People who live in hurricane zones..........

8:45PM

I was sitting at dinner tonight watching the news and they were interviewing people in Florida who lost everything. I hate to be mean, I'm trying to turn over a new leaf remember, but Damn! People you live on a peninsula- by definition you are surrounded by water on three sides. You live just off the Gulf stream, and it's warm. Ever since there has been recorded history there has been hurricanes sweeping through that area. The weathermen warned you it was coming, is your memory so short that you forgot Hurricane Andrew. Now you want the federal government to come bail you out?!

Flash to the other side of the country and people are complaining about wildfires burning up their multimillion dollar homes. Once again, you chose to live in a dry area that for as long as we've had recorded history has experienced major wildfires. Are these people related? Are they related to the people who build in the flood plains along the Mississippi River and other drainage basins and then wonder why their house disappeared with everything they owned and then expect FEMA to help them rebuild?

They say that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it- could there be a finer example. I've heard the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results.

What does this have to do with Iraq? Well it does tie in sorta. Most Americans need travel to a third world country if for no other reason than to help them appreciate how rich and rewarding our lives really are. Our poor have it better than other countrie's middle classes in many cases. We offer some relief for the poor and those down on their luck. Third world country people accept that bad things happen. They have always had bad things occasionally happen and they accept that bad things will continue to happen occasionally. They live while they can. Like people all over the world, they love their families, they like to smile and have a good time, they like it when the rains come and water the crops so that they have enough to eat. Of course if it rains too much they get floods and people die. It's tragic and they hate it, but life goes on- it goes on because it has to. They aren't relying on their government to bail them out because more often than not they know it's not going to happen. As they sauy in the muslim world- Isha Allah- it's Allah's will. It happened, remember it, mourn the dead, move on. There are things we can learn from other countries whether we consider them a throwback or not. This is also the point where the US shows that it is the most generous nation the world has ever known and tries to offer humanitarian aide to all other countries.

I'm not trying to offend everyone, but just because we're a rich country doesn't mean we can stop mother nature. She doesn't discriminate between races, creeds, or wealth. We need to learn to coexist with nature instead of trying to beat it into submission (i.e. the Corps of Engineers and the Mississippi River).

This disaster also reinforces the old adage to save for a rainy day.

Enough observations on the obvious.


Wahoo! My life is going well right now. I forgot to tell everyone how great the Perseids where! Let me start by saying the nights here are weird- we get like a week of moon phases and then it's dark for the other three weeks, and I mean dark. I should know, I have to drive with only the parking lights at night- OpSec you know! Anyways, I sat out drinking my Bitburger Drive Alkoholfrei beer the last couple of nights and watching the night sky. I'd pick a spot and watch it for a while. Good stuff. I saw a few that we're really bright. I'm thinking about ordering a small telescope so I can see more and I'd really like to have a motorized tripod mount and a camera to photograph the Milky Way with! Maybe I'll get the folks to send my old Nikon over.

The weather has cooled off a bit at night- it's still hot as blazes during the day though. 119 today.

Not much else on my mind..........