Llama School

Sometimes a Kick in the Nads is Just a Kick in the Nads

It's amazing how Michelle Malkin can take a simple faux-kick to the 'nads and turn it into a rant on how Franken (and by proxy, "the Left") needs professional help.  But she does it with deception and dishonesty, largely by failing to provide any context for the skit and culling up other bits of dubious evidence supporting Franken's so-called "derangement".

Amazon.com has a skit up by Franken promoting his new book, The Truth: With Jokes.  In the skit, three people act as Amazon.com reviewers.  The first two gave Franken's book five stars, and say so enthusiastically.  The acting in the skit is clearly and purposely uber-hokey, with an unnatural delivery that one would usually see in infomercials.  The third reviewer then says that he didn't read the book and gave it one star because he's a right-wing jerk.  So Franken then kicks him in the gonads, breaks a chair over his head, and then a reviewer breaks a bottle over his head. 

The stilted, info-mercial delivery of the start of the skit is meant to contrast with the cartoon violence at the end of the skit (in a hey, that's funny because it's unexpected sort of way).  It would be different if Franken and the other reviewers seemed completely serious before the violence.  But the infomercial-style delivery makes it clear that the ad is a farce, setting up the cartoon violence as the punch line. 

Also note that he wasn't kicked in the nads for being a conservative.  He was kicked in the 'nads for not reading the book and giving it one star, obviously an attack on people that criticize Franken's books without actually reading them.  It's not like the third reviewer found a major factual inaccuracy on page 57 and then Franken decided to rip his limbs off.  That would be a little much.

Now personally, the commercial wasn't that funny (as it would have worked better with a little more absurdity and better timing).  But only someone that either has no grasp of a joke or is deliberately obscuring the context in order to push an anti-Franken agenda could say that this skit "blurs truth and fiction" or that Franken "needs professional help". 

Malkin continues with the "Franken needs help" theme by incorrectly stating that Franken attempted to deflect questions about Air America's finances on the David Letterman show (he answered the question fully), and failed to provide any context regarding jokes about executing GOP officials (it was a series of jokes based on George H.W. Bush's comments that anyone who outs a CIA agent is guilty of treason, where he specifically states that he's against the death penalty and is against executing presidents). 

These omissions are clearly done to paint Franken as some sort of deranged lunatic.  But Malkin can only do this by omitting context and evidence repeatedly.  It's dishonest, deceptive, and far worse than any faux kick to the gonads could ever be.

Oh so close to the I-Pod

I got 46th place out of 1400+ entrants in the Inaugural PokerStars Blogger Championship.  Ten spots short of the I-Pod mini.  Sigh.  Details on the tournament later.

It's Pretty Simple

To answer Michelle Malkin about the fair and balanced media:

Bill Bennett: Former head of the National Endownment for the Humanities, Secretary of Education, and the first drug czar.

Kamau Kambon: Bookstore owner who taught a class (or two?) at NC State

Who's a bigger figure in the news?

P.S. Kambon's comments are obviously wrong, immoral, disgusting, etc.  But blatantly racist comments by some bookstore owner/visiting professor aren't as newsworthy as subtly racist comments by a former cabinet member.

NORTA Responds to Bus Questions

With all of the blog posts in the aftermath of Katrina blaming the city and the Mayor for the evacuation debacle (specifically, the lack of available buses), I was surprised that none of them actually attempted to contact the city or NORTA (the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority).  I contacted NORTA spokeswoman Rosalind Blanco Cook, and she was kind enough to explain NORTA's involvement in the evacuation, both pre- and post-Katrina.  Her detailed response is posted below.  Some important points to note:

1) Buses were being used to evacuate special needs patients to Baton Rouge on Saturday, before the hurricane hit.  This was in accordance with the City's plans.

2) Some buses were moved out of flood-prone areas to safer ground prior to Katrina's landfall.

3) The RTA was asked to participate in evacuating people from the Superdome to Baton Rouge on Monday afternoon.  The evacuation started on Monday afternoon, with LIFT vehicles (for the disabled) being used to take people in the Superdome to Baton Rouge.

4) Many RTA employees that were in New Orleans after the hurricane had passed were trapped by the flooding.

Her response is posted below.

***

The Regional Transit Authority worked very closely with city officials to establish a hurricane evacuation plan. RTA staff attended numerous meetings throughout the year with the purpose of assisting the City of New Orleans in formulating a plan that would help with the evacuation of its citizens, in particular those residents with no other means of transportation. Representatives of the Mayor's Office, the City of New Orleans Health department, and the Red Cross also attended these meetings.

The City supported a plan that designated the Superdome as a special needs evacuation center. On the afternoon of Saturday August 27, 2005, James Tillie was requested by the city to supply ten LIFT vehicles as well as fixed-route buses to assist in evacuation. According to the City's plan, special needs patients would be admitted to the Dome beginning at 8 a.m. on Sunday, August 28, and that by 10 a.m., thirty vehicles including ambulances, EMS vehicles from throughout the state, and the RTA LIFT vehicles and buses would take those special needs patients to Baton Rouge where they would be able to get medical attention. According to the City's initial plan, only special needs patients would be evacuated from the City. The Mayor would continue to encourage citizens to heed his message and evacuate the City. On Sunday morning, the Mayor issued a mandatory evacuation order.

Beginning at noon on Sunday (as previously planned by the City), RTA would provide fixed-route buses to provide transportation from twelve sites (schools, community centers, senior citizen centers) to the Dome, which would be the designated a refuge of last resort. The Times-Picayune published the list of all the pick-up sites, and television and radio stations also aired the information. In addition to this participation, RTA continued running its regularly scheduled routes throughout the day until the mandatory curfew issued by the mayor went into effect that evening.

Following customary hurricane procedure, RTA's essential personnel gathered at the A. Philip Randolph facility on Canal Street on Sunday afternoon. The facility served as a central post for those operators who were on stand-by and for those operators who would be ready to put service back on the street as soon as the weather allowed.

On Monday afternoon, after the hurricane had passed, the City asked that the RTA participate in evacuating citizens from the Superdome to Baton Rouge. RTA provided the service requested. LIFT vehicles were shuttling back and forth from Baton Rouge, until the Department of Transportation stopped the vehicles from returning to New Orleans because operators had been driving over the number of hours that the state allows.

Later on Monday afternoon, the Randolph facility started taking on water in the yard where buses and streetcars were parked, as well as in the first floor lobby and offices (the Canal facility had never flooded in the past). The water rose very swiftly. By early Tuesday morning, with water in the lobby  (as well as on Canal Street) exceeding four and a half feet, RTA administrators determined that it was necessary to evacuate the 250-300 employees and family members from the facility. There was no power, the generator failed on Monday night. Water and food were limited and toilet facilities were no longer working properly. After calls to the state, RTA staff and administrators decided it was time to take matters into its own hands. At that point, it was a matter of saving the lives of those who just a few hours before were helping New Orleans residents escape their neighborhoods. Over 150 employees and family members, including the elderly and babies, walked in water that exceeded four feet to Claborne Ave. and then up the interstate to the Crescent City Connection, where they received a ride via RTA vehicles to the Westbank terminal.

Early in the afternoon, CFO Mark Major secured a boat from a relative and convinced those remaining at Randolph that the situation was worsening and that it was necessary to evacuate the building. He and Jacques Robichaux and other RTA personnel worked throughout the afternoon shuttling people from the facility, down Canal Street to a point around Basin Street where they were picked up by an RTA truck. Each trip, RTA administrators, staff, and their families  rode in the back of the truck, clinging to the sides, and were shuttled across the CCC to the other side of the River. Late in the evening, RTA's MCI buses brought the worn out staff and their families to safety in Baton Rouge. Most of the RTA group arrived in Baton Rouge well after midnight. But, many of those who were the last to leave the Randolph facility were stranded on the Broad Street overpass until 2 a.m. and did not arrive in Baton Rouge until several hours later.

Per your question (ed: regarding the buses recently discovered in satellite imagery at Poland Wharf): The buses were not moved from the Canal facility. The 100 or so buses on Poland Wharf were brought there before the arrival of Hurricane Katrina from our facility called ENO, which is near Almonaster, an area that does flood. Some of the buses were used later by the police department and the National Guard.

Let me assure you that our operators acted professionally and followed the City's plan. RTA has suffered as the rest of the City. Although most of our employees have lost their homes or have had extensive damage to their property, we continue to move forward, and we will play a major role in the redevelopment of our beloved city.

***

I also asked about NORTA's role in the evacuation of the Superdome/Convention Center after their employees were evacuated from the Canal St. building.  Her response:

"After RTA evacuated the building on Canal Street, there was no way to get to Poland because of the flooding. The military and the police utilized many of the buses that were left at Poland Ave. No, RTA was not asked to do evacuations on Wednesday until the end of the evacuation. By that time, all of our employees were also evacuees. From what I understand from the Department of Transportation, FEMA had secured hundreds of privately operated buses and brought them to a designated highway stop near New Orleans. From what I have heard, FEMA did not give the orders to move these buses, but you would need to confirm that with FEMA, FTA, and DOT."

And a brief aside...

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Gretna Officials Block Citizens Leaving N.O., Use Buses to Take People Back into N.O.

From photographic evidence and multiple eyewitness reports, it looks like Gretna officials stopped citizens from walking to buses being used in an evacuation effort.  Furthermore, Gretna used their own buses to take people escaping from the city back to New Orleans.

As readers might know, Wizbang posted pictures of what were unused school buses at the Algiers Bus Depot, in a post entitled "Never Flooded New Orleans Buses Not Used for Evacuation".   The Jawa Report showed satellite pictures of these buses moving out of the Algiers Bus Depot and also stopped at the Algiers Point ferry station, where it looks like they are picking up evacuees.

But more importantly, these pictures may be related to another story out of New Orleans in the days after Katrina hit.  After the hurricane, the only land route out of New Orleans was the Crescent City Connection, a bridge that connects the West Bank and East Bank over the Mississippi River.  There were multiple reports of citizens looking to leave the city on foot, only to be blocked by police with shotguns by Gretna, Jefferson Parish, and Crescent City Connection police.  Furthermore, the evacuees that were confronted by these police were told that there were buses for evacuation on the other side of the Crescent City Connection.  First, I'll review the evidence and then try and address some important questions.

Most of the news reports of the account included interviews with Larry Bradshaw, who first reported his account in the Socialist Worker.  He was interviewed in a column in the San Francisco Chronicle, the New York Times (article in archive), the Washington Times, the St. Petersburg Times, and CNN.  Here are a few relevant excerpts from the NYT article:

Police agencies to the south of New Orleans were so fearful of the crowds trying to leave the city after Hurricane Katrina that they sealed a crucial bridge over the Mississippi River and turned back hundreds of desperate evacuees, two paramedics who were in the crowd said.

The paramedics and two other witnesses said officers sometimes shot guns over the heads of fleeing people, who, instead of complying immediately with orders to leave the bridge, pleaded to be let through, the paramedics and two other witnesses said. The witnesses said they had been told by the New Orleans police to cross that same bridge because buses were waiting for them there.

Instead, a suburban police officer angrily ordered about 200 people to abandon an encampment between the highways near the bridge. The officer then confiscated their food and water, the four witnesses said. The incidents took place in the first days after the storm last week, they said.

''The police kept saying, 'We don't want another Superdome,' and 'This isn't New Orleans,''' said Larry Bradshaw, a San Francisco paramedic who was among those fleeing.

...

  Cathey Golden, a 51-year-old from Boston, and her 13-year-old son, Ramon Golden, yesterday confirmed the account.

The four met at the Hotel Monteleone in the French Quarter. Mr. Bradshaw and Ms. Slonsky had attended a convention for emergency medicine specialists. Ms. Golden and her two children, including 23-year-old Rashida Golden, were there to visit family.

The hotel allowed its guests and nearly 250 residents from the nearby neighborhood to stay until Thursday, Sept 1. With its food exhausted, the hotel's manager finally instructed people to leave. Hotel staff handed out maps to show the way to the city's convention center, to which thousands of other evacuees had fled.

A group of nearly 200 guests gathered to make their way to the center together, the four said. But on the way, they heard that the convention center had become a dangerous, unsanitary pit from which no one was being evacuated. So they stopped in front of a New Orleans police command post near the Harrah's casino on Canal Street.

A New Orleans police commander whom none of the four could identify told the crowd that they could not stay there and later told them that buses were being brought to the Crescent City Connection, a nearby bridge to Jefferson Parish, to carry them to safety.

The crowd cheered and began to move. Suspicious, Mr. Bradshaw said that he asked the commander if he was sure that buses would be there for them. ''We'd had so much misinformation by that point,'' Mr. Bradshaw said.

  ''He looked all of us in the eye and said, 'I swear to you, there are buses waiting across the bridge,''' Mr. Bradshaw said.

There are also other eyewitness accounts that corroborate this general story of being blocked from crossing the bridge.  From STLToday:

Wednesday, the Scheers and three other couples came up with a plan. They would walk across the Mississippi River bridge, out of the city, to be picked up by Scheer's cousin, who lives 135 miles from the French Quarter in New Iberia, La. But before they embarked on their walk, the hotel announced that buses were coming.

"They had arranged for buses with a police escort to come down from Shreveport. Guests at our hotel and another one were given first preference and they sold 500 tickets at $45 each," Scheer said. "We got a call that the buses were 10 minutes away, then we lost contact with the convoy. We found out they had been commandeered as they entered the city and sent to the Superdome."

A group of about 200 Monteleone guests decided to try to walk out of the city to the east, and got to the on-ramp at the Crescent Connection bridge, where they were met by Gretna, La., police with shotguns. "They told us the bridge was closed to foot traffic," Scheer said. "Some locals had joined us and became extremely unruly, threatening to rush the officers. They fired their shotguns into the air."

And then another brief eyewitness account from NBC4 in Southern California:

Jefferson said she thought buses were coming to pick her up, but then was turned away.

"We are just praying for the buses to come," Jefferson said. "We hope they can take us to Houston or Baton Rouge. I have an airplane ticket that's open. So, I'm hoping I can get on board Delta Airlines and just fly home."She said there was confusion concerning the buses that were going to take her and others stranded to another location."They told us to go to the Crescent City connection for buses, ready to pick us up," she said. "We walked over dangerous ground, past the convention center. We got up the ramp and (someone) started shooting."

A few things to note about these accounts.  Two out of the three mention that the group was told to go over the Crescent City Connection for buses.  The Bradshaw account specifically states that a New Orleans police commander instructed them to go across the bridge, because "there would be buses waiting to take us out".  So from these accounts, we know that these people were instructed by a New Orleans police officer to cross the bridge to get to buses, and that they were blocked from exiting. 

One thing unclear from the accounts is when this happened.  The Bradshaw account has the encounter on the bridge happening on Thursday, whereas the Scheer's account at STLToday said it happened on Wednesday.  This may be important with regards to the pictures of the schoolbuses in Algiers and other accounts.

If this happened on Wednesday, then there is little doubt that the Gretna/Jefferson Parish/CCC officials blocked these people from access to buses that were used in some sort of evacuation effort, as we know from the photographic evidence.  If this happened on Thursday, it is likely that they  were still being used in evacuation and still could have taken people out of Algiers (although we can't be certain of this, since the buses could have ran out of gas, could have been used elsewhere, etc.). 

So far, we have photographic evidence that there were buses used in Algiers on Wednesday afternoon.  We have multiple accounts of New Orleans police officials instructing people that evacuation buses are on the other side of the Crescent City Connection.  And we have multiple eyewitness accounts of people being blocked from crossing the bridge, either on Wednesday or Thursday.

The Gretna police chief has also recounted his side of the story.  In it, he verified that the bridge was closed by Gretna officials.  He also recalls how buses were used by Gretna officials.   From the St. Pete Times:

On the other side, Gretna police Chief Arthur Lawson believed his town was heading toward calamity. A ship had damaged a levee wall, a diesel tanker was spilling fuel into his streets and water was rising from the south.

It was Wednesday and streams of people were flowing over into his town from a city with a perennially high murder rate.

At first, Lawson's officers tried to accommodate the crowds. One officer, who drives a school bus in his spare time, ferried evacuees to a staging area outside the city. Other officers commandeered two buses from a depot and began ferrying evacuees, too.

Within 24 hours, they transported 5,000 or more evacuees, Lawson said. But the crowds kept growing and the buses were running out of fuel. Late Wednesday, a Gretna shopping mall was set ablaze.

On Thursday morning, Lawson closed the bridge.

"We had never planned on evacuating anybody," said Lawson. "We had no more to offer, in fact, we had less. There was civil unrest at the convention center, but there was not anybody drowning."

On the aerial pictures from Wednesday afternoon on the NGS site, I haven't been able to find any people crossing the bridge.  This is a little curious, since the police chief says that 5,000 were transported.  However, it is sometimes difficult to make out people from this height, and there are LOTS of photos on the NGS site that I haven't seen (unfortunately, the photos on the site aren't very well organized).   Curious readers may want to look through the photos either here or on Google Maps or at the NGS and see if there is any evidence to support the police chief's claims.

Note how the police chief's account mentions officers commandeering two buses from a bus depot to ferry evacuees.  Could these buses be the buses used in the picture?  I doubt it, since he mentioned that the buses were commandeered from Westside Transit, which is in Gretna (here's the Google Maps picture). 

And it's good that the buses in Algiers weren't being used by Gretna officials.  Why?  Because Gretna used the commandeered buses to take people back into New Orleans, based on instructions from FEMA.  From a letter by the Gretna police chief, reproduced on Daily Kos:

Late in the day on Wednesday, a flow of people from New Orleans began to cross the Crescent City Connection on foot.  They were told that food, water, safety and shelter could be found on the Westbank. Unbelievably, the Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, was instructing people to cross the bridge; however he did not tell Gretna officials of his actions.  With a crowd massing, Gretna police officers commandeered Westside Transit buses and began the arduous task of transporting busloads of people down the Westbank Expressway to the Huey P. Long Bridge and to safety at I-10 and Causeway, the FEMA approved evacuation point.  It is estimated that approximately 6,000 evacuees were transported by the Gretna Police Department over a period of 12 to 14 hours without a death or injury reported.  A fact overlooked by the national media.

Here's an NGS photo of I-10 and Causeway taken Wednesday afternoon.

So here's a review of what we know:

1. New Orleans city officials instructed citizens to go to buses in the West Bank across the Crescent City Connection
2. There were Orleans Parish school buses that were being used to evacuate people at Algiers Point.
3. Gretna, Jefferson Parish, and Crescent City Connection police blocked people from access to the West Bank (which is where Algiers Point is), when there were likely buses used in evacuation at that moment.
4. Gretna officials had their own buses, which they reportedly used to take people out of Gretna and back into New Orleans.

Now here's what we don't know.

1. Did New Orleans officials know that the Algiers Point buses were being used for evacuation?

We have no reports from New Orleans officials on this point.  However, it does seem very likely that they knew about the buses, since the buses were part of their jurisdiction and they instructed people to walk miles in order to reach these buses.

2. When did New Orleans officials learn about the buses?

We can't know that either.  The Algiers Point buses were unmoved as of Wednesday morning, but being used on Wednesday afternoon.  On Wednesday morning, Google maps shows (link to this) a line of cars at Algiers Point.  These cars were possibly used by helpful citizens to assist in evacuating those brought to Algiers Point by ferry or helicopter.  Then on Wednesday afternoon, buses were used.  Here's my guess as to what may have happened (this is only a guess, if others have potential accounts that also fit the evidence, feel free to submit them):

Local Algiers officials noticed that there were buses unused at the Algiers Bus Depot sometime on Wednesday.  After getting a few drivers, gas, etc., they started to use them to evacuate people.  City officials on the East Bank got reports that buses were being used (or were planning to be used) in the evacuation effort in Algiers (West Bank).  City officials then told people that could walk to cross the bridge to get out.  Gretna officials, fearing crime and looting, blocked foot access to Gretna, which also blocked their path into Algiers (which, again, is part of New Orleans).

(Also, for those that are wondering, Gretna police doesn't have jurisdiction to close the bridge.  However, the Crescent City Connection is under the jurisdiction of the Louisiana State Crescent City Connection police, and reports note that they, along with Jefferson Parish police, were involved in the blockade.)

3. Is there evidence that the bridge was closed in the NGS pictures (taken on Wednesday afternoon?

This is a difficult question to answer.  Looking through the NGS photos that were taken at the same time, there is a large police presence on the on ramp that leads to the Crescent City Connection.  If police wanted to stop people from walking across the Crescent City Connection, they certainly had enough of a presence to do so.  However, we have no idea whether these police are Orleans Parish police, and there's no evidence as to what they're doing.  It's difficult to make out, but I don't see any pedestrians on the overpass nearer to the bridge.  (To see what people look like from this height, look around the Superdome.)

I'm sure there are other questions to be asked.  But from what we know, it looks like officials in Gretna, Jefferson Parish, and the Crescent City Connection police stopped people from reaching buses used for evacuation.

Mayor Nagin and the Buses, Part V: Evacuees BLOCKED access to buses by Gretna officials

UPDATE 2:  It looks like Paul at Wizbang deleted my last comment, after he triumphantly stated that he had "killed my whole argument".  This after repeatedly misrepresenting my position (especially doing so without correction on the front page).   I'm suprised that someone would actually delete someone's comment when they're defending their position.  Even O'Reilly gives his guest "the last word".  To present the entire back and forth (along with my deleted post), the discussion between Paul and myself is reproduced at the end of the post.

UPDATE:  Paul at Wizbang responds (scroll down to Update 3).  Unfortunately, I don't think he understood what I was saying.  However, he does a great job of eviscerating a straw man of his own invention.  Bravo!  My response at the end of this post.

***

Wizbang has found a new set of "unused" schoolbuses to claim that the Mayor was incompetent.  However, a deeper examination of the evidence shows that the buses were used, the Mayor directed people to these buses, and that officials from Gretna and Jefferson Parish may have stopped people from getting on these buses.

This post on Wizbang shows a set of parked schoolbuses located at the Algiers Bus Barn.  The picture was taken around 10 AM on August 31st.  Wizbang at first used these photos as evidence of more wasted resources by the Mayor wrt evacuation efforts. However, the Jawa Report found pictures taken from later that afternoon showing the buses moving towards what looks to be a ferry station at Algiers Point.

Taking a closer look at the picture, one can see the buses pulling out of the bus station (lower left hand quadrant).  Look at the upper left hand corner of the coast (at the Algiers Point Revetment, according to Google Earth) and you'll see five schoolbuses (three yellow, two white) at what looks to be a ferry terminal.  A closer look seems to reveal small crowds of people around the buses (though this is very difficult to make out). 

Interestingly, it seems like the NGS also took a picture of the region to the west a few minutes later.  If you look at the lower left corner of land on this picture, then you will see five buses (three yellow, two white) headed south (away from Algiers Point) on Bouny St.  These buses seem to have some sort of escort (police maybe), as they are being led by a blue or black car and trailed by a white car.

What could this mean?  There is evidence that Algiers Point was used by the Coast Guard in their search and rescue mission.  Also there are reports of people that were rescued in New Orleans being taken by ferry to "dry land and waiting buses across the river on Algiers Point".  NPR also has a report on how ferries were used to evacuate people from Chalmette to Algiers Point.
It looks like this ferry station was a place where survivors, rescued by either helicopter or boat, were put on buses and sent to safety.

Where did they go?  From the pictures we can't say.  It's doubtful that these buses were used to go into New Orleans on Wednesday (as there were no reports of buses used in evacuation efforts at the Superdome or Convention Center on Wednesday).  Taking the evacuees up to Baton Rouge would be difficult, since I-10 going west was flooded shortly past the Superdome.  My guess is that they may have gone west on Route 90 to somewhere like Houma.

Interestingly, there are reports of Gretna City, Jefferson Parish, and Lousiana State Crescent City Connection Police blocking any foot traffic across the Crescent City Connection into the East Bank (including Algiers) on Monday after the hurricane passed. 

Note in this CNN article that the Mayor urged people to cross over the bridge into dry land (bold mine):

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- As the heart of a hurricane-ravaged New Orleans filled with sewage-tainted floodwaters and corpses, Mayor Ray Nagin urged people to cross a bridge leading to the dry lands of the city's suburban west bank.

But some evacuees who tried that route told CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" and "News Night with Aaron Brown" that they were met by police with shotguns who refused to allow them into Gretna, a nearby town on the other side.

...

With food and water dwindling at the Louisiana Superdome and the city's convention center and the promise of buses unrealized, New Orleans police directed one group across the bridge toward the city's west bank -- and Gretna, said Larry Bradshaw, one of the evacuees.

"We were told by the commander at the police command post ... that we should cross that bridge, and there would be buses waiting to take us out," he said on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360."

"We walked, probably 200 people, about a two-hour trek," Tim Sheer, another evacuee, told CNN's "News Night with Aaron Brown." "We got to the top of the bridge. They stopped us with shotguns.

"We had people in wheelchairs, we had people in strollers, people on crutches, so we were a slow-moving group," said Bradshaw. "And we didn't think anything when we saw the deputies there. Then all of a sudden we heard shooting."

The Times-Picayune also has a brief report instructing people that the Crescent City Connection is the only way out of the city.

So what we have is evidence that the Mayor and other city officials instructed people to leave the city via the Crescent City Connection.  And we also have evidence that there were buses that were loading evacuees at Algiers Point, on the other side of the Crescent City Connection.  One can try to lay blame on the Mayor here, but he accurately told people where to go to get evacuated.  To try and pin this on the Mayor is absurd.  Instead, heavy blame (and investigation) should go to those that kept people out of the West Bank: primarily Gretna's police chief and others involved in keeping people off of the Crescent City Connection.

(See also the Mayor Nagin and the School Buses FAQ for more on the school bus story.)

***

The original response in the main post at Wizbang:

Update 3 (by Paul): Someone over at the llama school took a nose dive into the bizarre trying to make the case that Gretna officials (Jefferson Parish) blocked access to the busses. In a fit of irony that can only be produced in the blogosphere, he calls my conclusion that the mayor did not use the busses "absurd."

OK... He bases his conclusion on the unrelated fact that Gretna officials turned back New Orleans residents after Mayor Nagin gave up and urged his people to WALK into a neighboring parish who had no facilities to support them AND Nagin never even called the neighboring parish to tell them he was sending thousands of hungy/thirsty people over. (what a nice guy) While Gretna officials did turn back people on foot, there is absolutely no evidence to support the notion there was a blockade of Orleans Parish vehicles.

You can go read the whole bizarre illogical conclusion the llama student drew, but I'll save you the time and offer you the obvious debunking. If Nagin found time to whine to the media about Gretna sending his people back... And Nagin found time to whine to the media that the Feds did not send buses... How on earth could it be that a neighboring parish blocked Orleans from using their own busses and Nagin never said a word?

Get real. To believe this bizarre conclusion, you'd have to believe that the Mayor was calling for the busses the whole time but Gretna set up road blocks to stop the busses. Then 48 hours later Gretna let the busses roll (see above) and Nagin never said a word to anyone about another parish blocking his busses. You'd also have to believe that Gretna also made sure their magical school bus blockade never made it to any of the media. Yeah, right. Now you know why that llama is still in school.

My response to Paul at Wizbang:

Paul,

I think you completely misunderstood my claim. Let me lay it out again, and I'll address where (I think) you misunderstand my post.

There are multiple reports of the mayor and other city officials instructing people to leave by foot across the Crescent City Connection.

There is also photographic evidence of school buses taking evacuees from Algiers Point. And there is evidence of city officials telling evacuees that "there would be buses waiting to take us out" on the other side of the bridge.

There are also multiple reports of Gretna city, Jefferson Parish, and Lousiana State police not allowing pedestrians across the bridge. (Note that it's not just Gretna city police, but police from various jurisdictions...none of them being for the city of New Orleans or Orleans Parish.)

So let's recap.

1. Some city officials tell people to get out via foot to buses on the other side of the Mississippi.

2. There is photographic evidence of evacuees being picked up and transported by bus at Algiers Point (on the other side of the Mississippee) on Wednesday afternoon.

3. The only close way to get to Algiers Point (by land) is by the Crescent City Connection.

4. There is eyewitness evidence of police blocking people from getting to the other side of the river via the Crescent City Connection.

If Gretna and other officials are blocking access to the bridge, and there are buses on the other side of the bridge, then how isn't it that Gretna city officials blocked people from these buses?

The only thing I can think is that you were confused about what I posted. I never said that Gretna and other officials blocked buses from coming into New Orleans.  I said that they blocked access TO the buses. My best guess is that the Mayor was given a report that there were buses used to evacuate people from Algiers Point to some point in South Louisiana, and city officials told some people to head over there b/c they didn't have any buses at the Superdome. Likely, city officials weren't aware that the bridge was being blocked and that's where problems occurred.

Paul:

OK Llama you are correct.. I was wrong and you were right.

NOW- I thought the mayor was simply incompetent. You have proven he was insane.

Rather than have the drivers ~you know~ drive the busses over the bridge, he made evacuees walk 5 miles in the heat over about a 12 story bridge to get on the busses.

YEP! That was the mayors plan all along and the damn cops in Gretna foiled his perfect plan.

Are you comply incapable of understanding that if you are right you are damning the mayor even more than I ever could? Don't you get that?

If the mayors PLAN was to get crippled people to walk 2 hours to get into busses that could have been driven over the bridge in 10 minutes, then that plan was the work of a mad man.

If I am right, he should resign. If you are right he should be committed.

Are you really sure you want to win this one?

My response:

Paul,

Algiers Point ferry station was used as a drop-off point for people that were rescued by helicopter and by ferry. A lot of Chalmette residents (an area devastated even worse than New Orleans) were picked up by boat and taken here. If you take these buses away from Algiers Point, then what do you do with the people rescued from Chalmette and others rescued by boat and chopper? Leave them because there are people at the Superdome? There has to be a fleet of buses there used to shuttle people from Algiers Point to food, water, shelter, and medical care. They had food and water at the Superdome...I doubt they much of this at the ferry station. Since there are reports that the Gretna/Algiers facilities were packed, my guess is that they took people to other shelters farther west.

As for the Mayor and city officials, I don't think that the "plan" was to make everyone (or anyone) walk to Algiers to leave.  Note that people in the Superdome and Convention Center were not instructed to walk to Algiers (prob. because buses were coming to the dome at some point), and I'm sure the crippled weren't instructed to make the trip as well. The Mayor (or someone) decided to wait for a larger fleet of buses to take people from the Dome and Convention Center, while the smaller fleet was used to evacuate people that made it to Algiers Point.

It looks like people that were willing to make the walk were instructed by some city officials to go to buses across the bridge, knowing that there were buses being used to evacuate people. This wasn't "the plan", but improvisation so that people who could make the trip on foot could get out of the city. Of course, if this was "the plan" then it would be crazy...but there's absolutely no evidence of this. Sorry, but this is another strawman you're putting out here.

Once people headed towards the bridge, they were stopped by officials from a separate jurisdiction and forced to stay in the city.  Again.  Gretna, Jefferson Parish, and other officials did not allow people to walk to buses.  I really can't conceive how this can be blamed on the Mayor.

Back to Paul:

Llama you've now changed your argument 3 times. None have made a dime's worth of sense.

Now your argument is that these busses were more needed in Algiers than the Dome. That directly conflicts with your earlier theory that Nagin wanted the people from the Dome to walk to the busses. If they were needed in Algiers why have people walk form the dome?

Further as the photos prove, the busses were not used in Algiers until 48 hours after the storm hit. WHY WHY WHY?

You have one more post left in this thread to say your peace then you are done. I should just ban you now because you are clearly either being a troll or you are a dumbass. (or you are the mayor's cousin) (or some combination of all 3)

You say: "I really can't conceive how this can be blamed on the Mayor."

Then you must not be able to conceive too much. The busses to evacuate his people sat unused for 2 days and you can't figure out why he might be to blame. You're a dumbass.

Give me your last dumbass theory and be done. After that you are done. I won't have dumbasses abusing common sense.

My response:

Paul,

If you want to ban me for expressing a view that's different from your view on your forum, then go ahead. This isn't an attempt to troll. It's an attempt to lay out an argument that is different from yours and the majority of your readers.  And if you're misrepresenting my position (which you clearly do in Update 3), I'm going to correctly restate and defend my position. If you can't deal with this kind of dissent and/or debate (laying out evidence and other viewpoints without personal attacks), then that's just sad. I hope that your desire to ban is based on just misunderstanding my arguments and not a desire to get rid of opinions you don't agree with. Now, to address your comment:

First, I've never changed my argument. It's clear in my first comment: City officials told some people to go to buses across the Crescent City Connection (CCC), there's photographic evidence of buses being used to evacuate people across the CCC, and there are multiple eyewitness accounts of people not being allowed to cross the bridge after being told that there were evacuation buses there. This is consistent with my original post and all of my comments on the blog. The only thing you use to say that I've changed my argument is this:

Now your argument is that these busses were more needed in Algiers than the Dome. That directly conflicts with your earlier theory that Nagin wanted the people from the Dome to walk to the busses. If they were needed in Algiers why have people walk form the dome?

They were needed to transport people rescued from Chalmette and other places from Algiers Point to shelters, so it wouldn't be smart at that time to take the buses to the Superdome while people are still coming/at Algiers Point. Maybe after they're done taking people from Algiers Point, but the NGS shows what appears to be lots of people at the Algiers Point ferry station on Wednesday afternoon.

However, there was a subset of people that could walk out and asked officials to walk out. See this quote from Mayor Nagin on Nightline:

People got restless and there was overcrowding at the convention center. They asked us, "Is there any other option?" We said, "Well, if you want to walk, across the Crescent City Connection, there's buses coming, you may be able to find some relief." They started marching. At the parish line, the county line of Gretna, they were met with attack dogs and police officers with machine guns saying "You have to turn back..."

Those that could cross the bridge could have gotten on buses at Algiers Point.  Those buses could be used then both for those rescued and sent to the ferry station and by those that walked over.  There's no conflict in the argument here.

(By the way, I just looked back and noticed that the first buses to evacuate people from the Superdome left on Wednesday night.  It's possible that some of the buses for the Algiers Bus Depot were used in both the Algiers Point evacuation and (after finishing at Algiers Point) at the Superdome.)

Further as the photos prove, the busses were not used in Algiers until 48 hours after the storm hit. WHY WHY WHY?

I agree...they should have been used earlier.  My guess is that the mayor didn't know about them at first, and found out about the buses sometime on Wednesday. Then some city officials/police told people that were walking/wanted to walk out that there were buses on the other side of the CCC and that they could evacuate from there. But then they were blocked by Gretna, Jefferson Parish, and CCC police.

Finally, you say this:

You say: "I really can't conceive how this can be blamed on the Mayor."

Then you must not be able to conceive too much. The busses to evacuate his people sat unused for 2 days and you can't figure out why he might be to blame. You're a dumbass.

If you look at the context, I was talking about how you can't blame the blocking of the bridge by authorities in other jurisdictions on the Mayor (see the preceding sentences in the comment). 

---

Now I understand that you're unhappy with the Mayor. But why haven't you said anything about how these police officers used shotguns to keep people that had the desire to leave from reaching evacuation buses and/or from leaving the city through the only land route out? This is hugely important, and it seems like you're overlooking it to instead focus on blaming the Mayor.

Paul's response:

Sadly your own quote kills your whole argument:

------------
Nagian said: " "Is there any other option?" We said, "Well, if you want to walk, across the Crescent City Connection, there's buses coming, you may be able to find some relief."
------------

Guess that just shoots down your "The Mayor sent them for the busses canard." He said busses "were coming" not to "go to Algiers to get them."

So everything you have tried to say you just undid.

Further you've never answered why that sat idle for 2 freaking days!!!!

NOR have you answered why if he wanted people to use them did he not DRIVE them over the bridge vs make people walk to them. You are either a troll or a dumbass or both.

And finally, my deleted response:

How does this kill my whole argument? He said that buses were coming across the Crescent City Connection, which means that he knew they were coming there to evacuate people. The buses weren't at the Dome yet, and he likely thought that the buses would be available over the CCC before they were available at the Dome to advise this. 

Maybe you're assuming that the Mayor was talking about buses coming from somewhere other than Algiers when he talks about the buses coming. But he can just as easily be talking about buses coming from the Bus Depot to the ferry station. As you originally noted, the buses hadn't been used at 10AM on Wednesday...so it's possible that he was talking about buses coming from the Depot before they were actually sent (e.g. while they were finding drivers, gas, etc.).

And we have no idea what time he originally said this.  This quote is from Nightline on Sunday, September 4th, recalling what he previously said to people at the Convention Center. If he said this as someone was planning to use those buses, this would be correct. And there are also articles where evacuees report that officials told them there "would be buses waiting to take us out".  Or another article, where an evacuee says "They told us to go to the Crescent City connection for buses, ready to pick us up."  In these quotes, people were being told that buses were already there across the bridge.  You have to explain this evidence as well if you're going to shoot down my argument. 

1. Further you've never answered why that sat idle for 2 freaking days!!!!

2. NOR have you answered why if he wanted people to use them did he not DRIVE them over the bridge vs make people walk to them. You are either a troll or a dumbass or both.

Did you read my comment?  I'll quote it to show that these were answered.  I've even added numbers to make it ultra-clear.

1. I agree...they should have been used earlier. My guess is that the mayor didn't know about them at first, and found out about the buses sometime on Wednesday. Then some city officials/police told people that were walking/wanted to walk out that there were buses on the other side of the CCC and that they could evacuate from there. But then they were blocked by Gretna, Jefferson Parish, and CCC police.

2. They were needed to transport people rescued from Chalmette and other places from Algiers Point to shelters, so it wouldn't be smart at that time to take the buses to the Superdome while people are still coming/at Algiers Point. Maybe after they're done taking people from Algiers Point, but the NGS shows what appears to be lots of people at the Algiers Point ferry station on Wednesday afternoon.

However, there was a subset of people that could walk out and asked officials to walk out. See this quote from Mayor Nagin on Nightline:

...

Those that could cross the bridge could have gotten on buses at Algiers Point. Those buses could be used then both for those rescued and sent to the ferry station and by those that walked over. There's no conflict in the argument here.

To add to the current formulation of your question ("why if he wanted people to use them did he not DRIVE them over the bridge"), how was he going to drive them over? With buses that weren't around the Superdome? And I've already answered (above) why taking the buses away from Algiers Point could have been a bad idea.

Now if you want to talk about not answering questions, I guess I can ask this one again. "But why haven't you said anything about how these police officers used shotguns to keep people that had the desire to leave from reaching evacuation buses and/or from leaving the city through the only land route out?"

Bad Blog Argumentation, Volume I, Chapter 2: One librul = most/all libruls (blogger version)

I'm constantly amazed at how some of the same moronic techniques are used over and over again by bloggers to make their point.   Some of them are just poor arguementation, while others are basically forms of propaganda.  After seeing them used over and over again (often by major bloggers), I thought I'd start chronicling them.  (For now, I'll just monitor some of the major blogs and catch what I can as time permits...but I might dig for classic examples from the past later.  I don't have time to catch everything, so readers are more than welcome to submit their own examples from either "side" of the blogosphere.  I'm coming at this from a "liberal" perspective, but I'm happy to note if/when major players on the "left" side of the blogosphere engage in similar tactics.)

One technique is to take the opinion of someone on the far-left (think Howard Zinn aficionados, Nader loving pseudo-socialists, Ward Churchill, Cindy Sheehan) or the bad actions of a specific Democrat/liberal (think Clinton/Lewinsky) and try and use it to characterize all Democrats/liberals.  This kind of argument will be discussed in a future post.  A similar technique is also used by bloggers against other bloggers: find someone considered liberal that says something wrong and/or misguided, and then use it to make a blanket statement about most/all liberals. 

Our first example is from Wizbang.  Jay Tea (author at Wizbang) notes some author's post on impeaching Bush for the Plame affair.  He then lays out how difficult it is to impeach a sitting President.  Fine.  So what generalization is this used to support?  From the first paragraph of the post:

It's been said many times that "liberals feel, conservatives think." While not always true, it has a certain element of truth to it. And I've discovered signs that the stronger the liberals feel, the less they're able to think.

(By the way, Jay Tea of Wizbang has also pushed the "liberals feel, conservatives think" generalization  in a previous post.)

The fallacy here is pretty simple.  I can find people with conservative blogs/opinions that say things that are erroneous, misguided, deceptive, emotional, etc., and I can fail to report when people with liberal blogs/opinions do the same thing.  Does that mean that "liberals think, conservatives feel"?  Of course not.  Even if I were to make a broad generalization of that kind, I would need some sort of corpus of evidence to compare "liberal" vs "conservative" blogs along various dimensions such as how often they present logical arguments, how often they present legitimate evidence in support of these arguments, if they fairly portray (or even address) the other side of the argument, etc. etc.  It would also help to compare blogs of the same stature/popularity in the blogosphere, as I'm sure there are complete nutballs getting ten hits a day on both sides of the blogosphere with opinions that are in no way reflective of "their side".

(Note that someone from Wizbang, #10 in the Truth Laid Bare ecosystem is attacking someone on In Search of Utopia, ranked 299th in the ecosystem.)

We don't have any evidence of Wizbang doing anything of this sort in this post (which I don't expect in one post, considering that this kind of examination would take more than a few posts).  But neither do we have any evidence of Jay Tea (or others at Wizbang) trying to examine the other side of the argument by putting forth examples of conservatives not thinking.  They can bring up Cindy Sheehan, and I can bring up Pat Robertson (a much viler character than Sheehan).  There are mistakes made by both sides, and there are emotional arguments put forth by both sides.  Using a few mistakes made by one side to generalize an entire group is just plain illogical.  Maybe Jay Tea, you could use your post in support of  "conservatives feel, liberals think"?

What was the source of the 10,000 dead figure?

One of the current themes on right-wing blogs is the mainstream media's (MSM) horrible coverage of Hurricane Katrina, specifically in reporting the number of expected dead and the conditions at the Superdome and Convention Center.  However, most of these blogs fail to report how the death estimates were calculated, and instead blame the number on either racial stereotyping, media sensationalism, or the Mayor himself.

In many interviews, Mayor Nagin noted that the death toll in New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina could be as high as 10,000.

New Orleans Mayor: 10,000 Feared Dead

In New Orleans, Nagin upticked his estimate of the probable death toll in his city from merely thousands, telling NBC's "Today" show, "It wouldn't be unreasonable to have 10,000."

Right-wing blogs have used reporting this overestimation to accuse the media of pushing these numbers due to sensationalism or racial stereotyping.  Here are a few excerpts:

Captain's Quarters

That prediction by Mayor Ray Nagin may yet still come to pass as more of the city emerges from the floodwaters. At this point, though, it will provide yet another example of the hysteria that finds its home with the unprepared and the passive, those who want others to do the work that should have already been done by themselves. The figure got a lot of press play because of its spectacular nature and because of the official status of the man proclaiming it.

The Exempt Media should ask themselves whether the estimate of 10,000 casualties had any other basis in fact. If so, they need to explain what else prompted them to report that as a reliable range. If not, then they need to rethink using reports from overwhelmed local politicians who used such estimates to shove attention off of their own performances.

Powerline

It's my view that even the MSM's suggestion that the death count would reach 10,000 was based on stereotyping -- the view that the poor and predominantly African-American residents who didn't leave New Orleans couldn't save themselves and, as a class, needed government intervention to survive.

A Google blogsearch for 10,000, Katrina, and MSM gets about 106 hits (most related to criticizing either Nagin or the MSM for the 10,000 dead figure), showing that this meme isn't isolated.  Many are upset at Mayor Nagin for reporting the figure, and the "MSM" for reporting on this figure.  With this, there are a few questions to ask.  First, did the mainstream media overhype this figure?  And second, where did Mayor Nagin get this figure?  Hysteria?  Racial stereotyping?  Or something else?

Let's first take a look at a sampling of the headlines reporting the 10,000 figure (taken from a Google news search, and is no way an exhaustive list of all the news articles; bold mine):

Mayor: Katrina Death Toll May Hit 10,000
Mayor says 10,000 could be dead
Mayor: 10,000 deaths possible in New Orleans
10,000 feared dead as flooding recedes 
Mayor: As many as 10,000 feared dead
New Orleans mayor says 10,000 could be dead
New Orleans mayor warns 10,000 dead 'wouldn't be unreasonable' ...

Most of the headlines qualified the 10,000 dead figure, with only a handful of headlines without some sort of qualification to the death toll.  Here are a few examples of truly alarmist headlines:

'10,000' dead' in hurricane hell
10,000 dead, New Orleans mayor says

These last two are truly alarmist headlines (for shame, Manchester Evening News and Canada East) but the majority of the headlines and reports noted that Mayor Nagin's numbers were a high end estimate.  Now if the majority of the media reported that there was definitively 10,000 dead, then that would be truly sensationalist.  But most of the headlines and articles made it clear that the Mayor's estimate was high-end.

Furthermore, the media has reported inflated estimated death tolls in the past (see 9/11 and the Asian tsunami).  These estimates usually come from experts that use the available evidence to give a number as to how many dead there could be.  It's possible that the experts that make these estimates are poor at their jobs, or that because of the dearth of available information, these estimates are extremely difficult to make.  Regardless, one can't say that these estimates are based on stereotyping or "overwhelmed local politicians who used such estimates to shove attention off of their own performances" when this happens after nearly every major tragedy.

Secondly, where did the Mayor's figure come from?  Media-induced hysteria?  Stereotypes?  Nope...it looks like this high-end estimate came from a computer model.

Nagin told The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith that he thinks there will be thousands of deaths in New Orleans, adding, "Some computer models say 10,000. I don't know what the number is. But it's going to be big. And it's going to shock the nation."

And more from The Guardian:

Mr Nagin has put his name to a figure of 10,000 as what he sees as the likeliest figure of dead.

A total of nearly 40,000 are officially unaccounted for but it is accepted that the vast majority of them have probably either survived the storm or had already left the city without necessarily informing anyone of exactly where they were going.

The figures of those still unaccounted for in this city of just under 500,000 people have been used to draw up a computerised estimate of the dead which is double that of Mr Nagin's. But some believe that the true figure will be far, far smaller, even just in the hundreds.

"The estimates are always far in excess of the reality," said one American reporter who specialises in covering disasters as the rescue operations were coordinated outside Harrahs casino in New Orleans. "I would not be surprised if we were looking at as few 200 to 300."

Such enormous discrepancies are not unusual. When the World Trade Centre was attacked in September 2001, initial estimates of the dead were between 30,000 and 40,000. These were gradually revised down to a figure of 10,000 which was accepted initially as a likely total. In fact, the final figure was fewer than 3,000.

Furthermore, a senior military official estimated that the death toll would be between 3,000-5,000 dead, and hoped it wouldn't reach 10,000.

When death estimates are made, they often overestimate because of a lack of information.   The overestimation of Katrina deaths, although inaccurate, were based on some sort of evidence.  The areas hit hardest by flooding in New Orleans were those with people that are least likely to make it out.  This made sense, as poor, high-density areas of New Orleans were hit hard by flooding.  Fortunately, it looks like many more of the city's poor either evacuated or made it to shelter and the death tolls are lower.

Now the Mayor's estimates were almost assuredly wrong.  But I see nothing wrong in the media reporting these estimates, considering that they came from computer models based on existing knowledge of the situation.  As long as the media doesn't report these numbers as fact (which was likely done only in the occasional headline), this is fair reporting.

What isn't fair is to say that these estimates were "based on stereotyping", when a few minutes of research would show that they were based on models.  And it isn't fair to challenge the mainstream media to "ask themselves whether the estimate of 10,000 casualties had any other basis in fact" without actually reporting where these estimates came from.