Paul Derangement Syndrome is spreading. And this one is just unbelievable. Chad is bent out of shape because I called him a dumbass.
Well let’s see why. Chad who is from Seattle “Washinton” [sic] is telling me in the comments.
but that isnt what the offical said. He said there was no flooding in New Orleans proper which as I understand it could be correct, and that…
The grammar, capitalization, punctuation and the fact that Chad can’t spell the name of his own home state not withstanding, Chad, who lives in Seattle Washinton, [sic] is telling me that the flooding in the 9th ward is not in New Orleans proper.
Or to put it another way, a guy from Seattle Washinton [sic] is telling me -a guy who lived in the 9th ward for 20 years- that it is not in New Orleans. I have not been there for over a month so maybe they moved it, but when I lived there, it was indeed in New Orleans.
I really try to have some patience with people in comments but when people simply spout off about things they know nothing about (and refuse to google up) I simply have no patience for them. I’ve taken some heat for not suffering fools gladly in the last few days. Perhaps now you know why.
If Mount St. Helens erupts, I can promise you that I won’t be arguing with Chad about which part of Washinton [sic] State that blew up. And if I ever do, you have every right to call me a dumbass.
Paul –
In fairness to Chad, I don’t know who can logically explain the parish boundaries down here. All you have to do is look at Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. Bernard and Orleans to leave you wondering if they were sober when they drew the lines.
I have this comment with regard to the “breach” vs. “overtopping” distinction: For me, an engineer, the distinction is important from a recovery standpoint and for my own understanding of the problem at hand.
Both situations are still very dangerous and very distructive. I do not speak from experience with the New Orleans levy system, and freely admit that I do not know the specifics of this situation with regard to the engineering of this levy system. Nevertheless, one can surmise:
(1) An overtopped levy which is not breached typically would result in flooding in which the city could be pumped dry after the surge tides recede.
(2) A breached levy is much more serious, in that it would typically allow water to flood the city even at normal tide levels. This requires that the levy be patched before the task of removing water from the city can take place.
To the engineers on location, this distinction would be extremely important, and not purely from a cover-your-ass perspective. I realize you could give two dumps about that, but it is important to the job these people are trying to do to understand the difference and use the correct language when describing the problem.
“Stupid is as stupid does” is sooooo mid 90’s. Get with the times man! He’s stuck on stupid.
Paul,
While I understand your frustration with people who think they know more than you do on a particular subject, especially one as traumatic and personal as this, your delivery of commentary is pretty damned dissapointing..
I’ve read all the threads and posts on this subject, and found that the way in which you have comported yourself has been borderline tantrum, effectively overshadowing any pertinent points you may be attempting to make..
I have come to rely on this blog for enlightening perspective of issues about which I may or may not have initially cared.. I check in here many times during the day.. The intellectual trio of Kevin, Jay, and you are what makes this place such an interesting and informative place of commentary..
That being said, the fact that you have willingly reduced yourself to dwell on a particular poster’s grammatical errors and errant punctuation (of which can be found in your posts as well), combined with your witty retorts of describing some of your dedicated admirers as “dumbasses” or “idiots”, is just damned disrespectful..
By the way, Cardinals Nation (as well as I), were among this board’s participants who donated money to you when the opportunity was presented and asked.. I would do it again if needed..
Cut us some slack, huh?
ts
>In fairness to Chad, I don’t know who can logically explain the parish boundaries down here. All you have to do is look at Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. Bernard and Orleans to leave you wondering if they were sober when they drew the lines.
Well then he really should either drink enough until he understands it or keep his mouth shut until he does.
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Bill
>I have this comment with regard to the “breach” vs. “overtopping” distinction: For me, an engineer, the distinction is important from a recovery standpoint and for my own understanding of the problem at hand.
This is the HEART of my point. There is a freaking hole in the levee 3 blocks long and the Corps is saying the levee was simply “overtopped.” Meanwhile 2 different levees were “overtopped” in areas of Jefferson today. – And the officials said there was no need to worry.
What am I -as a citizen- to think? Yesterday “overtopped” meant hundreds of thousands of gallons per minute. Today “overtopped” means some waves came over the levee. Same word, but one means 8 feet of water, one means a few waves.
If the engineers just throw words around at random (or to spin the situation) how the HELL is the average guy on the street supposed to figure out what is a danger to his family and what is not?
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lomal,
I get your point(s) but I hope you understand how absolutely infuriating it is to have 5-10 people in the comments section all arguing with you while they have absolutely no clue what they are talking about.
For a right brained (or is it left?) geek like me, that is enough to drive me up the wall. ***But it goes well beyond that.***
New Orleans dodged a far larger bullet with Rita than most people realize. The Corps lied to us about the ability of the walls before Katrina… OK whatever…. Maybe they were not lying they just screwed up. Whatever… You don’t see me blaming them for the flood. (though thousands of people do, and I get their point)
BUT (and it is a big fat hairy butt) once they realized the consequences of their getting it wrong, they should been twice as cautious. Instead they let people return to an area that was dangerous.
–It was so bad that a levee in Harvey was “overtopped” (whatever that means) in 3 places today. Meanwhile thousands of gallons of water were seeping THRU the bottom of the levee. It got so bad they had to open a set of locks and let water flow -the wrong way- into the river. (The river should be higher than the canal) I applaud them for solving the problem… But they damn near killed a few thousand people before they did. (admittedly from my opinion a few hundred miles away)
Point is, the blogosphere lives and dies by getting outraged at politicians. It rarely means life and death.
Today it does. Literally.
So cut me some slack huh?
-BTW Kev held out the donation can after hearing about people who had it far worse than I did. (and do) So far, my wife and I have given other people more money than we have received. While we suffered over $10,000 in losses -much of which insurance will not cover- we consider ourselves lucky.
At some point I plan on telling some of the stories of my own experiences and the experiences of the people I’ve met in the last month. Unfortunately I’ve been too busy to live blog it though I has some stuff saved as draft. Frankly while I was shocked by the donations, I never really considered them for me. There are about a bazillion people who had it worse off than me.
Don’t you know that people in New Orleans don’t consider the 9th ward part of “New Orleans proper”? In order to be considered “New Orleans proper”, a neighborhood has to have at least one tax paying citizen living there.
Well, that solves it then! The 9th ward ceased to be a part of New Orleans proper when Paul moved out! They are both right! 🙂
As one New Orleanian to another, give ’em hell! Yeah, you rite.
>In order to be considered “New Orleans proper”, a neighborhood has to have at least one tax paying citizen living there.
heh- I snuck past the National Guard last week and walked thru Lakeview -man was that a surreal experience.
Anyway, since I was the only living soul in the all of Lakeview I declared myself “King of Lakeview.” I heard no objections so I figured it was official and everything… But then I took a look at my kingdom and abdicated.
It’s nice to see this blog being used to personally attack commentors. Wizbangblog? More like Wizbangflusterfalterandshouldbeputtopasture. Downhill, baby!
OK, I’ve been following the posts on this subject for a while, and have to weigh in.
At first, I did think Paul was a bit too sensitive on the subject.
But then, I saw an interview on the news. I was video footage of a great big gap in the levee, with water gushing through it. Not over the levee, but THROUGH WHERE IT USED TO BE.
The person being interviewed was with the ACOE, and described the Levees and structurally sound,
and went on to mention that there were seep-throughs, plus eight to nine FEET of water in the Ninth Ward.
OK, that almost dropped me. “Structurally sound” and has seep-throughs? Not to mention great big gaps (breeches, by any definition)? Frankly, the seep-throughs strike me as just as serious, if not more so, than the breeches. And, yes, the ACOE guy did indeed claim that the breeches were not, in fact, breeches. So, I think Paul is quite right on this issue.
Now, that said, I’ll say something Paul might not like at all: I think the issue of whether or not to re-build needs to be examined. Large parts of New Orleans are below sea level, and it is in a Hurricane zone. Is it worth it to re-build those destroyed areas in place? I am not saying it isn’t, but I do think it needs to be looked at.
Also, I’m puzzled by these canals. They greatly complicate the levee system, and the breeches occured on them. What, exactly, are they for? I do see that one is a shipping canal, but the two further West seem to dead-end.
Another question about New Orleans:
There are reports of eight to nine feet of water in the Ninth Ward. If so, why would it be only in that area of New Orleans, and not in other previously-flooded areas too? The ACOE says it will have the water out within a week, but I can’t understand how that would be possible if the present volume and extent in NO is anywhere close to what it was after Katrina??
There are reports of eight to nine feet of water in the Ninth Ward. If so, why would it be only in that area of New Orleans, and not in other previously-flooded areas too?
Uh, possibly because that’s where the levee broke and it’s lower there. I’m just guessing but it sounds just wacky enough to be true.
The ACOE says it will have the water out within a week, but I can’t understand how that would be possible if the present volume and extent in NO is anywhere close to what it was after Katrina??
Because there’s less of it would be my guess. The pictures I just posted show the water is quite a bit lower than it was after Katrina.
Oddly enough, I had a recent, similar dumbass on my site calling himself “Che” who is somewhere in Seattle and/or Bellevue, WA…I found out the guy’s actual name and read up on some of his other comments on the internet out of curiosity and among the most dumbassery of them all was this:
“(He) gets aroused (when he) “strums” (his) “meaty” (guitar model here)…” asking a certain website to contact him about his lyrics.
I laughed aloud when I read that. Same IPA as tried to appear on my site as “Che.” I have a suspicion that there’s a relationship.
Hey, bullwinkle, I never see your images on your site, just broken image links-red x’s…and some error code responses on the gallery/album view. Just askin because I’d like to see what you’re offering over there!
Chad misspelled Washington in the About section of his blog, too.
-S-, nobody else has ever complained, I see them with 3 different browsers, even with the crappy Apple laptop I have. I think it must be only you, I get lots of hits on the Naked Friday Babes I post, I’m sure they’d complain about those.
-S-
I can honestly say that che and I are not the same person. If you have proof someone else is posting from the same IP address as me I would be interested in that info. I have a static IP address and that would indicate someone getting access without my authorization. E-mail me or Speakeasy with the details if you would please.
>Also, I’m puzzled by these canals. They greatly complicate the levee system, and the breeches occured on them. What, exactly, are they for? I do see that one is a shipping canal, but the two further West seem to dead-end.
The 17th street canal is home -well was home- to many shrimp boats. Also both it and the London Ave canal serve as drainage. Instead of pumping for miles to the lake, we pump into the canal which then flows to the lake.
>The ACOE says it will have the water out within a week, but I can’t understand how that would be possible if the present volume and extent in NO is anywhere close to what it was after Katrina??
Because the Corps just makes stuff up as it goes along. Yes there is less water so it WILL take less time. But you asked what they based it on. As a long time observer, they pulled a number out of mid-air.
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>Because there’s less of it would be my guess. The pictures I just posted show the water is quite a bit lower than it was after Katrina.
Well yes and no. Only one levee broke this time [well only one major break] so there is less water. But it is not a perfect truism that there is less water this time in that area.
Remember the pictures you posted were taken the morning the levee broke BEFORE the reporters got the hell out of there for fear of being trapped by rising waters. They were taken ~11AM Friday. The hole is still open. I’ve seen pictures from after Rita where the water was higher is some places…
AND apparently some places got water that did not the first time.
So the Rita flood is not a perfect subset of the Katrina flood. I had a friend who lived on North Rampart who did not get water the first time. We have heard she was not so lucky the second. But information that tight is EXTREMELY hard to get unless you go see for yourself. The media (both national and local) have been worthless in that regard.
I don’t expect things from the national media like “Old Metairie south of Metairie road to Airline highway flooded” but geeze you would think the local media would do it.
Dont expect any honesty amoung the liberal left-wing news media its way past their dignanty to tell the truth all the time
The newway to spell that wont hurt the feeling of dumb underacheiers cat KATT,dog DAWG,bird byrdz,tableTAYBUL,knife,NIFE spoon,SPUN,schoolSKOOL,