Tuesday, October 10, 2006

I Think That My Head Is Going To Explode...

AGAIN...(my favorite title, with a slightly different topic...)


Here, I can hardly write or speak right now after hearing about it, but I want you to click on the link and go read this story about a FEMA funded program, Project Hope, which has thus far paid about $22.6 Million of the taxpayers' money to fund "Puppet Shows and Bingo games" benefiting what are describe as Florida victims of last year’s Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma.

Last year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency awarded Florida $22.6 million for "crisis counseling" for victims of hurricanes Wilma and Katrina.

Florida's program, called Project H.O.P.E. -- Helping Our People in Emergencies -- is still in operation with about 450 workers across the state who spend much of their time leading games and performing shows for residents -- regardless of whether they're in crisis or even experienced the storms, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel has found.

I might have to remind some of you that Katrina did blow across south Florida just before crashing into Louisiana and washing all of the stains and vermin off of the New Orleans streets and doing a little "Urban Renewal" demolition, but it was hardly more than a big mass of thunderstorms when it blew across Miami. I know someone that lives there and I got a first-hand account of the proceedings at the time.

Floyd, as I recall, managed to toss around some tree limbs and wreck a little havoc on some retiree's trailers, but again I hardly could vote for extra bingo and yoga on the beach when there is already a bingo parlor and Jai-alai arena every fifty yards up and down the Florida Turnpike and US 1.

So why the hoopla and government cash infusions?

Oh, I remember now, there's a shortage of PORK in south Florida during Hurricane season...the pigs all fly north (in the style of a popular Pink Floyd album and in respectful deferrence in order to avoid any lingering persons of the Jewish persuasion that might not have the will nor the means to escape back to Kew Gardens, NY during the balmy south Florida Summer months.)

What really makes my head spin at an even higher RPM is this little detail...

In an effort to protect the “privacy” of the so-called “victims” which are supposed to be served by the program, FEMA has caused Project Hope to find their beneficiaries not by receiving addresses and phone number information from the government, but by forcing the program's employees into driving around the city asking people if they’ve been traumatized by the aforementioned storms and doing things like looking for blue tarps on the roofs of houses and apartment buildings.

Dammit all people, but I have to ask…when will the government insanity end?

And more importantly, why do they insist on using MY money to prosecute their follies?

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