Hurricane Katrina 4th Strongest Atlantic Hurricane

The only ones to blame should be </span></span></span>

Oh and the price of gas here now in some places has dropped to $2.79 per gallon of the cheap stuff.

The next thing you know is the liberal press will be blaming Bush for Chief Justice Renquist's demise just so he can nominate someone for that position. Just wait a few days and see if that doesn't happen.
Jay

P.S. Carl - the Shell station a couple of blocks from my house also has gasoline posted at $2.79/gal. - oops, wait! When I drive by there in a little while, I'll double check and see if it has changed. :lol:

Hi Jay, that's all too true and I agree w/ ya.

Also, yup, gas here is at least temporarily at $2.79. I sure hope it will eventually get back to more managable prices such as .85 cents per gallon like it was less than 4 yrs ago. But we KNOW that aint gonna happen.

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Originally posted by William T Brooks@Sep 5 2005, 06:21 PM
I will say that I do not think that not many of us here in the U.S.A. would say anything about a Leader of another Country that had a Natural Storm of this Size. Almost the Size of Western Europe Coast Line.

Those who are criticizing George Bush should look before they leap. Otherwise, they may put their feet in their mouth.

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Originally posted by Jay J. Foraker@Sep 6 2005, 04:52 PM
P.S. Carl - the Shell station a couple of blocks from my house also has gasoline posted at $2.79/gal. - oops, wait! When I drive by there in a little while, I'll double check and see if it has changed. :lol:

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I was right - I went by there last evening and it had gone up to $2.89/gal.

At last report, here in San Antonio, we had accomodated over 25,000 evacuees from New Orleans. According to the daily paper this morning, so many of these victims were so surprised and happy to find our locals were so friendly and helpful, some were seriously talking about making their homes here rather than go back to New Orleans.
Cheers - Jay

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Originally posted by Jay J. Foraker@Sep 7 2005, 04:52 PM
I was right - I went by there last evening and it had gone up to $2.89/gal.

At last report, here in San Antonio, we had accomodated over 25,000 evacuees from New Orleans. According to the daily paper this morning, so many of these victims were so surprised and happy to find our locals were so friendly and helpful, some were seriously talking about making their homes here rather than go back to New Orleans.
Cheers - Jay

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Don't let 'em make the Riverwalk, Jay, or you'll never get rid of 'em. :lol:

Sorry I haven't been around lately. I just read all that was posted here and love the comments on this subject. I want to tell you that my community of about 36,000 people have just donated $1 million for the relief effort. That's pretty good for a bunch of red necks in the deep south. :lol:

I want everyone here to know that the blame goes to no one and things in life happen. We in the south have been accused of being racist, and now that something has caused harm to a population of a signficance to people of color, we all in the U.S. are racist. Welcome to the club! The media uses the race card when they can. I am sorry about the way things happen, and involved a city like New Orleans, but we didn't do it to them. I wish people could understand that bad things happen to many people and color doesn't have anything to do with it. It is the way you deal with the situation that makes the difference, and in many cases I am embarrassed with the African American people with the way they deal with their crisis for the most part.

:o I might get in trouble but if they would stop thinking that the government will come and take care of them and look to themselves, they might see that they will get more ahead in life. When Hurricane Ivan hit my home town last September, I didn't cry to the government for more money or help, I helped myself and got what I needed. It cost me some, but I was able to pick up and move on. I know that this is different, but they think that all they have to do is wait and good ole' Uncle Sam will come in and save the day. And I mean day. My gosh, everything should have been picked up life back to normal in 24 hours. We Are America! Things are solved and back to normal in 2 to 3 hours, you now like a movie.

President Bush did not cause this Hurricane! When I hear that Robert Kennedy Jr. come out laughing about this diaster, and blaming Bush for this, I just wonder what he is smoking, and anyway, if I remember correctly, life south of Boston isn't worth saving according to the Kennedy Clan. I don't have any respect for those people, and I think that his father and JFK would turn over in their graves.

In retrospect to what is happening, I don't want to paint a picture that it is not a tragedy, it is and many have died in this. I want to you know that Mobile, Alabama has been hit with 3 Hurricanes in a year. And they have lost a lot of beach land alone the coast. A lot of homes destroyed, and not many, but lives have been lost in this storm as with the others. I'm not trying to say that New Orleans is not worthy of attention to the storm, but Believe me when I say that Biloxi and Gulfport Mississippi were destroyed by the storm, and I'm talking about over 75% of those cities. And just about 100% of homes and businesses sustained storm damage. Though these cities were not as populated as New Orleans, they were hit much harder. I might also add that many towns in the lower half of Mississippi had substantial storm damage.

By the way, did you hear that federal money was given to New Orleans to update, repair, and strengthen their levees, but the money was used for something else over the years? Might be interesting in hearing about that story from Louisiana state government.

Cheers B)

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Originally posted by Hondo Duke Lane@Sep 7 2005, 08:37 PM
Sorry I haven't been around lately. I just read all that was posted here and love the comments on this subject. I want to tell you that my community of about 36,000 people have just donated $1 million for the relief effort. That's pretty good for a bunch of red necks in the deep south. :lol:

I want everyone here to know that the blame goes to no one and things in life happen. We in the south have been accused of being racist, and now that something has caused harm to a population of a signficance to people of color, we all in the U.S. are racist. Welcome to the club! The media uses the race card when they can. I am sorry about the way things happen, and involved a city like New Orleans, but we didn't do it to them. I wish people could understand that bad things happen to many people and color doesn't have anything to do with it. It is the way you deal with the situation that makes the difference, and in many cases I am embarrassed with the African American people with the way they deal with their crisis for the most part.

:o I might get in trouble but if they would stop thinking that the government will come and take care of them and look to themselves, they might see that they will get more ahead in life. When Hurricane Ivan hit my home town last September, I didn't cry to the government for more money or help, I helped myself and got what I needed. It cost me some, but I was able to pick up and move on. I know that this is different, but they think that all they have to do is wait and good ole' Uncle Sam will come in and save the day. And I mean day. My gosh, everything should have been picked up life back to normal in 24 hours. We Are America! Things are solved and back to normal in 2 to 3 hours, you now like a movie.

President Bush did not cause this Hurricane! When I hear that Robert Kennedy Jr. come out laughing about this diaster, and blaming Bush for this, I just wonder what he is smoking, and anyway, if I remember correctly, life south of Boston isn't worth saving according to the Kennedy Clan. I don't have any respect for those people, and I think that his father and JFK would turn over in their graves.

In retrospect to what is happening, I don't want to paint a picture that it is not a tragedy, it is and many have died in this. I want to you know that Mobile, Alabama has been hit with 3 Hurricanes in a year. And they have lost a lot of beach land alone the coast. A lot of homes destroyed, and not many, but lives have been lost in this storm as with the others. I'm not trying to say that New Orleans is not worthy of attention to the storm, but Believe me when I say that Biloxi and Gulfport Mississippi were destroyed by the storm, and I'm talking about over 75% of those cities. And just about 100% of homes and businesses sustained storm damage. Though these cities were not as populated as New Orleans, they were hit much harder. I might also add that many towns in the lower half of Mississippi had substantial storm damage.

By the way, did you hear that federal money was given to New Orleans to update, repair, and strengthen their levees, but the money was used for something else over the years? Might be interesting in hearing about that story from Louisiana state government.

Cheers B)

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Careful, Hondo, or you'll have the congressional black caucus snapping at your heels. :lol:

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Originally posted by Jay J. Foraker@Sep 7 2005, 05:52 PM
I was right - I went by there last evening and it had gone up to $2.89/gal.

~~~Jay, as I was making my way to the Library (where I have access to a computer) I saw one indipendant station at $2.70 but, just a few blocks down der strasse, a Circle K - was at $2.81.

At last report, here in San Antonio, we had accomodated over 25,000 evacuees from New Orleans. According to the daily paper this morning, so many of these victims were so surprised and happy to find our locals were so friendly and helpful, some were seriously talking about making their homes here rather than go back to New Orleans.
Cheers - Jay

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Here in CCland, we took in over 3K of evacuees and I think we are now down to around 1K. Many are going to stay here but many want to move elsewhere where they have more relatives at. I can't blame em for that.

Where's the Duke when they need 'im most?

I like that Stumpy.

This is what I received from a freind that might be interesting.

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An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State

An Objectivist Review

by Robert Tracinski | The Intellectual Activist

September 2, 2005

It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.
But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.
The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.
The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.

The man-made disaster is the welfare state.

For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency--indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country.

When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).

So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?

To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story:
"Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.

"The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire....
"Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders.
"'These troops are...under my orders to restore order in the streets,' she said. 'They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.' "

The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.

What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers to drive away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Super Dome?

Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them?

My wife, Sherri, figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage last night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. "The projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)
What Sherri was getting from last night's television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"--the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels--gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so who remained, a large number were from the city's public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose. There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.

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.

All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.

No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American "individualism." But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.

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.
The welfare state--and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages--is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting.

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I sent to some of my fella board members, but I wanted to let the rest of you read this.

Cheers B)

Here's another good column about the New Orleans fiasco. I especially agree with the first paragraph of the Air Force officer's comments.

If the truth be known, we don't much about who's what and why. All we do know is that politics are being played on this situation. There is talk that natural diasters are being considered to be federalized; meaning that the federal government will take over if there is any natural diaster. I totally disagree with this because I believe that states should take care of its own, and the local government should be the ones who makes the initial decisions. If we let the federal government take over, then we are that closer to communism. The government is not to solve our problems, they are there to protect us from foreign attacks, not baby sit us when we have problems. What is going on here?! Are we going crazy? This is not happening!

Thanks for the article, Stumpy. I found this powerful and am fed up with the idiots here. By the way, we need to give these people the I-D-1-0-T form. Beam me up Scotty!!!

Cheers B)

First of all, I'm ashamed to say I'm in the newspaper business when I see all these pundits masquerading as reporters spouting out garbage when they don't know what they are talking about. The liberals want to throw out the blame the second that they see an opportunity to make hay against their perceived targets.
Second, it is my understanding that the federal government could not make a move until a request came from the state government. Plus the actual logistics - getting into the area where travel is almost impossible, the ability to mobilize mass amounts of manpower and equipment, etc. - is virtually overwhelming.
I think these characters are just hurting to hurl epithets in the direction of personages they don't like, they'll grasp at any straw if they think it has the least amount of credibility.
Jay

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Originally posted by Jay J. Foraker@Sep 13 2005, 11:08 AM
First of all, I'm ashamed to say I'm in the newspaper business when I see all these pundits masquerading as reporters spouting out garbage when they don't know what they are talking about. I think these characters are just hurting to hurl epithets in the direction of personages they don't like, they'll grasp at any straw if they think it has the least amount of credibility.

I'm sure you've seen the same surveys I have, Jay, that show at least 90 or more percent of "journalists" are liberal Democrats.

Which means the so-called "mainstream" media ain't nothin' but the propaganda arm of the Democratic party. That's one of the big reasons why a large part of the general public no longer trusts the news they get from these characters.

Of course, out of every disaster and bad event, the jokes arise . . .

When asked what he thought about Roe versus Wade, President Bush was heard to respond, "I don't care how they get our of New Orleans."

clancy