Paging Bobby Jindal!

Mother Nature sure has been racking up the bonus points lately.

Devastating earthquakes in Haiti, and Chile (and, last week, again, in China) ... Flooding Spring rains here in the USofA ...

And, now, an exploding volcano in Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull, blanketing the better part of a continent with nasty ash;



Volcanic ash: Europe flights grounded for third day

Millions of air travellers are stranded as thousands of flights are being cancelled for a third day.

The disruption from the spread of ash would continue into Sunday, European aviation agency Eurocontrol said.

Airlines are losing some £130m ($200m) a day in an unprecedented shutdown of commercial air travel.

"Forecasts suggest that the cloud of volcanic ash will persist and that the impact will continue for at least the next 24 hours," a statement from Eurocontrol said at around 0830 GMT.

[snip]

The UK extended its ban on commercial flights until at least 0700 local time (0600 GMT) on Sunday.

Many other countries, from Ireland to Ukraine, have either closed airspace or shut key airports. In northern France and northern Italy, airports are shut until Monday.

So, we hear you whisper quizzically, what's this volcano in Iceland have anything to do with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal?

Does he speak Icelandic?

Well, for one, we're not calling on him (yet), to perform an exorcism on Eyjafjallajökull.

Rather, just another reminder of how, in giving the PartyofNoican Rebuttal to President Obama's first SOTU address, Jindal pooh-pahhed funding of volcano monitoring;

Jindal, among other distortions, dissed the monitoring of volcanos;

While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government, $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a "magnetic levitation" line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, and $140 million for something called "volcano monitoring." Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C

For the want of a talking point ...

It was only delicious irony, just less then two-months later, Alaska's Mount Redoubt erupted.

News tonight has that scientists don't really know how much longer Eyjafjallajökull is going to spew the heavy-duty ash - could be days, weeks, or, even months.

I don't believe it has happened yet, but if this does drag on, you can plan that some Right Wing Freak Show Flying Monkey, Teabagger, or Faux News will find a way to blame this on Obama, the Democrats, mock Climate Change or, incredulously, tie it in to how the government is taking over healthcare (we can, perhaps, count on our seminal Ignorant Dolt, Michele Bachmann for that)


Bonus Links

NYT: Air Travel Crisis Deepens as Europe Fears Wider Impact

Ron Beasley: Volcanoes and History

The Lede: Video of Volcano Spewing More Ash

The Lede: One Word: Eyjafjallajokull

Too Perfect! ... Jindal Jabberwocky II