Monday, August 30, 2021

Guess who's going to last longest?


 

20 comments:

  1. Did you all observe the approach of Hurricane Ida? Impressive intensification prior to landfall from Category 2 to high Category 4! Hoping those who didn't evacuate came through it somehow. But there will be terrible stories, for sure. So strange that it hit the New Orleans area 16 years to the day after Katrina...and not far at all from the same place.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ALL of NOLA is without power. The storm reversed the flow of the Mississippi River for a time (this is rare).

      Delete
    2. puddle, be sure to prepare, because you could get 5" of rain from Ida.

      Delete
    3. The spouse, a NOLA native insists the flow cannot be reversed. If more water was coming in from the Gulf than the river was sending out, then the water just got diverted over embankments and spillways.
      At first reports, it seems the wind did the most damage. I'm wondering when we accept that electricity is dangerous and the electron unrelizble and we have to rely on different supports.
      What have we learned from the fact that the magnetism in Afghanistan's mountains caused the electronic systems in aircraft to fail and crash into those very same mountains? Do we even heed the warnings that magnets need to be kept away from our electronic gadgets?

      Delete
  2. I still remember that right before Katrina hit a film crew was interviewing a young girl sitting on the curb and holding a baby. She said she was 19, no family, no car, nowhere to go. I often wonder what happened to them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Caldor fire: crews battling California blaze face rising temperatures [Click] A general overview of the California fires. We can’t complain about just a bit of smoke.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, you’re allowed to complain about smoke. No need to become a boiled frog. No need to slowly suffer lung damage. But, yes, those conditions are horrific. The nation needs to rethink how and where we live, given climate change. Small wonder that people are moving to Vermont in droves. We want to have open hearts about this, as long as no one tries to citify this beautiful landscape and gentle way of life. There’s lots of room here to spread out and live well.

      Delete
  4. Force, Future and Thinking Seriously About How Governments Fall [Click] Josh Marshall has a good analysis of the fall of Kabul and the range of options available to US forces at the time.

    Lt Col Daniel L Davis (retired): Go back to Afghanistan? Men like McMaster and Panetta are addicted to war [Click] “They have become virtually incapable of seeing any solution to any foreign problem that does not include the barrel of a gun.”

    Afghanistan collapsed because corruption had hollowed out the state [Click]

    ReplyDelete
  5. UN Security Council approves resolution to create "safe passage" zone from Kabul after US withdrawal
    From CNN’s Richard Roth

    The UN Security Council has approved a resolution for creating a "safe passage" zone for people seeking to leave Afghanistan from Kabul's airport after the US withdrawal from the country.

    The Council is relying on the Taliban to secure a safe passage out for Afghans and foreign nationals seeking to leave the country.

    Here is a breakdown of the vote:

    13 votes in favor
    2 abstentions, including China
    None opposed

    ReplyDelete
  6. “Caleb Wallace, a leader of the anti-mask movement in Texas who became infected with the coronavirus and spent three weeks in an intensive care unit, has died,” the New York Times reports.
    =======================================
    “Robert David Steele, a former CIA officer turned conspiracy theorist who claimed to be the first person to call COVID-19 a hoax, has died from COVID-19,” Vice News reports.
    “Steele, who was among the earliest QAnon promoters and helped the conspiracy theory move from the fringes of the internet into the mainstream, was hospitalized with symptoms of COVID-19 earlier this month. But he continued to spread anti-vaccine and COVID-denial conspiracy theories until the end.”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow. Death by stupidity and arrogance. How sad.

      Delete
  7. We have officially left Afghanistan.

    ReplyDelete