Disaster Disparity

One was going to comment on the disparity between TV and print media coverage of the crisis in New Orleans and that being provided by bloggers and others on the Internet. But then Mark Alexander said it first and so much better.

Alexander answers some of those who are attempting to make political mileage from the disaster and also addresses the mumbo-jumbo merchants who think Katrina is Gaia's Revenge:

Despite assertions about "global-warming hurricanes," renowned meteorologist Dr. William Gray, in a recent interview with Discover magazine (which has advocated the theory of human-induced global warming), begged to differ: "This human-induced global-warming thing...is grossly exaggerated. ... I'm not disputing there has been global warming. There was a lot of global warming in the 1930s and '40s, and then there was global cooling in the middle '40s to the early '70s. Nearly all of my colleagues who have been around 40 or 50 years are skeptical...about this global-warming thing. But no one asks us." Gray was described by Discover magazine's editors as one of "the world's most famous hurricane experts." But what do they know.

He also touches on the issue arising from Katrina likely to touch most people throughout the Western world, the rising price of oil:

On the topic of fossil fuel, OPEC oil topped $70/barrel this week, though it costs the money-grubbing cartel a mere $4/barrel to produce. (If memory serves, we liberated this region from tyranny twice in recent history, yet no offer of reduced oil prices to help alleviate our refining crisis has been forthcoming.) President Bush will surely be blamed for our high gas prices and our limited refining capabilities -- but those casting the blame are the same folks who have blocked construction of a single U.S. refinement facility since 1976.

-- Nick