tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400574.post112559729132658229..comments2024-03-29T04:56:02.252-07:00Comments on Paying attention: Katrina a preview of our lives after the ‘Big One’Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400574.post-1125647767520234102005-09-02T00:56:00.000-07:002005-09-02T00:56:00.000-07:00I have also been to Algiers....for very different ...I have also been to Algiers....for very different reasons (felt a need to see where Old Bull Lee spent so much of his time and where Kerouac and Cassidy got stranded)....and I too could not see the River, but did see ships, which was even more bizarre because they seemed to be levitating 30 feet up in the air.RossKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07677239332112652522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400574.post-1125622676023613152005-09-01T17:57:00.000-07:002005-09-01T17:57:00.000-07:00Thanks for highlighting the potential horror of ou...Thanks for highlighting the potential horror of our seismically unsafe schools, Paul. Imagine the horror of New Orleans, except that 80% of the dead are our school-aged children and their teachers, because schools were the only public buildings that we "couldn't afford" to reinforce expeditiously.<BR/><BR/>You're right in that it's not easy to justify tax increases to pay for it, but what about the $2 billion surplus last year? What about all the windfall profits that the province is now raking in from oil and gas? I'm not suggesting it should all go to seismic upgrading, but surely there's a very good argument for applying some of the windfall/ surplus to expediting that task.<BR/><BR/>(By the way, Seattle did just that, I believe - they introduced some sort of special levy and today they finished upgrading all their schools.)<BR/><BR/>And in Louisiana, there are already early grumblings blaming President Bush's cuts and his rerouting of federal dollars to anti-terrorism for the failure to repair the aging levee system and prevent the disaster that everyone knew was just waiting to happen.<BR/><BR/>A lesson that the folks in Victoria should heed carefully.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com