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Check out this interview

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Mr. Bush will head first to Mobile, Ala., where he is expected to participate in a press briefing on the hurricane damage, according to his press schedule. Afterward, he will fly over Mobile to Biloxi, Miss., where he will participate in a walking tour of damaged neighborhoods.

The president will then view the Mississippi coastline by plane, en route to New Orleans, La., where he will land at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. There, he is expected to issue a statement on the government's recovery efforts.

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"They were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people. I'm like you got to be kidding me - this is a national disaster," he said. "Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get them moving to New Orleans. That's them thinking small, man. This is a major, major, major deal. I can't emphasize that enough man, this is crazy."

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In fairness, I am not always sure what to expect of some elements of our federal government, diminished and underfunded or not. How big is FEMA? How many full time staff would it take to *really* take on Katrina's aftermath aggressively? Are we willing to pay for another 50,000 FEMA staffers who hang out between disasters? Hey, maybe we could cross-train them with the TSA!

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This would have been very, very bad in any event -- think of the thousands of people who are now homeless. Good grief, what are the thousands of people who escaped doing? Where are they sleeping? But so much more disheartening -- complete inability of the bureaucracy to even begin to offer some solace to most prominent concentrations of tragedy. The convention center, for example. I didn't see people there beating up or shooting reporters. I saw a bunch of overheated, tired, poor people screaming "Help!"

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Check out this interview

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I again feel there is decency left to discuss this in human terms and leave politics out

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Check out this interview that WWL did with Mayor Nagin yesterday which is AMAZING:

MP3

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Edit: And if CNN really think that's an "expletive-laced" interview, they need to get out more.

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In fairness, I am not always sure what to expect of some elements of our federal government, diminished and underfunded or not. ....

It's about priorities, Jim. FEMA has lost its cabinet-level status, and is now withering away and dying underneath the DHS umbrella. At a time when money for "Homeland Security"* is flowing like the very water that's caused so much anguish, it is scheduled to lose its disaster relief role entirely. And, despite the fact that a hurricane hitting New Orleans was #3 on FEMA's list of threats to our country (the #1 being their dead-on prediction of a terrorist attack on NY), funding for the SELA project to refurbish the levies has been consistently gutted.

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Now Nagin I'll listen to.

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• on coffee, which relies on the crippled port of New Orleans and its vast coffee warehouses
  
• Import prices for steel and tropical fruit, much of which flowed through Louisiana's ports, are also likely to spike
  
• oysters, four in 10 of which come from the waters off Louisiana
  
• price spikes for asphalt, roofing materials, plastic pipe, insulation, metals and concrete
  
• grain prices fell on word that harvests cannot be sent by barge down the Mississippi River for export
  
• Delivery firms such as DHL, United Parcel Service and Federal Express informed customers yesterday they would add surcharges of between 5 and 15 percent
  
• The premium that refiners charge to turn oil into jet fuel has shot from $3 a barrel at the beginning of the year to $25, pushing the effective price of a barrel of oil to around $95 for the already ailing airlines
  
• Airlines and attendant businesses such as car rental companies employ 10 million, and account for 8 percent of the U.S economy
  
• More than half the chemical industry's capacity to make alpha olefins -- a key ingredient in shampoo -- is in Louisiana
  
• Nearly half of the ethylene glycol -- used to make polyester -- comes from the region
  
• Roughly 12 billion pounds a year of ethylene capacity, about 20 percent of the nation's total, is shut down or operating at very reduced rates
  
• Dow Chemical Co. in Midland, Mich., said that with a key plant in St. Charles, La., still closed, the firm has now run out of propylene oxide, used in products from sportswear to detergents to engine coolants. The plant will remain shuttered for weeks

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The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

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CNN is really hammering how f'ed up the response has been and asking good questions.... at least Cafferty is. "What role did race and class play in the Crisis"? I've been asking this myself.... and i say A LOT.

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Who's going do the first "Nagin for President" T-shirts?

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Check out this interview

OMFG. That is incredible.

Peter

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AP - Thu Sep 1, 4:15 PM ET
An aerial view of flooded school buses in a lot, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005, in New Orleans, LA. The flood is a result of Hurricane Katrina that passed through the area last Monday.(AP Photo/Phil Coale)

link


Why didn't mayor Nagin deploy these buses when the mandatory evacuation was ordered?

All he's doing is complaining that no one else can think of a solution, yet he has none of his own. Of all people, the mayor of New Orleans should have been prepared for this day more than anyone else. It just sounds like he's ranting and raving, but has no plans or ideas... that's not great leadership. In fact, it sounds like he's completely out of the loop as far as rescuing his city goes.

Sorry, but the mayor sounds like the typical welfare recipients who voted him into office. He contributes nothing while he complains that someone else can't do enough for him.


PS - On a side note, I'm new to the riocar, and these forums look like the best source of info i've been able to find on the net. Thanks.

Billy

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Check out this interview that WWL did with Mayor Nagin yesterday which is AMAZING:

MP3

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I'm not surprised that this is turning into a racial issue!

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Instead of crying about race why don't people ask why those who are stranded why they stayed?

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Ok, let's play a little game. Imagine you are poor. Not just low on money and can't make it to the ATM today, but actually dirt poor. You have a [censored] minimum-wage job with which you have a hard time making ends meet from day-to-day, and are not always sure you will be able to afford a place to stay or to eat tomorrow. You have no car because cars cost a lot of money, no extra money to pay for a hotel someplace, no out-of-town family to stay with. I know it's hard to do, but imagine it.

Ok, now they order you to evacuate. You have 50 bucks in your pocket. What are you going to do? How are you going to get out? Where are you going to stay? What the hell are you going to do. Let's hear your options.

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There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.

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What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. They don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.

But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.

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Ok, let's play a little game. Imagine you are poor. Not just low on money and can't make it to the ATM today, but actually dirt poor. You have a shitty minimum-wage job with which you have a hard time making ends meet from day-to-day, and are not always sure you will be able to afford a place to stay or to eat tomorrow. You have no car because cars cost a lot of money, no extra money to pay for a hotel someplace, no out-of-town family to stay with. I know it's hard to do, but imagine it.

Ok, now they order you to evacuate. You have 50 bucks in your pocket. What are you going to do? How are you going to get out? Where are you going to stay? What the hell are you going to do? Let's hear your options.

Hey, I didn't say it was a fun game.

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if this happened in Idaho, would armed gangs be looting, murdering, raping, and attacking search and rescue teams?

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Face it, this anarchy wouldn't happen in a "red" county

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Yeah, I saw that, but doesn't utwente have some sort of open access?

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if this happened in Idaho, would armed gangs be looting, murdering, raping, and attacking search and rescue teams?

Maybe you're not familiar with the Idaho militias who pretty much do this regardless of natural disasters.

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Face it, this anarchy wouldn't happen in a "red" county

This is absurd. I'm one (additional) troll away from banning your newly created account. Your name's not actually "Paul", is it?

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Is Paul Dutch?

Good question. There are many dutch Pauls here

But I'm afraid I'm not your guy.