This was one of the things said in the response to Obama's speech last night:
"Instead of trusting us to make wise decisions with our own money, they passed the largest government spending bill in history - with a price tag of more than $1 trillion with interest. While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending [including] … $140 million for something called ‘volcano monitoring’. Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, DC."
I could go on and on in anger, but I wont. I will just say this makes me angry. I am am very "not happy" with a certain republican from Louisiana who doesn't have to worry about volcanoes passing judgment on the validity of spending money on monitoring them. To me its like making fun of Hurricane and tropical storm tracking: Do we really need that? Maybe everyone should just move and not waste my money every year tracking those damn things ;)
(You get that I'm joking right? I do think it is important to track them....)
that is all I am going to say. Really.
here are some other peoples responses:
First is the response of Alaska Senator Begich
http://volcanism.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/something-called-volcano-monitoring/
http://harmonictremors.blogspot.com/2009/02/and-then-two-more.html
http://eruptions.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/volcano-monitoring-in-the-news/
http://magmacumlaude.blogspot.com/2009/02/letter-to-gov-bobby-jindal.html
http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2009/02/volcano_monitoring_and_the_sti.php
and they all have links to more.
1 comment:
It is dumb to think that watching volcanoes is wasteful. And you make a good point to those not living near one to find it wasteful in the first place. Yeah, it may not effect them now, but what about if one erupts? Not to mention what can be learned from the data collected from them. Anyway, Anna, I am with you on this rant. May a volcano sprout out of the ground under that man's house in Louisianan.
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