Here’s a Prager University video demolishing the myth of the “Southern Strategy,” the idea that the party of Bull Conner and George Wallace magically became the party of civil rights and the Republican Party took their place as the party of racism.
(Hat tip: Adam Baldwin’s Twitter feed.)
Pat Condell is back! Here he expounds on the foolishness of importing jihadists into Europe.
“Let’s open ourselves up to the most brutal predatory culture on earth, and let in hordes of unemployable, mostly male fighting age welfare parasites who hate us, and have no intention of integrating. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Unlike with Hurricane Harvey, I don’t know the territory well enough to provide any insider insight on the storm. But it’s a big story, and I have a few tidbits of interest.
Current forecasts have Irma sparing the Miami area the brunt of the storm, instead being expected to track up the west coast of Florida. Good for Miami (though it will still get plenty of wind and rain), bad for St. Petersburg and Tampa. It also means people in Tallahassee, Pensacola and Mobile better start prepping for evacuation or riding out the storm, depending on local authorities and how the storm develops.
The Miami Herald has a live tracking page up, as does the New York Times.
There’s also a dedicated @Track_Irma Twitter feed.
More evacuations ordered:
BREAKING: Florida asks another 700,000 to leave ahead of Hurricane Irma; nearly 7 million total urged to evacuate multiple states.
— The Associated Press (@AP) September 9, 2017
But they’ll have to deal with gas shortages.
Power outages:
Over 25,000 people already experiencing power outages in #Florida from #Irma.. and the center of storm is still close to #Cuba. pic.twitter.com/sOCXsDbkj3
— Michael Ventrice (@MJVentrice) September 9, 2017
Miami and Miami Beach have imposed a 7 PM curfew.
Here’s Miami Herald writer Martin Merzer’s classic guide for reporters on what to do while covering a hurricane. “Don’t use your own car. Rent a car. Despite company policy, take every form of insurance offered by the rental company. Don’t park the car under a lovely old tree or in a low spot near the motel.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
And here’s a storm route projection video from Mobile, Alabama weatherman Alan Seals, who’s fast becoming the weatherman of choice for hurricane watchers for his clear, concise, no-nonsense delivery.
As now-tropical storm Harvey continues to slowly move eastward, Houston is still recovering. Though experiencing a lull right now, there’s still more rain to come tonight, and runoff will swell rivers and bayous. “Houston is likely to endure heavy rain and catastrophic flooding through Wednesday.”
More mandatory evacuations have been announced for parts of Waller, Fort Bend, and Brazoria Counties, Conroe, Missouri City, Bay City, and Rosenberg, among others.
The death toll still stands at six. Which happens to be one less than the number killed by violence in Chicago over the weekend.
8:15 a.m.: Corps continuing Addicks, Barker releases
By some measures, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is talking about Harvey not in terms of the storm of the century, but the storm of the millennium for the Houston area.
Balancing flooding and damage on both sides of Addicks and Barker reservoirs, Corps officials said they will continue releases downstream along Buffalo Bayou via the two dams. More than 25 inches of rainfall behind the two mammoth earthen dams has the reservoirs spilling into suburban developments.
“The volume of water flowing into the reservoirs is unprecedented in the dams’ history,” Edmond Russo with the Corps said.
With more rain possible, officials said the best course is send some of the water along Buffalo Bayou. Designed to handle a 1,000 year storm, Russo said in a Monday morning news conference the reservoirs are teetering on exceeding that level of flooding if worst-case rain scenarios occur.
There are almost 100,000 people without power, but 96% of Houstonians do have power. Remember that more than 3 million people lost power after Ike, and for some people it took several weeks to restore, possibly indicating lessons learned.
Hundreds of intersections are still closed due to high water, including just about all of Houston’s freeways.
Many Houston refineries have shut down in the wake of Harvey. This has lead to predictions of skyrocketing gas prices in some quarters, but it will probably only temporarily offset the oil glut, and I would expect most if not all of those will be up and running again within a week.
An explosion and fire at the Lone Star Legal Aid building on Fanin in downtown Houston. No word yet on any injuries or whether it was actually caused by the flood.
More drone footage of flooding:
More flood footage (including, for some reason, non-flood footage at the airport). Some NSFW language and repeats footage at the end for some reason.
Through 8 p.m. CDT, storm total precip for Harris County averages 18". That more than all areas in red have received so far in 2017. pic.twitter.com/NuLQNrLwnM
— Brian Brettschneider (@Climatologist49) August 28, 2017
#HoustonStrong #HarveyFlood – numbers for the CoastGuard ⬇️ IF you need to be RESCUED Mark house with White Sheet or Towel & call pic.twitter.com/CQkJyGVDho
— ✌🏻JustSayin' 🇺🇸 (@JustLolatalkin) August 28, 2017
Hurricane Harvey has brought lots of destruction and flooding to the Texas coast, but, so far, no reported deaths.
The guy who seems to have gotten the best and most footage of Harvey coming ashore seems to be Jeff Piotrowski, a storm chaser who rode out the storm in his car in Rockport while live-streaming the event.
Live coverage Hurricane Harvey Cat 4+ at Rockport TX. #txwx https://t.co/2pWf4z1wEO
— Jeff Piotrowski (@Jeff_Piotrowski) August 26, 2017
I think this is a much shorter segment of footage from him:
And here’s footage of the car wash he had his car parked under collapsing:
Striking footage of #HurricaneHarvey raging in Rockport, Texas. pic.twitter.com/TBGL42n3nZ
— Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) August 25, 2017
Here’s footage from Fulton, a small township directly adjoining Rockport on the coast:
Compilation of various footage of the Harvey and its devastation:
Update: Huston Chronicle had pictures of the devastation.
Live coverage from the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
Update 2: First confirmed death from Harvey: A Rockport citizen died in a house fire.
Harvey is expected to be a Class III Hurricane by the time it makes landfall on the Texas coast late Friday or early Saturday. Predictions are for as much as 30 inches of rain in some places, as well as up to a 12 foot storm surge in coastal areas.
Mandatory evacuations have been issued for Aransas Pass and Calhoun County, as well as parts of Brazoria and Matagorda Counties.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has preemptively declared 30 counties disaster areas, which automatically makes a lot of state resources available to local officials.
Here’s a list of official closures in the Texas Coastal Bend area.
If you live on or near the Texas coast between Brownsville and Port Lavaca, now would be a darn good to to load up your car, tape your windows, lock your doors and evacuate.
Even in central Texas, be prepared for flooding in low-lying areas, avoid low water crossings, and have adequate food and water supplies in the event of a loss of power.
In short: Don’t be this guy:
Fake news, annoying news, depressing news. Take your pick. For Reasons I’m not inclined to write about any of it today, including the Antifa clown show.
Laurie: I’m sorry Dan, I invite you out for a few laughs… but there don’t seem to be many laughs around these days.
Dan: What do you expect? The Comedian’s dead.
Austin is not in the path of totality for today’s solar eclipse, but we are getting around a 70% solar eclipse that should peak about 1:10 PM CDT.
So instead of political news, enjoy a little musical interlude:
This video is an antidote to the widespread revisionism that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a debacle from beginning to end and that George W. Bush was responsible for the rise of the Islamic State. One can question the wisdom of many decisions involved in the conduct of the that war, but the fact is that The Surge had largely succeeded in pacifying Iraq and that the country was functioning quite well by the very lose standards of the Middle East before Barack Obama withdrew American troops, facilitating the rise of the Islamic State.
(Hat tip: Legal Insurrection.)