FlaSoxxJim

if Repent America's God really was looking to take it out on the gays then wouldn't he have waited until they actually arrived in New orleans for the event? I contend therefore that the fact Katrina struck 3 days early either exonorates gays completely, or proves that whatever narrow-minded and petty little God Repent America has concocted for themselves can't read a calendar and is just as f***ing stupid as Repent America is.

QUOTE(farmteam @ Aug 31, 2005 -> 05:37 PM) Ah I see. I knew I heard 5000 somewhere. I just knew it was more than Pearl Harbor (I think). Yeah, Pearl Harbor was around 2,400.

QUOTE(farmteam @ Aug 31, 2005 -> 05:31 PM) Just be careful who you donate to. There will be heartless scum who are just looking to scam you in wake of Katrina. For sure. Stick with Red Cross.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Aug 31, 2005 -> 05:27 PM) Going to hell for this one, but has anyone else found themselves thinking Zeppelin's When the Levee Breaks? Yes. And there is another eben more poignent Aaron Neville song along the same lines that one of the news channels played along with a photo montage on Monday night that was really emotional. I don't know the name of the sone, but I need to find it.

QUOTE(farmteam @ Aug 31, 2005 -> 05:29 PM) Not to be a stickler, but it's about 1/5. 5,000 died on 9/11, right? Terrible tragedy. No, the 9/11 death toll has been substantially reduced since that early number, and all told is at right around 3,000. So, today's bridge issue is approaching 1/3 of that.

QUOTE(bmags @ Aug 31, 2005 -> 05:06 PM) ha, yeah...well i've heard this argument once by this kid who didn't like the clash because of their politics...i nearly threw a book at him...i guess it was that side coming out of me...sorry...cheers mate. Every gimmick hungry gob digging gold from rock ’n’ roll Grabs the mike to tell us he’ll die before he’s sold But I believe in this-and it’s been tested by research That he who f***s nun will later join the church Yes, very politically meaningful. The Clash

QUOTE(Texsox @ Aug 31, 2005 -> 05:20 PM) Wish I could do something but I have a family and bills to pay . . . I wonder who does do something? Old people? Shutins? The unemployed? Cubs Fans? The truth is, unless you have a specialized skill set (EMT, rescue, medical...) they don't want us now. But they do want and need our donations.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Aug 31, 2005 -> 05:02 PM) Here's what I want to know...why the hell can't they fix the levy's. Why not take cars and just start dumping them all over this areas to slow down the water. Get the naval construction crew out there (the ones that build all the bridges and such) and get them working. Hell, for christ sake crash a barge in the areas where the levy's have opened. Do whatever it takes. Maybe its not as easy as it sounds, but I'd think considering you know a lot is going to get destroyed if they don't fix them (and it did) That you'd be very destructive and would just dump everything freaking possible on the areas to try and protect the levy's. They think they're going to be able to do it with concrete jersey-barriers and huge (20,000 lb sandbags). Until the water in the lake equilibrated with the water in the city (which is supposedly happening now), it would have been very tough to patch the breaches. Plusm if the breaches were not caused by the big slug of storm surge comeing up the river, but just by water pressure from too much volume to hold bac, patching one breach successfully may just have vorced the water to find the next weakest part of teh levee and cause that to fail. Optimistically, if they can patch and get power to the pumps, they can pump an inch a day out of the city. That still means 30 days to pump it out in some places. Also, Pontchartrain has to recede, which it supposedly is starting to do.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Aug 31, 2005 -> 04:53 PM) Because we want to rock and roll all night and part of every day You sure that's not what they said? Two other mis-hearings of that line also crack me up: I wanna rock-n-roll all night and potty every day! and... I wanna wash myself all night personal hygene's okay! All joking aside, always remember what's important. I think Lennon said it best: Oh, we are sailing, Yes, give Jesus pants!

QUOTE(Texsox @ Aug 31, 2005 -> 04:38 PM) Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand And now she's in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand I LOVE the Tony Danza Song!

QUOTE(Steff @ Aug 31, 2005 -> 03:30 PM) http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9063708/ In case anyone is interested in reading more.. The intriguing bit that came out in that story and nas been bugging me for two days is, why don't they utilize the *%$#@! Mississippi River for transportation to evacuate people?? Everyone has been talking about how the evacuees are stranded, with no way out and no way in to them, how they'll only be able to truck a thousand or so out a day, etc. What about doing it like they did 150 years ago and put people on a barge and steam them up the river to some towns that are functioning and have transportation infrastructure intact?

QUOTE(WilliamTell @ Aug 31, 2005 -> 02:01 PM) Replacing thes buildings will mean that fewer tourists will come. You'd think so, but I'm not entirely sure. And it's going to be sad. The grime that is part of New Orleans, even creeping into the bigggest tourist corridors in the Quarter is palpable and is integral to what makes that city unique. The fact that you could go just a block over from Esplanade and be in a rather impoverished urban neighborhood with maybe avery fourth of fifth house borded up or condemned (and ditto just beyond Rampart for that matter) is what kept the place from becoming a completely sterile, whitebread, Disney-fied self-parody. But bad neighborhoods are not good for the tourism industry. Hustlers and grifters and the occassional mugger are not qualities the Chamber of Commerce values too highly. So, if Katrina wiped out the Downriver and Lakeside areas that the tourist industry considers to be blight, you can bet your ass they will fight for those areas not to be rebuilt in favor of expanding and securing a bulls*** tourist-focused New Orleans city center that will have as much actual city feel as your average theme park. I can similarly see them cleaning up the Upriver side of Bourbon where the strip clubs and sex shops are now for the sake of a more family-friendly experience. And all teh while they will fail to comprehend that that area is the friggin' Storyville District that is about as historic as it gets for jazz pilgrims. Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Satch (natch) all lived large in the Storyville saloons and bordellos. They've already started the Disney-fication of that stretch, with someone from the Brennan family opening a big Storyville entertainment complex a couple of years back. The human tragedy unfolding now is the current priority (and it is easily an order of magnitude worse than the worst that happened to us in Florida last year). But so much of the heart and soul of the city is being washed away as well, it's beyond sad.

Whoever goes to see the original Exorcist for tthe first time in a theater and laughs at it is laughing to keep from crapping their pants. That film will always be scary as hell.

QUOTE(Queen Prawn @ Aug 31, 2005 -> 01:48 PM) DING DING DING! TAKE THAT, LONG AGO COLLEGE PHYSICS PROF WHO GAVE ME A "D" IN PHYSICS II!!

QUOTE(Kid Gleason @ Aug 31, 2005 -> 12:05 PM) You and your Duran Duran obsession. His name is Man Hands and he dances in the sand.. Kinda catchy, no?

QUOTE(Steff @ Aug 31, 2005 -> 01:04 PM) It's just submerged...?? I thought it was all gone with just the supports sticking out from the water.. That large span across Pontchartrain has major sections of it that are gone with just the support trestles still standing. re, getting electronic stuff to work again after submergence. I'm no engineer – that's QPrawn's job – but the salinity of the floodwaters has got to be at least a couple parts per thousand, and even when the components dry, the salt bridges left on all the circuitry will effectively short everything out unless it is all totally cleaned at major expense. re, the looting versus giving up the perishable stuff. I think letting citizens at ground zero have what food they could have was probably the unspoken strategy – until the em-effers decided it was a free-for-all and started grabbing everything is sight. And I'm certain most of the people stranded and desperate right now are only looking for survival necessities. Then there's always a handful of people will turn the worst human tragedies to their selfish advgantage because they can. I guess it's one of the less flattering aspects of human nature to smash and grab what you can when you can. Literally, in the case of those on the low rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, and more figuratively perhaps for the "higher class" corporate scumbags who loot in their own fashion to the detriment of society as surely as the people now running amok in new Orleans.

Tragedy, pure and simple.

There is a very good update on the situation from today's Tiimes-Picayune. http://www.nola.com/hurricane/t-p/katrina....odgetworse.html The upshot is that the flooding in New Orleans is only expected to gget worse because swollen rivers from continue to dump water into the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, and strong east winds and a cresting Pearl River are keeping ant water from leaving the Lake through the normal outlets. It sounds like they may have a workable plan for patching the 17th St. canal breach, using several hundred 15,000 lb concrete road barriers in conjunction with the big sandbags that didn't get it done yesterday. The real issue will be whether Pontchartrain rises to the point that it tops the entire levee system, which they have no workable solution for. I'm not sure what the normal freeboard is on those levee walls or how close the Lake is to topping them, but if it happens the result will be that the floodwaters in teh city will reach the same level as the lake.

jmho, but the unscheduled twin bills that pass as doubleheaders nowadays aren't the sam as the scheduled Sunday doubleheaders at Old Comiskey from the 'old days.' I completely understand that the players hate them, and I'm sure they always have. But every team had them and had to grind through them, and it was just a part of the game. And they were huge fun to be in attendance at. Mr. Cub or not, Ernie had the right attitude: LET'S PLAY TWO!! The last scheduled twin bill I was at was in 1983 against the Red Sox. We went for my birthday so it was around the end of May. And I know I played hookey with my dad and brother that day so it wasn't a weekend game We destroyed them in the first game, and then lost the second game 2-0 or 3-0 after Brit Burns had pitched a shutout through eight innings.

QUOTE(LosMediasBlancas @ Aug 30, 2005 -> 11:57 PM) Did anyone happen to catch her on SNL a while back?? She sounded AMAZING then. Why yes, you person-who-obviously-does-not-read-from-the-start-of-the-thread you...

QUOTE(WilliamTell @ Aug 30, 2005 -> 11:34 PM) Yep, the Indians won't win the division. It'll be the Sox winning it. And then is it three and out in the ALDS?? I'm not one of the doomsayers around here by any stretch, but the self confidence that this team had (and we had in them) the first 3.5 months of the season is AWOL. Before the break, we looked to be THE TEAM, the story of the year, yada yada. Now we're just looking like one of the also-rans, limping into the playoffs with a too much self doubt for Ozzie to brush aside with a couple of jokes in the clubhouse. That said, I think they can shake off the funk and get past the first round. If they can channel 88 years of fan and franchise anguish and just fire on all cylinders for a couple short series' then maybe we'll see the team do us proud. We're just shy of the centennial of the 1906 'Hitless Wonders' championship team, but I think that's close enough so what the hell, let's do it again. Over?. . . Was it over when the... Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

QUOTE(LosMediasBlancas @ Aug 30, 2005 -> 10:58 PM) May all the victims RIP. Nawlins is over. Hope everyone had a chance to get to Mardi Gras at least once, cuz that is over with. We will see, but it will never be the same. Outside of Chicago, it's my favorite city I've ever visited, including London, Dublin, Sidney, NYC, etc. We honeymooned in New Orleans. from the looks of the aerial video this evening, it looks like that stretch of Esplanade Ave. where we stayed (and where I always return), just up from the River and the French Market, has seen inundation all day and will not fare too well. I've never found any city experience as uplifting as just catching an early set or two at Preservation Hall, having a nice dinner at Dookey Chase's or ACME Oyster House, Commander's Palace, or a half dozen other places, another set of music at Patouts or Cooter Browns, and then on to whatever the night offers. Obviously, loss of life and the way the lives of the residents have been completely upheaved is the first and foremost concern above all else. But, selfishly, I can also feel myself going into a really dark funk in seeing a place I love so much be potentially wiped off the map.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Aug 30, 2005 -> 10:12 PM) Carter has also done more for humanity and has been a greater ex-President than anyone else. True that.

QUOTE(Queen Prawn @ Aug 30, 2005 -> 08:48 PM) Whoa. . . It will be a long time before New Orleans is anywhere near what it was prior to Katrina. It never will be again. Anything they throw up to replace the living history of the old parts of the city will be essentially a pale, 'Disney-fied' imitation of what's been lost. I'm trying to be optimistic about the outcome, but I've seen too much of the city's buildings and infrastructure up close to have much faith in its coming through total submergence in anything resembling an intact or salvagable form.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Aug 30, 2005 -> 08:40 PM) Water rising at 17th St. canal Tuesday, 6:30 p.m. Mayor Ray Nagin has announced that the attempt to plug a breach in the 17th Street canal at the Hammond Highway bridge has failed and the rising water is about to overwhelm the pumps on that canal. The result is that water will begin rising rapidly again, and could reach as high as 3 feet above sea level. In New Orleans and Jefferson Parish, that means floodwaters could rise as high as 15 feet in the next few hours. Nagin urged residents to try to find higher ground as soon as possible. f***, that's bad news. I thought the suggestion that they'd have the breaches under control in a few hours was unrealistic. The main levee system is 40 years old, and so even if they could plug the existing breaches with sandbags I think that's just going to cause the dammed up water to find and breach the next weakest spott along the levee. Seriously sucks, and above an beyond loss of life and personal property, there is some real history and heritage being destroyed. They've been dodging this bullet for 150 years or so and it was always a question of when and not if they'd ever get hit by the big one.