Random Thoughts
Thought 1:
A lady caller from Pennsylvania asked the following this morning on C-SPAN: (I paraphrase) Why do Republicans ask, “Where is the money going to come from?” when the subject is health care or education but they never ask that question when the subject of the war in Iraq is mentioned. Why doesn’t the Pentagon have a bake sale to raise money?
Thought 2:
I left a comment on this at Comments From Left Field and thought I would expand on it here
Here is my comment (And I apologize for mis-spelling Inageh in the comment.)
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Depending on the amount of destruction and that this is the second storm to hit NO in 3 years . . .
In 1993 the mississippi had massive flooding, especially just south of St Louis. At that time the U.S. government came up with and funded a program they named “The Inageh Project” (Inageh is a native American word) where the government bought out people that lived in the flood plain, south of St. Louis and north of Cairo, IL.
Depending . . . Could that happen to NO and those places below sea level?
I ‘googled’ both Inageh and Inageh Project and came up empty. This happened about fifteen years ago so my details may be a little fuzzy. I was employed by the federal government, working in extreme southern Illinois at the time. The Mississippi flood plain in the area of Chester, IL is very wide, with bottom land that is very good at raising bumper crops.
However, the Mississippi River experiences massive flooding every ten to fifteen years. After the flood of 1993, the U.S. Congress allocated monies to permanently buy out those folks willing to sell their bottom land if they would move out of the flood plain to higher land. The project to purchase land continued for several budget cycles, perhaps 3 – 4 years. And only millions were spent. Maybe $10 million, maybe $12 million but in relative terms a small amount of money.
The question I ask is: Depending on the damage and the cost to rebuild, would there be any political will to buy out and relocate New Orleans? The amount of money needed to do this? Maybe a quarter of a trillion.
Thought 3:
Several years ago, Dan Rather was on the trail of Bush’s service (or lack thereof) in the Texas Air National Guard). Rather was forced into retirement because he did not have iron-clad proof. I think he had more than enough proof to convince a jury of Bush’s malfeasance, but the right-wing money people got him canned.
And just exactly what has that got to do with today? Well, the situation with Sarah Palin and exactly who is the mother of Trig Paxon Van Palin. Unless there is irrefutable, eye-witness accounts, with pictures no boby in the MSM is going to get close to the story.
Just my thoughts on a Sunday morning.