Gut! Sehr schoen seite! ^^ Wirklich! :)

The looter has a packed-full grocery bag in one hand and a batch of napkins in the other, while the finders have a loaf of bread and two liters of soda.

If you can't see the difference there, you are a moron.

If you look at Holland, they are below sea level and have spent over 3 trillion dollars in massive water gates and huge metal walls to protect their country from tragic flooding (we could learn from them). New Orleans is much smaller, I bet it could be replicated (smaller scale) for less than 10 billion... Is this too much to protect human lives and prevent further homelessness?

No atheists in the foxholes. If you were there you'd have been on your knees crying like a schoolgirl asking for divine help.

No offense, but realistically, your prayers seem to be ineffective.

Perhaps that's why the relief took so long--people were too busy praying instead of getting OFF THEIR ASSES AND RESCUING people. May god strike me with lightning if I'm wrong.

Hey folks, I have only visited NO once and loved it. I like the Acadian Parishes even more. Lafayette, that is a city a life-long southerner can love. I am heart sick over all the devastation, but hindsight is always 20-20. Let's all get together and do what we do best in a crisis, pull together.

As for Ma Nature, when she decides its payday, IT IS PAYDAY, and she don't take checks.

"Bob"....why bother rebuilding new orleans? that's a idiotic comment don't you think? why rebuild san francisco and los angeles when there is a big earthquake.....i mean think before you speak...its an entire city....you wouldn't have all the things you have if it weren't for the port of new orleans or any port thanks to the gulf of mexico....it will be rebuilt no matter what you think.....

LOL@Patrick!!





Very interesting comments!! It's not like the French intentionally removed soil just to make sure New Orleans would be below sea level. That's just the topography of the area. (Nature had a way of addressing that problem with the periodic Mississippi River floods, etc. Man, however, disrupted that process with the levees and other measures designed to keep New Orleans dry.) What the French did do--and ultimately the Americans who took over when the French left--was look beyond that "little" problem and see the bigger picture: DOLLARS!!!





New Orleans is a MAJOR port city, accounting for the vast majority of goods and services, raw materials, etc. that arrive in the US. So, even if you don't live in New Orleans trust me you WILL be affected by this catastrophe. That's how important that city is to the US economy. Not too many cities can make that claim.

Why bother rebuilding NO? It's been pointed out many times here, it's below sea level. Let it go. Move. I keep hearing "everything's gone" on the news. Well, then I guess there's nothing keeping you there. Why bother rebuilding it, it just doesn't seem worth the money when something like this could just happen again. A stitch in time saves nine.

Let's all take some time and actually pray because only GOD can control what is going to happen next. Prayer is the main thing needed now so that when donations are received, when the area is cleared, the individuals in charge will know what to do and how to do it.

Always remember, GOD is the creator of all and he has the final say...PERIOD!!

God bless and my prayers are with everyone!

I believe this is a terrorist attack by the weasel French. They built New Orleans below sea level just to p1ss us off. We should be careful, as they also designed Washington... who knows what can happen now?!

Here's an excerpt from an online article appearing on The Miami Herald's website entitled "Hurricane coverage mesmerizes Europe"--posted Wed. Aug 31, 2005--which I found most interesting:

"Katrina led the news in the Netherlands, a land well acquainted with danger from the sea. With much of the country below sea level -- the country gets its name from that position -- the Dutch have learned to survive the ravages of angry winds and surging tides, but not without enduring catastrophe.

In one winter night in 1953, an unexpected combination of hurricane force winds and extraordinarily high tides sent the sea rushing above and through the dikes, killing more than 1,800 people and drowning some 47,000 cattle. Since then, hydraulic engineers have rebuilt a reinforced network of dams and pumps that has largely managed to keep the sea away.

'New Orleans floods even with minor storms,' said one Dutch woman who used to live in the Big Easy. 'It's like a Third World city.' Amsterdam, another major city below sea level, crisscrossed by canals and sitting along a major body of water, never seems to flood."

My point is, both New Orleans and The Netherlands appear to be in the same boat, so to speak. As such, instead of tryin to reinvent the wheel, simply incorporate whatever measures they did--since it's obviously working--when the time comes rebuilding New Orleans.

It's better to work with Mother Nature rather than fight her because in the end she WILL have the last say.

What i find depressing is the fact that while it is so noble to feel sympathy for the victims of katrina some of the same people think nothing of the horror of worst proportions that U.S. got. has unleasehd upon iraqis, destroying houses, hospitals, and lives. How noble is it to decide when to feel sorry and when not to, whose lives are more important and finally, is it about our own self, we decide whose houses we want to help build and whose do we want to pay to destroy?

From today's Chicago Tribune:

"I'm not saying it wouldn't still be flooded, but I do feel that if it had been totally funded, there would be less flooding than you have," said Michael Parker, a former Republican Mississippi congressman who headed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from October 2001 until March 2002, when he was ousted after publicly criticizing a Bush administration proposal to cut the corps' budget.

Dear New Orleans:

I remember after 9/11 when truckloads of you drove up here to feed the rescue workers for days with the best southern comfort food in the world.

I'm not a restaurant owner, but some those who post here might be or know one who is - so i'm lettng it be known that it's time to return the favor.

And that those of us who can't offer food are eagerly awaiting, as soon as things dry out, to get down there with our NYC tourist dollars (in addition to our charity dollars on the way now). You just give the word, we'll be there with beads on.

Love and best wishes for a speedy recovery,

Alo and all my neighbors and friends in NYC

great post Pam. Thank you.

i agree with pam...as americans, we should help each other out and quit bickering with each other and finding wrong in what's already been done. We are sooo quick to help outside of the country, but when it comes to our own, people lose interest quickly, judge, and say we deserve it. what is wrong with that picture?

i agree with pam...as americans, we should help each other out and quit bickering with each other and finding wrong in what's already been done. We are sooo quick to help outside of the country, but when it comes to our own, people lose interest quickly, judge, and say we deserve it

If money for the levee system was so goddamn important to New Orleans, why didn't Louisiana raise taxes to fund it? So what if the feds cut it short, the state government has a better understanding of the conditions than federal bureaucrats.

Louisiana should have raised a bond measure that would have funded the necessary levee upgrades.

In the end, we all lose.

For those who suggest somehow we deserve this because we did not spend enough on our levee systems, please refer to an article in Salon by Sidney Blumenthal dated 8/31. In it he explains exactly where all the federal money that has been cut from our state budget has gone. Where do you think, for the last 3-4 years? You got it, looking for WMDs and Saddam and all those terrorists in Bagdad. Maybe now more people will wake to the destruction of this country and it's infrastructure by the current administration and it's 'cut taxes, wage war and screw the homeys' attitude. That's why we do not have enough National Guardmen to help police in NO, they are all overseas! This is the same federal administration that is now trying to screw NY state and NYC out of all that 9/11 money they promised. Remember?

I am not saying there might have been some poor decision making, etc., but the fact remains, our federal $$ have been drastically cut for the past several years and actually, the levees really did quite well. They were able to stand up to a Category 5 (just dropped to Category 4 right before it hit)hurricane and they were built to stand up to a Category 4. The storm surge caused such a backwash that the lake overflowed and the pressure and force of that water is what caused the breach of the levee. The pumps were just overworked and submerged by the flood. Of course, if we had $ for newer and stronger equipment, maybe things would have been different and maybe not. It is a huge lake and it was a huge hurricane and huge winds @125 mph.

We in Louisiana are not too good to have offshore oil rigs, we have pumped more oil for this country than Bagdad ever will or did and we have for years and years. And after we pump it out of our ground, we then refine it for you, we make gas, kerosene, propane because of our huge natural gas field. We make all kinds of chemicals that you use every day, whether you know it or not. We certainly deserve the rest of the country to stand up and intercede on our behalf with the federal government.

How about we all stand together as Americans in a time of a great natural disaster instead of all this petty fighting and bickering and sniping and snarky little comments? There will plenty of time for blame to be dealt out and I am sure there is plenty to go around for everyone.

Right now, let's just get these poor people out of the toxic soup, clean out that mess, and do what we can to strengthen the levee system and get this town and economy going again.

I love my state, I always loved to visit New Orleans and it makes me very sad and angry for people who have no idea what they are talking about to take easy shots at us at this time. Thanks for listening and everybody just chill.

PS You'll love this, in one of the larger evacuation centers, the Scientologists have set up tents and are counseling people....yikes! That Tom Cruise doesn't miss any opportunity. Pam from Baton Rouge, Louisiana