I confess, I've been away from DKos a lot lately. The pie fights were pretty stinkin' depressing BEFORE the craptacular governor of my state OFFICIALLY launched his bid to follow his predecessor to DC and opened the door to wave after wave of anti-Texas "jokes," "humor," and generally bigoted commentary, and I knew I'd lose my temper and knock somebody down the hill into that mudhole if I hung around.
So I found other stuff to do. Not to mention the wildfire season here in Texas this year.
Firefighters say they are finally making progress on a vicious wildfire in Bastrop County that has charred 34,356 acres of land and destroyed at least 576 houses.
âÂÂWe feel like that weâÂÂre gaining enough control where weâÂÂre not going to lose a lot more acreage today,â Bastrop County Emergency Management Coordinator Mike Fisher said in a morning news briefing. Prior to the briefing, the blaze had been reported as 30 percent contained. Another containment update is not expected until this evening.
It's been
historic. You can
see the fires from
space.
Not just Bastrop and Buesscher, either -- for thesecond time this year (the other shore, this time) has burned. This isn't West Texas where dry is what we're used to. This is the wet part of Texas, over close to Fort Worth and Dallas, Mineral Wells and Weatherford. Practically part of the Metroplex now ... in March and April the fires devastated North and West Texas. Now it's the central and southern parts of the state going up in smoke. It's been worse than ever before in our records, in fact. Hop over the flickering ember with me ...
and let's talk about exactly how badly off the good ol' USA isn't yet but could become pretty pronto if we're lackadaisical enough to let Rick Perry be elected presidon't ('cause you know in your hearts w2 won't ... won't pay attention. Won't care about people. Won't raise taxes on corporations. Won't pursue criminals on Wall Street. Won't do anything to bring us jobs here in the USA. Won't work for immigration reform. Won't work to make healthcare affordable for more Americans. Won't raise taxes on his rich benefactors. Won't enforce the environmental regulations to keep the air and water clean just in case the Rapture doesn't come one day this week. It's against his religion)! Start with total dismantlement (again, dammit, probably with some rich developer's lackadaisical third-cousin's kid in charge, a la the Arabian horse judge Bush appointed before Katrina) of FEMA.
Remember Katrina? Imagine looking back on those as the "good old days" of national disaster response. If you lived through Ike in Texas, you don't have to imagine. You saw it. Right here, big as life and twice as ugly. Now our state parks are burning ... and Rick Perry's off to campaign in California.
I know we're not supposed to embed images or video. This is too devastating not to include:
So, here's a bit of music, here's a bit of wisdom, and here's a receipt to get us started.
What are y'all eating, drinking, listening to, and trying to stave off this weekend?
