Saintperle

11/3/12


In the arguments about FEMA, far be it from me to defend Republicans ... EVER ... BUT...

Oh, you know, W and Brownie and how bad FEMA was in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and etc etc 

And how good Democratic FEMA is in response to this hideous harbinger of climate change called Sandy...

It's not Democrat -Republican.

It's that Brownie's FEMA was purely representative of the Bush-Cheney Administration in which all policy was directed at plundering the treasury for pals and payoffs, appointing people whose only qualifications were their chumminess and political views ("You can become a manager of billions in cash intended for something-or-other in Iraq if you voted for W and are against abortion..")

William Fugate, the excellent and super-qualified director of FEMA appointed by President Obama in 2009 got to be qualified dealing with hurricanes in Florida where he had been appointed by W's brother, Republican Jeb Bush and re-appointed by Republican Charlie Crist.

So it's not about party per se</> -- it's about cupidity. And stupidity. And religious hysteria. 

The fact that one of our two primary political parties -- the Republicans -- has of recent been captured by a group of people who combine rabid antiscience with a sociopathic aggressiveness complicates the issue, since the Republicans who are NOT of that ilk are afraid to admit that science may actually be a source of real, actual -- possibly even, blasphemous though it may be -- USEFUL facts. 

Political policy on how to deal with those facts is something that will require debate and agreement -- Progressive Left and Libertarian Right will obviously offer different plans for dealing with the facts, but it takes a Theocracy of Religious Fundamentalists to flat out deny that the facts exist.

For example:
One of the favorite TV people in our family is Bill Nye, The Science Guy. 

As reported by Phil Proctor in Planet Proctor in The Funny Times, Nye was speaking in Waco, Texas at the McLennan Community College's Distinguished Lecture Series. When he said that the moon does not shine with light of its own making, but instead reflects the light of the sun, the audience "was visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence."* When he quoted Genesis 1:16 about God making the greater and lesser lights -- sun and moon and also stars, one woman yelled "We believe in God," and left, rescuing her children from dreaded facts, followed by other walkouts.

Proctor goes on to relate how the congenial interpreter of science totally lost his cool when on Smithsonian TV and asked about Todd Akin's rape beliefs. He quotes Nye:

    "Look! These people ... they're fucking retarded! Rape can't cause pregnancy? Breast milk cures homosexuality? I caused a hurricane by challenging creationism? Who can possibly take these people seriously anymore? It used to be these Republicans didn't believe in global warming or evolution. That was bad enough. Now they don't even believe in egg + sperm = baby? Where does Todd Akin think babies come from? Does he think there are separate storks for people who were raped and people who weren't?
     "Hey look over there! It's the Rape Stork. It drops its babies directly at the orphanage. He's a fucking idiot, just a plain fucking idiot. I'm sorry, I don't say that word very often, but it happens to fit in this case. He's just a fucking idiot."

We can always trust Bill Nye to tell us the facts.

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 *Waco Tribune 

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