Thursday, November 17, 2005

Them that's got shall get...

...The Navy is asking for $2 billion in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds, saying in a memo that it wants to restore Northrop [Grumman]'s three Gulf Coast yards, where most of the Navy's surface ships are built, to their pre-Katrina "capacity and profit opportunities."

...critics question whether the Navy and Northrop are using Katrina as an excuse to gain additional funds, outside the Pentagon budget, for shipbuilding programs that are notorious for cost overruns.

And $2 billion, these critics say, is suspiciously high for shipbuilding delays expected to take months, not years, and for a work force that is mostly busy again....


Them that's not shall lose...

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it plans to stop paying for hotel and motel rooms for Katrina and Rita evacuees beginning Dec. 1....

... more than 53,000 hotel rooms remain occupied by evacuated families -- primarily in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Mississippi....


You have read up to paragraph 21 of that first story before you encounter the key name:

[Northrop Grumman's] 800-acre Ingalls yard dates to the 1930's, and has long benefited from the political protection of Senator Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican whose father once worked there; Mr. Lott's waterfront house - now flattened by Katrina - was just outside the yard.

The evacuees didn't have the foresight to buy a senator before they were flooded out, so tough luck for them.

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