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Watch out, Asbury Park … this ain’t Bruce’s Sandy

by — ,

Who’da thunk it?

The home of such dreck as Pawn Stars, Ice Road Truckers, and Only in America with Larry The Cable Guy may have actually gotten something almost right, almost historically accurate:

That’s the trailer for an episode of “Mega Disasters” on The History Channel, ordinarily as misnamed a channel as there can be. What the environs of New York City are facing in the next few days may, in fact, be even more catastrophic than that program envisions. To wit:

  • The storm depicted in the show comes up the coast, basically tracking toward the northeast. Hurricane Sandy is expected to travel in a northwesterly direction, churning into New York Harbor directly from the open ocean.
  • The hypothetical storm moves very fast, with clear skies arriving within less than a day. Sandy, we’re told, will stall over Pennsylvania for days, deluging the entire Northeast under at least 6-12 inches of rain.
  • Coming at the end of October, newly-fallen leaves will obstruct and clog storm drains, making for faster and deeper flooding than would happen in the September timeframe of the TV show’s storm.
  • As a final kicker in the real scenario, Monday, October 29 is a full moon, when tides are always at their highest. High tides at the Battery will occur at 8:31am and 8:53pm Monday, 9:06am and 9:32pm Tuesday, and 9:40am and 10:13pm Wednesday.

Here’s hoping it isn’t nearly as serious as the dire predictions are telling us. I expect to hear reports from my nephew, who lives near Lincoln Center, once the worst passes … if there’s any electric power in the area, that is.

PS. This is Bruce’s Sandy:

Comments

  3. 3

    Something many may not have considered: Not only is this a perfect storm, weather-wise, it is also catastrophic timing for people who rely on allotments such as food stamps. It’s the end of the month. People have run out of foodstamps. People have depleted Social Security payments. There is simply no way for lots of folks to “prepare” for this by stocking up on canned goods, ice, batteries, let alone by buying fucking generators at Home Despot. Or getting out of town. http://smirkingchimp.com/threa.....d-the-poor

  5. 5

    Prepare for the worst, and hope for the best. This is why you don’t put people who express utter contempt and disregard for government in charge of government agencies at any level, the way Bush did with his little Brownie buddy.

    You want a super-ace at disaster planning and logistics? Put an old Marine Corps supply sergeant in charge, not some prissy little snob who wasn’t even fit to run his daddies corporation.

    A very good friend of mine is in Philadelphia. I haven’t heard anything from her since yesterday morning. She’s not rich. She doesn’t even own a car. She wasn’t really planning on evacuating, considering it practically impossible due to finances and being pretty much worried that her furniture and such would probably be gone when she came back.

  6. 6

    “You want a super-ace at disaster planning and logistics? Put an old Marine Corps supply sergeant in charge, not some prissy little snob who wasn’t even fit to run his daddies corporation.”

    I agree, and I like the Marines too, but I’d expand that to any logistics seargent with at least ten years experience.

    Aside: When I last visited my sister in PA, I had the pleasure of meeting a friend of hers, a recently-retired Air Force major who had risen through the ranks. My sister mentioned I was interested in history so she polititely asked about it, and I said lately I was more interested in how logistics affected civil war operations and strategies. She became excited, and started telling me lots of stuff I hadn’t known before. It turns out she spent her career in logistics – the only ones available to women when she first joined. She knew how to get ice into Afganistan in the middle of summer, how much fuel, tires, oil, air filters, etc. it takes to support a convoy of four supply trucks plus escort vehicles on rough roads, etc. for a two-way trip, etc.

    On another airplane trip, I got to sit next to a gal who had just retired from the old Flying Tigers freighter airline. She had quite a few stories to tell, including shipping giraffes on a 747 halfway around the world.

  7. 7

    As of 6:30 a.m. Seattle time, they were predicting landfall for Hurricane Sandy between 10:00 p.m. and midnight tonight (7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Seattle time).

    The New York Stock exchange has closed for the day (probably tomorrow, as well). Flights to and from New York airports are being cancelled. The subwyas are closed, making it impossible for most New York City workers to make it into work (assuming the office is still open). Our New York City office is closed today and tomorrw.

  8. 8

    From the Department of Never Let a Crisis Go To Waste:

    Labor Department May Delay Jobs Report

    The U.S. Labor Department on Monday said it hasn’t made a decision yet on whether to delay Friday’s October jobs report, the final reading on the labor market before next week’s federal elections.

    A Labor official said the agency will assess the schedule for all its data releases this week when the “weather emergency” is over.

    http://blogs.wsj.com/economics.....bs-report/

    Any lingering doubt about what those numbers will be like?

  9. 9

    How long until Pat Robertson proclaims God’s wrath on the gays? How about a little betting pool?

    I’m going to say it’ll appear in the media around 10:00 am tomorrow (Tuesday).

    Any takers? Put yo money where yo mouth is, or you ain’t sayin’ nutin.

  11. 11

    @9


    How long until Pat Robertson proclaims God’s wrath on the gays? How about a little betting pool?

    Sub-pool: Will this be before, or after, Al Gore blames global warming?

  13. 13

    @11. hurricane Irene was a 200-500 year flood event.
    Damn that was quick 200-500 year, feels like only 15.
    Someone’s moving the goal posts.

    BTW, already been discussed.

    No single weather event, be it drought, snowfall or hurricane, is caused by climate change, climatologists say. Rather, climate change amplifies the intensity or duration of extreme weather, akin to “putting hurricanes on steroids,” writes Amanda Staudt, a climate scientist for the National Wildlife Federation, an environmental advocacy group.

    “The answer to the oft-asked question of whether an event is caused by climate change is that it is the wrong question,” writes Kevin E. Trenberth, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. “All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is warmer and moister than it used to be.”
    http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....6956.story

  15. 15

    @9
    DING*DING*DING!!

    We have a winner!

    Chaplain John McTernan has said God’s judgment of gays caused the hurricane nearing the east coast of the United States

    Fuck religious hate nuts.

  16. 16

    # 8: Another clueless comment by Serial.

    Do you think the President caused the storm in order to delay the jobs report? Do you think he already has omniscient knowledge of the contents of a report which is still trying to collect data?

    I’ve heard Wingnuts call Obamma “The Messia”, but clearly they must they themsleves believe he has acquired godly powers!

  17. 17

    Sub-pool: Will this be before, or after, Al Gore blames global warming?

    You’re a complete douchebag.

    Does that mean you don’t believe in anthropogenic global warming? Then you’re an ibecile.

    Does that mean you’ll parrot right wing talking points and attack someone you know is telling the truth, simply because they’re on the ‘other side’?
    Then you’re a craven, soul-less sociopath.

    Not sure which you are, or which is worse, Robert, but I suspect the latter.

  19. 19

    President Obama on the Hurricane

    9:51 AM PT: Flooding and power outages are likely to be the biggest problems, the president says. His overriding message: This will be a serious and slow moving storm and will impact millions. The federal government is working with state and local officials to preposition resources where they need to go. He says he’s confident that the resources are where they need to be and that people should listen to the state and local authorities about whether they need to evacuate.

    9:53 AM PT: “The great thing about America is that when we go through things like this, we all pull together.” Translation: politics won’t get in the way of hurricane response. “I am not worried about the impact on the election,” he says in response to a question. “I’m worried about the impact on families … first responders … and the economy.”

  21. 21

    @18 I’m at least willing to give Christie kudos for getting out there and telling it like it is. Hopefully he managed to get the attention of more than a few New Jersey lowlanders who might otherwise have thought this was no big deal or intended to stay put and ride it out to show what tough guys they are.

  22. 22

    Romney Storm Tip #44: Everyone in the path of the hurricane should head to their second or third home to safety and then ride their car elevator up to a higher floor, just in case :)
    Good thing climate change is a hoax or this storm might have been really bad.

  23. 23

    @20 why do you keep yammering about foreign policy when you said the only thing that matters is the economy.
    Were you lying then, or are you lying now?

  27. 27

    @ 16

    Do you think the President caused the storm in order to delay the jobs report?

    No, but I think the White House will use the storm as an excuse to delay a bad report. Goolsbee was on Little George’s show yesterday and mentioned that last month’s unemployment numbers were uncharacteristically low and that there would be a ‘rebound’ effect, meaning that this months numbers would look uncharacteristically high (IOW bad for Obama at a very critical time).

    The data has already been collected and provided to the BLS by the states. Number-crunching is an automated task and won’t be affected by the storm.

    Your man is in deep trouble and a bad jobs number on the eve of the final weekend will provide Romney and Ryan amazing ammunition to strafe team Obama right up until and including Tuesday.

    Obama is flailing and this would be one more example of his effort to avoid blame.

    Which is worse? A bad number? Or a very bad PR disaster when it becomes clear he’s hiding something?

  29. 29

    re 20: You’re using The Moonie Washington Times as a reputable news source?

    You are just hoping the story holds up long enough to have a possible effect on the election.

  30. 30

    Never let a crisis go to waste, Ex. 2:

    Bill Clinton said the following at a campaign event in Ohio:

    “We’re coming down to the 11th hour. We’re facing a violent storm,” Clinton said. He waited a beat, then added, “It’s nothing compared to the storm we’ll face if you don’t make the right decision in this election.”

  31. 31

    Fox News had three headlines & stories which were pre-written in response to the President’s response to Hurricane Sandy:

    (1) The President cancels re-election rallies in the path of the hurricane, hunkering down in the White House to “moniter the emergency response”, and revealing a compaing that his campaign is “in dissaray” and providing evidence that he is conceding defeat in those states;

    (2) The President goes to the center of the Hurricane response, endangering his Secret Service detail and the hundreds of emergency responders kept from their jobs just to provide the President with a photo-op;

    (3) The President keeps up his campaign schedule (only re-arranging the location of rallies), proving that he doesn’t really care about the victims of the hurricane.

    Which just goes to show that it is meaningless for a Democratic President to expect anything from Fox News other than negative coverage and a repeat of the Republican Party’s “talking points of the day”.

    Oh, and since the President will be spending the next day or so in Washington coordinating the emergency response to the Hurricane, Fox led with Talking Point # 1 on Fox & Friends.

  34. 34

    Remember also that Romney’s proposal was to completely dismember FEMA and give any money (presumably in reducing quantities) to the states in the form of Block Grants.

    Tell me, Governor Romney, how would New York and New Jersey handle a hurricane which pretty much hits both of them simultaniously? Would they be pressured to out-source much of the emergency response (as happened in Lousianna in 2005), causing difficulties in communications between the varius companies/departments expected to respond along the state borders?

    And wasn’t this the type of problem envisioned by the Founders when they scrapped the Articles of Confederation and adopted the federal system of government under the U.S. Constitution, instead?

  35. 35

    The other disaster over the weekend, the 7.7 earthquake off Haida Gwai(Queen Charlotte Islands) on Saturday. The US Tsunami Alert went out 42 minutes before B.C. did, and those 42 minutes could have been the difference between life and death. Going to be interesting to see how this affects Liberal Premier Christy Clark’s chances next May(BC Provincial elections are fixed dates now), and their are people calling for an investigation.

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/.....rning.html

    By the way, trolls, the BC Liberal Party is not affiliated with the federal Liberal Party in Ottawa, it is more of a Center-Right party, with former members of the Social Credit and the old provincial conservatives, although that coalition is fragmenting.

  37. 37

    Number-crunching is an automated task and won’t be affected by the storm.

    Actually, the reason the data is released is so that it can be reported on. With the storm happening, the jobs data would be buried and hardly make a dent in the news cycle. So, my take is that the news is good, not bad, otherwise the White House could slip it out there and no one would notice.

    Now, when they release it later in the week and it’s good, watch for the right wing conspiracy theorists to start whining that the report was held back so it could be dumped closer to the election.

  39. 39

    # 22: Maybe there’s not enough time for Trudeau to do this (comics are usually delivered to newspapers a couple of weeks in advance by the syndicates). If so, Trudeau is missing a great storyline here. He could depict Romney hunkering down at his Michigan home, tweeting about how brave he and his family are to holding out against the ravages of Hurricane Sandy, without federal assistance, while they receive reports of the devastation of their New Hampshire home via the caretakers he’s required to remain on-site.

    Sample Tweet: “NH home in shambles, lawn chairs floating to sea. Refused federal assistance!”

  40. 40

    While we’re looking to assign blame for any FEMA stumbles, and looking to pin any problems on Romney, don’t forget what Obama’s White House wants to do to FEMA:

    http://www.whitehouse.gov/site.....report.pdf

    Page 94-96.

    How about nearly $600B stripped from FEMA?

    Time to stop blaming Romney and time to realize that things can be spun both ways. Team Romney has shown that ability numerous times. Team Obama didn’t just get slightly smarter in the final week. Much more desperate, yeah, but not slightly smarter.

  41. 41

    @40. Are you trying to blame the cuts required by Sequestration because of the obstructionist republicans on the President? To be truthful, You should be saying
    “…don’t forget what the Republicans wants to do to FEMA: How about nearly $600B stripped from FEMA?”
    But I know, in your world, it’s always President Obama fault, never the republicans.

    Shorter Republicans; We broke the economy and the government and blocked every effort to fix them and you should put us in charge because the Democrats have not made spectacular progress.

  42. 42

    “The History Channel, ordinarily as misnamed a channel as there can be”

    Several channels have taken a dive in recent years, including National Geographic, The Learning Channel, A/E and Discovery.

  43. 43

    All political joking aside. This storm is a monster. My son reports the the Coast Guard station at Cape May, NJ has been evacuated. Personal has been moved to Fort Dix to get ready for relief and rescue operations.

  46. 46

    “We broke the economy and the government and blocked every effort to fix them and you should put us in charge because the Democrats have not made spectacular progress”

    Of course Bob would lie about FEMA and sequestration. How like him to pull something from his ass and want to share it with us. Bob’s failure to name five reasons why a Romney presidency would be good for America? Hell, the fucktard can’t even name five things Romney hasn’t lied about.

  47. 47

    # 40: I guess you think we haven’t been paying attention?

    The Republican-led House (Ryan)allows the government to continue operating only as long as a long-term budget is agreed to by January 1st. Of course, Ryan is planning on refusing to approve any long-term budget unless it provides substantial across-the-board spending cuts (presumably including FEMA), and not tax increases on the wealthy If not, automatic sequestration will require substantial across-the-board budget cuts in all departments, including Defense and FEMA.

    Of course, OMB needs to plan for such an event, and published a budget which demonstrates the effects of such sequestration. Now the Romney/Ryan campaign are acting like it’s the President’s “proposal”.

    Nice try, but no cigar. You’ve published yet another of your Republican Talking Points of the Day, so collect your dime-a-post.

  48. 48

    Serial @ # 45: “The president is the guy that signed the bill. It’s not like he’s the innocent drive-by victim here.”

    Ryan promised to shut down the government entirely by not increasing the debt ceiling. That’s a bit like putting a gun to a mother’s head, and then blaming the daughter for submitting to a rape (“She should have refused!”)

    Funny, all the Republican talking points seem to go back to the rape analogy lately…..

  49. 49

    Boston MBTA latest transportation authority to suspend all service ahead of Sandy, although compared to NYC, a little late, but they don’t have as much rolling stock to store unlike the MTA in NYC.

    http://www.mbta.com/weather/

  51. 51

    “they’re so deeply in the tank for The One”

    You whine because, like the right, the left has their own talking head channel? Suck on it, Bob.

  52. 52

    Fox News’ Hurricane Sandy Coverage Boots Bill O’Reilly From Prime Time Lineup

  53. 53

    @ 51

    “You whine because, like the right, the left has their own talking head channel? Suck on it, Bob.”

    Whine? Hardly. MSNBC is the Schadenfreude channel on Tuesday, November 6th. I’ll be glued to it. I wanna see that vein on O’Donnell’s forehead burst. Chris Matthews speak in tongues. The ever-enlarging mole on Maddow’s neck sprout fur. Ed Schultz get arrested for assault on whatever token conservative MSNBC can get to appear on-air.

    Don’t wanna miss that, Doctor Steve.

  55. 55

    New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) put aside his campaigning for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Sunday to praise President Barack Obama for his responsiveness to the Garden State’s needs in preparing for Hurricane Sandy.

    During a briefing with emergency personnel, residents and press, Christie thanked Obama for holding a conference call with him and governors of other states expected to be impacted by the storm, the Star-Ledger reports.

    “I appreciated the president’s outreach today in making sure that we know he’s watching this and is concerned about the health and welfare and safety of the people of the state of New Jersey,” he said.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....36054.html

    But, you know, the president can do anything right.

  57. 57

    @ 56

    Replica of 2008 Hopenchange candidate sinks in own incompetence…..now that is justice done.

    Beautiful song.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....Dyoutube.3..0i5.14726.20403.0.20603.25.21.0.4.4.0.209.1561.18j2j1.21.0…0.0…1ac.1.RrNVfV6XR9w&ytsession=RrIzGxBSV_vKpVrHJFUA8MlZZwseMwYFIcUJFicvNCB8ajCy1_ctbLuwyopkgfF-DcNzGlYIutt9eL0tyIdaoNDVLVPUaCkjGB31ZvsqCjyoefdzfcyS2i4FP7D5QANjcmpmetPkzTNtvDLunzVTGY5k_KfoLnGjxcbrhfVMHLqFcn-BJ3i97TNmFhPzgvwX6KV1DC7hyEGFYuisX_gp73FO6E0adaA2szxpRTuQ1R7h6RsAzvCETcf3-zJYHPGOLC1v6UcJC371iDvrv_gxML9Naomjqz94vfTbq6oIaewpxQxktpnl6YkWu9B5jzP9m7nQs5o1USjfZaqjHZgSjbNtmA-qeAHouImHNoI71BM5aebUoZ48H4LJtpTLZVFS09B_IWSrSM0tkTvFIcv5XW7WZ2euhXVwqiHQlTqGPDwaMecpjliH7T-4uyDl2J7EYRNe78M3yn5v0YjGignyMQ19NlIPMPMo92zSLbNc_erwHym_JuRqQc3zrLX1-S0_bXm-UGdTcu24jI0jPMtAjvwuawqhhFZzqMXGHXWwzRkORCol6b3aZIrVd18uCUudePNt2HygXwfOIgttgRQw3sK9339FQ1jEloFHoaSGuzQikEeeJn2YbyMZrAStM3yMpHEDknakAYofcaB7-pzsj8H-Vjk-D1ifcgvIDwypU2dU53eepQYeGeDWt-XUeGEE

  58. 58

    @56 It’s a real shame. I was reading earlier that this was the replica of the HMS Bounty that was made for Brando’s Mutiny on the Bounty film and that it was later used in the Carribean movies, which I’ve never seen, as well as others. I have no idea why they were out there trying to sail around that storm, but that turned out to be a really bad idea.

  59. 59

    I’ve been busy with other stuff today, but it isn’t necessary to read this whole thread to realize our trolls are as partisan and stupid as ever.

  60. 60

    Dunno if anyone has posted this yet, but the NYSE will be closed tomorrow, and possibly Wednesday as well.

    I have an e-mail correspondent in Connecticut who reports their power went out this morning, but she’s still online thanks to a generator. They’re probably going to lose their sailboat, even though it’s out of the water on stands. Probably everything in the boatyard will be floating out to sea by tomorrow morning.

  61. 61

    59. Roger Rabbit spews:
    I’ve been busy with other stuff today, but it isn’t necessary to read this whole thread to realize our trolls are as partisan and stupid as ever.

    10/29/2012 AT 2:57 PM

    self-description really is your strong point.

  62. 62

    Romney says he favors disbanding FEMA and turning over emergency management and disaster relief to states.

    This sounds like knee-jerk reversion to Republican ideology without any rational analysis behind it. Even on a superficial level, the idea makes no damn sense.

    Sandy is a regional storm hitting multiple states, and it’s much easier to manage the response through a single federal agency than trying to coordinate the actions of numerous state agencies.

    In addition, a federal agency can readily shift resources to the areas where they are needed, whereas state agencies will keep their resources within their own states.

    Finally, the federal government has more resources than state governments do, and it’s easy to see how state resources could fall short of needs in a situation of this magnitude.

    Our country needs smart leadership and good management of government agencies and programs (as we painfully realized during the Bush era), not knee-jerk cockamamie ideas based on discredited ideology. And besides, we all know how Republican trickle-down works: After FEMA’s funding is diverted into more tax cuts for millionaires, the only thing that will trickle down to the states is unfunded mandates.

    Yet another reason why Mitt Romney should never be president.

  73. 73

    Romney says he favors disbanding FEMA and turning over emergency management and disaster relief to states.

    An emergency is a bad situation that you have the resources to deal with. A disaster is a bad situation that you don’t have the resources to deal with. When it comes to disasters like this hurricane It makes much more sense to pool our resources at the federal level and send the resources where they’re needed than to have all 50 states to have their own.

  75. 75

    This is what I expect a republican administration to be like under romney.

    FERNANDINA BEACH, Fla. — Republican nominee Mitt Romney reached out to GOP allies on Monday in advance of Hurricane Sandy, but he has not spoken Democratic governors in the path of the storm.

    “Gov. Romney has also been in touch with Governors Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie about storm preparations, and we will continuously monitor the situation,” press secretary Andrea Saul told reporters in an email Monday morning. […]

    Key Democratic leaders said they had no word from the Republican campaign.

    An aide Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley said he was “not aware of any call” from Romney. A spokesman for Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy and said Romney “has not reached out” to Malloy.

    That’s Mitt’s version of bipartisanship—talking to a swing state Republican governor and a blue state Republican governor. He’ll bring Republicans from all sorts of states together.

    It is in keeping with republican mind set. Only support those who support them. If the other 47% won’t support them, well, they are on their own.

    Explain to me how I’m wrong.

  76. 76

    @56, @58 According to the Bounty’s web page, the ship had last been used for some sort of party in Connecticut and was scheduled to be moved to her winter port in St. Petersberg. The captain apparently figured it would be safer to ride out the storm at sea than to risk being smashed against a dock or other vessels.

  77. 77

    @73 I wonder whether any conservatives would be happier if the responsibility for coordinating disaster responses were placed in the hands of the military instead of a civilian agency.

  78. 78

    @73. Let’s have General “Buck” Turgidson run the relief efforts. He’d be great at it.

  79. 79

    77. ArtFart spews:
    @73 I wonder whether any conservatives would be happier if the responsibility for coordinating disaster responses were placed in the hands of the military instead of a civilian agency.

    10/29/2012 AT 4:15 PM

    In many ways it already is….the military, mainly the national guard, provide much of the heavy lifting, logistics, security, etc…..

  80. 80

    @77,79

    From my experience, most folks are just folks regardless wether their conservative or liberal. But, when you hold a local emergency management open-house (I’ve volunteered off and on for years) and a Democrat’s in the White House there’s always at least one douche that has to stand up and inform the room that he knows what’s in the constitution, that the national has to be invited into a state by the governor, and so on and so forth. This person is almost always white, male, in his 50’s or 60’s, at least 30 pounds over weight, looks like he’s going to drop dead of a heart attack at any time, and seems incapable of actually doing something useful.

  81. 81

    Sandy is not so much a storm as it is an opportunity for growth.
    Rejuvenating destruction is what this country needs, especially in the northeast.
    If I were president I would use the federal government’s power to unleash a thousand Sandy’s.

  83. 83

    Re mass deletions: Well, how about a new Open Thread then? We haven’t had one since Friday and this is Monday. Not that I’m gonna miss the deleted comments …

  84. 84

    @83
    Yeah, noticed those.
    Must, say, coming in after the thread has been cleaned up is kinda nice – like a hotel turn-down of the sheets.
    I feel bad for whoever had to clean up Robert’s bullshit.
    Nov 7 can’t come too soon.

  85. 85

    @84

    LOL….thats funny – most of the deleted shit was from Roger Rabbit-turd.

    way to go Lib Sci the Clown.

  87. 87

    @86:

    Yeah, maybe. But not only does it start with the storm’s name, the city of Asbury Park is right on the Atlantic, quite close to NYC, and will probably suffer a lot of damage.

    And your selection would make a much inferior title for my post. :-)

    @83:

    I don’t deal with Open Threads. Don’t even know whether I have sufficient site permissions to create one.

    Take it up with Carl or Darryl.

  88. 88

    Actually, the more I think about it the more reasonable the idea becomes of putting emergency-response management under the purview of the military. It’s arguably better than a civilian agency that’s part of DHS, which in and of itself ought to be disbanded anyway. While in Norman Schwartzkopf’s words the military’s primary purpose is “to kill people and break things”, the same resources can be used equally well to save people and fix things. Furthermore, one of the problems with having a large standing army is that there’s always an incentive to find something for it to do. Emergency preparedness certainly compliments, rather than conflicts with, readiness to go kick bad guys’ asses anywhere in the world.

  89. 89

    Well Sandy could have at least drowned Chris Christie… That would have made it all worthwhile…

  91. 91

    @86, Awe come on: “Sandy, the fireworks (from exploding transformers) were heaven over Little Eden tonight.”
    Seems very apropo!

    @15, That was fast….I owe you a Hurrican Ale.

    Who needs Al Gore when you’ve got the biggest re-insurer in the world making the call:
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/.....ophes.html

    Of course, I’m not foolish enough to believe that facts would have any influence on the current stunted crop of “conservatives”.

  92. 92

    In Hurricane Sandy, a powerful reminder we need government

    We need government—need not just fire fighters and police and nurses but the safety inspectors who will tell us which buildings and tunnels are safe to go into, the construction workers and engineers who will pump out and repair those flooded tunnels and train tracks and roads. We need more than bottled water and canned food donated by well-meaning individuals, as Romney’s campaign is seeking. We need skilled workers and large-scale planning.

    This gets to the heart of the different between the parties, between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. When disaster strikes, do you want the government to have enough fire fighters to send out to pull you from the flood or to put out the fire? Or do you want to rely on a business to come and save you in Romney’s ideal world in which disaster relief has been “sent back to the private sector”? Can you guarantee that if something like Sandy hits and millions of people need help, you’ll have bought the platinum package that puts you at the top of your private sector safety contractor’s rescue list? Most of us can’t.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/.....government

    I see government as something that is supposed to help everyone, not just the rich and powerful. The people in the hurricane need more than the meager supplies sent by the Country Club Aid Society in a Romney campaign bus.
    I assume the Conservative will bleat that we cannot pay for it, so apparently we shouldn’t try. I don’t beleive that. We should try to find solutions that work, that help everyone. And yes, that will take some sacrifice from the rich. We cannot just fall back on greed and the “I got mine, to hell with you” mentality.

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HA Commenting Policy

It may be hard to believe from the vile nature of the threads, but yes, we have a commenting policy. Comments containing libel, copyright violations, spam, blatant sock puppetry, and deliberate off-topic trolling are all strictly prohibited, and may be deleted on an entirely arbitrary, sporadic, and selective basis. And repeat offenders may be banned! This is my blog. Life isn’t fair.