Thank you world!!!!!

[Brink15]

Elef,

 

Here is the link: Katrina Should be A Lesson To US on Global Warming

 

Actually the political barbs were from Frankfurter Rundschau and Die Tageszeitung. Der Spiegel was just commenting on them and actually not endorsing this BS.

 

Just my two satang but it is a pretty shitty thing to use the leveling of several cities and the loss of many lives to push a political agenda. Maybe in a few weeks or a month they could start with this rant but right now it shows that the only thing they really are concerned about is furthering their views not about a tragedy. Really bad time to tweak our collective nose. ::

[Brink15]

Thanks for the sentiments Phil. Much appreciated.

[Brink15]

I agree that comparing this to the Tsunami is bullshit. They are two totally different events and certainly the loss of life here will only be a fraction of that seen last December. That being said much of the Gulf coast from New Orleans to Pensacola is pretty well destroyed. New Orleans is now mostly flooded under 6' to 20' of water and will likely never recover to its original state. Right now there are hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their homes, jobs, and in many cases family members. It will take months until the city is habitable again and if Florida is any example loss of this magnitude will overwhelm the insurance companies ability to react quickly. This region is really and truly fucked for a long while to come.

 

It's sad that, as an American expat you seem be gloating.

[Khun_Kong]

No gloating. Sympathy expressed.

 

And my earlier comments were not directed to you, LP- only quick-replying.

 

In case anybody missed it, please reread and note the word media, the second word in my post. My comments simply refer the tendency of <some> media making everything about US/us, even to the point of usurping other's tragedies. Sensationalism for no point other than...sensationalism.

 

I'm not part of the media, either... i.e., no self-loathing here!

[Guest lazyphil]

<<Oh, woe is the US. Pity.>>

 

This sentiment was yours not the medias. Pretty sarcastic.

[Khun_Kong]

lazyphil said:

<<Oh, woe is the US. Pity.>>

 

This sentiment was yours not the medias. Pretty sarcastic.

 

Now now, LP- you should give me full credit: Every sentiment in that post was mine, not merely the quoted piece.

 

And it was indeed sarcastic.

 

Just my way of dealing with shit.

[..]

Brink15 said:

Just my two satang but it is a pretty shitty thing to use the leveling of several cities and the loss of many lives to push a political agenda. Maybe in a few weeks or a month they could start with this rant but right now it shows that the only thing they really are concerned about is furthering their views not about a tragedy. Really bad time to tweak our collective nose. ::

The problem is that global warming is NOT a political issue, but one that affects everyone in the world. Yet certain people in power in certain countries refuse to acknowlege the problem, calling it junk science (yet creationism is good science ) and even recinding laws to make the problem even worse. Pointing out these things at a time when it is on everyone's mind is a good idea so as to make the masses effect change. Otherwise no one cares cuz "it doesn't affect me".

 

KK: Nicely done.

 

Just my humble opinion, your mileage may vary.

 

Regards,

SD

[Evel_Penivel]

Khun_Kong said:

US media demonstrates its arrogance/ignorance once again by calling the hurricane "Amwerica's Tsunami".

 

 

The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina is NOT widely referred to in the U.S. media as "America's tsunami." I have a search engine that covers 4,500 newspapers around the world, including the major U.S. dailies. It returned 14 references to "America's tsunami" in the past week, several of them outside the U.S.

 

Here's an example from CNN Tuesday:

 

MILES O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: "Hello, I'm Miles O'Brien, live in Biloxi, Mississippi. And take a look at the scene behind me. One person has called it America's tsunami or Mississippi's tsunami. And you can see why it is like that.

This was a 25-foot storm surge that came across here. A 25-foot wall of water as Katrina stormed across the Gulf and then made its way across land about 24 hours ago. "

 

When there are references to "America's tsunami," it's clear from the context that what is meant is ''the biggest natural catastrophe caused by massive sea waves to hit the U.S. for many years." No reporter is implying the damage or loss of life from Huricane Katrina is equivalent to that caused by the Dec. 26 tsunami in Asia.

 

In fact, the term "America's tsunami" comes mostly in stories about relief efforts. People say, "This is America's tsunami, everyone should donate to aid the victims."

 

Here's an example of "mainstream reporting" on the damage:

 

Governor: Everyone Must Leave New Orleans

By BRETT MARTEL, Associated Press Writer

1 hour ago

 

NEW ORLEANS - The governor of Louisiana says everyone needs to leave New Orleans due to flooding from Hurricane Katrina. "We've sent buses in. We will be either loading them by boat, helicopter, anything that is necessary," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. Army engineers struggled without success to plug New Orleans' breached levees with giant sandbags, and the governor said Wednesday the situation was worsening and there was no choice but to abandon the flooded city.

 

"The challenge is an engineering nightmare," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "The National Guard has been dropping sandbags into it, but it's like dropping it into a black hole."

 

As the waters continued to rise in New Orleans, four Navy ships raced toward the Gulf Coast with drinking water and other emergency supplies, and Red Cross workers from across the country converged on the devastated region. The Red Cross reported it had about 40,000 people in 200 shelters across the area in one of the biggest urban disasters the nation has ever seen.

 

The death toll from Hurricane Katrina reached at least 110 in Mississippi alone, while Louisiana put aside the counting of the dead to concentrate on rescuing the living, many of whom were still trapped on rooftops and in attics.

 

A full day after the Big Easy thought it had escaped Katrina's full fury, two levees broke and spilled water into the streets on Tuesday, swamping an estimated 80 percent of the bowl-shaped, below-sea-level city, inundating miles and miles of homes and rendering much of New Orleans uninhabitable for weeks or months.

 

"We are looking at 12 to 16 weeks before people can come in," Mayor Ray Nagin said on ABC's "Good Morning America, "and the other issue that's concerning me is have dead bodies in the water. At some point in time the dead bodies are going to start to create a serious disease issue."

 

Blanco said she wanted the Superdome _ which had become a shelter of last resort for about 20,000 people _ evacuated within two days, along with other gathering points for storm refugees. The situation inside the dank and sweltering Superdome was becoming desperate: The water was rising, the air conditioning was out, toilets were broken, and tempers were rising.

 

At the same time, sections of Interstate 10, the only major freeway leading into New Orleans from the east, lay shattered, dozens of huge slabs of concrete floating in the floodwaters. I-10 is the only route for commercial trucking across southern Louisiana.

 

The sweltering city of 480,000 people _ an estimated 80 percent of whom obeyed orders to evacuate as Katrina closed in over the weekend _ also had no drinkable water, the electricity could be out for weeks, and looters were ransacking stores around town.

 

"The logistical problems are impossible and we have to evacuate people in shelters," the governor said. "It's becoming untenable. There's no power. It's getting more difficult to get food and water supplies in, just basic essentials."

 

She gave no details on exactly where the refugees would be taken. But in Houston, Rusty Cornelius, a county emergency official, said at least 25,000 of them would travel in a bus convoy to Houston starting Wednesday and would be sheltered at the 40-year-old Astrodome, which is no longer used for professional sporting events.

 

The Federal Emergency Management Agency was considering putting people on cruise ships, in tent cities, mobile home parks, and so-called floating dormitories _ boats the agency uses to house its own employees.

 

To repair one of the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain, officials late Tuesday dropped 3,000-pound sandbags from helicopters and hauled dozens of 15-foot concrete barriers into the breach. Maj. Gen. Don Riley of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said officials also had a more audacious plan: finding a barge to plug the 500-foot hole.

 

Riley said it could take close to a month to get the water out of the city. If the water rises a few feet higher, it could also wipe out the water system for the whole city, said New Orleans' homeland security chief, Terry Ebbert.

 

A helicopter view of the devastation over Louisiana and Mississippi revealed people standing on black rooftops, baking in the sunshine while waiting for rescue boats.

 

"I can only imagine that this is what Hiroshima looked like 60 years ago," said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour after touring the destruction by air Tuesday.

 

All day long, rescuers in boats and helicopters plucked bedraggled flood refugees from rooftops and attics. Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu said 3,000 people have been rescued by boat and air, some placed shivering and wet into helicopter baskets. They were brought by the truckload into shelters, some in wheelchairs and some carrying babies, with stories of survival and of those who didn't make it.

 

"Oh my God, it was hell," said Kioka Williams, who had to hack through the ceiling of the beauty shop where she worked as floodwaters rose in New Orleans' low-lying Ninth Ward. "We were screaming, hollering, flashing lights. It was complete chaos."

 

Looting broke out in some New Orleans neighborhoods, prompting authorities to send more than 70 additional officers and an armed personnel carrier into the city. One police officer was shot in the head by a looter but was expected to recover, authorities said.

 

A giant new Wal-Mart in New Orleans was looted, and the entire gun collection was taken, The Times-Picayune newspaper reported. "There are gangs of armed men in the city moving around the city," said Ebbert, the city's homeland security chief. Also, looters tried to break into Children's Hospital, the governor's office said.

 

On New Orleans' Canal Street, dozens of looters ripped open the steel gates on clothing and jewelry stores and grabbed merchandise. In Biloxi, Miss., people picked through casino slot machines for coins and ransacked other businesses. In some cases, the looting took place in full view of police and National Guardsmen.

 

Blanco acknowledged that looting was a severe problem but said that officials had to focus on survivors. "We don't like looters one bit, but first and foremost is search and rescue," she said.

 

Officials said it was simply too early to estimate a death toll. One Mississippi county alone said it had suffered at least 100 deaths, and officials are "very, very worried that this is going to go a lot higher," said Joe Spraggins, civil defense director for Harrison County, home to Biloxi and Gulfport. In neighboring Jackson County, officials said at least 10 deaths were blamed on the storm.

 

Several of the dead in Harrison County were from a beachfront apartment building that collapsed under a 25-foot wall of water as Hurricane Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast with 145-mph winds Monday. Louisiana officials said many were feared dead there, too, making Katrina one of the most punishing storms to hit the United States in decades.

 

Blanco asked residents to spend Wednesday in prayer.

 

"That would be the best thing to calm our spirits and thank our Lord that we are survivors," she said. "Slowly, gradually, we will recover; we will survive; we will rebuild."

 

Across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, more than 1 million residents remained without electricity, some without clean drinking water. Officials said it could be weeks, if not months, before most evacuees will be able to return.

 

Emergency medical teams from across the country were sent into the region and President Bush cut short his Texas vacation Tuesday to return to Washington to focus on the storm damage.

 

Also, the Bush administration decided to release crude oil from federal petroleum reserves to help refiners whose supply was disrupted by Katrina. The announcement helped push oil prices lower.

 

Katrina, which was downgraded to a tropical depression, packed winds around 30 mph as it moved through the Ohio Valley early Wednesday, with the potential to dump 8 inches of rain and spin off deadly tornadoes.

 

The remnants of Katrina spawned bands of storms and tornadoes across Georgia that caused at least two deaths, multiple injuries and leveled dozens of buildings. A tornado damaged 13 homes near Marshall, Va.

[Guest lazyphil]

Just imagine if we dealt with the Phuket etc tsunami with sarcasm on this board?...all hell would break loose!

[Khun_Kong]

Thx for the info