Random Thought

[TonyCooper]

Snip:
The only document that leaves out the most damages parishes in Louisiana is the FEMA document which is Pres. Bush's order. This ccan be found on FEMA's own website

http://www.fema.gov/news/eventcounties.fema?id=4786
and not some left wing hate group as opposed to the unsubstantiated right wing hate garbage Tony has been posting.
snip:

Your statement is pretty general. The devil is in the details. If you are alluding to my latest post, I heard and saw that conversation realtime on the tube with my own eyes are ears.... That snipit was the exchange as best I could recall. It was not hearsay or second hand. I heard the dialogue myself.

Now I grant you this... those may have been imposters up on that tube, maybe they were not real senators and maybe that wasn't Mr Brown. Having never met either of them I could conceiveably have the wool pulled over my eyes.... but it was still very entertaining.

And not once have I posted any "rightwing hate garbage". I have never spoken of a any party affilliation. I have spoken of left and liberal and rightwing. But there are leftest and rightest (if I can use those terms) in both parties. I have quoted our countries founding fathers a time or two.

I challenge you to show where I have posted anything of malice to anyone. My quotes are still above in this thread. I'll not edit a one except to correct grammar / spelling mistakes.

Reread carefully what I have said, not what you wish to hear. My point about Brown is that he wasn't completely at fault. I said as much. I did not relieve him of his responsibilities.

So I lay a guantlet at your feet. What part of my dialog is unsubstantiated? If you consider the Federalist Patriot (was WSJ - credit Guy for aiding in this correction) unsubstantiated... well then you win.

Please read my posts.

[madjack]

...Dan, my original disagreement with you about "filling" in N.O. was more about maintaining the "flavor" of the city. This came from my extensive experiences in the Big Easy of which only a portion was directly related to the French Quarter. After the new flooding with Rita and the fact that some areas that might have been saved now will unquestionably have to be razed led me to look at the problem in a new light.
After seeing some of the plans being floated around for the rebuilding and realizing the impossibility of maintaining that "flavor" I came to agreee with you that filling the low lying areas to the height of the present levies and then building above that level was the only way to prevent the same disaster from happening again.
Because almost all historic buildings/houses outside of the French Quarter are built on piers then any worth saving can be raised to accomodate filling in the low areas.
If we(USA) are going to spend the billions of dollars to rebuild then lets doit so that a disaster of this magnitude cannot happen in the same manner...to hell with levies and flood gates, lets fill the bowl
madjack

[Guy]

Tony, I will take that challenge.

You started this entire thread with a lie. You copied and pasted it from another site. Again, as you have done in the past the writer was anonymous "Green Bay, Wisconsin"

"Since the Sierra Club was the lead organization suing to stop reinforcing the New Orleans, LA levees, wouldn't it be appropriate if someone sued the Sierra Club to force them to reimburse everyone for the consequential damage. It's only about $350 billion. They could even pay by cash or check." —Green Bay, Wisconsin
_________________
Tony

Well here is the wacko right wing libertarian website you copied from http://patriotpostblog.us/c/articles/c/90/c/10/yarn.html. At least it was a different libertarian site than the one you copied from when you posted the BS about people buying Louis Vuitton bags with Red Cross cards.

Then two other people on this thread corrected the lie you posted about the Sierra Club. So you changed the topic and now decided to post some more lies about what Brown testified to. When you wrote your "snipit" (sic), not only did you not say you were paraphrasing, you even put it in quotation marks:

When catching a snipit of the Brown Congressional hearings I thought one of the funnest exchanges from the fiasco was the following:

Brown: "I could not find the Louisiana State Emergency Director"
Senator: " Why Not? Where was the Louisiana State Emergency Director?"
Brown: "Gone"
Senator: "Gone where exactly?"
Brown exclaiming in exasperation: "Sir, he was indicted!"

I laughed my &^%$ off. It was so spontaneous... caught everyone by surprise.

Tony, You were unwittingly, I hope, parapharasing another perjury by Michael Brown. General Landreneau was appointed by the previous Republican Govenor of Louisiana and reappointed by the current idiot. What really surprises me is you actually think that the questions by Congressman Buyer were not known in advance by Brown. Are you that naive?

Here is the actual transcript of the two major perjuries by Michael Brown, perfectly set up lob down the center of the plate:

DAVIS: Mr. Buyer?

BUYER: I would like to ask some questions about the pre- landfall. So I'd like to know why did the president's federal emergency assistance declaration of August 27th not include the parishes of Orleans, Jefferson and Plaquemines?

BROWN: Under the law, the governor makes the request for the declaration and the governors of the states specify what areas, what counties they want included in that declaration.

And, based upon the governor's request, that's the recommendation that we make to the president. So if a governor does not request a particular county or a particular parish, that's not included in the request.

BUYER: All right.

Orleans Parish is New Orleans. I was listening to my colleague, Mr. Jefferson's, questions about when they talked about, you know, they asked for this assistance for three days and then president responded the very next day, not the day that it was made -- the request -- but the governor of Louisiana actually excluded New Orleans from the president's federal emergency assistance declaration?

BROWN: Again, Congressman, we looked at the request. The governors make the request by...

BUYER: Let me ask this. Since you went through the exercise in Pam, was that not shocking to you that the governor would excluded New Orleans from the declaration?

BROWN: Yes.

BUYER: When that request came in excluding these three parishes, did you question it?

BROWN: We questioned it. But I made the decision that we were going to go ahead and move assets in regardless because we have the ability to add those parishes...

BUYER: Regardless. Define regardless to me. What does that mean?

BROWN: Well, under the Stafford Act, once that declaration is made under the delegation of authorities, the director of FEMA can add counties on.

And so I just made the decision regardless of what the governor did, that if we needed to add counties on, we would do that.

BUYER: OK. You have -- since FEMA is set up in regions and that's region six, you then send someone to coordinate then with the governor, correct?

BROWN: Yes.

BUYER: The governor has someone in charge of Louisiana homeland security and emergency preparedness, correct?

BROWN: Correct.

BUYER: Who is that individual?

BROWN: It's General Landreneau.

BUYER: Who?

BROWN: General Landreneau.

BUYER: A general? Louisiana puts a general in charge of a state position?

BROWN: He's the adjutant general. He's the governor's adjutant general.

BUYER: Is he dual-hatted in Louisiana?

BROWN: I'm not quite certain right now because Louisiana did have an emergency manager and a state homeland security director. The emergency manager is gone. I don't think they've replaced that individual and I think the adjutant general...

BUYER: What happened to the individual that was there?

BROWN: He was indicted.

BUYER: So the individual who should have been in charge is under indictment? Is he under state indictment or federal indictment?

BROWN: I believe it's federal.

BUYER: A federal indictment.

So that position is open. We got someone in Louisiana who is supposed to be in charge of Louisiana homeland security, is under federal indictment.

So they bring the TAG in, dual-hat him in charge of also Louisiana homeland emergency preparedness. Is that correct? I'm just trying to get a picture.

BROWN: And, again, I actually do not know if they have appointed someone under him or not.

BUYER: So you've painted a picture to us. We're going to get into these facts to understand this better. You've painted a picture to us that this infighting between the governor and the mayor caused problems and concerns.

I am really bothered that the governor of Louisiana would ask the president to declare an emergency so things could happen and she would exclude New Orleans and the parishes which are going to be hit by this hurricane.

BUYER: I'm really stunned by that. So I'm glad that you were also equally stunned.

Tony, learn how to qoute fact, not fiction. The terrible castastrophies that have befallen our fellow citizens require a complete investigation of the facts so that we have the best chance prevent this or worse in the future.


By the way you said this:

So I lay a guantlet at your feet. What part of my dialog is unsubstantiated? If you consider the WSJ unsubstantiated... well then you win.

Why don't you tell everyone which of your posts in this thread came from the Wall Street Journal and possibly give us the link.

[cracker39]

How about them Bucs...3 and 0.

Ira and Woody, Think we'll get any Winter down here in Florida?

I guess it's about time for the snowbirds to start moving down. More traffic to cope with.

Guess I'll go to bed...it's an hour past my bedtime and this topic is getting boring....yawnnnnnnnnnn

[SteveH]

I didn't write this, but thought it might shed some light on some of the problems in New Orleans. Again, I'm just copying it here, so don't get mad at me.

Why We Couldn't Save the People of New Orleans,
The New York Daily News, Sept. 4, 2005
(Excerpted)


In the late 1990s, the state's school systems ranked dead last in the nation in the number of computers per student (1 per 88 ), and Louisiana has the nation's second-highest percentage of adults who never finished high school. By the state's own measure, 47% of the public schools in New Orleans rank as "academically unacceptable."

These government failures are not merely a matter of incompetence. Louisiana and New Orleans have a long, well-known reputation for corruption: as former congressman Billy Tauzin once put it, "half of Louisiana is under water and the other half is under indictment."

That's putting it mildly. Adjusted for population size, the state ranks third in the number of elected officials convicted of crimes (Mississippi is No. 1). Recent scandals include the conviction of 14 state judges and an FBI raid on the business and personal files of a Louisiana congressman.

In 1991, a notoriously corrupt Democrat named Edwin Edwards ran for governor against Republican David Duke, a former head of the Ku Klux Klan. Edwards, whose winning campaign included bumper stickers saying "Elect the Crook," is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for taking bribes from casino owners. Duke recently completed his own prison term for tax fraud.

The rot included the New Orleans Police Department, which in the 1990s had the dubious distinction of being the nation's most corrupt police force and the least effective: the city had the highest murder rate in America. More than 50 officers were eventually convicted of crimes including murder, rape and robbery; two are currently on Death Row.

Ten billion dollars are about to pass into the sticky hands of politicians in the No. 1 and No. 3 most corrupt states in America. Worried about looting? You ain't seen nothing yet!
--------------

Incidentally,

"New Orleans has a Democrat Mayor, a Democrat City Council, and a Democrat Chief of Police. Louisiana has a Democrat Governor, a Democrat Lt. Governor, a Democrat Attorney General; 24 of 39 Louisiana State Senators are Democrats, 67 of 105 Louisiana State House Representatives are Democrats, there's a Democrat Representative in the House from New Orleans, and one of two U. S. Senators is a Democrat."

SO YOU CAN SEE WHY IT'S ALL BUSH'S FAULT!

BILL R. BARKER

[Waliczek]

You build your house in a creek bed---One day it's going to rain.

[TonyCooper]

Guy,

First, regarding my lack of stating that I was paraphrasing. I humbly apologize. I did state that I was watching TV (catching a snipit) and you are correct, I did not record it or have a pen handy to jot down the exact word for word statements. It was implied however. But that was NEVER the point. The point was it was funny... thats all.

Regarding the Brown news clip that I saw on the news... this is indeed it. Did you see it or simply read the transcript? I stand by my statement that it was hilarious! And that was the only point I was trying to make... IT WAS FUNNY! (go back and reread my post - nothing there about left or right, conservative or liberal - just FUNNY...

There.

I normally don't repeat myself 4 times but I want to make sure you understand that my point was " it was funny". You apparently missed that point the first go around.

I also stand by my statement that he managed 3 previous hurricanes without major issue.

Below is the only section of the conversation in the news clip that was aired while I was watching. I did not see the hearing in it's entirety (way too boring)... And it was funny... Brown's expression was hilarious when he said the emergency manager was indicted. Note that I am not commenting on the facts here only on the humor of the moment.
-------------------------- snipit ------------------------------------------------
BROWN: I'm not quite certain right now because Louisiana did have an emergency manager and a state homeland security director. The emergency manager is gone. I don't think they've replaced that individual and I think the adjutant general...

BUYER: What happened to the individual that was there?

BROWN: He was indicted.

BUYER: So the individual who should have been in charge is under indictment? Is he under state indictment or federal indictment?

BROWN: I believe it's federal.

BUYER: A federal indictment.

So that position is open. We got someone in Louisiana who is supposed to be in charge of Louisiana homeland security, is under federal indictment.

So they bring the TAG in, dual-hat him in charge of also Louisiana homeland emergency preparedness. Is that correct? I'm just trying to get a picture.

BROWN: And, again, I actually do not know if they have appointed someone under him or not.
---------------------------end of snipit-----------------------------------

Enough of Funny Point... Lets move on...

Second, regarding..."You started this entire thread with a lie. You copied and pasted it from another site. Again, as you have done in the past the writer was anonymous "Green Bay, Wisconsin" "

It is quite presumptious of you to assume you indeed know where I derived the quote. I did not copy it from another site ... be careful of using the same unfounded traits that you accuse me of doing... read on...

The quote came from Federalist Patriot Site (Credit Guy with correction - was incorrectly stated as coming from John Taranto's Best of the Web section on the WSJ site). I subscribe to that column by email and it appeared in it recently. Only the last weeks archives are now online (as best I can tell) at their site, and I've deleted my local mailed copy. But since I can not quote my source directly from the original source any longer I will quote (verbatem) from Save Our Wetlands web site and the Sierra Club web site.

The following is the statement I pulled from John Taranto's blog column -
"Since the Sierra Club was the lead organization suing to stop reinforcing the New Orleans, LA levees, wouldn't it be appropriate if someone sued the Sierra Club to force them to reimburse everyone for the consequential damage. It's only about $350 billion. They could even pay by cash or check." —Green Bay, Wisconsin

Here is the Sierra Clubs version (spin) of the events.
http://www.sierraclub.org/pressroom/rel ... 09-13a.asp

Quotes directly from that site.

"In 1977, the Army Corps of Engineers proposed project would have built a 25-mile long barrier and gate system from the Mississippi border to the Mississippi River. As designed the project would have choked off water exchange into Lake Pontchartrain, dooming an incredibly productive fishery."
.....snip
.....snip
Opinion On:
The lake sealed from the ocean = no storm surge from the ocean = Dry New Orleans.
Opinion Off:
"Save Our Wetlands filed suit and secured an injunction from U.S. District Judge Charles Schwartz, Jr., who concluded that the region "would be irreparably harmed" if the barrier project was allowed to continue and chastised the Army Corps of Engineers for a shoddy job."

The 2nd case in 1996
"That led the Sierra Club, American Rivers, the National Wildlife Federation, Arkansas and Mississippi Wildlife Federations, and the Mississippi River Basin Alliance to take the Corps to Court. The case was soon settled, with the Corps of Engineers agreeing in 1997 to look at ways of minimizing the damage to the wetlands."

Another statement from Save Our Wetlands:
http://www.saveourwetlands.org/
Please note that I only used the quoted statement from Joseph Towers, not the damage control spin from Save our Wetlands.

"If we had built the barriers, New Orleans would not be flooded," said Joseph Towers, the retired chief counsel for the Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans district.
....
Save our Wetlands damage control spin here
....
"My feeling was that saving human lives was more important than saving a percentage of shrimp and crab in Lake Pontchartrain," Towers said. "I told my staff at the time that this judge had condemned the city."

Facts On:
The Sierra Club admitted that is blocked these efforts. They refute the result and blame the "Evil" (my editorial) Corp of Engineers but they readily admit they brought court action against the Corp of Engineers efforts to build and fortify the levees.

PLEASE NOTE: I am not arguing the merits of the case. Only that the Sierra Club & Save our Wetlands succeeded in stopping work on 2 proposed solutions on two different occasions. Neither organization suggested an alternative solution. Both were content with the status quo.

The effect of the 1977 and the 1996 lawsuits stopped the construction of levees and levee improvements near and around New Orleans.
Fact Off:

Now again, tell me what part of this statement is false?
"Since the Sierra Club was the lead organization suing to stop reinforcing the New Orleans, LA levees,..."

OPINION ON:
After all is said in done - There is not a safe or environmental friendly way to ensure a cities' safety when it is 12 ft below sea level and situated below the water level of the largest river in North America.

The Sierra club chose to try to protect the wetlands over the city of New Orleans well being. They'll spin it otherwise, and that is their perogative.
OPINION OFF:

There is time enough to get to the bottom of all of this and all particpants are spinning trying to find cover. This includes the Sierra Club and Save Our Wetlands.

So do we believe the "Righteous Sierra Club" or the "Evil Corp of Engineers"??
Which one is a "substantiated" enough of a source for you?

The bottom line is we will never know with certainty if the Corp of Engineers solutions would have worked because they were never built. Stopped by lawsuits from both Save our Wetlands and the Sierra Club.

No matter what side of the fence you are on - The above statement supports my initial first statement that started this thread.

Third, for the recored please define "unsubstantiated right wing hate garbage". I am correct to assume you are accusing me of hate mongering? I certainly hope that is not the case.

[Laredo]

You rent the house the job you've got will let you. In NOLA, it ain't liable to be in the ritziest part of town.

New Orleans had two kinds of neighborhoods -- moneyed, and not so much.
Where the money lived, the streets never went under water and when the power went out the generator in the garage just kicked in seamlessly. Old money, old houses.

Where the folks with not so much were, the water got deep fast -- AFTER the news and papers said the hurricane was over.

Fact of the matter is every level involved of the government sucked in the way they handled these storms.

[Guy]

Dear Tony,

ou just can't admit you got caught BS'ing. No problem, you just lie again, good tactic. John Taranto never wrote that statement. So you are not using something substantiated by the WSJ. You say his Best of the Web is no longer available as best you can tell", well, Tony, that just is another example that "as best YOU can tell" ain't good enough for nothing. Here is the link to his archive, http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/archive/. Gee, isn't it funny, he never wrote anything like what you say he wrote.


As to Mr. Brown:
Now we find out you were not watching hearings, you were "catching a snipet" of a news program and not the hearings. If that was the impression you were trying to convey, Boy, did you miss the mark. Yet, even now, you do not have the manhood to say you got it wrong.



And now for your Sierra Club diatribe: Since you do not seem capable of separating Save our Wetlands from Sierra Club, the Mississippi River from Lake Ponchatrain, or fact from fiction, and you do not seem able to understand the posts on this thread from others who tried to make you understand the lawsuits and the involment of the Sierra Club, I have tried to find a real non-partisan organization that maybe you could listen to and learn from. So here is a post from All American Patriots http://www.allamericanpatriots.com/m-news+article+storyid-12774.html

Sierra Club: Blaming Environmentalists For Katrina: What You Should Know
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration has faced significant criticism due to failures preparing for and responding to the catastrophe that hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region. Now the administration's emissaries are trying to deflect that criticism by blaming environmentalists. As they say in Louisiana, that dog won't hunt.


At issue is the role that conservation groups played in two cases -- one almost 30 years ago -- involving levee projects proposed by the Army Corps of Engineers. The following is a quick summary of those projects and an accurate account of the role that those groups played. What the accusations have in common is that they mistake efforts to ensure good government decisions with a tragedy that had everything to do with bad judgment on the part of our government leaders. In each of the legal cases cited so far, conservation groups simply asked government agencies to look before leaping into projects that would have had major impacts on people and the natural systems on which they depend and to give local communities what our democracy requires: a say in projects coming out of Washington. That isn't just common sense; that's also the law.

Here's what you need to know about the specific cases that have been mentioned:

Save Our Wetlands v. Rush - 1977

In 1977, the Army Corps of Engineers proposed project would have built a 25-mile long barrier and gate system from the Mississippi border to the Mississippi River. As designed the project would have choked off water exchange into Lake Pontchartrain, dooming an incredibly productive fishery. Communities around the Lake and local fisherman opposed the project because of the massive impact it would have had on the economy and environment in the region. Those groups had advocated building higher levees as a simpler and safer alternative to the Corps’ plan.

After the Army Corps of Engineers refused to evaluate the impacts of its proposed project and consider ways to reduce them, Save Our Wetlands filed suit and secured an injunction from U.S. District Judge Charles Schwartz, Jr., who concluded that the region "would be irreparably harmed" if the barrier project was allowed to continue and chastised the Army Corps of Engineers for a shoddy job. The Judge required the Corps to properly study its proposed massive new levee construction project before moving forward. The Corps has never bothered to do the work despite having nearly 30 years to do so.

BOTTOM LINE: There was widespread local opposition. A Federal Judge demanded that the Army Corps provide more info, it never did, and it abandoned the project years later on its own.

Mississippi River Basin Alliance, et al. v. H. Martin Lancaster -- 1996

In the mid-1990's, the Army Corps of Engineers proposed raising hundreds of miles of levees 100 miles north of New Orleans in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Conservation groups and others did not oppose the idea of raising the levees, but they did have strong concerns about the fact that Corps wanted to drain as much as 11,000 acres of bottomland hardwood wetlands, crucial to health and safety of the Lower Mississippi Basin, to supply the construction material for those levees.

And they weren't the only ones who had concerns: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Environmental Protection Agency and the Louisiana Legislature all urged the Corps to look at how the proposed project would have impacted the area. It refused to do so. That led the Sierra Club, American Rivers, the National Wildlife Federation, Arkansas and Mississippi Wildlife Federations, and the Mississippi River Basin Alliance to take the Corps to Court. The case was soon settled, with the Corps of Engineers agreeing in 1997 to look at ways of minimizing the damage to the wetlands.

But other problems plagued the project. According to a 1997 Baton Rouge Advocate article, "Corps officials said it will take them 30 years to finish the levee work. That much time is required because funding is lacking for the projects -- not because of the new environmental study, called an environmental impact statement."

BOTTOM LINE: The project was 100 miles away from flood area and wouldn't have made any difference with Katrina. Conservation groups never opposed raising the levees; just the heavy handed way in which the Corps was going to do it. And it wasn't just conservation groups; even the LA Legislature had concerns. The case was settled one year later but the Corps never had the funding to move ahead on the project

.


Finally, you ask for a definition of "unsubstantiated right wing hate garbage". What part of this do you not understand? "unsubstantiated" means not able to be verified as being true, which applies to every point I have shown is unsubstantiated. Right wing I think you understand. Hate garbage is false information that is trotted out during this terrible crisis and only serves previously held political views and is meant to provoke and evoke strong emotional and visceral feelings against a group of people and/or an organization.


Tony, if your intent was to disseminate "false information that is trotted out during this terrible crisis and only serves previously held political views and is meant to provoke and evoke strong emotional and visceral feelings against a group of people and/or an organization." then you are engaging in hate mongering. If not, then you are just one, severely misinformed individual.

[TonyCooper]

Yawn...

[IraRat]

I only have two words to say: Tom Delay.

So let the games BEGIN!

Okay--I take that back:

Delay deserves a thread all his own, but I don't think Mike will let me.

Ahhh, the hell with it. Bill Bennet's comments about black abortion and the crime rate are so much more INTERESTING! Or Rush's drug addiction! Or Frist's "coincidentally lucky/profitable" stock sale from a blind fund he knew nothing about!!!

Corruption in Louisiana? For Christ's sake--Republicans wrote the BOOK on it. To you guys, crime is only stealing an old lady's purse. Stealing MILLIONS is okay, because it's not the same thing! Enron, WorldCom, the destruction of unions and a semblance of job security and retirement income due to Republican theoretical NONSENSE.

GAS AT 3 BUCKS A GALLON! 60 DEAD IN IRAQ TODAY! THOUSANDS DEAD ALREADY! READY TO WAGE WAR WITH IRAN! KOREA! SYRIA! NO JOBS!

WIPED AWAY A HUGE SURPLUS AND DROWNING IN RED INK!

AND YOU GUYS CAN'T EVEN BLAME IT ON CLINTON ANY MORE!

There's not ONE policy that right wingers can point to that actually WORKS!

ONLY PREJUDICE, HATE, AND THE HELL WITH THE OTHER GUY!!! BUT BELIEVE IN GOD AND EVERYTHING WILL BE ALL RIGHT, BECAUSE HE'S ON OUR SIDE!!!

BUT IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN JESUS, GO F YOURSELF, BECAUSE THIS IS A CHRISTIAN COUNTRY!!!

The s*** has been hitting the fan for 5 years now, but you ain't see nothing yet. That's because the only thing that comes OUT of this administration is total s***.

[mikeschn]

Ira,

I think you missed your calling... You need to hang out on a political forum too...

What? no political forums exist that you like? Start you own!

Mike...

[Guy]

Mike, is the new avatar you have a new tear you built?

[IraRat]

What? no political forums exist that you like?

Who reads those?

Besides, I have to know who to avoid if I ever make it to a TD gathering.

[mikeschn]

What are you saying? You are going to avoid us who try to keep bulletin boards running smoothly?

Let there be no mistake... irregardless of whether I like to talk politics or not, I think we both know by now, that politics and religion can kill a forum faster than you can say boo.

I hope you can make it to a gathering with your teardrop on the east coast when I come to visit.

Mike...

What? no political forums exist that you like?

Who reads those?

Besides, I have to know who to avoid if I ever make it to a TD gathering.

P.S. Guy, my new avatar is a rendering of the Generic Benroy! You like it, eh?