Just in general, a system that focused on actual rehabilitation and humane treatment of prisoners would help our incarceration and recidivism numbers a great deal. Norway is just one model, but something needs to change, regardless.
In previous fire seasons, firefighters from Victoria, Australia, have been flown in to help. I reckon that’s very unlikely to happen this time, for two major reasons: the pandemic, of course, plus our fire services have been restructured. The new agencies came into being on July 1. The service that formerly led international firefighting efforts, CFA, is now volunteer-only and no longer operates in Victoria’s major regional centres. How exactly this will impact co-operative efforts such as aiding firefighting in California is still unclear.
I’m sure he’s too dense to realize this, but the rural areas of California that are currently burning turning property, animals and people into ash are the same areas where Trump-supporting Californians are most likely to live.
It’s hard enough to watch our friends and families lose everything without watching that buffoon rub salt in our wounds with his ignorance and blind hatred of the West Coast.
I’m not sure he understands that California is a place where many Americans live, rather than an abstract entity that is out to get him, or a foreign country, or a social club containing a handful of legislators and nobody else.
I certainly doubt it ever occurred to him that California is home to more Republican voters than any other state, so even a fucking sociopath who cares only about staying popular among his own base probably shouldn’t happily allow their homes and property to be reduced to ash.
Several members of my extended family just lost their homes in the fires. Some of them have been working themselves to exhaustion helping neighbors evacuate horses and livestock; some people who couldn’t get their animals out in time ended up shooting their own horses rather than leave them to die in the flames. It’s hell on earth for the rural folks in those areas. And Trump is responding with his smug “I TOLD you guys to rake, too bad you didn’t listen” nonsense.
Yeah, my wife is currently isolating within walking distance of one of the evacuation zones. Fortunately, that bit of fire is under control; we don’t know where she’d evacuate to.