OK… so I haven’t written for a long time. All two of my readers can sue me. First things first… my most loyal reader is back from Iraq… welcome back Kenny!
So, what’s got me all fired up enough to write again after such a long absence? The hurricanes! The power of God always tends to point out the weakness of man, and boy have we seen some weaknesses recently. I’ll touch on them one at a time in a series of posts. First topic: The Shortsightedness of Man
I’m so sick about hearing that Rita was, “the third-strongest tropical system ever recorded in the Atlantic basin.” News reports, NOAA, commentaries, the local weatherman… Arrrrgh! How short-sighted does one have to be to get suckered in by this statement?
Answer me these questions:
Q: How long is “ever”?
A: For the purposes of hurricane intensity measurements, back to 1854. Looking in the record books, that’s the earliest recorded “record” storm that you’ll find. But even that’s misleading. Those just happen to be storms that crossed the coast where accurate instruments were found and someone was lucky enough to get a measurement and live to tell about it. If you’re going to compare the intensity of storms out in the middle of ocean, then you can only go back to when we started flying into the middle of them (about 40 years), and even then, only the storms that were reachable from land. So, Rita was the third strongest storm ever in the Atlantic basin? Yes it was… to the exclusion of the thousands (or tens of millions if you’re an evolutionist) of years worth of storms prior to it!
Q: What’s the extent of the Atlantic Basin?
A: From Africa to the Americas in the Atlantic. Yeah, we measure all those storms out over the Atlantic, and have from the beginning of time. Right! I’m sure that the average 18th century sailing vessel was able to venture into the eye of a Cat5, take a barometer reading and return to the queen to tell her about it.
For all practical purposes, “ever” consists of the last forty years, and even then, only considering the storms near enough to shore to reach by airplane. But over and over again on the news, we have the breathless reporting of the third largest storm ever! As is typical for man, “ever” consists of about a generation, as if his generation were the only one in the history of mankind. No wonder we keep making the same mistakes over and over and over. As Solomon said, “There is nothing new under the sun.”
