The Hamptons are ready for al Qaeda. With the news that our very own luxury bus service, the Hampton Jitney, will get $82,908 from the Department of Homeland Security, we Hamptonites can rest assured that some al Qaeda thug will not be able to commandeer one of the luxury buses and smash up Steven Spielberg's $100 million dollar weekend estate. Osama is not stupid. He knows that that the Hampton Jitney is vital to the well-being of the rich and famous. The area would be crippled without its buses shuttling well-heeled and well-coifed bodies from Manhattan to the beaches and parties every weekend. A terrorist incident on the Jitney would drive a stake into the heart of the American way of life, not to mention the headlines of People, Page Six, Star and the National Enquirer. How would anyone get to P. Diddy's parties? Maybe Alec Baldwin, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, and George Soros can ride in limousines and helicopters. But not everyone who goes to their parties can. Give the little people a break! Jennifer Friebely of the Hampton Jitney justified the expenditure in an interview: "It's completely and absolutely legitimate. We got a new GPS system and new lighting to make sure that at night someone can't sneak on board and do something that would be a disaster not just for the people of the Hamptons but for New Yorkers."
Sounds to me this is completely in the spirit of "High-Threat" allocation and not political pork barrel. Mayor Michael Bloomberg doth protest too much. Maybe he can get Michael Chertoff to give a million or two for Bermuda, where he spends his weekends. With the average home in Hamptonland selling for upward of a million dollars, we weekenders, some 600,000 of us who ride the Jitney yearly, need to feel protected. Americans don't need more security for our airliners. We don't need more security for our ports. Who cares that shipping containers are not screened for radioactive nuclear weapons? Big banks, the Stock Exchange, the Empire State Building, the George Washington Bridge, the Statue of Liberty and Penn Station can take care of themselves. What's a little cyanide gas in the subway system going to do?
What's important is that we get our tans and tennis and golf and parties every weekend. R&R is vital to our national spirit. And don't think the terrorist don't know that.
Don't people realize that this is the way democracy works. For every expensive government program, you have to spread the monies around, even if it's not needed, to build political support.
Rural areas like Omaha, Neb., Louisville, K.Y., and Charlotte, N.C. need to get more than their fair share of the pie. And they do.
Thank God that the citizens of Wyoming are getting $8.09 per resident (New York gets a paltry $2.14) in Homeland Security monies. Can you imagine how mad favorite son Dick Cheney would get if Casper didn't get its new police SUVs? He might start another war.
Our priorities are right in line. Spend $320 billion to start a war in Iraq; spend $757 million (one fifth of one percent) to protect ourselves from terrorists?
