The libertarians are really distinguishing themselves this week with their comments on Hurricane Irene.

First we had Ron Paul pining for that bygone year of 1900 when there was no FEMA and tens of thousands were left to rot where they died. Good times!

And now we have Patrick Michaels (a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, associated with more than 11 climate change denial groups funded by Exxonmobil), writing a piece for Forbes magazine to attack the National Weather Service because their predictions weren’t perfect: Get Real: Hurricane Irene Should Be Renamed ‘Hurricane Hype’.

The collision between the real world and hard-line libertarian ideology is very evident in this piece, as Michaels mocks NWS predictions by writing, with remarkable callousness, “It is doubtful that Irene will even cough up eight bodies.”

A day later, the smart money is still riding a very Gloria-like track, but with a cyclone that will be weaker than projected. It is doubtful that Irene will even cough up eight bodies (the number killed by Gloria), though power outages east of where the center makes landfall (probably on Long Island) may be extensive.

As I complete this, there’s another tropical depression out in the Atlantic, and a couple more on the way in the very near future. Suppose one of these takes a similar path, except that it improbably threads the needle of the Mid-Atlantic Bight and makes landfall immediately to the west of New York City as a Category 3 storm. How many people will the hyping of Irene have killed?

That’s how Hurricane Hype followed by Hurricane Insanity leads to hurricane death.