The Lessons Of Katrina

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/09/08/europe/EU-GEN-Netherlands-Water.php

If you're keeping score at home, the Dutch look at what happened in NOLA and think, "Crikey, we better plan improved flood control for the next two centuries!" Meanwhile, here in the country where NOLA is located, we don't do dick.

USA! USA!

 

But we're kicking ass!

 

Who cares if a bunch of dope-smoking lefty prostitutes want to keep their windmills dry.

 

As we say in my family - If you ain't Dutch, you ain't much!

 

The Dutch speak with Australian affectations?

 

Dutch/Canadian inflections, eh!

 

Boy, that speed-skating gene isn't recessive.

 

A buddy of mine recently returned from NO where he and some other members of his church (Episcopalians, they're not all tea sippers) spent two weeks refurbishing homes. He knows about the Dutch comments, and he gets twitchy each time there's a tropical storm anywhere near the area.

It's time to get the cojones for a hard decision. Either pour the money in there with the tightest supervision and fix it right--and we're talking untold billions here--or come up with plan b, which would involve abandoning the low spots in the city. For good.

I'm not advocating either. I'm saying, get a solid, comprehensive plan and execute it.

 

Jacky --
I hate to be the one to destroy your dream, but you have no future in American politics.

 

As long a New Orleans is located in Louisiana there is no hope of tight supervision. There is no hope in hell of money being spent properly on any public works project in that state. What is happening down there is criminal until there is a change in the culture of politics in that state nothing will get fixed.

Louisiana makes Chicago city government look like a shining bastion of ethics.

 

Great quote from the story:

"We don't want to just let the water flow and all have to move to Germany."

 

Politics: the science of the possible. Or, the science of unrealized possiblities.

I have no future as an Episcopalian either.