Hastert: Rebuilding below sea level senseless

It makes no sense to spend billions of dollars to rebuild a city that’s seven feet under sea level, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said of federal assistance for hurricane-devastated New Orleans.

Kos just slammed Hasfert for this, however Hasfert has a point. Why rebuild below sea level if it’ll happen again?

Ditto for L.A. (where I live.) Yeah, we’re thinking of relocating. Katrina has speeded up the process. The traffic is insane and unending, there’s a sense the wheels are falling off regionwide, and if the Big One ever hits, it’ll be the equal of Katrina.

Indeed, why rebuild, only for it to happen again? There are better ways to rebuild than just repeating the same mistake, hoping it’ll be different this time.

Logistics I’ve been thinking about.

The water in New Orleans is by now highly toxic. When it’s finally pumped out, it’ll go into the ocean, and probably kill everything for miles around. But where else can they pump it?

Where does the rubble go? Tens of thousands of destroyed buildings presumably will need to be trucked and dumped somewhere, and that’s just for starters. That means millions of truckloads. Where will they dump them?

Dead bodies. Um, after several days in water, corpses swell up, can explode, and exude a stench beyond nauseating. How will they be disposed of?

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Anger spreads across New Orleans

“There are people just taking potshots at police and at helicopters, telling them, ‘You better come get my family.’”

 A National Guard military policeman was shot in the leg as the two scuffled for the MP’s rifle, police Capt. Ernie Demmo said. The man was arrested.

“These are good people. These are just scared people,” Demmo said.

“I don’t treat my dog like that,” 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair. “I buried my dog.” He added: “You can do everything for other countries but you can’t do nothing for your own people. You can go overseas with the military but you can’t get them down here.”

But golly, wasn’t it just so self-sacrificing and noble of Dubya to cut short his vacation two whole days to go back to D.C. to deal with this.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, underneath all the macho strutting and bluster, Dubya and the neocons are inept and ineffective. This crisis is demonstrating this rather perfectly, and in the heartland of Bush support too.

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Cuts in spending to raise levees blamed on cost of war in Iraq.

U.S. won’t relocate soldiers for Katrina.

Billions for war, and screw the people.

Let’s make the Sept. 24 antiwar protests massive and huge.

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The evacuation of the Superdome was suspended Thursday after shots were reported fired at a military helicopter and arson fires broke out outside the arena. No immediate injuries were reported.

 He said the National Guard told him that it was sending 100 military police officers to restore order.

“That’s not enough,” Zeuschlag said. “We need a thousand.”

The Federal government response so far has been underwhelming at best.

Refugees turned away at the Astrodome

They’re told landmark reserved for those bused from Superdome

This is lunacy. Where are broke, hungry people whose car is almost out of gas supposed to go? And why not just let them in?

Cholera

From Sue

One risk facing New Orleans is cholera. Cholera is caused by the Vibrio cholerae bacterium, which resides in shellfish and fish and, to an extent, untreated sewage. The bacterium originated in India and has spread worldwide. It is ingested by eating improperly cooked fish or drinking unsanitary water. It causes diarrhea, and death results from dehydration.

Some people are carriers but have no symptoms.

From WWL TV yesterday

4:03 P.M. - (AP) Michael Leavitt, secretary of Health and Human Services, announced he had declared a public health emergency in the area stretching from Louisiana to Florida. “We are gravely concerned about the potential for cholera, typhoid and dehydrating diseases that could come as a result of the stagnant water and the conditions,” he said.

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In places like Arizona, Wisconsin, Maryland, and Michigan too.

Natural gas prices will spike even more than gasoline.

The above links are from TheOilDrum.com who reported on the missing offshore rigs long before major media did. They were first to report this as far as I can tell. And they were quite accurate.

If you want to be a vulture, look at the Fidelity Natural Gas fund (FSNGX) and Tesoro (TSO), who operates multiple refineries, none in the Gulf. (I admit to doing carrion picking and just bought modest amounts of both.) 

Pump prices rose to just under $6 a gallon at some retail outlets in the south. CNN showed footage of a gas station in Georgia advertising regular gas for $5.87 a gallon.

I own a Prius, Sue has a VW Beetle diesel, 46 and 40 mpg respectively. Our next door neighbor says he’s cutting down driving his Camero because of gas prices.

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