At 04:08 PM 10/2/2004 -0700 David Brin wrote: >Ah, more BS. Oh really?
>Of COURSE the widely circulated illustration was >tendentious and exaggerated to the point of lying. >Duh. You are right that the storm tracks are - even >at highest intensity - tens of miles wide. Poor St. >Lucie County got whacked bad. A Gore state. So? It sounds like you are agreeing with me. Or is it BS? BTW, these were not "exaggerations" of the storm's track. The storms' track is publicly available, and even if one only mapped the track of the hurricane eye, the map would be much, much, different than what is represented. The most glaring lies are in implying that the eye of Hurricane Frances somehow passed by the Gore counties of metropolitan Tampa, as well as the Gore counties around Tallahassee. >I don't claim God is smiting FLA. THAT is for junk >head nut jobs like the jerks who said NYC was gettin >its just desserts. > >But still, it is really tasty and eerie. > >FACT. The main area... MAIN areas... to vote >democratic in 2000 were the population centers areound >Dade county and BY ANY MEASURE they were by far the >least affected by these FOUR storms. > >Live with it. If anyone can make sense of the above four paragraphs please let me know. As near as I can tell, Dr. Brin is telling us that he sent us not one, not two, but at least three messages implying that God is smiting Florida because.... that sort of thing is for junk head nut jobs who find it really "tasty and eerie." ????? At any rate, for someone who doesn't claim to be making an argument about God smiting Florida, you do seem awfully vociferous (and repetitive) about defending that argument.... ;-) Anyhow, as a quick look at the following map will demonstrate: http://www.usatoday.com/news/vote2000/cbc/map.htm Bush tended to win rural counties in 2000, whereas Gore remained competitive by racking up big vote totals in comparatively smaller urban counties. Thus, it would be nearly impossible for any kind of "map track" to largely bypass the rural, Bush areas, while primarily hitting the urban, Gore areas. This becomes even less remarkable when you narrow it down to a single urban area in the remote corner of a single State. FACT: The heavily Republican Jacksonville metro area were spared hurricane damage comparably to the sparing of the Metro Miami area. FACT: Seven people died in the Miami-West Palm Beach metro area, which voted most heavily for Gore, due to this year's hurricanes. FACT: Volusia County, which voted for Gore, had 6 deaths, which was the second-most deaths of any county (Escambia, on the Alabama border had 7.) All told, 26 people died in "Gore Counties"... maybe they were all Bush voters, though. What I can't get over Dr. Brin, is why you won't just admit that you got suckered-in by a dumb chain e-mail, that while blatantly false, was purporting to provide you information which you wanted to believe. You then passed this chain letter along without comment. It is a very natural human flaw that we all think less critically about those bits of information that match our preconceptions. Yet, instead of admitting this, you accuse me of writing, quote, "more BS" and treat me with contempt. I don't get it. In the meantime, I personally don't find anything particularly "tasty" about 75 deaths in the US alone, and thousands of people losing their homes and livelihoods. But I'll admit that I'm a little biased by having family in South Florida, and having friends in Grenada (which didn't vote for Bush, last I checked.) While I'll concede that many people have different senses of humor, it seems to me that partisan humor is in particularly bad taste in this sort of situation - especially when it is this dumb. JDG _______________________________________________________ John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] "The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03 _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
