Houston, Flint, New Orleans -- Libertarian Heaven?

by wj

The Count said in the previous thread:

Watch local Texas municipalities try to implement more rational land use and building code policies and then see how vermin libertarian republican right wing crypto christian fascists in the Governor's Manse and in the State House deprive their local rights and thwart all improvement.

And then, moments after I read that, I came across this from the Economist:

Pre-trial hearings loom for the former emergency manager and the director of public works of Flint, Michigan. Both have been charged with involuntary manslaughter over their roles in a public-health scandal. The nearly bankrupt Midwestern city had switched to a cheaper water source, the Flint river. Officials repeatedly dismissed complaints by residents (many of whom are poor and black) about the brownish, smelly water that came from their taps. Flint did not treat the river water with an anti-corrosion chemical; when pumped through ageing pipes it exposed the lead tubes beneath, allowing the metal to leach into drinking water. Babies in particular suffer from exposure to lead, which can lead to learning disorders, hearing loss, aggressive behaviour, anaemia, kidney damage and lowered IQ. As many as 9,000 children may have been affected.

Meanwhile, in New Orleans, 3 of the 5 generators which power their pumps are down. And over 10% of those pumps are currently down for maintenance, here in the height of hurricane season. In a city which is almost entirely below the level of the Mississippi Riven that flows thru town, not to mention below sea level.

Ever notice how dedicated libertarians always seem to be people who a) can afford to live in places which don't have these problems, and b) generally do? While insisting that their philosophy be applied to the rest of the world, whether the rest of the world wants it or not.

Comments

[Countme-a-Demon]

McTX responded almost immediately to say he and his are fine. He will report in here when he is up and running, whatever that entails.

So, good news!

He said we are very kind. But he wanted to know what cleek meant by "yep".

No, he didn't!

[Snarki, child of Loki]

russell: "Not a lot of plasma physicists in the room, for most rooms I find myself in."

No kidding. Magnetohydrodynamics is tough enough, before getting into the really hard stuff.

[Girl from the North Country]

Good news on McKinney. Thanks, Count.

[Countme-a-Demon]

When hiring someone to oversee fraud prevention, find someone good at fraud:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-admin-reportedly-hires-a-former-for-profit-college-dean-for-fraud-enforcement-2017-08-30?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts

[McKinneyTexas]

Thanks for the expressions of concern. We are fine. No water and were able to get away to our place outside Austin yesterday afternoon. We'll probably turn our place in Houston over to a family who needs a place to stay.

I read with interest a number of the comments here and the links. While Houston is getting all or almost all of the press, most of the rest of the Texas coast from Corpus to Louisiana got hammered and hammered hard. Flooding went as far as San Antonio and Austin.

This was not a Katrina, or even close. Katrina was a heavy storm surge, failed levees and 9 inches of rain. We got 50 or more inches of rain. We got it over an area of roughly 5 counties, a huge watershed, that drains out of three major rivers and a couple more minor ones. Houston does have a large flood water retention capacity, two huge reservoirs on the west side of town. They just aren't big enough to hold that volume of water. No place in the US can withstand 50 inches of water over 3-4 days.

My news is current as of yesterday. I don't think there are reliable numbers on how many homeless there are and how many businesses (jobs) are damaged or totaled. I heard somewhere, so this is not authoritative, the number of semi-permanently homeless to exceed 500,000. That's just for Houston. There is Beaumont, Corpus, Victoria, Galveston and everything in between. Other than body count, Katrina isn't even close in magnitude.

The fallout will begin to be comprehended who-knows-how-many news cycles from now. Houston will be old news. My firm has three lawyers and two staff personnel who have lost their homes including contents. This is crappy, but at least we can keep the paychecks coming and do a intra-firm fund for relief.

I'm pretty busy right now, but the Count (whose real name you would not believe) asked me to drop in. Again, thanks to all for their thoughts. A little $$$ to the Red Cross or something like that would help a lot. Adios.

[Ugh]

Good to hear McKinney!

[russell]

stay safe and dry, McK

[Girl from the North Country]

Seconded, McKinney. In due course no doubt we can all go back to sniping at each other, but in the meantime thank heavens you're safe, and good on you for trying to house a rendered-homeless family.

By the way, I prefer to think of the Count as a Count - he's infinitely more interesting than the only real Count I've known personally (Polish ancestry, Italian title, couldn't stop talking about sex)!

[Countme-a-Demon]

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a57276/harvey-longterm-effects/

[cleek_with_a_fake_beard]

good to hear, McTx.

[Countme-a-Demon]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/threats-over-confederate-monuments-georgia

Saute his sweetbreads in cobra venom. Confiscate his corpuscles. Reverse engineer his mother's alimentary canal.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

"Count (whose real name you would not believe)"

Gandhi? Mohandas Gandhi? Is that you?

You've changed. Looks good on you.

[Marty]

Elvis has NOT left the building..

[Countme-a-Demon]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/gop-texas-rep-absolutely-trapped-home-tyler-county-due-flooding

Well, good, I hope he misses the vote on this:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/gop-eyes-1-billion-disaster-funds-border-wall

May even his rats abandon him. Liquify his underwear.

[Countme-a-Demon]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/university-north-carolina-deny-richard-spencer-request-speak-campus

The only free-speech-dialogue I will have with his Nazi ilk is how many of his fillings I plan to remove for keepsakes before he chooses whether to enter the Kenner Easy-Bake Oven head first or feet first.

Firebomb his inner Dresden and make of Argentina a Nagasaki for him and his.

He's my chum, chum. I bait my hook with him to catch much greater whites.

Ya know, if Hitler was an American citizen right here in 2017, his free speech rights would let him win the world for Lebensraum. Third Reich money flowing to him would have been declared speech and IG Farben would have peoplehood bestowed on them as the luckiest loved people in the world.

He's have announced the invasion of Vermont and California by Panzer Divisions and the SS from a podium in front of the cheering coeds at Southern Methodist University and the University of Florida.

The Eizantzgruppen would park their vans alongside the White House motor pool to attend the Wansee Conference II in the White House Briefing Room.

Roy Cohn and Jerry Falwell Jr. would cater the event with wedding cakes.

[Countme-a-Demon]

When you've lost Coulter, you've lost the Nazi High Command in short skirts:

https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2017/08/trump-selling-tax-cuts-he-previously.html

See the embedded video therein of rump speaking in 1986 about taxes. He talks exactly like he does now, except the words mean even less, but are more mean and the exact opposite now.

Afterwords, he and Rivers agreed that Michelle Obama has a penis and wished theirs was as big as hers.

There is no evident progressive dementia since that time to this momentous time.

He's as sharp as this Taylor Caldwell character financing the perfect vehicle for the insertion of his thick-speeched forked tongue -- the republican party:

https://www.amazon.com/Dialogues-Devil-Taylor-Caldwell/dp/0891902791

He was deep inside the republican party Trojan Horse all along like a lesion, a kidney stone, a bolus of concentrated poisonous venom waiting for the heimlich manuever to be administered by the hateful, deplorable republican base to get it all over us.

That'll do me for a Wednesday.

[CharlesWT]

In the Dallas area, the gas pumps are starting to run dry.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Just stick a blow-dryer into the oil cap apertures and sell em back to the flood victims for higher prices than they paid for them originally.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/hurricane-harvey-could-cause-a-price-surge-for-used-cars/ar-AAr0fGg

[Countme-a-Demon]

Substituting a chemical spill for the English language in defense of deplorable, non-existent ethics.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/uber-investor-unleashes-grandiloquent-vocabulary-lesson-in-defense-of-kalanick-2017-08-30?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts

The Mafia is more eloquent.

"It's the way business is done over here."

[CharlesWT]

"Hurricane Harvey's record-shattering flooding and rainfall...could wreck more than half a million vehicles."

Cash for Clunkers destroyed as many. The hurricane is just more indiscriminate.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Truth seekers. Leaders of men. Orgasmic fakers of fake news orgasms. Deracinaters of facts. Those who put the alt in alternative news. Good Germans.

https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2017/08/bizarroworld-katrina.html

Tell me the alternative to saving the country by finally trimming their artichoke wicks.

[sapient]

There you go CharlesWT. Libertarian paradise.

[CharlesWT]

Definition: Price Gouging — Someone selling something for a price someone else doesn't approve of.

[sapient]

Like I said ...

[Countme-a-Demon]

"Someone selling something for a price someone else doesn't approve of."

That's also the definition of looting.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/08/29/abc-reporter-in-houston-shamed-as-a-snitch-for-looting-tweet/

The dead body was an afterthought because it wasn't that of a slave so didn't qualify as property.

There are statues that attest to the opposite.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Funnynot, I can listen to this speech by Richard Spencer on Google's Youtube ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq-LnO2DOGE

But this guy can't talk without losing his job at Googletank

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/researcher-fired-from-google-backed-think-tank-after-praising-antitrust-fine-2017-08-30?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts

So, now I have to sell all of my mutual funds to rinse myself of the horseshit that is America.

At least Anne Marie Slaughter's name fits her function.

[Tony P.]

The ObWi commentariat: Count, if you would, tell him all our thoughts and prayers are with them.

I take a back seat to nobody in wishing McTX well, but I'll be goddamned if my "prayers" are with him. Who the hell sent The Great Houston Flood in the first place? Was it Librul Satan, at a moment when Supply-Side Jesus wasn't paying attention?

Okay, I apologize -- a bit. "Thoughts and prayers" has become a cliche that rolls trippingly off the popular tongue every time the God of Abraham inflicts some outrage on His creatures, so I should just act like a duck and let it roll off my back. But it's the having to act like a duck that gets my feathers ruffled.

--TP

[Countme-a-Demon]

Tribute to both our loss of Glen Campbell and Houston:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSDRdCDAhp0

Sing "Galveston" if it seems a better fit.

[bobbyp]

At this point we are going in circles. I'm starting to believe that some of you would rather feel smug and look down on the lazy and stupid instead of wining the argument.

The argument is of the same genre as telling blacks to "just slow down" when pushing to end segregation, or hectoring Democrats to tone down their divisive "identity politics" (Lille) because a few folks claim to be offput for some reason or another.

It is a dead loser.

But I would assert that we must be doing something right if 70% of the American public agrees that global warming is a problem. That's more than half the battle right there.

Then the question becomes one of policy, not this inane discussion about the terrible harm posed by "inaccurate" (sic) predictions.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Pat Robertson has not yet attributed Houston's misery to liberal sacrilege, that I know of, as he has done every other catastrophe over the past 40 years.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/8/26/16202436/700-club-terry-heaton-pat-robertson-trump

Maybe there aren't any LGBT folks in the Houston area.

Wait, Ann Coulter has been taking names and booking the boxcars for points east in Poland:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2017/08/ann-coulter-god-punishing-houston-credible-cause-hurricane-climate-change/

God did find out that Robertson is prone to bestiality of the equine variety and so gave him a kick in the ass:

http://wtkr.com/2017/08/11/pat-robertson-hospitalized-after-horseback-riding-incident-cbn-says/

[russell]

just want to say i'm digging the mad libs count.

"trimming their artichoke wicks". i'm stealing that.

[liberal japonicus]

McT, good to hear you are safe and you may not be able to answer, but I wanted to ask, when you wrote

This was not a Katrina, or even close. Katrina was a heavy storm surge, failed levees and 9 inches of rain....No place in the US can withstand 50 inches of water over 3-4 days.

You mean that Houston and Harvey are something on a order worse than Katrina, or the opposite? When I read the first sentence, I thought the latter, but the rest of the paragraph suggests the former.

[JanieM]

For what it's worth, lots of ifs, buts, and maybes in a very preliminary comparison of Katrina and Harvey.

[Countme-a-Demon]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/8/29/1694387/-Republican-won-t-apologize-for-calling-George-Soros-a-Hungarian-Jew-with-hatred-for-America

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king's horses and all
the king's men
ate omelots made of republicans

Take an owl. Boil it. Render it. Remove the feathers, remove the eyes and gullet. Take away the bones, the viscera, the flesh, the skin, the talons. Extract its wisdom from the brain cells, discard that organ. Place the concentrated drop of wisdom in a thimble. Throw the thimble into the maw of a volcano. It's gone. Incinerated. Missing and presumed dead on November 9, 2016, like America.

[Pollo de muerte]

But I would assert that we must be doing something right if 70% of the American public agrees that global warming is a problem. That's more than half the battle right there.

Posted by: bobbyp | August 30, 2017 at 09:51 PM

I acknowledge that:

I prefer to look at the trends, which are moving in a positive direction:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/206030/global-warming-concern-three-decade-high.aspx

Posted by: Pollo de muerte | August 30, 2017 at 07:11 AM

but ...

Then the question becomes one of policy, not this inane discussion about the terrible harm posed by "inaccurate" (sic) predictions.

Posted by: bobbyp | August 30, 2017 at 09:51 PM

This is where we disagree, from my same earlier post:

The hard work is turning this vague sense of "there's a problem" into actual policy. It's not self-indulgence. It's important.

Posted by: Pollo de muerte | August 30, 2017 at 07:11 AM

A similarly large majority of Americans think poverty is a problem and that people on welfare would rather get off welfare and work for living. But then you look at opinions on the efficacy of welfare and those numbers are in the toilet. It's one thing to get folks to recognize the problem, it's another thing entirely to get folks to pay for a solution. Paul Ryan just shows the graph with poverty rates flat over the last several decades even in the face of all that money spent on the poor* and the political fight is won ... that's why the models are important and how we discuss the models is important.

Here's the thing, AGW is such a big problem that it may overcome crappy messaging, but I promise you that this smug condescension coupled with overstatement ain't helping get things done in a timely manner.

* Really not that much money.

[McKinneyTexas]

Harvey Update: turns out a lot of those high information experts were wrong about Houston. WJ, you might want to read this: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/451082/houston-land-use-policies-are-not-blame-its-flooding

As a side note, the picture at the top of the article captures the flooding in what is knows as The Villages, a stand alone, somewhat loosely knit organization of 5 high end "villages" that are politically distinct from but right in the middle of Houston. Harvey was very egalitarian.

If you take the time to read the article, please re-read the first several paragraphs. Then, read the rest of the piece. My hat is off to the author, who definitely stepped outside of his normal arena to go against the flow.

[wj]

McKinney, thanks for that. I'd agree that it's important to remember that Harvey was so overwhelming that even perfect, ideal land use would have been utterly overwhelmed. (Whether that's because Harvey was a demonstration of what climate change has in store is another discussion.)

That said, it remains true that some local decisions had significant negative impacts. It's not reasonable to design your transportation infrastructure to allow for the evacuation of most of the population. But what Houston appears, from this great distance, to have for transportation capacity is way on the low side.

Admittedly, transportation infrastructure has failed to keep up with growth in most places where the economy is not shrinking. That's why commutes are so bad. (And, in extreme cases, non-commute traffic as well.) But the shortcomings of others doesn't excuse our own faults.

[McKinneyTexas]

That said, it remains true that some local decisions had significant negative impacts. It's not reasonable to design your transportation infrastructure to allow for the evacuation of most of the population. But what Houston appears, from this great distance, to have for transportation capacity is way on the low side.

Which local decisions?
Which transportation capacity is on the low side?
How would any of the above mitigated the flooding?
Except for certain designated areas, we were told--the entire city was told--do not evacuate, shelter in place. This was the correct advice.

Houstonians have actual experience with trying run from a Hurricane. The freeways become hopelessly grid-locked and everyone is left out in the open at the mercy of whatever Mother Nature has cooked up. You can't put 2-3 million people on a freeway system at one time anywhere in the world and not get gridlock. Fortunately, when this happened before Ike, everyone realized the futility of running and went home. Had we tried to evacuate in advance of Harvey, the body count would dwarf Katrina.

What we saw after Harvey and what the author documents was repeated instances of experts on the left trying to make science the servant of ideology. There is a lesson to be learned here, but not by Houston.

[liberal japonicus]

McKT, thanks and I appreciate your feelings. I remember Katrina and there were lots of people (Tacitus being one of them) proferring solutions while failing to understand many of the basic facts about NO. So I feel your pain.

However, my understanding for the lack of evacuation was that the flood systems were designed to first fill up the roads.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/why-cities-flood/538251/

This might be one of the guys who you are taking issue with, but the argument that roads are for floodwater conveyance makes a more sense to me than to try and make places for the floodwater to go.

But (and you knew this was coming), how do you (or some article you think is apropos) address the fact that these weather events are becoming much more common

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/08/hurricane-harvey-probably-isnt-a-500-year-event-anymore/

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/8/28/16211392/100-500-year-flood-meaning

The first one is from that magazine loved by us fellow travelers, but I tend to view Kevin Drum as a moderate commentator, not given to flights of fancy. The Vox article talks about how the notion of a 500 year flood is quite flawed. Given this, are you still as sanguine about climate change?

[Pro Bono]

The article McKinney links to tells us that "the Washington Post is reporting now that Harvey dumped 19 trillion gallons on Texas — a large portion of that hitting the Houston area". I followed the link in the article, and learned from the Washington Post that "Over Harris County alone — which is home to Houston — 1 trillion gallons of water fell in the four days from Saturday through Tuesday."

So the article's "large portion" is more like 5%. Which doesn't in itself change the conclusion, but it does cast doubt on the rigour of the analysis.

[sapient]

The Atlantic link that lj included in his 7:53 am linked to an article about China's "sponge cities". Really interesting.

Some governments are taking seriously the threat of climate change, and trying to mitigate its effects. I imagine that it will be a difficult and imperfect engineering and urban planning task, perhaps with some trial and error involved. Sad that some of the most vulnerable regions in the US are run by climate deniers and libertarians who reject concerted action, and aren't even willing to try.

[CharlesWT]

The damage done to Houston was due to not so much the size of the storm, but that it stalled in place over the Houston area. It would be difficult to link hurricanes stalling over high population areas to climate change.

[hairshirthedonist]

If storms are more likely, the likelihood of storms stalling over a given area will go up proportionately, unless some other factor made them less likely to stall.

[hairshirthedonist]

Another way of putting it is, to have a storm stall over a city, there has to be a storm.

[McKinneyTexas]

This might be one of the guys who you are taking issue with, but the argument that roads are for floodwater conveyance makes a more sense to me than to try and make places for the floodwater to go.

This is what he says:

"A series of slow-moving rivers, called bayous, provide natural drainage for the area. To account for the certainty of flooding, Houston has built drainage channels, sewers, outfalls, on- and off-road ditches, and detention ponds to hold or move water away from local areas. When they fill, the roadways provide overrun. The dramatic images from Houston that show wide, interstate freeways transformed into rivers look like the cause of the disaster, but they are also its solution, if not an ideal one."

Our roadways do not provide overfill. That is just not true. Our roadways flood when there is more water than our flood control system can accommodate. I've bolded our flood control system. You can't develop without putting in flood mitigation. We have a ton of that. Texas doesn't regulate like CA, but none of us like being flooded out of our homes and politicians don't get elected by openly proclaiming their indifference to flood mitigation. Our highways do not channel water. Citizens would not stand for that. Water does not flow down I-10 or I-69. Rather, it rises and where the roads are low enough, they become covered in water.

This is another example of a purported expert offering factually incorrect information. His position is physically impossible. Geographically and topologically, Houston is on a coastal prairie. Elevations vary by less than 100 feet for the most part and are completely random and uneven. For our roads to serve as water conduits, they would have be built on a steady incline from inland to the gulf. There are many reasons why this isn't done, first among them being it's physically impossible to build a 50 or 60 mile stretch of road on a high-to-low grade when you are located on level land to begin with--there is no elevation to work with. As it happens, most of our newer freeways and high volume roads are elevated, not depressed, as they would need to be to channel water. The reason for this is to allow roads to be passable during floods. We need our roads for emergency services and normal travel, not water discharge

But (and you knew this was coming), how do you (or some article you think is apropos) address the fact that these weather events are becoming much more common.

Well, there's actually been quite a lull in hurricanes since 2008. I think we had one Cat One in 2010. Whether Harvey was and Irma will be more powerful due to climate change is something you can find scientists on both sides of. I don't know about the rest of the world, but our winters are noticeably milder and have been for some time. Selling me on the notion that we are in a warming cycle is easy. Selling me on the notion that human activity is a factor and maybe even a large factor in the current cycle is also an easy sell. What I'm not buying is that ceding control of the economy to centralized planning is anymore likely to make things better than trying to work around and with whatever actual conditions unfold--yes, there is a consensus that the earth is warming, no, there is not a consensus on what it means in the out years. And even if the US depopulated overnight, China and India along with Russia and most of its former satellites aren't going to play ball, so it would be actual economic and lifestyle suicide in aid of symbolism.

Sometime back, someone here linked to an article in the Guardian that pointed out the dystopia we would have if we actually did what some say is necessary to forestall disaster. If that person can re-link, I'd be really appreciative.

So the article's "large portion" is more like 5%. Which doesn't in itself change the conclusion, but it does cast doubt on the rigour of the analysis.

Maybe not. If you were to calculate the area over which Harvey dropped its 19 trillion gallons, you would see that it is quite large, far more than 20 times the size of Houston. Houston, at 600 sq miles, is 1/3 of Harris County. Harvey dropped its load over 20,000 or more square miles. Don't think of this in terms of gallons. Think of this in terms of 20-50 inches of water dumped out over a huge area and then being funneled out of maybe 15-20 rivers and bayous. Houston got a disproportionately larger share of Harvey's rain than did any other area of the gulf coast except perhaps Beaumont.

[hairshirthedonist]

Our roadways do not provide overfill.

Overfill or overrun?

For our roads to serve as water conduits, they would have be built on a steady incline from inland to the gulf.

That's not really how it works, though. You get the water to the nearest detention or retention site. It's not foolproof, of course, but you don't simply drain all the water with manmade infrastructure to the ocean.

Either way, your link has me thinking, at least. I'd be interested in seeing a few responses from a few of the supposedly biased experts Charles Marohn criticizes to see how they manage to address the points he makes. I don't know why I should be supposing he's the unbiased one.

[McKinneyTexas]

The first one is from that magazine loved by us fellow travelers, but I tend to view Kevin Drum as a moderate commentator, not given to flights of fancy. The Vox article talks about how the notion of a 500 year flood is quite flawed. Given this, are you still as sanguine about climate change?

Missed this one. I've addressed climate change and my position here has been consistent over the years--yes, it exists, no, my friends on the left should not be in charge of retooling the world economy to mitigate effects we do not know we will experience.

The "more fierce, less frequent" storm idea is new to me. Maybe it's been around awhile, or maybe it's science being shaped by advocates to account for the lower number of storms.

That said, the whole concept of a 100, 500 or 1000 year flood is outdated if it ever had relevance. Once you change the hydrology materially, you either increase or decrease flood severity. Flood severity is a function of four things: how much rainfall over how much time falling on how large of a surface with how much absorption/discharge capacity. 50 inches of rain is a buttload of rain, period full stop.

Is that unprecedented? I have no idea. If these become the norm year-in and year-out, we'll have to either engineer a solution or rethink coastal living. If this is something that happens somewhere in the Western Hemisphere every 10 years or so, we'll just have to live with it. Right now, we don't know what we are looking at. The modeling is not consistent.

[McKinneyTexas]

That's not really how it works, though. You get the water to the nearest detention or retention site. It's not foolproof, of course, but you don't simply drain all the water with manmade infrastructure to the ocean.

We use sewers underneath our roads to get the water to the detention locations. We do not use our roads for that purpose. The person who said that is just wrong.

[hairshirthedonist]

The person who said that is just wrong.

That conclusion may be correct, in spite of the flawed argument you made for it.

[sapient]

no, my friends on the left should not be in charge of retooling the world economy to mitigate effects we do not know we will experience.

Nobody wants to retool the entire economy, just make a good faith attempt to wean ourselves from fossil fuels, and find innovative ways to address environmental challenges. That requires collective action.

Instead, the libertarians have given us this. Thanks!

[hairshirthedonist]

Yeah, don't cede the finding solutions to friends on the left, then, The Right.

[McKinneyTexas]

It's not binary, left vs libertarian.

[russell]

my friends on the left should not be in charge of retooling the world economy to mitigate effects we do not know we will experience.

Dude, we can't even get a carbon tax.

The world economy is going to re-tool itself, with or without our input, control, or consent. Folks who do nothing are just going to be along for the ride.

Looks like that will be us.

[russell]

BOS, JFK, SFO airports. Elevation all under 20'.

Let's wait and see what happens.

[cleek_with_a_fake_beard]

to mitigate effects we do not know we will experience.

everyone knows it's always best to wait for the disaster to strike and then prepare for it to come around again.

[sapient]

It's not binary, left vs libertarian.

I'm pretty sure that most here know who I'm talking about.

[Countme-a-Demon]

"It's not binary, left vs libertarian."

Libertarians might disagree.

As a general statement, it's more of a triadic arrangement.

Conservatives and liberals have their disagreements.

Libertarians disagree with conservatives regarding state and societal action on social issues.

Libertarians disagree with liberals on, well, everything else regarding state and societal action.

There are degrees of disagreement, of course.

We know Galt's Gulch will flood every 500 years, but try to get any idea of action through Dagny Taggart's head because she believes her stiletto heels place her on high ground, above where the lesser libertarians can afford to live.

[sapient]

Libertarians disagree with conservatives regarding state and societal action on social issues.

That is, except for elected libertarians, who mostly oppose women's reproductive rights.

[wj]

Ah, but are those real libertarians? Or just, as I suspect, libertarians of convenience? I'd bet on their libertarianism being a false flag, to avoid being tarred by the most visibly bigoted of their soulmates.

[sapient]

Ah, but are those real libertarians?

Good point. "Real libertarians" lead the people without the bother of a government run electoral process.

[Countme-a-Demon]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-hurricane-irma-could-be-something-not-good

Two views:

1. he has no evidence, perhaps in the form of leas-than-100% consistently predictive computer models, on which to base those conclusions, so battening down the hatches should be a matter of individual choice with no supervision over general battening, especially if the supervision itself isn't in the direct path of Irma.

2. scientists, the ones at the NWS and NOAA with the less than 100%-consistent computer models, said Irma could be "something not good", except expressed in an elitist, smarty pants vocabulary, often mistaken for liberal heecack, and rump is a barely articulate parrot which can mimic human communication, even though he shits on scientists from on high, though I expect he may have the survival instinct to move his expensive vase, probably a fake, from the lobby of Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach.

[cleek_with_a_fake_beard]

rats, Limbaugh figured out the scam. i guess that's it for the retail/climate/big-weather cartel.

[hairshirthedonist]

From the Count's TPM link:

“There’s a new and seems to be record-breaking hurricane heading right toward Florida and Puerto Rico and other places. We’ll see what happens,” Trump said during a meeting with congressional leaders. “We’ll know in a very short period of time, but it looks like it could be something that will be not good. Believe me, not good.”

(...)

The President said he and Congress “have many, many things that are on the plate.”

“Hopefully, we can solve them in a rational way and maybe we won’t be able to,” he said. “We’ll probably know pretty much at the end of this meeting or the meetings that we’ll be having over a short period of time.”

Whether it's over a short period of time or a very short period of time, our president is as thoughtful and eloquent as ever. In any case, we'll know what happens after we see what happens.

[Countme-a-Demon]

I bought a flashlight recently because of the fear of the scam of darkness.

I bought groceries the other day because of the fear of the scam of hunger.

I bought Bandaids the other day because of the fear of the scam of booboos.

Now, yes, capitalists capitalize.

I haven't shot Limbaugh in the head yet because of the fear of the scam of conservative talk radio horseshit.

But that's because I've yet to buy a cache of weapons and ammo because of the fear the NRA and Limbaugh peddle, at great capitalist profit to themselves, because of the fear of the scam of crime and government tyranny.

So far, I have limits.

The day is young.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Advertisers who stuck with, and who are stuck with, Limbaugh's horseshit after his scam and fear-stoking regarding Sandra Fluke:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/03/all-advertisers-who-are-sticking-limbaugh/330625/

I can imagine, if not computer model, the leads and catch lines on the advertising copy for these fear and trembling bucket shops:

"Drop everything, fatsos, and run, if you are able, don't walk, NOW, and get your belly-fat reduction kit, before supplies run out!!!!!!!!!

"Reclusive billionaire expert says we are days away from total currency collapse!!! Buy gold [email protected]#$! Send your dollars before it's too late, because the payment on my Maserati is due, and my lender doesn't accept [email protected]&

IRS after you? Call Doug now(&*%$! 1-800-YOU-SUCK. Ask for Ron Paul!

Black is black and it matters!! Especially if the black guy is in government and/or is walking by your house minding his own business. Join the NRA! Get a free 100-slug clip coupon for purchase your nearest authorized (but not for long, if you don;t shoot a liberal) arms dealer! Free armored codpiece with derringer-in-a-bow-tie included.

Rising oceans? Schmizing Schmocians! Call now: Boca Raton Realty. Our customer service agents are ready to take your calls, and then change their names, relocate their bucket shops, and disguise their voices, all after you send that money order and alert the Feds! Free snorkel [email protected]! Supplies limited!

What God doesn't want you to know. The Church of Pascal's Wager Betting Parlour NOW OPEN for Business! God's Love revealed! Or Not! Takes your chances! Send everything you own.

Always be closing.

It's in the Bible and the Constitution.

[Countme-a-Demon]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ty-cobb-more-adults-in-the-room-trump-kelly

Ty Cobb says the more adults in the room with rump the better.

I wonder what Pete Rose and Denny McClain would advise.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Political ideology in Texas in the service of everything, especially filling up the campaign coffers by suing the black guy over the brown people:

http://juanitajean.com/here-ya-go-ken-paxton/

[CharlesWT]

"'Houston is governed by a number of different storm water ordinances from different entities,...The City of Houston, Harris County Flood Control District, and the Texas Department of Transportation all limit the amount of water you can release from a development, regardless of how much you pave.' These regulations lay out rules for the quantity and rate of storm water runoff allowed from developments and for how that runoff is managed."
The Media Keep Saying Houston's Development Caused it to Flood: An engineer explains why that's wrong.

[Girl from the North Country]

The Count's advertising copy is, as we say in England, the dog's bollocks. It really should be available to a wider audience in these troubled times...

[Pollo de muerte]

Watching Irma closely. Definitely getting out of Orlando. It's iffy whether our place in Cedar Key will far enough west to be a good shelter. We'll put the shutters up on Friday in CK and then make a decision. My wife already made a hotel reservation in Destin as a fallback.

I had a hearing in Gainesville today. On the drive up, I saw a caravan of Miami-Dade S&R trucks headed south after working in Houston. No rest for those guys and gals.

I spoke to a FHP trooper at the courthouse and they are considering reversing all the lanes on 95, 75 and the turnpike starting sometime tomorrow.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Be safe Pollo de muerte.

Is this a case of the chickens LEAVING home to roost?

[Pollo de muerte]

Can you imagine what 150 mph winds would do to my plumage?

My wife works for a major cruise line. They are canceling scheduled cruises and offering free rooms to their employees as the ships head out to avoid the storm. We've never seen that before.

This storm is no joke.

[Countme-a-Demon]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/hurricane-irma-rains-hit-puerto-rico

Ratchet down the block grants:

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/09/06/time-to-call-the-senate-again/

Let's see how capped block grants work presently:

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/09/06/irma-puerto-rico-and-medicaid-block-grants/

https://theintercept.com/2017/05/09/puerto-ricos-123-billion-bankruptcy-is-the-cost-of-u-s-colonialism/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanielparishflannery/2017/06/01/will-puerto-rico-find-a-way-to-survive-its-debt-crisis/#47449f355b90

rump told Houstonians that he is the federal government and he was there to help them

Ronald Reagan:

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help ..."

Republican Governor of Texas: "Let me put it other words. Give us $200 billion.

Either sumpins got to give or half of America needs to shut the fuck up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkzO44VaUB0

[wj]

This storm is no joke.

A Cat 5? When the worst hurricane year (up til now) the US has ever seen had us hit by only one Cat 4 or 5 -- which is to say, only like Harvey. And the season is young yet....

[Countme-a-Demon]

And now, for my second number:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1BS7XnEZqc

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Not "barely Cat 5", but "Cat 5 so strong that only ONE storm in the Atlantic that was *slightly* stronger. So far."

Wind effects go up as the square of the velocity. Miami might be peeled off and hurled over to Cuba.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Candidate for the first American, and I use the term with capacious, sneering charity, who needs to shut his fucking mouth the fuck up:

"I think that’s ridiculous and disgraceful that they want to play politics with the debt ceiling at this moment when we have fellow citizens in need, to respond to these hurricanes so we do not strand them,” (Paul) Ryan told a news conference on Wednesday."

How many debt ceiling showdowns, Obamacare defunding threats, and gummint shutdowns did you inflict on "fellow citizens in need", and before that, did keg stands over, Dagny Valance, you stinking, self-righteous, prairie scum vermin?

"Pompey"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK0XcHPO3rc

"Whiskey, quick!

Dead!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW-UQst-pBI

[Countme-a-Demon]

Does everyone understand now how rump gets what he wants .. which is to run the room to get what he wants .. whatever that is, which is to make whomever is closest to him at the moment lick him up and down like a cat and do his bidding:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/trump-praises-democratic-senator-heitkamp-facing-tough-2018-reelection

Maybe this will help:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBgf6nSG0k8

And this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnWvp6xyT5U

or this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-spJqJWert0

[wj]

And then today Trump went all in with . . . the Democrats. He seems enthused (for the moment anyway) with tying aid for Harvey to raising the debt ceiling:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/09/06/paul-d-ryan-tying-harvey-aid-to-the-debt-ceiling-is-disgraceful-trump-lets-do-it/?deferJs=true&outputType=default-article&utm_term=.0dc76e9ef205
Lots of smarmy comments about "Chuck and Nancy", too.

Plus, at his tax cut rally in North Dakota, hauling up on stage Democratic Senator Heitkamp and singing her praises.

[sapient]

Hmmm.

[hairshirthedonist]

I'm not much for political calculus. I really don't get how that sort of maneuvering works.

That said, for the life of me, I can't imagine what Trump thought he was achieving by suddenly undercutting congressional leaders in his own party.

Am I missing something, or is he even dumber than I am about this stuff?

[sapient]

Am I missing something, or is he even dumber than I am about this stuff?

I think the latter. Chaos is his preferred MO.

[russell]

every day I wake up and ask myself, "Is that asshole still the President of the United States of America?"

and every day, the answer is "Yes".

I shake my head and go on about my business.

It's a national brain fever, and it's going to be like this until it burns itself out.

Then it'll be sort of normal for a while. And then the paranoid style will assert itself again.

Lather rinse and repeat. Ever since about 1800.

Craziest freaking country on the planet, except for maybe Russia.

Trump isn't dumb, he's just stupid. All the way to the bank. "Chaos is his preferred MO" implies he actually has an MO, let alone a preferred one, as opposed to "he just wakes up every day and that's who he is".

Chaos is who he is. He's learned how to make it work for him.

[russell]

Also, too - get the hell out of dodge, pollo!

[sapient]

I shake my head and go on about my business.

I wish I could do that. I really wish I could just do that.

[sapient]

Remember when we all argued about drone strikes? I had to google it to know that there have been drone strikes lately. How we've changed.

When I googled, I found this first. Not sure what others there may have been. Where are the drone strike objectors?

Chaos has its political advantages.

[formerly known as cleek]

Where are the drone strike objectors?

they'll be back, as soon as the next Dem wins the WH.

[Countme-a-Demon]

I'll see sapient's "Hmmm" at 8:34 pm and see her another hmmm:

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/09/ok-i-guess-ryan-and-mcconnell-really-did-get-taken-to-the-cleaners/

I'm with Drum. It's a setup.

Always take a chair facing the door when dealing with the rumpublican party. Keep a weapon hidden in the restroom.

[hairshirthedonist]

This covers a lot of bases as far as this latest deal goes. It seems to make sense to me, but what do I know? (That's not sarcasm. Like I wrote before, I tend not to get this stuff.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/09/07/daily-202-trump-s-triangulation-shows-what-might-have-been/59b06c9630fb04264c2a1d24/?

[cleek_with_a_fake_beard]

it really would be something if this non-partisan, pragmatist is the real Trump, and he's just been playing a hard-right asshole because of the influence of people who are no longer in his circle (Bannon, Gorka, Priebus, etc.).

a lot could get done if he wanted to actually make deals. it would infuriate the left and the right, certainly, so maybe he'd have a hard time finding partners to make deals with.

[hairshirthedonist]

Is there a real Trump? He seems like an ill-tempered jellyfish or tumbleweed, other than his craving praise and attention.

[wj]

At this point, I think the challenge with finding partners is that Trump has earned a solid reputation for not living up to his side of a deal. Even if he is actually sincere.

So any partners would insist that he ante up first, before they even begin to move. That, or he signs on to something they are already doing. Which would make it hard to then take credit for it -- although apparently not for Trump.