Elon Musk has sicced his Deranged Onanists Gutting Everything on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, resulting in the firings of hundreds of employees Thursday. As with other recent wholesale firings, those fired were almost all on “probationary status,” meaning that they’ve been in their current positions less than a year, although that doesn’t mean only new hires were shitcanned. It also includes many veteran employees who’ve been promoted or moved from one job to another within the government.
This is only the latest in a continuing string of assaults on America’s ability to have nice things, like a functioning economy, lifesaving medical research, protection from epidemic diseases, and a piffling 249 years of democracy.
Your wild-eyed Marxist liberal ideologue types might argue that weather forecasts are kind of vital to the nation’s safety and to businesses whose operations depend on accurate weather information. But look, the Founders never had doppler radar and they did just fine, so stop griping and let the billionaires have the tax cut they earned by being more important than you.
The AP reports that those shown the door included
meteorologists who do crucial local forecasts in National Weather Service offices across the country.
Cuts at NOAA appeared to be happening in two rounds, one of 500 and one of 800, said Craig McLean, a former NOAA chief scientist who said he got the information from someone with first-hand knowledge. That’s about 10% of NOAA’s workforce.
Since the National Weather Service only had about 375 probationary workers, additional cuts to eliminate more workers will have to come up with even better lies, like maybe pointing to that weekend when Trump wanted to golf but it rained, and why didn’t they stop that?
NOAA also operates the National Hurricane Center, which tracks and predicts the course of deadly storms that cause loss of lives and billions of dollars in damage, so it only makes sense that its work be taken over by the private sector, which can monetize the information more effectively if people can’t just go to a government website. The Weather Service and the Hurricane Center have been on Donald Trump’s doghouse shit-list of enemies ever since the agency arrogantly and accurately predicted the course of Hurricane Dorian in 2019. Worse, when Trump tweeted that the storm might hit Alabama, uppity NWS scientists tweeted “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian,” which left Trump no choice but to correct a weather map with a Sharpie to show the storm heading to Alabama, insisting it was the “original chart.” Then Acting NOAA Administrator Neil Jacobs postdicted in a statement that Trump had been right, and that furthermore the agency knew who’d been stealing his frozen strawberries, it was antifa, OK? Why yes, Trump has picked Jacobs to lead NOAA in his new term.
We remain astonished that that really happened, except for the Wouk nonsense about the strawberries.
Also, scientists keep saying that global warming appears to be increasing the severity of hurricanes and the speed with which they blow up from small storms into big ones, so why would patriotic Americans want to think about that? Get rid of the agency that collects the data and it’ll be easier for oil company hacks to point out that the number of hurricanes isn’t increasing, without anyone pushing back on that other stuff.
The mass firings have outraged scientists, an excitable bunch who think “facts” and “science” are connected to actual things happening in the world.
Tom Di Liberto, a longtime scientist and spokesperson for NOAA’s headquarters in Washington, was among those who received a termination email Thursday, along with at least six others in his office. Although he wasn’t surprised by the decision — having watched several other federal agencies deal with similar cuts — he said he was still extremely disappointed and feared for NOAA’s mission.
“This is not something you would do if you cared about the safety of Americans ... the health of the oceans,” Di Liberto said. He had worked at NOAA since 2010, first on contract for several years before being hired full-time in March 2023.
“We weren’t just hired — a lot of us were working with NOAA for a very long period,” he said. He also noted that his termination email cited that he was fired “because his ability, knowledge and/or skills do not fit the agency’s current needs” — though he said he had received glowing performance reviews.
It’s really sad when government employees, especially those in the Weather Service, fail to recognize that their job is to shut up, predict good weather, and sometimes dress in funny costumes when doing holiday forecasts on local news. And what about ribbon-cuttings at children’s hospitals, those are important too.
Oh, wait, the children’s hospitals have been defunded too, never mind.
The leaders of science and conservation groups have issued statements calling attention to how many parts of American life will be enshittified by cuts to NOAA. The Union of Concerned Scientists said the decision “flies in the face of logic, common sense and fiscal responsibility,” adding that “Everyone in the United States relies on NOAA in their daily lives whether they realize it or not.”
Jeff Watters of the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy went into further detail, explaining that
“NOAA is the eyes and ears for our water and air — the agency tracks our weather and climate; monitors tides and surf forecasts; allows for the safe deployment and navigation of satellites, ships, and [Doppler] radar. It acts as a first responder with its weather and hurricane emergency alerts; its tsunami warning centers; its oil spill response capabilities; its marine mammal stranding network; and its harmful algal blooms early warning systems. NOAA even keeps seafood on the table.”
What a nerd!
Still, there’s hope, since like many other of DOGE’s arbitrary mass firings, the assault on NOAA and the NWS is certain to be challenged in court, and we’ll eventually find out how willing the Supreme Court is to go along with endangering the nation through massive cuts in science.
OK, when we put it that way, it does sound kind of bleak, doesn’t it?
In a related development, NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory posted on Twitter that it would no longer be communicating with the public “due to a reduction in staff.” But that’s just as well since environmental research is just a bunch of hippie lies too, according to many of the people still posting on Twitter, who celebrated the cuts because scientists should do something useful instead of trying to rule our lives and make us socialist. A sampling!
No more woke, no more climate hoax bs.
The @NOAA #climatescam needs to end.
Awesome no more geo engineering (rat emoji, eye emoji, poop emoji, money bag emoji)
Just stick to basic weather predictions. Those are hard enough to get right.
Wow I never even heard of you…
You need to be fired. You suck at weather predictions more than FEMA sucks at storm damage relief.
Watch the local weather...or the weather channel or fox weather
You shouldn’t have become a political organization. Fuck around, find out (shrug emoji)
Five laugh/cry emoji, one American Flag emoji
I do feel compelled to note that these idiots were far outnumbered by nice people — who are still inexplicably on Twitter — saying how mad the cuts made them, but come on, nice people aren’t great copy.
Also, this was a very good reply that summed up why scientists should be fired, because they are nothing but liars who hate America, even if the information is 100 percent accurate. (Remarkably, it’s still up on NOAA’s website. Don’t tell Elon!)
In conclusion, we are so screwed because so many voters are assholes who want endless assholery.
[AP / LAT / NOAA Climate.gov (Shhh! Don’t tell!)]
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OT and WTF with the stupid fucking question?
Adam Parkhomenko
@adamparkhomenko.bsky.social
Actual question from reporter: "Why don't you wear a suit?"
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy: "I will wear costume after this war will finish."
I saw a great take on Insta yesterday. All the dude-bros applauding Musk's firing spree should keep in mind that it's a tight jobs market in a relatively healthy economy right now. A very large group of very talented, very well educated, very experienced and highly motivated professionals of various disciplines are now going to be coming for your job.