Infrastructure, not radiation is the real worry

And Victor Davis Hanson knows how to say it much better than I.

The Fragility of Complex Societies

Thoughts on Japan
There is no more ordered, successful and humane urban society than found in Japan. Like most Americans, these last few days I have been moved as never before by the courage and calm of the Japanese people amid such horrific conditions, as one of the most sophisticated and complex urbanized cultures on the planet in a split second is nearly paralyzed. I confess I do not quite fathom the constant American news blitzes about all sorts of China Syndrome scenarios. Radiation pollution is a serious worry, but right now no one has died from exposure and perhaps 10,000 have perished from the tsunami and earthquake. It seems to me the greater worry right now is not yet a meltdown, but the vast dangers resulting from disruptions in food, water, power, and sewage.

Odder still, it was almost crass to watch American TV heads lead in with shrill, hyped-up mini-dramas about possible radiation clouds descending here on the West Coast, even as their backdrop screens showed biblical disasters of earthquake, flood and human wreckage. Whether we are exposed to a chest-X-ray dose of radiation seems insignificant in comparison to the horrific conditions that millions of Japanese are now enduring.

Read it all here. He says it all so well.

We are in the age of the bread and circus Roman routine

Only it is in our White House.  This is from Gateway Pundit:

Conga-Lines… Bare-Chested Beer Pong… Super Soaker Fights… The Good Times Keep Rolling Along For Obama White House Officials

Posted by Jim Hoft

Back in January 2009, Barack Obama told Americans that,

“Everyone must sacrifice… Everyone must have some skin in the game.”

Well… Everyone but Barack and Michelle Obama. See here for the videos

Guests gather for the entertainment segment of a state dinner in honor of President of Mexico Felipe Calderon inside a party tent on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, May 19, 2010. (Reuters)

In 2009 the Obamas spent over $10 million of taxpayer money on drunken White House parties.

And, it doesn’t look like things are going to slow down anytime soon.

The New York Post reported, via Free Republic.

Last week’s jobs report tanked the stock market; the president took weeks to assert control of the oil spill that threatens doom on the Gulf Coast — but at the White House the Gatsby-like parties roll on as if happy days were here again.

Just yesterday, President Obama held another fun-filled White House event, a picnic for Congress members, complete with hot dogs, cold beverages and a fire pit.

All told, during the last seven weeks of spewing oil and rampant unemployment, he has frolicked and danced through three major White House music parties.

* The black-tie tent bash on the White House South Lawn after the state dinner for Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón, which featured singer Beyoncé.

* The Paul McCartney hootenanny — a night of tributes to the former Beatle, which featured the president himself scooting onto the dance floor to join the Jonas Brothers in the long “la-la-la” closing refrain of “Hey Jude.” (Plus, of course, McCartney serenading the first lady with “Michelle.”)

* The Ford Theater event — in which the president, taking a break from “kicking ass” on the oil spill, kicked back and relaxed to the song stylings of one-time “American Idol” winner Kelly Clarkson, among other B-listers.

It was one thing when the president launched his White House days with a round of Martini Wednesdays, Stevie Wonder concerts, conga-line dancing and Super Bowl parties. That was before the gushing oil and before the employment picture defied the Obama hope-and-change cures.

Now it’s different. Now the president’s fascination with fun and parties in the midst of crisis has not only reinforced a feeling he’s out of touch, but has migrated down the chain of command.

Last weekend, Vice President Joe Biden and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel held a “super soaker” squirt-gun party at the veep’s residence. Everybody ran around giggling and shooting squirt guns at each other. Members of the press covering Biden joined in, to their shame.

And last Sunday, presidential spokesman Tommy Vietor and Obama speechwriter extraordinaire Jon Favreau, both 29 years old, were spotted at a Georgetown bar, stripped to the waist, playing a game of beer pong with a gang of bare-chested buddies. (This game involves throwing a ping-pong ball into cups of beer — loser drinks beer, winner drinks beer, everybody drinks beer.

If any heads roll under the bus how much do you want to bet it will be the last mentioned, the least powerful Vietor and Favreau? The original article in the New York Post was by John Gibson.

Louisiana and Rhode Island -Politics and Disasters

From The Providence Journal online:

Edward Achorn: Our political culture: When it rains on Rhode Island, it pours

Nature is mightier than any human being, and no politician can prevent damage from a disaster on the scale of Hurricane Katrina or the record rainfall that wreaked havoc last week.

But the political culture does have much to do with how well prepared a state is to meet a disaster and mitigate the damage. If a state is steeped in corruption and if its voters permit their politicians to spend tax dollars in ways other than serving the public interest, nature can inflict extraordinary damage indeed.

Hurricane Katrina was worse than it had to be for Louisiana, for example, because the state’s (including New Orleans’s) political leaders were too incompetent to prepare adequately for the storm. And, after the storm, its shakedown culture thwarted taxpayer-funded aid from getting to the people. Within two years, the special Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force of the U.S. Department of Justice had charged 188 people in Louisiana with fraud.

“Half of Louisiana is under water and the other half is under indictment,” a longtime congressman, Billy Tauzin, famously quipped of his state.

As Rhode Island dries out and confronts the damage, we may learn in coming weeks whether our culture also made things worse.

It is good to know that an editorial writer recognizes that the political culture of the gimme state of Louisiana had the most to do with the flooding and its aftermath.
Read it all.