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956 Worldwide

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Everything posted by 956 Worldwide

  1. I am kind of astonished at the ugliness under the surface of some posts here. This camp was indeed a place for upper-class city girls to go over the summer. I think I mentioned up-thread that I went to a church camp within a few dozen miles that was $100 dollars per week in the 1990s; today it’s all of $200. There are scout camps dotted around that also host more middle-class and modest means kids. And of course there were lives lost in RVs and campgrounds where plenty of Texans were spending the 4th. And the fact is that for decades people have been going to those places and been safe and had fun. The last big camp disaster was in the 1980s and happened because they tried to ford a crossing. This truly was a completely beyond the norm event. None of this applies to the legitimate and well-founded criticism of governments and responsible parties. The aftermath of a disaster is EXACTLY the time to hold elected officials and the agencies they run to account. But for God’s sake take a beat and ask if you’d be proud to show one of these moms or dads— whether from Camp Mystic or a RV park— what you wrote for the world to see before offering up thoughts on the families and their motivations and actions.
  2. There has been a flooding event that killed campers in the past. In 1987 a church bus trying to evacuate a bunch of kids got swept away and 10 kids died close to Comfort. It was a scarring event and when I became a camper a few years later (at a one week, $100 dollar church camp), it was always on the minds of adults. Buses parked for the week where everyone knew them, close to the cabins and pointed at the “back way” out to avoid the river, radios in cabins, etc. I completely agree that local officials needed to be more on this. I just do think that this is going to be a cascading chain of failures in planning and reaction down the line.
  3. The natural response is always to prod the pros to do things better. And I want to be clear that I am a huge advocate of the NWS and NOAA and am furious at their defunding, and the DOGE massacres. That absolutely has to be part of the post-op. But the fact is that user error is usually at fault and that’s where the deep probing needs to happen. Weather forecasting is always inexact and you will never have a system that can’t be ignored. The tough questions are going to be on the camp side. Questions like: who monitored weather and emergency alerts and how? What was the plan in place if you had gotten advance warning in time? How often did you practice that plan? What staff members knew the plan? What did the campers know about the plan? Was it activated? How far along did you get? I have a suspicion that the breakdown was around the first and second question. Maybe I’m wrong.
  4. Those flash flood warnings are usually not for you, they are for travelers and people who are living or staying in flood prone areas. The banks of a CenTex river is certainly that. There will need to be a serious post-mortem to discern how the camp administration was keeping track of the weather and alerts. Anyone at any time camping or staying along those rivers or hiking in canyons should have an NOAA weather radio where they can hear it basically all the time.
  5. I agree with Marge’s initiative. We’ve perfected chemtrails for mind control but trying to manipulate the weather is dangerous and unproven.
  6. I agree that the EAS with silver and amber alerts is overwhelming. But, an NOAA weather radio is pretty damn good and in this case broadcast a life threatening flash flood warning at 0116. The questions are what people did with that info and who had the radios. A weather radio will automatically alert even if its not in use.
  7. We have no idea yet what happened in the camp in those hours and what they knew; it’s far too early to make them the primary point of failure and there will have been multiple points.
  8. The last three feet to the audience are always the most critical and most difficult. If you’re not on Facebook at 2AM, then a Facebook or Twitter post doesn’t help you. Radio is the gold standard.
  9. I have worked in crisis comms before. There will need to be a whole post-mortem so take this for what it’s worth but: all the major work and structure has to be done and in place well before an event. Counties and local governments, depending on the size, are often not staffed and trained on this appropriately. They’ll do a training and prep, get everything in order, and then a few people retire or get new jobs and things just slide. The strong likelihood here is that it was the 4th, it was late. Someone was on leave, someone was sleeping off beers, maybe a couple someones. And they just didn’t get someone with the keys to accounts awake and in the game.
  10. Completely agree. The Udvar-Hazey Center is likely the best flight and space museum in the world and an orbiter belongs there with the rest of America’s treasures. Moving it will simply deprive generations of aviation lovers and future aviators or engineers from marveling at what America can do. The correct answer for what to do was to put a line in a budget a decade ago to install the NY orbiter in Houston properly cared for. To fund NASA to tell its own story. Obama should have asked for it and Congress should have voted for it. This is just sheer idiocy at this point, they don’t like the “woke Smithsonian” and so the shuttle ends as it lived- far underfunded and directed at the wrong mission.
  11. It’s the point. They want Ukrainians to die and surrender so Trump can say he got peace. Peace of the grave.
  12. Calling from burner phones and refusing to ID yourself, then asking for secret information is a famously effective way of getting intelligence officials to talk.
  13. Sure this will be awesome, happy 4th everyone.
  14. Islamophobia is a whack term. It’s usually deployed in one of two ways: 1. As the accepted term for anti-Muslim bigotry (which is a real thing), although “anti-Muslim” would suffice. 2. As a subtle way to try and blend the lines between legitimate criticism of some types of Islamic belief and practice with anti-Muslim bigotry. Among some types of academics and commenters there is a pervasive effort to make people think they are talking about 1) when they mean 2); and to use it to immediately silence any justified scrutiny of Islam. Similar playbook to “Russophobia,” it’s possible to be an anti-Russian bigot who hates Russian people but “Russophobia” as a concept is just a way to try and silence any legitimate criticism of the Russian state, Russian state ideology, and Russian behavior.
  15. Apparently this was his unilateral decision. Blindsided everyone else, no coordination with other agencies. What happens when you have no NSC and stocked the apparatus with amateurs, drunks, and buttlickers.
  16. That’s Uma Thurman my man.
  17. Homeland Security is posting Thomas Kinkade.
  18. Excellent thread by David Frum and the interview with former Ambassador Brink will be worth listening to. He is correct at the core: Every decision to slow-roll aid and belief that the war could be delicately managed to avoid angering Russia too much set up the abandonment of Ukraine.
  19. This is a Bridge Colby special. And the goal is to help Russia win to try and get Ukraine to give up. A lesson for all involved is that you can do everything the admin demands and their word is worthless.
  20. There are some other branches of government where Mormons are very disproportionately represented; the ones where speaking different languages and having a squeaky clean background get you a good chunk of the way to hired. Mormons also believe that the Constitution is a divinely inspired document. It’s a bit beyond just a penchant for service.
  21. Thom Tillis is being forced to retire because of Trump’s BBB and his recognition that voting for it would cost him re-election. But at least he did his job and confirmed Pete Hegseth to show loyalty. Only kind of leopards because he will go home and be comfortable and not personally hurt by all the awful things he enabled. It is humiliating though and that’s something. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5375837-tillis-reelection-senate-north-carolina/
  22. Loving the implication of the CASA ruling. Trump can demand that every first-born be sacrificed to appease Stephen Miller’s wrath and unless you live in a lib state it’s happening for at least as long as it takes to certify a class. America is broken. And the hell of it is that I fundamentally agree that it’s a stretch of judicial power to issue nation-wide injunctions and we are beyond the norm. But there’s also a norm against just issuing facially unconstitutional executive orders. And at this point it’s just 6 people cherry-picking the norms that should continue to apply (and it’s the ones that appease Stephen Miller).
  23. One site didn’t get that ordinance, but two others did. The media mostly focused on Fordow (where they were used) but we also hit Nantz and this site. Submarine launched cruise missiles went to Isfahan.
  24. Pope Leo is so much better at this.
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