Saturday, November 18, 2006

Not one red cent

I just finished watching Comic Relief 2006.
It's not over, I'm just finished watching it. It opened with the standard big musical number, which included whoop-de-do goldberg's and bill not looking real marvelous lately crystal placing blame on the Bush administration for the destruction and subsequent failure to rebuild New Orleans. Robin Williams took time (and was the only one of the trio to do so) to recognize the men and women fighting the war, with his "Goooood Morrrrrrnnninnng Baghdaaaaad!" which received a smattering of applause. The bile was already rising, and it was only two minutes into the show.
Following the save-the-children-esque clips of the destruction and the current failure to reconstruct, and the highlighting of the horrid conditions of the FEMA trailers (which is really an improvement over the slums lots of the people were living in) Rosie O'donnel came out on stage (no, not that came out, that publicity stunt was before), and proceded to gloat over the elections and give me (and anyone else who didn't vote for surrender, high taxes, a "staged withdrawal" (even though we don't have enough troops, if you listen to all of the retired generals) and... where was I? Oh yeah. Rosie gave then finger to anyone who didn't vote for the National Socialist party and that means yours truly. I'm sure her non-apology (if it ever came to that) would say she wasn't giving me the finger, she was giving the finger to the outgoing gummint. Whatever. When she was done with that, she practically dug out her Babs dildo and prattled on for the rest of her bit about barbra streisand.

Next up was Bill "does this kool-aid taste funny to you?" Maher. He spent his three minutes talking about the Bush administration, and Tom Foley, and the former assistant somebody at the FDA who apparently was a bad gynecologist.

I had put my wallet and phone away by this point, and turned the channel to the Amazing Jonathan on Comedy Central. Unlike comic releif 2006, it was actually funny.

A few parting shots:
NOLA is "practically abandoned" and reconstruction is slow. Gee, you mean people wouldn't do their damndest to hurry up and get back to the big easy to rebuild, just in time for the next big one? Wow. I guess southerners can be taught.

The levees (which were never designed to stop a storm swell of this magnitude) were built some 60 years ago. Clearly this was the president's fault. Not the locally "appointed" or "elected" levee board members. I suppose when Mt. Ranier blows its stack, the Feds will also be to blame for not ordering an evacuation in the days prior, and when Portland proves to be not-volcano-proof, then it will be because hallibuton stood to make so much money from the reconstruction.

Just a thought, I wonder how long it'll take the dems to rebuild NOLA. Also, make no mistake about it, evry single complaint you hear about FEMA trailers is someone telling you that the money from your taxes that purchased these ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH.

But really, I think my anger over this whole thing is pretty simple. and it can be summed up thus:

On August 26, 2005, the National Hurricane Center predicted for the first time that Hurricane Katrina would become a Category 4 storm, and thus exceed the design limits of the New Orleans levees. (That's your FEDERAL GUMMINT's job).

On August 26 Mayor Nagin advised New Orleanians to keep a close eye on the storm and prepare for evacuation. He was hesitant to order a mandatory evacuation because of concerns about the city's liability for closing hotels and other businesses.

On Sunday morning August 28, Katrina became a Category 4 hurricane, and Nagin declared a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, two days after the official warnings from the federal government, and after the NO governor declared a state of emergency.

Some of his better quotes:
[New Orleans] "will be a majority African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be."
"God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country....Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses."
On criticism about his leadership during the crisis and the status of reconstuction a year later, to a 60 minutes reporter in New York: "That’s all right. You guys in New York can’t get a hole in the ground fixed and it’s five years later. So let’s be fair."

Yes, let's be fair. I'll even ignore the Chocolate City comment.

Why am I so opposed to helping out thepeople living in NOLA? Because they re-elected this asshat. And you get just what you ask for, as seen here:

Nagin's second term began on June 1, 2006. As of August 2006, Nagin has made few public appearances in New Orleans since the May election. He campaigned on a promise to develop a "100 day plan" to rebuild New Orleans, but as of the end of the 100 days no concrete plan has been released. Since then, some commentators have criticized Nagin for what they perceive as a lack of explanation of the details of this plan and a lack of activity in putting this plan forward. At the end of the hundred day period, Nagin administration spokesperson Rob Couhig backed away from the promise, stating that it was not meant as a "time period," but as a short-range campaign to improve quality-of-life issues. Nagin has also recently been criticized for devoting time to an extensive national speaking tour while being rarely seen in New Orleans. Nagin's administration counters this criticism by stating that the speaking tour is necessary in order to correct an inaccurate perception of the situation in New Orleans.

You want money? Well now that the evil party is in power, ask them for it. But don't you dare raise my taxes to pay for it.

--Chuck

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