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US Politics: Paradise Lost


Fragile Bird

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I was just reading about that Fez and without any blame on the victims or survivors it really sounds like there needs to be a serious investment in regulations and safety measures with these fires becoming more frequent and intense. This part in particular from the piece I read

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Officials had planned for this — 11 evacuation zones and more alerts. But the Camp Fire moved faster than humans can, burning nearly an acre per second.

Sounds very much like the same lessons Australia was taught by the Victorian fires in 2009 - the decision to evacuate needs to have force behind it, be given earlier/more cautiously and there need to be sufficient and distant access roads so people can actually get out once the fire is approaching.

Brook just sent me some more as I was typing this and

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Paradise sits on a ridge between two higher hills, with only one main exit out of town. The best solution seemed to be to order evacuations in phases, so people didn’t get trapped.

I just don't see how that sort of town design can be safely maintained - you need to have access routes in different directions so people don't get trapped. Again, no blame intended for victims or survivors, its a tragedy. You just need to learn from tragedies like this to prevent them repeating.

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Another bright spot...maybe....

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/neo-nazi-harassment-not-protected-by-first-amendment-judge-rules/ar-BBPL0wI?li=BBnb7Kx&ocid=msnclassic

 

A lawsuit accusing the publisher of the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer of coordinating a “terror campaign” of online harassment against a Jewish real estate agent cannot be dismissed on First Amendment grounds, a federal judge in Montana ruled this week.

In his ruling denying a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Dana L. Christensen, the chief judge for United States District Court in Missoula, Mont., wrote that the real estate agent, Tanya Gersh, was a private citizen, not a public figure, and that the publisher, Andrew Anglin, incited his followers to harass her as part of a personal campaign.

The events that spurred the lawsuit began in the fall of 2016, when The Daily Stormer published a series of articles attacking Ms. Gersh, of Whitefish, Mont., for her interactions with Sherry Spencer, the mother of the white supremacist leader Richard Spencer.

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Ms. Spencer owned a building in Whitefish and Ms. Gersh had talked to her about its potential sale after word circulated that residents were considering a protest there against white supremacy.

The call to protest was spurred by video of Mr. Spencer, who resided part time in Whitefish, railing against Jews and shouting “Hail Trump! Hail our people!” at an alt-right meeting in Washington, according to the suit.

 

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38 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Someone who has the talent that Elon Musk is alleged to have needs to invent a substance that is like a reverse gun powder.  You drop it on the fire and it spreads backwards, eating and extinguishing the fire.  Now right there I have provided the vision of what must be.  

Water? 

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9 hours ago, Fez said:

Its less about politics and more about the thread title, but, holy fuck, people need to pay more attention to what's going on in the Paradise area.

First up, in addition to the 63 confirmed deaths, its now reported that there are 631 further missing persons. 631!!

Second, this story about the survivors freezing and getting diseases in a tent city does not read like something that should be happening anywhere near America.

And it seems like this story is barely being covered; certainly not to the extent it needs to be. Between this and Hurricane Maria last year, it seems like people are sticking their heads in the sand as the country is literally falling apart.

I have been relying on CNN up here north of the wall and they have reporters on site, have been showing escape video, have interviewed survivors and yesterday showed the grim search for human remains in Paradise. And yes, the number of missing (and presumed by me, dead) keeps climbing. CNN has pointed out the majority are elderly.

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Broward recounted thousands of votes for nothing

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It's a long-agonized-over machine recount total delivered two minutes too late.

But there's nothing ironic about it -- this is, after all, Florida's Broward County, which has been plagued with issues in its vote-counting efforts for years.

Given that history, it was unsurprising -- but still galling to volunteers -- when the director of elections here revealed that the county had submitted its machine recount data two minutes after the state-mandated 3 p.m. Thursday deadline.

The secretary of state's office did not accept the new numbers and so, after days of painstaking work, Broward's count Thursday remained the same as it was on Saturday, when it submitted its initial unofficial election results.

"Basically, I just worked my ass off for nothing," said Joe D'Alessandro, the director of elections for Broward County.

He attributed the error to his unfamiliarity with the secretary of state website.

 

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1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

I have been relying on CNN up here north of the wall and they have reporters on site, have been showing escape video, have interviewed survivors and yesterday showed the grim search for human remains in Paradise. And yes, the number of missing (and presumed by me, dead) keeps climbing. CNN has pointed out the majority are elderly.

Yeah, its not being totally ignored, there's some coverage. But if the worst comes to pass with that missing number (and, sadly, I suspect it will be), this'll be one of the six worst losses of American life in 40 years (along with two hurricanes, 9/11, and two heat waves). This should be the lead story for everybody; not whatever bullshit some random Republican is saying about election security.

And even if we get fortunate with the missing, the conditions the survivors are dealing with should be a national scandal. This should fucking matter more to people. Instead, we're getting the same apathy and ignorance we get from so many other disasters and terrible events. I'm starting to think, its not that we, as an overall society, ignore mass shootings because we're inured to gun violence or ignored Hurricane Maria because we're racists; its that we've turned into a nihilistic society that just doesn't care about strangers.

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1 hour ago, DMC said:

Florida man. My dad used to have a small house in the Keys, so I’d go there a lot as a kid. He was admit that the sun melts the locals minds.

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17 hours ago, Gertrude said:

You know, the Pence thing about women pisses me off more than it should. He has a lot of views that I loathe and should get me more riled up, but this one just gets under my skin in a way that the (sadly) commonplace homophobia, pro-life bullshit doesn't. Aside from the whole temptress trope that's gross, it's denying an avenue of access to him that men get. That's the problematic part. It bothers me to no end that it's the butt of endless jokes and rarely is it called out as being the highly discriminatory act that it is.

For me the irritation with Pence is that either he thinks that he is so irresistible to women and he is weak willed and unable to resist,  or that women are diabolical and looking for a chance to seduce him into a depraved lifestyle which he is too weak willed to resist. 

Either way I feel bad for his wife. 

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28 minutes ago, maarsen said:

For me the irritation with Pence is that either he thinks that he is so irresistible to women and he is weak willed and unable to resist,  or that women are diabolical and looking for a chance to seduce him into a depraved lifestyle which he is too weak willed to resist. 

It is kind of a staple of religious fundamentalists to think that all men are weak willed slaves to their carnal urges and that women, being inherently not more than objects of sexual desire, have to drape themselves in potato sacks or else would get raped all the time. But the emphasize is that these men simply can't help themselves and it's the women's fault for daring to show too much ankle.

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5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

You owe several of my coworkers an apology, GOP Jesus style!!!   

Sorry not sorry!

He should have had blond hair and blue eyes to really drive the point home to the current GOParty of Trump.

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8 minutes ago, Week said:

Sorry not sorry!

He should have had blond hair and blue eyes to really drive the point home to the current GOParty of Trump.

Me thinks his cross should have some kinks on it. Four to be precise.    

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