Why do so many YouTube narrators have somewhat off-putting voices? But the content is interesting:
The fallout from the LA fires
A great many people seem to think that the abysmal and disgraceful failure of those in charge in California will lead to political change – that is, a turning to the right. I’m sure that will be true of some people, but I doubt it will be widespread enough to end one-party rule in that state.
There’s so much news around the LA fires that I’m going to resort to a roundup on the topic:
– A reservoir that serves Pacific Palisades was empty and being repaired at the time of the fire.
– Suspected arsonist arrested in Kenneth Fire.
– LA Mayor Karen Bass’ pro-Communist roots, by Roger L. Simon.
– Governor Newsom passes the buck to locals.
On a personal note, the photos of the burned-out areas of LA don’t surprise me at all. They look like Paradise did in 2018, except that was the whole town. When I went there about a month after the fire, I took tons of photos. They don’t do justice to the scope of the thing, but since I don’t believe I ever posted them, here are a few:
Bricks survive:
Antique cars:
This was an area where I used to walk:
The local Safeway and some shopping carts:
Arrival at Gerard’s house:
Leaving Paradise in the fog:
As I said, the photos don’t do it justice. Almost no buildings were left standing in a town of 30,000 people.
Judge Merchan unconditionally discharges Trump’s sentence in the “hush money” case
This was expected, but it is still news:
Judge Juan Merchan sentenced President-elect Donald Trump to unconditional discharge.
In New York, an unconditional discharge means the court found someone committed the crime but thinks a punishment doesn’t serve a purpose.
That means Trump won’t serve prison time, fine, or probation supervision.
The sentencing means Trump is a felon. None of us are stupid. We all know the whole point of this circus was to slap Trump with the felon label.
But they’ve been calling him a felon – a convicted felon – ever since the kangaroo court’s verdict. It was repeated over and over during the campaign. It wasn’t technically true till now, but I doubt most people care or cared about such niceties or have even been aware of them.
The lawfare that has been directed at Trump and others on the right has given a new meaning to the phrase “trumped up charges.” Every time someone on the left talked about how Trump was a convicted felon, it served to remind a great many people of the depths to which the left was willing to go – and actually had gone – to try to destroy Trump. It made the Trump opposition look bad, but they didn’t realize it, which was another example of how far they’d gone.
So now they get to continue to call him a felon. They’ve learned, though, that it didn’t much matter; Trump got elected anyway. It is, however, a way to continue to try to defame him and his supporters, by saying that those who voted for him don’t care about the law and are willing and even eager to vote for a criminal. Such arguments must appeal to those on the left, but fortunately that’s not the majority of the American people.
Remember that dockworkers’ strike that was postponed till mid-January, in order to help Biden prior to the election?
In case you don’t remember, this will refresh your memory:
The International Longshoremen’s Association, which represents 45,000 striking U.S. workers, said the union and USMX have reached a “tentative agreement on wages and have agreed to extend the Master Contract until January 15, 2025 to return to the bargaining table to negotiate all other outstanding issues.”
On Wednesday this announcement was made:
“We are pleased to announce that ILA and USMX have reached a tentative agreement on a new six-year ILA-USMX Master Contract, subject to ratification, thus averting any work stoppage on January 15, 2025,” the two parties said in a joint statement. “This agreement protects current ILA jobs and establishes a framework for implementing technologies that will create more jobs while modernizing East and Gulf coast ports – making them safer and more efficient, and creating the capacity they need to keep our supply chains strong.”
“This is a win-win agreement that creates ILA jobs, supports American consumers and businesses, and keeps the American economy the key hub of the global marketplace,” the statement added.
A separate statement from Harold Daggett, head of the ILA, gave “full credit” to Trump for the deal, telling the incoming president he has “proven…to be one of the best friends of working men and women in the United States.”
He credited a meeting he had with Trump last month as the reason the union won protections against automation.
A statement from Trump says this, among other things:
I’ve studied automation and know just about everything there is to know about it. The amount of money saved is nowhere near the distress, hurt and harm it causes for American Workers, in this case, our Longshoremen. Foreign companies have made a fortune in the U.S. by giving them access to our markets. They shouldn’t be looking for every last penny knowing how many families are hurt.”
Interesting.
Open thread 1/10/2025
Cute isn’t everything:
Trump and Obama at Carter’s funeral
Funerals make strange seatfellows:
Former President Barack Obama casually and amiably chats with Adolf Hitler as the latter is set to assume power in 11 days, end American democracy, and impose a white nationalist dictatorship. https://t.co/4tbj46yVk8
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 9, 2025
By the way, Laura Bush still looks fabulous. On the other hand, George W. Bush doesn’t, and he’s the same age as Trump. Is Bush ill?
The LA fires and the lack of water to fight them
There’s no shortage of criticism of the leadership of Los Angeles and the state of California in the wake of the Los Angeles fires. One of the biggest topics is the fact that, in Pacific Palisades, the hydrants went dry.
But the situation is more complicated than most people know. For example:
LADWP’s explanation for the shortage comes down to three nearby water tanks, each with a storage capacity of about a million gallons. These tanks help maintain enough pressure for water to travel uphill through pipes to homes and fire hydrants — but the pressure had decreased due to heavy water use, and officials knew the tanks couldn’t keep up the drain forever.
“We pushed the system to the extreme,” LADWP CEO Janisse Quiñones said in a news conference. “Four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our water pressure.”
According to LADWP, the tanks’ water supply needed to be replenished in order to provide enough pressure for the water to travel to fire hydrants uphill. But officials said as firefighters drew more and more water from the trunk line, or main supply, they used water that would have refilled the tanks, eventually depleting them.
That decreased the water pressure, which is needed for the water to travel uphill. …
… [F]ire hydrants have also run dry in the case of other wildfires that spread to urban areas, including the 2017 Tubbs Fire, 2024’s Mountain Fire and 2023’s Maui wildfires.
In these cases, firefighters have to rely on other water sources. For the Palisades Fire, LADWP brought in 19 water trucks, each with capacities of 4,000 gallons.
In LA and other parts of California, large fires are often fought with the addition of firefighting helicopters, but in the present fire the winds have been too high and the visibility too poor to use them.
Then there’s the topic of why California doesn’t have more reservoirs. If you read this article from 2023, you’ll learn a lot on that score. An excerpt:
Last century, California built dozens of large dams, creating the elaborate reservoir system that supplies the bulk of the state’s drinking and irrigation water. Now state officials and supporters are ready to build the next one.
The Sites Reservoir — planned in a remote corner of the western Sacramento Valley for at least 40 years — has been gaining steam and support since 2014, when voters approved Prop. 1, a water bond that authorized $2.7 billion for new storage projects.
Still, Sites Reservoir remains almost a decade away: Acquisition of water rights, permitting and environmental review are still in the works. Kickoff of construction, which includes two large dams, had been scheduled for 2024, but likely will be delayed another year. Completion is expected in 2030 or 2031.
That’s quite a time frame. And the dam would only help the situation about 3%.
More:
Jerry Brown (not the former governor of the same name) of the Sites Project Authority, which represents local water districts pursuing the project, said it takes many years to develop and plan projects of this scale.
“My personal rule of thumb is that for every year of construction you spend about three years in the planning-permitting-engineering stage,” he said. Since Sites’ construction takes six years, the process would be expected to take 18 years.
California is a state with too many people for its water supply, some special geological and climate challenges which present the possibility of disasters, environmentalists eager to block most potential solutions, and one-party Democrat rule. It’s a situation rife with possibilities for incompetence and corruption.
Two excellent and informative videos about Israel’s wars
If you’ve got the time, these two videos are rewarding. I ordinarily listen to these sorts of “talking heads” videos at a faster than normal speed.
The first is a Caroline Glick interview on the topic of Lebanon and the IDF:
And here’s a guy who does not pull his punches:
Roundup
(1) Zuckerberg rediscovers his inner libertarian and does away with fact-checkers, planning to replace them with “X”-style community notes.
(2) It turns out that neither the press nor Biden and company seem to think that Trump is really Hitler. Fancy that. But unfortunately many people – including some I know – took it all to heart and believe it at this point. The people I know who believe this are quite smart in other respects and are not especially gullible, either. I’m not sure why the “Trump is Hitler” propaganda took with some people and not with others.
(3) Karen Bass, current mayor of Los Angeles, is in big trouble:
Honestly, between the taxpayer-funded Ghana trip, the deer-in-headlights look in front of the reporter, and the awkward press conference, I don’t see how Bass survives this politically speaking. Because after all the smoke clears, the harsh glare of the media spotlight is going to shine down even brighter on her bigger failures which will include questions about funding for the fire department.
But Los Angeles is a Democrat-dominated city and they’re known for routinely voting for the same people/political party and yet expecting improved results each time.
(4) Many Democrats appear to be prepared to join with Republicans in voting for the Laken Riley Act.
(5) Biden’s corruption is actually the big “underreported story” of the last five years.
Open thread 1/9/2025
Waiting for January 20
Everyone is waiting for January 20th, when Trump takes office again.
Those who voted against Trump are waiting with dread, terror, or resignation.
Those who voted for Trump are waiting with eager anticipation and hope.
And I get the impression that the waiting isn’t limited to those in the US, and that most of the world is relieved that Trump will be in charge soon rather than the addled Biden and his faceless handlers.
Trump’s task will not be easy, however; not at all. I wrote of uncontained actual fires in California earlier today – well, there are a lot of uncontained metaphorical fires all over the world and in this country that will need his attention.
Have you experienced slowdowns and outages on the blog?
Every now and then lately, this blog has been slowing down or even going down, fortunately only for short periods of time. I’ve talked with the host and they don’t really know what’s happening, except that they say it seems to coincide with some bot attacks. And yet bot attacks have happened regularly for ages and haven’t caused slowdowns and outages, so I tend to doubt they’re the reason.
If it continues for long, I will have to consider another host. I really don’t want to do that, not only because it’s an annoyance but also because no host is perfect and it wouldn’t necessarily solve the problem. But please bear with me and let me know what you’ve been experiencing.