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My story of what happened: The Strange Maui Fires A friend called me early on the morning of Tuesday, August 8th and told me he had a strong urge to visit Lahaina that day. Tempting me with lunch at Cool Cats, one of my favorite eateries in Old Lahaina, I said “Okay. Let’s go!” The 30 minute drive was without incident, without winds, and without any warning advisories. As soon as we reached Lahaina, all power got zapped. Cell phone, internet, traffic lights, GPS, the 911 emergency system (which is never supposed to go down) and the power outage caused...

VIDEO AT LINK............... Will they get their security deposits back?.................

The White House announced Wednesday that President Joe Biden will head to the Maui disaster zone next week. While there he will meet with first responders and tour damage left by the catastrophic wildfires that rampaged across the Hawaii island. “In Maui, the President and First Lady will be welcomed by state and local leaders to see firsthand the impacts of the wildfires and the devastating loss of life and land that has occurred on the island, as well as discuss the next steps in the recovery effort,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement as reported by the...

President Joe Biden flew directly over East Palestine, Ohio, on Tuesday after he promised in March to visit the working-class town impacted by the deadly February train derailment. Biden’s flight path on Air Force One while heading to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for an event touting “Bidenomics,” his economic agenda, flew nearly right over East Palestine. A freight train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, which wreaked havoc on the working-class town.

With wildfires ravaging West Maui on Aug. 8, a state water official delayed the release of water that landowners wanted to help protect their property from fires. The water standoff played out over much of the day and the water didn’t come until too late. The dispute involved the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ water resource management division. DLNR delayed releasing water requested by West Maui Land Co. to help prevent the spread of fire, sources familiar with the situation said. Specifically, according to accounts of four people with knowledge of the situation, M. Kaleo Manuel, a Native Hawaiian...

Seven hundred dollars. VIDEO AT LINK............. Press conference over, back to vacay: video at link............... I'll just leave you with a few thoughts: TWEETS at link..................

Joe Biden was asked for comment on the rising death toll from the Maui fires as he smirked and shuffled along without answering questions. “Do you have a comment on the death toll?” a reporter Biden on the South Lawn. No response! Watch.....VIDEO AT LINK..................... As of Tuesday, at least 99 people are confirmed dead in Maui as a result of the fires. There are still 1000 people who are unaccounted for. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump slammed Joe Biden and the governor of Hawaii for their reaction to the Maui fires. “The sad thing is it should never have happened,...

FEMA is offering temporary shelter in hotels and motels, federal workers are registering residents for a $700-per-household payment for survivors, and the government is working with community-led groups to reach all residents no matter which language or other barriers, Biden tweeted Monday. Biden and Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D) spoke Friday after the governor had surveyed the destruction, and Green provided an update and assessment of the state’s needs. He praised Biden on MSNBC after he signed the emergency declaration hours after Hawaii asked.

President Biden on Thursday signed a major disaster declaration for the state of Hawaii, freeing up additional federal funding as deadly fires have ravaged Maui and other areas. Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, certain loans to cover property losses and other programs for home and business owners, the White House said. Biden spoke earlier Thursday by phone with Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D) about the wildfires, the White House said.

WASHINGTON—Subcommittee on Government Operations and the Federal Workforce Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) announced a field hearing titled, “Weathering the Storm: Oversight of the Federal Response and Recovery Efforts in Southwestern Florida following Hurricane Ian.” Members will assess the effectiveness of the federal response to Hurricane Ian and identify areas for improvement in the federal disaster response. DATE: Thursday, August 10, 2023 TIME: 10:00 a.m. ET LOCATION: Lakes Regional Library, 15290 Bass Road, Fort Myers, Florida 33919

The Marvel Cinematic Universe and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.You feel it; I know you do because we all do. That deep, aching, existential pain lamenting our civilizational decline: things cannot continue like this, and we know who’s causing it. They haunt our institutions while facilitating the dissolution of our social fabric.I refer, of course, to the scourge of superheroes.How Did We Get Here?Since the turn of the century, there have been dozens of superhero movies and TV shows (primarily produced by Marvel and DC studios, respective subsidiaries of Disney and Warner Brothers). And despite...

Meta’s President, Global Affairs, Nick Clegg, had been due to speak later today at a hearing of Canada’s Heritage Committee entitled ‘The Response of Companies in the Information Technology Sector to Bill C-18’. This was an opportunity to present and discuss Meta’s position in relation to Canada’s draft Online News Act (C-18), as Meta representatives did at a Senate committee last week. Late on Thursday, the committee notified Meta that the title of the hearing had changed to ‘Tech Giants’ Current and Ongoing Use of Intimidation and Subversion Tactics to Evade Regulation in Canada and Across the World’. Clearly, it...

One evening this spring, I was out to dinner when a curious thing caught my attention. The Weather Channel was on TV in the background, and every few minutes the camera cut to a radar shot of Fort Lauderdale, where a lone storm cell sat stationary over the city. There it continued to sit, refusing to move inland to dissipate or blow out to sea. I had never seen anything like it. Neither had Fort Lauderdale, where on that day, April 12, nearly 26 inches of rain fell in approximately 12 hours. Fort Lauderdale is not a one-off. In too...

A massive landslide Saturday afternoon led homes to cave in and crumble in a Southern California neighborhood. The Los Angeles County Fire Department said at least 12 homes were evacuated due to a sliding hillside on Pear Tree Lane in Rolling Hills Estates, a city in Los Angeles County on the northern side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. A video posted by the fire department shows massive damage to the homes. A house in Rolling Hills Estates on Sunday, July 9, 2023, is severely damaged after a landslide on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles County. Janice Hahn, chair...

We told you it was looking bad for Indy's new feminist romp... ...and boy oh boy were we right. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny did a belly flop from 10,000 feet this weekend as the Mouse House's LucasFilm killed the last piece of intellectual property that it hadn't yet destroyed. The movie only made $130 million total on opening weekend (a holiday weekend, no less!). That's $60 million domestically and $70 million internationally against a budget of more than $300 million (not including marketing). That is less than half of the $272 million that the subpar Kingdom of...

This week a submersible carrying passengers to the site of the wreck of the Titanic disappeared in the North Atlantic; all five aboard perished in a catastrophic implosion. Correspondent David Pogue, who rode in the same underwater vehicle last year, reports on this latest disaster, and looks back on his interviews with OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush and deep-sea explorer P.H. Nargeolet, who were among those killed.

In the world of all things wonderful and green, the biggest push has been to hasten the demise of the internal combustion engine and the chirpiest assessments have been how EVs will save the planet. From California to New York state to the federal government and internationally, the powers that be have been on a tear to declare the ICE deadly and obsolete, while the EV in all its incarnations is the future. Perhaps the bloom is coming off of that overly optimistic and premature rose. Some EV business models aren’t motoring along as well as previously anticipated, even with...

The average reading and math test scores for U.S. 13-year-olds have plummeted since 2020, according to data from National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The decline in math skills for children this age is “the single largest decline” in the past half century according to experts. The average mathematics score for 13-year-olds declined nine points between the 2019 – 2020 and 2022 – 2023 school years, and the average reading score declined four points over the same time period of time, according to the NAEP. “Green shoots,” a term used to describe signs of recovery during a downturn, “have not...

Up to 500 people are still missing from a migrant boat that sank off Greece, the UN human rights office says. Large numbers of women and children were among those missing in the "horrific tragedy" that left 78 people dead, said spokesman Jeremy Laurence. The appalling loss of life underscored the need to bring people smugglers to justice, he added. But it also made clear that search and rescue at sea was a "legal and humanitarian imperative". In a joint statement with the International Organization for Migration, the refugee agency said any search and rescue action had to be conducted...

New York-based corporate media elites have flown into hysterics this week over Canadian wildfires creating a blanket of hazardous air over the Northeast United States. The ongoing wildfire health crisis is the focus of hourly updates, with articles fretting over everything from the poor air quality’s impact on “mental health” to the cancellation of Broadway shows. Yet these same outlets, along with U.S. government officials like Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, shamefully either ignored or downplayed the arguably more serious health crisis caused by February’s fiery derailment of a freight train along the Ohio-Pennsylvania line in East Palestine. The derailment and...