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“Why the Weatherman is always half right” – A (Possible) Bulwer – Lytton entry by tom dennen
Tuesday, February 22, 2011 20:24
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The particular office of Meteorology must conform above all others to the several and various constraints, ad arguendum, of Affirmative Action, the democracy of demographic delegation, opinion polls, general color blindness and, of course often enough – in fact more often than one might think – the weather; and in that spirit assembles ten volunteers in a room every morning early, gives each one of them a paper ballot and a pencil (placed directly in front of him and or her, color-coordinated for ease of use) with which each one must individually make a weather prediction based on the above exacting and stringent conditions that apply, something that I can prove really does work by simply including a typical morning weather report based on this information and technique, which on the day in question, (in this case a Thursday) yielded two "sunny", three "partly cloudy" and five "rainy" democratically-arrived-at ballots from which the Chief Forecaster derived this weather prediction, "Sunny, becoming partly cloudy with a fifty percent chance of rain", thus (and also) substantiating the popular view that weathermen are absolutely correct at least half of the time although that substantiation is, as always, subject to the familiar disciplines of the Scientific Method, to wit: the duplication of results, well known to scientists and non-scientists alike who dabble in such things as weather allows such as rain, snow, hail and gloom of night (although that particular aspect – gloom of night) falls within a peculiarly succinct aspect of weather control or prediction normally associated with simple, repetitive tasks assigned to those unfamiliar with the predictive aspects of weather, those closeted individuals forced to endure its colossal, if not infinite (although only slightly short of that) indifference as do most sailors, fliers and spelunkers, a group of people not unfamiliar with Met Office verisimilitude and (half the time) unpredictability that lies in the ballot-box style of management most government offices are wont to use in the face of massive public unpredictability in the course of human events not predicated by weather or weathermen in particular, other hierarchical caveats notwithstanding with regard to the general command and control of the unpredictability consistent with the concept of Continuous Creation, a concept not unfamliar to weathermen of all stripes up to and including those employed by the army, navy, air force, marines, black operatives, terrorists, anarchists, feminists and other volunteer groups.
(With no apologies whatsoever to Bulwer-Lytton)
