Stupid Volcano Monitoring

Someone get Bobby Jindal on the phone for a comment.

When Republican wunderkind, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal gave his party’s response to President Obama’s speech before a joint session of Congress, he decried Democrats for passing a spending bill “larded with wasteful spending,” ...including "$140 million for something called “volcano monitoring.”

...Jindal is the governer of a state dependent on tens of billions of federal dollars to predict, prepare for and recover from natural disasters, and however exotic “volcano monitoring” may sound to his fellow bayou residents, he’s in no position to criticize disaster preparedness expenditures elsewhere.

But in light of today’s eruption of Alaska’s Mt. Redoubt, I’d say another round of ridicule is called for.

...Dave Stricklan, a hydrometeorogical technician with the National Weather Service, expected very fine ash. … “The heavier stuff drops out very quickly, and then the other stuff filters out. There’s going to be a very fine amount of it that’s going to be suspended in the atmosphere for quite some time, but nothing to really affect anything such as aviation travel. The heavier stuff will filter out,” he said.
Still, Alaska Airlines on Monday canceled 19 flights in and out of the Anchorage international airport because of the ash.

Because ash intake can damage jet engines, causing planes to, you know, crash. But I guess, as long as they’re not crashing in the bayou, it’s no big problem.

Palin/Jindal 2012.

(H/T HorsesAss.Org)