Bour-...blub-blub...-bon Street

[Chuck(G)]

I'm really surprised that some have lambasted me for posting a link to a MoveOn.org effort to find folks a place to stay. You know that a lot of the folks who managed to evacuate are at the end of their rope as far as resources go some have evicted from their motel rooms (I'm not blaming the motel operators--they have to honor the reservations made in advance). It seems to me that anything would help. If the folks at LGF had set up a similar site, I would have posted it too.

But some have turned this into a partisan political squabble. I said national leadership was lacking and I believe most Americans share that sentiment. If you all want to blame Clinton, go for it if it'll make you feel better. But Michael Brown's performance on Nightline should have told you volumes about his competence.

If you think that "Blue States" are unsympathetic or miserly, then you don't know us very well.

[Daryl Fletcher]

[ThomasDodd]

What in the constitution gives the Feds the power to take my taxes or yours to provide food, water, transportation, or housing to anyone?

Precedence!!! We do more as a nation to help other nations then we do to help ourselves.

Precedence do not make it constitutional. In fact, SCOUS is constantly saying established practuice, i.e. precedence, is unconstitutional. Roe V wade is a prime example of them doing just that.

As to our aid to other Nations, when did I imply that was constitutional?

"...in Order to...promote the general Welfare"

The preamble set out the goals, not the method of reaching them. "insure domestic Tranquility" could be acheived through many means, but many are unconstitutional. Then again most of what the feds do would be abhorant to the writers of the constitution.

The closest thing I see is Article IV, Section. 4

and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic Violence.

Which would allow for the feds to control/prevent some iof the stuff in N.O. Like looting or shoot at helicopters.

[ThomasDodd]

Tom,

please include the "as", though many, including my mother , believe it should end in a double 's'.

are you saying you're ok with your hard earned money being spent fixing other nations but you don't want to see it being used to help your fellow countrymen.

I'll be more clear. I think foreign aid is unconstitutional as well. While it might serve a support role for national defense, it tends to fail at that. Private organizations can do all they want, like the Red Cross. If the feds want to supply transport help, fine. But a C5 full of supplies should be paid for by the groups sending aid. At least pay for the fuel, the air crew can donate their time (taking leave) or the USAF get paid for that too.

Personally I think we need to fix this nation before we start bailing out other nations.

Agreed. We just differ on how to "fix" any nation, particurally our own. See Rick post about local infastructure development and maintainence.

[Rick Denney]

Maybe I'm off-base here but, are you saying you're ok with your hard earned money being spent fixing other nations but you don't want to see it being used to help your fellow countrymen. Or are you just playing devil's advocate? Personally I think we need to fix this nation before we start bailing out other nations.

The problem is in the definition of "fix". What you think it essential to fix the nation may not at all be essential for others, and they may think some things are essential when you don't care about them.

An example is the tax-funded sports stadium. There are those who see these as essential, and others who think they are actively bad. And considerable spending on parks, which used to be done by private donations. Or spending on culture, which also used to be done by private donations. As citizens have allowed their expectations of what government will provide to rise, the expectations of what they will provide for themselves has fallen. Where you and I live, the fire service is voluntary, but that would be unacceptable in a big city, where the fire departments get to cherry-pick the local budgets because they are always the good guys. The police are not always the good guys, but people expect them to come solve all the problems they used to solve for themselves, and so they have to pay them to do it. (Granted, the laws and the police themselves have made it harder for people to deal with their own issues.) Garbage pickup is another one that could easily be handled by the private sector, as it is in most parts of Loudoun County (I haul my own trash because the private services are too expensive). Local government love to "delegate" transportation and drainage improvements to higher agencies, because they are hard problems to solve, they require real expertise and not just talk, and there is no reward for doing it right--only punishment for doing it wrong.

And the steady trend in big-city governments to single-member districts has greatly compounded the problem. Fix a levee in that other council member's district? Not unless you spend the same amount of money in my district. When those levees were first built, New Orleans, like most cities, had at-large councils that were accountable to the city as a whole. There were those who felt disenfranchised by that approach, however. They are now enfranchised, but the results show disintegration rather than forward-thinking policy making.

So, what constitutes fixing the problem? We choose not to fix many of these things as a population in how we ask our representatives to set priorities on where to spend our money. We spend much more for much less as a result of losing focus on basic infrastructure.

One alternative is to centralize all that authority and no longer allow the local populations to make those local decisions. In small countries, this might even be practical--the boundary between local and national is blurred. But our system isn't set up that way.

Rick "who thinks a wealthy dictator responds to crises better than democracies, but at too high a price" Denney

[ThomasDodd]

An example is the tax-funded sports stadium. There are those who see these as essential, and others who think they are actively bad.

What do you think of the taking of privately held land via eminent domain to build a baseball park?

Do you really have to ask?

I'd bet my tuba he's not at all in favor. Neither am I.

[ThomasDodd]

Perhaps Lousiana/N.O. should maintain their levees?

Something important to keep in mind: most of those levees (particulary the canals) are in place to aid navigation of barge traffic through the Port of New Orleans.

How does a levee aid navigation? Especialy today with GPS. Visual references are not needed to locate the channel.

I though they were for flood control in the areas near the river. Back when agriculture was big, and mostly smaller private farms. Flooding destroyed the crops and live stock along with the ports along the river, for loading and unloading.

Sure, 50 years ago it was impossible to find the channel when the river flooded, but that's not case anymore. Now the levee system only protects the towns that grew up on the river in support of commerce.

The towns should protect the local interest, probably using some port taxes. That way the users of the water ways help pay for the port maintainence. The people and business that live there also support the system that protects them, through local taxes.

[MartyNeilan]

WWGD?

(What Would Guiliani Do?)

[ThomasDodd]

http://www.opry.com/OpryNews/PressRelease.aspx?id=1329

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Sept. 1, 2005) -- The Grand Ole Opry presented by Cracker Barrel Old Country Store and television network Great American Country (GAC) today announced plans for Country Reaches Out: An Opry Benefit for the American Red Cross to assist with hurricane relief. The Sept. 27 event, to be held at the Grand Ole Opry House, will begin at 8 p.m. ET. GAC will broadcast live from the event starting at 9 p.m. ET.

[ThomasDodd]

Bloke, Doc
I prefer this in the winter

[ThomasDodd]

I'm more than a little disappointed in the lack of national leadership in all of this. And last night, what I saw of the Louisiana governor seemed to be mostly excuses.

Some what related, and less political.
Katrina: The Perfect Storm for Media Malpractice

The news media roller coaster started creakily on Friday when Katrina was thought to be a non-event; coasted through Saturday, and then took off like a rocket on Sunday as the storm bore down on New Orleans. Through Monday, the news media almost uniformly covered the hurricane in routine fashion, and seemed poised to downscale the story since the storm tracked eastward, apparently averting the previously expected direct hit on the Big Easy.

And then the water started to rise.

In the news frenzy that followed, we watched the world's largest and best equipped news organizations conduct the greatest national disservice in history. Between Monday night and Thursday evening, news organizations – primarily of the electronic variety – turned a natural disaster into a divisive and politicized public referendum on whom to blame.

Instead of helping to bring the nation together to support the victims of the hurricane scattered across 90,000 square miles of the Gulf Coast, the media used the plight of the victims to attack government at almost every level. With 20-20 hindsight and an attitude, the coverage served to reinforce the utterly unrealistic expectations so many of our fellow Americans have come to embrace.

[windshieldbug]

Have you no conscience man? Napalm use contributes to global warming!

Napalm it is!

How about napalm followed quickly by liquid nitrogen?

[Kevin Hendrick]

Have you no conscience man? Napalm use contributes to global warming!

Napalm it is!

How about napalm followed quickly be liquid nitrogen?

How about just the liquid nitrogen? Freezes everything in place, preserves the evidence (including any people involved), non-toxic when it boils off ... seems like a "clean" solution to me.

[Mike Finn]

I've lost track... are we talking about naplalming the brand-name looters, or just the hungry children of sex-crazed drug addicts? (Not the chubby ones in Bloke's neighborhood though.)
I'll bet we could get Penn and Teller to help out with the liquid nitrogen stuff. Didn't they have a bit once where they used it to freeze a mouse or something?

M F

[windshieldbug]

I'll bet we could get Penn and Teller to help out with the liquid nitrogen stuff. Didn't they have a bit once where they used it to freeze a mouse or something?

When I freeze my mouse, the whole darn PC locks up! Maybe their's was just chilly

[Kevin Hendrick]

I'll bet we could get Penn and Teller to help out with the liquid nitrogen stuff. Didn't they have a bit once where they used it to freeze a mouse or something?

When I freeze my mouse, the whole darn PC locks up! Maybe their's was just chilly

Well, maybe ... I got some chili on my mouse once, and it still worked OK (messy, though) ... of course, it was probably a brand that was compatible with Windows' "gooey interface"

[Dylan King]

Here's a mind opening article on this situation...

http://tiadaily.com/php-bin/news/showAr ... hp?id=1026

[Doug@GT]

Here's a mind opening article on this situation...

http://tiadaily.com/php-bin/news/showAr ... hp?id=1026

A very well-written article. Definitely political in nature, so I won't discuss it here any more than to say I'm glad somebody had the guts to write that.

[Kevin Hendrick]

Well, we can't fault either of you for any of that!

[Mike Finn]

Well, we can't fault either of you for any of that!

no, but we've got to draw the line somewhere!
MF