Did They Really Have to Tell Us This?

A new map has been created to plot deaths resulting from forces of nature. The new map reveals where “Mother Nature” is most likely to kill you.

Yes, according to the news story on Fox News, Mother Nature has now taken ownership of killing people, or maybe Mother Nature is being accused of it, anyway.

Interested in knowing more?

The report says that people living in the South along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts have a higher likelihood of dying from a natural hazard compared to residents of the Great Lakes area and urbanized Northeast. [I wonder how many years these scientists had to go to school to realize that. And, how much government research money went into the study.]

And while intense hurricanes and tornadoes steal headlines for their intense winds and overall destruction, the new map shows what other previous studies have found, that everyday hazards, such as severe winter and summer weather, and heat account for the majority of natural hazard deaths in the United States.

“This work will enable research and emergency management practitioners to examine hazard deaths through a geographic lens,” said researcher Susan Cutter of the University of South Carolina, Columbia. “Using this as a tool to identify areas with higher than average hazard deaths can justify allocation of resources to these areas with the goal of reducing loss of life.”
Cutter and Kevin Borden, also of the University of South Carolina, Columbia, analyzed nationwide data from 1970 to 2004.

In addition to the South having high mortality from natural hazards, other risky areas included the northern Great Plains region where heat and drought were the biggest killers and the Rocky Mountain region (Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico) with winter weather and floods as top killers. The south-central United States is also a dangerous area, with floods and tornadoes posing the greatest threats.

Did we need a study to tell us any of that? It’s almost like saying, “If you jump into the pool, you will get wet!” If you live in the Rocky Mountains, you will get snow and cold weather, really? Are you shocked? If you live in the South, you’ll experience hurricanes and tornadoes? Again, really? Do these scientists think we’ve all just fallen off the turnip truck?

Next thing you know, they’ll prove my mother right: if you play with matches, you’ll get burned!

Fast and Furious

Friday morning, on my way to work, I did something I normally don't do--I stopped and filled up with gas. I was getting low, but I usually like to wait until the weekend to fill up. Don't why that's my normal schedule, but it is. I guess I just like to have a full tank to start the work week.

So, I stopped, and paid $3.51 a gallon, for the cheap grade of gas. Not a great prices, but it was $.02 cheaper than the next lowest price.

On the way home after lunch, I drove past the very same gas station where I had filled up 7 hours earlier. In seven hours, gas prices had risen to $3.95 a gallon. Did you read that? Gas has risen $.44 in 7 hours! I was shocked!

Little did I know how much more shock I would experience over the weekend. By Saturday morning, gas was selling for $4.19 a gallon, again for the cheaper gas.

And, it continues to go up! And up! And up!

My wife heard on the radio on the way home Friday afternoon that gas could go to $5.00 - $6.00 a gallon...all because of Hurricane Ike.

Now, I fully understand that 25% of our gas refineries are located in Texas and Louisiana, I can appreciate that. However, at the time gas rose $.44 in 7 hours, the hurricane had not hit yet, and no gasoline had arrived in Birmingham from Texas. I can understand why gas prices would go up the next week or so, I really can. However, I am really struggling with the obvious gas gouging that is going on!

You cannot convince me that someone isn't making a killing off of us with gas! Again, remember, the hurricane hadn't hit on Friday. No gas has been refined on Friday or Saturday that made its way to Birmingham--all we were seeing were managers and companies raising rates--all because they could! And, this was on the day that the a barrel of oil dropped to $100 a barrel on futures.

Saturday afternoon, we went in my wife's car to Sam's Wholesale Club. We must have passed a dozen gas stations before we got there. We saw prices in the $4.19 - $4.25 range. Then, miracle of miracles, we found a station selling the cheap stuff at $3.83 a gallon. Who thought I'd ever be happy to pay $3.83 a gallon!

I filled up. I was proud to fill up, paying $.32 a gallon more than I had paid the day before. A man next to me was filling his truck and 5 or 6 five-gallon gas containers. The mid-grade and the highest grades of gas were out at this particular station.

Looks like rough and expensive days are ahead. All because of a hurricane named Ike. Who likes Ike!

What are gas prices doing in your part of the world? Seen prices rising or staying the same? I think your answers will either remind me that we don't have it that bad...or it will aggreviate me more on the gouging that is going on!

Keeping Your Mouth Shut

A former Democratic National Committee chairman apologized Sunday for remarks he made a day earlier that suggested he thought Hurricane Gustav demonstrated that God is on the Democrats’ side in this year’s presidential election.

Don Fowler, who was DNC chairman from 1995-1996, said he was just mimicking Rev. Jerry Falwell. (Remind me…isn’t Jerry Falwell dead?)

“That just demonstrates that God is on our side,” Fowler said during the flight, of which a video was posted on YouTube under the headline: “Fowler Fouls: Hurricane is God’s Favor To Democrats.”

AFTER an uproar, Fowler said he was sorry IF anyone was offended.

“I don’t believe in a God that’s vengeful. I believe in a God that’s compassionate,” Fowler said.
“This is a point of national concern. I think everybody of good will has great empathy and sympathy for people in New Orleans,” Fowler said. “Most religious people are praying for people in New Orleans. There is no political connotation to this whatsoever. This was just poking fun at Jerry Falwell and the nonsensical thing he had said several years ago.”

Falwell was roundly criticized after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when he said they were God’s punishment for abortion, homosexuality, and other sins.

South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson called Don Fowler’s comments “disappointing and despicable.”

“A storm is not a partisan event and that is what they’ve done. I am outraged,” Dawson said, speaking by telephone from St. Paul, Minn., where the Republican National Convention is scheduled to start Monday, but may be altered because of concern over Gustav.

The impending hurricane apparently is cause for much speculation on God’s will. On Friday, liberal filmmaker Michael Moore said the storm is proof of God’s existence.

“I was just thinking, this Gustav is proof that there is a God in heaven,” Moore told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. “To just have it planned at the same time, that it would actually be on its way to New Orleans for Day One of the Republican convention, up in the Twin Cities, at the top of the Mississippi River.”

From me—I believe God cares far more about our world than He does about what some Democratic operative or Republican fanatic or deranged Hollywood-type or even out-of-touch preacher states. I don’t think the November election is the only thing on God’s “mind.” His "radar" is far larger than any limitations we put on Him!

It’s to be expected that Fowler didn’t apologize until after there was an uproar! Wouldn’t he have been wiser to have kept his mouth shut in the first place? Shouldn’t the same thing have been said about Falwell after 9/11? I think so!

And Michael Moore? Well, he needs to just learn to permanently shut up! He is so sad…and honestly, he always looks like he needs a shave and a bath! And, while He’s in the tub, maybe he’ll wash out his mouth with the soap! Might do him some good! And, it might make the rest of us happy too!