(Bumped to the top.)
I haven't had much to say lately, but Hurricane Katrina has inspired me. Well, to be more accurate, the incredibly stupid things people are saying about the storm inspired me. To post a list of stupid things that people are saying. If you've got any, send em in or post em.
Haley Barbour caused the Hurricane to hit his state. RFK, Jr.
As Hurricane Katrina dismantles Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, it’s worth recalling the central role that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour played in derailing the Kyoto Protocol and kiboshing President Bush’s iron-clad campaign promise to regulate CO2.
[...]
Now we are all learning what it’s like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence which Barbour and his cronies have encouraged. Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and--now--Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children.
In 1998, Republican icon Pat Robertson warned that hurricanes were likely to hit communities that offended God. Perhaps it was Barbour’s memo that caused Katrina, at the last moment, to spare New Orleans and save its worst flailings for the Mississippi coast.
I'd like to believe that was done with tongue-in-cheek, but I really don't think it was. If this wasn't satircal, it's a good nominee to win the Jerry Falwell Blame-the-Victim award.
Katrina is proof that the U.S. needs to act quickly to reduce greenhouse gasses. Various newspapers across Germany.
That appears to be the gist of several of the articles mentioned in that link.
Bloggers who write about the hurricane are just trying to up their hit-count so they can get more advertising. Shane Coffey
Most legitimate news organizations have a right to post a story about the incoming hurricane, because that's what they, they report the news. Blogs should not change their focus just to make a buck or two. But those bloggers out there writing just to increase their visitors just to get people to click on their google ads is pathetic to say the least.
These people are the scum of the earth and are by essence scraping the bottom of the barrel. To me anyone making money off the heart-ache and suffering of others are pathetic and need to be locked away for a vey long time.
Yes, he actually implies (heavily) that bloggers have no right to blog about the storm. (He ignores the fact that it's just as easy for "legitimate" news organizations to use natural disasters to make money.)
Global warming caused the hurricane and, well, just about anything else you can think of. Ross Gelbspan.(Via Best of the Web)
The hurricane that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service. Its real name is global warming.
When the year began with a two-foot snowfall in Los Angeles, the cause was global warming.
When 124-mile-an-hour winds shut down nuclear plants in Scandinavia and cut power to hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland and the United Kingdom, the driver was global warming.
Katrina is our punishment from God for supporting the Israelis pullout from Gaza. Bridget Magee.
A resident of Louisiana who chose to stay at home rather than evacuate in the face of advancing Hurricane Katrina believes her country is being dealt with by God because of the major role it played in the expulsion of Jews from their homes in Gaza and northern Samaria. Bridgett Magee told the Jerusalem Newswire Sunday evening that she saw the giant hurricane "as a direct 'coming back on us' [for] what we did to Israel: a home for a home."
[...]
Magee sees the coming catastrophe as something the God of Israel will allow in judgment upon the United States for its central role in the expulsion of 10,000 Jews from their homes in the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria.
Umm ... If that's so, wouldn't it make more sense for some horrible disaster to be striking the Israelis who supported the pullout?
The resulting gasoline problems will basically destroy our way of life (and that's apparently a good thing). James Kunstler.
It seems possible to me that we will be seeing gas station lines all over America within the week.” In another area of his website, Kunstler writes: "We are entering a period of economic hardship and declining incomes...The suburbs as are going to tank spectacularly. We are going to see an unprecedented loss of equity value and, of course, basic usefulness. We are going to see an amazing distress sale of properties, with few buyers. We're going to see a fight over the table scraps of the 20th century.
I'll help the flood victims, even if they are dirty, rotten, war-supporting Republicans! Linda Milazzo.
Update: It's all Bush's fault! Kathy Flake.
Except, I'm not blaming Bush for staying away while New Orleans drowns. I'd like him to stay as far away as possible, in the same way I'd like a firestarter to stay away from the embers of my charred home.
If you would like to join in the blame game, please leave a comment. Anybody able to connect him with a missing white girl gets extra points.
Update again: Sean Penn gets in on the act:
The US government was accused of "criminal negligence" as hopes of finding survivors faded and the death toll from Hurricane Katrina continued to rise.
Holidaymakers returning to the UK spoke of the scale of the misery while one said leering police officers demanded young women flash their breasts in return for help.
Oscar-winning Hollywood actor Sean Penn, who has been assisting rescue efforts in New Orleans, said the US government did not "seem to be inclined to help".
"We were pulling drowning people out of the water, it's the ultimate distress and human suffering ... dead bodies," he told GMTV.
Penn said he had spent nine hours on Monday searching the water for people and during all that time he saw just three boats carrying US officials.
"There are people that are dying right now and I mean babies and old people and everybody in between - they're dying. There are people dying and (the US government are) not putting the boats in the water, I think that's criminal negligence. I don't think anybody ever anticipated the criminal negligence of the Bush administration in this situation."
Nobody tell Sean about this stuff. Oh, and don't mention this either. Note that he accuses the Bush administration of "criminal negligence" on the grounds that he only saw three boats. Because, of course, if Sean doesn't see it, it ain't happening. Maybe the personal photographer was blocking his view.
Another Update: Capitalism did it! World Socialist Web Site
The devastation in Louisiana and Mississippi in the wake of Hurricane Katrina will forever change the way broad masses of American working people look upon their government and society. The shock of the storm and the subsequent inundation of New Orleans have exposed the rottenness of the existing social order. It was not only the levees that failed, but the social and political institutions on which millions of people rely.
It is now being reported that as many as ten thousand human beings, fellow citizens, or even more, may have perished during the past week. They are dead because of the incompetence, negligence, and indifference of the government. They are dead because the United States is a country in which millions of people live in or on the brink of poverty. They are dead because this is a capitalistic society where the accumulation of vast personal wealth for a small percentage of the population is deemed more important than the welfare of the people as a whole.
Yeah, and socialism has such a great track record! The accuse the US government of killing people with incompetence and indifference. Even if I grant that it was true, incompetence and indifference on the part of government is hardly a capitalistic monopoly. And even if it was, I'd rather my government kill me by ignoring me than killing me intentionally. Socialist governments seem to have a problem with that.
"Hold the Mayo" agreeing with a claim that the looting is the result of the welfare state takes the cake as far as I've seen.
Posted by: dstn | Saturday, September 03, 2005 at 10:19 AM