FFXIAH Linkshell Ni

Is it nighttime?

It's only 11 AM, but it's only 11.6°C which isn't too shabby. Was as low as -1° earlier in December. Also the sun is shining out so direct sunlight makes it really nice and mild.

Is there anything specific you want to know my opinion about or everything which is connected to this debate? The latter one might take a bit of time.

I thought the same exact thing.

/cringegrin

Native flora would be a dealbreaker.

EDIT: Or might gradually become one.


Not really just your general impression. Not necessarily in the realm of debate. Anything that is related to EU news gets the shaft in RP&R.

Same thing -- well, among the many things -- that makes me groan every time my dad tries to get me to move to Arizona.

nope!

First coffee of the day would be horrible!

/goes to back porch

Where is my Mountain Laurel and Carolina Jasmine? I would take a damn post oak or a pecan tree right now. No blue jays, cardinals and/or martins. Eerie.

/backs slowly into house

Tornado!!!

get to your baseme.... o wait...

I knew handies were a big thing... But damn if it's the American pasttime now then I've really been missing out...

Tornadoes don't usually make it this far south. My dad is still in Tornado Alley. Interior closet. That's how we do.

Screw that. I sit outside on the porch.

If it's gonna hit me I'm gonna watch it happen and die a happy man.

Here in PA!

An F4 tornado tore directly through my brother-in-law's bedroom when he was 6 and made the alley that actually connected our houses for years to come!

1985 Tornado Outbreak

We still watch storms roll in. While I was growing up in DFW my dad would stop on the side of the road so we could watch funnel clouds. They would usually strike more rural and semi-rural to the north or south of us, thankfully. Their development is hypnotic.


Pretty! Those probably wouldn't survive here. Our breed...





EDIT: We had a tornado sweep off our chimney. I was way too young to remember it, but my mother never skips a beat when mentioning that my dad slept through the damn thing.

That reminds me of the plants we had in the neighborhood, in the summer it would be purple all over

Yeah...luckily Tom didn't sleep through the thing taking out his bedroom or, uh. Well. Draw your own conclusions.

There was a girl in my wife's class who got picked up with the bathtub she was in briefly, but luckily only suffered bruises and contusions, nothing broken or other serious trauma.

We also had these *** that had to be removed kinda carefully





I had a faintly purple scar on my arm after clearing those out, if you get some in your eye you can be blinded lol

Grows really fast

That is nuts! What drills/prep does Pennsylvania apply for tornadoes? Granted they can happen practically anywhere, under the right circumstances, but I've always wondered if states that aren't typically associated with Tornado Alley do the same: drills in school, sirens, etc.

I think there's a variation of that here (but a milder sting and rash) from the sound and looks of it. Their blooms are yellow here and they're mostly in fields.

they do here. the procedure is to put your head between your legs and kiss your *** goodbye.

These grow kinda everywhere but they're not really a danger unless you're clearing them out. Not like kids go and cut them down

My school had a drill like once a year for air raids, we'd go down in the shelter under the school (apartment building here has shelters too, used as laundry room and storage now lol) and on the first Monday in the month at 3 pm the sirens go off everywhere so they know they work

I've heard of people trimming their trees with a shotgun (I'm dead serious) and I'd suggest doing the same. I don't like skin rashes.

My dad would just use a scythe and cut them all down, didn't even wear gloves (or a shirt sometimes) lol

Of course I did and I got the sap on my arm, the one spot that wasn't covered

We did them when I was in school, but you figure...I was 3 when the 1985 thing hit. I honestly don't know what they did before that. And I lived on the hill right below the high school where the weather siren was so once a month I had to listen to that being tested for 30 minutes on a Saturday.

Girlboy, you're in friggin' Oklahoma. We know you're holding out on 'nader stories!

Jeebus! Geared up for Spring! It feels like Spring now, but who's to say in two weeks time?

Spring isn't -15C lol


-20 to -27 a bit west and up north

i see a lot of tornados every morning mon-fri

I will try and break it into different categories which need to be addressed, but of course there will be crossing here and there.
Media
I will start with them because I did not learn of the events until it went global with Cologne's Mayor 'armlength' speech. That was the 5th January. The Media reaction was incredibly slow nationwide. Social Networks and local media covered it early, with the local print media first to mention that the initial police report of a 'calm night' seemed to be wrong and the social Networks were the first to mention the attacker's ethnos.
Even as it went gloabl the coverage was rather reluctant and avoided mentioning refugees as far as they could despite knowledge that they were present. They focused more on Police and the numbers of charges, which are up to 560 in cologne alone last I heard.
Now 2 weeks after I find the coverage still too low. Yes, every political talk show is about it now but a few important things has been dropped since quite a few days. For example when it went global there were reports of other German cities having had (to a lower extend, in Hamburg being at 150 charges now) similar problems but now those are not mentioned at all nationwide.
Or practical problems like Police stating the quality of the camera material is too low with the Deutsche Bahn (who is in charge of the train station) answering that it was never stated to be a problem before by police. That is weird as a major part of the political debate is about putting more cameras at public places, so quality of them should be an ongoing concern.

Whenever they do talk about the Ethnos of the attackers, which has been unavoidable since monday, it is followed by an extra notice that it was only a very small per centage of the foreigners and we should not generalise. This is getting pretty penetrant for the average German as it feels like an insult (like a teacher constantly reminding students not to do certain stuff) as it is not done the same with other events.

Politics
Politics reacted correct so far. Finally shaping up the sexual Assault laws they had been working on for months and lowering the first hurdle to send back criminal foreigners to their home country. The last thing hopefully will be backed up with pressure on countries which did not take their people back from now on.

They made mistakes before the events happened though. Like lowering the amount of state-staff (Police, teachers, in judiciary sector have to be highighted here the most). The slim state cannot react to a crises.
Another mistake was being too lax with EU-Member states ignoring the Dublin rules before the refugee influx and the lonely decission to break the rules as well. Combined this makes European cooperation impossible afterwards.
And another point which I made already in the media section, they need to enforce more pressure on countries not taking their people back after the asylum-process is finished and denied. The Tourism sector is ideal as leverage here.

Police
Even after the events on New Years Eve, the public trust in the police is high, between 78% and 80%. We still need more information here though. According to the Police which was present at the scene asked for more support but it was denied (as far as I have heared it is not official yet). The Police chef there already had to go. 10 days after the events a camera team still has found documents like health insurance cards and thrown away wallets near the station at a construction side.
Ever since the press conference mentioning 19 culprits there has been silence about new knowledge.

Maghreb
That's the main heritage of often criminal foreigners, the Syrians are below the average when it comes to crime, while theirs is shooting through the roof. The usual way for these Moroccans, Algerians ect. is to come here for escaping poverty, not being accepted as Asylum seeker, entering illegal employment and then are picked up by/gathering as criminal gangs. Their home states don't make new documents for them and thus hindering us to send them back.

Refugees
Main problem is that we are not obliged to take them in as refugees. They passed too many safe countries to normally get that status. We grant it just because of good will. Most of the non-syrian people, even afghan [unless they are personally in danger because they worked for us] and Iraqi would normally not get it granted.
So nearly every crime commited by these groups is an additional crime brought into the country. And if the politicians were honest to their politics and would stand behind them, they should apologise to victims that were caused because of their decission. Like the 2 minor girls that exchanged caresses with 2 Syrians but when they denied sex they got raped. Of course we just get the average of other people and not 100% good people, but I consider it a lack of responsibility to just include them in a statistic and forget the personal impact.

Sweden
It has a lot of similarities to the german case. Politicians yelling 'I am angry, we never ordered to keep culprits background hidden', the same thing says the police chief and the normal police man/woman last in line is confused. 'Yes you never ordered it but whenever I file my report with such remarks in it gets back to me in order to rework/word/phrase it till it is not in anymore'.
There are many ways within a hierarchy to get everyone in line without stating it directly. Were there any consequences in Sweden yet?

Aftermath
My personal feelings about what came after the events in Cologne, I am majorly happy with them. Like stated before the Sexual Assault overhaul by the lawmakers were overdue and already in planning before the events. It is good that it gets much attention and women go to the police to file charges. In the beginning they just charged for the robbing and we had just 120 after 5 days, but now they are brave enough to charge the sexual part of the Assaults as well up to 560. Sexual Assaults should be taken more seriously and hopefully this will be a turning point for that.

After Media were reluctant and just described it as 'sexual harassments' they are finally now stating the specifics of the charges like 'Finger penetrated the vagina'. Yes it is uncomfortable to say but it must be done to let people feel the seriousness of what happened.

Public does not condemn refugees as a whole, I find that to be a good point.

Future
I am for a continuation of taking in Refugees, but not without limits and controle. We should be able to enforce controle as, like I stated, we are not obliged to take most of them in. One important thing would be to controle the male influx. Media is often working with the picture of '82 people in a bar and 1 comes in [82Million inhabitants, 1 million refugees)'. I find that a bit shortsighted as according to eurostat 70% of them younger than 30 and 75% of the 14 to 24 year olds are male. So the reality of the picture is: 'in a disco the balanced ratio of 50:50 female/male we currently have is changed to 40%female 60% male'. And that is not healthy for a society.
So much for controle of who gets in and now to Limits. Limit could change according to our goals. Our current goal is 'integration of everyone'. And we reached the Limit for that already. Currently only a third gets into integration programs. I remember already talking about how our students have 1 school year canceled already due to low amount of hired teachers and that for refugees the plan was to get some out of pensions. We cannot raise the dead teachers to integrate more.
We could of course accept more if the goal was just to keep them safe like in UNHCR-camps, that would only be limited by the available space, which is not much as we are basically every fourth american cramped into New Mexico.

I would suggest just leasing a fitting territory from turkey under UN controle (with Blue Helmets for security) so that Syrian teachers can teach Syrian kids and getting paid for it ect., Syrian doctors can pick up their job again as well. For job training of they youth they come to EU to learn jobs that help rebuilding Syria when it is safer. It costs much fewer and uses the abilities of the Syrians they already have so they don't get bored and have the feeling of being imprisoned.

I probably didn't write half of what I had in mind as I forgot a few things while wrinting. If some passages are unclear due to surficial editing or forgetting to write a follow up, just ask.

We don't really bat an eye at them. Remember the Joplin tornado? I was working in Little Rock that day, locals freaking out like it's doomsday, it's business as usual for the four of us. I come out of the store in the hotel lobby and the manager is like "There's a tornado watch, aren't you worried?" I'm like "No, why?"

EDIT: Oh, A tornado hit my school when I was in 4th grade, that was pretty cool.