Even worse than Jim Cantore ...

In regard to the recent observation here about Jim Cantore of the Weather Channel: The only thing worse than having Jim Cantore show up in your town is having Christiane Amanpour show up.

When Jim drives up, it's bad, but there's still time to leave. When Christiane shows up, it's just too late. Something military or Biblical has happened by then.

For the record, I'm a huge fan of Christiane. But she may be the fifth horseman of the apocalypse. You remember the story: First, the white horse comes in with the Antichrist. Then War comes in on the red horse. Then Famine on the black horse. Then Christiane and her crew get off a Black Hawk with an advance unit of the 82nd Airborne.

CNN and the Weather Channel should cooperate (they're both headquarted in Atlanta, by the way) and create a primetime news show with both Cantore and Amapour as co-anchors. It could be titled Storm Stories from [Beirut/Gaza/Iraq/name your world hotspot here].

More area football results

Thomson beat Liberty County, 3-0; Hancock Central lost to Greene County, 48-7; Washington County beat Putnam County, 34-13; Jefferson County beat Harlem, 41-12; and Glascock County lost to Long County, 51-14, putting the Panthers at 0-3 for the season. Further south, Swainsboro lost to Statesboro, 35-0.

Warren County is now 2-0 for the season. The Screaming Devils' next opponents this coming Friday will be Spalding. The AAA Jaguars are 0-3 for the season, the Journal-Constitution says. (And see more scores from around the state on the AJC site.)

Screaming Devils beat Jenkins Co.

Warren County now has a 2-0 record this season. More good news: WCHS was also rated No. 10 in the "Prep Power Poll" on Friday by Augusta-area sports writers.

Hancock Co schools were closed Thursday due to lack of gasoline, NYT says

It's in the main New Orleans wrapup story in the New York Times online right now. My Google News search isn't finding any other mention of this elsewhere on the Web -- can anyone confirm whether this is true? Meanwhile, Gov. Sonny Perdue has lifted the state gas tax. In other news about Hurricane Katrina, the NYT has posted the complete transcript (expletives not deleted) of that radio interview by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin that has been all over TV today.

Gas shortages hit surrounding counties

Police have to direct traffic in Sandersville after stations run out; lines back up and impede traffic in Washington, the AP reports. The average cost of gas in the Augusta area was $2.866 earlier today, according to AAA's Web site; a year ago, it was $1.684.

Warren County 5th-worst SAT scores in state

Bad news: Newly released data from the state Department of Education shows Warren County has the 5th-worst average total SAT score in the state, with a total score of 783.3. Warren had 18 test-takers, the state said, the 9th-lowest number of test-takers of any school district in the state. The average verbal score was 383.9, the fourth-worst in the state, and the average math score was 399.4, the seventh-worst in the state. Hancock County fared even worse than Warren, ranking the second-worst SAT score in the state, of 732.8. (The worst average score of all was from Talbot County. The highest score was from the Jefferson City school district, with an average of 1096.8.)

Friends of the Ogeechee merges with Canoochee group

They're now going to be called Ogeechee-Canoochee Riverkeeper, according this story in The Swainsboro Forest-Blade. Their offices will be in Statesboro. The Friends of the Ogeechee site and the Canoochee Riverkeeper sites are still up.