Hurricane relief

"Gary Drescher" wrote in
So what's your point? And how does it relate to your views on the
current topic? You seem to be backing my point that many victims are to
blame for their current situation just as you would be if you failed to
properly prepare for a flight. You feeling OK?

Fine, thanks. No, my point is that I believe I *am* preparing adequately
for my flights (as are the many other pilots who prepare similarly). But
that adequateness *depends*--perfectly reasonably--on the expectation that
the SAR apparatus will work more or less as it is supposed to. That same
expectation, on the part of the hurricane victims, is disparaged by some
as a "gimme mentality" that successful, responsible individuals wouldn't
exhibit.

People were told to evacuate. The information necessary for anyone with a
grade five education to understand the magnitude of the potential ****ing
the region was possibly, even likely, in for was made available. Many
foolishly stayed. They have themselves to blame. Don't fly near
thunderstorms. Your analogy sucks. Get it?

In the Katrina crisis, preliminary indications are that the rescue
apparatus did *not* do its job initially, despite a supposedly
unprecedented level of disaster-relief preparedness. Part of its job was
to deploy the National Guard in a timely fashion to establish order and
protect other rescuers. Because the fact is that a dissipation of civil
authority frequently precipitates violence by some;

The widespread violence at the shelters and the massive looting campaign
were due to the "dissipation of civil authority"?

BWAHAHAHAHA!

this has happened throughout the world and throughout human history, so it
should take no one by surprise. Nor should it be misrepresented as
unusually characteristic of impoverished people or welfare recipients;
sadly, it is universal.

Well, we can disagree then and wait for the facts to reveal themselves. I
haven't enough faith in newspaper reports to use them as solid evidence.
But, FWIW, from the reports so far, you're losing badly.

moo

"Happy Dog" wrote in message
...
"Gary Drescher" wrote in
So what's your point? And how does it relate to your views on the
current topic? You seem to be backing my point that many victims are to
blame for their current situation just as you would be if you failed to
properly prepare for a flight. You feeling OK?

Fine, thanks. No, my point is that I believe I *am* preparing adequately
for my flights (as are the many other pilots who prepare similarly). But
that adequateness *depends*--perfectly reasonably--on the expectation
that the SAR apparatus will work more or less as it is supposed to. That
same expectation, on the part of the hurricane victims, is disparaged by
some as a "gimme mentality" that successful, responsible individuals
wouldn't exhibit.

People were told to evacuate. The information necessary for anyone with a
grade five education to understand the magnitude of the potential ****ing
the region was possibly, even likely, in for was made available. Many
foolishly stayed. They have themselves to blame. Don't fly near
thunderstorms. Your analogy sucks. Get it?

In the Katrina crisis, preliminary indications are that the rescue
apparatus did *not* do its job initially, despite a supposedly
unprecedented level of disaster-relief preparedness. Part of its job was
to deploy the National Guard in a timely fashion to establish order and
protect other rescuers. Because the fact is that a dissipation of civil
authority frequently precipitates violence by some;

The widespread violence at the shelters and the massive looting campaign
were due to the "dissipation of civil authority"?

BWAHAHAHAHA!

this has happened throughout the world and throughout human history, so
it should take no one by surprise. Nor should it be misrepresented as
unusually characteristic of impoverished people or welfare recipients;
sadly, it is universal.

Well, we can disagree then and wait for the facts to reveal themselves. I
haven't enough faith in newspaper reports to use them as solid evidence.
But, FWIW, from the reports so far, you're losing badly.

moo
After Ash Wednesday, when many people lost their homes to the fire or their
possessions to theft, the authorities agreed that evacuation would become
optional rather than enforced.
I personally saw homes lost because no-one was there to save them.
I'd be wanting to stay with the house - admittedly with preparations but
that is because I'm financial, educated, mil trained and pilot trained.
Others might want to stay because it's all they have and they know nothing
else.
The fact that they "were told to evacuate" should not be cited as some
overriding measure of blame.
Same with piloting - you make the decision not some bureaucrat or ATC miles
away.
Brian

"SR20GOER"
After Ash Wednesday, when many people lost their homes to the fire or
their possessions to theft, the authorities agreed that evacuation would
become optional rather than enforced.
I personally saw homes lost because no-one was there to save them.
I'd be wanting to stay with the house - admittedly with preparations but
that is because I'm financial, educated, mil trained and pilot trained.
Others might want to stay because it's all they have and they know nothing
else.
The fact that they "were told to evacuate" should not be cited as some
overriding measure of blame.
Same with piloting - you make the decision not some bureaucrat or ATC
miles away.

I agree. "VFR not recommended" seems to happen about 250 days a year days a
year where I'm from. It's near-pointless listening to it without looking at
all the available wx info. But I qualified that point with the fact that
there was widely available information that it was very possible that
massive flooding could happen. A decision to remain in many areas was a
preventable mistake.

moo

"Happy Dog" wrote in message
...
People were told to evacuate. The information necessary for anyone with a
grade five education to understand the magnitude of the potential ****ing
the region was possibly, even likely, in for was made available. Many
foolishly stayed. They have themselves to blame.

As others here have pointed out, many did not have the means to evacuate.
And even if some *do* have themselves to blame, that does not argue against
the rescue coordinators *also* being to blame. Blame is not zero-sum.

In the Katrina crisis, preliminary indications are that the rescue
apparatus did *not* do its job initially, despite a supposedly
unprecedented level of disaster-relief preparedness. Part of its job was
to deploy the National Guard in a timely fashion to establish order and
protect other rescuers. Because the fact is that a dissipation of civil
authority frequently precipitates violence by some;

The widespread violence at the shelters and the massive looting campaign
were due to the "dissipation of civil authority"?

BWAHAHAHAHA!

Uh, yes, despite your eloquent and incisive uppercase refutation. You didn't
see this conduct to this extent in New Orleans *before* civil authority
collapsed, did you? And surely you're aware of how often such conduct occurs
in other situations where civil authority recedes or is overwhelmed, even in
the absence of any other emergency (for example, the extensive looting and
bank robberies that immediately broke out when the Montreal police went on
strike in 1969; the vandalism and riots that frequently accompany sports
events in the US and Europe; the vandalism and rioting just for the fun of
it that have occurred at many New England colleges over the past few years;
the extensive criminal looting and violence--separate from pro- or
anti-occupation combat--in Iraq since our invasion...).

this has happened throughout the world and throughout human history, so
it should take no one by surprise. Nor should it be misrepresented as
unusually characteristic of impoverished people or welfare recipients;
sadly, it is universal.

Well, we can disagree then and wait for the facts to reveal themselves. I
haven't enough faith in newspaper reports to use them as solid evidence.
But, FWIW, from the reports so far, you're losing badly.

In what way? For me to be "losing" so far, you'd have to be able to show
quantitatively, from the reports so far, that the extent of the violence in
New Orleans is greater than has broken out during collapses of civil
authority in other times and places throughout the world, in the absence of
your favorite unfounded explanations (in the absence of welfare payments
etc.). You have not even *tried* to show that (instead of merely proclaiming
it).

--Gary

Gary Drescher wrote:
The widespread violence at the shelters and the massive looting campaign
were due to the "dissipation of civil authority"?

BWAHAHAHAHA!


Uh, yes, despite your eloquent and incisive uppercase refutation. You didn't
see this conduct to this extent in New Orleans *before* civil authority
collapsed, did you? And surely you're aware of how often such conduct occurs
in other situations where civil authority recedes or is overwhelmed, even in
the absence of any other emergency (for example, the extensive looting and
bank robberies that immediately broke out when the Montreal police went on
strike in 1969; the vandalism and riots that frequently accompany sports
events in the US and Europe; the vandalism and rioting just for the fun of
it that have occurred at many New England colleges over the past few years;
the extensive criminal looting and violence--separate from pro- or
anti-occupation combat--in Iraq since our invasion...).

But sending in a military with orders that say "shoot to kill" seems to
only give a disorganized rabble a common enemey and a cause to organize
-- doesn't it?

After all, armed occupation seems to have solved so many problems
quickly and easily in the past -- and with no nasty side-effects,
either! /sarcasm


-Luke

"Luke Scharf" wrote in message
...
But sending in a military with orders that say "shoot to kill" seems to
only give a disorganized rabble a common enemey and a cause to organize --
doesn't it?

After all, armed occupation seems to have solved so many problems quickly
and easily in the past -- and with no nasty side-effects, either!
/sarcasm

Armed invasion and occupation by a foreign power is vastly different from
the lawful introduction of domestic forces to re-establish civil protection.
The folks in N.O. are not treating the National Guard as an enemy--in part
because of the leadership of Gen. Honore (I'm thinking of the footage of him
running around ordering his combat-stance troops to "Point those goddamn
weapons down" so they wouldn't appear unnecessarily hostile and provoke
violence instead of preventing it).

--Gary

Gary Drescher wrote:
The folks in N.O. are not treating the National Guard as an enemy--in part
because of the leadership of Gen. Honore (I'm thinking of the footage of him
running around ordering his combat-stance troops to "Point those goddamn
weapons down" so they wouldn't appear unnecessarily hostile and provoke
violence instead of preventing it).

Smart guy! I don't watch TV, though, so I must have missed that
footage. Keeping the mission peaceful seems like the only way to make
the relief effort work.


It's hard to avoid hearing the Bushisms, though. The Bushism about
shooting-looters-to-kill combined with stories about people being shot
makes it seem like someone at the top ain't though things through.

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Police_s...2C _five_dead
- Police shoot eight gunmen on New Orleans bridge, five dead. Bearing
arms isn't illegal in this country -- what really happened? What about
the due-process rights of those "gunmen"?

http://cryptome.org/kat05/pict58.jpg -- Leonard Thomas, 23, cries after
a SWAT team burst into the flooded home he and his family were living in
on Monday, Sept. 5, 2005. Neighbors had reported that they were
squatting in the house in the wake of Hurricane Katrina but the
authorities left after his family proved they owned the house. Some
rescuers are not taking any more food and water to those who have
decided to stay in an effort to force them out. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Scary... Let's just hope that when I walk down a street in Virginia
that my belt-clip cell-phone holder doesn't look like a gun-holster,
that I'm not mistaken for a looter, that I'm not mistaken a squatter, or
(as happened to a friend recently when he was staying as his brother's
house) that I'm not on the receiving end of false-alarm for a "robbery
in progress". Let's furthermore hope that no TFR's pop up while I'm in
the air, so that I don't get mistaken for a terrorist.



But, they are making some progress:
http://cryptome.org/kat05/pict57.jpg - A military helicopter drops a
sandbag as work continues to repair the 17th Street canal levee Monday,
Sept. 5, 2005, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

And, just for balance: http://cryptome.org/kat05/pict39.jpg (the AP
caption is useless)

-Luke

Luke Scharf wrote:

And, just for balance: http://cryptome.org/kat05/pict39.jpg (the AP
caption is useless)

So's the photo without some sort of caption. What's in the bag? Looks like it
might be a lionfish, but it would take a real stupid man to hold the bag like
that if it were.

George Patterson
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a person to
use the Internet and he won't bother you for weeks.

Luke Scharf wrote in message ...
Gary Drescher wrote:
[snip]

It's hard to avoid hearing the Bushisms, though. The Bushism about
shooting-looters-to-kill combined with stories about people being shot
makes it seem like someone at the top ain't though things through.

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Police_s...Orleans_bridge
%2C_five_dead
- Police shoot eight gunmen on New Orleans bridge, five dead. Bearing
arms isn't illegal in this country -- what really happened? What about
the due-process rights of those "gunmen"?

You mean the gunmen who were shooting at the folks trying to fix the levee?
My brother might be down there helping out (not as a contractor), and if
he's there with someone shooting at him, I hope the police shoot the
shooters first.

http://cryptome.org/kat05/pict58.jpg -- Leonard Thomas, 23, cries after
a SWAT team burst into the flooded home he and his family were living in
on Monday, Sept. 5, 2005. Neighbors had reported that they were
squatting in the house in the wake of Hurricane Katrina but the
authorities left after his family proved they owned the house. Some
rescuers are not taking any more food and water to those who have
decided to stay in an effort to force them out. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Scary... Let's just hope that when I walk down a street in Virginia
that my belt-clip cell-phone holder doesn't look like a gun-holster,

Let's just hope you don't take your cell-phone out of the holster and aim it
at someone. Do you honestly think authorities are just going around killing
anyone who has something that might possibly look like a gun?

that I'm not mistaken for a looter,

C'mon...do you actually think that they're going around automatically
shooting at anyone who looks like they might be looting?

that I'm not mistaken a squatter, or
(as happened to a friend recently when he was staying as his brother's
house) that I'm not on the receiving end of false-alarm for a "robbery
in progress". Let's furthermore hope that no TFR's pop up while I'm in
the air, so that I don't get mistaken for a terrorist.

I kinda thought pre-flight briefings would take care of that. Do they
actually put up TFRs with no warnings?

Maybe the solution would be to completely eliminate all law enforcement of
any kind, which would take care of the problems you're concerned about.

- Rick

"Rick" wrote in message
...
Luke Scharf wrote in message ...

- Police shoot eight gunmen on New Orleans bridge, five dead. Bearing
arms isn't illegal in this country -- what really happened? What about
the due-process rights of those "gunmen"?

You mean the gunmen who were shooting at the folks trying to fix the
levee?
My brother might be down there helping out (not as a contractor), and if
he's there with someone shooting at him, I hope the police shoot the
shooters first.



That story took on wings of its own.

A cop spokesman, in a press conference shown on CNN yesterday, while talking
about other subjects, specifically made a point of trying to correct the
versions of this particular story.

His version says 5 guys carrying guns were spotted on the bridge. Police
approached them, and the guys opened fire on the cops at point blank range.
Cops returned fire and 2 of the perps were known to be dead, others were
hit. He stressed that NEVER were any contractors involved. The cops did not
shoot at contractors; the perps did not shoot at contractors.

Today there are a few stories around discussing the many versions of this
event, but the cop-spokesman's version does not yet seem to have made it to
print.

This points out strongly that media no longer collect and report facts.
They report other people's rumours.