Michelle: "God is saying, 'Pssst!" with 120-mile winds
I am interested in military weapons, including artillery, enjoy seeing examples. In use, however, cannons can be unpleasant if one is on the receiving end, but also scary to the firers if not secured. If we liken the occasionally bombastic Bachmann to artillery, she sorts out to a loose cannon, as witness this comment:
"I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?'"
Poster Bob, who informs us of this, comments that she is suggesting that God directed a hurricane toward our East Coast to alert us to the error of our ways, and incidentally killed 20+ of His children to make the point. Perhaps Michelle is taking lessons from Fred Phelps.
The quote can be found in this article, fairly deep into it:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/hundreds-turn-out-for-bachmann-rally-in-sarasota-but-some-prefer-perry/1188559
Word watch
"Made landfall." Is there no other way to report a hurricane coming ashore? The good news, thanks to alleged overhyping, we didn't have to hear reporters incessantly informing us that people were going to "hunker down," the phrase of choice during the last hurricane season.
Word watch
"Made landfall." Is there no other way to report a hurricane coming ashore? The good news, thanks to alleged overhyping, we didn't have to hear reporters incessantly informing us that people were going to "hunker down," the phrase of choice during the last hurricane season.
Some are saying the Irene was overhyped. Matt Lauer of NBC's "Today" show has said the government overhyped the danger. Others are saying that the media becomes too breathless about possible impending disasters.
ReplyDeleteI note the 20+ casualities. I don't think Irene was overhyped, even if some people were inconvenienced by preparations that were not needed. Hindsight provides retroactive clarity, but that doesn't always translate to insight.
Good thoughts Stab. No, Irene wasn't a Cat 4 like Katrina or 5 like Andrew, but its path took it along areas not used to hurricanes and caused billions in damages, knocked out power to millions of customers and businesses along the entire Eastern seaboard which will cost billions in lost revenues as well as the deaths and injuries. This may well be the worst Cat 1 storm in recorded history.
ReplyDeletedotnet, you are right. Irene was cat1, the news hysteria for days was cat5. It looks like vermont is getting it bad.
ReplyDeleteMatt Lauer is yet another talking head that I can do without. I am something of a hurricane nut, so use Crown Weather's extraordinary coverage to follow each storm.
ReplyDeleteThere you can see the reports from the hurricane hunters and all of the forecast models rather than just getting an average of all.
On Thursday night all models were showing Irene as category 3 as she crossed the NC/SC coastline at Little River, dropping to 2, then back to 3 as she moved north toward DC/Md/NJ/NY.
Then early Friday morning the hurricane hunter reports began to change and later the models began to change with them. People have to remember that hurricane's are incredibly complex natural systems, and that forecasting what they will do is one of the biggest challenges faced by meteorologists.
Over 1800 people died in Katrina, despite all the warnings. I doubt if the people whose houses floated away in Queens this weekend thought that Irene was overhyped. And look at how much we're spending to help out the 2500 fools who elected to stay on the Outer Banks, defying orders to evacuate.
Better overwarned than underwarned.
There was never any forecast of category 5. The highest was 3 throughout. The track and size of the storm was as important a consideration as the intensity. I cannot recall any hurricane that affected as many people in as many states.
ReplyDeleteAs we will see, it will be one of the most costly storms ever. It is fortunate that only about 20 people died.
OT...the cat 5 level I was referring to was the collective news media. Not the storm itself.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, Accurate prediction of hurricane strength is currently impossible, the factors are too numerous and some still yet unknown. Computing power is also a large problem.
ReplyDeleteSecond, if someone told you you have a 1 in 10 chance of dying if you don't eat toast for breakfast tomorrow, most people would eat toast and complain at lunch, and a minority of fools/daredevils would not, and would be buried after dinner.
OIC. Stab says he sits corrected...I am lazy, so I lay corrected.
ReplyDeleteI really pay almost no attention to the media, especially TV.
A few years ago, WXII ran a "news" piece about how my refrigerator was out to kill me. That pretty much finished TV for me. Somebody had been reading too much Bradbury.
I note that Stab is counting down, only 33 days to October, which means that most of you have only 54 days until you get raptured.
ReplyDeleteThose of us "left behind" will then look forward to November 5, Guy Fawkes Day, when the "Anonymous" hackers have promised to kill FaceBook. I guess that will also "kill" the Journal's LTE forum.
Oh, I forgot, the Journal already did that.
OT, your 9:15 made me laugh out loud.
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm counting the days till meteorological autumn, more or less. As for Rapture, I'll wait for the DVD. I hope the enraptured leave the power on when they take off.
Unlike his morning counterpart, NBC's Brian Williams indicated he saw no overhyping of Irene. 37 KIA, 5MM w/o power, VT suffering a 100-year flood, it wasn't overhyped.
ReplyDeleteI normally would not watch network news, but I watch it with Dad before I put him in bed. I hate to admit it, but I really don't see a lot of slant in it. In Irene reporting, Williams featured (understandably) VT's Dem governor, but also included remarks from R darling NJ governor Christie. I actually sort of like Williams.
Truth is, you have to overhype anything just to get people's attention these days. Too busy talking/texting/tweeting/facebooking, mostly about nothing.
ReplyDeleteI mentioned earlier the 2500 or so fools who decided to ride this one out on the Outer Banks. What if the earlier models had been correct and the storm had come ashore as a category 3 at Little River? Instead of the ferries that we are paying for taking in supplies, they would have been bringing out body bags. The idea that people who live on the Banks "know" something that we don't is simply BS. I have experienced three hurricanes up close and personal and have never lived within 200 miles of the coast. I will never willingly be in the path of another one.
As to Bryan Williams, I liked him a lot when he was #2, then found him a bit overwrought and condescending once he became #1. I see little of him or anyone else nowadays, but he seems to be mellowing into a pretty decent newsman.
And never fear, the raptured WILL leave the lights on, because for them life is all about them. I learned as a child the price of leaving them on, because my father, who had no interest in Jesus, had an abiding interest in his power bill. Leave just one itty bitty light on and you will be sitting down gingerly for several days.
There is never more than one light on at my house today unless I'm having a party, in which case there might be two. My friends joke about that, but I just say that it is more romantic that way. You don't like romance?
I'm most definitely going to be one of the leftovers if it comes to that, but the company I keep will be so much better.
ReplyDeleteThis hellbound liberal Democrat is signing off.
My parents were death on lights left on as well, which translated to me. When I was in CA, Enron was perpetrating its power scam. I relamped with CFB's, and enforced pretty strict conservation, cut power usage in half. My current residence is CFB'ed, and will transition to LED in time.
ReplyDeleteI think it's about time for this centrist to give it up as well. Nighty night.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I saw somewhere that Irene was the first tropical dowhat to cross the New Jersey coast in over a hundred years. So it is fitting that Governor Christy get a word in edgewise, although the problems in Queens and Vermont certainly take precedence.
ReplyDelete