Divemedic

 A woman who was cut off from a parking spot is beaten, struck with objects, and robbed. I am sick of seeing this crap. Where is George Zimmerman when you need him?

The left claims that Trump is a Nazi and they are the Antifascists, yet they do stuff like this.

A new TikTok trend has emerged this week as former “Harry Potter” fans protest author J.K. Rowling’s widely criticized views on trans people by burning copies of her books.

One video, posted by TikTok user @elmcdo shows a number of “Harry Potter” books being placed on a burning pyre.

Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.

[Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.]

Christian Johann Heinrich Heine

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” ― George Orwell, 1984

 It seems like the rioting in Portland suddenly stopped. Why? In May, an Antifa candidate for Portland Mayor came in second against Ted Wheeler, triggering a run off election. She was trailing him 49 to 24 percent. 

Until the first week of September, when Wheeler began polling with a 63 percent negative rating after 100 days of riots. This virtually guarantees that Antifa will have their candidate elected and will own the city of Portland. 

With that mission accomplished, it is time for Antifa to move on. So they begin setting fires and attacking utility infrastructure by cutting down utility poles. 

So in short, the riots in Portland have stopped because the battlefield has moved on. 

 The left is in a real quandary. What is responsible for COVID? Is it climate change, or is it systemic racism? Well, according to the CDC, minorities are being affected by COVID because of racism. This is largely due to the fallacy that anything that adversely affects a minority MUST be due to racism. This is because they demand equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity. 

 The violence and arson that occurred during protests in Lancaster over the weekend previously placed that area in Zone 1. However, the government has announced that the people who were violent were “white nationalists” with the only evidence offered to substantiate this claim being the race of the people committing the violence:

Any time officers were pelted with rocks or bottles Sunday, it came from Caucasian men in the crowd, police Chief Jarrad Berkihiser said at the news conference.

There were between five and 15 agitators, all white men in their late 20s and early 30s, according to Mayor Danene Sorace, who said video footage is being put into a state police system to identify the agitators.

Using race as the only evidence that the violence is not due to BLM is disingenuous. According to this live of thought, only black people can belong to BLM. That is, of course, ridiculous. It appears to me that this is deliberate deflection and an attempt to continue the “police are using force against mostly peaceful protesters” trope. 

Since government capitulation and collaboration is one of the aggravating factors that increases violence to a higher zone, Lancaster is now placed in Zone 2. 

EDITED TO ADD: 

Berkihiser has been chief since May 2018

 The Police Chief and Mayor released this statement the same day as Floyd’s death

The police chief made the same claims in June:

“We have seen with our own eyes the agitators that were in the crowd.”

Police Chief Jarrad Berkihiser said police have “definite evidence” that white nationalist groups were among the crowds of people who demonstrated over the weekend in response to the death of George Floyd during an arrest in Minneapolis. He said some were wearing body armor and carrying handguns.

Berkihiser said “Caucasian individuals” threw rocks and bottles containing cayenne pepper at police.

 NBA team buses trying to ferry players to games were blocked by BLM protesters for not caring enough. You can never be woke enough. 

 My brother owns a couple of businesses. One of them is a store that sells sporting goods. A couple of people came into the store while my nephew was running the register. It was two black males, one skinny, one heavy set. They told my nephew that they wanted the store to carry BLM merchandise, and take a percentage of sales. 

My brother refused. Now he is having trouble with toughs hanging out in the area and trying to intimidate them. I will update if I hear any more. 

 In 1998, Florida had the worst wildfire season in its history. Those fires were burning everywhere. You couldn’t go outside without coughing on the smoke. 

The undergrowth, what we call fuel load, was immense. Years of putting out wildfires meant that there were layers of dead undergrowth, with new growth on top. Normally, nature periodically has a wildfire caused by lightning or some other natural source that gets rid of the dead undergrowth and provides nutrients for new growth. For years, firefighters had been putting out these natural fires, and there was an enormous amount of fuel lying about. 

I remember that year. It began in February with a killer tornado outbreak. A dozen tornadoes killed 42 people. We were finding bodies for over a week. I was the operations officer for the Moonbeam Mobile Home park for the first night of that disaster. We recovered half a dozen bodies, including a baby. Those storms kicked off a weeks of almost daily rain. 

In March, it stopped raining. By May, the entire state was tinder dry. Air warmed by the sun heated ground would begin to rise at about 10 am. Cooler, moisture laden air would rush in from the ocean. That sea breeze causes thunderstorms. This is a normal weather pattern in Florida. It happens every day. 

Except in 1998, there was little rain, these storms were flush with lightning, but didn’t drop nearly enough rain. The dry brush would be ignited by lightning and other sources. Mostly lightning, sometimes people, mostly by accident. A carelessly discarded cigarette butt, a hot muffler in tall grass, an unattended fire, or even arson. Stoked by a brisk sea breeze, the fires would grow quickly. The fuel load was so heavy, the brush was so dry, this time there was no stopping the fires. I spent two weeks on the fire line. Always the same: the fires would grow with the sea breeze, get larger, and we would begin our day. 

Cut fire lines with the assistance of forestry service fire plows, backed up by brush tankers. A brush tanker is a great invention. Take a surplus military 5 ton 6×6 truck. Put a gasoline powered pump, a foam proportioner, and a supply tank onboard. The tank contains two compartments: a 500 gallon one for water, and a 25 gallon compartment for class A foam. This leaves a walkway for a firefighter to stand, and we covered that walkway in black paint mixed with sand to make a nonskid surface for firefighter boots to find purchase on the foam slicked surface. 

As I said, two weeks on the fire line. We would get up and eat breakfast at 6 am, check the gear, and get ready. The fires would kick up at about 10 am, and we would lay down a layer of water and foam on top of a fire break cut by a plow. A pair of brush tankers with a crew of three each follow the fire plow as it cuts a break, spraying the area with foam. A crew of ten follows that, and makes sure the break doesn’t get jumped by the fire. Since you are directly in the fire’s path, it is hot, dangerous work. You have to keep an eye out to make sure the fire doesn’t cut you off, and that it remains far enough away to keep you out of danger. It takes about half an hour to run out of water, if used judiciously. Fill at the nearest pond (It IS Florida. There is swamp everywhere) Every two hours, go to the supply point, refuel the pump, grab some water, head back to the line. Every two fuel breaks, you got a box with a sandwich and a bag of chips. By 11 pm, the sea breeze dies down enough that the fires start to lose steam. By about 1 am, the fires would die down and almost go out. Crews would take turns watching the day’s fire lines, while the rest of the crews found a field to lie down in and get some sleep. A single one hour watch plus four hours of sleep each night. Second watch was the worst: an hour of sleep, an hour of watch, three hours of sleep. 

Anyway, we learned our lesson. Now Florida allows wildfires to burn a bit. We do prescribed burns. Good forestry management. The Pacific Northwest hasn’t. When their forestry people try to do a prescribed burn, the environmentalists sue. So now they are having their own fire troubles. Maybe this time they will learn. I doubt it.