NPR: In New Orleans, Home Floats To Withstand Floods
Brad Pitt's lauded Make it Right program got some more love from the national media Monday, as NPR spoke with the architect who built a floating home in the Lower 9th Ward.
The home has a framework made out of polystyrene foam, covered with glass-reinforced concrete. A vertical guidepost that goes as high as 12 feet keeps it in control.
"What does that do? It produces a raft; it floats," Thom Mayne tells NPR. "And it's thought about as a seat belt. I mean, hopefully it never gets used. But when it gets used, it's important."
When it's up in the air, the house switches to battery power that will last for three days.
Make sure to listen to the interview contained within the story, which has a lot more information about the home and how it was built.
WaPo: The Conservative Case for Reform
Gov. Bobby Jindal again offered his input into the contentious health-care debate Monday, this time with an op-ed in the Washington Post.
While the column criticizes Democrats for pushing forward with a $900 billion bill that he says will result in higher taxes for the American people, it also attacks what he sees as the Republicans' lethargic pace in bringing their own suggestions for reform to the table.
"Republicans must shift gears," Jindal writes. "Conservatives should seize the mantle of reform and lead. Conservatives either genuinely believe that conservative principles will work to solve real-world problems such as health care or they don't. I believe they will."
Jindal does just that in the article, again listing general ideas for health-care reform:
1) Voluntary purchasing pools
2) Portability
3) Tort, or lawsuit reform
4) Require coverage of preexisting conditions
5) Transparency and payment reform
6) Electronic medical records
7) Tax-free health savings accounts
8) Reward healthy lifestyles
9) Cover young adults
10) Refundable tax credits
It bears mentioning that many -- eight, in fact -- of those are already put into the Baucus bill in the Senate in some form or another. The only two not included is an emphasis on tort reform, which has been discussed by Democrats, and a tax-free health savings account.
But that does not mean Jindal's proposals are a mirror image of the Democrats' proposals, a stretch that some bloggers have tried to argue.
While there are similarities in the proposals, there is one fundamental difference: the expansion of the government's role in health care. While the governor is calling for what some have said is an increased presence of government in the industry -- requiring coverage of preexisting conditions, covering young adults, for example -- it is by no means as expansive as the public option that some on the left consider essential to true reform. And, after all, these are broad guidelines -- "ideas," Jindal calls them -- so there are bound to be similarities between what has been labeled a bi-partisan bill and what the governor would like to see changed.
Jindal also said in the column he is against one massive, 1,000 page bill, and he doesn't think the current bill will be able to pass. He has said he prefers incremental reform to one massive bill, fixing what we already have.
It will be interesting, though, to see if Republican leaders side with Jindal. There may be some resentment from at least a few lawmakers for his remarks, as the National Review points out, since the Republican health-care bills that run several hundred pages long were not at all mentioned. Some say that may give the impression that no Republican has crafted any legislation.
"I imagine congressional Republicans such as Paul Ryan, John Shadegg, Tom Coburn, and Jim DeMint will be annoyed that in the course of urging Republicans to offer health-care alternatives Jindal doesn't mention any of their existing bills," Ramesh Ponnuru says in a brief item for the Nation Review website.
CSN has more on those other bills.
Last week, while in Washington D.C. campaigning for Bob McDonnell, the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia, Jindal spoke with Politico, urging the GOP to work across the aisle in finding way to lower health-care costs. Earlier in the week Jindal offered a broad outline of what he would like to see in a health-care bill while talking with Fox News.
Atlantic: Republican Ideas for Health Care Reform
The Atlantic Wire combed the Internet looking for reponses to the governor's column. The reaction, as they will be in a debate as politically charged as this, was mixed.
Some, such as Jennifer Rubin with Commentary Magazine, were struck by how simple and inexpensive many of these ideas would be to implement. One Politico columnist said Jindal's ideas were in the right place, but was more a "hodge-podge of ideas than a coherent plan."
Philip Klein with the American Spectator said some of his proposals don't align with conservative principals. Chris Frates, blogging with Politico, feels the column may simply be politically motivated.
For more reaction across the nation, go to the Atlantic's list. And let us know what you think of his proposal in the comments below.
