Fake-Fat Sunny

I disagree to the extent that while it will be extremely helpful for JP to recognize various defenses he has never seen before since he has limited pro experience. the key strikes me not has him doing something positive based on his reads but instead the still difficult but more simple task of him not doing anything negative. The key for the Bills this year is going to be the adjustment after we see what the opposing gameplan is. The coaches can do this and quite frankly will do this on the fly with their playcalls during the game and in the lockerroom with second half adjustments. JP has a critical role in this obviously, but his primary role will be not to make early mistakes which put us in a hole we have to climb out of. A fast start for the Bills O would be great in each game, but this strikes me as gravy rather than bread and it will not be worth taking any/many risks to try to get an advantage. The keys for the Bills in '05 are the following it strikes me: 1. Always win the field position battle with good ST work and often (as we did last year) have the ST give us a huge leg up with a return for a TD, a punt block, or great coverage. 2. Have the D gets turnovers which set the field position game in place or give us easy scores with a Spikes INT or some such. 3. JP does not make many critical errors (he will make a few errors as he learns how to become a vet) but if they are not killers for us which force the D and the ST to score or repetitively stop the opponent with bad field position for us, it wi;l; be OK. Perhaps we should reverse numbers 1 and 2 but item 3is way down on the priority list of still necessary and essential things to do.

Nope, same situation which is a health and skill question mark. Specifically: Starter: Campbell- Showed some real improvement last year over the 7th round drad=ft pick value the Bills traded to get him unitl an ACL tear put him on IR. The rap on Campbell which made the Browns willing to part with him pretty cheaply was that he was a good (but not great) blocker and not much of a receiver at all. However, for the Bills he turned into a reliable (but not great) pass-catcher with Bledsoe. However he really took a step up in receiving last year finishing with 5 and catching 3 in one game before the injury struck him down. He remained a solid blocker with TH putting up good yards and then WM running well behind. Despite putting up some good numbers he is a health question mark. He has looked good so far, but other players have taken as much as a year and a half after an ACL tear to get back to their past performance. Campbell has just hit the 30 year point and will be doing extraordinarily well to merely recover to his past level not to mention him continuing to develop to become the TE we want and need. Health Quotient: Hopeful but definitely on the watch list. Everett- IR and gone for this speedy receiving threat who if he was here would make the Bills a better O simply through the threat he provided while DCs figured out how to deal with Evans, Moulds and Parrish speed. Health Quotient: Out Euhus- Showed some promise last year but again an ACL tear put this TE on IR. He seemed more likely to come back than Campbell as initially it was unclear whether this injury would even require surgery and he is a young guy. However, in addition to the ACL recovery issues he missed the last two pre-season games with a should ouchee. If he was held out as a precaution and he is fine then OK. If he misses some real gametime with an injury to a different part of his body he is one hurt away from being reasonably declare injury prone. Health Quotient: Watch intently. Neufeld- Healthy but seems to be a better H-Back and ST guy than position player at TE. There are simply quality questions here if the Bills need to rely on him at TE. Health Quotient: Good Peters- The Buffalo News says in a pinch he can play TE and he lined up there during the Exhibition season after Euhus went down. The commitment to him seems to be at LT where he is on the depth chart ahead of the journeyman but far more experience Jerman. However, the health issues for out top 3 TE starters may create that pinch the BN was talking about. Health Quotient: Good

I'm simply surprised that some insist on blaming only one party when there are so many different reasons folks were there and so many different factors that went intocreating this situation. It strikes me that even though one party may be primarily to blame that does not release all other parties from some significant blame they may have. The "blame" issue striles me as important at all in terms of some moral or ideological sense of determining who is at fault (the god of your choice will figure that out at the pearly gates) but it is going to be essential in changing the way things are done so this does not happen the same way again.

I think Ben Stein makes the same mistake that most folks who depend on the Hollywood-NY entertainment axis for their living make in that he gives the media way too much credit for driving folks reactions than it deserves. Partioularly in today\s technological age with computers, cellphones, 24/7 cable, bloggers etc there is simply too much info for there to be one MEDIA which determines the message and gets it out and has the public dance to that tune, Definitely there are common themes which carry through media reports, but this commonality is determine by the common interest the professional media shares in wanting to make as much money as the can, but the idea that there is some common ideological presentation is actually stupid if he believe in it. The images are important, but the idea that if the press chose to be more positive about the images of a dead body lying in a wheelchair next to the convention center (or chose not to broadcast it on the 24/7 networks and some blogger got a hold of a photo of it and it became an even bigger story because they sat on this image). The bottomline is that this would not have been handled as such a horrible story if: 1. There had not been a deicison to settle in NO way back when and build a city which as it developed was surrouned on three sides by water and was below the water levels of the Lake and the Ocean. 2. Through government at levels from municipal to federal a series of decisions were made which destroyed the natural ability of the MS Rr. to deposit silt and keep up the wetlands and marshlands which have disappeared and allow the storm surge of a cat 4 Hurricane to hit much harder and cause more damage. 3. Through government at various levels to allow a levee system to be built to protect this city from floding which clearly could not withstand a storm hit which was going to occur sooner or later. 4. Local governments delayed in issuing the mandatory evacuation order since they appeared to fear issuing this costly order when the storm might turn making it a total waste of money. Instead, the locals resisted federal pressure to do this until it came so late that only those with the cash and assets could respond (70% of the population in question or so). The poorest, most criminal, most unlucky or stupidest folks were those who were left. 5. A host of other factors and issues. Nen Stein or the media could dress this story up anyway they want. The reality of dozens, hundreds and probably of thousands of people being dead is why this story is what it is.

I think manu Bills fans follow the ethic laid out repetively by the Fox News folks and take a fair and balanced appraisal of TD (or Teflon Tom as you call him). In this fair and balanced view Ws are the bottomline for the serious football fan, but folks recognize that for most of even the folks who care a lot about the NFL, the bottom line is to party hard and root for your team win or lose. Ws are key because the longer you play the more tailgates and parties in living rooms you get, but the bottomline is that the product needs to be entertaining In both of these realities the rule is what have you done for me lately and while missing the playoffs yet again last year was inadequate TD's team put up a winning record last year and even you who profess that Ws are the measure should recognize and axknowledge this or you obviously have some other agenda which is quite obvious but you fail to mention. In the big fair and balanced picture it is critical that TD has a lousy record in his regime, but the reality is simply that TDs biggest error was hiring the wrong guy as HC the first time and actually letting this meauron make his own bed with his mistakes and TD not insisting on his views which apparently was advocating hiring of TC to replace the bad choice of Sheppard and instead letting GW make our bad badly by hiring Kevin Killdrive. TD has failed gloriously in hiring GW (understandable but not condonable after his last HC hire ran him out of town) and he also did OK with the wash of signing Bledsoe to replace RJ (would you advocate he should have gone with Chandler or Blake or one of the available QBs?) who did great in 92 but sucked in 03. The mistake was in resigning him for 04 but fortunately TD and MM seeed to have recitified this by jettisoning Bledsoe (do you advocate we should have kept him(. At any rate a fair and balanced view of TD has to judge him as not being great but not being bad either. In fact, if one wants to pay even more attention to reality, the bottomline for Ralph (which is a different than any fan) is that he has overseen a massive increase in the value of the franchise under his reign and he has made a number of moves to control costs and improve the business that even if he does not produce the Ws will likely keep him as GM for a long long time.

With BB being the same guy how does him accepting the HC offer from the NYJ (I think it was them) and then turning tale and running out on his word and taking the NE job instead fit in. Before we do much anointing of BB as a football god, let's not revise history to forget some very sorry team performances under him and some questionable personal choices. He is a great HC and clearly one of the best football minds to don a headset. However, even after winning multiple SBs with the same team he needs to show me more before I think he can reasonably be called even one of the greatest minds ever rather than giving him a lot of credit for being part of (and definitely the leader of) one of the great football teams of all time. Folks will be working to repeat the great job he has done getting his kind of player, great on field moves like taking a safety against the Fins to allow the D to 3 and out them so that NE could score the winning TD, or repeat the great job he did unifying the Pats by totally blowing his attempt to squeeze a few bucks out of Milloy. Thankfully for NE, the team turned their anger at BB for screwing up this situation into focus for the TEAM as they responded to a number of critical injuries to renew themselves after a 0-31 pasting by the Bills.

NO government and individuals clearly bear a lot or the lead blame for this. However, the idea that this releases others from their obligations to do the job they voluntarily took is wrong. NO and its stakeholders get the blame, but also the LA Giovernor and various state parties and the Prez and various federal parties deserve and get a substantial share of the blame for not doing the job well (or at all in some cases) they pledged to do.

who were complaining that countries we had helped were offering us no assistance and in particular whining about Islamic countries not offering assistance. In light of 60 countries (the last count of a # which can grow if necessary as even Kofi Annan offered to be a liason) offering aid (and some of the offers being quite substantial like the $100 million offered by Qatar or quite practical like Syria's offer of heliocopters) it is nice to see humans reaching out to their fellow humans with ideology appropriately pushed to the side. I guess folks who seem to get their joy in life from complaining that everyone hates them will find some other spin on this to claim foul, pump up their own egos, or claim others are bad. However, it is in times of tragedy like this or the Tsunami that I find some hope for those of us on this planet.

You are correct that Wire has not shown the pass coverage skills to be a starter at safety but back-ups virtually by definition are guys not good enough to start. With the constraints of the salary cap and the need for immediate ST contribution from back-ups, getting a player like McGee who was a struggling back-up last year at CB and a Pro Bowl contributor on KR is certainly doable but tends to be the exception rather than the rule. A player like Wire is oddly also the exception in a good way since many back-ups are simply inadequate players when called upon to start and Wire at least in an inadequate player to start with some NFL starter experience. As far as ST, he says he is a different better player now that he has some expeience in the NFL and actually his ST performance leading the team in ST tackles against the Bears is an indicator this may be true. He is not good enough to start at safety at all but easily belongs on this roster as a back-up who would be an inadequate starter.

Reed is on the roster because he is the fourth best WR on this team and unfortunately if one watches the game of football one has to admit this. #1 WR- Moulds does not seem to be developing the chemistry with JP Evans is, but he still is likely the best athlete on this team who can be productive both doing a fly route as his speed is pretty good and his athleticism makes up for his speed not being world class. Better yet, he does not fear catching in traffic or going over the middle. #2- Evans is heir apparent to Moulds and already has world class speed and runs good routes as seen in his team leading TD #s last year. A season ending injury and his great speed makes coaches leery of sending him into traffic but if he develops this part of his game he will be one the best in the league. #3- Parrish established himself as the #3 due to his world class speed and an early showing of fearlessness. He needs to prove his stuff in real games before he is truly thought of as good, but his great speed causes such difficulties for a DC who already must cover Evans and Moulds. If the D personel does not measure up to them with a blanket cover guy for Moulds and a speed guy for Evans they will be forced to play zone as Parrish will demand another speed guy whether he catches it or not. #4- Reed's failings are real and explain completely why he never stepped up to be the #2 we wanted when Price left and his confidence was so rattled by his droppsies he even became questionable as a #3. However, he easily is the next best WR on this team and should be able to handle the #4 job as he: A. Has improved on the blatant droppsies he had as a sophmore. He isn't adequate enough to even be a consistent #3 but that is not the job we have for him as we are looking for a #4. Does anyone one want to seriously say that his droppsies were as bad as they were when he was our #2? He has not solved the problem but he has improved enough to command the greatly diminished role of a #4. B. On the plus side, he has never been afraid to sacrifice his body as he is a former RB who made a living over the middle back before the droppsies. This is reflected in him being an aggressive and according to the experts effective blocker as a WR. As we plan to run the ball on first down and then run it again this should not be ignored by anyone doing a serious assessment. C. He is a vet who has worked in our O several years and runs the routes where he supposed to run them. Particularly since we hope to work against a lot of zones forced on opponents by the difficulty of covering both Moulds and Evans (and also Parrish when he gets back) the ability to run routes exactly as they are planned to be run is key. Running precise routes has never been his problem, dropping the ball after Bledsoe threw to the open Reed has been the problem. D. Reed does have a clear role on the ST as the short kickoff guy or guy standing beside Mcgee giving him a critical block on his scampers. he also is a member of the hands-team covering onside kicks who again is unafraid to mix it up in the fight for the ball. #5- Aiken is the the next receiver who never supplanted Reed as a go-to guy on longer receptions or with his route running. He plays a contributing role on this team as an ST coverage guy, but their simply are no objective signs that he is better than Reed as a blocker, route runner or in terms of producing big plays. #6- Fast Freddy apparently impressed enough as a playmaker to make this team where he is the back-up PR guy who easily could be pressed into service if do not want to go with Clements as the PR guy (he did lay it on the carpet a few times and if he gets nicked at all but can play some PR will be the first thing to do in his responsibilities). He is a mercuric player though and running disciplined routes is not his specialty. He is correctly behind Reed on the depth chart at WR. #7 Wilson I think is a big surprise to folks as nobody saw us keeping 7 WRs and those who relexively did not advocate cutting Reed had him destined for the PS at best. Perhaps he showed something to the coaches where he could relatively emerge as the #3 because of production. but he is an unknown and the idea of cutting Reed to keep him is no reality. Reed likely had this job nailed at the start of camp and him leading the team in receptions in the last exhibition game merely iced his being a keeper. The injury to Parrish will require him to produce like a #3 and one hopes that his reaction is based on him having done this job well before rather than the same lack of confidence which saw him fail to take the #2 job infects his ability to be #3 if only temporarily. Why is he on the roster? Because flat out until Parrish comes back from injury and proves he can actually do it on the field he is clearly the 4th best WR on the team, If you disagree I'd love to see the arguments laid out why you think Aiken is good enough for the job and not merely the whining about Reed's failure. I agree totally that Reed failed utterly when we pegged hin for the #2 WR job and that the droppsies which were a big part of this even raised the question whether he should be counted upon as pur consistent #3 WR. However, in reality the question is whether he is capable of being our #4. The answer is almost certainly yes and in any case there is a better case to be made for him as #4 than the other WRs.

I haven't figured out what our depth chart should really be set-up but one thing I am pretty sure of is that the traditional 4-3 (and even more so the 3-4) roles do not apply. The keeping only 3 DEs is not exotic for us at all as once Ritzmann was IR'ed early last season we went with 3 DEs and no back-up for Schobel on the depth chart. In the Bills scheme, the position traditionally labled RDE is called upon to do some pretty serious pass coverage in addition to the traditional blitz and run stopping role. Schobel has shown great athleticism to make the Bills comfortable with him in all three roles (strenght at the POA and run stopping are the weakest parts of his game. Denney has proved to be far more athletic than one would expect a big guy to be or that he showed as a rookie where problems with how he bent his knees and used his body when locked up by a blocker initially made him unusable as a player since he had such poor leverage he was easily thrown aside until he learned how to handle his body, The LDE role is less for pass coverage and more for the traditional pass rush and Kelsay is beginning to excel in this role. However, this role is backed or augmented by our SOLB lining up outside of the LDE. Posey does this a lot though he is as likely to drop back in pass coverage and even when he stays in it is for run stopping primarily rather than blitzing. Posey's role is often back-up by Denney and Haggan has played this role in pre-season a lot as well, Figuring this out means dropping the traditional depth chart notions.

No I doubt it as I said up above I think the Bills D does not follow the traditional 4-3 format even though the depth chart looks like it does. Why tip off opponents in knowing how to analyze and beat your D by advertising its non-traditional format.

Nope, not really. It's what I've been saying for quite awhile that I am still trying to figure out the Bills D scheme. I'm not sure what you should name the positions (I like CG Nittan's naming the role played by Posey and backed-up by Denney "The Keeper"). But though I'm not sure what shorthand applies to the positions, I do know that the standard 4-3 alignment which calls for there to be 4 DEs simply does not apply to our depth chart. The Bills have four guys Posey, Denney, Schobel and Haggan who can play the Keeper and RDE role and that is plenty,

Agreed, i think the religious community has done a lot of great work in terms of disaster relief and if someone wants to give an evangelical group like Salavation Army or inquiring whether your own hurch or religious institution has a program is a good way to go.

Sure, no prob. There are multiple individual studies which can be foun but the easiest thing to do is to sort through the collections. As many folks in the United States fear to talk about and research these issues vecause of the blot of racism slavery placed in our history, a quick internet search revealed two collections on these issues housed in foreign universities. However, since the universities are in the countries of two of our best friends and allies, the UK and Canada they should not be disregarded simply because they are not American. The University of Leeds near Yorkshire in the UK has a Center looking at these issues and providing access to multiple studies which are peer reviewed and can be replicated at > http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cers/ < In addition the University of Toronto also maintains a collection at a Center at this school which can be accessed at > http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/ciars/ < I have a "heard it on the news" knowledge of the very interesting studies which showed doctors videotapes of actors citing a variety of symptoms and procvided test results for each person and set-up the sample so that the variation was such that white actors, black actors and/or female actors presented symptoms and test numbers so that the variation was the race and gender of the patients and the doctors who agreed to do the research did not know the subject of the test. The results were clear in that the doctors (whether they were white or people of color tended to order up the more expensive caddilac of tests for the white men in significantly greater numbers that they would order up the best tests for women or people of color that had the same symptoms or complaints. The study theorized that as people of color docs showed the same bias as white docs that the reason was not racism per se but that the society simply tended to value white men more than women or people of color. I think this study was reported in the JAMA, the Joirnal of the American Medical Association though a key word search using words like medicine and racism together will probably be most fruitful. Personally, i am most familiar with the studies which looked at a racial or economic bias in terms of pollution or clean-up. The work I have been involved with was done by the National Wildlife Federation which is the largest membership conservation organization in the world and no one would mistake these hunter members who have been strident opponents of gun control whose membership overlaps strongly with the National Rifle Association as being a lefto group (they work to preserve animal habitat so they can shoot animals. NWF has a Corporate Conservation Council which is how they interact with the Fortune 500 companies and some of the biggest polluting comapanies in the world like Dow, DuPont, etc. In the early 90s in the face of accusations from environmental justice activists that the almost completely white national environmental community did not represent or interact with the people of color communities most impacted by pollution, CCC commissioned a study collecting reports that looked at the disproportionate distribution of pollution. They hired a Phd economist named Dr. Ben Goldman who had done some groundbreaking EJ work for the United Church of Christ on a report called Toxic Wastes and Race which found a racial disparity in the siting of hazadous waste sites when one looked for correlations between the location of waste sites which are categorized by zip code and census data which has race and economic data also collected by zip code. The CCC study collected the dats from roughly 83 national or large regional studies looking at a broad range of pollutants from air pollutants to pesticides to what have you. The results were clear as all the studies except for one (that one commissioned and paid for by Waste Management Inc the larget waste handler in the world) found a disparity either based on race or income. Most surprisingly to me, race was actually a better indicator than income that a person would live in the same zipcode as a harzardous waste site with about 88% of the studies finding a racial disparity and 75% finding an income dispartiy. This coooberated findings done in smaller studdies like those of Dr. Robert Bullard looking at Houston that even more wealthy blacks were more likely to live in the same zipcodes as harardous waste sites than the average American citizen. Believe me, there were attempts to try to find rationales why this data did not lead to a race based conclusion claiming that income or other factors were the reason. However, as exhaustively as one wants to pour through this data, the race issue is far more often a more likely correlation than income or other data. Correlation is not the same as causation and like most stats this proves nothing conclusively. However, these stats do indicate a lot and I think it changed the burden of proof to one where one needed to demonstrate that race could be ignored rather than one had to prove that race was a relevant factor. I think this actually showed a lot about this data issue, because once folks began to accept that there was a racial reality to how wastes were distributed then we did not waste time on the race issue but then could turn to solving the problem. I think this issue of environmental racism is particularly important for our society. Most other accusations of racism happen on issues which are in essence a zero-sum game. When racism was undercut as a method for determining college or med school entry it not only meant that more people of color got in if the only criteria for selection was merit (even without affirmative action which is a ggod way to reverse past discrimination OR without quotas which I think is a bad way to reverse past discrimination, but it also meant that fewer whites got in and they objected. Environmental justice however is not a zero-sum game and since once pollution enters the environment and can and eventrually does go everywhere, reversing the disproportionate impacts of pollution creation actually has the potential for beneffiting the entire community white, black or other. Unfortunately the study, Not Just Posperity is not on the web but if one calls the National Wildlife Federation HQ in DC perhaps you can get it. At any rate, if you are interested in these issues I suggest looking at the collected studies at the above sites or doing a simple google search looking for |racos, studies" and you can find this data.

I think you are reading too much into the quote. It is getting to be the preferred method arguing points to try to over intepret opposing views into the most extreme version of waht might have been said and then to argue that an opposing view is outlandish but I think one is more likely to be accurate interpreting JP's comments in a more moderate light. I don't think JP was saying that because things do not go according to plans that then one should throw our whole gameplan out the window and only improvise each and every play. That would be stupid and I do not think it is what he meant from what he said. JP I think was merely saying that you are facing other professional athletes who have their own plans and also make some great plays. I have no problem whatsoever with him improvising but improvising on an episodic basis and within out gameplan. We have yet to even see a real gameplan so I do not think it is worth getting one's panties all up in a wad over a rash interpretation over something he said. As the season develops if he shows a tendency to go off plan and improvise. If he improvises unsuccessfully and particularly if the gameplan is working out as well as it worked out during the winning streak last year then one should be worried or even panic. Yet mere concern over his poor performances so far (balanced with happiness over some great escapability he has shown and no INTs before last night) would seem to be warranted here rather than worry and not panic.

Thank you Clumoy for raising these issues the way you did and I say more power to you. The fact that some folks seem to want to separate the two issues of the racial divide in our society and the economic divide in our society as though there was no relationship at all between these two things merely shows that this issue really needs some discussion for folks to get some reality about it or at least see the realiy that other folks feel they see. I'm also fully in favor of moving all post about the Gulf Coast to the PPP board to leave TSW being about football. I am quite thankful to SDS and the moderators for allowing this conversation to happen here because this disaster is so huge. In fact I would be pleased to see the Gulf Coat post stay here over the weekend, but I certainly advocate moving them ALL to PPP by Monday at the latest and to leave here at TSW a pinned post urging folks to link and give to the Red Cross. However, i think you were right on target with your posts and observations and keep 'em coming until all Gulf Coast posts are moved to PPP.

I agree that ALL NO and GulfCoast post should be sent to the PPP board. I say this as one who just finished a too long piece I just wrote about who I think is at fault for the Gulf Coast debacle (btw 1. The victims have some responsibiltity because in the end there is personal responsibility, however, this does not release elected officials from their responsibilites particularly for the sick, elderly and kids; 2. The Mayor has some responsibility as he is the frontline and the stupid zoning and development decisions which eliminated acres of weland buffers for development and concentrated the poorest blackest folks in a low-lying area of the City deserve some blame, 3. The Governor of the state bollixed things so badly she begged for federal troops with shoot-to-kill orders to come in and deal with these American citizns because other American citizens had gotten out of controlin a situation made worse by government zoning decisions and not addressed adequately by government clean-up efforts, 4. The Prez- as Harry Truman said the buck stops in the Oval Office and it taking 4-5 days for a convoy to finally enter the City and to see the head of FEMA being informed by the newsmedia that several thousand folks had concentrated at the Convention Center after being told to go there but not only were no emergeny supplies there but a dead body of an elderly woman was lying there being eaten by rats represented a colossal failure from folks who are on record saying they had this difficult situation well in hand). I would be pleased to see TSW go back to football with ALL NO posts moved to PPP. with the following provisos: 1. A link to the American Red cross should be pinned up and all TSW folks encouraged to support doing something. 2. I think with entry of a truck convoy into NO after 4-5 days we have finally turned a corner, but I am thankful to SDS and the moderators for allowing some conversation about the biggest natural (and man-made when one considers the flooding the hurricane caused as the man-made levee broke) disaster to evey hit Amerca. The rules deserved to be broken for this. Though we have seemingly turned a corner it ain't over yet though for sure. I think themoderators and SDS should declare this discussion moved on Monday or so and then all the NO stuff should be moved to PPP.

The moderators SHOULD move this AND ALL OTHER New Orleans Posts to the PPP if they are weighing down the football discussion. However, thank you to SDS and the moderators for deciding to allow several posts on this catastrophe to remain on TSW as if there is an exception to the general practice this tragedy would seem to be one. In terms of my trivial contributions, the one that I think is most worthwhile is a separate post somewhere here about how one can donate or volunteer to the Katrina effort with links to the Red Cross. I suggest that the moderators may want to pin this post or simply the Red Cross URL up for folks to connect to if they want to donate online or connect some other way. The Internet is actually of value because it is not the real world at all. I hope folks wiill do some real world things by supporting and hooking up with the Red Cross, but as problems still exist there which need support big time, it is here in the Internet world that attention can turn to the next important step of figuring out who screwed up and what to change so the next cat 5 Hurricane hit or other natural disaster does not trigger the human disaster of the levee breaking and the flooding causing so much death and the breakdown of civil society. Actually I think it is pretty clear who screwed up and though accountability does not seem to be in these days after the mistakes in Iraq, I hope some head roll as part of making it clear that those who accept the responsibility of being elected have to at least do the best they can and actually get some things right. Those to blame strike me as: 1. NO Folk- This does not mean that those who are dead have only themselves to blame, but these events are a vicious reminder that in the end folks have to take care of themselves and their loved ones. This view DOES NOT release government from its responsibility to care for the sick, the elderly, the poor who were victims, folks who were tourists who had bad luck with canceled flights, and the 50% of NO children who live below the poverty line and are victims of decisions made by adults. However, personal responsibility needs to be a real thing and the first line of defense when folks cannot help themselves is from family and friends to give help. 2. The Mayor- The local buck stops with him as taking on the responsibility of running a sane local zoning and development plan whih prevents building on flood plains and loss of wetlands as marshes actually do lessen the damage of hrurricanes and the stress placed on levees. A similar sized hurricane Betsy hit the area 20 or so years ago and one of the reasons apparently it was far less fatal as due to bad development strategy which moved folks and their jobs closer to harms way and removed wetlands which were inadequate to stop this major storm but its loss made things worse. The Mayor also took the responsibility to oversee the best workable evacuation and disaster plan and many of the sick and elderly who should have been moved immediately when the mandatory evacuation was ordered were simply not moved (and a few of their more able-bodied relatives stuck with them as well). I can see why the Mayor is whining now and the fact that he is has effectively got the state and feds to use their resources to stop people from dying. However, people are dying because he screwed up and I hope he pays for this somehow. It also appears to be a travesty that he allowed for a development system which in essence stored the poorest, least educated, and also the parents of the 50% of NO chuildren who live below the poverty line in the most flooded low lands of town as cheap workers for the tourist industry. The Mayor did not meet the obligations he voluntarily took on. The personal responsibility missing in Item #1 does not release the Mayor from his obligations. 3. The Governor- One of the stupidest comments from an elected official in the last few days was the plaintive bleatings of the Governor demanding someone else to send locked and loaded troops to LA prepared to shoot-to-kill. The fact civil society had broken down to this level is just a sign of how badly the politicians had done in meeting their obligations to society. However, the implications of the government shooting to kill American citizens is something all of us should be worried about. Police force is always a necessary thing in a civil society and I do not object to it being necessary for peace officers to have the option of the use of lethal force. However, it is only a sign of how badly out of control this situation became under our elected officials that the method of maintaining order ended up being something positively Soviet in terms of the government setting as a policy that it will use hunter/sniper teams to Americans first and then ask questions later. It might be marginally different is she gave this order herself and then took steps to uphold American rights as much as possible, but she was even begging someone else to come in and set the rules of engagement and shoot-to-kill. I understand why one might have to do something like this, but advocating meansthat the official also must acknowledge the mistakes which led to this last resort solution and it would probably be appropriate for her to end her own life if an innocent, sick, or elderly American loses their life due to this order. it will not happen this way in an America where politicians make huge mistakes that our troops pay for with their lives but it is not good. 4. The Prez- I'm sorry about this as well but as Harry Truman once said the buck stops here and like it or not the mistakes here even if primarily the fault of the Mayor and the Governor also fall to the Prez The guys he hired to do the job, (particularly at FEMA) just did not get the job done. Stuff happens and I do not think they should be faulted for the hurrican damage (not reining in the governor of states like MS who as a policy developed casinos on the shoreline which led directly to over 100 deaths of workers not under mandatory evacuation orders who stayed near their low salary jobs is another issue worthy of study). However, it is a massive failure of an executive branch that took on the obligation to paid by our tax dollars to protect us, the sick, the elderly and the powerless to not get major relief columns into NO until 4-5 days after the storm is unacceptable as the Prez himself says. Communications were down so this is a real issue, but given that the media seemed to get into the NO convention center where they filmed folks who had been sent their by local law enforment for days with no food or water also sent there and the dead bodies laid nearby being eaten by rats while the FEMA Director hears about this for the first time from the media simply means somebody screwed up big time. Again, a lot of this was caused by a storm which was unpredictable, but the disaster has its rooks in the decisons of man which led to the flooding. It was not predictable but it was forseeable and in fact was forseen. Government did this anyway allowing rich folks to develop inappropriately. Poor folks were allowed and encouraged under government policy to take these cheap jobs of last resort. Personal respomsiblity still exists, but it simply does not release elected officials from th Dems who ran the City and State to the GOP running the Feds from their responsibilities. Its not PC inthis Administration but I hope there is some accountability for these mistakes or we will see similar mistakes from the next disaster or some terrorist attack again.

Exactly. There are two disasters here. 1. The Hurricane disaster was not predictable as no one knows when a Hurrican will come and where it will land. 2. The Flooding however is the real disaster which though it was triggered by an unpredictable event like the hurricane was forseeable and in fact was forseen in detail in even 3 years ago in an article in the magazine Nature and in inadequate attempts by the government to run drills on this in the past year. The answer to the question of how was the government involved? In two important ways among others: 1. The impact of flooding from the Levee break caused by Katrina was made even worse by the development patterns of NO and these zoning laws and the lack thereof or lack of enforcement by government is a key. Hurricane impacts like storm surge are apparently reduced by the existence of marshland on the shoreline. The effects of Katrina would have been different 10-20 years ago (and they were because Hurricane Betsy was a simlar sized storm which hit NO even more directly) because local zoning had not allowed development and people to live right up to the shoreline. We saw a similar effect in Missippi where casinos were allowed and in fact encoraged to be built on the shoreline or in barges on the water. Thousands of jobs were lost and several of those who refused to evacuate did so out of concern that they might lose their casino job on the morning after the hurricane if they did not show up. 2. The government was also deeply involved in that those we are spending big bucks on now to rescue and who were mostly killed live in the poorest blackest sections of NO apparently known as Ward 9. There are some foolish thrill seekers and criminals who chose to stay. However, there are also a lot of people based on the reports I have seen who had little choice but to stay and hunker down as they had no funds or family to evacuate to. It also does not recognize the facts to claim that those who stayed lives are simply forfeit because they failed to heed the mandatory evacuation order. One of the stories I saw yesterday was of 60 or so folks in walkers and wheelchairs from some swamped nursing hiome. Some folks deserve our disapproval because they chose to stay, but some folk deserve out sympathy and help because they could not go and GOVERNMENT failed to evacuate them effectively. This is not only true of the sick and elderly whose are not everyone but whose numbers do seem to be substantial, but the 29% of all people in NO and 50% of children (who are powerless to leave anyway as their parent (s) are in charge) in NO who are below the poverty line, and also folks like the tourists shown wandering around town yesterday who brought their son to Tulane to show him the college, had their flight canceled, the rental cars were gone and they were marooned. It is not everyone who was not there due to their own fault or whom government has a responsiblity to help or to move because they are sick, old or stupid. However, it simply does not fit the reality to claim that government has no role or duty because some folks were able-bodied idiots.

BUMP Our talk about NO and Katrina is interesting and even while people are still dying the Internet rarely has something to do with things which are real so this is an appropriate forum for the next discussion of why did this happen. However, all reports indicate it is better but still bad down there and if one can donate/volunteer to help your fellow human beings it is needed and it is good. I am bumping up this post to provide an internet access point to places where you can give to this effort. I and my family have and though it is inadequate I feel better for having done a small part. It really is the least I can do and I hope all of you give as well, whether it is sending the Red Cross cash or volunteering to help in your own community. After several days of seeing humans at their worst, if anyone has any positive stories they have heard about the Gulf Coast, feel free to share them in this thread.

It is simply a mistake to say that the racial divide and the economic divide are two separate things that have nothing to do with each other. Even without a KKK motivation, people whose ancestors were forced to be slaves and who generally lived under Jim Crow LAWS which denied them equal access to common things like food (Woolworth lunch counter type LAWS) and sanitation/drinking water (WHITE ONLY water fountain LAWS) which are society is not too far removed from (people alive today lived under Jim Crow LAWS). The economic divide and the racial divide were intrinsically linked. The comprehensive studies done even today show a racial effect on a range of issues from housing, to jobs, to medical care. A view which claims these two items are separate or ignores the FACT that it was Ward 9 in NO which is the poorest AND blackest parts of town which were the lowlands where the most people drowned is simply a racist view. It ain't as bad as the KKK view but I'm sorry to say that this factual incorrect separation is racist.

Nice to see somewhat a return to normalcy. This is actually the best sign of the terrorists not winning.

Definitely agree that Kanye West sounds like an idiot in terms of his comments and his likely failure to do his job here and get lots of dough for the catastrophe. Also in addition to the problem of folks who incorrectly blame the Prez for not liking Blacks in general (there are enough exceptions to this thought within his power base like Rice and Powell that it certainly does not seem to be true even beyond the some of my best friends are X apologies). However, one of the other problematic views along with the West stupidity is the idea that just necause his comments are wrong that it means that there is no racial issue here whatsoever. I disagree with anyone who says the Prez has KKK views, but I think it also ignores reality to not realize that there are some important racial elements here. The racial elements are probably most clearly reflected in the view that strident opinions like West represent the whole of opinion about the role of race in the economic division of the US. My general sense is that race fortunately is no longer the bar to a talented person of color doing well in US soceity, However, it certainly does still appear to be a factor in when people of color are dumb or make mistakes (as some people of color and some whites do). If you are black and a fool, poor or an idiot then the hammer is likely to come down on you more harshly than it does if you are part of the majority culture in our society. While there are a few anecdotal incidents where a Black person like an OJ can use money and incompetent prosecutors to get off scott-free. Statistically this is not the case where people ofcolor end up with harsher sentences from juries for the same crimes, blind studies with doctors reviewing videotapes of patients who exhibit the same symptoms tended to get the caddilac medical treatments in higher proportions when they were white men rather than people of color men or women. In well-researched cases like whites and non-whites coming to banks with the same economic backgrounds, whites tended to get more loans and likewise with apartments being shown, job intterviews and the like. Race is a real issue in society and unfairness rears its ugly head too often despite the great progress made since days not too long ago when dogs were put on folks demanding equal rights. Many signs point to this also being a factor in how the results of this disaster were distributed though the insane views of Kenye West have little to do with the reasons why this is the case.

I see little controversy since the goal here is the Bills winning and we all support that. If JP led teams are winning great. If JP led teams are losing and the QB messing up is part of that or in my mind even if he isn't but changing QBs changes the tone of the team then sit him down. If his psyche is truly so fragile that getting benched cause the team isn't winning is going to screw him up and destroy his development then he probably is not a tough enough and competent enough soul to make it anyway. Favre, Young and Johnson all experienced even greater shows of lack of confidence as they all got traded and came back to win SBs. I hope the Bills can survive JP going through the typical growing pains and still compete for the playoffs. However, I have no problem with making part of his development being sitting the boy down if he makes recurring errors. I assume their might be controversy over when that point of recurring error might be but I hope there is general agreement that if the MM judges that the boy sitting gives us a better chance to win then I have little problems seeing him sit though I hope it never comes to that.