I was talking with a don't-really-get-it(rants,doesn't prepair)friend about why we're in Kosovo;obviously america condones ethic cleansing when it supports our financial interests(read:east timor)so why send troops to the balkins??my bud chimed in..."it's to harden our troops to human suffering and to learn to deal with masses of refugees..."gave me chills,but I think(opinion)our corporate owners(government) hype the 3 day food and water thing not because that's how long disruptions will last but as rations to last on until evacuated...obviously paranoia unless hind site proves otherwise time will tell(I hope I get to donate all these rice and beans to the food pantrys)

-- Zoobie (zoob@aol.com), April 19, 1999

Answers

Evacuated ... to where? Internment camps?

All 275 million of us?

Conspiracy theorists never seem to think things through.

-- this (doesnt@make.sense), April 19, 1999.

not internment camps,emergency shelters,I'm in wisconsin and it's been anounced that milwaukee is planning to have public schools instal generators in case they are needed as shelters(gets cold up here)I dismiss my idle paranoia all the time and you're implying to much mechanation it's not a theory(I have no footnotes)it's just rambling...at least I know better than take myself seriously(sheesh) after all we're all just passing time waiting for the big day (pollyannas too)

-- Zoobie (zoob@aol.com), April 19, 1999.

Not paranoia at all, IMHO. Believe this was brought up on a thread awhile back and 3 days was the time needed to get shelters organized and set up in the big cities if (when!) it turns out to last more than 3 days.

-- sue (deco100@aol.com), April 19, 1999.

(quoting)obviously america condones ethic cleansing when it supports our financial interests,...

(end quote) Yes, indeed,...for an imperialistic nation who enforced ethnic cleansing of the same sort for at least 100 years, I would assume that the US in its NATO costume would support expelling and exterminating the non-governmental ethnic/religious group, the so-called "ethnic Albanians".

(quote)

"it's to harden our troops to human suffering and to learn to deal with masses of refugees..."gave me chills,(end quote, emphasis mine)

Gives me the chills too....Ask yourself...what financial interest is there in & aroud Kosovo. Follow the dollars,...follow your instinct, and don't listen to prattle about this wonderfully democratic and free nation. BTW,..I'm almost 47 years old...and don't see much difference in the so-called US government in the last 25 year...and before...Saving lives? I don't think so...can you say "the fire-bombing of Dresden, a non-military city during WWII?" Look it up. Worse body count than Hiroshima....don't question me...look it up.

Filter the foma.

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), April 19, 1999.

Donna, didn't Vonnegut write Slaughter house Five about bombing Dresden? Or am I mixed up. That was awful!!!

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), April 19, 1999.

Yep,..I'm on a long-overdue Vonnegut reading spree...Slaughterhouse Five, Cat's Cradle, Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons, Hocus Pocus, Player Piano, Breakfast of Champions...., among others....Slaughterhouse Five is his fictional description of the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany at the close of WWII,...he was there as a POW at the time of the bombing...and served as forced labor to clean up the "catacombs", before the 'liberation'.

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), April 19, 1999.

And so it goes...

Dano

-- Dano (bookem@blacksand.srf), April 19, 1999.

Nice idea about shelters - but the physical preparations - buying th ed**m things, setting foundations, electrical connections and controllers, setting up adequate water storage, adequate food storage, enough cots, bathrooms, ......, the list is near endless (to slightly exaggerate.)

Until, and unless, you see these kind of physical preparations completed - it's not going to be successful.

Make sense - you can't house = feed, clothe, shelter, water, bathe, and support several thousand people in an elementary school that is not "pre-prepared" as an emergency shelter. Closest thing to something having the infrastruture in place is a high school - and there isn't enough of them. (Consider that the high support 2500-4000 kids per day - add two to three middle schools feeding it (at 800 - 1500 kids per middle school, and four to six elementary schools per high school. Add parents, people with no kids, and stragglers.

Too many people to even move through a cafeteria effectively - and whose going to provide the food to be cooked by who over what - if power and heat are a problem so severe that shelters are needed? Where is that much water coming from - if real serious problems occur. (If no problems occur, why evacuate to a shelter at all?) Showers, bathrooms, toilet paper, utensils, cots, ....... heat, power, light, and emergency health support?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), April 19, 1999.