Government in Action......................

In February, when housing officials in Loebau, Germany, ran out of small apartments for low-income residents, they decided to put them in quarters that were larger than regulations allowed. However, the officials made the residents close off some rooms to stay within the allotted space and said inspectors would make regular visits to see that no one cheated. [Reuters, 2-5-07]

Fire officials in Crystal River, Fla., stopped the planned performance in January of Jesse Aviles, "The Human Bomb," who was set to lie face down across two bar stools at the Oar House Restaurant and Lounge and have himself blown across the room by explosives. According to Oar House, the performance was canceled for the lack of permits. City Manager Andrew Houston, asked by the St. Petersburg Times what kind of permits might be necessary for a person to be exploded from a barstool, said, "I have no earthly idea." [St. Petersburg Times, 1-27-07]

Garri Holness, 39, is one of the Britons in a bad place at the time of the July 2005 subway bombings, and he suffered the loss of a leg, for which government programs compensated him with more than 100,000 British pounds (about $190,000). That is more than 10 times the amount of government compensation (in 2005 pounds) received by each of the two teenage girls from a vicious 1985 gang rape that Holness was convicted of participating in (and for which he served seven years in prison). [Daily Mail (London), 1-26-07]

Hurricane Katrina Trailer Fiascos: In March, while FEMA was busy evicting the last Katrina victims that it had housed in trailers, it also disclosed that it has been stuck with 8,000 mint-condition trailers that have sat vacant for 18 months now in a field near Hope, Ark., because the agency hasn't been able to give them away (to government agencies, as federal law requires). (Also, WWL-TV in New Orleans reported in March that area hospitals continue to be overcrowded while specially equipped medical trailers, which were ordered just after Katrina hit and which took eight months to arrive, continue to sit unused.) [Tampa Tribune-Washington Post, 3-10-07] [WWL-TV, 3-9-07]