The Return of Polar Vortex

Things in the Situation Room were tense.  Intergalactic cyber intelligence was reporting that Aliens were preparing another attack on planet earth using the highly effective Polar Vortex.  The mere mention of the name sent shivers down the spines of the military advisors which did little to heat up the frosty cold meeting room.  Since the last attack just weeks earlier, the Military Industrial Complex had constructed a force field meant to thwart the invasion.  Since there had been little time to test it, no one knew if it would actually work.

News reports all across the country warned that much of the nation would be cast into the deep freeze soon and all should prepare to live in conditions worse than Antarctica.  People were in a panic and a run on supermarkets and big box, supersized, bigger than a football stadium home improvement stores was under way.  Shoppers loaded up on Campbell’s soup, Spam and beef jerky.  Teenagers charged their electronic devices while parents bought generators and gasoline.  Everyone was preparing for something worse than the Y2K predictions.  Old timers had their Fall Out shelters to fall back on.

Meanwhile, famed broadcaster Rush Limburger proclaimed the whole thing to be a government hoax.  “There is no such thing as a Polar Vortex,” Limburger proclaimed, “and it is just cold weather and further proof there is no such thing as global warming.”  As a matter of fact, just about everything the government warned us about was a hoax according to Rush.  He told his listeners that it was time we “take back America” but it was rather unclear what he meant by that.

People at all the NBS channels were certain the nation was in for a great catastrophe and publicly decried the broadcasts of Limburger.  Surely he is an uneducated crackpot, they claimed, and they encouraged people to listen to the scientists.  Rush, on the other hand, was certain that scientists were pawns of the left-wing and he ridiculed them daily.  Everything was a left-wing conspiracy according to Limburger and nothing would be right until the right returned to power.  “There are no aliens,” Rush insisted in daily broadcasts while telling the public that the last vortex was just a cold spell.  No one bothered to point out that months earlier this same broadcaster implied that the government was hiding something at Roswell, Arizona and he knew what it was.

Many Americans, however, listened to the warnings and prepared for the Siberian cold.  Dr. Wizard dedicated shows to the topic of preparation for the extreme.  The good doctor was a national favorite after appearing on the Opal Windy show.  Anyone that Opal liked was in turn liked by the nation.  “In extreme weather,” the doctor said, “be sure to cover your extremities.”  How could the nation not follow such a reasonable precaution?  Windy was behind the cold advice 100 per cent.

President B. Rack Alabama prepared to address the nation.  His speech writers had laid out a reasonable explanation for what was happening and offered good advice for the coming days.  The pending attack was not from Al Qaeda the president would assure the his people, but rather from aliens so gruesome we dare not say their name.  “There is nothing to fear but the cold,” Alabama would say, “and if the Green Bay Packers can play in it, so can we!”  References to the cold of Green Bay were not taken well in the home of the their arch rivals, the Chi-Town Bears.  Anyway, it was hard for Midwesterners to follow a green president with slits for a nose.   Rush insisted his green color proved he was born in the Amazon and was not really an American.  He demanded to see the president’s birth certificate.

At the situation room, Secretary of State Carry sat quietly in the corner, unsure which country, if any, we should blame.  Vice President Buyten was asked to quiet down while the generals conferred.  President Alabama watched the weather channel to see if Jim Cantore was going to report from somewhere really cold.  The head of NASA, Captain James T. Qwerk, was ready to deploy shields to protect the country from the Vortex.  “Ready, Mr. Zulu?” the captain called.  “When are you going to learn my name?” Sooloo responded.  It seems those two had been feuding for years.  In the engine room, Spotty was giving it all she had and the nation could hold its collective breath to see if the attack could be thwarted.

“There is no attack,” Rush declared on his daily radio broadcast.  “When will you people wise up?  If there is another Vortex, I will move to Costa Rica, because seriously, who needs the cold?  But don’t worry, I plan to be here next election day to vote for my favorite right-wing, anti-scientist extremists and I hope you will be too!”  Rush never softened his tirades and never let the truth stand in the way of his anti-left wing rhetoric.

When the Vortex was thwarted and there was no extreme cold, Rush was on the attack.  He told the nation that the left were all lying and that NASA did not deploy protective shields.  “It is all a lie just like the moon landing,” Rush reported.  After all, the moon landing was planned under one of those left-wing presidents, so you know it is not true.

As the months wore on, Rush was fond of reminding his listeners of the Hoax of the Vortex.  It was one of many things that most people believed, but Rush called a lie anyway.  As a matter of fact, Rush frequently told his listeners that the moon landing as reported by left-wing NASA did not happen but was staged in some NASA built movie studio.  Rush said the greatest day in his many years of broadcasting was the day he called Neal Armstrong a liar to his face.  How can we not put our faith in such a courageous Limburger?  And that’s the way it is!