It's a Joke. That goes to everyone both Americans and the rest of the world.
That goes to the Americans that get all hot a bothered by a program that was never intended to be viewed by us, does that mean they should bash on America for an hour(and I don't they did,IMHO)...no...just means the there jokes weren't meant for us. And if there are any long time viewers or readers of Clarkson then you should have expected this. Plus I am in the same camp that thinks some of those scenes were either staged or cleverly edited.
It's a Joke, also goes out to all the ignorant fools that some how think this episode of Top Gear was some sort of National Geographic documentary on rural America. Remember there are 300 million of us over here, not just the 5 or 6 they elected to show.
To be honest most people were probably more pissed off on how slow they were driving on the highway than what was actually written on their cars.
"Rome wasn't built in a Day," but it took less than two days in August of 2005 to destroy New Orleans. So for those who look at us with disdain about New Orleans, I have a question, how could Europeans sleep as civil war and genocide took place in their own continent for a minimum of 4 years? That whole situation with the Yugoslav Civil Wars had a lot of factors and was extremely complicated, the answer is that there is no easy answer.
New Orleans too is a lot more complicated than the statement "after 12 months the wealthiest nation on earth would have fix it...we were wrong." There you're dealing with a state bureaucracy and elected federal officials(Senators and Representatives) that are so corrupt, in 2000 the former
four-time state Governor who last served in 1996 was convicted of 17 felony charges including, racketeering and extortion.
And in the elections last Nov '06, Rep. William J. Jefferson was reelected, while currently under investigation for bribery. In August before weeks before Katrina, the FBI raided his house to find $90,000 in cash stuffed in his freezer...no...that is not a type-o they found 90 grand cash in his freezer. And the
Washington Post (article click here) reported "A former aide recently pleaded guilty to bribing Jefferson and is cooperating with authorities, and sources familiar with the case say a plea agreement with the lawmaker is being explored."
And former Mayor Marc Morial who left office in 2002. In 2005, Morial, his relatives and former associates became the focus of federal investigations into corruption during his administration. The investigation is currently on going, his Uncle pleaded guilty for stealing over $500,000 from the transportation authority alone. His uncle's wife also plead guilty for a separate charge of an insurance scheme involving current and former employees of the Orleans Parish school system engaging in a kickback scheme whereby teachers, secretaries and para-educators would receive illicit monies they did not earn in the form of false travel reimbursements, fraudulent stipend payments or (in one instance), paychecks for an employee who had left the system. In return for these illegal monies, the employees would and did kickback fifty percent of the amount of the illegal payments.(
source) Two more of Morial associates have pleaded guilty after a yearslong federal probe into a conspiracy by which the two had to skim more than $1 million from city contracts.
And the AP reported early this month that "At least 162,750 homes that didn?t exist before the storms may have received a total of more than $1 billion in improper or illegal payments, the AP found."
article here
I could elaborate more on corruption, but I have already written way more than i initially intended.
Besides the corruption (which is kinda hard to overlook) you also have social stratification, economics(macro and mirco), turn around time, and logistics issues to deal with not to mention trying to meet the wants and desires of the rest of the population.
I have tried to stay away from this thread because all of this was too predictable, from the jokes on the show to every almost ever response in this thread, but all the ignorance from all angles was too much.
