Noone could forsee this?

[link|http://pre-prod.amazon.com:7007/gp/browse.html/ref=sd_allcatpop_apr/103-4575904-8085449?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=1036592|http://pre-prod.amaz...UTF8&node=1036592]

BEFORE THERE was Hurricane Katrina, there was Hurricane Pam. You won't find it on any of the lists of storms that have struck in the past. Pam was a 2004 simulation exercise with federal, state, and local officials to estimate the impact of a major hurricane on New Orleans. It predicted that the levees would be swamped. One million people from the area would be evacuated in time, but 300,000 or so residents, mostly the poor without transportation, would be left behind.

Pam was the alarm bell that should have alerted the Bush administration that its preference for tax cuts and defense spending over necessary domestic projects could have disastrous consequences. One government official who rang the alarm, Assistant Secretary of the Army Michael Parker, was fired for accusing the Bush administration of shortchanging the Corps of Engineers, the agency responsible for the levees in New Orleans. Parker, a former Republican congressman from Mississippi, was an unlikely martyr to the cause of big government.

But from Washington's failure to maintain the levees to its long-term neglect of the wetlands and barrier islands that protect the Gulf Coast, Katrina has proven that much of government is like keeping a roof in good repair: You pay now or you pay much more later. This time, the price was in lives as well.

Looking back at ''Hurricane Pam" is also useful because it shreds the defense for the federal government's poor response made by both President Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that no one foresaw the cataclysm that struck last week. The New Orleans newspaper the Times-Picayune published a series in 2002 on the danger posed to the city by the failure to strengthen the levee system and the long-term degradation of the coast's natural defenses. A 2001 article in Scientific American by Mark Fischetti also predicted the city's flooding.
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However, because it was printed in Scientific American, the prediction was labeled "just a theory" on equal footing with the theory that the levees were unnecessary as W could simply part the waters with press releases and photo-ops if enough faith were supplied by the voters.

Post #223,508 by tuberculosis 9/7/05 5:43:49 PM 8/21/07 6:38:56 AM Reply	Noone could forsee this? [link\|http://pre-prod.amazon.com:7007/gp/browse.html/ref=sd_allcatpop_apr/103-4575904-8085449?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=1036592\|http://pre-prod.amaz...UTF8&node=1036592] BEFORE THERE was Hurricane Katrina, there was Hurricane Pam. You won't find it on any of the lists of storms that have struck in the past. Pam was a 2004 simulation exercise with federal, state, and local officials to estimate the impact of a major hurricane on New Orleans. It predicted that the levees would be swamped. One million people from the area would be evacuated in time, but 300,000 or so residents, mostly the poor without transportation, would be left behind. Pam was the alarm bell that should have alerted the Bush administration that its preference for tax cuts and defense spending over necessary domestic projects could have disastrous consequences. One government official who rang the alarm, Assistant Secretary of the Army Michael Parker, was fired for accusing the Bush administration of shortchanging the Corps of Engineers, the agency responsible for the levees in New Orleans. Parker, a former Republican congressman from Mississippi, was an unlikely martyr to the cause of big government. But from Washington's failure to maintain the levees to its long-term neglect of the wetlands and barrier islands that protect the Gulf Coast, Katrina has proven that much of government is like keeping a roof in good repair: You pay now or you pay much more later. This time, the price was in lives as well. Looking back at ''Hurricane Pam" is also useful because it shreds the defense for the federal government's poor response made by both President Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that no one foresaw the cataclysm that struck last week. The New Orleans newspaper the Times-Picayune published a series in 2002 on the danger posed to the city by the failure to strengthen the levee system and the long-term degradation of the coast's natural defenses. A 2001 article in Scientific American by Mark Fischetti also predicted the city's flooding. --------- However, because it was printed in Scientific American, the prediction was labeled "just a theory" on equal footing with the theory that the levees were unnecessary as W could simply part the waters with press releases and photo-ops if enough faith were supplied by the voters. "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush Edited by tuberculosis Aug. 21, 2007, 06:38:56 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #223,514 by jb4 9/7/05 6:16:03 PM Reply	"Just a Theory", huh? You mean, like Intelligent Design? jb4 shrub●bish (Am., from shrub* + rubbish, after the derisive name for America's 43 president; 2003) n. 1. a form of nonsensical political doubletalk wherein the speaker attempts to defend the indefensible by lying, obfuscation, or otherwise misstating the facts; GIBBERISH. 2. any of a collection of utterances from America's putative 43rd president. cf.* BULLSHIT
Post #223,519 by tuberculosis 9/7/05 6:26:01 PM 8/21/07 6:39:01 AM Reply	ID is a hypothesis - not a theory "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush Edited by tuberculosis Aug. 21, 2007, 06:39:01 AM EDT Expand All History
Post #223,592 by jb4 9/7/05 10:45:12 PM Reply	Depends on who(m) you ask... to CRC: <raspberry>;-\ufffd</raspberry> jb4 shrub●bish (Am., from shrub* + rubbish, after the derisive name for America's 43 president; 2003) n. 1. a form of nonsensical political doubletalk wherein the speaker attempts to defend the indefensible by lying, obfuscation, or otherwise misstating the facts; GIBBERISH. 2. any of a collection of utterances from America's putative 43rd president. cf.* BULLSHIT
Post #223,535 by Ashton 9/7/05 7:22:09 PM Reply	'QED' doesn't work in a faith-based oligarchy, does it?
Post #223,765 by Another Scott 9/8/05 8:32:42 PM Reply	They're ready for next time. 75 kB .img [image\|http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinion/ssi/images/Toles/c_09082005_520.gif\|0\|Nobody could have predicted ...\|435\|520] As you say, the press is pissed about this. I don't think this scandal is going to die down the way Plame, etc., did. Cheers, Scott.

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