Natalee Holloway was a stupid whore / Katrina

[luke]

kenholzman said:

Great response, Luke. Was that penned by you or your bro-in-law?

I penned the response. The forward went out to probably a hundred people or so. I'm not even sure if my bro-in-law reads this stuff. I think he just gets e-mail forwards, and if there's titties in them he sends it to all the guys on his list, if there's gross stuff in it he sends it to all the younger people on his list, and if it's just some crap like the one up there, he sends it to everyone in his address book.

So basically he sends me about five really annoying e-mail forwards a day. I always delete them, but every now and then I'll look at one so when he says, "Hey, what did you see that lady having sex with that goat in that e-mail?" I don't have to lie.

[luke]

New Orleans, just another lawless, dysfunctional city


One of the most anguishing feelings that one can have is to be in a major city of a third world country that has been ravaged by war or decades of political corruption and government ineptness and see the people trying day by day to function and exist when the odds are so heavily stacked against them.

You find yourself thinking over and over of just how lucky we are to have been born in the United States of America or to be fortunate enough to have moved here or to another modern civilized functioning country. Most of the areas and cities in the U.S.A. function to a degree of sophistication that makes us the envy of a majority of the rest of the world. However, there are some places that do not measure up to the minimum standards as set by civilized society. One such place is New Orleans, Louisiana.

If you are a History, TLC, Discovery, National Geographic Channel, or C-Span junkie you have seen over and over the bombed out remnants of European cities after World War II. Parts of New Orleans looked an awfully lot like those places following the destruction of Hurricane Katrina in 2006. What is amazing is that after WWII the United States had a program called the Marshall Plan in which we created loans, machinery, and technical help to rebuild Europe. It was amazing how countries that were at war with each just a few months earlier came together and worked to rebuild the cities that were so devastated by war. The same happened in Japan. In a way the massive construction projects that were undertaken in this country during the 1930s depression such as the various TVA dams to produce electricity were similar in scope and efficiency.

Why then do you go to New Orleans today and see so much destruction in large parts of the city where very little, if anything, has been done to rebuild or even clean it up? New Orleans today is in many respects a dysfunctional city. The crime rate is at all time high, parts of the city is still without electricity. I understand there are billions of dollars allocated to clean up and rebuilding that is not being released because of the graft and corruption that historically has been associated with New Orleans and Louisiana politicians. Recently Attorney General Candidate Royal Alexander told a group that one of the first acts he will do if elected, will be to petition the courts to have the state take control of the court and criminal justice system of New Orleans and Orleans Parrish. It is hard to imagine that in the United States of America in the 21st century that action such as this is actually being discussed and considered. But it is, and with good reason.

Last week my daughter who returned to live and work in New Orleans after graduating from the University of Louisiana Lafayette, because she wants to help make a difference, called to say that she had just witnessed the murder of a friend of hers in Mid-City just off Esplanade Ave. She tenderly said between sobs, “But daddy, you are not supposed to see things like that.” The woman who was killed was from New Orleans and had a master’s degree from Loyola and worked for the Road Home program. She was working to make New Orleans a better place. The assailant was a former police officer from New Jersey who had recently moved to New Orleans to work.

We hope that we, and especially our children, will never encounter and see some things in life. Depending on where you live increases the chances of one having to encounter the really vile parts of humanity or should I say inhumanity.

New Orleans is today controlled by drug dealing gangs and other criminals. It has one of the most corrupt police departments in the world. Just a couple of years ago there were some five murders committed within a six months period by New Orleans police officers while on duty. Some were robbery related, some were drug dealing hits. Just a couple of weeks ago two brothers were gunned down in New Orleans within hours of each other. One was out on bail being accused of murder. He was the prime suspect in 10 to 12 murders. His brother was the prime suspect in 8 to 10 murders. I don’t know that Kabul is that bad.

As Americans we are not suppose to see a city like New Orleans, in this great nation, that is still ravaged two years later and has sunk to the lowest of lows in civilized standards!

What has happened to our common sense? After the twin towers in New York came down the federal government was quick to enact legislation that would pour in money in order to keep down law suits. Is that the problem? No body wants to do anything until we can make sure there will be no law suits. That day will never come! There are housing areas in places in and around New Orleans that have what seem to be very nice quality homes with no body living in them. Why? Because I am told that they need to be jacked up above flood stage. Are you serious? Brick homes built on a slab. Oh, it can be done, it is just that the cost is “fairly high” and the powers that be are having a hard time trying to figure out how high to require them to be raised. What level will be the flood stage at the next flood? This is insane! No, it is criminal.

Can someone please tell me why we are spending billions of dollars around the world to rebuild Baghdad, Kabul, and other areas while New Orleans just rots?

Sunday evening Sixty Minutes had a segment on the United States Coast Guard’s revitalization and rebuilding program called “Deep Water” that would prepare the USCG to be able to function properly in the defense of the USA in the 21st century. This is a major part of our “Global War on Terror” and a most significant component of our “Homeland Security” efforts. The program, now five years old, is fraught with problems. It seems that $34 Billion have been spent and the Coast Guard is worse off today than before the program began. Some are arguing, as they do with public education, that we need to just give the contractors more money and they will correct their mistakes. Hopefully that will not happen.

They started the Sixty Minutes segment by saying that a group of Island class Patrol Boats was lengthened at a shipyard in …….. guess where, New Orleans; the modification would cause them to be more efficient in their rolls. What happened is the lengthening of the vessels caused structural weakening and the vessels are no longer fit for service so they are being scrapped. Many other modification and new build projects seem to have taken the same or similar course. $34 Billion dollars spent and nothing to show for it, imagine that.

Just after Katrina, Senators Landrieu and Vitter stood on the senate floor and proposed that we spend $250 Billion to rebuild New Orleans. Then Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert suggested that maybe it was not worth rebuilding New Orleans in its present location. It looks like he was ahead of the curve and was suggesting that we just scrap it and start anew without going through the process of letting contracts to the usual suspects only to see that after years of endless motion, uncontrolled spending, and no progress that we come to the realization that perhaps we just need to stop and start all over.

Why are the rebuilding efforts in New Orleans different than the rebuilding of Germany in the late 1940s? I think for starters, in Germany we had contractors more interested in building than stealing. We removed the incompetent bureaucracy that did nothing but impede progress and work, and we had teams of lawyers prosecuting, trying, and hanging the criminals who were formerly in charge.

Where is our common sense? Maybe we need to take a lesson from history.

Warren Caudle. Posted at 9:46 AM

[strat-0]

Does lightening strike twice?

[RocDoc]

oh, OUCH!

i fucking hope not...

[maarts]

FINALLY!

Van der Sloot to lead police to US teen's body
June 12, 2010 - 9:06AM



Joran van der Sloot and the victims who dies on the same day five years apart, Stephany Flores and Natalee Holloway.

A Dutchman charged with the murder of a Peruvian woman will tell police where to find the body of a US teenager who disappeared in Aruba in 2005, Peru's leading police investigator say.

General Cesar Guardia, who is leading the investigation into Joran Van der Sloot's role in the murder of a Peruvian woman, says the Dutch citizen has promised cooperation on the case of US teenager Natalee Holloway.

"Yes, Joran is ready to discuss this whenever officials from Aruba can come to Peru," Guardia told the US network ABC on Friday.

Van der Sloot, 22, was charged on Friday with first-degree murder in connection with the May 30 death of 21-year-old Stephany Flores.

Lima Judge Juan Buendia ordered he "be prosecuted as the perpetrator of the alleged crimes of first-degree murder and simple theft", court spokesman Luis Gallardo told AFP.

Earlier, prosecutor Ninfa Espinosa had urged Van der Sloot be detained, accusing him of having carried out the alleged crime "with the aggravating factors of ferocity and cruelty".

Van der Sloot, wearing a bullet-proof vest and surrounded by a massive police escort, was transferred on Thursday from police custody in Lima to judicial authorities to await trial.

A police source told media in Lima he confessed to killing Flores in his hotel room on May 30 in a fit of rage, saying she used his laptop without permission.

Van der Sloot has long been a suspect in the 2005 disappearance of 18-year-old Holloway, who disappeared after a night of drinking with Van der Sloot on the Caribbean island of Aruba.

That case created a media frenzy in the United States, the Caribbean and in Europe, but the fate of the teenager was never determined and her body was never found.

Van der Sloot, the son of a prominent judge, was twice arrested in connection with Holloway's disappearance and spent three months in jail but was never charged.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation came under fire this week after reports it missed an opportunity to arrest Van der Sloot last month.

It was investigating the Dutch citizen for criminal conduct after he offered information on Holloway's disappearance in exchange for about $US250,000 ($A295,000).

FBI agents met him and he reportedly accepted sting money, committed wire fraud and made incriminating statements about Holloway's death during the meeting, which was recorded.

But he was allowed to go free and was not arrested until June 3, when Chilean police detained him in connection with Flores's death.

[strat-0]

Finally...