"...something called volcano monitoring."
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Topic: "...something called volcano monitoring."
Posted By: agentwhale007
Subject: "...something called volcano monitoring."
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 1:15am
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At risk of this sounding like a FE thread, don't fret. There is actually an interesting question at the end of this for the forum minds that be. Anyway, about a month ago, Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana, said in his response after Obama's address to congress that: “While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending and includes $300-million to buy new cars for the government, $8-billion for high speed rail projects, such as a magnetic levitation line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, and $140-million for something called volcano monitoring. Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C." As irony would have it, Mt. Redoubt, in Alaska, http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/03/23/alaska.volcano/index.html - erupted five times today , spraying ash 15km into the air, with some of the ash falling in the suburbs around Anchorage, and causing problems at airports and oil refineries. Withholding as much snark as I can withhold, what does this mean for Jindal? He, from what I have gathered, has been seen as big potential Republican player during the next election, someone who could help unify the party quite a bit. How does something like this effect someone's potential to run for political office? Is this a recoverable gaffe? It won't be a problem for the Republican base, but that base is shrinking in favor of a more moderate center. How will this be seen by the moderates? |
Replies:
Posted By: *Stealth*
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 1:23am
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I'd expect little to no effect on his career, especially given his demographics. Sure, he missed the mark on the whole volcano issue, but I think the message of "excessive spending" will still appeal more to his party, despite the somewhat bad call. If I were Jindal, and I was asked anything about the comment, I think I would find it to my benefit to respond with something akin to "Yes, I made a bad call on the volcano issue, but my statement still stands about gross mishandling of finances by the current elect" This strikes me as a situation where he needs to acknowledge his poor analogy, but stick to his guns on the overall message. That's the only way I can see any sort of recovery. ------------- |
Posted By: Darur
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 1:28am
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I'd hardly call that a gaffe, just bad timing. Given that we are already in deep debt, and congress is spending billions on bailouts and new programs, being critical of something as obscure (from a budget point of view) as volcano monitoring isn't out of line. Virtually all volcanically active regions are well researched by various Universities and private organizations, and contingency plans exist in many regions already. Mind you I'm just going off what I'm aware of; policies may have changed. EDIT: Oh, and, I love these threads durrr hurr ------------- Real Men play Tuba [IMG]http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1859/newsmall6xz.jpg"> PH33R TEH 1337 Dwarf! http://www.tippmann.com/forum/wwf77a/log_off_user.asp" rel="nofollow - DONT CLICK ME!!1 |
Posted By: agentwhale007
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 1:30am
I think most people see his intentions with it, that spending is crazy. I don't think many people actually believe that Jindal wants volcanoes to go nuts and kill people. That's the problem with these kinds of things. Intention can be forgotten over time, and it can turn into "Hey that's the guy who said the volcanoes wouldn't get us!" |
*Stealth* wrote:Posted By: agentwhale007
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 1:33am
Oh, it is extraordinarily bad timing. Especially for a Governor who had his state near-destroyed by a national disaster. And, as per the rest of your quote, I'm not really sure the validity of government funded volcanic monitoring is the question here. I am trying to figure out what average voters down the road will think. They are a weird group to figure out sometimes. |
Posted By: *Stealth*
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 1:41am
While intention can be forgotten over time, I think the consequences of "forgotten intent" are subject primarily to circumstance. For instance, should a US volcano erupt in a devastating manner, killing a few people or leveling a few communities; the comment will come back to bight him in the ass. I hardly think some ash in an airport is enough to get the moderates panties in a bunch, or make Jindle less credible. More or less, if Yellowstone goes off in the next few years, Jindle's career will be demolished, if everything stays quiet, he'll be fine. Also, if it turns out that possible future opposition attempts to derail Jindle with this particular comment, i'd say he is in excellent shape overall. ------------- |
Posted By: Darur
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 1:43am
Ahh, sorry, I missed your point. I'd like to think your average voter would recognize that volcanic eruptions (excluding Yellowstone) pose a relatively tiny threat to most American citizens, and that Jindal was still well within reason arguing that volcanic monitoring is not a top-priority expense for congress at present. That being said, observing the amount of flak the President is getting for the silliest of issues, and the huge amount of distortion and mud-slinging going about in the opinion sections of our media, I can easily see this being blown out of proportion. ------------- Real Men play Tuba [IMG]http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1859/newsmall6xz.jpg"> PH33R TEH 1337 Dwarf! http://www.tippmann.com/forum/wwf77a/log_off_user.asp" rel="nofollow - DONT CLICK ME!!1 |
Posted By: DaveEllis
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 1:58am
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Off topic, but my brother to prove a point on Saturday was listing types of insurance. I piped in with Volcano Insurance. No one got it. |
Posted By: FreeEnterprise
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 9:29am
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I think the general public has more things to worry about than a liberals view that we should be watching mother earths volcanos at the tune of 140,000,000 dollars.
Big whoop, the volcano, that everyone said was going to erupt, did... And that discredits jindal how?
If the government didn't fund it. Other people would...
If you don't want to die from a volcano erupting, don't live on one... Kind of like the idiots that live in a flood plain and then whine when their house floods... "oh, me, I lost everything, and I have no flood insurance... Bail me out grubment"...
Seems like "normal people" are more concerned with this...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/23/AR2009032302830_pf.html - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/23/AR2009032302830_pf.html ------------- They tremble at my name... 
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Posted By: agentwhale007
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 11:55am
Possibly because the reason that everyone said it was going to erupt was because of volcano monitoring systems? |
Posted By: FreeEnterprise
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 12:18pm
So the system that is already in place worked... And yet we need ANOTHER $140,000,000 Federal dollars...
yup, sounds about right...
go grubment! Spend spend spend.
If they can't do it, no one can... ------------- They tremble at my name...
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Posted By: agentwhale007
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 12:44pm
So we should not update the system with current advances in science, even if those updates will help us further/better monitor the systems? |
Posted By: Eville
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 12:50pm
| or replace the ones that just got erupted. or maintain the ones we have. |
Posted By: *Stealth*
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 2:41pm
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I like to blindly imagine the technology that was installed once upon a time to keep us safe, will continue to keep us safe, forever. Take the New Orleans Levis for example... They're doing just fine with no financial backing or maintenance at all. I say: Once it's been funded and installed, forget about it, just like GM's business structure, if it aint broke, don't fix it. ------------- |
Posted By: Peter Parker
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 2:48pm
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Mostly bad timing, I figure. Palin makes jokes about the silliness of fruit fly research, now THAT was a major gaffe (or maybe not, given her target audience). This will fade away, I think. ------------- "E Pluribus Unum" does not mean "Every man for himself". Pop Quiz: What do all the Framers of the Constitution have in common? |
Posted By: agentwhale007
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 2:51pm
I don't know. The timing of these is sometimes frightening. Sarah Palin talks about public funding for abstinence-only sex education, her daughter gets knocked up out of wedlock. |
Posted By: Rofl_Mao
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 4:37pm
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A little off, but I think they should really invest a bit of money in bioterrorism awareness and prevention. If smallpox ever came back then it would be devastating to the U.S. population. The country's stockpile is only about 15 million vaccines, most of which are from the 70's and now are pretty much useless, and even if they were usable, 15 million is not nearly enough to vaccinate everyone. Not to mention our healthcare system sucks. When another mass attack (or outbreak) on U.S. soil happens, our hospitals will not even begin to be able to treat that many people. Hospitals have a hard enough time dealing with 100 people from a plane crash, let alone, 100,000 from an anthrax or other bio-attack. This scares me alot because a bioterrorist attack would be so incredibly easy to do if you had the resources. |
Posted By: choopie911
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 4:51pm
Dude, these work just fine! 
Why the hell do we need new airplanes, the old ones work just fine! Technological progression be damned! MONEY, RAAABLE RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE |
Posted By: Rofl_Mao
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 4:55pm
| Silly choopie, that plane is Russian. No wonder its dirty, old, ugly, and doesn't work. |
Posted By: Kayback
Date Posted: 24 March 2009 at 5:53pm
Relatively tiny, but Mt St Helens still did over a Billion US$ in damages. And the Colt is a damn fine aeroplane, and it pretty much does exactly what it was meant to. It is quite hard to improve on perfection. It took them over 40 years to replace it. It does what it was meant to exceedingly well. It is a pity it can't be used in the USA and other places. There are improvements on it sure, but they also cost a whole lot more. |