Weather & Politics

Unlike other parts of the country, eastern Kansas has been getting a lot of rain lately, between three and five inches so far in October. The Missouri River was above flood stage earlier this week and damaged soybeans about to be harvested in Missouri because of the inability of the Army Corps of Engineers to repair the levees that were breached by the flooding last spring. Presumably, the federal money that could have been spent on repairing the levees in Missouri had been reallocated to the war in Iraq. It’s just another instance of how the infrastructure in this country has been neglected.



I’ve provided pictures of the swollen Missouri River where it’s possible to see some of the debris that has been picked up and taken downstream by the current. Clicking on these pictures will enlarge them.



Gary Lezak, a weather forecaster for KSHB-TV in Kansas City, believes that the weather pattern that we’re experiencing now in eastern Kansas/western Missouri will begin repeating itself every 45 to 61 days. His theory is explained more thoroughly in the weather blog that can be reached at the station link provided above. It looks like this winter will either be very snowy or at least very rainy if the precipitation isn’t accompanied by below freezing temperatures. Lezak discounts the long-term predictions made by the federal government and the Farmer’s Almanac, who have been calling for a dry winter with higher than normal temperatures. We’ll have to see what happens. Other areas of the country, I realize, could use the rain that we've been having here; this part of the country has been suffering a prolonged drought, too, with below average rainfalls both this year and last year.

Peg Britton at KansasPrairie recently provided a link to the Select a Candidate Quiz , which allows the participant to input his/her views on fifteen issues so as to find the presidential candidate who best represents the participant's view on those issues. My candidate is Dennis Kucinich, which makes me one of those liberals scorned by the media and conservatives. I was beginning to think that I wasn’t going to vote in the next presidential election unless I wrote in someone’s name.