The Kensington Review

21 September 2005

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Volume IV, Number 113
New Orleans’ Mayor or FEMA in Charge of City? -- The boundaries of federal versus local authority in the US has been an area of debate since the Constitution was ratified. This area is located largely in the land of political theory, but in the case of New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast, “who’s in charge?” is a question upon which lives still hinge. So, the recent spat between New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and the feds gives one little cause for optimism.

Germany Votes, Still Hasn’t Got a Government -- When German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of the Social Democrats arranged to lose a vote of confidence to get around a technical point in the Germany Constitution that inhibits early elections, it was thought pretty likely that his successor would be the Christian Democrats’ Angela Merkel. After a pretty awful campaign in which a 20% lead in the polls collapsed to less than 1% on polling day, Frau Merkel may still get the job, but she doesn’t have a majority, and that means Germany has just put the entire European agenda on hold.

US Spends $95 Billion on Medical Research, Unwisely -- Today’s Journal of the American Medical Association is a special issue covering the state of US medical research. Part of the edition is a report co-authored Dr. Hamilton Moses III, chairman of the Alerion Institute, which is dedicated to studying research policy. The report says that the US spends more than any other nation on earth for medical research, and that it may not be getting bang for its $95 billion bucks a year.

Hurricane Names May Turn to Greek Alphabet -- Whether it was a sense of fun or some more practical consideration, the National Weather Service in the US decided to start naming tropical storms and hurricanes in 1953. They go in alphabetical order, and in 1979, men’s names were added to the list in a fit of sexual political correctness. But a naming injustice persists. If 22 tropical storms happen in a single year, storm number 22 is named Alpha. Yet there are 26 letters in the English alphabet. Q, U, X, Y, and Z are left out. That hardly seems fair.

© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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