Post Sandy (Hurricane) Pre Election Musings

People are really suffering along the coast line and I know it must be difficult to get them everything they need.  I feel for the public servants and utility workers who are struggling to put things back together.

Longer term, I think we have to reconsider how government encourages waterfront development and plan for some gradual changes.  Nature produces storms and humans need to allow tolerances in the system to mitigate the damage.  An ocean waterfront is not a place to invest money you cannot afford to loose.  An ocean waterfront is a place for parks and public access to beaches.  Landscapes that can absorb storm surges.

Now as for the gasoline lines.  My own planning for this storm involved filling the cars with gas, getting cash from the bank, purchasing water and preservable food, building an ice supply for the cooler and filling the tub with water to flush the toilets.  But we would not have lasted the 5 days some have been without electricity now.  We would have had to leave the region using our cars and that is why the gasoline purchase was so critical.

I don't understand why everyone did not do this and I have been pretty angry with the drivers of the cars waiting in the gas lines in front of our house.  I have sympathy for the workers who use their vehicles daily and understand they might have burned through their full gas tank in 3 days, but not the others in the first lines.

Now we are so far along, that even prudent people might be running out of gas.  I will note that many in the gas lines are cars with smaller gas tanks.   So fuel efficiency has its place but not when there is a shortage of gasoline.

As for the election, what will be, will be.   I am distancing myself from this emotionally although I believe the choice is very stark between what will happen in regards to a woman's right to choose. And I cannot believe Ross Douthat's comment:

President Obama did not single-handedly put us on this path. But he has kept us on it, accelerated our progress down it, and campaigned for re-election as though taking this course had no downsides whatsoever. He’s the candidate of the Medicare status quo in a country facing an entitlement crunch, of government bailouts in an economy with a crony capitalism problem, and of contraceptive mandates in a society with a birth dearth.

Let me get this straight.  We should limit contraception availability for people who cannot afford it without health insurance coverage, so that such women of limited income will have more babies, so our population will increase?  And then under the GOP plans , we will cut the access of many of those new children to health care and higher quality education thereby creating a larger underclass, higher crime rate and more spending on law & order.  That is a great way to reduce government spending!  I hope he clarifies his thoughts some day.