This political cartoon relates to the report last week that the CNMI had engaged in negotiations with people in Alaska about the purchase of an $80 million ice cutter named the Susitna. Apparently Ambrose Bennett was looking for a paid gig and thought the federal transportation money might provide an avenue for him. The Alaska owners were trying to get rid of the Susitna because they couldn't afford its maintenance. It was commissioned and specifically built for them, to carry automobiles as a ferry between villages in the north, with ice-cutting capabilities due to the area in which is was set to operate. Although they had the Susitna built with federal money and also got a new ferry terminal, the villages failed to get the necessary docking and ramps built for loading the cars on and off. They are now paying huge storage bills.
And so they are trying to sell the Susitna. Enter the CNMI...also without any docking and ramp facilities to load and unload cars onto such a ferry; minus the terminal; and certainly without purchase money...and obviously without ice in the ocean so that all of the heavy equipment for cutting through ice is completely unnecessary (and probably would add to the operational costs and fuel costs).
Fortunately, the news is that the CNMI is not going to go through with purchase. But that we would have sent serious investigations into this particular ferry, and continue to pursue it after initial information came out that makes it so clearly inappropriate for us...
Well, it just seemed like a shopaholic moment...
The little guys--one comments on one of the basic types of shopaholic thinking. The other brings us back to the reality here. It's time to impeach the governor.
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