Author: Emufarmers

Only the dead have seen the end of war.  But even the dead will never hear the end of it from Trump.

NPR recently published highlights from an interview with the vice president of international services at the American Red Cross.  The interview features some rather bizarre statements.

What about recovery efforts? How will those differ?

Anzalone: For better or for worse, when people look at the U.S. response system, we have a very mature federal disaster response system, starting with FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency]. It’s a machine. Immediately before landfall of Hurricane Harvey, the governor of Texas requested aid for long-term recovery projects.

For better or for worse?  How could having a mature federal disaster response system be a bad thing?  Is the Red Cross worried about FEMA death camps?

Is one disaster more urgent than the other?

Anzalone: No one life is greater than the other.

A fine sentiment, to be sure, but what on earth does it have to do with the question?

Supposedly, “[t]he interviews have been edited for length and clarity.”  Were they originally w̴̠͈͇̙ri̟t̛̫̥̳͎̯̳͈t̹̥͍e͓͖n͇͍͖̥͎̫̖ ̵͖̹̦͉̘̤i̥͙̲͜ņ̮͕̱̝̝̣̜ ҉͉̭̭̞̣̗ͅZ̯̳͙a͇͈̗͉̠l̘͠ǵ̦̠͓̘̤o̜̘͔̲͠ ̥͔̭͖̙͟ͅo͓͚ͅr̫ ̧̱͔̠s̺̯̮̰̻͠ͅo̵me͕̱̱͈͖͉ͅt̫̦̀h̯̟̤̱͠ị̢͓͖͍n̘͔̰̺̯̙̠g?̗͔̪̘

When looking at the Oklahoma ballot measures for this year, it’s interesting to see which ones were added through citizen petitions and which ones were dumped into a referendum by the legislature.

Citizens have asked to:

• Increase the sales tax to pay for education
• Make various minor crimes not be felonies
• Use the money saved by that to fund rehab programs

Meanwhile, the legislature has demanded that the plebs:

• Make sure the state can kill people as easily as possible
• Prevent anything that might interfere with the God-given right of factory farms to waterboard their animals
• Remove a prohibition on giving state money to churches
• Allow supermarkets to sell more liquor

I guess the people of Oklahoma will show us which things they actually care about tomorrow. There are a lot of bad things to be said about referendums, but at least they’re harder to gerrymander than a legislature.

Colombia Peace Deal Is Defeated, Leaving a Nation in Shock

An earlier version of this article mistranslated a comment on Twitter by former President Álvaro Uribe. He said, “Peace is exciting, the Havana agreement disappointing,” not “Peace is an illusion, the Havana agreement deceptive.”

They don’t give us the Spanish or the Tweet, but it was:

Declaración al votar: La Paz es ilusionante, los textos de La Habana decepcionantes

That’s not even “put the text in Google Translate”.  That’s “looked at it for 5 seconds and picked the English words that looked like the Spanish words”.

I had my first law school-related nightmare this week!  It’s always nice to have some variety in my unconscious terrors.