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flatdawgs

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by flatdawgs

  1. Every few years, BC folks are polled about who they feel most aligned with in the rest of North America. WA gets between 50-60%, depending on the year (higher recently), CA 15% or so, and nowhere else gets more than around 10% - even other Canadian provinces (Québec gets about 5% lol). Cascadia is a real thing up here in the PNW, although we're quiet and polite about it. Most of us grew up crossing the border frequently, in both directions, although White Rock isn't nearly as interesting as Matamoros or Nuevo Laredo, heh.
  2. Norway. Tax the hell out of resource extractors for the public benefit (SOCIALISTS!), create a fund currently worth 1.2 trillion dollars with ownership of the equivalent of approximately 1.5% of all shares traded on the world's markets. Norway has 5.5 million people. We, on the other hand, will give it all to 6 or 7 Toddler Kings.
  3. My critter - former chair of the House Progressive Caucus and representing a seat Harris won 85-11 - is doing the same shit, posting "statements". 100% of the responses on Bluesky to each one are identical to the above: "Stop posting and do something!" Perhaps it's time to realize that these people are just representatives, not leaders. It would allow our low expectations to be met.
  4. Clearcutting still exists here (although regulated to some extent by using buffer zones, variable-density harvesting, etc. and mandatory replanting) and although it has been severely limited (on federal lands) since the NW Forest Plan 25 years ago, it still occurs there under the guise of other NFS projects, most recently in the Colville NF. On private lands, which are extensive due to the checkerboarding of federal land grants to the railroads, it's more extensive and subject only to state regs. In WA these are relatively weak due to, among other things, the fact that the state constitution to this day allocates school construction funds from timber sales revenues. You're quite correct (as I'd expect with your background and experience) that more of this occurs outside the NF boundaries than inside, which can be pretty clearly seen in the checkerboard patterns on satellite images.
  5. We already log in the national forests. We always have. NFs are for resource management, not preservation; side benefits such as camping and hiking are just that. I've spent my entire life spending time in the Cascades of WA and OR - most of which is national forest land - and I guarantee that not only does logging still go on in them, quite often you can't even get to where you think you are going because the Forest Service roads are gated to allow for timber extraction. Oregon is still primarily a resource colony due to timber, despite most of the mills in the PNW having shut down 40 years ago - since then softwoods have been exported to Asia to be milled there. Washington's economy is far more diverse and the state is much wealthier (3rd highest GDP per capita in the nation, ahead of California [4] and Texas [16]), but even here the timber industry is important and a good deal of that occurs in the national forests. A tariff war above and beyond the three-decade long timber wars would hurt not because you can't get the trees, but because there is no longer anywhere to turn them into lumber.
  6. July? Ya gotta go when stuff sucks before you decide. Seattle, for example, is chock-full of people who came out to spend time in July or August, when it's the best place on earth, saying "lol it doesn't rain here that much!" Yeah, come back in the fall/winter. If you can make it through November, you're a local. Chilly, foggy, drizzly is what you want to experience on the central California coast. I spent a June and part of a July in Tavira (Portugal); fell in love with it. I had to go back during a November to make sure it was right for me. Good luck - y'all would be a great addition to the Best Coast.
  7. Brisket, You're one of the people on this barge of reprobates I'd most like to treat to a drink IRL, and I've no doubt that is in no small part due to your father's love and guidance even when you - like most of us - wanted nothing to do with it. Having read your posts for years, I also have no doubt that you have done the same for your kids; you and your wife are to credit for that, of course, but your parents also live on through that and through you as well. I lost my Dad - damn - 38 years ago, and Mom nearly 10 now, but they are always nearby even though I can't ask them all the things I wish I still could. They still bring a smile and a sense of warmth to me, as I know your Dad forever will to you. Thank you for what was a beautiful eulogy, and for reminding us of our own fathers, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Yours was heavily tilted towards the good. Be well, take solace in your memories, your family, and the good man he helped you become, and I'll see ya out on the ledge now and again. (Jeez, man, I can't follow your post and South Austin's! SMDH.)
  8. Fun Nauru fact - before their phosphate (guano) and therefore money ran out, they owned a tower in downtown Melbourne that the Aussies fondly called "Bird Shit House." Gotta love Australia.
  9. Sorry about this, but you know what I have to do now.
  10. Unfortunately, even in places like California or Washington state, where I am, it's difficult to pass laws mandating people do something to their property ex post facto - certainly without funding it (not disagreeing that it would be the smart thing to do, just that it's a tough political lift especially when most people are "yeah, that won't happen to me"). Hopefully something good like that will come out of this tragedy, but it didn't after the terrible East Bay fires several years ago. In most if not all fire-prone areas, at least up here and I'm sure in CA as well, this info is readily available but it's up to you to do it. I fully agree with you that it would be far better if it were required on all structures, but without getting too CR, pandemic out front shoulda told ya how well simple mandates can go over.
  11. I'm not an HVAC engineer either, just a lowly architect (more towers than homes) and former building science guy, but the short answer is yes, these vents exist and aren't terribly expensive. Title 24 (California building code) requires them in new/renovated construction IIRC. Even if you don't use them, wire mesh with openings no greater than 1/8 to 1/16 inch will do. You need baffles in addition for soffit and cornice vents. There are fire rated vent dampers with fusible links that close the damper when the temperature reaches a certain point; these are quite common for other reasons in commercial and multifamily construction, but wouldn't really prevent stray embers from entering. While embers certainly can cause fires very quickly if they enter, most structures are destroyed by the fire itself - and that's where non-combustible materials and "defensible space" around the home becomes very important. To @Sbbruin and all the others affected, my heart goes out to all of you. I know Altadena well - an ex-gf lives there and bought when we were still together; her house on the south side of town was spared by three homes. We're with you as you build your beautiful community back - my firm is already looking for ways we might be able to help. edit - good info, @Bevo - thanks!
  12. It's a little known but true geological fact that Peugeot Sound consists of a system of Fords, much as do similar sounds in Norway.
  13. There are a ton of fire-resistant building materials and claddings out there - anything suitable for type I or II construction (and even heavy and mass timber due to the fire protection obtained through char rate). Don't use insulated metal panels for external cladding even though they're allowed; that shit burns. Any exterior insulation - a good idea - should be mineral wool ("fluffy rocks") or other non-combustible material. Avoid having attics and soffits that need venting - again, this can be accomplished by exterior insulation or otherwise keeping them within the building envelope as conditioned (heated) space.
  14. If you sank anything large enough in the Culebra Cut or one of the entrances to the Canal it would be an issue; in one of the locks would've been as well until parallel locks were opened a few years ago. The channels are fairly narrow in the lake (still more than wide enough for passing ships and then some, so not all that simple to block), although you'd still be able to utilize it with shallower-draft ships were the main channel to be blocked. It's a surreal experience to pass through what is basically jungle on a ship. I'm not sure how much would've had to have been moved across the continental US to access the canal; both coasts have a robust naval presence as well as whatever private equipment would be necessary. Shipping anything there that can't be airlifted wouldn't take any longer with the Canal out of commission than with it open; you'd just send it from the appropriate coast. To really screw us (and the world), you'd take out all of the locks via drone, sabotage, missile, or whatever - no easy feat I'm sure, but the sudden draining of Lake Gatun (85 feet above sea level), grounding of any ships in the channels, and the loss of the locks would take years to recover from.
  15. What effect, then, could a ruling finding this to be the case have on people with dual citizenship? Clearly that would not fit any definition of "undivided allegiance"; just as clearly both participating states would have agreed to the acceptability of that within their respective territories. Right now, in most places citizenship by birth is sacrosanct and that by naturalization revocable (oh, hai Elon!), but if the tenet of "undivided allegiance" were upheld I could see a rogue court saying yeah, well, you can just dump that or lose your citizenship here (many nations, of course, already require this and do not allow for dual citizenship). Asking for a friend.... (Forgive the ignorance; I'm not a lawyer or a UT grad and as such am on Surly by sufferance alone, hoping to not have my residency revoked.)
  16. Username doesn't something something. Tites.
  17. Hey now....
  18. flatdawgs

    Austin FC

    Depending on your schedule, you could catch a couple of group stage matches in the Club World Cup if you visited Seattle - last two are Sounders v PSG on 6/23 and 6/25 Inter v River Plate (and Driuzzi, lol). There are a few things to do locally between games, I think....
  19. There's a reason it's called Londongrad. Too many entrenched interests there even with various "divestitures" for the powers that be to care to do much about it. Fucking Canucks fans.
  20. They done got smote.
  21. I'd never heard of prayer before a game or other events - at least at non-religious schools - and had attended CFB games in probably 25-30 places around the country when I started dating my now ex, a South Carolinian. She took me to a Gamecock game and, yes, there was a pre-game prayer, which shocked me. This was about 25 years ago and it continues to this day as far as I know. Being naive and from the PNW, I was shocked that it was even allowable at a state school. I received an education on the difference between the deep South and my part of the country that day and on many others, on many different things.
  22. We have several large ports on the Pacific, you dumb fucking squidbilly.
  23. We'll (WA state) go to Canada, or better yet, Denmark. We're pretty hygge up here.
  24. Ex-g/f lives in Altadena about 2 miles from that fire - we don't talk much anymore but I hope she's followed Bruin the hell out of there.
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