virus: Hurricane Katrina: localroger
« on: 2005-08-29 00:28:30 »
I hear in the news that this is going to be one whopper of a hurricane, the likes New Orleans hasn't seen in several generations. I hear it is supposed to make land fall in the morning. One of our prominent Virians, localroger lives there. I hope he gets through it ok, and will keep listening for news from him or about the hurricane.
Here in Miami, I just got power back today from that storm. It did lots of damage, but mostly to trees. They are gone in many areas around town. It's a mess. But I feel for the folks in her path. It's a different animal now. A killer I'm afraid. Probably break Hurricane Andrews price tag on destruction. 27 Billion Dollars.
Good luck to those who need it. BIll MacKinnon
On Aug 29, 2005, at 12:28 AM, Jake S wrote:
> > I hear in the news that this is going to be one whopper of a > hurricane, the likes New Orleans hasn't seen in several > generations. I hear it is supposed to make land fall in the > morning. One of our prominent Virians, localroger lives there. I > hope he gets through it ok, and will keep listening for news from > him or about the hurricane. > > Jake S > every1hz@earthlink.net > Why Wait? Move to EarthLink. > >
I hear things are uglier than first thought. It seems that some levies broke. Looks like New Orleans will be in a state of disaster for a while. I heard on Air America that the levee breaks were due to poor upkeep by the Corp of Engineers, which was due to some major cutbacks by the administration so that they fund the war in Iraq. Ineed some criticism was leveled at them at the time citing exactly the kind of possibility that Katrina wrought. I heard that Bush said he was going to call out the National Guard to keep order. Kind of a strange statement since they are all in Iraq. This guy and his buddies are completely out of touch with reality. Maybe I am too since I didn't really check on any of this before blowing my mouth off here, so maybe somebody can check up on how right I am. Anyway, in the mean time I haven't heard a whisp out of localroger. If anybody hears anything about him, I hope that you will forward something to the virus list #virus channel. A few other Virians have been concerned as well.
-Jake
----- Original Message ----- From: Bill MacKinnon To: virus@lucifer.com Sent: 8/29/2005 12:41:24 AM Subject: Re: virus: Hurricane Katrina: localroger
Here in Miami, I just got power back today from that storm. It did lots of damage, but mostly to trees. They are gone in many areas around town. It's a mess. But I feel for the folks in her path. It's a different animal now. A killer I'm afraid. Probably break Hurricane Andrews price tag on destruction. 27 Billion Dollars.
Good luck to those who need it. BIll MacKinnon
On Aug 29, 2005, at 12:28 AM, Jake S wrote:
I hear in the news that this is going to be one whopper of a hurricane, the likes New Orleans hasn't seen in several generations. I hear it is supposed to make land fall in the morning. One of our prominent Virians, localroger lives there. I hope he gets through it ok, and will keep listening for news from him or about the hurricane.
....i will safely assume that localroger is quite alright. these disaster situations really seem to prey upon the weak and mentally fragile. if avoiding a flood with 3 days advance notice is a difficult thing for you, imagine what sort of children you will raise!?
...I actually experienced Katrina a week ago ...i flew into miami and was staying in south beach the day it hit us. i didnt even lose power...but the wind was somewhat impressive. it became much much grander once it passed florida. i am back in L.A. now...looking for a new place to live.
I hear things are uglier than first thought. It seems that some levies broke. Looks like New Orleans will be in a state of disaster for a while. I heard on Air America that the levee breaks were due to poor upkeep by the Corp of Engineers, which was due to some major cutbacks by the administration so that they fund the war in Iraq. Ineed some criticism was leveled at them at the time citing exactly the kind of possibility that Katrina wrought. I heard that Bush said he was going to call out the National Guard to keep order. Kind of a strange statement since they are all in Iraq. This guy and his buddies are completely out of touch with reality. Maybe I am too since I didn't really check on any of this before blowing my mouth off here, so maybe somebody can check up on how right I am. Anyway, in the mean time I haven't heard a whisp out of localroger. If anybody hears anything about him, I hope that you will forward something to the virus list #virus channel. A few! other Virians have been concerned as well.
-Jake
----- Original Message ----- From: Bill MacKinnon To: virus@lucifer.com Sent: 8/29/2005 12:41:24 AM Subject: Re: virus: Hurricane Katrina: localroger
Here in Miami, I just got power back today from that storm. It did lots of damage, but mostly to trees. They are gone in many areas around town. It's a mess. But I feel for the folks in her path. It's a different animal now. A killer I'm afraid. Probably break Hurricane Andrews price tag on destruction. 27 Billion Dollars.
Good luck to those who need it. BIll MacKinnon
On Aug 29, 2005, at 12:28 AM, Jake S wrote:
I hear in the news that this is going to be one whopper of a hurricane, the likes New Orleans hasn't seen in several generations. I hear it is supposed to make land fall in the morning. One of our prominent Virians, localroger lives there. I hope he gets through it ok, and will keep listening for news from him or about the hurricane.
Yeah, I'm kind of thinking that myself. I feel pretty certain localroger himself is okay; I'm mostly hoping he didn't lose too much or anybody important to him. Also a slight modification of my rant; apparently there are SOME national guard left to help, but what I'm hearing is there are far too few and because of that the looting has gone out of control. It sounds as though this disaster has been compounded and many times more people will die needlessly because of the broken levees, which is directly due to this administration's cuts in the Corps of Engineers projects so that they could fund Bush's war and give big tax cuts to Bush's buddies. I bet in the next week or so, we can find some analysis on that. Its really sickening that this administration has dropped the ball, failed to plan for, or otherwise completely fucked up every disaster response that it has faced costing the needless loss of thousands of American lives. At least we can all breathe easier knowing they are working diligently on preventing homosexuals from marrying.
-Jake
> [Original Message] > From: Dr Sebby <drsebby@hotmail.com> > To: <virus@lucifer.com> > Date: 9/1/2005 12:04:00 PM > Subject: Re: virus: Hurricane Katrina: localroger > > ....i will safely assume that localroger is quite alright. these disaster > situations really seem to prey upon the weak and mentally fragile. if > avoiding a flood with 3 days advance notice is a difficult thing for you, > imagine what sort of children you will raise!? > > ...I actually experienced Katrina a week ago ...i flew into miami and was > staying in south beach the day it hit us. i didnt even lose power...but the > wind was somewhat impressive. it became much much grander once it passed > florida. i am back in L.A. now...looking for a new place to live. > > > > DrSebby. > "Courage...and shuffle the cards". > > > > ----Original Message Follows---- > From: "Jake S" <every1hz@earthlink.net> > Reply-To: virus@lucifer.com > To: virus@lucifer.com > Subject: Re: virus: Hurricane Katrina: localroger > Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 11:27:14 -0500 > > I hear things are uglier than first thought. It seems that some levies > broke. Looks like New Orleans will be in a state of disaster for a while. > I heard on Air America that the levee breaks were due to poor upkeep by the > Corp of Engineers, which was due to some major cutbacks by the > administration so that they fund the war in Iraq. Ineed some criticism was > leveled at them at the time citing exactly the kind of possibility that > Katrina wrought. I heard that Bush said he was going to call out the > National Guard to keep order. Kind of a strange statement since they are > all in Iraq. This guy and his buddies are completely out of touch with > reality. Maybe I am too since I didn't really check on any of this before > blowing my mouth off here, so maybe somebody can check up on how right I am. > Anyway, in the mean time I haven't heard a whisp out of localroger. If > anybody hears anything about him, I hope that you will forward something to > the virus list #virus channel. A few! > other Virians have been concerned as well. > > -Jake > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Bill MacKinnon > To: virus@lucifer.com > Sent: 8/29/2005 12:41:24 AM > Subject: Re: virus: Hurricane Katrina: localroger > > > Here in Miami, I just got power back today from that storm. It did lots of > damage, but mostly to trees. They are gone in many areas around town. > It's a mess. But I feel for the folks in her path. It's a different animal > now. A killer I'm afraid. Probably break Hurricane Andrews price tag on > destruction. > 27 Billion Dollars. > > > Good luck to those who need it. > BIll MacKinnon > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Aug 29, 2005, at 12:28 AM, Jake S wrote: > > > > > I hear in the news that this is going to be one whopper of a hurricane, the > likes New Orleans hasn't seen in several generations. I hear it is supposed > to make land fall in the morning. One of our prominent Virians, localroger > lives there. I hope he gets through it ok, and will keep listening for news > from him or about the hurricane. > > Jake S > every1hz@earthlink.net > Why Wait? Move to EarthLink. > > > --- > To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
I hear things are uglier than first thought. It seems that some levies broke. Looks like New Orleans will be in a state of disaster for a while. I heard on Air America that the levee breaks were due to poor upkeep by the Corp of Engineers, which was due to some major cutbacks by the administration so that they fund the war in Iraq. Ineed some criticism was leveled at them at the time citing exactly the kind of possibility that Katrina wrought.
Jake S
Contrary to the involuntary Monty Pythonesque memories of "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition" recently invoked by the Bumbling BushTM blustering that nobody could predict the effects of a certain volatile Russian lady Katrina (who it seems, like some number of her namesakes, predictably enough wanted to visit the USA); the current disaster was not only predictable, but an anticipated "price we pay" for our illegal war in Iraq coupled with the hijacking of FEMA ("Federal Emergency Mismanagement AgencyTM") funding for the "Department of Homeland InsecurityTM".
In an article printed in the 2004-06-08 edition of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri in Jefferson Parish and Terry Tullier in New Orleans told their reporter, Sheila Grissett, "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay," Maestri said. "Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
SECAUCUS — Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said it all, starting his news briefing Saturday afternoon: "Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater..."
Well there's your problem right there.
[..]
And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection — or at least amelioration — against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological. It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.
[..]
Mr. Bush has now twice insisted that, "we are not satisfied," with the response to the manifold tragedies along the Gulf Coast. I wonder which "we" he thinks he's speaking for on this point. Perhaps it's the administration, although we still don't know where some of them are. Anybody seen the Vice President lately? The man whose message this time last year was, 'I'll Protect You, The Other Guy Will Let You Die'?
[..]
For him, it is a shame — in all senses of the word. A few changes of pronouns in there, and he might not have looked so much like a 21st Century Marie Antoinette. All that was needed was just a quick "I'm not satisfied with my government's response." Instead of hiding behind phrases like "no one could have foreseen," had he only remembered Winston Churchill's quote from the 1930's. "The responsibility," of government, Churchill told the British Parliament "for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact, the prime object for which governments come into existence."
"If New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast were to magically disappear, there would still be a crisis of national proportions going on in the surrounding areas. As things stand, that isn't even making the news."
Source: Yahoo Caption: President Bush plays a guitar presented to him by Country Singer Mark Wills, right, backstage following his visit to Naval Base Coronado, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Bush visited the base to deliver remarks on V-J Commemoration Day*. (AP Photo/ABC News, Martha Raddatz).
The suit should be a toga. The guitar a fiddle.**
The story quoted below effectively contradicts the "blame the Clinton Administration", "blame Louisiana", "blame anyone but Bush" currently dominating the news from Washington.
Hermit American Caesar
Source: LA Times Authors: Rosa Brooks Dated: 2005-09-03
NERO FIDDLED while Rome burned.
President Bush, who's not big on the classics, probably wasn't thinking about this when he mugged for the cameras Tuesday, playing a guitar presented to him by country singer Mark Wills.
But with the photo now Exhibit A for many liberal bloggers, he may find the comparison hard to shake.
True, while Bush enjoyed his vacation and strummed his new guitar, a great city was being devastated by water rather than fire.
And unlike the Emperor Nero, who was accused by the historian Suetonius of having deliberately started the fire that destroyed much of Rome in AD 64, no one is accusing President Bush of planning Hurricane Katrina.
But the Bush administration deserves substantial blame for the scale of the catastrophe in New Orleans.
An excellent article this week by Will Bunch in Editor & Publisher points out that it was the cost of the Iraq war that led the Bush administration to defund efforts to shore up the vulnerable city's levees.
After flooding in 1995 killed six people in New Orleans, the Army Corps of Engineers started work on a massive civil engineering project designed to strengthen the region's levees and improve the pumping system that regulates water levels.
The work got off to a good start, but in 2003 federal funding started to run dry, leaving many projects — including a planned effort to strengthen the banks of Lake Pontchartrain — on the drawing board.
As early as 2004, the New Orleans Times-Picayune began to report that local officials and Army Corps of Engineers representatives attributed the funding cuts to the rising cost of the war in Iraq.
Facing record deficits, the Bush administration cut costs — and cut corners — by including in its 2005 budget only about a sixth of the flood-prevention funds requested by the Louisiana congressional delegation.
The war in Iraq also has made recovery from Katrina slower and more challenging. The Army National Guard units normally available for domestic disaster relief found rapid emergency response unusually difficult since so many of their personnel are deployed in Iraq. Although more units were dispatched later in the week, the manpower shortage was painfully evident during the crucial first hours.
The Iraq war is not the only reason for insisting that the Bush administration deserves some blame for the magnitude of the still-unfolding catastrophe.
After 9/11, the president promised that the nation would never again be so unprepared in the face of disaster. The Department of Homeland Security was created with a view to ensuring that every American city had adequate emergency plans in place for the kind of large-scale crisis that could accompany either a terrorist attack or a natural disaster.
It was an empty promise.
Four years after 9/11, the fiasco in New Orleans underscores our nation's ongoing inability to cope with serious threats.
Take public health, for example: Hurricane preparation plans — supposedly prepared with the involvement and approval of Homeland Security officials — were grossly inadequate for ensuring a continued supply of medication to the sick and for the evacuation of the ill and disabled, for cleaning up, ensuring safe drinking water or preventing the spread of disease.
With floodwaters, broken sewage pipes, damaged petrochemical pipelines and floating corpses all over the city, no one seemed to have a clear plan.
If a terrorist's bomb, rather than a hurricane, had destroyed a levee around Lake Pontchartrain, no one would hesitate to condemn the administration for its lackluster emergency planning and response.
And federal officials had more than a week's warning that a hurricane was on track for New Orleans — far more time than they'd likely have of a terrorist attack on critical infrastructure.
Not everything can be blamed on the Bush administration, of course, but for millions of Americans, the catastrophic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is likely to stand as an indictment of Bush's false economies, empty promises and foolish priorities.
Consider Louisiana's wetlands, to take just one example. Policies associated with the administration exacerbated the geographical and ecological conditions for severe flooding. Over the decades, oil and gas company actions played a significant role in destroying the wetlands. Other factors also contributed, including residential development and, ironically, the overbuilding of some of the region's levees. But the "man-made" aspects of the disaster highlight the folly of the policies of unlimited development and environmental despoliation that the administration has so consistently embraced.
Two thousand years after his death, Nero's famous fiddling remains an allegory about feckless and selfcentered leadership in times of crisis.
Bush's guitar-playing antics in the face of the New Orleans devastation may doom him to a similar fate. *To a group of significant financial contributors. **Then again, the story about Nero was probably invented by his enemies even if reported as "fact" by Suetonius. Interestingly, the story about Bush is undoubtedly true.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Officials Uncertain Whether To Save Or Shoot Victims
Nation's Politicians Applaud Great Job They're Doing
Area Man Drives Food There His Goddamned Self
Bush: 'It Has Been Brought To My Attention That There Was Recently A Bad Storm'
Bush Urges Victims To Gnaw On Bootstraps For Sustenance
WASHINGTON, DC—In an emergency White House address Sunday, President Bush urged all people dying from several days without food and water in New Orleans to "tap into the American entrepreneurial spirit" and gnaw on their own bootstraps for sustenance. "Government handouts are not the answer," Bush said. "I believe in smaller government, which is why I have drastically cut welfare and levee upkeep. I encourage you poor folks to fill yourself up on your own bootstraps. Buckle down, and tear at them like a starving animal." Responding to reports that many Katrina survivors have lost everything in the disaster, Bush said, "Only when you work hard and chew desperately on your own footwear can you live the American dream." [..] White Foragers Report Threat Of Black Looters
NEW ORLEANS—Throughout the Gulf Coast, Caucasian suburbanites attempting to gather food and drink in the shattered wreckage of shopping districts have reported seeing AfricanAmericans "looting snacks and beer from damaged businesses." "I was in the abandoned Wal-Mart gathering an air mattress so I could float out the potato chips, beef jerky, and Budweiser I'd managed to find," said white survivor Lars Wrightson, who had carefully selected foodstuffs whose salt and alcohol content provide protection against contamination. "Then I look up, and I see a whole family of [African-Americans] going straight for the booze. Hell, you could see they had already looted a fortune in diapers." Radio stations still in operation are advising store owners and white people in the affected areas to locate firearms in sporting-goods stores in order to protect themselves against marauding blacks looting gun shops.
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