dbb

Last time I looked, Indonesia was a third world country. The United States is the richest country that has ever been ... Are you seriously suggesting that the UNION of the UNITED STATES should leave disaster areas to fend for themselves?

You'd think that the US government might at least have sent in a ship like the U.S.S. Bataan with 1200 sailors and 600 hospital beds to help ...

Heh. So they did nail that comment. Are the people in the deep south really that scared of big bad terrible Hillary? What's she going to do? Increase social spending, and fund an army of secret agents to abduct and educate your children in the middle of the night?

saturn

You don't need to send a battleship when you can just drive there. I mean, realistically speaking, most of the people had been evacuated pretty quickly after the hurricane so you can't really compare the two disasters. It's the property damage that's the big problem here and the government isn't going to get that involved in people's personal property. We just don't work like that.

The massive rebuilding project for the outdated levies began literally days after it happened. This is what the federal and state governments are for. They're not for rebuilding houses. I'm sorry if the rest of the world doesn't see or agree with that, but it's just how it is.

Should we be helping out more financially speaking, probably. But to reiterate an earlier point, we didn't get to be the richest nation in the history of the world by giving handouts.

The government in this country is honestly more focused on preserving moral principle and keeping companies in business. We get very mad with anyone who threatens the "American way of life" or our money.

And always remember -- freedom costs a buck o' five.

UFGator12

Yeah, definetely. And as for what Hillary would do... we won't even get into the opinions on that.

dillsrotary

excellently put, +1 to you

globi

If the Brits stayed over at some motel, I would have bought it, but the reaction time was way too short to make this credible.
If they ineed have people in the south on stand by for occasional Brit bashing (chances are probably comparable to a lottery win - once every 100,000 years per person), well, then this region of the US has people with more time and patience than the monks in the Himalayas.

saturn

It's a freakin television show. You have no idea how long it took them to arrive. Or they could have all lived next door. Or maybe they were at the bar next door. They could have already been on their way too. Stop reading so much into it and just accept it. You're ruining it for everyone!

PhotoMunkey

It would help if the people applying for the billions of dollars of federal money were literate enough to fill out the applications. But of course, that's the fault of the feds too, right?

And the last time I checked, the UK had a total land mass less than 1/5th the size of the US, limited natural resources, and an ego the size of Alaska. They're one to talk about dealing with natural disasters!

If we send a ship to Indonesia, people around the world will claim it's an excuse to send our military. If we send oodles of money, people bitch that we don't care enough to "get more involved". If we send the UN, people cheer, until they realize that the UN basically doesn't do a thing, takes forever to decide to go, then brings their own corrupt heirarchy which sucks down even more money which could have been applied to the real problem. Third world or US, the national gov't should not be expected to handle every possible contingency. People who expect this are simply CLUELESS as to how the real world works.

It's not the federal govt's job to re-install every single person to home-ownership. It IS, however a state and local job to set housing codes, which would also include INSISTING that all new homes built below sea level be built on raised platforms. They've known a hurricane could hit New Orleans for HOW MANY years? Coastal communities who see hurricane storm surges regularly have such codes. None of these exist in New Orleans. Face facts... it was a slum below sea level, protected by inadequate levies. If you want to crucify the feds, do so only for the Cat-3 quality levies.

BTW-the National Guard falls under the control of the STATE gov't. In this case, the widespread lack of power killed communication capabilities and led to a slow deployment. No amount of hand-wringing after the fact will overcome the fact that the STATE and LOCAL gov'ts were ill-prepared to handle ANY major emergency. In this case, it was the feds who stepped in and bailed out the region. As far as I'm concerned the state and local gov'ts are STILL asking for federal bailout because they're still f-ing clueless!

But you can't expect a Brit to understand that... they ELECT a prime minister, yet still have a titular monarchy. Can you say Bass Ackwards? Pick a form of gov't and stick with it!

Can anyone name a race series based solely in the UK which has the world reknown of NASCAR? I didn't think so.

Shinka-Dono

lol

Everyone just wants to have some fun.

rotarygod

Nice post photomunkey.

My Geology professor in college once said that if you aren't prepared to accept the consequences of living in a high risk zone with natural disasters, don't live there. If you don't ever want to risk your house getting flooded, don't live in a flood plain (or below sea level next to the water!). If you don't want earthquakes to potentially damage your home, don't live in an earthquake zone. If you don't want to risk everything to a tornado, try not to live in a tornado prone zone. You get the idea. No one forces anyone to go live where they do here. They do it because they want to. If something happens, why is it the governments responsibility to help fix their mistake? It's not. People need to be a little smarter. Break the levies and give New Orleans back to nature. That's how it should be done.

Wait a second. Wasn't this thread about Top Gear?

PhotoMunkey

Well, we WERE addressing the fact that a normally-funny video hack had the nerve to come to OUR country, insult OUR past-times, stump for Hillary (which calls ALL of his previous judgements into sharp question), AND roundly and ignorantly criticize a natural disaster the likes of which his country has NEVER seen. I always knew the Brits had *****, I just didn't know they were located where their brains should be!

dbb

... and the difference between Top Gear (catering for a British audience ) cracking jokes at America, and the Simpsons (exported worldwide) cracking jokes at other countries is?

The Simpsons has had a go at NASCAR, southern rednecks, gun culture, Florida, and has picked on New Orleans.

Regardless of whether the target audience found Top Gear in America funny or not (and most people did) , they do have a right to freedom of speech, don't they?

globi

Well I guess in that case we should swap the planet?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/628515.stm
(but then again this puts global warming all in perspective again.)

And I didn't intend to ruin it for anyone but I wanted to add that topgear 'accidentally' burnt a trailer in a trailerpark also.