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infrogmationThe words "levee break" and news footage of cities under water certainly has a dread familiarity for those of us greater New Orleans. Our hearts go out to our countrymen in the Mid-West.
Midwest Flood News
Red Cross.org
Just a "natural" disaster?
"Authorities knew the aging levee near Birdland, a working-class, racially diverse neighborhood, was the weakest link among the city's levees. A 2003 Corps report called for nearly $10 million in improvements across Des Moines, but there wasn't enough federal money to do all the work." Des Moines Levee Fails (hat tip to jdquintette)
But of course we can't afford 10 million here and 12 million there to defend America when we have a 2.4 Trillion dollar war to take care of. (And Bush wants another 178 billion, saying "our men and women in uniform and their families deserve better". Indeed, so do we all.)
Besides, it's cheaper (not for the country, of course, but for BushCo) to just let citizens die and start a PR campaign to blame the victims.
I'm not saying defending Americans isn't on BushCo's list of priorities at all. It's probably somewhere down their list as a subset of potential public relations problems. Right around the note to make sure Dear Leader doesn't start massaging female foreign leaders when there are media cameras around.
Edit:
Is 'Mother Nature' Really To Blame for the Midwest Floods? article by Georgianne Nienaber. More on levees, politics, and Army Corps of Engineers follies.
Midwest Flood News
Red Cross.org
Just a "natural" disaster?
"Authorities knew the aging levee near Birdland, a working-class, racially diverse neighborhood, was the weakest link among the city's levees. A 2003 Corps report called for nearly $10 million in improvements across Des Moines, but there wasn't enough federal money to do all the work." Des Moines Levee Fails (hat tip to jdquintette)
But of course we can't afford 10 million here and 12 million there to defend America when we have a 2.4 Trillion dollar war to take care of. (And Bush wants another 178 billion, saying "our men and women in uniform and their families deserve better". Indeed, so do we all.)
Besides, it's cheaper (not for the country, of course, but for BushCo) to just let citizens die and start a PR campaign to blame the victims.
I'm not saying defending Americans isn't on BushCo's list of priorities at all. It's probably somewhere down their list as a subset of potential public relations problems. Right around the note to make sure Dear Leader doesn't start massaging female foreign leaders when there are media cameras around.
Edit:
Is 'Mother Nature' Really To Blame for the Midwest Floods? article by Georgianne Nienaber. More on levees, politics, and Army Corps of Engineers follies.
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In Other News...
Date: 2008-06-17 08:06 pm (UTC)http://toulousestreet.wordpress.com/2008/06/14/boy-scouts-save-iowa/
That's right folks. Everytime there's a brush fire in California, or an ice storm in North Dakota, or a piddly little crick flood in Wisconsin, you're going to have to listen to a bunch of smirking, self-righteous asshats lecture you on how morally superior they are.
Re: In Other News...
Date: 2008-06-17 11:46 pm (UTC)(Quotes via Des Moines Register (http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080615/NEWS/806150363/-1/SPORTS12))
"Kevin Bauer, owner of Glass Professionals Inc., 700 New York Ave., had two pumps going to keep the water out of his business when police arrived and told him to leave. He refused, and he spent some time in a squad car."
Dumb hicks are too stupid to get out of harms way!
They need have the LAW brought down on them HARD!
" "I'm not a happy taxpayer. They treat criminals better than they did me." "
Ingrate Iowans have gone Commie Terrorist!
...Aw, that sort of crap is just too easy.
Modern Conservatives: Hating America First.
Does that Star Spangled Banner still wave / Over the Land of the Free...
Date: 2008-06-17 10:39 pm (UTC)I just found this image (via here (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Flag_dipping_in_water_on_a_porch_in_Cedar_Rapids_Iowa.jpg)). I might have used it to illustrate this post originaly had I known of it earlier.
As good a photo to symbolize the USA during the BushCo II Regeme as any, no?