FW: Mark Morford: Kneel Before The Meteorologist
Mark Morford's Notes & Errata
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Mark Morford's Notes & e rrata =====
SFGate.com - Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Kneel
Before The Meteorologist
At last, one scientist BushCo will
definitely -- albeit resentfully -- listen to. Sometimes
By Mark
Morford
So now we know. This is what it takes. This
is how far the nation has to crumble and this is how many people have to
die and this is how many tens of billions it has to cost and this is how
far his dirt-low poll numbers have to fall before Bush will finally come
out and say he agrees with one of those godforsaken gul-dang book-learned
scientist types.
You know the ones. Those informed and well-educated data-crunchers he
normally despises like a kid hates broccoli and whom he normally thinks
are lower 'n a snake's belly to a mud puddle and whom the GOP normally
treats the way a cockroach treats a dunghill. Which is to say, not very
well at all.
It takes a hurricane. Check that: It takes two hurricanes of
such lethal and undeniable force that even the Bush administration is
forced to kneel in abject deference before the great altar of the
professional "forecaster," a.k.a. the trained meteorologist, a.k.a. the
atmospheric scientist, those smart nerdy button-down types most of whom
work for the nonpartisan National Weather Service and who put out all
those dire warnings about imminent storms and deadly heat waves and
massive floods and who actually are, sorry Dubya, well-trained scientists
with genuine university degrees and who can do all that complex math and
research and other stuff Bush loathes the way Paris Hilton hates
polysyllabic words.
And now, whenever these damnable weather dudes march into the Oval with
bad news of some damnable upcoming lethal storm readying itself to smash
into the nation, well, Bush has to wake up from the hammock and take
notice and alert the gutted FEMA teams and scowl and pretend to care, lest
the nation impale him on the hot spike of his own incompetence, again. ...
(click
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