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The FL Panhandle Has Been Forgotten


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55 minutes ago, Dave A said:

Years later the corrupt pols down there still have not fixed the levees like they promised and used the money for other things but they were there to help. I choose to not live like that.

It never changes, last week we had a bunch of rain, 4 of the water pumps surrounding New Orleans went out after losing power, it was just a few days of rain.

 

We moved an hour North over 20 years ago, for one to get above sea level and the land was 80% cheaper. Kind of an easy choice, 6 acres or a "lot" usually less than a 1/4 acre for 3-6 times as much. A little privacy is priceless to us, an x brother in law was in town and we sat out in the garden tiki bar and listened to music until late, no one to complain.

 

55 minutes ago, Dave A said:

It is amazing how few people take rudimentary precautions.

 

Very true, and as you said they were warned. Then at the last minute, the announced the Superdome would open the doors as a last resort only just as a shelter, well thousands showed up.

 

Some video was taken and many were complaining.....".they didn't even give us a hotdog or sandwich or water", it's the take care of me mentality.  It was not opened or prepared to feed people, just as a place to get above rising water and out of the weather but people always expect to be taken care of.

55 minutes ago, Dave A said:

  I watched as Katrina blew in and three days ahead of land fall the weather service was issuing dire warnings saying things like reduced to third world conditions for weeks and perhaps months.

 

This is true, and they were right. We left early the day of the storm to go our daughters in N Louisiana where she went to college and came back the next day. We expected the worse, we live 10 miles from I-59, there were about 5 power poles still up in that 10 miles. Many houses and barns were damaged, you had to drive over dead powerlines for the last few hours on the interstate and everywhere once you got off the interstate going off the road to avoid power poles and trees everywhere.

 

We pulled up to the house and just sat shocked it looked undamaged, two of the neighbor's barns were gone and many roofs. I walked around the house twice just surprised, went in and there was about a quart of water on the floor which blew in under the room somewhere but that was it, we were very lucky. Lucky not just for us but as were at our daughter's house we watched tv and it was clear my mother's house was under 10+ of water and our nieces and husband also ere flooded. They were with us watching and we had no idea if our house was still there but we were lucky, all of us.

My mother and sister who lived together plus niece and husband moved in with us, there was no choice and luckily we had added on months earlier and had enough bedrooms and another bathroom, just by luck. My mother and sister lived with us for about 5 years, dealing with insurance and buying land (a mile from here) and building a new house. our town was on the edge of the eye on the east side, average wind for most of the day was 140mph. You could tell where the eye was driving back home all day depending on which way all the trees were laying down.

 

 

A friend from Indy came down 2 years later and wanted to know if there was anyplace left to see any damage, he didn't know how funny that really was. We took him around the suburbs of New Orleans and the 9th ward where I lived as a kid and he was shocked.  That night we told him tomorrow we will go to the Mississippi coast where the storm actually hit and nothing but cement slabs were left, He was quite upset and said if it's worse than this I would rather not. I got used to seeing it and did not realize how upset he was, he said listening to the news you would think it's all over and back to normal, he was shocked. He is the person who took the pictures of my mothers house  I posted. 

 

I did not mean to go on this long, just wanted to give an idea of a little of it because if you have not seen anything like this personally you have no idea.

 

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15 minutes ago, dtel said:

if you have not seen anything like this personally you have no idea.

I remember the clean up after Rita.  The city went to out municipal airport and dug a trench as deep and wide as the track hoes could dig.  I'm guessing that it was close to 100 yards long.  For weeks, city trucks would dump trees into the ditch that had fallen during the storm.  They kept a constant fire going to get rid of all the trees as there was no place to put that much debris.  It was unbelievable.

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32 minutes ago, dtel said:

We moved an hour North over 20 years ago, for one to get above sea level and the land was 80% cheaper.

After we left the Gulf Shores condo the week Micheal hit it was sobering to look at contour lines and think how far we would have had to go inland to avoid some of those 27' Katrina storm surges. IF my son in laws beach front condo would even have survived his bottom floor would have been flooded to the very ceiling+. Dead man zone as far as I am concerned. People are really silly. Camille was not that long ago so that general region of the Gulf has a record of wanting to kill you and or destroy all you own. 

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2 hours ago, Jeff Matthews said:

This sounds fine in concept if you could get everyone to go along, but you can't.  What inevitably happens is the reverse of the freeloader problem.  Many people WILL NOT or CANNOT fix their stuff up.  They will leave it in shambles, while the rest of the neighborhood is trying to restore decency.  It is a bad deal overall.  It would be similar to leaving all the sick, contagious people without hospital/nursing home care so that they can wander the streets, beg for money, and infect everyone else.

 

There are millenia of experience behind our current policies. Those who fail to appreciate history are doomed to repeat it.

 

P.S.  Zen, this is how you discuss politics without having to resort to parties and candidates.

Wrong....the quote is: those who FAIL TO LEARN from history are doomed to repeat it, and this is what it REALLY teaches us...every tax dollar used by the government for ANY purpose IS ACTUALLY PAID BY THE PEOPLE either DIRECTLY or INDIRECTLY...and out of each dollar almost 90% goes to salaries and benefits of government employees, and provides nothing really needed WHEN the need arises.  I have seen three back to back hurricanes in Florida over a few week period...FEMA came in as the first one ended...took weeks to get contracts negotiated while workers waited on-location to start the clean-up, and when work actually began there were only two days completed before Hurricane #2 came through...and hit at a different location   everything had to shut down to ride out #2...the new contract was negotiated for a couple of weeks because the #2 invalidated what happened when #1 was negotiated (most recent crisis takes over for contracting purposes, building upon prior negotiated contract which is thereby invalidated)...then another week or so to re-do contract again.....then work can resume.....by that time workers' credit cards had been maxed-out  and  most of the workers who first arrived had spent themselves so far into the hole that they left without any payment for work already completed, simply because they could no longer  wait for it to start again!  The lowest tier on the contracting pyramid is the worker bees...and it is made up of the ones who get up to the assigned sites way before light and get back that day well after dark totally exhausted...eat a bologna sandwich  hit the sack and the same happens the next day...payment is weekly for loads completed but about half of the payment at that level is held back until FEMA agrees the entire contract has been full-filled...and it may be a year later before that money gets to the workers who actually earned it, PROVIDED it ever gets to them at all!!….four to six days pay for a month-plus on-site (s) kills any desire to remain!!  I WAS THERE!!!  I KNOW!!!  The FEMA people just drive around with clipboards and do everything they can to short the worker bees on getting paid what they are owed for work already completed!!  THAT IS HOW THE FEMA BUREACRATS DO THINGS ON SITE!!  You get told that the FEMA area sub-manager will be on-site to assign specific areas to be cleaned up at or before 0800 the next morning...at a pre-arranged meet-up location...and when they finally arrive, it is past 1300!!!  You have been waiting half a day or more, only to find that they changed the locations without telling any of the worker bees...so everybody loads back up and drives 20-30 miles just to get to the correct new location after dark...a wasted day...with ZERO compensation, and more expenses on a credit card!!  This happens over and over!!  REALLY!!!  There's your "millenia of experience for the current policies", for ya!! HAHAHAHAHAH!

 

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5 hours ago, Jeff Matthews said:

That's because you don't realize just how rich our nation is.  That kind of stuff is peanuts to our budget.

 

Then those promises of free health care, free college tuition, a national basic income and 22 trillion dollar debt are nothing to worry about. Not that I was worried about it anyway.

 

Keith 

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3 hours ago, T2K said:

 

Then those promises of free health care, free college tuition, a national basic income and 22 trillion dollar debt are nothing to worry about. Not that I was worried about it anyway.

 

Keith 

How about this for a guarantee:  You won't be paying it.  

 

I call that a bargain... the best I ever had!

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7 hours ago, HDBRbuilder said:

Wrong....the quote is: those who FAIL TO LEARN from history are doomed to repeat it, and this is what it REALLY teaches us...every tax dollar used by the government for ANY purpose IS ACTUALLY PAID BY THE PEOPLE either DIRECTLY or INDIRECTLY...and out of each dollar almost 90% goes to salaries and benefits of government employees, and provides nothing really needed WHEN the need arises.  I have seen three back to back hurricanes in Florida over a few week period...FEMA came in as the first one ended...took weeks to get contracts negotiated while workers waited on-location to start the clean-up, and when work actually began there were only two days completed before Hurricane #2 came through...and hit at a different location   everything had to shut down to ride out #2...the new contract was negotiated for a couple of weeks because the #2 invalidated what happened when #1 was negotiated (most recent crisis takes over for contracting purposes, building upon prior negotiated contract which is thereby invalidated)...then another week or so to re-do contract again.....then work can resume.....by that time workers' credit cards had been maxed-out  and  most of the workers who first arrived had spent themselves so far into the hole that they left without any payment for work already completed, simply because they could no longer  wait for it to start again!  The lowest tier on the contracting pyramid is the worker bees...and it is made up of the ones who get up to the assigned sites way before light and get back that day well after dark totally exhausted...eat a bologna sandwich  hit the sack and the same happens the next day...payment is weekly for loads completed but about half of the payment at that level is held back until FEMA agrees the entire contract has been full-filled...and it may be a year later before that money gets to the workers who actually earned it, PROVIDED it ever gets to them at all!!….four to six days pay for a month-plus on-site (s) kills any desire to remain!!  I WAS THERE!!!  I KNOW!!!  The FEMA people just drive around with clipboards and do everything they can to short the worker bees on getting paid what they are owed for work already completed!!  THAT IS HOW THE FEMA BUREACRATS DO THINGS ON SITE!!  You get told that the FEMA area sub-manager will be on-site to assign specific areas to be cleaned up at or before 0800 the next morning...at a pre-arranged meet-up location...and when they finally arrive, it is past 1300!!!  You have been waiting half a day or more, only to find that they changed the locations without telling any of the worker bees...so everybody loads back up and drives 20-30 miles just to get to the correct new location after dark...a wasted day...with ZERO compensation, and more expenses on a credit card!!  This happens over and over!!  REALLY!!!  There's your "millenia of experience for the current policies", for ya!! HAHAHAHAHAH!

 

What's your opinion of your socialist military?  Do our men and women in uniform suck eggs, too?

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34 minutes ago, Jeff Matthews said:

Well, you know how government is.  Wouldn't want to waste our tax dollars on a bunch of inept government workers.

My best advice to YOU, at this point is to STAND DOWN IMMEDIATELY...you are opening a can of worms that will cause you regrets!  SERIOSLY!  This is ME in the "funny red hat!"; and the pic below it is me to the rear of a potential enemy soldier  in East Berlin, who I, but for the will of God, might have had to kill the very next day!

 

NOT ONLY THAT, but PWK himself was a retired Army Reserve officer!

 

I retired from the military at age 60 with a total roll-up of 36 YEARS, One month, and 18 days!  AND there is a HUGE number of military retirees/vets on this forum!!  Fair warning!

 

You are picking the wrong place to start this kind of thing!

 

 

DEC 1975 Brit baloon jumper.JPG

me at East Berlin 1976.jpg

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11 minutes ago, HDBRbuilder said:

You are picking the wrong place to start this kind of thing! 

 

"... out of each dollar almost 90% goes to salaries and benefits of government employees, and provides nothing really needed WHEN the need arises." 

Just to be clear, I was only being sarcastic to show that your argument that government workers are a waste of tax dollars is wrong. 

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1 hour ago, Jeff Matthews said:

Just to be clear, I was only being sarcastic to show that your argument that government workers are a waste of tax dollars is wrong. 

FIRST OF ALL, you have twisted what I said into something completely different!  Read again what I said, and compare it to what you THINK I said!

 

LET ME BE PERFECTLY CLEAR:  Government bureaucracy spending and military spending are two VERY DIFFERENT THINGS!!!!!  Piss-poor analogy in order to ATTEMPT to prove me wrong!  Military operations planning takes into account Murphy's law at each part of the backwards planning process, to ensure successful operations....whereas typical bureaucratic operations planning is "FLYING BY THE SEAT OF ONE'S PANTS" at best, for the most part with tons of waste in time, money, and materiel involved! I've witnessed this for DECADESI  I was an infantry paratrooper...do YOU EVEN KNOW what that REALLY means???   I also spent an additional SIX years a DA civilian!  So I have an intimacy with how things really work on the military side AND on the bureaucratic side of the government house of cards!

 

 

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1 hour ago, Jeff Matthews said:

How about this for a guarantee:  You won't be paying it.  

 

I call that a bargain... the best I ever had!

OK who does pay for this in your strange little world.? You were giving Zen instructions on how to stir the pot without getting shut down but you two are cut from the same cloth. Hint here is the favored way out of control govt that pays for everything pays for it. They become Venezuela because you only get away with it for a while. It amazes me how willfully blind certain groups are about reality but then as HDBR says those who can't learn from history get to relearn why and how bad things happen. Some people think about history and study it to prepare for the future and some ignore it as an inconvenient thing that gets in the way of how they emotionally want things to be. Technology has changed but mans nature has remained the same throughout recorded history and when certain ideologies take control disaster always follows. See Venezuela for a perfect current events example.

 

 By the way HDBR thanks for your service.

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1 hour ago, Dave A said:

TOK who does pay for this in your strange little world.? You were giving Zen instructions on how to stir the pot without getting shut down but you two are cut from the same cloth. Hint here is the favored way out of control govt that pays for everything pays for it. They become Venezuela because you only get away with it for a while. It amazes me how willfully blind certain groups are about reality but then as HDBR says those who can't learn from history get to relearn why and how bad things happen. Some people think about history and study it to prepare for the future and some ignore it as an inconvenient thing that gets in the way of how they emotionally want things to be. Technology has changed but mans nature has remained the same throughout recorded history and when certain ideologies take control disaster always follows. See Venezuela for a perfect current events example.

 

 By the way HDBR thanks for your service.

My attitude is that those who want to rely on the government to cover the cost of their needs and wants are ESSENTIALLY lazy as hell, used to having things their own way, have had everything in life just handed to them and will never have a desire to work hard for ANYTHING!...they tend to make poor relationship partners, lousy parents and undesirable friends and neighbors!  My father used to say that laziness is not really a BAD thing, if you DIRECT that laziness in the direction of creating labor-saving devices!...instead of towards getting others to do the working that you don't desire to do in order to have your own wants and needs taken care of.  He also said that lazy people coming up with labor and time saving devices and technologies were essential to the success of industrialization!...and are often the ones the best at doing this, end up running businesses successfully, and still manage to work little... play more, and enjoy the fruits of the labor of others...provided that they have  good "people skills"...with never needing to rely on government handouts!!  the problem with wanting everything, but not wanting to work to get it can only be truly solved if the individual realizes that there is NO REASON for the government to be involved, and tries to keep that from happening!

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7 hours ago, Jeff Matthews said:

Not you.  The debt only grows.  Nobody is paying it.

OBVIOUSLY, you have NO IDEA about how the national debt thing even WORKS, or the repurcussions  of it on the taxpayers over time, to INCLUDE how close we can become to defaulting on it!  

 

So , again, LET ME ENLIGHTEN YOU!!

 

You are only MINUTELY PARTIALLY correct, UNFORTUNATELY THAT IS NOT NEAR ENOUGH understanding about the national debt!!  Out national debt has interest accruing on it every single day...and that interest HAS TO BE PAID!!  We are currently at high-risk of being able to continue even paying the INTEREST on the national DEBT, to begin with!  ADDING MORE TO THE NATIONAL DEBT will eventually cause the government to default on JUST the interest payments...and will RUIN our economy!

 

Expansion of Social benefits programs over the years, along with totally wasteful spending above the anticipated revenues yearly over the decades, with NO EFFECTIVE BALANCED BUDGET LAW really in place, have gotten us to being VERY CLOSE to government bankruptcy!  National bankruptcy avoidance is NOW the major issue!

 

The days of Congress filling out blank checks each year for expenditures that exceed anticipated annual revenue income SHOULD HAVE BEEN OVER DECADES AGO...but still continues!!  The  President has to decide whether to sign those checks, or not, but even if he decides NOT TO sign them, then Congress can force the signature by over-riding the Presidential veto....so blame for our national debt resides almost 100% with what Congress decides to do!!  And, in turn, since the voters are who put these lunatic SPEND-WHAT-YOU-DON'T-HAVE jerks INTO Congress, it is the voters who REALLY are responsible to atone for it!  You might just want to check on the candidates for congressional offices before voting, because a huge number of them have defaulted and declared personal bankruptcy one or more times in their past!  Get it??  

 

Anybody but the most ludicrous of morons should ALREADY KNOW THIS!...and those people who DON'T want to be perceived as "ludicrous morons" should ALREADY BE VERY CONCERNED about our CURRENT national debt, and how to PAY IT DOWN, instead of adding more to it!!!...especially if they tend to spout-off about things they JUST DON'T SEEM TO HAVE A CLUE about!

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3 hours ago, HDBRbuilder said:

bankruptcy one or more times in their past!  Get it??

Guess who else has but isn't in Congress?  Get it???  

3 hours ago, HDBRbuilder said:

spout-off about things they JUST DON'T SEEM TO HAVE A CLUE about!

Seems to be epidemic lately, I suggest checking out tweets.

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