STRANGE TIMES

24 Responses to “LA Fire.”

1. 1 Patrick Muldowney
   January 23, 2025 at 6:39 pm

   Post about LA fire here!

2. 2 steve Owens
   January 23, 2025 at 10:38 pm

   OK a bit of a recap. My position is that right wing loons are not the people to listen to because they just make stuff up for political gain.
   1 After Paradise fires Trump stated that the solution was to rake the forests just as the Finish leader had told him they do in Finland. The Finish leader said he never made those comments.
   2 Hanson went straight to the lack of water due to the save the Smelt campaign. Southern California does not lack for water. The Smelt fish are 500 miles away from LA and it is just an irrelevant smear.
   3 Hanson went the budget cuts without reference to the fact that the LAFD budget for 2024 was increased
   4 Musk went the DEI saying that DEI meant DIE but without any reference to the long history of racism within the LDFD which DEI attempts to address.
   5 Schellenberger goes the mayor “She needed to stay and mobilise against the fires” without acknowledging that the mayor is not a day-to-day operational person but a policy person. Should she be in LA? Of course, she should be in LA. Would it have made any difference to the fires? No
   6 Schellenberger argues that firefighting assets should have been prepositioned but the problem here is that firefighting assets were prepositioned as is the common practice of the LA fire fighters
   Now where in these hacks’ commentary is acknowledgement that between the LAFD and the LA county FD California spends over $2 billion pa on firefighting services
   The reality is LA had 2 years of good rain followed by one year of drought leaving LA with lots of dry vegetation coupled with winds of 100 mph nothing will stop this holocaust.
   But yeah, make some cheap political points.

3. 3 steve Owens
   January 23, 2025 at 11:30 pm

   Oh I forgot, right wing loon Mel Gibson on the TV suggesting that the Democrats are burning LA to the ground so that they can rezone the land. Shout out to MTG who thought that the Paradise fire was caused by Jewish space lasers.

4. 4 steve Owens
   January 24, 2025 at 9:39 am

   One of the lowest political moves comes from your new Republican pals who openly talk about holding back disaster relief funding for political purposes. Is there anything lower than threatening to block relief money so that you can get your debt ceiling through? California is the growth engine of the USA and it pays way more to the Federal government that it receives back. I see that New Orleans is having snow all cool and normal.

   https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/13/house-republicans-trump-wildfire-aid-00197766

5. 5 steve Owens
   January 25, 2025 at 12:24 am

   “Silence is resorted to if stumped…” Are you sure you were talking about me?

6. 6 Patrick Muldowney
   January 25, 2025 at 12:38 am

   ‘The New Orleans area began digging out from the worst snowfall to hit the region in more than a century on Wednesday, with the euphoria of the once-in-a-lifetime storm melting away and feverish work pressing ahead to clear dangerously icy roads and reopen for business.

   Tuesday’s storm left residents in near disbelief as the snow kept falling. Up to 10 inches were reported in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish, as well as 11.5 inches in Chalmette, leaving roofs, yards and vehicles buried.

   It was the region’s first significant snowfall since December 2009, and the eventual totals rivaled a Valentine’s Day storm in 1895 as the biggest on record.’

   *******************
   So here we have an event that matches 1895 when the CO2 levels were not anywhere near what they are today. So on what side of the ledger does Steve propose to put this event?

   Clearly he want’s to put it as income not as an expense! It may be time for Steve to learn about double entry bookkeeping. Anyone who has studied a bit of accounting can tell Steve that one has to credit ones debits and debit ones credits!

   In slippery style (same as practiced by Steve) alarmists dumped global warming many years ago in favor of ‘climate change’ so that every event can be put to the same side of the argument. It’s been so effective that Steve has even forgotten that the whole rot of human produced CO2 production (and cow burps) heating up the planet in some fearful manner had to be abandoned when the models couldn’t predict the past!

   Now we have a quite normal drought type condition in southern California and a very familiar wind event producing a catastrophe of a fire in areas that are more inhabited than in bygone periods like say 1962 with houses and their contents valued at perhaps 30 times the 1962 prices… But what do we get? Innovation in fire fighting? A criticism of bureaucrats lining their own pockets with good salaries and taking 6 trips abroad when they promised to take none? No. We get told that there are people like Mel Gibson sprouting rot, as if we didn’t know and this thread required such powerful exposure of the issues.

   No Steve we don’t need that. What we ought to be discussing is a further development of the thinking engaged in when Australia was so badly let down by the ALP, bureaucrats, green and woke types.

7. 7 steve Owens
   January 25, 2025 at 8:28 am

   Yes, I agree snow in New Orleans and drought in Southern California are not central to the issue that I raised. They are just interesting side events.
   What is central is that you put up a clip of Victor Davis Hanson claiming that the fires have something to do with the Smelt fish. It is gob smakingly stupid but forms part of a pattern coming from the right. First you have Trump recommending that the forests be raked, then MTG saying the fires are caused by Jewish space lasers, then Hanson claiming that Newsom who Trump calls Newscum cares more about worms than people, then Musk claims that DEI means DIE and that people die because the LAFD has 3.5% women fire fighters then Schellenderger argues that they should preposition firefighting assets apparently unaware that prepositioning firefighting assets is standard practice in southern California. Then Mel Gibson on national television suggests that the Californian government may have lit the fires and then Trump canvasses the idea that disaster relief may be withheld unless Democrats vote for lifting the debt ceiling.
   And you have nothing. You critisise me because I noted that it is snowing in New Orleans.
   California is the 5th largest economy in the world and their politicians are easy targets for their largess. As I pointed out California spends over $2 billion per year on fire fighting in the LA area.
   I am happy to engage in discussion about fire management in Australia. I am interested to know how woke is holding back forestry management woke being “…used to refer to awareness of social and political issues affecting African Americans,…”
   This term dates back to pre-civil war where a youth movement opposed to slavery was called the “Wide Awakes” as opposed to another movement at the time called the “Know Nothings”
   I’m happy to be called woke only the know nothings see it as an insult.

8. 8 steve Owens
   January 25, 2025 at 11:24 am

   Before we go any further, I have a question.
   The LAFD was a completely segregated organisation, there were 2 black fire stations, and the rest were white only with blacks being unable to progress up the hierarchy beyond Captain.
   What measures do you think should have been taken to desegregate or was desegregation a bad idea?

9. 9 Patrick Muldowney
   January 26, 2025 at 2:50 am

   And it came to pass in September 1956 that a bright star was seen in the heavens above Adelaide and what do you know a child was born. This event was noted in the US, Jackie Robinson rejoiced and threw down his bat – that he had till then been hitting other people’s balls with – and he retired from his labors! It was also recorded that the LAFD instantly scrapped its segregation policies in honor of the child, and it was written that even the hated Victorians held an Olympics to his glory, and some very unwise men introduced 3 TV stations to the great unwashed of Australia so that henceforth all manner of Loony Tunes could be gifted to the child and his many disciples.

   Naturally there were those, among the followers and hangers on, who were Judas like in their dispositions, that became self evident dissemblers and frauds and who -of course- failed to notice that the ongoing struggle within the LAFD then continued for perhaps another 3 decades or so to in fact make rock solid in practice what had only become formal in policy all those years earlier. So that when the infant had attained the age of the first Christ Almighty at nail up time, much had actually been accomplished not least in California in the LAFD.

   Indeed the world was a very different place even for those who promote the Coyote view that nothing ever changes even after they have run off a cliff.

   Thirty years further on. the demented began to insist on their own personal pronouns and privileges; and that they -specifically the now retired loons- be shown due deference because only they knew what being a progressive was and with cancel culture as their preferred method of ‘opposing’ censorship – violence was done to not just the language but to all manner of statues and to deniers that dared to doubt the righteous who insisted that they knew what it meant to be woke both now and in the past. But they required DEI to get anywhere; and so a ‘special’ lunatic fringe of conservatives pronounced the end of arguments!

   From that day forth it would be declared well known that nothing could turn into its opposite. And the approved speakers pronounced that a pseudoleft could not emerge to daily discredit their works, and the very notion that there had ever even been people that made any sense from such a direction. Yet indeed the once mighty left that prided itself on being able to think was no more!

   Here endeth the lesson.
   The following has minor corrections and edits from the original
   patrickm February 17, 2009 at 10:05 pm

   Sorry Steve but I can’t see those figures as anything other than meaningless. The fact that fuel reduction goes on in some places tells one nothing about who dies where and why.

   The question is more about fleeing and /or sheltering out of reach of the flame front and the ability to defend structures under ember attack and then sheltering for the brief period of the fire front’s passage, and then promptly rejoining the fight to save the dwelling. Let me explain.

   A good house will be solid against an ember attack but even a good house solid against an ember attack is going to burn to the ground if left to itself. People have to be able to defend their house. Younger populations are better at that. Australia has an ageing population. My bet is that older people and younger people will figure higher in the statistics as will women. My second bet is that few that died had training or real experience and the more training the less they will appear in the statistics.

   I reckon that people who know they are on their own suffer far fewer delusions than people who watch ‘Elvis’ style toys (that the TV always focus on these days) and think that they are important and will come to the rescue. They are not important in any big fire and they won’t come. Essentially no one will.

   The best house I saw built in a bushfire area was built by a fireman. It had a decking roof with heavily insulated raked ceilings, solid face brick inside and out slate floor lawns around it a brick fence back from that and then the drive way out front of that and a swimming pool in front ready to be pumped dry.

   It was kept fire ready by a professional. It was easily defensible under the most extreme ember attack. It was back from the flame zone though his property even had a couple of acres of firewood lot plantings. This guy was infected with a ton of general green ideas, BUT not any delusions whatever about what fuel near houses meant.

   He was also smart about making his house and its defensive perimeter ‘moist’ space. There was nothing high and dry anywhere near that could send a flame front directly onto the defenders who would have been protecting the house under the said intense ember attack. I would trust my family in such a dwelling and I bet that such a house is not where the 300 bodies will be located in this fire. No one in there right mind would flee from such a dwelling in any bush fire and take to the tree lined roads.

   IMV over the last few decades people became infected with green philosophy without the professional knowledge that this man applied to his housing environment. You see stupidity and ignorance on the TV in every fire. People about without shoes and long pants and shirts and hats, trying to fight but just not dressed like the firemen that turn out! The answer is very simple dress like a fireman. Fight the fire like a fireman. Prepare the property like a fireman. Build the house and its defensive perimeter like a fireman. Maintain the house like a fireman. And like all the firemen in Victoria last weak survive like a fireman.

   Firemen do not loose their life or their house in these situations; they loose their life because they sometime get caught in a strange place where something goes wrong.

   The only way to work out what happened to these 300 people and the 2000 odd houses is one by one analysis. Then reflect on the philosophy of why the dwelling they died in was the way it was. Why they were fleeing on tree lined roads. What would a fireman have done differently that day and that weak prior as well as in the previous cool weather. Preparation is key at all levels!

   People died because they were not ‘at war’ with fire last winter and they were caught by the enemy in a surprise attack.

   Everybody knows the enemy will attack again. Those whose philosophy is sound will survive. Fires under these conditions can’t be last minute back burnt. The fuel just can’t be there in the first instance. Greens that spent there time in the cool putting more fuel near houses have to change their philosophy.

   February 25, 2009 at 5:35 pm
   Steve when you say ‘I just want to see the evidence that controlled burns are more effective than evacuation or fire proofing houses or bunkers or whatever strategy comes to the fore.’ I think you miss the real issues that confront us. I think your approach muddles everything together and makes it then impossible to sort out the resultant mess. The evidence that you sensibly seek will not be so easy to get hold of because every approach that is well founded and well executed in its practice will have worked, and every approach that had a flaw built in, or a flaw that emerges over time (things change) will have been or get found out at some point. Comparing apples for apples will always be the difficulty for you.

   ‘Fire proofing’ houses is only a cost question (though making things fool proof always remains out of reach because fools are so ingenious) but obviously the costs become exorbitant. Brand new houses are cheaper to build than retro fitting work etc. ‘Bunker’ retreats come in all manner of ways that will all work.

   The real question is how do you build cost efficient housing that has a reasonable prospect of being defended after ten years of habitation when temperatures hit 47c and the wind is at gale force, and a fire has broken out 100 metres away to windward as the local electricity transformer exploded?

   The truth is that if there is a high fuel load of unrestrained forest dimensions that house is history in very short order unless it has a massive automated fire suppression sprinkler system with some uninterrupted power source, and or ‘unlimited’ water available at high enough pressure.

   If the house is surrounded by fifty meters of lawns and succulent ground covers and the like, and there is someone home who knows how to fight the fire and can respond in minutes (because the conditions had already brought on a stand to alert level of preparation with nothing around that can burn, gutters full of water, property already being hosed down etc) the conventional house could then be saved by a hand operated backpack of water sprayed on any ember attack problems that WILL develop.

   That theoretical fire will go on to kill many other people but not anyone in that house.

   On the other hand that house will probably / possibly burn down if the fire threat level was low enough that day to not cause the fire plan to be put in practice and everyone had instead gone out shopping.

   Government can ensure that people provide themselves with a retreat / shelter / bunker that can’t be engulfed by fire and they can survive, and that requires that people keep all fuels away from the shelter! Hell even people that got caught on the roads during this last killer fire saved themselves by crawling into storm water culverts and waiting. Total devastation outside but survival under the road!

   The well founded fire resistant designed house (that’s well maintained and well prepared and is being actively and knowledgeably defended from within is the best ‘shelter’ because the fire front must pass the house before that house could be lost and thereby force the occupants to seek the shelter of the already burnt areas outside. But even that situation can change somewhat if the houses are infernos on either side and they are ‘close’. (If they are close you are better off saving all the houses rather than over saving ‘your very well prepared house’ in the middle.)

   Fighting a bush-fire is done as a series of fronts that attack the defenders and all of these fronts have possible flanking moves if the wind changes, and thus one front can rapidly turn into another. Obviously proximity to the neighbors fuel load is very important and has to form part of the ‘battle’ plan. But there must be an audited plan.

   The length of time you can stay in the fight in front of the structure / s before staging a temporary retreat, and the quicker you can return to the fight after the flame front has passed is the key to winning the battle to save that structure / s and any lives that are associated.

   This is not ‘rocket science’. Fire requires fuel, heat and oxygen; that’s it. Obviously fuel load is the one issue that can be controlled before the fire starts or even as it approaches. The ember attack that will come can be addressed. The flame front will then arrive but can be prevented from igniting the structures if the ‘stitch in time saves nine’ principle is followed and the fight quickly resumed with sufficient ‘weapons’.

   Three areas of preparation are the keys to how well fire suppression can be achieved but remember with suppression ‘you have to be in it to win it’.

   Fuel.
   It is fuel load that literally enables the flame front to approach the defender and keeps that front going longer and harder when it arrives. If you have zero load all you have to ever deal with is ember attack. Ember attack is easily beatable if fought correctly but deadly to the home and the people in it if left alone by the fearful.

   Fuel reduction keeps the fire fighter in front of the structure and in control, or if insufficient to do that enables a briefer retreat in the face of it.

   Most fires are ‘easily’ beaten by moderately trained able bodied adults because they are not driven by strong winds so the flame front can be directly attacked and kept at bay (and because of the moderate wind conditions the heat, smoke and ember fronts are all minor annoyances to the defender rather than major threats in themselves).

   Killer fires can’t be fought at the flame front.

   Preparation of structures is a key issue.

   Structure preparation ought to be appropriate to the season and the level of threat the day actually presents. Most fire plans are not on site ‘audited’ in any detail to start with; and or fully implemented on the day and most plans ‘fail’ under extreme test even when houses are saved with people losing cars etc.

   Many people who are intending to fight actually remain passive as the killer day unfolds, all the way from the night before when steady ongoing work would yield very good results. If work takes you away from the house then the plan has to cope with this reality; who is going to be available to fight and on the very rare killer days when the wind is predicted, ought not work away from home be forgone in these types of regions?

   Available fire fighters.

   It’s their training and experience (always being adjusted for health and age factors) that counts. When the first super heated winds from the approaching fire hits, the fire fighter has to be dressed and ready and turning the hose on himself. The structure has been whetted down and only now you’re wetting everything else around you as the noise level gets really scary, but you’re still outside and you’re keeping your firefighting clothes wet and you’re thinking cool. Then the smoke hits, and you have to drop to your knee and sometimes lower and prepare to lift your mask that you’re already wearing around your neck and then move closer to the structure (while always keeping out of any radiant heat and planning your retreat).

   Most attention is now reserved for the structure because next comes the embers that the fighter is there to fight in the first place, this is when it gets worse and worse and will definitely scare the crap out of people that have never been through it. It’s scary enough when you have been!

   Only then, some variable time later, the flame front hits and at this point the fighter must retreat and be sheltered even if only on the lee side of the house just squirting water around the corner. BUT the front will pass quickly enough with that sort of wind driving it. (Always keeping in mind a front change from swirling winds and the all important situation with the neighbors fuel load proximity).

   Fuel loads are the key. If they are low enough the fighter can stay close to the ground continuously suppressing embers until the flame front passes on the flanks. This long story is all about the relationship between fuel reduction and ember storms. It is vital to reduce fire intensity. After that initial ember fight has been fought and won the minor fires that are catching from the now passed deadly front can be put out if you have the weapons and the training or even in most cases just the will.

   BTW yes ‘the Country Fire Service has first call on water.’ And they will probably use it the most efficiently if they come for it, but they are unlikely to save another person’s house with your water and then lose your house, so though it could happen I’m not concerned about that. They will not confiscate your bathtub full of water and or your hand operated back packs that ought to, in these conditions, be ready.

   Anyway more of these issues will come up as this ‘fire’ is reflected on but it always turns into one fire after another analysis rather than one size fits all ‘because it was such a terrible day’.

   Blaming the conditions is wrong from the start. The knowledge was around and the warnings were given. Those that really put enough effort into the totality of the problem won the fight when it inevitably came.

   Meanwhile green philosophy is as guilty in leading people to an untimely death in this instance just as much as their DDT scare-mongering has been guilty of massive deaths from Malaria all around the world.

   The fact that some of them advocate various levels of fuel reduction burning (like Flannery who had had the experience of losing a house to bush fire) is no excuse for not sheeting home the damage that this philosophy does across the whole spectrum of fire fighting issues. The philosophy has led to meddling in others lives with laws that restrict freedoms rather than expand them. These green ideas are enemy ideas for the left and as with the hysterics over carbon they do not stand up to a good fire. You will not find anyone immersed in green philosophy producing books that proclaim a Bright Future of abundance like Dave has. Instead when it comes to water and turning our houses into wetter environments by supplying ever cheaper water for example, the enemy philosophy seeks to hinder the work and advocates only planting natives that are suited to the particular dry summer climate.

   I think the Royal Commision will not place enough focus ‘on green policies that lead to insufficient ground fuel burn off and that prevented people from clearing trees from around their houses.’

   I agree ‘that greeny ideas are nutty and downright toxic’ and we should tear into them on every occasion and not let them slither away from their responsibilities.

   The death toll is ‘a matter of failing to avoid their [fires] wrath.’ Standards ought to be improving but were not because people were misled en masse with green junk philosophy for decades, yet having for all these decades been wrong the leading spokespeople immediately covered their own culpability with endless twaddle about how it will all get worse if we don’t address climate change. They are wrong!

   Communists need to focus working peoples attention on the immediate danger that green philosophy and politics is, not just to peoples livelihood, which is now clear with their incessant clamoring for carbon taxing and so forth, but also their actual lives, as it has always been in the third world and in strategic tyrannies, and now is demonstrated here in our advanced industrialized country with this death toll.

   Devine and Bolt are clearly on the correct side of the ledger on yet another issue but they have to be hindered from claiming this pseudoleft phenomenon as anything to do with a left philosophy or politics.

   The strange times we are living through must be more loudly proclaimed.

   February 26, 2009 at 10:28 pm

   Steve; my acquaintance ‘Jamo’ is in no way a fanatic. He is just an expert as a result of a lifetime of employment in the fire fighting business; he chose to live in a high risk area and built accordingly. Naturally it showed up in his design and fire plan. Everybody in these regions, are supposed to have a fire plan. His was being ‘audited’ by an expert. His had a lifetime of experience built into it and others can’t have that, but they can change their philosophy. Changing peoples faulty philosophy is what will save their lives.

   You are right when you say ‘people are the victims of poor planning as much as bush fires.’ But killer fires are nothing new and surviving a worse case fire is what a plan ought to be based on in the first instance! Sure, spending money will save some people from the big fires when they hit, but changing people and empowering them will save a lot more. This society is breeding passive victims that the authorities then have to control and manage.

   “Cast aside illusions; prepare yourself and other people for struggle” seams like the right approach to me. As for towns in the forests, I think they can be built and survive very bad fires but they can’t be built in the old greeny manner and survive. That argument is dead in my view.

   You ask ‘how can fuel reduction be both cheap and expensive?’ The answer is that if one is going to do the bush as a whole and keep the environment in good shape then it will be expensive. But if you are just going to do it near structures then it will be cheaper. As for the rest, I really don’t think that tumbling around with very broad statistics will tell you much at all. There are far to many variables.

   The key to understanding the issue IMV is mostly case by case analysis. In the end though the issue is about fire and how one prepares for and fights it and that is clearly a fuel question connected to a source of ignition in the presence of oxygen; that is the triangle that I was taught and it has stood me in good stead to always remove one of those to kill a fire.

10. 10 steve Owens
    January 26, 2025 at 7:15 am

    Up until the mid 1950’s the LAFD was segregated with leadership that supported segregation. We all know the scenes of desegregation the governor of Arkansas mobilising the National guard to stop 9 children being escorted by the police past a racist mob. The resolution only coming when the president mobilises the 101st Airborne the legendary Screaming Eagles to get 9 children into school. The windows of the school boarded up to thwart snipers.
    Now desegregation wasn’t this dramatic in LA but it did include black firemen arming themselves for self-defense. Segregation gave way to Jim Crow as official racism gave way to unofficial racism.
    This wall of racism was countered by affirmative action as there clearly was no level playing field. The government adopted affirmative action which developed into Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. My question to you is do you stand with racism? What particularly about a policy of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion upsets you?
    If you don’t support DEI what strategy to opposing racism do you support?
    The racists opposed desegregation they opposed affirmative action and now they oppose DEI always hiding behind the banner of meritocracy. It’s an argument pushed by racists and useful idiots.
    Victor Davis Hanson blames the LA fires on DEI Honestly Gobbles would have a hard time keeping up with this guy. Is the LAFD really undermined by DEI let’s look at the facts.

    “Picture a typical firefighter. Who comes to mind? If you imagined a white man, that’s understandable: 96% of U.S. career firefighters are men, and 82% are white. This homogeneity is striking, especially when you compare it to the U.S. military, which is 85% men and 60% white, and local police forces, which are 88% men and 73% white.”

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/01/09/elon-musk-and-more-right-wing-critics-blame-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-for-la-wildfires-with-little-evidence/

11. 11 Patrick Muldowney
    January 26, 2025 at 8:16 pm

    where did you dig your quote up from
    “Picture a typical firefighter. Who comes to mind? If you imagined a white man, that’s understandable: 96% of U.S. career firefighters are men, and 82% are white. This homogeneity is striking, especially when you compare it to the U.S. military, which is 85% men and 60% white, and local police forces, which are 88% men and 73% white.”

12. 12 steve Owens
    January 26, 2025 at 9:19 pm

    Harvard Business Review 2018
    https://hbr.org/2018/12/making-u-s-fire-departments-more-diverse-and-inclusive

13. 13 steve Owens
    January 26, 2025 at 10:01 pm

    I guess my question still stands what approach do you think the government should take to racism in the LAFD? If not DEI what?

14. 14 Patrick Muldowney
    January 26, 2025 at 11:32 pm

    Step 1 never let Corinne Bendersky train anyone!

    ‘…there is relatively equal representation of blacks throughout ranks of the LAFD” compared to the population of Los Angeles County, says LAFD Assistant Chief…’ so if that is the case what is this rot all about!

    way back ‘In the mid-1990s, for example, the Stentorians created a promotion preparation program for its members…’

    Everybody ought to know that fire fighters are in the same mold as Bondi Rescue surf life savers.

    ‘…my work conducting training on general diversity and inclusion with fire departments, I find that, when evaluating fit and competence, firefighters tend to default to a reductive set of traits (physical strength evaluated through strict fitness tests, for example) that serve to maintain white men’s dominance in the fire service.’

    So black men are less athletic? Really or is that just rot! I want Firefighters picked in the same way as footballers and every other athlete. When you can no longer meet those standards you ought to get moved on!

    DEI is Looking the wrong way!
    ‘In my forthcoming research with Felix Danbold, we find that reframing the professional prototype of what it means to be a firefighter to emphasize the importance of legitimate, stereotypically feminine traits, like compassion, has promising effects on creating a more inclusive environment for women.’

    Let these people compete in wall framing and brick laying! Nothing is stopping them! People who work hard in these industries can make good money nothing is stopping any woman from showing just how good she is on a football field either!

15. 15 Patrick Muldowney
    January 27, 2025 at 12:29 am

    If you read my material with some care you would realise that innovation IS required in the way this old enemy wild fire is dealt with. I will bet that new thinking for situations that produce such disastrous outcomes is now on the way into the Californian mainstream because the American people have a can do attitude.

    Where were the innovators who will make a name for themselves? If women come up with the solutions so be it! I have no dog in that fight. I want progress in the outcomes not in who is being employed to produce this result.

    In war-fighting you have just seen 3 years of dramatic innovation and we are standing before a new world. Perhaps the most dangerous foot slogger is now the 18 year old drone operator.

    It will probably take several more years but democracy IS coming to Belarus and Russia and the west has a great interest in seeing the defeat of the Putin regime. The nuclear weapons of the former USSR now controlled by the tyrant Putin cannot be permitted to fall into the hands of a dozen or so war lords on the morning after a push and shove breakup of Russia.

    The Russian economy is now wobbly and revolutionary democrats have no interests in stability for Putin.

    Evidently the Biden gang feared Russia breaking up. Whatever Trump thought about this in the past he will be dealing with this in these 4 years.

    The woke are finished!

16. 16 steve Owens
    January 27, 2025 at 12:29 am

    The recruitment of women is not relevant because males make up 96% of the firefighters so the issue, we need to look at is race.
    For argument’s sake let’s assume that currently the LAFD is completely integrated, and recruitment is racially blind.
    We know that 70 years ago the LAFD was segregated and the Fire Chief was a supporter of segregation. We know that official segregation ended in the mid 50’s. We know that although the two black stations were integrated the black firefighters faced Jim Crow violence, threats and intimidation. We know that new black recruits found it extremely difficult to get through training and were often bounced out for bogus reasons. We can read articles that state that well into this century the LAFD was having difficulty recruiting and holding black officers.
    So that is the history a very problematic history but here we are now 2025 and the problem has disappeared. Your problem is explaining how the problem disappeared. My explanation is quite simple.
    1 The government outlawed segregation
    2 The government commenced affirmative action
    3 Black officers organised independently
    4 Organisations and individuals took the department to court and sued them.
    5 Affirmative Action was superseded by a policy of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

17. 17 steve Owens
    January 27, 2025 at 9:20 am

    In discussing DEI I think it is necessary to have context. How good was the relationship between the black community and people employed by the state. Here is a clip of some LAPD officers interviewing a black man who had broken the law. Some people objected to this, and the officers went to trial only to be found not guilty by an all-white jury. Mr. King sustained 11 broken bones from the interaction. Of course, this was the early 1990’s well before DEI but I think context is important. What sort of problems does DEI address?
    I think as you pointed out the police failed to use the correct pronoun.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt7h398uADc&rco=1

18. 18 steve Owens
    January 27, 2025 at 2:14 pm

    This is a DEI definition

    Diversity: The presence and participation of individuals with varying backgrounds and perspectives, including those who have been traditionally underrepresented
    Equity: Equal access to opportunities and fair, just, and impartial treatment
    Inclusion: A sense of belonging in an environment where all feel welcomed, accepted, and respected

    Can you please point out to me which bit upsets you.

19. 19 steve Owens
    January 27, 2025 at 11:14 pm

    People will not win against bush fires there is no point in expecting people to defeat bushfires because for the vast majority of people it is an impossibility.
    People cling to non-solutions like controlled burning or correct preparation or new methods of firefighting or if we could just stop the Greens. It’s all bullshit. People should draw the correct conclusions, but they won’t. The correct conclusion is that Malibu the most fire affected community in the USA should be abandoned and left to burn but it won’t be, it will be rebuilt just like after the last fire and the fire before that and the fire before that, regular devastating fire going back over 120 years
    We contribute to the fuel load precisely because we put fires out. Go to the CFS website check out the areas affected by controlled burns they are miniscule by their very nature they must be small because a fire truck or 2 has to be able to control them.
    We demand to have an urban/wild interface, drive through the hills only the rich have decent fire breaks between the bush and the home.
    The answer is not to control fire or to fireproof the house the answer is to separate people from the combustible material, but we won’t do it. Google earth Pacific Palisades it has disaster written all over it, but people will just rebuild the government will help them rebuild and recreate a time bomb.
    Insurance companies are smart, and they refused to extend many policies in LA. If the insurance company won’t insure your house, you must understand what that means.

20. 20 Patrick Muldowney
    January 28, 2025 at 9:47 pm

    Demolishing Steve Owens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MB7hx1vc_I

21. 21 steve Owens
    January 28, 2025 at 11:58 pm

    Wow who would think that the defeated mayoral candidate would find that responsibility lies with the mayor.
    A real estate billionaire who doesn’t even mention the roll that real estate companies played in sardining people into these death trap neighborhoods.
    Look you seem to have read nothing. I would start with this

    https://longreads.com/2018/12/04/the-case-for-letting-malibu-burn/

    I don’t think you can get good information from people who have a political axe to grind be they Presidents Governors Mayors failed mayoral candidates (or political hacks cough cough Victor Hanson the fish are to blame)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtWk5AxTioY

22. 22 steve Owens
    February 7, 2025 at 10:23 am

    This would be funny if it wasn’t so serious first the Smelt then DEI and now this.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/06/trump-california-water-policy-farmers-00202751

23. 23 steve Owens
    February 7, 2025 at 11:07 am

    This guy gets it.

    https://x.com/RepTedLieu/status/1887596997856649563?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

24. 24 steve Owens
    February 7, 2025 at 10:03 pm

    You should tell Victor Davis Hanson this. Shame on V.D Hanson

    https://www.tiktok.com/@thetnholler/video/7468443320809803054

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