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It’s a punishment A mere coincidence? Not when election results go wrong:
A fire burning out of control in southern California has grown four times bigger in less than 24 hours.
Several thousand people have been evacuated, as the flames move towards built-up areas.
By Tuesday at the latest, there will be op-ed in the Guardian blaming this on Arnold Schwarzenneger.
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Ah, straw men. Aren’t they great?
I grew up in California and my reaction is “Oh, it’s burning again.” Really, you get used to the state burning down every few years. It’s *dry*, after all.
Yeah, Durbin’s right. It’s either brush fires or mud slides (depending on the season).
I thought those were the seasons?
The Santa Anas have died down here. By Tuesday, these relatively minor fires will be ancient history.
For the most part, disaster response in Southern California is one of the rare examples of government doing it’s job well.
I know about the mudslide season. I lived in San Diego for a good part of 1977 give or take a year and I remember it went from flush every second time to news of LA mudslides.
I lived just up the road from Blacks Beach in Cardiff by the Sea.
TO: David Carr
RE: The Naming of Blames
“By Tuesday at the latest, there will be op-ed in the Guardian blaming this on Arnold Schwarzenneger.” — David Carr
I’m waiting for them to call it the wrath of God.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Democrats (and other (il)liberals) – The say anything do anything group.]
Spoke too soon. Not ten minutes after I had entered that last comment, the winds picked up, and with them the flames. My home is very close to the coast, giving the winds some area to defuse. It’s really been quite calm here all day. Rancho Cucamonga, scene of worst of these blazes (the ‘Grand Prix’ fire), is nestled hard against the outlet to one of the main wind channels through the San Gabriel Mtns.. The on-scene reporter was talking of gusts up to 50 mph. I doubt that – we’ve have felt it here. But 35-40 is concievible.
It was actually quite odd and erry this morning. We had the ‘marine layer’, a low coastal fog that generally penetrates inland 5-10 miles in the lowlying areas. but the higher level winds were distributing ash and soot, turning the fog a yellowish-brown. It made me think of Dickensian London.
Sorry, but they don’t need to blame it on Schwarzenegger. They’ll just blame it on “global warming” or “climate change”.
I’m waiting for the chattering classes to blame an earthquake on “climate change”. (I really do believe they will try it.)
Why not? It was the cause of floods in Europe after all.
Really? I thought that would show up in the Saddam Times…I mean L.A. TIMES…first, THEN the Guardian!
Can’t blame it on Arnie — he only takes office in three weeks’ time.
Next year’s fires, however, will be a different story.
It seems as though I should be eating crow just now. But such is not the case. As I indicated in my last comment, the winds have picked up, and persisted. Enough so, in fact, that we have felt fairly steady 10-20 mph winds here on the coast. (For reference, when the Santa Anas [u]really[/u] get cooking, they’ll be 40-50 mph as they head out to sea, and hurricane force as they exit the canyons.)
However, the crux of my comment still stands. Just now there are tens of thousands of people, most of them on government payroll, working passionately to contain these blazes, and mitigate their effect on the citizenry. Could a greater degree of excellence be obtained through privatization? The topic certainly merits debate. But that debate is not nearly so cut-and-dried as, say, the one over education.
(Ya’ know, guys: this might merit being a blog post of it’s own. I’ll leave it to you.)
Of course it’s a punishment.
It’s the Burning Bush.
OK, it’s Tuesday now. Where can I read this article you predicted? (Or was it just a joke?)