I'm telling you, I don't even know what to think of this country anymore. First of all we have this huge hurricane and the resulting aftermath leads to the destruction of a major city and oil lines along the coast.

Now first of all, while I pity the poor souls of New Orleans, I can't very well say that I'm totally sympathetic towards people who seem to be only interested in causing even more problems by robbing from each other, shooting at police and raping women on the streets. Is this really the time to be acting like animals? Instead of pulling together (as the people of the United States tend to do during such disasters) people are looking after themselves, and while I can't say it's a bad thing to want to do anything possible to survive, the last thing anybody should be concerned about down there is how much property they can get away with taking. Even if they take stuff, what good is it if yuo can't even use it? For the most part, the whole world has thier eyes on them (even though our own government is taking it's sweet time to look that way) so wouldn't it good to represent your country by behaving in a more civilized fashion... even though condistions are as tough as they are? So that's New Orleans for you. It's a terrible disaster, but I think the real disaster is how the people are acting.

Now, onto the matter of the U.S Government. It sure as hell is great the President Bush actually decided to cut his vacation short because of recent events. Wow.. thanks George. But he isn't all that busy with organizing relief offorts more then actually preparing his speech to the American public. Anything to look good. But while our soldiers are fighting meaningless battles in dustbowl Iraq, they are too busy to lend a hand inside this country's actual border. Imagine if we actually had those reserves over here now, I'm sure we could have organized a faster response to the disaster. And Speaking of responses, exactly what made the U.S government's response time so slow? Well, they had some time to prepare... Katrina wasn't exactly invisible and everyone could pretty much tell that when it hit it was going to be a very deadly storm. Now this is saying something about how we treat our selves. This country really is too damn busy staring outside of it's borders to concentrate on it's own affairs. Every other country in world acts that way (even if they don't use the most popular methods.) Well, you know... we wanted Bush.. we got Bush.

Now as for gas prices... Damn. Just... damn. I know the hurricane smacked some of our oil drills and plants, but cripes, it shouldn't have hurt THAT bad. Or at least, not yet. I tend to believe that most gas companies are taking advantage of the panic about gas and are hiking prices up. I expect prices o go up because of the disaster, but also, take into account of the fact that most of our oil is imported, so surely there is enough to go around. The averege price for gas has gone up at least .75 cents over the course of two days. It was even rumored today that the Governor of Mayland was going to order all gas stations closed in order to try to allieviate some of the craziness. In light of that fact, the gas stations ended up being mobbed, cars lined up onto the streets at gas stations, just to fill up. The only thing i have to say about this is maybe it's time we learned how to conserve energy. Make your grocery trips once or twice a week (people still come in everyday), try avoiding long distance trips... WALK if you have a short distance to go. Maybe I might buy a bike.. the only fuel is my leg muscles and that doesn't cost a thing.

OK I am done with this rant. I'm sure though that some of you must feel the same way though.

I agree with everything you're saying whole-heartedly. We're going to hell in a handbasket soon enough.

yea. things are prettttyyy shittay down there....and hell.

Don't be too quick to say the military has been doing nothing. My dad is in the military reserves, responsible for most of the centers in the south-east. They have been making daily trips to mobile/New Orleans and others, but of course it isn't being shown on the news

Yeah, that's a thing that annoys me. News outlets don't report the good enough.

They all want bad news. Yea we are going to hell with gasoline soaked underwear on.

Bad news gets more recognition

and it makes for better tv.

oil companies are DEFINITLY taking advantage of this thing. the gas prices in B.C. went up and we get our oil from Alberta, what? it has nothing to do with the states? but apparantly its going up anyway!

the whole fighting thing i do not understand either, one would think that people would band together to survive but hey, it's america right? just look who the president is.

You really fell for it Omnislash, the propaganda companies (it's not right to call them news anymore, hasn't been for a LONG LONG time) spewed out so many images and stories of looters and of the small percentage of criminals doing their heinous acts that they actually turned you against these poor people.

So much of New Orleans' population lives in poverty (over a third I've heard, but don't quote me), and so few of those people actually have their own automobiles, so they really had little chance to leave the city. Add to that the price gouging on gas (over $5/gal.) and the actual selling out of gas in the days before Katrina hit, and it shouldn't come to anyone's suprise that people were literally trapped in New Orleans. For the ones who managed to escape, they have nowhere to go but onto government assistance. These people deserve every ounce of our sympathy after what they've been through, and it's not fair to focus solely on these gangs that should've been under control immediately by sending in the 1200-some airborne rangers that were on-call from Fort Bragg (sent nearly a week after Katrina hit).

Bush needs to be stopped though, his most recent atrocity was signing an executive order making it legal to pay below the prevailing wages for New Orleans reconstruction. This is by far one of the most obviously crooked things that has been done by this so-called "leader". These people lose their homes and all of their possessions, and now when they need money the most, he's giving his buddies that own the contracts to rebuild New Orleans the go-ahead to pay them less than they deserve! It's a damn slap in the face of the working class and the population of New Orleans. Here's a short article on it.

Oh yes, and we are being gouged for gas prices, it has nothing to do with anything going on anywhere, it is solely based on the fact that we will pay this much for our gas. Blame the gas companies, and more importantly blame the oil companies, those evil evil people make so much freaking money from a finite natural resource. I think the government should just step in and take control of Mobile Exxon and the like and say "You f'd up by your price gouging, and now we're taking everything you have. If you don't like it, too bad, we've also taken control of every offshore installment you own, and we're going to detain you in prison indefinitely like we do with everyone else that we don't want to have see the light of day. No foolies." They'd have to do it covertly too, with some very sly political moves to not tick off the other countries we get oil from, but this adminstration would much rather focus on putting money in their bank accounts than into the hands of consumers.

How about that Michael Black guy? I bet he has to change his pants 10 times a day from panic attacks brought on by knowing just how badly he screwed up and how much the majority of the country blames him rather than the man who put him into office (his college buddy Bush).

I gave up on the USA a long time ago though, I've accepted that it is the next Roman Empire, and I intend to escape it ASAP.

human nature + hardship = more hardship

profound or useless, you decide.

I have never liked Bush, now will I ever. I agree with you on everything you said. This country is all about making money and in the end that is going to be it's downfall.

I've seen the pictures though. People had cars. There were some who just refused to leave. It's not like they didn't have enough time to heed the warnings. I just don't think anybody really thought that it was going to be that bad, when everyone who was an expert was saying "yes it is going to be that bad".

It's life. Things don't go the way we want. It's just something you gotta live with. Cold, I know, but that's fact.

I should've been one of these people who said if bush becomes president again I will move out of the country.