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2 States, 27 Observations
My response to that idiotic email that's going around right now.
10/8/2005

Someone, possibly a Republican spin-machine monkey, has started and circulated an email that talks about "22 observations" made about the differences between Texas and Louisiana in regard to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. If you do a search on Google for "2 states, 22 observations", you'll find this list. I will not post it here, as I believe it to be one of the most idiotic and factually inaccurate emails I have ever read.

So as Jules said in Pulp Fiction, "Well, allow me to retort!"
  1. Texas: Large state run by oil tycoons.
    Louisiana: Small state run into the ground by the desires of oil tycoons.
  2. Texas: Residents are rich enough to protect and evacuate themselves.
    Louisiana: Residents are poor and have no resources in which to evacuate themselves.
  3. Louisiana: Local and state officials blame federal government for not protecting their citizens and property.
    Texas: Cheered on their governor-turned-president's war in Iraq, where all the national guard who should have been in Louisiana are.
  4. Louisiana: Command and control collapses allowing lawlessness.
    Texas: Saw what happened in Louisiana, tightened its restrictions to avoid a repeat. After all, if hindsight weren't 20/20, what would be the point in looking back?
  5. Louisiana: Law enforcement officers desert their posts to protect themselves.
    Texas: Didn't suffer nearly as bad a hurricane, had no reason to leave.
  6. Texas: Local police watch for looting.
    Louisiana: Local police participate in looting, lest they starve to death.
  7. Texas: Law and order remains in control, 8 looters tried it, 8 looters arrested.
    Louisiana: Police infrastructure more-or-less destroyed, no way to stop it.
  8. Texas: Considerable damage caused by hurricane.
    Louisiana: Considerable damage that makes Texas' look like G.A.O. Schwartz after Thanksgiving.
  9. Texas: Flood barriers hold preventing cities from flooding.
    Louisiana: Flood barriers neglected due to lack of funding, money and support pulled from Army Corp of Engineers to fuel war in Iraq. Been going on for years. Representatives from other states referred to the levees as "pork barrel projects".
  10. Texas: Plenty of counties unthreatened by hurricane.
    Louisiana: Try to find a place in Louisiana that was safe. I dare you.
  11. Louisiana: Citizens fail to evacuate with 3 day supply of food and water, do without it for the next 4 days.
    Texas: Is the most obese state in the nation, can do without 3 days of food for a change. Get off the couch, fatasses!
  12. Texas: Had the advantage of a competent FEMA director.
    Louisiana: Suffered at the hands of a man who had no business directing FEMA.
  13. Louisiana: Media focuses on poor blacks in need of assistance, blames Bush.
    Texas: Yeehaw, Go George-y Boy, Go! Forget what Cindy Sheehan wants, you go ahead and go on riding with Lance Armstrong!
  14. Texas: Has plenty of coastline and places where people can go.
    Louisiana: Has no safe places to stay, where are you going to go?
  15. Louisiana: Over 900 killed by storm, flooding and crime.
    Texas: 24 killed in bus accident on highway during evacuation, no storm related deaths. Oh wait. Maybe that's because Rita was a cow pissing compared to the torrent of Katrina.
  16. Texas: Jailed prisoners are relocated to other detention facilities outside the storm area.
    Louisiana: Jailed prisoners are set free to prey on city shops, residents and homes. Well, they couldn't even get their poor people out of town, there's no way they were going to get the prisoners out either. Or they could have just let them all die in jail. Yeah. The ACLU would have had a field day with that one.
  17. Texas: Local and state officials work with FEMA and Red Cross in recovery operations.
    Louisiana: Local and state officials work through red tape to get FEMA to send recovery operations, can't. Maybe their governor should be elected president, then they can get some help.
  18. Louisiana: Local and state officials fail to demonstrate leadership, requiring federal government to manage disaster.
    Texas: "Damn, we can't let what happened in Louisiana happen to us. Let's plan ahead, now that we know what can go wrong." OF COURSE they'll demonstrate better leadership, dumbass!
  19. Texas: Fuel deliveries can't keep up with demand, some run out of gas on highway, need fuel tankers before storm arrives.
    Louisiana: Well, if the refinery pipelines installed by Texas' oil barons hadn't eroded the Mississippi delta, they would have had more basin flooding and less coastal flooding, and New Orleans wouldn't be under ten feet of water.
  20. Texas: Mayor moves citizens out of danger.
    Louisiana: Mayor moves himself and family to Dallas, realizes what a shithole Dallas is, hopes he never has to make a connection at DFW.
  21. Texas: Mayors continue public service announcements and updates on television with governor's backing and support.
    Louisiana: HAS NO INFRASTRUCTURE TO SUPPORT PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS. CAN'T EVEN MAKE A PHONE CALL. WHERE THE HELL ARE THE HELICOPTERS????
  22. Texas: Republican Senator says, "When you call 911, the phone doesn't ring in Washington, it rings here at the local responders."
    Louisiana: Infrastructure to handle 911 calls destroyed. Also doesn't have any federal-level politicians under indictment for money laundering.
  23. Louisiana: Center of Southern, Creole and Cajun culture, full of vibrant cultural subgroups and a bastion of tourism.
    Texas: Full of rednecks, no one wants to go there, not even to make a connection.
  24. Texas: Saw what happened with Katrina, braced for impact, met disaster head-on.
    Louisiana: Has been ignored for years in regard to its levees and flood barriers, stood no chance of winning.
  25. Louisiana: suffered greatly from Katrina, struck a large portion of the state as well as two others.
    Texas: Was spat at by Rita, barely any of the state was touched.
  26. Louisiana: Katrina wreaked havoc in New Orleans, the largest city in the state. Residents who made it out were forced to live in the Astrodome, which is the only covered location in MLB history that a game has been called on account of rain.
    Texas: Rita should have wreaked havoc in Crawford. Maybe then Barbara would realize how much better off she'd be living in the Astrodome.
  27. Texas: Electorate voted to re-elect Bush in 2004.
    Louisiana: Electorate also voted to re-elect Bush in 2004, so don't give me that "Democrat state" bullshit. Our president sends immediate aid to foreign countries when they have an earthquake or tidal wave that kills tens of thousands of people, but when disaster strikes Louisiana? He plays golf.
Mandatory Disclaimer:

This list is full of opinions. The other list is also full of opinions. They are basically facts, however in their context they have been spun in a particular direction (to the left or to the right) to fill an argumentative and contrary position. I highly recommend that if you violently disagree with one list, you start emailing the other--but even so, doing so with either list fails to produce the modicum of truth required at this rather urgent hour: that the country needs to unite behind the cause for rebuilding the affected regions and getting its citizens back on their feet.

In any case, the difference between the lists also reveal the differences between the two major political philosophies of the nation. The 22 observations show how most conversatives are always looking backwards at what went wrong, rather than looking forward to make it right. My list of 27 observations demonstrates how most liberals think conservativism and the radical right political machine are a joke.

Thanks for reading. Death threats will be ignored. You don't have the guts.