Talking About the Weather

Looking back on the recent weather event known as Hurricane Irene, I think it’s safe to say that many people are idiots. And by many people of course I mean Republican politicians, reporters, and Glenn Beck. While you and I were busy preparing for disaster by purchasing toilet paper and scotch, these guys were shooting their mouths off, displaying various degrees of stupidity. For example:

Weatherperson Gaal Nomei of Hungary. SHE can stand in water if she likes.

Glenn Beck

On his Friday radio program, Glenn Beck called Irene a “blessing,” because it would teach people to be prepared for disasters. By this logic cancer is a blessing too, because it teaches people to stop smoking. Of course there’s nothing new about Beck babbling like an idiot, but it’s good to see he’s keeping up to form after leaving FOX News.

Angie Gonzalez keeps the people of Mexico excited about the weather.

Eric Cantor

On August 25, a spokesman for Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said that any money spent of disaster relief for Irene would have to be balanced by offsets elsewhere. “[A]s you know,” said his spokesman, Laena Fallon, “Eric has consistently said that additional funds for federal disaster relief ought to be offset with spending cuts.” Since that statement both Cantor and House Speaker John Boehner’s offices have refused to say whether they’d hold up disaster relief funds if not offset. I hate these guys.

Say. Here’s an idea. How about us Liberals paint a “L” on our rooftops, while the Tea Partiers paint a “T”. In the event of disaster, FEMA will rescue us Liberals first, then wait for an offset before going for the Tea Partiers.

Jackie Johnson of KCAL TV. You know, I hardly miss Tex Antoine...

Ron Paul

Graduating from “lovable old coot” to “dangerous crank,” Ron Paul wants to destroy FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) because it’s inefficient and creates a dangerous dependency. “We should be like 1900,” he said on a recent campaign stop (even as Irene was heading up the coast), noting that in Texas “We deal with hurricanes all the time. I grew up in Galveston.” The humorous thing about this statement was that in 1900 Galveston, Texas, was hit by a monster hurricane that killed some 6,000 people.

While I’n in favor of local government self-sufficiency and all, and I’m sure that they’re ready and eager to tackle the next hurricane on their own, I wonder exactly how prepared the good people of Galveston are to deal with, say, a dirty bomb. Do they have plenty of iodine stored up? How about rad suits? Anti-mutant spray? Should each state have to duplicate efforts to deal with a biological weapon? How many super-plague-level isolation wards are there in Iowa, anyway?

FEMA may suck, but it should be fixed, not phased out.

The only thing that would make this acceptable is if the reporter were to be eaten by sharktopus on live TV. That would be frickin cool.

CNN Reporter Chris Lawrence

This clown decided that he needed to stand hip-deep in the Chesapeake Bay as it was being lashed by Irene to tell his story about how rainy and wet it was. Following this, an exasperated Governor Martin O’Malley begged Wolf Blitzer to tell Lawrence to get the hell out of the water.

The last thing we need is for reporters to suggest that such behavior is sensible. Suppose a bunch of drunk UMD students were watching this, saying, “Hey! That looks like fun! Let’s go try it!” This asshole could have told the same story while standing on dry land 20 yards away. He was just grandstanding. I suppose it would be wrong to have hoped that CNN would have gotten cool footage of him being swept away and drowning, huh?

In Moderate Seriousness

This hurricane whacked some people pretty badly, and it continues to beat the crap out of New England. I may joke about it, but that’s okay, because nobody listens to me any way. These other dudes have actual power. Unless they have something useful (or funny) to say, they should keep their damned traps shut and let grownups deal with the disaster.

P.S. Pandering? Me?

To all those who accuse me of putting in pictures of scantily-clad bimbos to increase readership, I’d like to point out that these scantily-clad women are professional weather people. For all we know they may be trained meteorologists who just happen to have pronounced high pressure systems. They’re scientists, dammit. So back off.