Quote of the day 3

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1. 

   MikeCapone Posted 2:28 am
   05 Sep 2005

   Letter from SwitzerlandHave you seen this?
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   Chez-les-Reuse
   
   Saturday morning, 3 September 2005
   Dear S---,
   Watching the events in New Orleans unfold from here in Europe, mostly via BBC World, we have the impression that the storm blew up a corner of the carpet beneath which America had long been sweeping some of its fundamental problems.
   Among the fundamental problems revealed are:
   (1) the enormous divide between rich and poor (which has expanded rapidly in the past two or three decades);
   (2) the racial divide leaving blacks in the poorest class (nearly all the stranded, angry, unassisted poor we see on the TV screen are black),
   (3) the failure to invest in infrastructure (not only the failure to protect the dikes and levies, but the failure to storm-proof the electric and telephone systems by burying cables, etc.);
   And, perhaps most striking of all,
   (4) the bizarre law-and-order mentality which orders the National Guard to shoot-to-kill looters (that is, to give priority to protecting property more than human lives).
   Perhaps it is going too far to state that we are watching a collapse similar to the collapse of the Soviet Union fifteen years ago. Much as the total-collectivization and total-centralization of society in the USSR collapsed, eventually, of its own internal contradictions, we wonder whether or not America, too, with its ultra-individualistic, ultra-material ideology and its absence of much concern about the collective needs of society (health care, education, infrastructure, etc.) will collapse of its own internal contradictions.
   One thing is for sure: America, whose reputation in Europe was already tarnished by its go-it-alone pre-emptive invasion of Iraq, has lost even more respect here thanks to Hurricane Katrina. This is only partly due to the slow and stumbling response of the federal government to the tragedy. It is due more to the revelation of some of America's carefully hidden social problems.
   All the best,
   J---
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   SUVs are squared-out minivans.

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2. 

   Brian Hosey Posted 3:41 am
   05 Sep 2005

   Brown's QualificationsThe man is literally ankle-deep in qualifications. In addition to his years leading a horse club (a job from which he was fired), he evidently was also college roommate of Joseph Allbaugh, his predecessor as head of FEMA. Clearly he must have been involved with some heavy-duty campus rumpus to hone his chops for leading the national emergency preparedness agency.
   With that powerhouse resume I'm sure his family still wonders that he hasn't ended up as President (yet).

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3. 

   amazingdrx Posted 4:32 pm
   05 Sep 2005

   cheerleader?Was he a cheerleader like duuuhbya?  
   Team spirit really saved the day here, the blame is almost completely off the neorats and their fearless leader.  Talking point wing nuts are placing the responsibility firmly on Clinton and the local officials in New Orleans.
   The shaved chimp in chief has been cheering up good folks everywhere with his barely comprehensible pronouncments of concerned leadership!  What a chimp, what a shave!!  Ooo ooo eee eee ahh ahh!
   Nice voting duuuhbyaists.
   Why isn't a gitmo/abu ghraib facility up and running to torture and murder the looters yet?  Attorney General Gonzalez better get on that immediately!

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