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Befade |
Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2022 4:23 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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Sanibel Island has been a beach getaway with my family for years. How can anyone complain about the heat when hearing of the devastation there? The bridge to the mainland is destroyed and may not be functional for a year.
My efforts to endure the heat are: a lot of swimming, more ceiling fans, thermostat at 79. And soon replacing a 40 year old air conditioning unit. |
_________________ Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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bartist |
Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2022 10:06 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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FORT MYERS, Fla. — Unlike the affluent seaside communities of Sanibel Island and Fort Myers Beach, where the media has descended to chronicle every detail of the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, the people who live in the squat homes in Dunbar have faced the crisis mostly on their own.
And for many in the historically African-American neighborhood, there's a sense of anger and frustration. "They're saying the islands got destroyed," observes 24-year-old Lexxus Cherry. "Well, we're destroyed, too. We're really messed up here."
There's no electricity. Water comes out of the faucet, but it's little more than a thin brownish stream, unsafe to drink. A faint smell of sewage wafts up from the street.
When people here call the power and water authorities, they get only vague assurances. No promises, and no timeframes.
(....)
Cherry's uncle, Ta'Wan Grant, detects a pattern in their plight.
"I understand that the city is trying its best to restore everybody's power," he says. "But this is a common thing that I'm seeing in cities around America. Whenever a disaster happens, for some reason the city is slow to respond to people in ethnic communities, in low-income communities."
"We are the ones who need the most help," Grant says.
https://www.npr.org/2022/10/03/1126482416/in-one-fort-myers-neighborhood-residents-feel-forsaken-in-the-aftermath-of-ian |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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bartist |
Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2022 1:32 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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Syd |
Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2022 10:29 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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After all these months of fretting over the election, it's basically a draw. The Republicans will probably take the House by a very narrow margin, while the Democrats get the Senate with 51 or fifty seats. Governorships look to be 26 - 24 in favor of Republicans. The Republicans should have done better because of inflation and Biden making odd statements, but the Republicans were hampered by
(1) Donald Trump endorsing candidates because they were loyal to him rather than having a chance to win. Walker and Dr. Oz, for example.
(2) Candidates running on the last election rather than this one.
(3) Lindsey Graham's abortion bill which ripped apart the argument that overturning Roe v. Wade would return the issue to the states.
(4) Clarence Thomas speculating on other decisions that should be revisited, like Griswold v. Connecticut and Obergefell v. Hodges. I don't know about you, but most people would like to keep the right to contraception, and most people don't want to vacate marriages for hundreds of thousands of people. |
_________________ I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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gromit |
Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2022 2:52 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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I'd put it:
1) Donald Trump and his continued election denial
2) Dobbs aborting Roe
3) The Trump led insurrection (which the House hearings kept in the spotlight all year)
4) Ridiculous Trump endorsed celeb nominees
For a mid-term it's a pretty terrific result. Too bad the Dems messed up in the NY suburbs. The only Senate miscue was WI where Johnon was vulnerable, and Barnes came close despite not much national Dem support. |
_________________ Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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Syd |
Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2022 8:07 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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If Warnock wins the runoff and Murkowski survives, we'll have gone through an election without a single incumbent Senator losing. It would be the first time that happened since the ratification of the 17th Amendment which established the direct election of Senators. (I don't know if it ever happened before that.) |
_________________ I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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Befade |
Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2022 9:17 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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Its a relief that some sanity came through in Arizona.. I left the state......I'm relieved that I left........but I'm relieved that there's a little less craziness there. |
_________________ Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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bartist |
Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2022 12:08 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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gromit wrote: I'd put it:
1) Donald Trump and his continued election denial
2) Dobbs aborting Roe
3) The Trump led insurrection (which the House hearings kept in the spotlight all year)
4) Ridiculous Trump endorsed celeb nominees
For a mid-term it's a pretty terrific result. Too bad the Dems messed up in the NY suburbs. The only Senate miscue was WI where Johnon was vulnerable, and Barnes came close despite not much national Dem support.
All the more terrific given it's a midterm election during a period of high inflation and a prez with low approval ratings who gets blamed by the opposition for upheavals that are globally driven. I was amazed that the congress race in the most conservative district of Colorado turned into a squeaker which is presently going to recount it's so close. But then the Trumpian candidate, Lauren Boebert, had no discernible policy ideas beyond "angertainment."
So no Hobbesian nightmare for US. And Arizona has a Hobbsian happy ending. (thanks Whiskeypriest for comments elsewhere riffing on the Katie Hobbs/Thomas Hobbes thing) |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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Syd |
Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2022 9:54 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12921
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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RIP Irene Cara, age 63, which is way too young. Her pop career was brief, but included "Fame", "Flashdance...What a Feeling" and the beautiful, poignant and underrated "Out Here On My Own," which was my favorite song from "Fame." The opening of "What a Feeling" is as lovely as it gets. She did other songs, but those three and her acting in "Fame" made her an idol to me. |
_________________ I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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bartist |
Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2022 1:40 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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She was terrific. For good reason people remember Irene Cara in Flashdance but fewer remember Michael Sembello (who did the film's other hit song, Maniac). Too young. The DeHavilland sisters lived too long, while Cara lived too briefly....the world is out of balance. |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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Befade |
Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2022 10:39 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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Gromit…….Are you okay? News of protests in Shanghai. |
_________________ Lost in my own private I dunno. |
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bartist |
Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2022 11:00 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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Yes, any news from our man in Shanghai? (somehow I picture Gromit as Graham Greene, perhaps wearing shorts and dribbling a basketball)
I was thinking of Gromit and his nudging me to see Fassbinders "World on a Wire" a few years back, as I recently watched the new German short series, "1899." The creative team may have felt the influence of WoaW. |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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gromit |
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 6:40 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Protests just a few blocks west of me.
Search Shanghai or Wulumuqi Lu on Twitter and you can see some of the vids. I like the guy who pulls a mini-tankman and stops in front of a police van. Only to be tackled by a half dozen cops after a few seconds.
Two troubling trends. Police reportedly using facial recognition from the ubiquitous surveillance cameras, and then track protesters down at home late at night. And police stopping young people in the area and demanding to check their phones for protest vids and illegal apps such as Twitter, VPN's, etc. Apparently even did some phone searches in the subway. Not good,
Shanghai has been a disaster this year. And starting Dec 1 everyone needs to test every 2 days instead of the previous 3, if you want access to the subway, most office buildings, gyms, etc. Not all supermarkets and gyms are checking and most small shops, fruit stores don't. But you really need a green health code showing a CV test within 48 hours to function smoothly.
Great fun. |
_________________ Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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bartist |
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2022 12:51 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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China, due to the former one-child policy, will be a population top-heavy with elders. Seems like a virus that mainly picks off people over 75 would solve some problems for them. (JK) But seriously, I hadn't really thought of totalitarian communist societies as all that risk-averse when it comes to citizen's lives. China will have monster floods, tens of thousands of people swept away, or killer smog clouds that fell thousands, and the attitude seems to be pretty fatalistic, with a big shrug. Are the ordinary people on the street in China really so fearful of a virus that they are okay with signing away the tiny bit of freedom they still have? |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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gromit |
Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2022 1:22 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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1990-2005 was all about breakneck growth, and they'd deal with the consequences later. Not terribly different than the US post war industrialization, followed by environmental laws starting circa 1970, after rivers caught fire, acid rain, etc.
From 1990-2010m China lifted perhaps 300M people out of poverty. Which certainly involves caring for welfare at a most basic level.
The past 15 years, China has passed more environmental laws, has gone in big for EV's, stopped accepting other countries garbage, etc. A pretty basic two-stage economic process. Develop wealth, then address the harms caused when there is money available.
2021 saw reportedly the heaviest rains in central China in 1000 years, yet only a few hundred died. This isn't Bangladesh. The govt has more resources to tackle natural disasters and has been improving building codes and inspections. And fires officials who fark up.
So i think your stereotype is a bit out of date.
As for the virus, it was super safe in SH and most of China in 2020 and 2021 when huge numbers of Americans were getting sick, hospitalized and/or dying.
But China failed to allow the highly effective mRNA vaccines. Failed to vaccinate the elderly at a high rate. And didn't have an exit strategy for Zero Covid. As in the US, the CV response became politicized and tied to the top leader. So things went off the rails in 2022.
Today China announced an end to mass testing and health codes nationwide. And positive cases can quarantine at home. Any lockdowns will be very targeted, to perhaps a building floor rather than the whole bldg or neighborhood. And end if no further positive cases in 5 days (previously required a 14 day waiting period). And going to make a big vaccination push (already an 85% rate).
We'll see if this works or turns into the Dead Grandma strategy. People are pretty good at masking up here. |
_________________ Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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