SwiftVets.com

[Guest]

More thoughts to ponder!!



Beyond the historic architecture, the spice-laden cuisine and the beguiling
voodoo underground, live close to 500,000 people, mostly poor (more than a
quarter live in poverty), mostly black (more than 66 percent), clustered
into 73 distinct neighborhoods.

Crime, even before the hurricane, was high. The murder rate has come down in
recent years, but remains 10 times the national average. Last year,
researchers had police fire 700 blank rounds in a city neighborhood one
afternoon. No one called to report the gunfire.

Maybe New Orleans should be nicknamed The Big Un-Easy, due to a high violent
crime rate and a high unemployment rate. There's also a significant number
of suicides and divorces.

The city's school system is a shambles. The district almost went broke this
past year - teachers nearly missed a paycheck - and 55 of the state's 78
worst schools are in New Orleans.

Dozens of school employees are under indictment for corruption. But then,
corruption in New Orleans is nothing new - politicians, judges, the police
have all been caught.

These government failures are not merely a matter of incompetence. Louisiana
and New Orleans have a long, well-known reputation for corruption: as former
congressman Billy Tauzin once put it, "half of Louisiana is under water and
the other half is under indictment That's putting it mildly. Adjusted for
population size, the state ranks third in the number of elected officials
convicted of crimes (Mississippi is No. 1). Recent scandals include the
conviction of 14 state judges and an FBI raid on the business and personal
files of a Louisiana congressman.

In 1991, a notoriously corrupt Democrat named Edwin Edwards ran for governor
against Republican David Duke, a former head of the Ku Klux Klan.
Edwards, whose winning campaign included bumper stickers saying "Elect the
Crook," is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for taking bribes
from casino owners. Duke recently completed his own prison term for tax
fraud.

The rot included the New Orleans Police Department, which in the 1990s had
the dubious distinction of being the nation's most corrupt police force and
the least effective: the city had the highest murder rate in America. More
than 50 officers were eventually convicted of crimes including murder, rape
and robbery; two are currently on Death Row.

Ten billion dollars are about to pass into the sticky hands of politicians
in the No. 1 and No. 3 most corrupt states in America. Worried about
looting?
You ain't seen nothing yet.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KATRINA_THE_CITY_THAT_WAS?SITE=WIMIL&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-09-03-13-24-35

[blue9t3]

Talk about the bottom feeders, the only winners are the casino owners. I'm not comfy with the "lets build it better than it was" bull, so blanko and naggin can strut around as though they brought home the bacon!
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MOPAR-BUYER