For people who wanted me banned ....

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History Channel. Those figures are based on evidence collected by historians from the surviving documents of the era and are, at best, "guess-timates". Loyalties changed according to which side held a particular territory. If you were a farmer or local merchant and wanted to keep your property (or just stay alive), you signed an oath to King George or the Continental Congress or both if necessary.

Shockingly unprepared

The countless questions about the unfolding catastrophe in the Gulf states are all variations on a simple theme: This disaster was all but scripted; why wasn't the response?

News reports from the region have shown the situation getting worse, not better.

This inability to regain control, or at least to rally against the disaster, has shocked the country's sense of itself. Predictably, recriminations mounted Thursday, even as federal officials delivered more aid. State and local officials in Louisiana were particularly critical of the response from Washington, complaining that the feds were slow to provide the help needed to feed and evacuate survivors and halt criminals.

Defenders of the Bush administration said it was doing everything it could. They're facing problems that nobody could foresee: breaking of the levees and the whole dome thing over in New Orleans coming apart, former President George H.W. Bush said Thursday on CNN. People couldn't foresee that.

In fact, emergency planners have been thinking about a catastrophic levee breach for years. Many saw it as an inevitable consequence of a high-powered hurricane such as Katrina hitting the city. And in early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said that one of the three most likely disasters to strike the U.S. was a catastrophic flood triggered by a hurricane hitting New Orleans. (The other two: a terrorist attack on New York and a major earthquake in San Francisco.)

It's certainly true that by the time forecasters knew that Katrina was a threat, it was too late to shore up the levees. And by the time they knew Katrina was going to come ashore near New Orleans, there was not enough time to evacuate the city completely.

Still, much of what happened this week in New Orleans had been foreseen by federal and state emergency planners, as the city's newspaper, the Times-Picayune, laid out extensively three years ago. Survivors will end up trapped on roofs, in buildings or on high ground surrounded by water, with no means of escape and little food or fresh water, perhaps for several days, one story predicted with eerie accuracy.

That's why the complaints from Louisiana about the official response are so troubling. Why did it take so long to evacuate the poor, the elderly and the tourists unlucky enough to be caught with no way out of town? Where was the food and water? Why were the police left to choose between rescuing people from the floods and saving them from predators?

Critics of the administration, including former FEMA officials, say Washington's focus since late 2001 on potential terrorist targets has come at the expense of its ability to respond to natural disasters in other parts of the country. FEMA no longer helps prepare communities for disasters � it just responds to them. Other critics have pointed out that the administration diverted money from a levee project in New Orleans to fund priorities within the Department of Homeland Security.

One lesson of Hurricane Katrina, though, is that preparedness and response go hand in hand, whether the disaster is natural or man-made. Washington's response to Katrina is likely to gear up notably in the days to come, but the question of why it took so long will linger longer than the floodwaters

GOOD FOR THEM!!!! LOL. We need to do the same thing. I can think of 2 right off the top of my head. How about Hannity and O'Really?

We have 50 tomato plants in containers, 25 pepper plants (green, hot, hotter, and hotter then he!!), 10 potato plant containers (x6 cuttings in each), and 10 containers of cukes. The only thing we planted in the ground was beans, onions, and radishes. All doing fantastic. Already have a hot pepper and some tomatoes and this weather sucks this year, only 60 damp, dreary, rainy all week...again. Surprised the plants are doing so well.

healthcare for myself. I want free or more affordable cost healthcare for American children. My children are already covered. My husband has worked for the same company for over 12 years, and he has decent insurance. You are impossible to argue with because you refuse to admit that we can afford $333 MILLION PER DAY FOR A WAR IN IRAQ, AND WE CAN AFFORD $19 MILLION PER DAY FOR CHILDREN'S HEALTH CARE. How are your taxes going to be raised to 70% of your income for the health care? Have they been raised that high for the war? NO, so your argument is not valid.

they would have already done it when the economic crisis hit. We already owe them tons of money. I think they would make out better collecting interest off us than spending their resources trying to "control" us, which would eventually lead to yet another war. What I think should be in the bill is help for those who need it immediately (the ones who have already lost jobs and extending state funds to make budgets) and infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure, green job advancement. This can't be outsourced, it generates revenue, it provides jobs, and its needed. The more people we put back to work or keep at work, the better chance we have of paying these bills off through taxable income.

I know it looks like an enormous amount of money to be going into debt for (and it is), but at this point I don't think we have any choice. If you want to talk national security, a depression would leave us much more vulnerable than being in debt. Being vulnerable is not an option at this point.

You have outlined and described in perfect detail the problem with why your arguments can never be recognized as anything but dividing. Gt, believe me, this is not all about you, which it always seems to end up being about in your posts. The fact that you refuse, not fail, but refuse to accept anything, any explanation, any single example of the image you project as well as your close-minedness, is illustrated in every post that you make.

read any cases he cited myself because this is a very gray area and I would like a better understanding of the law.

I saw her on an interview the other night. The host did not tear her to shreds like Gibson and Couric did. He asked sensible questions and she gave sensible answers. Gibson and Couric set her up big time to make a fool out of her and don'cha know they're for the O? They were downright spiteful.

Katie did it to up her ratings since she's not doing so great at CBS. Gibson did it because he was told to do it. (NBC=MSNBC)

I decided then that I would not watch either of those 2 so-called reported again. To each his own and this is MY opinion.