From: agtiger	Date: September 3rd, 2005 12:04 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

Outstanding find!

	From: featherlady_jt	Date: September 3rd, 2005 12:16 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

Nicely done!!

	From: topi	Date: September 3rd, 2005 12:38 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

My friend, you must stop this maddness right now! You are offending the Leftards of LJ with all of these facts and logic. Stop being mean and consider their feelings! I beg you! I plead with you! Consider the inhumanity to our leftarded kin!

From: agtiger	Date: September 3rd, 2005 01:07 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

*falls out laughing*

If even one quarter of your posts are even remotely like this one, I would love the opportunity to read them. :-) Welcome to my friends list!

	From: topi	Date: September 3rd, 2005 01:40 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

Added...welcome to my politics filter...kinda odd at the moment, but you'll like the people you meet.

	From: hollie_is_right	Date: September 3rd, 2005 10:04 pm (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

Watch that topi guy. ;-)

	From: stremph	Date: September 3rd, 2005 01:10 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)
	There you are.

Methinks I've been filtered to the outskirts of your friends list.

Either that or you haven't been posting much.

I noticed while looking for your input on this whole flood deal. You have a way of wording your anger in a manner I tend to be sympathetic with, even if it is sometimes a bit more over the top than I'd probably go.

	From: topi	Date: September 3rd, 2005 01:34 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)
	Re: There you are.

I've been pissed at you. I knew that you were not pleased with my political turn of events and sided with my former Russian brother...so naturally I took the childish road. Next time, could you just tell me that you think I'm being a dick to my face? I'd appreciate that.

	From: stremph	Date: September 3rd, 2005 03:19 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)
	Re: There you are.

Honestly, I thought it was funny. The thing I really like about you is that, like Michael Savage, you have this incredible dichotomy of being both very intelligent and very incendiary at the same time. And just as with Savage, I find it amusing sometimes.

It's not that I wasn't pleased with the turn of events, I guess I was just a little surprised and thrown off by it, as I'll admit that a lot of what you were attacking him harshly for were things that may as well have applied to me - I can't help it if a lot of administration policies conveniently fall in line with my own beliefs, so there was a period of increased solidarity with your former Russian brother. However, I didn't take it personally. Besides, you're not on my friends list for your politics (though I agree with you 90% of the time), but rather your passion and your intellect.

Damn.

Sounds like I'm trying to date you or some crap like that.

	From: stremph	Date: September 3rd, 2005 01:07 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)
	Doioioioing!!!!!

I think I just sprung a boner of rationality.

	From: reality_hammer	Date: September 3rd, 2005 05:41 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)
	Re: Doioioioing!!!!!

lol

From: (Anonymous)	Date: September 3rd, 2005 10:01 pm (UTC)		(Link to this entry)
Re: Doioioioing!!!!!

LOL!!!

	From: hollie_is_right	Date: September 3rd, 2005 10:02 pm (UTC)		(Link to this entry)
	Re: Doioioioing!!!!!

Thank you for that visual! LOL

	From: izuko	Date: September 3rd, 2005 02:24 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

Do you mind if I steal this from you? Would you prefer if I link here, or use the html?

	From: reality_hammer	Date: September 3rd, 2005 05:44 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

Go right ahead. Link to the entry because I may be updating it with info on FY2006 since the leftists seem intent on claiming President Bush was going to cut the budget (as if that somehow affected the present situation).

	From: lima_pcp	Date: September 3rd, 2005 04:45 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

You know where this needs to be posted...

	From: marzweez	Date: September 3rd, 2005 06:47 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)
	ABSTRACTION?

hey,

i'm a little confused about the charts. mainly because i think it's an abstraction. shouldn't you show all relating graphs of funds in similar fields, not just the corps of engineers? i mean, aren't there more places in which funds may or may not have been directed during whatever presidency? including bush "the greater" and reagan? consider the effects of the gulf war on funds directed in such ways, as well as the cost of "fighting communism" in nicaragua under reagan. please consider these and get back to me.

i'm not sure myself, but it is misleading and self-serving to just use this one specific example, and on top of that, you have tons of your readers cheering you on for "once again" demonstrating that the "Leftards" are complete fools.

you must know, we are not. and i aim to prove this to you, mr. reality hammer.

	From: reality_hammer	Date: September 3rd, 2005 08:08 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)
	Re: ABSTRACTION?

I think you missed the point. It refutes the claim, made by leftists, that President Bush cut funding to the Army Corps of Engineers.

	From: jeran	Date: September 3rd, 2005 05:48 pm (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

Yes, but how much of that increase went to, say, A.C.E operations in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of to their more normal projects? The supporting documents you linked to don't break that out, and I think it's very relevant since the griping from the "leftists" isn't that the A.C.E. budget was cut but that it's budget for flood-control projects in the New Orleans area was cut.

Analogous situation: your employer gives you a 15% pay raise, but turns around and stops covering your health insurance and other benefits that amount to some 25% of your take-home pay. Is your employer being honest when, in response to your complaint about the hit you took, he says "But you're getting 15% more money now."?

	From: reality_hammer	Date: September 3rd, 2005 10:06 pm (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

That's why I also posted the numbers for flood control projects.

So, thanks for the (false) analogy, but I had that covered:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/reality_hammer/368498.html

and

http://www.livejournal.com/users/reality_hammer/369288.html

It's like people trying to blame the President for the slow response by the National Guard when it was the Louisiana governor who dropped the ball.

	From: jeran	Date: September 3rd, 2005 11:17 pm (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

The Louisiana governor doesn't control the Arkansas, Texas or California National Guard. Only the President can order the entire Guard to duty, and that's what something of this magnitude requires. It also requires the President, not a state governor, to call in the Army and Marines and give FEMA authority to start serious operations.

Blanco's utterly clueless and has no idea what she's doing, but then she wasn't the one who's made making American ready to react to emergencies a hallmark of her administration, is she? If this is the best response we can get, where's all that Federal emergency-preparedness money been going to?

	From: marzweez	Date: September 3rd, 2005 06:14 pm (UTC)		(Link to this entry)
	Re: ABSTRACTION?

but, look at the other groups. whatever they may be. i don't have the time to do it myself, but since you've dedicated your time and energy to blogging, perhaps you could do the research?

i'm trying to make this point: it's dangerous to show one graph, without relating it to many others, and including the groups that perhaps DID have funding cut DUE TO your war on terror, and its need for funding abroad.

Because fighting terror does cost a lot, and freedom and liberty for a country so wroght with heathans is a heavy and lengthy task, yes? (I'm joking. the Middle East had very strong democratic trends until the colonizing European powers destroyed them and handed over the chore of dominating power to the US, circa 1945).

	From: reality_hammer	Date: September 3rd, 2005 10:11 pm (UTC)		(Link to this entry)
	Re: ABSTRACTION?

perhaps you could do the research?

lol

Um, no.

i'm trying to make this point: it's dangerous to show one graph, without relating it to many others, and including the groups that perhaps DID have funding cut DUE TO your war on terror, and its need for funding abroad.

Ah, but that is your job if you wish to make that point. You can't claim that "someone, somewhere" was cut and then ask others to back that up with research.

If people claim that the Corps suffered funding cuts all I need to do to disprove that would be to show funding for the Corps, which I did.

	From: odanu	Date: September 3rd, 2005 04:40 pm (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

Perhaps a more important question would be: what specific projects gained and lost funding? The city of New Orleans specifically lost funding in the Bush Administration. What projects gained?

	From: reality_hammer	Date: September 3rd, 2005 10:17 pm (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

You'd have to go deeper than the Federal budget to determine that. Perhaps the Corps will provide those details. It would have been their call (presumably working with local officials) on which projects to prioritize with available funds. Though when you speak of "lost funding" you again imply there were cuts. Overall funding increased. If projects were not funded it was because they were deemed to be either not cost effective or not a priority because the money was there each and every year.

My first response, though, would be to ask which projects were urgent/important enough that the city of New Orleans and state of Louisiana funded them without waiting for taxpayer dollars from other states via the Federal government?

We know it was local officials who made the call to only build category three levees. I'm not going to think they would have made any major deviations from that kind of cost-benefit analysis to other projects.

I will note, however, that restoring the wetlands to the south and west of New Orleans has been a priority project of the Corps for years.

	From: odanu	Date: September 3rd, 2005 10:21 pm (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

Again, though, how many of the projects that got increased funding were related to the war in Iraq? This is an issue of priorities, and when critical national defense issues such as protecting a large vulnerable part of our coastlines are put on hold to rebuild someone else's country, that's an issue of skewed priorities.

From: (Anonymous)	Date: September 13th, 2005 10:45 pm (UTC)		(Link to this entry)
Army Corps of Engineering

i hope i can help here The Army Corps of Engineering is a civilian not military organization. defense spending does not affect funding levels to this civilian body.

	From: reality_hammer	Date: September 14th, 2005 12:16 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

Military spending would be via the DoD. Items specific to the CoE are for domestic (and US territorial) areas.

I still haven't seen evidence of a single program (as opposed to project) being cut during the Bush presidency. That would be mighty hard to find with a 23% increase in funding since 2000.

	From: nexavier	Date: September 4th, 2005 12:54 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

FactCheck's article on the issue is pretty good:
http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=344

They point out the levee's would have had shortcomings anyway. But they do give more detailed/relevant information about the funding for levee construction projects, including this link:
http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/pao/response/HURPROJ.asp?prj=lkpon1

	From: reality_hammer	Date: September 4th, 2005 04:48 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

FactCheck has lost some of its "oomph". They're just repeating what other people have said on the subject instead of digging deeper, as they did during the 2004 elections.

	From: nexavier	Date: September 4th, 2005 04:58 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

Possibly. It was the easiest place for me to find data that was specific to funding for New Orleans projects though.

Out of curiousity, what do you think about this (someone posted the link in some community, politicsforum I think:
http://www.redcross.org/faq/0,1096,0_682_4524,00.html

	From: reality_hammer	Date: September 5th, 2005 05:38 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

I agree with that completely. New Orleans is going to turn into a malaria-ridden bowl of dysentery. People need to leave and go somewhere else.

	From: fieldofshells	Date: September 5th, 2005 01:45 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

might i link to this post?

	From: reality_hammer	Date: September 5th, 2005 05:33 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

Of course!

	From: psychomatt	Date: September 5th, 2005 06:31 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

Quite interesting. :) Someone else's link pointed me here, and I've not added you to my friends list. If that's not OK with you, I'll remove you. :)

	From: reality_hammer	Date: September 5th, 2005 07:00 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)

No problem, especially for a Packers fan.

From: (Anonymous)	Date: September 6th, 2005 01:27 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)
The ISSUE was funding for the Levees

Facts on Bush and the Levees

In 2001 a FEMA study stated what they felt the three most likely disasters to befall the United States. A conclusion of that study was that FEMA designates a major hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three "likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country" because of the deteriorating levee situation.

In spite of dire predictions of a looming catastrophe, Bush himself personally axed the budget for urgently needed levee upgrades. In June 2004 The Army Corps of Engineers budget for levee construction in New Orleans is decimated. Jefferson Parish emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri stated: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq." In other words, Bush took it upon himself to ignore the experts and take desperately needed monies for securing one of the three most vulnerable threats to this nation and put it into Iraq to fight a war for WMD that did not exist. This is the decision that Mr. Bush and Mr. Bush alone made.

Mr. Bush did not want nasty facts to get in the way of what he should have been doing. In 2004, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken – it should be dropped and not looked at.

One year latter the situation was even more urgent – in spite of the FEMA predictions, in spite of an ever-increasing probability of disaster, Bush further slashed specifically the budget funding for the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by a record $71.2 million (or a 80% reduction compared to Clinton levels of spending). This is AFTER the dire FEMA prediction and spending should have been greater than the Clinton levels. One of the hardest-hit areas is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which was created after the May 1995 flood to improve drainage in Jefferson, Orleans and St. Tammany parishes.

Then Katrina hits – amazingly the levees survived the initial onslaught, but ultimately failed. This indicates that a rather modest investment could have prevented this disaster of the levee breach. Bush dithers for days while people do not have food and water to survive. The National Guard, which should be in the United States and not off on a foreign adventure that has nothing to do with the security of our nation is not available to do their primary job – disaster relief. The magnitude of this disaster is that 10,000 may be dead, 1 million homeless, our commerce destroyed and a prolongation of the Bush recession and its attendant misery and a $100 B hit to our economy – all because Bush ignored the warnings and did not take actions to avoid catastrophe and prioritzed a foreign adventure over protection of our country.

	From: reality_hammer	Date: September 7th, 2005 05:20 am (UTC)		(Link to this entry)
	Re: The ISSUE was funding for the Levees

Sorry, but hearsay and lies are not evidence. President Bush increased the funding for the Corps. You and the other leftists have yet to provide evidence for a cut in a single relevant program.

In addition, as I demonstrated, President Bush's budgets amount to a 23% increase since FY2000 while President Clinton's project budgets showed an almost 30% decline over the same period. Cite facts, not just hearsay and opinions!