California Democrats See Their Political Ambitions Go Up In Smoke (1-17-25)

Posted on January 17, 2025 by Luke Ford

01:00 California symbolizes Democratic party governance
05:30 LAFD administrators call for chief’s retirement, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVJ4_g4VJqI
08:20 Fire Department DEI Explained (by a firefighter), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ormDCbI37Zo
14:00 Female firefighters, https://technium.substack.com/p/firemen-firewomen-and-firefighting
20:00 ‘No one can find a rental, it’s insane’: Real estate mogul, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dNkr6wJdZA
23:10 Housing developer discusses the monumental task of rebuilding L.A. after devastating fires, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0LhxgTqwmA
25:30 The Devastation of the LA Wildfires, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy71pfPreuU
32:00 California leaders ‘not going to do it’: Celebrity real estate agent on wildfire rebuilding efforts, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD1BsfArk_o
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2025-01-17/lessons-from-the-burn-zone-why-some-homes-survived-the-l-a-wildfires
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/home-insurance-federalization-john-kennedy-california-florida-ron-desantis-eedc07f7?mod=hp_opin_pos_0
36:00 Hugh Hewitt assesses the awful incompetence of state and local officials in California, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVL5l8iEZqM
57:00 Michael Shellenberger Exposes Who’s to Blame for the LA Fire Disaster, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4JjmzuycRo
1:25:00 Joe Francis of Girls Gone Wild, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Francis
1:58:00 Claire Hoffman: Joe Francis: ‘Baby, give me a kiss’, https://www.latimes.com/style/la-tm-gonewild32aug06-story.html
2:28:00 Ross Douthat: Marc Andreessen on Trump, Biden, Musk and Why Silicon Valley Moved Right, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEGVM6y6lwM
2:50:00 Students ask an Orthodox Rabbi ANYTHING at UCLA, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvqHDobqX0M
3:05:00 Ross Douthat: Neil Gaiman, ‘Babygirl’ and the Ethics of Social Liberalism, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/opinion/neil-gaiman-babygirl.html

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California Burning (1-16-25)

Posted on January 16, 2025 by Luke Ford

01:00 Real talk vs tv news talk, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYDQLQOl8f0
04:00 Karine Jean-Pierre was not selected as White House press secretary for her excellence
12:00 NYT: We Have to Stop Underwriting People Who Move to Climate Danger Zones, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/opinion/la-fires-climate-home-insurance.html
15:00 Los Angeles mayor facing growing backlash over fires, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCohIcshSPU
18:00 LA Mayor Karen Bass is ‘one of the worst leaders’ in America, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fabMjJztuL8
34:30 Former Congressman John Campbell returns to the Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss the devastation of LA, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Medn1e4oN8A
59:50 My tiktok, https://www.tiktok.com/@lukeford613/
1:20:00 Adam Carolla on the Left’s Negative Impact on California, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hJcoLO_32Y
1:24:00 NYT: We Have to Stop Underwriting People Who Move to Climate Danger Zones, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/opinion/la-fires-climate-home-insurance.html
1:34:00 Gutfeld blasts ‘leaderless’ LA: ‘Plenty of ash but no phoenix’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpRl-0fR2mw
1:54:20 L.A. Mayor Karen Bass is Bad in a Crisis. Here’s Why, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp3_vkoM_yI
1:57:30 Adam Carolla: Gavin Newsom is a Failure. The Proof is Everywhere., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFGEOjn8hng
2:01:00 Were the LA fires racist? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC_F7ne7lCU
2:25:00 Daily Caller: Bush-Era Republicans Flourished As Anti-Trumpers — Scott Jennings Took A Different Path, https://dailycaller.com/2025/01/14/scott-jennings-cnn-bush-anti-trump-path-profile/
2:55:00 Alexander Technique ASMR, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXqIuvav5hY
3:17:50 The Great MAGA Schism?, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcob6e0l4-s
3:26:20 BidenGPT and More on the Deal, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlrEQNDRT-Q
3:34:40 Israel’s hostage deal with Hamas

Posted in America, California, Los Angeles | Comments Off on California Burning (1-16-25)

Is LA Doomed? (1-15-25)

Posted on January 15, 2025 by Luke Ford

01:00 NR: Mayor Karen Bass Partied While Her City Burned, https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/mayor-karen-bass-partied-while-her-city-burned/
04:00 LAT: L.A. fire officials could have put engines in the Palisades before the fire broke out. They didn’t, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-14/firefighters-lafd-response-lack-of-staff-engines-pacific-palisades-fire
11:00 L.A. Mayor Karen Bass is Bad in a Crisis. Here’s Why, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp3_vkoM_yI
18:00 CNN: ‘Beyond the brink’: Data shows LA Fire Department among the most understaffed in America, https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/14/us/la-fire-department-resourses-understaffed-invs/index.html
38:30 Hamas & Israel reach hostage deal
42:00 Paul Town on Mark Halperin’s show, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KXqmGicrzw
52:00 Reviewing Pete Hegseth’s performance at Senate hearing, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VxLCYm30jo
1:07:20 John Podhoretz, Noah Rothman were theater kids, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSI4GkkFzKY
1:08:20 Pete Hegseth nomination for SecDef
1:14:00 Greg Gutfeld on LA’s fires
1:38:28 American Primeval, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/09/arts/television/american-primeval-history-books-movies.html
1:39:00 John Podhoretz recommends American Primeval, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_N7MY1eFqU
1:58:00 Kip joins to talk about the decline of the organization man
2:33:40 Mark Halperin on the Israel – Hamas deal, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ve5rdeJI9E

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LAT: L.A. fire officials could have put engines in the Palisades before the fire broke out. They didn’t

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Luke Ford

Kudos to the Los Angeles Times for this important story:

As the Los Angeles Fire Department faced extraordinary warnings of life-threatening winds, top commanders decided not to assign for emergency deployment roughly 1,000 available firefighters and dozens of water-carrying engines in advance of the fire that destroyed much of the Pacific Palisades and continues to burn, interviews and internal LAFD records show.

Fire officials chose not to order the firefighters to remain on duty for a second shift last Tuesday as the winds were building — which would have doubled the personnel on hand — and staffed just five of more than 40 engines that are available to aid in battling wildfires…

The department only started calling up more firefighters and deploying those additional engines after the Palisades blaze was burning out of control…

Over the past several days, Crowley and other officials have given The Times varying accounts of how many engines were available to supplement regular deployments. An internal planning document obtained by The Times from a source showed that the department said “no” to deploying an additional nine engines, known as “ready reserve” engines, to fire-prone areas. Those are different from the nine engines that were pre-positioned in the Valley and Hollywood.

Crowley initially told The Times that most of the ready reserve engines were inoperable or otherwise unavailable. Later, however, a spokesperson for Crowley said just four of the nine were not immediately available. A third official then produced a document that said seven were put into service at one point or another — most of them after the fire ignited.

Posted in Los Angeles | Comments Off on LAT: L.A. fire officials could have put engines in the Palisades before the fire broke out. They didn’t

The Dog Who Didn’t Bark – Nobody Argues California Has Great Governance (1-14-25)

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Luke Ford

01:00 NR: Why Did California Cut Fire Prevention Spending While Keeping a Rainy-Day Fund?, https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/why-did-california-cut-fire-prevention-spending-while-keeping-a-rainy-day-fund/
12:15 The FBI is terrible at background checks, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtgtSNMGBt0
14:50 Jonathan Haidt is wrong about morality | Prof Kurt Gray, https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/jonathan-haidt-is-wrong-about-morality
19:00 Alpha: Eddie Gallagher and the War for the Soul of the Navy SEALs, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=158567
25:00 Jonathan Haidt is wrong about morality | Prof Kurt Gray, https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/jonathan-haidt-is-wrong-about-morality?utm_source=publication-search
29:00 Best way to survive a fire is to be connected to your neighbors and to have resources (financial, social, emotional, purpose). I volunteer so I have a visceral sense of people depending on me.
30:00 The Anti-Social Century by Derek Thompson, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/02/american-loneliness-personality-politics/681091/
34:00 I was thinking about publishing my love poems
51:00 Japanese TV show Extremely Inappropriate, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/29/world/asia/japan-extremely-inappropriate.html
1:20:00 I worked for a year in Australia after I graduated high school in June 1984, https://www.lukeford.net/luke_ford/bio/l3.html
1:38:50 Kip joins to talk about short-term memory
1:50:00 The advantages of elite universities
2:18:00 LA Fire Truths and Lies with Hotshot Director, https://www.carousel.blog/p/la-fire-truths-and-lies-with-hotshot
2:30:00 California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric–and What It Means for America’s Power Grid, https://www.amazon.com/California-Burning-Pacific-Electric-Americas/dp/059333065X
2:31:00 California Burning author Katherine Blunt, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOyjOewSPqc
2:48:30 Just as I am
3:01:00 The MICE Method: How the CIA Persuades People to Betray Their Country, https://spyauthor.medium.com/the-mice-method-how-the-cia-persuades-people-to-betray-their-country-0bdb9094103b
3:05:45 Nathan Cofnas talks to Nicholas Wade about group differences, lab leak theory, https://ncofnas.com/p/talking-about-race-differences-with
3:20:00 Lab leak theory
4:07:10 DTG Christmas Quiz 2024 with Helen Lewis, https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/dtg-christmas-quiz-2024-with-helen-lewis-badstats
4:24:50 Noah Rothman joins Hugh to talk about California’s Chernobyl, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPKuObXvxKo
4:29:20 Evaluating Pete Hegseth’s senate performance
4:40:00 The Theory of Dyadic Morality: Reinventing Moral Judgment by Redefining Harm, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1088868317698288

Posted in America, California, Los Angeles | Comments Off on The Dog Who Didn’t Bark – Nobody Argues California Has Great Governance (1-14-25)