We’ve got a birthday to celebrate here at the cabin today and considering the biblical aspects of what’s happening in southeast Texas, I don’t feel like getting political. So, just use this thread to discuss Hurricane Harvey and I’ll see y’all tomorrow when we’ll be releasing the new Washington Monthly College Guide.
Update [2017-8-28 8:40:13 by BooMan]: New College Guide is live. Check out our rankings.
No snark here. I hope the flooding ends quickly, no lives are lost, and the people in the middle of all this get help to rebuild their lives. Living at the tail end of tornado alley, I know what Mother Nature can do to you and it’s not pretty.
Our area emergency group sent a search and rescue team down to San Antonio Friday and they’ll relay back what they need in donations and aid. Hoping for less damage than predicted.
The only Biblical aspect of what is happening in Southeast Texas is the use of the “stewardship” trope to justify climate science denial.
Clearly nothing is happening in Southern Texas. After all, Global Warming is a myth invented by Al Gore, right? So, all the talk of floods must be “fake news” like the fake moon landings!
That’s some really impressive Chinese hackery of weather satellites, isn’t it? Got everyone fooled, you betcha.
of the flooding is happening (southeastern Houston) and they have had 22.23 inches of rain as of 12:30 today. Their communications twitter handle has been the best source of info – https://twitter.com/JSCSOS
As has been pointed out, it’s not just the frightening destruction of the hurricane as it passed through Southeaster TX (having lived through Hurricane Hugo in the Virgin Islands in 1989, I can personally attest to how incredibly frightening and destruction such a storm of this magnitude is to manage to live through), it’s the aftermath of all of this continuing rain that’s the biggest worry.
After all, we thought things were kinda sorta OK after Katrina ripped through NOLA, but the worst was yet to come with the continued rains, rising waters and eventually broken levees.
Wishing everyone affected all the best and hope that Responders can actually manage things effectively under very difficult circumstances.
Sunday 3:18 pm Ben Taub Hospital evacuating patients
FWIW — (this projection (or fear or hope) is pops up in reports on many hurricanes) BenNoll:
ABC13
Reuters – Majority of people in France now dissatisfied with Macron: poll
Rapidly sliding towards Trump level net disapproval numbers. Although that in less rare in France than in the US.
left of Macron.
They voted for Not-LePen, not for him or his program. His “bromance” (saw at least one report characterizing it as such) with Trump can’t be helping.
Yeah — so far left that Chirac got two terms, Sarkozy was the third republican term, Hollande might as well have been a republican and now the overt neoliberal Macron (who is also a political neophyte unlike his predecessors).
Le Pen/FN peaked at 33.9% in the general election. About where a mixed bagged rightwinger would end up in a US election if the top two, all-in primary, advanced to the general election. (Based on my observation of Marine Le Pen in the debates, she really is a political lightweight.)
Macron will suck up to anyone that exceeds him in power or favorable public standing. He enjoyed the assist of Obama in his first and second round elections.
is left of Macron?
Or not?
Hard to tell, since you chose that statement of mine as a launching pad for negative criticism of recent centrist French presidents without actually addressing the statement’s truth or validity with any evidence.
So I’ll stick with what I wrote pending any factual refutation of it.
Depends on how you categorize Le Pen — far right on the standard left-right continuum or outside that continuum?
First round 2017:
Macron 24.01
Le Pen 21.30%
Fillon 20.01
That’s a total of 65.32%, or fifteen points more than a majority. Then there was another 4.70% that went to DLF that rejected Fillon as not conservative enough.
French pollsters didn’t collect the standard demographic data for the first round. They interpret results from the regional breakdowns and left, right, center power bases. More data was gathered from the second round. In that date, there is one finding that could be used to support your claim (not that you offered any data), seniors in France diverged significantly from that demographic in the US and UK elections. They were the least likely to vote for Le Pen of all the age groups. Does that mean that they are more liberal than Macron? Or does it reflect their easier access to personal and family memories of WWII? A good guess is that it’s both.
As socialism figures more prominently in France than the US — along with being better recognized for what it is — and people don’t like giving up socialism that broadly benefits all (Brits don’t want to give up NHS and Americans want their Medicare), that defines the political lean of existing institutions created over many decades and not the current political lean of a population.
French people are left of Macron (as I stated) . . .
. . . or not?
Still can’t tell. Your reply seemed rather obfuscatory on that central point.
Just like NOLA the seniors have been left alone in facilities. Digby has a story. Time to get the national guard on the job. There is going to be a need to get food, water, and shelter for thousands of homeless people.
I live on Florida’s west coast but rarely go to the beach in the summer. A couple of weeks ago, friends from the Midwest stayed with us and visited the beach, and complained how hot the water was. Odd. Usually the temps are tolerably in the low to mid 80s in the summer. I checked the marine conditions and OMG the water was 90 degrees. I told my friends how awful it would be if a hurricane came our way. Warm Gulf waters is hurricane fuel.
No wonder Harvey.
Just checked and water temps have cooled here a bit to 87 which is almost normal. Looked at the water temps off Texas coast and now that the Harvey has gone through, water temps are below normal which is an expected condition.
I suspect Trump and other science deniers do not know or care to know how a hurricane is formed and what lends to its strength.
“Tide goes in, tide goes out … you can’t explain that….”
I have one old friend in the Houston area and just looked at his facebook page to see if he was above water. No mention of rainstorms, he’s in the middle of a discussion of…
college rankings.
not the WM rankings though, this list
which of course has a lot of similarities.
If those two Texans had looked at the WM list I bet they’d have something to say about putting Texas A+M #4.
(my friend is actually 50 miles west and on slightly higher ground, so hopefully safe from needing an ark.)