"volcano monitoring"

Come to think about it, I'm not through with Jindal yet. The "volcano monitoring" budget line he was mocking is essentially funding for the United States Geological Survey. I know we can't expect a Rhodes Scholar like Jindal to understand this, but the scientists of the USGS don't just play with rocks in national parks: they do work that not only saves lives, but the scientists themselves often give their lives in service to this country.

Let's talk about David A. Johnston, for instance. Johnston was a scientist with the USGS 30 years ago, charged with monitoring Mount St. Helens during the 1980 eruption that killed 57 people. It was Johnston who theorized that the eruption would be a lateral one, bursting out of the newly formed northern bulge of the volcano, rather than a conventional one spewing from the summit. He is credited on the USGS website with having likely saved thousands of lives by convincing the authorities to give the volcano a wide berth and not reopen it too soon.

Johnston was himself one of those 57 casualties. He was on duty when the volcano erupted, having just enough time to radio "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" before he was swept away.

I'd like to see someone ask the governor what he thinks about "erupting" government spending on the salaries of people like Johnston.

The Party of Beavis and Butthead

Krugman:

And leaving aside the chutzpah of casting the failure of his own party’s governance as proof that government can’t work, does he really think that the response to natural disasters like Katrina is best undertaken by uncoordinated private action? Hey, why bother having an army? Let’s just rely on self-defense by armed citizens.

The intellectual incoherence is stunning. Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butthead.

You have to wonder how Jindal could have honestly believed that people would've reacted to his poking fun at "volcano monitoring" with a "yeah, how wasteful is THAT?!"

Shockingly, his choice of project to poke fun at is even sillier than that "fruit flies in Paris, France!" turd Sarah Palin flung in the last election. At least in her defense, most Americans are probably not immediately aware that a huge proportion of genetic and biological research is done on fruit flies because of, for instance, their extraordinarily rapid reproductive pace, and that French scientists are major players in the scientific community. Thus, if you're a redneck, millenarian wackadoo trying to hoodwink 200 million voters into giving you the keys to General George's digs, and you want to pick on scientists who do important work by obscuring and mutilating their research in such a way that it sounds wasteful, "fruit flies from Paris, France" is not a bad way to go. I would wager, however, that most people who hear "volcano monitoring" know exactly what you're talking about, and why funding it is probably a good idea.

Bobby Jindal: Screw Obama, trust us! After all, remember Katrina?

The relevant passage:

Today in Washington, some are promising that government will rescue us from the economic storms raging all around us.

Those of us who lived through Hurricane Katrina, we have our doubts.

Let me tell you a story.

During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office I’d never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: ‘Well, I’m the Sheriff and if you don’t like it you can come and arrest me!’ I asked him: ‘Sheriff, what’s got you so mad?’ He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go - when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn’t go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, ‘Sheriff, that’s ridiculous.’ And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: ‘Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!’ Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and start rescuing people.

There is a lesson in this experience: The strength of America is not found in our government. It is found in the compassionate hearts and enterprising spirit of our citizens.

Maddow nails this one: Republicans should never, ever bring up Katrina. Ever. But for a Republican to bring up Katrina to argue against government interventionism is absolute cock-eyed, deranged, cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs madness. It almost forces me to consider the possibility that Bobby Jindal is a Democratic saboteur.

And that was before he mocked disaster planning explicitly.

David Brooks:

Combined with his laughably hypocritical grandstanding on the bailout money (as Matthews points out), Jindal is in for a deeply unpleasant week or two, and a couple of big dents in his presidential hopes. This was ugly.

...though, as an aside, I would also like to note that, when discussing the speech of an Indian American governor, I think it's deeply inappropriate to invoke the term "outsourcing." Just sayin'.

Cut their balls off. Humanely.

I'm getting more and more creeped out by new Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. First the news that he claims he has performed exorcisms and his belief that the Protestant rejection of Catholic authority "leads to anarchy and heresy." Now this, from The Advocate (Baton Rouge):

Characterizing sex offenders as monsters, Gov. Bobby Jindal signed legislation Wednesday that would force convicted rapists and others to undergo chemical castration.

“I am glad we have taken such strong measures in Louisiana to put a stop to these monsters’ brutal acts,” the governor said in a prepared statement.

I don't care if this can be done via drugs instead of a scalpel. How on earth does disfigurement and sterilization not qualify as cruel and unusual punishment?

Then again, I guess it's all relative. Is it that much less cruel and unusual to put someone to death? Or for that matter, to condemn them to being repeatedly anally raped?