Date posted: February 22, 2008 - Friday
Title: TW 02/22/08
Current mood: anxious
Fouled Up FEMA - Round Two
The disaster in New Orleans remains a mess. Long after the fact FEMA is finally moving people out of trailers they knew were leaking toxic fumes into the air. They've known for quite some time there was danger for these people, but this impotent agency hasn't been able to "manage" anything. It is finally getting people out of dangerous trailers in New Orleans.
So, with the problem with trailers, FEMA decided to meet the housing problems created by the Southern California wild fires by providing pre-fab housing. Seems simple enough, right?
Nope. There are some specific requirements about land, utilities and other things to qualify for one of the pre-fabricated houses. And because of the nature of the area that was burned in San Diego County, a large number of people don't qualify for the housing.
A large number of the destroyed houses in San Diego were in the back country; the rural areas outside of the developed cities. And because the people in these homes chose to live in areas which haven't been paved over and segmented into neat little lots, they can't benefit from FEMA's 'largesse'.
Not being attached to the utility gird or not being flat ground are the major factors in the rejection of residents for assistance.
My questions are many. How can an agency which is supposed to react to disasters establish these "one-size-fits-all" requirements and really expect to do its job? Why is the agency getting involved in massive contracts for pre-fab housing when it limit's the people who can take advantage of the program to a set of limited requirements.
Disasters don't come prepackaged. And thus solutions can't come prepackaged either. So what use is a disaster agency that is inflexible and cumbersome and doesn't react to the unique circumstances of each situation?
Can I Have About 15 Minutes Worth?
OK, there are times when I can be as obsessed about money as someone else. Most of those times are when I don't have any (or much) and don't know where the next dollar is coming from.
So the other day I heard a figure tossed out about the amount of money we are spending in Iraq on the 'war' there. I don't know if it is an accurate figure, but it did have an impact on me.
$18,000,000 and hour.
Yep. That's the number I heard.
So here I sit wondering where my next job is coming from; if I ever find one at all and how I am going to pay for my health care and eventually my food and the government is spending my tax dollars at a rate of $18 million an hour on a war that isn't getting us anywhere, we can't "win" and that most people don't want.
Hell I think any of us would settle for about a minute's worth of this war. That's $300,000 and I think most of us could live very comfortably for several years on that.
Depends on Whose Ox Is Being Gored
I almost laughed my ass off at John McCain's indignation over New York Times stories this week.
I don't know whether or not he really did anything with the lobbyist he is linked to. I don't really care. I also don't care whether or not the Times used unnamed sources for the article. (Although I do think that is pretty shabby journalistic practice for what is considered one of the major newspapers in the country.)
What gave me the greatest glee is the fact this is exactly the tactic the Republicans used in the last several elections. I think it has come to be known as "swift-boating a candidate."
Funny how the Republicans can make a ton of unsubstantiated claims about Democratic candidates, publish these, spread them across the Internet with glee and walk away smiling. But when it happens to one of them the cries of "foul" are screamed from every rooftop.
I guess it depends on who is the victim. Republicans seem to think it's OK for them to do it, but it should never be done to them.
Isn't that the definition of a hypocrite?
Burger, Medium Well Done With a Side of E.coli
The largest recall of processed beef in U.S. history happened this week. 143 million pounds of hamburger that went to fast-food restaurants and school lunch programs. That is enough hamburger for every man, woman and child in the United States to have two burgers.
The films shown by news media of the way the cattle were treated at the processing plant were disturbing; cows being pushed around with forklifts in an effort to make them stand up. But, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says there is very little chance of danger from the meat and the recall is precautionary. There is a higher chance of E.coli in cattle that cannot stand at the time of slaughter, and since the cattle were born after the precautions to prevent "mad cow" getting into the food chain were instituted there was little risk of that happening.
There were no indications anyone had ever become ill from eating the meat from the processing plant, but the recall went ahead anyway. Apparently it was more a bureaucratic decision because the plant didn't follow proper procedures in violation of Department of Agriculture rules.
It seems to me the feds in this case are making a big deal out of something that has already happened. Because of the short shelf life of processed beef, the department said most likely the great majority of the beef had already been consumed. This is especially true since the recall was for beef produced at the plant since February 1, 2006.
So with all the flap, I'm not sure what purpose this recall served other than to possibly put the meat processor out of business, arrest a few violating workers and soothe the egos at the department because they may not have been watching the processing plant closely enough. Since the offending procedures had been happening for something like two years the department couldn't have been watching too closely. Especially since the evidence of the violations came from the Humane Society.
Guess you get a huge recall when the USDA gets embarrassed.
Wanna Buy A House, Cheap?
There were more signs the real estate crisis brought on by the collapse of the mortgage market will get a lot worse before it gets any better. I am not sure the whole country is in the same shape as my part of Southern California, but the picture around here is getting grim.
Figures announced this week show foreclosures for the month of January 2008 were up 257% over the same month in 2007. Figures for December showed a 145% increase over the same month of the previous year.
Another factor was the sale of new and existing homes in San Diego County was just slightly ahead of the amount of foreclosures; 1,826 sales, 1,395 foreclosures. This is a sign that home prices are going to remain "stagnant" for some time to come -- or even fall if people panic about the market going south.
This also opens up the San Diego market to real estate speculators who want to profit from depressed prices.
I have always had a contrary view of real estate from most. To me you buy a house to live there and not as a savings account that will earn you a pile of money. Guess this makes me a heretic in the real estate world.
But, my personal feelings aside, the economy isn't looking great going into the new year.
Could They Be Doing Something Right?
Early this week the House was holding firm against pressures from the White House. It was refusing to rubber stamp the administration's desire to protect telecommunications companies from lawsuits for bowing to warrantless requests for information.
Of course the argument is dividing along partisan lines. It's the House Democrats that are holding firm against granting the immunity. The administration and Republicans claim the refusal to pass the Senate version of the bill with the immunity puts America at risk from terrorists.
Horse pucky!
Current law provides plenty of ways to investigate terrorists while still going through legal channels to gain information. Giving telecommunications companies blanket immunity for previously ignoring the law is just crap.
And is anyone else as tired as I am of the Republicans threatening America with disaster and ultimate doom unless it knuckles under to everything the administration wants?
Connubial Bliss Is Worth How Much?
The divorce between former Beatle Paul McCartney and his wife, Heather Mills, has been ugly. And while British divorce proceedings are held in private, information about the split of the famous couple has been leaking out.
I was as happy as anyone else when McCartney remarried after tragic death of his former wife. And I was sad when I heard that after four years the marriage was dissolving. But just how much is four years of marriage worth?
McCartney is reportedly worth something like $1.6 billion. I would venture to say most of that money came from his days as a Beatle and the continuing royalties on those efforts and his time as the leader of the band Wings. Thus it was earned well before the current about-to-be ex-Mrs. McCartney was in the picture.
Reportedly McCartney has offered Mills a settlement of $50 million. Information says she wants twice that.
I have always thought divorce laws in this country were screwy. I guess they aren't any better in England. I don't care how loving a wife Mills was, or any woman is for that matter, four years of marriage does not equate to $100 million. To me it brings into question the motives for the marriage initially.
Another Betamax Debacle
The war is over.
Yep, Toshiba announced this week that it is abandoning its' HD DVD format as most of the major movie studios announced they would be releasing their films in the Blu-ray format.
So the two-year battle for high definition video players is over. Sales figures showed that the HD DVD format had actually sold slightly more players than Blu-ray machines. But the sales of either were nowhere near the amount of regular DVD players sold. People in the industry speculated the battle over formats was actually hurting sales because consumers didn't want to get caught choosing the wrong format like they may have in the old Beta-VHS battle.
So now Sony has the market for high definition video disks cornered. But, it may be a short lived victory. A large number of analysis's predict the technology will be leap-frogged by technology which will have movies streamed directly over the Internet.
And, of course, the consumers are trapped by whatever is being forced upon them. This constant need to change formats and make technology obsolete probably doesn't serve the consumer that well. How many people do you know who may have bought a Beta recorder that is now essentially useless? Or how many may have old 5.25" computer disks at home and no possible way to read the information on them because no one makes a disk drive in that format anymore?
Change isn't necessarily better all the time. But introducing a new technology which in incompatible with the old technology sure does drive profits for the manufacturers. And profits for the movie companies in this case as Blu-ray disks of a movie are anywhere from $10 to $13 more expensive than a standard DVD copy.
