes. No emergency meeting was called, and Bush just ignored the memo and went on a nice vacation to his Texas ranch.
Do you guys think a powerful leader with a true sense of responsibility would sit for 7 minutes still reading 'My Pet Goat' while his country is under attack?
We all know he sat for those 7 minutes, Bush sat there thinking...
SHIT! THAT MEMO WAS FOR REAL WASN'T IT? OK GEORGE, CALM DOWN AND THINK... DAMN, I CAN'T EVEN THINK FOR MYSELF. I GUESS IT'S UP TO DICK AND KARL TO FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO. I'LL JUST SIT HERE AND READ THIS NICE BOOK.
Do you guys think a powerful leader with a true sense of responsibility would sit for 7 minutes still reading 'My Pet Goat' while his country is under attack?
We all know he sat for those 7 minutes, Bush sat there thinking...
SHIT! THAT MEMO WAS FOR REAL WASN'T IT? OK GEORGE, CALM DOWN AND THINK... DAMN, I CAN'T EVEN THINK FOR MYSELF. I GUESS IT'S UP TO DICK AND KARL TO FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO. I'LL JUST SIT HERE AND READ THIS NICE BOOK.
ok this is my opinion.
i dont care and dont want to think about it. its over and i would rather forget it ever happened. Linda knows why. some others do but still. Can we please stop the 9/11 conspiricies. ITs happened, nothing can change that.
i dont care and dont want to think about it. its over and i would rather forget it ever happened. Linda knows why. some others do but still. Can we please stop the 9/11 conspiricies. ITs happened, nothing can change that.
This topic is really stupid. As usual Krizzy is blaming Bush for everything under the sun (natural disasters, terrorist attacks, falling in mud, sour milk, lost car keys, freezer burnt food, melted ice cream, not getting a "snow day" at school, having to take showers, having to eat, allergies, snoring, sweaty socks, getting shoes wet, rain, work, stupid topics on Queenzone, spammers not getting banned, having to pay for music downloads, slow internet connections, computer viruses, spyware, running out of CD-R's, power outages, being out of printer paper, having to use paper to print documents, people not picking up the phone when you call them, people leaving annoying messages on your answering machine, getting a "boo-boo", losing a bet, getting zits, having to shave, having to do laundry, having to dry wet clothes, long TV commercials, cancelling a favorite series on TV, picking the wrong outfit, buying nessed up clothes at an outlet store, having to return Blockbuster movies, having to rewind Blockbuster movies, having to pay for a video tape when it melts in the car, having to have a VCR and a DVD player, having the combo player be so big, bills, people cuttingin front of you in line) the list goes on and on.
FGT,
My dear when those planes were heading for the White House, Mr. Bush was in a Georgia Elementary School reading "My Pet Goat" to second graders.
He was investing interest in childhood education. There's a problem with this?
Please enlighten me has Mr. Bush sacrificed anything other than American lives both in Iraq and in the Gulf Coast of the US?
I would love to see this answer!
Kriz :o(
Would you rather he sit around and have sex with his interns?
If they were attractive interns and he wore a paper bag then yes. Yes, I would.
FGT,
My dear when those planes were heading for the White House, Mr. Bush was in a Georgia Elementary School reading "My Pet Goat" to second graders.
He was investing interest in childhood education. There's a problem with this?
Please enlighten me has Mr. Bush sacrificed anything other than American lives both in Iraq and in the Gulf Coast of the US?
I would love to see this answer!
Kriz :o(
Would you rather he sit around and have sex with his interns?
Ahhh... the old trick of avoiding a question you can't answer with another question, or just simply changing the topic.
...and Krizzy, sorry to break this to you but as much as you'd love to see an answer, I don't think you'll see one.
BTW... I'd love to see Bush fuck an intern. Maybe the guy needs to get laid, and then maybe he wouldn't be such a bad president.
FGT,
My dear when those planes were heading for the White House, Mr. Bush was in a Georgia Elementary School reading "My Pet Goat" to second graders.
He was investing interest in childhood education. There's a problem with this?
Please enlighten me has Mr. Bush sacrificed anything other than American lives both in Iraq and in the Gulf Coast of the US?
I would love to see this answer!
Kriz :o(
Would you rather he sit around and have sex with his interns?
Ahhh... the old trick of avoiding a question you can't answer with another question, or just simply changing the topic.
...and Krizzy, sorry to break this to you but as much as you'd love to see an answer, I don't think you'll see one.
BTW... I'd love to see Bush fuck an intern. Maybe the guy needs to get laid, and then maybe he wouldn't be such a bad president.
Well, he has to have gotten laid sometime, otherwise he wouldn't have two daughters. Unless *shifty look at Laura*... lol
Ok guys... here's the link!!!
It's partly Dutch, partly English and partly German... I hope you people can follow it.
http://www.tweevandaag.com/call.php?module=PX_Video&func=view&vid=19351&vtype=rwb
It's partly Dutch, partly English and partly German... I hope you people can follow it.
http://www.tweevandaag.com/call.php?module=PX_Video&func=view&vid=19351&vtype=rwb
err it was florida