Sometimes, it's the easiest thing in the world to figure out just how dumb a person is. For instance, here are two sentences from a letter from Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, the world saddest animated giraffe, to President Barack Obama regarding Obama's visit to New Orleans today to mark the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Jindal didn't want Obama to mention climate change:
"While you and others may be of the opinion that we can legislate away hurricanes with higher taxes, business regulations and EPA power grabs, that is not a view shared by many Louisianians.
"I would ask you to respect this important time of remembrance by not inserting the divisive political agenda of liberal environmental activism."
Can you wrap your head around that without it exploding? After attacking the President politically, Jindal asks Obama not to bring up something "political." You got that? Put aside for a moment that bringing up something that pretty much every scientist accepts as fact isn't exactly "political," how the hell do you take two completely contradictory sides without getting whiplash? It's like Jindal sucker punched Obama and then said, "I ask you not to throw punches because that'd be mean." That's not just dumb. It's pathologically, insistently stupid.
Jindal continues, "Furthermore, the people of Louisiana have already agreed upon a pragmatic and bipartisan approach to preventing and mitigating the damage of future weather systems." Yeah, sure (although the usefulness of that plan has far less support than the reality of climate change), but who exactly is financing all the plans? It sure as shit ain't broke-ass Louisiana. Oh, right, it's funded by the billions of dollars that came from the federal government.
In other words, who the fuck cares what Bobby Jindal wants said?
Towards the end of his letter, which is about as a effective as a flea fart in a hurricane, Jindal smirks, "Partisan politics from Washington, D.C. are unwelcome in Louisiana at the best of times. This week it would be met with nothing but derision."
Huh. Before his speech today, Obama had given an interview to WWL-TV where he said, "We can build great levees. We can restore wetlands. But ultimately, what we also have to do is make sure that we don't continue to see ocean levels rise, oceans getting warmer, storms getting stronger." And yet all the people at his speech didn't react with derision, unless hugs and tears are now an indication of contempt.
That's because the people of New Orleans know better than Bobby Jindal what the deal is. They know that without any real action on climate change, the city is fucked beyond fucked, and all the mitigation and restoration plans will mean jackshit. Yeah, that mighty plan Jindal touted was based on "low-balled" estimates of the effects of climate change when the what's really predicted to happen is that shit's gonna get drowned by, perhaps, 2062. Says one scientist, what we do about carbon emissions in the next 30 years "will determine whether New Orleans is inhabitable during the 22nd Century."
But let's not taint the whole memorial with politics. It'd be unseemly.
