Mahalo for nothing

To anyone that supports #45's belligerent and irresponsible rhetoric with North Korea, I hope that you can know what it feels like to wake up to alerts that you are probably going to die from an imminent missile. That is what happened to people I know this morning living in Hawaii. That is not an exaggeration, that is factually and literally what happened. They were calling their family and friends saying good bye and that they loved them and they didn't know how much time they had left. They did not find out for 45 minutes that the alarm was somehow false, and lived those 45 minutes in complete terror. 

This would be less believable if it happened two years ago; there would have been less panic. Was it #45's fault that the message went out by mistake? No. Although, of course he was golfing at the time and hasn't issued a statement yet. But, it is his fault that we are in this heightened situation with another country. Would we be in some kind of situation with NK regardless? Probably. But, perhaps not one where nuclear war has cavalierly been mentioned several times, and real threats have been issued to outlying US states and territories. 

Like most people, I cannot fathom how a message like this goes out en masse by mistake, and creates panic and confusion for as long as it did before being confirmed false. I would be horrified if it happened to me. I'm horrified that it happened at all, even though it didn't happen to me. I don't wish that on anybody.