CharlieBrown
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
best filter pwnage EVAR!

Greek: Say whatever you want to about Ray Nagin. But that man, whether you like him or hate him, has balls that make the Earth look like a marble.

I think you mistake stupidity for balls.

HellbentForLeather: You don't. The state and city do - well, except for the chocolate city. That one's everyone else's responsibility.

Disagree? Then you just don't care about black people.

You're missing the point. Imagine if they had told NYC that in a couple of days a couple of planes were about to take out the towers, and that their only response could be to take their stuff and go. While I agree that more people would have done it, the problem is that there would still be nothing to come back to, not matter how much time you had to "prepare".

And of course, the levee breaking is the real culprit. It was the fault of everyone who had a hand in letting it get that bad and/or not maknig it what it needed to be.

Be fair to Nagin people... it is summer, after all. Chocolate melts in summer. How can one have a sustainable Chocolate City if the majority of it melts each summer.

I'll wait until fall when the temperature drops before I make a snap judgement.

CharlieBrown: WTF

The words I first am typing to type, are post in bold.

It is funny that you can't put the together.

Jesus Christ, you don't know when to stop.

Mekongcola: Get a grip...NO residents had 3 DAYS WARNING but chose to stay...

And with more time you think they could have picked their entire homes?

­fir­st ­po­st

One of my best friends has a hole you can park a Hyundai in in front of his house in NOLA. It's been there for almost a year and the city can't seem to get it fixed. One time, they even came out and dug out the hole and made it bigger.

I love Ray Nagin so much, I almost voted for him because of my love of unintentional comedy.

scotttothety

You just made my point. Again.

There were, like, 293 years to get ready.

Mekongcola
Get a grip...NO residents had 3 DAYS WARNING but chose to stay...

Not according to the tin foil hat brigade

Didn't realize we lived in a communist country where rebuilding private buildings was the government's responsibility. Didn't any of you New Orleans folks have insurance? Why should my tax dollars pay to rebuild something that not probably, but will be flooded again in the future. Your city is under sea level for gods sake. Don't get the entitlement attitude coming from the south. What the hell is up with comparing New York and NO anyhow? 9/11 happened four years before Katrina.

"And with more time you think they could have picked their entire homes?"

If by "picked" you mean "packed", Maybe...My point was, the residents were warned but they CHOSE to stay anyway.

The problem in N'Yawk is the greedy shiats just can't bear to let all that lucrative real estate go to waste not making the old cash register ring ring ring. Oh, it's "hallowed ground," and all that, but simply dozing the hole full of dirt and planting some trees and making a memorial fills them with the greatest sort of internal conflict. The thought of all that precious, lovely money not being grubbed up has just vapor-locked their brains. Bu...bu...but the MONEY!

On the other hand, the problem in N'Olunz is that the place was just a big glorified ghetto and rotten site for a city, and everyone not from there can't imagine why on Earth you'd bother to rebuild a flood-prone slum at all.

iomegaboy

Don't get the entitlement attitude coming from the south.


NYC is in the south?

Did not know that.

boogie_down: first post


How did you do that?

Hey Mayor Ray Nagin! Can you please take back your residents?



K-Thx,

Southwest Houston

"Oh, it's "hallowed ground," and all that, but simply dozing the hole full of dirt and planting some trees and making a memorial fills them with the greatest sort of internal conflict. The thought of all that precious, lovely money not being grubbed up has just vapor-locked their brains. Bu...bu...but the MONEY!"

I see no problem with this. If buildings were knocked down by bombing in a "conventional" war, rebuilding would take place and no one would bat an eye.

iomegaboy - Didn't realize we lived in a communist country where rebuilding private buildings was the government's responsibility. Didn't any of you New Orleans folks have insurance? Why should my tax dollars pay to rebuild something that not probably, but will be flooded again in the future. Your city is under sea level for gods sake. Don't get the entitlement attitude coming from the south.

Well spoken. Whatever happened to a little freakin' personal responsibility?

If I choose to live in a coastal city that is underneath sea-level (a stupid decision if you ask me), you can be sure as hell that I would insure my home up the arse. It is just plain stupid to do otherwise. It's also plain stupid to think other people who made more sound decisions should pay for those who didn't.

In case it hasn't been mentioned yet, if we rebuild the WTC, we won't have a stunning visual impact to point to in order to keep beating the drum in Iraq.

We're picking at the scab so it won't heal just so we can keep pointing at the wound and using it as cause to stay locked in a battle with a guerrila tactic (i.e. the war on terror).

Nagin's got a good point, even if he's one of the most crass people in the world to say it that way.

iomegaboy: Why should my tax dollars pay to rebuild something that not probably, but will be flooded again in the future

Well to be fair, for the sake of argument and to correct everyone. Even if they had carried flood insurance the repayment would still be coming out of government public funds.

The ebony "blame everyone else except our self" vote.

Exclusive interview with a typical "chocolate" citizen :

Hi how you doing? May I ask you a few questions for Fark.com?

sup

So how goes your life, have you acclimatized to your old life here in New Orleans?

Reacla------homie you needun to speak English and shiat, for real.

Uh, okay, let me ask again, has it been a struggle to come back to New Orleans and find housing and work and so on?

Sheet man. Look, Bush. he don't give a fark bout us; for real. I mean I got paid $2000, but shiat man, I had to go buy some sneakers wit da lights in dem, and mos def, had to buy Kayne West's album, for gettin' on da TV and telling it like it is and shiat.

Did you save any of that money to use to buy supplies or use towards housing or anything?

Ah hell no! 40's don't grow on muthafarking tree homie. They had my black ass all up in da Holiday inn and shiat, I had to get my groove on and shiat. You know I roll nubian.

Coming back here is kinda hard isn't since you didn't save any of that money or take advantage of the 6-7 months you were put up in the hotel for free?

Well, look man, I iz been under lots of stress and shiat. My girl Cynthia McKinney just lost da election, I gave $500 of that money for her campaign. I need to get dat money back and shiat.

Sir, why would you give a quarter of your emergency fund to a candidate that isn't even in your state?

Cause she ah, she.......she speak truth to da power!

That very well could be the case but why wouldn't you use that emergency mo--

TRUTH TO DA POWER!!!!!

Espertron

If I choose to live in a coastal city that is underneath sea-level (a stupid decision if you ask me), you can be sure as hell that I would insure my home up the arse. It is just plain stupid to do otherwise. It's also plain stupid to think other people who made more sound decisions should pay for those who didn't.


You must not care about black people. Like Bush.

Let's face facts here, God cased the flooding of NO because it was such a hedonists city. The residents brought this apon themselves.

Hey, mouth breathers!

The WTC is embarrassing. But it's a non-starter as far as Nagin's comparison. WTC only added a glut of unused (or government used) office space when it was around. It was non-essential to NYC. In fact, it was a detriment. It was one of the most poorly conceived quasi-public development projects in American history. (Which is why it's black-humor funny that terrorists thought they were destroying a monument to capitalism). It's embarrassing from a rebound standpoint that there's still a hole in the ground. OTOH, most projections suggest that NYC has no use, at present for a billion additional feet of office space.

Whereas New Orleans runs the risk of falling into permanent and total oblivion. So the comparison didn't wash.

It would be like if Donald Trump had twenty Bentleys parked on his lawn and one blew up. It would be embarrassing, and an eyesore, if he didn't clean it up. But it wouldn't materially affect his ability to get around.

In New Orleans' case, the cars were all destroyed and the house is unliveable.

ju66l3r: We're picking at the scab so it won't heal just so we can keep pointing at the wound and using it as cause to stay locked in a battle with a guerrila tactic (i.e. the war on terror).


Actually the logistics of replacing the WTC are astronomical. It's not that suprising we are where we at 5 years later there.

Espertron: If I choose to live in a coastal city that is underneath sea-level (a stupid decision if you ask me), you can be sure as hell that I would insure my home up the arse. It is just plain stupid to do otherwise. It's also plain stupid to think other people who made more sound decisions should pay for those who didn't.


What part of 'almost no one has recieved their flood insurance settlement' do you people not understand?

Also - all the public buildings, infrastructure - all the fed roads and highways - that's just tough shiat, right? These people paid Federal, state, and local taxes. That was just for other peoples shiat to get maintained, right?

HellbentForLeather: You just made my point. Again.

There were, like, 293 years to get ready.

I agree with you that the levees could have been better prepared and that people could have left and taken a few things. But to think that a bunch of people with zero dollars could have reinforced each home to the extent that it would have withstood that flood, or that they had the resources to get insurance or pack everything and go just isn't realistic. Could they have left and could Nagin have been less of a dumbshiat? Absolutely. But that has nothing to do with the aftermath.

They still would have come back to nothing, and the reconstruction would still have been needed.

I'm not sure what point of yours you think I'm making for you, because I'm pretty sure I'm pointing out exactly how uninformed your opinion is. But you keep on keepin' on. It makes the rest of us look smarter.

Mekongcola: If by "picked" you mean "packed", Maybe...My point was, the residents were warned but they CHOSE to stay anyway.

I meant to type "picked up" as in there's no way their homes would have magically survived, just because they were more prepared.

The issue now is reconstruction, not the level of ignorance it must have took to stay there for that storm. I'm not saying that it was acceptable for them to stay. I'm saying that even had they left, they'd be in the same situation.

If you want to look at it from a pure number standpoint, it would actually be worse, because there'd be fewer dead people--meaning more people to be a burden on the social services and free money.

Hey, sometimes the truth hurts. Deal.

"Houston took in 150,000 evacuees the most of any U.S. city after Katrina struck on Aug. 29. Houston police believe the evacuees are partly responsible for a nearly 17.5 percent increase in homicides so far this year over the same period in 2005.

About 21 percent of Houston's 232 homicides through July 25 involved an evacuee as either a suspect or a victim, according to police, who attribute much of the bloodshed to fighting among rival New Orleans gang members." -ABC NEWS

Why does this not surprise me?

faethe
How did you do that?

Just a little HTML magic.
I'm not exactly sure how I could get it to be visible in a post... my html-foo is strong, but not that strong.

scotttothety:

At this point, it's just time to push the damn reboot button let the city sink to the waters and work on the land we got left after that.

The condensed version:

Nagin is comparing a urgent need (New Orleans) to what would be a low priority (WTC) if not for the inclusion of terrorists in the calculus.

Surprising though it may be, New York could absorb the elimination of far more office space. The result would be healthy for the city.

I thought Nagin was business savvy.

to some degree this is a correct statement. He is just showing what beuracracy can do to a building think of what it can do to a city!

faethe: What part of 'almost no one has recieved their flood insurance settlement' do you people not understand?


What part of 'almost no-one' carried flood insurance save for businesses do you not understand?

scotttothety

I'm not sure what point of yours you think I'm making for you, because I'm pretty sure I'm pointing out exactly how uninformed your opinion is. But you keep on keepin' on. It makes the rest of us look smarter.


If pointing out that 293 years seems like enough time for the state and city to prepare the levees in order to PREVENT the flood, then I guess I'm pretty un-informed.

I think that NOLA has that information now, though.

boogie_down: Just a little HTML magic.
I'm not exactly sure how I could get it to be visible in a post... my html-foo is strong, but not that strong.


Good job :) Helluva lot better than I could have figured out to do :)

HotWingConspiracy

Fine. Then the New Yorkers should just build a building there and get it over with and quit playing the Big Blubbery Drama Queens over the whole thing. Furthermore, anyone arguing that New Yorkers "had no warning" is full of shiat. New York was and is a prime target for these Koran-thumping fellows, and anyone living there who didn't understand that fact on September 10, 2001 was just a brainless moron. And the next time these Koran-thumping fellows drop the hammer on NYC, no one can say they didn't see it coming.

To any who say the destruction in New Orleans was greater than the destruction on the Mississippi Coast:

You're wrong.

Entire towns were wiped off the map along the Coast, all up and down the Gulf. If you start from the coast and drive up about 100 miles, you see large swathes of rubble, including every single tree tilted unsettingly to the side. You're making an attempt to compare one city to an entire region, and frankly, the leadership shown by MS Governor Barbour and the Coast politicians far outstrips any shown by anyone in LA, from your governor on down.

Take a page from the book and read it.

Halfzware_Shag: It would be like if Donald Trump had twenty Bentleys parked on his lawn and one blew up. It would be embarrassing, and an eyesore, if he didn't clean it up. But it wouldn't materially affect his ability to get around.

In New Orleans' case, the cars were all destroyed and the house is unliveable.

Funny thing is that you've made his point. IF NYC can still get around like Trump, why haven't they simply filled in a hole?

If NO is so destroyed, why does everyone expect it to instantly rebound, when the "not even really hurt" NYC can't even fill in a hole?

I'm sure Amazon has some books on logic that you can pick up cheap. Remember to click-through from the icon on the right, so Drew can get his dolla dolla bills y'all.

"Bush doesn't care about black people"

I found that one particularly funny!

It always gets back to race with black people. What up with that homies?

HellbentForLeather

Ya' had me and ya' lost me.

I could be wrong, but I thought those levees were built and maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers who are directed and funded by the Federal Government not the city of NO.
If that is the case, then how can the people at the city level being citizens or government be held responsible for the levees failure? Not to mention being ripped because they should have been prepared for the levees to fail?
Like I said before, even if everyone evacuated, the levees still failed and those people are still displaced. How could they have been more prepared?

IdBeCrazyIf: What part of 'almost no-one' carried flood insurance save for businesses do you not understand?


Bullshiat.

"The issue now is reconstruction, not the level of ignorance it must have took to stay there for that storm."

I agree, so why arn't the displaced people rebuilding in NO?

it could have been worse, he didnt assault any capitol hill policemen with a cell phone.

Mekongcola: Why does this not surprise me?

Want to know what's even more surprising? While 2005 crime rates increased that much all year, most of that increase was post-evacuees. So in order for Jan-Dec to have increased that much, Sept-Dec. had to have increased by over 60%.

It's obvious that the crime problems relate to evacuees.

/stats are approximate, so don't get sand in your vagina Dro

iomegaboy

I have not heard any stories of people in New York expecting the government to swoop in and rebuild everything at their expense. On the other hand that seems to be ALL I hear out of New Orleans.


I've heard a story or two about WTC families demanding money from the federal government.

BTW, NYC is (To my knowledge) the ONLY city in the history of the US that had to bailed out by (Surprise!) the federal government for going bankrupt.

Homeowners decked by Katrina still wait for insurers to pay up (pops)

The insurance disputes are "the second catastrophe to hit Louisiana," says Madro Bandaries, an attorney representing homeowners in a class-action lawsuit against Louisiana's insurer of last resort, which provides high-cost policies for those who can't get policies elsewhere. A year after the storm, "We have thousands of people who have yet to receive adequate money or have yet to receive any money at all."

silly afroman...too bad there wasn't some sort of vocal limiter that would restrict people under a certain intelligence level from speaking...

...or writing in the internetz...

IdBeCrazyIf: At this point, it's just time to push the damn reboot button let the city sink to the waters and work on the land we got left after that.

I think that any reconstruction should include some wetland restoration. Consolidation of living areas would work great, and turn most of NO into either lived-in space or wetland, as opposed to lived-in space or rotting ghetto.

But many people wouldn't sell their property because they're afraid someone's going to build something nice there and their property values will rise. Which of course they won't, because nobody wants to build near the ghetto.

It's a pretty vicious cycle, fueled by morons who expect something for nothing and people like Nagin, who are incapable of making good decisions, and fuel the racism and economic paranoia that will prohibit an effective reconstruction.

Mekongcola: I agree, so why arn't the displaced people rebuilding in NO?

Because they have no money with which to rebuild. They lived in the slums because they were mostly unemployed and all were below the poverty line. Not because they wanted to Flip This House and had a stast of cash waiting to rebuild their garden of Eden when the time came.

They didn't have flood insurance for the same reason.

faethe:

Bullshiat indeed!
From your own article.

Her four-bedroom home, a block away from the beach, suffered nearly $300,000 in damage, but her insurer said the property was destroyed by flooding, not wind. The distinction is important: A standard homeowner's policy pays for damage from a hurricane's winds and rains, but it doesn't cover flooding.

You live next to a beach and fail to cover yourself with flood insurance?

Again.. excuse me if I fail to give a shiat.