A bit more on Katrina

So it's now Wednesday morning, roughly two days after Katrina made landfall, and the extent of the hurricane's effects are only just starting to really be made known. Entire coastal towns in Mississippi were destroyed, the actual damage in Mobile was considerably worse than I had expected myself, and Lake Pontchartrain continues to drain itself into the city of New Orleans.

What has struck me so far is that, in so many situations like this, the very best in people is what the disaster brings out. From what I've seen, that doesn't seem to be the dominant case here. Fights breaking out in lines at gas stations, neighbors stealing from each other, and rampant looting. I can honestly barely put into words the distaste and contempt I have for looters. I suppose it would be one thing to get necessities... food, drinking water, whatever. But these bastards are walking out with TVs, microwaves, DVDs, toys for their kids, etc. Never mind that they'll have no way to power these appliances up for weeks or months on end. Never mind that they have nowhere habitable to go with their newly-stolen color TV. They just want to steal something. It's absolutely infuriating that instead of helping their neighbors or even just being good citizens, these able-bodied adults are using this time of incredible loss and suffering to just commit petty theft. I think that people like this are among the lowest kind of scum in society and really have nothing to offer to a civilization whatsoever. I wish they could just be shot on sight. That may sound harsh or melodramatic, but I mean it quite sincerely. Strafing them from a helicopter would be efficient. Watching them fall to the ground (or the water, in New Orleans' case) in a hail of bullets as they try to flee from their local Wal-Mart with an armload of DVDs and sundries would just give one a profound sense of justice. Even some of the lowlife cops in New Orleans were taped just helping themselves to shoes and clothes. They should not only be fired, but prosecuted.

I'll be very interested to see how the worsening crisis in New Orleans will be addressed. From even the most basic engineering standpoint, this is a complete catastrophe. They most likely cannot repair the multiple breaches in the levee system while the lake is continuing to drain into the city. Lake Pontchartrain is about 5 feet above sea level, while much of New Orleans is a few feet below sea level, so until the water levels of both places are equal, I'm not sure the flooding can be stopped. Once the lake stops draining into New Orleans, however, then the question becomes how do they get the water out? The pumps are a reasonable answer, but pumps require power. From what I've read, it sounds like a good deal of the power grid will have to be rebuilt, which could take months. Obviously, the longer that water sits and stagnates in New Orleans, the worse it's going to be. It is a fixable problem, but then what one wonders is why bother? Why spend billions of dollars rebuilding and repairing this city when this will inevitably happen again? Long-term solutions will have to be considered.

Let's talk about the current administration in Washington with regards to all this. Now it's completely ridiculous and unreasonable to blame Bush & Co. for what's happening in New Orleans. This city has been at high risk for decades. It was only a matter of time. But some pundits I've heard raise some salient points: There have been numerous reports published in the last few years about the dangers facing New Orleans; indeed, the prospect of losing an entire American city. So why are we spending untold billions and billions of dollars on this "war on terrorism" (which, by the way, cannot be "won") -- essentially trying to prevent something that might happen, when we really need to be spending billions on trying to prevent something that will happen? And while I don't place that blame on Bush, I do very much blame him for the fact that because our military and National Guard units are stretched so thin because of his stupid, petulant little vendetta in Iraq, we don't have sufficient troops to take care of things here at home. As a direct result, lawlessness is now pervasive in many of these areas, and there just aren't enough people available to help.

It should come as no surprise that in a new poll released yesterday, Bush's approval rating continues to sink. I'm continually flabbergasted by people who still think he's a great president and is doing a good job. I just want to shake them and ask them, "By what measure?" Honestly, by every single criterion which you would use to gauge the effectiveness of a presidency, George Bush is an utter failure. Economically, socially, environmentally, fiscally, domestically, internationally... he is, by far, the absolute worst president this country has had in my lifetime. And I was alive (barely) during the Nixon years, so that's saying something. Every time his little chimpanzee stupid smirking face comes on the TV about the "turrible, turrible storm" that hit the Gulf Coast, I just want to throw a brick through the screen.

Meanwhile, I actually saw gas stations with prices over $3 a gallon on the way to work. It's not conjecture or hyperbole any longer... $3 gas is here. Two stations had premium unleaded priced at $3.039 (regular unleaded, which here in Denver, is 85 octane, was $2.899). Insane.

More to come...