From The Loonatic Left

Impeach Blanco?

Here is a welcome bit of news.  Are we going to see the same kind of movement regarding the mayor?  Probably...it is what is known as accountability but is this really necessary now?

Let's review...

There has been a complete exodus of hundreds of thousands of poor people from New Orleans.  Indeed all over the State of Louisiana the poor people have had to evacuate.  Of course, the middle class and the wealthy had to evacuate too.

Who do you think is going to return?  Is it going to be the poor people who had to have government assistance to evacuate the city?  No.  Is it going to be the middle class and the wealthy who have the means to return?  Yes.  So...let us ask a very crass question.  Are the people returning to Louisiana predominantly Republicans or Democrats?

Maybe impeachment of these incompetent elected leaders will be unecessary.

Here We Go Again

There is about a 100% certainty that this beast is heading into the gulf where it will become another huge hurricane.

There is also a very good chance that this hurricane will hit an area affected by Katrina.  I mean how could it miss?

UPDATE:

What happens after hurricane ZED...I'm guessing Hurricane Aardvark!

Do we now need to give serious consideration to Global Warming or should we adopt the Cyrilic alphabet which has 33 chracters to provide an additional 7 named storms per year?

How Not To Win An Argument

I was reading through the comments on this post over at Weapons of Mass Discussion.  I came across one of the funniest series of comments I ever read.  A little background...Matt was discussing the decision to let Iran share its Nuclear technology with other Islamic Nations.  Kevin apparently liked the idea. Matt was trying to engage in a rationale discussion about this...always a mistake.

"Do you know absolutely ANYTHING abut uranium? Non-weapons grade can quickly become enriched weapons grade. Have you ever heard of, like, a dirty bomb? Where there is just plain nasty uranium stuff? Huh, chief?"  Matt

"I do know some things about Uranium. Nearly every high school field trip was spent touring Lockhee-Martin's uranium enrichment plant, so I learned a thing or two about converting uranium ore into uranium hexafluoride gas and then down to uranium dioxide to create reactor fuel. I had to enlist help from my friend (who has a masters in applied nuclear physics) on the weapons-grade details.

Rather than explain all of the details, the premise is this. Energy-producing reactor fuel is produced in a completely different process than weapons-grade uranium. He gave me this link

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/...wfaq/ Nfaq6.html"  Kevin

At this point I could not help myself...it is one of my worst character flaws...sarcasm!

I wrote:

"Kevin:

Let me help you out just a tad...the process for uranium enrichment is IDENTICAL it is the materials used which are different. Even the Reactors themselves are pretty much identical in design.

I assume that you recognize the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research as having greater expertise than your 'friend'.

http://www.ieer.org/reports/npd-tbl.html

Claiming expertise in Nuclear fission processing and enrichment because you went on High School field trips is a real hoot.

Thanks for the laugh! You were trying to be funny weren't you?"

I feel so dirty, it is a little bit like beating up Forest Gump to steal his chocolates.  But hey, at least Forest Gump knew he was dumb as a rock!

Government versus Business

The Port of New Orleans is open.  How?  The Port operated under a logistics plan that enabled them to redirect shipments and reroute merchandise while they simultaneous restored backup power to their facility and engaged in clean up operations.  So soon?  How?  The term 'plan' comes to my mind.

The reality is that the Port of New Orleans, an area which should have been the hardest hit and most devastated, operates independently from both City and State government.  It was restored and running under generator power within three days of the Hurricane!  Granted the clean up will take more time and the facility can only accept a quarter of the shipping business they regularly handle but this is what a solid disaster recovery plan looks like when it is tested ahead of time and properly implemented.  The result: The port is open!

When you contrast this to the State and Local Governments one has to come to this inevitable conclusion; anyone who wants to rely upon our existing institutions of government to protect us and handle major disasters is a fool.  It is no accident that the phrase 'as efficient as a government' has completely failed to be widely used in the English language.  While businesses as diverse as Trucking companies: J.B. Hunt Transport Services was prepared and masterfully handled a rerouting of their existing business routes; Chiquita Brands smoothly shifted merchandise (bananas one assumes) to Freeport, TX and the Everglades City ports; Norfork Southern was prepared with contigency plans for the routing of railroad around the Lake Ponchartrain tressle (destroyed of course) and all of this was accomplished without any federal assistance and George Bush didn't have to handle it personally or probably even know about it.  The business of government is a telling contrast...

Looking ahead, New Orleans City Government has begun a slow recovery process and is inching their way toward operational government facilities.  The Mayor has a huge job ahead of him and he can not continue to engage in business as usual in New Orleans.  If the typical big city politics affects the recovery contracts something very serious must be done.  If our media would honestly shine a little light on the operation of the New Orleans government and not continue to try and use this disaster as a means of engaging in national party politics, they would really be providing a far better service than they have provided thus far.

The State of Louisiana is trying to impose on the Federal Government how funds will be spent and who will get the contracts.  Someone needs to tell the Governor that she is finished.  She has no moral authority now and is rapidly losing her legal authority to dictate much of anything.  I almost hope she tries to play politics with the relief funding, I'd like to see her wind up in prison.  Her political posturing worked on the ignorant mainstream media, always anxious to find fault with the Bush administration, but her own citizens apparently know better.  I loved the shock of the ABC News media when this interview turned out differently from what they expected.  I am hoping for a class action suit against the Governor that really cleans her clock.  I figure that she is probably finished politically but she really hurt an awful lot of people and she needs to held accountable for that (can you tell that I'm a lawyer?)

Regarding some who are questioning whether to clean up and rebuild New Orleans...this post pretty much speaks for me on the subject, but I will add one other statement.  If you are so fiscally conservative that you think it makes more sense to leave a major city devastated than to rebuild it, please claim no political kinship with me.  What is more, I think you are out of touch with the values and morals of this country.  Like those who wanted to leave a park where the World Trade Center once stood, you misunderstand the emotional and physical response many Americans have to disasters...we won't be beaten.  If you can be, move to France or something.

The Blame Game

Here we go!  Let's assign blame for the tragedy in New Orleans!

Mayor Nagin - Reminding no one of Rudi Guiliani.

1. Lousy leadership in a crisis.  Swearing, crying and screaming on the radio broadcasts made it appear that he was not in control.  He lacked a grasp of the situation and the ability to get the State to make the right decisions for New Orlean's residents.
2. Waited far too long to order a 'manadatory evacuation' before the storm.  Criticizing his decision to wait until 48 hours before landfall to treat the storm as a crisis is not Monday morning quarterbacking, it is just recognition of dumb decision making.  This is especially true when your evacuation plan, such as it is, requires 72 hours to be effective.  The President actually had to call the Governor and the Mayor to get them to order an evacuation.
3. Did not use the disaster recovery plan which would have saved the School Buses (by moving them to higher ground) to assist in the evacuation after the storm.  It also would have enabled him to know the status of the leeves right after the storm passed and not wonder why the City was filling up with water for two full days before anyone bothered to check the leeves.  Instead the busses were flooded by the leeves which broke.
4. Poor planning for a disaster in the first place.  No disaster recovery plan is perfect, but this plan did not adequately address the single greatest weakness the City has...it is below sea level and surrounded by leeves.  Dealing with leeve failure should have been priority #1 in that plan.

Governor Blanco - Oh where to begin!?!  This lady has a perfect record.  She makes the wrong decision 100% of the time!

1. Poor leadership in a crisis.  Appearing stunned, shocked and depressed in a press conference is not what leadership is all about in a crisis.  People who wanted to be reassured that someone was in control and prepared to address the disaster were not going to be inspired by this ladies weak leadership.
2. Not authorizing the Red Cross to take the food and water they had ready at the staging area to the folks in New Orleans.  For those who can't believe this...the Red Cross has confirmed that they were refused access into New Orleans.  They had plenty of food and water ready to go for the starving, dehydrated people at the Superdome, I-10 Overpass and Convention Center.  This is the worst decision ever made by any leader at any time in the history of the world.  (That may be just a little over the top but not much.)  The justification given for this decision is that the Governor did not want to encourage people to stay in New Orleans.  Words can not describe what an awful decision this is.  This is what gross negligence looks like.  Several dozen people died an awful death because of this decision.  She will be sued (and will lose) because of this decision.
3. Allocating resources intended for the repair and expansion of the leeve system as political favors for local politicians.  While this may not have prevented the leeve failure, it qualifies as another awful political decision in hindsight.
4. Refusing to turn the disaster recovery operations over to the Federal Government.  After her string of spectacular failures she had the audacity to refuse to unify the chain of command in responding to the disaster.  She came away looking like a petty officious moron who doesn't comprehend the nature of the problem she is supposed to be addressing.
5. Engaging in a turf war with the Mayor of the City of New Orleans over the nature of the mandatory evacuation.  This is the final straw.  Her grossly negligent performance and petty political nonsense have diminished her stature even further.  It would not be possible to pick a worse time to remind everyone that you are supposed to be the one who makes this decision.
6. Failing to allocate and move into position a reasonable number of National Guard troops (they answer specifically to the Governor) to prevent looting. 
7. Acting as though the looting was not really a problem when it clearly was getting way out of hand.
8. In fact if anyone can tell me a decision made by the Governor of Louisiana that was not a bad decision I would appreciate it. 

For the sake of brevity, I'll stop here and allow us all to take a deep breath because we still have George W. Bush and Michael Brown to go...

Michael Brown - re-writing the book on what qualifies as uninformed.

1. During a massive natural disaster...watch a little bit of T.V. to stay current on what is actually happening on the ground in the disaster zone.  It can prevent you from delivering a rousing televised speech about how great things are going, while viewers are watching looting, starving and dying people right after your speech.
2. Don't wait until the Monday after a disaster which strikes on Sunday to send a memo moving the FEMA employees into position.  Factor in the travel time (2 days) and get them into position on that Monday.  After carefully researching a calendar I think we can say that either Friday or Saturday would have been the right day to send that memo.  And when you goof and wait too long to send the memo, trying to make the case that 'legally' you can't send a memo is not only weak it makes you look absurd.

George W. Bush - I think he misunderestimated the extent of the disaster...several times.

1. Who was it that decided the best way for the President to show compassion for the victims of the hurricane was to fly over the affected area in Air Force One at 10,000 feet?  They should be fired.
2. Who decided that delivering a stirring defense of the Iraq War the day after a U.S. City was obliterated by a hurricane was a great idea?  They should be fired.
3. George Tenet - he should have been fired.  (Sorry that one snuck in here)
4. Michael Brown should be fired.  And for God's sake quit calling him 'Brownie', you sound like a moron.
5. Hold a damn press conference and describe what went wrong.  They will televise a press conference and the press can't spin a press conference.
6. Quit grinning and smirking at the cameras when you are standing in an area devastated by the hurricane.  I know you think it helps inspire people but it really just makes you look a little bit out of touch with reality.

OK...I'm done with this now.

UPDATE:

Rumor has it that a hurricane is really to blame...but lets not allow that to slow down the recriminations!

To the Rescue...(take one)

Sean Penn appears to be confused.  In the movie scripts this never happens!

Why is he bailing out the boat?  He forgot to put in the bilge plug.  DOH!

Go ahead and laugh at the guy.

Seriously though...

For those who don't know, Penn headed down to New Orleans to personally rescue folks trapped by the flood waters.  More power too him, I'd say.  What a great American, I'd probably add.  Finally someone who put his words into action, I'd also say...

...but...

He launched his little boat, loaded in his camera man, personal assistant and publicity advisor and headed off to find someone who would provide a good photo-op.  Apparently for Hollywood liberals, no good deed goes unrecorded.  Indeed his boat was so full of his entourage that he had no room for those he wanted to rescue but rescuing people wasn't really the point of this exercise...was it.

He had four people in a boat that holds...four people.

(see Little Green Footballs for more details)

Dedicated to the Partisans

Here is a couple of nice little howdy-dos for those who want to squabble and whitewash the total government breakdown in the Katrina Disaster response.

Krugman apologist Brad DeLong takes aim at New Orleans City Government and Louisiana State Government.  An honest assessment of disaster recovery planning is an indictment of the indifference of political leadership.  Twisting this to make George W. Bush the fall guy will not be very successful.  That isn't stopping people from trying to claim that the Federal government isn't solely responsible for the catastrophy and to be honest Michael D. Brown the Head of FEMA has appeared like a clueless loon.  He has been the Baghdad Bob of this operation.  You remember Baghdad Bob don't you?  He was the public information officer for the Baathist Party in Iraq who was giving news conferences about how the Coalition forces were being repulsed by the Republican Guard, while Coalition Tanks were driving past him in the background.  He was the gold medalist for cluelessness but Brown may have just bumped him from the top of the podium.

While Brown was holding a news conference talking about how effective the federal aid had been in New Orleans, reporters were televising the misery caused by the lack of federal assistance.  Every news organization was broadcasting live from various points in New Orleans with graphic pictures of people starving and dehydrating because no one had any water or food.  Meanwhile, Brown was patting himself on the back for the 'quick response.'  The only way he could have appeared any more clueless would have been to hold the news conference in front of the dying and rioting people at the Convention Center.

Here is a neato reference to an evacuation planning contract for New Orleans.  Why does it take $500,000 to write an evacuation plan?  I think $500,000 could be better spent on supplies to deal with disasters.  Even if you got 30 or 40 copies of the plan when you were finished, folks can't ride them out of the City.  These copies of the plan would be inadequate to stop up levie breaks.  You really can't house folks with a copy of a plan.

Reconstructing the time line:

June 2004 - Over 1 year ago:

"Given this area's vulnerability, unique geographic location and elevation, and troubled escape routes, a plan that facilitates a rapid and effective hurricane response and recovery is critical," he said. "The IEM team's approach to catastrophic planning meets the challenges associated with integrating multi-jurisdictional needs and capabilities into an effective plan for addressing catastrophic hurricane strikes, as well as man-made catastrophic events."

$500,000 dollars and one year later:

"City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give the poorest of New Orleans' poor a historically blunt message: In the event of a major hurricane, you're on your own. In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm's way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation.

In the video, made by the anti-poverty agency Total Community Action, they urge those people to make arrangements now by finding their own ways to leave the city in the event of an evacuation."

Now I understand the need for planning, but am I to understand that no plan existed prior to this contract in 2004?  That seems unlikely.  Rather the existing plan was probably deemed to be inadequate and a new plan was needed.  Brad DeLong points out that in the summer of 2005 City government's solution to evacuation was to tell the poor people that they were on there own.  Was this the $500,000 plan? 

It would be hard for anyone to suggest that this portion of the plan did not operate perfectly.

Feds Taking it on the Chin

It was an amazing display.  The mayor of a major U.S. City breaks down on the radio.

"Other officials appeared distraught and confused.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin came on a local talk show and in a rambling interview -- that was replayed over and over through the night -- cursed and yelled and ultimately dissolved in tears.

"Get off your asses and let's do something," he said at one point.

"I'm at the point now where it don't matter," he said. "People are dying. They don't have homes. They don't have jobs. The city of New Orleans will never be the same."

This folks, is trying to shift the blame.  Not that there isn't plenty of responsibility to go around for this debacle...but rather than displaying courage, conviction and leadership the mayor is making matters worse.  This weak leadership in a crisis helps explain why the city was so unprepared for a disaster.  A weak leader that is trying to find someone else to blame for his failures.  That about sums it up.

For all three levels of government...the City, the State and yes the Federal Government there is only three words that need to be said now:  'I am sorry.'  Every elected official in Louisiana and the City of New Orleans govenments should be saying these words right now.

George W. Bush needs to try those words on for size too.  Maybe he would have been better able to address the disaster had New Orleans been a better run city, but the tepid weak initial federal response displayed a lack of understanding of what was clearly going to be a major disaster.  It has taken four days before anywhere close to reality has set in concerning what kind of resources are going to be required for the rescue and especially the recovery operation.  This is the first time in the modern history of our country that a City has ceased to exist.  George W. Bush will wear this as part of his 'accomplishments'.

Meanwhile every T.V. viewer and every reporter in the media has had a far better handle on what was needed and how little was actually being accomplished.  This has been a very public failure and the public has had a front row seat to watch it happen.  It is not something you will often read at this web site but the U.S. media organizations have done an outstanding job.

Let me just add this:  Anderson Cooper has been outstanding; Shepard Smith has been beyond outstanding.  Both Fox News and CNN are both on the same page in their coverage of this disaster.  The critical tone of the Fox News coverage toward the Bush administration should eliminate any lingering doubts about whether the organization is 'fair and balanced'.  They have hammered far more relentlessly than any other news organization the lack luster federal response.

Fall out from this event?  George W. Bush, his administration and legacy has been diminished beyond recovery.  The Governor of Louisiana should just resign.  The Mayor of New Orleans will need to be hospitalized for clinical depression before this over.  The Governor of Mississippi has been outstanding.  The contrast between the leadership in Louisiana and Mississippi has been obvious to everyone.  Keep your eye on Governor Haley Barbour, he might have a big future.

The Politics of Katrina (a politically incorrect post)

It would be hard not to watch the chaos in New Orleans and believe that this disaster was not a serious test of leadership.  Based upon the most recent reports, leadership is failing that test.  There are angry citizens without basic services and the anger is leading to incidences of violence.  What I am about to write here is politically incorrect but...these folks have every right to be angry.

That is correct...I feel empathy even for the looters, those who can't evacuate the city, those who can't understand why no one can tell them what to do.  The leadership of the city, state and yes the federal government has failed these people...and they are angry about it.  Heck, I'm a little bit angry about it just watching this circus.

I have heard all of the excuses...but they are just that...excuses.  The levies failed because they were not sufficiently large or strong.  This was a known fault.  This disaster was...preventable.  If this was a corporation that was behaving this way, we would all be selling their stock right now!  We apparently hold doctors, lawyers and businesses to a higher standard than we hold our own government.  I'm talking defective product liability here.  What product?  Government leadership.

Yes people were advised to evacuate...but given that everyone had to have known that many of the poor and the elderly could not evacuate, the government should have been prepared to either get them out or deal with the potential severity of the risks they were taking if the worst case scenario happened.  That is called disaster recovery planning and every state and local government has done it, hopefully far better than New Orleans.  Am I being too hard on them?  Consider just one example:

As a professional who has worked in the housing industry for years, I can identify public housing (and often what HUD program was used to build it) with a casual glance. I recall one scene on the news of what was clearly a public housing family development...I was unsurprised to see that it was full of residents and children.  I was also unsurprised to see that it was neither boarded up nor weatherized in any fashion at all. Care to guess where the Housing Authority Management staff are?  Not in New Orleans, I'm pretty certain.  Did anyone expect that these poorest residents would be able to hop into a car they do not own and drive out of the city and pay for a hotel room with a credit card they did not have?  Were they supposed to board up the windows themselves?  Nope.  Did anyone have a plan for them?  Of course not...these poor people were deliberately left there because the government had no plan to address poor people.  They were left...to die.  I'm not surprised that they are a tad angry about that.

Everyone keeps talking about the lack of communication.  Communication is necessary because there was no plan in place to address a known flaw...potential flooding from a levie failure.  You don't have anywhere near the communication issues exposed here when you have a plan.  Everyone has a pretty good idea what their responsibilities are, and knows when they have to do them.  When you don't have a plan, everyone has to wait for someone to tell them what to do.  That requires communication...which they don't have.  They had no plan to address levie breaks in a city that is surrounded by them.  That is incomprehensible to me.

Now putting my attorney hat on for a second...hello liability.  We live in a litigious society and that is a very bad thing, but just watching the governmental incompetence exposed here makes me want to sue someone.  I think the local, state and to a lesser extent the federal government are liable for the damages that the gross negligence of government employees just caused.  I acknowledge that the massive loss of life due to storm related damage is not something the government can do anything about; but the massive loss of life due to the flooding which remained unaddressed for two full days, is largely because the government was unprepared to adequately deal with what should have been a very predictable disaster.  I can see where they could be held liable for that.

The Mayor of the City, and the Governor of the State need to start asking some tough questions.  Government failed the people of New Orleans...badly.  The citizens of New Orleans need to start asking their politicians some tough questions.  What the hell were you doing with our tax dollars that went into disaster recovery?  How come no one had a plan to address broken levies in a city surrounded by them?  Why were the poor and the elderly left to die?

Fox news was focusing a number of segments on the looters last night.  Looters?  Please!  Their bad behavior pales in comparison to the recently exposed indifference of the government.