Bama-gate

For months now I've been doing my best to ignore the Orange Embarrassment that's currently occupying the White House, mostly because I'm afraid if I voiced my feelings toward him I'd be placed on an FBI watch list. 

But this is too good... no, strike that... too bizarre to let slide. This incident perfectly demonstrates the severely addled and impaired mental state of our "president." And despite the fact I'm making light of it here, it's actually far from funny. The petty, vindictive man with his finger on the button has the emotional age of a five year old, a fact which should terrifying every American to their core.

On September 1st, 2019, trump tweeted out a warning stating that residents of Florida, South Caroline, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama were all about to be slammed by the approaching Hurricane Dorian.

There's just one problem— Alabama was never in any danger from the storm, ever.

In fact, twenty minutes later (not sure why the times shown don't line up) the National Weather Service office in Birmingham, Alabama tweeted out a correction, assuring the populace that the state would see ZERO impact from the hurricane, as it was too far away to be affected.

True to their word, this was the projected path of the hurricane. Note that at no point did it get anywhere near the Yellowhammer state.

You may be saying to yourself, "Big deal. So trump made a little mistake. Who cares?" Well, it IS a big deal. It's actually a HUGE deal. Hard as it is to believe, some people actually look to trump for information and guidance. His Alabama faux pas could easily have caused a statewide panic as thousands needlessly fled their homes to avoid a non-existent threat.

The news media pointed this out in dozens of articles, criticizing the prez for spreading potentially harmful false information. 

At this point a normal human would have admitted they made a mistake, said, "Whoops, my bad! Apologies for any confusion or panic I may have caused" and ended the matter then and there. 

trump is neither normal nor human though. He is absolutely incapable of admitting a mistake. He insisted he was right and actual trained scientists and weather professionals were wrong, and fell back on his favorite song by calling the media "fake news." Said trump: 

“Such a phony hurricane report by lightweight reporter @jonkarl of @ABCWorldNews. I suggested yesterday at FEMA that, along with Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, even Alabama could possibly come into play, which WAS true. They made a big deal about this when in fact, under certain original scenarios, it was in fact correct that Alabama could have received some ‘hurt.’ Always good to be prepared! But the Fake News is only interested in demeaning and belittling. Didn’t play my whole sentence or statement. Bad people!”

Jesus Christ, don! Why's it so hard to admit you screwed up? Take responsibility for your actions for once in your life and move on.

Then on September 4th, trump tripled down on the crazy. During an Oval Office meeting, he suddenly pulled out a NOAA weather map depicting the early projected course of Hurricane Dorian, which showed it heading directly towards Florida, and Alabama beyond.

Thing is, it appears trump actually altered the map by drawing a crude circle around Alabama with a Sharpie (his writing implement of choice), to add credence to his earlier statement. Jesus Jetskiing Christ!

Here's a closer look at his hurriedly-doctored map. Note that he even botched his forgery, as he barely managed to include a sliver of Alabama within his hastily-scrawled Sharpie circle!

For comparison, here's the original map, sans Sharpie circle.

A reporter pointed out that the map had obviously been altered, and asked the president point blank if he's the one who did it. trump's only reply was a weak and sullen, "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know."

Like a dog worrying a bone, trump just couldn't let go of the controversy, which of course only caused it to go from minor gaffe to full-fledged scandal. Hasn't he ever heard of the Streisand Effect? He tweeted that according to original forecasts, Alabama WAS directly centered in the hurricane's line of fire before the storm took a hard right turn.

He even offered proof of this in the form of several more maps (with no Sharpie lines this time).

This additional info was actually true. Well, sort of. What don failed to mention was that these maps were several days old by the time he made his initial statement on September 1st. Additionally, even though they did indeed show that Alabama was in the hurricane's bath, NOAA estimated the state had a 5% to 20% chance of receiving 39 MPH winds. Gusts of that magnitude might blow down a branch or two, but are certainly no cause for alarm.

Too bad trump didn't have his magic Sharpie a couple years back during his inauguration. He could have used it then to offer incontrovertible proof that his ceremony drew the biggest crowds ever recorded.

But of course the story doesn't stop there. On Friday, September 6, most people had had their fill of the story and moved on. Not donny though, boy! In yet another tweet, he said:

“The Fake News Media was fixated on the fact that I properly said, at the beginnings of Hurricane Dorian, that in addition to Florida & other states, Alabama may also be grazed or hit. They went Crazy, hoping against hope that I made a mistake (which I didn’t). Check out maps…..”

Yes, don. The MEDIA'S the one fixated on the story, not you, the person who keeps bringing up the goddamned thing. So any time the media reports a story that trump doesn't agree with, he labels it fake news. By a similar logic, if a storm system contradicts his beliefs he denounces it as FAKE WEATHER. In don's world you're either with him or against him— there's no gray area or middle ground.

Remember back when Barack Obama was president (oh, to return to those days) and in a speech stated our country consisted of 57 states? When the media called him out on it, he simply admitted he misspoke, laughed it off and that was the end of it. As any sane person would do. 

There's no doubt in my mind that if trump made the same gaffe, he'd grab a Sharpie and start drawing in seven more states on every map he could find.

Then on Saturday, September 7, he dragged out the story yet AGAIN, tweeting:

FAKE NEWS. I would like very much to stop referring to this ridiculous story, but the LameStream Media just won’t let it alone. They always have to have the last word, even though they know they are defrauding & deceiving the public. The public knows that the Media is corrupt!

The media always has to have the last word, don? They stopped reporting on it days ago, after it went from funny to pathetic.

Also on September 7, trump finally threatened, er, I mean found someone he could blackmail or otherwise coerce into backing him up. Neil Jacobs, a trump-appointed yes man who's currently serving as Acting Director of NOAA, released a statement undermining the Birmingham NOAA division's report. Said Jacobs, “The Birmingham National Weather Service’s Sunday morning tweet spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.”

So there you go. The president of our country is a petty and vindictive sociopath who's pathologically incapable of admitting he's wrong. To that end, he scoured the government until he found a lackey willing to throw NOAA's Birmingham division under the bus, and state against all logic and reason that trump was right and science was wrong.

Jesus wept. This is why I welcome every meteor that comes close to our planet with open arms.

What's The Big Rush, Rush?

For the past several days, talk radio host and bloated whale carcass Rush Limbaugh, who's apparently still a thing, has been telling his loyal listeners (?) that the the monstrous Hurricane Irma which is barreling towards Florida is nothing more than a conspiracy cooked up by the media and retail stores.

On his syndicated radio show, Limbaugh bleated,

"There is symbiotic relationship between retailers and local media, and it’s related to money. It revolves around money. You have major, major industries and businesses which prosper during times of crisis and panic, such as a hurricane, which could destroy or greatly damage people’s homes, and it could interrupt the flow of water and electricity. So what happens?"

"Well, the TV stations begin reporting this and the panic begins to increase. And then people end up going to various stores to stock up on water and whatever they might need for home repairs and batteries and all this that they’re advised to get, and a vicious circle is created. You have these various retail outlets who spend a lot of advertising dollars with the local media."

"The local media, in turn, reports in such a way as to create the panic way far out, which sends people into these stores to fill up with water and to fill up with batteries, and it becomes a never-ending repeated cycle. And the two coexist. So the media benefits with the panic with increased eyeballs, and the retailers benefit from the panic with increased sales, and the TV companies benefit because they’re getting advertising dollars from the businesses that are seeing all this attention from customers."

Sure, Rush. It's all a conspiracy to sell bottled water. This is extremely dangerous and irresponsible of Limbaugh, or any public figure for that matter. Irma currently is described as the largest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic, and its sustained 185 mph winds have utterly decimated Puerto Rico and many Caribbean islands. I have no doubt someone's going to actually listen to his cries of "fake news" and refuse to evacuate, and then all the skin will be blown off their body. His ill-advised conspiracy theories are going to end up getting someone killed.

Someone other than Rush, that is.

In case you weren't aware, Limbaugh's studio is located in Palm Beach County, in the state of Florida. You know, the state that Irma is relentlessly heading towards. This morning Limbaugh evacuated the state, exiting so quickly he left a cartoonish hole in the shape of his body in his studio wall.

Said Limbaugh, 

“May as well go ahead and announce this,” he said. “I'm not going to get into details because of the security nature of things, but it turns out that we will not be able to do the program here tomorrow. ... We'll be on the air next week, folks, from parts unknown. So we'll be back on Monday. It's just that tomorrow is going to be problematic. Tomorrow it would be, I think, legally impossible for us to originate the program out of here.”

Did you get all that? Limbaugh says the media's blowing Hurricane Irma all out of proportion, and there's absolutely no danger. Of course he said all this as he was evacuating the state.

Limbaugh seemed less concerned with the inevitable loss of life and property and more with how the hurricane had impacted his personal plans, saying, “You know, I had to cancel a bunch of stuff. I was going to go to a private movie screening this afternoon, and I had a bunch of stuff to do tonight, and now that's all blown to smithereens.”

That is a tragedy, Rush. Please, people, for the love of Thor, do NOT listen to anything that spews out of this blowhard's foul orifice of a mouth. 

You Are Like A Hurricane

Regular readers of Bob Canada's BlogWorld know that for years now I've been taking the National Hurricane Center to task for the ridiculous names they give to storms. 

I posited that people are less likely to listen to the Center's warnings and evacuate their homes when they're told that Hurricane Timmy is bearing down on them. I suggested people would have a healthier fear of the storms if they had names like Annihilator and Destruktorr.

Welp, it looks like I was right. And this time science is there to back me up! And you thought all this blog was good for was amateur movie reviews and extreme nitpicking.

Researchers at the University of Illinois recently studied six decades worth of storm data, and determined that hurricanes with female names are more deadly, because the public perceives them as less threatening than those with male names, and therefore take fewer precautions to protect themselves.

They suggested that simply changing a hurricane's name from Charley to Sally could triple its death rate. Triple! 

See? I was totally right about this (minus the gender bias, that is). Can you imagine anyone ever dashing down the street, shrieking, "Run for your lives! Hurricane Cindy is coming!"

So please, National Hurricane Center, I'm begging you. Stop giving hurricanes such weak and fuzzy names. Give them monikers that strike fear and dread into those in the paths of the storms. Ominous, fearful, and-- dare I say it-- manly names, that no one can afford to disregard.

In the interest of public safety, I once again offer my list of suitably ominous Hurricane Names. You're welcome.

· Annihilator
· Blastarr
· Crusher
· Destruktorr
· Exterminus
· Fearasaurus Death
· Ginormitron
· Hellsender
· Implosionator
· Jackal-gnashor
· Killotronn
· Lay-waste-acuss
· Maimakuss
· Neutralizorr
· Oblitoratorr
· Pillaguss
· Ransackulon
· Slaughteratorr
· Terminatus
· Vandalon
· Wreckkorr

Stormy Weather

For quite a while now I've been whining about the lame and ineffectual names the National Hurricane Center gives to hurricanes and tropical storms. I feel it's a tough sell to get people to take seriously a hurricane named Floyd. No one's going to evacuate their home when they hear that Hurricane Debbie is coming their way. 

I suggested they start giving these deadly storms more appropriate names, like Destructorr and Devastator.

Well, the National Hurricane Center continues to ignore me, but this week the Weather Channel has finally taken my advice. For the first time they've decided to name upcoming winter storms and are giving them appropriately grim monikers such as:

Brutus

Caesar

Draco

Gandolf (sic)

Khan (!)

Magnus

Rocky (!!)

Triton

Zeus

Finally some fittingly ominous names! Looks like somebody's been reading my blog!

Maybe now that the Weather Channel (which from what I understand is a lowly cable station, of all things) is taking my advice seriously, the National Hurricane Center will see the light and follow suit. Baby steps!