And the trailers return.....

Now here is a good little story. After all the hell that was raised, and blame heaped on President Bush, it seems the Obama Administration is making its own blunders. The FEMA trailers that housed residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina five years ago were banned by the federal government after they were found to have toxic levels of formaldehyde. But they're being used in the oil spill disaster anyway. Disaster contracting firms like Alpha 1 are selling the FEMA trailers to cleanup workers in the Gulf of Mexico, where the demand for cheap, short-term housing has skyrocketed as crews work around the clock to battle the gushing crude. The notorious mobile homes start at $2,500. "These are perfectly good trailers," said Alpha 1's owner Ron Mason. "Look, you know that new car smell? Well, that's formaldehyde, too. The stuff is in everything. It's not a big deal."

You know Ron, that new car smell is pumped into members of my family buried in the red clay of Georgia, but that doesn't mean I want to enjoy its benefits as well. Residents living in the trailers after the Hurricane Katrina disaster had long reported suffering headaches, nose bleeds and difficulty breathing. The government sold the trailers in 2006. And in 2008, tests by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found hazardous levels of formaldehyde gas in the units. David Paulison, the FEMA director at the time, told NBC in 2008 that the agency "will not ever use the trailers again" to house disaster victims.But now, they're making a debut in the oil spill cleanup. "The price was right," Buddy Fuzzell, of Cahaba Disaster Recovery, a contracting company that bought 15 of the trailers for its cleanup workers, told the Times. And apparently, the gulf is not the only place the trailers are resurfacing. In western North Dakota, where there is an oil boom, there are reports that the trailers are being used to house oil rig workers as well. Instead of selling the trailers, why didn't FEMA just scrap them, or better yet, give them to Palestinian refugee camps.

Finally!!!

All I can say is it is about time! Frustrated by term-limited Mayor Ray Nagin's leadership of New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, voters elected Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu to succeed him Saturday. Landrieu is the city's first white mayor since his father, Moon, left the post three decades ago.Landrieu's victory party was a nod to both: the ballroom of a the Roosevelt hotel - recently reopened after a post-Katrina restoration - was festooned with Saints-themed black and gold balloons. A roving brass band played Mardi Gras tunes and he prefaced his victory speech by leading the crowd in the Saints' "Who Dat" cheer. "We're all going together and we're not leaving anybody behind," he shouted to a jubilant crowd as family members, including his father and his sister, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, stood beside him.With all of the precincts reporting, Landrieu had 66 percent of the vote. The campaign also focused on the city's violent crime and slumping finances. Landrieu, who lost to Nagin in a runoff four years ago, was a welcome change for some voters who grew frustrated with the city's current mayor. Little known outside New Orleans before Katrina, Nagin became a central, and sometimes controversial figure, in the city's struggle to recover. Though he won re-election as he courted black voters in the 2006 campaign, Nagin notoriously pledged after the hurricane that New Orleans would be a "chocolate city" again, offending many whites. Polls showed his popularity fell sharply in the years after the storm.