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Unprecedented super-hysteria — 58 Comments

  1. 'merican weaklings wouldn't survive one of our regular weather nor'easters my friend visiting from Florida one fall just about crapped herself during the storm that was causing small worry for myself and my other…is there enough beer in or was it bed early if the power flicked out. beer held power held and we had a regular evening mostly making sport of our buddy who eventually had enough beer to calm down.

    • You surprise me that someone from Florida should be worried about the weather?  I would have thought that she was well used to hurricanes, which are hardly unknown in Florida?

      • thats the point, hurricane type storms are pretty damn common place in the late fall here, nor'easters

  2. 16 dead so far, 7 million  (that's more people than the population of Ireland) without power, 20 billion dollars damage (that's more than Ireland is worth.)

    Having said that yes you are right about the media hysteria. If J.C. came back to earth yesterday for the second coming his arrival wouldn't have got a lick of news here. One good thing is it's  taken attention away from politics for a week.

    Also, it is to do with climate change. Extreme weather patterns like this will become more common. Already are.

    • I'm not making light of the individual tragedies that have resulted from the storm.  In fact I am surprised that the casualty figures are so low [though they usually climb in the following days as victims are discovered].  And 7 million is nearly twice Ireland's population!  I am surprised at the widespread disruption though.  Are Americans really that unprepared?

      Extreme weather happens on a regular basis and always has.  Every time an extreme happens we hear it is "the worst since 1920" or the "driest since 1968" or whatever.  After all, we had our own little hurricane back in 1986 but haven't had one since.  Maybe 1986 was the peak for "extreme weather"?

        • Not sure what the population here is now but it's somewhere around 3.5 to 4 million.  What did you think it was?

            • You could be right.  It used to be around the 3.5 million until all those Poles, Estonians and Ugandans arrived.  Place is overrun with foreigners.

              • Population as of July 2012, 4.7 million in the Republic and 1.8 million in the North. About 87% of the population being ethnic Irish whatever that means.

  3. Yes, this is all we will get rammed down our throats and up our backsides for the next week or so…

    Of course it is sad about the 17 dead, but when this sort of thing happens in say Bangladesh and there are thousands of dead, the world says, 'oh dear, how sad, give some cash and in other news…'  BBC is running half hourly live press statements being made for the NY locals for fecks sake!  Apparently all primary schools in NY are to remain closed.  I really, really needed to know that. Jeez, give it a rest.

    • When you compare it with the 230,000 who died in the Indian Ocean tsunami, you get a sense of perspective.  And I would imagine that there are well over 17 violent deaths here in Ireland every fortnight, between murders and road deaths?

  4. Not so much unprepared as fucking stupid. They won't put cables underground. They have them strung along telegraph poles. Would cut into their profits to pay to bury them. Corporations own the politicians here (especially the Republican cunts) so nothing changes.

    • There again, they go and put their company computer servers down in the basement.  Servers + water = not very good idea.

    • Don't forget the evil people who won't recycle, we are in cahoots you know.

      Will anyone give me odds on how soon we hear about it being the fault and proof of global warming climate change?

    • Yup.  They really ought to ban outdoor smoking.  It should be discreetly confined to pubs and offices.

  5. I tell you GD it makes my blood boil how fucking stupid we are. Half of the voters, working/middle class will vote for a guy who's running on a platform of more tax cuts for the stinkin' rich and de-regulation of Wall St. Exactly the same policies that got us in the shit in the first place. Stupin fucking assholes. I don't mind rich folks voting GOP but it really pisses me off when we do. There's a lot of racism in it too.

    • We are in the same boat here.  I just received a letter informing me that my pension is to be reduced due to a fucking "levy" introduced by the gubmint.  So I am now paying yet another fucking tax to pay those cunts in Germany who invested in dud banks.

      At least you have colour coded your candidates.  All ours are exactly the same colour and are indistinguishable from each other.  They are all a shower of fucking cunts, without exception.

  6. GD, our gubmint and the media have been trying to make us all live in fear for years now. Everytime you turn around they're screaming about something else to terrify us. If it's not a superstorm it's a potential terrorist attack by some hapless idiot who got entrapped by the fbi or nsa or some such. ( and of course the plot was foiled at the last second).

    It's election time here so you can bet they will keep this going at least until all the votes are cast.

    And tt,  it is nice to read someone else here in the states who holds the same sentiment as me. We seem to live in country of brain dead idots who couldn't think their way out of a paper bag.

     

    • It's a well known tactic – a frightened population is much easier to control.  For as long as I remember we have been living in fear of some impending doom.  Just look at how they milked the Cold War!.

  7. "– if it happened before, it is not unprecedented."

     

    Another favourite of broadcasters is "It's quite / really / very unique"

     

    Hey, shit-for-brains, unique doesn't have qualifiers. It's either unique or it's not.

     

    Back on topic. As you point out, the tsunami that hit Asia in 2004 was what I would consider a real disaster. I don't mean to belittle the problems being caused in NY, but it's not quite on the same scale.

    • Or the one they love in sports reporting – a historic win/goal/victory/whatever.  [Some occasionally get it right and say an historic!].  Are the children of future generations really going to read about it in their history books?  In all my years I can honestly say that I have experienced a mere handful of historic events and not one of 'em had anything to do with sport.

  8. My pal over there was telling me that Roomney doesn't believe in equal pay.  Imagine that?

    He's a bit of a feminist.. annoyed him a lot.   Must give a call and see if all ok.  
    They do tend to go on a bit on the news all right GD.   Total drama queens. 
    I find it funny when they have these terror alert colour levels  for the whole country..  You'd hear on the news there.. "today the president has issued the alert orange.   There's green, yellow, orange and red.. each one is an indicator of how excited you should get. Red – forget about it. Tis pandemonium altogether.  

    • Another thing Merkans love is "military speak".  Code red [substitute the colour of your choice] is a great example.  Things rarely happen now – it's nearly always "at this moment in time".  I heard one fire brigade bloke last night declaring "we are now entering rescue mode".  Why couldn't he just say they were rescuing people? 

  9. I'm in couldn't give a fiddlers mode myself GD.. beats me.  🙂

    It's all posturing bullshit. really… I blame men.. too much ego. 

  10. Funny, innit….Ther Merkins always have to do things bigger and more exaggerated than anyone else, bigger cars, bigger shops, bigger ships, bigger storms, bigger space ships, a regular fucking Hollywood….even bigger buildings exploding and falling down….incredible effects, the hysteria, the TV coverage, the movies.

    FFS maybe The Merkins have reasons sometimes to complain about the weather etc. too. We Oirish are always fucking moaning when we get a rainy day of it gets cold, like – 1 or 2.

    Imagine if we had tornadoes and hurricanes, Ice Storms, real flooding and freezing temperatures like -20 or lower.

    We might be whinging at full full tilt then too.

    I will say though, what fucking gobshite came up with the idea of wooden houses in a part of the world with so much wind.

    • Just made the mistake of switching on Bloomberg to see if they have shut up yet.  Nope.  Don Chu back reporting form the waterside with another hysterical report and every sentence ending with "right now".  So they have no power?  Big fucking deal.  They should try living here!

      We may not have that many hurricanes here but flooding and power cuts are a regular part of winter. 

      • OMG! its raining outside and its cold….wtf are going to do? Lets whinge about it.

        The Merkins love to talk, just talk, talk, talk. Well, it better than whinging.

        We live on a foggy boggy swamp and should be used to it. Sure half of us have webbed feet.

        • Is that SUPER rain and MEGA cold?  Quick!  That's a Code Fifty Niner, Status Red.  Right NOW!

      • Yep….they make 'em big in Merka all right.

        Once in a Lifetime, Super storm, Hurricane Sandy………..The Merkins evacuate hundreds of thousands of people.

        Gale force Winds (force 12) in Irelnad………………eh! Jasus lads get the sheep in……

    • Ha!  Beloved Irish Husband (who's a builder) made exactly the same comment … "why don't they build concrete block houses here?"  We're lucky, ours is stone.  Nothing to blow off except the roof.

      We got some wind, some rain, and at about 11:30 Monday night the interwebs went down and as such put an end to our Netflix streaming mid-episode.  The only one in our house who got really perturbed was the pup, she was all a-tremble after the worst was over.  Go figure.  Maybe she heard the trees falling a couple of blocks away … we sure didn't.

      Just glad I don't live closer to the Jersey Shore (for many reasons, Snooki being but one).

      • Welcome E!  But hold on now – the Interweb going down is an emergency and should be treated as a Super-Code Red.  My sympathies are with the dog though.  No sadder sight than a frightened dog….

  11. That previous storm was back in 1859; people just got on with their lives, elections were still held, the government was not expected to pull miracles out of their collective hats and we didn't have cretins blaming a non existant AGW for filling the air with wind blown polar bears. That storm was more severe than this one as well.

  12. I hate how journalists use military terminology to describe every distressing event, 'I'm here at 'ground zero'!…' no you're blinking not! Merika v Mother the war is on.

    • Welcome J.K.  I couldn't agree more.  That "Ground Zero" shit comes from testing nuclear bombs and should be left in the history books.  And while I am at it – they insist on calling the event "Nine Eleven" as if it was some kind of code.  And it didn't happen on the ninth of November anyway!

  13. It is the fault of a bunch of dumb Dutchmen that built New Amsterdam on a low lying swamp at the mouth of two rivers. 

    Modern cities are livable only is the best of times. Lose power or water or communications or transportation, r anyone of dozen other things and everything goes to hell. I am sure we will borrow more money to send to New York City and other smaller cities.  Meanwhile those in the counrty will pump out the water, sweep out the mud, and rebuild using there own money. 

    • They should never have bought the place from the natives!  Mind you – they should have left the entire continent to the natives, but that's another story.

  14. ….and best beware of the Robber Barons, O'Romneys, of County Mayo which is is a white sandwich spread in these parts.

  15. Yo Yo & Kirk M – It's not the Merkan people so much as the Merkan meeja.  They are the ones who are pushing everything out of all proportions.  They try to turn News into Entertainment, an every minor incident into a major headline.  If they did away with channel ratings over there, Merkan television would be a lot calmer.

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