Something unspeakably terrible and tragic happens in the world, and for once, it wasn't the awful Muslims, queers, or Wisconsin union workers' fault for forcing God to unleash his furious wrath on unsuspecting masses in the form of some natural catastrophe or another, as retribution for their deviant lifestyle of sin.
Unless, of course God was so furious about those ridiculous Peter King "Let's Hate on Muslims" congressional hearings, that he decided to take it out on Japan.
Which, considering we're pretty sure they don't even have Muslims in Japan, means a certain all-powerful, all-knowing being may either be slightly less stable than we thought, could use some serious anger management classes, or at the very least, needs to stop spending so much time with Charlie Sheen.
Because for some people, science-y explanations like "plate tectonics" and "random chance" just isn't good enough!
Fortunately, unlike the US of A, Japan is a relatively advanced first-world country whose legislative parliament isn't constantly pressured by obese white people dressed like human bags of Earl Grey and riding on motor scooters, to cut essential funding designed to make earthquakes, tsunamis, the return of Godzilla, and other sorts of unforeseen emergencies less devastating.
Meaning this probably would all be a lot worse anywhere else in the world! In fact, if it wasn't for Japan's strict building codes and practice earthquake and tsunami drills, the death toll likely would have been much higher in the hundreds of thousands, even, instead of the 1,000+ casualties currently estimated.
Ummm, hooray?
So while the tsunami waves from Japan's monster quake begin to hit Hawaii and travel toward our West Coast, the terrible no-good Socialist NObama government has been closely monitoring the situation at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, issuing advisories and ordering evacuations as necessary.
Of course, the United State is able to monitor these things and quickly spring into action to help save lives because of a magical elixir called taxpayer money (gasp!).
But, if Republicans in Congress had their way with proposed budget cuts (that just failed in the Senate), tsunami, earthquake, and other disaster monitoring and preventive operations would have been slashed, gutted, and tossed into the trash can (hopefully with the poors?), because like who the hell needs that stuff anyway, amiright?
Good thing God got this mega disaster in when He did!
Back in February 2009, Republicans found a lot of risible spending in the stimulus bill. In his response to the State of the Union, Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La., derided the stimulus for including "$140 million for something called volcano monitoring." The gripe was mostly that the funding, mostly for U.S. Geological Survey upkeep, wasn't stimulative.Saving lives? Meh. Only if it stimulates Republicans' wallets, my friend!
The continuing resolution passed by the GOP House, the one that just failed in the Senate, reduces funding for the federal agencies that monitor and react to disasters.
According to the House Appropriation Committee's summary of the bill, the CR funds Operations, Research and Facilities for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association with $454.3 million less than it got in FY2010; this represents a $450.3 million cut from what the president's never-passed FY2011 budget was requesting. The National Weather Service, of course, is part of NOAA -- its funding drops by $126 million. The CR also reduces funding for FEMA management by $24.3 million off of the FY2010 budget, and reduces that appropriation by $783.3 million for FEMA state and local programs.
Democrats did attempt to add more money to NOAA's budget. Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., offered an amendment to the CR that would have directed "no less than $710,641,000 to the National Weather Service Local Warnings and Forecasts." The amendment was one of several Democratic spending proposals that was found to be out of order, and not voted on.
Tide goes in, tide goes out. Sun comes up, sun goes down. How'd the moon get there? How'd did the sun get there? Who put it there? Bill O'Reilly can't explain it! (Maybe because there's no funding?)
Of course, not everyone is blessed with as gifted a scientific mind as ol' Papa Bear, like the damn union thugs over at the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service employees union, who decided to make a big toodoo over the proposed budget cuts.
Greedy bastards!
Nationally, reduced funding will mean upper air observations now made twice a day might be reduced to every other day, buoy and surface weather observations that provide data for warning systems could be temporarily or permanently discontinued and there could be delays in replacing satellites, according to the release.Tide goes in, tide goes out. Earthquake rumbles up, buildings crumble down. Tsunamis roll in, everything not tied down rolls out. Nature goes boom, hundreds of thousands of people go bye-bye.
So it goes.
Besides, why would we ever need that silly scientific stuff? Nature doesn't kill Americans, Americans kill nature!
