Fili-bluster Flood Factor

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Senator Bunning's hold-up action has another consequence. FEMA funding for flood insurance is stopped. New policies cannot be written, existing policies cannot be renewed.

And right now in Fargo, we're looking at a 96% chance of major flooding this spring (did I mention there's a 30-day waiting period for policies to go into force?).

The cities of Fargo-Moorhead are gearing up to fill nearly 2 million sandbags. But in the meantime, it's been 13 years since the major flood of 1997, one year since the 500-year flood of 2009, and nothing has been done on Fargo flood-protection infrastructure.

The Republican mayor of Fargo was quick out of the box to endorse the Republican Governor, John Hoeven, to run for the open seat after Senator Dorgan announced his retirement. And on the east side of the river there's that wanna-be-prez Pawlenty....

Oh, we have a nice new fancy-schmancy hockey arena on the South Side. But infrastructure to protect that south side, hmmmmm, no such luck.

So we'll roll up our sleeves, but the powers-that-be better roll up their sleeves, too, because the once-vaunted shoo-in candidacy of the incumbent Governor could take a real hit in the rising rivers of North Dakota. The Flood Factor this spring could have its consequences come November.
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crossposted at firedoglake's Seminal

Fahn Miz'ippi Trailers

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That other four-letter eff-word, FEMA, was on the hot seat [yesterday], along with the four largest trailer manufacturers who supplied their toxic trailers to victims of Katrina.

The trailers were constructed of particle board laced with formaldehyde. Some of us remember formaldehyde from those stinky, rubbery frogs we had to dissect in high school biology lab.

Some remember even farther back, like Mr. Sunshine, to childhood and the killing jars he used to saturate cotton for collecting bugs for his collection. [I didn't dare ask how, as a kid, he managed to get formaldehyde...although there was this pathologist with the Heidelberg scar....]

So functionally, we've been putting families, like the family featured on the NBC Nightly News report, into killing jars to live for years, to put their children's health at risk, to deal with the headaches and the uncaring BushCo FEMA and their local bureaucracies because these were, after all "poor" people and they didn't have the connectedness of, say, Trent Lott and his beachfront front porch...or Mississippi Governor Hayley Barber and his casino cronies.

Betcha there's not a whiff of formaldehyde around those guys. There is another stench, though. The stench that says maybe the wrong member of the Lott family's doin' time...and the wrong Southern Governor was sent to prison.

Back in 1997, we had a bit of water up here in Prairie Country. Fargo was spared the worst of the damage, Grand Forks was not so lucky. Trent Lott was riding high back then, and his response to the dire straits and emergency needs? He'd see to it we got some of his "fahn Miz'ippi trailers...." Never could get that out of my head...fahn Miz'ippi trailers.

Prairie Postscript: Is there anything more pathetic than a gaggle of corporate owners sayin' they couldn't he'p themselves about supplying shoddy [fill in the blank]....they had no pride of quality control because the gummit didn't give 'em standards. Pa. Thet. Ick.

UPDATE: CNN reporting this morning that Mississippi Congressman Bennnie Thompson will hold hearings on the tons of supplies FEMA stored—and gave away to state and federal agencies instead of Katrina victims. The only Mississippian who would respond gave the same feeble type of response as the corporate owners gave [see my paragraph above]. Pa. Thet. Ick.

Hearings in the Senate? Guess the presiding committee chair, L'il Joe Sidewinder Sidekick has "other priorities." Joe Lieberman–AWOL.

Originally posted 7-9-2008 @ 9:09 PM

Lotsa “F” Words

Some Very Important People are letting fly with “F” words these days.

There’s Keith Olbermann in a Special Comment calling out George W. Bush as a Fascist and a Liar. Welcome aboard, Keith.

And then there’s Michael Bloomberg, labelling the U.S. economy a Failure...likening it to a Third World Economy.

But there’s another “F” word that caught the eye of Prairie Country today, and that’s Flex-Fuel...and how it can Free all of us from dependence on Foreign Oil. An article in Esquire magazine reports on Gal Luft's simple 4-part proposal for Flex-Fuel Freedom. Instead of ethanol, recommends Luft, the Focus should be on methanol.

Now here in Farm country, them could be Fightin’ words. We raise corn and that makes great ethanol, except...hmmmm....in North Dakota, we have coal, tons and tons and megatons of coal...we see it heading east on milelong trains more times a day than I care to contemplate. And you say, Gal Luft, that coal can be made into methanol? And garbage and paper recyclables can, too? And it starts with mandating all cars must be flex-fuel-able? And that's about a C-note to do? Hmmm, something even a gentlemanly C-type should be able to understand.

Now that’s an “F” word to spread around. Go for it. Before some other budding super power—we name no names—beats us to it.

[h/t to Farm Island Girl for the news tip.]

And then there are the Feckless Folks from FEMA, who Finally this week after years of stalling had to 'Fess up that those Fine trailers that over 100,000 Katrina victims still occupy are laced with 5% to 40% more Formaldehyde than "normal" homes. A dangerous level that causes immediate side effects and may have long term consequences as a known carcinogen. Give to George Bush's administration another Grade F.