(2007-10-29) — With the success of last week’s simulated news conference on the California wildfires by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), mid-level bureaucrats at the disaster-relief agency have reportedly initiated plans to stage “natural” disasters as well.
The imitation news briefing, which featured FEMA employees pretending to be genuine journalists, was “just a test run for the more ambitious pilot program of engineered catastrophes designed to help even out the work flow during the year,” according to one unnamed source inside the agency.
“Due to the unreliable nature of floods, wildfires, tornadoes and blizzards,” the source said, “FEMA employees have a lot of down time, during which there’s little else to do but post notes about their boredom on Facebook or Twitter, and of course, to manufacture realistic-looking PR events. When we start creating these centrally-planned natural tragedies on a quarterly basis, it will help to keep their minds engaged, and ultimately, will result in a more experienced crew to deal with the aftermath of unpredictable freelance disasters.”
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff initially blasted FEMA staffers for faking the news conference, replete with “softball questions” designed to reflect well on the agency’s handling of the California wildfires. However, today, after watching video of the event, Mr. Chertoff released a statement noting “perhaps I was too harsh at first.”
“The video shows people pretending to be objective journalists in a simulated search for the truth,” Mr. Chertoff said, “In other words, it was just like a regular news conference, except this time the phony reporters actually knew something about the topic, behaved respectfully and didn’t try to make the story all about them.
41 responses so far ↓
1 everthink // Oct 29, 2007 at 7:20 am
Make that "national" disaster, wiil you?
2 Hawkeye // Oct 29, 2007 at 8:18 am
I guess that would make it a “fake but accurate” news conference?
3 Hawkeye // Oct 29, 2007 at 8:24 am
Maybe it should be re-named to…
Federal Emergency Mistakes Agency?
4 Michelle Malkin » What does FEMA stand for: Fake Emergency Media Actors; Chertoff condemns FEMA stupidity - pot meet kettle!l Update: The FEMA photoshop fun continues // Oct 29, 2007 at 8:29 am
[...] Satirist Scott Ott has a sneak peek at FEMA’s fabricated folly to come: Next, FEMA Plans to Stage “Natural†Disasters. Wouldn’t put it past them. [...]
5 Libby Gone // Oct 29, 2007 at 8:39 am
Stage Natural Disasters?????
I thought that President Bush did that.
6 camojack // Oct 29, 2007 at 9:03 am
Yes, I guess being staged precludes them from being natural…
7 Fred Sinclair // Oct 29, 2007 at 9:19 am
Every time that Scott comes up with a new winner, I am forced to the conclusion that now he must retire, he’s topped out, he can’t possibly better this, poor fellow, forced into retirement and he’s so young.
Then he comes up with today’s thread and I realize that I don’t know what I’m talking about! Great job Scott (but it’ll be some while, if ever, before you top today).
Heirborn Ranger
8 Ms RightWing, Ink // Oct 29, 2007 at 9:35 am
If the government, or departments there of are kept busy and out of my hair, then I am all for it. I think maybe the IRS should go do phony stuff also, then the nits would be to busy to be a bee in the bonnet so to speak. (to, to & more to’s)
Also, maybe one of the government pencil pushers could return to pushing pencils and recalculate the new cost of living raise in 2008, one of the lowest in a decade. Umm, that may look good for President Bush but has anyone bought groceries or ate at a restaurant lately. Oh-my-garsh, the prices have gone through the roof since the minimum wage law took effect.
It is to sad we, in the government sponsored poverty program, didn’t get a minimum wage hike also.
’nuff said.
9 boberinyetagain // Oct 29, 2007 at 9:38 am
Scott is, as always “the man!”
Very good
10 Maggie // Oct 29, 2007 at 10:39 am
There are a lot of “fake Marines” out of work, with experience, who need a fake job. (Fake Emergency Marine Agency).
11 onlineanalyst // Oct 29, 2007 at 10:57 am
Just as the “journalists” reporting from Baghdad file from the comfort of the Green Zone and rely on partisan stringers, “journalists” reporting on natural disasters can now file from the comfort of the Green Room while awaiting the acceptable narrative from the DNC and its sister affiliates moveon.org and mediamatters.
An aside re the higher costs of food: The unintended conseqences of subsidizing corn production to promote the use of ethanol has had an impact on just about every corn-dependent foodstuff from milk to cereals to beef and so on.
Add to that increased cost is the rising price of fuel (which is not cheapened with the additive of ethanol and is, in fact, less efficient) , then the delivery of food likewise increases. When the Greens knock off the nonsense about drilling and exploration of our own oil resources (a much cleaner process than it was when the restrictions were placed over 30 years ago) and when some new, state-of-the-art refineries are built, perhaps we will see food and other items figured into the cost of living go down. Given what these industries have learned over the years regarding environment protection, one can assume also that the quality of living would improve also.
12 everthink // Oct 29, 2007 at 11:17 am
“Stage Natural Disasters?????
I thought that President Bush did that.”
No, no, George W. Bush IS a nation disaster!
And to those who really love America, he is also a disgrace!!
13 upnorthlurkin // Oct 29, 2007 at 11:34 am
On the other hand, I guess you could call this progress… (Well, reasonable thinking souls will call it progress!!)
14 MargeinMI // Oct 29, 2007 at 11:55 am
OT-upnorth, There’s an email headed your way from me at a strange address.
15 boberinyetagain // Oct 29, 2007 at 11:59 am
online, amen. What bright individual thought to themselves…”we are running out of oil, let’s burn food!”
More importantly, why did anyone else buy into that? Liquified coal is another brainstorm that would benefit few but many would pay the true cost but at least it makes a tad more sense than burning food, that’s certain!
16 Libby Gone // Oct 29, 2007 at 1:35 pm
boberin,
Believe it or not, Arthur C. Clark once advocated turning petroleum into edible commodities. Don’t ask me why or how.
17 conserve-a-tips // Oct 29, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Everthink, re # 11: Because you say it, it must be true.
OLA: Great post. The corn issue is just another example of man trying to manipulate his future. I look back at history and think of the dire predictions that have been made to mankind - and womankind (were you ever told that if you kissed a boy you could get pregnant?) - and how in every case it was a manipulation tool for control. Either they wanted control of behavior, or of money or of labor/power. When I hear that we’re all going to be extinct because, or that we’re going to have hotter weather because or that we are going to go hungry because, I just have to remind myself that God is on His throne and he knows the number of our days. If we want to run around like chickens with our heads cut off during those days, I guess its our choice to waste them. As for me and my house, we choose to give God the glory!!
18 boberinyetagain // Oct 29, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Libby, the guy that invented petroleum jelly (Cheesboro) ate a spoonful every day so I guess he took Mr. Clarks suggestion to heart.
19 boberinyetagain // Oct 29, 2007 at 2:26 pm
doh!
20 everthink // Oct 29, 2007 at 2:37 pm
conserve-a-tips:
I have never steered you wrong, have I?
Those people who told you, “that if you kissed a boy you could get pregnant?†Where they the ones who taught you the scriptures?
And, are they now telling you to support MABUS?
448 days!
21 Libby Gone // Oct 29, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Rev. Think,
I kissed my wife and she did get pregnant. All the proof I need.
Any other quatrains Noseturdumarse?
22 conserve-a-tips // Oct 29, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Actually, Neverthink, that’s what my girlfriends told me and they were also the ones who still believed in Santa Claus. As a matter-of-fact, at the same time, my mother, the one who also taught me scriptures, informed me that I was going to have a baby brother or sister and explained how it happened as a way of getting me prepared for puberty. So, wrong again. Yep, if you say it is so, then it must be true.
23 boberinyetagain // Oct 29, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Libby, you too? 3 kisses, 3 kids. It’s enough to make a man swear off kissing!
24 boberinyetagain // Oct 29, 2007 at 4:40 pm
So, if you type a post in the woods but it never shows up, does it make any sound?
25 onlineanalyst // Oct 29, 2007 at 4:48 pm
To continue my gripe about ethanol: I have visions of an additional unintended consequence of creating the conditions for another Dust Bowl with the plowing/ exhaustion of all of those lands in order to keep up with the demands of ethanol fuel.
Furthermore, there is no effective delivery for ethanol in order for it to be added into petroleum so that costs for transportation energy again rise.
BTW, boberin, Pennsylvania has the capability of gassifying coal and generating clean, green energy (and jobs), but the green weenies keep throwing regulations at the industry and, thus, discourage investment.
26 Fred Sinclair // Oct 29, 2007 at 7:15 pm
(N)everthink Re #11
Ann Coulter’s latest book “If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans” might better have been titled “If Liberals Had Any Brains They’d Be Conservatives”
Unlike yourself, we here at SF along with George W. Bush aren’t perfect, we also are aware of it.
GWB is a long way from being a disaster. He’s moved somewhat to the center trying to please most everybody. His failure to use his veto about five hundred times and his horrendous position on amnesty for illegal aliens.
Now if we could just get Rush Limbaugh in there as President with Ann Coulter as his VP - then you would have something to talk about. Instead and perhaps even better would be Condi Rice with Judge Janice Rogers Brown as her VP.
The point you seem to be overlooking is that when you go to vote for our next President, you will be absolutely amazed to find that George W. Bush is nowhere on the ballot!
Don’t plan too much on voting for Mrs. Bill Clinton as there is a very real possibility that her crimes will have caught up with her and she may be behind bars in prison by then. (If there is any justice left in America’s judicial system.)
Maybe you could cast a write in vote for yourself, since you have all of the answers - do you think you’d make a better president?
Heirborn Ranger
27 debass // Oct 29, 2007 at 8:08 pm
“mid-level bureaucrats at the disaster-relief agency have reportedly initiated plans to stage “natural†disasters as well.”
It’s called global warming. We have a consensus, it must be true. It’s been scientifically proven because a majority of people believe it.
28 conserve-a-tips // Oct 29, 2007 at 8:33 pm
Debass, Neverthink said so, and therefore it must be true.
Hmmm….Boberin and Libby, I tried avoiding kissing my now exhusband and still it happened. Anybody believe in parthenogenisis?
29 mindknumbed kid // Oct 29, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Well, I remember a certain Senator that actually voted for something afore he voted against it.
So that gives me an idea about that dag-gum G-lowball Warming. I plan to believe in (an act of faith) it before I decide to drop out of the consenseless . The way I figure it is that if enough of us good sane citizens would do this, it will go back to being the farce that it is.
Yes, I mat just be one of the millons of unedgycated hicks but I pity the brainiacs that don’t have enough smarts to know that there is a God who controls every aspect of this Universe and there isn’t a man alive or dead that has any more than the slightest knowledge as to how it all functions.
EXCEPT for W, who has the power to wipe out anyone he chooses with genuine natural disasters !
30 mindknumbed kid // Oct 29, 2007 at 8:53 pm
I too have kissed my wife with the same results, and nobory even had the decency to warn me ! Fortunately she isn’t as vulnerable as others because I keep kissing her and we only got four babies, but it is becoming more and more obyious that jr. is continuing in the same risky behavior, come February I will be a Grandpa - first timer !
31 mindknumbed kid // Oct 29, 2007 at 8:56 pm
nobory = nobody
I type bad, very bad…
32 Fred Sinclair // Oct 29, 2007 at 9:10 pm
MKK Congrats gramps! The twist on this thread makes this one I can’t pass up.
today’sFUNNY==================================
Mrs. Donovan was walking down O’Connell Street in Dublin when she met Father Flaherty.
The priest said, “Top o’ the mornin’ to ye! Aren’t ye Mrs. Donvan and didn’t I marry ye and yer hoosband 2 years ago?”
She replied, “Aye, that ye did, Fadder.”
The Father asked, “And be there any wee little ones yet?”
She replied, “No, not yet, Fadder.”
Father Flaherty said, “Well, now, I’m goin’ to Rome next week and I’ll light a candle for ye and yer hoosband.”
She replied, “Oh, thank ye, Fadder.” They then parted ways.
Some years later they met again and Father Flaherty asked, “Well now, Mrs. Donovan, how are ye these days?”
She replied, “Oh, very well, Fadder!”
The priest then asked, “And tell me, have ye any been blessed with any wee ones yet?”
She replied, “Oh yes, Fadder! T’ree sets o’twins and 4 singles, 10 in all.”
He then responded, “That’s wonderful! How is yer loving hoosband?”
She replied, “E’s gone to Rome to blow out yer candle.”
[forwarded by Marty Walker]
Heirborn Ranger
33 mindknumbed kid // Oct 29, 2007 at 9:11 pm
conserve-a -tips
does the avoiding of kissing lead to husbands becoming ex’d ? Somtimes my wife forgets/neglects to kiss me, is there trouble brewing ?
signed, wondering in whyoming - “the place to discover your disstresstiny”
34 mindknumbed kid // Oct 29, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Thanks Fred, but at a mere 46 I think I am too young to have attained the title, by the time I was born all of my Grandparents were retired, they were OLD, it just doesn’t seem right…
35 Ms RightWing, Ink // Oct 29, 2007 at 10:45 pm
You see, I didn’t start experimenting with kissing until I was 18 and I never got pregnant but I did get a sever case of Mononucleosis, which according to my Dr., had a way of allowing MS to creep in and become a rotten disease in my body. There is a lot of other factors but that is a lot of medical jargon, of which I choose not to go into at this time.
Beware of whom you kiss. But the good thing is, we are all to old to catch mono unless we have some youngens here abouts reading Scrapple.
36 Fred Sinclair // Oct 30, 2007 at 6:28 am
Then of course there is a chain of retail jewelry stores “Kay Jewelers” whose slogan is “Every kiss begins with a “K” (Kay).
In like manner, by and large, “Every pregnancy begins with a kiss.”
1960 - Washington D.C. I gave a young (18) lady a ride home from Church (I was 23). At her apartment door, I kissed her goodnight. She instantly gave me a roundhouse slap that made my ears ring!
She then proceeded to tell me that if she found out from her Doctor that she was “with child” we were going to have to get married. (She was from Cape Girardeau, Missouri and her mother had taught her that was the way babies were made.)
I told her to talk with our Pastor’s wife for the details. (Pastor’s wife had 5 children) She did and that was the first, last and only time that we were ever alone. She then began following me around until I was transferred overseas.
Heirborn Ranger
37 Libby Gone // Oct 30, 2007 at 7:32 am
mnk,
With my stereoscopic, infrared equipped 20/20 hindsight googles at full power, that stopping of the kissing should have been a RED FLAG. CAT let a secret out of the bag!
38 conserve-a-tips // Oct 30, 2007 at 7:50 am
Libby, ya just let one little tidbit of info out there and it’s like fishbait to a grouper.
And nobody answered my question about parthenogenesis.
It seems I caused a natural disaster to the topic. Sigh.
39 Fred Sinclair // Oct 30, 2007 at 7:54 am
c-a-t #28 - that’s parthenogenesis - reproduction from an ovum without fertilization, esp. as a normal process in some invertebrates and lower plants.
Heirborn Ranger
40 Fred Sinclair // Oct 30, 2007 at 9:47 am
The Muslims pose a very real threat to America but I prefer the term “IslamoNazis” (btw - where did the sounded “t”in Nazi come from? I always heard it as a kid pronounced as a “z” not a “t”) but I am afraid that they are simply another arrow in the quiver of the liberals. It may come to a recreation of America’s 1861-1864 Civil War (Though there was nothing “Civil” about it.) Us Conservatives may have the upper hand (at least at first) since none of the Liberals own any guns (percentage-wise that is) Perhaps after the last Liberal is dead and buried………….we can start treating liberalism like we now do leprosy and cancer. More than Conservative vs Liberal - it is a matter of Freedom vs Slavery and currently a large number of Americans have been hoodwinked into voting themselves into slavery. Ala New Orleans as an example. (”keep your powder dry”).
Heirborn Ranger
41 prettyold // Oct 30, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Heirborn,#39,whoa, I’m going to put all my plants up higher,I’m too old for another baby,but I’d sure be glad to take any extra Grandchildren off anyone’s hands.
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