US buying Russian helicopters

It gets better and better. The US is buying Russian helicopters for use in Afganistan as reported by MSNBC News(MSNBC.com). US union workers, you are out of luck. This is your liberal voting coming back to bite you in the arse.

North America's Worst Oil Spill

In my last blog I commented that I had doubts about the Haiti reconstruction. Of course that has faded from the news and all public awareness due to the oil spill several months ago. I tend to agree with Fox News(Dick Morris). We are now being lead by a litigator and a politician instead of somone who knows how to manage a huge calamity. Blame instead of solutions are the order of the day and it seams that payout of claims will be "processed" by the government. This adds fuel to fire of the government's ponzi scheme of huge deficit spending. A few more dollars to spend for paying politicians not to run, an effort to solidify power. The border debate by poweer group is another case of wanting to solidify power instead of enforcing existing laws. The dismal economy and the millions of people losing their homes and jobs is a sidenote in the news. Where is all this headed? As the problems facing America increase the reach of government to control our daily lives, even our private lives is expanded. Not good!

Haiti Reconstruction

This is my first post on this blog. Thanks for joining me.

Today the United States has pledged 1.15 billion dollars for reconstruction of schools, hospitals, and neighborhoods in this country affected by the recent earthquake. The money is pledged over the next 2 years.The pledge comes at a time the US itself faces some hard economic realities.

It will be interesting to see how this money is used and if anything was learned from Katrina or Iraq where billions of dollars were squandered on contractor set asides that were unqualified and corrupt.It is also surprising that the pledge is for 2 years. Nothing was said in the news articles today about rebuilding infrastructure or City planning.

I doubt much improvement will be seen in the next 2 years either as rallying enough professionals and coordinating rebuilding will be a major task especially the government way. If Katrina and Iraq are the model, most of the money will be soaked up by bureaucracy and corruption before building ever starts.

I personally attempted to get information regarding Government building programs that Architects could submit proposals on after Katrina and after hours of web searching gave up.

If you read this blog and have any information regarding opportunities for Architects rebuilding Haiti please post it or send to my email and I will share with the community.

Architects have been one of the hardest hit professions during this recession. Hopefully some work will trickle down from the 1.15 billion for planning and design.

Thanks for reading.
Don Bryant