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Pious Perverts
See other Pious Perverts Articles

Title: Bush Fiddles While Rome Burns
Source: rense.com
URL Source: http://rense.com/general67/fiddles.htm
Published: Sep 2, 2005
Author: http://rense.com/general67/fiddles.htm
Post Date: 2005-09-02 00:23:14 by Coral Snake
Keywords: Fiddles, While, Burns
Views: 484
Comments: 31

Bush Fiddles While Rome Burns Judith Moriartyhttp://rense.com/general67/fiddles.htm noahshouse@adelphia.net 9-2-5

It was 2:00 am and I couldn't sleep. The house was quiet as I stood at the screen door taking in the whisper of the trees [they only talk at night], the smells of a brief summer shower, and the sounds of crickets singing peace on earth. I stood there in the dark and I cried.

In the hush of a New England summer night, all seemed well with the world. New Orleans and the devastation of the Gulf States seemed to exist outside of time. I cried because I couldn't get the imagery out of my mind of the suffering humanity in the South. I had just finished reading, The Times Picayune, and going through their galley of photographs, of the tragedy in New Orleans [not shown on news]. On Aug 31, 2005, it was reported: "At 91 years old, Booker Harris ended his days propped on a lawn chair, covered by a yellow quilt and abandoned, dead, in front of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. "

"Mr. Harris died in the back of a Ryder panel truck, as he and his 93-year-old wife, Allie, were evacuated from eastern New Orleans. The truck's driver deposited [like garbage] Allie and her husband's body on the Convention Center Boulevard. And there it remained. With so much need and so few resources, [in Super Power, U.S.A.] the weakest and frailest were bound to suffer the most. Seated next to her husband's body, 93 year old Allie Harris munched on crackers, seemingly unaware of all the tragedy unfolding around her." I cried thinking of a frail old Black woman munching on crackers with her spouse dead in a lawn chair!

I thought of the other pictures, which showed the elderly, and wheelchair bound nursing home patients, left on an over-pass in the baking New Orleans sun. I watched a newscast of a Black woman sobbing inconsolably because her husband had died due to lack of oxygen. Thousands of people are still stranded in attics, on rooftops, and various housing projects throughout the town. Surrounded by water, some of it 20 feet deep, they are screaming and crying to helicopters to HELP THEM. I don't suppose President Bush on his fly-over in Air Force One, [gas-$6,030.00 an hour] back from vacation, could see this? He wouldn't know that doctors and nurses have been calling into news stations begging for help. They are trapped with their patients in various hospitals, with no water, no electricity and their emergency generators out of gas. FEMA and the contingency of some 180,000 Homeland Defense personnel will not arrive in time for the many that are dying. Bodies are lying in the streets.

As the levees broke on Tues, Aug 25, 2005, trapping the poor, handicapped, elderly, and youngsters, in an Apocalypse scenario; President Bush was at the Naval Base, in Coronado, California, celebrating V - J Day. While refugees of, the beaded Mardi Gras, celebrations of old, stood in torrential rains, waiting to enter the Superdome; President Bush strummed on a guitar, presented to him at the VJ ceremony by Mark Wills. I thought of the elderly Harris couple dumped on a New Orleans street, and wondered if he was singing Mark's song, "Wish You Were Here"?

"Wish you were here, wish you could see this place/Wish you were near, I wish I could touch your face/The weather's nice, in paradise/It's summertime all year and all the folks we know/They say, 'Hello', I miss you so, wish you were here".

I thought of The Times Picayune, article, of June 8th-2004. "For the first time in 37 years, federal budget cuts have all but stopped major work on the New Orleans area's east bank hurricane levees, a complex network of concrete walls, metal gates and giant earthen berms that won't be finished for at least another decade. Mervin Morehier, who manages the 'Lake Pontchartrain and vicinity' levee project for the Army Corps of Engineers, says, 'I can't tell you exactly what that could mean this hurricane season if we get a major storm. It would depend on the path and speed of the storm, the angle that it hits us. But I could tell you we would be better off if the levees were raised..and I think it's important and only fair that those people who live behind the levee know the status of these projects."

"The Bush administration's proposed fiscal 2005 budget includes only $3.9 million for the east bank hurricane project. 'The challenge now, said emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri in Jefferson Parish and Terry Tullier in New Orleans, is for southeast Louisiana somehow to persuade those who control federal spending that protection from major storms and flooding are matters of homeland security'"

"'It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay," Maestri said. "Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.' Levee-raising is only part of the flood-related work that has stopped since the federal government began reducing Corps of Engineers appropriations in 2001, as more money was diverted to homeland security, the fight against terrorism and the war in Iraq."

"The New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers bore the brunt of a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding for fiscal year 2006. The Bush administration has been cutting funding for federal disaster relief funds since 2001. FEMA's Project Impact, a model mitigation program has been cancelled outright. Federal funding of post-disaster mitigation efforts designed to protect people and property from the next disaster has been cut in half. Communities across the country must now compete for pre-disaster mitigation dollars."

"The Bush administration's move to merge FEMA [not being told by the media jm], with Homeland Security meant that the two had to compete for funding. Much of the Netherlands lies below sea level and after the 1953 flood which killed 1,800 people; the Dutch launched a major flood prevention program called the Delta Plan. Engineers fortified dykes and bolstered other water defenses against a future disaster and there hasn't been one since." Paul Joseph Watson

"Patricia McDonald Gomez of Aunt Sally's Original Creole Pralines said, 'You're almost fatalistic. Living in a soup bowl will do it to you, like Romans dancing while Nero fiddled and the city burned' How do you rebuild the city of Stella, Blanche and Stanley, the city that to William Faulkner was the 'labyrinthine mass of oleander and jasmine, lantana and mimosa', the city of the Italianate mansions of the Garden District and the teeming housing projects like the one where the streetcar named Desire now arrives---a place that gave America most of its music, much of its literature, a cracked mirror glimpse of America exotica and a fair piece of its soul." New York Times

And today, Sept 1, 2005, the city is imploding, and New Orleans is drowning/burning. Prisoners [maybe a reason for all the anarchy] were released from local jails. The editor of the Picayune, stated last night on the news, that five levees are broken. Looting is widespread with reports that some police have joined in the melee. Dr. Quigley from Memorial Hospital, on the phone to the media last evening stated, "There are no communications in the city between police, fire, and rescue personnel. The hospital is full we've had to turn people away. The poor couldn't leave, nor those in nursing homes, they had no means. Officials have advised citizens to take a boat to the Interstate. These people don't have cars let along boats. New Orleans has now become Haiti" It has also been reported that the police have no transportation, communications, and food or water themselves. One would be better off if they'd careened off a Vermont mountain, into a ditch. At least in a world of GPS they'd be rescued!

The National Guard lost total control of the Superdome, and who can blame them? This was an untenable situation to put these men in. They are soldiers' not trained social or medical workers. You don't herd [mostly Blacks you might note] into a sports stadium with thousands of; special needs, nursing home patients, group home residents, those with chronic health needs, babies, and those who've lost everything, and expect a day in the park. A disaster plan, is not corralling people into arena seats, with the roof ripping off, no water, overflowing toilets, and no electricity! There's bound to be 'trouble in River City', with this explosive mixture of fear-despair-and physical trauma. I note that in this colossal disaster; that the good Reverend Jackson, who always has his mini-rap sermons ready for any occasion, is down in Venezuela being knighted or whatever. He'll be back after dying time is over; to give his Monday morning quarter-back sermon of how he would have handled things. I think it's about time the good Reverend [after child support payments], cough up some of the Rainbow millions he's extorted from corporate America; and give it to the poor, hungry, thirsty, sick, and homeless, like the good Word says !

With the billions, upon billions, being spent for; weapons, rockets, missiles, tanks, guns, prison camps, gas, clubs, barbed wire, tsar guns, bunker busters, scanners, ships, planes, spy satellites, fact finding missions to Bermuda, concrete barriers, cameras, Ninja outfits, obscene political pensions/full health care, fleets of SUVs, [armored-unlike Iraq vehicles], a Foggy Bottom Visitor's Center, exorbitant salaries, et al; one would think that somewhere in all this, someone might have thought about protecting the citizens [one of the few real jobs of government-duh]. And now we have anarchy because of; ineptness, stupidity and a legion of bureaucrats with their dumb ass volumes of policies, procedures and agendas!

I'm not sure what more it will take to awaken people from their entrenched allegiance to an elephant and a jackass? The Democrats are just as useless as the Republicans, like tits on a bull. They're all slopping around in the public trough, grabbing what they can, for them and theirs, and piss on the people----! This section of the country; Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are amongst the poorest in the nation. Gosh-just everyone can't be a blackjack dealer, in a Mississippi riverboat casino. The shacks in the shadows of these temples of greed are destroyed. God help the poor here [like New Orleans], who wanted to leave and begged store owners for gas money [to no avail]. Moral being: Mandatory or not if you're poor you die. A life lost for want of a tank of gas. One would think, that the corporate oil hucksters, who've realized BILLIONS in profits these past few years, plus BILLIONS in subsidies, might have given these folks FREE GAS..as a patriotic gesture mind you. No matter now.they're buried somewhere in the rubble.

"Great Babylon is come up before me", shuddered Andrew Jackson's wife Rachel upon encountering New Orleans a century and a half ago. "Oh, the wickedness, the idolatry of this place."

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#1. To: Neil McIver, ALL--Good article (#0)

With the billions, upon billions, being spent for; weapons, rockets, missiles, tanks, guns, prison camps, gas, clubs, barbed wire, tsar guns, bunker busters, scanners, ships, planes, spy satellites, fact finding missions to Bermuda, concrete barriers, cameras, Ninja outfits, obscene political pensions/full health care, fleets of SUVs, [armored-unlike Iraq vehicles], a Foggy Bottom Visitor's Center, exorbitant salaries, et al; one would think that somewhere in all this, someone might have thought about protecting the citizens [one of the few real jobs of government-duh]. And now we have anarchy because of; ineptness, stupidity and a legion of bureaucrats with their dumb ass volumes of policies, procedures and agendas!

"You can do everything for other countries but you can't do nothing for your own people. You can go overseas with the military but you can't get them down here."~~New Orleanian

christine  posted on  2005-09-02   1:06:04 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: Coral Snake, Eoghan, Zipporah, lodwick, Jethro Tull, crack monkey, justlurking (#0)

GREAT article.

"There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket." – General Smedley Butler

robin  posted on  2005-09-02   3:13:59 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#3. To: robin (#2)

When the dust settles, and the blame game begins, w. is in deep shit. It will take more than a bunch of not-so-swift-boat ads to pull him up from this one. My guess is that w. is not only through as far as foreign policy is concerned, but the American people will have had enough of him very shortly.

The pukes in congress don't have what it takes below the belt to impeach him, however his name will be synonomous with impotent, ineffective and dullard. He will rival Hoover for the most scorned president ever.

Soda Pop  posted on  2005-09-02   5:53:34 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: Coral Snake (#0)

"The New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers bore the brunt of a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding for fiscal year 2006.

As I said in another thread, the problem is simply federal excess, not federal stinginess. They have no reason to be involved in disaster prevention, that's a local responsiblity starting with each citizen. If you don't have guns, ammo and food for a week then you deserve every bit of shit that the federal government can dish out.

What's the solution, vote in some other dumbass political party who will cut the appropriations to states with republican party senators, thereby leaving their cities vulnerable to floods or fires? No, the answer is completely removing the federal government from all local issues such as this flood control.

The plain and simple fact is that NO can't be protected by any amount of money and I certainly don't want to pay for open ended pork to try to protect them. What happens when a cat 5 storm goes west of NO instead of a cat 4 to the east? Simple - a 30 foot surge washes over the swamp, takes out the mississippi levees and washes the entire city into the lake. There's nothing a bunch of damn federal pork is going to do about that.

The obvious benefit of getting rid of this federal-fix-all mentality is that it empowers them to take control of every citizen's life, regulate the hell out of business, and micromanage everything that state and local governments do. The power of the federal government is what leads to wars in Iraq, not the diversion of money from local pork projects like fixing NO.

(If you see flies at the entrance to the burrow, the ground hog is probably inside)

purpleman  posted on  2005-09-02   6:30:21 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#5. To: All (#4)

Oops, freudian slip in the last paragraph, I meant the benefit of getting rid of the federal disaster planning is to get rid of most other federal control, regulation and taxation. It is obvious from this disaster that we need a weaker federal government, not a stronger one.

(If you see flies at the entrance to the burrow, the ground hog is probably inside)

purpleman  posted on  2005-09-02   6:34:36 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#6. To: Coral Snake (#0)

You forgot the picx


One Nation, under God, indivisible, with Plutonium and Strontium-90 for All.

Bush's anwser to the desperate refugees in New Orleans...

"Daddy -- Help!!!

Slick Willy -- do something!"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/krwashbureau/20050902/ts_krwashbureau/_wea_katri na_levee Levees not designed for Katrina-strength storm, official says

The Army Corps of Engineers are irate and reporting through the AP that they were well aware that the NO levee system was inadequate to withstand the impact of a Class III or Class IV hurricane. Money that had been set aside for the reinforcement of the NO levee system was diverted by Bush to fund the Iraqi War. Construction was to have taken place last year, which would have been more than enough time to prevent the greatest natural catastrophe the United States has ever known in modern times.

Welcome to Bush's New World Order.

Link http://www. pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002331.html

http://www.alligator.org/pt2/ 050901eddy.php Bush administration cut funds for hurricane plans

The mind once expanded by a new idea never returns to its' original size

Itisa1mosttoolate  posted on  2005-09-02   7:11:27 ET  (4 images) Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: purpleman (#5)

I meant the benefit of getting rid of the federal disaster planning is to get rid of most other federal control, regulation and taxation. It is obvious from this disaster that we need a weaker federal government, not a stronger one.

  I agree, but the states are so dependent on fed money that they are nothing but slaves to the central gov..

  If any state or states would try and break away from the control of the fed, they would be isolated from certain needed agencies.

  Just like the Real ID act, if the state refuses to comply, the state along with the citizens are punished.

  Mark J.

Kamala  posted on  2005-09-02   7:19:54 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#8. To: Kamala (#7)

isolated from certain needed agencies

Like what? I can't think of any federal agency that is needed around here. But like you said, the money is addictive, it can be used to build all kinds of infrastructure to stimulate the economy short and long term. It can also be wasted. But that's all great, for politicians. For everyone else it just slowly bleeds us to death.

(If you see flies at the entrance to the burrow, the ground hog is probably inside)

purpleman  posted on  2005-09-02   7:32:06 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#9. To: purpleman (#8)

http://www.hq .usace.army.mil/history/brief.htm#2imp

Good luck with getting rid of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It dates back to before the beginning of the republic. Looks like it really began to assert control as early as the 1820s.

Sam Houston  posted on  2005-09-02   7:44:13 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#10. To: purpleman (#8)

the money is addictive, it can be used to build all kinds of infrastructure to stimulate the economy short and long term. It can also be wasted. But that's all great, for politicians. For everyone else it just slowly bleeds us to death.

Here is the answer to the federal funding disaster.

http://www.normbook.homestead.com/

"But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of." Lord Byron

BTP Holdings  posted on  2005-09-02   7:45:17 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#11. To: Sam Houston, purpleman (#9)

Good luck with getting rid of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It dates back to before the beginning of the republic. Looks like it really began to assert control as early as the 1820s.

Corps of Engineers is part and parcel of the Commerce Clause provisions with it's work on the river systems to keep them navigable. The levee system is also a part of the work of the Corps in most areas. It's a tough nut to crack.

"But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of." Lord Byron

BTP Holdings  posted on  2005-09-02   7:54:37 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#12. To: purpleman (#8)

  Sorry about the PM, I meant to post on normal reply. Not enough coffee yet.

  Mark J.

Kamala  posted on  2005-09-02   7:55:36 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#13. To: Itisa1mosttoolate (#6)

The Helter Skelter chickens
have come home to roost.

Did Nostradamus really say that?

"But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of." Lord Byron

BTP Holdings  posted on  2005-09-02   8:11:44 ET  (1 image) Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#14. To: Itisa1mosttoolate (#6)

oh that Crusader pic is PRICELESS!

The sooner you fall behind the more time you'll have to catch up

CAPPSMADNESS  posted on  2005-09-02   8:18:01 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#15. To: BTP Holdings (#13)

I can't really verify thet.

some resources

http://www.revelation13.net/

http://www.onemore.biz/Page7.html &e=912

http://www.rense.com/general21/m abus.htm

http://www.dvorak.org/blo g/bush/antichrist.html

http://www.bushisantichrist.com/

The mind once expanded by a new idea never returns to its' original size

Itisa1mosttoolate  posted on  2005-09-02   8:22:36 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#16. To: robin (#2)

Thanks Robin, armor piercing rounds bump.

“Under this roof are the heads of the family of Rothschild, a name famous in every capital of Europe, and every division of the globe." -Benjamin Disraeli

Eoghan  posted on  2005-09-02   9:31:08 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#17. To: BTP Holdings, Sam Houston (#11)

Corps of Engineers is part and parcel of the Commerce Clause provisions with it's work on the river systems to keep them navigable.

WHat the corps has done to keep the Mississippi navigable has created the disaster in N.O. I would let the developers take over, build the seawalls along resorts, hurricane-proof high rises, and whatever else they want. This could form a protective barrier south of N.O.

(If you see flies at the entrance to the burrow, the ground hog is probably inside)

purpleman  posted on  2005-09-02   9:34:33 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#18. To: Soda Pop (#3)

When the dust settles, and the blame game begins, w. is in deep shit. It will take more than a bunch of not-so-swift-boat ads to pull him up from this one. My guess is that w. is not only through as far as foreign policy is concerned, but the American people will have had enough of him very shortly.

The pukes in congress don't have what it takes below the belt to impeach him, however his name will be synonomous with impotent, ineffective and dullard. He will rival Hoover for the most scorned president ever.

I agree. I hope we are both correct on the outcome. The ONLY silver lining to this enormous destruction and terrible loss of life. The photos and reports are overwhelming. Those of us who sit and watch and pray are very angry. And those who are suffering must be unimaginably angry.

I saw one heartwarming report last night on television. A typical white middle-class looking man repeated for the camera several times, that "this guy, this guy right here saved my life. (Pointing) He saved their lives, he saved 8 of us". "This guy" was a scruffy young black man with his girlfriend smiling modestly and wondering aloud why the trucks and troops rolled right past people they could be helping. He said, "If I could help them, so could they". They were staying in a gymnasium of some school. Everyone at this small gym, including the children, looked better off than at the other places I've seen elsewhere.

"There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket." – General Smedley Butler

robin  posted on  2005-09-02   10:38:19 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#19. To: robin (#18)

The only other good news I've herad lately is that they located and rescued Fats Domino.

Soda Pop  posted on  2005-09-02   12:11:13 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#20. To: Coral Snake (#0)

His Goat Story and his Crawford vacation; no surprises.


SKYDRIFTER  posted on  2005-09-02   13:02:09 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#21. To: Sam Houston (#9)

It's not a question of getting rid of the Army Corps of Engineers, it's a question of using them properly. Trying to protect New Orleans behind a system of levees and dykes was simply a bad idea. What needs to happen is to re-purpose New Orleans as it currently stands into a industrial port city, where instead of levees and dykes they use buildings built on pylons and floating structures, designed to work with nature instead of against it. As far as the population required to facilitate a major port city, I would suggest that a new city be built about twenty miles inland, with a high-speed rail line connecting it the port city.

I'm of the opinion that trying to "control" nature is a bad idea, it's much more logical to work with nature. New Orleans is far too valuable and strategic to simply abandon, but it's far too unstable to continue applying a strategy of dykes and levees. The city is largely under sea level, and continually sinking due to man's interference with the silting cycle and the natural rhythms of the Mississippi river. That path leads only to more disaster further down the line.

New Orleans as it currently exists is a city originally founded nearly three hundred years ago. Decisions were made based upon the technology of the day. They didn't have a way to easily move tens of thousands of workers twenty or thirty miles in ten minutes one way, three shifts a day, every day. So people had to build their houses next to their jobs. Other people set up businesses to sell things to those workers, and so the city begain growing into the strategic city that it is today. But does it make sense to have such an important port be based upon such a rickety foundation? No matter how much money we spend, New Orleans can still be taken out by yet another hurricane. Try a cat 5 hitting to the east instead of the west and see what happens. I defy you to show me anything that could protect against that. Do we propose to build one hundred foot tall levees around New Orleans? What a disaster that would be for everyone concerned.

No, the time has come to re-think and re-purpose and re-design New Orleans. Build a minimalistic port city that is virtually uninhabited except for the current shift on duty working the docks. Have the populace live on higher ground twenty miles or so inland, and move the workforce via high-speed trains. This way, when (not if) another hurricane hits, the population is evacuated in minutes and the facilities can be rebuilt in a matter of months, if not weeks.

This is my humble suggestion, submitted to all of you for your consideration.

Gold and silver are real money, paper is but a promise.

Elliott Jackalope  posted on  2005-09-02   13:40:32 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#22. To: purpleman (#17)

WHat the corps has done to keep the Mississippi navigable has created the disaster in N.O. I would let the developers take over, build the seawalls along resorts, hurricane-proof high rises, and whatever else they want. This could form a protective barrier south of N.O.

The common line of thought is that the levee system has caused larger deposits of silt to be deposited in the delta rather than flood waters enriching the flood plains. Also, the oil companies have been allowed to dig channels in the marshes in the delta and along the Gulf coast which has allowed salt water to encroach into the fresh water marshes, thus destoying them and removing much of the protectitive barrier associated with their existence.

Allowing unrestricted commerical development is counterproductive to these natural barriers and ecosystems. What you suggest is implausible and unworkable from a common sense perspective. You should really do some looking around at some true conservation oriented issues, though if you have never done so and have no real idea of what conservation or conservationists are, it may be a bit difficult for you considering the spin and disinformation about environmentalists being put out by the neocons and others.

"But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of." Lord Byron

BTP Holdings  posted on  2005-09-04   21:25:10 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#23. To: BTP Holdings, all (#22)

When the dust settles, and the blame game begins, w. is in deep shit. It will take more than a bunch of not-so-swift-boat ads to pull him up from this one. My guess is that w. is not only through as far as foreign policy is concerned, but the American people will have had enough of him very shortly. The pukes in congress don't have what it takes below the belt to impeach him, however his name will be synonomous with impotent, ineffective and dullard. He will rival Hoover Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson, Carter, Bentmember, name'em all, for the most scorned presidents ever.

Lod  posted on  2005-09-04   21:30:53 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#24. To: lodwick, BTP Holdings, crack monkey, Mekons4 (#23)

For Want of a Nail

For want of a nail, the shoe was lost, the horse was lost, the battle was lost and the king was lost, as well. One would think the imperially-inclined George Bush, the Yale history major with the low-C average, might still be mindful of that deceptively insignificant nail.

(punpirate is a New Mexico writer with a pocket full of nails.)

"The final measure of any civilization is how it treats its weakest members."

robin  posted on  2005-09-04   21:33:23 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#25. To: BTP Holdings (#13)

Did Nostradamus really say that?

No, although it fits Bush to a tee.

Of course it hurts, You're getting screwed by an elephant

justlurking  posted on  2005-09-04   21:40:23 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#26. To: justlurking (#25)

Hey jl, you know I am at christine's place right now?

"But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of." Lord Byron

BTP Holdings  posted on  2005-09-04   22:27:28 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#27. To: BTP Holdings (#26)

Hey jl, you know I am at christine's place right now?

No I didn't. Was I suppose to?

Of course it hurts, You're getting screwed by an elephant

justlurking  posted on  2005-09-04   22:40:39 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#28. To: justlurking (#27)

No I didn't. Was I suppose to?

I was down here for the Texas Liberty Jamboree with Brad.

"But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of." Lord Byron

BTP Holdings  posted on  2005-09-04   22:49:49 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#29. To: BTP Holdings (#28)

Didn't know anything about it. I'm sure you're having fun.

Of course it hurts, You're getting screwed by an elephant

justlurking  posted on  2005-09-04   22:52:19 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#30. To: Coral Snake (#0)

as more money was diverted to homeland security, the fight against terrorism and the war in Iraq.

Criminal. What a great article. Where is Jesse Jackson's contribution to his own people? I blame that giggling murder monkey for keeping is appointment with his campaign donors (that guitar thing was not in front of a random assembly; those were all major donors in the audience; VJ Day was just an excuse to raise money), but people like Jesse Jackson, who raises funds right and left and never seems to spend any of them, have to be put under the same scrutiny as thieves like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.

Mekons4  posted on  2005-09-04   23:15:23 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#31. To: BTP Holdings (#22)

Allowing unrestricted commerical development is counterproductive to these natural barriers and ecosystems.

That's generally true. But the Mississippi was channeled for the commercial interests in this case, not development interests. The country wanted a reliable navigation channel through the delta, so the corps built the levees. The fact that developers developed around the levees is incidental, the levees themselves are causing the destruction of the delta. The federal government and all Americans are responsible for this disaster since it was all of us who benefitted from the channel and the port.

"Unrestricted" commercial development is also something of a red herring since it rarely exists. Even around Northern Virginia where the developers run the show, there are still wetlands and parks being created either because the developers can sell more houses if they include or they are being forced by local governments to include them. I think local control works, environmentalists would rather have federal control which I would reject pointing to the Mississippi delta disaster as just one example.

"Money problems do not come from a lack of money, but from living an excessive, unrealistic lifestyle"

purpleman  posted on  2005-09-05   7:26:42 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


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