Remember Bobby Jindal's condemning of funds used for volcano monitoring?

This video should jog your mind:



Scoff! Guffaw! Volcano monitoring? What could that be good for? The government's clearly just in the pocket of Big Monitoring.

Well, it turns out that just one month later...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Increased earthquake activity has prompted scientists to raise the alert level for Alaska's Mount Redoubt volcano.

Geologists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory said Sunday that seismic activity had increased over the past two days. On Sunday morning, 40 to 50 earthquakes were being recorded every hour. Scientists said conditions may evolve rapidly and culminated in an eruption within days to weeks at the volcano roughly 100 miles southwest of Anchorage.

A steam plume rising about 1,000 feet above the mountain peak was observed Saturday. The observatory had warned in late January that an eruption could occur at any time.

Edit: looks like the volcano has now erupted, many times. Good thing we monitor our volcanoes.