Um....now I am confused:Bush takes blame for flaws in Katrina response

[bingolong]

KMommy,
Naw only caught the end of Bill Maher.....Ted Turner went to high school in my hometown believe it or not!!! I would vote for him!!


...all rambling aside that is a great link!!

[KMommy]

bingolong,

Same high school with Ted - cool! Here is part of what he said on the show...

Dave asks about the $1 billion gift he gave to the U.N. back in 1997. Ted says the United States was behind in their dues. Like any corporation that doesn't receive money from its buying customers, this created a hardship in the U.N. to meet payroll and put forth their programs. Ted wanted to pay off the loan and then have the U.S. pay him back. This wasn't done, but Ted still wanted to give the U.N. a billion dollars. He soon learned it is not easy to give away a billion dollars. Why was he doing this? Because he truly believes in the mission of the United Nations and wanted to make a big splash to bring attention to the American people of our nation's not coming up with their dues. His gift of $1 billion was to be spread out over 10 years, which has since been extended to 15 years. Ted admits he doesn't have the money he once did, plus the U.N. wants to keep the money coming in for a longer length of time. So far, Ted has fulfilled $600 million of his promised $1 billion.

Ted believes good education and health care and a better standard of living is the best way to fight terrorism. Provide them with the above and they won't want to blow themselves up or go to war. He points out that the United States spends $400-500 billion a year on their military budget. The rest of the world spends the same amount. Is all that money spent on the military spent wisely? In a speech earlier this year, Ted went through a laundry list of the leading social problems around the world and the dollar cost of fixing them. For instance:
-$15 billion a year for universal primary education of all children.
-$4 billion a year for adult literacy
-$10 billion a year for reproductive health and family planning
...At least one healthy meal a day for everyone
On and on and on Ted spelled it out in this speech. Total cost: $62 billion a year. He reminds us that the United States spends $500 billion on the military alone each year. And the U.S. wouldn't have to pay the entire $62 billion; it would be spread out across the world.
"You don't stop terrorism with tanks, you stop it with hope," When people have hope they don't want to blow themselves up and everyone else with them.
Dang it, it makes sense to me.

[tamra]

KMommy,
*sigh* I wonder if we'll ever see a president in our lifetime who feels the way Ted does.

not to go off-topic from Katrina, but related to article, I really don't know if I believe in terrorism. I believe in "you fuq w/people's money, land and way of life, some people will come after you" no matter how much they love their God. that *middle east* area has been fighting for thousands of years. then to make matters worse, the U.S. provides land 75 years ago (land the U.S. didn't own to give) to europeans in the middle of land set aside by God to its original settlers and their ancestors (screwing all scriptures and part of God's promises in the process), and then only courts the wealth and well-being of the newly appointed settlers. you can only fuq over people for so long before it starts to literally blow up in your face.

9/11 was strictly about money. if the attackers just wanted to destroy the U.S. and its people all sorts of open attacks would have occurred on streets. instead the primary source of trade (WTC - controlled by the same new european land settlers) was the primary target w/communications from the Pentagon (defense) disrupted in the process.

with Katrina, it's a reminder: we forgot how to treat people like people. and in some cases don't even cost nothing to do so.

dang, sistah-gurl got deep. and all that class cutting

[bingolong]

Jack Of All Trades,
What happened to your post? I am going to reply anyway...

Well all I can say is who was the "whitey" that wrote that article you posted and didn't want to leave his name!! I bet you he/she never listened to a Richard Pryor record.....


But it wasn't the Hurricane that did the damage to the place it was the break in the levees, those people were in the city and it was pretty dry for a good while until those levees broke.... [/i]Bush administration funding cuts forced federal engineers to delay improvements on the levees, floodgates and pumping stations that failed to protect New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters, agency documents showed on Thursday. The former head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that handles the infrastructure of the nation's waterways, said the damage in New Orleans probably would have been much less extensive had flood-control efforts been fully funded over the years. [/i]

[bingolong]

bingolong and Trudy,