288 Comments

I am really tired of hearing the "someone who looks like you" argument for everything. I couldn't care less what the person saving me from a disaster looks like, as long as that person *can* save me.

Also, if there actually are people out there who only want to accept help from "someone who looks like them," it's because the "inclusivity" people convinced them that anyone who doesn't look like them is a danger to them.

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I'm a 5'4" 120lb woman. If I have to call the police or fire department, the last thing I want to see show up is someone who looks like me.

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Hahaha. My wife rarely reads Gato or any social media, but she got to this before I did....because we're both originally from SoCal...and her parents live up there and may lose their house.

First thing out of her mouth was the exact same thing you said...and she's literally the same height/weight.

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Sorry, I won't let you fill out my burglary report because you're not a middle-aged white guy.

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Burglary reports? They are on the way to becoming extinct from what I hear.

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Right, if you don't report it, it didn't happen.

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This is actually a crucial point that no one ever talks about.

Part of the reason that recent crime statistics have — in fact — gone down is because most larger cities have effectively “decriminalized crime“. For the purposes of crime statistics, when victims do not report burglaries, assaults, and even rape, these crimes did not occur. Many jurisdictions have made theft legal (where I live, you can shoplift $950 without being charged), and have reduced what used to be felony assaults to misdemeanors — which means that all those crimes are effectively “wiped clean“ from the statistics, despite the fact that they actually occurred causing harm to the victims.

It’s a form of criminal law gaslighting: there’s far more crime actually happening on the streets, but it’s not reflected in the statistics, so big blue cities can pretend that it’s simply not happening (which means they can brag that their woke policies are working).

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Here, here. I too a life guard training course in college in the early 80s sort of by accident. (I was under the impression that it was an advanced swiming course from the course discription!) While I learned quite a lot of vital information that informed me about water safety issues throughout my life, I quickly realized that I could never be an ocean life guard because of the physical demands placed on the life guard to save someone much bigger than lil 'o me.

Sure, I can pull someone to the side of the pool and help them out there, but we need to know what is realistic and what is not realistic. A day out in the ocean, swimming out beyond the breakers, trying to pull in your swimming partner who while took the same class with you, isn't cooperating, while fighting wave after incoming wave, shows you what you are up against.

I am a small build woman and I like being this size, and while I am strong for my frame, it doesn't mean that I get to jepordize the public because I am not realistic about my limitations or up to doing the job. Public safety jobs are there to protect the public, not to spread "good feelings" or to fix past injustices or precieved unjust actions of the past. I want a strong capable person doing the job, because they are capable of doing the job. Looks don't matter here, but physics and physical ability does.

It's rather shocking that the Assistent Fire Chief has the attitude of "he shouldn't be there in the first place".

Who wants to be caught in a fire? No one, but we need public safety folks to help us out just in case the worst case scanario does happen.

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All I want is someone well trained and competant.

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Show me ONE person who declined to be rescued from a burning building because the fireman was the 'wrong race'.

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All things considered I suspect in an actual fire you won’t even know what race they are until after they get you out. Fully protective gear and clothing. Smoke everywhere. Sirens and other loud noises. General size of the person is going to be about the only thing you can see in an actual fire where you need rescuing.

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Yes. It's also time to inspect the inspectors.

They are ridiculously fastidious to every single stupid detail...except whether the house is safe to live in.

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Inspect and question them. I think that's another reason why they want social media locked down, not necessarily because of dissent, but because of questioning. Their thinking is like "Who are you that I should have to answer your questions?" Well, if you are the first responder, we are the public you are serving and thus we can question anything it is you do.

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Ineptitude/incompetency always must hide and conceal.

We're in the end stages of that and so the cover ups and cyas necessarily become more overt and desperate.

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One can hope we're in the end stages. There's a great of deal of ineptitude/incompetency in the wild...

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Jimmy, just shut TFU and eat your Roundup-soaked corndog. We are only trying to help you.

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Those pains and aches and other symptoms from my round-up hot dog only prove that it is working.

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I recall Eric Hoffer devoting one of his first book titles to you...?

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Man Hoffer did that? He'll have to stand in line behind Carly Simon who wrote a song about me.

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You two are hilarious today. Keep it up...I'm on vacation with a cocktail in my hands...actually my 4th!

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Anything I say should be greeted with a cocktail.

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I hang on every word for the man that hangs the moon!

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Lolol

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More simply put:

Who am I? The One who pays YOUR salary!

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This is the notion behind DEI medical and nursing school admissions. Train more 'look like you' persons to provide medical care, and it will automatically improve compliance and outcomes. Needless to say, the notion is unproven, and likely incorrect.

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In Michigan during "covid," Governor Whitmer ordered all medical workers to undergo unconscious bias training because of the disproportionate outcomes "people of color" were experiencing. My first thought was that the medical community was comprised of one of the most "diverse" group of employees I could imagine.

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I had to go through that nonsense and kept repeating to myself "this is nonsense" so I wouldn't end up absorbing any of it. It was full of propaganda and brainwashing.

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Kinda like when I used to go to church and would spend sermon time refuting the lies being taught (to myself). Eventually I stopped going...

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Amen 😹

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Your first sentence explains everything: Whitmer.

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Is there anyone in the US or Canada who has a job who has not been forced to undergo some version of "cultural sensitivity training"??

I say we re-name it "Feel Guilty Because I Say So" training. That would be more honest.

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A little. But the far more insidious danger is, you are required to think like “us”, lest you be banished with a scarlet C “conservative” painted on your forehead. True of most all industries now. Downfall of all of us when we quietly accept gross incompetence under guise of equality. When the ship starts sinking rats start eating each other to “fairly”save themselves

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4hEdited

compliance and outcomes are the last thing they are concerned about.

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We all know, of course, that that argument goes *only* in one direction...

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My answer is to such a fool is Muck Off.

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Completely agree, but with a caveat; role models matter, and this is why we sent our son to a boys summer camp and not a co-ed camp. I do believe it's important for children to see role models, especially if there are few "like them" in some professions. I once posted on FB a pic of the first black female F-18 pilot and there was a meltdown as if I was Al Sharpton and Richard Spencer combined. But the assistant fire chief was displaying idiocy, and she is definitely the opposite of a role model.

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“yes, the emperor has no clothes, but clotheslessness is a lifestyle choice and we should be welcoming and accommodating and tell him how stunning and brave he is and if you don’t you’re a sartorialist oppressor and need struggle sessions to show you the light now move over the emperor has some kindergarteners to read to”

Brilliant. A bonfire of vanity and gaslighting. Let's see if the lefty propaganda celebs are too demoralized to understand the connections between their virtue signaling and the tragic destruction of their homes.

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So ridiculous.

CA has failed to build a single reservoir since 1979, despite a 2014 voter-passed $7.5 billion water bond ballot initiative that authorized the creation of new reservoirs and several other water infrastructure projects.

Where did the money go?!...rhetorical.

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Likley half was spent on lawyers to fight the environmentalist opposition in court. The other half went to Environmental NGOs who took the state to court.

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The same damn thing happened with the homeless funds. Half wasn't used for the same reasons you point out

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Grift all the way down

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"Half"?

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Well the other half was spent on junkets and boondoggles

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In the early 80's I worked on a program to automate data collection and control of the 20K digital signals and 2K analog signals and the control room for the entire LADWP water system (SCADA). Included reservoir capacity, water quality, pumps, earthquake monitoring at dams, reservoir security, maintenance scheduling, etc etc. It was fascinating. It predated the internet so it was extremely secure with proprietary protocols and leased telecom lines. I'm sure it's been dismantled and replaced with "apps".

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Thank you for being one of the men who built our civilization. Guys like you deserve way more appreciation... and we're all finding out about that now.

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Don't be silly Ryan, don't you know that it went to build the high speed rail?

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California is just Absurdistan now .

God...I can't believe i lived there 48 years. I can not explain to you how much it's changed since the late 90's.

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I'm sure the money was "allocated" for something else.

But I'm not even sure where the state could build new reservoirs. Geologically speaking, California has pretty much run out of good areas to build dams.

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"Let's see if the lefty propaganda celebs are too demoralized to understand the connections between their virtue signaling and the tragic destruction of their homes."

Didn't you know it was "climate change" that caused it? That's the false narrative cover story. The absurdity of the false narratives that underlie their virtue signaling is what needs to be plainly exposed.

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Elon certainly knows how to take advantage, and will use the Ash-eville playbook:

https://romanshapoval.substack.com/p/asheville

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Is it incompetence or planned incompetence? Is thus actually orchestrated disaster masquerading as incompetence? The One World Government people love this sort of thing. Much as government leadership has earned a reputation for incompetence, this is incompetence on steroids, as it was in Maui. Steroids are injected, not natural.

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One mistake people have been making is that affirmative action/DEI is foolish, misguided, or just plain wrong. In truth it is evil. It shouldn’t be eliminated, but rather it should be vigorously prosecuted as a felony. May we someday live to see that happen.

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Can't it be all those things? Very often evil is mixed in with other flaws. DEI is foolish. What does it matter what race/gender I am if I am a plumber? But it definitely is destructive if someone is chosen for other reasons rather than their ability to properly handle a flooded basement.

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This comment got loud applause from the room when I read it out.

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Yup. California has now become like dating a supermodel; beautiful to look at, but batshit crazy.

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I would say Melania is an exception to that rule.

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True that. She never gets old to look at

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And she seems exceptionally grounded: highly intelligent, classy, a good mother, demure and a loyal and faithful partner.

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May poop on your bed 😄

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Yes. The new term is they got Maui’d.

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The places that have been degrading and are now falling apart have some of the highest real estate values in the nation - New York City, The Jersey shore, the LA basin, the San Francisco Bay area, the Florida Gold Coast. This is where the Woke mind virus is most established, but it's also where the Globalists have focussed most of their efforts. The Dems haven't just used voter fraud to get Dems elected, they use it to get the "right kind" of Dem elected in the primaries, though most of the time they kill off the competition early (think RFK jr). If you want to know who's behind this, watch who buys up the real estate after these cities have fallen.

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Have you seen the WEF's 2030 map for 15 min city-LA, CA? might be a hint.

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Gov Newsim is one of the WEFs clones.

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I think it is a combination of both. At the very top, I have no doubt that the so-called "Powers that Be" are aware of the utter unsustainability of the situation that their influence foments, and indeed, they hope that by collapsing the current system they can user in their beloved New World Order. Below that, however, there are a whole lot of useful idiots who are blissfully unaware of what dangerous insanity they are involved with.

Nasty situation all around.

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Are these events to masquerade crisis and failure? "Look at the shiny thing over here...and here...and here?"

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Excellent post. I feel badly for the California wildfire victims but.. I also think that the liberals are getting exactly what they voted for. Look at Karen Bass who was a starry eyed follower of Fidel Castro and is a leader of an extremely radical Communist organization. I’m assuming she was in Ghana to promote her leftist agenda, far more important than providing necessary services to LA. Californians have needed a Come to Jesus moment but will these fires be enough? I’m sensing a “we are the world” song and dance rather than a wake up and smell the coffee sober assessment of what is really going on. My sympathy is tempered with my you got what you paid for ambivalence.

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I get really tired of the celebrities coming out every time Malibu burns insisting that it's climate change.

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What else would you expect them to say? My entire worldview and that of my friends, family and work colleagues is completely wrong?

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I would expect them to say nothing. I would be happy to never hear from Paris Hilton ever again.

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I for one am cool with "celebrity opinions." These days it is becoming fairly obvious who to steer clear of. Let them and encourage them to talk. Sadly though, it also limits entertainment options. I don't know if I will ever watch Arnold Schwarzenegger again. All the ones that came out during Covid and even before who spoke their truth. Aaron Paul, Bryan Cranston, Gene Simmons, Jennifer Anniston, Tom Hanks. These are the ones that came to mind in five seconds. Not to mention Howard Stern.

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Isn’t it odd how these actors can’t keep their foolish mouths shut when they’re off the stage/set? Hasn’t anyone told them that they are alienating at least half their audience? I suppose not. How extremely out of touch does one have to be. Actors, with few exceptions, deserve their reputation for stupidity. It’s a shame, as I would have liked to watch Breaking Bad again…

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A lot of these people came from the dreges of society. They are ignorant uneducated <not even high school>. Then the epsteins show up with tons of money and mickey dunce buys it wholesale. It truly is putting a begger on horseback and he rides to Hell.

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Even Vince Gilligan came out in favor of the Covid vax.

Not sure why you feel the need to boycott BB unless seeing Cranston makes you physically ill.

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They will always "say something". It's how they try to stay relevant, which is the only real pursuit of celebrities.

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How awesome would it have been if some of them said "You know, I don't know so my hot take is...i don't know."

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Yeah, but you know they won't - unless it's James Woods.

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It seems that RFK, Jr has the answer to your question...

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But today they called the (first) arsonist Climate Change - irony.

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It’s interesting that Ms. Bass chose Ghana for her junket.

“It has been established that the demand for slaves during the Transatlantic slave trade was fuelled by the availability of a supply chain which involved African rulers and tradesmen who made a fortune out of selling people.

The slave trade contributed to the expansion of the most powerful West African kingdoms such as Mali and Ghana, as the business became one of the main sources of foreign exchange for many years.”

https://face2faceafrica.com/article/africans-who-played-an-active-role-in-the-transatlantic-slave-trade

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Isn't it amazing how history is always overlooked....

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I was also hoping, maybe this will change some minds in CA? But then I read, the smelt fish they are trying to save hasn’t been seen in 6 years. Oh, and it isn’t even native to the area…

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It won't. As we speak several states have sent firetrucks to CA and they're being held up in the capital because...wait for it...they need to be "inspected".

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Why am I surprised by this!? Just like in WNC, where the inspector determined that a slew of donated tiny homes wouldn't pass inspection so people needed to remain in tents rather than move into the tiny homes.

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Well...like I've said before; they really don't mind killing us

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You are totally right, they don't.

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At some point the People must start to stand up for themselves against this tyranny.

If those people had agreed together to occupy and hold the fort so they could be out of tents, imagine what would happen ......the optics of authorities forcibly moving people out of these buildings would play very poorly...especially if the People resisted together. IT would have changed the dynamic for them and ultimately for the rest of the nation.

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Thus adding tonnage to Kertch's thesis.

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Precisely

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I saw something on YouTube quite a while ago that showed the smelt operation and it was so incredibly stupid that I think I lost brain cells. These idiots were trenching from a tiny stream and out towards the ocean. Literally trenching to facilitate BAIT FISH. I was mentally rolling my eyes so hard I think my eyes got stuck in the roll position. I’m in the world of keep flying over, we don’t do stupid. California went full Monty Python. Or maybe Salvador Dali.

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It's changing some minds....hopefully those with sane minds:

More wealthy millennials -- defined as households of those aged 26 to 45 making more than $200,000 a year — are leaving California than anywhere else in the country, according to a recent SmartAsset report analyzing 2021 and 2022 tax return data. The Golden State lost a net of 9,181 of these wealthy millennial households in that time period, more than double the next biggest loss, which happened in New York.

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Conspiracy Theory moment.

Maybe they are purposefully driving people from CA to use it as a place of "renovation."

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I am of two minds about it. They are seriously altering our quality of life when they move here- prices go up, rents go up, they bring a lot of riff raff with them in their wake. Then again it is job security for me as they tear out last season's Taupe interior and refurbish with this year's shade of Taupe...

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Maybe so...but regardless of whether the last purple-bellied bait-minnow went extinct ten years ago, you can bet your last tax dollar that the dozen agencies "tasked" with saving said minnow are thriving and growing every day.

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Thank you for realizing it’s ALL wood, hay, & stubble …IF we as individuals & society do not come to a Jesus moment. In actuality we need a Jesus life. May we seek wisdom & understanding from above.

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Jesus does not require us to be dumbasses.

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Congratulations, Linda, As the unofficial spokesman of the worldwide internet, I am proud to announce you win The internet today.

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Lolol

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He didn't even say that it would help...

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"I’m sensing a “we are the world” song and dance rather than a wake up and smell the coffee sober assessment of what is really going on."

Not to go too far "off-topic", but this sentence encapsulates the mindset of the day-before-October-7th Nova festival participants ("she just wanted to dance") and the days/weeks/months-after battle-cry ("we'll dance, again").

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Harmony...in a world of difference...yeah right...lol

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As Mark Steyn says, some societies become too stupid to survive. This seems to be one of them.

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The Rome/white lead theory keeps coming to mind

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LA, where the cocaine flows and the water doesn't.

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ROTFL!! Can I use your quote?!?!!!

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Of course

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So many falling for the Covid-19 "Pandemic" narrative was a giant canary in the coalmine that we are sadly past the point of no return. True Idiocracy. I am frankly surprised Brawndo isn't coming out of the fire hydrants.

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Just give it time.

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I went over to reddit /r/news which is very left-leaning and politely inquired whether people in LA might be wishing for a fire chief who talked more about fire prevention than diversity. My comments were promptly downvoted into oblivion, someone said that my questions were "the most unhinged thing he'd ever seen on the internet," and then I was banned from the Subreddit.

I think they love their situation, god bless 'em.

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"the most unhinged thing he'd ever seen on the internet,"

😂😂😂

Oh, the DRAMA!

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I wanted to reply, if this is the most unhinged you've ever seen you need to get out more! But I was banned so I couldn't :D

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Exactly why Bonhoeffer called it the "collective stupidity" of the masses where independent thought and critical thinking no longer exist, the "human defect" that prevents openness to reason or facts; we have reached a critical point where such widespread stupidity is now openly expressed as an ideology to be defended both personally and collectively; we have far too many cowardly and brain-dead responses to crises which lead to the deliberate destruction of humanity and why Fromme referred to our species as an "existential failure."

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But I have a 100k peer-reviewed papers that are estimates predicated on models to prove I am right and you are wrong. What do you have? Youtube videos? Rumble Vidoes?

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Unhinged means lucid and rational in this upside-down world we live in.

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Welll, at least we won't have to worry about Newsome becoming President, like ever.

He just insured us against that.

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The woke have no memory. Newsom will emerge from Armageddon stronger than ever because...Trump.

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It's a funny thing that happens to the progressive principles of real rich people when their mansions all burn down together.

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He will win their favor back as he spends the next 4 yrs in Lawfare against the President.

He must defend CA's PRINCIPLES against the "Oppressor."

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The woke don't, but the middle do, and they're the ones who matter in a first past the post electoral college system.

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Gavin has an employment back-up plan in Davos.

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Davos is starting to lose its cachet too.

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Davos proximity to all those lovely Swiss banks assures its continued luster.

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To be rich and wear silly costumes at fancy dinners does not mean you control the world.

It's perfectly normal for people to desire, seek and do everything they can to keep and expand power.

But of course it is up to citizens in every nation to find a way to get smarter and reduce these people to their essential elemental form.

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We’ve seen this LA situation play out before but in Northern California. In the 1980s, the environmental groups convinced California to stop allowing lumber companies to clear the dead wood out of the forests. They didn’t like the fact that the lumber companies were making money selling the lumber from the collected wood. As a result, nobody cleared the dead wood and huge fires naturally occurred.

They are trying to blame everything on global warming but forestry management appears to be a lost art with these fools!

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I was living in the Bay Area on the peninsula then and remember news reports that the Berkeley Hills were burning and the reason why!

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They're rebuilding LA as a smart city by 2028 for the Olympics. Bit of a coincidence they have the land cleared for free. Again

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Yeah but no preening celebs to add to tax base.

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Never mind, I'm sure BlackRock have it covered. Plus all the insurance claims that aren't paying out

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Who is John galt

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He is me … she is my good friend Heather from Nova Scotia … and Jack from the Netherlands … and, and …

and we are all somewhere else.

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Ah, if only I knew where to find him.

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Guatemala

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The hardest and most expensive place in the USA to get a building permit is in LA County so you can build in a canyon that acts like a torch when it catches fire. Oh the irony!

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Nail on the friggin head. What a post.

You are so right. They're getting a taste of their own medicine. $1.3 bil was allocated for homelessness and only half was used, while only $867 mil for LAFD. That's because someone(s) are skimming the funds...or just incompetent...or both

They'll continue to blame this all on GCC, despite the overwhelming evidence these fires are caused by misguided forest preservation policies.

They've turned entire forests into kindling. Yes, i know this one is due to overbuilding in canyons, etc... and the issue with chapparel.

However, it just cracks me up these climatologist and their lackeys are so sure about weather 50 years from now...but can't guess tomorrow afternoons weather

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There’s something terrifying going on here. How long can America continue to exist if half (and the number is growing) of the population is okay with its leaders' incompetence?

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They're too busy pouting over at BlueCry to care....

They'll learn nothing.

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Half the population has a two digit IQ!

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By definition.

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Yes, so how could it be otherwise? Not to say that IQ is a particularly good measure of things. However, point taken, a lot of people do not think very clearly.

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Palisades got Lahaina'd.

PS Get a blue roof.

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Check into a Howard Johnson's or an iHop?

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California was the spoiled child for a long time- so many natural and then man-made advantages that it didn’t matter much if they had idiots in charge. But you always reach a tipping point of incompetence and this might be it. I gave up years ago but still have hope for my home state.

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Even in my red county in my red state, the sheer incompetence and the giving up on making things work because it's too hard is insane. We have been serially harassed, on our property, since early June. A crazy guy has called the Sheriff 5 times, Wildlife once (so we got a 9pm knock on the door with 2 armed and tooled up Deputies and an armed and tooled up Wildlife officer for the "crime" of "interfering with someone's ability to fish"), CAMA, and then, when no one would do anything (because we hadn't done anything) he was able to go to the magistrate and swear out a warrant the SAME DAY a Deputy had told him we had done nothing wrong and to stay off our property. And the warrant was served, we've had to go to court, have to go again in Feb - with literally no proof or investigation.

Our attorney, the DA, everyone knows this is absolutely crazy and a massive waste of time on the court system - we are the 8th he's done this to and he's never won, because the process is the punishment. EVERYTHING is like this now - "yes, we know this is abuse of the system, we know it's all bogus, but we must be shown to be listening..." it's just utter and complete bullshit. And yes, I did go swear out a warrant against him at the magistrate's office once I found out you could - shocked the crap out of him when he was served in court. But guess what - he now has a PUBLIC DEFENDER while we're paying $3k for a lawyer.

And having lived in CA in the 80s, I don't care how many people say how great things used to be there, it sucked then, too.

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I don't know how you are keeping your sanity. I feel so bad for you...and all of us.

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