I remember who was in power at the state and local level and how they blocked or bungled relief efforts.

Democrats: The thinnest kids at fat camp.

>> ^Tymbrwulf:

The shot at Katrina felt a little unnecessary. I don't think either party would have been ready for that sort of disaster. They have enough financial/economic disasters as it is to not need to bring up natural ones.

The shot at Katrina felt a little unnecessary. I don't think either party would have been ready for that sort of disaster. They have enough financial/economic disasters as it is to not need to bring up natural ones.

I watched most of this video but gave up part way through because it's shit. All it is is images we've all seen before and audio of various news broadcasts talking about either reports of secondary explosions or how there may have been secondary explosions. These reports are all meaningless as evidence. remember Katrina, after it blew through reporters were going on about how little damage there was and how New Orleans dodged a bullet. In the heat of the action the media and everybody else often get things wrong. Not saying there weren't secondary explosions and other events that sounded like explosions. there almost certainly were as there are at many disaster and fire sites, but this video is not evidence of anything

Sounds like someone is attempting to shift blame from the myriad of other problems. I can understand looking into this to see how it could have been handled better, but blaming anyone for possibly damaging/sinking a burning structure....and one that is so fully engulfed in flames that multiple boats aren't able to extinguish it in the process.....is nuts. Unless those people got on board this oil rig and started the fire in the first place, I don't see the point of trying to shift attention onto their efforts to put it out as a bad thing.

The alternative to let it burn itself out would have resulted and just as likely may have resulted in this rig sinking due to temperatures causing metals to fatigue/warp and other things just simply explode from having massive temperature changes due to the fueled fire taking place on much cooler water.

The only thing this investigation could possibly benefit from is that it may allow them to stand a chance to extinguish fires like this in the future, but it looks to me like there's a bit of a campaign here going to try to blame the Coast Guard for BPs failures to take the time to properly close off a well resulting in much more than just a burned up rig but the deaths of people, and the resulting oil spill killing off countless wildlife and creating potential (more likely than not in my opinion) long term health problems for everyone exposed.

And there is the underlying problem of the government regulations being too lax when it comes to oil drilling where as other countries require relief wells to be in place before disaster strikes. Non-existent oversight.......no requirement for oil cleanup R&D.......just a policy of make as much money as you can off government contracts and hope nothing goes wrong so people won't look at hard at all of us.

The coast guard is featured in a much better light on shows like "The Biggest Catch" where a boat has catastrophic failures and these guys have to go out to save their asses from a fiery, freezing, drowning, etc death. Or when they have their specials and show the coast guard and such rescuing people from rooftops after hurricane Katrina and developing new techniques on the spot to be taught as part of the training after it's all over.

Blaming the coast guard is just an attempt to shift blame off BP and regulations committees/politicians in bed with them. It's akin to blaming the police department for 9/11 or the fire department for being unable to deal with large radioactive contamination. Who expects some crazy bastards to create the conditions for catastrophic failures and not let anyone know what the hell they did before it's too late to act on it? Some do, but you'll run out of funds trying to prepare for everything and you'll go crazy trying to predict them all. So you do the best you can and punish the people who CAUSED the problem, not the people who were unawares of it until it's exploding in their face. That's just ass backwards.

This has so much good stuff, good find.
Notice in part 4 , as George talks about the Concert For Bangledesh, He didnt want to give the money to The Red Cross because if there was a hurricane in the United States, he heard they would just help white people and not the black people. this was 35 years before Katrina.

(Ima letchoo finish...george harrison doesn't care about white people!)

In reply to this comment by Duckman33:
Thanks man!

In reply to this comment by enoch:
just another clusterfuck that is called katrina.
these cops are fucking cunts.
*promote!

anytime man! us 80's metalheads have to stick together..
knowhatimsayin?

Thanks man!

In reply to this comment by enoch:
just another clusterfuck that is called katrina.
these cops are fucking cunts.
*promote!

just another clusterfuck that is called katrina.
these cops are fucking cunts.
*promote!

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Rachel Maddow, hurricane katrina, police, kill, murder, bridge men' to 'Rachel Maddow, hurricane katrina, police, kill, murder, bridge men, corruption' - edited by Stingray

I remain cautiously agnostic for several reasons. I think mostly, though, is that it has never been sufficiency shown to my liking that warming temperatures are bad. Now, no one wants to become like Venus and have rivers of molten lead coursing by the house. But then again, what if 30% of the Russian permafrost melted and provided a farming area the size of 2 United States for the world? It seems more like a fear of change then a fear of anything rational. For example, the year after Katrina, they predicted no less than 4 category 5 hurricanes for the season. We didn't even have one category 4 that year. I think that was one of the main fear that I have heard about global warming is more extreme weather pattens, but I don't believe there is really any good evidence of this. Even when you look to the heavens at Jupiter and Neptune, you see extreme weather, but you see a very consistent pattern. So the argument is 2 fold for me. First I remain unconvinced that global climate has ever been truly stable, and second, that warmer temperatures are even bad.

With that said, I find pollution disgusting in its own right. Who likes smog, really! Who like finding wrappers (I misspelled this and almost left it rappers, lol) all over their town? Who likes getting sunburned because they punched a whole through the ozone? Pollution and general filth still concern me and I think we as individuals should try as best we can to change what we can. I think if you want rapid adoption of new clean technology, keep government out of it. Right now they are, once again, pushing pet programs like ethanol that are crazy ineffectual but have the backing of the corn lobby.

>> ^HugeJerk:
Maybe I don't understand the whole situation... but what more can the federal government do at this point to help with the spill? Should they send troops to the shores to shout "INCOMING" and shoot at the blobs of oil?
The impression I get is the Gulf States governments are incapable of doing anything more than asking the Federal Government to help. Do these States not have any resources or capabilities of their own... are they in need of something? I never hear specifics of what the Fed can provide, just that they want the President to act emotionally and have his entire focus on the issue in the Gulf.


How can the federal government do more? Let me count the Ocean Waves...

Well, for one, they can start using the agencies that regulate safety to actually, um, enforce those regulations to their fullest. If those regs are inadequate, then make new ones. But for Christ's sake, don't make new agencies! Use the ones we have!!! We have 30 billion regulatory entities that do nothing but sit on their own fingers and rotate...

Oh, and the states themselves? Haha... Wait? You were serious? Sorry, anyways, no, the states suck. Look at Katrina...

Something else the Federal Government can do--when help is offered, don't have red tape that prevents that help from arriving. I am not sure if the countries that made offers to help were doing so out of pro-bono expectations, or, sans that, reasonable expectations, however, that isn't the point. Let the public know why you turned down much needed help...

Next, don't apologize to BP for "having" to make a fund helping those that are affected by the horror of Oil-Cane BPer...

Hrm, what else? Actually have a surplus of money instead of debt out the ass...this way you can actually afford to do something about catastrophes...

But like you, I can't think of anything the Federal Government can do... Beats me...

Tags for this video have been changed from 'treme, hbo, new, orleans, katrina, hurricane, first, nation, native, american' to 'treme, hbo, new orleans, indians, katrina, hurricane' - edited by therealblankman

Well-put! Thanks a lot for the clarification, timtoner. Your comment reminded me of a book I read recently: "Playing Indian," which tells a kind of history of this country as seen through the ways in which people have 'played out' the 'role' or adopted the 'image' of first nation people.

Anyway, your point is well-taken. I do think that one of the really complicated components of this scene is the fact that we encounter two instances of 'tourism' in it: one is a sort of 'cultural' tourism, while the other could have no better name than 'disaster' tourism (the latter of course being problematic in perhaps much more obvious ways).

>> ^timtoner:

This might be a touchy point, but giving this video a 'native' 'american' tag is a bit of a stretch, and 'first' 'nation' is right out. The New Orleans Indians are a wonderful adaptation of African culture to a new setting. They adopt the name and general aesthetic as gratitude for all that the Aboriginal Americans did for runaway slaves during the antebellum period. The elaborateness of their costumes came in direct response to Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show passing through the area in the 1880s.
Still, a powerful scene.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'treme, hbo, new, orleans, katrina, hurricaine, first, nation, native, american' to 'treme, hbo, new, orleans, katrina, hurricane, first, nation, native, american' - edited by kulpims

>> ^Bradaphraser:

>> ^ghark:
How many people are actually staying? Surely it is common sense at this point to move away from the area - are people waiting for the government to tell them it is not safe, or is that they need financial assistance to move?

Same reason so many people didn't leave New Orleans after Katrina... not everyone can just pack up and leave.


Also because the government is apparently seriously downplaying just how awful things are, even to the people getting sick.