Hurricane Ida
deaths: 2 known so far Live updates: Ida’s death toll reaches 2 in Louisiana; expected to grow ‘considerably’ (msn.com)
stranded: unknown
Afghanistan War
2,361 United States military casualties in the War in Afghanistan – Wikipedia
u.s. stranded: less than 2oo estimated
Covid Pandemic
656,393 and counting United States COVID: 39,946,708 Cases and 656,393 Deaths – Worldometer (worldometers.info)
stranded: everyone else
weighing per- and pro-spectively the aftermath, one might also want to include deaths by shootings, driving and poverty in america
let us not forget the western wildfires –
repost from last thread by oldman:
https://gizmodo.com/surreal-photos-show-the-fierce-battle-against-caldor-fi-1847586021
and in today’s NYT:
Caldor Fire Intensifies and Evacuations Are Ordered Near Lake Tahoe – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Deaths on US soil from AQ while our forces were in Afghanistan: zero
Covid deaths caused by Republicans lying about vaccines and masks, and, by Republicans issuing EOs or legislating bans on mandates for vaccines and masks: unknown
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/31/new-texas-laws-september-2021/
More numbers: “666 new Texas laws go into effect Sept. 1”
Future stats in this one may be extremely troublesome:
“Permitless carry: House Bill 1927 allows Texans ages 21 and older to carry handguns without training or a license as long as they are not legally prevented from doing so.”
I guess that’s the reason fir the next one.
Active shooter alert system: HB 103 creates the Texas Active Shooter Alert System, which will notify Texans in the vicinity of an active shooting scene through their phones.
*******
Amount of BS: incalculable
“Social studies curriculum changes: HB 3979 limits teachers from discussing current events and systemic racism in class. The bill also prevents students from receiving class credit for participating in civic engagement and bans teaching of the “1619 Project.”
“Funding the “1836 Project”: HB 2497 establishes an “1836 Project” committee to produce patriotic Texas history materials, which will be distributed through channels such as when people receive driver’s licenses. “
(“Patriotic Texas history.” Whatever could that mean?)
Here’s some patriotic Texas stuff:
Criminalizing homeless camping: HB 1925 makes camping in unapproved public places a misdemeanor crime that carries a fine of up to $500. Cities cannot opt out of the ban.
Being homeless in Texas has now been criminalized.
“666 new Texas laws …”
BiD, considering the venal/evil nature of that new legislation that 666 might be more apropos of the character* than the number of them.
*mark of the beast
Axios-Ipsos poll: Vaccine hesitancy may be crumbling – Axios
not quite like the panty raids (nor maybe the kind of students) in grandpa & ma’s college days:
WWLTV:
https://www.wwltv.com/video/news/local/man-attacked-by-alligator-officials-still-looking-for-the-body/289-d0c054a1-1873-45d5-933a-32567e96a4c3?jwsource=cl
By the math – the number of school districts in this area that have announced they are going virtual – quite a few and growing quickly. The backdrop (WSAZ):
Yep – 35 of 55 counties are red, and the response is to set up vaccine clinics among the terminally stupid in the heart of vaccine denial country. Brilliant I tell ya. At least Guv Jim has upped the ante a skosh – which will have close to zero effect.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/27/texas-house-virtual-learning/
“The bill would allow remote learning to be offered only in schools that received a C grade or higher in the most recent round of state accountability ratings. No more than 10% of the district’s student population could be enrolled online, and schools could require students to return to in-classroom learning if they do not meet academic standards.”
Texas, where 90% of a district’s students will be legislated into covid exposure by in-class learning.
from latest update column at wapo:
and from same link
Fawzia Koofi flees Taliban-held Kabul, evacuates to Qatar – The Washington Post
FL Gov. Ron DeSantis won in 2018 by 0.04% margin, 32,000 votes. Florida’s COVID death count now 39,695
No, the Taliban did not seize $83 billion of U.S. weapons WaPo Fact Checker: […] In any case, the $83 billion spent on the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) goes back two decades, including almost $19 billion spent between 2002 and 2009. A 2017 Government Accountability Office report estimated that about 29 percent of the funds spent on the Afghan security forces between 2005 and 2016 went to equipment and transportation. (The transportation costs related to transporting equipment and for contracted pilots and airplanes for transporting officials to meetings. There appears to be no way to segregate transportation spending.) […] That’s certainly a lot of money. Between 2005 and 2016, U.S. taxpayers paid for 76,000 vehicles (such as 43,000 Ford Ranger pickup trucks, 22,000 Humvees and 900 mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles known as MRAPs), 600,000 weapons and more than 200 aircraft, according to GAO. Of course, some of this equipment may be obsolete or destroyed — or soon may not be usable. The SIGAR report shows that 167 aircraft out of an inventory of 211 were usable — but the Afghan Air Force (AAF) still lacked enough qualified pilots. One issue was that the Taliban targeted pilots for assassination. Even more problematic, there were not enough maintenance crews to maintain the aircraft. “Without continued contractor support, none of the AAF’s airframes can be sustained as combat effective for more than a few months, depending on the stock of equipment parts in-country, the maintenance capability on each airframe, and the timing of contractor support withdrawal,” the report said. With great fanfare, the Taliban has seized a number of Black Hawk helicopters, including ones that the United States had just shipped this year at the request of former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani. But only the first crew of Black Hawk mechanics had been trained, so the military “can field no more than one UH-60 per night for helicopter missions,” SIGAR said. {…} The Pinocchio Test U.S. military equipment was given to Afghan security forces over two decades. Tanks, vehicles, helicopters and other gear fell into the hands of the Taliban when the U.S.-trained force quickly collapsed. The… Read more »
Joe makes his case.
This is what bad looks like –
Make no mistake we lost the Battle of Afghanistan which lasted nearly 20 years , and not the war that started when the Jihadist van drove into the parking garage under the World Trade Center.
This war is older than the current telling of it. And we will be fighting it until Climate Change over runs the belly of Asia.
And it will.
Jack –
I read your comment about hurricanes , stick to wonderful music.
Your understanding about our changing planet still sucks putty balls.
Ida was only number 2 behind Katrina to hit La.
And number 5 on the all time list , per the NHC.
One more thing, a small town in BC this summer –
Hit 116 F on a Saturday , 118 F on that Sunday , and 121 F on Monday.
On Tuesday it burnt to the ground.
If you think that’s “normal” , I got a bridge I want to sell you.
Can’t wait for the ol soft shoe dance from the Pentagon about trying to keep a few billion of dollars in the defense budget for Afghanistan.
Jack –
When it comes to this topic you have always used the BBFF .
The “Butt Based Fact File”, you just reach around pull that crap out of your ass.
You sound like the fucking governor if Texas. All knowing , while saying bullshit.
Stick to music .
I am sorry for this attack , but a 400 foot transmission tower blew down , and all the wires are in the river. Is not what Mr. Whiskey painted 2 threads ago.
Ida is a very Big Deal to paint it otherwise is folly and a willful ignorance, of the problem .
And if Jack’s ass was on the East bank of the River some understanding would come to him after 2 months with out power. Because those giant towers were not there to make NOLA more charming.
This is a very big deal for the city , this will be painful .
The great sin of our times to sit in safety , and down play the suffering of others.
It really gets my blood up. Which makes my feet numb.
Young Crawford –
That same post you made about retreating of the coast’s is spot on.
Given our mask muck. This fight will be epic.
i am waiting for the Insurance guys to move , They will move on the down low.
Try and build a home in the woods any where in the West.
Buy a beach house in NC,
That comes first , all of this is not for the “Middle Class”.
But they hit them first .
And that will drive the market down stream .
All without a word about their plan.
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/france-peevolution-urine-farming-agriculture-fertilizer/
OM – Since you seem full of piss and vinegar tonight, you might enjoy this read. Not exactly the still-suits of Dune, but…
“At first, Roes tested concentrating the urine and then extracting the nitrogen. But the end product was more expensive than farmers would usually pay. So he tried something else: fermenting it and adding natural bacteria to help crops assimilate nitrogen from the air and the plants to absorb nutrients and water.“
“…human urine is processed by a hugely flawed infrastructure network. In the European Union, almost 6,000 billion liters of drinking water is used to flush away urine each year,…”
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/31/texas-senate-border-wall-security-bill/
How many people could be helped with $2 billion?
Yeah Bob, I know you and twitter get off on disaster porn but the facts of that post still stand.
This was just a bad hurricane, not the worst ever.
Of course if we narrow the window, I’m sure you can find a spot that it was the worst ever.
Jack
BTW
The worst ever by wind speed was Hurricane Allen , At one point it had wind speeds of 190mph. by the time it hit southern Texas it was just an ordinary 130mph hurricane.
Jack
Jack, hurricanes are measured, primarily by strength and damage. Ida was 5th strongest to hit the US. It would be easy for me to sit in East Bumfuck and opine on how bad it was, but I won’t. If you measure by damage let’s wait for those figures. That’s driven more by point of landfall more than strength. We’ll see.
NEW THREAD