Can you tell me where I can access the records you cite concerning the Army Corps of Engineers requests to upgrade the levees? I think more people need to hear about that.

Thanks,

Paul

I note that quite apart from the 3 qu’illion bucks there is an addtiional $14-plus tril. being demanded–an amount in excess of America’s annual GDP. That alone is risible. There was an old, perhaps not PC expression for an infinite amaunt: “All the tea in China”. But this dwarfs that, itself, by a near-infinite amount.

If there is anything that could elminiate sympathy for genuine victims, and create an atmosphere of unseemly jocularity, it is shenanigans such as this. It is an outrage to the magpies.

Again, my sympathies to you and all the other victims not connected with this risible misuse of legitimate compensatory process.

One of the factors that caused so much flooding damage to St Bernard parish(county) 100% and 40 plus thousand homes, was a thing called “Mr Go” or the mississippi river gulf outlet. Do a google it’s complicated. Briefly it is a shipping channel that was dug as a shortcut across louisiana to save shipping companies money. It was done by the federal government long ago, the state has some culpability too, but we had no choice. Simply put it allowed salt water intrusion into fresh water wetlands that normaly would resist the storm surge, killing the plant life, and to complcate it further made a waterway “funnel” for the waters to flow through which put pressure on the levees. The water levels were not as high as the the levees were designed to hold back. A contractor for the corps used sheet piling that was ten to twenty feet too short. To give you a visiual put two pencils in a big chunk of playdough, one two inches deep and one five inches, which one will be esier to topple. Everyone here doesn’t expect perfect levees, but we expect a higher level of competance from the people who built them. (trust me when i tell you i realize the folly of that statement, the saying down here is “what’s the 9 most terrifiying words you can hear”, “we’re from the government and we’re here to help.”

Where will we put those refineries and chemical plants that are down here, no one else wants them, so they are here because of closeness to the gulf, you think gas prices are high now, try building a new plant. Should we ask the thousands of workers at those plants to commute 50, 75 or more miles a day to work there. Try telling a community in another state that were gonna put a chemical plant close to their homes so they don’t have to drive so far to go to work, i know the neighbor who works at wal mart would freak out. If you like seafood, hope you do, it’s a sinch to talk us folks down here to send you some authentic Gumbo or Jamblaya, not that popeyes crap, the real thing. Try telling a fisherman (crab, shrimp, fish, oyster or crawfish) that in addition to paying through the nose to fuel his boat, now he has to commute and add cost to his product, most of the ones i know are past the struggling point now. Well i do have a propensity to rant. Simply put the problems down here are very, very, complicated and affect your wallet more than you think. The guy on the mountainside is there for the view or seclusion. It dosen’t affect you or me very much. But the amount of energy resourses that come through here are staggering. Not to mention the wild game and seafood “Louisiana the sportsman’s paridise” is not just our motto it’s a fantastic lifestyle.

thanks for the banter, louis

p.s. a wise man once said “never underestimate stupid people in large numbers”
p.s.s. check out my lighter side at nolalou.wordpress.com

I agree the law suit from the one individual for 3 quadrillion is stupid.

But I look at it this way, and I say this from experience because the town I grew up in along the Ohio river also had levees for flood protection.

When you live or run a business behind a levee, you take a risk. The risk is no different than living in the mountainous brush-land of southern California, and many people do. They also build “levees” known as fire breaks and “defensible space”.

The point is, no such separation from nature is foolproof. To expect perfection from such things is pure folly. But there’s more to the problem.

Here in California we also had a levee disaster after the heavy rains of 1997. And many people whom took the risk of building in flood zones expecting perfect levees lost their bet with nature.

And true to human nature, instead of simply saying “I lost the bet with nature” they whined and sued the government just like some in NOLA.

And just like in NOLA, there was an element of environmental extremism that prevented proper levee maintenance and upgrades because of “environmental concerns”.

What bullshit. The anger is misplaced. The environmental groups that prevented California’s levee system from being upgraded and storm/sea gates from being installed on Lake Pontchartrain should be the ones getting the lawsuits.

Now I’m sure I’ll here from Sierra Club mouthpiece Steve Bloom, who still hasn’t answered a tough but inconvenient question posed to him months ago.

Here’s what will come next; we’ll see a lawsuit from somebody who lives in a trailer park who claims because the government didn’t sign on to Kyoto, that allowed more climate change to occur which was therefore the cause of a tornado that took out their trailer. Mark my word, more stupidity like we’ve seen with the 3 quad$ is coming.

Frederick the Great was happy to hang onto Silesia.

Alexander settled for Macedonia, Persia, Afghanistan, and Egypt.

The Romans drew the line on the Danube.

Hitler only wanted Europe (not even past the Urals, acc. to Himmler’s map).

Even the space aliens only wanted our women.

These guys want it ALL.

I’m suprised that some of them didn’t want to get paid in Starbucks. How many zeros are in a Starbucks, anyway?