Sunday, December 11, 2011

"the murkiest storm they can dish up"


It was 1964.

Who are or is the "they" that Santa speaks of in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer when he says

From what I see now, that'll cut through the murkiest storm they can dish up.

Why wasn't that simply written as follows ?

From what I see now, that'll cut through the murkiest storm.

In 1964, it was fairly clear that the corporate backed Christmas special was a long term investment that would be watched year after year by parents and children.

What a way to causally teach generations that a "they" can manipulate storms without questioning the safety. After all, Santa utters it. There must be a "they."

But "they" are the devil. They don't care who they kill and maim with their toxins, and tough if you're one of the tens of thousands affected with anything from sinusitis to death.


Project STORMFURY was an ambitious experimental program of research on hurricane modification carried out between 1962 and 1983. The proposed modification technique involved artificial stimulation of convection outside the eyewall through seeding with silver iodide.


An airplane flew along the rainbands of the hurricane, and dropped nearly 80 pounds (36 kilograms) of crushed dry ice into the clouds. The crew reported "Pronounced modification of the cloud deck seeded". It is not known if that was due to the seeding. Next, the hurricane changed direction and made landfall near Savannah, Georgia. The public blamed the seeding, and Irving Langmuir claimed that the reversal had been caused by human intervention. Cirrus was canceled, and lawsuits were threatened. Only the fact that a system in 1906 had taken a similar path, as well as evidence showing that the storm had already begun to turn when seeding began, ended the litigation. This disaster set back the cause of seeding hurricanes for eleven years.


"What a terrible message to send to children," Giuliani told ABCNews.com.

From what I see now, that'll cut through the murkiest storm they can dish up.

SPQR

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