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Tonight Louisiana Governor Bobbie Jindal gave the Republican response to President Obama's address to Congress. He took particular issue with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. I found this part of the response particularly entertaining: "While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes...$140 million for something called 'volcano monitoring.' Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, DC."
I wonder if he feels the same way about something called "Hurricane monitoring".
Happy Mardi Gras everyone!
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Now that was really ignorant. Doesn't this character know that there are major volcanoes in Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, Wyoming, Arizona, and possibly New Mexico? Does he not know that several of these are near major population centers, notably Seattle and Portland, OR? Gee, if this is the shining new star of the Republican Party, they better keep looking for talent.
Cheers,
Jerry
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who caught that. I wonder which one he'd rather be in the path of: a category 3 Hurricane, molten lava oozing down a mountainside, or a river of steaming mud and weeks of it raining ashes from a St. Helen's type of eruption?
Carol
Carol
Every time you feel yourself getting pulled into other people's nonsense, repeat these words: Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Polish Proverb
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The anti-government strain in this one is strong. He is so hostile to the very idea of government that he thinks that monitoring hazards is wasteful. Well, we'll let the people decide between these two competing ideas: the idea that Government is "the problem", or that Government can be a force for good when administered by competent people. I don't mind people being anti-government. I just wish such people wouldn't serve IN government. Whatever you think of Governor Jindal's attitudes toward volcano monitoring, you can e-mail him here: http://www.gov.la.gov/index.cfm?md=form&tmp=email_governor
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I'm all for volcano monitoring but not when passed off as part of a stimulus package.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.
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jindahl reminds me of a snake oil salesman, it's time for us all to work together and let's get out of this mess, their way obviously failed, what's really disingenuous is that the right wingers under duhhbyah doubled the national debt adding $5 trillion and now they are complaining about it, lol!
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funny, those of you who are liberals will do anything (ahem, . . you defended a creep like Bill Clinton?), you'll destroy any hope for the future to get a free check from the government, you'll accept 20 other stupid programs to get 1 that benefits you personally. it's alot of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours with the Dem's (who cares? if Obama's appointees are any example, apparently most Dem's don't pay taxes anyways). very short-sighted, business as usual for libs.
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But how do you feel about volcano monitoring? I favor it and want the government to pay for it.
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Hmmm.... Volcano monitoring, thought the USGS already did allot of that anyways so what's the extra money for? Hard to really say on some of these without knowing the exact details. As for Republican response they have had 8 years of do nothing policy and their own major deficit spending to account for. Can't remember George Bush putting his foot down with just one budget veto & of course 2 very expensive wars ........
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hvo's entire annual budget is a few mil... they have hundreds of installations of equipment all over the island, often in places that are not accessible other than by helicopter, and which need to be serviced regularly. each one of these, it could be a seismonitor, a tilt station, a radio relay station, all of them need a source of power, usually solar panels and batteries, that need servicing, and of course the equipment itself is not something to be gotten in town... and this stuff wears out. and that is not to mention that all that equipment is only for the detection of a change. once detected that info has to be sent to hvo, received by a computer, processes and plotted and reviewed by a trained scientist and stored. this is no easy task, and it aint cheap. and it is only a small portion of what a handful of people do with very little money to constantly monitor, assess and disseminate vital information regarding the safety of everyone on this island. hvo is in line for a few mil of that stimulus money.. about 4 mil.. which would be spent on direly needed upgrades to its infrastructure and equipment which they haven't been able to keep up with under the limitations of their regular annual budget. anyone who lives on this island and would complain about this is an idiot! AND.. this money isn't going to go into some government employees pocket.. it's going to be spent, given to private companies that provide goods and services, and if that is not stimulus then what in the #!&? is?
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