patrick.net

New renter says

While our state burns? It's 65F and projected to get as high as 79F today. How about in Phoenix where you are?

Yeah but Phoenix is a desert for 12 months of the year, whereas California is a desert for only 6-8 months of the year. So there's more vegetation to burn in CA. Sand doesn't catch fire too well.

thunderlips11 says

All in all banksters were all just bricks in the Wall.

Or better yet, dust in the wind...

http://www.youtube.com/embed/tH2w6Oxx0kQ

wthrfrk80 says

Yeah but Phoenix is a desert for 12 months of the year, whereas California is a desert for only 6-8 months of the year. So there's more vegetation to burn in CA. Sand doesn't catch fire too well.

prophets always emerge from the desert.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater

wthrfrk80 says

New renter says

While our state burns? It's 65F and projected to get as high as 79F today. How about in Phoenix where you are?

Yeah but Phoenix is a desert for 12 months of the year, whereas California is a desert for only 6-8 months of the year. So there's more vegetation to burn in CA. Sand doesn't catch fire too well.

No argument there, I lived through the big SD fires in 2003. fire to the south, fire to the east, fire to the north, ocean to the west. The sky was red, the sun obscured, the air heavy with ash.

Still beats Phoenix in the summer though.

The Original Bankster says

wthrfrk80 says

Yeah but Phoenix is a desert for 12 months of the year, whereas California is a desert for only 6-8 months of the year. So there's more vegetation to burn in CA. Sand doesn't catch fire too well.

prophets always emerge from the desert.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater

The San Francisco Treat

As do illegal aliens.

New renter says

Still beats Phoenix in the summer though.

Yeah I don't know how anyone can stand that. Even with AC. Who's idea was it to build a big city in the middle of a desert anyway?? Is there some special natural resource there?

wthrfrk80 says

Yeah I don't know how anyone can stand that. Even with AC. Who's idea was it to build a big city in the middle of a desert anyway?? Is there some special natural resource there?

Idealism.

It was a abandoned native settlement when the Americans arrived. After that it was a set of irrigation canals made by regular pionner types. They farmed the irrigation canals and lived a sometimes difficult, but generally comfortable life away from all the problems of the civil war, slavery, etc. It wasn't until the 80s rolled around when the Illegal Aliens started arriving in droves and this nice little city, where Frank Lloyd Wright lived for some time, started turning into a shithole similar to California.

The heat always acted as a deterrent and honestly the Phoenicians liked it that way. Hot summer, nice people instead of Nice Weather and shit-for-brains people in California. Just like today.

Interestingly the native culture that was here was nothing like the Aztecs. They had no ziggaurats for sacrifices, and all we found were a set of simply made canals for agricultural irrigation. Archeologists think they were mainly those who political enemies who escaped the violence of the Aztec empire.

The Original Bankster says

The heat always acted as a deterrent and honestly the Phoenicians liked it that way. Hot summer, nice people instead of Nice Weather and shit-for-brains people in California. Just like today.

To be fair AZ does have its share of kooks too:

http://gosw.about.com/od/sedonaarizona/a/sedonavortex.htm

I have to day I do like Flagstaff even it it is a bit too low key.

Flagstaff is the capitol of 'White' Arizona. The north of Arizona is similar to Colorado both socially and environmentally. Sedona is a bunch of nutballs, we generally ignore them, they are hippies from California who took too much acid.

there are three major cities in AZ:

Flagstaff: Capitol of White Libertarian Arizona

Tucson: Liberal Capitol infested with Mexican illegals

Phoenix: Capitol and centerpoint of the State. Illegal are here but there are major tensions about their presence(Sheriff Joe).

Peter P says

That is a fair description. I am definitely not a liberal because I think humanity will inevitably drive itself to destruction.

http://stevenpinker.com/publications/better-angels-our-nature

FunTime,

I'm not sure where Pinker gets his numbers. The 20th century was one of the bloodiest in history. True, we haven't seen another war as bad as WW2, but how much of that is because of the fear of "mutually assured destruction" in nuclear war?

Greed and Fear still drive everything.

I think you'll find him trying really hard to stick to scientific method for his number selection, if that's compelling to you. I've not read the book yet and only heard him interviewed on NPR, so I can't attest to the job he's done. Here's an answer from his website though.

http://stevenpinker.com/pages/frequently-asked-questions-about-better-angels-our-nature-why-violence-has-declined

Skeptical Questions about Whether Violence Has Really Declined

Wasn’t the 20th century the most violent in history?

Probably not; see chapter 5, especially pp. 189–200. Historical data from past centuries are far less complete, but the existing estimates of death tolls, when calculated as a proportion of the world’s population at the time, show at least nine atrocities before the 20th century (that we know of) which may have been worse than World War II. They arose from collapsing empires, horse tribe invasions, the slave trade, and the annihilation of native peoples, with wars of religion close behind. World War I doesn’t even make the top ten.

Also, a century comprises a hundred years, not just fifty, and the second half of the 20th century was host to a Long Peace (chapter 5) and a New Peace (chapter 6) with unusually low rates of death in warfare.

True, I forgot about the Mongols...those crazy b*stards.

In the future it'll be resource wars rather that religious wars. The Iraq war was only the beginning.

The Original Bankster says

California has SLAVERY, WIDESPREAD DRUG USE, SEXUAL DEBAUCHERY, BROKEN FAMILY, POLITICAL CORRUPTION, IRREPARABLY DAMAGED FINANCES... sounds a hell of a lot like every failed empire in history.

but Californians insist their system is better because they allow gay marriage and they're sad when something bad happens to an Arab.

Here's another one for you Bankster.

/?p=1214683

She's not a Californian - yet. I'm sure she'll be put on a bus with a one-way ticket to Simi Valley whereupon her recent audition for California residency will be recreated for the home video market. I'm sure it will sell very well in Phoenix

freak80 says

but how much of that is because of the fear of "mutually assured destruction" in nuclear war?

http://stevenpinker.com/pages/frequently-asked-questions-about-better-angels-our-nature-why-violence-has-declined

As long as nuclear weapons exist, one cannot say that we are living in less-violent times, especially since it is inevitable that they will be used at some time in the future.

There is no answer to the question of how to compare the decline in actual deaths from dozens of high-probability categories (homicide, war, domestic abuse, and so on) with the increase in hypothetical deaths from one low-probability category – it is, as they say, a philosophical question. But it’s far from certain that nuclear weapons will ever be used again. The 67-year history of nonuse suggests that, contrary to predictions that blundering politicians and trigger-happy generals have always been on the verge of unleashing nuclear weapons, the likelihood of their being used is probably very small. Of course, even an event with an extremely low odds, when the probability is exponentiated over enough years, becomes extremely probable, but that curve has to be set off against the one representing the probability that the Global Zero project will succeed and that nuclear weapons will go the way of chemical weapons, human sacrifice, and slave auctions – also a low-probability event, but one which has a nonzero chance of happening in this century.

The Original Bankster says

wthrfrk80 says

The Original Bankster says

Liberalism is simply the tool of what is left of imperialism. It's the 'babylon system' we've been warned about.

What?

That's a little extreme don't you think?

no.

California has SLAVERY, WIDESPREAD DRUG USE, SEXUAL DEBAUCHERY, BROKEN FAMILY, POLITICAL CORRUPTION, IRREPARABLY DAMAGED FINANCES... sounds a hell of a lot like every failed empire in history.

but Californians insist their system is better because they allow gay marriage and they're sad when something bad happens to an Arab.

The San Francisco Treat

WTF has sexual debauchery to do with this? You mean people are actually open about their sexuality instead of taking a hike in the Appalachian mountains? Social liberalism is not the issue, in fact it is an asset, it's crony capitalism and financial liberalism (or better laissez-faire) that is wreaking havoc.