Plume reached at least 50,000 feet high-
- Alaska volcano Mount Redoubt erupts
four5 times. Washington Post. By Mark Thiessen. The Associated Press - Update 3/24. Alaska’s Mt. Redoubt volcano erupts a sixth time, sending ash plume 60,000 feet high. LA Times.
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– Although Governor Bobby Jindal may think volcano monitoring is a great waste of money, you can get good information at the Alaska Volcano Observatory.
– Added 3/25/2009. Don’t sneer at science — volcano monitoring saves lives. By Joel Connelly. Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Connelly points out the many beautiful and merely dormant “flamethrowers” of the Pacific Northwest.
– Added 3/25/2009. Photos of Alaskan Volcano’s Eruption. By Betsy Mason. Wired Magazine.
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Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is past President of the Western Watersheds Project.
Ralph – great point about Jindal and the willfully-ignorant earmark bashers. Don’t like the earmark process? Do away with it entirely — don’t just single out the ones that make for good Leno-Limbaugh soundbites.
Turns out, of course, that Alaska’s volcanoes really ARE something for the nation to worry about: military aircraft that keep an eye on our “friends” in the North Pacific had to be grounded due to volcanic ash at 50,000′.
It would be fascinating to see what would happen if Congress did away with earmarks entirely. It would probably save a few hundred million on “Birthplace of Lawrence Welk National Historic Site”-type projects over the coming decades. The downside would be that every worthy project — like keeping an eye on Alaska’s volcanoes — might then require its own piece of legislation. That would be nice in a perfect world, but there’s only so many hours in a day, so many days in a year for Congress to write, debate, and pass separate pieces of legislation.
I guess principled leadership by both parties in Congress would be too much to ask for, too . . .
SAP,
Funny thing. I just found a blog on this today. “Bobby Versus The Volcano.” By BarbinMD. Daily Kos.
If its a legitimate program, than it should stand on its own merits and not need an earmark to make it under the radar.