Whoever posted this nasty reply to 'abc' on 11/16/08 should be banned.nm

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"I do not agree with the absolute pronouncement that you are a full-blown psychopath. However, I do see you consistently have tendencies to take a certain measure of pleasure in following aggressive impulses when it comes to validating your obvious adversion to the President-Elect, illustrated by the current post in question. You have been doing this for quite some time, so it would be safe to assume that could be an integral part of who you are. You do seem to gain a great deal of satisfaction out of promoting some of the more far-fetched right-wingnut fantasies out there about O, and you seem to have no particular conscience about doing it. No sarcasm intended. This is the way you come across to some of us."

Shockingly unprepared

The countless questions about the unfolding catastrophe in the Gulf states are all variations on a simple theme: This disaster was all but scripted; why wasn't the response?

News reports from the region have shown the situation getting worse, not better.

This inability to regain control, or at least to rally against the disaster, has shocked the country's sense of itself. Predictably, recriminations mounted Thursday, even as federal officials delivered more aid. State and local officials in Louisiana were particularly critical of the response from Washington, complaining that the feds were slow to provide the help needed to feed and evacuate survivors and halt criminals.

Defenders of the Bush administration said it was doing everything it could. They're facing problems that nobody could foresee: breaking of the levees and the whole dome thing over in New Orleans coming apart, former President George H.W. Bush said Thursday on CNN. People couldn't foresee that.

In fact, emergency planners have been thinking about a catastrophic levee breach for years. Many saw it as an inevitable consequence of a high-powered hurricane such as Katrina hitting the city. And in early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said that one of the three most likely disasters to strike the U.S. was a catastrophic flood triggered by a hurricane hitting New Orleans. (The other two: a terrorist attack on New York and a major earthquake in San Francisco.)

It's certainly true that by the time forecasters knew that Katrina was a threat, it was too late to shore up the levees. And by the time they knew Katrina was going to come ashore near New Orleans, there was not enough time to evacuate the city completely.

Still, much of what happened this week in New Orleans had been foreseen by federal and state emergency planners, as the city's newspaper, the Times-Picayune, laid out extensively three years ago. Survivors will end up trapped on roofs, in buildings or on high ground surrounded by water, with no means of escape and little food or fresh water, perhaps for several days, one story predicted with eerie accuracy.

That's why the complaints from Louisiana about the official response are so troubling. Why did it take so long to evacuate the poor, the elderly and the tourists unlucky enough to be caught with no way out of town? Where was the food and water? Why were the police left to choose between rescuing people from the floods and saving them from predators?

Critics of the administration, including former FEMA officials, say Washington's focus since late 2001 on potential terrorist targets has come at the expense of its ability to respond to natural disasters in other parts of the country. FEMA no longer helps prepare communities for disasters � it just responds to them. Other critics have pointed out that the administration diverted money from a levee project in New Orleans to fund priorities within the Department of Homeland Security.

One lesson of Hurricane Katrina, though, is that preparedness and response go hand in hand, whether the disaster is natural or man-made. Washington's response to Katrina is likely to gear up notably in the days to come, but the question of why it took so long will linger longer than the floodwaters

GOOD FOR THEM!!!! LOL. We need to do the same thing. I can think of 2 right off the top of my head. How about Hannity and O'Really?

As far as who can accomplish all these goals -- a journey begins with a single step. Barack is willing to start the journey. McCain stubbornly refuses to change course. If he does not live up to his hopes - another election in 4 years.

Experience -- time and time again current events have proven Barack's thoughtfulness and judgment have proven true. Even the current administration is following the course for a time-table that Barack proposed so long ago.

I do not see Barack as a savior -- I see a fine man with a vision for our country that matches my own.

Throw that hood in the wash, its getting dingy. 12 year olds, we know what you are saying there.

I made no "moral judgment" on SP's premarital pregnancy - merely pointing out the historical precedent she set.

I don't know about you, but I'm American, not dem or pub, just American. I refuse to shut up or put up, as you so kindly put it, about anything. I have to admit the last election I voted pub, and I'm still paying for that one. But seriously sam, keep playing the blame game. You'd make a good politician. See where it gets us.

Fact is 140 dems did vote to pass it, while only 65 pubs voted for it. Maybe because the pubs didn't feel they were getting enough out of it for themselves or because of fear of its failure. It's a shame that pubs can't even support their own party, ie Bush, who wanted this to pass.

poster says duh? Exactly. Overwrought rhetoric destroys the validity of any discussion.

Science isn't a "numbers" game where if you line up 1000 scientists on your side and I line up 1500 on my side, I win. The history of science is rife with examples of the majority of scientists being wrong. It might even be argued that at the moment any scientific discovery is made, the person who makes the discovery is, DE facto, a minority of one. The majority of scientists once thought the world was flat, that the sun revolved around the earth, and that human disease was caused by invisible gases or by imbalance of the "four elements", and scoffed at the notion of "germs". If we left science up to a vote and counted heads to determine what is true, we'd have never moved one inch beyond the stone age.

The real problem, though, is that it really doesn't take much information about the methods used by the "global warmists" (my term) for even a layman to recognize that they are far from conclusive, and in many cases their methods are highly questionable. And since there is an enormous cost to all of us (or, enormous flow of money to the "warmists") to do battle with this "problem" - if it is one - it only makes sense to get the science right rather than jumping off the deep end and starting a lot of things in process that might very well be entirely unnecessary. Before we get the villagers all up in arms with torches and pitchforks, let's bother to find out if there really is a dragon in the cave. So far, I'm afraid that the best we can say is that all we have is rumors and that no one has actually seen the dragon.

Let's not conflate global warming with alternative energy, though. Although there is some connection, they are really separate issues. If there is global warming, it seems now that some scientists think that worm flatulence causes more warming than hydrocarbons, so on that basis we should be attacking worms, not fossil fuels.

Certainly, we should be pursuing every realistic form of alternative energy, but for one simple reason which you have correctly stated: There is only so much fossil fuel of any kind in the ground. We're going to run out of it. This means that even if oil were clean and cheap as water, we must seek alternatives.

However, oil isn't as cheap as water, and we don't own most of it even if it were, so the second reason we must seek alternatives is that we cannot continue to send $billions to foreign countries, many of whom don't like us very much and who are using our own dollars to finance the operations of our enemies. It's simply madness to finance our own destruction.

read ur post again. U R talking about it like its true. Maybe U can't see it but i can.

Thanks for your reply to my question about your leaving Florida. It sounds like a big transition in many ways, both geographically and emotionally. I had inquired because I have similar thoughts myself and so far I keep moving farther and farther north and away from civilization. Anyway, good luck and it would be good to hear when you're settled in.