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   RE: [xml-dev] Responding to Katrina (offtopic even if XML is part of the

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The problem is you can't say what the funding would be if 
it were targeted to flood control.  The politics for Federal 
funding aren't that simple.  The concerted effort from the 
Beltway to shift blame to the locals and from Congress to 
FEMA and vice versa is pretty dismal to watch and perfectly 
predictable.   Sometimes I think if America had less money 
to throw around, it might do it smarter, but that's speculation. 

What is not speculation is that given the rising oil prices, 
the hit to the refineries and the pumping stations, the hit 
to the ports, and so on, there will be less money to throw 
around.  Europeans already paying high prices can laugh 
without fear of retribution.  If by that you mean no levees 
will ever stop a Cat 5, you are probably right.  I was asked 
at a party what I would do.  I said as an engineer, I recommend 
bulldozing New Orleans and rebuilding in Arizona.  As a musician, I 
recommend rebuilding the Big Easy and getting gigs there.  Priorities 
by role are in conflict.  It's a tough problem in multiple inheritance.

Here in XML land there are different issues that we can discuss 
as part of the response.

Technical question:  can XML Schema declare an object-oriented 
database in fact, or only by implication?  This links to the 
Names As Types permathread.

len


From: Jim Ancona [mailto:jim@anconafamily.com]

Ken North wrote:
>>1.  The conditions of the levees and dikes are well-known in
>>emergency planning circles.  Requests for funding to repair
>>them have been routinely turned down.
> 
> Congress started funding the Southeast Louisiana (SELA) Urban Flood
Control
> Project in 1995. SELA was a long-term capital works project. The U.S. Army
Corp
> of Engineers spent more than $400 million on levees and pumps.

 From this morning's Washington Post 
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR200509070
2462.html):

"Before Hurricane Katrina breached a levee on the New Orleans Industrial 
Canal, the Army Corps of Engineers had already launched a $748 million 
construction project at that very location. But the project had nothing 
to do with flood control. The Corps was building a huge new lock for the 
canal, an effort to accommodate steadily increasing barge traffic.

"Except that barge traffic on the canal has been steadily decreasing.
	
"In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have 
complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and 
Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President 
Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps 
civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; 
California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though 
its population is more than seven times as large."

So the problem wasn't lack of funding as such, it was which projects 
were funded. Not surprisingly, the politicians were more interested in 
funding those that would bring short-term political benefits rather than 
in protecting against a hurricane that might not come for 50 years.

Read the article--there's plenty of blame to go around, and no 
technological solutions evident.




 

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