...now keep watching and get back to us if you see anything happening.(if you do a Google image search on Rainier ber it brings up a lot of cool pics)
Posted on 02/25/2009 8:09:40 PM PST by presidio9
After President Obama's speech on the economy last night, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal criticized government spending in the stimulus bill, citing examples including "$140 million for something called 'volcano monitoring.'"
The $140 million to which Jindal referred is actually for a number of projects conducted by the United States Geological Survey, including volcano monitoring. This monitoring is aimed at helping geologists understand the inner workings of volcanoes as well as providing warnings of impending eruptions, in the United States and in active areas around the world where U.S. military bases are located.
Most of the money from the stimulus bill earmarked for monitoring (only about a tenth of the total going to the USGS) will go to modernizing existing monitoring equipment, including switching from analog to digital and installing GPS networks that can measure ground movements, said John Eichelberger, program coordinator for the USGS's Volcano Hazards Program. Much of the expense of this technology comes from the manpower required to make and install it, he added.
"Ultimately most of this creates jobs or saves jobs that would have been lost" to recent budget shortfalls Eichelberger told LiveScience.
When he heard Jindal's remarks, Eichelberger said he "was frankly astonished" that the governor would use this particular example, given his own state's recent brush with a catastrophic natural disaster.
Among the scenarios in which the USGS's monitoring can assist - the catastrophic eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, which killed 57 people (including a geologist monitoring the mountain) and was the deadliest and costliest volcanic eruption in U.S. history ($2.74 billion in 2007 dollars). This event was preceded by thousands of
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
“Ultimately most of this creates jobs or saves jobs that would have been lost” to recent budget shortfalls”
Like most of the trillion dollar “BIG GOVT BAILOUT”, this is nothing more than a huge added appropriations. If it was that important, they would have had it in regular appropriations.
It was/is a ‘wish list’ item that the liberals threw in there to spent our taxpayer money. The idea that this would stimulate anything but a few bureaucrat jobs is absurd.
It doesn’t. Just another in a long list of ‘grow the govt’ items.
I’m in Burien.
If it’s rumbling, belching smoke, ash, dust, gas or fire, it is TED KENNEDY. RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
“The volcanoes are going to do what they do monitored or not”
We can already monitor volcanoes. Throwing money at Govt project and spending like drunken sailors on pet projects, THEN turning around and taxing American small business into bankruptcy AND saddling the next generation with the debt AND then hectoring us about ‘fiscal responsibility’ is so brazenly wrong, lying, dishonest and dishonorable ... I have to think its a plot to destroy the Republican party by making all our heads explode.
If you cant figure out how wrong this all is, you’ve not gotten the Obama economy smack in the head.
“although you wouldn’t think Fairfax County Virginia had a volcano”
... You have Senator Webb to monitor.
That could cost millions.
“Obama says there were no earmarks!”
Egads, the bill WAS a trillion dollar earmark! Every single thing in there was just a liberal pet project extravaganza.
That is interesting. So, if we have the big 9.0 here in the NW, Rainier might go at the same time.
Is anyone mapping the thickness of the volcano by any methyod?
To #5: Your are absolutely correct. Money for volcano monitoring belongs in the US Geological Survey budget, or in the Dept. of the Interior budget, or NOAA (stretching it a bit); or the Bureau of Land Management (Interior); or NASA (for observations from space).
Another boondoogle from Obie Wonton KeBama
They didn’t find his body, but his trailer was smashed and parts were found years later.
He knew better than anyone else the danger of being there—he was warning others of the danger of a lateral blast—but he reluctantly filled in for a colleague that day.
He died in the exciting moment of doing what he loved.
YOU are wrong. I dont care if you like this particular piece of Govt spending, it will not stimulate the economy.
If general govt appropriations would stimulate the economy, we’d be flying high from the last 2 year of massive govt spending increases. It doesnt.
“earmarks like volcano monitoring have zero to do with stimulating the economy.” - is exactly correct.
You do realize that the military is a big beneficiary of this research, right?” So what. We dont spent on the DoD to ‘stimulate’ the economy either. We have over $600 billion in discretionary spending, if it is valuable enough put it there. Dont call it what its not.
ANY Govt spending like this to ‘stimulate’ the economy is doomed to fail at that. The money comes from priavate sector pockets and will cost as much in economic activity as it creates - there is no free lunch. We could have have had a trillion dollar tax cut and we would be ready for a big turnaround. INstead, Obama is sending us on a path that Japan took - and which we went through under the failed FDR New Deal policies.
Result? Years of net growth of about 0%.
I’m hopping mad to think it will take 10 years to get back the wealth lost in the 401k since Obama gave his acceptance speech.
That made my post so much funnier!!! Thanks, I needed that.
Closer to Tacoma, myself, and I have to drive a block or so to see the mountain, although it’s huge down here!
If you’re looking for production method, then Henry Ford is your man.
You’re killing me.
...now keep watching and get back to us if you see anything happening.
Maybe there is biofuel potential here.
It stimulates the economy. Question is, in what way?
It doesn’t generate capital.
It saves some jobs that were to be cut from spending cuts. It generates product demand, which creates the need for labor and other suppliers. It “borrows” that from the overall economy and the future.
Although the main reason for doing it should be that it’s worthy, that doesn’t mean it has no effect on stimulating part of the economy with corresponding dampening elsewhere.
I don’t know about that. A quick run-through would have immediately caught the hand-jive and the sing-song voice.
I’m in complete agreement that active volcanoes are being monitored and I don’t doubt the item is a waste or should be abudget item, not a stimulus item.
I am simply observing that with a volcano currently threatening a city, why pick volcano monitoring to mention? I think it’s because Jindal has no active volcanoes in LA or anywhere nearby, but it’s a pick that could “blow up” on him and the GOP if a volcano now goes off.
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