Don’t be fooled, engineers have known for a long time that the scenario of disastrous flooding of New Orleans was more of a 'when' than 'if'. I've had conversations with people about this for years. What the hell is going on? Nobody made a plan for this? If the U.S. military is not trained and prepared to deal with maintaining order in a friendly, English-speaking city in the U.S., is there any surprise that soldiers are having a hard time tackling a far harder peace-keeping mission in Iraq?

I think George Bush should make sure he packs a fiddle in his suitcase so he can play it he flies over New Orelans today, god knows he’s had enough time to practice playing it over the last five days. Hmmm, when was the last time I saw a bungled, delayed response to a U.S. disaster by the federal government and the executive branch that resulted in the only leadership emerging on the local scale? Oh yeah, it was about four years ago, I believe. Time to find somebody to attack soon so people forget, again.

<sarcasm>
What? Save New Orleans, that hive of scum and villany? See, they rape and shoot each other. This is God's divine wrath cleansing the city of evildoers like He did in Sodom and Gamorrah. Praise the Lawrd that all that prostitution, alcohol and gambling is flushed out to sea!
</sarcasm>

Don’t be fooled, engineers have known for a long time that the scenario of disastrous flooding of New Orleans was more of a 'when' than 'if'.

No question about it. And how has Bush responded? Not only by denying the existence of climate change (and warmer water temperatures in the Gulf are one factor that strengthened this hurricane), but also by cutting the efforts to deal with the problem. As Molly Ivins wrote in the Chicago Tribune, "Just plain political bad luck that, in June, Bush took his little ax and chopped $71.2 million from the budget of the New Orleans Corps of Engineers, a 44 percent reduction. As was reported in New Orleans CityBusiness at the time, that meant 'major hurricane and flood projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now.'"

Time to find somebody to attack soon so people forget, again.

Yeah, how do you distract attention from awretched disaster relief effort when you can't declare war on nature? Round up everyone named Katrina?

In Response to Llamarama (#29178):

Edit:

Yeah, how do you distract attention from a wretched disaster relief effort when you've already declared war on nature ?

Regardless, I would suggest now is not a strong time to bring up climate change issues. Putting more bullets in the gun doesn't erase the fact that you were already playing Russian roulette.

In Response to deerboy (#29179):

Putting more bullets in the gun doesn't erase the fact that you were already playing Russian roulette.

"Hey, laughing boy! No more bullets!"

I'm honestly not surprised that the Bush Administration is, yet again, unprepared to deal with a predictable consequence of their behavior - nor even that they didn't seem to see it as a predictable consequence. Not a single one of the individuals with any power seems to have so much as the remotest grasp of logic, or of simple causality.

What bothers me is slightly more disturbing, at least to my mind. Bush has a very steady pattern of behavior over the past five years. We've upset relations with the Middle East, cutting our available foreign oil. We've gone to war, which burns oil like mad. (Your average US fighter jet uses about 300 gallons of fuel. An hour.) And now it turns out that Louisiana, one of the larger oil-producing domestic regions, is effectively incapacitated in that regard for a minimum of several months. Hell, at least five oil platforms are reported missing. Missing. The locations of at least two more are know to be currently free-floating off the coastline.

What does all that add up to? Well, it increases demand for domestic oil, and allows domestic oil vendors to raise prices considerably. America has become an ideal oil market; it's tremendously inelastic, and demand continues to match or exceed supply, especially because of distribution difficulties.

Oddly enough, the Bush family is heavily invested in the production of domestic oil. So in the current economy, which is miserable and getting worse, they're set up to continue doing extremely well for the foreseeable future.

Draw conclusions from this as you will.

In Response to deerboy (#29179):

Edit:

Yeah, how do you distract attention from a wretched disaster relief effort when you've already declared war on nature ?

Good point.

I would suggest now is not a strong time to bring up climate change issues.

Perhaps--depends on whom one is tsalking with, really. There are so many issues involved here--taking money away from infrastructure-building, the deep poverty that already existed in the area, etc. But climate change is part of it, and for those who were on the fence on whether it exists, I'd bring it up.

From a New York Times Article [nytimes.com]:

[Bush] dropped his own plans for Labor Day on Monday

Will the President's suffering never end?

Well, at least he enjoyed his photo-op [dailykos.com].

MAN, I am such a fucking pushover. Every goddam week it seems like I'm ready to forgive the cocksucker and then he does some total horseshit like this and I remember why he's known worldwide as a total douchebag.

Who needs well co-ordinated, properly funded disaster relief when you have Hollywood celebrities [smh.com.au]?

Day 4: "This won't be cleaned up in a day". I think the presidency saw a shark as Marine 1 flew over the wreakage.

So what happened to all of the 'FEMA conspiracy' beatniks? Good luck FEMA will be able to impose martial law in the US any time soon.

Unless the whole job was bungled on purpose . . . .

In Response to deerboy (#29261):

And yet, the armed forces in NO are actually confiscating personal, legally owned and registered, firearms.