According to the Department of Homeland Security, Alexandria, Indiana has more national icons than does New York, New York. In computing how anti-terrorism money should be distributed, the Department of Homeland Security decided that New York did not have any national monuments or icons.
The formula did not consider as landmarks or icons: The Empire State Building, The United Nations, The Statue of Liberty and others found on several terror target hit lists. It also left off notable landmarks, such as the New York Public Library, Times Square, City Hall and at least three of the nation’s most renowned museums: The Guggenheim, The Metropolitan and The Museum of Natural History.
On the other hand, Alexandria Indiana’s Largest Ball of Paint was included in the DHS calculations. An aerial view of the location of this precious precious landmark provided courtesy of Google Earth.
Update: It occurs to me that I may have been sucked in by the dry humor at the Cheers & Jeers entry at Daily Kos. I haven’t been able to find corroboration of the list there (and Kos is down for maintenance so I can’t read the comments for confirmation). On the other hand, I think it’s sufficiently bad that DHS and the Bush administration’s past performance has been bad enough that it is even plausible that a big ball of paint in Alexandria, Indiana might figure into DHS terrorism/pork calculations.
I think that is just slightly crazy. But I’m glad that the ball of paint will be protected.
This is yet another example of why BIG GOVERNMENT does not work.
Homeland Security is spending billions of dollars on questionable items all over this country.
We need to put the government on a diet…
Mike Sylvester
O.k., but *you* will have to tell the children why we did not protect their heritage when the terrorists destroy our big ball of paint.
Sure, give the terrorists a clear shot via Google maps, Doug. Thanks.
With security risks such as myself, you can see why it’s so necessary to spend DHS money protecting our cherished paint-related landmarks.
Mike I agree, DHS is just another bloating of the federal government. Glad we elected that “small government” republican savior, GWB. He would never make the mistake of creating such a beaurocracy. DHS was Clintons fault right?
I think this more of an example of why INCOMPETENT governemtn doesn’t work.
This is more of a PR problem for DHS than a “real” problem – the NYC landmarks were classified by the State of New York and therefore didn’t “need” to be put into the national list. (Side point: Indiana hasn’t gotten around to putting its list together which is why DHS had to for us….) But since their PR guys are in hot water over on-line solicitation of children, I guess they weren’t able to keep focused on getting their message out. So to speak.
It had occurred to me that, were I willing to be charitable, there might be alternate explanations such as that the New York landmarks were subsumed into a different sort of filing because “New York is different” or whatever. But, I was unwilling to be charitable. Let DHS go into the weeds to explain themselves. I don’t feel a need to do it for them.
It has made me aware of my only barely conscious posting style. On matters of national politics, I am apparently willing to be a firebomb throwing partisan whereas on state matters, I feel the need to be a bit more grounded. I’m still obviously partisan, but I have a much greater desire to figure out exactly what is going on rather than feeling a need to just “score points” against the other side.
Don’t worry too much about it Doug. You’re no different then the NY politicans that raced in front of the cameras or the NY media that was up in arms (see NYT editorial). Wait, you are different. Its not your job to find out the facts. Some of the things that were printed and said were downright shameful.
You don’t have to dig too deep to find the truth. A lot of pork is getting spread around, and NY didn’t get as much as they wanted. It kind of reminds me of when you applied for scholarships. 1st chair of the trumpet section seemed pretty important at the time. Kind of like the largest ball of paint.
Is this paintball proof that watching paint dry passes for entertainment around here?
And all this time I thought DHS was mostly an exercise in public relations.
Right – until their deputy director of public relations got picked up in a sting. (Remember? )
But nobody’s perfect, of course.
Having seen the World’s Largest Ball of Paint in Alexandria, I can say that it truly is a national treasure.