Katrina Thread / New Orleans

[Dexter]

http://www.breitbart.com/news/na/D8CERF180.html

I thought this was a joke when I read it yesterday but then I heard it on the news.

So bush will lea an investigation to investigate himself, his administration and his appointees. Its an insult to the victims of the calamity that followed the hurricane.

Now, my problem with this has nothing to do with what I think of the bush regieme. My problem is that another whitewash/coverup is on the way and unless the people who are responsible are replaced and procedures changed, whats to stop the same disgraceful response happening again.

Every person who ignores/excuses this administrations criminal failure with the katrina disaster will have blood on their hands when history repeats itself. Is the safety of you and your loved ones more important to you than being a bush apologist or not?

EDIT: Added a link to Kunichs speech, WELL worth a look. Quote of the day: "Indifference is a weapon of mass distruction"

http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0902-10.htm

[ChadTower]

Bush still hasn't stopped that damn crabgrass.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Bush still hasn't stopped that damn crabgrass.

Chad forgets Bush is President, not a gardener.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Or maybe he is a gardener..he seems to have absolutely no problem using firemen and rescue wrokers as lawn ornaments. All while people were dying.

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3004197

"ATLANTA - Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?"

...

"But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas."


Who ya' going to believe....me, or your lying eyes?



mrC

[ChadTower]

Chad forgets Bush is President, not a gardener.

The man next door is elderly, living off of his pension and more substantially Social Security.  He also has health problems that Medicare have not covered him on... had Bush fixed Social Security and Medicare by now, this guy would be able to afford to have someone take care of his lawn and his lawn would not be damaging my lawn, or better yet he may be healthy enough to take care of his lawn himself.

Bush is to blame for the crabgrass on my lawn.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Chad forgets Bush is President, not a gardener.

The man next door is elderly, living off of his pension and more substantially Social Security.  He also has health problems that Medicare have not covered him on... had Bush fixed Social Security and Medicare by now, this guy would be able to afford to have someone take care of his lawn and his lawn would not be damaging my lawn, or better yet he may be healthy enough to take care of his lawn himself.

Bush is to blame for the crabgrass on my lawn.

Heh. Grab your rake (or pitchfork)...We march to Washington on the morrow.


mrC

[Dartful Dodger]

I went bicycling Sunday and got a sun burn.  If Bush's administration would have spent more money on research to find a way to fix the ozone layer I broke by driving to work everyday and using aerosol cans, this wouldn't have happened.  There should also be national guardsmen on prairie path handing out sun screen and a helicopter should have picked me up when it was obvious I was getting burned.

The government knew days in advance that Sunday was going to be a clear and sunny day, there was no excuse for them to let this happen to me.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

blah...blah...blah.....

Here's your hero....

Note, the two superimposed photos were taken the same day.


via boingboing



mrC

[ChadTower]

See, he WAS there, trying to provide moral support. 

[Grasshopper]

See, he WAS there, trying to provide moral support. 

Lol, yeah but judging by the picture he wasn't very successful.

There's nothing more depressing than a middle aged politician trying to act cool.

[M3talhead]

[ChadTower]

There's nothing more depressing than a middle aged politician trying to act cool.

Gore was cool when he invented the internet.
Clinton was cool when he played bad sax on TV.
Reagan was cool when he was making movies.

Wait, making movies actually was cool.

[Dartful Dodger]

Wait, making movies actually was cool.

People who party through college are also cool.

Bush isn't acting cool, he just is cool.

[missioncontrol]

There's nothing more depressing than a middle aged politician trying to act cool.

someone's got to post the Clinton wearing shades playing the saxiphone picture up......

this thread needs that picture to live.......

please

[Avery]

Well Chad, while it must be fun to pretend, your crabgrass is not an issue of national security.   Maintaining 50% of our port capability and 20% of our oil refining capability is. 

This is, of course, above and beyond the human disaster.


Dartful: Matthew 25:31-46.  Get your soul straight man.

[ChadTower]

Well Chad, while it must be fun to pretend, your crabgrass is not an issue of national security.

[Grasshopper]

Bush isn't acting cool, he just is cool.

Your threshold for what can be described as cool is obviously far lower than mine.

[ChadTower]

Yeah, he requires rectangular headed robots.

[Grasshopper]

There's nothing more depressing than a middle aged politician trying to act cool.

someone's got to post the Clinton wearing shades playing the saxiphone picture up......

this thread needs that picture to live.......

please

OK if you insist. 

[ChadTower]

That one of Kerry is so much funnier... the Clinton one looks staged, which of course it was, but the Kerry one looks like he was gonna jam but sat on his martini glass.

[M3talhead]

That one of Kerry is so much funnier... the Clinton one looks staged, which of course it was, but the Kerry one looks like he was gonna jam but sat on his martini glass.

or a packet of Heinz Ketchup.....

[ChadTower]

Why was someone hanging from the ceiling to take that photo, anyway?

[Zero_Hour]

Gore was cool when he invented the internet.
Clinton was cool when he played bad sax on TV.
Reagan was cool when he was making movies.

Wait, making movies actually was cool.

Unless that movie was "Bedtime for Bonzo"

[ChadTower]

Still cooler than what most other people were doing.

[Crazy Cooter]

It would appear you are not also holding accountable the first response team who failed miserably.

[JCL]

It would appear you are not also holding accountable the first response team who failed miserably.

[JB]

Why isn't the head of FEMA subject to congressional approval, anyways?
Seems a failing of the check/balance system.
...
Of course, if EVERY presidential appointment was subject to approval, Congress would never get anything done. Be too busy fillibustering appointees.

[markrvp]

Well, I'm still not convinced that George W. Bush is responsible for Hurricane Katrina and all the destruction it caused, but if it makes you guys feel better . . . .

. . . . I will never again vote for George W. Bush for president.

[shmokes]

There's nothing more depressing than a middle aged politician trying to act cool.

Gore was cool when he invented the internet.
Clinton was cool when he played bad sax on TV.
Reagan was cool when he was making movies.

Wait, making movies actually was cool.

Gore never, ever, said that he invented the internet.  He never even said anything that could even be reasonably construed as meaning that he invented the internet.  That's a complete and, for Gore, tragic myth.  Imagine what it would be like to be the butt of a joke for the millions of Americans who sincerely believe, because of irresponsible journalists who haven't heard of fact checking, that he made such an absurd statement.

And why is it that Clinton was playing "bad sax" but Reagan was simply making movies?  Carrot Top and the Olsen Twins make movies.  How cool is that?

[JB]

Well, I'm still not convinced that George W. Bush is responsible for Hurricane Katrina and all the destruction it caused, but if it makes you guys feel better . . . .

. . . . I will never again vote for George W. Bush for president.

Ditto. No way I'm voting Bush in for a third term. And I bet all of America agrees with me.

There's nothing more depressing than a middle aged politician trying to act cool.

Gore was cool when he invented the internet.
Clinton was cool when he played bad sax on TV.
Reagan was cool when he was making movies.

Wait, making movies actually was cool.

Gore never, ever, said that he invented the internet.  He never even said anything that could even be reasonably construed as meaning that he invented the internet.  That's a complete and, for Gore, tragic myth.  Imagine what it would be like to be the butt of a joke for the millions of Americans who sincerely believe, because of irresponsible journalists who haven't heard of fact checking, that he made such an absurd statement.

Indeed. What he said was "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. "

It's awkwardly phrased, and could be misconstrued as "I invented the internet," but it ISN'T "I invented the internet."

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

[markrvp]

"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

[Zero_Hour]

If you read his full quote though, he infers that he pushed for "initiatives" like the internet, and for education, among other things. The original quote is quite clumsy though; I believe he uses initiative 3 times in two sentences, and several times before this particular quote.



That's a lot of initiative! 

[JB]

If you read his full quote though, he infers that he pushed for "initiatives" like the internet, and for education, among other things. The original quote is quite clumsy though; I believe he uses initiative 3 times in two sentences, and several times before this particular quote.



That's a lot of initiative! 

Yes.

But it's funnier to say he invented the internet.

[shmokes]

"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

                                                                                                       - Al Gore to Wolf Blitzer on CNN
                                                                                                         March, 1999

See http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/03/09/president.2000/transcript.gore/index.html


I think the general problem Gore opponents had with this statement is that Gore was implying that "if not for Gore, the internet as we know it would not exist."

It's plain dishonest to read his quote as saying anything remotely like he invented the Internet.  He was clearly saying that, as a legislator, he was instrumental in creating the environment that allowed the internet to grow so quickly in the 90's into the monstor it became.  From Snopes:

It is true, though, that Gore was popularizing the term "information superhighway" in the early 1990s (although he did not, as is often claimed by others, coin the phrase himself) when few people outside academia or the computer/defense industries had heard of the Internet, and he sponsored the 1988 National High-Performance Computer Act (which established a national computing plan and helped link universities and libraries via a shared network) and cosponsored the Information Infrastructure and Technology Act of 1992 (which opened the Internet to commercial traffic).

The internet could not be used for commerce prior to to a bill that Gore cosponsered.  That's a pretty big deal.  To suggest that Gore actually believed, or was even attempting to make others believe that he invented the internet would be exactly akin to me taking the following Bush quote literally...

"It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way."

[Dexter]

People who party through college are also cool.

Bush isn't acting cool, he just is cool.

When you sneak into Yale on a legacy admission and are set for a life of privelidge and wealth when you leave reegardless of performance, Partying through college isn't cool, it's just failing to EARN your place there and respect your good fortune.

[paigeoliver]

People who party through college are also cool.

Bush isn't acting cool, he just is cool.

When you sneak into Yale on a legacy admission and are set for a life of privelidge and wealth when you leave reegardless of performance, Partying through college isn't cool, it's just failing to EARN your place there and respect your good fortune.

I'd venture to say that absolutely no one at Yale "earned" it. Every single one is getting a free ride from either family members, or from a scholarship system that charges OTHER PEOPLE for your tuission to inflate their statistics, or they have otherwise received handouts. Or they are using student loans, which is also money they never earned.

[Grasshopper]

People who party through college are also cool.

Bush isn't acting cool, he just is cool.

When you sneak into Yale on a legacy admission and are set for a life of privelidge and wealth when you leave reegardless of performance, Partying through college isn't cool, it's just failing to EARN your place there and respect your good fortune.

I'd venture to say that absolutely no one at Yale "earned" it. Every single one is getting a free ride from either family members, or from a scholarship system that charges OTHER PEOPLE for your tuission to inflate their statistics, or they have otherwise received handouts. Or they are using student loans, which is also money they never earned.

If you're talking about scholarships based on academic ability then I have to say I disagree. Scholarships of that type are 'earned' by individuals having to work hard at school, passing exams etc. In fact that's the only aspect of the American funding system that is meritocratic. Sporting scholarships are a different matter and are totally retarded IMHO.

Also student loans eventually have to be paid off.

[paigeoliver]

People who party through college are also cool.

Bush isn't acting cool, he just is cool.

When you sneak into Yale on a legacy admission and are set for a life of privelidge and wealth when you leave reegardless of performance, Partying through college isn't cool, it's just failing to EARN your place there and respect your good fortune.

I'd venture to say that absolutely no one at Yale "earned" it. Every single one is getting a free ride from either family members, or from a scholarship system that charges OTHER PEOPLE for your tuission to inflate their statistics, or they have otherwise received handouts. Or they are using student loans, which is also money they never earned.

If you're talking about scholarships based on academic ability then I have to say I disagree. Scholarships of that type are 'earned' by individuals having to work hard at school, passing exams etc. In fact that's the only aspect of the American funding system that is meritocratic. Sporting scholarships are a different matter and are totally retarded IMHO.

Also student loans eventually have to be paid off.

Sports or academic it doesn't matter, in either case OTHER people's tuition money is paying your way so the school can inflate their numbers.

As for sports, don't even get me started. I firmly believe that every single college in America should do away with all their sports teams. Most people don't realize what a huge percentage of their tution is paying for sports teams.

Yes, you can try to drag out the arguement that the teams create revenue for the school, it is a wonderful arguement that holds up right until you get to the point where you actually examine the financial records.

College would be a fraction of the price if each person paying didn't ALSO have to pay for someone on the hockey team, and some other kid who is smart, and then someone else who paints good pictures.

There is a reason why community colleges cost $2000 (or less) a year, and normal colleges cost 5 to 15 times that, and only a teeny percentage of it is the higher salary for the more qualified professors (many of which are teaching gigantor classes of 100-500 that don't even exist in community colleges). That reason is sports teams and scholarships.

[Dexter]

My point is theres nothing 'cool' about partying your way through college when your a legacy entry and you have a life of priveledge and wealth waiting at the other end, regardless of grades etc.

The decent thing to do would be to 'earn' (not in a monetary sense guys, I meant in a moral sense) your right to be there by doing your best.

But as we know, juniors life before politics involve failed business ventures and run ins with the law, with other people picking up the pieces or sweeping them under the carpet. A life of never being responsible or held accountable for anything. No wonder 'the buck stops here' sign is in the waste paper basket beside his desk in the whitehouse.

[paigeoliver]

I'm a Rebublican by default, but I am not too big a fan of Bush. I like him personally, but I don't see him as being particularly competent.