Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Playergamer]

So people reacting to my civil war stuff; I'm not certain it's going to happen (although I'm confident it's that or WW3) but I feel like it's likely. It's not that I want millions of people to die, or anything like that. It's just that I feel this is building up to a civil war, and I'd rather just skip to the chase, since all these protests and larpfests are annoying.

And no, I don't have a side. My side in a possible civil war is hiding in my attic with my shotgun until it's over. In that last post, I might've seemed kinda "fuck commies go nazis" but that's just because I live in one of the most liberal cities in the country at the moment and it's driven me insane.

Finally; my definition of civil war isn't an insurrection against government, just large parts of the population fighting other large parts or the government for political/racial/religious reasons.

Tl;dr: eh i dunno, i'm not genocidal just meh.

[Lord Shonus]

The chances of Civil War II breaking out anytime soon is near zero. The chance of World War III breaking out any time soon is nonzero but quite low. The drama going on now is nothing compared to the Vietnam-era protests or the Civil Rights movement.

[Frumple]

Eeeyup. We still got a ways to go before we hit that point again.

I think that statement got a little away from you, and I can't quite figure out what you're trying to say.

Pretty sure it's just saying that, if you stopped giving folks that can almost certainly afford to go without a different sort of assistance (tax breaks, I think this one is, if I'm not fuzzy enough to be misreading), the money that would free up could, as the example, do things like increase section 8 assistance to less able folks by a multiple or two.

Don't subsidize the houses of families with a six figure income, basically, and instead, y'know, double, triple, whatever really, the budget of stuff aimed at ones that are at or below the poverty line.

[Max™]

More like don't subsidize the families with over nine figure net worth any longer and we could probably kill off poverty.

[Frumple]

Apparently I had thought the over and any longer were implied, heh. But yeah, stuff like that seemed to be what alway was getting at.

E:

Trump's first possible Hurricane emergency is coming right up, served on a platter named Harvey. NOAA page: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at4.shtml?cone#contents

Ah, just noticed that. Yeah, it seems like we're gearing up to potentially see south-east-ish texas turn into new orleans. Best of wishes to tex folks, and in complete selfish honesty, I kinda' wish this had ended up somewhere that didn't have a lot of our oil and chemical refinery/production areas. If it doesn't turn out gentle and/or the gov't's reaction isn't on point,* we're looking at good odds to get to see a nice big ol' gas price spike rolled up into a bundle with economic slowdown. Plus, y'know, buncha' dead and homeless people in texas that weren't there last week. Probably somewhere in the range of important, that.

* And I think everyone that's paid the least bit of attention as the executive's tried to dismantle its operational capabilities over these last months is aware how likely that is going to happen. Let's hope it's just not a disaster on top the disaster, bleh.

E2: Incidentally, what seems to be some recent predictions. They're currently expecting some places to get hit with upwards three goddamn feet of rain. 30+ inches. Tex looks like it might be kinda' fucked

[uber pye]

E2: Incidentally, what seems to be some recent predictions. They're currently expecting some places to get hit with upwards three goddamn feet of rain. 30+ inches. Tex looks like it might be kinda' fucked

I look forward to visiting the Sea of Texas when the next total solar eclipse comes to the USA.

[smjjames]

Not to mention a stress test for Trump's idea of "Lets not fill in official positions for lots of things." Not sure what the status is on nominees and nominations for natural disaster emergency related positions though.

I know that the DHS doesn't have a new nominee for secretary yet (Trump would have had to wait until Congress got back from vacation anyway to get one confirmed), though the acting director there sounds pretty capable.

[Reelya]

There's some far-right march in San Francisco coming up, so dog owners are encouraging their dogs to poop all over the route.

[Frumple]

Not to mention a stress test for Trump's idea of "Lets not fill in official positions for lots of things." Not sure what the status is on nominees and nominations for natural disaster emergency related positions though.

Pretty sure it's FEMA more than the DHS in general that handles that kinda of thing, but if you're interested you can check this for what looks like a fairly decent overview of which organizations will be involved if (when) it gets bad enough. Pretty sure that particular release was specific to NC last year, but the who's who and what do wouldn't vary all that much.

If further curious, you can poke around, see what sort of problems they may or may not be having vis a vis staffing, funding, intra/inter-organizational communication, and so on. Part of me is morbidly curious, most of me just doesn't want to have a better idea of what's going to happen ahead of time. I'll take the spectator's bullet to the back of the head for fifteen hundred, alex.

... especially since it got the better of me and the first page of news results involved words like, "Trump FEMA chief Backs Reducing Federal Role in Disaster Relief".

[misko27]

Here I thought California was going to be the first state to be abandoned to the elements after all that drought (the culmination of a fierce rivalry with Florida). But Texas can't let their liberal arch-nemesis outdo them at anything.

This is probably not going to make navigating the many legislative cliffs in september any easier. Going to be difficult to hammer out a deal to fund the budget when a state is underwater (and not the Detroit type of underwater).

[smjjames]

Wouldn't the emergency disaster relief stuff be in a separate bill from the main stuff? You wouldn't think disaster relief would fall prey to partianship, then again the stuff for Hurricane Sandy was made into a political football.

Trump is threatening a shutdown over the wall, of all things. I'll note that he did make similar rumblings over that last time earlier this year, but yielded. So, he could still yield if things get too dicey.

[Frumple]

Budget is budget, smj. Emergency funds might be pulled up as needed, but that's reactive, not preparedness and real time response, the stuff that saves lives and livelihoods. The main stuff is still going to have an effect. All the money in the world can only help so much if it's being funneled into infrastructure (human, organizational, and physical) that can't use all of it. Cash and manpower infusion is great and all, but you get trouble when you're trying to throw a bunch of it around and most of the manpower is various degrees of untrained and the channels necessary to funnel the money where it needs to go metaphorical rusty.

... and we've long been having trouble on the infrastructure and disaster relief side of things, which is what is needed on the hurricane et al front. Needs normal operational budgets worth note and folks with enough organizational experience and connections to get stuff where it needs to go to be able to be prepared for when the gods decide its kegger time and some part of the country gets pissed on from on high.

E: Hopefully we got enough, and this ends up not being bad enough, that we mostly manage. Gods know we've got some damned dedicated people scattered over this country able and willing to throw themselves at the problem be they paid or not.

[smjjames]

You know, I wonder how much the damage from the storm would affect the debt ceiling deadline? I mean, it's bound to affect it in some way and it does depend on how much damage it ends up causing. Which depends on what the storm does, the forecasts show it sort of bouncing along the coast, but it just as easily could go back out to sea again.

[Frumple]

Oh. Well, I'm pretty sure the deadline itself isn't going to budge. They might pass some kind of interim thing continuing previous operations (or whatever the blazes it is they do along those lines... forgot exactly what's involved) for a while, I guess? I could pretty easily see a lot of congresscritters (particularly GOP wards where stagnation on that front, with the consequent degradation in services, is effectively meeting some of their political goals) being pretty cheerful (in a relative sense, depending how many new corpses are generated) about having an excuse to kick the can down the road a ways.

So far as negotiations and whatnot go... eesh. That's probably going to depend a lot on what happens. If trump and/or the GOP is seen as handling the aftermath poorly, gods know what'll happen 'cause I ain't go no clue. If it's middling it probably won't change much. If by some odd turn of events, the response ends up being effective and well managed, well, see the poor situation.

End of the day this kind of thing is seen as pretty fundamental to the gov't's operation, fed and state. Screw it up and things aren't going to be the the most rosy for a while. Do well and you might manage to pull something else off. Trick there being there's only so much the GOP is willing to do that wouldn't be blatantly counterproductive to anything that'll be pulling anyone texaways's arse out the water, so even if it does it's questionable how much it can be leveraged on the conservative side of things.

[EnigmaticHat]

Here I thought California was going to be the first state to be abandoned to the elements after all that drought (the culmination of a fierce rivalry with Florida). But Texas can't let their liberal arch-nemesis outdo them at anything.

This is probably not going to make navigating the many legislative cliffs in september any easier. Going to be difficult to hammer out a deal to fund the budget when a state is underwater (and not the Detroit type of underwater).

I have a friend who lives in Austin.  According to her, what's happened is that a bunch of people from California have moved into Austin.  Since California is an economic oddity that makes money magically appear and disappear, all those people have money.  Meanwhile in Texas you can get a comfortable apartment for 300$ a month, right now.  Of course its probably not near any jobs... anyway.  All the Californians have free time and money so they've been able to seize control of the city council and start leading local politics in a direction that doesn't match what the locals want.  So perhaps Texas is going to have its own little patch of California soon enough.

Not to mention a stress test for Trump's idea of "Lets not fill in official positions for lots of things." Not sure what the status is on nominees and nominations for natural disaster emergency related positions though.

I was worried when this time would come.  I sincerely hope we don't get another Katrina.  Said friend from Texas once gave their own view on what happened.  Apparently Texas interstates are 2 lanes, with high speed limits and no amenities besides gas stations and rest stops that might be 30-50 miles apart.  So when the evacuation of New Orleans happens, they use one of these interstates out to Texas as a main evacuation route.  So now you have a good chunk of a major city going down a two lane road not meant for intense traffic, with stretches of uninhabited desert for wayyyy beyond practical walking distance before you get anywhere.  Long story short the inevitable happens, traffic gets blocked up and then stopped because two fucking lanes, and many people end up living out of their cars for days.  With no real government assistance.