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New google://nagin coaches
[link|http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/9/8/114045.shtml|http://www.newsmax.c.../9/8/114045.shtml]
"I need 500 buses, man," he told WWL. "One of the briefings we had they were talking about getting, you know, public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out of here."

Nagin described his response:

"I'm like - you've got to be kidding me. This is a natural disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans."

When I first read that, I thought he was saying that just the school buses wouldn't be enough, that "they" should be sending everything. But looking back, he never did use what he already had.


[edit]

[link|http://news.yahoo.com/s/chitribts/offerofbusesfellbetweenthecracks|This] is interesting:
Peter Pantuso of the American Bus Association said he spent much of the day on Wednesday, Aug. 31, trying to find someone at the
Federal Emergency Management Agency who could tell him how many buses were needed for an evacuation, where they should be sent and who was overseeing the effort.

"We never talked directly to FEMA or got a call back from them," Pantuso said.

Pantuso, whose members include some of the nation's largest motor coach companies, including Greyhound and Coach USA, eventually learned that the job of extracting tens of thousands of residents from flooded New Orleans wasn't being handled by FEMA at all.

Instead the agency had farmed the work out to a trucking logistics firm, Landstar Express America, which in turn hired a limousine company, which in turn engaged a travel management company.

...

Though it was well-known that New Orleans, much of it below sea level, would flood in a major hurricane, Landstar, the Jacksonville company that held a federal contract that at the time was worth up to $100 million annually for disaster transportation, did not ask its subcontractor, Carey Limousine, to order buses until the early hours of Aug. 30, roughly 18 hours after the storm hit, according to Sally Snead, a Carey senior vice president who headed the bus roundup.

Landstar inquired about the availability of buses on Sunday, Aug. 28, and earlier Monday, but placed no orders, Snead said.

She said Landstar turned to her company for buses Sunday after learning from Carey's Internet site that it had a meetings and events division that touted its ability to move large groups of people. "They really found us on the Web site," Snead said.


I want that contract. Get paid $100-million a year to be on call in case of emergency. When it happens, check the internet, find someone who actually does what you're on call for, and hire them to do it.
===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
Expand Edited by drewk Oct. 4, 2005, 03:21:02 PM EDT
Expand Edited by drewk Oct. 4, 2005, 03:21:59 PM EDT
New Thanks. OTOH...
[link|http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16583811%255E2703,00.html|The Australian]:

September 13, 2005

NEW Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has defended himself against charges that he botched the rescue effort in his flooded city, saying he had no choice but to abandon hundreds of school buses to the floodwaters.

The buses could have been used later to rescue people, but Mr Nagin said they were left at a depot because he had no drivers to move them.

Photos of the swamped buses have been political dynamite for Mr Nagin's critics, who along with Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco attacked the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, saying there were not enough buses sent to New Orleans to rescue the more than 40,000 people stranded in the city centre.

But the images of submerged school buses in New Orleans indicated there had been no plan to get them to higher ground.

"Sure, there was lots of buses out there," Mr Nagin told NBC's Meet the Press yesterday.

"But guess what? You can't find drivers that would stay behind with a category-five hurricane, you know, pending down on New Orleans.

"We barely got enough drivers to move people on Saturday and Sunday, to move them to the Superdome. We barely had enough drivers for that.

"So, sure, we had the assets, but the drivers just weren't available."


FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.
New My only issue with that statement...
is that

  1. use people AT the superdome as the drivers...run through, find drivers on the fly, go from there.
  2. use police officers as the drivers
New When?
If one believes [link|http://www.thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline|this timeline], when should the buses have been used?

Sunday evening the 28th there were ~ 30,000 people at the Superdome. There was already reports of the levees being breeched.

The storm came ashore at [link|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Hurricane_Katrina|6:10 am on Monday the 29th]. At 2 pm the city confirmed that a levee had breached.

So when should the buses have been driven away? Presumably before the parking lot was flooded, but presumably after the storm passed. But when exactly?

It's easy to say that it was Nagin's responsibility to have drivers for the buses, and have procedures in place. Maybe so. But I really doubt that New Orleans (or Louisiana for that matter) has a budget that sets aside money to pay bus drivers during a hurricane. Yeah, they probably should have been parked the buses on higher ground (somewhere...), and should have had plans in place to evacuate the people (somewhere...) when the storm passed when it was clear that people couldn't go home. But I think Nagin did a pretty good job considering how much worse it might have been.

My one hope is that some independent commission (not tied to the Mayor, Governor or the Federal Government) studies what happened, what worked and what didn't, and prepares a clear report.

Cheers,
Scott.
New As soon as evac notice was declared
it was in their plan, they were reponsible to get those without transport out of the city.

So the direct answer is...before the storm.
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition

[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
New Then why was anyone at the Superdome?
If everyone could be evacuated, there would be no need for shelter in the city, right?

Cheers,
Scott.
New Good question
had the busses been moving (like they were supposed to), there might not have been any.

If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition

[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
New Well, let's just throw in another contingency - while we're
at it:

Might not a sane, intelligent Mayor have decided, on basis of best information available (whatever Was? the condition of believable/informed communications at various stages) -- that the prospect of a bunch of busses becoming swamped in nowhereville -- outweighed arguments for a heroic drive outta there?

Etc.

I think we'll have to await that mythical Funded-but-Unbiased Official Investigation. Maybe by '07? (Unless Martial Law has been declared in the interim, of course.)

New Unlikely.
According to the 2000 Louisiana hurricane [link|http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov/plans/EOPSupplement1a.pdf|evacuation and sheltering plan (supplement 1a)] (45 page .pdf):

p.9-10:
2. Evacuation will be carried out in three phases, as follows:

a. Precautionary / Voluntary:

This phase will concentrate on people who are most vulnerable to a hurricane and the effects of both water and wind. It is directed at offshore workers, persons on coastal islands or in wetlands areas and persons aboard boats. No special traffic control, transportation, or sheltering measures will be taken.

b. Recommended Evacuation:

This phase is enacted when a storm has a high probability of causing a significant threat to people living in the areas at risk. Parish and State government authorities will recommend that persons at risk evacuate. The parishes will designate staging areas for persons needing transportation, if necessary.

c. Mandatory:

This is the final, most serious phase of evacuation. Authorities will put maximum emphasis on encouraging evacuation and limiting ingress. Designated State evacuation routes maybe augmented by turning additional lanes into one-way outbound traffic and the State Police with Local law enforcement assistance will assume responsibility for traffic control on those routes. As the storm gets close to the Southeast Region, evacuation routes will be closed and the people remaining will be directed to last resort refuges.


Emphasis added.

The [link|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Hurricane_Katrina|timeline] at the Wikipedia says that Nagin called for a voluntary evacuation on Saturday andn Nagin and Blanco ordered a mandatory evacuation at 1000 AM on Sunday. The hurricane hit at 6:00 AM on Monday - 20 hours later. Annex D of that .pdf is supposed to have tables of times necessary to evacuate under various conditions, but they're not present.

20 hours seems like a long time, and more people certainly should have been moved out of the city before the storm hit. But I think it's unreasonable to expect that in an area of over 1 M people that thousands wouldn't be able to leave even if buses were available. (Remember the traffic jambs for people trying to evacuate areas of Texas before Rita hit.)

Continuing from the .pdf, p.II-1 - II-2:

Assumptions:
3. All Parish Emergency Preparedness Offices, along with the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness (LOEP) will be in communications with one another in the preparatory period, during and following the emergency.

4. Intra-parish alerting and coordination activities with all departments and agencies having emergency responsibilities will occur. Those functions necessary for alerting, coordination and the protection of life and property will be accomplished in accordance with the Emergency Operations Plans (EOPs) in each parish.

5. The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating.

6. School Districts will close schools when requested to do so by the parish Office of Emergency Preparedness, and when it is deemed necessary to do so for the public\ufffds safety.

7. A portion of the public will act in their best interest and voluntarily evacuate the high-risk areas before a recommended evacuation announcement.

8. Voluntary evacuation will be advised well in advance of landfall. Much of the public will evacuate high-risk areas when recommended by local authorities. Most will evacuate following a mandatory evacuation order.

9. The need to evacuate could occur day or night, and there may be little control over the starting time due to the timing of the storm.

10. Manpower and equipment of the political subdivisions will be exhausted and outside support will be needed.

11. Many evacuees will seek shelter with relatives, friends or in motels/hotels in host areas and not use public shelters.

12. Risk area parishes will not normally open shelters for a catastrophic hurricane, with certain exceptions. Officials will direct residents to evacuate out of the way of the storm surge. Public shelter located outside risk areas will be needed for large numbers of evacuees.

13. Last resort refuges, will be required for those individuals who do not evacuate the risk areas.

14. Hospitals, nursing homes, group homes, etc. will have pre-determined evacuation and/or refuge plans if evacuation becomes necessary. All facilities will have approved Multi-Hazard Emergency Operations Plans as mandated by the State of Louisiana, Dept. of Health and Hospitals (DHH). Before operating permits are given to homes/hospitals, emergency precautions are to be taken, such as the placement of emergency supplies and equipment (i.e., generators and potable water) on upper floors.

15. Maximum use of official evacuation routes out of the Region will be used based on plans described in Part IV of this plan.

16. Emergency Preparedness Offices will maintain close coordination with each other and keep each other informed of their actions on a timely, continuing basis.

17. As a hurricane causes the need for a mass evacuation from the Southeastern area, the Governor will declare a state of emergency that will require host parishes outside the risk area to open designated shelters.

18. Local governments in host areas will be responsible for traffic control from the limited access evacuation routes to the registration centers in their parishes.


Sounds good, but who exactly was to provide all these things? Only some of them are specifically assigned to any particular agency. In times of crisis, if there isn't a clear line of responsibility, people will assume that someone else is supposed to take care of it. (It's the old "Someone get help!" versus "You, in the green shirt, call 911 and tell them to send an ambulance to 123 Main Street!" problem.

Gotta run.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Did you not read your own post?
The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. [b]School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles[/b] and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating.


What government do you think they are talking about?

Saturday, August 27:

# President George W. Bush's weekly radio address focuses on Gaza withdrawal and the Iraqi constitution. He makes no mention of Hurricane Katrina.

# President Bush officially declares that a "state of emergency" exists in Louisiana and orders Federal aid to the affected areas to complement state and local relief efforts.

# 4:00 pm CDT: Per Governor Blanco's order, Contraflow begins , reversing all traffic on inbound interstate lanes and making more room for evacuating vehicles in outbound lanes.

# 5:00 PM CDT: New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin declares a State of Emergency and issues a voluntary evacuation order, saying he is having his legal team determine if he can order a mandatory evacuation without exposing the city to legal liability for the closure of hotels and other businesses.


Worried about getting sued slowed him down. Everyone is so damned intent on giving this guy a free pass. Busses should have started moving on SATURDAY. HIS city busses, supported by state vehicles. It was all in the plan that they did not follow.

But its all Gearge's fault. Or Brown. Or Chertoff. But never Mr. N.
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition

[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
New It was late, but yes, I read it. :-)
(I started on it last night and finished it this morning.) You see different things in that snippet than I do.

The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating.


(Beep's emphasis, my emphasis).

What I don't see there is who is in charge of providing the school and municipal buses and the drivers for them. The city and parishes? The local transportation administration? The state? The school board? FEMA? The National Guard?

On your last bit, a couple of things:
1) I can't find the timeline you're taking that from. I'd like to see his words in context, rather than a paraphrase. (Recall that Nagin didn't demand "[link|http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/nagin.transcript/|"coaches"]...)
2) Criticizing Nagin for considering the legal implications of things is a bit much, IMHO. That's one thing that elected officials should to - consider the law in making orders. The mandatory evacuation order came 30 minutes after Bush's request, and simultaneously with the National Weather Service warning about the "devastating" storm.
3) I never said it was all Bush's fault. ;-) There's lots of blame to go around, but your defense of FEMA seems to go overboard. Few expect that FEMA should have shown up with 50,000 agents to grab every single person and move them to temporary housing. FEMA didn't do what they were supposed to do (for whatever reason) - things that they apparently did much better in the past. Brownie's comments about ice were just one example of things that happened and things that were said that were beyond the pale.

I think I've beaten this particular horse to a pulp.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Re: It was late, but yes, I read it. :-)
[link|http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/katrina-timeline.php|http://www.talkingpo...rina-timeline.php]
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition

[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
New That's not quite what the Times-Picayune story said.
Thanks.

[link|http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1125213007249320.xml|Nola.com]:

By mid-afternoon, officials in Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, Lafourche, Terrebonne and Jefferson parishes had called for voluntary or mandatory evacuations.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin followed at 5 p.m., issuing a voluntary evacuation.

Nagin said late Saturday that he's having his legal staff look into whether he can order a mandatory evacuation of the city, a step he's been hesitant to do because of potential liability on the part of the city for closing hotels and other businesses.

"Come the first break of light in the morning, you may have the first mandatory evacuation of New Orleans," Nagin told WWL-TV.


Versus the [link|http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/katrina-timeline.php|TPM] version:

5:00 PM CDT: New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin declares a State of Emergency and issues a voluntary evacuation order, saying he is having his legal team determine if he can order a mandatory evacuation without exposing the city to legal liability for the closure of hotels and other businesses.


That's hardly the same thing.

He said he was having his staff look into whether he can order an evacuation. My interpretation of the clause set off by the comma is that that was a comment by the reporter, not something Nagin said. His following statement in the NOLA.com story makes it clear that he thought a mandatory evacuation was in the cards.

FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Talk about semantics
Its EXACTLY the same thing.
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition

[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
New Then cut to the chase -
Brown (and too bloody many "et alia" in this Admin) possess neither the experience, training, temperament nor fucking Intelligence - to have ever achieved a capability beyond saying,

Yes, Mr. President - I Adore You. Abjectly. Please make me Surgeon General?

{Sheesh} You Heard the sucker's pathetic speech in Congress.
Only question I see left, is: Are 93.7% of those appointments Just Like Him?
(or is it only 90?)


Oh. Yes.: Clearly, I am misunderestimating these bozos because they (say they) are 'Christians'. cha. cha. cha.

New Another non-seq post
cha cha cha
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition

[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
New 'Course Beep: competence Is irrelevant. cha cha

New Has nothing to do with competence
unless, of course, the competence of which you speak is that of posting things of relevence to the current discussion thread...

...as opposed to following me around and trying to engage in a completely different subject.

You, of all people, should understand the definition of non-sequitur.

We've discussed competence ad nauseum...and it is lacking in many places. Simply because one is incompetent, does not mean all others are.

But, of course, you weakly allude to me having other opinions.

On the green in regulation. 2 putts. Par for your course.
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition

[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
New Disagree. But back to the buses...
Tell me: Can you find another news article anywhere that mentions Nagin's "fear of lawsuits" that does not cite that NOLA article by Bruce Nolan? There doesn't seem to be a decent [link|http://www.wwltv.com/sharedcontent/search/index.jsp?process=true&site=WWLTV&go=go|archive at WWL-TV]; in the articles there I've not seen anything that mentions a comment like that. I'm beginning to think it may be apocryphal.

Either way, I see a difference in the statement from the NOLA article and the TPM version. You don't. Fine, we'll agree to disagree about that.

But getting back to the school buses. [link|http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Controversy_over_whether_New_Orleans_Mayor_failed_to_follow_hurricane_plan|This] Wikinews article has some interesting information:

It is unclear whether Mayor Nagin knew these particular buses existed, since the Orleans Parish School Board is not under his jurisdiction and his office would not normally know the location of OPSB bus yards or be able to contact the drivers of those buses to place them into service. Normally it is the job of FEMA to coordinate between the various local jurisdictions such as the OPSB and the City of New Orleans in this case. That is, under the rules of prior hurricane responses, FEMA would ask all local jurisdictions for a list of resources under their control. Then FEMA would have taken a request from Nagin for buses, relayed it to the Orleans Parish School Board or other local jurisdictions which had buses, and at that point the OPSB would have provided the buses to Nagin. That coordination did not happen here, but it is unclear whether Nagin ever made such a request prior to the hurricane and after the hurricane they were underwater and useless.

However, if he had known about them, the declaration of a state of emergency on August 26 gave him the right under Louisiana law to commandeer them for the duration of the emergency. The failure to issue a timely evacuation order in effect made it physically impossible to evacuate the nursing homes, hospitals, and those without automobiles.


Emphasis added.

Even this example is another indication of poor coordination all around - including our friends at FEMA.

I found [link|http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politics.bush/browse_frm/thread/75267f600f938967/9e056f578dfe5313?tvc=1&hl=en#9e056f578dfe5313|this] rant to be pretty interesting too. It points to [link|http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/theme_home2.jsp|this] page at DHS:

In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort.


Emphasis added.

One could read that as stating that DHS (and thus FEMA) should have had primary responsibility in the aftermath of Katrina.

In short: The loss of the buses is not all, and probably not primarily, Nagin's fault. IMHO.

Enough on this. :-)

Cheers,
Scott.
New So
You're telling me you consider it understandable that the mayor of a city doesn't know about school busses?

And Todd is telling me Brown is unqualified because he doesn't know all the uses of ice in an emergency.

Things that make you go hmmm.
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition

[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
New How long are yall gonna beat this dead horse?
C'mon! It's glue already, OKAY?

Hugs and peace, sweeties,
Amy

Oh Freddled Gruntbuggly!
New Normally, a comparison w/ 'Nazi' ends a thread, by __'s Law
But in these parts, "See? - It was all Clinton's fault.." will do as well.

Maybe next ~ "BeeP sez that All Government Workers are The Same: they Suck"
(or something) Hell, maybe cha cha cha will serve...

New Surprise, surprise
another ad-hominem.

You really want to have my babies, don't you?
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition

[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
New You've selected your own MO
"Yes, but - -" no matter how egregious some uncovered lie or sequence of same - not even during or after a massively propagandized first-ever Invasion:

"The other guys were bad, too.."

'This guy just killed his wife for not cleaning the kitchen well enough!'

"Yes, but - many men don't."

I'll likely continue mocking your information-free quips, just because they are There. You may ignore (as may I). Forums are open, and sometimes all we can get out of them is comic relief, especially where the position asserted is so gaurdedly neutered. Like so many of yours.

(Perhaps the terse nothingness is meant to imply a deep comprehension, which one does not deign to sully via its public revelation? Oh well then - I guess I lose, for missing that profundity.)


Carrion

New You're right
its a free country (or at least a free forum)..amd you have every equal right to keep that bug up your butt bout me too.

If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition

[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
New ahem, spanish american war started with less evidence? hmm?
first ever? I think not. Bad habit we have of ginning up a war because someone else has what we want. Except for ww1 and ww2 all of the rest were jingoistic nonsense. I'll make an exception for Korea because they truly were afraid, not pretending to be so.
thanx,
bill
"the reason people don't buy conspiracy theories is that they think conspiracy means everyone is on the same program. Thats not how it works. Everybody has a different program. They just all want the same guy dead. Socrates was a gadfly, but I bet he took time out to screw somebodies wife" Gus Vitelli

Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 49 years. meep
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
New Well, didn't want to go back tothe free blankets for Indians

New For approximately as long as they are amused
to repeat the same blather without listening to the other points. This is not a convertent series. Neither will it reduce to a boolean. Eventually it will rightshift until the columns are about 3 characters wide and they will branch it.
New Nah, pretty much done.
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition

[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
New Good one, hnick!
ver
y f
unn
y!

Pea
ce,
Amy

Oh Freddled Gruntbuggly!
New Nit
It was HIS job to make sure he had drivers. Getting those people out before the storm was HIS job.

And you have him screaming at the government AFTER the storm because he failed to do HIS job.

If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition

[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
New Seems a dead-on conclusion
on this not-so-small detail of the overall fuckup: much of the most visible unnecessary idiocy had its ground-zero in that [unstocked] stadium.

He apparently showed about as much imagination and originality in this simple matter of 'drivers' -- as Shrub demonstrates, coming up with [nothing but meanest-intended trivia] he recommends be stripped from the recently-passed Windfall-Pork-Budget.

So then - how's the Aggregate National IQ doing, since say .. July/August 2001?
(and those uninspected files on the Guys Taking Flying Lessons\ufffd / No Landings, Please)

- Higher, lower? about the same..?


     Bush plans power grab based on Katrina - (JayMehaffey) - (99)
         Once again - (tuberculosis) - (1)
             "Everything would be so much easier under a dictator... - (jb4)
         Do I have to do it? Really? - (bepatient)
         Just as I said he would - (Arkadiy) - (95)
             Right, Ark - (Ashton) - (94)
                 Ignore the reality all you want - (bepatient) - (93)
                     Bull - (tuberculosis) - (4)
                         You still ignore the rules. - (bepatient) - (3)
                             Whose hue? Whose cry? - (jb4)
                             Which Armed Forces? - (tuberculosis)
                             Do you need me to get my cousin's contact info? - (ben_tilly)
                     You can make it come out any way you want: - (Ashton)
                     You have lost me - (JayMehaffey) - (65)
                         "Where was the federal government?" - (drewk) - (2)
                             Re: "Where was the federal government?" - (GBert) - (1)
                                 Good point - (drewk)
                         Little things... - (bepatient) - (61)
                             >/dev/null -NT - (mmoffitt) - (1)
                                 And what was inaccurate? - (bepatient)
                             Well, Homeland Security - (imric) - (3)
                                 Yup. -NT - (Another Scott)
                                 I know I've said this before, but ... - (drewk) - (1)
                                     It's cheap, easy and photogenic to Pass laws.... - (Another Scott)
                             Your missing the huge redirect here - (JayMehaffey) - (54)
                                 FEMA was NOT the biggest screw up - (Arkadiy) - (53)
                                     What are you smoking? - (Silverlock)
                                     Accountability. - (inthane-chan) - (3)
                                         Well said, but remember that FEMA is tiny. - (Another Scott) - (2)
                                             FEMA was gutted - (imric)
                                             Exactly my point. - (inthane-chan)
                                     Re: FEMA was NOT the biggest screw up - (JayMehaffey) - (4)
                                         My personal guess - (jake123) - (3)
                                             Aye. -NT - (imric)
                                             Why else would they have hired him back as a conslutant? - (Yendor) - (1)
                                                 Um... - (Another Scott)
                                     Disagree - (tuberculosis) - (42)
                                         Nor is it his job to know those details - (bepatient) - (41)
                                             I dunno about that analysis - (jake123) - (36)
                                                 I certainly understand that - (bepatient) - (35)
                                                     Source for Nagin on "coaches"? TIA. -NT - (Another Scott) - (34)
                                                         google://nagin coaches - (drewk) - (31)
                                                             Thanks. OTOH... - (Another Scott) - (30)
                                                                 My only issue with that statement... - (Simon_Jester) - (27)
                                                                     When? - (Another Scott) - (26)
                                                                         As soon as evac notice was declared - (bepatient) - (25)
                                                                             Then why was anyone at the Superdome? - (Another Scott) - (24)
                                                                                 Good question - (bepatient) - (23)
                                                                                     Well, let's just throw in another contingency - while we're - (Ashton)
                                                                                     Unlikely. - (Another Scott) - (21)
                                                                                         Did you not read your own post? - (bepatient) - (20)
                                                                                             It was late, but yes, I read it. :-) - (Another Scott) - (19)
                                                                                                 Re: It was late, but yes, I read it. :-) - (bepatient) - (18)
                                                                                                     That's not quite what the Times-Picayune story said. - (Another Scott) - (17)
                                                                                                         Talk about semantics - (bepatient) - (16)
                                                                                                             Then cut to the chase - - (Ashton) - (3)
                                                                                                                 Another non-seq post - (bepatient) - (2)
                                                                                                                     'Course Beep: competence Is irrelevant. cha cha -NT - (Ashton) - (1)
                                                                                                                         Has nothing to do with competence - (bepatient)
                                                                                                             Disagree. But back to the buses... - (Another Scott) - (11)
                                                                                                                 So - (bepatient) - (10)
                                                                                                                     How long are yall gonna beat this dead horse? - (imqwerky) - (9)
                                                                                                                         Normally, a comparison w/ 'Nazi' ends a thread, by __'s Law - (Ashton) - (5)
                                                                                                                             Surprise, surprise - (bepatient) - (4)
                                                                                                                                 You've selected your own MO - (Ashton) - (3)
                                                                                                                                     You're right - (bepatient)
                                                                                                                                     ahem, spanish american war started with less evidence? hmm? - (boxley) - (1)
                                                                                                                                         Well, didn't want to go back tothe free blankets for Indians -NT - (Ashton)
                                                                                                                         For approximately as long as they are amused - (hnick) - (2)
                                                                                                                             Nah, pretty much done. -NT - (bepatient)
                                                                                                                             Good one, hnick! - (imqwerky)
                                                                 Nit - (bepatient) - (1)
                                                                     Seems a dead-on conclusion - (Ashton)
                                                         CNN link - (SpiceWare) - (1)
                                                             Thanks. -NT - (Another Scott)
                                             Vehemently disagree - (tuberculosis) - (3)
                                                 Your prerogative - (bepatient) - (2)
                                                     Too far - (tuberculosis) - (1)
                                                         :-) Well said. -NT - (Another Scott)
                     Reductio ab BeePium - (jb4)
                     OK, I get it now - (tuberculosis) - (17)
                         No. Wrong. - (bepatient) - (16)
                             Shorter BP... - (Simon_Jester) - (15)
                                 But I don't see those conservative arguments or pundits... - (bepatient) - (14)
                                     Of course there would have been finger-pointing in any case - (Ashton) - (13)
                                         Re: Of course there would have been finger-pointing - (bepatient) - (12)
                                             Absolutely correct. - (hnick) - (5)
                                                 Close... - (Simon_Jester) - (3)
                                                     Yup. I don't think Bush's been accused of murder and rape... -NT - (Another Scott) - (2)
                                                         yet -NT - (bepatient)
                                                         He's been accused of causing it to happen to many though -NT - (ben_tilly)
                                                 ICLRPD - (jb4)
                                             That's not true - (tuberculosis)
                                             He had a chance - (imric) - (4)
                                                 Maybe with you. - (bepatient) - (3)
                                                     Re: Other admins vs this one - (hnick)
                                                     Key difference I see - (tuberculosis)
                                                     Now that I agree with... - (Simon_Jester)
                     I don't mind it a bit.... - (Simon_Jester) - (1)
                         Good to see that someone is thinking ahead. :-) -NT - (Another Scott)

I'd like to thank the Academy...
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