Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

T R E 4 5 O N

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Come on, man.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

No one could have predicted…

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Second rate reporter says what?

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

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Open Thread: A Prayer for All Times…

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Ever find yourself missing the feeling of communal optimism?…

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182Comments

  2. 2.

    SenyorDave

    Is this a new low from trump in terms of behavior?

    So funny to see little Adam Schitt (D-CA) talking about the fact that Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker was not approved by the Senate, but not mentioning the fact that Bob Mueller (who is highly conflicted) was not approved by the Senate!

    So he changed Adam Schiff’s name to Adam Schitt. This has 10 year old boy by written all over it, but as someone said in a post, at least a 10 year old will learn as time goes by.

  3. 3.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I’m old enough to remember the Seven Original Astronauts. It’s hard to conceive of now, but those guys were heroes and icons and celebrities even before they slipped the surly bonds of earth. We all had our favourites (kind of the way, six or seven years later, everyone would pick a Favourite Beatle). I was always partial to John Glenn and Alan Shepard. Happy birthday!

  5. 5.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @SenyorDave:

    So he changed Adam Schiff’s name to Adam Schitt.

    I needn’t tell anyone here that I’m no prude, and use language a lot saltier than that. But then, I’m not the fucking President of the fucking United States, writing on what has been determined to be an official platform.

    I am appalled. I really am.

  10. 10.

    leeleeFL

    @SiubhanDuinne: My favirute was Gus Grissom. Never could tell you why, just loved him and was mad when they said he screwed up. Cried like a baby when he died. Glad someone finally proved Gus did nothing wrong…and Happy Birthday, Alan Shepard. You were a gent.

  12. 12.

    SenyorDave

    Just to be clear, this isn’t even close to the worse thing he’s done as POTUS. IMO that would be his comments after Charlottesville. That cemented him as an out-of-the-closet white supremacist. BTW, I just watched Blackkklansman, and Spike Lee definitely had some not so thinly veiled references to Shitgibbon in the movie, with the klansmen making reference to making America great and using America first as a slogan.

  15. 15.

    James E Powell

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    It’s hard to explain to people who weren’t there the high esteem, respect, and admiration that we held for the astronauts back in the 60s. Those years were acrimonious and polarized, with plenty of inflamed rhetoric and violence. But the astronauts were above and beyond all that. Of course they were human, but they were the best a human could be.

  16. 16.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @JPL:

    This is true, but to me, somehow, calling a sitting member of the U.S. House of Represenatives by a crude and vulgar epithet is well beyond the pale for a U.S. President. I don’t care how much of a toddler in an orange 70-year-old’s body he is (which he is), there’s just no defending this.

  18. 18.

    Suzanne

    I typically don’t do this, but I wanted to repost a comment (responding to a question about whether or not it is possible to build fireproof houses) I made on the dead thread about the fire. I’m sure lots of others have the same question.
    —–

    My comment got eated, but I was responding to a question about whether or not it is possible to build fireproof housing. The answer is that it is not.

    Construction that is considered noncombustible (which is different from fire-resistant or fire-rated) is characterized by a primary structural frame made of steel or reinforced concrete. The largest fire-resistant buildings are fire-rated up to three hours only, which provides time to evacuate, not to save the building.

    This is to say nothing of the cost. Housing structures are generally considered low-value to hold cost down, but also because houses and most apartments are small and easy to evacuate and to rebuild. The goal is life safety, not maintaining a structure forever. Wood is a rapidly renewable and inexpensive resource, whereas steel and concrete are expensive and resource-intensive to make and transport. Steel and concrete construction would essentially make all housing a luxury good.

    Exterior materials that are less flammable or flame-retardant (note that “fire-resistant” is a specific term with a specific meaning, not the kind of casual way we’re discussing it here) are definitely a good idea. But they are not going to save a structure from a big fire like this.

    We as a society have to understand that losing structures is expected and is not preventable if we build in fire areas, and that we have a social responsibility to help those who are displaced by finding better housing. We will not design our way out of this problem.

  19. 19.

    Kathleen

    @SiubhanDuinne: I read a book called The Astronaut Wives Club (which was also TV mini series in 2015).

    This article from London Express summarizes incidents revealed in the book:

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/405042/The-Mercury-Seven-mission-astronauts-left-their-wives-depressed-and-isolated

    I believe one of the wives was a pilot but I can’t remember which one. I remember how the astronauts’ wives and families were portrayed as “perfect” when I was a child. I was shocked at my own naivete when I read the book.

  21. 21.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Kathleen:

    Oh, yes, I remember all the LIFE and LOOK Magazine spreads. The wives were all June Cleavers, the way their stories were told. And as a high-schooler, who would never have thought to question the veracity of the press or the accuracy of the reporting, of course I gobbled it all up, quite uncritically.

  22. 22.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @debbie:
    They shouldn’t be. What’s the reasoning behind why they are, aside from protecting the powerful?

  24. 24.

    WaterGirl

    Can someone please go to Cole’s twitter feed and watch the video about the christmas decorations guy and then come back and tell me the answer to the question below?

    For the life of me, I cannot figure out what a drawing of a penis, followed by a drawing of a bell, followed by the word “END” means.

  25. 25.

    WaterGirl

    Can someone please go to Cole’s twitter feed and watch the video about the christmas decorations guy and then come back and tell me the answer to the question below?

    For the life of me, I cannot figure out what a drawing of a pe-nis, followed by a drawing of a bell, followed by the word “END” means.

    (apparently my previous comment is in moderation because of the p-word. Why can’t we say that here?)

  29. 29.

    MazeDancer

    If you’re thinking, gee, I would like to fight Bull Connor-retro-level-racism in Mississippi by writing PostCards for Mike Espy, now would be a good time. Have to be mailed by Tuesday.

    Get addresses: PostCardPatriots.com

    If you’re thinking, gee, I need to donate more to the orgs helping the animals in the Campfire, now would be a good time.

    San Francisco SPCA, which has taken in many injured animals and treated them, has a double-the-donation thing going on right now. Someone will match donations up to a million bucks. Here’s the tweet: https://twitter.com/sfspca/status/1063884337400078336

  30. 30.

    debbie

    @Kathleen:

    “The Right Stuff” went into all the “molding” of the wives into model Donna Reeds. Best in my opinion was Sam Shepard as Chuck Yaeger, but that’s a different discussion…

    It took me many years to come to respect John Glenn (blasphemy for any Buckeye), but he was such a goody goody.

  36. 36.

    TS (the original)

    @debbie:

    Someone reported him, but Twitter replied that government officials are exempt from the decency requirements.

    That would be ONE government official – highly unlikely others would
    1. do it
    2. not apologize & delete
    3. not get a negative from twitter
    Edit: forget the third one

  37. 37.

    Suzanne

    @debbie: So in dense urban areas especially, there are strict codes about fire-rated or non-combustible exterior materials, since buildings are in close proximity to one another. And that is really effective. If you think about it, entire cities don’t burn like they used to, and this is why. When all of the buildings in an area are built to a specific standard, they in fact protect one another in this way.

    But that is about controlling fire from structure to structure, not about, say, a cabin in a forest that is surrounded by a big fire. And it also offers no protection from a fire that starts within a building, and those are still alarmingly common. And those materials have lower fire ratings than the primary structural frame, so again, they act to delay. But they cannot be relied on to PREVENT.

    If the primary structure is exposed to fire, even if it is non-combustible or fire-rated, GTFO. (This is what happened to the WTC towers…..three-hour rating on the frame, fireproofing blown off reduced the time to evacuate, frame exposed to fire and the steel deformed just enough, and the rest is history. The frame never ignited. But if you think about it, the fire spread was nowhere near as terrible as it could have been.)

  40. 40.

    debbie

    @Suzanne:

    Maybe PG&E should be required to construct fireproof housings for all its terminals (or whatever they’re called). Yeah, right.

  41. 41.

    rachel

    I went to the Emergency Room at a local hospital yesterday evening because something weird was going on with my left eye.

    Now I’m flat on my back in bed waiting for a doctor to do emergency surgery on it.

    Anybody here have advice for dealing with a detached retina?

  42. 42.

    Schlemazel

    @SenyorDave:
    I tweeted “Schitt is what you have for brains, Adam Schiff is a Congressman who will expose your perfidy” I assume someone will have to look up ‘perfidy’ for him

    I’ll get down in the gutter with him, he is not smart enough to win at the dozens

  43. 43.

    debbie

    @rachel:

    You’re doing the right thing. It needs to be operated on and repaired ASAP.

    ETA: Was this sudden or have you been dealing with vitreous detachment?

  44. 44.

    Suzanne

    @rachel:

    Anybody here have advice for dealing with a detached retina?

    I think you have to lie on your stomach for a while afterward, yes? Can you read BJ from a tablet?

  47. 47.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Suzanne: Generally in a forest fire or brush fire, there won’t be a continuous fire for more than a maybe half a hour. If the structure hasn’t started to burn at that point the fire has moved on to more fuel.

    Back on the topic of Alan Shepard, he was also the only person to hit a golf ball on the moon.

  49. 49.

    Ohio Mom

    @Suzanne: Thanks for this. Can’t say I’ve ever wondered about structures and fires but your explanations are interesting and eye-opening.

  50. 50.

    Bill Arnold

    @SenyorDave:

    So he changed Adam Schiff’s name to Adam Schitt.

    He even had a half-baked excuse ready; see, the “t” is very close to the “f” key on the keyboard, easy to miss with big hands. And a one-pass read before sending the tweet would be a waste of precious neurotransmitters and heartbeats.
    Not sure what he was trying to do, perhaps grab some attention, or provoke .. someone.
    He really doesn’t fully believe that many other people are a lot smarter than he is. Weak mind.

  56. 56.

    rachel

    @debbie:
    It was quite sudden. I had an eye exam in September, and there was no sign of trouble then.

    But the doctor warned me to watch out for it because on my myopia.

  60. 60.

    Suzanne

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Generally in a forest fire or brush fire, there won’t be a continuous fire for more than a maybe half a hour. If the structure hasn’t started to burn at that point the fire has moved on to more fuel.

    Yes for sure. OTOH, it is rare for a structure to be truly surrounded by fire and not to ignite. But it can happen, because these things are always multi-factorial.

    I am just fed up with internet dipshits who don’t know shit about shit saying things like “Let’s only build fireproof houses!”, when that does not exist, is really just a form of poverty shaming, and would also have unbelievably terrible downstream effects to the environment.

  65. 65.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @MazeDancer:

    I wrote 32 postcards for Mike Espy today. Will swing by the P.O. on my way home to drop them for first pick-up tomorrow morning.

    Tomorrow I’ll write and mail a similar number for John Barrow in GA for the SOS position. I hope we can retrieve this job from the fetid sewer Brian Kemp made of it, and partially avenge Stacey Abrams and her brilliant gubernatorial campaign.

  66. 66.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Bill Arnold:

    or provoke .. someone.

    Might just be me, but I’d think provoking the soon-to-be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee might not be a really good idea.

  67. 67.

    Brachiator

    When I was a kid, I could name all the Mercury 7 astronauts and closely followed the space program, both in reality and space movies. I think I bubble gum cards which featured them and the space program.

    Hadn’t thought about it in years, but I could still name six of seven, only missing Wally Schirra.

    I thought about this again when I saw the movie “First Man.” The people who made “The Right Stuff” and “Apollo 13” grew up with the space program. For the team behind this film (who also brought you LA La Land), the space race is almost ancient history. It is jarring, for example to see how they view what to me were increasingly sophisticated space craft almost as little more than improvised tin cans strapped to an astronaut’s ass, but the shift in perspective largely works.

    I ended up really liking the film, with a few reservations.

    Even though the movie implies that all the astronauts have the right stuff, and might even be interchangeable, you never see anything that gives you a giod idea of how any astronaut teams are put together.

    And yet, in the end, the movie indirectly makes a case that Neil Armstrong was the best man to be chosen to set foot on the moon, even if you are not exactly sure why.

  69. 69.

    Wapiti

    @rachel: I had one late this summer. Got operated on in 48 hours. Listen to your doctor. Plan on a week or two lying and sitting face-down, then a couple of months of healing. My right eye is way out of focus, but there’s no point in getting a new prescription for glasses until the healing is done.

    There’s a company here (Seattle) that delivers chairs and bed-inserts to help keep you face down. They’re basically massage equipment, re-purposed. I thought they were a godsend and worth the $200/week rent. (I only needed them the first week).

  70. 70.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Gin & Tonic: Did I tell BJ about my friend who wrote a picture book called The Book Dragon? She wrote this blurb for it that said you had to guard your books because otherwise in the middle of the night the book dragon would come and “snatch your book away.” So Target has this algorithm that searches blurbs for forbidden words and it replaced “snatch” with asterisks. I repeat, this is a picture book. She and her publisher had to change the word to “steal.”

    Let’s see if FYWP is offended by this post.

  71. 71.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Obviously I would have greatly preferred to see Bill Nelson reëlected. But apart from the “D” after his name, I never found him particularly appealing.

  72. 72.

    Wapiti

    @WaterGirl: I have wondered if the word play in “bell-end” is referring to the second part of “ding-dong”, where the beginning is “ding” and the end is “dong”. So some guys are dongs, dicks, bell-ends, whatever.

  74. 74.

    Brachiator

    @skerry:

    Didn’t someone just say “”There must be decorum at the White House?”

    What this always means is that Trump can behave however he wishes, but everyone else must display respect and reverence.

    He is pathetic, but must be humored.

    BTW, Trump has tipped his hand with respect to how he intends to deal with House Democrats. More childish nicknames and demands that they give him what he wants. I love how he dangles the idea of a government shutdown over our heads as though it were sane political strategy.

  77. 77.

    Brachiator

    @Wapiti: Bell end is just British slang, like fanny, etc. I suppose there might be connections to the shape of a bell, but no big connections to ding dong, etc.

  78. 78.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Bill Arnold:

    Thanks! All credit to JPL, I regularly check RealPressSecBot to see what he’s tweeting, as I’m reluctant to give him the clicks. I make exceptions only when he tweets something so outrageous that I want to see him get slagged in comments on his own Twitter feed.

  79. 79.

    chris

    @Suzanne:

    unbelievably terrible downstream effects to the environment.

    Yeah that. I was looking at those concrete domes and some of the 3D printed structures and thinking that might be the answer. Then I remembered that there is a big fight going on about a cement kiln in Halifax over the amount of CO2 that it produces. Then, of course, there is the price of many yards of specialty concrete before you get to price of making a liveable space inside the shell.

  83. 83.

    M. Bouffant

    @Brachiator: I’ve heard one of the reasons was that he was one of the few astronauts who was no longer active military; they didn’t want the Soviets to be able to scream about American “militarism”.

  85. 85.

    sm*t cl*de

    @rachel:

    A few months ago my old mate John sent me a batch of color-perception measurements, for me to analyze. Turned out that he’d had a retinal detachment, had been treated, and was making observations of the return of his color vision in case it was worth writing up as a paper.

    In John’s case it was a minor partial detachment, secondary to a retina haemorrhage, so no surgery or laser-beam spot-welding required. He did get avastin injections into his freakin eyeball, though, to prevent damage from the haemorrhage.

    I have watched retinal surgery. It was relevant to my interests, and impressive to watch an ophthalmic surgeon at work, but it is not for the squeamish.

  86. 86.

    John Revolta

    The idea of Shepard’s prayer reminded me of Santana’s appearance at Woodstock. Carlos S. got to the site and thought he had 10 or 12 hours (can’t remember exactly) before their set so he did what any normal musician would do and dropped a tab of acid. A short while later somebody came up and said “Hey Santana, there’s been a schedule change, you guys are on next”. That’s when he started his version of the Shepard’s prayer: “Please God, let me stay in tune and in time. Please God, let me stay in tune and in time”.
    Their appearance in the Woodstock movie, and their first album which came out that same month, made the band huge stars. Sometimes it all works out.

  87. 87.

    Honus

    @SiubhanDuinne: I can still name the Mercury Seven, I think in order. Alan Shephard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper and Deke Slayton, who had a heart murmur and never made it into space, until after he died when they took his ashes aboard the Space Shuttle. Those guys were truly my heroes when I was in grade school in the early sixties. We followed every flight.

  88. 88.

    debbie

    @rachel:

    Wapiti is right. Obey your doctor!

    I have had vitreous detachment for about four years. It can lead to detachment of the retina, but there’s not much I can do other than get my butt to the ER when it does happen.

    Good luck!

  89. 89.

    MazeDancer

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I hope we can retrieve this job from the fetid sewer Brian Kemp made of it, and partially avenge Stacey Abrams and her brilliant gubernatorial campaign.

    Yes, would be a great and good thing to have a Democrat as SoS in Georgia. Keep Brian Kemp from destroying the elections at least.

    Really, writing PostCards is the best tool we got to get Dems to the polls. Hoping everyone will just do a few.

    Stacey Abrams was on TV several times this AM. Especially impressive with Joy Reid.

    She is the real Next Obama. Whip-smart. Dedicated. Multi-faceted. (she has written 8 Romance Novels). In it all for a Higher Good. She uplifts.

  92. 92.

    Brachiator

    @M. Bouffant:

    I’ve heard one of the reasons was that he was one of the few astronauts who was no longer active military; they didn’t want the Soviets to be able to scream about American “militarism”

    If true, this would have been one of the dumber reasons.

    But hey, it was the 60s.

  93. 93.

    debbie

    @John Revolta:

    I’ve heard him interviewed on this. He hallucinated that the neck of his guitar was a snake, and he was terrified he would lose his grip on it.

  94. 94.

    M. Bouffant

    Fun fact (Urban legend?): I lived in Houston in 1970-71, in the ritzy Memorial section of town; once went to a friend’s house while his mom & dad were away, & smoked some reefer w/ my host & a couple of his lady friends. He later told me that one of them was Alan Shepard’s daughter. No reason for him to lie, so …

    I can’t believe it’s been 20 yrs. since Shepard died.

  95. 95.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @MazeDancer:

    I agree! Made some phone calls for her during the general. I’ll be following her closely, and supporting her wherever and whenever I can. She is something special.

  96. 96.

    Gravenstone

    @Honus:

    Deke Slayton, who had a heart murmur and never made it into space

    They cleared him to fly on the Apollo/Soyuz mission.

  97. 97.

    Suzanne

    @chris: Yeah, concrete and steel are incredibly resource-intensive to produce and transport, pollute a lot, and are difficult to recycle. And with steel tariffs, they’ve also gone up significantly in price. WOOT WOOT!

    Believe it or not, there is actually significant movement in the worldwide building industry to using ***more*** wood in large-scale structures, as it is rapidly renewable and much more affordable. There is some exciting innovation going on in terms of engineered wood building products in order to make them safer at larger scales.

  98. 98.

    Honus

    @Suzanne: exactly. Fireproofing is designed to save lives, not the structure. In addition, while steel won’t burn, its structural integrity is undermined by heat, and much faster than wood.

    I learned this in my early days as a carpenter when I laughed about the fact we were building a fire escape stairway out of wood. My boss explained to me that steel would lose its strength almost instantly when it got hot. In addition, he pointed out that the stair treads and risers would take minutes or even hours to burn, and that even if the underside of a wooden stair tread was scorched or even burning, the surface would still remain cool enough to walk on, while steel would almost instantly become hot enough to fry your feet.

  101. 101.

    Kathleen

    @SiubhanDuinne: So did I. The reality was very different (except for John and Annie Glenn and Gus and Betty Grissom). I’m still surprised at myself for being surprised that the NASA PR hype was just that. PR hype. Those women were amazing.

  102. 102.

    Kathleen

    @debbie: I think to a large degree he was the real deal, though I wasn’t living in Ohio throughout his term in the Senate. He was also featured in Hidden Figures.

  103. 103.

    chris

    @Suzanne: Don’t know how far it got but I did see a plan for 30ish storey wooden building somewhere. Given the advances in OSB and adhesives etc. it seems doable but I am neither an architect nor an engineer.

  106. 106.

    CaseyL

    @rachel: I have been told that the recovery from the surgery is less onerous than it used to be (weeks spent on your stomach, not allowed to move – because they basically filled your eye with air to move the retina back into place, and you had to not-move long enough for the retina to re-attach itself.) I don’t know what the current therapy is, though I doubt you’ll allowed to read anything, as moving your eye would be a bad move.

    Will you have someone taking care of you? They can play music or audiobooks for you. When a friend of mine had it done (20-odd years ago) her husband took care of her. I went over a few nights per week to talk to her, as talking was about the only thing she was allowed to do.

  108. 108.

    Honus

    @Gravenstone: that’s good. I thought I read when he died from cancer that when they took his ashes into space he finally made it, but I’m glad he got there sooner.

  110. 110.

    Suzanne

    @Mike J: Bamboo is used in much of Asia for scaffolding and is showing up in a lot of commercial interior products because it is rapidly renewable and very strong.

    @Honus: Yeah, structures have a lifespan. It makes, like, zero sense to invest lots of resources into low-value structures when they will need to be replaced anyway for some other reason. We need to just accept that life safety is most important, that structures will be lost despite our best efforts, and that we have a social responsibility to house people when disasters happen. We are not going to ever be able to economically design or construct something that will last forever. That’s not to say that building safety hasn’t improved dramatically—it certainly has. But we need to stop acting like homeowners are responsible for their losses because their structures aren’t good enough is putting the blame where it does not belong.

  112. 112.

    FelonyGovt

    I remember my cousin Glenn, who was maybe 5 at the time, getting terrified by the news reports that Glenn was going to be launched into space.

  113. 113.

    Honus

    @rachel: you did the right thing. Get there as soon as possible and get it fixed. If it is a detached retina, the recovery will be tough, (you have to sleep face down for a week or so) but then you should be ok. If you wear contacts or glasses you’ll have to get a new prescription.

  115. 115.

    raven

    @debbie: He and I haven’t talked in quite a few years but it was obvious he needed to get it out. He survived some awful shit in Vietnam and I think that helps give him perspective but it was still intense. He said it started with these gigantic fireballs flying through the air on the heavy winds and then he heard propane tanks exploding and knew it was time to go. He also was funny, he said he was doing video when he realized he had Petty jamming and turned it of!

  116. 116.

    Jay

    @chris:

    A lot of “fire resistant” measures don’t involve tons of concrete and steel.

    For a single family structure the first step is a fire resistant roof. Metal or a variety of tile products, not cedar, pine shingles, unless pressure treated with fire retardants, ( and regularly replaced), no asphalt or torch on.

    Installing it as a cold roof over an air gap or fireboard almost doubles the protection.

    The next step, is fire resistent soffits and facia to prevent fire intrusion into the attic. Metal beats wood and plastic.

    After that, exterior cladding. Brick, faux stone, lime stucco, Hardi plank, Hardi board all beat wood, vynel and aluminum.

    Again, these can be installed over a air gap or fire board.

    Then, metal doors and frames.

    Metal shutters that arn’t decorative.

    Then earthquake and hurricaine ties to prevent wind and debris from breaking the barriers.

  117. 117.

    Ruckus

    @Honus:
    Well, going in or out of the fire room on the ship I was stationed on in the summer was bad. Aluminum ladder, 15 ft tall. The temp at the bottom, not under the air vents was 130. At the top of the stairs it was 140 or slightly more. If you grabbed the handrails you’d get burned. You could feel the heat through your shoes by the time you got to the top. That’s 140 deg. An actual fire is a lot hotter than that, the ignition temp of wood is around 600 deg and it will burn at over 1000 deg.

  118. 118.

    satby

    @rachel: it’s good they caught it in time to reattach it! @CaseyL: is generally accurate if they use a gas bubble, if the detachment isn’t that bad they may be able to tack it back with laser surgery and no gas bubble. Successful outcomes 90% of the time, but follow the instructions given for aftercare. This isn’t something you want to have a do over on.

  120. 120.

    Jay

    @Suzanne:

    “@Yeah, structures have a lifespan. It makes, like, zero sense to invest lots of resources into low-value structures when they will need to be replaced anyway for some other reason”

    Attitudes are different in a lot of other places. Structures can be built with common materials that last with relatively little maintenence and renovation.

    Unfortunately, the District wouldn’t allow me to build a home here by shipping over the 700 year old stone croft that was my Great grandparents, and is used as a sheep stall now.

  121. 121.

    Suzanne

    @Jay: Those are protective measures if a building is adjacent to another building or tree that is on fire. None of those will protect a building that ignites because of a fire that starts within the building itself, and those are actually much more common than the kind of forest fires we are discussing.

    None of those assemblies provide more than a two-hour fire-rating, even though they are non-combustible. And they do not protect the structure of the building if it ignites, though they do reduce the odds of ignition.

    Nothing is fireproof. Nothing.

  122. 122.

    Yarrow

    So this is interesting. From the FT:

    The former Danske Bank manager who blew the whistle on a €200bn money-laundering scandal centred on the bank’s tiny Estonian branch has talked to a multitude of US law-enforcement agencies, raising the stakes for Denmark’s biggest lender as it faces investigations around the world.
    …

    The DoJ has launched an investigation into the biggest money-laundering scheme ever uncovered, with what amounted to more than Estonia’s annual GDP passing through the branch every year from Russia and other former Soviet states. The agency is also scrutinising the roles played by Deutsche Bank, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase in clearing cross-border payments for the branch.

    “The biggest money-laundering scheme ever uncovered.” That’s kind of eye-popping. So far he’s talked to the DOJ, the SEC and FinCEN and he testifies in front of the Danish parliament on Monday.

  123. 123.

    raven

    @Honus: When we bought our house the inspector showed us that there had been fires and the ceiling joists were charred. My father-in-law was a See Bee and an old school builder and he said that the old heart pine was very slow to burn and the charred timbers warded off termites!

  124. 124.

    Avalune

    @WaterGirl: @Betty Cracker:

    To answer your questions from earlier thread:

    The hearing is just the traffic violations side of things for the woman. I probably won’t even have to do anything besides show up and then leave. We both have lawyers. I don’t think she’s trying to say she isn’t guilty in any way, just maybe trying to keep her license and such.

    As far as Leto goes – he’s doing pretty good. I think we finally have the fever issue under control. The blood clot dissolved. He just got his staples out from the pelvic surgery tonight. Tomorrow he gets to get rid of one of the wound vac areas and I’m hoping one of the drains. We did find a fracture in his other knee, so he had to slow his roll on the PT to give that a little more time to heal but he’s pretty stable all in all. Just a matter of waiting out the second wound vac and the fractures and getting busy with the PT work.

    I’m going to be going back to work tomorrow and doing that for a while, so I don’t blow all my leave at the start of this whole thing and to mitigate the financial hit a little bit. Means I pretty much won’t see him during the week (though this week is holiday, so I only have to work 3 days), which is a bummer but his parents are still around and he has a nurse button, so he’ll survive.

    @Rachel: Sorry to hear about your eye! I hope that goes ok. I’m supposedly in pretty high risk for that happening. A few months ago I thought it was happening because I was getting flashes and had a giant floater appear. Fortunately, no detachment, just have to live with this stupid floater in my good eye. It’s a nuisance but I guess I can’t complain. PS Leto thinks the idea of retinal detachment is hilarious for some reason – probably because he has this cartoonish scenario in his head where the eye falls out and bounces around the room. I’m not nearly as amused, so I will be looking to see how that works out for you.

  128. 128.

    Ohio Mom

    @satby: I want to ask what happens the other 10% of the time but let’s wait until Rachel is all better.

    I am very, very nearsighted and have already had one vitreous collapse. My old ophthalmologist always ended every checkup with a warning about calling immediately if I saw flashing lights or curtains closing. But so far, so good, knock on wood, etc.

  129. 129.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @CliosFanBoy:

    I met him once, very briefly, in a big reception-receiving-line thing at something like a National Governors’ Association meeting or similar. Would have been early-ish 1990s; I do recall that another keynote speaker at that same conference was Janet Reno, something of a curiosity as the first woman AG of the US.

  130. 130.

    Jay

    @Suzanne:

    Note, no use of the words fire proof.

    Since 2010 all new buildings in BC are required to have sprinkler systems.

    I built in 2006 and have a sprinkler system.

  131. 131.

    Suzanne

    @Jay:

    Attitudes are different in a lot of other places. Structures can be built with common materials that last with relatively little maintenence and renovation.

    …..and then we end up replacing those structures for other reasons. Funnily enough, one of the main reasons we replace structures in the US these days is because requirements for exiting capacity are greater than they used to be, and older buildings often can’t accommodate the required load of occupants. Another reason is because of accessibility for the disabled making renovations impractical. Greater desire/regulation for energy efficiency is another. Another reason is plain old highest-and-best-use. And construction of many buildings built before, say, 1970 was really un-good….often no below-slab waterproofing, no air barriers in wall assemblies, I’ve seen buildings with no sheathing that had decades of water infiltration. Renovation is often more expensive and difficult than replacement. Other than single-family houses, most structures will be replaced within sixty years for one reason or another, and even many single-family homes have to be essentially replaced over that timeframe piece by piece.

  132. 132.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Citizen Alan:

    He anybody other than Lieberman should have been Al Gore’s running mate.

    I expect this is what you meant to say, so I fixed it for you.

  134. 134.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kathleen:

    Jim and Marilyn Lovell made their marriage work, too, probably in part because he respected her wishes and did not go back into space after the Apollo 13 disaster.

    The HBO series “From the Earth to the Moon” had an episode about astronaut wives, and they included a scene of Jim Lovell cleaning out a drawer when they were moving and realizing that all three of their kids had been seriously ill with the measles at the same time but she hadn’t told him because he was either at training or on a mission (can’t remember which). He seems to have treated her as an equal partner, which is probably why they were married for 50+ years.

  135. 135.

    Honus

    @Suzanne: structures definitely have a lifespan. I’m at that point in my life where I regularly see buildings I worked on as a young man torn down as obsolete. It’s kind of a weird feeling.
    I also go to a few bars where I see railings or booths or stairways or doors or other woodwork I did decades ago still in use. It’s fun to tell a twenty-something server “I built that bar” they say “really?” “Yeah, in 1982”

  136. 136.

    Suzanne

    @Jay: Sprinkler systems are not required in much of the US in single-family homes. Hell, they still aren’t required in many commercial buildings, though there is an insurance benefit, so most new buildings do have them.

    Based on the characteristics of these California fires, however, it seems that it is unlikely that many/most of the structures that were lost would have been able to be saved even if they had better exterior materials, from what I am reading.

  138. 138.

    chris

    @Jay: All good but as Suzanne says it’s only good for a little while.

    I live in an old pine box with a wood stove in the middle of a maturing pine forest. I’m more afraid of the stove than I am of the forest burning but I air out my go-bag every six months. I have Plans A, B and C and hope that’s enough because I love it here.

  140. 140.

    Honus

    @raven: heart pine is very strong. I think Virginia Pine is the strongest construction lumber after a Douglas Fir. But it will burn. It’s just a couple steps away from fatwood.
    Your father in law was right, though. Its very dense and takes a long time to burn through and lose its strength. As a Seabee, he probably knew a lot about it from boat work, where it’s very popular since it’s very water resistant.

  141. 141.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Honus: I’ve been researching wood strength for the ribs of my trailer. Douglas Fir seems to be the strongest of the softwoods.

  142. 142.

    sdhays

    @Bill Arnold:

    He even had a half-baked excuse ready; see, the “t” is very close to the “f” key on the keyboard, easy to miss with big hands.

    Perhaps, but Spankee is well known for his tiny baby hands.

  143. 143.

    raven

    @Honus: He was actually and architectural and See Bee officer. He got to the Pacific late in the war and he always said, “as a fresh JG I never assumed I knew ANYTHING and just learned from the enlisted folks. He owned the family construction business and, fortunately, it didn’t go belly up until after he died.

  144. 144.

    Honus

    @Steve in the ATL: I graduated UVA in 1977 and worked as a professional carpenter (jobs for English majors were very scarce then, and the economy in general was pretty slow; the mortgage rate was 18%) until I went to law school in 1992 and continued to work to support my family until I graduated in 1995. I’ve been a construction lawyer since then (government contracts, Miller Act etc.) but I still hold a Virginia Class A contractors license.

    I also had some construction experience before college from working with my father who was a contractor and my grandfather who was a stone mason.

  145. 145.

    artem1s

    Glenn was absolutely the real deal. He was the first male politician I remember giving full throated support to Roe v Wade. It seemed so contrary to his ‘Right Stuff’ reputation but he was very progressive for the 60s/70s. I believe he was expected to be Bobby’s pick for VP and accompanied his body back to Massachusetts after the assassination. He was being groomed to be in line for the WH. Another ‘might have been’.

  146. 146.

    Gin & Tonic

    AOC on Nancy Smash: “My standard in this is: I’m going to support the most progressive candidate that’s leading the party and right now that is Nancy Pelosi, in terms of the running. I would like to see new, younger leadership, but I don’t want new leadership that’s more conservative.” (Read “not you, Seth.”)

  147. 147.

    Ruckus

    @raven:
    The old ships were probably bad because the construction was
    “less precise.” But these were 1200 psi boilers with 2 in each fire room. The ship had 70,000 shaft HP when it was all fired up. At full speed it would throw an amazing rooster tail. But it was still dirty work, especially when they still burned what we used to call bunker oil, which is basically what’s pumped out of the ground with the large lumps removed. It’s nasty shit to get on you. In 71 they changed over to JP5 – jet fuel. Cut underway refueling time about in half.

  150. 150.

    Eric S.

    @gene108: Obviously this is not true. As a 47 year old white Male no one has ever asked me about my support for the Voting Right’s Act, marriage equality, universal health care , LGBTQ rights or my hater of racists.

  151. 151.

    Suzanne

    @Honus: I’ve only had my architectural license for four years (though I have been practicing much longer and many people in this field never get licensed at all), and I’ve already had an interior project that I did be replaced, since they changed the kinds of patients in that area of the hospital. It happens.

    We’re actually doing a couple of interesting hospital projects right now. Once is a decommission-and-conversion, and another is the first phase of a replacement. Both of the facilities are demolishing the old buildings for, well, exactly the reasons I said above.

  153. 153.

    Honus

    @A Ghost To Most: yep, pretty much. Doug fir is the strongest dimensional construction grade lumber there is according to the old BOCA code book. Which I think is called the International Building Code now.

  155. 155.

    satby

    @Avalune: @Ohio Mom: those of us who are really nearsighted are at higher risk because the retina is stretched across the back of our eyeball instead of laying on it like a normal eye (myopic eyes are elongated and more oval horizontally, like a football). PVD, posterior vitreous detachment, is common for us and fortunately seldom serious other than the annoying floaters, but it can mimic retinal detachment with the flashes of light it sometimes causes. Any time anyone sees flashes of lights inside the eye you should get it checked ASAP. By the time you “see” a curtain closing the detached retina piece has fallen over your optic nerve, that’s a bad detachment.
    My eye doctors office does routine retinal photos with every exam and people complain because it’s an out of pocket expense. But the several people with undiagnosed diabetes causing diabetic retinopathy and the (4 so far this year) people who came in for routine eye exams not suspecting anything wrong who had retinal detachment starting were glad they had spent the $33.

  157. 157.

    Ohio Mom

    @artem1s: When I moved to Ohio, our Senators were Glenn and another very liberal Democrat, Howard Metzenbaum.

    How Ohio went from that to what we are today (with the exception of course of Sherrod Brown), is something I can never get my head around.

  159. 159.

    Ruckus

    @raven:
    At least the heavy oils could be pumped, after heating. That coal crap had to be shoveled. By hand.
    On British Top Gear they had a race between a coal fired train, an early 50s Jag and a Vincent Black Shadow. Just imagine, the Jag was the most reliable. Jeremy looked completely done after coaling up the train for a good part of the run from London to Scotland.
    So no thanks for coal fired anything. Filthy dirty, massive emissions, backbreaking to deal with, crappy efficiency….. What’s not to like?

  160. 160.

    Mnemosyne

    @Gin & Tonic:

    AOC has been totally co-opted by Nancy Smash. The dead-ender Sanders bros are going to turn on her like wolverines once they figure that out. ?

    I’m happy that AOC is turning out to be as smart as her fans claimed she was.

  164. 164.

    Ruckus

    @satby:
    Yep.
    I get checked every year, have the floaters and have the light bands in the very peripheral part of my vision.
    This getting old stuff is not for the weak or squeamish.

  166. 166.

    The Lodger

    @Suzanne: Rachel will probably not be reading for a day or two. Ophthalmologists don’t like over-exercising one eye when the other is bandaged up.

  169. 169.

    satby

    @Ruckus: you might remember I had that last spring. The doctor’s newest tech did my pretesting, and I told her to tell the doctor I was pretty sure it was a PVD in case she wanted some different tests done as well. The other techs just laughed and told her that I’d probably take my own retinal photos too (I didn’t). well
    it’s your eyes, how can people not take it seriously?

  170. 170.

    Jay

    @Suzanne:

    Only because in North America, many structures were built from the beginning to be “disposable”.

    In Europe, many of the buildings were built so that the exterior structure would last for 1,000 years or more, but the interiors were built to be disposable.

  172. 172.

    Ruckus

    @satby:

    it’s your eyes, how can people not take it seriously?

    Exactly!
    When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut. Before there were astronauts. But then everything had to be perfect, because they didn’t really know what was going to happen when you got shot into space. So of course when I was 12 I had to get glasses. End of that idea. At 47 I got laser surgery. I was absolutely sure I’d be blinded rather than not have to wear glasses. But did it anyway. Being able to see without glasses/contacts after 35 yrs with was amazing, spectacular, best thing I ever did. That lasted 20 yrs. Oh well, I stand by my statement above. Don’t be a woosie, get old, it’s not that bad.

  173. 173.

    Jay

    @chris:
    I built in a fire zone, live in a fire zone, have had to evacuate 3 times.

    My house is still standing because other than the house or the cars, there’s nothing around my house that will burn for more than a few minutes.

    After one of the local fires, I wound up with a burning 500 gallon propane tank in the corral, that travelled about 2km.

    After that, I moved my propane tank 500 feet from the house, put it under a steel framed roof, insulated it with rocksil and shotcrete, and fitted the cage around it with a firescreen.

    2 hours is a lot of time for a structure when fires are burning through a 60 miles an hour.

    On my main evac route, I can do 40, tops. If that road is cut, top speeds on the other evac routes reach as high as 10 miles an hour.

  174. 174.

    Burnspbesq

    ICYMI, DOJ is refusing to release Whitaker’s financial disclosure form. For some unknown reason, the goverment-ethics nerds are incredulous.

    Outrage makes sense, cuz it is outrageous. Incredulity, less so. This is a Trump flunky we’re talking about.

  176. 176.

    chris

    @Jay: I know what those places are like. Spent some time in Williams Lake and have been to Horsefly and Likely too. Endless rough gravel roads with the odd laneway branching off. Beautiful country.

    You mentioned your town and I had to look it up but I’ve driven that highway 5 once coming down from Prince George. Small world, eh?

  177. 177.

    TriassicSands

    @SenyorDave:

    Every day when Trump tweets or talks the real message is always the same.
    No matter what the subject is, Trump’s basic message is:
    “I am the stupidest person on the planet.”

    Whether he’s being a racist or a xenophobe, whether he’s insulting one of our allies or praising one of his fellow fascists, and even when he’s just insulting someone like Schiff or Admiral McRaven, the one, unwavering message is always the same: “I, Donald J. Trump, am a complete idiot.”

    He never sounds thoughtful, never appears kind or generous, never sounds like an adult, and rarely seems even marginally sane, but he always sounds like the dumbest POS imaginable.

    If nothing else he is consistent and predictable.

  178. 178.

    Suzanne

    @Jay:

    In Europe, many of the buildings were built so that the exterior structure would last for 1,000 years or more, but the interiors were built to be disposable.

    Those were a very small fraction of structures built. The vast majority of buildings have always been built cheaply and quickly, with local materials. And periodic disasters (earthquakes, fires, wars) cleared them out. That’s what makes buildings like that special—there aren’t really a lot of them, even in the oldest cities.

  179. 179.

    Jay

    @chris:

    Neither Barrierre nor Little Fort, are “my town”. Just had/have business intrests there and Barrierre is an example of a local town that’s burned to the ground, several times.

    I don’t actually have a “town”. I live south of Kamloops, in that big middle of nowhere between Kamloops and Meritt, and the “Highway kf Death” and the old 5A. Most of my neighbors are cows or wildlife,

    but we do have neighbors, like Charlie, an Italian Spinone.

  180. 180.

    Jay

    @Suzanne:

    A 2012 French survey of commercial, civics and residential properties in France, ( industrial was excluded) found that 72.8% were over 100 years old, 51.7 were older than 200 years old, and 47.6 were over 300 years old. Despite the Naploeanic Wars, the Franco -Prussian Wars, WWI and WWII.

    When I head into town, there is a “neo-classic” modern log home with beautiful views, on a large acreage. I was invited to quote on building it over a decade a go. The couple who had it designed and built, said it was going to be their dream home, and that they would live there forever.

    I didn’t get the job because I asked the wrong questions, like why wasn’t the bathroom designed to add handrails, why were the doors not wheelchair compatible, why were the entrances not designed to allow access as they aged.

    The Architect’s said that “well, when you need a disabled kitchen, bathroom, access” you just rip out and rebuild.

    They lived in their “dream house” for 3 years. Then he had a stroke and was confined to a wheelchair. They had to sell the house.

  181. 181.

    J R in WV

    @satby:

    I have a variety of eyeball exam procedures as I have started (re-started, actually) eye-drops for glaucoma. Imaging, a couple of types, visual fields, obviously pressure tests.

    So far so good, though I’m starting to have cataract development, can’t wait to have that work done, the new lenses can correct for lots of your nearsightedness, which I have a ton of.

    Sorry to hear that retina detachment is more likely for my eye type!

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