And They Brought The World to the Brink of Disaster

Biden's full throated endorsement of equity in his cabinet. 

Measuring optics and not results will lead to poor outcomes.

I Would Love to See Them Try

30% of young people think misgendering should be a crime. 

The Only Thing...

Our useless CA politicians can agree upon - no "price gouging" post-fires. During an emergency, they show you who they are - the only belief they collectively possess is belief in the anti-market and hence, redistribution.

Fire Arrests

60 people in LA arrested so far for looting and starting fires. Will they release the racial demographics to make sure the arrests are equitable and diverse, I wonder.

Logging

Book: Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

Some laugh out loud paragraphs about characters. For that, I read the book. Some folks call this a literary mystery novel. Is that code for a bad mystery? Because I guessed the main mystery about 1/3 of the way in. She pulls a decent "trick" by layering in a number of mysteries, so in fact, you are thinking to yourself while you get these sparse clues - how will this tie together? It's an interesting technique. The jumping around POVs and time was often off putting. She would occasionally end chapters on what I'd call - pre-climaxes - and withhold information that would inspire future action. So we'd get future actions with a gap in understanding the motivation or knowledge of the characters. Personally, I found this quite annoying. The time jumps backwards and forwards were often pointless and I felt done only as an attempt to create suspense when the narrative itself could not provide tension.

Why people like these books, I imagine, is they capture a certain vibe. Part of a broad category of what I'd call "female honesty" stories which purport to portray what is "really feels like" to be female. I find this code for - girls being shitty and finding complex ways to justify it. I haven't seen Babygirl, but it seems like an entry in this genre as well. My wife described the story and I said, if the genders were reversed, the man would be considered a monster. But when the women does it, it's considered "complex."

In any case, a certain type of female reader (lets just be clear here - liberal) seems to enjoy women who bash on motherhood, how much they hate children - including their own, how men are terrible and often worthy of murder, etc. The bad men in the story are indeed monsters - unexplored, uninteresting, monsters whereas the female monsters are complex, mysterious, and to be empathized with. I imagine this element is what readers enjoy - as a way vicariously to indulge their own "bad sides."

Not that there's anything wrong with it!

But all that said, I never hear anyone talk about the TV show Girls anymore and that was a pioneer in this genre. 

Portland Schools

For all those who think what's happening out there is an exaggeration, it is not. 

Ceasefire Crowd

Must be ecstatic today for all their hard work finally paying off.

Palestinians and Hamas

Now that there's a ceasefire, does anyone think the Palestinians will have a national discussion about what went wrong with Hamas's government and how they might govern themselves differently in the future?  

Ha

Good quote:  "One the one hand, Neil Gaiman appears to be a bad person, but on the other, he's also a terrible artist."

Once the nerds hired me to write some shit from them and convinced me I needed to get more literate in various comic book stuff. So among other things, they recommended Gaiman. I could barely get through the openings of anything he wrote - and remember - these are comic books!

Fear Not Right Wing Israelis

The right wingers in Israel who are disappointed in the ceasefire have nothing to fear. Hamas will attack again and they will get to continue their war.

Bass and Newsom

10% of me entertained giving these clowns a pass on the fires because the winds were so nuts. Wrong. Both have proved to be absolute clowns in the aftermath. Here, Newsom writes an order banning "greedy developers" from buying distressed properties. What? So he's preventing people from selling land in the aftermath of this tragedy? Also - anyone can simply say no to an offer. This is just pointless. 

Then Bass bans "price gouging" on rentals. What? That's just going to mean less available properties for people to move in.

Econ 101 should be a basic requirement for elected office. I'm sorry, these people are too dumb. 

"Palestinians"

I'm very puzzled by the so-called "pro-Palestinian" position. They seem to be delighted by the ceasefire plan that will get the Israel hostages back and keeps Hamas in tact. How is this a victory for the Palestinians? It just ensures another round will be fought sometime in the near future, the Israelis will justifiably keep the Palestinians from having a state, and thousands more Palestinians will die. They seem to think international goodwill will turn against Israel. Wrong. No one cares. If there is peace, the international community will rightly come to believe that Israel deterred their enemies successfully. If there is more terrorism against Israel, it will justify Israel returning to the battlefield for Round 25. These folks have put themselves into a forever losing position. Psychotic.

An Issue - "Extremistan"

As we are learning with LA fires, single events can be worse than ALL PRIOR events combined...

A very big concern when it comes to war. 

Hmmm

Karen Bass promised to not travel abroad if elected mayor. That darn internet not good for politicians. 

Soliciters - God Is The Mother

Just got a soliciter that wanted to talk to me about God being a mother or a woman. Is this a new cult? The aftermath of these wildfires gonna be weird - I'm sure gun ownership going up a lot, new cults appearing, a whole lot of red pilling...

Not A Good Look

Newsom criticizes Trump's understanding of state water policy, yet he seems to not understand it as well. And well, this is his state...

GAVIN NEWSOM: All of our reservoirs here in southern California are full. 

REPORTER: One of them was actually not full - the one that serves the Palisdes [which is on fire]. 

 NEWSOM: That's why I asked for an investigation.

Envy

Anyone against private firefighting is motivated by irrational envy.  But do you see how this is working?

State failure to protect city.

Private citizen anticipates problem, protects self.

State sics mob on private citizen for protecting self.

Atlas Shrugged folks.

Note - next time to have opportunity to elect mayor - vote for the guy who anticipates the problem. 

Political Philosophy

Democrats political philosophy is that people are too stupid to understand humor, truth, or make their own decisions in the face of uncertainty. Thus, they don't trust market results or believe in free speech. Their point of view might work if those making policies were entirely 160 IQ plus geniuses, but the reality is that the decisions are made by 105 IQ mediocrities and so we get the worse of both worlds. Dummies making policies for dummies.

100 MPH Winds

The winds were crazy and the worst I've seen since I've lived here. So part of me dips into the headspace of - can we really blame these politicians? But the knowledge that our politicians in California don't serve the people and the infrastructure of the state, but instead this strange new progressive ideology isn't wrong. Many of us warned of exactly this - taking our eyes off the ball - and how DEI is by definition in opposition to institutional competence. Sadly, the results are bearing out our predictions across many fields and situations. I don't know how much more obvious it can be. And perhaps rather than debating whether DEI had anything to do with the fires - we should put the shoe on the other foot - and ask what's an example of DEI making an institution, business, or industry MORE CAPABLE and successful?

Code

"Lets not assign blame or make this political" when coming from the mouth of a politician generally means "this is probably my fault." 

Same thing when an employer says "we're all in this together," this means "I fucked up and I'm asking you to pay the price."

Women?

Anyone else noticing women seem to be the bosses of all these major agencies and cities in LA? 

"Equity" 

LAWP leader #1 priority is equity and social justice.

For the next head honcho, may I suggest #1 priority: filling reservoirs and maintaining water pressure to fire hydrants and keeping water clean.

Climate Change

Apparently somehow caused the water in the Palisades reservoir to be empty right when it was needed.

Does anyone realize we elect mayors and city council people to enact LOCAL policies. We don't care what they think or don't think about global climate change. This would be like me going into a screenwriting class and teaching them about what Warner Brothers should greenlight for 2026.

Tide Turned

If you work in DEI, start redoing your resume. 

Regardless of Climate Change

Newsom should explain why we didn't do more controlled burns. 

Everyone who voted for Newsom and didn't vote for his recall can blame themselves for the mess we are in.

DEI

Imagine if we spent all the DEI money and energy on fire suppression and preparation. 

Explain This

Does anyone in LA and California think we are well governed? 

Does anyone in LA and California vote?

Question

If the cause of the LA fires is not politically convenient for Democratic politicians, do you think we will be finding out about it?