Hurricanes

[rbandrews]

Did I miss something? When did making fun of the hurricane refugees become the new cool? They live in New Orleans because that's where they live; if nobody lived where natural disasters occur, southern California would be a huge desert and Holland would be a bay.

And don't get me wrong, I hate the president as much as any patriotic American, but what did you people honestly expect him to do about a hurricane? Stand on the beach and yell "you shall not pass!"?

Look, it's a huge disaster, and it sucks, but it's nobody's fault. Hurricanes happen; every year they destroy lots of stuff and kill lots of people. In a way I'm glad that everyone who isn't from the gulf coast is finally noticing.

Comments

[jazzfish]

When did making fun of the hurricane refugees become the new cool?

If something bad happens it must be the victim's fault. That way you avoid having to face the unpleasant possibility that if it happened to you, you'd be just as screwed.

I hate the president as much as any patriotic American, but what did you people honestly expect him to do about a hurricane?

Fund FEMA, the federal agency created to deal with just such emergencies. Leave the Nat'l Guard around so that they could do their actual jobs instead of dying for no reason far from home. Recognise that this was an issue earlier, instead of playing the gi-tar and cutting cakes for John McCain.

Scott Lynch sums it up pretty well: "Some day, I guarantee, you will find yourself in a situation where you will need the life- or health-saving assistance of others, and there's a good chance some of them might regard you as stupid, or lazy, or foolish, or all three, because of it. Those judgments will not necessarily be fair. Neither are yours at this moment. So muzzle them."

[rbandrews]

FEMA and the national guard are certainly things that should have been done, and now are being done as well as possible. I'm talking about preventative things though; both of those are things done after the fact.

Other than that, yeah, exactly. : )

[jazzfish]

I'm failing to find linky references at this moment but I'm pretty sure that funds were diverted from levee-(re)building last year to fight the War on Terra. So, there we are.

[rbandrews]

Well, ideally the entire gulf coast would be surrounded by a seawall, a la Galveston. That's probably not feasible, though.
Yeah, probably the levee was more important than the war, since we're winning the only part of the war we're actually fighting.

[narquelion.livejournal.com]

Well see, there's good news: We can bomb the fuck outta people. We got lotsa bombs.

Bad news: This isn't a CTF match. What is it? I dunno. Not sure the people involved do either.

[bikercheetah.livejournal.com]

Then again, when was the last time the victims of a natural disaster shoot relief workers?

[rbandrews]

I dunno. When was the last time the national guard and police let victims of a natural disaster starve?

[heptadecagram.livejournal.com]

The president probably could have learned from previous ones.