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Sludge Report #49 – Dubya’s Storm Arrives On Time
In this edition: Dubya’s Storm Arrives On Time
NOTE: Authors of this report will be anonymous and wide ranging, and occasionally finely balanced. Indeed you are invited to contribute: The format is as a reporters notebook. It will be published as and when material is available. C.D. Sludge can be contacted at sludge@scoop.co.nz. The Sludge Report is available as a free email service..Click HERE - http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/myscoop/ to subscribe...
Sludge Report #49
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0101/S00038.htm
RELATED STORY: Report #48 - Cold War Begins Early In D.C.
Dubya’s Storm Arrives On Time
Sludge Report readers who read the last Sludge bulletin, Sludge Report #48 - Cold War Begins Early In D.C., may be excused for coming to the conclusion that Sludge is reading a little more into global weather forecasts than most of the mainstream media. This is certainly true, and Sludge makes no apology for it being so.
From where C.D. Sludge is sitting the conventional view on this planet, namely, that our increasingly extreme global weather patterns are merely a reflection of global warming, is not a sufficiently complete explanation.
In fact while watching Scoop’s Supercomputer forecasts for Washington D.C.’s Inauguration Day storm for the week leading up to Dubya’s big day, Sludge came to the conclusion that this was a storm on a mission.
Seven days out there was only a generalised patch of bad weather in the region of Washington D.C. The rain and chill was forecast to arrive around the time of the Inauguration in a general sense, but not in any targeted fashion.
Then, as the big day came closer, the picture came more clearly into focus. The bad weather zeroed in on the D.C. area, meanwhile in terms of timing the eye of the storm zeroed in on the early hours of Inauguration Day.
In the end D.C. authorities were well prepared for the foul tempered heavens, and on the night of January 19th meteorological authorities finally caught up with Sludge and issued a bad weather warning. Meanwhile city authorities placed a record number of road salting trucks on standby to ensure the President-Elect’s party didn’t end up hitting a patch of ice on their way to the celebrations.
Snow fell till 3am in the morning of Inauguration Day throughout the D.C. area. Later 20,000 protestors gathered to voice their objection to Bush’s elevation as rain slowed turning to a chilly drizzle for the afternoon’s ceremonies.
While not disrupting the official proceedings the weather certainly did colour the way the day was received, at least in D.C. The following day in the Washington Post Online the first down-page story - following extensive coverage of the Inauguration celebrations and protests - was a report on the “Lousy” weather.
No doubt for most people this patch of poor weather is nothing more than a patch of poor weather.
But for Sludge it is far more than that. Here was a storm that did a good impression of hunting down Bush’s party with the clear intention of putting a dampener on proceedings.
The question begged by this of course is why would it do so?
Answers of course are far from hard to come by. Perhaps because Bush plans to make the wealthy wealthier while sending mentally disabled women to the death chair. Perhaps because Bush’s inauguration is not a moment for the planet to celebrate.
The next question that arises is, if this storm was a message, then what does it mean?
While such questions are probably best left for the heavens to answer for themselves, Sludge, as usual has a theory.
Sludge’s considered opinion is that what we have here is a relatively gentle warning to George W. Bush and his entourage reminding them that there are forces far more powerful in this world of ours than those the Pentagon can muster. Not that he is likely to take any notice.
Meanwhile for the rest of us this Inauguration Day storm provided, Sludge reckons, a warning to us all that the weather may be poised to start playing a more significant role in world politics in the year ahead.
And while this is little more than a theory to be sure, it is undoubtedly true that after one of the coldest winters on record the US people have more of an eye on the weather at present than they have had in the past.
In conclusion, and for the benefit of those inclined to tell Sludge (as one reader did), “enough already with the crazy weather stories,” Sludge replies that this is far from the end of this particular meme play.
Anti©opyright Sludge 2000
Alastair Thompson
Scoop Publisher
Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.
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