Trail: Now with Wildfire

It’s the end of the trail.

Several wildfires struck in central and eastern Oklahoma today. I know for certain some of them were arson, having overheard some police band radio traffic. It seems they all started almost at once across the entire state. Aside from the loss of homes, including our mayor’s palatial digs, along with businesses, schools and a few other structures, so far the only loss of life was livestock and pets.

My personal loss is petty by comparison. The fire is still burning here as we approach midnight local time, and the wooded area in which I have labored these past three years to cut my fitness trail is partly aflame. One of the fires was about a half-mile north, and the winds blew it all farther north. However, the woods are simply loaded with tons of dry fuel. As I predicted, once a blaze started, this thing would drift against the wind simply because there was too much too easily consumed.

Right now, almost the entire western edge of the forest is alight. I did help guide some small pumper trucks back into the fire line, but there was not enough space to fan out along the fire front. The woods were simply too thick. So they left it until they could get a bulldozer or some other means to assist the fight. Right now, just the first section of my trail running north along the western edge of the forest is almost all gone. The fire front is about 150 yards north of the nearest mobile home. Oh, and in order to guide the firetrucks, I had them drive on my trail, obliterating a good stretch of it.

I’ve been staying up to monitor things in case it began to drift south, as well. If that happens, I’ll need to alert them. They can do a good job of stopping it from coming into the park itself, since the bigger trucks can navigate our streets just fine, and we have fire hydrants. It’ll probably be a long night. I’ll post more here if there is any news.

Farewell, sweet trail. See you in a few months.

Update: It’s now 2:30 AM local time. The primary threat is past for us.

The fire crews had persuaded someone to run a firebreak with a bulldozer, over in another section near here. Then he decided to quit because it was nearly dark. They had to find someone else. So for quite some time, they kept checking on the drifting fire line as it crept slowly toward the park. Each time, I was there to meet them, and guided them about as needed. It appeared my trail was just enough to slow the fire significantly. Whole stretches of the fire line went out. Finally, about an hour ago I could hear the laboring of a very large diesel motor, and the occasional squeak of tracks. I was standing on the one little portion of my trail still accessible. After awhile it got close enough to see the headlights through the dead foliage. He was gouging out a path, pushing the burning vegetation over and covering it with dirt. In the process, he was creating a substantial firebreak.

But as one of the converted military 2½ ton trucks came roaring out of the open field next to our park, he ran over the cover for a water line, one of the 4″ trunk feeds. It began gushing immediately. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

Unacceptable Facts

Telling the truth in Washington DC is cause for firing top officials.

James Clapper has let slip the reality of things too often, and is taking flak for it. In a world where the entire political dialogue is nothing less than a string of sound bites whose only meaning is their intent to hide the truth, someone speaking to the substance of things sounds like a clueless fool. As long as you aren’t interested in being cool on the level of Charley Sheen, you can safely ignore the hoopla.

For example, Clapper said Muslim Brotherhood was mostly secular. He was castigated by both the left and the right, which should indicate immediately they either misunderstood, or they are screaming to cover up some important truth. As he explained later:

“In my attempt to shorthand my description of the Muslim Brotherhood my message was lost, and that’s regrettable,” said Clapper. “The Muslim Brotherhood is obviously not secular. What I had hoped to convey, and would like to clearly state here, is that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt tries to work through a political system that has been largely secular in its orientation.”

“In Egypt, it has gained much of its support through both grassroots outreach and non-religious functions like providing health clinics and day care centers,” he said. “It also has different factions, including a conservative wing whose interpretation of Islam runs counter to broad electoral participation and a younger, more liberal wing who is more inclined to work through the secular political process.”

Aside from the fact Islam is more a social milieu than an actual religion, he spoke the truth in terms of what we need to do about it. If we are going to act at all, we have to act on the facts, not doctrine. If there is any religion ignored here, it is the very doctrinaire religious assertion Islam is inherently evil, the subtext of just about everything the MSM and other propagandists have to say on the matter. Again, it’s all empty sound bites, aimed at preventing folks from actually thinking and studying these things.

So more recently Clapper said the biggest threat to us strategically is Russia and China. Again, folks were aghast he wouldn’t point out North Korea or Iran.

Let’s get real. North Korea would put up a fight if attacked, but the only reason that matters is because China would surely be there for them again, just as they were during the Korean War. NK is not the problem, just the location. Iran? This is getting old. Iran is abiding by the the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty; neither Israel and the US can make that claim. Lest we forget, the US is obliged by the treaty to assist any nation making peaceful use of nuclear energy, and no one can produce evidence Iran is doing anything else. Russia is big enough to hurt us, too. That’s the whole point. Clapper was answering the right question, but those who asked were asking the wrong question. It was entirely a dog and pony show, and he refused to play along.

Let’s just pretend for a moment. Somebody is going to attack us soon, right? What are the real world probabilities? Terror attack: Fat chance. The only terrorist threat here is our own government. Every so-called terrorist act in the US so far has later been found tied back to black ops from our own government agencies, though perhaps with outside help. But if someone did come after us, it wouldn’t be NK, because they want only to rule the whole Korean Peninsula, not the US. Iran could care less what we do to ourselves, so long as we quit meddling in their affairs. The real issue our government refuses to discuss is Iran is not totally under control of the Rothschilds Empire, nor is she kneeling at the feet of Israel.

Russia wouldn’t bother nuking us. If we could imagine somehow she did it anyway, we would reply in kind. Nobody wins. Of course, should Russia decide to clobber us, the only reason would be to break us economically so she could force us to remove all those missiles and other nasty weapons we have on her borders. Russia doesn’t want what we have; she’s too proud of her own self-image. As long as we are on the decline, Russia can afford to wait.

China is the real threat simply because we are utterly beholden to her for our economic stability. We are in hock to more than a trillion dollars there, and something like one-half of our consumer goods come from there. The real threat we have for her is defaulting and leaving her holding worthless debt instruments. But whether it be by economic warfare of real military combat, what would China do if she attacked and won? Suck us dry and enslave us. Oh, wait, someone is already doing that, using our own government. Too late.

Clapper is wrong about one thing: The biggest threat to the US is her own government.