OT: Serious bleep for a minute

[jo4hn]

And look at it this way (tilting head steeply to the right): I am in NO direct danger from tsunamis!

whoop-te-de, jo4hn

[Lee Michaels]

Which raises the question, would a well timed/placed tsunami put out the California fires?

[Upscale]

Considering the height of some of those mountains, you'd probably do better to smash an asteroid into the nearby ocean and raise a wall of water to put out the fires. Then everybody can suffocate from the dust cloud. Hypothetically speaking of course.

[Luigi Zanasi]

Blizzards???!!!! In the same vein as hurricanes & tornadoes & earthquakes????!!! Why not add thunderstorms and sunburn, while you're at it?

Sorry, blizzards are just big snowstorms. A couple of days & everything is cleaned up.

Luigi

[Tanus]

It's interesting, though. In my part of the country, we have some minor earthquakes, a few isolated tornadoes, and the plagues of winter, ice and snow.

Living in an earthquake zone and/or a hurricane area would not be my first choice, but I can see those from Florida or California being aghast with having to deal with 30 below and a two foot snow drop.

Blizzards and cold are surefire killers if you're not ready for them, as are earthquakes and hurricanes. Luigi, you're in NWT or YK IIRC, and I'm sure you have all the gear to survive a tough winter. So do I. With us, it's just the passing of seasons. To others, it might well be hell.

Mostly it boils down to preparedness,.

Tanus

[HeyBub]

Hurricanes cause very, very few deaths.

95% of the deaths attributed to hurricane Katrina, for instance, came in the years after the storm as 150,000 New Orleans goblins invaded Houston (250 murders in 1998, 400 in 2006)..

Fortunately, these itinerant squints killed each other off with some regularity, and now, four years later, we are getting back to our usual, fairly low, homicide rate (336 in 2008).

[Dave Balderstone]

One a day is "low"?

Wow.

Where I live, one a MONTH is reason for concern.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Where I live, one in 15 years is a concern.

[Dave Balderstone]

I meant in my city, not my house, Ed.

;-)

[HeyBub]

Well, yeah. "Homicide" is the killing of one human by the agency of another. "Homicide," per se, is not illegal. Murder is one kind of homicide (the illegal kind) - self-defense is another (the meritorious kind)*.

Most of the homicide victims in my town needed killing, so it's not as bad as it seems at first blush.

I envy you. You've evidently gotten the ratio of do-bads to uprights down to the nuisance level.

Here, the maxim "The penis is mightier than the sword" (your enemies can breed faster than you can kill them) is on display (the axiom, not the penis).

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• Texas Penal Code 9.42 DEADLY FORCE TO PROTECT PROPERTY.

A person is justified in using deadly force against another to protect land or tangible, movable property:

(2) when and to the degree he reasonably believes the deadly force is immediately necessary:

(A) to prevent the other's imminent commission of arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, theft during the nighttime, or criminal mischief during the nighttime; or

(B) to prevent the other who is fleeing immediately after committing burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, or theft during the nighttime from escaping with the property;

Sec. 9.31. SELF-DEFENSE. (a) ... a person is justified in using force against another when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to protect the actor against the other's use or attempted use of unlawful force. The actor's belief that the force was immediately necessary as described by this subsection is presumed to be reasonable if the actor:

(1) knew or had reason to believe that the person against whom the force was used:

(A) unlawfully and with force entered, or was attempting to enter unlawfully and with force, the actor's occupied habitation, vehicle, or place of business or employment; [..] (C) was committing or attempting to commit aggravated kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated robbery;