Katrina

Last year, when Hurricane Ivan came through the Gulf region, most experts agreed that the absolute worst-case scenario would be if Ivan were to hit New Orleans. An estimate I heard, which was about the same as most others, was that 15,000 people would be killed in a direct hit. Well, Ivan ended up going through the Florida panhandle. Katrina, however, followed the path that had so worried experts and officials.

The reason New Orleans is so vulnerable is not only because of its density - the real problem is that most of the city is below sea level. The only thing keeping the city dry is a complex network of levees and pumps that keep out the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Pontchartrain. This works well when the weather is fine, and even in minor hurricanes (the system was designed to withstand up to a Catergory 3 storm), but it was not prepared to handle this.

Katrina was a very odd storm. When I left for college, it was a weak Catergory 1 that struggled its way across Florida and made its way into the Gulf of Mexico. Here, it managed to gather enough strength to become a Catergory 5 storm, the highest on the scale, with sustained winds above 155 mph. Furthermore, it developed the ability to put out a tremendous amount of rain. Some areas reported more than two feet of rain. The combination of these two forces, along with the track of the storm, worried New Orleans officials enough that they issued a mandatory evacuation order for the entire city.

Estimates are that around 80% of the city's population left the city in time. The remaining 20%, authorities asserted, refused to believe such an apocalyptic event would ever happen in their lifetime, and so felt no need to leave.

As was bound to happen, the levees broke. One was breached, and it widened to over 300 feet. As water poured into the city, rising to 20 feet in some areas, other levees also broke from the enormous external pressure. Buildings collapsed under the weight of the massive winds and the water inundating their foundations. Even the Superdome, which was intended as a shelter, had a section of it's roof ripped away. The most deadly aspect, though, was the floodwaters. Witnesses reported that the water rose so fast they could see it changing. With little warning and no hope of escape, many people drowned in their own homes.

The estimated number of deaths has not even been made officially. The mayor of New Orleans said that "thousands" were probably dead, and numerous reports were coming through of bodies floating in the water. The tremendous number of corpses pose a serious health risk, since cholera and typhoid, among others, spread quickly from corpse to corpse and to the living.

An initial estimate of the economic cost of the hurricane was $16 billion, but that was the day after the storm had passed through and I have not seen any since. I would be very surprised if it was less than $50 billion. Andrew, previously the most costly hurricane in American history, caused around $25 billion of damage. But that storm hit the suburban sprawl of southern Florida, not the densely packed city of New Orleans. The city is so damaged that it will take years to fully repair.

Even though the storm is long gone, the danger is still very present. Aside from the disease mentioned earlier, there are other problems. New Orelans was a major oil refinery city, both importing and refining crude oil. Fires have been reported over in the industrial district, and the water is very likely contaminated with the pollution of the destroyed plants. The two main bridges into the city have been destroyed, and the city is wholly without power, water, food, or gas. Looting, however, is the most disturbing aspect of the aftermath. Ambulances have been attacked, generators have been stolen from hospitals, stores have been looted, and, from the looks of one video, National Guard armories have been raided and armed gangs wander the streets. The videos I saw looked more like Mogadishu than the southern United States. I would address the looting further, but I would like to save it for later, as part of a larger philosophical discussion on the human character.

Besides the tremendous loss of life, which will make every previous disaster in the United States this century appear mild by comparison, and the tremendous property destruction, there is a longer lasting effect on the entire country. Because the Gulf is a large contributor to daily American oil production, and New Orleans a major refining and shipping center, oil prices are surging and will continue to do so. Energy analysts have been warning for years that any major event that disrupts the oil supplies, whether revolution in Saudi Arabia, war in Nigeria, or a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, would break the delicate supply/demand dance that the world has been doing for the past decade. Though OPEC has offered to increase oil production and President Bush (watch for his approval rating to soar, no matter what he does - Americans are idiots) has opened the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to domestic usage, both these sources only offer more crude - and the economy does not run on crude. New Orleans provided 10% of the American refining capacity, and that will be offline for at least six months. Prices will surge, especially in the United States, probably to $5 a gallon in such high consumption areas as California and settle around $4 for the nation until supplies can be returned to normal. Such a massive spike in gas prices will have two effects on the economy:
1) The increased cost of transportation will increase the price of goods across the board. Look for inflation rates above 7% annually next year, at least.
2) Consumer spending will drop precipitously, between the increased gas prices and higher inflationary prices. Some analysts predict that the GDP growth will drop to zero once the full effect of the storm is felt. A healthy rate, and one that we have more or less been seeing over the past few years, is 3%.

Overall, the storm is the catastrophe that we have been overdue for. And the hurricane season has not yet even peaked. If another storm heads through New Orleans again this year, it will force a serious consideration of whether it is wise to build large cities below sea level in a hurricane-prone region.

A Critique of Anarcho-Capitalism

This is all the rage over at Josh's house, supposedly. It's also totally unrealistic.

Anarcho-Capitalism (AC from here on out) is basically the natural endpoint on the far right of the free market continuum. Free-marketists want the government to stay out of the affairs of business (Laissez-Faire), which is the basic principle of our economic system, capitalism. AC solves the problem of government intervention by just getting rid of the government.

I've never been a free-marketist, personally. I've always felt that left to their own devices, corporations would destroy the world, or, at the very least, enslave all the workers. So naturally, I'm a little uneasy about anything that proposes removing governments to remove government control. But this really becomes a moot point when up against the rest of the troubles with it.

If you remember back to my piece on anarchy, you'll be able to understand the basic problems with a governmentless system. My biggest problem with it was that it would never remain anarchic for very long - soon after, small groups would form, and leaders would emerge that would serve the functions of tribal chieftains - basically dictators. Anarcho-Capitalism is even less useful because it puts in place the structures to destroy anarchy; namely, corporations. By putting people into positions of hierarchy (middle manager, CEO, mailboy, etc.) you have already laid the groundwork for exploitation and control. They argue that involvement in any corporation would be voluntary, but how voluntary can something be when your other option is starvation, since government safety nets don't exist?

To remedy this situation, proponents of AC rely on an absurd idea: that everyone would adhere to the beloved libertarian ideal of the "non-aggression axiom." First, this is a rule, and rules do not exist in an anarchic state (oxymoron!). Furthermore, this takes an extremely positive view of human nature. As a Hobbesian myself, I tend to believe humans are selfish and greedy by nature - just look around. To believe some abstract axiom would deter violence in a lawless society is absurd. Furthermore, the method with which to back this up is quite frightening. Libertarians are vicious opponents of any gun control, and in an Anarcho-Capitalist society, everyone would carry around a few guns with which to defend themselves and their property. What fun, eh?

Basically, the idea is absurd. But, Anarcho-Capitalists can cite examples of AC in history! What are they? The first isn't actually an Anarcho-Capitalist state, but they seem to overlook that. You see, they claim that Iceland from 930 - 1262 was an AC state. However, they seem to overlook the fact that there was a functioning federalist society - they had a parliament, the Althing, and tribal councils. So scratch that one. The other example, believe it or not: Somalia in 1992. Remember Black Hawk Down? Do you really want to live like that?

Refuted! Give it your best shot, Josh...

Gas To Inflation

Get ready to start paying higher prices for everything. As some people may have noticed, the price at the pump has been going up. This doesn't only affect your personal gas prices, it makes shipping everything more expensive. These costs are being passed on to the businesses that sell you stuff, and so far, most have been absorbing them (though Taco Bell increased the three taco meal by $.10!). However, this will only go on for so long, and then prices will start to take off.

That's all. I just wanted everyone to know we'll soon be paying for our consumptive sins.

Quiet Racism

I read a very interesting article in The Nation yesterday. In it, Naomi Klein provides the case of Sayyid Qutb, viewed by many as the founder of the modern Islamic radicalism. How he came to be so outraged that he felt it necessary to kill others is what I found so interesting, and, important.

Qutb came to the United States in 1948 to attend college in Colorado, the same year that the Israel was recognized by the United Nations. He was deeply hurt by the suffering of thousands of Palestinians who were expelled by the new government, yet he saw no grief whatsoever in America. It wasn't that the American public wasn't aware - it was that the American public didn't care (is rhyming bad in a column?). Examples of the same lack of interest in the affairs of "brown people" is evident today, just as much so as in 1948. When four people were killed in a car crash in Avon last month, it recieved at least a week of intense coverage. The same day the crash occurred, over 900 Bangladeshis were killed in a train wreck, but that only warranted a small, single-paragraph note in the back of the paper. Furthermore, the media and American public obsesses over American dead in Iraq - around 1,850, with another 15,000 or so wounded - yet doesn't even bother to attempt to seriously count the number of Iraqi dead - at least 30,000 from direct war casualties, and over 100,000 from the disruption and destruction that overall has occurred.

After Qutb left the United States and returned to Egypt, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood, an dissident group that the Egyptian government intensely feared. He was arrested and severly tortured, and this treatment further fueled his fury. The combination of his brutal treatment at the hands of his own government and the Western public which cared little for his or any other non-Westerner's suffering was what helped shape his ideology that has today resulted in the bloodiest struggle in the Western world since World War II.

The importance of this ties in to the "homegrown" terrorists that launched the recent attacks in London. Many in the mainstream media blame the problem on the willingness of the British to be so inclusive of immigrants, allowing large numbers into their country and pushing tolerance and multiculturalism. They blame young Muslims with not seeing a good thing when they have it, and instead running off on some violent fantasy. While intolerance on the part of the immigrants does play a role in the situation, the intolerance on the part of the native population is even more virulent. While racism exists in every society, and will be part of them for a very long time, if not forever, the most distressing aspect of this "silent racism" that motivates terrorists (the London bombers watched videos of American troops killing civilians in Iraq to get pumped up for their impending death) is undoubtedly the active support of causes that suppress the less fortunate, especially the Arabs.

One of President Bush's main arguments for the war in Iraq is that by fighting them over there, we will not have to fight them here. While this makes sense to the average white American, who couldn't care less about "over there," step back and look at the extreme callousness of the statement. What if Osama Bin Laden justified the attacks on September 11 with the same rationale - better to fight the infidels in America that in, say, Iraq? The truth of the matter is, the leader of the most powerful country on Earth is more than willing to sacrifice dozens of Iraqi lives for every American life he can save. The Lancet study that listed 100,000 Iraqi civilian casualties was done 18 months after the war began, and now it is more like 30. Furthermore, in the intervening time, the city of Fallujah, once inhabited by 300,000 people, has been basically leveled to the ground, with witnesses drawing comparisons to postwar Germany in 1945. It would therefore be reasonable to estimate that at least 150,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq. Less than 3,000 Americans were killed in September 11 attacks - roughly a ratio of one American to fifty Iraqis. It is this callous brutality that drives terrorists forward, and if we stop, they will lose much of the rationale for their jihads and lose their recruiting pools that have been growing since April 2003.

CD Review:

Texas Is The Reason's Do You Know Who You Are?

I've had this CD for two days. Already, I know it's a classic. While its tough to pretend to give an objective view after starting your review with glowing praise, I'll do it anyway. The CD is absolutely spectacular.

While defining the emo movement of the mid- to late-90's is a little difficult, I'm going to claim it died in late 1999, so I can fit Mare Vitalis in their, as well as Clarity, I guess. And we'll define the starting point as 1993, when a number of seminal emo albums were released. Within this boundary, Do You Know Who You Are? is able to claim a top spot in the movement. Though Texas Is The Reason only released one CD and one EP, their contribution is very worthy, regardless.

Do You Know Who You Are? is not the best CD of anything. While emotional, it lacks the emotional brutality of Mineral. Christie Front Drive's self-titled is a much more "emo" album, with the muddy quality and deeply poetic lyrics. The Appleseed Cast put out much more beautiful albums, and Know is not at all groundbreaking, but rather just another CD in the pack.

What sets this record apart, however, is that while it doesn't do anything best, it does everything extremely well. Garret Klahn is absolutely vicious on some of the songs, and the band backs him up on it. The musicianship is a couple notches above the typical punk rock, and provides plenty of catchy hooks and enjoyable riffs that deviating from the three-chord formula is able to provide. The drums especially provide a lot of the punch in the rougher songs, but stay to their place in the more serene pieces.

Lyrically, it is a typical emo album. Growing up, dealing with relationships, dealing with responsibility ("I have to learn not to remember to forget"), and other common themes of the genre form the centerpiece of the lyrical structure. However, they all seem genuine and are moderately thoughtful; some are even downright perfect: "Do you even know why / you hold your breath when you talk".

Overall, the album is an excellent example of the genre, comparable to Christie Front Drive and The Promise Ring's Nothing Feels Good. As for a score...hmmm...I'd say about a 8.5 out of 10. And keep in mind I gave Mineral's The Power of Failing a 9.2, and consider that one of the top five finest CDs ever produced.

Nuclear Weapons: Pros And Cons

A while back, I wrote a piece that voiced my concern over the abundance of nuclear weapons, should anything ever happen to destabilize the governments who have jurisdiction over them. That, of course, is still a concern of mine, but I didn't do a very good job of explaining the positive effects of ICBMs either.

Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD, one of the most accurate acronyms you will ever find) was the prevailing doctrine of both the United States and Soviet Union after the invention of the Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile. Through the years, the missile and warhead were refined, but the idea remained the same: If you fire your nukes, we'll fire ours, and everyone will die. Putting aside the question of whether that is even an acceptable policy at all (I find it to be quite disgusting, personally), it was nonetheless effective. Furthermore, the conventional military wisdom at the time was of the opinion that if a convential (non-nuclear) war was to start in Europe between the superpowers, it would inevitably turn nuclear. Neither side ever wished to test that theory, understanding the consequences involved.

It is in this single aspect that nuclear weapons provide their sole benefit to humanity. Without the threat of MAD, it is highly probable that every couple decades the superpowers of the time - whether the United States and Russia, or a resurgent Germany, or any of a combination of European groups - would have felt the need to settle their differences through war. In World War I, around 30 million people died. In World War II, merely twenty years later, another 50-70 million were killed. With the rate of technological progress in weaponry being pushed to new levels by the cold war (which would have occured with or without nukes), and thus the killing power increasing at an exponential level, it is easy to imagine well over 100 million people being annihilated in the next war, which almost certainly would come soon. And of course, violence begets violence, and increasingly deadly and destructive wars would be fought without end.

However, there is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for the massive numbers of warheads that the two superpowers possess. The basic idea of MAD could be accomplished with no more than fifty one-megaton warheads. But the United States possesses over 10,000 warheads, scattered throughout the country, and Russia has around 8,000 active warheads and another 7,000 or so deactivated or waiting for destruction. In sum, the two former superpowers possess enough firepower to kill every man, woman, and child on this earth ten times over.