Re: Re: liberal media

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Date: 2005/09/01 Thu PM 06:49:52 EDT

To: JUNG-FIRE

Subject: Re: liberal media

--- dwatkins9@... wrote:

> I presume that earth-savers of all stripes see

> rising gas prices and coming shortages as good news.

> After all, best way to lower consumption is to raise

> price and limit availablility.

Dear Greg,

Attached artcle = Monday morning quarter-backing, I'm afraid. Easy for everyone

to say what woulda, coulda, shoulda been done after the fact.

Dan,

Hardly. While this Milton Friedman approach to our

economy may make economic sense to you (in the

Darwinian sense of Capitalism) it is hardly comfort to

those who are already having a hard time

surviving...as so many of those looters are right now

(TV sets of no). The sad fact is that about 40% of

the residents of New Orleans are near or below the

poverty line.

Under ordinary circumstances, New Orleans is (perhaps I should say was) very

easy to live in, even with little money. Rents low, real estate low, weather

forgiving. I have seen people fishing for dinner right out of the Mississippi.

" Near the poverty line " does not mean the same thing in NO as in New York or San

Francisco or other tough-town bastions of compassion.

There is and has been a lot of racial tension there, always just under the

surface.

> Such economic polarization may not be

that big a deal to the tourists like me who hang out

on Bourbon Street, but it says something about the

inequalities within our society that are becoming more

pronounced over time, not less. And the biggest the

" haves " in our nation, for the most part, couldn't

>care less.

Winners win, losers win. The " have nots " have plenty. They just don't have

everything they want (who does?) Envy is as much a vice as greed.

The rising price of our gasoline wouldn't irk me so, I

suppose, if it weren't coupled with the enormous

profits being made by the refiners now.

My understanding is that several of them are shut down. No gas output, no

profits at all.

Speaking of Monday morning quarterbacking, why have we built no new refineries

in the last 25 years? Arizona has *no* oil refineries, an embarassment and a

disgrace.

And the Bush

energy plan, just the most recent outrage of his

moronic administration, does NOTHING about the steeply

rising cost of our fuel. It only feeds to horrible

>fossil fuel economy that is our problem,

But that's my point. Nothing is more likely to rein in the " horrible fossil fuel

economy, " as you call it, than shortages and high prices. Environmental types

should be rejoicing (no doubt some are, albeit quietly). Naturally those with

the least money will begin conserving the most, first. Soros will still

be able to gas up the Lear Jet. That's baseball.

>while barely

paying lip service to replacable and sustainable

energy sources...a true disgrace, just like most of

the other landmark legislation of the Bush legacy. We

are the frogs being boiled to death, as the hogs at

>the trough keep swilling....at our common expense.

Are we frogs, or hogs?

The really sad thing, to me though, is that we have

exactly the kind of government we deserve. Times like

this remind me of the headlines in Britain the day

after our national election last November: " HOW CAN

59 MILLION PEOPLE BE SO STUPID? "

Now we are paying for that ongoing stupidity. And it

is becoming a deeper and more sickening tragedy with

each passing day IMHO. Bush's war continues to cost

us $2 billion every week....with no end in sight,

crowding out vitally needed public works projects such

as the levy system that failed last weekend. We are

paying a very heavy price for having idiots at the

wheel, and it can only get much worse...

Take a look at this (probably more " liberal " media to

you). I happen to know its true, since I saw the very

tragedy we have now witnessed come true as predicted,

with perfect clarity, on Frontline two years ago. Bush

stated today on ABC that " no one predicted the levies

system would fail " THAT IS PURE B__ S___:

You're right, it is. People have been complaining/warning about the levies for

years. But you know how it is, roof don't leak when it ain't rainin'

Best,

Dan

=--------------------------------------------------

Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?

Newspaper Had Repeatedly Raised Federal Spending Cuts

Due to Iraq War

By Will Bunch

Published: August 31, 2005

PHILADELPHIA -- New Orleans had long known it was

highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a

hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been

working with state and local officials in the region

since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood

relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm

in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the

Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or

SELA.

Over the next nine years, the Army Corps of Engineers,

tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on

shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with

$50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in

crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity

in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the

levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet in 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA

dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide

the fact that the spending pressures of the war in

Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the

same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for

the strain.

At least nine articles in the New Orleans

Times-Picayune from 2004 and early 2005 specifically

cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of

hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late

Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site,

reported: " No one can say they didn't see it coming.

.... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever,

serious questions are being asked about the lack of

preparation. "

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq

soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20

percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake

Pontchartrain. On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri,

emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish,

Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune:

" It appears that the money has been moved in the

president's budget to handle homeland security and the

war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay.

Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be

finished, and we are doing everything we can to make

the case that this is a security issue for us. "

Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season

starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went

before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee

Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for

urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for.

From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

" The system is in great shape, but the levees are

sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get

the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't

stay ahead of the settlement, " he said. " The problem

that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the

federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise

them. "

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004,

it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned

that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by

four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with

higher property taxes. The levee board noted in

October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying

for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up

the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In

spite of that, the federal government came back this

spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane and

flood-control funding for New Orleans in history.

Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there

imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money

targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down

from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new

jobs.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition

that more research was needed to see what New Orleans

must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5

hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As

the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:

" That second study would take about four years to

complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army

Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About

$300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005

fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match

that amount. But the cost of the Iraq war forced the

Bush administration to order the New Orleans district

office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005

budget no longer includes the needed money, he said. "

The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA

funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late.

One project that a contractor had been racing to

finish this summer: a bridge and levee job right at

the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on

Monday.

The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday

night observed: " The Louisiana congressional

delegation urged Congress earlier this year to

dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's

coast, only to be opposed by the White House. ... In

its budget, the Bush administration proposed a

significant reduction in funding for southeast

Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush

proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local

officials say they need. "

Local officials are now saying that had Washington

heeded their warnings about the dire need for

hurricane protection, including building up levees and

repairing barrier islands, " the damage might not have

been nearly as bad as it turned out to be. "

Will Bunch (letters@...) is senior

writer at the Philadelphia Daily News.

-----------------------------------------------------

Ironically, it may be the sky-rocketing gasoline

prices that will be King 's downfall, caused by

the hurricane that he didn't think could happen. When

presidents can be impeached for making love to young

women in the oval office, why can't they be impeached

for repeated gross stupidity and negligence of

catastrophic proportions?

UGH...I feel better now. Thanks Dan,

Greg

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