Louise Mensch self-owns on forest floor raking

[Denzil_DC]

An hour or so ago, Mensch got incensed that a Twitter account she for some reason labeled a "bot" tweeted innocuously (and accurately):

Link to tweet

Aki Heikkinen @akihheikkinen

We don't rake our forests here in #Finland.
Contemptor @TheContemptor

Trump: "You gotta take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forest, very important... I was with the President of Finland... he called it a forest nation and they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don't have any problem."

Mench exploded:

Link to tweet

Louise Mensch
✔
@LouiseMensch

Yes, you literally do. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5726490/ …

this account's bio says "Mostly Russian RTs" and it got 8,000 likes for something provably false in a second's googling.

YES THEY DO RAKE THE FOREST IN FINLAND.

*Why* doesn't anybody *ever* check https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/15177/17-No%203_Lindholm.pdf?sequence=1 …

She followed this up by repeatedly insisting vociferously to anyone who pointed out the idiocy of the idea of raking hundreds of thousands of acres of forest: "No. Jesus! forest raking is not done by a fucking hand rake! Ignorance is not bliss!", "they don't rake with garden rakes! 'raking' is done with an attachment to machines".

One person who seemingly doesn't *ever* check - at least her own links - is Mensch.

The two reports she cites refer to small-scale experiments in improving forest diversity by selective raking of restricted areas, and have absolutely nothing to do with fire control (in fact, might make the risks worse by stimulating undergrowth). And the first one took place in the Czech Republic ...

[manor321]

1. The Marshal of the Supreme Court should investigate this!

[Denzil_DC]

5. The Sheriff of Nottingham might be more interested. n/t

[MLAA]

11. Good one!

[kwassa]

6. I heard it from the President of Helsinki!

[DURHAM D]

2. I used to live in the forest.

I raked pine needles and used it for mulch.

http://tractortoolsdirect.com/pine-straw-the-perfect-mulch-for-gardening-and-landscaping/

[Denzil_DC]

4. Our neighbours have a large and decrepit old beech tree and a 40-foot pine

just over the fence from us.

I spend most of my "gardening" time raking up their ruddy leaves. Get them all clear as best I can - stormy day - right back to where we started.

[melman]

3. She's going to report them all to HIPPA

[brush]

7. WTH? Is she now siding with trump? No one with sense would advocate raking...

the 20 million acres of California forests.

TWENTY MILLION ACRES.

You can't get any stupider than that,

[Denzil_DC]

8. Yeah, for a supposed neverTrumper, it was a headscratcher for me, too.

What tickled me (grimly, because behind all this is a whole lot of horrible tragedy with more to come) was her typical know-all faux-Google-fu instant expertise on a subject she evidently knows nothing about, insisting that mechanical rakes are used in Finland while repeatedly citing reports (that she'd obviously done a simple Google search for and never read) that do nothing to prove her right, and in fact say that ground clearance of whole forests isn't a good idea.

She'll just never accept she's wrong, no matter how much evidence people point her to (something some folks here should bear in mind when she's speculating authoritatively about other matters ...).

I don't know what's next. I suppose when you've raked those 20 million acres, you just lift the edge of Nevada, sweep the leaves under it, then flop it back down, take a breather and start all over again.

Not to mention the boring technicalities like the fact these latest fires have generally involved scrub rather than forest, and the winds have been such that embers have been traveling miles, of course.

[brush]

9. "just lift the edge of Nevada, sweep the leaves under it, then flop it back down"

Hahahahahahaha!

That's so good.

What are these fools thinking? Where are you going to put debris from raking 20 million acres?

Oh, I know, let's burn it and hope none of the embers escape and set the forests on fire, not to mention what the burning would do to the atmosphere.

[grantcart]

10. Besides the size question is the other obvious issue

Fires spread by Santa Ana winds move at 20-30 MPH and burn from the top down.

Slow movingcfires burn from the bottom up

That is why all of the houses and forest areas near the homes are raked clean, but with fast moving winds the embers land on the roofs ignite and burn from the top down.

[Denzil_DC]

12. The Wall, built with funds redirected from forest management, will keep that furrin wind out.

Trump has promised the greatest climate. Tremendous climate. So much climate you'll be tired of climate. No rain, obviously, because hair. But great climate. Everybody says that.

[Scurrilous]

13. K&R