IO’s Little Castle, and the Politics of Natural Disasters
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Post Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 2:22 am 
 

bclarkie wrote:
killjoy32 wrote: i have a very good friend who lives in Covington, just north of New Orleans. They are at a friends atm 17 hours north west of there, while things calm down n stuff. the stories i have been told are harrowing to say the very least. i tell you what you guys, you should be ashamed of that government of yours. to let your own suffer like that and not throw every resource possible at it is shameful.



its a very sad state of affairs aint it :(



Al





Let first off say that I feel completely awful and I sympathise totally with the poor folks who suffered horribly due to this great tradgedy and utter devastaion. With that being said, without trying to turn this into a complete political discussion, but unfortunately there is A LOT of blame to go around. It is an absolute disgace and complete embarassment that it almost 5 days before there was any kind of real relief presence there, but saying that everyone and I mean everyone was told to GET OUT. They went door to door 3 days before the storm hit and told people that if you stayed in the cuity that you were going to die :!: Now obviously, not everyone had the means to escape the storm, so you really have to feel bad for them, but there were also thousands upon thousands of people who decided to "stay and tough it out". :roll: To those people I really find it hard to sypathize with, you kind of get what you deserve in that situation. Then on top of everything else, and probably the most embarassing aspect of it all is complete and utter chaos that has been wreaked in the aftermath of the storm. Here we are supposedly the bastion of freedom and the worlds only supposed "superpower" or whatever and people are acting like complete animals down looting stores and shooting people and the rescuers and raping women. :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: You would think that this was some 3rd world country who feckin didnt know the difference. what a disgrace. :oops: Anybody who is interested in reading a first hand account of both the lead up to and aftermath of the storm, here is a blog of somebody who stayed in the city in thier high rise office building. If anything it makes for an interesting but sad read:



Interdictor - August 28th, 2005



Also for those intested here is a link to lots of pictures taken by these folks out the windows of the surrounding area. If you didnt already know that they were real, you would have a hard time beleiving that this was straight out of futuristic disastor movie:



sigmund.biz at Directnic



Sorry for the complete OT post. Back to our regualry scheduled I/O worshipping. :)




I have lots of relatives in Baton Rouge, Morgan City and Port Allen.  All of them are doing fine because they all EVACUATED when told to....some lost their house, but it was that or lose their life.  Some of the names my own relatives called their fellow Louisianians who decided to stay and "ride the storm out" when it was only known for days it was going to DIRECTLY HIT NEW ORLEANS made some pretty startling listening which I won't repeat...they blame the state and local government as much as anything since they did NOTHING to help evacuate people except tell them to evacuate....you build houses in a former swamp ten feet below sea level you are going to dodge some bullets but eventually one will nail you between the eyes! Some of these relatives are staying here in Texas until everything can be sorted out and I don't know what we are going to do with a quarter of a million cajuns (I think Dallas alone got 25,000) but bring them on, glad to have you!!!!!  :D

  Sort of on topic, I remember buying a lot of gaming stuff years past out of a Gulfport, Mississippi address.  Does anyone remember this distributor?  They sold a lot of the old Zocchi stuff after Lou had sold out, mostly Judge's Guild.  Safe to say most if not all that game stock is now gone forever? Does anyone remember the name of this guy/company?

  And glad you also dodged the bullet, IO, but you need to think about opening a branch a few hundred miles away to spread out the wealth in case the unthinkable happened someday and you had flood/wind damage, it would be hard to find those dice after fill in the blank name hurricaine blew them all over the Florida coast.....



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Post Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 9:31 am 
 

Badmike wrote:you need to think about opening a branch a few hundred miles away to spread out the wealth in case the unthinkable happened someday


Central Canada is one of the most stable places in the world.
'course you need your own electrical generator.

  


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Post Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 9:49 am 
 

ExTSR wrote:Central Canada is one of the most boring places in the world.
'course you need your own electrical generator.


Corrected that for ya  :P

Setting up a gaming 'museum' in the central Canadian prairies would be great. I'm sure all 6 gamers in Manitoba/Saskatchewan would love it ;)

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Post Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 10:31 am 
 

GraysonAC wrote:Saskatchewan


what a fab name of a place!

i would live there just so i could say i lived there! cool :D

where do you live "Saskatchewan" :D


Are we nearly there yet?

  

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Post Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 5:54 pm 
 

ExTSR wrote:
Badmike wrote:you need to think about opening a branch a few hundred miles away to spread out the wealth in case the unthinkable happened someday




Central Canada is one of the most stable places in the world.

'course you need your own electrical generator.






Or you could take it to central Australia where the air is dry and much better for preservation.   :wink:



And in terms of stability no major fault lines, no hurricanes, cyclones or tornados and no rain.  :lol:

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Post Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 6:16 pm 
 

killjoy32 wrote:
GraysonAC wrote:Saskatchewan




what a fab name of a place!



i would live there just so i could say i lived there! cool :D



where do you live "Saskatchewan" :D


"But I have watched the dragons come, fire-eyed, across the world."

  

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Post Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 6:18 pm 
 

improvstone wrote:
ExTSR wrote:


Central Canada is one of the most stable places in the world.

'course you need your own electrical generator.






Or you could take it to central Australia where the air is dry and much better for preservation.  :wink:



And in terms of stability no major fault lines, no hurricanes, cyclones or tornados and no rain. :lol:




    Yep...if the crocodiles don't get you, you're fine!   :)


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Post Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 9:06 pm 
 

MShipley88 wrote:  Yep...if the crocodiles don't get you, you're fine!  :)




I will take crocs, red backs, blue bottles, white pointers and tiger snakes over cat 5 cyclones any day.  Besides we have the croc hunter to deal with those pesky crocs  :lol:

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Post Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2005 1:01 am 
 

improvstone wrote:
ExTSR wrote:


Central Canada is one of the most stable places in the world.

'course you need your own electrical generator.






Or you could take it to central Australia where the air is dry and much better for preservation.  :wink:



And in terms of stability no major fault lines, no hurricanes, cyclones or tornados and no rain. :lol:




Or you could take it to a nice town in South Central Indiana ...... :D



John

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Post Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2005 1:26 am 
 

killjoy32 wrote:i tell you what you guys, you should be ashamed of that government of yours. to let your own suffer like that and not throw every resource possible at it is shameful.



its a very sad state of affairs aint it :(



Al





    Take it with a grain of salt, Al.  It's all politics.



    America is huge.  (We could stuff England into Washington State and still only use the land we have officially designated for parks and wilderness.)    :)



    It takes time to move across the US, particularly when there is a hurricane on and the highways happen to be gone.  



    The poor people who had to wait in New Orleans...I can understand their frustration.  



    But, the idea that the government was holding back on Star Trek transporters, automatic highway rebuilders, personal butt-wipers, robotic nursemaids and top secret time-turner-backer machines is just silly.  



    In America, the federal government is expected to help, but the burden for services lies with state and local governments.  (States are far more powerful than European provinces...they are sovereign governments.)  People are expected to take initiative before the feds step in.



   Anyway...the crap on the news is just the way Americans do politics.   It is roughly as important as buzzing sounds or electronic static.  8) 8)  8)


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Post Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2005 9:58 am 
 

MShipley88 wrote:But, the idea that the government was holding back on Star Trek transporters, automatic highway rebuilders, personal butt-wipers, robotic nursemaids and top secret time-turner-backer machines is just silly.


In the UK we get to know the expreriences of the UK citizens who were stranded in New Orleans, some on the upper floors of hotels, others moved to the Astodome, as reported by those luck enough to have returned to a civilised society.



One particular story comes to mind. A group of English holiday makers stranded on the roof of their hotel. A police rescue boat arrives, and refuses to help until the girl flash them their tits. 8O



Another... A elderly coloured gentleman and his wife go into a shelter in Houston. Before they enter they are searched and his wife's insulin and self administrator are taken from her and given to a nurse. When she needs her insulin there is no medical staff available and security won't let him go out of the shelter to get help. His wife dies because the security forces don't trust her to administer her own medication and refuse to supply it when she's dying.



You can't honestly believe your govenment and law enforcement have done an good in this crisis. Its been your biggest f**k up since Nam.


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Post Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2005 10:27 am 
 

MShipley88 wrote:
killjoy32 wrote:i tell you what you guys, you should be ashamed of that government of yours. to let your own suffer like that and not throw every resource possible at it is shameful.



its a very sad state of affairs aint it :(



Al





  Take it with a grain of salt, Al. It's all politics.



  America is huge. (We could stuff England into Washington State and still only use the land we have officially designated for parks and wilderness.)  :)



  But, the idea that the government was holding back on Star Trek transporters, automatic highway rebuilders, personal butt-wipers, robotic nursemaids and top secret time-turner-backer machines is just silly.





)




Ok, I give, when are the personal butt wipers going to make an appearance?  Trust the government to hold out something as valuable as this on the public, dang it.  Probably have them all stockpiled at the White House, Senate and House bathrooms.....



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Post Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2005 10:37 am 
 

Bass, I'd have to have actually been present at the insulin incident to believe it. And if it IS true, it certainly had nothing to do with color.

My wife's cousin and her family live 65 miles from N.O.. When they told her they were going to stay, even after we offered to pay for them to fly up and stay with us until the hurricane was done, I just shook my head. Their exact words were "We've had hurricanes before. It's not a big deal. Everyone else is staying."

If authorities come to my house and say "There is an out-of-control forest fire burning, and it is probably going to come right thru here", you know what I do. I get the phuq out. If I have to walk and carry my wife and kid, so be it. Katrina was expected to be a Cat 5 when it hit. If it had been, the entire city (including the Superdome), would have been annihilated. I told my wife flat out that I expected her cousin to die.

Everyone seems to expect handouts. My taxes are paying to have people rescued from their own stupidity, and if they don't like what they get, tough. There are certainly a number of cases where people were physically unable to get out, and I do have sympathy for those, but the vast majority of them are people who were too stubborn and stupid to leave. God (and the U.S. government) helps those who help themselves.


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Post Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2005 10:52 am 
 

mbassoc2003 wrote:
MShipley88 wrote:But, the idea that the government was holding back on Star Trek transporters, automatic highway rebuilders, personal butt-wipers, robotic nursemaids and top secret time-turner-backer machines is just silly.


In the UK we get to know the expreriences of the UK citizens who were stranded in New Orleans, some on the upper floors of hotels, others moved to the Astodome, as reported by those luck enough to have returned to a civilised society.



One particular story comes to mind. A group of English holiday makers stranded on the roof of their hotel. A police rescue boat arrives, and refuses to help until the girl flash them their tits. 8O



Another... A elderly coloured gentleman and his wife go into a shelter in Houston. Before they enter they are searched and his wife's insulin and self administrator are taken from her and given to a nurse. When she needs her insulin there is no medical staff available and security won't let him go out of the shelter to get help. His wife dies because the security forces don't trust her to administer her own medication and refuse to supply it when she's dying.



You can't honestly believe your govenment and law enforcement have done an good in this crisis. Its been your biggest f**k up since Nam.




    I would take some of the more outlandish stories like these with a grain of salt, we have extensive coverage of the hurricaine and the effects in the local papers here in Dallas and neither of these events was mentioned.  Believe me, stories of girls having to bare their boobs before rescue would have led off the news here if it had really happened, I mean the national news is running wild with some story of a little boy who had to leave his puppy behind, any mention of tits being bared for a ride would have trumped that story in a second, this is America after all, no one can resist a good story with either a puppy or boobies as the main draw.

  Ironically, my home state Texas has come through the crisis with flying colors.  We are housing a quarter of a million refugees with nary a problem.  The local Baptist church a block away has opened it's doors to over 300, not to mention many locals in the Dallas/FW area taking entire families into their homes. I'm heading to the church this morning to drop off donations (and it's not even my place of worship, I don't even attend church).  Hell, we are already playing host to a million or so illegal aliens from Mexico, what's 250 thousand more from cajun country? :D  Of course, it helps when your state isn't run by incompetent, crooked, ill prepared officials or government agencies....not that Texas doesn't have them, just not on the scale of a cesspool like Louisiana or the Federal government.  

    If anyone anywhere around the world wishes to make a donation to relief efforts here in Texas (and I am so impressed with the local response, Dallas is the same city that couldn't get it's act together to keep the Dallas Cowboys in Dallas, but they've managed to put up thousands of people without homes with no problem), contact me by PM and I'll find a nice local charity, church or shelter that is in need of funds and give you more info...I'm actually going around to day to find some of the local shelters and churches to see who is housing people, so I'll check it out in person.  The big boys like the Red Cross and Salvation Army get all the pub, but here in D/FW a lot of ordinary folks are making a difference.  Typical the media is focusing on the mayhem and violence while overlooking the larger story of ordinary people volunteering taking care of the homeless....I have a lot of displaced relatives myself, so it has hit close to home.  Sorry for hijacking here....back to the subject at hand!



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Post Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2005 11:19 am 
 

I am sure that law enforcement is playing it by the book, and I doubt colour/race has anything to do with it. I believe that the majority of people all over the world want to lead safe and decent lives, and wouldn't stop to think before helping someone in need.



That said, why remove medications from people entering shelters? Why prevent them having radios? I can see that you don't wnt guys walking about with knives and guns, and you probably don't want some gang sitting in the corner blaring our gansta rap on their radio. But surely law enforcement can be more sensible? Surely they employ people who have the ability to make a ballanced and rational decision?



I would imagine that the it is easy to 'loose' a news story in the US among the devestation. I also believe that what UK citizens are saying is on the whole truthful. The public returning to the UK are not in if for fame or money. They want to go home and they belive they were treated badly by a disorganised and corrupt force on the grounf in NO.


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Post Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2005 1:45 pm 
 

I don't know about the insulin incident.  It sounds like something that could have happened.  But, it also sounds very much like some of the planted, phoney news stories that appeared in Seattle during the WTO riots.   :?



    Flash your boobies?  No.   :?



    If they did take away medicine and medical equipment...I suspect it has to do with protecting people from theft...and from drugs.  



    Taking away radios?  Maybe for crowd control and rumor control?



    Actually, although it certainly makes sense....taking away peoples' guns seems more outrageous.  This is America, Dammit!   :)



   As for the returning UK tourists with the wild stories...something tells me they are not exactly neutral.    :roll:


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Post Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2005 2:52 pm 
 

mbassoc2003 wrote:I am sure that law enforcement is playing it by the book, and I doubt colour/race has anything to do with it. I believe that the majority of people all over the world want to lead safe and decent lives, and wouldn't stop to think before helping someone in need.



That said, why remove medications from people entering shelters? Why prevent them having radios? I can see that you don't wnt guys walking about with knives and guns, and you probably don't want some gang sitting in the corner blaring our gansta rap on their radio. But surely law enforcement can be more sensible? Surely they employ people who have the ability to make a ballanced and rational decision?



I would imagine that the it is easy to 'loose' a news story in the US among the devestation. I also believe that what UK citizens are saying is on the whole truthful. The public returning to the UK are not in if for fame or money. They want to go home and they belive they were treated badly by a disorganised and corrupt force on the grounf in NO.




It's hard for someone from another country to understand why or how this could happen without a history lesson of Louisiana, and there isn't enough space to do it justice (not to mention it's off topic).  Just understand that in probably 49 other states of the US the death toll, damage and incompetence would never have reach the level of something like this in The Big Easy (and they don't call New Orleans the Big Easy because of it's straight arrow, law abiding, diligent ways).  Since the days of Huey Long (The Kingfisher) this state has been a toilet of corruption, haven for illegal activities and bribes, and headquarters of downright violent behavior from both the citizenry and officials combined.  This is the city, several years ago, where over half the police department was indicted by the feds for taking bribes and engaging in illegal activitiy.  Almost every elected official ends their career with a trip to the pen for some kind of illegal activity.  The last three state comptrollers (money and budget handlers) are in prison.  Finally, this is the state that several years ago ran an election for governor that featured the choice of David Duke, KKK member in good standing, and an already criminally convicted politician who ran on the slogan "Elect a Crook instead of the KKK!" (not joking unfortunately).  The crook won and proceeded to get indicted yet again while running the state into the ground.  So please don't judge the rest of the US or even the government response in view of this mess....it's just Louisiana politics as usual.  There are unfortunaely no Rudy Guliani's in the bunch down there.

   So I'm not saying some of the more outlandish and ridiculous urban legend like stories floating around couldn't have happened...but I would take such interesting stories with a grain of salt.  The "Baring the Breasts" story sounds suspiciously like a ready made urban legend, I expect we'll be hearing dozens of variations on it in the next few months.  Besides, I heard President Clinton was working on gathering donations, not in a boat rescuing people (bada boom!)



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Post Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2005 3:31 pm 
 

Badmike wrote:Since the days of Huey Long (The Kingfisher) this state has been a toilet of corruption, haven for illegal activities and bribes, and headquarters of downright violent behavior from both the citizenry and officials combined.




NO also has (had) the dubious distinction of being the 'murder capital' of the country, in 2004 being over 10x the national average, and relative to population, dwarfing the murder rates of even LA, Detroit, and NY. There's an inordinate number of bad apples there.

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