Who is naming these hurricanes? Hurricane Gaston? Hurricane Frances? Hurricane Ivan?

Sounds like a republican in the National Weather Service is naming this season’s major storm systems, recalling the countries who most opposed the war in Iraq. Is that idea too far-fetched?

GASTON? That’s a common name for a boy, in France! FRANCES? Well I suppose that’s something a little less subtle for Americans who don’t recognize any french. And IVAN? Let’s see, who else opposed us about the war?

What’s next? Hurricane Fritz? Gunther? Maybe just GERRY! The fourth signatory against us was Belgium. What’s a Belgian name? Hurricane JACQUES BREL!

It shouldn’t come as a suprise that the NWS might be politicized. After all, even The National Science Foundation is being made to refute the cataclism that is global warming, against all international consensus. Which leads me to another worry:

Absentee ballots. Everyone is hyping absentee ballots as a means to pre-empt republican operatives from stealing the elections. But those ballots have to be mailed in. We have to be able to trust the US Postal Service to deliver our ballots. Do we know there aren’t republican directors planning to re-direct non-republican votes into a circular file?

This just in. The next storm system after Ivan… brewing in the Atlantic… threatening the Dominican Republic… It’s… Hurricane JEANNE! JEANNE D’ARC?

It occured to me that weather systems are usually named in alphabetical order. They’re named early on, and the ones to hit shore are the ones we hear about. It looks like there were two other minor storms they thought might make the news: DANIELLE and HERMINE!

Kerry’s French some people say.