NOLA Katrina news
Posted by R. Neal
Item: New Orleans opened its first public school post-Katrina. The article outlines some of the successes and the challenges that lie ahead for the public schools there.
Item: Some college students taken in by other universities around the country may not want to return to Louisiana when their schools reopen. But, schools say they will honor their commitment to host visiting students only until their schools reopen, hoping to help Louisiana get students back in state and paying tuition.
Item: The Democratic National Committee is holding its spring 2006 meeting in New Orleans. They are also asking the city to apply for hosting the 2008 convention.
Item: Fortifying New Orleans' defenses against a Category 5 hurricane will cost $32 billion and take decades. It will involve not only improved levees, but also reworking the canal system and restoration of wetlands. One problem is that nobody knows how powerful a Category 5 hurricane can be -- it's an open ended scale. (In perspective, the article notes that $21 billion was spent in NYC after 9/11, the current transportation bill includes $57 billion for road construction and maintenance, and the U.S. and states combined spend $160 billion per year on infrastructure.)
Item: New Orleans opened its first public school post-Katrina. The article outlines some of the successes and the challenges that lie ahead for the public schools there.
Item: Some college students taken in by other universities around the country may not want to return to Louisiana when their schools reopen. But, schools say they will honor their commitment to host visiting students only until their schools reopen, hoping to help Louisiana get students back in state and paying tuition.
Item: The Democratic National Committee is holding its spring 2006 meeting in New Orleans. They are also asking the city to apply for hosting the 2008 convention.
Item: Fortifying New Orleans' defenses against a Category 5 hurricane will cost $32 billion and take decades. It will involve not only improved levees, but also reworking the canal system and restoration of wetlands. One problem is that nobody knows how powerful a Category 5 hurricane can be -- it's an open ended scale. (In perspective, the article notes that $21 billion was spent in NYC after 9/11, the current transportation bill includes $57 billion for road construction and maintenance, and the U.S. and states combined spend $160 billion per year on infrastructure.)
1 Comments:
$32 billion to fortify NOLA against a cat 5? $21 billion in NY post-9/11? How about a few more interesting numbers:
Congressional Research Service RL 3110 reports an average monthly spending rate of $5.9 billion in Iraq.
Total amount of taxpayers' money spent by Halliburton that the Defense Contract Audit Agency has deemed either excessive or insufficiently documented: $1.47 billion
Approximate amount appropriated by Congress for Iraq operations so far: $218 billion
Approximate amount spent by the U.S. in World War I: $205 billion
Approximate amount spent in Iraq by the U.S. last week:$1.5 billion
From http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpc-new.cfm?doc_name=fs-109-1-117
'nuff said.
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