2025 LA Fires

[NickM]

3 hours ago, rmgill said:

Are you that unaware of how the left has pushed the Diversity roles here in the US? 

Its the same kind of pablum Trudeau utters. Of has Trudeau been distorted all this time when he's talking up programs for diversity? 

Surely you're not unaware of what the DEI folks across the US are actually 

Dave's scepticism make me wonder about the issue with Boeing: is it corpo greedos or is it DEI hires who are utterly incompetent ( I even heard they refused to submit themselves and their tools for inspection by federal authorities).  I'm trying to keep an open mind.

[rmgill]

59 minutes ago, futon said:

ISTR that a lot of the Tokyo houses in the early 1900s were built very congestedly as part of urbanization. Lot of those probably didn't use traditional anti-earthquake building methods. So a lesson was learned in the 1923 Tokyo earthquake. 

Wasn't one of the issues of the Great Kanto Earthquake due to fires? 
checking wikipedia, it seems like it was a perfect storm of:
Timing (dinner time so many were cooking so MANY fires were lit)
Magnitude (7.9-8.2)
Broken water mains made fighting fires difficult
High winds from a typhoon off the coast brought heavy winds which exaggerated the fires. 
And then to add to the bodies, there was a massacre of Ethnic Koreans as there was a rumor they'd poisoned wells. 
 

[JWB]

Furious LA locals carry out citizen's arrest on homeless man allegedly carrying a blowtorch.

https://x.com/MailOnline/status/1877829186145935565

[lucklucky]

1 minute ago, NickM said:

Dave's scepticism make me wonder about the issue with Boeing: is it corpo greedos or is it DEI hires who are utterly incompetent ( I even heard they refused to submit themselves and their tools for inspection by federal authorities).  I'm trying to keep an open mind.

Does not need to be an OR, it can be an AND. But i would also include stupidity.

[NickM]

17 minutes ago, lucklucky said:

Does not need to be an OR, it can be an AND. But i would also include stupidity.

All three makes sense,  especially if the stupids are being shielded from their actions

[R011]

22 minutes ago, NickM said:

Dave's scepticism make me wonder about the issue with Boeing: is it corpo greedos or is it DEI hires who are utterly incompetent ( I even heard they refused to submit themselves and their tools for inspection by federal authorities).  I'm trying to keep an open mind.

I doubt Boeing is the only major aerospace company that pushes DEI and other fashionable political nonsense, but they seem to be the only one who can't build airplanes properly anymore and haven't since before DEI was The Thing To Do.

As for DEI in the LAFD, I'm perfectly willing to accept any evidence it's hampered operations or that senior personnel were  unqualified tokens if someone presents it, but when I hear the budget was cut by seventeen million dollars with more cuts proposed, I have to think DEI may not be the main issue here.

 

Edited January 11 by R011

[futon]

30 minutes ago, rmgill said:

Wasn't one of the issues of the Great Kanto Earthquake due to fires? 
checking wikipedia, it seems like it was a perfect storm of:
Timing (dinner time so many were cooking so MANY fires were lit)
Magnitude (7.9-8.2)
Broken water mains made fighting fires difficult
High winds from a typhoon off the coast brought heavy winds which exaggerated the fires. 
And then to add to the bodies, there was a massacre of Ethnic Koreans as there was a rumor they'd poisoned wells. 
 

Yeah, there were lots of lessons from it.

[Mr King]

[Ivanhoe]

1 hour ago, R011 said:

I doubt Boeing is the only major aerospace company that pushes DEI and other fashionable political nonsense, but they seem to be the only one who can't build airplanes properly anymore and haven't since before DEI was The Thing To Do.

I trace it back further than the rise of DEI. Boeing began its uncontrolled descent when they brought in Wall Street syncophants.

https://hbr.org/2001/10/inside-boeings-big-move

Quote

About a year ago, Phil Condit, our chairman and CEO, started conversations with his strategy council and other executive leaders about Boeing’s long-term strategic growth plans. In the course of those conversations, it became apparent that our headquarters needed to be in a neutral location, one not directly associated with one of the major units of the company.

.

Quote

Because of the nature of the business, we knew that we needed to remain in the United States. But we do business with 145 countries, and we have significant operations in 26 states. Seattle, southern California, Wichita, Philadelphia, and St. Louis—we have major operations in all of these sites. So we were looking for a place that would minimize travel time throughout the country and internationally and that would also give government leaders and financial markets in Washington, DC, New York, and abroad access to us. We needed a central location near a major airport. Based on that consideration and a number of others [for the full list of the selection criteria, see the accompanying exhibit], we very rapidly narrowed our choices.

All that is some world-class stupid.

Condit was known as an opera lover, some folks assume that he orchestrated the move to be close to a good opera company.

 

[NickM]

Just now, R011 said:

I doubt Boeing is the only major aerospace company that pushes DEI and other fashionable political nonsense, but they seem to be the only one who can't build airplanes properly anymore and haven't since before DEI was The Thing To Do.

As for DEI in the LAFD, I'm perfectly willing to accept any evidence it's hampered operations or that senior personnel were  unqualified tokens if someone presents it, but when I hear the budget was cut by seventeen million dollars with more cuts proposed, I have to think DEI may not be the main issue here.

 

It's a 'Rorschach test': everybody can see what they want--diversity boosters can see 'diverse workforce', opponents can see people who are just not up to the task being given the jobs at the expense of more qualified (and less 'box check') candidates. But I can't help but have the feeling that the pressies are in the tank for 'diversity';  it's like the wymmyn police officer in Minneapolis who was in uniform for over 25 years, who ended up grabbing her gun instead of her taser to get some uncooperative driver out of his car, and ended up shooting him. In spite of being a 'veteran' she came across as so out of shape and 'skittish', it made me wonder if they had her behind a desk for years until the desperate need for warm bodies shifted her into the field.

up here in the greater SF Bay Area, years back they had embarrassing female firefighter failures: they couldn't run the fitness tests, they couldnt' run with the gear and when a fire actually happened the 'lumberjack types' went into the buildings while the woman fire fighters loitered outside and coiled up the water hoses.  Back then, the 'unfit types' were quietly shuffled away to avoid any lawsuits.  And of course, the local news still crows about 'The First' (abc/xyz/123) to hold the position of (whatever...) leaving unsaid if they were capable of doing the job.

[NickM]

Just now, JWB said:

Furious LA locals carry out citizen's arrest on homeless man allegedly carrying a blowtorch.

https://x.com/MailOnline/status/1877829186145935565

Are Angelinos about to go 'Suharto'?

[NickM]

On 1/9/2025 at 12:17 PM, rmgill said:

Oh, another thing. I heard a report that Eucalyptus trees have been planted as an ornamental and they're VERY flammable. Naturally they've spread as an invasive species and are not helping things. 

Eucalyptus trees played a major part in the Oakland Hills fire of 1991 (along with those teeny narrow streets )

[NickM]

deleted for redundancy

Edited January 11 by NickM

[NickM]

8 hours ago, JWB said:

They are not allowed. Courts have blocked water transfers from  NoCal to SoCal to protect the Delta Smelt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_smelt

a few decades ago, the local radio chat folks were 'railing' against 'The Vampire Ditch'-the peripheral canal taking water from the Delta (and the farmers in the San Joaquin Valley); I remember people who should have known better talking about 'filling those swimming pools in SoCal', when it was obvious what the water was needed for was for 6 million people to have water come out of the tap when they turn the valve. Then again, nay sayers have been saying for years that the greater LA Area IS a Desert.

[Mr King]

Is it true those smelt are a invasive species?

[Mr King]

https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/01/09/los-angeles-fire-budget-cut-hundreds-of-hydrants-stolen-for-scrap-before-fires/

 

[NickM]

Just now, Mr King said:

Is it true those smelt are a invasive species?

Dunna think the 'Deltas' are....

[Ivanhoe]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14272399/LA-water-chief-Janisse-Quinones-fire-hydrants-reservoir-failures-Palisades.html
 

Quote

 

The $750,000-a-year LA water czar is responsible for a raft of failures that contributed to the devastating Palisades Fire, fire department insiders told DailyMail.com.

On Mayor Karen Bass's orders, the city maxed out its budget to 'attract private-sector talent', hiring Department of Water and Power (LADWP) CEO Janisse Quiñones on a $750,000 salary in May – almost double that of her predecessor.

Now, Quiñones is being blamed by LA Fire Department (LAFD) insiders for leaving a nearby reservoir disconnected and fire hydrants broken for months, DailyMail.com can reveal, leading to firefighters running out of water as they battled the devastating Palisades Fire this week.

And, Daily Mail.com has learned, Quiñones past employer is also linked to fire scandals. She was previously a top executive at electricity company PG&E, which went bankrupt over liability for several massive wildfires in California.

She served as senior vice president at Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) from 2021 to 2023.

 

Geez, why can't we send her to Moscow so she can destroy Russia too?

[Ivanhoe]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14272935/fire-chief-kristin-crowley-fired-mayor-karen-bass-humiliated.html
 

Quote

 

Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley is clinging onto her job by a thread sources say, after she hugged staff goodbye and entered a meeting with the mayor.

A source initially told DailyMail.com on Friday afternoon that the fire chief was fired, but the Mayor’s office told ABC7 Crowley still had her job. The office's official statement to the outlet said the pair 'met', without any reference to whether Crowley remained in her position.

‘The Mayor and Chief met. The priority remains fighting these fires and protecting Angelenos,’ the statement said.

But ABC7 reporter Josh Haskell added on social media site X that the Mayor’s office had officially denied the claims that Crowley had been fired.

When Crowley returned from the meeting, she told her office staff that she was ‘not fired yet’, the source said on Friday evening.

 

The leadership of LA has been a clownshow for decades. I guess one can complement them on their consistency.

[JWB]

11 hours ago, Mr King said:

Is it true those smelt are a invasive species?

Endemic.

[rmgill]

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

6 hours ago, Ivanhoe said:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14272399/LA-water-chief-Janisse-Quinones-fire-hydrants-reservoir-failures-Palisades.html
 

Geez, why can't we send her to Moscow so she can destroy Russia too?

Oh, YOU have this problem too?

[rmgill]

8 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Oh, YOU have this problem too?

Where have you been for the last ten years? 

[NickM]

I was listening to a 'best of' from my weekday radioi chat show, and I JUST found out Mayor Bass was a longstanding member of the 'Venceremos Brigade', a Commie/Sovie/Beardey supporting front organization.

Should I be surprised? I probably should not.

Edited January 12 by NickM

[Stuart Galbraith]

2 hours ago, rmgill said:

Where have you been for the last ten years? 

Listening to you rant about deep states, swamps and mythical Democrat puppetmasters. Overpromoting and overpaying mediocrity seldom figured, unless you were talking about Obama.