Talk about drivel. I say National Guard, and you talk about the federal government. Go back to high civics class, and pay attention this time.

“Don’t cite numbers of troop strength and then ignore the fact that those same troops were not deployed quickly enough.”

Hnh? Who deploys these troops? Clue for you – not the same people who deployed them to Iraq. Your comment is incoherent. The troop strength on hand in the states goes to the assertion that support for the Iraq war had some connection to the New Orleans disaster. the only possible connection between the two situations was National Guard strenghts available to response to the situation, and even that was a very generous interpretation of the comment. So troops strength is a function of federal action and (non)deployment is a function of state inaction.

“On Wednesday,� said an editorial in The Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss., “reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics. Playing basketball and performing calisthenics!�

More childishness. I suppose they aren’t supposed to eat or sleep or take a leak either. Calisthenics is basic health care. Have you ever been in charge of troops?

On the other hand, I think I agree with what you are trying to say here, even if your formulation makes you sound like a customer instead of a citizen:

“I am going to bitch about it. Jim, if you like to pay for services not rendered, then go right ahead and ignore the problems that are manifest in the wake of hurricane Katrina. ”

First off, you are not a customer of government and government is not some shop clerk you can order about and throw tizzies at. But that is not your point really. You do understand that a point may come where nature is just stronger than man, and all our preparations will fail. But that isn’t what we are talking about. This is not to that level. Katrina was expected, just not well anticipated. NG troops could have been mobilized the day before landfall, maybe 50 miles inland. Supplies could have been stockpiled in similar safe places. On and on and on.

But just figure out who to blame. Federal is federal and state is state. And Iraq is federal.

As for your comment about paying more in taxes to the federal goevrnment than to your state, that is quite interesting. For one thing, it means you don’t live in any of the populous coastal states. Probably you live inland, in one of the states that typically receive more in federal money than they pay. So cry me a river.

As for FEMA, it’s quite a turnabout from all the fear-mongering about how they were some sinister shadow government poised to take over and supersede the Constitution isn’t it?

This is pure drivel…. What then is the National Guard for? What then is FEMA established for? What then, do we pay taxes for? I know that I pay more of my tax dollars to the federal government than I do to my own state government. That is a simple fact. So, if in time of need, I can’t count on the government to solve problems that federal agencies were established to fix …. I am going to bitch about it. Jim, if you like to pay for services not rendered, then go right ahead and ignore the problems that are manifest in the wake of hurricane Katrina. Don’t cite numbers of troop strength and then ignore the fact that those same troops were not deployed quickly enough.

A quote:
“On Wednesday,” said an editorial in The Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss., “reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics. Playing basketball and performing calisthenics!”

Maybe it is not wise to depend on the federal government for help, but it certainly isn’t immature to expect it to do so.

Got any examples of my “wretched behaviorâ€Â?? ”

It’s not going to work, Mork – the rest of us remember your childishness well enough. Michael isn’t the one who needs to corroborate anything he says.

Now for the rest of your drivel. No one’s policies or support of policies for any length of time led directly to this disaster, unless it was the bad decision to build a city 10 feet below sea level in an area known for devastating storms, or the bad decision to trust the federal government to maintain levees rather than to spend one’s own resources on one’s own survival, or the bad decision to refuse to issue a shoot-to-kill order as soon as looting started with discretion for life support items, or the bad decision to fail to reform a notoriously corrupt and ineffective police department that has melted away under the strain of maintaining order – those are the policies that led to the disaster in New Orleans. Note that other cities such as Biloxi or Gulfport have not experienced that same collapse of civilization espite similar levels of destruction.

It is not only childish to rely on Daddy always to come to the rescue in the form of the federal government, but in this case it just shows a total ignorance of which governments have which responsibilites. State governments across the nation all have the primary responsibility for natural disasters, and for this reason the governors complained about the deployment of their National Guard units to Iraq. As it happens, and you would know this if you were paying attention, the Guard in the three states most affected are at 70% strength in state, and since those states have very robust National Guard forces, those are sizable assets. Furthermore, all the other states are obligated to respond in these situations, again, not a federal response. So Iraq and support for action in Iraq have nothing at all to do with this situation, much led any direct effect, do they?

That is a rhetorical question, Mork. I am not interested in your answer.

My understanding from your prior posts is that it is not a lucrative living … Does that mean the insult comes in the form of diminished remuneration for your efforts? That is its own punishment I suppose.

Writing for the industry sponsored Tech Central Station one would think it would be more lucrative but then I guess the price for one’s soul has been cheapened these days.

Wow, that was an insult worthy of Chris Hitchens!

Perhaps you should ban me from your miserable blog as well?

Got any examples of my “wretched behavior”?

You were banned for a solid year of wretched behavior.

What’s that supposed to mean – if someone pays you to do it, you must be good at it? So, I should believe your bank balance and not my lying eyes?

Right.

That’s why you are banned from leaving comments on my Web site.

Well, the post for which you banned me from your site merely pointed out (in a pretty gentle and amusing way, I thought) that you had based a piece on a series of cliches that a number of like-minded “writers” had previously used to make the same banal point. I can see how you might have been embarrassed by having your lack of originality exposed, but I find it difficult to believe that my comment caused offence to anyone else.

You know, those who like honest dialogue never seem to have a problem with my comments. The only people I ever seem to rub the wrong way are narrow-minded ideologues and a few folks with high self-regard but particularly brittle egos.

I make my living as a writer, so you’re going to have to try a lot harder than that to insult me.

Don’t you ever get tired of yourself? Other people certainly do, of that I assure you. That’s why you are banned from leaving comments on my Web site.

Don’t expect to stick around here for very long.

Michael is taking the truly big picture here: we all will pass away. Additionally, in human behavior we often find people making decisions counter to warnings about safety. Examples are not only the people who build houses close to volcanoes, but also build huge cities ontop of known, cataclysmic fault lines (e.g., Tokyo.)

Once mortality is internalized rationality can return to decision making (usually, see postcript), based on real physical truths. Sound thinking is needed, especially when it comes to rebuilding New Orleans and the rest of the gulf coast. Honest appraisal of emergency response mechanisms will need to be made, rather than trying to score some sort of ‘points’ via cheap banter.

Dan

PS: There are of course some people who, upon realizing their own mortality, will chose to commit suicide quickly (e.g. w/ gun) or, more likely, slowly (addictions, abuse, etc.)

RE: the levees from http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/national/nationalspecial/01levee.html

No one expected that weak spot to be on a canal that, if anything, had received more attention and shoring up than many other spots in the region. It did not have broad berms, but it did have strong concrete walls.

Shea Penland, director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of New Orleans, said that was particularly surprising because the break was “along a section that was just upgraded.”

and re: the National Guard. From http://www.ngb.army.mil/news/story.asp?id=1738

Even though National Guard forces have been heavily engaged in the Global War on Terrorism, nearly 124,000 troops were available for duty in the 17 states along the storm’s projected path, the National Guard Bureau reported. That averages to 78 percent of those states’ total Guard strength. Another 6,000 were available in Texas, and a Guard spokesman pointed out that tens of thousands more could be drawn from the rest of the nation.

The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough its that they can’t get there because of the hurricane damage.

That is so true. We are really “but a mist” and then we are gone.

Will it be the volcano? Which one? Mt Tabor? Mt Hood? South Sister? Or a big earthquake? Or a firestorm of tinder dry forests?

Whatever takes us out, it will be peace and quiet in most places in the ‘rest of the world’, and they will also come back from their walk around the block, pop open a beer and ask their spouse, “So, honey, what’s for dinner?”

Enjoy the peace and quiet here, for we are all “but a mist”.

The earthquake in Bam, Iran, shows that natural disasters still happen, and can still destroy man made objects. Big time.

Please Michael, no survivor guilt (or is just because I’m too busy?). The WTC disaster, like genocide in Darfur, war in Congo, economic meltdown in Zimbabwe — these are MAN-MADE.

“Acts of God (/Nature)” are not to feel guilty about, nor much anger against an inability to stop them, in advance.

(written before looking at Austin Bay’s American Refugee Crisis )

Have you tried talking to any liberal friends about which charities are best, and how to measure their effectiveness?