Manage updates with the Download AppSeptember 6, 2005 4:00 AM PDT
Perspective: Net beats Feds in hurricane response
See all Perspectives
"We will defeat the terrorists," Bush informed a crowd of World War II veterans. Then he played a guitar backstage with country singer Mark Wills.
Other federal agencies were equally oblivious. The Department of Homeland Security was sending out press releases that day about slapping Americans with passport requirements to travel to Canada, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, was announcing "disaster preparedness" seminars at a Home Depot in Florida scheduled for the next day.
But bloggers were paying attention to the actual catastrophe. By 12:40 p.m. PDT Tuesday, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com was already reporting on what would become the Great Flood of 2005.
By the end of the day, an online aid network was forming. Craigslist.org's lost and found forum for New Orleans was adopted to find missing people, a "Katrina Help" Wiki had launched, and other ad hoc forums emerged.
Bloggers were not alone. Ham radio operators quickly organized and began to pass along messages from stranded flood victims. One led to the rescue of 81-year-old Helen Elzy who was stuck on a roof in New Orleans, according to the American Radio Relay League. Many others were rescued thanks to ham radio operators' rapid response, which by Wednesday even included a speedily created database of volunteers.
In some New Orleans neighborhoods, residents abandoned by police organized themselves and stood guard against looters. USA Today reported that on Thursday, "residents prepared to continue their stand in a beloved neighborhood of stately old homes near the Tulane and Loyola university campuses."
Spontaneous order
All of these efforts have something in common: They were quick, voluntarily organized and reasonably effective. That is, sadly, almost exactly the opposite of the government efforts that were slow, disorganized and ineffective--or at least seemed to be until political pressure mounted and National Guard troops finally entered the waterlogged city in force on Friday. No wonder New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was telling the Feds to "get off your asses."
The point is not to slam President Bush. (Others, including the New York Times' editorial page will devote years to lambasting his administration.)
Rather, it's to recognize the inefficiency of top-down systems such as the federal government compared with the rapid, efficient and effective organizing that individuals can accomplish on their own.
This is what the late Austrian economist F.A. Hayek called "spontaneous order," referring to the marvel that happens every day when people work together and agree on transactions, voluntarily, without a central authority dictating what happens.
If this mechanism were created intentionally by human design, it "would have been acclaimed as one of the greatest triumphs of the human mind," Hayek wrote in a 1943 book called "The Use of Knowledge in Society."
The Internet is a modern-day example of spontaneous order--not centrally planned but arising impulsively, effectively built site-by-site, protocol-by-protocol by its own users.
And it was the Internet, ham radio networks and other forums that let individuals spontaneously join together in the last week to help flood victims.
By Thursday evening, bloggers had compiled an exhaustive list of charitable organizations accepting donations, and members of the "interdictor" Internet Relay Chat channel were planning to help one Internet service provider that had been posting from a New Orleans office building and running low on generator fuel.
Spontaneous order? Definitely. President Bush and other top officials, who were busy sending out press releases about passports and Iraq last week, should take note.
Biography
Declan McCullagh is CNET News.com's chief political correspondent. He spent more than a decade in Washington, D.C., chronicling the busy intersection between technology and politics. Previously, he was the Washington bureau chief for Wired News, and a reporter for Time.com, Time magazine and HotWired. McCullagh has taught journalism at American University and been an adjunct professor at Case Western University.
44 comments
Join the conversation! Add your comment
Luckily most of them were able to get out of New Orleans on their own, or through the efforts of their employers.
I work for the Texas Health, and Human Services Commission, and in this past state fiscal year, we didn't process one disaster assistance claim.
However, with Katrina, these claims, I am sure will be poring in.
Luckily most of them were able to get out of New Orleans on their own, or through the efforts of their employers.
I work for the Texas Health, and Human Services Commission, and in this past state fiscal year, we didn't process one disaster assistance claim.
However, with Katrina, these claims, I am sure will be poring in.
Luckily most of them were able to get out of New Orleans on their own, or through the efforts of their employers.
I work for the Texas Health, and Human Services Commission, and in this past state fiscal year, we didn't process one disaster assistance claim.
However, with Katrina, these claims, I am sure will be poring in.
Luckily most of them were able to get out of New Orleans on their own, or through the efforts of their employers.
I work for the Texas Health, and Human Services Commission, and in this past state fiscal year, we didn't process one disaster assistance claim.
However, with Katrina, these claims, I am sure will be poring in.
This is the America I recognize. (Could those shooters and looters BE American? Squint!)
When will we all wake up and smell the coffee? Less Government is more efficient.
This is the America I recognize. (Could those shooters and looters BE American? Squint!)
When will we all wake up and smell the coffee? Less Government is more efficient.
This is the America I recognize. (Could those shooters and looters BE American? Squint!)
When will we all wake up and smell the coffee? Less Government is more efficient.
This is the America I recognize. (Could those shooters and looters BE American? Squint!)
When will we all wake up and smell the coffee? Less Government is more efficient.
Americans deserve better executive and congressional leadership and public infrastructure.
FREEWEBIZENS: 1, MC BUREAUCRATS: 0: Dumb Freewebizens acting FREELY would never turn away Wal-Mart semi-trucks full of bottled drinking water like Smart FEMA Bureaucrats did early in the KATRINA cataclysm.
FREEWEBIZENS UEBER ALLES: Give me 3,000 hertz of wire-line or wireless bandwidth and Ill Talk-Thru-Calamity over HAM radio circuits and/or the I-NET 24/7/365.
DYNAMIC DUO: HAM radio nets deliver distributed Free Citizen node and link diversity, and the Internet has robust Dooms-Day Net e-DNA. These critical e-NETs were the contingency communications back-bone that permitted stressed citizens to establish spontaneous order by bypassing government bureaucrats who were standing in their way.
Internets real-time adaptable cyber-communications packet-switched Nodal Network Diversity technique draws its e-DNA from survivable nuclearhardened, Cold War:
Talk-Thru-Nukes, elements of U.S. Strategic Defense Information Communications. Todays Internet is this survivable, nuclear-hardened worldwide Cold War packet-switched contingency cyber-communications technique adapted to personal and commercial public < www.savedourbaconagain.com/use.html > use.
Internets flexible alternate-routing spontaneous order compatible e-packet switching TCP/IP protocols & techniques facilitated the Talk-Thru-Calamity Nodal & Link Diversity that we saw demonstrated in downtown Manhattan following 20010911, and now with KATRINA here in 2005. B-) JP
Americans deserve better executive and congressional leadership and public infrastructure.
FREEWEBIZENS: 1, MC BUREAUCRATS: 0: Dumb Freewebizens acting FREELY would never turn away Wal-Mart semi-trucks full of bottled drinking water like Smart FEMA Bureaucrats did early in the KATRINA cataclysm.
FREEWEBIZENS UEBER ALLES: Give me 3,000 hertz of wire-line or wireless bandwidth and Ill Talk-Thru-Calamity over HAM radio circuits and/or the I-NET 24/7/365.
DYNAMIC DUO: HAM radio nets deliver distributed Free Citizen node and link diversity, and the Internet has robust Dooms-Day Net e-DNA. These critical e-NETs were the contingency communications back-bone that permitted stressed citizens to establish spontaneous order by bypassing government bureaucrats who were standing in their way.
Internets real-time adaptable cyber-communications packet-switched Nodal Network Diversity technique draws its e-DNA from survivable nuclearhardened, Cold War:
Talk-Thru-Nukes, elements of U.S. Strategic Defense Information Communications. Todays Internet is this survivable, nuclear-hardened worldwide Cold War packet-switched contingency cyber-communications technique adapted to personal and commercial public < www.savedourbaconagain.com/use.html > use.
Internets flexible alternate-routing spontaneous order compatible e-packet switching TCP/IP protocols & techniques facilitated the Talk-Thru-Calamity Nodal & Link Diversity that we saw demonstrated in downtown Manhattan following 20010911, and now with KATRINA here in 2005. B-) JP
Americans deserve better executive and congressional leadership and public infrastructure.
FREEWEBIZENS: 1, MC BUREAUCRATS: 0: Dumb Freewebizens acting FREELY would never turn away Wal-Mart semi-trucks full of bottled drinking water like Smart FEMA Bureaucrats did early in the KATRINA cataclysm.
FREEWEBIZENS UEBER ALLES: Give me 3,000 hertz of wire-line or wireless bandwidth and Ill Talk-Thru-Calamity over HAM radio circuits and/or the I-NET 24/7/365.
DYNAMIC DUO: HAM radio nets deliver distributed Free Citizen node and link diversity, and the Internet has robust Dooms-Day Net e-DNA. These critical e-NETs were the contingency communications back-bone that permitted stressed citizens to establish spontaneous order by bypassing government bureaucrats who were standing in their way.
Internets real-time adaptable cyber-communications packet-switched Nodal Network Diversity technique draws its e-DNA from survivable nuclearhardened, Cold War:
Talk-Thru-Nukes, elements of U.S. Strategic Defense Information Communications. Todays Internet is this survivable, nuclear-hardened worldwide Cold War packet-switched contingency cyber-communications technique adapted to personal and commercial public < www.savedourbaconagain.com/use.html > use.
Internets flexible alternate-routing spontaneous order compatible e-packet switching TCP/IP protocols & techniques facilitated the Talk-Thru-Calamity Nodal & Link Diversity that we saw demonstrated in downtown Manhattan following 20010911, and now with KATRINA here in 2005. B-) JP
Americans deserve better executive and congressional leadership and public infrastructure.
FREEWEBIZENS: 1, MC BUREAUCRATS: 0: Dumb Freewebizens acting FREELY would never turn away Wal-Mart semi-trucks full of bottled drinking water like Smart FEMA Bureaucrats did early in the KATRINA cataclysm.
FREEWEBIZENS UEBER ALLES: Give me 3,000 hertz of wire-line or wireless bandwidth and Ill Talk-Thru-Calamity over HAM radio circuits and/or the I-NET 24/7/365.
DYNAMIC DUO: HAM radio nets deliver distributed Free Citizen node and link diversity, and the Internet has robust Dooms-Day Net e-DNA. These critical e-NETs were the contingency communications back-bone that permitted stressed citizens to establish spontaneous order by bypassing government bureaucrats who were standing in their way.
Internets real-time adaptable cyber-communications packet-switched Nodal Network Diversity technique draws its e-DNA from survivable nuclearhardened, Cold War:
Talk-Thru-Nukes, elements of U.S. Strategic Defense Information Communications. Todays Internet is this survivable, nuclear-hardened worldwide Cold War packet-switched contingency cyber-communications technique adapted to personal and commercial public < www.savedourbaconagain.com/use.html > use.
Internets flexible alternate-routing spontaneous order compatible e-packet switching TCP/IP protocols & techniques facilitated the Talk-Thru-Calamity Nodal & Link Diversity that we saw demonstrated in downtown Manhattan following 20010911, and now with KATRINA here in 2005. B-) JP
For some reason, not too many people actually know that the Federal Government cannot enter a city and take charge of a disaster situation until the Local Governments ask them to. Which, sadly, in this case Local Government did not do so until a day or more after the disaster.
Little do people also know that New Orleans had a "Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan" for a hurricane such as this. Also, little to people know that the wonderful mayor of New Orleans never bothered to act upon any of it.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26" target="_newWindow">http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26</a>
A little information for those who don't know any better: FEMA is not a first responder administration. FEMA's biggest role is to write checks. Not to evacuate cities.
The National Guard was quick and prompt when they were finally ALLOWED to help. Remember, the lazy incompetant Mayor and Governor decided it was more important to play politics by blasting the Federal Executive branch before asking for any assistance.
One more thing. Who is more concerned about the hurting people? The president who is visiting the devestated area and actually trying to help or the mayor of New Orleans who finds it more important to have an emergency meeting with the democratic political strategist, Carville.
The Federal Emergancy MANAGEMENT Agency, now relegated to a sub department by Bush in the Dept of Homeland security, and managed by one of Bush's cronies, a person with no disaster management experience - unless you include cleaning the dust from Bush's record collection whilst in college as necessary experience was unable to get assistance to the victims of an national emergency - until four days after the request for help was made.
Reporters, Harry Connick Jnr and pregnant women carrying two kids were able to reach the NO Convention Center faster than the Federal Government or the National Guard.
So what is Bush's role then?
To sit around giving tax breaks to the oil industry (obviously hurting from a mere $8 billion in profits per quarter, per company) or to protect the citizens of the US with his policy decisions.
So while I suppose it's too much to expect the man to read a memo on his desk that say Al Quaeda is going to fly planes into US building, or understand that the recruitment ground for Al Quaeda is in fact Saudi Arabia, not Iraq - not bad, missed by only one country, pretty close.
Oh well, at least he's good at inventing revisionist science, no doubt next week he'll be telling us that the sun revolves around a flat world in the center of the universe, and despite troubling rumours of incest, magic people appeared out of no where to dispell the belief that Adam and Eve's children had sex with each other and their parents in order to populate a world, that whilst geologists agree took billions of years to form, a book written by a Roman 2000 years ago, then translated into old English by people that believed in witches says it was made in 7 days.
No doubt we should ignore the scientists and their hocus pocus, and concentrate on inventing new words like "Creationism".
Oh and when asked for a few hundred million to repair and upgrade the levees in New Orleans, Bushes reply was that those hookey scientists that predicted this very disaster years ago are no doubt the same fools that believe in Global Warming, and that this project was pork.
Meanwhile his Republican crazy friend from Alaska (why glorious representative, who decided it's okay to murder foreign leaders if they don't do what we want them to) asked for a few hundred million to build a bridge to nowhere. No problem apparently, after all a sum of fifty people would make use of it, maybe as much as annually.
Bush is joke, he doesn't care what happens to this country as long as his pet oil industry is well cared for, and his pet cronies have been set up in nice jobs to take advantage of things like the Iraq war.
I wonder who'll get the contracts for rebuilding the gulf coast, no doubt he's still got a few friends who need a job and a nice back hander..
So much for bringing respectability back to the White House - I'd rather my president had a BJ and lied about it to congress, than started a war to get himself re-elected.
These people have to help themselves. They have to know what they want. Someone has to be in charge. Otherwise feds make decisions and later get blamed for it. You'll have people complaining about how they were not forced to evacuate by federal troops (who are fighting in Iraq but not at home, etc, etc) and at the same time the governor will continue to prevent the federal troops from forcing people to leave. What a region!
Blame for this catastrophe should go bottoms-up rather than top-down. This administration still bothered with the niceties of federalism and what they got is a taste of their organization. Every person that wants to blame Bush for whatever, just first look at pictures of thousands of *parked and flooded* buses in NO city lots. Kinda gets you thinking, or it should.
For some reason, not too many people actually know that the Federal Government cannot enter a city and take charge of a disaster situation until the Local Governments ask them to. Which, sadly, in this case Local Government did not do so until a day or more after the disaster.
Little do people also know that New Orleans had a "Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan" for a hurricane such as this. Also, little to people know that the wonderful mayor of New Orleans never bothered to act upon any of it.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26" target="_newWindow">http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26</a>
A little information for those who don't know any better: FEMA is not a first responder administration. FEMA's biggest role is to write checks. Not to evacuate cities.
The National Guard was quick and prompt when they were finally ALLOWED to help. Remember, the lazy incompetant Mayor and Governor decided it was more important to play politics by blasting the Federal Executive branch before asking for any assistance.
One more thing. Who is more concerned about the hurting people? The president who is visiting the devestated area and actually trying to help or the mayor of New Orleans who finds it more important to have an emergency meeting with the democratic political strategist, Carville.
The Federal Emergancy MANAGEMENT Agency, now relegated to a sub department by Bush in the Dept of Homeland security, and managed by one of Bush's cronies, a person with no disaster management experience - unless you include cleaning the dust from Bush's record collection whilst in college as necessary experience was unable to get assistance to the victims of an national emergency - until four days after the request for help was made.
Reporters, Harry Connick Jnr and pregnant women carrying two kids were able to reach the NO Convention Center faster than the Federal Government or the National Guard.
So what is Bush's role then?
To sit around giving tax breaks to the oil industry (obviously hurting from a mere $8 billion in profits per quarter, per company) or to protect the citizens of the US with his policy decisions.
So while I suppose it's too much to expect the man to read a memo on his desk that say Al Quaeda is going to fly planes into US building, or understand that the recruitment ground for Al Quaeda is in fact Saudi Arabia, not Iraq - not bad, missed by only one country, pretty close.
Oh well, at least he's good at inventing revisionist science, no doubt next week he'll be telling us that the sun revolves around a flat world in the center of the universe, and despite troubling rumours of incest, magic people appeared out of no where to dispell the belief that Adam and Eve's children had sex with each other and their parents in order to populate a world, that whilst geologists agree took billions of years to form, a book written by a Roman 2000 years ago, then translated into old English by people that believed in witches says it was made in 7 days.
No doubt we should ignore the scientists and their hocus pocus, and concentrate on inventing new words like "Creationism".
Oh and when asked for a few hundred million to repair and upgrade the levees in New Orleans, Bushes reply was that those hookey scientists that predicted this very disaster years ago are no doubt the same fools that believe in Global Warming, and that this project was pork.
Meanwhile his Republican crazy friend from Alaska (why glorious representative, who decided it's okay to murder foreign leaders if they don't do what we want them to) asked for a few hundred million to build a bridge to nowhere. No problem apparently, after all a sum of fifty people would make use of it, maybe as much as annually.
Bush is joke, he doesn't care what happens to this country as long as his pet oil industry is well cared for, and his pet cronies have been set up in nice jobs to take advantage of things like the Iraq war.
I wonder who'll get the contracts for rebuilding the gulf coast, no doubt he's still got a few friends who need a job and a nice back hander..
So much for bringing respectability back to the White House - I'd rather my president had a BJ and lied about it to congress, than started a war to get himself re-elected.
These people have to help themselves. They have to know what they want. Someone has to be in charge. Otherwise feds make decisions and later get blamed for it. You'll have people complaining about how they were not forced to evacuate by federal troops (who are fighting in Iraq but not at home, etc, etc) and at the same time the governor will continue to prevent the federal troops from forcing people to leave. What a region!
Blame for this catastrophe should go bottoms-up rather than top-down. This administration still bothered with the niceties of federalism and what they got is a taste of their organization. Every person that wants to blame Bush for whatever, just first look at pictures of thousands of *parked and flooded* buses in NO city lots. Kinda gets you thinking, or it should.
For some reason, not too many people actually know that the Federal Government cannot enter a city and take charge of a disaster situation until the Local Governments ask them to. Which, sadly, in this case Local Government did not do so until a day or more after the disaster.
Little do people also know that New Orleans had a "Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan" for a hurricane such as this. Also, little to people know that the wonderful mayor of New Orleans never bothered to act upon any of it.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26" target="_newWindow">http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26</a>
A little information for those who don't know any better: FEMA is not a first responder administration. FEMA's biggest role is to write checks. Not to evacuate cities.
The National Guard was quick and prompt when they were finally ALLOWED to help. Remember, the lazy incompetant Mayor and Governor decided it was more important to play politics by blasting the Federal Executive branch before asking for any assistance.
One more thing. Who is more concerned about the hurting people? The president who is visiting the devestated area and actually trying to help or the mayor of New Orleans who finds it more important to have an emergency meeting with the democratic political strategist, Carville.
The Federal Emergancy MANAGEMENT Agency, now relegated to a sub department by Bush in the Dept of Homeland security, and managed by one of Bush's cronies, a person with no disaster management experience - unless you include cleaning the dust from Bush's record collection whilst in college as necessary experience was unable to get assistance to the victims of an national emergency - until four days after the request for help was made.
Reporters, Harry Connick Jnr and pregnant women carrying two kids were able to reach the NO Convention Center faster than the Federal Government or the National Guard.
So what is Bush's role then?
To sit around giving tax breaks to the oil industry (obviously hurting from a mere $8 billion in profits per quarter, per company) or to protect the citizens of the US with his policy decisions.
So while I suppose it's too much to expect the man to read a memo on his desk that say Al Quaeda is going to fly planes into US building, or understand that the recruitment ground for Al Quaeda is in fact Saudi Arabia, not Iraq - not bad, missed by only one country, pretty close.
Oh well, at least he's good at inventing revisionist science, no doubt next week he'll be telling us that the sun revolves around a flat world in the center of the universe, and despite troubling rumours of incest, magic people appeared out of no where to dispell the belief that Adam and Eve's children had sex with each other and their parents in order to populate a world, that whilst geologists agree took billions of years to form, a book written by a Roman 2000 years ago, then translated into old English by people that believed in witches says it was made in 7 days.
No doubt we should ignore the scientists and their hocus pocus, and concentrate on inventing new words like "Creationism".
Oh and when asked for a few hundred million to repair and upgrade the levees in New Orleans, Bushes reply was that those hookey scientists that predicted this very disaster years ago are no doubt the same fools that believe in Global Warming, and that this project was pork.
Meanwhile his Republican crazy friend from Alaska (why glorious representative, who decided it's okay to murder foreign leaders if they don't do what we want them to) asked for a few hundred million to build a bridge to nowhere. No problem apparently, after all a sum of fifty people would make use of it, maybe as much as annually.
Bush is joke, he doesn't care what happens to this country as long as his pet oil industry is well cared for, and his pet cronies have been set up in nice jobs to take advantage of things like the Iraq war.
I wonder who'll get the contracts for rebuilding the gulf coast, no doubt he's still got a few friends who need a job and a nice back hander..
So much for bringing respectability back to the White House - I'd rather my president had a BJ and lied about it to congress, than started a war to get himself re-elected.
These people have to help themselves. They have to know what they want. Someone has to be in charge. Otherwise feds make decisions and later get blamed for it. You'll have people complaining about how they were not forced to evacuate by federal troops (who are fighting in Iraq but not at home, etc, etc) and at the same time the governor will continue to prevent the federal troops from forcing people to leave. What a region!
Blame for this catastrophe should go bottoms-up rather than top-down. This administration still bothered with the niceties of federalism and what they got is a taste of their organization. Every person that wants to blame Bush for whatever, just first look at pictures of thousands of *parked and flooded* buses in NO city lots. Kinda gets you thinking, or it should.
For some reason, not too many people actually know that the Federal Government cannot enter a city and take charge of a disaster situation until the Local Governments ask them to. Which, sadly, in this case Local Government did not do so until a day or more after the disaster.
Little do people also know that New Orleans had a "Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan" for a hurricane such as this. Also, little to people know that the wonderful mayor of New Orleans never bothered to act upon any of it.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26" target="_newWindow">http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26</a>
A little information for those who don't know any better: FEMA is not a first responder administration. FEMA's biggest role is to write checks. Not to evacuate cities.
The National Guard was quick and prompt when they were finally ALLOWED to help. Remember, the lazy incompetant Mayor and Governor decided it was more important to play politics by blasting the Federal Executive branch before asking for any assistance.
One more thing. Who is more concerned about the hurting people? The president who is visiting the devestated area and actually trying to help or the mayor of New Orleans who finds it more important to have an emergency meeting with the democratic political strategist, Carville.
The Federal Emergancy MANAGEMENT Agency, now relegated to a sub department by Bush in the Dept of Homeland security, and managed by one of Bush's cronies, a person with no disaster management experience - unless you include cleaning the dust from Bush's record collection whilst in college as necessary experience was unable to get assistance to the victims of an national emergency - until four days after the request for help was made.
Reporters, Harry Connick Jnr and pregnant women carrying two kids were able to reach the NO Convention Center faster than the Federal Government or the National Guard.
So what is Bush's role then?
To sit around giving tax breaks to the oil industry (obviously hurting from a mere $8 billion in profits per quarter, per company) or to protect the citizens of the US with his policy decisions.
So while I suppose it's too much to expect the man to read a memo on his desk that say Al Quaeda is going to fly planes into US building, or understand that the recruitment ground for Al Quaeda is in fact Saudi Arabia, not Iraq - not bad, missed by only one country, pretty close.
Oh well, at least he's good at inventing revisionist science, no doubt next week he'll be telling us that the sun revolves around a flat world in the center of the universe, and despite troubling rumours of incest, magic people appeared out of no where to dispell the belief that Adam and Eve's children had sex with each other and their parents in order to populate a world, that whilst geologists agree took billions of years to form, a book written by a Roman 2000 years ago, then translated into old English by people that believed in witches says it was made in 7 days.
No doubt we should ignore the scientists and their hocus pocus, and concentrate on inventing new words like "Creationism".
Oh and when asked for a few hundred million to repair and upgrade the levees in New Orleans, Bushes reply was that those hookey scientists that predicted this very disaster years ago are no doubt the same fools that believe in Global Warming, and that this project was pork.
Meanwhile his Republican crazy friend from Alaska (why glorious representative, who decided it's okay to murder foreign leaders if they don't do what we want them to) asked for a few hundred million to build a bridge to nowhere. No problem apparently, after all a sum of fifty people would make use of it, maybe as much as annually.
Bush is joke, he doesn't care what happens to this country as long as his pet oil industry is well cared for, and his pet cronies have been set up in nice jobs to take advantage of things like the Iraq war.
I wonder who'll get the contracts for rebuilding the gulf coast, no doubt he's still got a few friends who need a job and a nice back hander..
So much for bringing respectability back to the White House - I'd rather my president had a BJ and lied about it to congress, than started a war to get himself re-elected.
These people have to help themselves. They have to know what they want. Someone has to be in charge. Otherwise feds make decisions and later get blamed for it. You'll have people complaining about how they were not forced to evacuate by federal troops (who are fighting in Iraq but not at home, etc, etc) and at the same time the governor will continue to prevent the federal troops from forcing people to leave. What a region!
Blame for this catastrophe should go bottoms-up rather than top-down. This administration still bothered with the niceties of federalism and what they got is a taste of their organization. Every person that wants to blame Bush for whatever, just first look at pictures of thousands of *parked and flooded* buses in NO city lots. Kinda gets you thinking, or it should.
thousands of Katrina's victims.
It is easy to sit in A/C and blog and surf
and know it all. Go out into the real world,
Stay in the heat with no water or sleep and see
what great thoughts you have.
(See Sean Penn)
The NO-leadership had a plan, they did not follow
it. The NO-leadership told the poor that they
would be on thier own back in July.
LA-gov has set the women's movement back a
decade by her GROSS stupidity and lack of leadership.
thousands of Katrina's victims.
It is easy to sit in A/C and blog and surf
and know it all. Go out into the real world,
Stay in the heat with no water or sleep and see
what great thoughts you have.
(See Sean Penn)
The NO-leadership had a plan, they did not follow
it. The NO-leadership told the poor that they
would be on thier own back in July.
LA-gov has set the women's movement back a
decade by her GROSS stupidity and lack of leadership.
thousands of Katrina's victims.
It is easy to sit in A/C and blog and surf
and know it all. Go out into the real world,
Stay in the heat with no water or sleep and see
what great thoughts you have.
(See Sean Penn)
The NO-leadership had a plan, they did not follow
it. The NO-leadership told the poor that they
would be on thier own back in July.
LA-gov has set the women's movement back a
decade by her GROSS stupidity and lack of leadership.
thousands of Katrina's victims.
It is easy to sit in A/C and blog and surf
and know it all. Go out into the real world,
Stay in the heat with no water or sleep and see
what great thoughts you have.
(See Sean Penn)
The NO-leadership had a plan, they did not follow
it. The NO-leadership told the poor that they
would be on thier own back in July.
LA-gov has set the women's movement back a
decade by her GROSS stupidity and lack of leadership.
You want to hold them responsible for this.
You want the federal government responsible
for the failure of the local storm water system.
This means:
You want the FEDERAL goverment responsible
for all local storm water issues.
Local official are in charge of local issues.
Do you really want Washington issuing order
of where you can build and where the drains and
canals should be?
10 years after that change, then you can blame
the feds.
You want to hold them responsible for this.
You want the federal government responsible
for the failure of the local storm water system.
This means:
You want the FEDERAL goverment responsible
for all local storm water issues.
Local official are in charge of local issues.
Do you really want Washington issuing order
of where you can build and where the drains and
canals should be?
10 years after that change, then you can blame
the feds.
You want to hold them responsible for this.
You want the federal government responsible
for the failure of the local storm water system.
This means:
You want the FEDERAL goverment responsible
for all local storm water issues.
Local official are in charge of local issues.
Do you really want Washington issuing order
of where you can build and where the drains and
canals should be?
10 years after that change, then you can blame
the feds.
You want to hold them responsible for this.
You want the federal government responsible
for the failure of the local storm water system.
This means:
You want the FEDERAL goverment responsible
for all local storm water issues.
Local official are in charge of local issues.
Do you really want Washington issuing order
of where you can build and where the drains and
canals should be?
10 years after that change, then you can blame
the feds.
First he relegated FEMA to a sub department of Homeland Security, the behemoth waste of space that has incompetantly attempted to combine all agencies that had anything vaguely to do with national security. In it's new relegated status, the budget for FEMA, the only agency that has to deal with national disasters on a monthly basis, was reduced to $180 million (three times less than the cost of repairing the levees in New Orleans, less than the cost of building a bridge to no where in Alaska and less than half of the tax breaks given to the oil industry - which is obviously hurting from quarterly profits of only $8 billion per company).
Second he put one of his buddies in charge of the most important agency in the country, a person with absolutely no experience in disaster management, who then went on to start a business that directly profits from the war in Iraq. His current replacement was another of George's buddies, whose long list of qualifications includes cleaning the dust of George Bush's record collection at college. Now all politicians give their friends places within the government, all leaders have done so and although it's morally reprehensible, usually they stick to meaningless appointments, such as the ambassadors to minor countries. George gives his friends (regardless of their experience) positions of national importance, and then wonders why the country is a complete mess.
Third, at the same time as approving the construction of a $600 million bridge to connect 50 people to the Alaska mainland, he described a $600 million projet to fix the levees in New Orleans as pork - and cut it out of the budget. As usual scientific studies done prior to the storm warned that this exact disaster would happen if those levees weren't fixed, but as this project would have been of no benefit to any of his cronies or even his party, George new better and wrote it off.
No doubt George thinks that the repairing of flood defences is still being debated by scietists, the same mythical scientists that are supposedly discussing whether God made the earth in 7 days and everyone is descended from 2 people (let's just write off geology, history, archeology, and chemistry, as these are no doubt of dubious value when put against a book written by a Roman 2000 years ago, which in turn was translated into English by people that thought the sun orbits the world and the world is flat) or the ones that are supposedly discussing whether global warming exists and who's to blame.