New Orleans Is Most Likely Safe from River Flooding
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There’s a certain trepidation in writing that headline, but . . .
Despite over $2 billion in damages, possibly to reach $4 billion from the Mississippi River Flood of 2011, including dramatic flooding upriver around Cairo, Memphis, and Vicksburg—and despite scary images and headlines on ...
A Reader Replies re: the Killing of Osama bin Laden
Our friend Archie in New Rochelle, New York, takes issue with part of yesterday’s post on the killing of Osama bin Laden. The points Archie makes about bin Laden’s pre-9/11 relationship to the United States—or the U.S.’s to bin Laden—are factually correct (and see Further Reading list below). ...
Mission Accomplished: Bin Laden Is Dead.
Now Focus on Threats Closer to Home.
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[ cross-posted at Daily Kos ]
Last September, Levees Not War raised the question whether Hurricane Katrina was a more significant catastrophe than 9/11, more emblematic in terms of chronic ills afflicting the United States. Now the question is raised whether the nation faces internal ...
How Deep Is Our Disgust with Obama and PussyDems
Obama and Democrats Must Defend Social Security, Medicare—and the Middle Class—Before They’re Gone
In “Our Cowardly Congress,” New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof points out that last week’s Shutdown standoff happened only because the cowardly Democrats—the PussyDems, we now call ...
Mad Tea Party with Chainsaws and Clowns
“From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.” —Denis Diderot (1713–1784)
“I love gridlock. I think we’re better off when we’re gridlocked because we’re not passing things.” —Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Feb. 2010
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Amid all the talk and worry of a Shutdown Showdown, is anyone ...
Going to War Is Easy
“A continual state of war”: No need to consult Congress or those who must pay the cost.
Ned Resnikoff at Salon.com’s War Room writes a fine piece on “The Real Reason We Rushed into (Another) War.” Fine and troubling. But don’t let that stop you: Mr. Resnikoff’s piece is worth reading in ...
How Many Wars? After Libya . . . ?
“From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli . . .”
[ also at DailyKos ]
We once made the sardonic observation that apparently the aim of the “war on terror,” rather than protecting the Homeland, was to inflame the entire Muslim world—or at least those nations possessing oil. We ...
St. Patrick’s Day in New Orleans: Celtic Carnival
Before we write a disapproving piece about the assault on Libya, we want to share a few cheerful views of the St. Patrick’s Day parade we enjoyed from beginning to end on Thursday in Marigny and the French Quarter. (See photos after the jump.) We ...
Tyranny Disguised as Fiscal Discipline
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“. . . to secure these rights [including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. . . . whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to ...
Mad About Trains—High-Speed Trains
All Aboard, America!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R57ZwTquraE&feature=related
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Vincent Kartheiser (Pete Campbell) and Rich Sommer (Harry Crane) have cut a Mad Men–style web commercial with U.S. PIRG and Funny or Die to show that high-speed trains are cool. It’s 1965. When Pete tries ...
Happy Mardi Gras 2011
“To many New Orleanians, Mardi Gras is not just the day itself, but the season leading up to it. . . . In the two weeks before Fat Tuesday these [Mardi Gras] krewes throw their famous parades. Every night, people from every class and neighborhood make plans to meet “at Bacchus” or for Endymion ...
Public Works in a Time of Job-Killing Scrooges
[ A modified version of this piece appears at New Deal 2.0, a project of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. ]
Last week we went to a panel discussion on public works and infrastructure at the Museum of the City of New York: “Roads to Nowhere: Public Works in a Time of ...