Schnazz

Just being persistent in an argument doesn't make you correct. :) ← No, no, no, he's absolutely wrong, but he get's some credit anyways. :)

I'm listenen to some Code Red now, I gotta add No Place Like Home to my list. The music has such a mellow vibe, matches the lyrical content perfectly. Paints a perfect picture of how I feel on holidays.

In this thread, I haven't agreed with much of what MaxFly's said. But I gotta give him credit, he's hanging tough on his arguments against a bunch of people. :mrt2:

I know nothing of the Rastafarian religion, so I went looking and came across this page: http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/rast.html Here's something it said: "early in the history of the movement Leonard Howell gave the Rastafarians six fundamental principles:" 1 Hatred for the white race. 2 The complete superiority of the black race. 3 Revenge on whites for their wickedness. 4 The negation, persecution, and humiliation of the government and legal bodies of Jamaica. 5 Preparation to go back to Africa, and 6 Acknowledging Emperor Haile Selassie as the Supreme Being and only ruler of black people

Not I

An interesting article about FEMA's change since Bush was elected. It's from about a year ago. http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2...over_story.html Some interesting quotes: "In Louisiana, requests for flood mitigation funds were rejected by FEMA this summer." "Over the past three-and-one-half years, FEMA has gone from being a model agency to being one where funds are being misspent, employee morale has fallen, and our nation's emergency management capability is being eroded," "The administration also made a failed attempt to cut the federal percentage of large-scale natural disaster preparedness expenditures. Since the 1990s, the federal government has paid 75 percent of such costs, with states and municipalities funding the other 25 percent. The White House's attempt to reduce the federal contribution to 50 percent was defeated in Congress." "Previously, the federal government was committed to invest 15 percent of the recovery costs of a given disaster in mitigating future problems. Under the Bush formula, the feds now cough up only 7.5 percent." "...this summer FEMA denied Louisiana communities' pre-disaster mitigation funding requests."

Interesting... that doesn't really seem like the meaning to me (mostly because of where the emphasis was in the rhyme), but it makes a lot more sense then anything I've thought of. Can anyone else shed some light on this?

Perhaps this should go in Caught In The Middle, but it seems pertinent to voting for Will's music. What's your opinion on programs (software) that would automatically run up the votes on whatever site currently has a poll for, say, Party Starter? Would you find it on the unethical side? What I'm talking about is a program that each person on the board ran and it just sat there and automatically voted up Will's music over and over. It'd be somewhat intelligent, removing tracking information, voting every, say, 5-15 minutes instead of 1000 times in 10 seconds, etc... I don't really know what I think about it. On one hand, it does seem unethical. On the other hand, record companies must be doing this already. And hey, it's only a minor cheat to bump up Wills success. I doubt I'd every make something like this (though it probably already exists), I'm just curious on what ya'll think.

Well said.

There was a report in the Los Angeles Times stating that the government knew that this was a risk, but did nothing. http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/20050904...ndleveeprojects Here's an interesting quote: "Since Bush took office in 2001, local experts and Landrieu have asked for just short of $500 million. Altogether, Bush in his yearly budgets asked for $166 million, and Congress approved about $250 million." While I think this is more a case of hindsight being 20/20, it's interesting none-the-less. Earlier you stated that even though FEMA had it's budget cut, the Department of Homeland Security had an increase, causing things to balance out. Could you elaborate on that? That makes no sense to me. Do they now take care of what FEMA used to take care of? If so, why does FEMA still exist?

Some of the problem folks are having with Kanye's statements is this line: "George Bush doesn't care about black people." This exact same accusation was made in 2003 because Bush hadn't met wtih the Congressional Black Caucus in over two years.

I just made it to level 6 again, that level is rough! I have no idea how to get past it...

Crack hit the streets in 1984... I will call you out and put you on blast when you post foolishness of inaccurate information. Do your research before you post if you want to remain credible, cause I have no problem correcting you if you are wrong... ← Crack cocain is recognized as becoming a huge problem (epidemic) in 84 (or possibly 85), but it hit the streets much earlier, in the late 70's. I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, so I don't really put much thought into if Bush Sr. or Reagen or whomever funded/put out crack with a purpose. But I do know that many people believe it. People also believe (including Will Smith, at one point, in reference to Ted bringing him up earlier) that the government introduced AIDS to attack the black population. There isn't any evidence, that I'm aware of, of crack or aids or whatever coming from the government. But it's not out of the realm of possability (which you seem to be implying). The US government does do some very bad things, as well as some officials in the government. The CIA, or at least some members, did view the Black Panthers as a major threat to the US. As I'm sure you know, Bush Sr. was CIA director from 76-77, rougly the same time that crack began circulation in the US. So maybe, maybe Bush Sr. had something to do with it. I don't really know, I don't think the public ever will know, but it's not all that crazy that it could have happened. Edit: I originally started this post with a snide comment, which I just removed. Discussions are interesting and constructive, but snide comments are neither. My bad. My point is that you're being the "fact" police, but people do make mistakes, and not all facts are known. So there's a lot of grey area involved.

The "hero" of this story scares me more then the looters. "Looters Will Be Shot" "I was in the Army and I will blow your ass off" "I walked over with my 12-gauge and shot a couple into the air." I guess it must be true, money and property are more valuable then human life...

That's exactly the problem that concerns me with the reporting. From the title: "Stores Looted On Camera In New Orleans" and then in the article "At a Walgreen's drug store in the French Quarter Tuesday morning, people were running out with grocery baskets and coolers full of soft drinks, chips and diapers." Soft drinks, chips, and diapers? Yea, those criminals. From the slideshow pictures, which there where 20, there where two of tv's apparently being stolen. (I say apparently because one was of a someone who looked to be being arrested next to a tv) There's another four to six of people looking to be stealing clothes. Then there's pictures of cops, people taking food and diapers, and what looks to be two kids riding bikes in a store. This is what warrents M-16 toting soliders? The article doesn't mention if the soldiers with the M-16's had food or water with them that they're handing out. Where they handing out food and water? (or was someone down the street handing it out?) And if not, why not? These articles make it sound like everyone in the city is looting, but then you see the pictures or read details and you find out a bunch of people are "looting" needed items, some are a looting questionable items, and a few are looting obviously wrong items.

And true leaders take responsability for the people under them. Bush is the president. I would imagine that if he called FEMA and said "Fix this, now!" things would be very different. It doesn't really matter if he has the authority to do something, if he has the influence to make things happen. But he had a guitar to receive, or some such thing.

Roughly 50% of the US gets their news not from CNN or MSNBC, but local stations, specifically the nightly news. (hence my statements about the difference between IN news and MA news) And yes, after Kanye's statements I've seen discussion of race and economic factors.

They reportedly have orders to shoot: "The soldiers, some back from Iraq, have orders to shoot to kill looters and gunmen. There are now 30,000 national guard troops and 3,000 regular soldiers on the US Gulf coast." http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,...1561561,00.html Yea, shoot looters and gunmen, but what makes a looter? Some cat with some soda? (such as that yahoo article) And Kanye didn't say that "Georges Bush doesn't like black people" He said "George Bush doesn't care about black people." according to the original article.

That sounds fun, have a great time!

There's a couple problems with that, which put the entire election in a very shady light. I was using cnn.com's election coverage for my primary source of information on that election, and something interesting happened. The polling data showed very consistantly that Kerry was winning through out the day and evening. Then, I believe it was a little after midnight, the poll values instantly changed dramatically. (as in, shifting from a several point lead for Kerry to a several point lead for Bush) There was a lot of uproar over this and the official explanation that I read was that the poll results where combined with the election results at that point. (I believe they actually termed it 'callibrated') Which begs the question, why where the poll results that they had been recieving all day so out of wack with the election results? Is it true, do they need to be adjusted? Why did the significant adjustments only take place in swing state? Why do so many other elections apparently have accurate poll numbers, but this one apparently didn't for the better part of 16 hours? Another issue is the allocation of voting resources. In poor, black communities people literally waited hours in the rain so that they could vote. It's unknown how many people that just got fed up and left, or had to go to work and left. Incidently, poor black neighborhoods typically vote for Democrats, not Republicans. Then there was a report that, I believe it was Diebold, but the head of a major voting machine company, stated that he was committed to helping Bush win the election. And when you look at election data, the numbers are significantly shifted in a way that areas that used those machines had a much higher vote for Bush then areas that didn't use those machines. Perhaps it's all a big coincidence... perhaps the newer machines where more expensive, so you'd expect the richer areas (which usually means more Republican areas) to be voting more for Bush. But it's a shady coincidence. Then you have the question of the security of the machines themselves. It's been reported that you could modify the result data quite easily. (If you know anything about computers, it was reported that the data was stored in an un-encrypted Access database) Since these voting systems are property of the companies, and the courts have ruled that they can't be examined (for competition issues), no one can really state clearly or not if these are in fact secure. And next you have an issue of who's in charge of the election in various states. In Ohio, a very key state, it was a Repulican, who was also a rather high member of the re-elect Bush campaign. There are reports, though non are confirmed, that he made questionable demands and resource allocation that would help sway the vote result. While this person may have behaving in a non-partison way, it does seem a bit shady. Finally you have the un-substantiated rumors. Such as Bush never acting concerned when early numbers showed he was going to lose. Or the hacker who claimed he had either personally changed, or witnessed a change to the election results. All in all, there is no proof that this election was fake, however there are many, many shady things that happened. The legitimacy of the election, and the poll results, are not nearly cut and dry in favor of Bush.

well we actually didn't choose him. bush used his daddy's connections to win 2 terms. the truth is that in 2000 the republicans literally stopped people from voting beause they would do the following: in USA if you are in jail you can't vote so let's say that there is a guy in jail named Will Smith, now let's say that the Will Smith that we know goes to vote. Even if he is in another state they won't let him vote because he has the same name as a guy in jail. also in 2004 the whole thing was fake, because the exit polls (when the press asks people who they voted for right after they leave the voting booth.) they said that john kerry won in a landslide. ← :word: I would add that in the 2000 elections, the actual vote counting was stopped and then the supreme court (the majority appointed by Republican presidents) handed the presidency to Bush, and then basically said that the decision was a one time decision and shouldn't be used as a basis for any future events.

The news doesn't seem to shy away from that at all. ← They also don't seem to be shying away from the fact that the govenment has failed to provide adequate support for those who are still suffering. They are doing their job; addressing all sides of the issue and asking the questions that need to be asked. The media has in no way given the government a free pass on their slowness in providing aid to those in Louisiana and especially New Orlenes. Perhaps Kanye should follow the media's lead and address all sides of the story as well. ← I suppose that the coverage you get in Mass is very different the coverage I see in Indiana. Which could explain why we're on different sides on this. :) The coverage I see rarely asks any hard questions about why the response time for this group of people seems to be so much worse then the response time for other groups of people.

In regards to some of the people trapped, I'm sure you're right. I'm sure some of them thought "oh well, I'll tough it out." But man, people have an incrediblely diverse set of abilities. If ya have no car, and none of your friends have a car, I've heard that it can be kinda tough to out-run a hurricane. If you're 98 years old, never leave your house anyway, have to have your grocieries delivered, I can see why you may try to survive the storm and hope for the best. If you're just ignorant, maybe you really don't know any better... Let's say you do manage to have a means to get out of the danger area, but if you live in poverty, ya can't really afford a hotel. And if you have no friends or family outside of your area, where are you supposed to go? I doubt all, what is it, 100,000? people trapped actually had no means to escape earlier. But I'm willing to bet that there are some that actually had no choice other then to hope for the best.

The news doesn't seem to shy away from that at all.

My mistake, I wasn't clear with that statement. I was trying to say that what hasn't been significantly talked about is why it is that it just so happens that this disaster relief has been so, apparently, poor and the majority of the people who are in need of help are poor, black, and/or elderly. I'm not trying to blame the hurricane (or the flood) on the government. What I'm blaiming on the government is that relief was so pathetic. People where told to go to shelter points, some of which weren't appropriately stocked with supplies. People who managed to escape made it into other communities who are trying their best to help, but without FEMA support. That's the type of things that I'm blaming the government for.