A Blizzard of Random Thoughts

English: This is an alternate crop of an image already uploaded. See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Gov._Sarah_Palin_in_Dover,_NH.jpg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Blizzard of 2016 (or Winter Storm Jonas, if you believe the Weather Channel) that affected the East Coast was certainly one for the record books, with up to three feet of snow in most places between New York and Washington.  Nearly thirty are dead, thousands of flights either delayed or canceled, Broadway and other events shut down, and millions of dollars are or will be spent on cleanup due to piles of snow or rising flood waters.

To paraphrase former House speaker Tip O'Neil, all weather is local.  Unless you live on the East Coast, which means the rest of the country has to hear about your big wet snowstorm.  If this had happened anywhere else, would we be seeing so much coverage?

You won't hear much about what the blizzard has to do with climate change, because the media fears offending the Republicans and other deniers who write their checks.  But we've heard plenty about how this is the work of El Nino, the weather phenomenon where jet streams bring storms to the coasts while much of the Midwest remains dry.  Could it be that climate change is just making things worse?

So where was President Barack Obama during all this?  You'd think that with Washington getting the brunt of the storm, staying in the White House would be a national security concern.

Sarah Palin is endorsing Donald Trump for President.  While these two former reality TV stars are tailor-made for "Saturday Night Live" parodies, conservatives and anyone else with a brain are heading for the exits.  What other idiotic comments have yet to come from Palin's mouth that could come back to haunt the Trump campaign, such as her blaming President Obama's lack of respect for veterans for her son's arrest on charges of domestic violence?  Or, given that this is Trump we're talking about, we're past the point of no return.

In the latest Star Tribune Minnesota Poll, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida--not Trump or Texas Senator Ted Cruz--leads among the Republican candidates.  Democrat Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders by a wide margin, but the former Secretary of State would have problems beating Rubio or any other GOP candidate head-to-head.  Maybe all that baggage is about to collapse on her?

What's happening in Flint, Michigan is why we shouldn't be too hasty about banning drinking water in plastic bottles.  Anyone who makes a boneheaded decision based on budget to get its drinking water from a nearby polluted river, causing thousands of residents to develop toxic levels of lead poisoning, should go jump in that river.