BillT 526pm - Interesting that you bring this up Mr Tozer. Jo Ann and I again revisited the construction of both earth-ladened homes and underground shelters from tornadoes, destructive winds, and, of course, wildfires. Shelters to save lives from wind and fires are amazingly cheap to construct, and extremely effective. To dig an 8-foot cube into the ground that will shelter, say, four people for up to 24hrs is both inexpensive and can be built by someone semi-handy with framing carpentry skills. The most expensive part of the structure is a strong non-flammable door that has some peep/air hole in it for longer stays. The shelter would be provisioned with some non-perishable food items, water, first-aid kit, illumination,..., and two bunk beds to comfortably sleep four people. (Throw in an oxygen bottle if that gives you some extra comfort, but a volume that size will easily supply four people for 15-30 minutes.) Consider that for a wildfire, the sheltered period need not be over 30 minutes, and usually less than that as the fire sweeps over your location. This is corroborated by firefighters and my own observations. The main thing is to get and stay out of the heat blast as the fire approaches and sweeps over your location. A covered and provisioned hole in the ground is just what this Dr ordered. Mr Bronson can tell us what it would cost to dig the appropriate hole and then cover it after construction of the innards is finished. And BTW, none of this is new, people on the Great Plains have used their semi-buried root cellars, ice houses, basement rooms, etc for over 150 years to protect life and limb from tornadoes and prairie fires. Someone could probably make a good business building these shelters for those of us who insist on living in the high fire danger foothills. What do you say Walt?

re PaulE 340pm - The question has a logical glitch. Literally everyone here and across the Atlantic believed that Saddam had WMDs before the invasion - you had to be an idiot not to believe it since he used Sarin on his own people more than once. At that time Bush2 and Rumsfeld and Rebane and a few million others believed it. Bush2 and Rumsfeld had to accede and say that they never found Saddam's WMD's (truck convoys to Syria?); they never said Saddam had never had WMDs. So trying to dun Walt for believing it back then puts him (and me) in very good company. What do you think Saddam did with all his Sarin after he heard we were going to kick his ass and look in all the holes? Do you think that he just conveniently used the last of his Sarin on his own people, and was out of it when we showed up to search? Do you think the Easter Bunny will be a little late next spring?

Everyone notice that our liberal commenters will not touch the reported migrants issues?

PaulE 833am - OK, so what's your problem with that? And my statement about the lamestream was to disabuse your claim of these reports "smelling" like "fake news" to you. Given the history of rabid lamestream responses to any information that may embarrass the administration, you can bet the farm that they would have jumped all over these reports of criminality and Tijuana's response had they been false. Only die-hard progressives (like you?) still try to nitpick the sources of reporting to assess verity. Get over it - you missed the news due to your narrow purview (it's even in today's Union), and now you're in damage control.

PaulE 738am - Paul, the embarrassment continues. You sure are one thick-skinned newsman. Fox News is demonstrably the most comprehensive and reliable news source out there. That is why its numbers are what they are. Their viewership draws from both sides. Your training apparently has taught you to assess the verity of a news report without 1) first being aware of it, and 2) coming to a conclusion without even checking it out. You might consider as part of your continuing education to know that had FN's reports of the migrants' criminality (guess the possible technologies used to determine that) and Tijuana's reception of the hoodlums been false (one hell of a Photoshopping job), then the lamestream would have been shouting it all over the world. But they are silent, why? because 1) the reports are true and easily verifiable, and 2) they would then reveal that they regularly filter and omit news that doesn't fit the Left's anti-American narrative. That's a no-no.

PaulE 1022pm - Paul, please check the news more thoroughly. And then ask the feds. I am not privy to their means and methods.

BonnieM 817pm - Good point Bonnie. I posted my remarks on the topic in the 19nov18 Sandbox comment stream. Apropos to your comment, I am reposting it here. And our neighbors on the Left are totally unaware of what's happening because their media suppresses such reports. The invasion of Mexico. Now here’s something that will call out the progressives’ cricket corps. The lamestream (along with local liberals) have been mocking President Trump for labeling the thousands of Central Americans “invaders”, those who are marching north to enter the US illegally. And then going hyper when the president sent troops to the border. These liberal know-nothings can’t tell the difference between someone asking for legal entry into our land, from someone planning to illegally crawl over or under our border barriers. To those numbnuts both entrants are undifferentiated as ‘immigrants’, and not invaders, a term invented by Trump. Well boys and girls, now that the ‘migrants’ have hit Tijuana by the thousands and started fighting with the city’s police and citizens, every Mexican interviewed has now started calling them (wait for it) “invaders” – and boy are they angry at these invaders. My money says the lamestream will do everything they can to suppress this little shift in the political winds. Tonight’s news reports that the first tranche of these invaders number over 10,000 and are overwhelmingly military age males travelling alone, with over 500 who already have been identified as criminals, and the men’s confirmed tactic to generate fake news is to have whatever women and children there are to take the up front positions so that the double dummies in the US will be fooled into thinking this is women and children’s march to our borders. All this is invisible to our anti-American Left. Exit question – how many retractions and corrections will we hear about all this from the Dem-pocketed progressive media?

PaulE 731pm - Paul, that should be an embarrassing question, even for a dedicated leftie like you. It reveals that you really are fixated only on the messaging available from the lamestream. I'm not "characterizing" anything. The information comes today from Homeland Security and the videos from Tijuana and our Mexican border as reported and shown on Fox News. The Left's ignorance of such ongoing events only illustrates the themes and memes presented in RR commentaries and expanded by RR commenters.

ScottO 525pm - I wanted to focus on locals and time ran short. Guilty as charged.

The invasion of Mexico. Now here’s something that will call out the progressives’ cricket corps. The lamestream (along with local liberals) have been mocking President Trump for labeling the thousands of Central Americans “invaders”, those who are marching north to enter the US illegally. And then going hyper when the president sent troops to the border. These liberal know-nothings can’t tell the difference between someone asking for legal entry into our land, from someone planning to illegally crawl over or under our border barriers. To those numbnuts both entrants are undifferentiated as ‘immigrants’, and not invaders, a term invented by Trump. Well boys and girls, now that the ‘migrants’ have hit Tijuana by the thousands and started fighting with the city’s police and citizens, every Mexican interviewed has now started calling them (wait for it) “invaders” – and boy are they angry at these invaders. My money says the lamestream will do everything they can to suppress this little shift in the political winds. Tonight’s news reports that the first tranche of these invaders number over 10,000 and are overwhelmingly military age males travelling alone, with over 500 who already have been identified as criminals, and the men’s confirmed tactic to generate fake news is to have whatever women and children there are to take the up front positions so that the double dummies in the US will be fooled into thinking this is women and children’s march to our borders. All this is invisible to our anti-American Left. Exit question – how many retractions and corrections will we hear about all this from the Dem-pocketed progressive media?

PaulE 323pm - Well yes, you see they're different jurisdictions of governance with their own distinct budgets and sources of income. Kinda confusing with both of 'em having 'Nevada' in their name. But what I'd really like to ask you to do is to invite any of your leftwing cohorts here to acknowledge CA's corporate exodus as again pointed out by Russ' 245pm. You guys have been denying this for as long as it's been going on. When we post the data, you all just ignore it as if it's happening in another universe or something. You might want to take a crack at it yourself, just for the drill if nothing else.

PaulE 507pm - Fortunately, this fire through the Santa Monica Mtns came through about ten miles to the west of our former house on Saddlepeak Rd.

The Left's selective rejection of reality does not depend on the firm rule of dismissing all reports from politically incorrect sources, regardless of their verifiable content. It's a bit more sophisticated, and really turns on what will support their constant drizzle of anti-capitalist and anti-American narrative. We note that they have yet to reject limited access high speed roads (aka freeways) even though they were invented by Nazi Germany. But then again, maybe they just haven't got around to it yet - A21 is not in favor of roadways of any kind that let people drive privately owned vehicles wherever they will.

re DonB 256pm - In France we see one of the more benign places where socialism is at work taking down a country. Other countries practicing socialism are more advanced in their descent. Progressives want America to catch up. Any productive debate/discussion of governance in America should always begin with the Left explaining how dozens of cities under liberal Democrat control for decades have also descended into what may charitably be called shithole cities - cities with devastated inner cores and central regions that have induced those who could, to leave for the suburbs. When progressives can explain away how their control of the country will not follow the descent of THEIR cities, then maybe we can start making some progress. Otherwise we continue the empty exercise of talking past each other. I suppose the first step is to acknowledge the existence of shithole cities.

FYI - As one component of a comprehensive wildlands fuels management program, regularly prescribed burns designed to create/maintain firebreaks consume the fuel loads at all above ground heights.

For the interested reader - Mr M (1016am) is again confused. The west's mountains looked very much like the 1900AD photo on the left, before the start of our wholesale fire prevention and suppression programs. The cited book shows even more stark differences from earlier in the 19th century. I'm not sure as to Mr M's fevered reference to the activities of "Eurotrash"; perhaps he can explain himself. For the record, according to Rebane Doctrine, if you build in a flood, hurricane, or wildfire zone and lose your house, then suck it up and handle your own finances to either rebuild or move - you are not entitled to other people's money to mitigate your own poor decisions. We have enjoyed living in fire prone areas for the last 40 years, and we have done that realizing that any year we may lose all of our 'things'. But never have we expected you to pay for our possible folly. Living under dirt. I'm happy to see other readers talk about the wisdom and convenience of living with a pile of dirt over and around your domicile. For years, a number of us young engineers would 'design' dirt-ladened and dirt-burrowed houses over beer and hamburgers. All of us agreed that these should definitely be the kind of houses people should build on forested hillsides and in the Great Plains Tornado Alley.

Re M 905am - Another attempted bon mot by one our resident progressives. The gentleman is nothing if not a gift that keeps on giving.

ScottO 603pm - Of course, but then why take action at all if it does not serve any specific interest of ours. Are we to be the moral metric and enforcing marshal of global mores?

Environmentalists' epiphany?? I invite your kind attention to the 16nov18 update to the commentary on California's wildfires. https://rebaneruminations.typepad.com/rebanes_ruminations/2018/11/do-california-wildfires-serve-a-greater-purpose.html

For those uninitiated (PaulE?) in the ways of welfare and entitlement governance, once a state starts paying unproductive gimmes and making life easy for them, it starts a one-way process of attracting ever more of the same kind of people. All who can come from less desirable regions will come. In California we have seen the establishment of 'San Francisco values' in countless communities that formerly were the clean and orderly homes to productive workers who have been displaced to ever more smaller conclaves in the state, if not having emigrated elsewhere. Orange County is another poster child, and a new symbol of pride for the state's progressives.

M 849am – It appears that again you are out of your depth here Mr M both in reading skills and, as always, logic. The quote in my post represents the submitted written word in the letters section of The Union. You should have learned long ago about the use of quotes and semi-quotes on RR where the practice of semantic orthogonality is almost a fetish. And your research into the attempt to discover a semantic discriminant for ‘assume’ and ‘presume’ is equally faulty, for there is none. Lay definitions, let alone lay understanding, of probabilistics and assessing the reliability of propositions is essentially non-existent in today’s public forums and media. Examine, if you can, the frequent uses of ‘possibility’ and ‘probability’ in the attempt to somehow convey the likelihood that something may have taken place or may take place. There is no meaningful difference between ‘It possibly happened’ and ‘It probably happened’, since formally both are probabilistically ambiguous statements – i.e. any possible event has a non-zero probability of occurring or having occurred. An even more egregious example of a confused definition can be found for ‘presume’ (which you probably extracted), that in its first version states – to “suppose that something is the case on the basis of probability”, and then immediately notes that ‘assume’ is its synonym. In common usage ‘presume’ and ‘assume’ are semantically identical in that functionally they both refer to propositions that have a non-zero, yet unknown, probability of being true. BTW, no one, including you, knows what "based on probability" means. I didn’t know English was your second language, but your having instead learned it in Great Society public schools could explain away many of your contributions to these comment streams.

Gentlemen - this is Scattershots, please stay on the topics. The sandbox is open for your other interests.