| September 1st, 2005 02:32 AM |
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| sirmoonie |
quote:
Jumping Jack wrote:
Sirmoonie,
I remember the comments on this board quite clearly in the days after the tsunami hit. I saw no apologies or retractions for those outrageous comments when the donations (government and private) were totalled. I am also well aware of how little the Arab countries gave despite record oil profits. Will there be similar outpouring of charity and chastising of cheap or slow paying countries this time?
Speaking of record profits, since Bono, U2, Macca and the Stones are getting richer in America this year, will they care as much about the poor people who lost everything in LA & MS as they do about corrupt African dictators?
Good point? Maybe an excellent point? For the maybe two people you were directing your hypothetical questions to.
Adults don't debate, argue, or even agree to converse this way. This is fucking ridiculous. Almost gay. Nobody debates the Islamic republics (including the brand spanking new US FUCKING TAXPAYER $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ "nation building" one!!!) don't do anything. And I have no idea what twats like Bono or Macca give to charity, but I'll bet its more than you and I.
Fucking A, man. Grow up. All jumping up and down at the sight of disaster like a fucking crack nig ...... figure out if your dopey ass George Walker Bush III is doing anything close to the right thing down south, then bust off about whether anyone else is. |
| September 1st, 2005 06:53 AM |
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| Jumping Jack |
Angiegirl,
Your points are exactly correct. My comments were no more fair than much of the US bashing in the days after Tsunami. The purpose of the post was to facilitate looking at the situation from another perspective.
Does the US need help? No, but token efforts rather than being bashed and given the finger as usual would show some civilty. We'll see how it plays out. I trust some gestures will be made since the destruction is on the scale of Hiroshima.
For those who need to assign blame consider this. New Orleans has been in the path of major cat 5 hurricanes for a very long time and had been quite lucky. It has been commonly known that the levees were deficient and non-redundant for 30-40 years. The City, State, and Federal politicians of both parties have been criminally negligent throughout this period and have the death and destruction on their conscience.
The fact is much our nation's infrastructure is grossly deficient in many ways and our elected officials continue to ignore the problem. We have a shortage of refineries and power plants. The power grid is terribly outdated as the NE blackout a few years back demonstrated. Half the bridges in the country are structurally deficient. Sewers, water systems, transit systems are not much better.
We worry about terrorism, but the truth is we should be much more concerned about the lack of priority given to maintaining our infrastucture than terrorism. There will be many more lives lost in the long run to crumbling levees, dams, bridges, tunnels, etc. than terrorism.
Sadly, it takes a car accident to put up a stop sign, 9/11 to think about airplane security, and Katrina to think about the infrastructure we take for granted. Kudos to the Dutch for have a triple levee system providing redundancy against disaster, but they are human as well and only built them as a result of their own major disaster. When will we start learning from past mistakes and setting the right funding priorites? |
| September 1st, 2005 07:10 AM |
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| LadyJane |
Goddamn Jumping Jack....you hit the nail on the head!!
Post of the month!!!
LJ.
PS..It wouldn't hurt The Rolling Stones to get on the charity bandwagon. The area effected by this devastation is in great part "home" to the Blues and Jazz that have given them so much inspiration.
[Edited by LadyJane] |
| September 1st, 2005 10:02 AM |
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| Joey |
quote:
Some Guy wrote:
The 2 stations near my house were closed. No gas!
I haven't seen that since 1974 |
| September 1st, 2005 11:29 AM |
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| glencar |
It also happened in 1979. Y'all should cut back on driving as much as possible. |
| September 1st, 2005 11:37 AM |
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| Lazy Bones |
(via expectingrain.com)
_____________
Usher, Green Day, Alicia Keys Sign On For Hurricane Relief Concert September 10
08.31.2005 6:48 PM EDT
Shows will take place in New York, Los Angeles and Nashville.
Usher, Green Day, Ludacris and Alicia Keys are among the artists who have signed on for a Hurricane Katrina relief concert that will span three cities, three television networks and several musical genres.
Dave Matthews Band, Rob Thomas, Linkin Park's Chester Bennington, David Banner, Gretchen Wilson and John Mellencamp will also take part in the shows, which will be staged in New York, Los Angeles and Nashville on September 10 and will air live on MTV, VH1 and CMT. Additional artists will be added to the lineup soon, and proceeds from the show will go to the American Red Cross.
"In the face of a tragedy of this scope, we simply have to do everything in our power to offer support, comfort and hope to all the people directly impacted by the hurricane," Judy McGrath, chair and CEO of MTV Networks, said Wednesday (August 31) of the concerts. "Our goal is to join forces on every medium to get involved, to volunteer, to contribute in any way we can."
The concerts are part of a larger awareness campaign that will also include an MTV News special on Katrina relief efforts, on-campus resources, and information across all the network's channels regarding aid and activism. Users can currently find information about the Katrina relief effort and the Red Cross' needs at think.mtv.com.
MTV's parent company, Viacom, also announced that it has contributed $1 million to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Effort.
Hundreds are feared dead and tens of thousands are without shelter in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in the hurricane's wake (see "Katrina Devastates New Orleans; Mississippi Death Toll Rises To Over 110"). Flood waters continued to rise in New Orleans on Wednesday, further plunging the city into chaos. President George W. Bush has called the hurricane "one of the worst national disasters in our nation's history." He devoted federal resources to the aid effort, but called on private citizens to do their part as well.
— Robert Mancini
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| September 1st, 2005 01:12 PM |
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| Angiegirl |
quote:
Jumping Jack wrote:
Sadly, it takes a car accident to put up a stop sign, 9/11 to think about airplane security, and Katrina to think about the infrastructure we take for granted. Kudos to the Dutch for have a triple levee system providing redundancy against disaster, but they are human as well and only built them as a result of their own major disaster. When will we start learning from past mistakes and setting the right funding priorites?
Yes, unfortunately this is how it works. Prevention of all kinds of threads (nature, disease or human) still isn't a big part of the agenda in many countries.
Holland only began building their Deltaworks after a severe storm which caused flooding like in New Orleans and which claimed 1836 human and 10,000 animal lives in 1953. |
| September 1st, 2005 01:43 PM |
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| Sir Stonesalot |
Well, I'm on the volunteer list at. Now I just wait for a phone call. I'm supposed to pack light, and be ready to go at a moments notice. My bag is packed and sitting beside the garage door.
The call could come within the hour, or days, or weeks. No one knows when, or even if, we are going. I just hope I get to say goodbye to my wife and kid before I have to go. They won't be home for several hours yet. I don't want them to find out by a hastily scribbled note that I went to the Gulf Coast and may be gone for weeks or months. I talked to my wife about it last night, but I don't think she thought that it would really happen.
I was also informed that if I go, I'll be doing double duty. Communications and EMS. I'm not looking forward to the EMS part. That's gonna be hard. That's the up close and personal part. Hands on stuff. I still gotta get a grip on that part.
I much prefer communications. I'm better at that. But the thing about communications is that means for communications must be functional for us to operate. Right now people have no way to communicate to the outside world. Phones, cell phones, radio, all power is out. It's gotta be chaos right now.
But I gotta go if I can help. I mean, how can I not go? I couldn't look at myself in a mirror ever again if I didn't put my name on that volunteer list. But I have to be honest and say that the prospect of heading down there is....well....scarey. Seeing those pictures on TV, and thinking that I am probably going to end up in the middle of it makes me nervous. I think, "Am I good enough?" "Am I trained enough?" "Can I really do this?"....it's unsettling. But there is only one way to find out, and that's to go find out.
Anyhow, if I end up going, I'll try to shoot off a post real quick before I leave. And I may have a floor seat for MSG on the 13th to get rid of. But I'm holding on to that ticket until the last possible second. |
| September 1st, 2005 02:12 PM |
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| gypsy |
I wouldn't go if I were you. The brothas are going crazy. You're liable to get shot. |
| September 1st, 2005 02:17 PM |
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| jb |
quote:
gypsy wrote:
I wouldn't go if I were you. The brothas are going crazy. You're liable to get shot.
Hi Gypsy!!!!
Sadly, the Hurricane has resulted in this http://www.adl.org/PresRele/DiRaB_41/4786_41.htm
[Edited by jb] |
| September 1st, 2005 02:18 PM |
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| Sir Stonesalot |
I'm not worried about that. It looks like rescue teams that go out are under armed escort.
But it is starting to get ugly down there for sure. I'm guessing that if I don't get the call today or tomorrow, we probably won't go. But that's just a guess. I suppose it's possible for them to rotate us in next week or something. I dunno.
The not knowing is the hardest part. |
| September 1st, 2005 02:19 PM |
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| gypsy |
quote:
Sir Stonesalot wrote:
I'm not worried about that. It looks like rescue teams that go out are under armed escort.
But it is starting to get ugly down there for sure. I'm guessing that if I don't get the call today or tomorrow, we probably won't go. But that's just a guess. I suppose it's possible for them to rotate us in next week or something. I dunno.
The not knowing is the hardest part.
Don't go. |
| September 1st, 2005 02:21 PM |
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| gypsy |
quote:
jb wrote:
Hi Gypsy!!!!
Sadly, the Hurricane has resulted in this http://www.adl.org/PresRele/DiRaB_41/4786_41.htm
[Edited by jb]
Mother Nature's way of "thinning out the numbers." |
| September 1st, 2005 02:22 PM |
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| Riffhard |
quote:
Sir Stonesalot wrote:
No Riffy. It's all the same. The WH trying to make the Prez look good through this bad situation...the otherside pointing a finger at global warming....it's all the same crap.
Hell I'll beat this horse carcass one more time! It's NOT the same thing Essy! A president looking presitential is part of the job requirment. All presidents,and politians,play that game admittedly,but to use Katrina as a political weapon is a very different thing all together. If Bush,or the Republicans,tried to blame the effects of Katrina on the liberals,or the democrats,then it would be a parallel. That is not what is happening,and it did not happen in 1992 for Hurricane Andrew with Clinton. You can say it all you want,but the two things are entirely different.
You say I fail to see things the way they are. My friend that is not the case at all. It is you who fail to see the outright exploitation of this hurricane as a means to bash Bush. It is disgusting,and tasteless. If it was the Bush admin,conservatives,or the Republican party who did that I would just as disgusted as I am with Blummenfuck,RFK Jr,etc. To the democrats credit some have come out and slammed these morans today. That is good to see. They should have rejected this mean spirited rhetoric,and I'm happy to see that some of them have. Image making and useing a national disaster as a means of political attack are two entirely different animals.
I'm off it,but to say that I hope all the people in the Gulf Coast region will find some peace and solace after this horrible tragedy. Good for you for doing what you can Marc. Hell,I knew you was class act right after we met!
Riffhard |
| September 1st, 2005 02:31 PM |
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| jb |
I will make a donation to the local chapter of the Red Cross....I suggest others do likewise. They need cash badly!!! |
| September 1st, 2005 02:32 PM |
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| Monkey Woman |
All of this is terrifying and shocking and awe-inspiring all rolled into one. The looting and terror in NO is a picture of hell on Earth, and then you read about all the ordinary, decent people who go out of their way to help the victims, opeing their houses to the homeless, giving money, food, volunteering to go there like Stonesalot just did... And you begin to not despair of humanity after all. These great-hearted men and women are truly the salt of the earth. |
| September 1st, 2005 02:39 PM |
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| monkey_man |
quote:
Sir Stonesalot wrote:
Well, I'm on the volunteer list at. Now I just wait for a phone call. I'm supposed to pack light, and be ready to go at a moments notice. My bag is packed and sitting beside the garage door.
Kudos to you! If I didn't live so far away I'd be there with you! |
| September 1st, 2005 02:43 PM |
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| monkey_man |
Personally, I think the federal government has a lot of explaining to do in terms of cutting funding for flood control.
"No One Can Say they Didn't See it Coming"
By Sidney Blumenthal
09/01/05 "Der Spiegel" -- -- In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.
Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane Katrina has left millions of Americans to scavenge for food and shelter and hundreds to thousands reportedly dead. With its main levee broken, the evacuated city of New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico. But the damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act of nature.
A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which before the hurricane published a series on the federal funding problem, and whose presses are now underwater, reported online: "No one can say they didn't see it coming ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."
The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developers almost certainly also contributed to the heightened level of the storm surge. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands surrounding New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot. Bush had promised "no net loss" of wetlands, a policy launched by his father's administration and bolstered by President Clinton. But he reversed his approach in 2003, unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency then announced they could no longer protect wetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce.
In response to this potential crisis, four leading environmental groups conducted a joint expert study, concluding in 2004 that without wetlands protection New Orleans could be devastated by an ordinary, much less a Category 4 or 5, hurricane. "There's no way to describe how mindless a policy that is when it comes to wetlands protection," said one of the report's authors. The chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality dismissed the study as "highly questionable," and boasted, "Everybody loves what we're doing."
"My administration's climate change policy will be science based," President Bush declared in June 2001. But in 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency submitted a study on global warming to the United Nations reflecting its expert research, Bush derided it as "a report put out by a bureaucracy," and excised the climate change assessment from the agency's annual report. The next year, when the EPA issued its first comprehensive "Report on the Environment," stating, "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment," the White House simply demanded removal of the line and all similar conclusions. At the G-8 meeting in Scotland this year, Bush successfully stymied any common action on global warming. Scientists, meanwhile, have continued to accumulate impressive data on the rising temperature of the oceans, which has produced more severe hurricanes.
In February 2004, 60 of the nation's leading scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, warned in a statement, "Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking": "Successful application of science has played a large part in the policies that have made the United States of America the world's most powerful nation and its citizens increasingly prosperous and healthy ... Indeed, this principle has long been adhered to by presidents and administrations of both parties in forming and implementing policies. The administration of George W. Bush has, however, disregarded this principle ... The distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends must cease." Bush completely ignored this statement.
In the two weeks preceding the storm in the Gulf, the trumping of science by ideology and expertise by special interests accelerated. The Federal Drug Administration announced that it was postponing sale of the morning-after contraceptive pill, despite overwhelming scientific evidence of its safety and its approval by the FDA's scientific advisory board. The United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa accused the Bush administration of responsibility for a condom shortage in Uganda -- the result of the administration's evangelical Christian agenda of "abstinence." When the chief of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the Justice Department was ordered by the White House to delete its study that African-Americans and other minorities are subject to racial profiling in police traffic stops and he refused to buckle under, he was forced out of his job. When the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting oversight analyst objected to a $7 billion no-bid contract awarded for work in Iraq to Halliburton (the firm at which Vice President Cheney was formerly CEO), she was demoted despite her superior professional ratings. At the National Park Service, a former Cheney aide, a political appointee lacking professional background, drew up a plan to overturn past environmental practices and prohibit any mention of evolution while allowing sale of religious materials through the Park Service.
On the day the levees burst in New Orleans, Bush delivered a speech in Colorado comparing the Iraq war to World War II and himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt: "And he knew that the best way to bring peace and stability to the region was by bringing freedom to Japan." Bush had boarded his very own "Streetcar Named Desire."
Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior advisor to President Clinton and the author of "The Clinton Wars," is writing a column for Salon and the Guardian of London.
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| September 1st, 2005 02:50 PM |
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| jb |
Sidney Blumenthal is 100% correct. |
| September 1st, 2005 02:51 PM |
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| glencar |
Sidney Blumenthal is a fraud & an assclown. |
| September 1st, 2005 02:56 PM |
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| gypsy |
quote:
jb wrote:
I will make a donation to the local chapter of the Red Cross....I suggest others do likewise. They need cash badly!!!
We've already sent in checks to the Red Cross, jb. So has my sister and her husband.
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| September 1st, 2005 02:57 PM |
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| Joey |
quote:
jb wrote:
Sidney Blumenthal is 100% correct.
He is a Great Jew : 
........................................................
[Edited by Joey] |
| September 1st, 2005 02:59 PM |
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| jb |
quote:
gypsy wrote:
We've already sent in checks to the Red Cross, jb. So has my sister and her husband.
You are a very special family.....I wish I could greet you...but Pug has been unable to get me a suite at the Ritz carlton Four Seasons and I shall not attend.....are you going? |
| September 1st, 2005 03:29 PM |
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| Sir Stonesalot |
>It is you who fail to see the outright exploitation of this hurricane as a means to bash Bush.<
Oh no, I see it plainly. I also see the flip side plainly. That is what I've been trying to tell you. It isn't one side or the other...it's both. And it will continue to be that way. I know you refuse to look at it like that, but whatever.
This is the nice thing about being a non-affiliated voter. I don't see things as us vs. them. I look at what both sides are doing without being committed to either side. Both side piss me off. One side is a bunch of retards, the other side is a bunch of pussies. And they both play dirty games. Oh joy.
You know, there is no way that this rescue/recovery effort can be anything other than a clusterfuck. People are going to be critical. It will be valid. Riffy, the simple fact is that our country was not ready for a disaster on this scale. How could we possibly be ready for something like this? But people expect our government to be able to deal with this kind of emergency. They don't want to hear...no food or water...no way to get people help...no power for months...sick people dying...looting and rioting...they don't want to see it. those of us in emergency services know what to expect, but the general public does not. In the end, it's the President's responsibility. It goes with the job title. He's gonna take some hits, and he's gonna try to deflect those hits. That is the way it goes, fair or not.
That said, everyone who goes to help will do so to the best of their ability. Above and beyond the call. Yet people will still say not enough was done. And they will be right. There is always more that could be done. I sure as hell will not wanna want to hear that my efforts weren't enough...but that goes along with the job. After every significant event, you go over what you could do better next time. And the list is always long. But it's very important to learn, and improve for next time.
I think people in our country need to learn to handle criticism better. Try to learn from our mistakes, instead of denying any mistakes were ever made. |
| September 1st, 2005 03:39 PM |
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| Joey |
" I think people in our country need to learn to handle criticism better. Try to learn from our mistakes, instead of denying any mistakes were ever made."
< ---------
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| September 1st, 2005 07:35 PM |
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| monkey_man |
Published on Sunday, February 22, 2004 by the Observer/UK
Now the Pentagon Tells Bush:
Climate Change Will Destroy Us
Secret Report Warns of Rioting and Nuclear War; Threat to the World is Greater than Terrorism
by Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York
Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..
A secret report, suppressed by US defense chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.
The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.
'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'
The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defense is a priority.
The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defense adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.
An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately', they conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions.
Last week the Bush administration came under heavy fire from a large body of respected scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked science to suit its policy agenda and suppressed studies that it did not like. Jeremy Symons, a former whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that suppression of the report for four months was a further example of the White House trying to bury the threat of climate change.
Senior climatologists, however, believe that their verdicts could prove the catalyst in forcing Bush to accept climate change as a real and happening phenomenon. They also hope it will convince the United States to sign up to global treaties to reduce the rate of climatic change.
A group of eminent UK scientists recently visited the White House to voice their fears over global warming, part of an intensifying drive to get the US to treat the issue seriously. Sources have told The Observer that American officials appeared extremely sensitive about the issue when faced with complaints that America's public stance appeared increasingly out of touch.
One even alleged that the White House had written to complain about some of the comments attributed to Professor Sir David King, Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, after he branded the President's position on the issue as indefensible.
Among those scientists present at the White House talks were Professor John Schellnhuber, former chief environmental adviser to the German government and head of the UK's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research. He said that the Pentagon's internal fears should prove the 'tipping point' in persuading Bush to accept climatic change.
Sir John Houghton, former chief executive of the Meteorological Office - and the first senior figure to liken the threat of climate change to that of terrorism - said: 'If the Pentagon is sending out that sort of message, then this is an important document indeed.'
Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon's dire warnings could no longer be ignored.
'Can Bush ignore the Pentagon? It's going be hard to blow off this sort of document. Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush's single highest priority is national defense The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally speaking it is conservative. If climate change is a threat to national security and the economy, then he has to act. There are two groups the Bush Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,' added Watson.
'You've got a President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac river you've got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue,' said Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace.
Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated.
Randall told The Observer that the potential ramifications of rapid climate change would create global chaos. 'This is depressing stuff,' he said. 'It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat.'
Randall added that it was already possibly too late to prevent a disaster happening. 'We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years,' he said.
'The consequences for some nations of the climate change are unbelievable. It seems obvious that cutting the use of fossil fuels would be worthwhile.'
So dramatic are the report's scenarios, Watson said, that they may prove vital in the US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry is known to accept climate change as a real problem. Scientists disillusioned with Bush's stance are threatening to make sure Kerry uses the Pentagon report in his campaign.
The fact that Marshall is behind its scathing findings will aid Kerry's cause. Marshall, 82, is a Pentagon legend who heads a secretive think-tank dedicated to weighing risks to national security called the Office of Net Assessment. Dubbed 'Yoda' by Pentagon insiders who respect his vast experience, he is credited with being behind the Department of Defense's push on ballistic-missile defense
Symons, who left the EPA in protest at political interference, said that the suppression of the report was a further instance of the White House trying to bury evidence of climate change. 'It is yet another example of why this government should stop burying its head in the sand on this issue.'
Symons said the Bush administration's close links to high-powered energy and oil companies was vital in understanding why climate change was received skeptically in the Oval Office. 'This administration is ignoring the evidence in order to placate a handful of large energy and oil companies,' he added.
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| September 1st, 2005 07:39 PM |
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| glencar |
Please, one leftwing screed per day per thread. It's in the rules. |
| September 1st, 2005 07:40 PM |
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| CHIEFMOON |
quote:
Riffhard wrote:
I can only state what I have previously posted. To date there has not been one instance of Bush,or the repubs trying for any kind of expliotation of this event. Not one. I can,however,link at least four articles that show that the other side has done just that. If you think that a picture of the president looking out the window of Air Force One is expliotation than you need to raise your standards a bit I'm afraid.
Show me one instance where Bush's team has tried to use this as a political wedge. Just one instance. It can't be done. Whether you like the man or not is no sweat off of my sack,but the utter classlessness,and callowousness of Blummthall and RFK Jr. is apparent for all to see. Yet,again,you can not show me one instance where Bush,or his peeps, claimed that it was liberal politics that caused this catrastrophy. Find it. I'll wait. I fear that it will be a very long wait.
As for high horses. Let me just say that my horse,compared to Sidney's,is about twenty hands! His is about a hand and half a best.
Riffhard
Perhaps this pic sums it up:
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| September 1st, 2005 07:46 PM |
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| kath |
quote:
Please, one leftwing screed per day per thread. It's in the rules.
rules?? ha! we have no rules! anarchy!!! |
| September 1st, 2005 08:09 PM |
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| mac_daddy |
c'mon glencar - how can you deny the FACTS in the blumenthal article. was it all bush..? no. the state and local gov'ts knew about this shit and did nothing, too. clinton didnt do squat about, and neither did bush senior. they ALL were negligent...
but the current administration has created a clusterfuck of epic proportions getting us into war with iraq. and they have been extremely negligent with the budgets and financial dealings of this country - they have been robbing peter to pay paul since this thing began. had katrina not caused such damage, the fiscal irresponsibility of this administration might have gone unnoticed, as the economy was doing fine, the housing bubble hadnt burst, etc. but now that the pipelines, the gulf drilling stations and the refineries are all fubar'd, too - the economy is going to take a hit. our economy will tank if gas settles in at over $3/gal for the cheap stuff. and we are so overextended because of this goddamned war in iraq, that we cant continue to subsidize gas to keep costs manageable and the economy going...
so while bush didnt make hurricane, his administration IS responsible for committing entirely too many resources in other places - getting us into a longterm war with no exit strategy in place, against the advice of the smartest strategists in the administration, AND granting a tax break that only the uber-wealthy would benefit from (when they are the ones who can afford to pay the most). that was such a bad move that only an idiot could make it. but, this is what happens when we elect a guy who cut more classes in college than he attended, and who never got a job (including his current one) based on his merits, but rather on his pedigree...
it is the lack of those aforementioned resources - manpower, money, will, etc. - that is going to bite us in the ass now, the effects of which WILL be george jr's legacy.
that, and the number of vacation days this guy has taken since being elected. the guy is absolutely still a slacker at heart. i am convinced that he is so dedicated to exercise because the time he spends exercising is time he doesnt have to do his job - i guess, nobody likes being in over their heads, and george jr most certainly is...
especially now. |
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