Santorum is back in the news today as once again he attempts to discredit the National Weather Service.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?news ... 5812&rfi=6
NWS employees give Senator Santorum the old 1-2!
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donsutherland1
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Re: NWS employees give Senator Santorum the old 1-2!
It is most unfortunate that Senator Santorum has chosen to exploit a terrible catastrophe for political advantage. That's not the judgment of a leader. In my view, it's not even ethical.
It is very unfortunate that he could not find the integrity to acknowledge that the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service provided timely warnings that saved many lives. With Senator Santorum choosing to "play games" with the facts, perhaps one should make the argument that the failure of New Orleans' 17th Street levee is a symptom that Senators like Mr. Santorum had lost focus and failed to budget for priorities?
Indeed, with the Senator levying borderline unethical charges at the NWS and NHC, I'm going to hold him partly responsible for the disaster that resulted. Had Senator Santorum paid attention to longstanding warnings of the potential disaster a major hurricane strike on New Orleans could inflict, he would have used his Senator Leadership position to good purpose and had seen that New Orleans received the flood protection it needed. The Dutch provided Amsterdam and Rotterdam with such protection after that nation's devastating floods of 1953. Senator Santorum should have worked to give New Orleans, the nation's largest port, the flood protection it so urgently needed. He didn't.
Let's turn back the clock to 1993 to provide yet another example of the longstanding nature of the problem confronting New Orleans. On August 18, 1993, The New York Times reported, "...no urban area is in more danger from a major hurricane than this steamy soup bowl of a city--six feet below sea level and bordered largely by water--where sustained winds and overflowing lakes could trap many of the metropolitan area's 1.2 million people under 20 feet of water."
Also , if one examines landfalling major hurricanes, just over 1 in 5 of the strongest hurricanes ever to make U.S. landfall since 1851 have done so across Louisiana.
Bottom line:
∙ The catastrophic risk facing New Orleans was well-known for a long time
∙ New Orleans faced a substantial risk from landfalling major hurricanes
Given that the Senator wants to blame the NWS and NHC when their forecasts were very good and sufficiently well in advance, it's more than fair that he be held responsible for failing to use his position in the Senate Leadership to work to remedy a potential well-known catastrophe for which there was a high probability of its occurring.
The NHC and NWS knew what was coming to New Orleans and provided the appropriate warnings even in most apocalyptic terms. They did their jobs.
In contrast, the Senator didn't do his. The threat confronting New Orleans was widely publicized for years and the major hurricane data was starkly clear that the threat was very real. Senator Santorum should have known about that threat and acted. He didn't. His "priorities" were elsewhere. Ignorance isn't a legitimate legal defense and therefore, given the borderline unethical charges the Senator threw at the NHC and NWS, I don't believe his apparent inaction in dealing with New Orleans' urgent need for world-class flood protection should be excusable even if he were not fully aware of the threats facing the city. The information was widely-publicized. He should have known. Most importantly, he should have acted.
The NHC and NWS acted and did a very good job. The Senator failed to act in spite of his position of Leadership within the Senate. Those are the facts. Thus, he bears some responsibility for his failure to provide the leadership a Senator in his position of influence should have provided in fighting to give New Orleans the protection it needed and for the consequences of this failure to lead.
This is a much harsher judgment than I would make except in exceptional circumstances. I find the Senator's unethically seeking to exploit the nation's worst-ever tragedy and crude attempt to pass undeserved blame on the NHC and NWS just such circumstances. This is a man who has failed to lead and whose seeking to exploit the Katrina catastrophe illustrates yet again that he is not fit--in terms of judgment and ethics--to serve in the Senate.
It is very unfortunate that he could not find the integrity to acknowledge that the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service provided timely warnings that saved many lives. With Senator Santorum choosing to "play games" with the facts, perhaps one should make the argument that the failure of New Orleans' 17th Street levee is a symptom that Senators like Mr. Santorum had lost focus and failed to budget for priorities?
Indeed, with the Senator levying borderline unethical charges at the NWS and NHC, I'm going to hold him partly responsible for the disaster that resulted. Had Senator Santorum paid attention to longstanding warnings of the potential disaster a major hurricane strike on New Orleans could inflict, he would have used his Senator Leadership position to good purpose and had seen that New Orleans received the flood protection it needed. The Dutch provided Amsterdam and Rotterdam with such protection after that nation's devastating floods of 1953. Senator Santorum should have worked to give New Orleans, the nation's largest port, the flood protection it so urgently needed. He didn't.
Let's turn back the clock to 1993 to provide yet another example of the longstanding nature of the problem confronting New Orleans. On August 18, 1993, The New York Times reported, "...no urban area is in more danger from a major hurricane than this steamy soup bowl of a city--six feet below sea level and bordered largely by water--where sustained winds and overflowing lakes could trap many of the metropolitan area's 1.2 million people under 20 feet of water."
Also , if one examines landfalling major hurricanes, just over 1 in 5 of the strongest hurricanes ever to make U.S. landfall since 1851 have done so across Louisiana.
Bottom line:
∙ The catastrophic risk facing New Orleans was well-known for a long time
∙ New Orleans faced a substantial risk from landfalling major hurricanes
Given that the Senator wants to blame the NWS and NHC when their forecasts were very good and sufficiently well in advance, it's more than fair that he be held responsible for failing to use his position in the Senate Leadership to work to remedy a potential well-known catastrophe for which there was a high probability of its occurring.
The NHC and NWS knew what was coming to New Orleans and provided the appropriate warnings even in most apocalyptic terms. They did their jobs.
In contrast, the Senator didn't do his. The threat confronting New Orleans was widely publicized for years and the major hurricane data was starkly clear that the threat was very real. Senator Santorum should have known about that threat and acted. He didn't. His "priorities" were elsewhere. Ignorance isn't a legitimate legal defense and therefore, given the borderline unethical charges the Senator threw at the NHC and NWS, I don't believe his apparent inaction in dealing with New Orleans' urgent need for world-class flood protection should be excusable even if he were not fully aware of the threats facing the city. The information was widely-publicized. He should have known. Most importantly, he should have acted.
The NHC and NWS acted and did a very good job. The Senator failed to act in spite of his position of Leadership within the Senate. Those are the facts. Thus, he bears some responsibility for his failure to provide the leadership a Senator in his position of influence should have provided in fighting to give New Orleans the protection it needed and for the consequences of this failure to lead.
This is a much harsher judgment than I would make except in exceptional circumstances. I find the Senator's unethically seeking to exploit the nation's worst-ever tragedy and crude attempt to pass undeserved blame on the NHC and NWS just such circumstances. This is a man who has failed to lead and whose seeking to exploit the Katrina catastrophe illustrates yet again that he is not fit--in terms of judgment and ethics--to serve in the Senate.
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Stratosphere747
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"Predictions were that it wasn't going to go out to the gulf and affect the western gulf coast, it was going to sort of head up to Florida or go right off the coast of Florida."
"I'm not going to suggest when it comes to Katrina that there were any major errors," he went on to say in the same interview. "I don't know. This is something that I think needs to be investigated."
Following the union's criticism, Santorum released a statement Friday saying that "I hope as we go forward to review the various aspects related to Hurricane Katrina that we also look at whether the forecasts and warnings provided the necessary information to preserve lives and property."
Being that we are to refrain from making political comments...
My detest for Santorum has reached the pinnacle. To make the comments as those above, is beyond belief.
Scott
"I'm not going to suggest when it comes to Katrina that there were any major errors," he went on to say in the same interview. "I don't know. This is something that I think needs to be investigated."
Following the union's criticism, Santorum released a statement Friday saying that "I hope as we go forward to review the various aspects related to Hurricane Katrina that we also look at whether the forecasts and warnings provided the necessary information to preserve lives and property."
Being that we are to refrain from making political comments...
My detest for Santorum has reached the pinnacle. To make the comments as those above, is beyond belief.
Scott
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Skywatch_NC
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yeah, let's kill the mailman for delivering the bills... 
Geeze, we should issue a press release stating that...
"Lawmakers could have saved lives, just by monitoring virtual weather community(message boards)."
How silly to put that finger-pointing spin on the tragedy.
Maybe we should also charge, for manslaughter, certain documentary journalists like the WGBH Nova program for no doing enough to make the public aware of such an imminent danger.
Or better yet take it to the ultimate in illogical, charge them with mass murder, because they didn't present the facts clearly enough, on purpose!
Ugh!
Geeze, we should issue a press release stating that...
"Lawmakers could have saved lives, just by monitoring virtual weather community(message boards)."
How silly to put that finger-pointing spin on the tragedy.
Maybe we should also charge, for manslaughter, certain documentary journalists like the WGBH Nova program for no doing enough to make the public aware of such an imminent danger.
Or better yet take it to the ultimate in illogical, charge them with mass murder, because they didn't present the facts clearly enough, on purpose!
Ugh!
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Senator Santorum, who has been the beneficiary of Accuweather's campaign contributions, has tried to limit public access to the NHC's products, including the computer products upon which many of us on this board rely. The bill he has introduced would require us to pay for services such as Accuweather to get essential data. So when he complains about the NHC's performance -- which was outstanding during Katrina (unlike other public agencies), he is only playing puppet to his special interests' puppetmaster. I find his conduct dishonest and despicable -- trying to cash in on this tragedy to further his political agenda. That said, my own Congresswoman (Nancy Pelosi) has been engaging in similar despicable behavior. The lives and losses caused by this disaster should not be considered fodder for political posturing. It demeans what happened.
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First of all...Don...wow somebody got an A in English Composition, huh? If you are not a writer for aliving you should seriously consider that carrer path. Seriously.
It's disheartning how disconnected our leaders are...in general. "senator" Santorum's comments on the NWS and the NHC would be similar to me saying something like "that Dr really screwed up that quintuple bypass".
I don't know a dang thing about heart surgery, and the soon-to-be-former Senator from PA, and he's still trailing in the polls, doesn't know a da&m thing about meteorology.
Please...any citizens of PA reading this message...oust your so-called weather expert from office next November. If he can't get this right...goodness knows what else he's out to lunch on.
MW
It's disheartning how disconnected our leaders are...in general. "senator" Santorum's comments on the NWS and the NHC would be similar to me saying something like "that Dr really screwed up that quintuple bypass".
I don't know a dang thing about heart surgery, and the soon-to-be-former Senator from PA, and he's still trailing in the polls, doesn't know a da&m thing about meteorology.
Please...any citizens of PA reading this message...oust your so-called weather expert from office next November. If he can't get this right...goodness knows what else he's out to lunch on.
MW
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Updating on the twitter now: http://www.twitter.com/@watkinstrack
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Skywatch_NC
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Stratosphere747
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HurricaneBill
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HurricaneBill
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Santorum's pimping for AccuWeather is disgusting and corrupt. We taxpayers bought the radars, satellites, and computer modelling programs, but people like AccuWeather want to force you to pay them (like $249.99 a year) to see the information that we have already paid for through our taxes.
As for his criticism of the NHC, their 11pm advisory on Friday, Aug 26th (~60hrs prior to landfall, give or take), was absolutely spot on. Mayfield ended up calling the LA gov and NO mayor at thier homes and begged them to evacuate NO. What else could they have done? Santorum is an idiot.
As for his criticism of the NHC, their 11pm advisory on Friday, Aug 26th (~60hrs prior to landfall, give or take), was absolutely spot on. Mayfield ended up calling the LA gov and NO mayor at thier homes and begged them to evacuate NO. What else could they have done? Santorum is an idiot.
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lwg8tr
Re: NWS employees give Senator Santorum the old 1-2!
donsutherland1 wrote:It is most unfortunate that Senator Santorum has chosen to exploit a terrible catastrophe for political advantage. That's not the judgment of a leader. In my view, it's not even ethical.
It is very unfortunate that he could not find the integrity to acknowledge that the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service provided timely warnings that saved many lives. With Senator Santorum choosing to "play games" with the facts, perhaps one should make the argument that the failure of New Orleans' 17th Street levee is a symptom that Senators like Mr. Santorum had lost focus and failed to budget for priorities?
Indeed, with the Senator levying borderline unethical charges at the NWS and NHC, I'm going to hold him partly responsible for the disaster that resulted. Had Senator Santorum paid attention to longstanding warnings of the potential disaster a major hurricane strike on New Orleans could inflict, he would have used his Senator Leadership position to good purpose and had seen that New Orleans received the flood protection it needed. The Dutch provided Amsterdam and Rotterdam with such protection after that nation's devastating floods of 1953. Senator Santorum should have worked to give New Orleans, the nation's largest port, the flood protection it so urgently needed. He didn't.
Let's turn back the clock to 1993 to provide yet another example of the longstanding nature of the problem confronting New Orleans. On August 18, 1993, The New York Times reported, "...no urban area is in more danger from a major hurricane than this steamy soup bowl of a city--six feet below sea level and bordered largely by water--where sustained winds and overflowing lakes could trap many of the metropolitan area's 1.2 million people under 20 feet of water."
Also , if one examines landfalling major hurricanes, just over 1 in 5 of the strongest hurricanes ever to make U.S. landfall since 1851 have done so across Louisiana.
Bottom line:
∙ The catastrophic risk facing New Orleans was well-known for a long time
∙ New Orleans faced a substantial risk from landfalling major hurricanes
Given that the Senator wants to blame the NWS and NHC when their forecasts were very good and sufficiently well in advance, it's more than fair that he be held responsible for failing to use his position in the Senate Leadership to work to remedy a potential well-known catastrophe for which there was a high probability of its occurring.
The NHC and NWS knew what was coming to New Orleans and provided the appropriate warnings even in most apocalyptic terms. They did their jobs.
In contrast, the Senator didn't do his. The threat confronting New Orleans was widely publicized for years and the major hurricane data was starkly clear that the threat was very real. Senator Santorum should have known about that threat and acted. He didn't. His "priorities" were elsewhere. Ignorance isn't a legitimate legal defense and therefore, given the borderline unethical charges the Senator threw at the NHC and NWS, I don't believe his apparent inaction in dealing with New Orleans' urgent need for world-class flood protection should be excusable even if he were not fully aware of the threats facing the city. The information was widely-publicized. He should have known. Most importantly, he should have acted.
The NHC and NWS acted and did a very good job. The Senator failed to act in spite of his position of Leadership within the Senate. Those are the facts. Thus, he bears some responsibility for his failure to provide the leadership a Senator in his position of influence should have provided in fighting to give New Orleans the protection it needed and for the consequences of this failure to lead.
This is a much harsher judgment than I would make except in exceptional circumstances. I find the Senator's unethically seeking to exploit the nation's worst-ever tragedy and crude attempt to pass undeserved blame on the NHC and NWS just such circumstances. This is a man who has failed to lead and whose seeking to exploit the Katrina catastrophe illustrates yet again that he is not fit--in terms of judgment and ethics--to serve in the Senate.
I find most of the posts here a bit disingenuous to say the least. I may get banned for saying this but the mods here seem to wield their power swiftly when a person posting here is of the right side of the political spectrum, but when it's a conservative under the gun, its fair game. Has this board turned into a MoveOn.org or Democratic Underground mouthpiece? Bottom line is it wasn’t Rick Santorum’s job to bring the levee problem up. You all need to direct your venom at Mary Landrieu who by the way is on the Appropriations Committee and could have brought the problem up many times in her tenure, but didn’t. Her family has been in Louisiana politics for years and where have the billions been spent? Hmmmm??? Why no criticism of Sheila Jackson Lee and the congressional black caucus for their idiotic statements. Or the Democratic hacks like Hillary Clinton, Dick Durbin and Nancy Pellosi jumping all over this like a German Shepard on read meat for political gain. So save the false indignation unless you’re willing to apply the same standard to your own party apparatchiks
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Re: NWS employees give Senator Santorum the old 1-2!
lwg8tr wrote:
I find most of the posts here a bit disingenuous to say the least. I may get banned for saying this but the mods here seem to wield their power swiftly when a person posting here is of the right side of the political spectrum, but when it's a conservative under the gun, its fair game. Has this board turned into a MoveOn.org or Democratic Underground mouthpiece? Bottom line is it wasn’t Rick Santorum’s job to bring the levee problem up. You all need to direct your venom at Mary Landrieu who by the way is on the Appropriations Committee and could have brought the problem up many times in her tenure, but didn’t. Her family has been in Louisiana politics for years and where have the billions been spent? Hmmmm??? Why no criticism of Sheila Jackson Lee and the congressional black caucus for their idiotic statements. Or the Democratic hacks like Hillary Clinton, Dick Durbin and Nancy Pellosi jumping all over this like a German Shepard on read meat for political gain. So save the false indignation unless you’re willing to apply the same standard to your own party apparatchiks
Wrong. I'm a member of Freerepublic.com, have been for nearly 7 years (screenname is flair2000), and several Freepers and myself have been railing against Santorum over his idiotic comments and actions. Corruption=corruption, regardless of whether the officeholder has (R) or (D) after their name. If a there were a Democratic senator from Pennsylvania taking campaign cash from a large Pennsylvania based private weather firm, and the aformentioned senator was pushing a bill to stop public dissemination of weather information and shift it to the private sector, and the aformentioned private large Pennsylvania based weather firm stood to make a mint since they just so happened to have bunched all the info up into a "premium" site, I would be shouting and screaming just as hard. Just because the aformentioned senator happens to be a Republican makes no difference to me. His attacks on the NHC and NWS are beyond contempt.
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