Miscellaneous news items that don't warrant their own thread

[Ivytalk]

Weiss has always been one of the most level-headed people on the left. She will certainly land on her feet somewhere else.

I agree on both counts. She belongs to the Bill Galston school of level-headed lefties.

[BDKJMU]

How the f does a Navy ship burn out of control for 3 days in port, despite hundreds of firefighters? And don't these modern ships have any type of built in flame suppression system?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/uss-b ... r-BB16Jgat

[dbackjon]

How the f does a Navy ship burn out of control for 3 days in port, despite hundreds of firefighters? And don't these modern ships have any type of built in flame suppression system?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/uss-b ... r-BB16Jgat

Must be those lazy California firefighters. Had this been in Bremerton, it would have been out already....














Actually wondering the same thing, and will they be able to salvage this? Fire is over 1,000 degrees, and who knows what all is burning.

Wow - Cost $750 Million to build back in the 90's. Replacement cost is $4 BILLION.

[dbackjon]

How the f does a Navy ship burn out of control for 3 days in port, despite hundreds of firefighters? And don't these modern ships have any type of built in flame suppression system?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/uss-b ... r-BB16Jgat

Sobeck acknowledged that the ship's Halon fire suppression system -- which could have put out the initial fire -- was not activated because it was also receiving maintenance.

[CID1990]

How the f does a Navy ship burn out of control for 3 days in port, despite hundreds of firefighters? And don't these modern ships have any type of built in flame suppression system?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/uss-b ... r-BB16Jgat

Sobeck acknowledged that the ship's Halon fire suppression system -- which could have put out the initial fire -- was not activated because it was also receiving maintenance.

Nothing about this ship’s disposition was unusual for a vessel welded to the pier for maintenance, except for the fire watch


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[AZGrizFan]

Sobeck acknowledged that the ship's Halon fire suppression system -- which could have put out the initial fire -- was not activated because it was also receiving maintenance.

Nothing about this ship’s disposition was unusual for a vessel welded to the pier for maintenance, except for the fire watch


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I was the Firewatch Safety Officer on board my ship when it was undergoing overhaul....somebody done fucked up bigtime here....

[CID1990]

Nothing about this ship’s disposition was unusual for a vessel welded to the pier for maintenance, except for the fire watch


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I was the Firewatch Safety Officer on board my ship when it was undergoing overhaul....somebody done fucked up bigtime here....

Yeah

A ship under maintenance like this - its got wires and hoses and cables strung all through it, you can’t close any doors, can’t get to anything... you have to be on top of a fire immediately in that situation


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[SeattleGriz]

A local policeman was killed in our town by a BLM activist during a routine traffic stop. The police department parked a vehicle outside the station and it has been absolutely buried with flowers, posters, cards and balloons showing the community's support.

Been 31 years since the last policeman has died on the job in our town.

The photo in the article is a couple days old.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-ne ... hout-bail/

[GannonFan]

I was the Firewatch Safety Officer on board my ship when it was undergoing overhaul....somebody done fucked up bigtime here....

Yeah

A ship under maintenance like this - its got wires and hoses and cables strung all through it, you can’t close any doors, can’t get to anything... you have to be on top of a fire immediately in that situation


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No matter where you are (ship, factory, etc) the moment you know the fire suppression or sprinklers are going to be incapacitated for a period of time the amount of attention to ensuring there's no chance of a fire starting is normally significant (i.e. no hot work, no live electrical work, multiple fire watches, etc), and there should be all efforts made to get the fire suppression system back up and operational in the shortest period of time, within 24 hours if possible. Otherwise you get these types of fires.

[BDKJMU]

Yeah

A ship under maintenance like this - its got wires and hoses and cables strung all through it, you can’t close any doors, can’t get to anything... you have to be on top of a fire immediately in that situation


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No matter where you are (ship, factory, etc) the moment you know the fire suppression or sprinklers are going to be incapacitated for a period of time the amount of attention to ensuring there's no chance of a fire starting is normally significant (i.e. no hot work, no live electrical work, multiple fire watches, etc), and there should be all efforts made to get the fire suppression system back up and operational in the shortest period of time, within 24 hours if possible. Otherwise you get these types of fires.

Like AZ said, some(s) done f'ed up BIG TIME. 60+ injured, several hundred million to repair or how many billions to replace? Either way the Navy is out of a light carrier for several years..Wonder how many careers are going to end over this one?

[Ivytalk]

Just saw a picture of Trump and Lindsey Graham on the golf course. Either Trump is more yuge than I thought, or Graham is much smaller than I thought.

[UNI88]

Just saw a picture of Trump and Lindsey Graham on the golf course. Either Trump is more yuge than I thought, or Graham is much smaller than I thought.

Trump is like Texas, everything about him is yuger. Well except for a couple of things, he does have small hands.

[AZGrizFan]

Yeah

A ship under maintenance like this - its got wires and hoses and cables strung all through it, you can’t close any doors, can’t get to anything... you have to be on top of a fire immediately in that situation


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No matter where you are (ship, factory, etc) the moment you know the fire suppression or sprinklers are going to be incapacitated for a period of time the amount of attention to ensuring there's no chance of a fire starting is normally significant (i.e. no hot work, no live electrical work, multiple fire watches, etc), and there should be all efforts made to get the fire suppression system back up and operational in the shortest period of time, within 24 hours if possible. Otherwise you get these types of fires.

When a ship is being worked on (usually weeks or months), the watertight doors are open, cables are run throughout the ship, and none of the fire suppression systems are operational. EVERY welder that goes out has to have a dedicated “Firewatch Petty Officer” there with him with a fire extinguisher in hand, watching them weld. There’s no feasible way to do it in 24 hours....sometimes it could be 24 weeks, or in my ship’s case, 38 months.

[CID1990]

No matter where you are (ship, factory, etc) the moment you know the fire suppression or sprinklers are going to be incapacitated for a period of time the amount of attention to ensuring there's no chance of a fire starting is normally significant (i.e. no hot work, no live electrical work, multiple fire watches, etc), and there should be all efforts made to get the fire suppression system back up and operational in the shortest period of time, within 24 hours if possible. Otherwise you get these types of fires.

Like AZ said, some(s) done f'ed up BIG TIME. 60+ injured, several hundred million to repair or how many billions to replace? Either way the Navy is out of a light carrier for several years..Wonder how many careers are going to end over this one?

I dunno... was the skipper white? Or male? Or non-binary?


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[SDHornet]

You can see the gunner in the truck get thrown about 30+ feet in the air when the bomb hits.

[UNI88]

Twenty Years A Fool: My Long Journey Home From The Left

This final lesson popped me right out of the cultural left where I had made my home. It was now clear to me that our contemporary story tellers were telling lies. They had utterly corrupted our idea of our country and culture, religion and past. They misread the very ground of human character. They had taught us that with few exceptions, we came from exploiters, oppressors of natives and blacks. All the “great” writers of our time read to me now as depressives caught in an almost demonic fiction, charlatans who had seized the criminal and disaffected and made of them the norm that must be defeated and replaced by another system. And that system was inevitably command and control socialism.

There's still hope for you Kalm.

[Winterborn]

To add another data point to that article '88. From an author that wind up reading every now and then. I have ran across many more like him on my trips here the last couple of years than the opposite.

He is defiantly more Libertarian now then when he wrote this in 2017.

I don’t feel like I’ve stopped being the liberal I was at age 19 — still married to the same amazing lady, still enjoying public radio, still pro-choice, still pro-legalization, still about people having brighter futures — as much as I feel left behind.
The cultural shift that’s masqueraded beneath a banner of liberalism, kicked me out. Or I walked away. Whichever.
Like Hermey the elf, from Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. “You can’t fire me, I quit!”
Naturally, my liberal friends reading this will shake their heads from side to side, with pained expressions on their faces. “He’s got it all wrong. The Right is so much worse. They are always worse.”
Hey folks, I never said the Right was perfect. Nor are the people of the Right immune to being hypocrites about a lot of things.
But here’s the shocker. There is far, far more true liberalism on the American Right, in this 21st century, than inhabits the American Left.

Folks, I can’t truck with this. I can’t be with the authoritarian control freaks — people who fight the so-called alt-Right, by inventing an even more problematic ctrl-Left. Not even if the ctrl-Left are the heirs to history, like they always claim they are.

My personal suspicion — as someone who recognizes that history is not a straight-line ramp of destiny, but rather a variable waveform of deliberate action twined with chance — is that nobody owns the future. The more hotly and adamantly somebody claims to own the future, like Khrushchev slamming his shoe at the United Nations, the more sure I am this person (or this movement) is writing its own epitaph. Authoritarians always fail. Always. If not sooner, then later. Because human beings are unruly. We seldom do as we’re told. Not even when it’s the cuddly cudgel of compassionate dictatorship banging down across our skulls.

Yes, yes, I know, the American Right has had plenty of moments in that unkind spotlight too. They’re not immune to overreaching.
The American Right just seems to better understand the way people and the world actually work, versus how we might wish for them to work. Thus the American Right spends a lot of its intellectual and emotional capital on concepts like individual liberty and limited government, according to the wishes of the U.S. Founders.

The American Left, meanwhile, is obsessed with perfecting the human condition, using the ideas of theorists like Marx. They seek a total reformation of society, as well as the state. They are anti-Enlightenment, believing that empirical science and objective analysis are somehow RACIST! as well as SEXIST! Facts which refute the reformative theory, are to be suppressed, and the fact-finders walled out of polite discussion.

The ghosts of the gulags and the killing fields tell us which of these two paradigms is sustainable, and which is not.
I choose to listen to the ghosts.

https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/20 ... iberalism/

[UNI88]

To add another data point to that article '88. From an author that wind up reading every now and then. I have ran across many more like him on my trips here the last couple of years than the opposite.

He is defiantly more Libertarian now then when he wrote this in 2017.

I don’t feel like I’ve stopped being the liberal I was at age 19 — still married to the same amazing lady, still enjoying public radio, still pro-choice, still pro-legalization, still about people having brighter futures — as much as I feel left behind.
The cultural shift that’s masqueraded beneath a banner of liberalism, kicked me out. Or I walked away. Whichever.
Like Hermey the elf, from Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. “You can’t fire me, I quit!”
Naturally, my liberal friends reading this will shake their heads from side to side, with pained expressions on their faces. “He’s got it all wrong. The Right is so much worse. They are always worse.”
Hey folks, I never said the Right was perfect. Nor are the people of the Right immune to being hypocrites about a lot of things.
But here’s the shocker. There is far, far more true liberalism on the American Right, in this 21st century, than inhabits the American Left.

Folks, I can’t truck with this. I can’t be with the authoritarian control freaks — people who fight the so-called alt-Right, by inventing an even more problematic ctrl-Left. Not even if the ctrl-Left are the heirs to history, like they always claim they are.

My personal suspicion — as someone who recognizes that history is not a straight-line ramp of destiny, but rather a variable waveform of deliberate action twined with chance — is that nobody owns the future. The more hotly and adamantly somebody claims to own the future, like Khrushchev slamming his shoe at the United Nations, the more sure I am this person (or this movement) is writing its own epitaph. Authoritarians always fail. Always. If not sooner, then later. Because human beings are unruly. We seldom do as we’re told. Not even when it’s the cuddly cudgel of compassionate dictatorship banging down across our skulls.

Yes, yes, I know, the American Right has had plenty of moments in that unkind spotlight too. They’re not immune to overreaching.
The American Right just seems to better understand the way people and the world actually work, versus how we might wish for them to work. Thus the American Right spends a lot of its intellectual and emotional capital on concepts like individual liberty and limited government, according to the wishes of the U.S. Founders.

The American Left, meanwhile, is obsessed with perfecting the human condition, using the ideas of theorists like Marx. They seek a total reformation of society, as well as the state. They are anti-Enlightenment, believing that empirical science and objective analysis are somehow RACIST! as well as SEXIST! Facts which refute the reformative theory, are to be suppressed, and the fact-finders walled out of polite discussion.

The ghosts of the gulags and the killing fields tell us which of these two paradigms is sustainable, and which is not.
I choose to listen to the ghosts.

https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/20 ... iberalism/

I still consider myself a liberal (open-minded) and a progressive (looking for new ideas to improve things). I refuse to be defined by the labels of either side.

I love the ctrl-Left as the counter to alt-Right.

[CID1990]

You can see the gunner in the truck get thrown about 30+ feet in the air when the bomb hits.

You mean his largest fragment got thrown 30 feet

The rest of him was here, there, everywhere

[AZGrizFan]

To add another data point to that article '88. From an author that wind up reading every now and then. I have ran across many more like him on my trips here the last couple of years than the opposite.

He is defiantly more Libertarian now then when he wrote this in 2017.

I don’t feel like I’ve stopped being the liberal I was at age 19 — still married to the same amazing lady, still enjoying public radio, still pro-choice, still pro-legalization, still about people having brighter futures — as much as I feel left behind.
The cultural shift that’s masqueraded beneath a banner of liberalism, kicked me out. Or I walked away. Whichever.
Like Hermey the elf, from Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. “You can’t fire me, I quit!”
Naturally, my liberal friends reading this will shake their heads from side to side, with pained expressions on their faces. “He’s got it all wrong. The Right is so much worse. They are always worse.”
Hey folks, I never said the Right was perfect. Nor are the people of the Right immune to being hypocrites about a lot of things.
But here’s the shocker. There is far, far more true liberalism on the American Right, in this 21st century, than inhabits the American Left.

Folks, I can’t truck with this. I can’t be with the authoritarian control freaks — people who fight the so-called alt-Right, by inventing an even more problematic ctrl-Left. Not even if the ctrl-Left are the heirs to history, like they always claim they are.

My personal suspicion — as someone who recognizes that history is not a straight-line ramp of destiny, but rather a variable waveform of deliberate action twined with chance — is that nobody owns the future. The more hotly and adamantly somebody claims to own the future, like Khrushchev slamming his shoe at the United Nations, the more sure I am this person (or this movement) is writing its own epitaph. Authoritarians always fail. Always. If not sooner, then later. Because human beings are unruly. We seldom do as we’re told. Not even when it’s the cuddly cudgel of compassionate dictatorship banging down across our skulls.

Yes, yes, I know, the American Right has had plenty of moments in that unkind spotlight too. They’re not immune to overreaching.
The American Right just seems to better understand the way people and the world actually work, versus how we might wish for them to work. Thus the American Right spends a lot of its intellectual and emotional capital on concepts like individual liberty and limited government, according to the wishes of the U.S. Founders.

The American Left, meanwhile, is obsessed with perfecting the human condition, using the ideas of theorists like Marx. They seek a total reformation of society, as well as the state. They are anti-Enlightenment, believing that empirical science and objective analysis are somehow RACIST! as well as SEXIST! Facts which refute the reformative theory, are to be suppressed, and the fact-finders walled out of polite discussion.

The ghosts of the gulags and the killing fields tell us which of these two paradigms is sustainable, and which is not.
I choose to listen to the ghosts.

https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/20 ... iberalism/

Two really, really great articles. Both will be labeled as traitors to the cause.

[kalm]

To add another data point to that article '88. From an author that wind up reading every now and then. I have ran across many more like him on my trips here the last couple of years than the opposite.

He is defiantly more Libertarian now then when he wrote this in 2017.

I don’t feel like I’ve stopped being the liberal I was at age 19 — still married to the same amazing lady, still enjoying public radio, still pro-choice, still pro-legalization, still about people having brighter futures — as much as I feel left behind.
The cultural shift that’s masqueraded beneath a banner of liberalism, kicked me out. Or I walked away. Whichever.
Like Hermey the elf, from Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. “You can’t fire me, I quit!”
Naturally, my liberal friends reading this will shake their heads from side to side, with pained expressions on their faces. “He’s got it all wrong. The Right is so much worse. They are always worse.”
Hey folks, I never said the Right was perfect. Nor are the people of the Right immune to being hypocrites about a lot of things.
But here’s the shocker. There is far, far more true liberalism on the American Right, in this 21st century, than inhabits the American Left.

Folks, I can’t truck with this. I can’t be with the authoritarian control freaks — people who fight the so-called alt-Right, by inventing an even more problematic ctrl-Left. Not even if the ctrl-Left are the heirs to history, like they always claim they are.

My personal suspicion — as someone who recognizes that history is not a straight-line ramp of destiny, but rather a variable waveform of deliberate action twined with chance — is that nobody owns the future. The more hotly and adamantly somebody claims to own the future, like Khrushchev slamming his shoe at the United Nations, the more sure I am this person (or this movement) is writing its own epitaph. Authoritarians always fail. Always. If not sooner, then later. Because human beings are unruly. We seldom do as we’re told. Not even when it’s the cuddly cudgel of compassionate dictatorship banging down across our skulls.

Yes, yes, I know, the American Right has had plenty of moments in that unkind spotlight too. They’re not immune to overreaching.
The American Right just seems to better understand the way people and the world actually work, versus how we might wish for them to work. Thus the American Right spends a lot of its intellectual and emotional capital on concepts like individual liberty and limited government, according to the wishes of the U.S. Founders.

The American Left, meanwhile, is obsessed with perfecting the human condition, using the ideas of theorists like Marx. They seek a total reformation of society, as well as the state. They are anti-Enlightenment, believing that empirical science and objective analysis are somehow RACIST! as well as SEXIST! Facts which refute the reformative theory, are to be suppressed, and the fact-finders walled out of polite discussion.

The ghosts of the gulags and the killing fields tell us which of these two paradigms is sustainable, and which is not.
I choose to listen to the ghosts.

https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/20 ... iberalism/

That’s some damn fine stuff there and I agree with much of it. Growing up during the peak influence of the Christian Right levels the playing the field a little but authoritarianism certainly comes from the left as well.

BTW, one of the unspoken threats of this pandemic is a massive increase in government control...ironically because too many have proven their selfishness is dangerous to their own community. Not saying I wish for it at all but it might be inevitable.

[CID1990]

To add another data point to that article '88. From an author that wind up reading every now and then. I have ran across many more like him on my trips here the last couple of years than the opposite.

He is defiantly more Libertarian now then when he wrote this in 2017.
https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/20 ... iberalism/

That’s some damn fine stuff there and I agree with much of it. Growing up during the peak influence of the Christian Right levels the playing the field a little but authoritarianism certainly comes from the left as well.

BTW, one of the unspoken threats of this pandemic is a massive increase in government control...ironically because too many have proven their selfishness is dangerous to their own community. Not saying I wish for it at all but it might be inevitable.

You grew up in the 1920s?


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[kalm]

That’s some damn fine stuff there and I agree with much of it. Growing up during the peak influence of the Christian Right levels the playing the field a little but authoritarianism certainly comes from the left as well.

BTW, one of the unspoken threats of this pandemic is a massive increase in government control...ironically because too many have proven their selfishness is dangerous to their own community. Not saying I wish for it at all but it might be inevitable.

You grew up in the 1920s?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ok wisenheimer...the peak of modern Christian conservatism and political influence/Republican Party alliance.

But also Tipper Gore.

[Winterborn]

I still consider myself a liberal (open-minded) and a progressive (looking for new ideas to improve things). I refuse to be defined by the labels of either side.

I love the ctrl-Left as the counter to alt-Right.

I have used "ctrl-Left" here and there in conversations and it does get the point across rather well.

[Ivytalk]

Brad “20 Years to Read My Stuff” Torgerson could take a few lessons in conciseness from Elizabeth Nickson.
Damn bloggers.