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Hurricane Irma Reaches 185 MPH, Trailing Only Allen As Strongest Atlantic Storm On Record (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: We are quickly running out of adjectives to describe the destructive potential of Hurricane Irma. As of 2pm ET on Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center upgraded the storm's sustained winds to 185mph. This is near-record speed for a storm in the Atlantic basin, which includes the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico. Such high, sustained winds tie Irma for the second-strongest storm on record in the Atlantic, along with Hurricane Wilma (2005), Hurricane Gilbert (1998), and the 1935 Florida Keys hurricane. Only Hurricane Allen, which reached 190 mph in 1980 before striking a relatively unpopulated area of Texas, reached a higher wind speed. Globally, the all-time record for hurricanes is held by Patricia, which reached a staggering 215 mph in the Pacific Ocean in 2015. Although sustained winds capture the most public attention, meteorologists generally measure the intensity of a storm based upon central pressures, which are considerably lower than sea-level pressure on Earth, 1,013 millibars. Typhoon Tip, in 1979, holds this record at 870 millibars. For now, at least, Irma has a relatively high central pressure of 927 millibars. Why the storm has such an odd wind-speed-pressure relationship isn't entirely clear. According to the National Hurricane Center, Irma is expected to bring catastrophic winds and potential storm surges to the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and the UK territory of Turks and Caicos this week. The Florida Keys could get hit by late Saturday night or Sunday.
You missed the part about the 300 year holocaust which stripped Africans of their humanity and forced them into chattel slavery so that your ancestors could profit upon their freely provided labor (whether or not your ancestors actually owned enslaved persons is immaterial, you benefit from the system that they created to this day).
You missed the part about the fact that once these enslaved individuals were manumitted, they had to try to convince you for the next hundred years that they were human beings. That they have fought voluntarily in every single American "white man's" war to try and convince you that they too are Americans speaks volumes.
You missed the part about the fact that many of the policies and regulations that people like you create today are designed to marginalize and economically castrate these very people. The Italians and Jews of the 30's and 40's had the exact same criminal tendencies. But you gave them the civil service jobs and the police department jobs so they could stop the inner city violence. They got an economic hand up. These blacks could graduate high school and earn a living wage with their own two hands before you took the trade programs out of the schools. How else are they supposed to make a living? Oh, right, selling crack cocaine in the 80's and 90's and we know how that turned out.
You missed the part about the fact that these very people rarely feel part of American society, often don't give a rat's ass about society and have nothing to loose because of the generations of psycho-social-economic destruction and racially-tinted warfare that they and their ancestors have been subjected to.
Pick up a book and try not to act so ignorant of the reality that you do very well understand, but refuse to come to terms with. The fact that you are posting this damn near thesis sized post demonstrates your interest in maintaining the current status quo.