Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Washington, D.C. is being dumped on, and not by angry Tea Party members. This time it’s snow. LOTS of snow. Record amounts of snow. To which I say, Good. Let it snow.

In his extraordinary book, “The Worst Hard Time; The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Dust Bowl, author Timothy Egan tells of the time that dust started falling on Washington, D.C. It was years into the man-made ecological disaster and devastation. Congress kept saying, it was a temporary problem, it would blow over, it wasn’t really happening, just a minor weather problem, the problem was being exaggerated, a conspiracy by Roosevelt liberals to tax and spend to try to fix the problem, and all those other deja vuish articles of faith we now hear said about “global warming.”

Then dust started fallin on Washington, DC. The sky darkened, literally, and the dust fell. For days and days. Dust from Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, the Panhandle. Dust falling from dark skies at high noon. For days. Scared hell out of the Congressmen who woke up and said, “We got a problem here,” and finally allocated funds for the CCC and various farm bureau programs to get to work planting trees, teaching and instituting soil conservation measures, and buying out near-dead farmers and excess, “toxic” farmlands that never should have been farmed in the first place.

Slowly, through human efforts and the end of a drought cycle, much of the land was restored and the dust blows stop. All it took was dust to fall on Washington D.C. Tons of dust.

Since we have a similar situation with this Congress (global warming is a myth, it isn’t caused by humans activity, it’ll blow over, it’s just a conspiracy by Obama liberals to tax and spend to help avert the coming disaster, & etc.) I say, Let it snow. And snow. And snow. Darkness at noon in D.C. is what we need now.

On the Other Hand

Tim Rutten, in his L.A. Times column presents a far darker problem. Congress itself. Do nothing Congress in the form of Senator Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala) “who has put a personal hold on more than 70 executive branch appointments until the Obama administration agrees to fund a couple of pork-barrel projects hehas earmarked for his state. One involves tens of millions of dollars for an FBI laboratory focusing on improvised explosives – something the bureau desn’t think it needs. The other involves contract specifications for an aerial tanker that Northrop Grumman and Airbus would manufacture in Alabama, if they win the deal. . . . Unless the administration agrees to give Shelby what he wants, he intends to invoke an archaic senatorial privilege that allows him to prevent the chamber from considering any of the administration’s nominees to executive branch vacancies, no matter how crucial. Without the 60 votes to force cloture – another archaic convention – there’s nothing the Democrats or the White House can do. . . . Outside the Senate, Shelby’s conduct would be called extortion: inside the chamber it’s a ‘parliamentary tactic.’

“It’s also the sort of shabby situation that brings into sharp focus both the sources of congressional dysfunction and the popular discontent on both the left and right with the congressional parties. Earmarks and pork are anathema to a majority of conservatives and independents; the Senate’s outdated, made-for-obstruction rules and susceptibility to special interests are a source of increasing frustration to liberals and some independents. Yet, here we have one senator from one Southern state obstructing with impunity an entire nation’s business – purely for his narrow constituency’s financial interest.”

Compared to what global warming will do to this country, the devastation of the Dust Bowl is miniscule. With a dysfunctional government, a clueless, asleep-at-the-switch citizenry, even a mile-wide glacier falling on D.C might not be enough to do the trick.

Get the rowboats.

Oh, Wait, That’s Right.

Republican Vice Presidential candidate and former (resigned) moose-shooting Governor of Alaska (who can see Russia from her house) announced on Fox News that she would consider running for President if she felt it was the right thing for her.

Thank Goodness. We are saved!