Yes, if only government had been more involved in that debacle, it would clearly have been much better.
Indeed, if only they had. Such as by preventing dumping waste in an inappropriate fashion for decades. But instead they were just doing what they were told, rather than thoroughly investigating the situation.
That would be the local government that had a map of all of the waste, that was stored in a manner well above existing standards, in the same area that the US Army and other government agencies were using substandard procedures and questionable accounting/maps, right? Also, the same local government that caused the first breech of the material by digging through the area to build a drainage system fo a new road.
the Massachusetts' State Fire Marshall, an early form of busybody bureaucrat, forced Goddard to move and this is merely a continuance of that grand governmet tradition.
Correction: my bad. The fire marshall only forced Goddard to move onto a military base, before he moved a few years later to New Mexico.
I wonder if these environmentalists have ever been to Florida. Where they launch lots of rockets. Where they launch rockets right next to a wildlife preserve.
Pretty sure quite a few of them go there to watch and cheer, then go home and say "not here!"
Anyhow, you miss the point. Obviously anybody determined to make nutritious meals can do so. We don't live in Somalia. But like _anything_ the question is what the barriers (costs) to making good choices are. If you have the choice to either schedule and hop a bus to go several miles to a grocery store, or just walk across the street to the liquor store for a bag of potato chips, _most_ people (black, white, rich or poor) will choose the chips, unless they have very strong , healthy habits (unlikely if you grew up in the neighborhood).
Did you miss the point that we have TWO government funded services that will pick you up at your door and take you to any supermarket that you like? Nobody here has to rely on the several bus hops (you should really credit Mrs. Obama when you quote her like that too).
Maybe you missed the point because I used too many words and was pissed off as I wrote.
The map is worthless, it does not tell you anything worthwhile.
On another level of point missing, it is the USDA and Mrs. Obama who are proposing the government subsidised supermarket on every block solution, not me.
The map conveniently deleted places that are desperately poor, and remain that way. They also do not have any more stores showing up either. According to you there is no longer a distinction between a convenience store and a supermarket. I don't believe you, neither does the industry you allege to be considering investing in.
The map conveniently added areas that are far from without choice and far from poor. Interestingly enough, one of those areas got a Trader Joe's right after being declared a food desert. Well after being declared a food desert, and after the White House announced Target is one of the stores "teaming" with them to "expand" stores in food deserts, they just happened to expand one in the Trader Joe's food desert.
As for your jackbooted attempts to force people to eat what you dictate, count me out thanks. If you need a jackboot on your neck for that, so be it. Go find someone to engage in that voluntarily with you.
The whole food desert thing is a load of bullshit as the USDA has mapped it. If they gave a damn about the actual problem, they would have an informative map and they would not be rewarding Target for showing up where they would already be putting a store anyway. Same with that Knoxville city council giving $1.5 million to a developer for wooing a Publix into their new development at Sorority Village, in another "food desert." If your idea of "changing attitudes" is putting out a load of obvious falsehoods and expecting everybody to blindly accept the garbage, as you apparently have, then you need a new dictionary.
Another week, another ground truth video of what the local Food Policy Council and the USDA call "food deserts" these days. Most of the video shows the conditions in two census tracts with high concentrations of public housing that have been de-listed from the basic food desert map by the USDA. The Knoxville Knox-County Food Policy Council joined with them and call the map "the 20 food desert
In my ongoing examination of what KnoxFood.Org (part of our Metropolitan Planning Commission) is calling "food deserts" (basically, whatever the USDA says they are), I discovered a new one. The new sorority village at the University of Tennessee is labeled on of Knox County's 20 food deserts, and they just got Walmart and Publix stores to relieve the suffering. Before they built the sorori
Didn't they?
According to their map they did! Full coverage at the link, including video of a new food desert that cropped up in 2013. It features 5 grocers, but they apparently need more.
It looks like on these evolving food desert maps, that the local Knoxville bureaucracy has performed a miracle. Two miracles if you count not announcing it as one. They have apparently gotten a few of our 20 food deserts moved away from the low income neighborhoods and moved into yuppieveille. It is just in time too, because First Lady Michelle Obama wants to help large supermarkets move
Be prepared for suburban horror
http://youtu.be/NQgD2v_p66A
Work continues in this area. -- DEC's SPR-Answering-Automaton