First thing CA needs to do is start a recall for Newsom and Bass and vote heavily to fight the corrupt system to get the recall passed. Then proceed to recall any DA not prosecuting and jailing criminals. Until they start to reclaim justice, not social justice, prosecute, help with deportations, CA will continue down the drain.
Hi Ruth - all true! The concerning thing though is that the CA electoral process appears to be deeply flawed, if not actually corrupt. The issue is that there's no one with authority to investigate it, apart from the very people who would benefit from any such corruption.
Corrupt to the core. That’s why they need to vote in huge numbers and work hard to get required signatures. It’s past time for them to be lackadaisical about their state’s leaders and demand better. Dems need to unite against these corrupt politicians and their phony initiatives. If this isn’t a wake-up call, then they only have themselves to blame if status quo is allowed to continue.
I was born in SanFran, grew up (to 15) in San Rafael. 1952-1967. It was a magical place. Then, the universities went crazy and it all ran headfirst to hell. And it's been downhill ever since. I went back in 1973 to show my great aunt in San Jose her new 2nd grand niece, and found her and my uncle afraid to leave their home, because of the "peaceniks" who constantly harassed them for being "rich whites" (they were descendents of Spanish royalty whose family had been here since the early 1600s and had settled most of New Mexico and South Central Texas. There's a lot of us in the southwest). They were just elderly middle class Americans.
I'm afraid the rot goes so deep that it will take more than even these conflagrations to effect the kind of changes you envision.
Hi Rita--Thank you for reading, and i'm sorry to hear about your experience with the plight of SF! While you may be right (the rot is too deep), there is always a breaking point. Have we reached it? Maybe. Probably not as you say. It might take a generation or more, but those people you mention and their increasingly warped ideology will hopefully come to be known as the 'plague' that wreaked havoc on the West Coast during the early 21st century...
“Despite billions of dollars being thrown at the issue, the city’s homeless population is expected to increase dramatically by 2028.”
I think it’s more “because of billions of dollars”, etc. You get more of what you subsidize, of course, but much of this money is spent on a bureaucratic infrastructure whose sole reason for existence is the homeless problem. It’s hard to get somebody to solve a problem when their paycheck depends on the problem persisting, and especially when promotions can be had if the problem gets worse.
Important point. I wonder how people would react if someone were to suggest privatizing say, the homelessness crisis. Perhaps a 3-4 year contract with a private entity and payment contingencies based on results. I bet efficiency would improve dramatically.
Until the absurdity of woke is out and elections are secured with citizenship, voting day ID, same day counting of paper ballots..., I don't see change, as the election system is completely corrupted and has been for decades!
This was a wonderful article. I am however disgusted with a Mayor who takes a taxpayer vacation to Ghana knowing there is a huge issue and a great potential for this kind of disaster. In my opinion, she needs to be arrested when her returning plane touches down. I also think the $750,000 per year person also paid with tax dollars should have been doing something about this situation instead of sitting on her brains.
The other thing about these fires that is going to make me exceedingly angry is there are people living in tents in WNC. Fema will haul ass to get to California and help. They have been worthless in WNC. They even declared a donated trailer to be unfit and put a couple with an 18 mo old back in a tent after one night in a heated trailer. Oh wait, do they care that the 18mo old little girl froze to death the next night as they were back in the tent? Were they even there to hear the Mother's screams? Nah, they were warm and toasty at home.
Hi Rebecka--that's actually an important comparison that I haven't really heard anyone else making. I mean, what you say is totally unsurprising given what we already know, but still appalling. I wonder what a side-by-side comparison of the FEMA response data for CA vs WNC would reveal? I think it would leave a very bad taste in people's mouths if publicized widely.
Let me know if you find out. Because I am sure FEMA will be all over LA. Most of those who went to WNC were asked to leave. One guy told some farmers they couldn't use their equipment to build a road. They asked who he was, he replied her was FEMA. They politely told him to get in his car and drive away like a responsible person and not the way he'd come in which was excessive speed for a dirt road not finished.
It won’t be publisized. In WNC illegals are being given $32,000 by FEMA. Locals who lost everything some including loved ones can get a $750 loan. There is no payback for the illegals. But no one is reporting this. I am sick of the sob stories coming out of LA. WNC/ETN have been under worse circumstances and no one is filming them. Go watch half a dozen reels on FB. They tell the story. The one that broke my heart yesterday. was kids riding on a school bus to school. They have to see this devastation Every. Single. Day to and from school. What kind of scares is this leaving? They cannot understand why more people are not coming to help.
After decades of embezzlement, bribery, rapes, lynching's, child sexual and physical abuse in public schools. and political violence and terrorism by N.C. judicial, law enforcement & government officials, aided by DOJ, FBI, other Federal Agencies & officials.
Sexual abuse of children, violence toward political “threats” to corrupt NC officials, aid to these crimes by NC & Federal government, judicial, law enforcement, “trusted” institutions, media...the traumatized victims and grieving families DO NOT MATTER in NC.
District Attorney Office's used for rape, theft of taxpayer funds, child abuse and sadistic violence are NC's "Culture of Corruption," according to the FBI. This is the same FBI that has and continues to aid and collude in criminal misconduct "Under color of law," subverting with violence representative democracy, Rule of Law, Constitutional & civil rights, due process, whistleblower protections, protection of minors from abuse & sexual violence trauma, engaging in sadistic brutality, torture, deprivation of basic rights, and deliberate, dehumanizing torment of crime victims (including minors).
Extensive undeniable evidence illustrates US DOJ, FBI, US Attorney for Eastern NC, the corrupt son of a corrupt Governor appointed by a President who LOVES consequence-free Corrupt Political Family Criminality, NC Attorney (soon to be Governor) General Josh Stein & predecessor child rape & DA rapist abettor Gov. Roy Cooper.
The FBI and DOJ along with Congress, State and Local officials, government leaders & personnel in violation of the law and public trust, and bribed media paid with taxpayer dollars to invent purely fictional stories intended to destroy & discredit any “threat” to NC’s pervasive, sadistic, deviant “Culture of Corruption,” together (Fed, State & Local).
The FBI aggressively, criminally, utilizes violence, torture and the corrupt, broken judicial system as evil as the FBI, and officials who are responsible for such evil relish subverting the Rule of Law, legal procedures & Due Process, undermining local democratic government for the corrupt allies of these CORRUPT institutions, and providing for embezzlement of public funds for personal theft, and aiding armed violence, brutality, extortion, retaliation, violent, horrific, persistent, criminal, sinister acts resulting in death, or worse, and subjecting innocent victims to a fate worse than death.
Followed by life-ruining attacks on families, businesses, and reputations, using bribery & aid of media, law enforcement, clergy, both major political parties and officials to torture, brutalize, and compel under penalty of death by armed deputies operating as an armed hit squad under the DA and Sheriff.
This pattern has been repeated for decades, but none of the smeared victims has ever committed any crimes prior to or after this collusion to destroy any opponent to corruption and proponent of democracy, justice, law-and-order & public service by the US DOJ and its FBI and relevant divisions in violation of its mission and claimed purpose. Evidence provided upon request and the US DOJ, FBI & corrupt Biden-Harris appointed US Attorney for Eastern District North Carolina.
Chickens come home to roost eventually…maybe imminently, often years or decades after pervasive, cherished citizen and clergy indifference to corruption, injustice and evil criminal cultural & political values.
Disdain for Christian virtues, Judeo-Christian values, justice, Rule of Law, empathy, Constitutional & civil rights, government & media accountability. Secular shared lack of basic decency, ethics, accountability & empathy, and cheered, rewarded violence targeting anyone courageous enough to fight for public not selfish interests AND OPPOSE corrupt, criminal government, public & community institutional corruption.
EXAMPLE: child sexual abuse and lynching rewarded by North Carolina, aided by Federal “partners” US DOJ, FBI, Congress and media, Rapes by DAs and Gov. Roy Cooper, Josh Stein and others, theft and smear campaigns using public funds that could have prevented recent tragedies, promoted justice and fixing a broken justice system, and other benefits in policy. Citizen preference for persecution, hatred and torture, unspeakable sadism to DESTROY any “threat” to what the FBI called a “Culture of Corruption” has consequences beyond providing laughter for these sins of N.C. and other CORRUPT populations!
FIX T NOW. DEMAND ACTION AND HOLD OFFICIALS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR YEARS OF CRIMINAL VIOLENT CRIMES & ABUSES OF POWER. Replace the U.S. Dept. of Justice and FBI for being too complicit in corruption, child sexual abuse, habitual government & criminal justice system misconduct with the aid of DOJ & FBI at every level from the top-down.
What's called for is a deeper dive into what runs us. We need radical system change, where humanity goes from being exploitive and self-serving to being caring and serving humanitarian ends. With each tragedy, the hope is that it will be the tipping point to shake us awake to where we will handle everything in the most life-giving manner.
I predicted a few weeks ago that there would be a Republican resurgence in California. It’s very sad that this happened. I don’t want to make light of it so I’ll restrict myself to a general observation: people are now often so comfortable and atomized and neurotic that I think they lose touch with base realities and human nature (war, crime, punishment, evil, greed, danger,etc.). Sometimes it requires a confrontation with the seriousness of the world to bring people back to reality. Opinions are grand but crime and greed and war are real. So is nature.
Mike Davis | Ecology of Fear | Metropolitan Books | September 1998
The Case for Letting Malibu Burn
Many of California’s native ecosystems evolved to burn. Modern fire suppression creates fuels that lead to catastrophic fires. So why do people insist on rebuilding in the firebelt?
(Extract)
“Less well understood in the old days was the essential dependence of the dominant vegetation of the Santa Monicas—chamise chaparral, coastal sage scrub, and live oak woodland—upon this cycle of wildfire. Decades of research (especially at the San Dimas Experimental Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains) have given late-twentieth-century science vivid insights into the complex and ultimately beneficial role of fire in recycling nutrients and ensuring seed germination in Southern California’s various pyrophytic flora. Research has also established the overwhelming importance of biomass accumulation rather than ignition frequency in regulating fire destructiveness. As Richard Minnich, the world authority on chaparral brushfire, emphasizes: “Fuel, not ignitions, causes fire. You can send an arsonist to Death Valley and he’ll never be arrested.”
A key revelation was the nonlinear relationship between the age structure of vegetation and the intensity of fire. Botanists and fire geographers discovered that “the probability for an intense fast running fire increases dramatically as the fuels exceed twenty years of age.” Indeed, half-century-old chaparral—heavily laden with dead mass—is calculated to burn with 50 times more intensity than 20-year-old chaparral. Put another way, an acre of old chaparral is the fuel equivalent of about 75 barrels of crude oil. Expanding these calculations even further, a great Malibu firestorm could generate the heat of three million barrels of burning oil at a temperature of 2,000 degrees.
“Total fire suppression,” the official policy in the Southern California mountains since 1919, has been a tragic error because it creates enormous stockpiles of fuel. The extreme fires that eventually occur can transform the chemical structure of the soil itself. The volatilization of certain plant chemicals creates a water-repellent layer in the upper soil, and this layer, by preventing percolation, dramatically accelerates subsequent sheet flooding and erosion. A monomaniacal obsession with managing ignition rather than chaparral accumulation simply makes doomsday-like firestorms and the great floods that follow them virtually inevitable.” The Case for Letting Malibu Burn
Many of California’s native ecosystems evolved to burn. Modern fire suppression creates fuels that lead to catastrophic fires. So why do people insist on rebuilding in the firebelt?
“Less well understood in the old days was the essential dependence of the dominant vegetation of the Santa Monicas—chamise chaparral, coastal sage scrub, and live oak woodland—upon this cycle of wildfire. Decades of research (especially at the San Dimas Experimental Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains) have given late-twentieth-century science vivid insights into the complex and ultimately beneficial role of fire in recycling nutrients and ensuring seed germination in Southern California’s various pyrophytic flora. Research has also established the overwhelming importance of biomass accumulation rather than ignition frequency in regulating fire destructiveness. As Richard Minnich, the world authority on chaparral brushfire, emphasizes: “Fuel, not ignitions, causes fire. You can send an arsonist to Death Valley and he’ll never be arrested.”
A key revelation was the nonlinear relationship between the age structure of vegetation and the intensity of fire. Botanists and fire geographers discovered that “the probability for an intense fast running fire increases dramatically as the fuels exceed twenty years of age.” Indeed, half-century-old chaparral—heavily laden with dead mass—is calculated to burn with 50 times more intensity than 20-year-old chaparral. Put another way, an acre of old chaparral is the fuel equivalent of about 75 barrels of crude oil. Expanding these calculations even further, a great Malibu firestorm could generate the heat of three million barrels of burning oil at a temperature of 2,000 degrees.
“Total fire suppression,” the official policy in the Southern California mountains since 1919, has been a tragic error because it creates enormous stockpiles of fuel. The extreme fires that eventually occur can transform the chemical structure of the soil itself. The volatilization of certain plant chemicals creates a water-repellent layer in the upper soil, and this layer, by preventing percolation, dramatically accelerates subsequent sheet flooding and erosion. A monomaniacal obsession with managing ignition rather than chaparral accumulation simply makes doomsday-like firestorms and the great floods that follow them virtually inevitable.”
Yeah this doesn't surprise me. I've heard the problems with SoCal's “Total fire suppression” highlighted publicly for years, yet no one has sought to change it. As we say in the article, the entire political ecosystem in CA is self-serving, toxic, and broken. Possibly beyond repair. Thanks for reading, Dave! Hope you enjoyed the article :)
I counted two maybes and three perhapses. I don't recall any mights or coulds. You're one might and one could shy of qualifying for this week's prize for 'Greatest Flight of Fancy Caused by Overdosing on Woke.' Better luck next time.
This year's deadly wildfires were predicted and unnecessary.
J.D. TUCCILLE | 1.13.2025
(Extract)
"Proactive measures like thinning and prescribed burns can significantly reduce wildfire risks, but such projects are often tied up for years in environmental reviews or lawsuits," Shawn Regan, vice president of research at the Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), told me by email. "In places like California, these delays have had devastating consequences, with restoration work stalled while communities and ecosystems burn to the ground. Addressing the wildfire crisis will require bold policy changes to streamline reviews, cut red tape, and ensure these projects can move forward before it's too late."
For example, as I've written before, under the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), members of the public and activist groups can formally object to proposed actions, such as forest thinning, through a bureaucratic process that slows matters to a crawl. If that doesn't deliver results, they move their challenges to the courts and litigate them into submission. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) creates additional red-tape hurdles at the state level, imposing years of delays.
Regan and his colleagues at PERC have frequently addressed this subject-presciently, you might say, except that everybody except California government officials saw this moment coming.
California has failed to effectively manage its forests. "Decades of fire suppression, coupled with a hands-off approach to forest management, have created dangerous fuel loads (the amount of combustible material in a particular area," Regan wrote. Ominously, he added: "With conditions like this, all it takes to ignite an inferno is a spark and some wind."
In 2020, Elizabeth Weil of ProPublica also named California's forest management as a serious concern.
"Academics believe that between 4.4 million and 11.8 million acres burned each year in prehistoric California," Weil noted. "Between 1982 and 1998, California's agency land managers burned, on average, about 30,000 acres a year. Between 1999 and 2017, that number dropped to an annual 13,000 acres." She emphasized that "California would need to burn 20 million acres—an area about the size of Maine — to destabilize in terms of fire.
In 2021, Holly Fretwell and Jonathan Wood of PERC published Fix America's Forests: Reforms to Restore National Forests, recommending means to address wildfire risks in California and across the country. To claims that the wildfire problem is overwhelmingly one of climate change, they respond that a "study led by Forest Service scientists estimated that of four factors driving fire severity in the western United States, live fuel 'was the most important,' accounting for 53 percent of average relative influence, while climate accounted for 14 percent." Climate matters, but other policy choices matter more.
Fretwell and Wood recommend restricting the scope of regulatory reviews that stands in the way of forest restoration, requiring that lawsuits against restoration projects be filed quickly, and excluding prescribed burns from carbon emissions calculations that can stand in the way of such projects.
"There is broad agreement on the need for better forest management, but outdated policies and regulatory hurdles continue to delay critical restoration efforts," Regan told me.
If government officials finally take these hard-learned lessons to heart and ease the process of providing and storing water, restoring forests, and fighting fires, Californians might be spared from future disasters. They seem poised to work with the incoming Trump administration on exactly that. But reforms will come too late for those who have already lost lives, homes, and businesses.”
First thing CA needs to do is start a recall for Newsom and Bass and vote heavily to fight the corrupt system to get the recall passed. Then proceed to recall any DA not prosecuting and jailing criminals. Until they start to reclaim justice, not social justice, prosecute, help with deportations, CA will continue down the drain.
Hi Ruth - all true! The concerning thing though is that the CA electoral process appears to be deeply flawed, if not actually corrupt. The issue is that there's no one with authority to investigate it, apart from the very people who would benefit from any such corruption.
Corrupt to the core. That’s why they need to vote in huge numbers and work hard to get required signatures. It’s past time for them to be lackadaisical about their state’s leaders and demand better. Dems need to unite against these corrupt politicians and their phony initiatives. If this isn’t a wake-up call, then they only have themselves to blame if status quo is allowed to continue.
The reason things might change isn’t because it affected so many, but because it affected so many rich people.
Cynical but probably true...
I was born in SanFran, grew up (to 15) in San Rafael. 1952-1967. It was a magical place. Then, the universities went crazy and it all ran headfirst to hell. And it's been downhill ever since. I went back in 1973 to show my great aunt in San Jose her new 2nd grand niece, and found her and my uncle afraid to leave their home, because of the "peaceniks" who constantly harassed them for being "rich whites" (they were descendents of Spanish royalty whose family had been here since the early 1600s and had settled most of New Mexico and South Central Texas. There's a lot of us in the southwest). They were just elderly middle class Americans.
I'm afraid the rot goes so deep that it will take more than even these conflagrations to effect the kind of changes you envision.
Hi Rita--Thank you for reading, and i'm sorry to hear about your experience with the plight of SF! While you may be right (the rot is too deep), there is always a breaking point. Have we reached it? Maybe. Probably not as you say. It might take a generation or more, but those people you mention and their increasingly warped ideology will hopefully come to be known as the 'plague' that wreaked havoc on the West Coast during the early 21st century...
“Despite billions of dollars being thrown at the issue, the city’s homeless population is expected to increase dramatically by 2028.”
I think it’s more “because of billions of dollars”, etc. You get more of what you subsidize, of course, but much of this money is spent on a bureaucratic infrastructure whose sole reason for existence is the homeless problem. It’s hard to get somebody to solve a problem when their paycheck depends on the problem persisting, and especially when promotions can be had if the problem gets worse.
Important point. I wonder how people would react if someone were to suggest privatizing say, the homelessness crisis. Perhaps a 3-4 year contract with a private entity and payment contingencies based on results. I bet efficiency would improve dramatically.
Until the absurdity of woke is out and elections are secured with citizenship, voting day ID, same day counting of paper ballots..., I don't see change, as the election system is completely corrupted and has been for decades!
This was a wonderful article. I am however disgusted with a Mayor who takes a taxpayer vacation to Ghana knowing there is a huge issue and a great potential for this kind of disaster. In my opinion, she needs to be arrested when her returning plane touches down. I also think the $750,000 per year person also paid with tax dollars should have been doing something about this situation instead of sitting on her brains.
The other thing about these fires that is going to make me exceedingly angry is there are people living in tents in WNC. Fema will haul ass to get to California and help. They have been worthless in WNC. They even declared a donated trailer to be unfit and put a couple with an 18 mo old back in a tent after one night in a heated trailer. Oh wait, do they care that the 18mo old little girl froze to death the next night as they were back in the tent? Were they even there to hear the Mother's screams? Nah, they were warm and toasty at home.
Hi Rebecka--that's actually an important comparison that I haven't really heard anyone else making. I mean, what you say is totally unsurprising given what we already know, but still appalling. I wonder what a side-by-side comparison of the FEMA response data for CA vs WNC would reveal? I think it would leave a very bad taste in people's mouths if publicized widely.
Let me know if you find out. Because I am sure FEMA will be all over LA. Most of those who went to WNC were asked to leave. One guy told some farmers they couldn't use their equipment to build a road. They asked who he was, he replied her was FEMA. They politely told him to get in his car and drive away like a responsible person and not the way he'd come in which was excessive speed for a dirt road not finished.
It won’t be publisized. In WNC illegals are being given $32,000 by FEMA. Locals who lost everything some including loved ones can get a $750 loan. There is no payback for the illegals. But no one is reporting this. I am sick of the sob stories coming out of LA. WNC/ETN have been under worse circumstances and no one is filming them. Go watch half a dozen reels on FB. They tell the story. The one that broke my heart yesterday. was kids riding on a school bus to school. They have to see this devastation Every. Single. Day to and from school. What kind of scares is this leaving? They cannot understand why more people are not coming to help.
Superb article! Loved the Phoenix rising from the ashes vibe, rebirth,reset and renewal. Hope and transformation. Good stuff!
Thanks Andi!
https://justice4all.substack.com/p/federal-state-officials-aiding-criminal-662
NC's "Culture of Corruption" from Coast to Raleigh to D.C. Damns Asheville Flood Victims.
https://open.substack.com/pub/justice4all/p/reform-or-replace-the-us-dept-of-3df?r=o62no&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
After decades of embezzlement, bribery, rapes, lynching's, child sexual and physical abuse in public schools. and political violence and terrorism by N.C. judicial, law enforcement & government officials, aided by DOJ, FBI, other Federal Agencies & officials.
https://justice4all.substack.com/p/federal-state-officials-aiding-criminal?r=o62no&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&fbclid=IwAR3IocGge8vnFE-QLiYE27mxzMR6NWujzMiZsZB9E8GuZYoJpmMR-5a-sZk
Sexual abuse of children, violence toward political “threats” to corrupt NC officials, aid to these crimes by NC & Federal government, judicial, law enforcement, “trusted” institutions, media...the traumatized victims and grieving families DO NOT MATTER in NC.
District Attorney Office's used for rape, theft of taxpayer funds, child abuse and sadistic violence are NC's "Culture of Corruption," according to the FBI. This is the same FBI that has and continues to aid and collude in criminal misconduct "Under color of law," subverting with violence representative democracy, Rule of Law, Constitutional & civil rights, due process, whistleblower protections, protection of minors from abuse & sexual violence trauma, engaging in sadistic brutality, torture, deprivation of basic rights, and deliberate, dehumanizing torment of crime victims (including minors).
Extensive undeniable evidence illustrates US DOJ, FBI, US Attorney for Eastern NC, the corrupt son of a corrupt Governor appointed by a President who LOVES consequence-free Corrupt Political Family Criminality, NC Attorney (soon to be Governor) General Josh Stein & predecessor child rape & DA rapist abettor Gov. Roy Cooper.
The FBI and DOJ along with Congress, State and Local officials, government leaders & personnel in violation of the law and public trust, and bribed media paid with taxpayer dollars to invent purely fictional stories intended to destroy & discredit any “threat” to NC’s pervasive, sadistic, deviant “Culture of Corruption,” together (Fed, State & Local).
The FBI aggressively, criminally, utilizes violence, torture and the corrupt, broken judicial system as evil as the FBI, and officials who are responsible for such evil relish subverting the Rule of Law, legal procedures & Due Process, undermining local democratic government for the corrupt allies of these CORRUPT institutions, and providing for embezzlement of public funds for personal theft, and aiding armed violence, brutality, extortion, retaliation, violent, horrific, persistent, criminal, sinister acts resulting in death, or worse, and subjecting innocent victims to a fate worse than death.
Followed by life-ruining attacks on families, businesses, and reputations, using bribery & aid of media, law enforcement, clergy, both major political parties and officials to torture, brutalize, and compel under penalty of death by armed deputies operating as an armed hit squad under the DA and Sheriff.
This pattern has been repeated for decades, but none of the smeared victims has ever committed any crimes prior to or after this collusion to destroy any opponent to corruption and proponent of democracy, justice, law-and-order & public service by the US DOJ and its FBI and relevant divisions in violation of its mission and claimed purpose. Evidence provided upon request and the US DOJ, FBI & corrupt Biden-Harris appointed US Attorney for Eastern District North Carolina.
https://justice4all.substack.com/p/federal-state-officials-aiding-criminal-662
https://justice4all.substack.com/p/cape-fear-the-corruption-and-political?r=o62no&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Chickens come home to roost eventually…maybe imminently, often years or decades after pervasive, cherished citizen and clergy indifference to corruption, injustice and evil criminal cultural & political values.
Disdain for Christian virtues, Judeo-Christian values, justice, Rule of Law, empathy, Constitutional & civil rights, government & media accountability. Secular shared lack of basic decency, ethics, accountability & empathy, and cheered, rewarded violence targeting anyone courageous enough to fight for public not selfish interests AND OPPOSE corrupt, criminal government, public & community institutional corruption.
EXAMPLE: child sexual abuse and lynching rewarded by North Carolina, aided by Federal “partners” US DOJ, FBI, Congress and media, Rapes by DAs and Gov. Roy Cooper, Josh Stein and others, theft and smear campaigns using public funds that could have prevented recent tragedies, promoted justice and fixing a broken justice system, and other benefits in policy. Citizen preference for persecution, hatred and torture, unspeakable sadism to DESTROY any “threat” to what the FBI called a “Culture of Corruption” has consequences beyond providing laughter for these sins of N.C. and other CORRUPT populations!
FIX T NOW. DEMAND ACTION AND HOLD OFFICIALS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR YEARS OF CRIMINAL VIOLENT CRIMES & ABUSES OF POWER. Replace the U.S. Dept. of Justice and FBI for being too complicit in corruption, child sexual abuse, habitual government & criminal justice system misconduct with the aid of DOJ & FBI at every level from the top-down.
What's called for is a deeper dive into what runs us. We need radical system change, where humanity goes from being exploitive and self-serving to being caring and serving humanitarian ends. With each tragedy, the hope is that it will be the tipping point to shake us awake to where we will handle everything in the most life-giving manner.
I predicted a few weeks ago that there would be a Republican resurgence in California. It’s very sad that this happened. I don’t want to make light of it so I’ll restrict myself to a general observation: people are now often so comfortable and atomized and neurotic that I think they lose touch with base realities and human nature (war, crime, punishment, evil, greed, danger,etc.). Sometimes it requires a confrontation with the seriousness of the world to bring people back to reality. Opinions are grand but crime and greed and war are real. So is nature.
Indeed. Hopefully it doesn't take a full-scale war to fully bring people back to reality. Thanks for reading as always, James!
The Great fire was in September 1666. Plague 1965.
Great read and a really interesting analogy! I hope you’re right, it’s depressing to see what’s happened in California
Thanks for reading, Ange!!
Mike Davis | Ecology of Fear | Metropolitan Books | September 1998
The Case for Letting Malibu Burn
Many of California’s native ecosystems evolved to burn. Modern fire suppression creates fuels that lead to catastrophic fires. So why do people insist on rebuilding in the firebelt?
(Extract)
“Less well understood in the old days was the essential dependence of the dominant vegetation of the Santa Monicas—chamise chaparral, coastal sage scrub, and live oak woodland—upon this cycle of wildfire. Decades of research (especially at the San Dimas Experimental Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains) have given late-twentieth-century science vivid insights into the complex and ultimately beneficial role of fire in recycling nutrients and ensuring seed germination in Southern California’s various pyrophytic flora. Research has also established the overwhelming importance of biomass accumulation rather than ignition frequency in regulating fire destructiveness. As Richard Minnich, the world authority on chaparral brushfire, emphasizes: “Fuel, not ignitions, causes fire. You can send an arsonist to Death Valley and he’ll never be arrested.”
A key revelation was the nonlinear relationship between the age structure of vegetation and the intensity of fire. Botanists and fire geographers discovered that “the probability for an intense fast running fire increases dramatically as the fuels exceed twenty years of age.” Indeed, half-century-old chaparral—heavily laden with dead mass—is calculated to burn with 50 times more intensity than 20-year-old chaparral. Put another way, an acre of old chaparral is the fuel equivalent of about 75 barrels of crude oil. Expanding these calculations even further, a great Malibu firestorm could generate the heat of three million barrels of burning oil at a temperature of 2,000 degrees.
“Total fire suppression,” the official policy in the Southern California mountains since 1919, has been a tragic error because it creates enormous stockpiles of fuel. The extreme fires that eventually occur can transform the chemical structure of the soil itself. The volatilization of certain plant chemicals creates a water-repellent layer in the upper soil, and this layer, by preventing percolation, dramatically accelerates subsequent sheet flooding and erosion. A monomaniacal obsession with managing ignition rather than chaparral accumulation simply makes doomsday-like firestorms and the great floods that follow them virtually inevitable.” The Case for Letting Malibu Burn
Many of California’s native ecosystems evolved to burn. Modern fire suppression creates fuels that lead to catastrophic fires. So why do people insist on rebuilding in the firebelt?
“Less well understood in the old days was the essential dependence of the dominant vegetation of the Santa Monicas—chamise chaparral, coastal sage scrub, and live oak woodland—upon this cycle of wildfire. Decades of research (especially at the San Dimas Experimental Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains) have given late-twentieth-century science vivid insights into the complex and ultimately beneficial role of fire in recycling nutrients and ensuring seed germination in Southern California’s various pyrophytic flora. Research has also established the overwhelming importance of biomass accumulation rather than ignition frequency in regulating fire destructiveness. As Richard Minnich, the world authority on chaparral brushfire, emphasizes: “Fuel, not ignitions, causes fire. You can send an arsonist to Death Valley and he’ll never be arrested.”
A key revelation was the nonlinear relationship between the age structure of vegetation and the intensity of fire. Botanists and fire geographers discovered that “the probability for an intense fast running fire increases dramatically as the fuels exceed twenty years of age.” Indeed, half-century-old chaparral—heavily laden with dead mass—is calculated to burn with 50 times more intensity than 20-year-old chaparral. Put another way, an acre of old chaparral is the fuel equivalent of about 75 barrels of crude oil. Expanding these calculations even further, a great Malibu firestorm could generate the heat of three million barrels of burning oil at a temperature of 2,000 degrees.
“Total fire suppression,” the official policy in the Southern California mountains since 1919, has been a tragic error because it creates enormous stockpiles of fuel. The extreme fires that eventually occur can transform the chemical structure of the soil itself. The volatilization of certain plant chemicals creates a water-repellent layer in the upper soil, and this layer, by preventing percolation, dramatically accelerates subsequent sheet flooding and erosion. A monomaniacal obsession with managing ignition rather than chaparral accumulation simply makes doomsday-like firestorms and the great floods that follow them virtually inevitable.”
Yeah this doesn't surprise me. I've heard the problems with SoCal's “Total fire suppression” highlighted publicly for years, yet no one has sought to change it. As we say in the article, the entire political ecosystem in CA is self-serving, toxic, and broken. Possibly beyond repair. Thanks for reading, Dave! Hope you enjoyed the article :)
I counted two maybes and three perhapses. I don't recall any mights or coulds. You're one might and one could shy of qualifying for this week's prize for 'Greatest Flight of Fancy Caused by Overdosing on Woke.' Better luck next time.
darn
Reason Magazine
California's Fire
Catastrophe Is Largely a
Result of Bad
Government Policies
This year's deadly wildfires were predicted and unnecessary.
J.D. TUCCILLE | 1.13.2025
(Extract)
"Proactive measures like thinning and prescribed burns can significantly reduce wildfire risks, but such projects are often tied up for years in environmental reviews or lawsuits," Shawn Regan, vice president of research at the Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), told me by email. "In places like California, these delays have had devastating consequences, with restoration work stalled while communities and ecosystems burn to the ground. Addressing the wildfire crisis will require bold policy changes to streamline reviews, cut red tape, and ensure these projects can move forward before it's too late."
For example, as I've written before, under the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), members of the public and activist groups can formally object to proposed actions, such as forest thinning, through a bureaucratic process that slows matters to a crawl. If that doesn't deliver results, they move their challenges to the courts and litigate them into submission. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) creates additional red-tape hurdles at the state level, imposing years of delays.
Regan and his colleagues at PERC have frequently addressed this subject-presciently, you might say, except that everybody except California government officials saw this moment coming.
California has failed to effectively manage its forests. "Decades of fire suppression, coupled with a hands-off approach to forest management, have created dangerous fuel loads (the amount of combustible material in a particular area," Regan wrote. Ominously, he added: "With conditions like this, all it takes to ignite an inferno is a spark and some wind."
In 2020, Elizabeth Weil of ProPublica also named California's forest management as a serious concern.
"Academics believe that between 4.4 million and 11.8 million acres burned each year in prehistoric California," Weil noted. "Between 1982 and 1998, California's agency land managers burned, on average, about 30,000 acres a year. Between 1999 and 2017, that number dropped to an annual 13,000 acres." She emphasized that "California would need to burn 20 million acres—an area about the size of Maine — to destabilize in terms of fire.
In 2021, Holly Fretwell and Jonathan Wood of PERC published Fix America's Forests: Reforms to Restore National Forests, recommending means to address wildfire risks in California and across the country. To claims that the wildfire problem is overwhelmingly one of climate change, they respond that a "study led by Forest Service scientists estimated that of four factors driving fire severity in the western United States, live fuel 'was the most important,' accounting for 53 percent of average relative influence, while climate accounted for 14 percent." Climate matters, but other policy choices matter more.
Fretwell and Wood recommend restricting the scope of regulatory reviews that stands in the way of forest restoration, requiring that lawsuits against restoration projects be filed quickly, and excluding prescribed burns from carbon emissions calculations that can stand in the way of such projects.
"There is broad agreement on the need for better forest management, but outdated policies and regulatory hurdles continue to delay critical restoration efforts," Regan told me.
If government officials finally take these hard-learned lessons to heart and ease the process of providing and storing water, restoring forests, and fighting fires, Californians might be spared from future disasters. They seem poised to work with the incoming Trump administration on exactly that. But reforms will come too late for those who have already lost lives, homes, and businesses.”