As if we needed more proof of Louisiana Governor, Bobbie Jindal's massive fail in the Repubs response to President Obama's speech, Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist, Joel Connelly slaps down Jindal's hoky narrative on the supposed waste on volcano monitoring. Repugs have always used science studies as examples of "absurd spending," such as the fabled Marsh Mice. As Connelly, lays it out, volcano monitoring, or lack thereof, has real and catastrophic consequences.
Hitting Jindal right at home, Connelly starts his piece by noting that we could perhaps stop monitoring Atlantic storms.
What would Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal say if the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that it planned to cease monitoring of hurricanes forming in the Atlantic?
The major metropolitan area of Seattle lives in the shadow of volcanos, known as the Ring of Fire. These active volcanos, and those elsewhere around the world still pose difficulties for geologists in terms of predicting exactly when they might unleash their fury. But when those suckers blow, they do so with tremendous and disastrous consequences. The eruption of Mt. St. Helens, in 1980, alone destroyed an area of 230 square miles. To wit, Connelly:
The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens killed just about everything in a 230 square mile area, darkened the skies across Eastern Washington, and dumped as much as four inches of ash on the ground.
The first notification came from a young U.S. Geological Survey scientist, David Johnson, from his Coldwater Observation Post north of the mountain.
"Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" cried Johnston, moments before he was engulfed and killed by the volcano's lateral blast.
Starting with St. Helens, volcanoes during the 1980's killed 26,000 people and forced 450,000 to flee.
Bobby Jindal is reportedly coming out here soon for a meeting at Microsoft.
He might drop in on the U.S. Geological Survey, and learn what studies, seismic gear and mapping will be accomplished with the stimulus money.
Gov. Jindal should also get a good look at Mount Rainier if the weather is good. It's a big mountain which gives off big mud flows. Heck, the airport where Jindal's plane will land sits on one of them.
If he ever wants to be president, Bobby Jindal ought to learn a bit about other parts of the country, and stop making stupid pronouncements.