Mardi

“That’s What
[an 8/29 Investigation] Is”
~David Winkler-Schmit

End the War of Words?
~Editilla hates Squeezably Soft Issues~
Words matter. Who are we tryin'ta kid here?
"Sometimes Ah laaks mustert on'mah biskit mhmm."
The American Society of Civil Engineers is just as much Under Indictment for these Levee Failures as their bosses at the Corps of Engineers.
Not the American Civil Engineering Profession...
-but ASCECORPS.
Ethics Also Matter to Real Engineers.
Therein lies the da'rub, said Hamletilla.
Contrary to what this article would lead one to think,
this is not about levees.org -vs- the ASCE.
Levees.org is not against anyone but for safe levees.
That is all, and they have remained remarkably focused on that Hard Issue.
It is much easier to lure the public into thinking that this Ethics Problem is with a little citizens group of uneducated bystanders, when in fact this Corps Ethics Problem with ASCE comes directly from one of their own engineers, a 400 pound Guerrilla named Dr. Raymond Seed, and his 42 pages of Ethics Complaints.

So, of course ASCECORPS will want to be in on the investigation of itself! Yeah…that’s the Ticket!
And Pay No Attention to that Water Leaking Under the 17th Street Canal Levee "Repair". Here...try this "Softer Issue"? Hey everybody? Let's not Investigate the Hard Issues like the Engineering behind those failed levees? Let's do Soft Issues like...funding, Congress, Presidents ...Katrina the Clown.

ASCE –particularly its Presidency–has proven its Word Suspect, inconsistent at best, as recently as this week when its President had to contradict the spokesman for the Ethics Committee in their initial response (Bad Cop) to levees.org demanding answers, after nearly a year!

Reading this commentary and watching this Past ASCE President Jackson spinfiltrate the "Soft T'issues" reminds Editilla of catching a child with their hand in the Candy Jar and listening to them try to explain all the reasons that they can't get their hand out of the Candy Jar -except the obvious: they won't let go of the Candy they were trying to steal! HA!

Now we get Mr. Jackson (Good Cop) to ask us to focus instead on “Soft Issues”? What now, group therapy?
What? The? Hell? Is? He? Talking? About?
Well, Editilla gonna toll'ya.
“Jackson Past President of ASCECORPS" has been to class. “Soft Issue” is an “AD WORD” in PR 101 lingo, pablum,
as opposed to discussing any real issues, the Hard Issues, to wit: Why did these levees fail? Who built these failed levees? How do we build safe levees?
That is the Hard Issue. Levees. Hard Ground. Not how the President relates to the Corps or how the Corps relates to Congressional Funding –But What Went Wrong With Our Failed Levees. That is the Question in the 8/29 Investigation. It is not an Easy Issue but a Hard Issue and an understandable one. We do not need “Soft Issues” leading astray this Investigation of Hard Issues.
Yeah, surrre ASCE would like us to look Anywhere Else... at Anything else under the sun BUT the Engineering behind those Failed Levees because the same engineers have built levees and such All Over This Country
Yeah...we just all need to get together.
Fine, but can't we Get Rid of the Perps First?

I am sad that this man is on the Levee Board and question if Mr. Jackson Officially Speaks for the Entire Board here in this commentary from Gambit.
Methinks he doth Mythspeaketh!
I also strongly regret that Gambit has chosen to support this obvious attempt at misdirection, for that is what this is: Miss Direction, the evil twin sista to Miss Behavin.
Bad Gambit! No Soup For You!
And to correct Gambit on another salient point:
Contrary to your insinuation of their quick response as somewhat "knee-jerk", it was not levees.org who "responded immediately" to ASCECORPS' spin-release, but Real Civil Engineers across the country ---who knew... immediately upon sight that those levees had failed --contrary to what ASCECORPS was immediately trying to spin --that they had overtopped, and saw in that press conference a conflict of interest in the stated findings. I remember. Don't y'all remember?
Sure you do. Let's keep it on point here.
Levees. Levees. Levees.

We can handle the Hard Issues.
It is Gall that yer oh'so humble Editilla has a Redrum
Real Problem Wit'...sheer bald'faced unmitigated Gall.
For example as when the Perpetrator (ASCECORPS) of a Crime (Failed Substandard Levees) insists that Fairness Would Dictate that the Victims (We The People Flooded) of that Crime (Engineering Malfeasance) work together with the Perpetrator (ASCECORPS) to clear the Perpetrators name (ASCECORPS) in the Crime (Flooding the City of New Orleans). Quiche Capiche? That is Exactly the type of Rhetorical Jail House Punk Covenant to which this Perp (ASCECORPS) would have Levees.org enter into as through the Gates of Hell.

Such "Interest of Fairness" is Voodoo Rhetoric.
We ask ASCECORPS questions, we deserve answers --not counter-proposals for questions about other matters.
By offering such an unethical deal to the public this Past President of ASCE would like to leave the impression of levees.org as looking like the obstinate one, the excitable boy, for refusing to get distracted from the point: levees.
No. One does not enable the Abuser.
No. We do not work forASCECORPS.
We do not answer to their tune. They answer to our tune. They answer our questions. Why? Because we paid them to Flood our City. That is why. We paid them for this IPET Report that appears now is Compromised by their financial connections to the Corps of Engineers.
No. ASCE does not get to investigate itself without redress. No. No. No. They have proven themselves to be completely compromised by the Corps of Engineers
--if not a cloned Franchise of the Corps.
Hence: ASCECORPS.

NOTE: IPET is the corps-sponsored levee study costing taxpayers $35 million.
ERP is the ASCE external review panel, costing taxpayers $1.1 million. Not to mention an extra $250,000 that the Corps threw to ASCE this past year to top off this brew'haha. It was the ERP that was supposed to be the "assurance that IPET was robust and independent."

ILIT is the study done quickly and efficiently by Real Engineers.

Now we are gatha'd he'ah today...
Now you call, ASCE.
What have you got? What is in your hand that you refuse to show the American People? CALL!

Answer the Goddamn Questions!
Stop Running From The Questions!
Stop this Bull Scat Obfuscation!

Gambit, stop Enabling ASCE to skirt the issue.
How could you let this ASCECORPS PR go unchallenged?
Ain't y'all got any Ad People working there?
Perchance you should think of moving them over here to the Commentary Section. What does Gambit have to gain from "supporting" ASCECORPS? Why not simply present the Fact that ASCECORPS continues to Stall the Release of our $35M IPET REPORT? Because now that we find collusion amongst the Ranks, standing with these Perps is beginning to look messy.

Why? Because Never Again! No One will Ever stand between the City of New Orleans and Our Levees with an ASCECORPS Hand Bill in their mouth. No.

Stop treating the Leaders of ASCECORPS as Engineers,
since they are not acting like Engineers but like Liars with something to hide.
Do this in the Interest of Fairness.

Gambit, do not ask us to support ASCECORPS, the very Perps responsible for flooding our city. They had no intention of doing anything even remotely like this 8/29 Investigation. They were offered participation and refused. They have crimes to hide, hence a true, honest public peer review works contrary to thier aims.

ASCECORPS is opposed to the 8/29 Investigation and will do whatever it takes to stop it, or failing that, slow it down in committee, water it down, take it apart...
--if only we would just Join With Them.

NO. Someone in ASCECORPS needs to go to jail.
They stand on shaky ground of their own making.
They stand accused.

While we are at a loss to find Any Issue in American Experience Harder to Accept than the Failure of our Engineering Profession to Right Itself, we refuse to accept this bullskidoo spinfiltration of "Soft Issues" regarding that Esteemed Group's Catastrophic Demise.

Lives are at stake. We need Real Engineers for our levees.

Da'Pin is Mightier than da'Sword
~Thank you, Masqued E'vinga!
~Editilla dixclosas~
We made a six-pack of Abita bet wit'da Big Molluski over at YRHT: we say'd Pa!trae!us! Pa!trae!us! would be McSam's VP pick ('cause let's face it --the old fart's gonna kick so whoeva gets his last nod is the one to fear)(and yes'm~ya'betcha, Vocodin'Cindy has her steel-eye on the only, true Straight Shooter in this neo'bunch)(ewe) but, now given Bad Vlad's Judo Jump on Georgia, Editilla gotta'go D'OH'NO!
--and double-down: 2 Sixes Abita saaaayzzz...
Condi! Condi! Condi!
We forgot not the disdain held by the NeoCowards for State as a limpid facility at best and Verily They Parked the The Heeler from Hydra Park there for safe keeping. So, who's wit'me? Neo'Condi VP?
Con! Di! V! P! Con! Di! V!P! ...jeep'jeep'jeep...

Gambit cover story:
Sissy rappers ~Kevin Allman

The Past, Present, and Future
of Elementary and Secondary Education in New Orleans
~Rising Tide III
Panelists:
· Dedra Johnson – professor and blogger, author of Sandrine's Letter to Tomorrow
· Jeffrey Berman - teacher, Booker T. Washington High School and Schwarz Alternative School
· Grayling Evans - teacher, Coghill Elementary School
· Leigh Dingerson - Education team leader of the Center for Community Change, editor and contributor to Keeping The Promise?: The Debate Over Charter Schools
· Clifton Harris - concerned parent and blogger
· Christian Roselund - UTNO Communications, blogging at Dirty South Bureau
Moderator: Patrick Armstrong,
former Recovery School District teacher and blogger

Free Healthcare/Screenings News for New Orleanians
~casa de Charlotte della luna

Hippies offer wholesome food to flood volunteers
~Three self-proclaimed hippies came to Cedar Rapids through American Rainbow Tribe disaster recovery.
They have set up an outdoor kitchen to feed as many volunteers as they can.

Dentist helps during disasters

Coast Guard special unit keeps river traffic moving

Flood lawsuit going forward, but Broussard can't be sued for negligence~Still, the case continues to inch closer to a jury trial. The same ruling kept alive the plaintiffs' separate allegation that Broussard acted with "willful misconduct" when his administration sent drainage pump operators to safety more than 100 miles away until the storm passed.


Morning in New Orleans
~VoteforBusiness Bandwagon rolls out of the French Quarter and heads toward the Upper Ninth Ward - site of the storm's greatest devastation - to support Habitat for Humanity workers' reconstruction efforts.

McCommunist Big Foot fakes awesome Olympic opening ceremony,
Child singer revealed as fake too but prettier,
Lies about lying about faking lies, NPR fakes true story of Tiananmen Square into comic book 'coverage' of "Kissinger The Nostalgic Superhero", Daddy Bush as: "The Proud Papa" with whipped-cream allusions to #1 Son getting "nervous" about Obama Presidency,
Juan Williams' pitch lilting, sings like a choirboy.

Anita's Grill~Chowhound NOLA

Final day of camp in Jackson~today the Saints have off and then return to work Wednesday and Thursday against the Houston Texans at the Saints practice facility in Metairie, La. Saturday the Saints play preseason game number two when they take on the Texans in the Superdome at seven.

Five Questions With Ian McNulty

Repairing Art Damaged By Natural Disasters

"Instruments A Comin'" puts music in the hands of students
~Louisiana Weekly

Message in the music
~A neophyte filmmaker rallies local musicians to produce a Katrina video with a message for the world: 'We Shall Not Be Moved.'