I was just visiting w/someone here in Austin who met M. Brown a while back - Brown is a completely arrogant piece of work. I wish Koppel had ripped him an even bigger one.

This is what happens when the president appoints his buddies to important positions. Mike Brown's cheif qualification for this job was that he was a city manager. Now, people are dead.

SONNED.

Ted Koppel did a real interview. I watch Matt Lauer do the same interview with the same guy this morning and Matt let him off completely without even questioning his responses which basically admitted failure. My message to Matt and all the other MSM “reporters” watch and learn. These are qualities that our Nation requires in our reporters. My admiration for Ted Koppel just skyrocketed.

Al Quada could not do to us what we have done to ourselves.

Maybe now people will understand what civil servants like Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neil were trying to tell us.... there was corruption at the highest levels of our government and no one would listen. Mike Brown is incompetent. But so is G.W. Bush. That's not news to most people.

G. W.'s father will not be able to bail him out this time. His presidency is a disaster of biblical porportion.... for more than just getting us into an unnecessary war. John Adams, our second president said: "Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war." Adams was one of our greatest presidents who had enormous background for the job and yet he felt inadequate. I don't believe G.W. Bush ever studied history or geography.... he was being briefed as late as this morning on the location of Lake Pontchartrain to New Orleans.

I challenge our nation to spend more time thinking about who they will get to lead them in the future. Our children and grandchildren depend on us. God help us all..... where have all the leaders gone?

THANK YOU, BASK

Well, Who would have thought that I would post something today, I mean 2 days in a row is pretty amazing. :)

Bask, brings up a great question. Where are the leaders? Where was the govenor's and mayors before the storm hit, why didn't they call up the National Guard? Where were the leaders in the community? Why were they not going around knocking on doors and filling their vans and cars with people to help get them out of the danger zone? Where were was the local community leaders trying to help people get out of harms way?

I know for a fact they were not all on vacation with Bush!!

I bet you are sick of me saying this... However Bush is not our problem nor will ever be our problem, Clinton was not our problem nor will ever be our problem, Daddy Bush or Grandpa Reagan was not our problem and never will be our problem, not just with the hurrican issue or any other local or state issue.

How sad it is!!! How sad it is, that we have become a people that are dependant upon our goverment!!! What a sad day it is that we can't help a neighbor without the goverment giving us a grant or giving us men/women in a green outfit carrying a gun.

I just read where Jesse Jackson has come out and made remarks about the Bush administration, I wish I had a phone number to call him, because I would say the very same thing to him. How dare you Jesse expect the goverment to do what you should have been doing!! This is nothing more than pass the buck and let someone else take the heat for our freakin failure to be Americans.

We should not accept help from Canada or from Europe or from any other nation or country. We should pull up our own pants like a bunch of big boys and girls and do something other than talk about how someone else has failed us.

It takes a coward to point the finger at another and say you should have!!! When everyone of us should point the finger in a mirror and say..... You should have!!!

I need to go take an extra blood pressure pill.

Oh I know, I know, you are going to say, I miss the point!!!! I am just a (whatever 4 letter word you want to use) person. Yet the fact is, we all know it is the truth.

Government is supposed to be there during national disasters. That's what government does, protect and defend whether in war or in our own country. No town or city I know could sustain the level of damage the Gulf Coast has and handle it alone. That's ridiculous on its face.

People are dying. Americans. Our countrymen, women, and children. Republicans and Democrats alike are apalled at the incompetence at the highest levels. So, yes, the previous respondent (Patmos) has missed the point. As have people at the highest level of government who are defending their inaction by saying "but this was the fault of a hurricane and that is beyond our control."

Ample evidence exists that the Corp of Engineers tried to alert government several years ago that the levees needed to be rebuilt but were not listened to and the resulting catastrophe is MAN MADE.

If this region of our nation was that important to the rest of the nation, (as we are beginning to realize it was) why was there no provision made to see that we not lose our oil refineries or our grain shipping capacity? It takes leadership to understand the needs, get the proper funding and get the project completed.

However, when our leaders choose to go to war, deplete our National Guard, and refuse to grant the funds for needed infrastructure repair, I doubt looking in the mirror at myself will be of much help. Especially when our president told us to go shopping to help the country out?

Lack of leadership has caused the deaths of thousands this week.

Lack of leadership will cause unneeded suffering throughout the country in the months to come but not because the American people are unwilling to help. It takes a coordinated effort of a well-run government to bring the best out of the people. It doesn't matter to me if a leader emerges who is Republican or Democrat. We are in desperate need of a true leader and not any more "politicians" please.

Yeah youre right Patmos, I should have dropped everything, left my daughter at home alone and gone off to help those folks.

I shouldnt have relied on my tax dollars being spent properly for national disaster prevention/relief, I should have kept that money so I can drive several hundred miles to help people.

Yeah, same on the common American.

Let us know how your personal rescue operation goes, all of my big transport trucks and rescue aircraft are in the shop, and I cant afford fuel for them right now anyway.

We should not accept help from Canada or from Europe or from any other nation or country. We should pull up our own pants like a bunch of big boys and girls and do something other than talk about how someone else has failed us.

Patmos, those of us who are adult enough to keep our pants on are also man enough to know when we need help. When people are literally dying of thirst and starvation in the middle of a modern, populated American city after a much-anticipated disaster, there is clearly something wrong and we clearly need all the help we can get. Perhaps you would like to volunteer to go down to the Mississippi coast or into the swamped streets of NoLA and tell them that we don't have the money to help them rebuild, but we do have the arrogance and ego to turn away foreign aid?

It takes a coward to point the finger at another and say you should have!!! When everyone of us should point the finger in a mirror and say..... You should have!!!

Yes. I should have pointed a finger in my mirror and said, "Peter, you SHOULD HAVE ordered the national guard to airdrop food and water to the refugees at the Superdome! Peter, you had the authority! Peter, you coward and fool, stockpiling the resources necessary to deal with a natural disaster is your job as a citizen, and you can't rely on the government to do anything about it, even though you give them tens of thousands of dollars a year! Peter, you shouldn't have made the FEMA director appointment out of nepotism! Peter, you shouldn't have allowed the President to be on vacation when a Cat5 hurricane is headed towards the nation's most important port! Stop pointing fingers at others, Peter, and start accepting blame yourself!"

You feel better now, Patmos?

Anyone that thinks that this disaster of biblical proportions is not our governments problem- please pack-up and take your sad deluded wingnut/libertarian/whatever asses and move them to fucking Columbia, or Niger; and try life there for a while you cluless, heartless morons.

One of the main reasons that Governments exist is because history has shown us that it is sheer lunacy to expect individual citizens to be able to organize and respond to a disaster of this magnitude.

This government, run IMHO by criminals, is on it's face, the most incompetent and corrupt in our entire history. Real Americans- and I'm not talking about those wusses that slap a yellow ribbon on their gas-pig SUVs- should be mad as hell about what this government has LET HAPPEN. Yes, LET HAPPEN. You think FEMA was unaware of this storm last week? You think the flooding of New Orleans was a surprise- well wake up little chickens- IT WAS EXPECTED.

And that's how much we really care. Now I'm off to go protect a flooded Wal-Mart being attacked by senior citizens looking for water. Lock and load!

Oh, and a final word to the wingnut poster above- please keep your fat dumb ass out of California, we already have more than our share of creatins.

Well, the Bushies cannot spin their way out of this mess. The court of public opinion is going to one angry body when the dust settles.

First we need to save these poor folks and get them to safety.

Then we need to see some heads roll in the Bush administration.

It amazes me, it really does. How people respond to the guy that says... We as a nation can do better.

What is even more so sad is that you know it is truth and guilt brings you to the place that you use such filth for language.

I want to know, I really want to know why my opinion causes so much anger? My opinion is just a single voice (the truth concerning this web site) and yet you cuss me like a umpire who said your son got a strike instead of another walk to 1st base.

There is a reason why no one tries to speak and hear the opinions of those that are far left, is because you are so far left all you can resort too is yelling and name calling.

I have said today on one of these comment thingies, I feel as if our goverment has failed, because man has rested only upon goverment. The fall of goverment has but one excuse, when one man says... What can goverment do for me, not what can I do for goverment.

Do I believe that all of us have helicopters in our back yard, no, do I believe that we have huge rescue vehicles in our garages no. I am just trying to express my opinion on how much we expect our tax dollars to do while we just sit back and flip our hamburgers on the grill.

The biggest lie that has ever been mentioned, is the lie, that.... I pay my taxes, I am doing my part!!! When you consider your taxes, when you consider your taxes, you have failed in paying for a county clerk to sit behind a desk and report a garbage pile up behind wal-mart.

Should we leave our families and go and pass out water, should we leave our children and help rescue someone on a roof top. Well that is what many are asking the President to do. That is what we expect our homeland defense fund to do. That is what we expect goverment to do, and again, if you think your tax dollars are going to solve our problem you are so very mistaken. Because the people, ALL THE PEOPLE, that you invest your tax dollars into, are going to fail you, they are going to let you down.

So look again in the mirror, because we are the goverment, we are the people.

I think the thing that fuels us is for many the fact is, we want to do so much, but in situations such as this, we can only do so little.

So I take your cussin and I take your ugly attitude about a single person expressing an opinion it changes not my opinion, because you have yet to come up with a better solution than what is already been said, so you must do your best to silent the voice who is against your way of belief.

Looks like Mike Brown effed up huge. Dub's going to give him such a medal for this.

The truth. The truth. The truth.

Give it a rest Patmos.

We as a nation can do better. And for a start we can vote in elected officials who really do represent our values. Gov't exists to collectively accomplish the things we have decided are worth doing which we as individual cannot do.

And sorry to expect so much from our President. Sheesh. He did seek the position. Twice as I sadly recall. So please, provide some leadership George. You're in shape. Rested. Do something beyond remarking on how wonderful it will be to sit on Trent Lott's frontporch after 'we' rebuild the Gulf Coast.

Can't believe that's setting the bar impossibly high.

Yep, this guy is in line for the Presidental Medal of Freedom, recently renamed the Presidental Medal of Glorius Fucktardery.

Let's dress W. up in the same flight suit he used to land on that aircraft carrier and parachute his stupid ass into New Orleans right next to the Convention Center.

Where is that Vice-President that's such a cool head under pressure? I suppose he thinks the survivors at the N.O. Convention Center are in their last throes anyway, so what's the use?

These men are so detached from American reality that they are criminal.

Patmos, Why are you posting on a fucking bulletin board when you could be distributing your aid in the dirty south?

Looks like Mike Brown is next in line for the medal of freedom.

Ouch.

That was almost painful to watch.

I think the worst part is that once the people are out of New Orleans and they try fixing up the city, instead of pointing the finger at the government and demanding answers, we'll just end up talking about something else. They'll just try to focus our attention on how great the War in Iraq is going or some bullshit like that. This administration gets away with just about everything.

Patmos is one cool fellow. He is the only US citizen I know that has managed to be healthy and presumably economically self-sufficient without the benefit or protection of the US constitution and the laws emanating from it. He just needs to recognize logical fallacies. The generalization that government cannot solve all your problems is true but that government cannot or should not solve any problem is patently false. The issue then becomes what was the proper government function before and after hurricane Katrina. That neighbors should have helped each other out is an ideal view of the situation. The real view is that mitigation and recovery planning should already have been in place and should have been the primary function of government. Government, from the local to the federal level has failed to plan and the outcome can only be unmitigated failure as what is now evident. We need some form of government to provide for the common welfare and even though a democracy is not the best form it is the most workable form. Our state of democracy is currently in trouble because the monied class through their profit motivated corporate system has bought our entire republican form of government and is now wielding absolute control over our three branches of government, and consequently over all of us including the entire world. Just look around and believe your own eyes and ears. By the way, Patmos, how confident are you that the high blood pressure pill you are now taking is actually making you healthier and not actually hastening your departure from this valley of tears. "We are the government" is a nice sounding metaphor but how does that resonate in the real world. Furthermore, "we" is a collective that if applied to your line of reasoning should enable us to get out of Iraq, just like that. Sadly, it doesn't work that way, does it Patmos.

And finally, Patmos, you should take full responsibility for the current state of our government and resign, and then demand the resignation of the President of the United States!

Ephraim,

I can't believe it!! I can't believe it!!! You are one of the very few that actually responded to what I said, and not cuss me and try to just push me under the table with all the other mentaly challenged children.

I say this again in the greatest passion a man can give.... I think our goverment has failed in this Katrina episode, I think they should send every dollar and every soldier they can to help restore those in the path of Katrina... I do, I really really do!! Yet as you pointed out, we cannot forget our part!! We cannot, We cannot, We cannot!!! We must as the America do EVERYTHING we can to help. Let the goverment build new roads and homes and drainage systems, let them do it!!! But let us do the things that the Goverment should not be doing. It takes only a human being with any kind of heart to know the difference.

To respond to the 1st part of your comment. I am not a man of great health, or resources, I work, make a living and pay my taxes. I am young and live one day after the other wondering if I will live or not,no lie in that comment. It is not that I do not need the constitution of the US, it is that I don't hide behind it either.

My blood pressure pill a long with the other 5 pills I have to take everyday is but a source that keeps me alive. I am sure there would be some say in this room, stop taking them.

I just want to be heard, just like you want to be heard and everyone else wants to be heard, and people say... Goto a Republican source then, why? I am not republican or democrat or even lord forbid a Tater supporter. And if I did goto one of there rooms, all they would do is shake their poster in the air and agree with me, what fun is that?

Your valley of tears that you mention is called... Baca. Just in case you did not know.

Now see it wasn't that hard to not cuss me and point out that you think I am nothing more than a complete idiot, well, at least you were cleaver enough to use a different method. :)

"let us do the things that the Goverment should not be doing"

What exactly are these, and why aren't you already doing them? Or is arguing on the internet your way of contributing to the people in Nola, because if so, then I've already done my part.

Yes, we should all be so self sufficient as to grow wings and fly off of rooftops to escape a flood, huh? Or jump into toxic churning waters and take our drowning like men.

No wonder Patmos expected to be called a bad name...but his two brain cells couldn't come up with the right number of letters. M-O-R-O-N is five letters. Like leader, like blind follower.

I can't recall the poster who stated, in so many words, we the people, should start electing responsible leaders. We tried to do that in the last two elections. Remember? And look what happened.

Bush should fess up and start using the motto, "The buck stops here." If he did he would be richer than all the money he makes from oil. His incompetence are legendary and deadly.

Another thing, the white house/government/the rich folks on top of the heap (call it anything but us) is into regulating any and everything taxable; they override state laws left and right, but they can't do a damn thing when it comes to saving US citizens' lives.

This situation is a sad state of affairs, especially when the this government is forcing other counties to do it the democrate way. Pitiful.

Last point: Let's leave all disasters, man-made or natural, to haliburton (since they are the Mr. Wolf of the world.) Sad, sad, sad.

I suppose that it's not wise to take all news report as true fact. Yet, I was amazed to see one reporter who claimed FEMA chief Brown said: " he is looking forward to go back to D.C. for a good mexican food, drinks, and his wife." ... Considering so many death laying south, perhaps he should not sounds so "happy" at the time like this??! Another reporter said: "Brown felt betrayed by press, not by the president." Well, at least he is still good at kissing US president's ass. I guess he will get another fat paying gov. job pretty soon.

So when's St. George going to take The War Against Terror onto God's turf to oust Him and disarm Him of his Weapons of Meterological Destruction?