Into The Fire

The Associated Press is reporting that one million people have now been evacuated throughout California. 1,300 homes have been consumed in the fire, and efforts have moved from putting out the blazes to just saving buildings. Until the winds subside tomorrow, that's going to be the bulk of the efforts.

I'm very proud to be a part of the continuing coverage at Calitics, check there for updates.

UPDATE: Someone tell me what Rush Limbaugh's on about here. It's actually unreadable. It's just a mish-mosh of every bugaboo tangentially related to California and nature just drizzled on top of one another. I honestly can't find the unifying thread. There's class envy, global warming denialism, anti-government screeds, all squished together with a cherry on top.

I've been looking at these fires from my California town (which is near the beach so I'm not supposed to live here, according to Rush, even though humans have organized around bodies of water for 10,000 years, and Rush himself lives - wait for it - by the beach), and a lot of things have gone through my head about the fires, but never once did I think to BLAME somebody for them. What a case of Angry White Man syndrome. Glenn Beck's was just stupid; Big Pharma is incoherent.

Oh, and also, Rushbo: droughts do cause fire.

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. The fires in Southern California and global warming, is there a connection?

BILL McKIBBEN: I'm afraid that there is. This is the kind of disaster that we see more and more of as we begin to change the basic physics and chemistry of the planet we live on. One of the people leading the really brave rescue effort out there yesterday said, one of the San Diego authorities said, this is the driest it's been in at least ninety years. It's dry because they've had terrific heat and not much rain. And those are just the conditions for that part of the world that all the modeling suggests come about when you begin to raise the temperature.

UPDATE II: If Rush is at all trying to say that people shouldn't live in canyons, or at lest should be prepared to face fire if they do, then I agree. That's not what he's saying, of course, he's just lashing out at anyone who he deems an enemy.