June 1st marks the "official" start of hurricane season.
I declined to participate when it came time to renew my affiliation with The Salt Mine's response apparatus. I'm getting to old to bunk on troop ships or a cot in a tent some place...
Showing posts with label Emergency Response. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emergency Response. Show all posts
Thursday, June 3, 2021
Sunday, November 15, 2020
Thanksgiving is Canceled!
From 11:59 PM on Monday, November 16 through Monday, December 14, all counties in Washington rollback to the restrictions outlined below...
- Indoor Social Gatherings with people from outside your household are prohibited unless they (a) quarantine for fourteen days (14) prior to the social gathering; or (b) quarantine for seven (7) days prior to the social gathering and receive a negative COVID-19 test result no more than 48-hours prior to the gathering. A household is defined as individuals residing in the same domicile.
I foresee widespread civil disobedience.
Also, wide-spread pearl-clutching and calls to snitch hotlines by the "caring."
Also, people thinking "Maybe I should have voted for Culp after all", as well as "This is all #OrangeManBad's fault!"
I gotta get out of this state.
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
The Riot Makers
Currently reading The Riot Makers, by Eugene Methvin.
(At Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/yyg7c4kc Good luck!)
(At Archive.org: https://tinyurl.com/y4vnv2yc One hour or 14 day loan, updated/corrected. No print, copy, etc of e-book loaner.)
Published in 1970, and apparently only in one print run, it is an in-depth study of commie methods of inciting riots, based on the "disorder" of the 1960s, primarily in the United States, both on- and off-campus.
I realize that in some corners the phrase "commie methods of inciting riots" makes the author (and me, I suppose) sound like a conspiracy theorist, but the evidence is pretty compelling.
The book opens with a description of the Newark, NJ, riot of July, 1967. 1967, of course, having been the "Long, Hot Summer".
The author then follows the history of social engineering from Lenin to Mao, with brief looks at the Gracchi brothers and Mark Antony, Sam Adams, the "Babouvists" of the French Revolution, and Karl Marx.
The history of Lenin and social engineering is detailed, as is the description of the social engineering process.
One constant theme is they manner in which communications technology facilitates the organizing and incitement process; it takes absolutely no imagination at all to add the internet and cellular telephones to radio and television and see how that amplifies the effect.
You have probably heard the saying that "History doesn't repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme"; reading this book with an eye towards current events will certainly confirm the notion, if not, as I alluded to above, make you think about triple-layering your tin-foil hat.
I got this book through an inter-library loan, courtesy the King County Library system. If you can find a copy, I strongly urge you to do so.
EDITED to add: The writing style and attitudes in this book may seem dated. Certainly, some of the psychological and sociological terminology used is out of date and/or obsolete. Also, this book was published back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, when I was growing up, and "Negro" was still the word used in polite company. Some may find that jarring, or even, this being 2020, offensive.
Here's a documentary based on the book:
Saturday, June 6, 2020
Flash Back!
A little way into the Korean Basic, once we had gotten to the point that we could manage more advanced grammar, we had a lesson in which "Dad" came home from work to find his sons brawling, and yelled "POK DONG AH! SSA-OOH JI MA!"; colloquially translated, "What is this riot?! Stop fighting!"
Only we thought he was calling one of his sons "Pok Dong" -- riot or civil disturbance -- and did not quite grasp yet the nuances of Korean grammar; in this case, the imperative forms indicated by the "AH/MA" verbs endings.
(Confession digression: I are grammaring goodly in English, written or spoken, but if you require me to diagram a sentence, I'm heading for the door. I still have a hard time telling the difference between an adverb and an adjective, and I'm not clear on what a gerund is.)
So several years later I'm in Korea on my second tour, my first at the Second Infantry Division, and one weekend I scored a day pass to head down to Seoul. Maybe I was Christmas shopping, I don't recall, but I don't remember it as being particularly cold, so may not.
Anyway, the bus route went by several universities, including Yeon Sei Dae Hak ("tae hak" = university; commonly referred to as "Yeon Dae", which, confusingly, is also the word for "regiment".)
The student body was participating in their favorite intramural activity, loudly proclaiming their opinions on various and sundry matters of great concern, featuring a variety of special effects and training aids by both said student body and their critics, to wit: bricks, rocks, fire bombs, and tear gas.
In other words, rioting.*
I caught a whiff of said tear gas, leaving me a bit hoarse for a day or two. When a Korean acquaintance asked if I was well, I explained that I had gotten too close to the "pok dong" near Yeon Dai.
And was promptly corrected: "Not a pok dong, it was a demo!"
And that, boys and girls was my first exposure to the concept that, if the cause is exalted enough, any amount of riotous, destructive, behavior can be excused by the simple process of designating it a "demonstration" or "peaceful protest."
*See P.J. O'Rourke's hilarious essay "Seoul Man" from Rolling Stone, reproduced in his collection Holidays in Hell.
Monday, April 27, 2020
A New Definition for "Chutzpah"
It used to be the guy that murdered his parents begging for leniency in sentencing, due to being an orphan.
Now it's the Director General of the World Health Organization saying we should have been listening to him all along...
Now it's the Director General of the World Health Organization saying we should have been listening to him all along...
Monday, March 23, 2020
Have You Kippled Lately?
Kipling Society homepage
Anent my second most recent post:
Poems - The Sons of Martha
This one is a perennial favorite in some corners of the blogosphere: Poems - 'The Gods of the Copybook Headings'
Anent my second most recent post:
Poems - The Sons of Martha
The rest of the poem, as well as notes on the text, sources, references, etc., at the link.The Sons of Martha
THE Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.
It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by land and main.
They say to mountains, " Be ye removèd" They say to the lesser floods " Be dry."
Under their rods are the rocks reprovèd - they are not afraid of that which is high.
Then do the hill tops shake to the summit - then is the bed of the deep laid bare,
That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly sleeping and unaware.
This one is a perennial favorite in some corners of the blogosphere: Poems - 'The Gods of the Copybook Headings'
I Feel Dumber
I haven't been blogging as much about Pandemic Panic as I might have been because I found that Bobbi has been doing a good job of explaining some issues that my own thoughts were, shall we say, less than fully developed.
F'r instance, in Week Two Of Taking It Seriously, fresh off the Intertubes, she discusses the supply chain.
Which was timely, because I happened to get up a little early today, and walked in on Mrs. Drang while she was waking up and feeding cats and watching morning TV.
Where the talking heads were interrogating the Surgeon General of the United States about why in the world the President's Phone and Pen cannot just magically make millions of surgical masks and nitrile gloves appear in hospitals and clinics. "But it's been days since the Defense Production Act was 'invoked', why are there still shortages of Personal Protective Equipment?"
Oy.
I am not a logisitician, I did not stay at a Holiday In express last night, I do not play a logistician on TV...
...But I spent 20 years on the Army, and, as a Marine General said "Amateurs talk about tactics, but Professionals study logistics." (Quotes on logistics on this page go back to the American Revolution.)
Just because the President has authorized the DPA, does not mean that suddenly the factories are cranking these things out 24/7.
Assuming that the factories aren't already running 24/7, they have to find trained staff to run three shifts. They have to find the material. The material has to get to the factory. Workers have to be paid among other Human Resources actions, they have to be fed, the facilities have to be maintained, and kept secure.
And the finished product has to get to warehouses, or in some cases directly to the consumer. Which means trucks, mostly, which have to be maintained and fueled, and the drivers fed and paid and...
You can surge some of that. If you have trained personnel, facilities, and materials available you can go to an emergency schedule while the bean counters and paper shufflers sort out the details.
(Did I ever mention that during college I worked a couple of summers on an assembly line at one of the Big 3?)
If you have a facility that can be repurposed -- you make widgets and now there's a need for framastans -- it takes time to retool, and to ensure your staff know how to make a framastan. The assembly lines at Big 3, Inc., used to shut down for one or two weeks in the summer tor retool for the new model year of the same car model the plant had been making for years! (One year they all shut down all the plants at the same time. Glad I was in Korea by that time...)
Watching these idiots talk to people about things that may as well be magical to them makes me feel like my IQ has declined to their level.
Which may be unfair, they're just flailing around with concepts they haven't ever had to deal with, or knew existed. Food just appears in the store. The mechanic mutters incantations and my car works.
Grasshoppers. Grasshoppers, all of them.
Now, that sort of implies that Obama just shrugged and said "Never mind", which is highly unlikely. I'm guessing that line items in budges for the re-stocking of mundane things like surgical masks and gloves got cut because no one involved really believed they would be necessary, and anyway, there were more important things to spend the money on.
F'r instance, in Week Two Of Taking It Seriously, fresh off the Intertubes, she discusses the supply chain.
Which was timely, because I happened to get up a little early today, and walked in on Mrs. Drang while she was waking up and feeding cats and watching morning TV.
Where the talking heads were interrogating the Surgeon General of the United States about why in the world the President's Phone and Pen cannot just magically make millions of surgical masks and nitrile gloves appear in hospitals and clinics. "But it's been days since the Defense Production Act was 'invoked', why are there still shortages of Personal Protective Equipment?"
Oy.
I am not a logisitician, I did not stay at a Holiday In express last night, I do not play a logistician on TV...
...But I spent 20 years on the Army, and, as a Marine General said "Amateurs talk about tactics, but Professionals study logistics." (Quotes on logistics on this page go back to the American Revolution.)
Just because the President has authorized the DPA, does not mean that suddenly the factories are cranking these things out 24/7.
Assuming that the factories aren't already running 24/7, they have to find trained staff to run three shifts. They have to find the material. The material has to get to the factory. Workers have to be paid among other Human Resources actions, they have to be fed, the facilities have to be maintained, and kept secure.
And the finished product has to get to warehouses, or in some cases directly to the consumer. Which means trucks, mostly, which have to be maintained and fueled, and the drivers fed and paid and...
You can surge some of that. If you have trained personnel, facilities, and materials available you can go to an emergency schedule while the bean counters and paper shufflers sort out the details.
(Did I ever mention that during college I worked a couple of summers on an assembly line at one of the Big 3?)
If you have a facility that can be repurposed -- you make widgets and now there's a need for framastans -- it takes time to retool, and to ensure your staff know how to make a framastan. The assembly lines at Big 3, Inc., used to shut down for one or two weeks in the summer tor retool for the new model year of the same car model the plant had been making for years! (One year they all shut down all the plants at the same time. Glad I was in Korea by that time...)
Watching these idiots talk to people about things that may as well be magical to them makes me feel like my IQ has declined to their level.
Which may be unfair, they're just flailing around with concepts they haven't ever had to deal with, or knew existed. Food just appears in the store. The mechanic mutters incantations and my car works.
Grasshoppers. Grasshoppers, all of them.
***
About those shortages of PPE. Interesting article: Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg News: Federal stockpile of N95 masks was depleted under Obama and never restocked.Now, that sort of implies that Obama just shrugged and said "Never mind", which is highly unlikely. I'm guessing that line items in budges for the re-stocking of mundane things like surgical masks and gloves got cut because no one involved really believed they would be necessary, and anyway, there were more important things to spend the money on.
Sunday, March 22, 2020
Rumor Control -- Updated
Coronavirus Rumor Control | FEMA.gov
Naturally, there are those who immediately assume (!) that anything put out by FEMA is a lie.
Seriously, if you happen to find the Twitter thread in which FEMA lists these myths, don't read the comments.
I refrained from reading comments to this one:
Meanwhile, in Washington State...
Apparently, government assets are seizing consumer goods from store shelves...
And the response is to beg the governor to lock the entire state down.
Look, social distancing and all that is a good idea; as an introvert, it's what I do anyway. But The Roads Must Roll; as a Son of Martha myself, the idea that we should all just hunker down and let everything stop because the grasshoppers have succumbed to hysteria disgusts me.
(OK, too many literary allusions in there, sorry, not sorry.)
And part of why I tweeted
Do I really believe that one or more governors, possibly coordinated, decided "I know! I'll ruin the economy in the pretense of preventing the spread of the pandemic! That'll show that Bad Orange Man!"
No. They may think that what they're doing will really help, they may think they have to Do Something and this is all they can come up with, or maybe they think they have to be seen to Do Something, which is, after all, a common motivation for elected or appointed officials to Do Something Counterproductive and/or Stupid...
Although I do not rule out the possibility that the thought occurred to them that the bright side of a crash would be that Presidents are not usually re-elected when the economy turns bad.
UPDATE: And just like that, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer make the question of "Would Democrats trash the economy to get Trump?" look a little more rational...
Naturally, there are those who immediately assume (!) that anything put out by FEMA is a lie.
Seriously, if you happen to find the Twitter thread in which FEMA lists these myths, don't read the comments.
I refrained from reading comments to this one:
Meanwhile, in Washington State...
Apparently, government assets are seizing consumer goods from store shelves...
Great job!! Now, PLEASE SET UP SHELTER IN PLACE!!!! People aren’t staying home or practicing social distancing! This is at Rattlesnake Ledge today!! pic.twitter.com/S84ewSOPDn— Fledra Hamill (@fledra_hamill) March 21, 2020
And the response is to beg the governor to lock the entire state down.
Look, social distancing and all that is a good idea; as an introvert, it's what I do anyway. But The Roads Must Roll; as a Son of Martha myself, the idea that we should all just hunker down and let everything stop because the grasshoppers have succumbed to hysteria disgusts me.
(OK, too many literary allusions in there, sorry, not sorry.)
And part of why I tweeted
Do I really believe that one or more governors, possibly coordinated, decided "I know! I'll ruin the economy in the pretense of preventing the spread of the pandemic! That'll show that Bad Orange Man!"
No. They may think that what they're doing will really help, they may think they have to Do Something and this is all they can come up with, or maybe they think they have to be seen to Do Something, which is, after all, a common motivation for elected or appointed officials to Do Something Counterproductive and/or Stupid...
Although I do not rule out the possibility that the thought occurred to them that the bright side of a crash would be that Presidents are not usually re-elected when the economy turns bad.
UPDATE: And just like that, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer make the question of "Would Democrats trash the economy to get Trump?" look a little more rational...
Saturday, February 8, 2020
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Tracking Map
Coronavirus 2019-nCoV
As of right now, 34,963 cases "confirmed", 34,620 of which are in Communist China.
725 deaths, in China.
Assuming you believe the Communist Chinese government, of course.
As of right now, 34,963 cases "confirmed", 34,620 of which are in Communist China.
725 deaths, in China.
Assuming you believe the Communist Chinese government, of course.
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