[extropy-chat] re: news in perspective

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Amara Graps <amara at amara.com> wrote:
> 
> BTW, despite my comment earlier about wishing that the America media
> put this in perspective, it seems from what I've read today that the
> economic consequences could be huge. And I don't like seeing people
> in other governments (e.g. Schroeder) exploiting the New Orleans
> tragedy in political ways. Nevertheless, I think that that the US
> government will have a hard time with receiving aid. The view of the
> US from countries outside has changed alot in the last 4 years. It's
> hard to help a government that one despises, even though it is the
> American people themselves, not the government, who will suffer.

America sent millions to Iran after the Bam earthquakes. We spent
billions on the USSR helping them defend against Germany, then at the
height of the cold war we gave food aid. We gave lots of food aid to
North Korea. Many Americans send aid to Cuba. Americans seem to have
little problem differentiating the misery of people in other nations
from the despicability of their governments. Would that the rest of the
world were so noble.

I would suggest looking to David's Medienkritik blog: 
http://medienkritik.typepad.com/blog/ for objective european analysis
of european left wing media irrationality.

> 
> Here's a bit of 'trivia' that someone pointed me to today,
> a video, from January, from the PBS program "Nova":
> 
> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3204/02.html
> 
> The video fairly accurately predicted what was going to happen.
> I wonder why the New Orleans area wasn't better prepared, given
> that these dangers were so well-known.

New Orleans has been getting cuts in federal flood control funds since
the Clinton administration. Clinton said that flooding is a local
problem to be solved by local funding. The problem with New Orleans is
that it has been a democrat controlled city intent on spending, -
wasting -, millions of dollars on frivolous anti-gun lawsuits against
gun makers for the crimes of criminals, and millions on welfare
programs and bread and circuses, while ignoring its responsibilities to
its citizens need for flood control.

The Army Corps of Engineers isn't much better. Since it built the
original levee system, it has been bogged down by environmentalist
imposed wetlands protection mandates that have been abused by many land
owners. This:
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/Trans/hpw104-13.000/hpw104-13_4.HTM
reflects congressional testimony from 1995 on how the "404 System" is
abused by property owners who don't want development and want to
interfere in their neighbors. The Corps has become the de facto
property police, judge, and jury for the entire delta area and has many
millions a year wasted on these frivolous legal actions that wind up
costing property owners lots of legal costs as well.

It also turns out that environmentalists have been blocking levee
modernization as well as Corps construction of a Hurricane Barrier that
would have prevented this disaster. Specifically, SOWL, Save Our
Wetlands, sued
(http://saveourwetlands.org/edenislehistory.htm#lemieux2) to prevent
the construction of the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane
Barrier Project. So you can put the blame for this on the loony left,
once again.


Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
Founder, Constitution Park Foundation:
http://constitutionpark.blogspot.com
Personal/political blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com


		
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