OBAMA'S KATRINA........THE IRONY OF AN EPIC DISASTER

When Hurricane Katrina barreled through the Gulf Coast and hammered New Orleans; President George Walker Bush was later crucified by now President Barrack Hussein Obama for his "underwhelming" response. Some actually blamed W's cozy relationship with Big Oil and the so called hydrocarbon induced "Global Warming" as the causative agent of the Hurricane itself.  Incredibly, others proposed the ludicrous allegation that in Katrina's immediate aftermath W sent covert demolition teams into Ray Nagin's "Chocolate City" to blow up the levees.

President Bush's offer of Federal assistance to Louisiana days before the storm wrecked havoc on New Orleans was soundly rebuked until the 11th hour. A Federal evacuation effort was only requested by Louisiana government officials when the force of Katrina had dangerously escalated to the level of precluding a safe preemptive Federal intervention. The high command of Louisiana politics had missed the boat and were eager and successful in designating Bush as the official captain of the sinking ship.
We can only speculate how differently things would have turned out had Bush's offer of a Federally sponsored evacuation of New Orleans been heeded when initially offered four (4) days prior to Katrina's landfall.....or even the day before.
However, in America, state sovereignty precludes a POTUS from sending Federal troops into a state in mere anticipation of a possible impending disaster without that state's consent

When the storm finally subsided, the devastation to life and property was horrific and the post storm Federal response was logistically ill thought out.  FEMA and Homeland Security performed poorly on numerous levels.
Bush is still broadly criticized for his handling of this tragedy.

British Petroleum's stance on Deep Water Horizon's catastrophy has mirrored the initial "mindset" of the state of Louisiana under Governor Blanco and the City of New Orleans under Mayor Ray Nagin. The "we can handle it on our own; but if we fail---well then it's somebody else's fault" position has proven to be FUTILE, FLAWED and FRAUDULENT in both instances........simply put the Gulf Coast has been F'd once again by grossly ill prepared upper management

This was a teaching moment and Obama did not learn from the lesson plan:  "Valuable time is lost while fooling around with inferior resources."

BP has shirked its responsibility for the oil spill.  While BP attempts to capture the oil flow using makeshift untried methods, oil continues to gush into our coastal waters.
BP does not know whether they want to invest in new equipment or not. Their equipment inventory does not appear to be effective and they are reluctant to be honest in this regard or consider equipment upgrades such as oil sweeping arms. The oil sweeping arms specialist, Kampers Oil Spill Equipment (Koseq), from Puttershoek, Holland and oil spill specialist Hebo Maritime Service from Zwartsluis offers of assisstance have both been rebuked. Dutch dredging companies, including Van Oord, are also interested and able to assist with the efficient removal of oil and their equipement can, in principle, be flown in quickly and within a few days be installed on local vessels.

Gert Kampers, designer of the sweeping arms and director of Koseq, does not understand the reluctance of BP and the American government: "There are already 568 ships deployed we only need to equip four ships with our equipment to effectively control the spill. A ship equipped with sweeping arms can harvest 250 cubic meters of oil per hour from the water. That's 1000 cubic meters per hour with four ships which is more than presently flows into the sea."
BP is now using chemicals to prevent the oil from rising to the surface that are further damaging the environment.  12 sweeping arms are currently available for deployment that can immediately be put in service. More sweeping arms can be manufactured in little time if the demand requires. The sweeping arms have been deployed in Europe several times and they perform very well.

The Dutch Government and the European Union are prepared to quickly help America, but they must wait for a request. "It's all very sensitive," said Achterberg. "The Americans think they can do a better job themselves. They obviously find it embarrassing to ask for outside help. The Dutch government cannot step in because they do not wish to offend their American colleagues."

After the disasters of the Erika and Prestige off shore rigg spills, the European Union utilized the services of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA); one of the Europe's environmental maritime disaster-organizations.  EMSA has ships all along the European coasts and has sweeping arms and other equipment that can be quickly adapted for evironmental disaster control by outfitting tankers and other ships to suck up large quantities of oil from the surface.

"We're here to help and have also communicated to the pertaining authorities but there is no request for assistance received by the European Commission and without a request, we cannot take any action," says an spokesman for EMSA in Portugal. "We have the equipment, experts and the ships, but unfortunately we can not use them ."

It seems that BP is currently more afraid of double bills than a bad image and would rather wait until the U.S. government completely takes over the clean-up......Obama has given BP three (3) months to remedy the problem before intervening.

So it begs the question: Why has Obama settled for rhetorical blame on Big Oil but done absolutely nothing to mitigate the issue at hand? Is Obama THAT indecisive and overwhelmed or is he simply an even bigger whore to Big Oil than he labeled Bush?

The EPA is Obama's  FEMA and the US Coast Guard has supplanted Homeland Security in addressing THIS disaster.........Obama needs to stop whining and hiding and be presidential.

When 50,000-70,000 barrels of oil spew from the ocean floor and each of those barrels is subject to a federally mandated fine of $4,300.00; Obama will have the mother of all Federal fines to "spread the wealth around" with.