What Were They Thinking?
Have they gone mad? Have they gone nuts?
The Department of Homeland Security just cut antiterrorism and disaster preparedness funding by 40 percent for the two targets of the 9/11 terrorists: Washington, DC, and New York City. New Orleans also inexplicably had its funding cut in HALF, but DHS in its infinite wisdom increased it for such terrorism magnets as Charlotte, North Carolina. The DHS "risk scorecard" declared that there are "zero" national monuments or icons in New York City, the home of the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the New York Stock Exchange, and the Brooklyn Bridge. These landmarks were taken into consideration under other categories, but the end result remains: funding to protect the people and places in NYC and DC -- two of America's prime terrorist target cities -- and in New Orleans, the site of one of the biggest not-entirely-natural disasters in U.S. history, has been cut drastically.
Are they completely insane?
This sounds like the product of one of those goofy computer programs that the fancy pants in this country think work better than human minds at figuring things out. Apparently, in addition to "risk scores" and "effectiveness tests," there was a review panel of actual human beings, but gee, for some reason, DHS won't discuss the make-up of the panel or release any of the names. NYC Mayor Bloomberg observed: "When you stop a terrorist, they have a map of New York City in their pocket. They don't have a map of any of the other 45 places." All I have to say is duh.
Here's what the Washington Post had to say. The Moderate Voice has a nice compilation of commentary excerpts and links.
The Department of Homeland Security just cut antiterrorism and disaster preparedness funding by 40 percent for the two targets of the 9/11 terrorists: Washington, DC, and New York City. New Orleans also inexplicably had its funding cut in HALF, but DHS in its infinite wisdom increased it for such terrorism magnets as Charlotte, North Carolina. The DHS "risk scorecard" declared that there are "zero" national monuments or icons in New York City, the home of the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the New York Stock Exchange, and the Brooklyn Bridge. These landmarks were taken into consideration under other categories, but the end result remains: funding to protect the people and places in NYC and DC -- two of America's prime terrorist target cities -- and in New Orleans, the site of one of the biggest not-entirely-natural disasters in U.S. history, has been cut drastically.
Are they completely insane?
This sounds like the product of one of those goofy computer programs that the fancy pants in this country think work better than human minds at figuring things out. Apparently, in addition to "risk scores" and "effectiveness tests," there was a review panel of actual human beings, but gee, for some reason, DHS won't discuss the make-up of the panel or release any of the names. NYC Mayor Bloomberg observed: "When you stop a terrorist, they have a map of New York City in their pocket. They don't have a map of any of the other 45 places." All I have to say is duh.
Here's what the Washington Post had to say. The Moderate Voice has a nice compilation of commentary excerpts and links.
posted by Christine M. Hanson | 9:22 AM
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