Calif. Resources Strained As Fires Rage
Exhausted Firefighters Still Battling More Than 300 Blazes
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Firefighters watch as a brush fire burns out of control in the Santa Ynez Mountains near Goleta, Calif., on Saturday July 5, 2008. A slew of wildfires, most ignited by lightning two weeks ago, have burned more than 800 square miles of land throughout California. The blazes have destroyed at least 67 homes and other buildings and contributed to the death of a firefighter who suffered a heart attack while digging fire lines. (AP Photo/Phil Klein)
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Firefighters work a brush fire burning out of control in the Santa Ynez Mountains near Goleta, Calif., on Saturday July 5, 2008. A slew of wildfires, most ignited by lightning two weeks ago, have burned more than 800 square miles of land throughout California. The blazes have destroyed at least 67 homes and other buildings and contributed to the death of a firefighter who suffered a heart attack while digging fire lines. (AP Photo/Phil Klein)
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Firefighters watch as a brush fire burns out of control in the Santa Ynez Mountains near Goleta, Calif., on Saturday July 5, 2008. (AP Photo/Phil Klein)
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Calif. Wildfires Spread
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for additional aid from the National Guard, as wildfires continue to burn throughout many portions of the Golden State. Bill Whitaker reports.
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Big Sur Faces Massive Fires
Over 60,000 acres of forests have already been burned along California's coastline, as firefighters are scrambling to control fires throughout the popular Big Sur region. John Blackstone reports.
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California Engulfed By Flames
California's popular Big Sur area is threatened by out-of-control wildfires containing flames as high as 30 feet. John Blackstone reports on Mother Nature's relentless fury.
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Photo essays, the worst U.S. fires, facts on fire science and health issues.
"The firefighters are stretched thin, they are exhausted," and some have gone days without sleep, said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who visited a command post in Santa Barbara County.
A slew of wildfires, most ignited by lightning two weeks ago, has burned more than 800 square miles of land throughout California. The blazes have destroyed at least 67 homes and other buildings and contributed to the death of a firefighter who suffered a heart attack while digging fire lines.
More than 20,000 firefighters have defeated most of the wildfires raging across the state, down from 1,700 a few days ago to 334 Saturday. But many of the remaining fires are monsters, reports CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker.
Schwarzenegger said the state's top priority was in the coastal region of Santa Barbara County, where nearly 2,700 homes were threatened by a four-day-old fire in the Los Padres National Forest that has consumed about 13 square miles.
Cooler, moist air Saturday morning kept the fire sluggish and helped firefighters trying to surround it, said Pat Wheatley, county spokeswoman. The fire was 24 percent contained, she said.
"It's just spreading in each direction, but they are holding the line beautifully," she said.
Crews hoped to make more progress before the return of late afternoon "sundowner" winds that on Friday evening sent flames racing up to homes.
Wheatley said 2,663 homes remained under mandatory evacuation and people in another 1,400 were warned to be ready to flee if the flames gathered speed.
The fire, which was burning in 15-foot-high, half-century-old chaparral, had the potential to roll through a hilly area of ranches, housing tracts and orchards between the town of Goleta and Santa Barbara.
"The advice is that you get prepared, that you get your belongings together and you stay very watchful," Wheatley said.
Temperatures were expected to reach the high 80s, and the smoke from the fire made for bad air quality.
Nearly 1,200 firefighters struggled to surround the blaze while a DC-10 air tanker and other aircraft dumped water and fire retardant along ridges and in steep canyons.
Investigators think the fire, which began Tuesday, was human-caused. The U.S. Forest Service on Saturday asked for public help in determining who set it and whether it was sparked accidentally or on purpose.
Meanwhile, cooler weather helped crews attacking a two-week-old blaze that has destroyed 20 homes in Big Sur, at the northern end of the Los Padres forest.
The fire, which had blackened 107 square miles, was only 5 percent contained, but morning fog that moved in from the sea helped prevent it from advancing on Big Sur's famed restaurants and hotels.
"We're gaining ground, but we're nowhere near being done," said Gregg DeNitto, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service. "There's still a lot of potential out there. The fire has been less active the last couple of days. We've had favorable weather; they are taking every opportunity to get some line on it."
But the weather was expected to become hotter and drier over the next couple of days, he said, with winds and temperatures rising and humidity dropping.
"The fire still has the potential for movement and the potential to get out of our containment lines," he said.
The governor noted that he recently ordered 400 National Guard troops to be trained in wildfire fighting so they could help fight the state's blazes. He also urged lawmakers to adopt his budget plan for a $70 million emergency surcharge on home and business insurance policies to buy more firefighting equipment.
California now has a year-round fire season and needs the money from the fee, which should cost the average homeowner about $1 a month, Schwarzenegger said.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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See all 74 CommentsMaybe, if we wanted a healthier better America we should turn to God to heal our land? Just think? It happened another time in the annuals of history? Yeah God was going to destroy this place called Nineveh and the people repented and God spared them. We could do this in America?
The twelfth-century troubadour poetry of courtly love was a protest against this supernaturally justified violation of life''s joy in truth. So too the Tristan legend and at least one of the great versions of the legend of the Grail, that of Wolfram von Eschenbach. The spirit is really the bouquet of life. It is not something breathed into life, it comes out of life. This is one of the glorious things about the mother-goddess religions, where the world is the body of the Goddess, divine in itself, and divinity isn''t something ruling over and above a fallen nature. There was something of this spirit in the medieval cult of the Virgin, out of which all the beautiful thirteenth-century French cathedrals arose.However, our story of the Fall in the Garden sees nature as corrupt; and that myth corrupts the whole world for us. Because nature is thought of as corrupt, every spontaneous act is sinful and must not be yielded to. You get a totally different civilization and a totally different way of living according to whether your myth presents nature as fallen or whether nature is in itself a manifestation of divinity, and the spirit is the revelation of the divinity that is inherent in nature.
CAMPBELL: That amounts to a refusal to affirm life. In the biblical tradition we have inherited, life is corrupt, and every natural impulse is sinful unless it has been circumcised or baptized. The serpent was the one who brought sin into the world. And the woman was the one who handed the apple to man. This identification of the woman with sin, of the serpent with sin, and thus of life with sin, is the twist that has been given to the whole story in the biblical myth and doctrine of the Fall.
MOYERS: Does the idea of woman as sinner appear in other mythologies?
CAMPBELL: No, I don''t know of it elsewhere. The closest thing to it would be perhaps Pandora with Pandora''s box, but that''s not sin, that''s just trouble. The idea in the biblical tradition of the Fall is that nature as we know it is corrupt, *** in itself is corrupt, and the female as the epitome of *** is a corrupter. ...The idea of the supernatural as being something over and above the natural is a killing idea. In the Middle Ages this was the idea that finally turned that world into something like a wasteland, a land where people were living inauthentic lives, never doing a thing they truly wanted to because the supernatural laws required them to live as directed by their clergy. In a wasteland, people are fulfilling purposes that are not properly theirs but have been put upon them as inescapable laws. This is a killer.
(cont)
And I am dying?
Who will help me?
I am about 230 years old.
I had been born out of the prayer in men%u2019s hearts who understood what true liberty is.
My name is America and God knows about me, but people do not care about God they have kicked Him out of politics and schools someday they may show Him the door out of the country!
People do not care about me America. There is no more love of being an American!
People are murdering every day in regard to aborted babies and again they do not care of what true liberty is for all!
Hello I am America who will save me! People raise flags in remembrance of me, but who will raise their heart in the principles by which we stand?
Hello I am America and I am crying for the injustice being done in my name. Where O where are the citizens that will help me and turn towards God to heal me? Where are the Americans who will fight for me? What will happen to me? My name is America who will love me? Who will pray to God for me?
Place, America!
We are looking at the statue of liberty? You see she has been wounded and there is no one who can stop her from bleeding? God can you help Miss Liberty from bleeding? The flame that she holds has been put out by people like us who just want what we want? We want the wrong that we do without the consequences? We want to shed the liberty of truth to other lands by our diplomacy but there is no one shedding the liberty to our own that are starving, homeless and dying! Yes Miss Liberty is dying and only God can stop her from bleeding! Lets help others in strange lands to know we are there but lets not let someone here know that she is here for them!
Miss liberty idea for liberty for all I thought was those who hold the truths of our founding fathers to be self evident a belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ to bring salvation to an individual and a country. Not a butchery of innocent babies who only crime in life is that they exist in the mothers womb who wants to love and be loved! We do not care for the lives of our men losing their lives in strange lands for a cause few understand there that it is liberty one should choose to guide their cause. Will anyone out there shed a tear for Miss Liberty when she is no more?
In studying the force of spirit, Campbell became a powerful spiritual force of his own.
GEORGE MASON
The father of the bill of rights. Says,
As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, so they must be in this, by an inevitable chain of causes & effects, providence punishes national sins by national calamities.
God will deal with a nation here and now
Oops!
When he 14 he was appointed Congressional diplomatic ambassador to The Court of Catherine the Great of Russia! He served also as foreign ambassador, Secretary of state, U.S. representative, senator and of course President!
SPEECH BY JOHN QUINCY ADAMS July 4, 1837
Why is it that, next to the birth day of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day. The fourth of July.
Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birth-day of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birth-day of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer%u2019s mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity?
John Quincy Adams said the biggest victory won in the revolution was that Christian Principles and Civil government would be tied together in an indissolubly bond!
Maybe, if we wanted a healthier better America we should turn to God to heal our land? Just think? It happened another time in the annuals of history? Yeah God was going to destroy this place called Nineveh and the people repented and God spared them. We could do this in America?
Oops!
Posted by wl7bzh at 08:08 PM : Jul 05, 2008
Strong Winds Hamper Calif. Fire Efforts? We have fires, floods, tornadoes, crime and a bad economy, gas prices food prices no jobs losing of homes? Sounds a bit like Pharaoh saying no to God when Moses told him about the Lord?
Maybe, if we wanted a healthier better America we should turn to God to heal our land? Just think? It happened another time in the annuals of history? Yeah God was going to destroy this place called Nineveh and the people repented and God spared them. We could Pray for God to bless America again!
Posted by barbaraf4 at 08:36 PM : Jul 05, 2008
.................
ROTFLMAO!!!
That''s the best description I have ever read about these fundamentalist postings!
Posted by cbsblogger at 09:21 PM : Jul 05, 2008
............
True, it will take a massive "Army" of firefighters now and in the near future to effectively fight the rapidly increasing wildfire outbreaks across the whole nation!
Posted by mcv57 at 09:49 PM : Jul 05, 2008
See how they pass the sodomite new laws I would have to agree with you!
Why the British Economy Will Plunge Into Depression
By Michael C. Feltham
Jul 2, 2008, 00:15
Author%u2019s Preface: As the financial world still reels from the effects of sub prime and the real estate meltdowns in the USA and the UK and as government representatives and financiers and commentators all run around like headless chickens looking for some other guy to blame for the fiasco, it is time to put the record straight. Most everyone talks about %u201CSub Prime%u201D and %u201CThe Global Credit Crunch%u201D as if it was a mystery virus which suddenly appeared out of the blue like avian %u2018flu! It wasn%u2019t: the whole thing was totally predicable and certain: th
Economy
Why the British Economy Will Plunge Into Depression
By Michael C. Feltham
Jul 2, 2008, 00:15
Email this article Printer friendly page
Author%u2019s Preface: As the financial world still reels from the effects of sub prime and the real estate meltdowns in the USA and the UK and as government representatives and financiers and commentators all run around like headless chickens looking for some other guy to blame for the fiasco, it is time to put the record straight. Most everyone talks about %u201CSub Prime%u201D and %u201CThe Global Credit Crunch%u201D as if it was a mystery virus which suddenly appeared out of the blue like avian %u2018flu! It wasn%u2019t: the whole thing was totally predicable and certain: there was a huge inevitability that was created by slack regulation, fiscal desperation and the old enemy: greed. It is perhaps worth re-reading the author%u2019s earlier predictions: The Worm in the Big Apple (Jun 6, 2004) and The Parlous Condition of Britain''s Economy! (Jun 30, 2004). - MCF
Posted by mcv57 at 09:49 PM : Jul 05, 2008
See how they pass the sodomite new laws I would have to agree with you!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by Providence_Z
''When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.''
Sinclair Lewis
Posted by mcv57 at 09:49 PM : Jul 05, 2008
See how they pass the sodomite new laws I would have to agree with you!
Posted by Providence_Z
If your type of ''Christian'' wants a lift out of California have them call me...
Posted by mcv57 at 09:49 PM : Jul 05, 2008
There you go interputing God for us all. Get over yourself!
Peak Oil is also called "Hubbert''s Peak," named for the Shell geologist Dr. Marion King Hubbert. In 1956, Hubbert accurately predicted that US domestic oil production would peak in 1970. Source#1 Source #2 He also predicted global production would peak around the year 2000, which it would have had the politically created oil shocks of the 1970s not delayed it for about 5-10 years.
For more information:
A mere 15% shortfall in oil production will spike oil prices by 550%
Robert Hirsch on CNBC: Gasoline will soon be $12-to-$15 per gallon
In a similar sense, an oil based economy such as ours doesn''t need to deplete its entire reserve of oil before it begins to collapse. A shortfall between demand and supply as little as 10 to 15 percent is enough to wholly shatter an oil-dependent economy and reduce its citizenry to poverty.
The effects of even a small drop in production can be devastating. For instance, during the 1970s oil shocks, shortfalls in production as small as 5% caused the price of oil to nearly quadruple. The same thing happened in California a few years ago with natural gas: a production drop of less than 5% caused prices to skyrocket by 400%.
The coming oil shocks won''t be so short lived. They represent the onset of a new, permanent condition. Once the decline gets under way, production will drop (conservatively) by 3% per year, every year. War, terrorism, extreme weather and other "above ground" geopolitical factors will likely push the effective decline rate past 10% per year, thus cutting the total supply by 50% in 7 years. Source
These estimate comes from numerous sources, not the least of which is Vice President *** Cheney himself. In a 1999 speech he gave while still CEO of Halliburton, Cheney stated:
By some estimates, there will be an average of two-percent annual growth
in global oil demand over the years ahead, along with, conservatively, a
three-percent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That
means by 2010 we will need an additional 50 million barrels per day.Source
Cheney''s assesement is supported by the estimates of numerous non-political, retired, and now disinterested scientists, many of whom believe global oil production will peak and go into terminal decline within the next five years, if it hasn''t already. Source
If a 5% drop in production caused prices to triple in the 1970s, what do you think a 50% or 75% drop is going to do?
Estimates coming out of the oil industry indicate that this drop in production has already begun. Source The consequences of this are almost unimaginable. As we slide down the downslope slope of the global oil production curve, we may find ourselves slipping into something best described as a "post industrial stone age."
Because petrochemicals are key components to much more than just the gas in your car. As of the year 2002, approximately 10 calories of fossil fuels are required to produce every 1 calorie of food eaten in the US. Source The size of this ratio stems from the fact that every step of modern food production is fossil fuel and petrochemical powered:
Pesticides and agro-chemicals are made from oil;
Commercial fertilizers are made from ammonia, which is made from natural gas, which is also peaking in the near future. Source
Most farming implements such as tractors and trailers are constructed and powered using oil-derived fuels.
Food storage systems such as refrigerators are manufactured in oil-powered plants, distributed using oil-powered transportation networks and usually run on electricity, which most often comes from natural gas or coal. Like oil and natural gas, coal too is peaking in the near future. Source
In the US, the average piece of food is transported almost 1,500 miles before it gets to your plate. Source In Canada, the average piece of food is transported 5,000 miles from where it is produced to where it is consumed. Source
A recent article published by CNN documented just how much fossil fuel energy is used to produce our food.
into the food chain which points out that fossil fuel use by the food system
in the developed world "often rivals that of automobiles". To feed an
average family of four in the developed world uses up the equivalent
of 930 gallons of gasoline a year - just shy of the 1,070 gallons that
same family would use up each year to power their cars. Source
According to the Organic Trade Association, the production of one pair of regular cotton jeans takes three-quarters of a pound of fertilizers and pesticides. Source
In short, people gobble fossil fuels like two-legged SUVs.
For more information, see:
Why our food is so dependent on oil
Will the end of oil be the end of the end of food?
How will we grow food after Peak Oil?
Hungering for natural gas
"Are all forms of modern technology actually petroleum products?"
Yes.
What all of this means, in short, is that the aftermath of Peak Oil will extend far beyond how much you will pay for gas. To illustrate: in a July 2006 special report published by the Chicago Tribune, Pullitzer Prize winning journalist Paul Salopek described the consequences of Peak Oil as follows:
. . . the consequences would be unimaginable. Permanent fuel shortages would tip the world into a generations-long economic depression. Millions would lose their jobs as industry implodes. Farm tractors would be idled for lack of fuel, triggering massive famines. Energy wars would flare. And carless suburbanites would trudge to their nearest big box stores, not to buy Chinese made clothing transported cheaply across the globe, but to scavenge glass and copper wire from abandoned buildings. Source
Journalist Jonathan Gatehouse summarized the conclusions of Oxford trained geologist Jeremy Leggett, author of The Empty Tank: Oil, Gas, Hot Air, and the Coming Financial Catastrophe, in a 2006 Macleans article as follows, emphasis added:
. . . when the truth can no longer be obscured, the price will spike, the economy nosedive, and the underpinnings of our civilization will start tumbling like dominos. "The price of houses will collapse. Stock markets will crash. Within a short period, human wealth -- little more than a pile of paper at the best of times, even with the confidence about the future high among traders -- will shrivel."
By 2010, predicts Leggett, democracy will be on the run . . . economic hardship will bring out the worst in people. Fascists will rise, feeding on the anger of the newly poor and whipping up support. These new rulers will find the tools of repression -- emergency laws, prison camps, a relaxed attitude toward torture -- already in place, courtesy of the war on terror
If prices continue to rise at a pace even roughly resembling the trajectory of the past two years, this gives us 6-to-24 months before total shutdown. From Ken''s Deffeyes'' blog post linked up above
Many uneducated people in America don''t know this, but there was an attempted coup on FDR, which failed. GOP and poor faction extremist to salvage their power.
Posted by mcv57 at 11:38 PM : Jul 05, 2008
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No, but they had term limits put in place to keep the proletariat from re-electing him.
Posted by globalcool08
Talking to your imaginary friend in the sky will not help.
Posted by globalcool08
Talking to your imaginary friend in the sky will not help.
Posted by jimfinster
globalcool: great post. Thanks for thinking of us. We are trying. We have warned and warned. Schwarzenegger is not listening.
finster: God is everywhere. He''s right behind you, and He saw what you wrote.
Posted by globalcool08 at 11:48 PM : Jul 05, 2008
Does this also explain the midwest floods from the last two - three weeks?
What about the wildfires last year? Or the year before? Or the year before that? Was that "pre-punishment" for the future laws to be passed? All these people that lost their homes - are they all proponents of g`a`y marriage?
Typical christian - anything to push the agenda. Even at the expense of others suffering. No humanity or compassion at all. Sad, and in more than one way, quite a bit sickening.
Guess it''s kinda like when one loses everything, one really has nothing to lose. Just a thot.
Posted by globalcool08 at 08:34 AM : Jul 06, 2008
Then please explain the devastation and destruction wreaked on America at the hands of the born again George W. Bush, and his merry band of christians.
NEVER before has there EVER been a worse president. It MUST be that he is using his "faith" to make his decisions.
Maybe, if we wanted a healthier better America we should turn to God to heal our land? Just think? It happened another time in the annuals of history? Yeah God was going to destroy this place called Nineveh and the people repented and God spared them. We could do this in America?
The message of the cross is the acceptance by the father the full payment of sin? Yes the cross is the finish work of Jesus. So anyone who turns to God by calling on Jesus accepting that He died for their sins and was raised for for proof they have the opportunity to call on Jesus for salvation. This is basically turning from self ways to Gods way through the promise offered! Roman 10:8-13
Mar 7:21-23 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:
All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.
Put your biblical wisdom to good use and answer the simple question, ''When Is Jesus Going To Bring The Pork Chops?''
Posted by nsSherlock1 at 10:05 AM : Jul 06, 2008
For someone who does not make the decision to call on Jesus its the great whit throne Judgement!
Posted by Providence_8 at 10:09 AM : Jul 06, 2008
Maybe you should ask why your evil and vile "god", is killing innocent people, as "punishment" for something they have no control over.
Posted by hungry1968 at 10:15 AM : Jul 06, 2008
He gave you His son Jesus in order for you to have the opportunity to have a relationship with Him. If you choose to live with self that is your choice? When anyone who say "Hey I do not want self" there is no demon in hell that can stop you from calling on Jesus.
Read Titus 2:11
Read Titus 2:11
Posted by Providence_8 at 10:18 AM : Jul 06, 2008
What can be said about someone that murders his own son?
Certainly not someone I want to worship!
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