Matt Lauer is a classless douche!

On the 5th anniversary of Katrina, the media have descended on New Orleans to celebrate the rebuilding progress of the infrastructure, culture, and addressing rampant poverty, having put aside petty political differences.

Just kidding, they've gone there to re-blame George Bush for the whole thing. Here's Matt Lauer talking to Barbara Bush. Bear in mind that Matt had already interviewed Ray "school bus/chocolate city" Nagin and not once did he ask if he felt uncomfortable being in the city since much of the blame is actually his....

MATT LAUER: There's no easy way to ask this question, I'm just gonna ask it. Is it ever painful for you to come back to this region, because in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it seems so much of the blame for what happened or didn't happen here was laid at the feet of your husband?

He couldn't resist attacking Barbara Bush to her face about George W's non-role in the devastation in New Orleans....devastation remember, that was largely Ray Nagin's fault as well as the morons who refused to leave the city when they were told to. I guess blaming Bush for Katrina was such fun that they couldn't resist taking another shot at him, even if it was a classless shot through his wife.

Natural Disaster = political photo-op

As Gustav, now a category 3 hurricane, bears down on the ill-conceived city of New Orleans, and will probably make landfall as a cat-4 on Monday, national politicians of both parties are jockeying for the best photo-op. Why?

Clearly, Governor Bobby Jindal, Secretary Michael Chertoff, and even Mayor Ray Nagin seem to have the situation well in hand. Evacuations are going smoothly, the National Guard is present in large numbers to protect property from looting and enforce dusk-to-dawn curfews, and relief organizations are poised to leap into action the moment the danger has passed.

Given that, why does the Obamessiah and his faithful lapdog Joe Biden feel the need to be down there causing disruption? Why also do George Bush and Cheney feel the need to be down there causing further problems? That The One and Biden are going certainly explains why McCain will show up somewhere there are cameras but, what can they possibly think they are accomplishing other than posing with relief workers, National Guardsmen, or other VIP's for a photo-op to show America how concerned and personally involved they are.

National politicians don't need to be personally on site and involved with weather relief work. Things will go more smoothly if they stay out of the way and don't distract people from their tasks. Ever since Katrina I guess, no national politician will risk the political costs of not showing up to a natural disaster regardless of the uselessness of being there. Natural disasters happen. That doesn't mean the rest of the country should suspend life in solidarity with those affected. And it doesn't mean politicians should interrupt relief efforts to pose for campaign pictures.

Katrina v2.0

As midwestern states continue to get rain, and the Mississippi continues to swell, further and further south, levees are getting breeched and towns are getting flooded. Guess where all this culminates? That's right, New Orleans.

GULFPORT, Ill. — Floodwaters breached two levees in western Illinois on Wednesday and threatened more Mississippi River towns in Missouri after inundating much of Iowa for the past week.

Because of the legendary corruption and incompetence in Louisiana, the levees were never properly repaired and/or rebuilt after Katrina. When the Mississippi floods the Ninth Ward again, who do you think will be again on their rooves waiting for the government to rescue them? Where do you think the school buses will be this time around? Who do you think Mayor Ray Nagin will blame for this disaster too? Toward whom do you think the media will project more sympathy, the white flood victims in Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri, or the minorities in New Orleans?

I hope it doesn't happen and it might not but, you know the answers to every one of those questions if it does.

Living large...courtesy of your tax dollars

Do you ever stop and wonder what became of all those poor, helpless Katrina victims? Yeah, me neither. I'm too busy earning a living, paying taxes and bills, and raising a family. Well, here it is three years after Katrina and there are still sponges leftover from Katrina, sucking at the generous taxpayer teat. Who knew?

(BILOXI, MS) June 3 -- What are people who receive FEMA assistance doing to help themselves? Turns out, very little.

The scorching heat puts many at the Quality Inn poolside, but for Gwenester Malone, she chooses to beat the heat by setting her thermostat to sixty degrees. Malone's room for the past three months, along with three meals daily, have all been paid for by taxpayers.

"Do you work?" asked NBC 15's Andrea Ramey.

"No. I'm not working right now," said Malone.

Malone says she can't drive and it's too hot outside to find work within walking distance. "Since the storm, I haven't had any energy or pep to go get a job, but when push comes to shove, I will," said Malone.

Just a few blocks away, Kelley Christian also stays at a hotel for free. She says she's not taking advantage of her situation, but admits it's easy to do. "It's too easy. You know, once you're there, you don't have to pay rent," said Christian. "I kept putting it off and putting it off and now, I'm tired of putting it off."

Push came to shove for Christian when police found a meth lab in a hotel room directly below her.

Taxpayers also paid for that meth lab. The men police arrested were receiving FEMA assistance. The hotel owner says he'll now have to spend $5,000 to clean out the room.

As for Malone, she says she's not seeing any drug activity at her hotel. It's too nice she says. Why would she want to leave?

Why indeed, Gwenester, why indeed? Hanging with your peeps poolside, kickin' it in your 60degree, cable TV hotel room, and eating three free meals every day...all thanks to the generosity of us taxpayers. Probably the best three years of your miserable life.

Well, I have an idea why you might want to leave Gwenester: how about exhibiting some personal responsibility for your own life. Where is your shame for sponging off the hard work of other Americans for three years? If you had a shred of dignity, six weeks after Katrina, you'd have found a job or two...and a cheap apartment the week after that. If you had an ounce of self respect you'd have gotten back on your feet like most everybody else did within a month or two of the storm. How about showing some integrity and getting off the taxpayer dole for a change?

Americans are about hard work, self determination, and self reliance, not dependence, sloth, and degeneracy....at least most Americans are. I guess we know what kind of American you are.

Confucius say....those who choose to live in fishbowl should not complain when they get wet

I thought we were pretty much finished with the whole Katrina story but it looks like we have to endure still more court-room whining from the locals...

The Army Corps of Engineers can be held liable for flood damage caused by a "hurricane highway," a navigation channel that is believed to have funneled Hurricane Katrina's storm surge into the city, a federal judge ruled Friday.

The city would not have been flooded at all if it had been built above sea level in the first place. Good grief! Look, there's a reason there are no insurance companies willing to insure structures in NO against flood damage. It's because they are 6-10 feet below sea level......right next to the sea. Property owners assume responsibility for their structures if they choose to build in a flood plane without flood insurance. This is just another in a long line of attempts of NO lawyers to extort more money from American taxpayers by whining about how awful Katrina was to the residents of that town, only this time it's the property owners who're trying to squeeze money out of Americans who're smart enough not to build our houses and apartments on flood planes.

Clarification time, plus Q and A

All right, it's come to my attention that my criticism of Katrina victims may have been applied too broadly in the opinions of some readers. Let me be perfectly clear: when I criticize the victims of Katrina, I am specifically referring to those in New Orleans proper who for whatever reason CHOSE to not leave, depending instead on somebody else to save them. Then, they turn around and elect the same derelict bums who failed them the last time. My criticism should in no way be applied to anybody else. My heart goes out to everybody, from Alabama, through Mississippi, LA., and Texas who, through no fault of their own lost lives and property. Don't get me wrong, I even hate it for the people of NO, but I tend to have less sympathy because they could have mitigated the impact of the hurricane on their lives by simply recognizing the fact that they live in a flood-prone cereal bowl and leaving.

-Are there some people in NO who would have gotten stranded no matter how efficient the evacuation could have been? Sure, somebody always gets left.
-Are my insensitivity barbs aimed at them? Of course not.
-Were there thousands of able-bodied, car-owners who chose to stay despite a weeks notice of a cat-5 hurricane because they'd made a lifestyle out of depending on others for their survival? Yes.
-Do we as Americans have an obligation to help our fellow Americans in some way, regardless of a dumb decision they may have made to get themselves in thier predicament? Yes.
-Did the culture of lawlessness, dependence, and shiftlessness on the part of residents of NO contribute to their misery in the aftermath? Certainly.
-Should the government have given them places to stay? Sure, temporarily.
-Are the American taxpayers obligated to provide for them indefinitely? No.
-Should federal tax dollars be spent to rebuild no-fault housing below sea-level in the 9th Ward so it can happen again? No.
-Should private developers and citizens be allowed to buy property in the flood zone and rebuild at their own risk if they choose? Absolutely.
-Was it George Bush's fault that FEMA didn't respond fast enough? No. Local resources should have been mobilized already. Nagin and Blanco failed their people. That FEMA was late onto the scene was only the last in a long, miserable list of failures associated with Katrina.
-Was FEMA inept when they finally got on the scene? Yes.
-Are the people of NO so miserably stupid and averse to self-reliance that they would reward Nagins' dereliction and faithlessness with re-election? Sadly, yes.
-Finally, is ANY of my criticism at all, in ANY way, directed toward ANY of the other thousands upon thousands of victims of Katrina across the Gulf Coast who did not choose to remain in the cereal bowl by the sea? Absolutely not!

OK, I think I've been pretty unequivocal here so let there be no more misunderstanding. If you have a question about any aspect of Katrina or you think I'm a complete jerk, feel free to let me know.

Tribes

This is crazy! Hot Santa Ana winds are blowing at 50-70mph forcing the fires to race around the Malibu hills. Thirty-something homes are gone and thousands have been evacuated....

San Diego County on Monday ordered massive evacuations using Qualcomm Stadium to house evacuees as the wildfires that already killed one are "zero percent contained" and raging out of control.

Hmmm? Let's see, thousands of citizens forced to flee their homes by a natural disaster take refuge in the city's sports arena. Where have we seen this before? I wonder when the refugees will start murdering and raping each other? Looting each other's houses? Defecating all over the place and resorting to cannabilism? When will the mayor, governor, and California's democrat representatives in Congress tearfully blame the whole thing on George Bush for not rushing federal relief to the victims fast enough? When will Michael Moore make a stupid movie asking where was George Bush during the Malibu fires of '07? And how long before Al Gore blames the disaster on the imaginary menace of man-made global warming?

Oh wait, what's that you say? People in San Diego are self-reliant, employed tax-payers rather than dependent tax-consumers? Well then, I was mistaken. We probably won't see any of that misbehavior.

Think I'm being cynical and unfair? Meh(shrugs)....probably am.

For those of you who want to read the absolute best essay ever written in my opinion, on human behavior during a crisis, go to ejectejecteject and read Tribes. It is some of the best writing I've seen in a long time and Bill nails the differences between people who behave differently when confronted with hardship.

From a swamp it came, and to a swamp it should return

So only now is somebody figuring out that the abyss of human misery and dependence known as New Orleans never should have been built in the first place...

In the chaos that followed the worst natural disaster in American history, a forensic investigation has been taking place to find out what went wrong and why.

The BBC's Horizon programme has spoken to the scientists who are now confronting the real possibility that New Orleans may be the first of many cities worldwide to face extinction.

New Orleans is not, contrary to the fantasies of many deranged alcoholics and socialist utopians, a jewel city of America, rich in culture, brimming with optimism and verve. New Orleans is a cesspool of corruption and human wretchedness and squalor. Sure, you might want to visit for a day and sample the food, but you want to get the heck out as fast as you can when you're done. If Louisianna taxpayers want their tax dollars spent shoring up the disastrous levee system, then let them, but don't burden the rest of tax-paying Americans who were smart enough not to live in The Cereal Bowl by the Sea. New Orleans is not America's town. It belongs to the corrupt politicians, to the stupid voters who keep electing them, and to the shiftless goverment dependents who rely solely on hand-outs from productive Americans for their existance.

Katrina reality

Economic reality slaps business owners of New Orleans like a cold, 30lb mackerel upside the head...

Thousands of business owners in the flood zone have been stunned to learn, long after the storm, how soaring rates for commercial wind coverage translate into fine print on their insurance policies.

Stunned? Let me get this straight, you choose to live in a cereal bowl, below sea-level, between the ocean, a lake, and a swamp, from which even rain water has to be pumped, in hurricane alley, and you just got destroyed by the biggest hurricane ever, and you are stunned, stunned, to learn that your insurance rates have gone up? Let me guess, you want the government to step in and cover all future hurricane losses because of what a tragedy it would be for America to lose the city's architecture, culture, and humanity because they are uninsurable?

Sorry, as a taxpayer, I don't think the government should be in the business of guaranteeing private ventures, even if that private venture is an entire city. That's a free-market function. If the rates are too high, you have choices: go somewhere else to set up shop, risk not having hurricane insurance, set up a private-business collective through which the group secures lower rates. Nobody else in America is guaranteed low insurance rates for private property coverage by the taxpayers, why should the residents of NO expect to be?

Liberal ire flaunts common sense

This is Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), the latest target of liberal hatemongers and race baiters. He's in their crosshairs because after 18 months, he thinks Katrina left-overs should find at least half-time work in order to continue to suckle at the public teat, existing off of taxes seized from productive Americans...

Right-Wing Amendment Forces Katrina Victims To Find A Job Before Receiving Aid

The House today is debating the Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act of 2007.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, introduced an amendment that would require victims of Hurricane Katrina to perform 20 hours/week of approved “work activities” to receive financial aid for housing.

In an impassioned speech, Rep. David Scott (D-GA) addressed Hensarling on the House floor:

"This amendment is cruel, it is cold, it is calculating, and it is pandering to the schizophrenic dichotomy that has plagued this nation since they first brought Africans on these shores from Africa. And that is the issue of race and poverty."

That Katrina victims remain on the public dole a year and a half since the hurricane, all the while doing nothing to care for themselves, is preposterous! Americans find themselves the victims of home-destroying, natural disasaters all the time: forest fires out west, floods in the north-east, tornados pretty much everywhere, mud-slides in California, sink-holes and hurricanes in Florida, just to name some disasters that regularly victimize Americans. Katrina people seem to think they are somehow special and deserving of extended taxpayer support. Why do you think it is that other victims pick themselves up and move on, yet Katrina folks seem to cling to public support endlessly? Could it be that their lifestyle prior to Katrina was one of dependence and government care so they don't know anything else?

I found this story over on the barking moonbat blog ThinkProgress.org if you want to read their hysterical complaints.

Stupid is as stupid does

Just in case you were in doubt about the intelligence of residents of New Orleans, listen to this: Displaced Katrina refugees are trickling back to the Big Easy to rebuild their lost homes. The brilliant mayor Ray Nagin, ignoring advice from Army corp engineers, thinks it's a good idea to let them build anywhere they like. In places where it's practical, returning residents are being told to raise their new homes to above the level of flood waters during Katrina, kind of the way they do it at the beach. There are places in New Orleans which flooded by 20 feet or more. It's would be pure idiocy to rebuild a house in these areas...engineers rightly say these areas should be abandoned entirely. But determined Katrina refugees, not exactly known for acting with wisdom, insist on rebuilding their homes exactly as they existed prior to the hurricane.

Guess who's paying for all this construction? Remember these are helpless, not-smart-enough-to-save-themselves-from-a-cat5-hurricane, Katrina parasites...they aren't exactly America's best and brightest. Every American taxpayer is paying these morons to rebuild their homes in exactly the same place as before. Billions in taxpayer dollars are "flooding" into the Big Easy and they are making the same mistakes as before.

Tell me why a single cent of money seized from taxpayers should go to rebuild a city in a cereal bowl below sea-level? How abysmally stupid can a group of people be to re-expose themselves and their families to the threat of flooding again? It's not a matter of if, but of when another hurricane will flood New Orleans.

And we all know what will happen. Ray Nagin will cry and complain that not enough was done by white America to care for the poor, miserable have-nots in his chocolate city. The same people will be once again on their roofs waiting for somebody else to risk their life to save their miserable ones. If stupid people want to spend their own money to build in a known flood plain, fine, but my pay check shouldn't be seized to pay for it.

No good deed goes unpunished

See, this is why many Americans hesitate before doing something nice for strangers...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A church that wanted to do something special for Hurricane Katrina victims gave a $75,000 house, free and clear, to a couple who said they were left homeless by the storm. But the couple turned around and sold the place without ever moving in, and went back to New Orleans.
"Take it up with God," an unrepentant Joshua Thompson told a TV reporter after it was learned that he and the woman he identified as his wife had flipped the home for $88,000.
Church members said they feel that their generosity was abused by scam artists. They are no longer even sure that the couple were left homeless by Katrina — or that they were a couple at all.
"They came in humble like they really needed a new start, and our hearts went out to them," said Jean Phillips, a real-estate agent and member of the Temple of Deliverance Church of God in Christ. "They actually begged for the home."
Church members also were shocked by an ungrateful interview the couple gave to WHBQ-TV in Memphis.
"I really don’t like this area," said Delores Thompson. "I really didn’t, and I didn’t know anybody, so that’s why I didn’t move in and I sold it."

Americans are the most charitable and generous people on the planet by any measure. Then along comes a pair of ingrates like these two jerks who punish an entire congregation for being nice to them.

These loathsome wretches deserve, in a karmic sort of way, for their current house to be burned to the ground, and I hope it happens to them...and they don't have insurance.

I don't generally take pleasure in the suffering of others...Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I do...expecially when they deserve it. And nobody deserves to suffer like these two.

Bad habits die hard

With most of the Katrina refugees still living in Houston, the floods there may cause problems...

HOUSTON – Severe thunderstorms with torrential rains and a possible tornado hit Southeast Texas overnight, killing two people, flooding roads and shutting down numerous schools Monday.
As much as 10 inches of rain fell in the Houston-Galveston area. More rain was expected across Texas on Monday, with the possibility of damaging winds and flooding, the National Weather Service said.

Don't be surprised if you hear of some trouble in Houston during all this....after all, looting, shooting, and cannabilism are natural, human responses to urban flooding aren't they?

A tale of two cities

NEWS FLASH!!! -- 6.6 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Hawaii, Residents Remain Calm, Stand Patiently in Line To Buy Provisions

You mean no looting, no rioting, no shooting at rescue workers, no marauding gangs raiding hospitals for drugs? Why it's almost as if the residents of Hawaii are rational, caring human beings.

the chocolate city

The glaring failure of quasi-socialism in New Orleans over the past 20 years wasn't clear enough apparently, as Ray Nagin resists the advantages of the free market and insists on set-asides, race-based quotas, and affirmative action to rebuild the chocolate city in his own racist image...

By MICHELLE ROBERTS
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - New Orleans' mayor signed an order Monday requiring that large businesses use as many local and minority-owned firms as possible when they seek millions of dollars in tax incentives and grants for Hurricane Katrina recovery.
Mayor Ray Nagin's executive order requires applicants for the incentives to involve 50 percent local businesses and 35 percent women- or minority-controlled businesses whenever possible.
A similar requirement has been in place for government contracts, but the mayor's order expands it to businesses applying for assistance promised by various federally funded recovery programs that are administered by the city and the state.

Sure Ray, don't let the business whose bid is the lowest get the job, guarantee tax-payer money to your minority friends who may bid millions higher than other white-owned businesses. Why shouldn't the minority businesses be efficient as well? Efficiency is the cornerstone of competitiveness in business. What he's saying is that if you can claim some sort of minority status, you don't have to be the low bidder in order to get the job. We will award it to you because of the color of your skin or the presence of a bra.

"We just want to make sure we don't go back to a city of haves and have-nots," Nagin said at a news conference. "This is imperative, not only for us but for our kids and grandkids."

Haves and have-nots? Ray Nagin and the democrats were in complete control of that entire city top to bottom for years leading up to Katrina. If there were any have-nots, and the local government can control that outcome as he now claims, whose fault was that?

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, many local firms complained that the main beneficiaries of large government contracts for emergency cleanup and recovery were out-of-state businesses and workers.

That's because the locals were used to being given no-bid business from Nagin because they were black and probably wanted more money for the work. The workers that came to NO to clean up were Mexicans. Say what you want about immigration, that's another matter, but Mexicans flatout work! Hard work was something most NO residents were unused to. They were unwilling to save themselves from a category 5 hurricane, why should they be willing to clean up after themselves?

It is encouraging that the businesses in NO are getting back on their feet in spite of Ray Nagin's insistence on minority preferences for his voting base. Capitalism and the pursuit of profit always trump preferences and quotas.

It's what pasty, inept, bureaucratic losers do...

This is so typical of disgraced, former bureaucrats that I hesitate to even comment on it but here it is...

'Brownie' Blames Bush, Chertoff for Katrina
Former FEMA Director Michael Brown, who lost his job because of Hurricane Katrina, said Tuesday his biggest regret a year later is that he wasn't candid enough about the lack of a coherent federal response plan.
"There was no plan. ... Three years ago, we should have done catastrophic planning," Brown said, charging that the Bush administration and his department head, Michael Chertoff, "would not give me the money to do that kind of planning."
As levees broke down at Katrina's strike against New Orleans and people were forced from their homes, Brown said he sought futilely to get the 82nd Airborne Division into the city quickly.
Appearing on NBC's "Today" show, he was asked about positive statements he had made at the time about how Washington would come through for the storm victims, rather than leveling with the country about how bad the situation actually was.
"Those were White House talking points," Brown replied. "And to this day, I think that was my biggest mistake."

Seriously, did anybody expect anything more honorable from "Brownie"? Anybody in government who gets canned because of incompetence and failure, automatically runs to the fawning, agreeable press (this rule applies only when Republicans hold the reins of power) and blames the bosses for their own ineptitude.

I have never understood the logic of the President of the U.S. micromanaging local disaster relief. It was never Bush's job to call in the Guard, order buses to La., have supplies flown in, get the people out of the disaster, or any of it. It was squarely the responsibility of, in order or priority: Mayor Ray Nagin, Governor Kathleen Blanco, FEMA head Michael Brown, Homeland Security Secretary, President Bush. When the first three people in the chain of command fall completely and utterly on their faces, how can anybody expect the National Command Authority to take charge, within hours, of a local weather disaster? But that's what everybody expected down there...here's three reasons why:
1. Ray Nagin crying racism before the storm even hit because it's what all race pimps do to cover their own failures. 2. The people of NO expecting the goverment to save them rather than save themselves because leaders like Ray Nagin had fostered the notion of dependence and entitlement.
And 3. the Bush-hating media seizing the opportunity to tag Bush, and by extension all conservatives, as racists, by gleefully stoking the fires of racial division and resentment among the survivors when there was none.

It'll be interesting when the next hurricane hits that town to see how the same leaders handle the situation on their second try.

Here we go again...

Ray "Chocolate City" Nagin is already complaining that the city of New Orleans is not ready for a hurricane and that the government has let the poor, huddled masses down yet again. Look closely at the most likely storm track for Ernesto...it could head directly for east of NO...the worst side to be on. I wonder if the buses will be running this time around...

Ernesto, packing 60 mph winds, could be near hurricane strength by Sunday. Still, it was too soon to predict whether it would hit the United States, said Michael Brennan, a meteorologist with the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.
"People should pay attention, especially people on the Gulf coast," Brennan said. "We're in the middle of hurricane season and it's a good time for people to update their hurricane plans."

Yeah, I would say that's it's a good idea to update your hurricane plan...seeing as how the last one was the singular greatest example of unfathomable, human failure combined with the incompetence of the wretched, state leadership in the history of the civilized world. I will be watching very closely to see who manages to save themselves from Ernesto, should it be advised. I predict that if the levees wash away again, the same people who got stranded waiting for somebody to save them, get stranded in the flooded city again. Of course it'll be all Bush's fault again as well.

More fun with FEMA...

This tidbit illustrates perfectly the abject, miserable incompetence that has seized the federal government's releif agency...and the federal government in general...

Prompted by a WAFB 9NEWS INVESTIGATION, FEMA said Monday it will replace locks on as many as 118-thousand trailers used by victims of hurricanes who are living in trailers provided by the government agency.FEMA says some keys could open as many as 50 different locks. At two FEMA trailer parks in Baton Rouge, our investigation revealed residents who were able to open not only their trailers, but also trailers of other individuals parked only a few spaces away.

The fact that there are still people living in FEMA trailers, and haven't gotten on with their lives, is incredible to me. I get that entire towns were destroyed and may remain wastelands not to be repopulated any time in the near future. I get that people lost literally everything including their land(in terms of it's usability). I get that the jobs from those towns do not exist any more for thousands of people but COME ON!. Why are there at least 118,000 families still living off the taxpayers in FEMA trailers? What are they waiting for? Move to a new city. Get a different job. Start a new life. How long are people willing to do nothing to help themselves, while they wait for the government(fellow taxpayers) to take care of all their needs? Apparently the disappointing answer to that question is still unknown as the meter is still running on Katrina leftovers.

I used to believe that one cannot overstate the ingenuity, determination, and rugged individualism of Americans. It's what this country was built on. Dismayingly, Katrina dingleberries show that dependence, laziness, and entitlement are qualities difficult to overrstate as well.

When you vote for incompetence...you get incompetence!

The people who run the city of N.O. have got to be the laziest, mouth-breathing, idiots to have ever risen to the level of their incompetence. Read this and see if you don't agree...

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - A mock evacuation that was supposed to be part of a two-day statewide hurricane preparedness drill was canceled after a misunderstanding about who had jurisdiction over a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer park.

One would reasonably assume that after the abject, miserable failure that described the preparedness for, and response to Katrina at all levels of government, but especially local government, they would somehow manage to get their act together this hurricane season. It's basically a fire drill but on a larger scale. Why are there jurisdictional questions about getting people out of harms way? Oh, I forgot. It's New Orleans. There are people by the thousands who take no responsibility for their own safety and well-being or that of their families. And why should they take responsibility for their own safety? The government has been responsible for their housing, food, medical care, education, transportation, unemployment checks, and every other aspect of their miserable dependent lives.

Ray Nagin couldn't manage to get a single bus mobilized to get people out of his city before the hurricane, but he sure got them mobilized in time to get people back there to vote him back into office. Here is his first test as mayor...to successfully evacuate the city in a drill...and he blows it.

Even if he can't save their lives because of his bumbling incompetence, at least he'll get their unemployment checks, free housing, and food stamps to them on time...and that's all that really matters.

They deserve what they get...

Ray "Chocolate City" Nagin won the New Orleans mayoral race with 52.3% of the vote. His challenger, Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, whose family the AP referred to as the Kennedy family of Louisiana, collected 47.7%.

So Ray Nagin gets a shot at the hundreds of millions of Katrina rebuilding dollars destined for Louisiana....what a debacle that spending spree will be!

When you combine the appalling lack of ethics that is already the hallmark of Louisiana politics, with the monumental incompetence of Mayor Nagin, with hundreds of millions of dollars seized from American taxpayers to pay for poor people to rebuild their shanties in a flood-prone cereal bowl, what do you get? -- The single largest waste of money since opening day of Gigli.

As much as Ray Nagin wants to make the rebuilding, but most importantly the repopulating, of New Orleans be about race...it shouldn't be. It's simply about economics. New Orleans should never have been built below sea level in the first place (lay another of history's most idiotic decisions at the feet of the French). Just because pre-Katrina N.O. was awash in entitlement-minded parasites, doesn't mean it has to be again, though I'm sure the residents of Houston wish they would go home. Ray Nagin depended on the votes of those people (many of them voted absentee but will never return) to get re-elected and he'll reward them for their votes using money from tax-paying Americans as payola. He knows that he can't get elected without the vast dependent class of needy handout consumers to whom he can play race politics.

Nagin seems to want the city to return to exactly what it was before the storm, but why not make it better, by returning those flood-prone neighborhoods to the natural swamps which buffer the city from the ocean, by discouraging the mass construction of rental property designed to attract the same jobless consumers of tax dollars who resided there before, and by letting the free housing market dictate what kinds of houses if any, get built around the city? Certainly, with insurance companies reluctant to insure homes in neighborhoods which were completely destroyed, who could afford to build an uninsured home in these areas? American tax payers should not be obligated to pay for homes to be rebuilt where they will surely be destroyed again at some point, just to fulfill Nagin's dream of a return of the Chocolate City.

Let the free market decide who gets to rebuild where. If people want to rebuild houses in a flood plain without insurance and they can afford to do so...fine. But they rebuild at their own peril. No tax payers money should be seized, when their homes are washed away again. If insurance companies calculate that they can make money by insuring high risk construction in places like the ninth ward, they will. If people calculate that it's too expensive to insure a home in a N.O. flood plain, then they can rebuild elsewhere. That's the housing-construction-insurance free market at work.

The only problem is Ray Nagin needs the poor dependent class residing in N.O. proper in order to keep his job as mayor so he will push for laws to circumvent the insurance/housing free market, and force tax-payers to cover the bill when the city gets destroyed again. And he'll cry racism if anybody objects to their tax dollars being seized to pay for somebody else's bad decisions.

Another hurricane will hit N.O. in the next few years and I predict no buses will run, the same helpless, huddled masses will be stranded and hungry in whatever replaces the Superdome, and there will once again be abandoned SUV's lining the streets that those people could have used to escape but refused to, because Ray Nagin will have told them that it's not their job to take care of themselves...their only concern will have been to vote for him every four years.

And Liberals will weep and cry and moan at the human tragedy and the loss of such an historic American city.

If you build your house in a flood plain without insurance...it's like burying yourself in the sand at low tide...eventually the tide is going to come in...and you'll get what you deserve for making such a bad decision.