Deadly Fires in Texas and Perry Wanted to Cut Fire Fighting Funds?

Hilarious that when you type "Perry Stupid" into
Google Image Search, this is what you get!
From Veracity Stew

Oh, brilliant. Thanks to Stupid Monkey Planet for the linkage, once again.

[Excerpt]


Volunteer firefighters in Texas struggle with financial crisis 

. . .State funding for volunteer fire departments is taking a big hit. It is going from $30 million to $7 million. Those departments are already facing financial strains. . .

Read more at: KVUE.com

AND

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Bastrop fire burns 34,000 acres; two people killed 



A massive wildfire is still burning, after covering more than 34,000 acres and destroying about 550 homes. None of it has been contained and officials now say two people have lost their lives. . .

Read more at: KVUE.com

AND

[Excerpt]

Texas cut wildfire-battling agency budget this year

As Texas Gov. Rick Perry has stayed in-state for the past two days dealing with the record forest fires there, a reader pointed out to me the fact that the state was set earlier this year to cut the budget of the agency that deals with fighting such blazes. . .
Read more: Politico

California Fires Consume Mansions and Trailers Alike

Photo from source, MSNBC

Fire is scary. And it is just one of the many calamities that regularly strike California. They have to endure fires, earthquakes, mud slides. . .it seems like it's always something. I remember after the May decision of the California Supreme Court to allow same-sex marriage, right wing bloggers were eager to blame June's wildfires on gay people. Well now, same-sex marriage has been halted (for now), and we get a whole new batch of fires. How much do you wanna bet they find a way to still blame this on gay people?

OK, enough snark, this is serious. And I hope everybody got out. A trailer park (who knew there was such a thing in Santa Barbara?) was apparently completely wiped out, and firefighters aren't certain that all the people were evacuated. Yikes. Hope the wind stays down, and they get this thing out. I can't think of anything much worse than being caught in a fire.

[Excerpt]

Southern California battles devastating fires
L.A. fire chief fears deaths in mobile home park: 'Almost total devastation'

Southern Californians endured a third day of devastation Saturday as wind-blasted wildfires torched hundreds of mobile homes and mansions, forced thousands of people to flee and shut down major freeways. . .

Read more (with video) at: MSNBC

UPDATE: If you think my snarky attitude about right-wingers blaming these fires on gay people was off base, read this: Pro-'gay marriage' rallies planned nationwide (While CA burns to the ground-- Are they linked?)

Hurricane Gustav and Other Natural Disasters

Image from source, Washington Post

Every part of the country seems to have some vulnerability to natural disasters. That's why I get frustrated when I hear people say, "well, why does anybody live there?" One reason is, what's home is home. And whether you have to deal with earthquakes or tornadoes or forest fires or hurricanes or floods, we've all got something.

Even here in Las Vegas, we have drought, though we've managed to survive so far. Outside of that, the occasional localized fire or dust devil are about it. So the scale of a natural disaster lives only in my memories of the strong tornado seasons of the 1970s in Ohio. Xenia was flattened, and we seemed to have dozens of tornado warnings every year for years. But we stayed there.

Hurricanes in particular are quite peculiar in the way they affect us. Unlike earthquakes--where we can only react, or tornadoes, where we have only hours or minutes to prepare--hurricanes give us days of warnings. We can only sit and wait for it to come. Ride it out or flee, you can't stop it from coming, and it seems to plod along on its destructive path.

The most unusual aspect might be the way technology has brought it into our living rooms. In the last few years, there has been a communication convergence of sorts. Multiple channels of 24-hour cable news have become a ubiquitous reality, and so has instant information on the internet. We can know more about what's going on, faster than we ever could before. And yet, the hurricane takes its sweet time. It's a strange combination of anticipation and dread, and you just want it over with, while simultaneously having a morbid curiosity of what is going to happen.

While I am an avowed cynic, have Mark Twain's view of humanity, and am rampantly morbidly curious, I'm still hopeful that Hurricane Gustav wreaks as little damage in property and life as is possible. I also hope that no political party over-hypes or exploits the aftermath to their advantage. But that's a lot of wishing.

To see a particularly interesting interactive map of Gustav and other storms, click here: Washington Post