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September 07, 2005

if

The blog looks different, you may have noticed. It will likely change styles again at some point soon; Mark was good enough to upgrade my installation of Moveable Type (my blogging software) to get rid of all the comment spam, and the ability to use layout templates is part of the upgrade.

I feel like I should write something on the hurricane, so I will. Here are a number of tidbits:

  1. How does something like this happen in the United States, where a whole city is slowly wiped out, and nobody in charge seems to do anything about it until it's too late?
  2. The looting and crime would have been significantly lessened if supplies and food had been delivered more quickly to the areas where people were told to gather.
  3. Mandatory evacuation means you must provide transportation for those without cars to get out of an urban area. Like, oh, maybe a fleet of school buses that I saw half-submerged after the hurricane passed through.
  4. We can liberate a foreign country and provide aid halfway around the world, but we can't help our own citizens?
  5. Where's all the National Guard? Oh, that's right, they're guarding another nation.
  6. We knew the levees wouldn't hold. There have been articles, TV specials, all sorts of things on exactly this disaster. It was not unprecedented. It was entirely precedented.
  7. We couldn't prepare for a disaster that gave us days of advance warning, but we expect to be able to handle a sudden major terrorist attack?
  8. Government exists to protect people. If our government cannot protect us, it has no reason to exist.
  9. If foreign countries want to offer us aid, I say we should accept. We helped others. It's time for others to help us.
  10. People are saying "this isn't about assigning blame." Oh yes it is. The head of FEMA let people down. Bush let people down. The President is the leader of this country, and is ultimately responsible for making sure that government protects us. Remember that the next time you vote.

I'll write some stuff about our weekend camping trip in a bit. The whole thing makes me angry, because it could have been prevented. If only we had a real leader as President. If only the head of FEMA had done his job. If only we had done more evactuations. If only somebody, anybody, had airlifted supplies into New Orleans the same way we managed to do during the Berlin Airlift, this wouldn't be such a disaster. If, if, if.

Posted by Mark at September 7, 2005 12:59 PM

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It seems that this version of Moveable Type is not supported by FireFox. Or at least the layout is not loading correctly on my browser. Is there any update or whatever that will fix this problem?

Posted by: Mike: Your Brother at September 7, 2005 08:33 PM

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My Mom reads this site. Controversy is fine, just don't swear. Please don't be a spamming jerk.




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