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#251 Re: Not So Free Chat » Katrina and New Orleans » 2005-08-31 09:17:20
Cobra, the Army Corps of Engineers is massively on record that they needed more money for levee work but the demands of the Iraq war meant money wasn't available. 2002, 2003, 2004 & 2005.
My solution? Honesty about the costs of Iraq and levy the taxes needed to pay for the war and levee maintenance.
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PS - - your focus on a tiny portion of the issue (new studies) demonstrates that on the larger issue you are simply OUT OF AMMO!
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Big, big picture? Maybe New Orleans should have been abandoned 50 years ago.
Encroachment into natural wetlands (a GOP curse word) enhances flooding damage. Keeping the Mississippi flowing along the route we "desire" is expensive.
Paying for a war and cutting taxes simply will allow vital infrastructure to deteriorate causing massive future harm.
#252 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VIII » 2005-08-31 08:55:05
God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve
Saint Eve simply is St. Eve
What are they talking about?
#253 Re: Not So Free Chat » Katrina and New Orleans » 2005-08-31 08:46:07
Okay, okay. I am too busy today to argue global warming.
How about cancelling improvements to the exact levee that broke because of the need to fund our operations in Iraq? :cry:
But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said.
The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late. One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer was a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach. The levee failure appears to be causing a human tragedy of epic proportions:
It appears this work was to be done in previous years but for funding cuts. Fighting a generations long global war and cutting taxes?
Guns and butter failed for LBJ and it will fail for GWB.
#254 Re: Not So Free Chat » Katrina and New Orleans » 2005-08-30 16:33:08
Right Hurricane Katrina is finished and now comes the cleanup. The problem for the USA is that there is a prediction that up to FOUR more hurricanes can hit the USA in the time left of the season. And sitting in the Atlantic right now is a depression that could follow up to Katrina. It is not the Atlantic though that is the problem it is the warm water and high pressure of the Gulf region.
Lets hope we do not get a repeat of Katrina this year but unfortunatly the likehood is quite high.
Katrina is finished but the damage to New Orleans is just beginning. If the flood waters kill the pumps, it may take months and months to pump New Orleans dry.
Next, has the course of the Mississippi River been changed? Too early to tell.
The reduction of local wetlands makes this a growing tragedy.
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New Orleans: Although early travelers realized the irrationality of building a port on shifting mud in an area regularly ravaged by storms and disease, the opportunities to make money overrode all objections.
#255 Re: Human missions » Spacesuits - personal spaceship » 2005-08-30 14:14:58
Perhaps rear entry spacesuit could be docked to an airlock system where the suit stays in a pressurized vestibule with two hatches. The ILS Dover link is very good.
The astronaut enters the suit and both hatches are closed and the astronaut then de-pressurizes the vestibule to go outside.
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Robert, you do not want the lunar fines inside the spacecraft, period. The potential for lung damage is very real, from what I read.
#256 Re: Not So Free Chat » Race and Culture - A Changing Europe - Opening a mighty can of worms... » 2005-08-30 13:18:44
I never knew the sky in Europe was blue. Wow! Just like America! 
#257 Re: Not So Free Chat » Katrina and New Orleans » 2005-08-30 12:53:51
Hurricane? Nah, its party time
#258 Re: Not So Free Chat » Race and Culture - A Changing Europe - Opening a mighty can of worms... » 2005-08-29 15:52:06
As for clark, Aut insanit homo, aut versus facit
I vote for the verses. But does it rhyme?
#259 Re: Not So Free Chat » I'll take malaprops for *5* Bob - Apropos of Nothing continues. . . » 2005-08-29 15:48:51
#260 Re: Human missions » Space Advocacy Fragmentation » 2005-08-29 15:37:30
Maybe Saffron and green should be included along with red and blue.
Russia is red, white and blue also - - merely different shades of red and blue.
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Look, it can wave:
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Flag images will be deleted in a little while to avoid further stealing IndianChild's bandwidth. 
#261 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri VIII » 2005-08-29 13:51:20
The funny thing is that this is Osama Bin Laden's worst nightmares. Muslims fighting each other.
LOL!
He's sure got a funny way of showing it!
I have another scenario for the future of Iraq:
The Iraqi constitution passes because it serves and is supported by the two largest cultural groups in the country. It's infamous "succession clause" turns out to be functionally meaningless, and the kurdish states - already the most economically stable and sitting on a fine oil reserve - become the economic powerhouse of the country. The shiites play along because they are allowed a legal existence partly independent of secular law (courtesy of the successfully ratified constitution) and are now economically well off again for the first time since Sadaam came to power. And the sunnis get the political leftovers, because they refused to come to the table when constitutional concessions were being served.
The shiites and kurds come out of it with a country, and the sunnis come out too weak to do anything about it.
Sunni led terrorism in Iraq continues, but so does Iraq.
It wouldn't be perfect, but it wouldn't be part of Turkey or Iran, either.
Either this, or partition, may well be the best we can hope for. That said, watch for Turkey and Iran and Syria to balk at a "too successful" Kurdistan.
#262 Re: Not So Free Chat » Race and Culture - A Changing Europe - Opening a mighty can of worms... » 2005-08-28 19:28:50
I remember him.
Didn't you think he was someone else?
#263 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Earth Atmospherics/Weather » 2005-08-28 19:21:00
Katrina's central pressure is lower than Camille and Camille hit a much less vulnerable location.
Some people are talking about gasoline being at $5 per gallon later this week because of Katrina.
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They're predicting 18 feet of flooding possible.
Possibly 30 feet above street level in parts of New Orleans.
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Sweet dreams. not! 
#264 Re: Not So Free Chat » Katrina and New Orleans » 2005-08-28 18:51:33
Anyone see this movie?
The synopsis says its about a Category 6 hurricane that crushes New Orleans.
#265 Re: Not So Free Chat » Katrina and New Orleans » 2005-08-28 17:55:39
DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED
HURRICANE KATRINAA MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969. MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. ATLEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL.PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED.
#266 Re: Not So Free Chat » Katrina and New Orleans » 2005-08-28 17:46:11
Shuttle external tanks come from Michoud, 15 miles from downtown New Orleans (NOLA).
A few hours ago the Weather Channel compared Katrina with last years Cat 4 Harvey that struck Florida.
Harvey's hurricane force winds stretched across a diameter of 45 miles. Katrina's hurricane force winds stretch across 210 miles. They showed the two storns side by side and Harvey was just a baby in comparison.
Prayers, saying the rosary, candles, everyone do it because NOLA is going to get whumped.
#267 Re: Not So Free Chat » Race and Culture - A Changing Europe - Opening a mighty can of worms... » 2005-08-28 17:40:12
I think there was someone else that got banned, he was promoting some sort of space federation and was seeking cash donations. Aggressively.
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Who remembers PaganToris, I miss him.
#268 Re: Human missions » Shuttle ST-121 Atlantis » 2005-08-28 17:35:35
September?
If Hurricane Katrina smashes Michoud, Atlantis won't fly in March 2006.
"The lowest spot on our levies are 19.3 feet above see level," he said of the Michoud tank factory. "The facility has been shut since 8 a.m. this morning. At this point, we will be shut through Tuesday and we'll see how it goes from there.
A recent forecast:
COASTAL STORM SURGE FLOODING OF 18 TO 22 FEET ABOVE NORMAL TIDE
LEVELS...LOCALLY AS HIGH AS 28 FEET...ALONG WITH LARGE AND DANGEROUS
BATTERING WAVES..
I do not believe 19.3 feet above sea level is 19.3 feet above high tide.
#269 Re: Not So Free Chat » Happy Birthday Dr. Smith- Nov. 6th » 2005-08-26 18:32:47
Watch out for those brownies. Might getcha hungry, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, Happy Birthday! to clark.
Sorry, no Pinot - - just opened a bottle of Beaujolais-Villages. Inexpensive but light and refreshing for a hot humid August evening.
Cheers!
#270 Re: Not So Free Chat » terrorist nukes already in the u.s.? » 2005-08-26 15:02:57
A quote from Wesley Clark said to have been spoken at a Georgetown commencement address:
You (we) will determine whether rage or reason guides the United States in the struggle to come.
It's our choice.
#271 Re: Human missions » Mars ship Needs Radiation shielding » 2005-08-26 12:03:15
I ranted at length about plastic spaceships several years ago right here at New Mars.
Boron doped polyethylene. Not that its my idea or anything. Other people have been writing about the same idea since the 1960s or maybe before. Secondary radiation (or daughter radiation) dangers strongly suggest that crew habs not be fabricated from metal.
Hence the brilliance of TransHab and the wisdom of Bigelow in buying up the intellectual property associated with TransHab.
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Speaking of brilliance, GCNRevenger deserves multiple high rating points for this:
And frankly Srmeany, people worried about "polluting" Moon/Mars with human garbage deserve to stay on this rock and go extinct.
Well said.
#272 Re: Not So Free Chat » Happy Birthday Dr. Smith- Nov. 6th » 2005-08-26 11:38:12
Boat drinks.
The English invented yachting to permit gentlemen to drink in the out-of-doors.
#273 Re: Not So Free Chat » Happy Birthday Dr. Smith- Nov. 6th » 2005-08-26 11:11:22
My birthday was Tuesday and my wife gave me (us) two tickets to Jimmy Buffet at Wrigley Field next weekend. Margarita anyone?
In that case, belated goodwill to you as well.
I'll pass on the margarita though, doesn't go with the Prophet's style.
When I was younger, salt, tequila, lime and a good kiss was more in style.
#274 Re: Not So Free Chat » Happy Birthday Dr. Smith- Nov. 6th » 2005-08-26 10:14:52
Thanks!
Going up to midtown, not far from Washington Square Park and have a drink or three. I'm throwing myself my very own surprise party. Shhhh! Don't tell me, it will ruin the surprise.
As for my age... old enough to know better, but young enough to still not care.
Everyone, enjoy my Holiday!
Watch out for those hobos! The one eyed ones are dangerous.
And yes, I will toast you a few toasts tonight. Cabernet or Pinot Noir?
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My birthday was Tuesday and my wife gave me (us) two tickets to Jimmy Buffet at Wrigley Field next weekend. Margarita anyone?
Margaritas are always a sentimental favorite but I am developing a taste for mojitos.
#275 Re: Not So Free Chat » I'll take malaprops for *5* Bob - Apropos of Nothing continues. . . » 2005-08-26 08:10:15
SI HOC SIGNUM LEGERE POTES,
OPERIS BONI IN REBUS LATINIS ALACRIBUS
ET FRUCTUOSIS POTIRI POTES!