Commissar

Oh, and you might want to check out NOAA's warnings before the storm hit. Just a thought. Seriously. Did you really claim that nobody knew it was going to be this bad? Nobody had a clue? Really?

Ah, it's over in the "Daily Show Weighs in On Katrina" thread. Jon Stewart makes my point for me. I'm referring to the Bush's Timeline video. I blame Bush for everything, you don't blame him for anything. At least I learned from my mistakes and didn't vote for the nutjob the second time around. You're welcome to stick with this, "Everything was done right; no blame to be had here," line, but at some point reality's going to sink in. I hope.

No you said the situation could be predicted. It wasn't. Not a single person said the leevies would break when Katrina hit. You imply that somehow lives could have been saved, and you outright say the reaction has been poor since this could have been predicted. Given that NO ONE actually predicted the leevies would break, I think you are wrong. Tell me what should have been different. Did anyone predict the leevies would break? No. The experts predicted that Mississippi would be hit worst by the hurricane, which is what happened. Could anyone predict that the police force in NO would be largely missing? Could anyone predict that when the first crews went in to rescue people, that people would be firing guns or shooting cops? Hindsight is nifty and all, but I'm just curious what you would have done differently, given that getting to the area is difficult. How long does it take to assess damage and formulate exactly what reaction is needed? People forget that initially the leevies didn't break right away. People also forget that relief was in the city within 2 days. That was FASTER than with Hurricane Andrews. When aren't you blaming Bush for everything on the planet? It is quite possible to have a political agenda outside of running for office. I'm sure things could have been handled better, but you single out Bush and blame him specifically to further your political tirade. No one man is responsible for what happened here. The greatest mistake in this whole travesty has been not maintaining the leevies, and several people over the years have been guilty of that. None of them have been the President who doesn't oversee that. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Now you're going to make me go back and find the post, I believe on this very thread, linking to someone saying precisely that the levees would break.

And apparently you don't understand what the various branches of government are for either. FEMA is not charaged with preventing natural disasters, nor charting weather paterns. You criticized Bush, saying that this could have been predicted and prevented. How can FEMA possibly have intimate knowledge of every possible scenario that could befall the entire nation? It can't. But the mayor of NO last year said that if the leevies did break, the onus would be on the people to evacuate when told, saying it would be near impossible to rescue people. That would be a largely unpopular and difficult thing to say now. If he said it was people's own fault for staying behind, he would be stoned. But he said it last year. I would have to imagine the mayor of NO would have a much better idea what his city is like, and how feasibility rescue plans are than you or I. What bothers me is that you exploit the misfortune of others to futher your political agenda. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Wait a minute. I never said the hurricane could be prevented. Find that quote and post it, and I'll retract it. What I have said is that the federal response to the hurricane has been woefully inadequate. I said that the hurricane hitting NO could've - and was - predicted. And every prediction I heard said that it'd go very, very bad, very, very quickly. Now, what's so wrong with expecting a federal agency to prepare for that? Political agenda? I'm not running for anything. And what bothers me is that you can't admit the feds royally screwed this one up.

Then you'll have to call me an opportunist spin doctor. I'm one of the relative few, it seems, who thinks that FEMA should M E with something at least vaguely related to efficiency. Once again, we all knew this was going to go federal. No state in the union has the resources to handle this kind of disaster alone.

He might've been funny on Sportscenter, but Stewart's a lot better on the Daily Show, in my oh-so-humble opinion.

No, Eldar. Nobody who put on their thinking caps was caught off-guard by this. Bush can suggest that nobody thought the levees would break before they actually did; there's plenty of proof to the contrary. We all knew New Orleans was going to get slammed. Off-guard? You really want to use that? Because that's twice this particular administration's been caught off-guard, then. I'll give you 9/11 because, "no one could have predicted it," but come on. You want to chalk this up as a learning experience, a, "we're-all-responsible-so-no-one's-responsible," type of thing, I can't stop you. Somehow, I doubt you'd be so cavalier about massive inefficiency at the federal level if you were the one sitting in the Superdome without food or water, or if it was you fording the streets of New Orleans in search of baby formula. The states screwed up, sure, but are you really trying to make the argument that any state in the nation would be capable of handling this on its own? You've got to be kidding me. We all knew that this was going to require federal emergency management, and they completely and totally dropped the ball.

True enough. Kind of like folks who support all that is Bush suggesting that the right thing to do on 9/11 really was to sit there like a stump when informed of the attacks. Partisan politics, eh?

Stewart. Calling what Kilborn did "comedic" is like... Is like... Is, like, wrong.

Yeah. I personally shot five of 'em.

Not in 2000. Back then, I was naive enough to vote for Bush. I was like the moderate, progressive soccer moms who said, "Oh, he's a middle-of-the-road Republican!"

Hey, I voted.

No, he wasn't. I was excited when I heard that, too, but basically all they did was call him back to Washington to handle "the big picture." You know what's so sick about all this? Midterm elections are probably still going to go Republican. The spin machine'll have plenty of time to gear up and make people forget just how truly horrible this was.

Your lungs adapt.

I recommend Spartan for anyone who hasn't seen it.

They're still not touching guys who blaze through a pack a day - like myself. Not even close.

When did this thread stop being about making fun of Marines?

I get to go hump my ass around the woods in five hours. Why the hell am I still up?

That's it? Did you have to code a new version of Windows to type that or something?

Anyone else notice that Illunder's been replying for over an hour?

Swift, Silent, & Deadly, huh? More like Slow, Loud, & Scared ****less. But it's nice that she's teaching the poor guy how to use it.

Then it has one hell of a high threshold and the mildest withdrawal symptoms I've ever known.

"Gimme some lovin'"? Done extremely well by the Blues Brothers. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> He shoots, he scores. I should've known that. Okay. Now I've got another one. Seen it in a commercial. The lyrics start of, "Pulled into Nazzareth, was feelin' 'bout half-past dead. Just need a place, where I can lay my head."

I think you're wrong, so I'm going to see if I can dig up the actual resolution.

You keep saying, "or else." I doubt that's the language of the resolution, so why not just give me the official language? Is it because it doesn't specify invasion?