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David Franklin
5th-September-2005, 12:23 PM
Thought this was worth sharing, although it's a long download (14MB). You should watch to the end.

"We have been abandoned by our own country" (http://videos.informationclearinghouse.info/JeffersonParrishMTP.wmv)

Sorry if it's already been broadcast and I'm unaware...

Baby Peaches
5th-September-2005, 12:32 PM
That is soooo awful!! What were the government thinking off? All those soldiers out trying to help the people of Iraq and yet they can't even help there own people! What a complete moron that Bush guy is!!

Dreadful Scathe
5th-September-2005, 12:54 PM
That - rigged elections, aggressive behaviour and more legal ways to execute someone than any other country* is possibly why the USA is not called a 'Superpower' any more :).

David Franklin
5th-September-2005, 01:26 PM
That is soooo awful!! What were the government thinking off? All those soldiers out trying to help the people of Iraq and yet they can't even help there own people! What a complete moron that Bush guy is!!

But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment.

There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV.

ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.
For the original source, see http://www.heute.de/ZDFheute/inhalt/23/0,3672,2370967,00.html (German, but Google does a reasonably understandable translation).

Debster
5th-September-2005, 01:32 PM
Tragic.
Absolutely tragic.

David Bailey
5th-September-2005, 01:52 PM
CNN has a copy of the New Orleans Times-Picayune article:
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/09/04/times.picayune.editorial/index.html

I'm not Blair's biggest fan, but when you compare his reaction and leadership on July 7th with Bush's lack of action and lack of leadership over the last week, you have to thank your lucky stars you don't live in the US right now.

Especially considering Blair was hosting a vital G8 summit, and had no notice, whereas Bush was, err, playing a guitar, and had 5 days' notice. And Bush had a 5-week holiday, whereas most US citizens are lucky to get 2 weeks...

David Franklin
5th-September-2005, 02:00 PM
Bush was, err, playing a guitar,As I said elsewhere (http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/showpost.php?p=147683&postcount=152), maybe he couldn't find a fiddle... (Even then, I didn't actually think it was that funny. Now... :tears: :angry: )

dee
5th-September-2005, 02:01 PM
That is soooo awful!! What were the government thinking off? All those soldiers out trying to help the people of Iraq and yet they can't even help there own people! What a complete moron that Bush guy is!!


:yeah: That is truely awful!!!!!!

CJ
5th-September-2005, 02:02 PM
As I said elsewhere (http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/showpost.php?p=147683&postcount=152), maybe he couldn't find a fiddle... (Even then, I didn't actually think it was that funny. Now... :tears: :angry: )

Are you sure it wasn't a banjo?!?

DiDiDum Dum Duuuuuummm...

David Franklin
5th-September-2005, 02:04 PM
Are you sure it wasn't a banjo?!?I don't think they had banjos during the fall of the Roman empire...

stewart38
5th-September-2005, 02:29 PM
CNN has a copy of the New Orleans Times-Picayune article:
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/09/04/times.picayune.editorial/index.html

I'm not Blair's biggest fan, but when you compare his reaction and leadership on July 7th with Bush's lack of action and lack of leadership over the last week, you have to thank your lucky stars you don't live in the US right now.

Especially considering Blair was hosting a vital G8 summit, and had no notice, whereas Bush was, err, playing a guitar, and had 5 days' notice. And Bush had a 5-week holiday, whereas most US citizens are lucky to get 2 weeks...


Get away your not a bush fan :whistle:

I think he is responsible for everything that goes wrong in the world :sick:

How many hurricanes have hit south USA last 10 years , 10 /15 ?

Guess who i think is responsible , his advisors and no one understanding the magnitude of what happened and the hurrican itself.

Lets have this thread re named 'lets knock bush because we dont know who else to' :mad:

LMC
5th-September-2005, 02:31 PM
What is quite frightening is that it seemed no-one was prepared or able to take executive responsibility in GB's absence - I thought the USA was a democracy, not a dictatorship? But then I'm ignorant...

David Bailey
5th-September-2005, 03:32 PM
How many hurricanes have hit south USA last 10 years , 10 /15 ?
4 hurricanes hit Florida in 2004. The US government (or GB) handled those well enough; the emergency services were well-prepared and well-resourced.

Interesting, Florida was a famous swing state in 2000 - and voted more strongly Republican in 2004. One could almost see a connection there...


Lets have this thread re named 'lets knock bush because we dont know who else to' :mad:
Oh, there's plenty of blame to go around - FEMA has done incredibly badly considering that reacting to emergencies is the agency's entire raison d'etre. And the whole culture of Louisiana "politics" means that the officials at every level were somewhat less-than-ideal, just look at the Governor to see that.

But yes, Bush is The Boss, the buck stops with him. And for example, he's directly responsible for:
- Putting FEMA under Homeland Security control
- Reducing the budget spent on levees in New Orleans by $71 million in 2004
- His own slow reaction to the disaster.

None of which helped the situation.

I don't know for sure if having 140,000+ extra troops (including US National Guard) stationed in Iraq made much difference, but I doubt it helped. However, that way lies "Debate On Iraq" territory, and we should probably avoid that, so let's assume there was no effect.

David Franklin
5th-September-2005, 03:41 PM
FEMA has done incredibly badly considering that reacting to emergencies is the agency's entire raison d'etre. I'm shocked, I repeat shocked to hear you say that. After all, Michael Brown, the director of FEMA said:

I was in the tsunami region, and this response is incredibly more efficient, more effective and under the most difficult circumstances.(Source: BBC Website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4207628.stm)).

Stuart M
5th-September-2005, 04:25 PM
I'm shocked, I repeat shocked to hear you say that. After all, Michael Brown, the director of FEMA said:
(Source: BBC Website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4207628.stm)).
Aye, but bear in mind that Michael Brown's previous job was as head of the International Arabian Horse Association, and so far as we know, no Arabian horses have died yet. So, he is indeed doing 'a heck of a job'.

David Bailey
5th-September-2005, 04:30 PM
Aye, but bear in mind that Michael Brown's previous job was as head of the International Arabian Horse Association, and so far as we know, no Arabian horses have died yet. So, he is indeed doing 'a heck of a job'.
:rofl: :rofl:
I forgot about that... Oh, it's too easy a target.

David Franklin
5th-September-2005, 04:31 PM
Aye, but bear in mind that Michael Brown's previous job was as head of the International Arabian Horse Association, and so far as we know, no Arabian horses have died yet. So, he is indeed doing 'a heck of a job'.The horses haven't died, but he did manage to kill the organisation (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/2/34622/68348):

I think I've told you that I'm into Arab horses. Well, for 3 years Michael Brown was hired and then fired by our IAHA, the International Arabian Horse Assoc. He was an unmitigated, f**king disaster. I was shocked as hell when captain clueless put him in charge of FEMA a couple of years ago.
He ruined IAHA financially so badly that we had to change the name and combine it with the Purebred registry.
The man, in 3 years, decimated the finances of this organization.

Stuart
5th-September-2005, 07:32 PM
I'm not Blair's biggest fan, but when you compare his reaction and leadership on July 7th with Bush's lack of action and lack of leadership over the last week, you have to thank your lucky stars you don't live in the US right now.


There was a piece about this in the Guardian this morning:

Team Bush's bad day in Wyoming (http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1562733,00.html)

Dreadful Scathe
6th-September-2005, 10:59 PM
So true, but so sad at the same time....

David Franklin
7th-September-2005, 08:31 AM
So true, but so sad at the same time....Fortunately, it only happened to "those kind of people":


What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. ...
And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this - this is {chuckles} working very well for them.(MP3 here (http://movies.crooksandliars.com/bb.mp3)).

David Bailey
7th-September-2005, 08:46 AM
The full horror of the quote is at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001054719

Brings a whole new meaning to the Tact Thing...