Four years

I went looking for a video yesterday and after not being able to find anything new, I came across Spike Lee's When the Levee's Broke - which I thought would serve as a suitable reminder of how shocking the Bush administration was and how good it was to be rid of them. Turns out I was on the money.

Katrina/Rita is right up there with state sanctioned torture and unnecessary wars as the blackest marks against Bush.

It's imperative that Obama puts this right - and rebuilds the levees to the same standard as those in the Netherlands. Rachel Maddow was talking about this a few weeks back - in Holland they build them to withstand a 1 in 1000 year storm - the New Orleans levees are being rebuilt to withstand a 1 in 100 year storm. By way of example, both Katrina and Rita were 1 in 300 year storms - put simply the new levees will fail again in the face of another Katrina.

Surely as a good start a decent part of the stimulus package could go down there?

Anyway, with the wonders of Google street view you can actually take a look around the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans - see below.


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Now I'm not 100% sure when the street view was done - but for fuck sake its been four years! If you scroll out you realise how close it is to the middle of New Orleans. So disgusting.