Everybody is agog at the LA fires. It’s hard to believe that that level of incompetence and plain irresponsibility can exist in a metropolis the size of Los Angeles. But that’s what we have to realize. There is no back-up plan for this ongoing catastrophe. The two largest fires are still only 10 to 15% contained and have already burned 13,000 buildings. That means that there are already property losses in the tens of billions of dollars, and considering the high cost of houses in these areas, possibly much more.
But when the mayor or the governor are asked what is being done to save the properties surrounding the burned-out areas, they make it sound like this is an act of God that they have no responsibility for or power to fight. In all those videos of large forest fires we see planes filled with water dropping it on the fire. Well, what’s stopping California from requesting Washington to send aircraft of this kind? If the answer is that California doesn’t have any large bodies of water nearby then I’d remind them of that big blue thing called the Pacific Ocean somewhere West of LA. Sure, salt water is bad for the plants and everything else but I’m guessing that 2,000 °C fire is more than slightly worse.
But that is the reality. Mayor Bass and Governor Newsom are just going to try and hand wave their way through this and somehow try to blame Donald Trump and tell the victims that he has to foot the bill and make it all right. Well, I feel very badly for the victims of these fires. But they voted for these people because they agreed with the things the Democrats said they want to do. What happened is the end result of all those policies. What happened is the result of electing people who are incompetent. None of this is a surprise for the normally intelligent people who have been warning California about the direction they have been going for decades.
Well, there are thousands and thousands of angry, scared victims. And some of those people are Hollywood icons. And they are about to be dragged through the horror of trying to get a bureaucracy to treat them like suffering human beings. They are in for a world of pain. And all the people whose houses are spared this latest fire season aren’t going to forget how close they were to losing everything. Who knows? Maybe they’ll recall Bass and Newsom. That at least would be a start. Would it solve the problem. Nope. To do anything permanent the whole voting population of California would have to recall all of their state representatives and elect Republicans. And there are too many school teachers and prison guards who owe allegiance to the Democrat party for their lucrative positions.
So, nothing much will happen. But one of these days, the big one is going to hit Los Angeles. Something like a 7.5 on the Richter Scale. And the Angelenos are going to discover what having fake police, fire and emergency departments mean when there are thousands of people dead and injured. And something tells me that will be the one that wakes up even the most woke of the woke. When your family is buried under tons of debris and Assistant Fire Chief Kristine Larson tells you that they are out of luck because her lesbian POC firefighters can’t move heavy stones, well, that’s probably going to be the point when violence becomes the solution. But then again maybe I’m wrong. It’s been said many times that you can fix stupid. Viva California.
I remember the huge fires down near San Diego a couple of decades ago where the local law enforcement cuffed a property owner and let him watch his ranch burn because he had violated the sanctity of the green laws and bulldozed a fire break to try and save his property. California has always had some if the most beautiful real estate infested with stark raving lunatics. The lack of local forestry practices, refusal to expand resivour capacity and the total disregard for the fact that the LA basin is actually a desert if you don’t pump water in from… Read more »
Milo, I truly didn’t want to write this second post on the fires. But the growing scope of the catastrophe and the glaringly obvious incompetence of Democrat officials from the governor down cries out for retribution. Even the cowed and clueless denizens of LaLa Land must want to burn someone at the stake for this outrage. Surely one of them has a backbone.
Maybe, for a few $billion, we Floridians can rent our governor, Ron Desantis, to them for a couple of months. Remember when, during the hurricanes, Florida seems to be under such control? It turns out that the secret is to know that hurricanes are likely at a certain time of year and pre-plan for them. Pre-position supplies, people, material. Seems to me that in California, Santa Anna winds and wild fires are not exactly unexpected. But pre-plan for anything, meh, we’re busy with DEI and anyway, what’s for lunch? The Palisades reservoir dried out for maintenance in fire season? What’s… Read more »
Between his proven capacity to deal with emergencies and his policies to fight progressive culture wars DeSantis should be the template for red state governors. I know that he and Trump have had their rivalries but he is a great resource for getting things done.
Not flashy, just raw competence. I like that in a politician ever though it seems to be quite rare.
Yes. Compare that to Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.