To add to the above, California was officially in drought conditions from 2011-2017 during which over 100 million trees, and countless other plants, died. This past July was also the hottest on record. The combination of the two means there is a very large amount of very dead, very dry, plant matter coating the state. It's basically kindling, and any fire that gets started will burn more severely and spread faster as a result.
Wait is that an actual description of the place, or just an elaborate metaphor for the type of people who inhabit it?
The whole California on fire issue got more real for me, one of my cousins lost their family home. My aunt and uncle had lived in Paradise since the 60s, and my cousin eventually inherited the house in which he was raised. Anyway, like all of Paradise, it burned down. When he posted something on FB about being homeless, I dug into it all, looked at the images coming out of California. It's crazy. Going to see how I can help, at least him if not the situation in a bigger sense. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/d...alifornia-blaze-tallies-grim-stats/ar-BBPyZWh
As things start to settle from this election (except for FUCKING FLORIDA), I'm looking back and the one thing that sticks out to me more than most is how the fuck Tennessee sees anything good in Marsha Blackburn. I get that conservatives are going to elect a guy like Romney in Utah, that makes total sense. But even conservatives have to look at Blackburn and see a nutbag moron. She doesn't understand evolution, doesn't understand climate change, is totally bought by the telecom industry, was a birther, bought a bunch of conspiracy nonsense about planned parenthood, etc. She's a caricature. And her opponent wasn't some crazy liberal, he was a former governor of the state, businessman, endorsed by the very Republican Senator whose vacated seat he was running for. How the fuck did you screw up this badly Tennessee?
And still not as bad as Menendez. Just saying. Regarding evolution though, I hope we can soon stop pretending that anything is valid as long as enough morons believe it. The republican party is even still acting like that young earth shit is a valid theory. "WERE YOU THERE????"
Probably because Menendez's opponent was a Trump delegate running in New Jersey. Although hilariously all his positions in 2018 were basically anti Trump: Pro-choice Against family separation Pro ACA (at least in part) Pro gay marriage Against Trump's cap on the SALT deduction It's everything I would expect a Republican trying to win in New Jersey to be, except attached to absolute electoral poison in that part of the country.
Yeah, I'm sure his opponent sucked, but still... how the fuck do you vote for someone that stole from medicare? Unless the opponent's policy was something like "We need to set our children on fire." there's not a good reason.
Given Trump's reaction to the California wildfires, that's far closer to a literal policy than I'm comfortable with.
Yeah, that seriously might have been his douchiest statement yet. No small feat. It was a chance to show that at least in tragedy he could look past his petty bullshit, but nope.
Did you think Florida election fuckery was over? You silly dumb bastard. Apparently one heavily Republican district that had been affected by Hurricane Michael allowed voters to scan their ballots and email them in, ironically in contravention of not just state law, but also an executive order from Republican governor Rick Scott that specifically prohibited emailing or faxing of ballots. Given all the "Democrats are committing fraud by counting all the ballots" stuff the Republicans have been slinging, Gillum is pretty pissed over this one. Honestly we should just let one of the other large states administer Florida for a cycle or two until they can be trusted to be a state again.
It was more like an additional testament to the fact that he actually is stupid. That was one of the dumbest things anybody had EVER said, not just a president of a country. He’s a complete fucking joke. And people who think this clown doesn’t deserve constant scorn for his stupidity are completely out of their minds.
Apparently the ballot scanner in Broward broke, and then the back up scanner immediately broke after that. I can't believe these people have the balls to go to the media day in day out and proclaim how committed they are to getting everything right. They're currently talking about how they're 'rushing' to meet the Thursday deadline. Motherfuckers, it's taking you almost 2 weeks to do what the rest of the country did in 2 hours and now you don't think you can even make that. The supervisor's explanation for why she destroyed the ballots last election was fucking awesome. "Uh, I think the box was mislabeled. Whatever. I don't know what's going on. I just sign shit, ok? I can trust my staff." The most pathetic thing is they dumped a shit ton of money and resources into trying to not completely fuck this up again, but somehow it's even worse with the mismanagement across both parties. It's like if you have a bunch of monkeys trying to fuck a football so you just keep sending more monkeys to try to fix it. Instead of fixing anything you just have more monkeys trying to fuck the football.
I love watching Europeans respond to Trump. As big of an asshole as he is, he must be absolutely maddening to them since they just have to sit there and take it. The calls for an EU military by Merkel and Macron are silly posturing. Europeans don't have to stomach to contribute the extreme minority share of funds and resources to NATO, let alone stand up their own modern military alliance.
Well yeah, the original EU plan was designed to be France-centric and now it revolves around Germany. Its not about sticking to Trump, its about decreasing the power of Angela Merkel.
I wouldn't be so sure. They woke up in 2016 to a world where the Americans turned out to be stone cold retarded in a way not even the most arrogant Frenchman predicted. An EU military is the only thing that makes sense with Russia on one border and an America with its thumb up its ass on the other side of the ocean.
It does make sense (in theory) and it would be great if it happened, its just unlikely. PESCO is designed to be a defense strategy, not a standing continental military. Not only can half EU nations not get out from under their own austerity and aging demographic issues financially, they have to turn around and overfund their military expenditures. "Overfund" because they need to spend money on development, procurement and production to the point where they need to also outpace obsolescence and depreciation as equipment rolls out fo the factories in a meaningful way in terms of deployment. Speaking of procurement, its already a hard-sell to member-state citizens about sending tax money to Brussels. Now they have to sell the fact that a massive increase in military expenditures may go to procurement contracts that may not directly benefit the member economies that are funding them? Forget it. Angela Merkel's party has already been neutered because of these types of issues. And thats just the tip fo the iceberg. They may spin up a few operations, roll out of a few tanks and aircraft and hold some joint exercises for the sake of publicity. But a functional, collective military thats on-par with the US or China to keep Russia at bay? Never going to happen. Russia is doing a good enough job fucking itself, no one really needs to do anything.
I am not a strategist or anything, but an EU army seems like a bad move for United States interests. A Euro defense team would remove any real reason for the US to keep bases in Europe, right? If there aren't any US bases, doesn't that put the US at a strategic disadvantage since there won't be any places for US forces to launch from in the event of an attack? This doesn't even account for things like supply, logistics and medical resources that go away because there's no place to put them. A reduction of US bases would also reduce the US's ability to speak softly, but carry a big stick. The US can't act as a deterrent if there's nobody around to act. It's also really hard to act quickly in case some shit goes down, because now the US will need to pack everything, transport it, set it up, break it down and send it back when the event is over. I've never been in the military, nor do I have any experience at all even guessing the amount of time it would take logistically for that to happen. What I do know is that every hour it takes for the US to react, plan and execute, that increases the chance for an event to escalate. It also lessens the ability for the US to shape the narrative and determine the outcomes as a result of the event. Since WWII, the US has been able to get away with dropping their dick on the table and telling people how things are going to be. A unified Euro defense force would allow Europe point and laugh instead of acting in the best interest of the US. However, to my knowledge, there has never been a unified European defense force that acted as a standing army. Yes, NATO is a thing, but there is a difference between an alliance of countries backed by military force, and a standing military. Who would be in charge? Who determines when this defense force is used? What happens if countries within this defense group disagree? And etcetera. These countries have been around for centuries, with disagreements that have lasted for just as long. Counting on Europe to be united in the face of one event that, while terrible for one member, might actually be good for another, seems like a recipe for disaster. What I am not saying is that the current setup is perfect. But, a Euro defense force does reduce global US influence, military strength and response time, and may contribute to global instability. How wrong am I?
Maybe the US should stop acting on everything. Since everything they’ve acted on in the pretty much the past fifty years has always resulted is mass death and a worsening of conditions, perhaps the fact that the country is an empire is a problem for the world, rather than a problem-solver. Maybe the world would feel more stable if all those US armed forces bases on their property were removed. If your President considers himself a nationalist, prove it. Stop telling everyone what to do. Create this new army and see what happens. They’re over there and America is over here. It’s not your problem.