Please allow me to interject my feelings about Mother Nature

Since I'm in a mood to bitch and the eagles on the live cam are feeding I was in Portland for the snow event.

The city is not set up for that kind of shit. The DOT there is understaffed. The storm became a motherfucker just like that.

It was fucked being there.

 

That's not unusual. It's like being in Birmingham or Atlanta when snow comes through. Simple snow isn't that bad, but it's always a coin flip that it will be sleet and freezing rain followed by snow. These cities don't have snow plows and mounds of sand and salt, because it would be stupid to invest that much money in equipment that is only used every two or three years. So they sand the interstate bridges and tell people to stay home. There are lots of roads and driveways that are on steep hills, lots of deep ditches and many two lane roads that one person screwing up can block. Then you get all the northerners laughing about people here who can't drive on snow.

Bring your ass down from Chicago and try to drive on hills covered in glaze ice without snow/studded tires, then tell me that.

 

We get our share of sleet and freezing rain in Mass. Have lots of hills, too. Rest assured, nobody can drive on that shit here, either. There was a 15-car pileup on a major highway not four miles from my house last Friday night.

 

My ass is fine in MN. The Bears suck.

You think I'm ripping on Portland for what happened?

As I said Portland is not set up for that kind of shit and the storm turned on a fucking dime.

I was in Atlanta for the 1996 ice storm. That was fucked, too, driving on the Perimeter.

Edit: No offense to Bears fans, I'm in a mood

 

Supposed to get our first significant snowfall here in CT tonight and into tomorrow, 6-8 inches predicted along the coast. Because we've only experienced dustings this year, and no days off from school or even delayed openings, I get a sense most people are genuinely looking forward to it. I mean, what the fuck else is going on this time of year. Might as well hunker down and read a book. BTW, Dana O'Neil's book about The Big East: Inside the Most Entertaining and Influential Conference in College Basketball History, is terrific stuff. Can't put it down.

 

This is bugging me.

You really fucking think I was ripping Portland?

Making fun, laughing?

I can't bitch about being caught in a fucking storm without getting cast as an ugly northerner?

Where in the fuck did this stupid shit come from?

You must be a Journey fan.

 

Nah. More chiming in with agreement. Similar situation, plus a dash of seeing too many people online laughing at southerners and snow. That part was reflexive, not pointed at you. None of it was.

Long time Journey hater, actually. I'm sure there's another group we can disagree over, though.

Then again, Deep Purple on the Machine Head tour was my first real concert, so maybe not.

 

Saw some video of the Rawlins area on I-80 in Wyoming. The amount of snow was staggering, and I believe the interstate has been closed for three days.

 

I greatly enjoyed my spring business trip to Portland. Saw the Rose Garden via the deepest subway tunnel in the world, Voodoo Donuts, the gentrified Warehouse District, etc. Being able to take the train directly from airport baggage then transfer to the streetcar and get off a block from my hotel was very great.

 

I like Portland.

Have family there.

 

What was your score on the back nine?

 

A ‘climate solution’ that spies worry could trigger war
Solar geoengineering holds promise for reducing global temperatures. Absent international agreements, it could also spark conflict.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/02/27/geoengineering-security-war/

"It sounds like something out of science fiction: A country suffering from heat, flooding or crop failures decides on its own to send out a fleet of aircraft to spray a fine, sun-blocking mist into the earth’s atmosphere, reducing temperatures and providing relief to parched populations. Other countries view it as a threat to their own citizens and ready a military response.

But members of the U.S. intelligence community and other national security officials were worried enough last year to plot how to avert a war triggered by this kind of climate engineering. In a role-playing exercise, they practiced managing the tensions that would be unleashed, according to people familiar with the exercise, a sign that they see it as a credible threat in need of a strategy.

The practice, known as solar geoengineering, is theoretically possible. And as the world’s most vulnerable populations suffer more sharply from rising temperatures, global decision-makers will likely come under heavy pressure to deploy the technology, scientists and policymakers say. Compared to other methods to combat the effects of climate change, it’s likely to be cheaper and faster.

Because the technique could weaken the sun’s power across the globe — not just above whichever country decided to deploy it — security officials are concerned about the potential to spark conflict, since a single capital could make decisions that shape the entire world’s fate.

“Parts of the U.S. government are rightfully focused on trying better to understand this,” said Sherri Goodman, a senior fellow at the Wilson Center, referencing last year’s geoengineering exercise. “If you don’t understand it, you can’t manage it.”

The science is evolving, said Goodman, a longtime expert on the intersection of climate change and security. But global discussions haven’t kept up, leaving a powerful technology largely unregulated internationally.

“It could be weaponized by a country to either try to improve the climate and reduce the temperatures in their own location or against an adversary,” Goodman said. “It could be threatened in a way that could cause fear or panic among populations.”


If a country puts this up, it does not stay over that country. You could start a panic among the uneducated who are told that it will dim the sun, affect crops, cause hunger. Think Chinese balloon type citizen response couched as a threat of hunger in propaganda, or that it was a direct attack by a neighboring country.