The bad science of Obama's use of the "devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms" to scare us about climate change.

How absurd to use obviously bad science to hit us over the head about our failure to react to what you claim is good science!

Why does it have to be so hard to combine science and politics?

"What sort of people were these? What were they talking about? What office did they belong to? K. was living in a free country, after all..."

"... everywhere was at peace, all laws were decent and were upheld, who was it who dared accost him in his own home?"

A Kafka quote begins Roger Kimball's op-ed "This Metamorphosis Will Require a Permit/Sandy wrecked our house, but bureaucrats are keeping it broken."

Kimball also quotes Hayek:

[T]he power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbor and perhaps my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest functionnaire possesses who wields the coercive power of the state on whose discretion it depends whether and how I am to be allowed to live or to work.

And Tocqueville:

"[A] network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules"... reduces citizens "to being nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd."

Books:

Franz Kafka, "The Trial"
F.A. Hayek, "The Road to Serfdom"
Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America"
Roger Kimball, "The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia"

"Cold, mold loom as hazards in Sandy disaster zones."

"City officials estimate at least 12,000 New Yorkers are trying to survive in unheated, flood-damaged homes, despite warnings that dropping temperatures could pose a health risk. Many families have returned to coastal homes contaminated with mold or filled with construction dust."

And: "A pregnant Hurricane Sandy victim was booted from her hotel room yesterday and forced to hunt for a place to stay because FEMA dropped the ball on her reservation.... 'I feel like a homeless person . . . like a street rat,'  said [Keri] Christian, who’s expecting a boy in January. 'It’s aggravating and physically demanding. I’m really pissed.'"

Retreat...

... from the shoreline.

Hurricane Sandy’s immense power, which destroyed or damaged thousands of homes, actually pushed the footprints of the barrier islands along the South Shore of Long Island and the Jersey Shore landward as the storm carried precious beach sand out to deep waters or swept it across the islands. This process of barrier-island migration toward the mainland has gone on for 10,000 years.

Yet there is already a push to rebuild homes close to the beach and bring back the shorelines to where they were. The federal government encourages this: there will be billions available to replace roads, pipelines and other infrastructure and to clean up storm debris, provide security and emergency housing. Claims to the National Flood Insurance Program could reach $7 billion. And the Army Corps of Engineers will be ready to mobilize its sand-pumping dredges, dump trucks and bulldozers to rebuild beaches washed away time and again.

Should we fight in New Jersey and on Long Island, fight the seas and oceans, fight with growing confidence and growing strength, whatever the cost may be, fight on the beaches, fight on the shorelines, fight for the summer cottages and ocean views, fight and never surrender? The enemy is Nature, and a show of fierce determination will not influence her in the slightest. She's not angry or vengeful or subject to intimidation. She's incapable of perceiving that we think we're at war with her, but if she were, our fist shaking could only be mildly amusing. It doesn't even make sense to say Nature is assured of victory or even that victory was always hers. "Victory" requires a pre-victory condition, and there was never any such thing.

We give meaning — glory! — to life by pretending there is a war and imagining never surrendering or at least holding out in a long  — make believe it's long! — siege. But should the government deliver floods of tax money to imbue our charade with more realism?

"This is the governor realizing he’s not getting the job done and finding someone to blame."

"Steve is a qualified, stand-up guy and to let him go over something like this is just outrageous."

"WHO EVER READS THIS IM IN THE DARK AS IM WRITING THIS I'M DIEING – Im 28 yrs old my name is Mike."

"I had to break in your house. I took blankets off the couch. I have hypothermia. I didn't take any thing.... I hope u can read this I’m in the dark. I took a black jacket too. Goodbye. God all mighty help me."

"Thugs have been masquerading as Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) workers, knocking on doors in the dead of night."

In Queens, where people "say the real workers have been nowhere in sight" and they're "arming themselves with guns, baseball bats, booby traps — even a bow and arrow — to defend against looters."

"Whether it's providing a warm place to visit for a cup of coffee or simply charging your electronic devices..."

"... we are here to help in any way."

An email "Message to Our Customers" from Saks Fifth Avenue (intended mostly to be received in New York City). It's nice for the posh store to invite folks in to charge their electronic devices. Let's take note of the businesses that were kind to the powerless.

Measured in terms of Integrated Kinetic Energy at landfall, Sandy was bigger than Katrina...

... and second only in modern records to Hurricane Isabel in 2003. Sandy only had Category 1 winds — while Katrina was Category 3 — but it was very large and thus had more IKE, which relates more strongly to the size of the storm surge.

[T]he storm surge is the increased water level along the coast caused by winds continuously bulldozing the ocean onto the land. It builds long before a storm makes landfall. It simply raises the mean sea level from its normal level by a few to over 25 feet.

Sandy also hit at high tide, making the surge higher. The damage from a surge also has to do with coastal topography and bathymetry.

Hurricane Katrina was “only” a Category 3 storm at landfall, yet ended up being the most costly natural disaster in our nation’s history due its impact on a vulnerable, highly populated low lying city. Sandy had Category 1 winds at landfall yet was able to create very significant storm surge over hundreds of miles of highly populated coastline.

I found that article because I was trying to figure out what "category" Sandy was. I wasn't sure it was even Category 1, and I wondered what would happen if a Category 3 (or 4 or 5) storm hit NYC.  I also found this article in Popular Mechanics, describing a study of the consequences of a Category 4 hurricane hitting NYC. The estimate was $500 billion in damage. A study released last September said a "Category 1 hurricane or winter nor'easter could inundate the city's subway and cause $58 billion in losses"... which sounds like what happened.

"Angry residents pelted utility crews with eggs as they tried to restore power in Bridgeport, Conn...."

"... after the mayor claimed the local power company had 'shortchanged' the state's largest city as it tries to recover from superstorm Sandy."

I'm sick and tired of Bridgeport being shortchanged," [Mayor Bill] Finch said, noting that Bridgeport has the largest number of United Illuminating ratepayers and claimingg it should be treated better by the New Haven-based utility.

United Illuminating has denied giving priority to wealthy customers, while ignoring Bridgeport residents.

Class warfare. Ask the eggheads in New Haven about it.

Staten Island woman cries out to Chuck Schumer: "We are going to die."

Reading the headline at Breitbart, I thought I was going to see someone who had become hysterical and irrational, but watch.

It's been 3 days, and they don't have power or gasoline for generators. There are people who are, she says, 90 years old who are cold and do not have extra clothing or enough food. It made me cry.

AND: "Red Cross is here with hot chocolate and cookies. We need blankets, we need pillows, we need clothing. We can get hot chocolate and cookies, we need help!"

"For some reason, the uplifting value of the New York City Marathon, however, is so off the charts in Bloomberg World..."

"... that nothing trumps diverting countless police and sanitation resources to marathon duty, even when parts of the metropolitan area lie in ruins and the city is mired in transportation hell."

AND: "They should make all of these runners bring food and water to people's houses who need it. They should bring all of these generators to buildings where old people live and give them power." 

UPDATE: Bloomberg caves to criticism, cancels the Marathon.

"Officials in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut have asked power companies to concentrate on bringing electricity back to polling places first..."

"... but they aren't betting on that."

‘‘Some of the voting machines do have battery backup,’’ New York State Board of Elections spokesman Tom Connolly told the Associated Press. ‘‘We are also planning to get generators to polling sites, but it’s not like we have an unlimited supply of generators.’’ In New York City members of the Board of Elections have been assessing the damage to polling places, and Mayor Bloomberg said they might have to use alternative locations in some cases. The Daily News reports that in devastated areas like Breezy Point and the Rockaways, voting may take place in tents equipped with generators.

While Christie has been occupied by relief efforts, in New Jersey Secretary of State and Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno said on Thursday that the state is planning to deploy military trucks to polling stations that have lost power. Guadagno said people at these locations will vote using a paper ballot....

Presumably, there will be a way for everyone who tries to vote to be able to vote, but fewer people will try. There's some complacency: "Since the states hit hardest are all solidly blue, lower voter turnout won't swing the presidential election...." The state gets the same number of electoral votes regardless of how many people actually vote. That means, however, that lower turnout concentrates the power of those who do vote. If enough of the "red" people in those blue states get out when the "blue" people stay home, the state — and all its electoral votes — could go to the "wrong" candidate. Or do you imagine that would only happen if the election ended up being a blowout for Romney anyway?

How far back do you need to scroll in the history of Electoral Maps to get to a year where New Jersey/New York/Connecticut picked the Republican? 1988 to get New Jersey and Connecticut. 1984 to get New Jersey and Connecticut and New York. 1984, of course, was a complete blowout for Reagan, with Mondale getting only his home state of Minnesota, but 1988 was pretty much of a blowout too.

A recent New Jersey poll — just before the hurricane hit — had Obama ahead by only 10 points. He won by 16 points in 2008, and older polls showed him with a bigger lead. It's not inconceivable that the state that elected Chris Christie could choose Romney even without a hurricane-depressed turnout.

"I’m not traumatized by the storm; I’m traumatized by the indifference."

A Tale of Two Cities: New York above 40th Street and New York below 40th Street.

Some people said they had been turned away from hotel lobbies, other banks and cafes near 40th Street when asked if they could charge their phones. It was as if, said Gabriella Sonam, a massage therapist who had biked up from the East Village, they did not even know a national emergency was going on just across the street.

Did Chris Christie "sudden love-in" with Obama hurt Mitt Romney?

"Sudden love-in" is the Washington Post's terminology.

There is no professed motivation for Christie’s newfound feelings for the president, other than that the two men are now partners in a massive effort to rebuild his state. Asked about the election on “Fox & Friends,” Christie said, “I have no idea, nor am I the least bit concerned or interested,” adding: “If you think right now I give a damn about presidential politics, then you don’t know me.”

I want to say Chris Christie is saying and doing the right thing, not only morally and in his own political interest, but in the interest of Mitt Romney and the GOP. Saying it's not political and acting like politics are suspended, the best approach morally, happens also to be the best approach politically.

It's good politically because it's a vivid demonstration of devotion to public service and the capacity to rise about partisanship and do the things that need to be done.

Compare the Christie's interaction with Obama to the way Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco interacted with President Bush after Hurricane Katrina. Here's how Bush described some of it in his book "Decision Points" (at page 308-309):

The initial plan had been for me to land at the New Orleans airport, pick up Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin, and survey the damage on an aerial tour. But on the Marine One flight from Mississippi, we received word that the governor, mayor, and a Louisiana congressional delegation were demanding a private meeting on Air Force One first.

The tone started out tense and got worse. The governor and mayor bickered. Everyone blasted the Federal Emergency Management Agency for failing to meet their needs. Congressman Bobby Jindal pointed out that FEMA had asked people to email their requests, despite the lack of electricity in the city. I shook my head. “We’ll fix it,” I said, looking at FEMA Director Mike Brown. Senator Mary Landrieu interrupted with unproductive emotional outbursts. “Would you please be quiet?” I had to say to her at one point.


I asked to speak to Governor Blanco privately. We walked out of the conference room, through a narrow passageway, and into the small cabin at the front tip of Air Force One. I told her it was clear the state and local response forces had been overwhelmed. “Governor,” I pressed, “you need to authorize the federal government to take charge of the response.”

She told me she needed twenty-four hours to think it over.

“We don’t have twenty-four hours,” I snapped. “We’ve waited too long already.”

The governor refused to give an answer.

Next I asked to meet privately with Mayor Nagin. He had spent four days since Katrina holed up in a downtown hotel. He hadn’t bathed or eaten a hot meal until he used my shower and ate breakfast on Air Force One. In a radio interview the previous evening, he had vented his frustrations with the federal government. “Get off your asses and do something,” he said, “and let’s fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.” Then he broke down in tears. When I met him on the plane, Ray whispered an apology for his outburst and explained that he was exhausted.

I asked the mayor what he thought about federalizing the response. He supported it. “Nobody’s in charge,” he said. “We need a clear chain of command.” But only the governor could request that the federal government assume control of the emergency.

Maybe it makes you Mitt Romney supporters nervous to see Chris Christie working smoothly with President Obama. You need to visualize the alternative. Governor Christie is doing exactly the right thing.

Mitt Romney likes to portray himself as a Republican who can work "across the aisle," and Chris Christie is modeling that very behavior. Message: That's what Republicans do. That's a good message, speaking to the very moderates who might drift over to Obama if the Republicans created friction and rancor in the wake of the hurricane.

"In South Beach, Staten Island, resident Grace Johnson clenched her fists and waved her arms in the air..."

"... as she ran toward a college student from Queens who had come to see the damage and stood across the street taking photos."

"Jesus Christ, will you stop please," she shouted, her eyes welling and voice cracking with emotion. "Why don't you come over here and help sweep… instead of just looking at us."

Arab tweets: gloating over Sandy and criticizing the gloating.

A headline at Al Arabiya News reports on the ugly:

Commenting on the super-storm disaster, one person who identifies himself as a professor of religion tweeted: “We ask God to destroy them all, and not keep one of them,” because the United States “supports war and abuse towards Muslims.”

And the beneficent:

Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti also criticized gloaters over Sandy. He tweeted: “Who told you that children, students, women and men in America wish you [Muslims] death? Politicians like Mubarak and Bush are one thing, and humanity is something else.”

In the same vein, Engy Hamdi, political activist and member of Egypt’s April 6 Movement, wrote on her Twitter account, “Did Islam teach us to gloat amid the misfortunes of people?"

It's interesting to focus on gloating. 

"Local TV news is a sad thing. They ask sad questions and get sad answers."

"It's easier to laugh about it than to think about how State House coverage is dying," said Daniel Moraff, a Brown student and "aspiring comedy writer," whom some fools denounced as an idiot for saying things like "I don't really believe there's a hurricane... I know the government wants us to think that...."

"NYU loses years of scientific research and thousands of mice to Hurricane Sandy."

"Many precious reagents -- special enzymes, antibodies, DNA strands -- generated by scientists and stored at -80 degrees and -20 degrees were likely destroyed...."

Scientists are in a desperate frenzy to save what they can and transfer what can be moved to other areas of the hospital....

Even more alarming, thousands of mice that are used by scientists for cancer research and other experiments, drowned during a flood....

"A presidential candidate who gives millions of dollars a year to charity does a storm relief event in Ohio..."

"... and an MSNBC anchor is disgusted by it because the Red Cross would prefer people donating cash"... even with the large video monitors displaying the message "Sandy: Support the Relief Effort. Text ’REDCROSS’ to 90999 to make a $10 donation."