Thoughts on Rita
Once again I’m glued to CNN despite some of the stupid statements from both reporters and officials they interview. The following are some of my thoughts and observations.
On the issue of the clogged highways I’ve heard some suggestions about expanding the road network. Amazing! Americans already use more than our share of the world’s energy plus we create for more pollution per capita than others. Yet our solutions only compound these problems. Typical.
Having more gas along evacuation routes will be part of future plans. I guess that is all good and well for a hurricane that you can plan for in advance. However, when evacuating due to another disaster such as an earthquake, tornado or terrorist attack you can’t plan to have extra gasoline along highways.
Also on the gas front early reports indicate a couple of closed refineries had damage — one indicating “significant damage.” Well, duh. But the media is stepping over themselves to try to assure the public that energy prices will stabilize shortly. The message — go ahead and buy that new house 30 miles from work and enjoy the drive in your new Hummer.
“You can’t have a strong economy unless you have a strong highway system.” was spoken by Republican Rep Tom Delay on CNN. Well, there you go. Other countries seem to have similar or better economies along with superior high-speed passenger rail service and urban mass transit. Clinging to our highways and single occupancy vehicles will be the death of our economy.
How is it that I can watch CNN for weeks and not hear anyone suggest that perhaps we are too dependent upon gasoline and other oil products? CNN can find all kinds of experts to interview but they don’t seem capable of doing a simple Google search to find someone to say we need to think about how we use energy just not how can we maintain our high level of use.
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer is a putz. Other CNN anchors can be annoying but Wolfy takes the cake. One anchor very early this morning was getting on my nerves by asking field reporters about damage and the answer each and every time is, “once we have daylight we’ll know more.” After a half hour of this I turned off the tube and went back to sleep.
Republicans and Democrats are putz’s as well. The Republican’s are all saying how great Bush’s leadership and Democrats saying how bad it is. I don’t like Bush but I’m not sure of the benefit of this back and forth attack and praise game.
I’m not really a believer in “God” but if I were I’d have to conclude that he/she is trying to send a message to poor people: Red states are no place for you! Or is this just Mother Nature at work reminding us that we are fallible?
– Steve
How can you be surprised that we want to build more roads to solve problems when we’re actually having another trial about creationism and building a creationism museum in Ohio? We’re going backwards, not forwards in this country. Republicans, to be sure won’t solve the dependency on fossil fuels so the Dems seem like a better bet, but change I think will happen when it must, not because we plan for it proactively.
The gas issue is a simple one… the reason there wasnt any is that the people who drive the trucks were evacuating with the rest of them, trying to get their families out. There were trucks full of gas, but no drivers to deliver.
“Other countries seem to have similar or better economies along with superior high-speed passenger rail service and urban mass transit. Clinging to our highways and single occupancy vehicles will be the death of our economy.”
No, no, no, no, no. The presence of high-speed rail service and urban mass transit has nothing to do with macro-economic performance. We’ve got the best (sustained) economic performance in the world. The EU sees very high unemployment rates and low economic growth, owing to different philosophies toward markets and the role of government. The penchant for collectivism (whether you call it socialism or communism, etc) is much greater in other countries than in the US and typically dampens economic performance. Mass transit only works in areas that are densely populated. Even then, there is never enough govt funding or high enough ridership or fares to keep things running. Mass transit is extremely costly and requires very high volume to be even close to remaining afloat. The Metrolink barely holds its own–actually it probably keeps requiring more money. We are not a country in which we force people to use a particular means of transportation. As you saw in N.O., we can barely force people to leave in times of danger. [Granted, most were tragically left behind by the mayor and governor, but many chose to stay as well.] So, mass transit will work only where it make sense, and is costly, even then.
Roads aren’t exactly models of self-sufficiency either. If they were, we wouldn’t need $200 billion road bills in congress, plus state and local money to pay for them.If we didn’t build useless roads, we could have money for a great mass-transit and hi-speed rail system, plus be able to maintain the roads we already have.