Why would any sane person put a Level 4 biodefense lab in Galveston?
The answer appears to be “because some congressman negotiated to have some money spent in his district” (which possibly precludes sanity) but it still rather boggles the mind.
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Samizdata question of the daySeptember 15th, 2008 |
 13 comments to Samizdata question of the day |
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As we learned during the latest foot-and-mouth outbreak, our government thinks it’s a good idea to conduct foot and mouth disease research in the middle of Surrey cattle country.
They also think that the best place for a laboratory researching highly-contagious tropical diseases is Mill Hill, in the middle of North London.
So I don’t see any necessity to assume corruption where the normal awesome level of stupidity is sufficient explanation.
Still, I too suspect that Congressional horse-trading played a role here.
I wouldn’t be the first man made disaster in Galveston. I seem to remember an ammunition ship blew up there about a century ago…
Actually it was only 1947 and it was a Liberty ship packed with fertilizer. Fertilizer, explosive… same thing if you’ve lived in Belfast for a long time 😉
http://www.local1259iaff.org/disaster.html
that was Texas City, which is close to Galveston
The federal government of the US is too stupid to do corruption well, but is corrupt enough to do stupid with almost unparalleled excellence.
The concept of a lab there – if properly designed and constructed to withstand the to-be-expected occasional hurricane would not be outrageous. But for the feds to do it with low bidder contracts and/or no-bid deals to the politically powerful folks’ friends and cronies, is all too typical US federal idiocy.
C’mon Dale, I know you have some strange opinions on some things, but you are not a disaster:-O
Remember the Space Shuttle boosters. They could have been made in one piece and cheaper. They were made in parts so that they could be transported by rail rather than sea. Was it political influence, perish the thought (and the crew).
Rather interesting if true as Galveston, TX is in the 14th District, whose congresscritter is this guy
“The federal government of the US is too stupid to do corruption well, but is corrupt enough to do stupid with almost unparalleled excellence.” – krm
Great line!
I remember an ex Congressman (I will not try and spell his name – he used to look after the O’Reilly Factor when Bill O’Reilly was away, due to his mother’s sickness and so on) mocking Ron Paul’s claim to have never voted for an earmark.
“But he put them in the bill, counting on other people to vote for them”.
Of course in the session before the election campaign Congressman Paul started openly voting for earmarks – but then (to be fair) he had to try and impress the “netroots” and such. If Congressman Paul had just relied on libertarians (to text their support for him after Fox News debates and so on) he would not have had enough people to make an impression.
It was politics – and I accept that.
Hopefully now he will go back to being totally opposed to wasteful (and unconstitutional) spending.
To be fair to Ron Paul – I believe the town of Galveston wasn’t in his district until recently due to redistricting. The southern part of the island has been in the 14th for a while. I would think the legislative malfeasance is more likely a Kay Bailey Hutchison/Phil Gramm deal.
For the same reason that Congress occasional buys the military stuff that it does not want while ignoring their actual requests.