MEGAN MCARDLE: Should We Build Massive Flood Gates in New York Harbor? “The third set of facts to keep in mind is that whatever you would like to do, the current environmental law framework means that the costlier the project, the longer the time for the design development and approval stage. Imagine that George Bush had made the protection of New Orleans his highest priority on the day he took office in 2001. It is highly unlikely that any of the structures that he wanted to build would have even reached the construction stage by the time that Katrina struck. Reviews and approvals just take enormous amounts of time when you are using federal funds, and the grander the scale of the project, the grander the scale of the review. Trying to build large protective structures in the New York City area–structures that will have long term effects on the ecosystem of the harbor area–will require extensive data gathering and analysis and the resolution of many court cases. If we were to start today on the implementation of some of the major structural proposals that are envisioned, it is unlikely that construction would commence for more than a decade, at the very, very earliest.”
Archive for 2012
November 3, 2012
COMPETENCE: Staten Island residents say Hurricane Sandy relief effort ‘forgot’ victims in their borough; outrage at response. It’s like a Katrina rerun, with Obama as Bush, Bloomberg as Ray Nagin, and Staten Island as the 9th Ward. Only the press is going light on the President this time. . . .
AT AMAZON, up to 50% off on Hoodies & Fleece. Winter is coming.
Also, today only: Nikon COOLPIX S9200 Digital Camera, $169.00.
TIME-WARNER-CNN-HBO SPOKESMAN BILL MAHER: “If you’re thinking about voting for Mitt Romney, I would like to make this one plea: black people know who you are and they will come after you.”
OK, but if Stacey Dash, Condi Rice, Mia Love and Star Parker are coming over, could you ask them to give me some advance notice? I really need to tidy the place up first.
ANNALS OF THE ONE PERCENT: LET THEM EAT CAKE!
Celebrity twit Debra Messing and various heartless other stars proved beyond doubt that some fabulous New Yorkers don’t have hearts beating in their cold, dead chests.
Fires were barely snuffed out in Breezy Point. The dead were still being counted from here to Jersey. And the bodies of two tiny Staten Island brothers, 2, and 4, who were ripped by Hurricane Sandy from the arms of their frantic mother on Monday, were finally found yesterday, 20 yards from each other. They were gone.
But the rich, the famous and narcissistic weren’t about to let a little weather event ruin their party. . . . Wednesday, a night of sadness and rebuilding, is when Messing chose to don the costume of Marie Antoinette, whose utterance “let them eat cake” when there was no bread reputedly sparked the French Revolution. She attended an event so hideous, it should have been banned and the revelers buggy-whipped.
It was Bette Midler’s 2012 New York Restoration Project Hulaween Benefit Gala — dubbed, ironically, “A Season in Hell’’ — at the posh Waldorf.
Our celebrities at work. Just following the President’s lead. . .
WHY WAS THERE NO OCTOBER SURPRISE? “Because every freakin’ day for the last four years has been an October Surprise,” Zombie writes, along with a laundry list of “Barack Obama’s Scandals, Misdeeds, Crimes and Blunders.”
It looks like you’re going to need a bigger blog.
SEXISM IN HIGHER EDUCATION: For Men, Little Due Process On The College Campus.
WHAT WILL YOU DO IF THE ‘WRONG GUY’ WINS TUESDAY? A key to understanding James Madison’s genius was grasping how the Constitution he mainly authored forces competing interests to compromise, usually with the result that the public interest is at least protected, if not advanced, and political stability follows. Such a result had no precedent among history’s democracies. Here are some thoughts on this question to ponder over the weekend. Perhaps somebody might want to address the question of whether compromise becomes impossible as Big Government continually raises the stakes of losing?
MORE PROBLEMS FOR THE FISKER KARMA. I think it’s a super-beautiful car, but the Insta-Wife thinks my Mazda is just as pretty. Also, doesn’t catch fire.
IACCOCA ENDORSED ROMNEY, TOO: Lee Iaccoca and Hal Sperlich have been on the same wave length for a long time. Part of the reason they left Ford was rejection of their proposal for a family van that would fit in the typical suburban garage – aka the “minivan.” They’re still talking the same language in 2012, endorsing Romney, in part because of what they term Obama’s “misleading attacks” on the Republican presidential nominee’s stance on auto industry issues.
BART STARR ENDORSES ROMNEY.
SMALL-SCALE DISASTER PREP: A battery-powered phone recharger that can be recharged itself via the sun. You can even buy extra charging panels to make it charge more rapidly. I ordered both.
SEEN ON FACEBOOK:
CHANGE: See the 28 Large Newspapers That Endorsed Obama Last Election and Are Now Endorsing Romney.
REPORT: “News Outlets Held Back Detail Of Benghazi Attack At CIA’s Request,” according to Michael Calderone of the Huffington Post:
U.S. intelligence officials, speaking on a not-for-attribution basis, provided reporters Thursday with the most detailed explanation yet of the CIA’s presence in Benghazi, Libya, and the agency’s response to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack, while also identifying the two former Navy SEALs killed that night as being employed by the CIA.
But some news organizations, including the Associated Press, The New York Times and The Washington Post, already knew that the two former SEALs — Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty — were working for the CIA and had agreed not to publish the information at the government’s request.
While AP, the Times and the Post held back this detail following an official request, reporters at other news outlets may also have known or assumed the men were not security contractors given the nature of their work in Libya. ABC News, for example, reported that Doherty had been working to “round up dangerous weapons” in the country. One national security reporter told The Huffington Post that it was an “open secret” in national security circles that the former SEALs were working for the CIA.
However, that detail wasn’t widely reported or, if it was, was quickly pulled back.
Yes, that seems to happen quite often with this administration.
ALL JACKET AND NO BOMBERS: The Huffington Post quips that Obama’s leather bomber jacket look this past week is “One Pair Of Aviators Away From ‘Top Gun.'”* Mark Steyn responds that the president is “all jacket and no bombers:”
Back in Benghazi, the president who looks so cool in a bomber jacket declined to answer his beleaguered diplomats’ calls for help – even though he had aircraft and Special Forces in the region. Too bad. He’s all jacket and no bombers. This, too, is an example of America’s uniquely profligate impotence. When something goes screwy at a ramshackle consulate halfway round the globe, very few governments have the technological capacity to watch it unfold in real time. Even fewer have deployable military assets only a couple of hours away. What is the point of unmanned drones, of military bases around the planet, of elite Special Forces trained to the peak of perfection if the president and the vast bloated federal bureaucracy cannot rouse themselves to action? What is the point of outspending Russia, Britain, France, China, Germany and every middle-rank military power combined if, when it matters, America cannot urge into the air one plane with a couple of dozen commandoes? In Iraq, al-Qaida is running training camps in the western desert. In Afghanistan, the Taliban are all but certain to return most of the country to its pre-9/11 glories. But in Washington the head of the world’s biggest “counterterrorism” bureaucracy briefs the president on flood damage and downed trees.
I don’t know whether Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan can fix things, but I do know that Barack Obama and Joe Biden won’t even try – and that therefore a vote for Obama is a vote for the certainty of national collapse. Look at Lower Manhattan in the dark, and try to imagine what America might look like after the rest of the planet decides it no longer needs the dollar as global reserve currency. For four years, we have had a president who can spend everything but build nothing. Nothing but debt, dependency, and decay. As I said at the beginning, in different ways the response to Hurricane Sandy and Benghazi exemplify the fundamental unseriousness of the superpower at twilight. Whether or not to get serious is the choice facing the electorate Tuesday.
But let him keep the bomber jacket.
Heh — read the whole thing.
* Quentin Tarantino, call your office. (Language warning — and then some — at link.)
IT SHALL BE CALLED THE GREAT BARRIER OF NYC: Massive barrier plan to save New York from flooding.
YOU KNOW WHAT FRIGHTENS ME? Four more years with a president so supine as to abandon his people to die and blame some poor schmo who made a movie. Apparently, though: Obama campaign frightens supporters with nightmare vision of Mitt Romney’s presidency. Mr. President, we know that Mitt Romney is not you. If he had no other selling points, that would be enough.
HEY, SO LONG AS THEY DON’T PUT THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE: The Saudis are bulldozing Islam’s heritage. Why the silence from the Muslim world?
ALWAYS FALLS ON EUROPE: Golden Dawn takes advantage of recession ravaged Greece.
ELVIS IS DEAD, AND I DON’T FEEL SO GOOD, MYSELF: Election Summary. AND ALSO: Benghazi, 2012, by Rudyard Kipling.
November 2, 2012
MICHAEL RAMIREZ: Oceans of Red Ink:
CINCINNATI ENQUIRER: 30,000 jam West Chester to hear Romney:
The presidential race returned to Ohio for the final push Friday as GOP challenger Mitt Romney held a massive rally in the Republican heartland north of Cincinnati and President Barack Obama cut a swath through central Ohio.
Romney spoke to a crowd of 30,000, according to West Chester Fire chief Tony Goller – making it the largest rally of the campaign, said Romney spokesman Chris Maloney.
Stacy McCain spots a AP journalist trying to low-ball the headcount — and not the first time his numbers came in considerably lower than the local media coverage of a Romney event.
That same AP reporter is also claiming that “energy level [is] low” among attendees — it certainly didn’t look that way in any of the photos of the event that I’ve seen, but then, this isn’t the first time that AP reportage of the mood at a GOP event has been corrected by those of citizen journalists were also there.
(Speaking of photos, Stacy promises more later on his Website.)
RELATED: The Enthusiasm Is All GOP.