Black Dog

I don't think Greg really needs to step in here. The posters in question do a good enough job of embarrassing themselves that official censure is unneccesary. Put another way: we know who the clowns are.

I don't even think subsidies and tax breaks are necessary. Just make it so that ifIf Landrex or whoever wants to rip up prime farmland or pristine wilderness for some shitty stucco housing project, they must pay the full costs of servicing their projects (roads, sewers and other infrastructure). Problem is, there's a distinct lack of political will in most communities to stand up to developers. Anyone who does is usually tarred with the "anti-growth" brush, a label that is like kryptonite to local government officials.

Uh..no it hasn't. Call a spade a spade, as it were? I'm curious as to what you'd consider to be actual rascism, then? Your reasoning reminds me of the old Southern redneck expression "there's blacks, and there's niggers." You're judging the whole by the actions of individuals. That stinks. Yeah well, let's take your land, shove you in squallor, destroy your culture, decimate your people with booze and disease and see how well your grandchilddren do. Oooh your getting closer...to paraphrase something August once said: what colour are the people on our money? Statistics Canada lists only 21% of Aboriginal people as living on reserve. 11.2 per cent of the on-reserve population is non Native. A little more than 78% of Aboriginal people live off reserve and many are denied any support from their home reserve. As for the subject of the thread, I think the U.S., by virtue of its much larger minority populations (blacks and Hsipanics in particular) and the relative novelty of equal rights (Black people only got the vote in 1965!), has a higher level of institutional rascism. But even that, arguably, is a byproduct of class divisions.

Sprawl is the sludge you get when you mix greedy developers and short-sighted government together. The North AMerican way of life is built on sprawl, which in turn is built on cheap oil. Once the latter is too expensive or in too short supply, then the whole works will come tumbling down.

That much is clear. If you had spent more than 2 seconds on this, then you might know that the majority of rulings on this dispute have gone against the U.S. The NAFTA panel has ruled against the U.S. four times (NAFTA decisions, unlike those made by the WTO, are binding). The U.S. has simply ignored these rulings, choosing to side with the domestic forestry lobby over its agreed upon trade commintments. Wow, Harper even beat Bush to the punch!

No, self-absorbed. American culture is entirely inward looking and fixed around the notion of American exceptionalism. America uber alles. As for your complete non-sequiter about Canada's place in the world, it's only the insecure, status-obsessed crybabies on the right who consider such things to be important.

The Potempkin President Bush seems to have a thing for men in uniform, given his predilication for using them as props in his photo ops.

Jesus, August, we've been through this a billion times. Under Saddam, Iraq's oil was nationalized. Foreign oil companies negotiated with the regime for access. these firms included Royal Dutch/Shell of the Netherlands, Russia's Lukoil and France's Total Elf Aquitaine. Now, given the cozy relationship between Bush and company and the U.S. oil industry and given the U.S. oil industry's relatively unfavourable position with regards to accessing the sweet black gold, the conclusion is that the invasion was about securing access to the oil for American firms. There's also the greater strategic implicatons of placing a military force on top of the world's second largest oil reserves (which happen to be in close proximity to a growing-and increasingly oil-hungry-superpower in China). So to say that they invaded so that AMericans could get cheap oil is simplistic and to disregard the pivotal role oil played in the decision to invade is just naive.

Overlooked until now was this: the White House's declaration of a state of emergency., issued two days before Hurricane Katrina made landfall. In other words, FEMA had the authority to do whatever is necessary to mitigate the disaster. If Nagin failed to call up the buses, then FEMA had the right, the power and the authority to do so "at its own discretion." According to the National Response Plan and... So the big to-do about the governor and mayor not requesting anything? Meaningless. But, hey, for kicks, let's take a moment and assume that all the state and local officials were blundering incompentents, completely unprepaired for what was about to happen. The simple, glaring fact remains that the federal government (again, who is responsible for overseeing emergency response to incidents of national importance, which this hurricane inarguably was) was utterly unprepared to respond in a timely manner to the humanitarian crisis.

Of course not. Americans are too self-absorbed to give us even a passing thought. We're about as important to them as Panama or Luxembourg: that hasn't changed in 130 years.

Please. Under the circumstances, Nagin's tirade was mild. Interesting that you ommitted the rest of the paragraph: Which they are doing anyway. Which doesn't support your contention that it hurt the Democrats: people tend to seek out information that validates and confirms their preexisting biases and opinions, so its only natural that people in Republican strongholds would not go to a movie aimed at Democrats. That I wouldn't trust the top three men in the federal emergency managment body with mowing my lawn, let alone overseeing such an important agency. Maybe you think being a buddy of George Bush is a legitimate qualification, but I doubt anyone who's not part of your cult would.

If you think you're going to find any defence of Clinton from me, you're sadly mistaken. See, I'm no partisan. It just so happens that the political establishment in the U.S. is hopelessly corrupt. The difference between Clinton and Bush is a matter of degrees of corruption and incompetence. Clinton, for all his faults, was at least intelligent, and curious about the world around him, a man with a veneer of genuine charisma, even if that veneer concealed an unprincipled, power hungry interior. Bush, on the other hand, lacks even that veneer. His flaws are on display and indeed, are celebrated. The only people who buy his faux "jus' folks" act are the hopellessly gullible true believers, the same people Bush and his elite ilk have naught but contempt for. But even Clinton, at his worst, never cost thousands of Americans their lives through his stupidity and corruption. Bush, through 9-11, through Iraq and now Katrina, has been more dangerous to Americans than Saddam Huessin, Osama bin Laden and the "Axis of Evil" combined.

Interesting that the facts are facts to you only when they conform to your particular idealogical bias. As for the NYT making up stories, yeah, I remember Judith Miller's work on the Iraq WMD issue well, as well as Jayson Blair. But it's worth remembering that, whatever institutional biases the New York Times may have, it is a legitimate news outlet. However, the entire raison d'etre of NewsMax, Canada Free Press and their ilk is to disseminate propaganda. Damn that sonofbitch for all those years of peace and prosperity.

I see you've opted to not address my points but instead have chose the simple contradiction route. Perhaps next you will inform me that you are rubber and I am, in fact, glue?

Half-baked conspiracy theories peddled by some right wing rag are not substitutes for "facts". The fact is FEMA's mandate is to coordinate the work of federal, state, and local agencies in responding to major disasters. Both state and local authorities requested federal assistance early on in this disaster, assistance that never materialized until way later. The fact is FEMA, after being absorbed into the department of Homeland Security, has become a dumping ground for Bush's cronies stafed with people with zero experience in emergency management (Homeland Security head Mike Chertoff claims to not have been aware of the levee breaches until Tuesday: some 36 hours after they occurred!) The fact is Bush was 404'd, even as it became apparent that the U.S. was facing the worst natural disaster in its history. Subsequent damage control attempts (“I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”) have been shown to be hollow, given repeated warnings that a major hurricane would swamp the levees (FEMA held a five-day exercise at the State Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge in July 2004 to develop joint response plans for a catastrophic hurricane in Louisiana in which a fictitious “Hurricane Pam” brought 120-mph winds and storms that “topped levees in the New Orleans area.” “More than one million residents evacuated and Hurricane Pam destroyed 500,000-600,000 buildings.”) The fact is, in a disaster of this scope, its up to the feds to show leadership and cordinate the recovery efforts. They failed. No amount of ass-covering by you or your fellow travellers can alter the above.

The "rational actor" archetype is a myth and nothing demonstrates this more than reaction to high gas prices . People are, by and large, idiots, and their purchasing decisons are more focused on the social status their shiny baubles confer than on their own well-being. In this case, rather than responding by curbing consumption or making intelligent purchasing decisions (I saw two Hummer H2's cruisng the streets today), they demand the government save them from their own stupidity. Albertans are fairly typical in this, whining for tax cuts on gas as they ply the city streets in their SUVs and pickup trucks.

Compassionate conservatism? Babs Bush: Things Working Out 'Very Well' for Poor Evacuees from New Orleans

I see the right is in full on ass-covering mode (God forbid anyone dare question the ability of Dear Leader). Here's the thing: this was bigger than any local authority could possibly handle, which is precisely why there is a federal government. Several states were affected, hundreds of communities and thousands of people. ANd while local authorities were being overwhelmed and struggling through a lack of resources, the feds were twiddling their thumbs. Certainly, there was no recitence on the part of the feds last year when they stepped in to help citizens of Florida who were, uh, unaffected by Hurricane Frances. And now? Spin. A true leader wopuld step up, admit failure and take responsibility. In what is a clear pattern throughout his tenure, Bush has done the opposite, blaming everyone in sight. It's no surprise then that the Red State Guard has followed suit. It's pretty funny watching the party of personal responsibility go through so many contortions to blame everybody, even the victims, for their own leadership failures. Funny that is, until you realize that people died while the feds sat on their hands.

More on FEMA's incredibly fluctuating ability to respond. Last year, when hurricanes threatened Florida, FEMA was more or less on the ball. The message, if you want the feds to look out for you, hope like hell you live in a swing state.

You know, it wasn't until I got to point number 4 that I realized he was talking about Canada.

Actually, this is easier: Click!

Also was looking at FEMA's org chart: if disgraced horse-show man Brown (who alegedly got the nod for FEMA's top job through his connections from his college days) were to be fired or quit (ha ha ha), the agency would be run by the Chief of Staff and the Deputy Chief of Staff. The Chief of Staff is a Patrick Rhode who's previous gig was deputy director of National Advance Operations for the George W. Bush Presidential Campaign, in Austin, Texas. The Deputy Chief of Staff is Scott Morris, who's last job was with Maverick Media in Austin, Texas as a media strategist for the George W. Bush for President primary campaign and the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign.

Worth mentioning again that US oil purchases accounted for 52 per cent of the oil for food program (more than the rest of the world combined). Also, the bulk of Iraq's income came not from the program, but from illegal (under sanctions) oil smuggling with countries like Jordan and Turkey, smuggling which was known to and facilitated by the U.S. government (who's responsibility it was to prevent smuggling).

And I'm sure there was nothing political in Bush's decision not to inform Blanco of his visit or his failure to extend an invite to her to meet him or travel with him (Blanco's office didn't know when Bush was coming until told by reporters). Meanwhile, who was that at Bush's elbow in Biloxi? Why, it was Republican Trent Lott!

I know when I cater to terrorists, I always reccomend the salmon bisque. It's as much BS as the claim that building a strong, self-sufficient democracy in the Middle East was the rationale behind the war on Iraq.