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Home Page > Blogs > News blogs > People and Politics > Is Hurricane Irene less than promised? Media will be very disappointed if so

People and Politics by Patrick Roberts

Is Hurricane Irene less than promised? Media will be very disappointed if so

Posted on Saturday, August 27, 2011 at 06:24 AM

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18 Comments

So, Patrick -- 38 dead, major flooding, $7 billion in damage, centuries of history washed away. Ready to admit this column was a nasty, cruel mistake, yet? Are you man enough to? Prove me wrong with your next column and apologize for what you said here.

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sirpeter | Aug 28, 2011, 06:13 AM EDT

Post-glacial rebound (sometimes called continental rebound, glacial isostatic adjustment) is the rise of land masses that were depressed by the huge weight of ice sheets during the last glacial period, through a process known as isostasy. It affects northern Europe (especially Scotland, Fennoscandia and northern Denmark), Siberia, Canada, the Great Lakes of Canada and the United States, parts of Patagonia, and Antarctica.This means we are still coming out of the last ice age,which means the planet is naturally getting warmer as it was much much warmer many times in the past.There is no real evidence that burning fossil fuels will have ANY REAL impact on global warming.But what is very real is that 99.999% of species that ever lived on the planet have gone extinct.Extinction is very likely and what is even more likely due to the extremely aggressive expansion of the number of our species is a huge Armageddon like collapse in the number of human beings by some extremely quick and potent virus.Make no mistake about it.This is a bacterial and viral planet.Nature is the ultimate proven real God so far and her foot soldiers can consign us all to history and a few fossils.Of course I'm crediting our species with high intelligence and we don't destroy ourselves first with those little fun toys we made.

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jamthecat | Aug 27, 2011, 11:54 PM EDT

Monsoonman, where do you get your "facts?" Where did you come up with that figure of 31,000 scientists? I'd like to look into that, myself, because I honestly think you made it up. BTW -- so far Irene's gone PRECISELY where they're saying it would, so how can Porickseantuny be right in his assertion? You guys sound like the fools who made fun of Noah as he built his ark...and look what happened to them.

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eiriamach | Aug 27, 2011, 11:25 PM EDT

Tornado watches are in place up and down the coast. There are some power outages already, and it will be days at least before power is restored. Highways are closing. Rivers have not yet flooded in my area, where we expect the full force will hit about 5-6 AM tomorrow, maybe later if Irene continues to slow down. The best-case scenario for most people along the mid-Atlantic through New England is that the eye of the storm will be off the coast and over the ocean before it arrives at the NY-NJ-MA-CT area. But if there's anyone who has not left the off-shore islands, they'll see some bad weather. Global warming? No room to doubt it! The result of burning fossil fuels? Absolutely! Is the damage to the atmosphere reversible? That's anyone's guess.

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Monsoonman | Aug 27, 2011, 08:51 PM EDT

Explain the fact that 31,000 scientists, including 9,000 PHD's signed a declaration stating that basically man caused global warming is a hoax? BTW: Porickseantuny, you can say that again!

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ciarrai | Aug 27, 2011, 05:08 PM EDT

These are strange times. The expert is upstaged by the stupid. Global warming is real because the vast majority of legit scientists say so, but the stupid people have been palinized (thanks, Bill Maher) and consider it their right to claim that scientists and other intellectuals are wrong. How's that stupidy, know-nothin'y thing workin' out for ya?

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jamthecat | Aug 27, 2011, 04:57 PM EDT

Oh, Paaaaaatriiiiiick....still think Irene's just hype?

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Searlit | Aug 27, 2011, 03:37 PM EDT

It is sad that there have been four deaths already. I'm taking this storm seriously, media hype or not. Check you later.

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jamthecat | Aug 27, 2011, 02:41 PM EDT

2:30pm on Saturday and only 2 dead and a couple hundred million in damage from Irene. Must be disappointing to you and the twits who agree with you, Patrick. Look -- Porickseantuny even used this as an excuse to bash all of the scientific proof of global warming. Granted, Irene's become important to the families of those who died or had their homes and businesses destroyed, but then you don't know them so they can't matter, can they?

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Porickseantuny | Aug 27, 2011, 11:59 AM EDT

The same experts who can't accurately predict the path or intensity of a hurricane tomorrow are telling us that we face doomsday by burning fossil fuels.

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Porickseantuny | Aug 27, 2011, 11:58 AM EDT

The same people who can't tell us what track a hurricane will take or how intense it will be by tomorrow are telling us that the entire globe is tempting doomsday by burning fossil fuels.

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cabbagehead44 | Aug 27, 2011, 11:55 AM EDT

This reminds me of the fable of the boy who called wolf.The next time when there is a similar type of weather event, people won't believe the warnings The stores were out of water, bread, batteries, sump pumps etc because of the fear that there would be none. Great way to provide a stimulus to the economy temporarily!

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dragonladyleanne | Aug 27, 2011, 11:50 AM EDT

Katrina was a Cat FIVE storm and hit as Cat 4, not 3. Ivan was a Cat 5 also, but hit as 3. Anyone "standing knee deep in the surf" during that one, well they're corpses now. My mother's door was broken in by Ivan's storm surge, and her house flooded 3 feet deep. Houses lower were flooded to the roof, and a coworker only survived by punching a hole in his ceiling and handing his kids up into the attic, then treading water himself for hours until the waters receded. The "hype" you are describing is because we cannot "bet" when lives are at stake, and we cannot yet accurately predict the strength or path of storms. THIS article is "media hype"!

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Searlit | Aug 27, 2011, 11:38 AM EDT

They are hyping it. It's already cleaned out all the stores in the area. Nothing creates a stimulus to the economy like an approaching storm, especially a hurricane. I was around for the one in 1955, just a toddler, it was controversial, but in the aftermath I was allowed to go see where the Park River in Hartford had flooded onto Farmington Ave., adjacent to Mark Twain's house. You know, I just had to see it for myself. A visiting cousin, promised to carry me back, if I couldn't walk that far. That's why they let me go. Cousins are nice, aren't they? I hope they are wrong about this one, it's coming straight over us. It's because it is such a large storm that the forecasters are concerned. The sustained wind over the water combined with high tide and up to a foot of rain will cause fooding, never mind the wind damage. We're up on a hill, at least. I hope we don't lose power!

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Pittsburghkid | Aug 27, 2011, 11:25 AM EDT

Good Nite Irene

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