Observer

What ... no apology from the left? Anyone? :whome:

I agree... The libs, and media have made it out like Bush not only came up with the spending bills, but also passed them in Congress & the Senate.... while getting Katrina ready... and planting explosives in the twin towers....

Bush did put more funding toward the CIA and Military.... Then the Dems and Media beat him up for deficit spending... Bush never had a chance to take down Ossama before the attacks... By the time Bush was in office the plan was in action....

Here you go Middle What did Clinton have to do with the CIA..etc. He worked to cut their funding. He did not set a standard of cooperation. He ignored their suggestions. That enough?

The "Legacy" continues to crumble under the scrutiny of history!

Do you really expect the Dems or the Liberal Media to even admit they were wrong? Much less give an apology?

The best option was to eliminate the levies and return the marsh to marsh.... It could have been a great new fishing spot!

He used the explosives left over from the twin towers....:wacko:

Long... I knew it was a bit long for a BB... Figured it was good enough and had enough points to make it worth it...

And you mis-read my intentions with the other posts.... too :whistle: When teaching lessons..... one is often misunderstood....

From the stories I have read.... I figured this one was one of the best at telling the coaches side of the story....

HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL Texas football coaches winning the wage war over teachers Unbalanced salaries draw ire from some education circles; others say head coaches earn every penny they make. By Alan Trubow AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Sunday, August 27, 2006 High school football still rules in Texas, and the proof is in the paychecks. Football coaches in the state's largest high schools generally earn significantly larger salaries than the state's teachers do, even many with graduate degrees and decades of experience. Head coaches in Classes 5A and 4A — schools with 950 students or more — are making an average of $73,804 while teachers in those classifications average close to $42,400, according to records obtained by the Austin American-Statesman through the Texas Public Information Act. Those numbers are similar to findings from 10 years ago, when The Associated Press reported that 5A and 4A coaches earned an average of $54,000 per year and the state's teachers averaged $31,000. Adjusting for inflation, the gap between teachers' and coaches' salaries has widened by 7.3 percent over the past 10 years. The 1995 salaries in today's dollars would be $69,488 for coaches and $40,207 for teachers. The Austin American-Statesman asked every 5A and 4A school district in the state for the total compensation paid to head football coaches and for salaries of their highest-paid teachers, high school principals and superintendents for the 2005-06 school year. Some of the findings from the 461 schools include: •Five coaches in the state earn more than $100,000, with the largest salary going to Ennis High School's Sam Harrell, who earns $106,004. •The lowest-paid coach is Houston Furr's Cornell Gray, who earns $42,300. •Art Briles was the highest-paid coach in 1995-96, earning $82,658 at Stephenville High School. However, in today's dollars, Briles' 1995 salary would be $105,926. That would make Briles, currently the University of Houston coach, the state's second-highest-paid coach, behind Harrell. •Twenty-seven schools pay their football coaches more than they pay their principals, including Copperas Cove, where Head Coach Jack Welch earns $14,465 more than the principal, George Willey. •The 10 highest-paid coaches in 2005-06 have combined to win seven state championships since 2000. •Southlake Carroll Coach Todd Dodge, whose teams are 63-1 the past four years, ranks 36th on the salary list, earning $90,510. •Football coaches in the state's largest school districts — including Austin, El Paso, Houston and Fort Worth — are at the bottom of the salary list. But unlike 10 years ago, when the Texas Education Agency and state officials expressed disappointment in the disparity, most educators today say they understand the reason for the pay difference. "I think all of these coaches earn every penny that they get," said Texas Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley, a former superintendent at Galena Park North Shore, which paid Coach David Aymond the state's 35th-highest salary in 1995. "Those football coaches put in more hours than most people realize." They put in more days, too. Coaches' contracts usually are based on a 226-day work year while teachers' contracts are based on a 187-day year. Consequently, teachers often get a longer summer break than most coaches. "And the return on the investment of football coaches is well worth it," Neeley said. "I know Coach Aymond doesn't make enough for what he does. Just look at how many scholarships he's gotten kids over the years." North Shore has had 36 players earn Division I-A college football scholarships this decade. Texas sends hundreds of football players to top programs across the country every year. But not everybody supports the salary structure. "The average teacher's salary has gone up, and beginning teachers are getting better salaries, but this is Texas," Texas State Teachers Association President Donna Haschke said. "In Texas, everybody expects us to have big football programs. In my opinion, yes, we need to emphasize academics over sports more than we do. Sports has its place, and it's an important, positive place in the curriculum. But I think that we should be putting some of that time and money into education." But when it comes to justifying their salaries, coaches don't have a problem. They talk hours. They talk pressure. They talk responsibilities and community camaraderie. D.W. Rutledge, a former head coach at Converse Judson who now is the executive director of the Texas High School Coaches Association, believes coaches' salaries are exactly where they should be. "I think coaches in general, and not just football coaches, I think they've got a real strong influential power," said Rutledge, who was one of the state's 10 highest-paid coaches in 1995. "I believe a coach has two tasks," he said. "One is a minor one, and that is really teaching techniques of the game and skills of the game. The major task is the intangibles that coaches bring to the table. Good coaches teach leadership skills and sacrifice and dedication and unselfishness." And all that takes time. Though Haschke said recent surveys show that teachers work 40 to 70 hours per week, coaches say they put in 70 to 100 hours per week during the season. And almost all of them work on Saturdays and Sundays, analyzing game film and preparing for the next game. Outside of football season, coaches still put in long hours because, as athletic coordinators, they supervise athletic events and show support for their schools' teams. "I really think with the salary, it is based on the number of hours we put in. Nobody wants to put in the hours that we do," said Lufkin Coach John Outlaw, who is the third-highest-paid coach in the state, earning $103,500. "My wife is a teacher, and she doesn't want to work the schedule I work. She's told me numerous times she doesn't want to do it. And I don't blame her." What are coaches doing during those hours? "Everything from running the athletic program during the day to practice to dealing with player problems to watching film," Lake Travis Coach Jeff Dicus said. "You've got to set everything up for that week's game, make sure you've got the officials, security for the gate. There's always something to do. I usually get to school before the sun comes up, and I don't leave sometimes until after it goes down." The pressure to win also contributes to the long hours. Coaches are aware that their product is on display to the entire community at least 10 times a year. Their results are printed in newspapers and discussed in coffee shops and on Internet message boards. They answer to boosters, fans and communities. Although most superintendents will say that winning isn't as important as teaching good values when it comes to coaches keeping their jobs, many coaches don't believe that. "Yeah, winning isn't important to your job if you don't want to keep it," Westlake Coach Derek Long said. "That's reality. And every coach accepts it. Now, in some places, winning five games will help you keep your job. But in other places, if you don't go two or three rounds deep in the postseason, you're not going to have a job very long." Job security is a big risk for football coaches. Some like it that way. "Winning always has been important, and I think in a competitive environment, I don't see that as a bad thing. I see that as a good thing," Rutledge said. "I don't think it's more important now than it's been in the past. I don't know why I feel that. From the time I've started coaching to this point in my life, I think winning always has been important. I think that makes a coach's job a little more stressful. But winning football games is always going to be a criteria for football coaches." One reason for that is obvious: The deeper a team advances in the playoffs, the more money the district receives, the more exposure the school receives and the more support the team draws from its community. Ennis Superintendent Mike Harper, who said he has no problem with Harrell being the highest-paid coach in the state, said the Lions' football program has generated at least $200,000 in revenue each of the past five years. The Lions have won three of the past five Class 4A state championships. Harrell's salary is a 65 percent increase from what he was making at Ennis in 1995, the highest bump among the 46 coaches who are still at the same school. "We think Sam is worth everything we pay him," Harper said. "We've chosen to pay him that much because we didn't want another school to lure him away. So we always offered him money. "He's proven he's worth it to the community. He's worth it because of the role model he is. And last year, we made about $260,000 from the football program. And that helps fund other things." Harrell's is one of the rare cases in which his entire job description is football coach. It is unusual to find a 5A or a 4A head football coach teaching in the classroom, although large multischool districts such as El Paso, Fort Worth and Houston are exceptions. Most coaches at the 5A and 4A level also serve as the school's athletic coordinator, overseeing the overall athletic program, or the athletic director if they coach in a one-school district. Coaches receive a base salary for their teaching/coordinating responsibilities and a football coaching stipend. The stipend is established by the school district and ranges from $1,000 to $35,000, which Dodge draws at Southlake Carroll. "I really think we're right where the going rate is," Lufkin's Outlaw said. "You look at how much college coaches are making, and you know we're not making close to that amount. So I think that we're right where we're supposed to be." But teachers don't think the salary structure for coaches is where it should be. "Football coaches are under the microscope consistently more than others," said Anderson High School Advanced Placement history teacher Lyn Loessler. "Does that necessarily equate to the difference in pay to double or more than the classroom teacher? No, I don't think so. "I don't begrudge a fellow educator earning that type of income. I have difficulty with the fact that the career teacher makes so much less," Loessler said. "Teachers do put in a tremendous number of hours beyond what is in a school day. I put in at least 60 hours per week." Grading papers, organizing classroom lectures and running clubs, dances and other school-related functions are all part of teachers' jobs. But some of the highest-paid teachers' salaries rival coaches'. The highest-paid teacher in the Houston school district makes $95,191, far more than Houston Lamar Coach Tom Nolen, whose $76,913 salary makes him the highest-paid football coach in the district. "The state sets a minimum salary, and paying teachers anything above that is a district-by-district decision. That's all I can really say," Neeley said. "Not everything is going to be equal. Right now, we seem to be paying math and science teachers more money than English and history teachers. I've been in the public school business for 35 years now, and it's just the way it is. Thank God districts have the opportunity to pay some teachers more." And the same can be said for football coaches. At least that's what former state House Public Education Committee Chairman Paul Sadler told The Associated Press in 1996. "If the local school district chooses to pay their high school football coach more than they pay their teachers, that's part of local control," Sadler said. "If the local community allows that to happen, then the taxpayers are getting what they want — in theory at least. I personally have questioned the practice for a long time. Not that I think that coaches are overpaid, but rather that teachers are underpaid." Neither House Public Education Committee Chairman Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, nor Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, was available for comment despite attempts to schedule interviews. Numerous coaches agree with Sadler on teacher pay. "Part of the reason I've never gone and asked for a raise is because I don't think I have the right to," Outlaw said. "Sure, we've only lost two games the past three years. But what about a teacher who goes out there and busts her tail to get all of her students to pass the TAKS test? Does she have the right to go ask for a raise?" Outlaw is joined by Harrell and Welch, all of whom say they have never asked for a raise. "That's why I was so surprised that I was the highest-paid coach," Harrell said. "Because I've never gone to anybody to talk about salary." While the debate will continue, both coaches and teachers can agree on one thing: Many say they didn't choose their profession based on the potential size of their bank accounts. "Some days I think I get overpaid," Outlaw said. "But then you have to deal with knucklehead boys and knucklehead mommies and daddies, and you realize that everybody in education is underpaid. "I don't do what I do for money. You can't put a price tag on being able to change somebody's life. And that's the chance that all of us have every day, no matter how much we're making."

Why New Orleans Flooded Phil Brennan Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2005 A steel barge that came crashing into one of the levee walls, and not the failure of that levee to hold back an immense tidal wave, was to blame for much of the flooding that drowned parts of New Orleans. Lying an average of seven feet below sea level, surrounded by the waters of Lake Ponchartrain, the Mississippi River and Lake Borgne, which separates Lake Pontchartrain from the Gulf of Mexico, and protected by a series of sinking levees, the city of New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen. It happened on August 29, 2005, just as the city was breathing a collective sigh of relief that hurricane Katrina had not been as bad as predicted. It turned out to be far worse, not because of the destructive winds of a Category Four hurricane, but because three massive walls of water spurred by those winds inundated many parts of the city after the winds moved away. As politicians play the blame game, many facts about the roots of the disaster have either been overlooked or deliberately ignored because they are inconvenient to those seeking to put the onus for the tragedy upon their political targets. One of them was the story behind the flood that turned a major disaster into a catastrophe of immense magnitude. In a fact-filled retrospective that told the full story, the Wall Street Journal explained in great detail just what happened when much of the Big Easy became an adjunct of Lake Ponchartrain. The Journal told the truth, but the truth hurts when you are seeking to put your spin on the assignment of blame. So the remainder of the media simply ignored a story the American people are entitled to know. Facts Ignored and Not Investigated Among the facts exposed of the Journal which the mainstream media has studiously ignored: In two cases, storm-driven water, far higher than the levees were designed to hold back (up to 15 feet of tidal surge), overwhelmed them and went pouring down on parts of the city. According to the Journal, the waves inundated the mostly working-class eastern districts, home to 160,000 people. In some places, the water rose as fast as a foot per minute, survivors told the Journal. These levees did not break. According to engineers, scientists, local officials and the accounts of nearly 90 survivors of Katrina interviewed by the Journal, the first of the three waves swept from the north out of Lake Pontchartrain. The wave of undetermined height poured over 15-foot-high levees along the Industrial Canal, which were several feet lower than others in the central areas of the city. Wrote the Journal: "About the same time, a similar wave exploded without warning across Lake Borgne, which separates Lake Pontchartrain from the Gulf of Mexico. It filled the lake, engulfed its surrounding marshes, raced over levees and poured into eastern New Orleans." Another huge wave came across Lake Pontchartrain in the north. It sent a steel barge ramming through the Industrial Canal, a major shipping artery that cuts north to south through the city, possibly creating a breach that grew to 500 feet, letting water pour into nearby neighborhoods of the city's Ninth Ward. The barge's remains were found lying on the bottom of the gap. An early eyewitness reported seeing the barge smash through the levee. His report was never followed up by the media. Shea Penland, director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of New Orleans, said that break was particularly surprising because one of the levee breaks was "along a section that was just upgraded." "It did not have an earthen levee," Dr. Penland told the New York Times. "It had a vertical concrete wall several feel thick." Vital repairs for which a whopping $600 million had been appropriated by the federal government were stopped after residents of the Ninth Ward complained about the noise created by the repair project and sued to halt it. The Industrial Canal, now operated and maintained mostly by the federal government, which the Journal described as "the area's defining presence since it was built in the 1920s," has been damaged by the passage of time and heavy use. Barges and ships were routinely delayed because of growing traffic levels and the lock was "literally falling apart at the hinges" in 1998, according to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers report, which called it an "antique" and recommended replacing it. The lock replacement project didn't get very far because Ninth Ward residents complained about noise and launched a legal fight that bogged down the work. Levees Not Tall Enough The levees along the Industrial Canal's eastern side are supposed to stand at a height of 15 feet, according to the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Joseph Suhayda, a retired Louisiana State University coastal oceanographer, who told the Journal he suspects the levees aren't actually that tall, partly due to sinking of the land beneath them. Mr. Suhayda now consults for a maker of flood-protection barriers. If he's right, that would mean the levees weren't high enough to handle even a Category 2 or 3 hurricane. Katrina was nearly a Category 5. The Corps of Engineers concedes some of its levees in the area "have settled and need to be raised to provide" the level of protection for which they were designed, according to a fact sheet on the Corps's Web site dated May 23, 2005. But federal budget shortfalls in fiscal 2005 and 2006 "will prevent the Corps from addressing these pressing needs." Even had sufficient funds been available the work could not have been completed in time to prevent the Katrina floods. Designed for the Mississippi, Not the Gulf In an earlier September 2 story the Journal noted that in Louisiana, coastal wetlands provide some shelter from surging seawater, but more than one million acres of coastal wetlands have been lost since 1930 due to development and construction of levees and canals. For every square mile of wetland lost, storm surges rise by one foot. "Moreover, the levees in New Orleans were built to keep the city from being flooded by the Mississippi, but instead caused it to fall below sea level. Now the Gulf of Mexico has moved into the city," says the Journal. As the hurricane rolled into New Orleans, scores of boats broke free or sank. In the Industrial Canal, the gush of water broke a barge from its moorings. It isn't known whose barge it was. The huge steel hull became a water-borne missile. It hurtled into the canal's eastern flood wall just north of the major street passing through the Lower Ninth Ward, leading officials to theorize that the errant barge triggered the 500-foot breach. Water poured into the neighborhood. When the storm was over, the barge was resting inside the hole. "Based on what I know and what I saw, the Lower Ninth Ward, Chalmette, St. Bernard, their flooding was instantaneous," said Col. Rich Wagenaar of the Army Corps. It didn't help that the Mississippi River, which runs along the southern border of these neighborhoods, rose 11 feet between Sunday and Monday mornings. Coastal experts say that could have worsened flooding by limiting the water's escape route. As the water roaring out of the Industrial Canal turned the streets of eastern New Orleans into rivers, the same areas were hit from the other side by the storm surge coming off Lake Borgne. Engineers say the estimated 20-foot surge also appeared to overflow levees just north of St. Bernard Parish. Shrimp boats were dumped in a marshy section between Lake Borgne and the city. Responsibilities Unfulfilled The city of New Orleans issued a "Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan" for hurricanes well before Katrina arrived. The city accepted the responsibility for issuing a warning, ordering and managing evacuation, arranging for buses for those without any other transportation, setting up and maintaining shelters, and other critical duties. As one editorialist wrote, "Given the corruption in municipal agencies - one not necessarily cynical Louisiana politician (Billy Tauzin) said some time ago that "Half of Louisiana is under water and the other half is under indictment" - it was inevitable that a picture of responsibilities unfulfilled would emerge after a storm like Katrina." Among the city's self-proclaimed responsibilities was the job of the mayor to order an evacuation 48 hours before the hurricane came ashore, not 24, hours, as Mayor Nagin did; the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority was meant to "position supervisors and dispatch evacuation buses" to evacuate at least some of the "100,000 citizens of New Orleans [who] do not have means of personal transportation," but it did not, and the flood claimed the buses. Moreover, the city was responsible for establishing shelters co-ordinated with "food and supply distribution sites" which the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army and others were to provision, but the city did not. Both agencies provided the supplies but as Fox cable News correspondent Major Garret revealed, they were barred by local authorities from delivering them to those stranded in the city at places such as the Superdome who most needed them in the immediate aftermath of the storm. As the Journal reported on September 2, city officials appear to have been well aware of their responsibilities. As late Aug. 1, officials close to the planning confirmed to the New Orleans Times-Picayune that the transit authority had developed plans to use its own buses, school buses, and even trains to move refugees from the city when disaster struck. Failed Execution of the Plan Part of its "Future Plans" section, for example, concerns the levees. It also includes discussion of "the preparation of a post-disaster plan that will identify programs and actions that will reduce of eliminate the exposure of human life and property to natural hazards." In 9,000 words, there are only four references to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Nowhere, not even in a section on catastrophic events, do the words "Department of Homeland Security" appear. The city declared that its hurricane preparedness procedures were "designed to deal with the anticipation of a direct hit from a major hurricane." Such a hurricane hit, and New Orleans was not prepared. The first questions that legislators in Washington and in Baton Rouge should be asking are simple: Why didn't the buses run? Why were people left to starve? Where did all those dollars go? What the Journal reported showed the immense magnitude of the disaster and explained what created a catastrophe beyond anything most people in New Orleans anticipated. The real cause of the tragedy lay in the history of the city's below sea level location – a fact that can be traced back to the city's founding. The attempts to prevent the Mississippi from rising over its banks and flooding the area has been a recurring problem, as have the miscalculations surrounding the ability of the dikes to deal with storms even less severe than Hurricane Katrina.

Life isn't fair......

I took a 1/2 day of vacation... And today is a holiday... The Rain will prevent a limit today.... but Friday / Sat / Sun .... were just fine... Thanks for worrying about me!