This California fire is no joke
Ain't one fire neither, dahati.
Also, that guy is really a dummy.
I wonder if these fires will help the California housing market? There have to be at least a couple people who were about to be foreclosed on who would be a little bit okay with trading that for an insurance settlement.
These wildfire things have been happening a lot recently, haven't they? Along with the increased droughts and heatwaves, it's almost as if the globe was getting warmer. Oh, well, it's probably all just a kooky coincidence. Slate's Steven Landsburg tells me that global warming will only affect future generations, and they can all go fuck themselves anyway.
Doesn't Persian have its own script? Is there a formal Latinized spelling to Persian words? And the bumpkin seemed totally reasonable to me.
I've heard rumours that some of these fires were started by arson (likewise with the Greek fires this past summer). Is there anything to this? or is this people trying to make sense of it by attributing it to (malevolent) human agency?
Doesn't Persian have its own script? Is there a formal Latinized spelling to Persian words? And the bumpkin seemed totally reasonable to me.
Yes; no; in the unlikely event that this becomes pertinent, be sure to tell your future wife that.
3: Econ 101 does us proud. I don't propose to earn my Nobel Prize in this column space -- good thing, too.
3: That Landsburg piece is exactly the kind of contrarian crap that has put me off reading Slate anymore.
5: I don't know about this time around, but one of the previous rounds of summer fires was due to arson, and started by a firefighter, no less, who wanted credit for discovering and putting out a blaze.
5: Greek Fire: definitely arson.
5: I don't know if we should call it "arson." Sometimes the fire just wants to be, but needs someone to help it take that first step.
In other Iranian-fire-losses news, this heiress has an inspiring attitude to losing everything in a fire.
From the Slate piece (linked to in 3), Emerson's anti-econ position vindicated:
If you expect economic growth to continue at the average annual rate of 2.3 percent, to which we've grown accustomed, then in 400 years, the average American will have an income of more than $1 million per day--and that's in the equivalent of today's dollars (i.e., after correcting for inflation). Does it really make sense for you and me to sacrifice for the benefit of those future gazillionaires?
in the unlikely event that this becomes pertinent, be sure to tell your future wife that.
People with different backgrounds are going to respond differently. I'm unlikely to hit my knees and face the oven five times a day either:
According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, the Lurs, previously open adherents of the Ahl-e-Haqq faith, revere bread and fire like the Zoroastrians.As long as I can avoid your fictive sister, I should be fine.
5: One of the stories about the Greek forest fires that I heard when they were happening suggested that arson is quite common there because a fire is basically the only way to clear, rezone and develop wooded areas around Athens and other historic sites. A quick Wiki check shows an uncited claim that since the first fire in June there have been 61 arrests on suspicion of arson with 7 people still being held.
There's a lot of arson in the northern mediterrean area. I've heard that it's sometimes a weird form of class warfare.
I'm hoping to hear back from one of my friends whose parents' dream home is on the Malibu beach right in the affected area. My San Diego friends are fairly confident they'll be safe, but last I saw, the fire's western edge was heading straight for the San Diego LDS temple. That thing really is a laughing-stock.
Also, I don't think "fictive" means "non-existent," but "existing in fiction."
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around how stupid the quote in 13 is. How can somebody be that dumb and still know how to look up numbers?
19: So, what SCMT is telling you is that he's been writing fiction about your sister.
19: That's what I meant. There's a lot of slash fiction on the Internet involving you and your putative family. (And only you and your putative family, I'm afraid.)
16--
definitely true.
it's a classic example of how *not* to write zoning code.
they basically created a green-belt around the city that was inviolable *unless* it happened to be damaged by, e.g., fire.
and then you'll never guess what happened.
and re 9--
yeah, the proportion of firefighters with pyromaniacal tendencies is scary high.
18: last I saw, the fire's western edge was heading straight for the San Diego LDS temple
Not to worry, my storage space will stop the fire before it gets there.
The 2003 Cedar fire, which was the last one in the San Diego area that was nearly as bad as this one, was arson, or at least man-made.
20: See, economic growth just happens. Global warming might destroy property, lower food production, and kill people, but it's not as if it were going to interfere with economic growth or anything.
24: Who knew a collection of rare and historic fire-suppressant foams would come in so handy? Why you keep something like that in storage where you can't even look at it remains a mystery to me.
I've undoubtedly told this before, but the greatest thrill of my short forest fire fighting career was setting backfires.
I can imagine anyone getting off on the 'I am Shiva' aspect of playing with a primal force like this, and a firefighter is more likely to overestimate his/her ability to control it.
To clarify 3, the impact of climate change is apparent here not in the existence of the fires themselves, but in their severity. Global warming has made these areas hotter and drier, so while forested areas are now more likely to "naturally" catch on fire, the fires that result are much larger, more intense, and much harder to control, whether the cause is arson or a lightning strike.
It's all chaparral, man. We're just trying to build there.
Steven Landsburg is one of the stupidest people alive.
Say what you will about Landsburg, but he made an important contribution to my intellectual development when he demonstrated, once and for all, that economists trained at the University of Chicago are the stupidest sons of bitches on the planet.
30: "now" s/b "not"?
31: yeah, it is meant to burn, but hotter temperatures (and the corresponding higher winds) don't help anything.
33: wow. I guess the global warming story is almost a step up for him, so to speak.
The amazing thing is that Landsburg believes that he's a scientist, and that he's doing tougher scientific work than economists who look at data and track what's actually going on in the world.
Seriously.
If you expect economic growth to continue at the average annual rate of 2.3 percent, to which we've grown accustomed, then in 400 years, the average American will have an income of more than $1 million per day--and that's in the equivalent of today's dollars (i.e., after correcting for inflation). Does it really make sense for you and me to sacrifice for the benefit of those future gazillionaires?
As economists say, if something is unsustainable, it will never end.
stupid rich future people
if they want polar bears back so bad, why don't they just buy some?
you people can all sacrifice for future generations if you like, like a bunch of suckers
they're all up there laughing at you because you don't even have a jetpack or a time machine or anything cool at all
me and Landsburg, we know the score
His mom might have been born into a French-speaking (or just French-influenced) family, in which case the ch-for-sh spelling is perfectly valid, however annoying.
Ok, isn't the Landsburg stuff so incredibly stupid that there has to be another explanation, like that he's just throwing out a bunch of things like "if growth continues, etc." as examples of how to approach the problem like an economist? He doesn't, presumably, believe in something so simple-minded, but wants to demonstrate how to break down the problem.
That said, the columns are still incredibly lazy, insofar as they don't make that clear and don't add anything to our actual understanding of a given problem. They're basically advertisements of the "isn't this neat?" variety for his discipline.
41: but that's not even what he's doing. He's saying "stupid Al Gore didn't think about all these mitigating factors I, economic genius, did, and any of these could change the calculus of whether to do anything about global warming if they were relevant, but they aren't, and Al Gore's conclusions were correct. The end."
All he's trying to do is muddy a bunch of settled issues and make people doubt Al Gore's message.
20 - You'll recall that Landsburg wrote a book about how his nine year old learned all the lessons economists think are important, which weirdly coincide with being a buffoonish caricature of the economist as right-wing jerk. Maybe reasoning on the level of a nine year old is good enough for the circles he runs in.
The switch from Krugman's (brilliant) Slate economics column to Landsburg's edges out Season 3 of Veronica Mars in the "history's steepest drops in quality" race.
My wife's brother has been evacuated. He is OK afaik, but my mother- in- law is worried sick. I know she is worried about his personal safety, but she keeps muttering about the grandfather clock that had been her mother's. He, of course, is more worried about his polo ponies. I shit you not.
42:
Also there's quite a lot of ". . . maybe Al Gore's conclusions are kind of correct, but his movie contained a lot less of the underlying data than the Stern Report did -- and doesn't that make you wonder what he's hiding?"
And "of course, it's fine when I argue for my controversial views in short fact-free catchy/jokey columns, but it's disgustingly underhand when liberals try to do the same sort of thing. Liberals should communicate only in 800-page government reports that no one reads. That's fair."
yeah, the proportion of firefighters with pyromaniacal tendencies is scary high
And it's proverbial that this can be generalized to other professions as well.
My wife's brother has been evacuated. He is OK afaik, but my mother- in- law is worried sick. I know she is worried about his personal safety, but she keeps muttering about the grandfather clock that had been her mother's. He, of course, is more worried about his polo ponies. I shit you not.
Wow...I seriously hope there aren't any poor people who are being left to magically evacuate themselves this time.
49: don't worry, this is california, not louisiana. So you'll be evacuated so long as you don't look like you might be illegally in the country.
Practically nobody can live way out where these fires are currently burning without owning some form of transportation, and the population density is so low that mass evacuation is pretty impractical. They are making reverse 911 calls. (In Southern California, 911 calls you!)
Fires and floods make me at the same time wish I could help the unfortunates fleeing their homes and wonder what can be done to keep people from building in such crazy places from here on out. Human condition in a nutshell-- head here, heart there.
Migrant workers don't live in the deep woods. And I think a lot of them have cars.
50: in fact, they've already had several seriously burned people come in who were crossing the border.
What I worry about (aside from my stuff) is whether the fire's jumped the border, and how Mexico is dealing with it.
Frankly, if I lived in any number of places I would be incredibly depressed about the oncoming environmental destruction. But I'm more resigned and sad about it, living in a place built around rivers and forests. At least P/ttsburgh won't completely disappear.
55, according to the maps I've seen, the fire perimeter magically stops at the Mexican border! I guess that Mexico isn't flammable.
P/ttsburgh-on-Sea. It's so bracing!
Frankly, if I lived in any number of places I would be incredibly depressed about the oncoming environmental destruction. But I'm more resigned and sad about it, living in a place built around rivers and forests. At least P/ttsburgh won't completely disappear
I'm not sure the effects on society aren't so unpredictable, although likely dire, that some places that look vulnerable will prove less so and some that look secure won't prove to be.
53: well, by "those places" you essentially mean "California and most of the coastal southeast."
Doesn't make you wrong, of course.
according to the maps I've seen, the fire perimeter magically stops at the Mexican border! I guess that Mexico isn't flammable
It's related to the Weather Channel's "no weather in Canada" effect. The satellite pictures tell a different story in both cases.
I guess that Mexico isn't flammable.
People laughed when the Mexicans announced they were building a nation entirely out of asbestos. But who's laughing now, I ask you? Who is laughing now?
59: yeah, it's not like we really need New York, anyway.
We're going to need a new New York. Let's take bets on where the water will stop. I nominate Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.
Hey, I'm on a hill. I may have to canoe to Stroudsburg to grocery shop, but my building's not going under for a long time.
66: well, the top floors, anyway.
5: The fire in Irvine has been declared arson, as there are three separate starting points in a very small area. I'm downwind, so it's a little difficult to breathe.
But! Pretty pink skies!
For that matter, isn't a lot of Pennsylvania in a glacial valley? That might all be a new great lake.
Woo Stroudsburg! Good choice for a new New York; it's already mostly full of New Yorkers.
70: There are much more thorough and updated maps at the OC Register link below--one for the Santiago Fire, in particular, and one for Southern California as a whole. Just click on the each of the links labeled "Larger Map" for a better view. (Sorry for the extended URL; I'm not sure how to provide a more elegant link.)
http://www.ocregister.com/news/fire-canyon-blaze-1902172-santiago-road
We're about 400 feet above sea-level in Durham and my house is the highest point in the whole neighborhood. I plan to survive the coming housing collapse by letting nature transmute my yard into beachfront property.
I've been using this map to keep track of the San Diego fires.
http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/kml/conus.kmz
For those of you with Google Earth.
He, of course, is more worried about his polo ponies. I shit you not.
Indeed.
There's a guy running for City Council here who is on record saying that we can't build out (b/c of the ocean) so we *have* to build up into the hills. At the same time, there's a big fat fucking fight going on about the current council's idea to approve buildings higher than *two stories* in midtown; the people who are already on the hills are pissed off and rallying to "save their views."
Sometimes I fucking hate my neighbors.
"save their views."
Back when I had the orange groves there was one character who built a McMansion on the top of a neighboring hill. He then tried to file a "view easement" so that my property could never be developed and we would have his lovely view forever. Drawbridge anyone?
In the East Bay, a view is worth about $100,000 to the property price.
Yeah, views are valuable, but (asshole that I am), I figure, tough shit: the downside of creating more sprawl is a lot bigger for everyone (including Mr. and Ms. view owner) than making their houses worth only 900k rather than a cool million. I mean, you've enjoyed your views for years, just like the surfers and beach bums enjoyed this town when it was tiny and before you moved in. Now it's time to suck it up and move on.
There's a word that means basically the same thing in Egyptian Arabic: "baladi." It's like tacky/stupid/inappropriate/dumb hick all rolled into one.
My catty friends in HS: "God, that outfit is so fucking baladi."
Is there any punishment fitting for an arsonist who sparks a wildfire that eats several cities?
The Chinese version of that word is bazi (in pinyin). It doesn't rhyme with "nazi", unfortunately. The second syllable is pronounced more like "zuh" (or like "zurrrrrr" if you're from Beijing).
The obvious -- burning at the stake -- seems draconian.
These San Diego fires are insanely huge. This has the potential to get way, way worse, I think.
82, 84, 85: Except that if you have conditions conducive to a multiple-city-eating wildfire it's probably going to get sparked one way or another anyway, so I'm not sure you can blame everything on the arsonist. OTOH it's probably not a bad idea to burn the SOB at the stake just in case.
Pronounced ba-LADDY?
A nice word to know. Egyptians seem to be the Arabic speakers I encounter most often these days.
87: I wasn't even meaning the question rhetorically, exactly. I find thinking of an appropriate punishment mentally exhausting. Everything either seems too harsh or too lenient, so I'm leaning towards banishment to the moon.
I imagine that the fire would be stopped by all the concrete before it tore all the way through San Diego itself, though, right?
87: you'd want to wait until the wind died down, though.
83: Do you think it ("bazi") is really the same? I tend to think of it as similar to "moron" or "dummy", but maybe that's just me and my family.
My friends in Malibu checked in! They're north of the affected area, but the winds blew down an old beloved pine tree.
I think the French word for "dahati" and "baladi" and "bazi" is boeuf, which literally mean "bull" or "beef," but as applied to humans connotes: hickish, tacky, crass, with an implication of overfed, self-satisfied, and stupid.
90: you mean the giant concrete wall surrounding San Diego?
It's already burning parts of San Diego proper; I doubt it'll get to downtown or anything, but there's a whole lot of San Diego that's not downtown, and it's mostly (a) flammable and (b) on hillsides.
Hold fast, brave little storage unit! Be strong!
89: Isn't that why the proper question is "how should arson be punished?" rather than "how should multiple-city-eating arson be punished?"
Maybe it's just my idea, but wouldn't streets and buildings catch and burn much less quickly than chaparral?
96: yeah, but outside of downtown san diego tends towards low-rise non-concrete housing, and much of it is on top of mesas that have slopes to steep to build on, meaning they're covered with chaparral. It's not really like LA where there's a vast swath of sprawl between the hills and the beach.
OK, Bitchez, is there gonna be a Red Sox themed meetup tomorrow or not? (Apropos of burning down the house.)
98: we're working on a location. Thoughts?
I can't promise I'll be there, so don't make the location dependent on me. Also, my connoiseurship of Boston area watering holes is damn near nil.
One of my roommates is from California, so he's obsessively following the story.
I would feel bad for him, but he keeps on saying things like, "Oh my God, my neighbor has a house there!" or, "Look at this, that's a multi-million dollar home, gone."
I haven't read the thread, so maybe someone noted it, but initial reports said that the Malibu fire and at least one of the fires on I-5 were caused by downed power lines. Sundays winds were over 100 miles per hour in some places.
Woo Stroudsburg!
There's a sentiment I haven't encountered before.
If the Delaware River becomes the new border of the Atlantic Ocean, there will be a lot of potential New New Yorks. Easton, of course, would be somewhat preferable.
potential New New Yorks
Seattle?
I don't know what the new Seattle will be. Hopefully Enumclaw.
No, Enumclaw will be the new Pompei.
83: Do you think it ("bazi") is really the same? I tend to think of it as similar to "moron" or "dummy", but maybe that's just me and my family.
I always heard it applied by Shanghainese to people who had recently arrived from the provinces (and to such people's habits and aesthetics). Thinking about it now, it may just be Shanghai slang and not more generally used. They also have a number of other words for hicks/bumpkins/non-Shanghai people.
Anyway, I'm sure a Chinese version of "The Beverly Hillbillies" about a clan of Shanxiren who get rich and move to the Big City would be a huge hit, if it doesn't already exist.
