Jindal vs. The Volcano

Bobby Jindal delivered the Republican response, and staying true to the current fad in the party, decided to pick out several minute spending items that total a fraction of a fraction of a percent, and single them out to damn the whole thing (ignoring the larger question of whether Gov't. spending can actually stimulate the economy, which is frankly a more interesting issue). So he decided to criticise a few things that weren't actually in the bill at all, and one thing...

I stood agast - well, not stood. I was busy driving when I heard that. But I drove agast. Turns out people from states with volcanos? They think he made a pretty big ass of himself. Like Washington, and Alaska. I can't find the Hawaii story I saw yesterday, but you can imagine that comment wasn't especially popular there, either. One person went as far to sarcastically ask,

Volcano Monitoring? Is that sort of like Huricane Forecasting? Who gets Huricanes, anyhow?

which got a smile out of me. Scientific America has a story about what Volcano Monitoring is all about, and while it's on par for an average Sci-Am story (which is to say, it could use some work), it's got the basics.

Apparently, his collegues are derriding the response in general as especially awful. Except Rush Limbaugh, but he'd defend a lump of frozen dog crap if it called itself a Republican. What's it take to go from `rising star of the party` to `yet another Lousiana political hack?` Apparently, it takes Little Bobby Volcano.