NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG:

A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE:

I already wrote about the role of Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom in this entire mess, and I commend that piece to all those who want to watch me pour accelerant on two careers already on fire. For now, however, I would like to recommend this lengthy and thoughtful piece by Claire Lehmann at Quillette: “Three Hard Truths about California’s Fire Crisis.” Lehmann is Australian and thus writes about the lessons of Los Angeles through the lens of her experience with the catastrophic fires that wracked her hometown of Adelaide in 2020. Readers will find much to agree with, I suspect, but much that also reads like a counsel of despair: Governments need to have the courage to step in, she writes, and privilege the realities of climate change over mere property rights. It reads uncomfortably like the excuse-making for bad government that she denounces elsewhere. I stopped short where Lehmann writes:

The challenge of implementing controlled burns shows how politics fails us regardless of ideology. It doesn’t matter if it is a left-wing or right-wing government, almost all governments fail to provide enough controlled burns.

And this is where she loses me as well as anyone who has paid attention to how American governments operate on the state level. It is a question of competence, yes, but when Lehmann compares Australia to California she is comparing two essentially left-wing governments — like and like — which is no doubt why she throws her hands up in resignation. That is needless defeatism, as the record shows. The proper comparison, rather, would be between California’s fire management and that of its inverse, the red-state bête noir that is Ron DeSantis’s Florida.

The simple truth, as even NPR admitted with disbelief, is that Florida and other southern, Republican-run states — with every bit the same level of dangerous seasonal fire exposure — are light-years ahead of sclerotic California when it comes to fire mitigation. And it is very much a matter of governance, not resignation to fate. Florida and other southern states prove, with their smartly and lightly regulated regimes of controlled burns of brush and deadwood, that you can prevent massive fires with intelligent policy. As Lehmann’s firefighter friend aptly points out in her piece, “politicians never want to admit that nothing we can do will stop the really bad fires once they’re going.” Which is why politicians in more practical (read: Republican) states have figured out that the best way to avoid that situation is to prevent the really bad fires from getting going in the first place. California forgot this, but it can remember it again.

Los Angeles is indubitably fire-prone. But force majeure is not the same as fate. Even my city once rather infamously burned to the ground — mostly because it was made out of wood at the time. Our response was to rebuild it out of less flammable materials such as concrete and steel — now we have no problems whatsoever; Chicago is a metropolis of model governance. Heck, Moscow has burned down so many times throughout its history — most notably in 1812, when it razed itself in response to a flood of obnoxious and unwanted French tourism — that one almost begins to understand why Russians are the way they are. But our American experience has shown us that blaming “climate change” or “acts of God” is a cheap response, an act of avoiding responsibility. If Florida and Georgia can figure this out, then the only thing preventing California from doing so is Californians.

So they never will, in other words: There Is No Bottom for Blue California.

EXCELLENT OBSERVATION:

RIOTS FOR THEE, BUT NOT FOR ME:

Related: LA’s lowlifes: The ‘looters, burglars and drug addicts’ arrested during Palisades Fire all share common trait. “Cops charged more than 40 detainees with various offenses including burglary and drug possession since the fires broke out on January 7. Remarkably, none of those arrested were actually living in the evacuation zone and seemingly travelled with the intention of taking advantage of the devastation.”

(Classical reference in headline.)

ANALYSIS: TRUE. To Stop Wildfires, Burn Wokeism. “Wildfires are inevitable. The apocalyptic devastation seen in Los Angeles isn’t.”

OF COURSE THEY DO. THAT’S WHY STUDENTS’ DESIRES OR EXPECTATIONS SHOULDN’T SET STANDARDS: Students want A’s for trying hard, B’s for (mostly) showing up. “Students want to be rewarded for effort, even if it doesn’t lead to achievement, writes psychologist Adam Grant in a New York Times op-ed. ‘Two-thirds of college students say that ‘trying hard’ should be a factor in their grades, and a third think they should get at least a B just for showing up at (most) classes,’ he writes.”

THIS IS CNN: ‘We Gonna Nail This Zachary Young MF**ker:’ CNN Reporter’s Text Read Aloud In Court.

CNN reporter Alex Marquardt took the stand on Monday, marking the sixth day of the network’s Florida defamation trial, brought by U.S. Navy veteran Zachary Young over a report about his efforts to aid in the evacuation of Afghan citizens.

Marquardt stated on the stand that he had pitched a story to the network about desperate Afghans fleeing the Taliban — which resulted in a piece that went to air with claims that Young had “preyed” on the people and “exploited” their desperation to make a quick buck.

* * * * * * * *

Marquardt made Young the face of the story after getting the go-ahead from “top brass” within the network. Young’s attorney, Devin Freedman, shared internal messages from CNN, including one from Marquardt stating, “We gonna nail this Zachary Young mf**ker.”

More here: CNN’s Phil Marquardt Refuses to Apologize for Alleged Defamation, Doubles Down.

I’D ASK, “WHY CAN’T SHE JUST TELL HOMELESS PEOPLE NOT TO BURN STUFF OR SMOKE CRACK?” BUT I ALREADY KNOW THE REASON:

Progressive Newspeak is the art of saying what everybody knows in a way that allows them to pretend that they don’t know it.

IT’S ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO BELIEVE SHE WROTE FOR A MAJOR PAPER:

Much more at the thread, all of it embarrassingly awful.

HEGSETH ON FIRE:

Plus:

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Elon Might Buy WHAT Next??? “Are you kidding me with this? Why would Musk want to buy a social media platform in need of a total top-to-bottom re-do when he already owns a working social media platform that he did a total top-to-bottom re-do on?”

SCOTT JENNINGS TO JOHN AVLON: Did Dems Promote Unity by Voting $50 Million to Fight Trump’s Deportations?

Here’s the story that Avalon doesn’t want to discuss, from those nutty MAGA hat wearers at the Politico yesterday: Gavin Newsom and California Democrats reach $50M deal to Trump-proof the state.

Related: Bush-Era Republicans Flourished As Anti-Trumpers — Scott Jennings Took A Different Path. “‘We’re the party that defends Western civilization. We’re the party that generally tries to adhere to common sense. We’re the party that respects cultural norms and values. We respect average everyday people. For as long as I’ve been in politics now, 25 years, that’s been sort of how I view the Republican Party. From that perspective, it’s no trouble at all for me to have proudly worked for George W. Bush, and in this election, and the last two voted for Donald Trump,’ Jennings told the Caller.”

CHRISTIAN TOTO: ‘Reagan’ Not Diverse Enough for Oscars. “2024 biopic one of many films blocked from Best Picture consideration.”

Whatever slim hopes the film had for earning a Best Picture nomination vanished in a DEI snap. The film was ruled ineligible for the top prize because it didn’t meet the Oscars’ new diversity requirements.

The rules in question rose up from the fires of 2020’s BLM protests. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences proposed diversity mandates, which went into effect last year, demanding Best Picture hopefuls check multiple progressive boxes.

Example? A film must have diverse crews or tackle subjects pertaining to marginalized groups. Jews, apparently, don’t qualify.

“Reagan,” apparently, didn’t check enough boxes. And it’s not alone. TheWrap.com reports 116 films released last year didn’t qualify for Best Picture consideration.

Excluded from consideration under the new rules: Patton, The French Connection, The Godfather, The Sting, The Godfather Part II, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (one Indian is not enough diversity and while the bad guy is white, she’s also female), Rocky, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter (probably), and Kramer vs. Kramer.

Those are just the ’70s winners from a decade when auteur directors shot the movies they wanted to shoot. I’d love to hear what Francis Ford Coppola, George Roy Hill, or Milos Forman (among others) would have to say about today’s rules.