Day: January 29, 2010

Plan For Haiti’s Relief

More than two weeks after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the supplies are still not getting through to the people on a regular basis and seems to be a major hold up for some reason….there seems to be some petty envy among the participants of the distribution of supplies…that alone is thoroughly absurd….people are suffering put your goddamn envies to bed and help these people….

I have heard that part of the problem is that the roads are impassable in places…WAIT!…..have any of these morons ever heard of a helicopter?  Divide the country up into sectors and let each country that wants to be the hero take a sector…..set up easily controlled distribution sites and then go to fuc*ing work…this is not rocket science….or maybe it is……

Are you telling me that the brilliant minds that start wars cannot figure out how to distribute emergency supplies?  Set up a field hospital on the grounds of the destroyed presidential palace…it is fenced and could be easily protected from anyone that feels froggy and wants to attack…..or use it as a main supply point for the same reason….

Let the UN go in and section off the country and assign each section to a country that has a presence there….

I see the US has learned nothing from Katrina…there were plenty of supplies but they were outta reach of the people for days and even a week or more….sound familiar?  You would think that we have learned from our mistakes…apparently we have learned NOTHING in the science of getting emergency supplies to people in need….ALL the people….

I would like to apologize to the people of Haiti for the arrogance, ignorance and stupidity of the world….especially the industrialized world…..

A Government Spending Freeze?

It is being reported that Pres. Obama will announce the details of his government spending freeze in his State of the Union on Wednesday…..but before that there is a hint of what it will be about:

The spending freeze covers many domestic programmes and departments to which Congress allocates budgets each year, including agriculture, transportation and education and national parks.

Security and defence spending, foreign aid, social security and spending on health care for the poor and retired would be exempt.

The freeze could make the president rein in his ambitious reform agenda, especially with regards to education and the environment.

The last statement……rein in spending on education……..WAIT!

If the key to returning jobs to America is education, then where will a cut in educational spending help create jobs…..after all, so we are told, it is all about the jobs, right?

On another front…..in 2003 the US got intel that said a follow-up attack to 9/11 was called off for something even bigger…….but the interesting part is that it took 7 years for this info to be released and it came on the heels of the announcement that NO spending freeze for national security concerns……kinda like it was needed so there would be little opposition to the announcement…..sorry I digress….but it had to be said….

Back to the point…..how can jobs be created with education if the funds for education are frozen or even slashed?  The key here is that it is NOT what is good for the economy, but rather a continuation of the typical political games that are always played in Washington……what is best for the party to keep its place of prominence…..

But there are those that feel that the freeze would be counterproductive:

But still, many economists have blasted the plan for its potentially anti-stimulative effects and its focus on spending that is not the root cause of the country’s long-term deficits. Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman wrote that the freeze is “appalling on every level…shifting attention away from the essential need to reform health care and focusing on small change instead.” Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich said that the freeze “will make it impossible for [Obama] to do much of anything for the middle class that’s important.” U.C. Berkeley economist Brad DeLong added “this is a perfect example of fundamental unseriousness: rather than make proposals that will actually tackle the long-term deficit…come up with a proposal that does short-term harm to the economy without tackling the deficit in any serious and significant way.”

And at its core, Obama’s decision cedes to the right-wing both the idea that blanket cuts are necessary and the notion that cuts should be focused on domestic programs while defense spending goes untouched. And already, the right-wing is claiming the freeze as a victory, with the National Review’s Jim Geraghty writing, “if the arguments in the coming years are between spending freezes and spending cuts, then we’ve already won.”

It is all politics…….need more be said?