BiggerBoat posted:

Any Republican who doubts climate change should only look at the rising costs of flood insurance, especially in coastal regions. That's the "free market" or whatever speaking loud and clear. You'd think they'd hear it.

haveblue posted:

Not if you legislate to delay bringing up to date the data underlying the rates!

haveblue posted:

Not if you legislate to delay bringing up to date the data underlying the rates!

Fried Chicken posted:

I forget, did that bill ever pass? I mean it would fly through to McCrory's desk today and get signed in the blink of an eye, but I don't remember if it got laughed down in the previous session

zxqv8 posted:

Wait. Holy poo poo. They actually do that?

What arguments are they using to try to say "we don't need to know this information" other than literally just that?

zxqv8 posted:

Wait. Holy poo poo. They actually do that?

What arguments are they using to try to say "we don't need to know this information" other than literally just that?

BiggerBoat posted:

Can you guys link to this story/bill? Thanks

Shifty Pony posted:

Or you take the SC approach and ban lawsuits which might hold the company accountable because that would make them sad.

A Winner is Jew posted:

I miss the days when Green Day made good music. That would be before 96 for you youngins.

Fried Chicken posted:

I forget, did that bill ever pass? I mean it would fly through to McCrory's desk today and get signed in the blink of an eye, but I don't remember if it got laughed down in the previous session

Fried Chicken posted:

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1537773

comes along bort posted:

Green Day made good music?

A Winner is Jew posted:

I miss the days when Green Day made good music. That would be before 96 for you youngins.

quote:

Also, the first half of the 90's had Deathrow records in it's heyday which musically was loving magic on the level that the million dollar quartet recordings were in the 50's.

zxqv8 posted:

re: Demographic shift chat from earlier on page 2

I see a lot of despair over the lack of action from the left and these millenials who are trending so much more in that direction, but isn't the reality that the rightward bent of politics over the course of our development has left us perpetually unmotivated to enact any change? Not to engage in generating a victim complex here, but all the awful regressive policies you hear about in this thread (largely enacted by the Republican party) are beating down entire generations of children, leaving them less and less educated and more and more in debt. And that's not even getting into the apparent futility of trying to legislate change; it's clearly not working if you watch congress try to do anything constructive. How do you really motivate people who seem so thoroughly beaten in general?

Mind you, I don't have any data to support this notion, but when you're crushed by mountains of unforgivable debt you mounted in response to the commandment from your preceding generations to get an education and find a job to pay off the mountains of debt you undoubtedly build when getting said education, it's pretty hard to do more than muster a little about "them politicians!" and go back to worrying about how you're going to pay the next bill and find the next meal. Multiply this by a few million, and well, you're all paying more attention than most...

BiggerBoat posted:

Thanks for this. Why would the developers want to suppress the science in order to build poo poo that's going to be washed out as sea levels rise though? Or is it just some sort a short-sighted money grab where they fleece people to buy beachfront condos that...

Oh.

poo poo. My wife and I are moving to the beach soon and I studied sea level rise before we made the decision. Now I need ot go back and figure out who made the studies we looked at.

Thanks again though. I hadn't heard about all that poo poo in NC. You'd think they'd know better. Ever mother loving hurricane everywhere seems to hit NC.

comes along bort posted:

Coastal NC real estate protip: invest in soundside property. In 30 years it'll be oceanfront! Though in 50 years you'll have a houseboat.

TheKennedys posted:

I went to Montessori for ten years (pre-k through 8th grade) and I'm about a oval office-hair from being an actual communist. IS OBAMA INDOCTRINATING OUR YOUTH (in 1983)??? I'm just asking questions!

Nessus posted:

It kind of sounds like you're talking about yourself here, so think - 'what, that is reasonably plausible, would motivate me?' It would probably best to think in terms of "successful organization for a local candidate" rather than "Getting Congress to actually do something to help America in the next couple of years," obviously

Fried Chicken posted:

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1537773

Fried Chicken posted:

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1537773

Part 1 posted:

Freudenthal’s West Palm Beach company, which also does business as Flood Risk Solutions, LLC, does not work for owners of single-family homes, only for commercial real estate companies.
...
Yet in the more than 500 instances documented by NBC News, FEMA has quietly moved the map lines to benefit properties that were once considered at highest risk of flooding.
...
In emails to clients and city officials, Freudenthal has touted his company's connections to FEMA. In 2011, Freudenthal's flood insurance company, CRIO, was chosen by FEMA as the national insurance agency of the year. When he encounters resistance from a local official, Freudenthal calls Washington. "I just got off the phone with the head of the insurance side of NFIP and one of the head mapping people at FEMA," he said in one email to a town official.

Freudenthal has also touted the connections of the man who worked for him as the engineer on the Gulf Coast map changes.

"As you can see this is all pretty detailed stuff and a bunch of red-tape to work through," he told a client in a 2011 email. "We are extremely lucky that the head of our Coastal Department is the ex-director for FEMA's Coastal Mapping Department so we are able to leverage his relationships to overcome many of the obstacles that pop up as he has managed to keep his relationships within the current FEMA infrastructure very friendly."
...
"FEMA takes its responsibility for administering the National Flood Insurance Program seriously and is reviewing the cases presented by NBC to ensure they were properly processed," Watson said in the statement. "FEMA strives to ensure that administrative actions are properly executed and meet all statutory and regulatory mandates. The data provided by applicants for LOMAs (letters of map amendment) and LOMRs (letters of map revision) are reviewed based on scientific, technical standards and approved or denied based on those standards. FEMA has monitoring, oversight, and audit processes in place to ensure the work performed by contractors follows proper procedures."
...
Freudenthal, the president of Flood Zone Correction, said FEMA sometimes gives the company more than it asked for. For instance, Freudenthal said he filed an appeal on behalf of certain condo buildings in Gulf Shores, with vacant spots in between, but FEMA responded by remapping an entire mile of the oceanfront in March 2013. Now, he said, any future development of those properties can be done without meeting the stricter building rules of a high-velocity wave zone, such as breakaway walls on the ground floor and pilings sunk deep to anchor a foundation.
...
"Who's on first?" Wireman asked. "If they're moving one building out of the zone, why would that cause them to put the other building in the zone?

"What did I think? You sure you want to know what I think? I think someone at FEMA was trying to drum up more business for Flood Zone Correction."

FEMA and Flood Zone Correction said nothing untoward had happened. Freudenthal said, "Nobody at FEMA, their subcontractors or the community did us any favors."

Spiffster posted:

Wow Houseboats! If you don't like your neighbors, you can pull up the anchor and sail some place else!

...Oh wait wrong thread.

How strong is the Tea Party in North Carolina? Is there any chance of them shifting the politics so far to the right that independents start shifting Democrat?

Phone posted:

There is some tea party presence, but there's no real tea party candidates. A lot of the politicians are old school/good ol' boys, and they're doing everything by the GOP narrative book. The voting districts were redrawn and everything is hosed, emphasis on everything.

The majority of the people aren't happy, but telling them to go out and vote about it is becoming increasingly difficult between the voter id bullshit, cutbacks on popular early voting programs, and general gerrymandering.

Spiffster posted:

How strong is the Tea Party in North Carolina? Is there any chance of them shifting the politics so far to the right that independents start shifting Democrat?

Wolfsheim posted:

McDonald's is the go-to example of broken conservative thought.

Go to college so you don't work at McDonald's -> I went to college and there are no jobs -> What are you, too good for McDonald's? -> Okay, now I work at McDonald's and don't make enough money for food and shelter -> Why are you working at McDonald's, that jobs for teenagers! -> Start Over

FaustianQ posted:

Can't be stressed enough, many of the current problems in Congress can be traced back to the weak ground game of the left for local and state offices. Change isn't going to happen overnight, it's going to be years before change at a national level starts, but you have to start somewhere and starting locally will eventually produce the results needed compared to exhausting yourself fruitlessly at the national level.

BiggerBoat posted:

He meant to type "The Ramones" or "The Clash".

Wolfsheim posted:

McDonald's is the go-to example of broken conservative thought.

Go to college so you don't work at McDonald's -> I went to college and there are no jobs -> What are you, too good for McDonald's? -> Okay, now I work at McDonald's and don't make enough money for food and shelter -> Why are you working at McDonald's, that jobs for teenagers! -> Start Over

tbp posted:

Man, I hate it when conservatives think in this illogical manner. It's actually just one example of many of broken thought that comes from that ideological bloc. Shameful in my opinion.

Nessus posted:

Glad you're on board, teebp

tbp posted:

One of my big pet peeves is illogical thinking

SedanChair posted:

Masterful.

quote:

“I was the first person to speak and then I left,” Bevin said. “They knew I was here. They asked if I would be interested in speaking. I’m a politician running statewide, any chance I get to speak to a few hundred people I’m going to take it.”

Bevin, a businessman from Louisville, is challenging incumbent U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell in the Republican Primary. McConnell serves as Minority Leader in the Senate.

Bevin said it was his understanding that the gathering was focused on “state’s rights” and the concern by Kentucky citizens that the federal government has become overreaching.

comes along bort posted:

I'm more curious what Virginia's gonna do since the coal ash from the Eden spill is all going to wind up there.

Captain_Maclaine posted:

US Politics Thread: Everything is hosed, emphasis on everything.

Phone posted:

Oh, I forgot one thing that tickles me a bit: Middle schoolers, who are abhorrent human beings, ask GOP candidates, who are abhorrent human beings, about real issues. The middle schoolers have an excuse such as hormones and still developing, but they come off looking so much better and thoughtful than the GOP candidates.

I guess this means that education is going to get another cut because the previous cuts still haven't killed critical thinking.

Joementum posted:

Remember when the United Gamefowl Breeders Association said that Mitch McConnell would be "destroyed in Kentucky" because of a bill that criminalizes being a spectator at cockfights? Well, now his challenger Matt Bevin is speaking at rallies of the Gamefowl Defense Network, which I guess is another pro-cockfighting group in Kentucky because one wasn't enough.


Yes, true, it was about "state's rights", specifically the right to raise chickens for fighting, a right that's come under more fire this year than anyone would have guessed!

tbp posted:

I can't get on board with this sort of cockfighting. To me, it's a bad thing, and the people that engage in it - hell, they're bad too. Can anyone give me any difference between that and dog-fighting (which I'm sure everyone involved in cockfighting demonized when Michael Vick did it (hm, wonder why )). Despicable practice, how is it continuing on in the year of our lord which is 2014.

quote:

Devereaux said those who raise fighting cocks have done a poor job advocating their position to the public and telling their story. As a result, public perception equates cock fighting to dog fighting.

The largest issue is that while dogs are raised to be companions to people and dogs are not predisposed to fight one another, more than 8 million chickens are consumed in the United States, annually.

“Commercial poultry lives about six weeks as opposed to two years for a game fowl,” Devereaux said.

In addition, because of breeding, Devereux said gamecocks are predisposed to fight if they get near each other, similar to male beta fish that are put into the same tank.

Devereaux said gamecocks are not just thrown in the trash. The fowl are edible. In addition the feathers are used for fly-fishing lures and for decoration.

Salon posted:

"USAID is generally known for delivering humanitarian aid to the international community, not engaging in covert missions to overthrow governments. Yet, USAID spokesman Matt Herrick maintains that this action was within humanitarian goals. He told the Associated Press:

“USAID is a development agency, not an intelligence agency, and we work all over the world to help people exercise their fundamental rights and freedoms, and give them access to tools to improve their lives and connect with the outside world. In the implementation, has the government taken steps to be discreet in non-permissive environments? Of course. That’s how you protect the practitioners and the public. In hostile environments, we often take steps to protect the partners we’re working with on the ground. This is not unique to Cuba.”

Sophisticated means were used to keep the Cuban government from detecting the U.S. government origins of the “Twitter-like” program. According to The Verge, USAID used shell companies and offshore bank accounts in the Cayman Islands to cover its tracks. In order to look authentic, the homepage for ZunZuneo had fake banner advertisements.

Fried Chicken posted:

Quoting this in hopes I remember it for May

Zwabu posted:

Joementum posted:

Glad you asked! The Director of the Gamefowl Defense Network, Michael Devereaux, would be happy to explain.


So, cockfighting is OK, fish fighting is OK, chicken boxing (which is totally not cockfighting) is OK, but dog fighting is bad.

Joementum posted:

Glad you asked! The Director of the Gamefowl Defense Network, Michael Devereaux, would be happy to explain.


So, cockfighting is OK, fish fighting is OK, chicken boxing (which is totally not cockfighting) is OK, but dog fighting is bad.

Chard posted:

By this logic if we ate the dogs it would be totally ok to fight them.... is the GDN secretly supporting Obama?!?