Troubling as yesterday’s GOP betrayal was, it came as no surprise that Washington excels at spending our money: BOOM! We Just Spent $1 Trillion of Your Money. Still, the arrogant indifference is stunning ~

“It’s always messy to see it made, to see legislation come to life. It’s not a pretty sight, and the closer you are to it the uglier it’s seems,” Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) said after the vote.
 
“Our voters don’t like anything about this process, but it’s how hard work gets done,” she added. “And at the end of the day — boom! — we got enough votes to pass the bill.”

So yes, our reprobate representatives are spending like drunken sailors. And like those same clueless inebriates, their ability to sense a pending storm is seriously impaired.
 
A solar storm for instance… the effects of which would definitely not be “a pretty sight.” “Boom!”
 
 
A December 4th mid-level solar flare has fueled speculation about the potential threat of magnetic space storms. The Washington Free Beacon discusses a 2012 Department of Homeland Security report on the impact such a storm might have on the U.S. ~

The FEMA fact sheet noted the findings of a 2010 study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency that monitors sun storms, warning that an extreme solar storm could leave “130 million people without power for years,” and destroy or damage more than 300 hard-to-replace electrical grid transformers.

 
This isn’t just alarmist, prepper-type thinking, there have been two documented major solar storms in the not-so-distant past; in 1859 and 1921. According to a NASA study a few years back ~

The strongest geomagnetic storm on record is the Carrington Event of August-September 1859, named after British astronomer Richard Carrington who witnessed the instigating solar flare with his unaided eye while he was projecting an image of the sun on a white screen. Geomagnetic activity triggered by the explosion electrified telegraph lines, shocking technicians and setting their telegraph papers on fire; Northern Lights spread as far south as Cuba and Hawaii; auroras over the Rocky Mountains were so bright, the glow woke campers who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning. Best estimates rank the Carrington Event as 50% or more stronger than the superstorm of May 1921.

“A contemporary repetition of the Carrington Event would cause … extensive social and economic disruptions,” the report warns. Power outages would be accompanied by radio blackouts and satellite malfunctions; telecommunications, GPS navigation, banking and finance, and transportation would all be affected. Some problems would correct themselves with the fading of the storm: radio and GPS transmissions could come back online fairly quickly. Other problems would be lasting: a burnt-out multi-ton transformer, for instance, can take weeks or months to repair.

 
Oops.

The study said a future solar storm like the great magnetic storm of May 1921 would black out most states east of the Mississippi River along with most states in the Pacific Northwest.

Step back and think about that for a minute. Then, factor in the financial cost ~

The total economic impact in the first year alone could reach $2 trillion, some 20 times greater than the costs of a Hurricane Katrina or, to use a timelier example, a few TARPs.

Throw the barbarian hordes (the #icantbreathe and #Occupy malcontents) into the mix and we’re talking civilizational meltdown.
 
But don’t worry, just as with a potential EMP threat, our bloated federal bureaucracy has everything under control ~

Mark Sauter, an adviser to security companies and coauthor of the textbook Homeland Security: A Complete Guide, said severe space weather poses a major homeland security challenge. […]
 
Sauter questioned whether the government is taking the threat of a major solar storm seriously, or is “just going through an obligatory bureaucratic exercise that in reality reflects DHS/FEMA crossing its fingers and hoping that such a plan will never need to be used.”

 
See there? No worries.

 
In light of their spendthrift habits, our congressional representatives are clearly incapable of any serious long-term planning; in fact they seem oblivious to anything but their own selfish political needs.

After all, should we get zapped by a massive solar flare, an $18 trillion national debt will be pretty moot.
 
Could be that’s just part of their plan.