Our Money Flows Into War Effort While Country Goes Down the Tubes

SEVERE ALERT: Our country's resources are severely low.


[Thanks to Harry Shearer who alerted us about this today on Le Show, Shearer's wonderful radio program. Go here to find out more. Shearer talks about news that we don't ordinarily hear about. I really find out a lot from him. Plus, he's very funny.]

Most parents I know try to teach their kids about consequences: If you do such and such, what do you think might happen?

How do we teach our leaders about consequences? They all seem to be oblivious. If you start a war, you will end up spending lots of money. Is that where you really want to be putting your money?

My belief is that this war is just transferring money from our pockets into our leaders' pockets. They're smirking all the way to their Swiss bank accounts.

And we live with the consequences.

Here are today's examples.

-- Toxic fumes in the Yosemite Wawona tunnel. The electrical system is outdated and the fans in the tunnel aren't working correctly -- they need to be replaced. The toxic fumes could become so bad at the height of tourism in the summer that it could cause a fire in the tunnel. Were you planning to travel to Yosemite this summer? Probably not because you can't afford the gas.
-- Thirteen schools run by the Dept. of Interior for Native American school children were found to have shoddy conditions.
-- Nearly 60 dams managed by the Dept. of Interior are at *HIGH* risk of breaking or overflowing. (I guess that would be ORANGE in Homeland Security parlance.) As Harry Shearer said: "Well, they can always call on the Army Corps of Engineers." He's broadcasting from New Orleans these days.
-- Near Jackson, Wyoming there is a condemned fish hatchery where Interior employees themselves worked in peril until last year. The building had been closed to the public since 2000 because of dangerous structural flaws, but employees continued to use some of the facility to restock endangered trout.
-- Yellowstone National Park water systems are significantly deteriorating and the now-closed Dinosaur National Monument was "literally falling apart" atop shifting soil in Colorado, putting irreplaceable fossils at risk.
-- At Grand Teton National Park, an office headquarters building located on an earthquake fault is not built to seismic codes. A maintenance building there is plagued by unhealthy conditions and has needed repair for at least 10 years, but won't be fixed for another six.

Could it be that there is no money to fix these problems? All the money flowing from us to ... war efforts ... to war profiteers?

Can't afford to travel to a foreign land for holidays? Were you planning to visit one of our natural treasures? Better do some research on it before you go. Make sure it's safe for your family to be there.

Are you surprised to learn that Deputy Assistant Secretary Paul Hoffman, a former congressional aide to Vice President Cheney, had been the most senior agency official in charge of safety at the Dept. of the Interior?

Want to read about the audit report that uncovered all these problems at the Dept. of Interior? Go here.

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