New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | September 2, 2005

Tim Cavanaugh demurely suggests that, in light of New Orleans, perhaps our federal spending priorities are out of whack.

Comments

|9.2.05 @ 6:26PM|#

"More disaster preparedness?"

"More *everything*!"

|9.2.05 @ 6:33PM|#

I just heard Bush speak off the cuff after viewing the hurricane damage and not so demurely suggest our president is also out of whack. He rambled and backtracked and he kept repeating himself and stopping in midsentence. Seriously, this isn't just snark, he really sounded out of it.

|9.2.05 @ 6:36PM|#

"So let's all pitch in for our fellow Americans down on the delta. Alaskans, you go first."

Hear, hear!

...and if Young thinks we're gonna sit on our hands and breathe through our noses while they raise taxes for this, then he's just smoking pot.

P.S. I had to go to dictionary.com for "lagniappe". ...nice!

|9.2.05 @ 6:40PM|#

Ok, so 'off the cuff' my sentance structure isn't so good either. But then again, this ain't my job...

|9.2.05 @ 6:46PM|#

Tim:

Great article. I especially loved finally getting a link to information explaining the "Don Young's wife" story.

The Anti-Puritan|9.2.05 @ 6:56PM|#

"You're just smoking pot." Sounds like a compliment to me.

|9.2.05 @ 7:01PM|#

Yeah, it's funny how ostensibly decrim/legalisation libertarians still say "you must be smoking something" or "you're on something" when someone makes a bonehead comment. I think that some of my most profound insights have come when I'm on something.

I mean, I know it's a turn-of-phrase, but I still try not to trot it out very much, since it kinda goes against what I actually believe.

|9.2.05 @ 7:04PM|#

I'm guessing the number at 24.

I'll tell you what the number is supposed to be at comment 24.

The Anti-Puritan|9.2.05 @ 7:53PM|#

joe,
Is this like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, when the computer gave them a number and they had to figure out what the number meant?

|9.2.05 @ 8:07PM|#

Kerry would have been worse.

Ha. Comment 10, joe.

Alaska|9.2.05 @ 8:14PM|#

I have no problem forfeiting the three projects listed and on behalf of our state, I volunteer that the money for those projects ca be sent to Louisiana and Missisippi. I think Don Young is an idiot in general, and I really do not want to increase the infrastructure in this state from money from those who do not live here.

Having said that, I would like to correct a couple of common misconceptions. The airport in Ketchikan is on Gravina Island. The bridge, then, would replace the ferry system that transports people between the mainland where Ketchikan is and the airport. To this end, the bridge would serve several hundred thousand people a year, not just the 50 or so that live on Gravina island.

The article also describes a bridge to a small port that the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce opposes. This also deserves more explanation. The Alaska geography greatly restricts further expansion of Anchorage. Right across a river, in another borough (Alaskan for county), are tens of thousands of miles of available land. The bridge would open up this land for homes and businesses in Anchorage. Frankly, this bridge is a good idea (although I think it should be done with state or, even better, private dollars rather than federal money). The Anchorage CofC opposes this because the businesses created would not be in Anchorage. Rather, by being in another borough, they would 'compete' with Anchorage. This bridge is a really emotional issue for a number of odd ball reasons, but it does make good economic sense considering the growth of the Anchorage population and the geographical constraints.

The last road, to Juneau, is really idiotic and from an economic standpoint does not make sense. For these reasons, while these projects are certainly pork and while citizens of the other 49 states have every right to protest paying for them, the two bridges are not quite the boondoggles that they appear. This is not the same as Trent Lott pushing through a Mississippi ship-building facility that will build ships the Navy does not want or need.

And even though pot is not 'legal' in this state, Alaska constitutional law still says that a citizen's right of privacy in her own home outweighs social interest in prohibiting the possession and use of marijuana in one's own home. So, we can possess up to four ounces in our own home and be free from state prosecution. My guess is that Don Young was referring to this great Alaska tradition (where do you think the Matanuska Thunder Fuck or Northern Lights types come from?) when he accused his enemies of 'smoking pot'. Just be glad he did not start waving the walrus penis bone again.

|9.2.05 @ 8:52PM|#

Alaska,

Alaska constitutional law still says that a citizen's right of privacy in her own home outweighs social interest in prohibiting the possession and use of marijuana in one's own home. So, we can possess up to four ounces in our own home and be free from state prosecution.

Yeah, try telling that to a DEA agent or cop or DA or Federal attorney with some bug up his butt. The Raich decision should provide an answer for you.

|9.2.05 @ 11:03PM|#

Don't worry, Aaron, I'm sure you'd talk faster than Duhbya in the same circumstances. Yeah, I found it embarrassing too. Skill at extemporaneous speech is pretty much a requirement of the office, isn't it? Or at least it once was, and should be.

|9.3.05 @ 1:02AM|#

I'm not going to defend pork (who could?), but Louisiana already gets more money from the federal government than it contributes in taxes.

Which actually makes me wonder how much the set of people saying "Bush should have given LA more money" overlaps with the set of people who were saying "the red states are sponging off of the blue states" back when that Red vs Blue Spending map was circulating around the net.

Handsome Dan|9.3.05 @ 3:18AM|#

Alaska --

Go back to Russia, commie!!

Dave W.|9.3.05 @ 4:55AM|#

Follow the oil.

Alaska|9.5.05 @ 3:01PM|#

Handsome Dan: WTF?!? I stated that I did not want the bridges built with federal dollars. I stated that while they made sense, they should not be built with dollars from people outside this state. How does that make me a commie?

And I am familiar w/ the Raich decision, but generally, feds don't spend a great deal of time looking at small weed purchases and use. They are making exceptions in places like California when those exceptions deal with medical mj precisely to show that the feds are omnipotent. But speaking as a criminal defense attorney, the feds don't deal with weed unless there are pounds, usually hundreds of pounds, involved. The federal presence up here is more concerned with bank fraud and protecting the pipeline from terrorists.

|9.5.05 @ 7:15PM|#

Alaska,

It seems to me that said bridges would make good local projects to be funded for locally or by the state transportation budget. That a senator is trying to allocate national budget for strictly a local concern still strikes me as pork, no matter how good the idea is on a local level.

In other news, I promise to give my vote to any politician that promises to NOT send money back to Harris County, Texas, but instead fight for a bill to fight governmental pork and campaign spending. Yes, I'll sell my vote to someone who promises NOT to give me money.