Something we can all agree on

The government has always monitored US citizens' phone calls. Depending on the agency, there is a toll free number you can call, and they will confirm they are monitoring you. The monitoring is automated with word recognition AI that flags down the call for later human analysis. WH is about 20 years behind the times on this one.

Apparently I am - are you saying the NSA monitors *all* our private communication, even here in the US? Can you give us some links to educate ourselves, the toll free number, etc., or is this, ahem, your private information?

Cat 5 hurricanes are not funny. Europe has never had one. What would happen if, say, Venice got whacked by a Katrina?

Read "The City of Falling Angels" and extrapolate. They couldn't even put out the fires in the Fenice opera house.

John

So, now it's a threat to notice that he's committing crimes?

I better smarten up: Heil Dubya!

Thanks, Rich

Well, the US has never been subjected to blitzkrieg, either.

Thanks, Rich [although I am getting a little skittish about the current regime.]

Over here In Europe the USA is increasingly seen as a sick joke.

Katrina cleared up any doubts.

Graham

What would happen if they had a heat wave?

Right- like I'm really going to post "private information." And , yes, everything should be monitored at one time or another, even the internet traffic. You could have a friend or relative or some other association who may be doing something, and the monitoring automatically will propagate to you whether you know anything about it or not. If you're a really bad boy, they will place you under physical surveillance. Most of the time this is harmless, and it may be just practice. I took an unmistakable tail on a 250 mile ride once, and then pulled a U to follow him back to his office hq for confirmation purposes, it was all good fun.

"Pooh Bear" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com...

The government of the U.S.A. to be more precisely. And JT of course, that piece of shit.

Nah, Katrina was a terrible unlucky tragedy. It could have happened everywhere.

Wow, 50,000 people died; about 1000 died in Katrina. You'd have thought they would have got them fans, or evacuated them to air conditioned hospitals, or something.

Strange, nobody in the USA seems to have thought of those 50,000 dead Europeans as a sick joke. Americans just don't have a sophisticated sense of humor, I guess.

John

And how long do we have to wait for the New York Times to report on this?

John

from

All these frickin' years, and you still haven't learned to come in out of the cold?

I guess I should be grateful to be amongst the descendants of those who escaped.

Thanks, Rich

Shrieking is the only weapon in the left's quiver.

BTW, this isn't new (and before 9/11):

That's nothing. Every winter some 4000 people in Britain die from flu, and a further 30,000 from cold.

Now multiply that across Europe.

The surge into Lake Pontchartrain had nothing to do with wetlands. Stop reading the New York Times and look at a map.

The administrations that are mainly to blame were elected by only the voters of New Orleans. "The Big Easy", "Let the Good Times Roll", "They were corrupt, now it's our turn to be corrupt." The Orleans Parish Sewage and Water Board has been notorious for a hundred years for graft, laziness, and stupidity. My brother-in-law has great stories.

That sort of thing is why I left.

John

Win's not on the list. Why would he be? He's an impotent leftist weenie of no interest to "W".

Now _I_ might be... I joust with the government on a regular basis... nasty-gram letters-to-the-editor on almost a weekly basis... I've even been on the front page once, challenging high density housing adjacent to a city park... we won, I convinced the city to buy the land and extend the park ;-)

...Jim Thompson

Win. Do a search with keywords 'nsa' + 'echellon'. Been there since the early 80's, probably replaced with something else now.

In the 'land of the free' your anti-GWB stance has no doubt caused someone to start a file on you.

Knowlege = Power in politics.

Frank Bemelman wrote:

The current government of the USA, along with pretty much everything it has contaminated (including, for example, the US military and FEMA).

Natural disasters can (and do) happen anywhere, and often strike without warning. What distinguishes Katrina, making the USA appear more of a joke (but not a funny one), is what happened before Katrina struck, and what happened afterwards.

Katrina was predicted. Experts knew it was just a matter of time and luck as to when a big storm would hit New Orleans, and they knew what would happen. The protective wetlands have been systematicly destroyed over the last century, despite over five decades of warnings of the effects. The Katrina scenario was described with unnerving accuracy in a Scientific American article seven years ago, and numerous articles since then. The Bush administration's contribution to the protection of NO has been to cut founding for defences, to put the National Guard in Iraq, and to install an inexperienced, useless half-wit at the head of FEMA. This is a continuation of the Bush philosophy of ignoring science that does not fit his ideas, and a continuation of American disaster planning (from many presidents, not just Bush) which can be summarised as "I hope it doesn't go wrong until my term is up". I also find the economic situation for many (ex-)residents amazing - many people did not have flood insurance. What on earth is "flood insurance" ? To me, that's just part of normal house insurance, and no decent bank will give you a mortgage without your house being fully insured. I live at the top of a hill, but if my house washed away in a storm I'd still be covered. The idea that people living below seawater, in the shadow of levies, would not be insured against flood is inconceivable (this is for mortgaged houses - if you fully own the property, it's your own business. I'm talking about insuring the collateral on the debt).

Then there was the aftermath - what an astounding mess. After last year's tsunami, pretty much every affected area (including war zones) had food, emergency shelters, and basic medical aid within 48 hours. In NO, people were still having to loot for food and necessities a week later. Other countries had essential emergency supplies loaded on planes and ready to send to NO within a day, only to be held up for days by absurd beaurocracy, and then told "no thanks, just send us some money". The world's richest country doesn't want practical emergency help, they just want money, because they've spent all theirs invading other countries. Cuba had plane loads of trained, experienced emergency medical staff standing around at an airport practising their English - but Bush would rather have NO people without medical care than swallow his pride and accept a gift from Cuba.

Yes, Katrina was a tragedy. But it was only a tragedy of that scale because of the ineptness and arrogance of the US administration (starting long ago, but greatly accelerated by Bush).

...and on what page. It made it to Fox News this morning, along with confirming statements from both Carter and Clinton.