Well something appears to have worked in North Korea. — Hallucinogen

In North Korea, Missile Bases Suggest a Great Deception

Beware of "pure" politicians that only owe to their ideology, and have not a price. — DiegoT

That's true. The unbuyable can be awesome or dreadful.

In Europe we have a higher average IQ and education, however Americans get to have a more reasonable, useful government. — DiegoT

sigh

Angry Americans should try and live in Europe, then they could appreciate more their advantages. — DiegoT

One certainly wonders whether it's necessary to move to Europe when Europe has had such an historical proclivity to move to us. :razz:

With only two parties, you can gather an impossible level of consensus in my continent, and take great measures very quickly. — DiegoT

What sort of great measures would you say we quickly take action towards?

I hate the two-party dominance of our system, by the way, because I hate both of those parties.

Well, if the unprecedented 2018 midterm voter turnout is any indication, he's an effective trickster.

Ah, Trump has mentioned my puny little country!

In a press conference Saturday afternoon in Northern California President Donald Trump did not blame climate change for the deadliest wildfire the nation has seen in a century, but said instead that Finland doesn’t have the same problem because “they spend a lot of time on raking” leaves.

"You’ve got to take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forest, very important. You look at other countries where they do it differently and it’s a whole different story,” Trump said standing next to California Governor Jerry Brown and Governor-elect Gavin Newsom.

“I was with the president of Finland and he said, ‘We have a much different—we're a forest nation.’ He called it a forest nation, and they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things,” Trump said, making a moving motion with his hand. “And they don't have any problem.”

Perhaps California is a little bit different from Finland with things like the climate.

.................................................California...............Finland
Average mean temperature.....16,1 celsius...........5,5 celsius
Yearly precipitation rate...........544mm..................600-700mm (half of it as snow)

Of course what Trump is referring to is one popular critique cherished especially on the right. Forests in climates where they turn into tinderboxes because of the warm, dry climate, raking the forest floor is a sound procedure, just like having some distance between forests and urban areas. Yet this way you can blame the environmentalists about it, who obviously want everything to be left in intact in it's natural state, and hence are the culprits if wildfires become really bad.

I'm guessing someone tried to explain some forest science to him. Do they rake a lot in Finland?

Controlled burns are the tactic of choice here to eliminate the fuel on the ground. Environmentalists didnt block controlled burns. They blocked the creation of deforested corridors that would have limited wildfires. That's not a rightist meme. That actually happened.

This is kind of mean. He may not be the smartest president of the free world but it's not good to out him like this. Have some sympathy guys, he is old.

Also, if he makes such statements, what does it say about his advisors? Maybe there is more to it than just Trump.

That is hilarious! I live in Oregon a forest and timber state. I would love to see Trump sweeping our forest floor. I don't think Trump has a good understanding of how nature works but he is great for a good laugh. :lol:

I am old and do like the insinuation that being old is being stupid. Yesterday I bought postures to put my wall for my great-grandchildren and one reads...."Not to know is bad...But not to wish to know is worse." That is especially so when the person aspires to be the president of the US. I think only with humor can we find something good in our present situation, and laugh so we don't cry.

I think only with humor can we find something good in our present situation, and laugh so we don't cry. — Athena

Ok, that makes sense. I hadn't thought of it like that.

I am old and do like the insinuation that being old is being stupid. — Athena

Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. It's just that some unfortunate people loose their marbles with age. Though, I can't expressly say that it's the case with him.

:rofl: Our understanding is best when we have a good sense of humor.

I have been watching videos on how our brains work and the importance of exercising both our brains and our bodies. There are so many things we can do to improving our thinking- this is true for children in school and for the aged.

Politically speaking, it is how we prepare our young for thinking that concerns me most. I am convinced the 1958 National Defense Education Act, and replacing education for independent thinking with groupthink and leaving moral training to the church, is what lead to the election of Trump and that same education many years ago, in a different country, resulted in the election of someone Trump seems to be role modeling. The other country was also a Christian republic. What made the US republic different was classical philosophy and that was replaced with German philosophy when we adopted the German model of education for technology. Now we want a strong leader who will resolve our problems for us. :lol: Our bottom line is no longer what is moral but the dollar and our personal, short-term wants. Let our grandchildren pay for this and deal with the problem we leave to them. Technology can resolve all our problems and our economy is growing. Don't worry :zip:

Do they rake a lot in Finland? — frank

Um, outside your home lawn I don't think Finns do that. Of course except for particular nature reserves, the forests are from time to time cut down and managed.

Environmentalists didnt block controlled burns. They blocked the creation of deforested corridors that would have limited wildfires. That's not a rightist meme. That actually happened. — frank

Frank, rightist (just as leftist) discussion points or memes can be fact based. Not everything is make believe. Best propaganda is based on facts: you just pick what facts you want to use.

Trump and (true) enviromentalists agree on this point. Forests need care, to prevent big fires. In my country Spain we have a very sad recent history of fires in forested areas, mainly PROVOKED fires for different reasons. And the correlation between poorly managed forests and the magnitude of these fires is well known. Ecologists in Spain traditionally call for more prevention of fires via managing parks and wooded areas a lot better. This can be done with people and their machines, that is very disturbing for the animals and plants and very clumsy, or by hiring goats and other herbivores, that do the job for free better than machines (as these animals have learnt to select what plant and part of plant needs to be eaten and what must be left, and they also fertilize the ground). People who think forests must be entirely left alone are not ecologists, their knowledge of ecology is poor.

Frank, rightist (just as leftist) discussion points or memes can be fact based. Not everything is make believe. Best propaganda is based on facts: you just pick what facts you want to use. — ssu

I'm probably just out of the loop on rightist talking points. Help me out: what's a source for this comment of yours?

Of course what Trump is referring to is one popular critique cherished especially on the right. Forests in climates where they turn into tinderboxes because of the warm, dry climate, raking the forest floor is a sound procedure — ssu

the climate in Southern Spain and California is identical, and the idea that wooded areas need to be cleaned to protect fires is not even an opinion, is something factual and recognized. A neglected forest in these latitudes and weather, is a massive bonfire waiting to be lit. The real question is how these forests need to be cleaned, some people say "cut the trees!", and others advocate human activities that are beneficial, such as transhumance or seasonal movement of flocks of goat and other animals who like mountains. Also, you need to protect areas around wooded parks where urban development is prohibited, and only agriculture is allowed. A hill with residential houses is a real danger of fire.

People who think forests must be entirely left alone are not ecologists, their knowledge of ecology is poor. — DiegoT

Yep. Here the ecological succession of a forest takes roughly about 100-200 years. And if you ever have been in a forest that has been left to it's natural state, it's extremely difficult to move in with all the fallen down trees.

You would have to be old to remember the National Defense Education Act (NDEA). It is quite novel to see the NDEA blamed for Trump's election. Let one old guy give a suggestion to another old soul: dig deeper.

Independent thinking without education is even more likely to lead to groupthink, and groupthink has been around since... before the last ice age, at least. A nicer word is "consensus". It isn't just Trump and the Republicans. It's the Democrats too. Both parties (in their varying manifestations) have had a tight lock on politics for a long time. The lock probably got tighter after the Civil War when conservative Democrats took over from liberal Republicans in the south (after reconstruction). There has been a lot of unquestioned groupthink in American politics.

I loathe Donald Trump, but I am not fond of the Clintons either. But remember: Trump didn't win by a landslide, and what made Trump possible is a media culture that has been developing since before the NDEA. It is difficult to disentangle actual, sociological facts on the ground from the various political, social, entertainment, and economic representations of the facts. Take HRC's use of the term "deplorables" aka, white trash. Working class whites--especially the least skilled, least educated, least wealthy, whites--have been white trash since before the English colonization of North America. They might actually be WASPS, but they still count as white trash.

The "deplorables" have, with good reason, developed a lot of resentment against the east coast establishment (whites, almost all) for giving them the shaft over the last 50 years (ever since the post WWII boom ended in the early 1970s). Trump is 100% part of that east coast establishment, just with a lot more crass than class. Clinton would have done no big favors for the white working class poor any more than Trump has.

There were good reasons why National Socialism found fertile soil in Germany. Germany lost WWI and had their defeat shoved down their throats. German resentment was deep. There are 19th century contributions for some of this, like resentments in France towards Germany after France last the Franco Prussian war of 1870. The post WWI period was particularly bad for Germans, and Hitler turned the key. You know, the USA had a strong right-wing reaction after WWI too--the Red Scare. Had we gone into a severe depression after WWI, politics in the US might have been a lot nastier.

When the English started colonizing North America, they found the forests "park like". Why? Because the aboriginal people had used controlled burns to manage the forests for their own convenience. Hunting in a park-like environment happened to be a hell of a lot easier than hunting in a forest clotted with a lot of undergrowth.

But the situation in California is not the same as the east coast or Finland, for that matter. As you pointed out, it's the difference in rainfall, temperature, and climate. Most of California is fairly arid, except at higher elevations (which is where their snow falls, melts, and supplies them with water for irrigation, household, and industrial use.

There has been an extensive die-off of trees from a combination of insect infestations and drought. I don't know whether the age and species of the millions of dead trees would make them economically useful or not, and certainly it would be safer to remove them. But California is a large area, about 164,000 square miles. It isn't all forested, of course, (81,188 sq km, 31,34 square miles are forested) and brush and grasses, which covers a lot of the remaining area, can burn quite hot too, and spread to the built environment. In addition, thanks to plate tectonics, California is a very wrinkled up place, which makes forestry more difficult.

Politically speaking, it is how we prepare our young for thinking that concerns me most. I am convinced the 1958 National Defense Education Act, and replacing education for independent thinking with groupthink and leaving moral training to the church, is what lead to the election of Trump and that same education many years ago, in a different country, resulted in the election of someone Trump seems to be role modeling. — Athena

Ugh... I wouldn't want to make moral training the business of the state - any state. I have been on the receiving end of such "moral training" (enforced state ideology) and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. It's as "groupthink" as it can get. Of course, you will object that good training is not groupthink. But if things always worked out as well as we wish they did, we wouldn't even be having this conversation now. And history shows us that when the state takes moral training into its hands, it's rare that anything good comes out of it, whatever the intentions.


I have read that among the culprits of these megafires are... firefighters. They have been pretty good at putting out small fires over the last half-century or so, which has resulted in the accumulation of combustible material. But really, it's an unfortunate combination of several factors, all working toward the same end.

Of course, you will object that good training is not groupthink. — SophistiCat

Groupthink is groupthink is groupthink, whether sponsored by the state, the corporation, the church, the school board, the editorial board of the New York Times, Fox News, or Pravda. Still, some types of group think are probably better than others. I'd like to think that the top Gestapo leaders might have achieved a worse groupthink than, say, the West Cupcake PTA. But... maybe not.



Well, yes -- suppressing all fire has had the consequence of fuel buildup. And drought has made even planned burned fires very dangerous; tricky, at the very least. Insect damage shouldn't be underestimated. Throughout western North America, various insects have been spreading diseases that kill conifers by the million. Global warming has resulted in less winter die-off of these insects.

Trump has a point on this score: if you include where people build homes and towns as part of forest management, then people have been putting themselves in harm's way. Building into canyons, ridges, and mountain sides covered with trees is attractive, if there is enough rain to keep everything nicely watered. Unfortunately, the long hot drought in CA has foiled that part of the plan.

Some people from Paradise, CA are hell-bent on rebuilding. Well, maybe it just isn't a good idea to rebuild in harms way.

have read that among the culprits of these megafires are... firefighters. — SophistiCat

Yep. Smoky the Bear fire suppression.

Retiring Arizona Senator Jeff Flake has mentioned today (on the news) that there needs to be a GOP primary against Trump.

If so, it is possible that Trump will lose the primary and almost certain that he will run in spite.

Then the GOP vote will be split.

The DEM's are then likely to win the White House in 2020.

Truth is stranger than fiction. You simply cannot make a thicker plot than this up.

Trump is right about the forest situation in California. The forests there are not being cleared of the undergrowth at all because they do not have the money at the Federal or State level to budget for it. As a result people die and structures are destroyed. In addition the local cities and counties are not building fire breaks around their towns. It has all combined to be a cacophony of ineptitude.

Trump has got nothing to do with it. He simply made the correct call -- at the worst diplomatic time again as usual. You're supposed to cry and pray for the victims on tv, and then later on make corrections.

Washington D.C., Sacramento, and the City Of Paradise are each and all responsible for their own disasters there.

Some people from Paradise, CA are hell-bent on rebuilding. Well, maybe it just isn't a good idea to rebuild in harms way. — Bitter Crank

They say that lightning doesn't strike the same spot twice, which is the opposite of true. An old wartime superstition says that a shell doesn't strike the same spot twice, which is not true either, but at least if you hide in a shell crater, you are better protected from nearby hits. But in this case maybe the thinking is good: all that built-up fuel has burned out and it will be a while before it has time to grow back and dry out. And they could be better prepared next time.

Trump has got nothing to do with it. He simply made the correct call — hks

Trump's point was that climate change was not to blame (he is still in denial), and making that point was probably the only reason why he spoke out on the issue at all. He was not wrong (except when he foolishly compared California to Finland), but he was not right either.

Where did you get your information about education? :chin: I have studied the history of education and Germany because we adopted German Education. I am glad to provide references. But I don't think I should have brought up education and the ramifications of change in this thread. I apologize.

It appears the favorite subject of the OP is forest management, not Trump foolishness, and here is a science-based explanation of the problem and what can be done.

https://blog.nature.org/science/2016/08/02/maintaining-healthy-forests-takes-more-than-planting-trees/

According to the article, the problem is in part the result of replanting trees. It has been suggested goats be used, but don't deer live in the forest and don't we kill them? I wonder what good forest management would look like from the perspective the animals that live in the forest? Personally :hearts: I love the notion of living for the good of the earth.

Should I start a thread for discussing what education and the military-industrial complex (New World Order) has to do with being like the Germany we defeated in world wars. I regret bringing the subject up in this thread but think awareness of what happened is important. Closer to the topic, in a democracy, science should trump the Trump. China had a leader who caused great suffering because his good intentions were not supported by science. Mao and his poor advisers lead him to ordering seeds be planted very deep, and the result was famine. This can be likened to Trump's denial of global warming and all the decisions being made that contribute to global warming.

As I understand moral decisions, they are based on science and I regret that understanding of good moral judgment is not shared.