It’s, um, hot.
Casa Maha has been unaffected so far by the storms and power outages. The air conditioner is working fine, thanks. Hope all is well with you.
In other news, the allegedly nonexistent national leadership of the Tea Party is calling upon members to rev up their Power Chairs and rally against Obamacare this July 4th.
However, the National Weather Service is predicting excessive heat for most of the Midwest and the southern states — prime bagger territory — so the Koch brothers had better cough up some air conditioned buses and stadiums if they expect much of a turn-out.
The recent (and ongoing) wildfires in Colorado brought out the statism in Little Lulu, who has been screaming that President Obama and the federal government aren’t doing enough to help her. Malkin lives in Colorado and had to be evacuated, I take it.
BTW, last year Lulu’s beloved House GOP voted to cut a massive chunk of the National Forest Service budget.
Since 2010, the Republicans have cut the federal firefighting budget by more than $200 million.
The resources for fighting fires in Colorado are so bad that a delegation was formed by U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton (R -3d CD), Rep. Cory Gardner (R-4th CD), and Rep, Mike Coffman (R-6th CD) demanding the federal government provide more funds and equipment to help fight the expanding fires.
It’s unfortunate that all three of these U.S. Representatives demanding help for their home state also voted for the Paul Ryan budget cuts which would drastically reduce the funding for the federal firefighting program. Rep. Paul Ryan claims he can meet the country’s needs by cutting back on “imprudent, irresponsible, and downright wasteful spending.†Powerfulstorms.com wonders which category firefighting fall into: Imprudent, Irresponsible or Wasteful?
To a rightie, firefighting falls into all three categories until it’s their houses on fire. Is this Imprudent, Irresponsible, or Stupid?
It was so hot here yesterday that I saw a bird pull a worm out of the ground with a potholder!
“To a rightie, firefighting falls into all three categories until it’s their houses on fire. Is this Imprudent, Irresponsible, or Stupid?”
It’s a TRIFECTA!!!
Poor Michelle Malkin – hoist by her own retard!
Apparently, the stupid witch lives near the fires. I hope she survives the fires raging, like Malkin herself, around her Galtian City on the Burning Hill, that Conservative model city, where her home is apparently in or near – Colorado Springs. Maybe she’ll emerge from the flames as some Liberal phoenix? Nah – who am I kidding? She’ll triple-down on ‘Teh Stooopid!”
Hey Michelle, can you and the other Conservatives of Colorado Spring say, “Pyrrhic Victory?”
I love the smell of Schadenfreude in the morning: It smells like… Well, frankly it smells like your feckin’ city of “Moran’s on the Hill” burning to the ground!
What? Too few government-paid firefighters, and government-purchased equipment to handle the fires?
I thought in Conservative/Libertarian speak, that would be called, “VICTORY!”
Maybe you’d feel better if you though of them as “Freedom Flames?”
Oh, that’s right, it’s YOUR homes, and not some inner city ghetto, or poor, mostly brown suburban towns going-up in flames. It’s that uber-Christian white Mecca – Colorado Springs. Shame, that…
Better go grab some Randian buckets, make sure they don’t leak like her theories and your heads, and find them “springs” in Colorado Springs, and get some like-minded Conservatives to help you.
I’m assuming, of course, that The Austrian and Chicago Schools of Economics taught “The Ludwig von Mises Theory of Efficient fire Brigade Formation.”
And, of course, to that feckin’ idjit Wicked Witch of the Mountain West, this is all Obama’s fault.
I swear, you can’t make shit like Modern Conservatism/Libertarianism up!
And I apologize for taking glee in the misery of these feckin’ idjits, and their feckin’ idjiotic theories. But I can’t help myself.
Note that I am restraining myself – by not singing “Burn. BURN MOTHERF*CKER BURN!!!”
Conservatives do seem to think any spending is wasteful, until they need it. And never see the problems with this, as above, with Lulu.
I thought MM lived in one of Rush’s fat folds. Go figure. She should not take up space in one of our more beautiful states. Why isn’t she living in a solid red state like Mississippi?
Had a conservative acquaintance of mine start believing that there should be more gun control only after his son shot himself in the head. Maybe conservative just don’t have an empathy gene, no belief that there by the grace of god, go I. But then again, they do think they have achieved everything on their own, without any help from anyone, ever. So, being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes would be a stretch.
My greatest fear about the climate is that the powers-that-be have looked at the data, know it’s too late, and, barring a miracle, there’s nothing left to do but make themselves as rich and comfortable as possible as we all drown or roast – just some of us and our families drowning and roasting faster than others.
That, at least, would explain the lack of any long-term economic and environmental concerns and planning going on in this country and world.
There are no “free ponies”; you want healthcare or fire protection, then PAY for it. The indirect benefit is you are providing work for other non-1%-ers in the process.
“To a rightie, firefighting falls into all three categories until it’s their houses on fire. Is this Imprudent, Irresponsible, or Stupid?”
I say we not spend a single cent saving a single teabagger house from fire unless they can provide PROOF (show us your documents) that they have paid their annual fire assessment “fee” (definitely NOT a tax)…
As for floods, private flood insurance only, thank you!
But I can’t help myself.
Oh but you can, Gulag! You just have to try harder.
My last 15 years in the work force were with the U.S. Forest Service. The Forest Service is charged, by law, with being the lead agency responsible for battling forest fires.
The fire issue, fire suppression, heat, huge fuel load (dead, dry flammable stuff) are rife with politics. Environmentalists have one view, loggers another and so on.
Twelve years ago this summer I spent 17 days in Hamilton, MT on the Skalkaho fire. http://thecabin.net/stories/082500/wor_0825000071.html
The US Forest Service spends a lot of time & money in not only fighting fires in remote places but in saving people’s houses, real property and livestock.
An oddity of the federal budget is that while the Forest Service is in the Dept of Agriculture, the Congressional funding comes thru the Interior Depts budget.
Not that I wish anyone ill will, but wouldn’t it be ironic if an bunch of people showed up in spite of the heat, and some of them would inevitably end up in the ER for heat exhaustion or dehydration (I get already plenty of them here at the ER I work at)–and it turned out many of them didn’t have insurance!
Sometimes people have to learn the hard way…
It’s a very nice 65 degrees in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. I am so glad I retired to God’s country. MM needs to be referred to the old saying: be careful of what you wish for.
You forgot to mention that Al Gore is fat, and uses a lot of electricity. Not that this provides any evidence of global warming – is *snowed heavily* just winter before last. And everyone knows that global warming will cause higher amounts of *precipitation* – that means *rain*, right?
gulag:
It’s not too late, but it’s getting scary. I’ve heard it said that we’re as close to doomed to 2 degree warming as we can be, and the most realistic goal is to keep it below 4.
The big question is twofold: when do runaway feedback loops kick in (like methane released from permafrost leading to more permafrost thawing to more methane, etc.), and how much can the ecosystem take. They know that 6 degrees of warming is scary unknown territory, but they don’t know if hitting 4 means we’ll end up at 6 anyway. And they don’t know what, exactly, will happen when – just big estimates that are likely to be chillingly accurate – but life can be amazingly adaptable.
So we can’t ‘afford’ to up-date our decaying infrastructure? For all those who are sweating buckets in their non-air conditioned houses, if the wires that carry your electricity had been underground, you’d be enjoying a cool cup of coffee in your air conditioned houses now.