brees, in case you haven't been following the story for the last ten years or so, wildfire control is the main reason wildfires are so hard to control. Fires are natural, suppressing them causes the underbrush to grow and makes the inevitable next one harder to control and more damaging. Clearing the underbrush by other means, which was the only thing I could figure out from W's supposed policy on the topic, is a nice idea, but if you've ever actually tried to clear underbrush, I'd guess you'd be skeptical.
Another photo odd from yesterday's op: nytimes.com
W seems to be driving the Times past their normal ironic commentary into sarcastic territory, the editors wouldn't usually let stuff like this through:
And Mr. Bush's aides are defining heartland broadly enough that New Mexico — a state that Mr. Bush narrowly lost to Vice President Al Gore last November — qualifies as a left ventricle of sorts. Mr. Bush will head there on Wednesday morning.
He will probably talk again about "communities of character," which are somewhat like his father's "thousand points of light," although more alliterative. And he is certain to talk some more about values, a word that has lately been omnipresent in his utterances.
It takes a village and all that. Further out on the irony front, the $200 million anointed one is apparently having trouble convincing some people of his "Washington outsider" status. How that could be, with Cheney and Rumsfeld running things, I have no idea.
The second graders at Griegos Elementary School had apparently not absorbed the message of President Bush's month away from the nation's capital, because when he asked a group of them today if they knew where he was from, he did not get the answer he wanted.
"Washington, D.C.!" several students shouted in unison, eliciting a grimace from the president, who has cast his working vacation as a reconnection with his roots.
"I'm from one state east of here," he prompted the children, gathered in a classroom here. "What state?"
"Washington, D.C.!" they exclaimed again, at which point Mr. Bush gave up on helpful hints. nytimes.com
Nice photo with that one, too. |
