news from the home state

[geekchick]

Bye, Trent! Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Biloxi's Recovery Shows Divide

While Gov. Haley Barbour (R) has hailed the casino openings as a harbinger of Mississippi's resurgence and developers have proposed more than $1 billion in beachfront condos and hotels for tourists, fewer than one in 10 of the thousands of single-family houses destroyed in Biloxi are being rebuilt, according to city permit records. More than 10,000 displaced families still live in trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

While getting money for lower-income residents to rebuild or for the construction of affordable rental units is like pulling teeth (if you can manage it at all -- according to this article, the state argued at first that bailing out homeowners without flood insurance would just encourage them to forgo it in the future), Haley Barbour wants to divert $600 million in federal housing aid to fund an expansion of the Port of Gulfport, including creating an "upscale tourist village" with hotels, condos, restaurants and casinos. Because they claim that the already-funded programs are adequate to meet the housing needs of their displaced residents. Clearly.

Comments

trent lott

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

what, lott is leaving? WTF? i thought he had just burrowed in for the long haul after surviving his own big mouth? *goes to read the article*.

oh, that's why:

Lott said that he was going to move into the private sector after 35 years in Congress, but denied that he was getting out before a new two-year "cooling-off" restriction takes effect on Jan. 1. The restriction bars lawmakers from taking lobbying jobs for two years after they leave public service.

yeah yeah, denial is a river in egypt. the weasel is just getting out while the getting is still good.

Re: trent lott

[geekchick]

Oh, I'm sure it's entirely coincidence that he spent all that time clawing his way back up to party leadership only to decide he's tired of it all right before lobbying restrictions take effect. *cough*

I really have to try and remember that reading posted comments on articles on the Post's site is less entertaining than bamboo skewers under the fingernails. Oy.

Re: trent lott

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

oh ghods, comments on newspaper sites -- if i read them i start weeping for the good old days of the internets where even eternal september never was that bad.