[Bones McCoy]

Terrible tragedy in Texas, 27 children and others killed in flash floods.

Local mayor and governor asking for prayers to 'help the missing'.

I have no words for how much I despise these soulless hypocrites.

Apparently DOGE cuts to FEMA and NOAA (who do the satellite weather forecasting) have greatly exacerbated the tragedy, nobody could foresee how much rain was on it's way.

Yeah, but nobody expected a once in a X disaster like this.

[Oboogie]

Terrible tragedy in Texas, 27 children and others killed in flash floods.

Local mayor and governor asking for prayers to 'help the missing'.

I have no words for how much I despise these soulless hypocrites.

Apparently DOGE cuts to FEMA and NOAA (who do the satellite weather forecasting) have greatly exacerbated the tragedy, nobody could foresee how much rain was on it's way.

Yeah, but nobody expected a once in a X disaster like this.

But they might have if they'd had access to an accurate forecast.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Another 27 girls still missing. Awful

[Boiler]

My sister sent me a photo of a road sign in Florida they passed today. It pointed to...

"Alligator Alcatraz".

Yes, really.

[Boiler]

Another 27 girls still missing. Awful

Sadly, the figures just keep getting worse: over eighty people now reported dead, with twenty seven girls and staff amongst them according to the BBC.

[Abernathy]

I think it was the great Tom Lehrer that observed that satire was rendered obsolete when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Henry Kissinger. Now satire is well and truly dead and buried, with the news that Donald Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by … Bibi Netanyahu

[Boiler]

Not just dead and buried, but fired into the Sun.

Pakistan has nominated him too, I understand.

[Bones McCoy]

I wouldn't bother writing any Christmas cards for that Jizz-Lane Maxwell this year...

[Tubby Isaacs]

Interesting thread on Baltimore. Very big fall in the murder rate (ignore the number as a historical comparison because many fewer people live there than in the past). So far it's one much better (though still awful by any other standards) year, would be nice if it continued.

[RedSparrows]

But but but treating crime as a sinful deviation from the righteous path and mass inarceration and executions as the only solution is designed to make me feel righteously vindictive. Who cares if it's ineffective, immoral, too costly, indiscriminate...

[Youngian]

Or have the gangs run out of business rivals to murder? Also the fall in birth rates and consumption of narcotics make the drug trade less lucrative to put your arse on the line for.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Or have the gangs run out of business rivals to murder? Also the fall in birth rates and consumption of narcotics make the drug trade less lucrative to put your arse on the line for.

Or, possibly, it works?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Too early to say, but it's promising. And unlike lots of things you get told are great solutions, there's no self-selection bias. The figures that count are for the whole city.

It's an interesting approach philosophically. Normally, I'd argue strongly against violent crime being seen in terms of public health, but I guess that in the worst parts of Baltimore, violence is so endemic that you can't see it as a matter of sorting a bunch of bad people. By no means everybody is violent, but almost everybody must be affected by it.

[The Weeping Angel]

It's fascinating how a lot of Americans, especially online, just delight in looking down their noses at us and making out that we're poor and backward.

[Boiler]

Indeed - a nation that persists in building large garden sheds and yet, calling them houses.