Why is San Diego on fire?

CNN's Glenn Beck had some similar comments. Funnily enough, it appears that the area undergoing the worst of the fires is mostly Republican.

Well, if you've been watching the news lately, you should know that all Republicans are gay.

And being omniscient like he is, he's been burning California on a regular basis for hundreds of years knowing that Californians would eventually support "teh gay agenda".

Of course, God could have sent a clear message by burning San Francisco down, but that would have been too obvious: instead, he decides to fulminate Orange County -- ostensibly the most Republican part of the state. Yep, Old Testament Jehovah is still one capricious, mean-spirited, hard-to-read prick.

ah, I was wondering which evangelical would step up to the plate and claim the fires as his own.

congratulations, James, on following in the stinking footsteps of Falwell.

I predict much monetary success.

And then Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law the heinous SB777 which bans the use of "mom" and "dad" in the text books and promotes homosexuality to all school children in California.

funny thing, but Schwarzenegger pushed for the no-gay-marriage amendment to the State constitution.

go figure.

Oh are you fucking KIDDING me? That's it. I'm moving to...somewhere

The fires are exactly in line with the predictions of climate scientists that global warming would lead to reduced rainfall in California resulting in a greater risk of fire and more severe fires.

Proof that global warming is god's Will.

I had to go back and try to find Pat Robertson's predictions for 2007, and found this.

So I wonder if Pat will consider himself vindicated now; another of his amazingly accurate predictions comes true again. In his twisted mind, that is.

What do they say when tornados strike the heartland? Or how about the Mississippi River floods of 1993? Who was Gad punishing then?

I hate to say it but when the fires kicked off I was wondering how long it would take for some wacko to claim it was the wraith of God.

So, any bets on how long it takes Fred Phelps to chirp up on this one?

Oh wait, too late.

Nah. IIRC, San Diego is where Jason G*str*ch is located. God is pissed at him for being such a Wanker For Jeezuz that he decided to burn the whole place down.

Everyone knows that California is a den of iniquity and must be destroyed. That in mind, we can only imagine what GOD is planning for Las Vegas. What is HE waiting for? Vegas is a small target, something GOD could take care of with one bolt of lightning, as it were. If it doesn't happen in the next couple of months, I'm going to be looking for a more powerful GOD.

And, if Boston wins the series...well, I'm going to be seriously questioning the Rockie's GOD!!! How could the Rockies possibly lose with GOD on their side. If they do lose, I"m going to demand an explanation from everyone of those MORONs who thinks God prefers them over the other guys, some of whom stupidly think their god is blessing their efforts.

And if the Rockies win, we can assume that GOD is on their side and they will win every year for the next....well, at least until Jesus comes down and personally hands over management of the team to his designated successor, or HE decides baseball is no longer HIS chosen sport.

Fantasmagorical Fuckwittery run amok.

Don't forget a hundred years of fire suppression, and there are many invasive grasses that are speeding up the fire cycle. If it's god's wrath, why is San Diego burning and not San Francisco? Two of the counties that are burning are San Diego and Riverside, and they are pretty conservative. It's the more conservative areas of Los Angeles county that are burning as well. Seems to me, California burns every year. Why is God such a jerk?

I swear some people seem to view the entire cosmos as a giant narrative of secret signs and displays all having to do with them. This one is nasty, but it's no more or less stupid than the "I prayed and God answered me with a beautiful sunset" crap.

We are, of course, the main character in "the story of our life" as viewed from inside our own heads. But too many people don't seem to realize that what goes on inside our own heads stays in our own heads, and in the grand scheme of things we're not really first person omniscient. That God would allow a fire in order to send a message which only a few brave and clever souls can decipher is story-telling run amok.

ah, I was wondering which evangelical would step up to the plate and claim the fires as his own.

It was a matter of when not if. These idiots are so predictable.

It doesn't count for much until the wingnut death cult leaders get into the act. Fortunately, Falwell and Kennedy have been recalled to hell, while Craig, Richard Robertson, and Haggard have "issues". Leaves Robertson, Dobson, and a few trolls to pick up the slack.

Maybe the DI can branch out from biological pseudoscience to climate and wildfire pseudoscience.

Robertston:
"I have a relatively good track record," he said. "Sometimes I miss."

WTF? I thought Pat's predictions came right from the orifice of the holy thunderer hisself? How can he miss?

Sounds like San Diego has a compelling suit to bring against God, through his proxy, the nearest handy church ...

Rey Fox,

I believe that operation rescue blamed the floods of 1993 on the evils of abortion.

Brian

It was God? Damn, I thought it was because they built in chaparral, an ecosystem that it generally recognized as needing periodic fires to renew itself...

In other words, it was intelligently designed to burn, baby, burn... :) Don't need any of "teh gays" to get it going. Just God's divine plan to periodically turn Southern California into a raging inferno...

Gosh as horrible as this sounds, I wish we'd get some of those fires here in Florida. Lets face it, we ( firefighters) look at those fires and say "dayyyum! we want get in on that!"Typical reaction I am sure.

So, with the gay pride parades here in Orlando, maybe it'll happen sometime soon? Or do we need a state bill banning mom and dad?

Fred Phelps has spoken:
"Blame the homosexuals".
No jury would hang.

(Okay, technically, "homosexuals" has 5 syllables, but I admit it looks like four. This may be 5-6-5 or 5-7-5, depending on your POV. And sorry about the punctuation; I'm just warming up to this form.)

Whew. That makes pornography officially okay. They've been making it around there for decades and no judgement fires.

So by his warped logic, what about the severe drought in the Bible Belt South? Maybe it's punishment for CNN hiring G Beck.

[wonders why churches also burn]

"Homosexuals" has four syllables if you pronounce it "homa-sekshuhls".

Ichthyic, I believe The Governator pushed for enforcing California law prohibiting gay marriage, yes, but only because he was pledged to uphold the law, not because he was anti-gay-marriage. I admit that I may have missed more recent news regarding a marriage amendment, though...

James Hartline Watch

http://www.hillquest.com/community/jhartline.htm

"This Hillcrest resident and former gay man has personally spearheaded many anti-gay and other moralistic crusades in the last few years."

Self-loathing ain't pretty.

'course the fires hit the wrong part of California on the basis of that argument... better: all the fires that burned this area well before there were any (or many) people there to be impacted was practice for today?

And then Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law the heinous SB777 which bans the use of "mom" and "dad" in the text books and promotes homosexuality to all school children in California.

I'm sorry, I know it gets a little old accusing the religious wack jobs of telling lies, but if you go here

http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/sen/sb_0751-0800/sb_777_bill_2007…

you will see the text of bill SB777. Do a text search for the words "Mom" or "Dad". They do not appear anywhere in the bill. The bill does NOT ban the use of the terms "Mom" or "Dad".

Do they have no shame? What part of "Do not bare false witness" do the religious right not understand.

Do they have no shame? What part of "Do not bare false witness" do the religious right not understand.

Oh! maybe that's why the place is burning. It ain't teh homosexers the The Almighty is pissed about. It's the LIARS!!!

I wonder when is an asteroid going to destroy the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Spain and Canada.

Now I am confused. Fox news gasbags are saying that it is al Quaeda causing the fires, now it's god's vengence. By Saturday it will be Hillary's fault.

Military bases are threatened too.

Why does God hate the USAF? Could it be DADT?

Or is God perhaps Allah after all?

@#30

Don't you mean Barak Osama^H^H^H^H^H Obama's fault?

Christianists, notably the "Campaign for Children and Families" (CCF), are up in arms here about SB777, which changes the Penal Code to add homosexuality as a protected class in the hate crime statutes and changes the Education Code to prohibit discrimination against homosexual and transgender people: "No teacher shall give instruction nor shall a school district sponsor activity that promotes a discriminatory bias because of a characteristic listed in Section 220."

The CCF argues the bill "delete[s] the true definition of sex and gender, which is 'the biological condition or quality o[f] being a male or female human being,'" and "requires all instruction and activities (textbooks, instructional materials, classroom instruction, school activities, etc.) to positively portray sex changes, cross-dressing, homosexual marriages, and all aspects of bisexuality and homosexuality." www.savecalifornia.com

Schwarzenegger said on Leno that he personally has no problem with gay marriage. He has also repeatedly said that the matter is one for the people to decide, not him.

If there was such a thing as God, and if he had an interest in lighting things on fire then, at this very moment, Glenn Beck would be running though the streets screaming as his flesh and hair reduced to ash. And I'm not to proud to admit that I'd just laugh at him, and maybe put the video on Youtube.

News flash states that at least one of the fires might be an arsonist. No mention of who or why.

Arson investigated in California fires
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer 41 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - California authorities and FBI agents searched a home Wednesday as part of an arson investigation into one of the wildfires devastating Southern California, a law enforcement official said.

The search was conducted in Orange County by the Orange County Sheriff's Office and the FBI, the official said. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing, would not say what was taken.

"FBI Los Angeles is assisting Orange County fire officials and sheriff's office in an ongoing investigation into the source of some of the fires," FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said. He referred all other questions to local authorities.

News flash states that at least one of the fires might be an arsonist. No mention of who or why.

Clearly, then, this fire is of divine origin. Jesus was rollin', SoCal style, got too baked, dropped his pipe and FOOMPH.

"When you work from a faulty model of the system under study, you get right answers only by accident."

Yep, Schwarzenegger would fit much better into Austria's conservative party than he does into the GOP. Like the former (and the conservative candidate for US president of 2004 -- Kerry), he seems to have no problem whatsoever with gay marriage as long as it isn't called marriage.

[wonders why churches also burn]

Well.

A year ago, I copied the following conversation into my quotation archive:

"New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God...all of the city was punished for the sin that was in that city."

Obviously, this guy hasn't been to Amsterdam lately. Decriminalized soft drugs, legalized (and unionized) prostitution, gay marriage, pioneering needle exchange programs, softcore porn on major TV networks, gambling, and a comfortable atheist/agnostic majority... all in a city that's 4 meters below sea level! Yet, for some reason Jehovah, the intergalactic party pooper, hasn't smitten them with a flood in centuries -- go figure. Those people in New Orleans must have been very naughty!

-- j.t.delaney

And Las Vegas isn't even worthy of a power outage?

-- FishyFred

Amazingly, in 1953 He hit the south-west of The Netherlands, the Dutch version of the bible belt, hardest. Obviously, good Christians would argue that 'God works in wondrous ways'; on the other hand if Amsterdam would be swallowed by the sea, they would know exactly why He decided so.

BTW, most of the attractions of the Amsterdam summed up by j.t.delaney are more recent than 53 years ago.

-- amphioxus

Yes, but all of these are places around Amsterdam, not in it. It's been centuries since XXX-City has been flooded, in spite of a history of being consistently ahead of the curve in terms of tolerance of libertine behavior. Maybe God has been trying to flood Amsterdam, but his aim just sucks, and he keeps hitting religious farmers in nearby provinces instead.

Or, maybe God decided that flooding was too good for Amsterdam, and he decided to dispatch a more perverse punishment: rather than plunging the semi-submerged city completely underwater, he delivered a plague of belligerant drunken yobs and pain-in-the-ass hippie tourists...

-- j.t.delaney

If anything was worse than a fate of flaming sulfur and wives of salt, that would be it.

-- Stanton

And then there's this observation:

You know, you make "Monty Python's Life of Brian"; religious nuts everywhere go mad; nobody gets struck by lightning.

You make "The Last Temptation of Christ"; religious nuts everywhere go ballistic; nobody gets struck by lightning.

You code "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas"; moralists everywhere rupture arteries; nobody gets struck by lightning.

You write "The Blind Watchmaker" and drive the creationists to fury; you remain unstruck by lightning.

Your wardrobe malfunctions on live TV; suddenly you're a moral vacuum; nobody gets struck by lightning.

But you make "The Passion of the Christ", which the fundaligionists love - and THREE PEOPLE get struck by lightning.

You persecute atheists - and your house gets ripped apart by a tornado.

It's enough to make you believe a) that there's a god and b) he's on the atheists' side...

-- ajay, http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/06/its_a_bible_belt_story_but_d…

I'm just saying.

Todd, the Phelps link doesn't seem to work.

Fox news gasbags are saying that it is al Quaeda causing the fires

holy crap!

really?

this i gotta see.

linkage?

I wanna add that vid clip to my Fox News = oxymoron collection.

There people need to read their Bible. It never condemns homosexuality as a whole, but just men lying with other men. Lesbians are still good. God likey the girl-on-girl.

Everyone knows that California is a den of iniquity and must be destroyed. That in mind, we can only imagine what GOD is planning for Las Vegas. What is HE waiting for? Vegas is a small target, something GOD could take care of with one bolt of lightning, as it were. If it doesn't happen in the next couple of months, I'm going to be looking for a more powerful GOD.

God will never incinerate Vegas, it's one of the safest places on the planet as far as the biblegod goes.

God needs tons of money, you see; the preachers everywhere squawk about it constantly. The way I see it, Vegas is a money machine, so why destroy it if you're as bad with finances as the xtian sky daddy seems to be?

Then again, maybe god needs all that money because he likes Pai-Gow poker and playing the ponies. Either way, Vegas is safe.

I wonder when is an asteroid going to destroy [...] Spain [...]

Oh yeah... the Socialist Kingdom of Spain...

he seems to have no problem whatsoever with gay marriage as long as

Oops -- I had clicked "Post" before reading comment 33. My bad.

... I'll be damned, it's fucking correct!

http://politics.propeller.com/story/2007/10/24/fox-news-al-qaeda-is-cau…

Fox News: Al Qaeda is causing the CA wildires

Politics - This morning on Fox News, hosts of the show Fox and Friends blamed the wildfires in California on a new culprit: al Qaeda. They pointed to a 2003 FBI memo, which raised the possibility that al Qaeda may try to set wildfires around the western United States. They also noted that men in a 'hovering helicopter' saw 'a guy starting one of these fires.'

just... wow.

that's even "better" than the psycho evangelites claiming it's god's vengeance on homos.

still looking for the actual vidclip, if anyone finds it.

I'm looking out my window and seeing Mount Palomar engulfed in smoke.

God is after the scientists. And now PZ is coming to San Diego. What can we expect next week?

ah, nvmd, found it:

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/24/fox-news-al-qaeda-is-causing-the-ca…

amazing.

I rather tend to agree with one of the commenters:

Well, when you have no real news to report that supports your causes, why not just make it up? I can't believe anyone with an IQ above room temperature can actually watch this station.

Then again, maybe god needs all that money because he likes Pai-Gow poker and playing the ponies. Either way, Vegas is safe.

I thought god was a skee-ball fan?

#31: Of course God hates the USAF. They get to mess about in the sky, and occasionally vaporize cities that look at them funny. And that's God's turf. What's worse, he can't really do anything overt about it, because the Air Force can find him where he lives...

Actually, there is an INVERSE correlation between % deaths by natural disasters and gay rights. The more pro gay countries have less deaths by natural disaster.

So, God must be pro gay, or he is putting a trap or something.

Ah, there's nothing quite so Christian as crowing at other's misfortunes.

Let's confiscate the rose-colored burning crucifix for our own purposes a bit, shall we? The San Diego fires are hitting far more conservative areas, when there are far riper targets just sitting on fault lines and begging for a righteous smiting. Louisiana got hammered, but then Bush won solidly there in 2004. God could have gotten far more Democrats by just aiming for Florida. You'd think if God really hates gays that much, he could do a far better job slaughtering them.

Instead, God seems fairly focused on pretending that disasters happen completely without any guiding intelligence. His followers show no more signs of divine protection than anyone else.

The real reason for the existence of evil is clear. The Lord is punishing of all of humanity because Fox canceled Arrested Development. It was set in California and featured multiple scenes of house destruction and an omniscient narrator. It all fits!

Oh, and on serious note? Suggesting God is using murder to make his political opinions known seems pretty damn sacrilegious.

>> I thought god was a skee-ball fan?

8^D

I love it!

God must have really crappy aim - the FCs also figured that AIDS was God killing gay people, which if true would imply that God also likes lots of collateral damage.

Since a few Republicans seem to have Bush confused with God, maybe that's the real explanation - since Bush likes fighting wars with little tactical gain but lots of collateral damage, and Bush = God, then any event that causes lots of collateral damage must be God's will, because that's obviously the way GodXXXBush fights wars. Maybe some of the Fox viewers failed a logic class, or something.

"Some"?

It was only a matter of time; It's the fault of environmentalists...

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/10/24/beck-wildfires/

Last night, CNN Headline News host Glenn Beck blamed California's massive wildfires on the "damn environmentalists" and their "bad environmental policies." He also claimed that global warming has nothing to do with the situation, stating, "[I]f I hear global warming one more time, blood is going to shoot out of my eyes."

[I]f I hear global warming one more time, blood is going to shoot out of my eyes."

oooh.

is that a challenge?

is he saying he's a horned-toad lizard (uh, for thems that duzn't know, they actually do shoot blood out of their eyes as a defense mechanism)?

either way, I'm up for seeing blood shoot out of his eyes.

How do we get a hold of Glen to make that happen?

P = 0
Where P is the probability of Fox viewers even taking a logic class.

It was only a matter of time; It's the fault of environmentalists...

ah, that will somehow end up being the link to Clinton.

something along the lines of:

"all these hippie-leftist environmental wackos that all wanna vote for Hillary."

The hype box behind Glenn "I should be blood eagled" Beck really says "Who's to Blame?"

I had hoped the Katrina reactions were a fluke, but it's evident that we have a long, dark future filled with people trying to find purpose behind natural disasters. Tornado? It was the brothel. Earthquake? It was a senator's sex scandal. Hurricane? We're the new Sodom. Volcano? We didn't sacrifice enough virgins.

This is actually very depressing.

BECK: Look, here's the thing. We're going to talk about things that are politically incorrect. Nobody else on television is going to say this. And I know all the bloggers are right now going, "Oh, big oil, big oil, big oil. They're going to deny global warming.

riiiigggghhhhtttt.

If it's god's wrath, why is San Diego burning and not San Francisco?

God has a habit of taking his anger at homosexuals out on righteous Americans.

In San Diego, most of the gays live in the Mission-Hills/Hillcrest/North-Park area, which has been completely untouched by the fires. But most of the homes that have burned are in solidly Republican areas (i.e. Randy Duke-Cunningham's pre-prison congressional district).

Similarly, the French Quarter (home of most of your Louisiana gays) came through Katrina unscathed. But Katrina destroyed over a thousand churches in Mississippi.

God just keeps taking his anger/hatred of gays out on his most loyal followers. And maybe that's why the religious wingnuts hate gays so much.

Re #40, Let me guess, that would be the Iranian faction of the AlQueda, right? Maybe we have already used up all the extractable oil in Iraq and are going to need a new fix.

Wow wildfires in Southern California, what his next act going to be, floods in the South-east? Thunderstorms in Arizona? Tornadoes in Tornado alley? Idiots in the Whitehouse? I mean if your going to ascribe purpose to common events. Indeed fires like this are so common my family didn't even mention it to me as it didn't get particularly close to them.

Side note: I think its equally silly to say this is proof of global warming, while I don't deny there is ample evidence for climate change these wildfires are fairly common in Southern-California and to the best of my knowledge really aren't getting any worse.

Side note: I think its equally silly to say this is proof of global warming, while I don't deny there is ample evidence for climate change these wildfires are fairly common in Southern-California and to the best of my knowledge really aren't getting any worse.

oh yes they are.

take a look at the history of wildfires in CA for the last 30 years, and tell me you don't see an increase in size and frequency.

that you haven't taken the time to look, doesn't mean there is no evidence.

when you're done looking at the stats themselves, try searching on "bark beetles california" and see what you turn up there.

after that, search on "rainfall predictions based on climate change california"

at least do that much before you dismiss it out of hand.

I think the Sky Bully's message with Katrina and these wild fires is perfectly clear: "You stupid apes shouldn't have let a high functioning retard start a pointless war and move all your National Guard units away from the areas they're needed. Morons."

... not saying it's "proof" mind you (proof is no longer necessary, for that matter), only that the data is consistent with what was predicted from the climate change models.

Seems to me that having the driest year on record in So Cal is a good indication that climate change MAY be related to the recent fires. Certainly the winds and dry weather have made these fires more destructive than past fires, and with a million people evacuated we have a disaster of the same scope as Katrina.

Of course the people of Cal are to blame in part, but not for incurring the wrath of some god, but in their imposition on the natural fire cycle in Cal.

Now, as for god smiting So Cal, I suppose if he in his divine will decided to smite Cal, he was actually aiming for San Fran and the northern part of the state. It doesn't make a lot of sense to smite the right wing faithful of Orange county and San Diego and leave the sinful North to thier evil ways! The whole thing reminds me of the old joke:

A man went golfing with a preacher, and on the first hole he missed his putt and swore "God damn, I missed!" The preacher corrected him and told him that God would surely strike him dead for taking his name in vain.

On the second hole, the man again missed his putt and swore
"God damn, I missed" and the preacher once more admonished him and warned him of the wrath of God.

This went on until they were on the 18th hole, when the man again missed his putt, again swore "God damn, I missed!" Then a lightning bolt came from the sky and struck the preacher dead.

From the heavens above a deep voice intoned "Damn, I missed!"

Now I am confused. Fox news gasbags are saying that it is al Quaeda causing the fires, now it's god's vengence. By Saturday it will be Hillary's fault.

Posted by: Bert Chadick

Too late. I already heard someone chastising Hillary for not stopping her campaigning to help the people of San Diego when she was out there.

At first, I thought the guy telling me this nonsense was joking, but when I laughed, he really became quite pissed off. These people are nuts, and not nuts in the funny kind of way, but they strike me as inhuman and dangerous with no concept of reality.

Blood... Shooting... From... Eyes!!

Aarrgghh!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/10/23/greenland.melting/index.html

Too late.

*sigh*

of course.

parody can't travel at the speed of stupidity.

God is too busy giving the non-believers cancer and then scrambling around trying to answer all the prayers from the devout friends and relatives to make it magically go away. I really think he needs to consult with someone on time management and office efficency issues.

Chabad of Oceanside CA (northwest SD County) held a service to "pray for rain".

If their prayer got a rainstorm to develop I'd be out buying a yarmulke right about now. Hell, they should have asked for a blizzard - that's almost as likely as rain in California during October Santa Ana wind conditions.

Too late. I already heard someone chastising Hillary for not stopping her campaigning to help the people of San Diego when she was out there.

And if she had stopped, he'd probably say it was a disingenuous outpouring of mock compassion that was ultimately more a show for the cameras than actual assistance.

And if she had stopped, he'd probably say it was a disingenuous outpouring of mock compassion that was ultimately more a show for the cameras than actual assistance.

yup. sounds about right.

When the San Francisco earthquake of 1989 happened, lots of fundies said much the same thing. God's wrath, homosexuals, bla bla bla.

Except that the mostly straight, relatively conservative (for San Francisco, anyway) Marina neighborhood was by far the hardest hit in the city... and the Castro district, world famous for teh gay, was relatively unharmed.

What everyone else here has said. God has really crappy aim. If these fires were about teh gay, why San Diego and Orange County? I'd say that he doesn't like rich white Republicans, but that doesn't explain Katrina. I think he's just taking potshots, like some sniper gone berserk.

Oh, and BTW: Nurse Ingrid heard her first "someone up there was looking out for me" story of the fires. Some jackass who saw their house somehow bypassed amongst acres of devastation... and thought, "Gee, God/ the angels were so kind and thoughtful to spare me." And had the rabidly insensitive bad taste to say so on the radio. So your neighbors... they're chopped liver?

You should have been there. Ingrid's beautiful when she's angry.

News flash states that at least one of the fires might be an arsonist. No mention of who or why.

GOD is my arsonist.

So let us see if I can get their reasoning straight...

If you are a good Christian, God will test your faith by destroying your home. Or he might not.

If, on the other hand, you are naughty in his sight, he will punish you by destroying your home. Or he might not.

Sounds like a wonderful, loving God to me. Not at all arbitrary, vindictive and capricious.

I think he's just taking potshots, like some sniper gone berserk.

You mean god was really Charles Whitman?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman

Texas killed god.

figures.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss Al-Qaida causing fires (not in this particular case).

Having lived in Southern California all my life, the Santa Ana winds arrive every fall like clockwork. Many years of idiotic building practices (building right in the middle of brush-covered areas with little or no landscaped and irrigated area between the new houses and the brush) and a long stretch of idiotic forestry management practices (chaparral needs to burn every 10 years or so and not burning for 20-30 years leads to massive fuel build-ups) result in a literal powder-keg.

One guy and a few flares could do a massive amount of damage. This is exactly the type of attack Al-Qaida favors (cheap, easy to plan, little investment, and massive damage). If they haven't already figured it out, they probably will.

Until people in California change their building practices and forestry management techniques, we will continue to be vulnerable (random arsonists are a much bigger threat than Al-Qaida). Of course, with the money involved in building the way they do now (buying politicians), I have little hope for change... didn't change much after the Cedar fire four years ago.

Sigh.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss Al-Qaida causing fires (not in this particular case).

*yawn*

if you would just think for a sec, why on earth wouldn't they claim responsibility if they had ANYTHING to do with something like lighting fires?

it's an asinine premise.

a terrorist's strength comes from people KNOWING they are responsible for specific attacks, not some nebulous thing like a wildfire that may or may not cause any damage, depending on which way the wind blows.

our local pyscho arsonists are far more likely responsible than any foreign "terrorist", and most of the fires are considered to have started from natural causes anyway.

so yes, you can indeed very quickly dismiss the idea that foreign terrorists are involved.

This Hartline guy reminds me of someone. Oh yeah, now I remember:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28799

Let's give god a break. The dude is ooooooooooooold. He has a really baaaaad case of presbyopia and even god can't make contact lenses big enough for god. So his aim is off. In the late 80s he caused an earthquake in San Francisco to punish teh gay. Unfortunately, he hit a predominantly straight neighborhood. He sent the tsunami a few years ago to punish Sweden for being immoral but all he could see was a few Swedish tourists in Indonesia. Now he's trying to burn liberals but gets the Repubes instead. He used to be omnipotent but now he's merely potent.
The Fixed News story about Al Qaeda being responsible for the fires is based on information squeezed out of an Al Qaeda member four years ago. All the fires were supposed to be set simultaneously. But the worst part of the memo was that it mentioned Colorado and other states but did not mention California at all.
Bush today mentioned several plots that were foiled because they were able to "coerce" information from prisoners. I need to see the evidence.

I think the real question is why does god hate American gays and not other gays? For example, Sydney has the annual gay mardi gras, why doesn't Sydney get fires? Oh wait, it does. Never mind.

Now, I was raised around horny toads, and even took a box of them to the '57 Scout Jamboree at Valley Forge to trade to ignorant yankees as baby dinosaurs. (there were kids there trying to trade cocklebur seed pods as porcupine eggs) I have heard that they squirt blood from their eyes (horny toads, not yankees), but after interacting with hundreds of the oddly attractive critters, and never saw them spit blood from anywhere. They are endangered now, so I wouldn't advise anyone experiment on the docile little reptiles.

Perhaps there is a breed of horny toads somewhere that shoots blood from its eye, but it doesn't sound like much of a survival strategy. To a predator blood is just gravy for their meat.

"Why is God such a jerk?"

He isn't a jerk, he's a terrorist!

Acts of God have killed far more Americans than acts of Bin Laden.

Furthermore, he's attempting to impose his will on America by force and override your Constitution.

The Bush administration needs to set up a multi-billion dollar anti-God defense initiative.

I'm sure it would be every bit as effective and sensible as their anti-missile initiative.

it doesn't sound like much of a survival strategy

Now see, that's exactly what I would have said about self-evisceration, but then the sea cucumbers came along to prove me wrong.

I have to admit, though, that shooting your guts out at a pursuing predator, and then regenerating them later at your convenience, is *cool*--wish I could do that!

I wouldn't want to actually *see* Glenn Beck shoot his intestines out his anus, though...maybe just hear about it later.

There people need to read their Bible. It never condemns homosexuality as a whole, but just men lying with other men.

Wait, wouldn't that mean that other positions are okay?

God likey the girl-on-girl.

Who doesn't?

but after interacting with hundreds of the oddly attractive critters, and never saw them spit blood from anywhere.

not all species exhibit the behavior, which may be why your local version didn't.

more than you wanted to know about horny toads (horned lizards):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCdaFZ36tls

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/horned-toad.html

http://www.sdnhm.org/fieldguide/herps/phry-cor.html

the ones local to my area do in fact exhibit this behavior.

as a defense mechanism, it's thought to be an issue of surprise or distraction (like the ink jets from a squid?), though I can't recall having read a paper that actually purports to directly test the idea.

but after interacting with hundreds of the oddly attractive critters, and never saw them spit blood from anywhere.

not all species exhibit the behavior, which may be why your local version didn't.

more than you wanted to know about horny toads (horned lizards):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCdaFZ36tls

http://www.sdnhm.org/fieldguide/herps/phry-cor.html

the ones local to my area do in fact exhibit this behavior.

as a defense mechanism, it's thought to be an issue of surprise or distraction (like the ink jets from a squid?), though I can't recall having read a paper that actually purports to directly test the idea.

Looks like God turned his back on the Rockies.

Isn't it obvious? He's watching the game!
http://rationalresistance.blogspot.com/2007/10/big-fan-in-sky.html#links

Glenn "I should be blood eagled" Beck

*sigh*

So many assholes, so few broad-axes.

God likey the girl-on-girl.

Who doesn't?

Posted by: Anon. E. Mouse.

My girlfriend...

Hm. We need stealth blackops to sneak into Iran, bring the president with them, promptly have him sign a bill legalizing gay marriage and them quickly extract him (or leave him there better yet). That way all sorts of bad things will happen to that country. See, it's a trade off for legalized gay marriage the right could have Iran wiped off the map without needing to risk any lives (not that they care about lives).

Well, considering his team lost horribly, I think he might have abandoned them to vurn some folks.

Actually, the reason the fires have hit California is because God hates the Governator.

What is skee-ball?

Concerning teh gay and how to recognize it, have a look at this comic.

Blood... Shooting... From... Eyes!!

Aarrgghh!

Kiss Bangladesh goodbye.

Why is San Diego on fire?

I'm more inclined to think the earth is trying to shake us off like a bad case of fleas.

A look at Skee-Ball. Banks of Skee-Ball alleys are typically found in amusement parks and game-rooms. It's like bowling-meets-darts! Sorta. The wonderful Kevin Smith movie Dogma explains everything.

off topic post-

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/science/25jacobson.html?ref=science

retired chem professor retracts 55 year-old paper to prevent creationists from exploiting errors in it

In January 1955, Homer Jacobson, a chemistry professor at Brooklyn College, published a paper called "Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life" in American Scientist, the journal of Sigma Xi, the scientific honor society.
Nobody paid much attention to the paper at the time, he said in a telephone interview from his home in Tarrytown, N.Y.

[...]

But today it is winning Dr. Jacobson acclaim that he does not want -- from creationists who cite it as proof that life could not have emerged on earth without divine intervention.

I'm more inclined to think the earth is trying to shake us off like a bad case of fleas.

Was the Blake's 7 reference deliberate or accidental?

San Diego is on fire and your gut reaction is to make jokes about it.

That's just sweet.

Brandon: Did you even read the post?

We aren't the ones claiming the fires are the wraith of an angry god.

At least Hartline thinks he's doing the right thing. Hartline's an idiot, and you guys are assholes.

I take that back, Hartline is an asshole too. You guys are just slightly smarter assholes.

Brandon: we're reacting to an amoral hypocrite who is trying to use this disaster to hurt people. And if you missed it, PZ's remark is a direct reference to claims religious people recently made that God is directly intervening in the outcome of their team's baseball games.

My parents live in San Diego. I think they're still home. I'm offended that this self-hating knuckle-dragger is telling people that they're on the receiving end of this natural disaster because they (or, more accurately, their community) haven't been persecuting the minority group of his choice.

Making fun of this guy isn't being a jerk--just the opposite, it's being too polite to him.

When the San Francisco earthquake of 1989 happened, lots of fundies said much the same thing. God's wrath, homosexuals, bla bla bla.

Except that the mostly straight, relatively conservative (for San Francisco, anyway) Marina neighborhood was by far the hardest hit in the city... and the Castro district, world famous for teh gay, was relatively unharmed.

It's worse than that. The 1989 quake's offical name is the Loma Prieta quake; the epicenter was 50 miles south in Santa Cruz county. One of the hardest hit area was a little town called Watsonville. Mostly inhabited by hard-working Catholic farmworkers. The local Catholic church lost its steeple.

From the '06 quake: If, as they say, God spanked the town for being overly frisky, why did he burn the churches down and spare Hotalling's whiskey?

mmm...whiiiskey...

Right. What Leon said. When some fucking lunatic says "These fires are God's way of punishing fags" it's not insensitive to point at a burning church and say, "Oh really?" In the mental-health field we call it "reality checking" and can be useful in addressing delusional thinking.

But no, the fires themselves are not the least bit funny. It's these self-serving fools claiming they know what it all "means" who have me shaking my head in bemused disbelief.

Graculus, it was accidental. I had to Google Blake's 7 to see what it was. I feel like a total failure as a nerd.

Re: #79

I agree that Al Qaida would be quick to claim responsibility if they had set these particular fires...

Just because an idiot suggests something doesn't mean they are wrong (even a stoppped clock is right twice a day). My original comment still stands ... these winds are very predictable (every fall) and a lot of damage for little investment (far easier than pulling off 9/11).

Being a native to Southern California, and having lived now through the Cedar Fire and the Witch Fire (should have been evacuated on the first one, was evacuated on the 2nd one), it gives me heartburn to think about this.

If you've never watched flames travel in 100-200 foot high sheets and go 50 miles in about 12 hours...

This being said, the best way to stop this behavior is to make it so other people don't hate the US so much they would do something this heinous. Bombing them (a la Faux, etc.) is NOT the answer. Getting our big, fat noses out of other countries' business is the answer.

I read somewhere today that if we claimed this was terrorist-related, we might get Bush's attention for more than his photo-op today. Sadly, they are probably correct.

A stopped clock is right twice a day, but a slow clock is still always wrong and pundits are nothing if they aren't loud and slow.

It was a moronic thing to say that the fires were started by terrorists, as well as a disturbing sign of our times. It's almost like something from "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street".

My original comment still stands ... these winds are very predictable (every fall)

not on a day-to-day basis, they aren't.

or hadn't you noticed that during the reports on the fires themselves?

Being a native to Southern California, and having lived now through the Cedar Fire and the Witch Fire (should have been evacuated on the first one, was evacuated on the 2nd one), it gives me heartburn to think about this.

third generation, brother. as to heartburn, why are you bothering to give yourself hearburn over it? it's like saying you live in constant fear of being nuked.

I got news for ya: if that's how you live, the "terrorists" have won already. just make sure you who is really providing the fear.

Getting our big, fat noses out of other countries' business is the answer.

that, I can fully agree with.

You think the God she probably believes told the moron driving the Ford Excessive(TM) in front of me (in Long Beach, CA) to drop her lit cigarette butt out of her car window this afternoon? Surrounded by idiots...

the best way to stop this behavior is to make it so other people don't hate the US so much they would do something this heinous.

Absolute spot-on! Our problem isn't that we don't have big enough guns. It isn't that anyone thinks we're afraid to use them, either. It's that we mess around in other parts of the world, interfering in other countries and helping brutal dictators oppress their people. The world is rightfully exasperated by our behavior--and our hypocrisy in claiming all the while to support democracy abroad.

None of that's to say terrorists are right in attacking us, especially our civilians. But it does make it understandable why they hate us. It's not that they hate our freedoms; it's that we do our best to keep those freedoms out of the reach of populations who might thwart our foreign policy, or interrupt the flow of petroleum to our shores. We'll always have issues with terrorism, so long as we're mixed up in the Middle East.

Now, if we want to avoid monster fires like this is SoCal, we could do something sensible like practice better fire management, including more controlled burns. But I suppose that's too much to ask...

David Letterman joked once (I paraphrase from memory) that brushfires had closed down a stretch of the I-15 freeway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, "the first time in centuries blocking access from Sodom to Gomorrah."

On June 2007 and again in September of 2007, the Lord gave me a prophetic word, that "there would be some judgment" , but that He (God) would arise from the ashes. So YES, the fires are indeed judgment. You can read both prophetic words through my web-site, or at my BLOG: www.enemyexposed.org

'course the fires hit the wrong part of California on the basis of that argument... better: all the fires that burned this area well before there were any (or many) people there to be impacted was practice for today?

Yep, Schwarzenegger would fit much better into Austria's conservative party than he does into the GOP. Like the former (and the conservative candidate for US president of 2004 -- Kerry), he seems to have no problem whatsoever with gay marriage as long as it isn't called marriage.

[wonders why churches also burn]

Well.

A year ago, I copied the following conversation into my quotation archive:

"New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God...all of the city was punished for the sin that was in that city."

Obviously, this guy hasn't been to Amsterdam lately. Decriminalized soft drugs, legalized (and unionized) prostitution, gay marriage, pioneering needle exchange programs, softcore porn on major TV networks, gambling, and a comfortable atheist/agnostic majority... all in a city that's 4 meters below sea level! Yet, for some reason Jehovah, the intergalactic party pooper, hasn't smitten them with a flood in centuries -- go figure. Those people in New Orleans must have been very naughty!

-- j.t.delaney

And Las Vegas isn't even worthy of a power outage?

-- FishyFred

Amazingly, in 1953 He hit the south-west of The Netherlands, the Dutch version of the bible belt, hardest. Obviously, good Christians would argue that 'God works in wondrous ways'; on the other hand if Amsterdam would be swallowed by the sea, they would know exactly why He decided so.

BTW, most of the attractions of the Amsterdam summed up by j.t.delaney are more recent than 53 years ago.

-- amphioxus

Yes, but all of these are places around Amsterdam, not in it. It's been centuries since XXX-City has been flooded, in spite of a history of being consistently ahead of the curve in terms of tolerance of libertine behavior. Maybe God has been trying to flood Amsterdam, but his aim just sucks, and he keeps hitting religious farmers in nearby provinces instead.

Or, maybe God decided that flooding was too good for Amsterdam, and he decided to dispatch a more perverse punishment: rather than plunging the semi-submerged city completely underwater, he delivered a plague of belligerant drunken yobs and pain-in-the-ass hippie tourists...

-- j.t.delaney

If anything was worse than a fate of flaming sulfur and wives of salt, that would be it.

-- Stanton

And then there's this observation:

You know, you make "Monty Python's Life of Brian"; religious nuts everywhere go mad; nobody gets struck by lightning.

You make "The Last Temptation of Christ"; religious nuts everywhere go ballistic; nobody gets struck by lightning.

You code "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas"; moralists everywhere rupture arteries; nobody gets struck by lightning.

You write "The Blind Watchmaker" and drive the creationists to fury; you remain unstruck by lightning.

Your wardrobe malfunctions on live TV; suddenly you're a moral vacuum; nobody gets struck by lightning.

But you make "The Passion of the Christ", which the fundaligionists love - and THREE PEOPLE get struck by lightning.

You persecute atheists - and your house gets ripped apart by a tornado.

It's enough to make you believe a) that there's a god and b) he's on the atheists' side...

-- ajay, http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/06/its_a_bible_belt_story_but_d…

I'm just saying.

I wonder when is an asteroid going to destroy [...] Spain [...]

Oh yeah... the Socialist Kingdom of Spain...

he seems to have no problem whatsoever with gay marriage as long as

Oops -- I had clicked "Post" before reading comment 33. My bad.

What is skee-ball?

Concerning teh gay and how to recognize it, have a look at this comic.

Blood... Shooting... From... Eyes!!

Aarrgghh!

Kiss Bangladesh goodbye.