Starbucks and water and gas! Oh my!

[Andrew Fergus]

Unfortunately these figures don't mean much without comparing them to the population figures from each country.

Consider the per capita usage of Nauru (look it up, you will be surprised) and those sorts of numbers can be meaningless. However, to put the absolute oil consumption figures into perspective, the US consumed more oil in 2004 than China, Japan, Russia, Germany and India combined - the next 5 highest consumers of oil.

What does this mean on a per capita basis?

Ths US has an estimated population of 296m versus the other countries I posted of 1.3b, 127m, 143m, 82m & 1.08b for a combined total of over 2,600 million people.

Andrew

{Just sticking to the facts, no opinions given nor politics mentioned}

 

[PaddyD]

"Coming to an end, I think"

Wrong tense, for some bits of the US.

 

[Smitty]

How about a tone break:

Jon, you OK?

Campbell's monthly College Fund went to the http://www.redcross.org/

Take care,

Smitty

(If you watching didn't know, jon lives in Alabama and probably had his hands full keeping his kin safe, much less posting).

I'll take up the Economic/Usage/Contribution issues later. :wink:

 

[just_jon]

Doing fine, Smitty, thanks.

We were without power a while, and water in the basement, but hey! so what.

Far enough north and, this time, far enough east.

The carnage along the Gulf is tsunami-like, covering a smaller area and fewer people but so very similar.

Cannot imagine having to live through anything like that.

Haven't been to N.O. in ~35 years, but I know a few of the places I've seen on tv and if they had not told me where they were, I'd have had no clue.

A woman who grew up across the street has been there for almost 20 years now; married an ex-Saints linebacker, both are lawyers. They rode it out in Baton Rouge. Their home is probably gone.

 

[shades]

I noted on another board that last night many of the people still in New Orleans aren't aware that NO is basically gone - no electicity, no phones, no means to know what everyone else around the world knows. They were hoping to return to their homes by Monday!

The magnitude of the problem will only increase as disease spreads, and water/food shortages get more critical. And it will be weeks before the water can be drained out, and then it isn't guaranteed that it will be inhabitable.

 

[Smitty]

Glad to hear your OK, Jon!

Rich, yeah, it's pretty sad. But the good side is all of the people outside of it who are pitching in to help. A local radio station here raised over $250,000 in a few hours yesterday afternoon. Hopefully that's just the beginning.

But I saw something on CNN.com this morning that's sure to spark more cries of racism: about 6 white guys with M-16's on an armored SWAT vehicle swarmed by pointing residents, who they were there to try to protect.

Rescuers have just as hard a time getting in to folks as those folks have getting out and to help.

Unfortunately, New Orleans is a write-off now, not that it wasn't headed in that direction anyway.

Smitty

 

[shades]

From Dr. Sanjay Gupta:

Charity is one of the largest hospitals in Louisiana. It is surrounded by six to eight feet of water. The only way you can get here is by boat or amphibious vehicle. We took a boat here yesterday.

I was told that someone was shooting at doctors and patients as they were trying to get out of this place to other hospitals where they can get better care. This is the most mind boggling thing I have heard.

Idiocy to the extreme!

 

[Smitty]

It's ridiculous.

What a **** shame that a few scumbags can FUBAR it for everyone else.

Smitty

 

[just_jon]

Personally, I'm ashamed of our government and my countrymen.

At least so far, the face we've put on this disaster is one of stupifying incompetence and sheer thugery.

Widescale pillage in the tsunami? Not that I saw or heard.

Disaster planners have known for years this was the outcome of a serious storm in that area. We did not listen, or did not care.

We seem to have prepared with an arrogance bordering on neglect and responded with anger, getting nowhere fast in the process.

Just pathetic.

 

[shades]

I think frustration and anger are inevitable in such circusmtances. But what could I do - in reality? I can't get in a car and drive to NO to help. I would be someone in the way. I can send money to Red Cross, which is very good (and our family is doing that). But that doesn't translate into water bottles today in NO, Biloxi, Gulfport, or anywhere else.

And I am not a government apologist, but sometimes even with the best of planning, some things cannot be done immediately. Reminds me of a VP recently who wanted something done. I told him that it couldn't be done in the time period set. Even if we had all the programmers/database experts in the world available, it wouldn't change the time needed for the specific task. Should the Corps of Engineers been better prepared? Sure. Could some things have been down differently? Yep. But once the disaster hits, there is another reality that intrudes - and it isn't a "government problem" it has to do with the physical realities of distance, capabilities, etc. Yes, buses are needed. But to get buses there requires support, and even if they could get through, who would insure that they could get gas once they made it through? And many of the people need water worse than getting out of the immediate circumstances.

So, I have heard comments like "Well, we can airlift water/food to Iraq but we can't do it here for our own people!" The reality is that the mechanism to supply water/food to Iraq took a long time to establish it. It didn't happen in a week, and the amount of water/food aid given in Iraq is insignificant compared to what is needed in this disaster. And it isn't just NO that needs the immediate help. There are several towns of 5,000-10,000 people who have no town, no access to any kind of relief, no access to major highways. So they tend to be forgotten along with Gulport, Biloxi, etc. because of the attention on NO.

And the death toll continues, which deepens the sadness of the disaster. There are no easy answers, and that is frustrating...