New Orleans goes 3rd-world, rest of country business as usual?

Hundreds of doctors with backpacks loaded with medications meet in in the Karl Marx theater Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2005, in Havana, Cuba. More than a week after Cuba first offered to send physicians to the United States to aid in relief efforts for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, President Fidel Castro and his doctors still await an answer from the U.S. State Department. The offer places Havana's old foe, the U.S. government, in an uncomfortable situation: either accept help from a nation it has characterized as an 'outpost of tyranny' or risk being accused of putting politics before the lives of its own people.(AP Photo/Jorge Rey)
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C'mon George.... make a decision already!
 
MrBishop said:
C'mon George.... make a decision already!
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He much rather have his people die of cholera and keep his pride than accept something from Cuba, which is a real shame.
 
Oh for the love of tater salad...we got more freakin doctors in America than the healthcare system can support. We don't need Cuban docs, we need the damn bureaucrats to quit beating their collective meat and sign the papers. We need FEMA to suspend their everfucking sensitivity training (see related thread) and do their job. We need local and state leadership in Louisiana on par with a friggin PTA committee.

Cuba can keep their doctors...we got plenty. The assholes in Warshinton won't let 'em in!
 
Every helping hand should be accepted. There's a need for Docs, someone's offering some free of charge, its about time Bush swallowed his pride instead of his left foot and take the damn help! He sure as shit accepted Canada's Docs, military and emer-crews.

With the number of potential deaths and the 92,000 sq. mile area of destruction to cover, the more the merrier. IMHO.

"we need the damn bureaucrats to quit beating their collective meat and sign the papers" Couldn't have said it better myself.
 
FEMA director Michael Brown being sent back to Washington; Homeland Security Director Chertoff to announce new leader for on-the-ground Katrina relief efforts, senior administration official tells CNN. Details soon.
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www.cnn.com
 
The patronage system blew up in the administrations face. There are apparently 100+ people in the federal command system that bought their jobs via campaign support that don't know jack shit about their jobs. There was little background checks on these people filling some pretty important positions even in the wake of ten-fold security checks on the common man.

grr.
 
I've heard that local officials, at the Superdome, last week, turned away the Red Cross, who had in its possession & on SuperDome grounds thousands of bottles of water & food, because they didn't want to encourage people to come there.

The Feds look stupid. The local beauracrats look criminally negligent.
 
Now I have heard on the radio this morning, it's come out that some LA senator, about five days after the hurricane, had some National Guards take him on a tour of the area, so he could see what was going on. Well by coincidence, the area he was touring happened to include his house, so they made a stop there. The National Guards were kind enough to pull right up to the door so he didn't have to get out and walk in the water (the water went up to the third step, apparently). Then they were kind enough to wait around on his porch for an hour while he packed up some suitcases and got his laptop computer. Now by the time he came out, the vehicle had become stuck, so they had to call for a helicopter rescue. Instead of rescuing people off the tops of completely flooeded houses and building, a National Guard helicopter waited over this senator's house for another 45 minutes before the senator decided he didn't want to be rescued, after all. The helicopter then went back to rescuing ordinary people but was so low on gas by this point it had to return to base.
 
Membership has it priviledges. Along with its perils, such as the belated realization that when these shenanigans hit the press, said senator is gonna be lambasted publically. As he should.

I recall a drastic drought here a few years ago. Crops were dying, cattle and other livestock were unable to get sufficient water for weeks on end. People were being told to conserve water by all means imaginable. Then it rained. Pretty good rain too. The dams around here (TVA controlled) started actually backing up some water. Then they released several billion gallons to flow downriver. Seems VP Gore was afoot, and wanted to go skiing for the weekend at his home on the lake. Bastard.
 
California earthquake could devastate water supply, official says

SACRAMENTO (AP) - A major northern California earthquake could severely damage the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta levee system and jeopardize the water supply for two-thirds of Californians for more than a year, a top state water official warned Tuesday.

Last year, the unexplained collapse of a single levee shut water pumping for days and cost $100 million to repair. An earthquake could lead to the collapse of many sections of levees, which channel Northern California rivers on their run to San Francisco Bay, said Lester Snow, director of the California Department of Water Resources.

"This is not a worst-case scenario," he said. "We think it's a plausible scenario of what could happen in the delta."

Snow told a joint hearing of three state Senate committees that a 6.5-magnitude earthquake could collapse 30 levees, flood 16 delta islands and damage 320 kilometres of additional levees. Some 3,000 homes and 85,000 acres of farmland would be flooded.

The ruptured levees also would allow salt water to rush in to the river system, causing an immediate shutdown of the pumps that send water south to San Joaquin Valley farmers and Southern California water districts. Cities would have to use alternative water sources and resort to rationing, Snow said.

Three state highways and railway tracks would be submerged, and petroleum and natural gas pipelines would have to be shut down. Damage could reach $30 billion over five years, Snow said.

It would cost $1.3 billion to strengthen 800 kilometres of delta levees so they are not subject to erosion in a flood, but even that would do nothing to make them more resistant to earthquakes, said Leslie Harder, the water resources department's acting deputy director for public safety.

Among the possible long-term fixes are flooding some islands that are surrounded by levees. Flooding would equalize water pressure on the islands, making a levee collapse less likely.

Despite the warnings, no delta levee has collapsed because of an earthquake, said Thomas Zuckerman, general manager and co-counsel of the Central Delta Water Agency. He said strengthening levees around just three islands at the mouth of the delta could reduce 70 per cent of the risk.

Legislators said there is not enough money for significant levee improvements. State tax bonds would be needed to make the necessary repairs, said state senators Michael Machado (D-Linden) and Tom Torlakson (D-Antioch).
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Source

You've been warned, Inky.
 
Re: California earthquake could devastate water supply, official says

I'm in the one-third that would be OK water-wise. Atascadero doesn't participate in the state water project; there's a big aquifer under the North County that our water comes from.

The messed-up gas and oil pipelines would be a bitch though.
 
I remember the video footage from inside the Superdome

sure looked 3rd werld to me!
 
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