I’m at Bangkok airport and I just got a slightly unnerved phone call from one of my best friends
He lost his home in the LA fires - his was in Malibu. Whoooof! All gone. Quite terrifying
His loss is somewhat mitigated by the fact he has two other homes in LA (they’d just vacated the Malibu one to rent it out) and he’s worth roughly £1bn
But still. He was quite choked. Just shows that even obscene wealth does not shield you
It shows that the opposite! He has two other homes and can buy another few hundred. That is a pretty impressive shield.
It’s where their only and very precious child - a daughter - spent her early years and for that reason it has intense emotional value
Tsk
Yeah, but for someone with one home and no spare cash, unable to get insurance because they live somewhere at risk of destruction, may also have fond family memories, but if they lost their house may end up sleeping on the streets or in shelters, as well as feeling sad about the memories.
Its a big massive f*** off shield to have a billion quid.
Jesus. You’re nice
I’m not saying he’s the unluckiest man in history I’m saying that even untold wealth can’t stop a fire from seriously fucking your life in a way that cannot be reversed
It’s not the observation of the ages, it’s so true it’s trite
But still. Quite a fire
This was part of the morning politics debate on GMB today, and actually quite a good one for a change.
The victims of this fire are seen, by some, as less than worthy of our sympathy as we are talking the fabulously wealthy by and large.
Although it was pointed out there are plenty of people who will be victims of this who are just ordinary people who just happen to live there.
Pulp's Common People is most prescient.
If these fires were in a working class community the posh boys here would be radiating their worthiness all over it.
Allegations Liz Truss killed the Queen are OK however.
Truss and her aides blame the Queen for the problems Truss faced.
Far too much time was focussed on the funeral which took time away from planning the mini budget.
Truss’s problem was that she thought the politics was a waste of time, because it was all self-evidently true, and therefore anyone who questioned it must be Deep State.
Truss' problem is that she's mad as a box of frogs.
Allegations Liz Truss killed the Queen are OK however.
Truss and her aides blame the Queen for the problems Truss faced.
Far too much time was focussed on the funeral which took time away from planning the mini budget.
Truss’s problem was that she thought the politics was a waste of time, because it was all self-evidently true, and therefore anyone who questioned it must be Deep State.
Truss' problem is that she's mad as a box of frogs.
The union of boxed frogs are very litigious when it comes to comparisons with Truss. Be careful.
I’m at Bangkok airport and I just got a slightly unnerved phone call from one of my best friends
He lost his home in the LA fires - his was in Malibu. Whoooof! All gone. Quite terrifying
His loss is somewhat mitigated by the fact he has two other homes in LA (they’d just vacated the Malibu one to rent it out) and he’s worth roughly £1bn
But still. He was quite choked. Just shows that even obscene wealth does not shield you
It shows that the opposite! He has two other homes and can buy another few hundred. That is a pretty impressive shield.
It’s where their only and very precious child - a daughter - spent her early years and for that reason it has intense emotional value
Tsk
Yeah, but for someone with one home and no spare cash, unable to get insurance because they live somewhere at risk of destruction, may also have fond family memories, but if they lost their house may end up sleeping on the streets or in shelters, as well as feeling sad about the memories.
Its a big massive f*** off shield to have a billion quid.
Jesus. You’re nice
I’m not saying he’s the unluckiest man in history I’m saying that even untold wealth can’t stop a fire from seriously fucking your life in a way that cannot be reversed
It’s not the observation of the ages, it’s so true it’s trite
But still. Quite a fire
This was part of the morning politics debate on GMB today, and actually quite a good one for a change.
The victims of this fire are seen, by some, as less than worthy of our sympathy as we are talking the fabulously wealthy by and large.
Although it was pointed out there are plenty of people who will be victims of this who are just ordinary people who just happen to live there.
Pulp's Common People is most prescient.
If these fires were in a working class community the posh boys here would be radiating their worthiness all over it.
I say again, climate change does not care whether you are rich or poor.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
Musk leaps ahead of the standard sign of ahistorical dimwittery (Hitler was a socialist actually) by agreeing with the leader of AfD that Hitler was a communist who nationalised businesses. We really are at the stage of folk in swastika t-shirts endlessly bellowing 'NO, YOU'RE THE REAL NAZI!'.
I thought what the world needs now was love, sweet love, no, not just for fun but for everyone.
Dreadful scenes from Los Angeles once again on the New Zealand evening news followed by confirmation 2024 was Earth’s warmest year. Sometimes the impact of climate change doesn’t become real until it becomes personal - a bit like immigration...
It's still not real for an awful lot of people. LA was entirely down to the governor, not climate change, apparently.
Have you seen the excruciating interview with the mayor of LA where she is asked some pretty simple questions like “why did you go abroad during the fires” and she simply freezes? That’s one career finished
One unremarked villain is the Sierra Club. While they're in the right side of the climate change argument, they've regularly litigated, using clean air legislation, to prevent controlled burning of forestry, which is about the only reliable way of preventing disasters like this.
Allegations Liz Truss killed the Queen are OK however.
Truss and her aides blame the Queen for the problems Truss faced.
Far too much time was focussed on the funeral which took time away from planning the mini budget.
Truss’s problem was that she thought the politics was a waste of time, because it was all self-evidently true, and therefore anyone who questioned it must be Deep State.
Truss' problem is that she's mad as a box of frogs.
Truss's other problem is that nobody seems to be saying "Maaaate" to her. Or whatever the equivalent is for female ex-PMs who don't like lefties. Not effectively, anyway.
Musk leaps ahead of the standard sign of ahistorical dimwittery (Hitler was a socialist actually) by agreeing with the leader of AfD that Hitler was a communist who nationalised businesses. We really are at the stage of folk with swastika t-shirts endlessly bellowing 'NO, YOU'RE THE REAL NAZI!'.
There's no question that Musk is ar the Erno Goldfinger stage.
In his interview with the AfD yesterday, he said that "X is the collective consciousness of humanity, good and bad." Now the collective consciousness is going to overthrow the British government, and send a select few of us into space.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
There are extraordinary photos online of burnt-out suburbs with unscathed trees still standing. You sometimes get the impression US houses are all cobbled together out of timber - especially after a tornado has passed through.
Musk leaps ahead of the standard sign of ahistorical dimwittery (Hitler was a socialist actually) by agreeing with the leader of AfD that Hitler was a communist who nationalised businesses. We really are at the stage of folk with swastika t-shirts endlessly bellowing 'NO, YOU'RE THE REAL NAZI!'.
There's no question that Musk is ar the Erno Goldfinger stage.
In his interview with the AfD yesterday, he said that "X is the collective consciousness of humanity, good and bad." Now the collective consciousness is going to overthrow the British government, and send a select few of us into space.
I know a lot of us on PB don't like Brutalists, but surely you mean Auric!
I’m at Bangkok airport and I just got a slightly unnerved phone call from one of my best friends
He lost his home in the LA fires - his was in Malibu. Whoooof! All gone. Quite terrifying
His loss is somewhat mitigated by the fact he has two other homes in LA (they’d just vacated the Malibu one to rent it out) and he’s worth roughly £1bn
But still. He was quite choked. Just shows that even obscene wealth does not shield you
It shows that the opposite! He has two other homes and can buy another few hundred. That is a pretty impressive shield.
It’s where their only and very precious child - a daughter - spent her early years and for that reason it has intense emotional value
Tsk
Yeah, but for someone with one home and no spare cash, unable to get insurance because they live somewhere at risk of destruction, may also have fond family memories, but if they lost their house may end up sleeping on the streets or in shelters, as well as feeling sad about the memories.
Its a big massive f*** off shield to have a billion quid.
Jesus. You’re nice
I’m not saying he’s the unluckiest man in history I’m saying that even untold wealth can’t stop a fire from seriously fucking your life in a way that cannot be reversed
It’s not the observation of the ages, it’s so true it’s trite
But still. Quite a fire
This was part of the morning politics debate on GMB today, and actually quite a good one for a change.
The victims of this fire are seen, by some, as less than worthy of our sympathy as we are talking the fabulously wealthy by and large.
Although it was pointed out there are plenty of people who will be victims of this who are just ordinary people who just happen to live there.
Pulp's Common People is most prescient.
If these fires were in a working class community the posh boys here would be radiating their worthiness all over it.
I've two BILs in LA, one of whom is indeed something like Sandpit's 'average salaryman' (and lives in an apartment right on the edge of one of the last night's fire zones), and the other who has a house in Bel Air.
Musk leaps ahead of the standard sign of ahistorical dimwittery (Hitler was a socialist actually) by agreeing with the leader of AfD that Hitler was a communist who nationalised businesses. We really are at the stage of folk with swastika t-shirts endlessly bellowing 'NO, YOU'RE THE REAL NAZI!'.
There's no question that Musk is ar the Erno Goldfinger stage.
In his interview with the AfD yesterday, he said that "X is the collective consciousness of humanity, good and bad." Now the collective consciousness is going to overthrow the British government, and send a select few of us into space.
I know a lot of us on PB don't like Brutalists, but surely you mean Auric!
;,) Haha , yes, I was getting mixed up with Ernst Stavro Blofeld , again.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
The Santa Ana winds blow at this time of year but usually accompanied by rain. Winds + no rain + very dry undergrowth = disaster.
Apropos of nothing one of my fave songs, Babylon Sister by Steely Dan mentions the Santa Ana winds, it's kind of peak LA for me.
I’m at Bangkok airport and I just got a slightly unnerved phone call from one of my best friends
He lost his home in the LA fires - his was in Malibu. Whoooof! All gone. Quite terrifying
His loss is somewhat mitigated by the fact he has two other homes in LA (they’d just vacated the Malibu one to rent it out) and he’s worth roughly £1bn
But still. He was quite choked. Just shows that even obscene wealth does not shield you
It shows that the opposite! He has two other homes and can buy another few hundred. That is a pretty impressive shield.
It’s where their only and very precious child - a daughter - spent her early years and for that reason it has intense emotional value
Tsk
Yeah, but for someone with one home and no spare cash, unable to get insurance because they live somewhere at risk of destruction, may also have fond family memories, but if they lost their house may end up sleeping on the streets or in shelters, as well as feeling sad about the memories.
Its a big massive f*** off shield to have a billion quid.
Jesus. You’re nice
I’m not saying he’s the unluckiest man in history I’m saying that even untold wealth can’t stop a fire from seriously fucking your life in a way that cannot be reversed
It’s not the observation of the ages, it’s so true it’s trite
But still. Quite a fire
This was part of the morning politics debate on GMB today, and actually quite a good one for a change.
The victims of this fire are seen, by some, as less than worthy of our sympathy as we are talking the fabulously wealthy by and large.
Although it was pointed out there are plenty of people who will be victims of this who are just ordinary people who just happen to live there.
Pulp's Common People is most prescient.
If these fires were in a working class community the posh boys here would be radiating their worthiness all over it.
It’s also easy to forget, for those who think that it’s the rich suffering so not so bad, that there will be thousands of gardeners who will lose their livelihoods and no employment protection, housekeepers who have lost their homes and jobs, shopkeepers who will have lost their homes and businesses.
It’s similar to the people who shrug at the wealthy leaving the UK and say “good riddance”, there is a whole world of ordinary people who live side by side and service and depend on the “rich” for their livelihoods so whilst cheering the rich suffering or leaving they aren’t dipping in their pockets to cover the loss of jobs and incomes for many many ordinary people.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
They have fires all the time but in winter they don’t normally get far because of winter rain. No rain this year
I thought what the world needs now was love, sweet love, no, not just for fun but for everyone.
Dreadful scenes from Los Angeles once again on the New Zealand evening news followed by confirmation 2024 was Earth’s warmest year. Sometimes the impact of climate change doesn’t become real until it becomes personal - a bit like immigration...
It's still not real for an awful lot of people. LA was entirely down to the governor, not climate change, apparently.
Have you seen the excruciating interview with the mayor of LA where she is asked some pretty simple questions like “why did you go abroad during the fires” and she simply freezes? That’s one career finished
The LA Fire Department had their budget cut by $17.5m this year, had to cancel the planned testing of fire hydrants last week - but of course still had enough budget for the $250k Head of DEI, and waving flags at the Pride march while writing articles moaning that the FD has “a white man problem”.
The City also failed to clear scrub from the forests, and the water utility failed to ensure that the reservoirs used for firefighting were full. The water utility head (on $750k per year) did an interview that was equally excruciating. She had one job to do.
Simples. Keep the head of DEI, the flags and tax the rich more.
The US super-rich are leeches. They usually have the money to avoid the worst of their acts, but it seems fire is hard to avoid.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
I’m at Bangkok airport and I just got a slightly unnerved phone call from one of my best friends
He lost his home in the LA fires - his was in Malibu. Whoooof! All gone. Quite terrifying
His loss is somewhat mitigated by the fact he has two other homes in LA (they’d just vacated the Malibu one to rent it out) and he’s worth roughly £1bn
But still. He was quite choked. Just shows that even obscene wealth does not shield you
It shows that the opposite! He has two other homes and can buy another few hundred. That is a pretty impressive shield.
It’s where their only and very precious child - a daughter - spent her early years and for that reason it has intense emotional value
Tsk
Yeah, but for someone with one home and no spare cash, unable to get insurance because they live somewhere at risk of destruction, may also have fond family memories, but if they lost their house may end up sleeping on the streets or in shelters, as well as feeling sad about the memories.
Its a big massive f*** off shield to have a billion quid.
Jesus. You’re nice
I’m not saying he’s the unluckiest man in history I’m saying that even untold wealth can’t stop a fire from seriously fucking your life in a way that cannot be reversed
It’s not the observation of the ages, it’s so true it’s trite
But still. Quite a fire
If you want nice perhaps you should stop cheerleading for millions of Ukranians to have to live under Putins murderous regime. Just saying.....
Are you on ketamine? What the fuck has Ukraine got to do with my friend losing his house in the LA fires??’
The header acknowledges that the minibudget didn't crash the economy. Nor were the tax cuts contained therein particularly extreme or expensive. On the information we now have the 30% increase in Corporation Tax that she fought against has added 10% to CT receipts in the full year it has been in place. Yes there are some mitigating factors with expensing that would mean you wouldn't expect to get the full 30%, but the bottom line is if those trends continue, it will become revenue neutral and then actually cost the exchequer money in the coming years. As any idiot looking at Ireland could have predicted.
So why did she fire Kwarteng?
She fired Kamikwazi because she hadn’t crashed the economy She hired Hunt to rip up her entire programme because she hadn’t crashed the economy She let Hunt announce emergency reversals to stabilise the markets and avoid disaster because she hadn’t crashed the economy She lost control of her government and her agenda and then her party because she definitely didn’t do anything to crash the economy.
Anyone who remembers otherwise, or is looking at the vast documented evidence is a victim of Blob thinking.
Nadeem Zahavi took over for Kwasi btw, Hunt was appointed by Rishi after he took over the leadership.
Musk leaps ahead of the standard sign of ahistorical dimwittery (Hitler was a socialist actually) by agreeing with the leader of AfD that Hitler was a communist who nationalised businesses. We really are at the stage of folk with swastika t-shirts endlessly bellowing 'NO, YOU'RE THE REAL NAZI!'.
There's no question that Musk is ar the Erno Goldfinger stage.
In his interview with the AfD yesterday, he said that "X is the collective consciousness of humanity, good and bad." Now the collective consciousness is going to overthrow the British government, and send a select few of us into space.
I know a lot of us on PB don't like Brutalists, but surely you mean Auric!
;,) Haha , yes, I was getting mixed up with Ernst Stavro Blofeld , again.
Mind, Ernő could do you a nice pad and Launch Tower if Balfron Tower is anything to go by.
Just to correct some misinformation being promoted here on previous threads by people who seem to get their info on German politics from know-nothing nutty American far-right twitterers:
No, Weidel won't be the next Chancellor of Germany (she is easily the most unpopular of the well-known politicians in Germany).
Yes, CDU/CSU plus SPD will (almost certainly) between them have a majority of seats after the next election, so another Grand Coalition will be possible - indeed it is easily the most likely outcome.
No, none of the AfD, the BSW or die Linke will form part of the next federal government.
Right, I'm off, busy day. Seeya.
But you didn't tell us whether or not Hitler was a communist...
IIRC there was a story that immediately after WWI, Hitler was briefly seen in a Workers Militia.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
It seems wildfires are possible anytime from when the summer heat has finally dried out all the brush & foliage to the arrival of the first rains of the winter / spring.
IIRC I saw somewhere that it’s been an unusually dry winter in LA this year, which perhaps explains how a wildfire in the middle of January is possible.
I thought what the world needs now was love, sweet love, no, not just for fun but for everyone.
Dreadful scenes from Los Angeles once again on the New Zealand evening news followed by confirmation 2024 was Earth’s warmest year. Sometimes the impact of climate change doesn’t become real until it becomes personal - a bit like immigration...
It's still not real for an awful lot of people. LA was entirely down to the governor, not climate change, apparently.
Have you seen the excruciating interview with the mayor of LA where she is asked some pretty simple questions like “why did you go abroad during the fires” and she simply freezes? That’s one career finished
The LA Fire Department had their budget cut by $17.5m this year, had to cancel the planned testing of fire hydrants last week - but of course still had enough budget for the $250k Head of DEI, and waving flags at the Pride march while writing articles moaning that the FD has “a white man problem”.
The City also failed to clear scrub from the forests, and the water utility failed to ensure that the reservoirs used for firefighting were full. The water utility head (on $750k per year) did an interview that was equally excruciating. She had one job to do.
That isn't true. The LA fire department didn't get a budget cut, it got an increase of $50 million.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
It seems wildfires are possible anytime from when the summer heat has finally dried out all the brush & foliage to the arrival of the first rains of the winter / spring.
IIRC I saw somewhere that it’s been an unusually dry winter in LA this year, which perhaps explains how a wildfire in the middle of January is possible.
Unusually dry would be an, erm, unusually dry understatement. Apparently this year they've had cumulatively 2.2% of the normal winter rainfall total (Oct-Mar), if I read the graph rightly.
I’m loving the revisionist history from PB Tories. Of course she didn’t crash the economy. And as a result she didn’t have to sack her chancellor and hire the guy to rip up and immediately reverse the things she had done to crash the economy. Because she hadn’t. So it didn’t happen. Indeed it’s such a lie because she’s still our PM. And she’ll sue anyone who claims that having crashed the economy, sacking her chancellor and having to scrap her entire programme to stop the crash being permanent that she then was forced to resign.
It’s defamation.
The difference in politics today is less between left and right and more between those who live in reality and those who live in fantasy. Truss didn’t crash the economy, Canada will join the US, threatening Greenland is a sensible policy, Russia only invaded Ukraine because they felt threatened by NATO expansion, Matt Gaetz would be a good Attorney General, etc.
Also: the virus came from a wet market and everyone agrees on that and it’s all settled can we now move on, thanks
This may be the most perfect reply I've ever received to a post.
Allegations Liz Truss killed the Queen are OK however.
Truss and her aides blame the Queen for the problems Truss faced.
Far too much time was focussed on the funeral which took time away from planning the mini budget.
Truss’s problem was that she thought the politics was a waste of time, because it was all self-evidently true, and therefore anyone who questioned it must be Deep State.
Truss' problem is that she's mad as a box of frogs.
The union of boxed frogs are very litigious when it comes to comparisons with Truss. Be careful.
Ah, more use of our libel laws as intended. Warms the heart.
You should read that David Allen Green link in the header.
I have, and obvs she's not going to win if she pursues it but doubtless there are similar vexatious claims that have the chilling effect Cyclefree pointed out a few threads ago. If there is one bit of US law I'd swap yesterday and twice on sundays for UK law it'd be their first amendment in place of our libel laws.
I thought what the world needs now was love, sweet love, no, not just for fun but for everyone.
Dreadful scenes from Los Angeles once again on the New Zealand evening news followed by confirmation 2024 was Earth’s warmest year. Sometimes the impact of climate change doesn’t become real until it becomes personal - a bit like immigration...
It's still not real for an awful lot of people. LA was entirely down to the governor, not climate change, apparently.
Have you seen the excruciating interview with the mayor of LA where she is asked some pretty simple questions like “why did you go abroad during the fires” and she simply freezes? That’s one career finished
The LA Fire Department had their budget cut by $17.5m this year, had to cancel the planned testing of fire hydrants last week - but of course still had enough budget for the $250k Head of DEI, and waving flags at the Pride march while writing articles moaning that the FD has “a white man problem”.
The City also failed to clear scrub from the forests, and the water utility failed to ensure that the reservoirs used for firefighting were full. The water utility head (on $750k per year) did an interview that was equally excruciating. She had one job to do.
That isn't true. The LA fire department didn't get a budget cut, it got an increase of $50 million.
Here’s a video of a Russian weapons factory on fire. They make and repair electonics there for missiles and planes, parts which are already in very short supply thanks to sanctions.
Allegations Liz Truss killed the Queen are OK however.
Truss and her aides blame the Queen for the problems Truss faced.
Far too much time was focussed on the funeral which took time away from planning the mini budget.
Truss’s problem was that she thought the politics was a waste of time, because it was all self-evidently true, and therefore anyone who questioned it must be Deep State.
Truss' problem is that she's mad as a box of frogs.
The union of boxed frogs are very litigious when it comes to comparisons with Truss. Be careful.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
It seems wildfires are possible anytime from when the summer heat has finally dried out all the brush & foliage to the arrival of the first rains of the winter / spring.
IIRC I saw somewhere that it’s been an unusually dry winter in LA this year, which perhaps explains how a wildfire in the middle of January is possible.
Unusually dry would be an, erm, unusually dry understatement. Apparently this year they've had cumulatively 2.2% of the normal winter rainfall total (Oct-Mar), if I read the graph rightly.
Yes, you can only ignore facts for so long, because they won't ignore you.
Last year was the warmest ever, and that has climate consequences, in LA that means no rain, in other places rather too much, such as Leicestershire last week.
I thought what the world needs now was love, sweet love, no, not just for fun but for everyone.
Dreadful scenes from Los Angeles once again on the New Zealand evening news followed by confirmation 2024 was Earth’s warmest year. Sometimes the impact of climate change doesn’t become real until it becomes personal - a bit like immigration...
It's still not real for an awful lot of people. LA was entirely down to the governor, not climate change, apparently.
Have you seen the excruciating interview with the mayor of LA where she is asked some pretty simple questions like “why did you go abroad during the fires” and she simply freezes? That’s one career finished
The LA Fire Department had their budget cut by $17.5m this year, had to cancel the planned testing of fire hydrants last week - but of course still had enough budget for the $250k Head of DEI, and waving flags at the Pride march while writing articles moaning that the FD has “a white man problem”.
The City also failed to clear scrub from the forests, and the water utility failed to ensure that the reservoirs used for firefighting were full. The water utility head (on $750k per year) did an interview that was equally excruciating. She had one job to do.
That isn't true. The LA fire department didn't get a budget cut, it got an increase of $50 million.
So 20th century. If something is repeated often enough it is nowadays considered absolutely true.
*19th* surely.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: That alone should encourage the crew. Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.
I thought what the world needs now was love, sweet love, no, not just for fun but for everyone.
Dreadful scenes from Los Angeles once again on the New Zealand evening news followed by confirmation 2024 was Earth’s warmest year. Sometimes the impact of climate change doesn’t become real until it becomes personal - a bit like immigration...
It's still not real for an awful lot of people. LA was entirely down to the governor, not climate change, apparently.
Have you seen the excruciating interview with the mayor of LA where she is asked some pretty simple questions like “why did you go abroad during the fires” and she simply freezes? That’s one career finished
The LA Fire Department had their budget cut by $17.5m this year, had to cancel the planned testing of fire hydrants last week - but of course still had enough budget for the $250k Head of DEI, and waving flags at the Pride march while writing articles moaning that the FD has “a white man problem”.
The City also failed to clear scrub from the forests, and the water utility failed to ensure that the reservoirs used for firefighting were full. The water utility head (on $750k per year) did an interview that was equally excruciating. She had one job to do.
That isn't true. The LA fire department didn't get a budget cut, it got an increase of $50 million.
Allegations Liz Truss killed the Queen are OK however.
Truss and her aides blame the Queen for the problems Truss faced.
Far too much time was focussed on the funeral which took time away from planning the mini budget.
Truss’s problem was that she thought the politics was a waste of time, because it was all self-evidently true, and therefore anyone who questioned it must be Deep State.
Truss' problem is that she's mad as a box of frogs.
The union of boxed frogs are very litigious when it comes to comparisons with Truss. Be careful.
The header acknowledges that the minibudget didn't crash the economy. Nor were the tax cuts contained therein particularly extreme or expensive. On the information we now have the 30% increase in Corporation Tax that she fought against has added 10% to CT receipts in the full year it has been in place. Yes there are some mitigating factors with expensing that would mean you wouldn't expect to get the full 30%, but the bottom line is if those trends continue, it will become revenue neutral and then actually cost the exchequer money in the coming years. As any idiot looking at Ireland could have predicted.
If CT at 25% with expensing becomes revenue negative vs CT at 15% with limited expensing then it's hugely beneficial to the economy because it's pushing corporate money into capital investment. If you look at the stats business investment is on a hot streak too since full expensing was introduced. I'd estimate it's raised growth by 0.3-0.5% per year so far vs the baseline before when business investment was absolutely terrible.
This is the intended result if having a higher rate with big reliefs/incentives to bring that rate down. You simply can't compare the UK to Ireland, Ireland works on the basis of 0.25-0.75% sweetheart rates for multinationals in exchange for a few thousand jobs. In small countries this might just about make sense because there's a low number of people and a few thousand jobs is enough to keep everyone employed and the state funded without any proper CT receipts. In the UK exchanging CT receipts for a few thousand jobs isn't viable our population is 10x larger. The multiplier that we get from those extra jobs is absolutely tiny compared to what we'd get with proper CT rates. You simply lack the understanding on this subject and by continually raising Ireland as a valid point of comparison and suggesting that a drop in CT receipts with full expensing is a bad outcome you show it time and again.
From my perspective what the previous government achieved with the new CT policy was getting money out of dividends and into capital growth and if the trend proves correct then out of government hands into capital growth too. Money has gone from two very low multiplier categories to the single highest multiplier category, I don't see how this is the huge negative you think it is?
But, apart from the first five sentences, LG's post was spot on, right?
I’m loving the revisionist history from PB Tories. Of course she didn’t crash the economy. And as a result she didn’t have to sack her chancellor and hire the guy to rip up and immediately reverse the things she had done to crash the economy. Because she hadn’t. So it didn’t happen. Indeed it’s such a lie because she’s still our PM. And she’ll sue anyone who claims that having crashed the economy, sacking her chancellor and having to scrap her entire programme to stop the crash being permanent that she then was forced to resign.
It’s defamation.
The difference in politics today is less between left and right and more between those who live in reality and those who live in fantasy. Truss didn’t crash the economy, Canada will join the US, threatening Greenland is a sensible policy, Russia only invaded Ukraine because they felt threatened by NATO expansion, Matt Gaetz would be a good Attorney General, etc.
Also: the virus came from a wet marketlab and everyone agrees on that and it’s all settled can we now move on, thanks
Ah, more use of our libel laws as intended. Warms the heart.
You should read that David Allen Green link in the header.
I have, and obvs she's not going to win if she pursues it but doubtless there are similar vexatious claims that have the chilling effect Cyclefree pointed out a few threads ago. If there is one bit of US law I'd swap yesterday and twice on sundays for UK law it'd be their first amendment in place of our libel laws.
English law or perhaps English legal practice, to be more precise. We just don't get libel tourism in the Edinburgh courts, so far as I can tell, though where the difference lies I'm not sure.
I’m at Bangkok airport and I just got a slightly unnerved phone call from one of my best friends
He lost his home in the LA fires - his was in Malibu. Whoooof! All gone. Quite terrifying
His loss is somewhat mitigated by the fact he has two other homes in LA (they’d just vacated the Malibu one to rent it out) and he’s worth roughly £1bn
But still. He was quite choked. Just shows that even obscene wealth does not shield you
It shows that the opposite! He has two other homes and can buy another few hundred. That is a pretty impressive shield.
It’s where their only and very precious child - a daughter - spent her early years and for that reason it has intense emotional value
Tsk
Yeah, but for someone with one home and no spare cash, unable to get insurance because they live somewhere at risk of destruction, may also have fond family memories, but if they lost their house may end up sleeping on the streets or in shelters, as well as feeling sad about the memories.
Its a big massive f*** off shield to have a billion quid.
Jesus. You’re nice
I’m not saying he’s the unluckiest man in history I’m saying that even untold wealth can’t stop a fire from seriously fucking your life in a way that cannot be reversed
It’s not the observation of the ages, it’s so true it’s trite
But still. Quite a fire
This was part of the morning politics debate on GMB today, and actually quite a good one for a change.
The victims of this fire are seen, by some, as less than worthy of our sympathy as we are talking the fabulously wealthy by and large.
Although it was pointed out there are plenty of people who will be victims of this who are just ordinary people who just happen to live there.
Pulp's Common People is most prescient.
If these fires were in a working class community the posh boys here would be radiating their worthiness all over it.
It’s also easy to forget, for those who think that it’s the rich suffering so not so bad, that there will be thousands of gardeners who will lose their livelihoods and no employment protection, housekeepers who have lost their homes and jobs, shopkeepers who will have lost their homes and businesses.
It’s similar to the people who shrug at the wealthy leaving the UK and say “good riddance”, there is a whole world of ordinary people who live side by side and service and depend on the “rich” for their livelihoods so whilst cheering the rich suffering or leaving they aren’t dipping in their pockets to cover the loss of jobs and incomes for many many ordinary people.
On the other hand the prime real estate land remains even if the houses previously on top of it have burnt down.
Which likely means lots of money for construction workers in the next few years.
I thought what the world needs now was love, sweet love, no, not just for fun but for everyone.
Dreadful scenes from Los Angeles once again on the New Zealand evening news followed by confirmation 2024 was Earth’s warmest year. Sometimes the impact of climate change doesn’t become real until it becomes personal - a bit like immigration...
It's still not real for an awful lot of people. LA was entirely down to the governor, not climate change, apparently.
Have you seen the excruciating interview with the mayor of LA where she is asked some pretty simple questions like “why did you go abroad during the fires” and she simply freezes? That’s one career finished
The LA Fire Department had their budget cut by $17.5m this year, had to cancel the planned testing of fire hydrants last week - but of course still had enough budget for the $250k Head of DEI, and waving flags at the Pride march while writing articles moaning that the FD has “a white man problem”.
The City also failed to clear scrub from the forests, and the water utility failed to ensure that the reservoirs used for firefighting were full. The water utility head (on $750k per year) did an interview that was equally excruciating. She had one job to do.
Simples. Keep the head of DEI, the flags and tax the rich more.
The US super-rich are leeches. They usually have the money to avoid the worst of their acts, but it seems fire is hard to avoid.
I like how in Sandpit's eyes the $250k on the DEI director is the real problem, while the LAPD (not the world's wokeist institution) got a funding increase of $126 million to total funding of $2.14 billion.
I’m at Bangkok airport and I just got a slightly unnerved phone call from one of my best friends
He lost his home in the LA fires - his was in Malibu. Whoooof! All gone. Quite terrifying
His loss is somewhat mitigated by the fact he has two other homes in LA (they’d just vacated the Malibu one to rent it out) and he’s worth roughly £1bn
But still. He was quite choked. Just shows that even obscene wealth does not shield you
It shows that the opposite! He has two other homes and can buy another few hundred. That is a pretty impressive shield.
It’s where their only and very precious child - a daughter - spent her early years and for that reason it has intense emotional value
Tsk
Yeah, but for someone with one home and no spare cash, unable to get insurance because they live somewhere at risk of destruction, may also have fond family memories, but if they lost their house may end up sleeping on the streets or in shelters, as well as feeling sad about the memories.
Its a big massive f*** off shield to have a billion quid.
Jesus. You’re nice
I’m not saying he’s the unluckiest man in history I’m saying that even untold wealth can’t stop a fire from seriously fucking your life in a way that cannot be reversed
It’s not the observation of the ages, it’s so true it’s trite
But still. Quite a fire
This was part of the morning politics debate on GMB today, and actually quite a good one for a change.
The victims of this fire are seen, by some, as less than worthy of our sympathy as we are talking the fabulously wealthy by and large.
Although it was pointed out there are plenty of people who will be victims of this who are just ordinary people who just happen to live there.
Pulp's Common People is most prescient.
If these fires were in a working class community the posh boys here would be radiating their worthiness all over it.
I say again, climate change does not care whether you are rich or poor.
I say again people looking at the victims of it do.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
Fires are due to lack of water, not air temperature. California is prone to several long term weather patterns, some of which are dry. Not everything that happens is down to climate change.
Just to correct some misinformation being promoted here on previous threads by people who seem to get their info on German politics from know-nothing nutty American far-right twitterers:
No, Weidel won't be the next Chancellor of Germany (she is easily the most unpopular of the well-known politicians in Germany).
Yes, CDU/CSU plus SPD will (almost certainly) between them have a majority of seats after the next election, so another Grand Coalition will be possible - indeed it is easily the most likely outcome.
No, none of the AfD, the BSW or die Linke will form part of the next federal government.
Right, I'm off, busy day. Seeya.
But you didn't tell us whether or not Hitler was a communist...
IIRC there was a story that immediately after WWI, Hitler was briefly seen in a Workers Militia.
Ian Kershaw confirmed the truth of it. However, it was SPD, not KPD-affiliated.
At that point in time, a lot of right-leaning Germans saw the SPD as the only patriotic organisation that could maintain order and prevent revolution. Royal governments had essentially collapsed without a fight.
I thought what the world needs now was love, sweet love, no, not just for fun but for everyone.
Dreadful scenes from Los Angeles once again on the New Zealand evening news followed by confirmation 2024 was Earth’s warmest year. Sometimes the impact of climate change doesn’t become real until it becomes personal - a bit like immigration...
It's still not real for an awful lot of people. LA was entirely down to the governor, not climate change, apparently.
Have you seen the excruciating interview with the mayor of LA where she is asked some pretty simple questions like “why did you go abroad during the fires” and she simply freezes? That’s one career finished
The LA Fire Department had their budget cut by $17.5m this year, had to cancel the planned testing of fire hydrants last week - but of course still had enough budget for the $250k Head of DEI, and waving flags at the Pride march while writing articles moaning that the FD has “a white man problem”.
The City also failed to clear scrub from the forests, and the water utility failed to ensure that the reservoirs used for firefighting were full. The water utility head (on $750k per year) did an interview that was equally excruciating. She had one job to do.
That isn't true. The LA fire department didn't get a budget cut, it got an increase of $50 million.
I thought what the world needs now was love, sweet love, no, not just for fun but for everyone.
Dreadful scenes from Los Angeles once again on the New Zealand evening news followed by confirmation 2024 was Earth’s warmest year. Sometimes the impact of climate change doesn’t become real until it becomes personal - a bit like immigration...
It's still not real for an awful lot of people. LA was entirely down to the governor, not climate change, apparently.
Have you seen the excruciating interview with the mayor of LA where she is asked some pretty simple questions like “why did you go abroad during the fires” and she simply freezes? That’s one career finished
The LA Fire Department had their budget cut by $17.5m this year, had to cancel the planned testing of fire hydrants last week - but of course still had enough budget for the $250k Head of DEI, and waving flags at the Pride march while writing articles moaning that the FD has “a white man problem”.
The City also failed to clear scrub from the forests, and the water utility failed to ensure that the reservoirs used for firefighting were full. The water utility head (on $750k per year) did an interview that was equally excruciating. She had one job to do.
I thought what the world needs now was love, sweet love, no, not just for fun but for everyone.
Dreadful scenes from Los Angeles once again on the New Zealand evening news followed by confirmation 2024 was Earth’s warmest year. Sometimes the impact of climate change doesn’t become real until it becomes personal - a bit like immigration...
It's still not real for an awful lot of people. LA was entirely down to the governor, not climate change, apparently.
Have you seen the excruciating interview with the mayor of LA where she is asked some pretty simple questions like “why did you go abroad during the fires” and she simply freezes? That’s one career finished
The LA Fire Department had their budget cut by $17.5m this year, had to cancel the planned testing of fire hydrants last week - but of course still had enough budget for the $250k Head of DEI, and waving flags at the Pride march while writing articles moaning that the FD has “a white man problem”.
The City also failed to clear scrub from the forests, and the water utility failed to ensure that the reservoirs used for firefighting were full. The water utility head (on $750k per year) did an interview that was equally excruciating. She had one job to do.
Simples. Keep the head of DEI, the flags and tax the rich more.
The US super-rich are leeches. They usually have the money to avoid the worst of their acts, but it seems fire is hard to avoid.
I like how in Sandpit's eyes the $250k on the DEI director is the real problem, while the LAPD (not the world's wokeist institution) got a funding increase of $126 million to total funding if $2.14 billion.
Oh dear. They had to shower money on the LAPD, because they tried “defunding the police” for political reasons and it resulted in a massive crime wave. So they gave the police the money, and took it from the fire department, so the LAFD were unprepared for severe fires.
The problem isn’t a lack of money, it’s the choices made by the politicians (and, as @rcs1000 has mentioned, by the public themselves in various referenda over the years).
LA already has the highest local income tax and some of the highest property taxes in the whole of the USA.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
I don't know about January, but LA has a lot of trouble with fires, and drainage and so flash floods. I remember reading about this years ago, and the book I read might have been written decades before that. But LA is such an attractive place to live that the city kept expanding up into the hills and areas where it might not have been prudent to do so.
Basically people who know about these sort of issues have been warning about them for a long time.
Ah, more use of our libel laws as intended. Warms the heart.
You should read that David Allen Green link in the header.
I have, and obvs she's not going to win if she pursues it but doubtless there are similar vexatious claims that have the chilling effect Cyclefree pointed out a few threads ago. If there is one bit of US law I'd swap yesterday and twice on sundays for UK law it'd be their first amendment in place of our libel laws.
English law or perhaps English legal practice, to be more precise. We just don't get libel tourism in the Edinburgh courts, so far as I can tell, though where the difference lies I'm not sure.
On the other hand, on reflection, we had such things as the Andy Wightman MSP case - and the law has been changed in Scotland of late: see the comments here:
On the Truss/Kwarteng budget, it's rarely mentioned now but in my view the most egregious part of it was cutting the top rate of tax from 45% to 40%. This meant the highest earners would gain an extra £10k instantly, on average. At a time when most people were really struggling with the cost of living, they were just taking the piss. It's no surprise they had to U-turn on this pretty quickly, but the damage had been done.
I thought what the world needs now was love, sweet love, no, not just for fun but for everyone.
Dreadful scenes from Los Angeles once again on the New Zealand evening news followed by confirmation 2024 was Earth’s warmest year. Sometimes the impact of climate change doesn’t become real until it becomes personal - a bit like immigration...
It's still not real for an awful lot of people. LA was entirely down to the governor, not climate change, apparently.
Have you seen the excruciating interview with the mayor of LA where she is asked some pretty simple questions like “why did you go abroad during the fires” and she simply freezes? That’s one career finished
The LA Fire Department had their budget cut by $17.5m this year, had to cancel the planned testing of fire hydrants last week - but of course still had enough budget for the $250k Head of DEI, and waving flags at the Pride march while writing articles moaning that the FD has “a white man problem”.
The City also failed to clear scrub from the forests, and the water utility failed to ensure that the reservoirs used for firefighting were full. The water utility head (on $750k per year) did an interview that was equally excruciating. She had one job to do.
Simples. Keep the head of DEI, the flags and tax the rich more.
The US super-rich are leeches. They usually have the money to avoid the worst of their acts, but it seems fire is hard to avoid.
I like how in Sandpit's eyes the $250k on the DEI director is the real problem, while the LAPD (not the world's wokeist institution) got a funding increase of $126 million to total funding if $2.14 billion.
Oh dear. They had to shower money on the LAPD, because they tried “defunding the police” for political reasons and it resulted in a massive crime wave. So they gave the police the money, and took it from the fire department, so the LAFD were unprepared for severe fires.
The problem isn’t a lack of money, it’s the choices made by the politicians (and, as @rcs1000 has mentioned, by the public themselves in various referenda over the years).
LA already has the highest local income tax and some of the highest property taxes in the whole of the USA.
I'm bemused by the way you get far more irate and angry about DEI than you do about the GOP's lack of support for Ukraine, or Trump's words against the country. In fact, you actually support Trump.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
It seems wildfires are possible anytime from when the summer heat has finally dried out all the brush & foliage to the arrival of the first rains of the winter / spring.
IIRC I saw somewhere that it’s been an unusually dry winter in LA this year, which perhaps explains how a wildfire in the middle of January is possible.
“After a typically arid summer and fall, the Los Angeles area has also had a dry winter so far. December, January, February, and March are usually the wettest months in the region by far. More than 80 percent of Los Angeles' rain comes during these colder months. But this year, during December, the region received, on average, less than one-tenth of an inch of rainfall. Normal totals are on the order of 2.5 inches in December.
So, the foliage in the area was already very dry, effectively extending the region's wildfire season.”
Musk leaps ahead of the standard sign of ahistorical dimwittery (Hitler was a socialist actually) by agreeing with the leader of AfD that Hitler was a communist who nationalised businesses. We really are at the stage of folk with swastika t-shirts endlessly bellowing 'NO, YOU'RE THE REAL NAZI!'.
There's no question that Musk is ar the Erno Goldfinger stage.
In his interview with the AfD yesterday, he said that "X is the collective consciousness of humanity, good and bad." Now the collective consciousness is going to overthrow the British government, and send a select few of us into space.
I know a lot of us on PB don't like Brutalists, but surely you mean Auric!
Well, he upset Ian Fleming when he built his masterpieces at 1-3 Willow Road in Hampstead on the site of a terrace he demolished that Fleming preferred.
There was a modest dispute about the villain name, and Fleming threatened to rename him "Goldprick".
Shades of Jean-Pierre the Pervert. "This is not the Post Office Tower. It is the Post Office PRICK."
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
I don't know about January, but LA has a lot of trouble with fires, and drainage and so flash floods. I remember reading about this years ago, and the book I read might have been written decades before that. But LA is such an attractive place to live that the city kept expanding up into the hills and areas where it might not have been prudent to do so.
Basically people who know about these sort of issues have been warning about them for a long time.
Yes there’s always been fires in the area, and people have been warning about ‘the big one’ for years. Just requires the right combination of dryness and wind direction.
Building houses in the canyons was always a silly idea, but as you say the city expanded and the demand was there. Some of the largest and most expensive houses in the whole city are in the hills, surrounded by trees.
I thought what the world needs now was love, sweet love, no, not just for fun but for everyone.
Dreadful scenes from Los Angeles once again on the New Zealand evening news followed by confirmation 2024 was Earth’s warmest year. Sometimes the impact of climate change doesn’t become real until it becomes personal - a bit like immigration...
It's still not real for an awful lot of people. LA was entirely down to the governor, not climate change, apparently.
Have you seen the excruciating interview with the mayor of LA where she is asked some pretty simple questions like “why did you go abroad during the fires” and she simply freezes? That’s one career finished
The LA Fire Department had their budget cut by $17.5m this year, had to cancel the planned testing of fire hydrants last week - but of course still had enough budget for the $250k Head of DEI, and waving flags at the Pride march while writing articles moaning that the FD has “a white man problem”.
The City also failed to clear scrub from the forests, and the water utility failed to ensure that the reservoirs used for firefighting were full. The water utility head (on $750k per year) did an interview that was equally excruciating. She had one job to do.
That isn't true. The LA fire department didn't get a budget cut, it got an increase of $50 million.
Though of course right wingers are usually in favour of cuts to government spending...
The real, actual issue goes like this
1) insurance rates rose, due to increasing fire risk. This was a warning. 2) the response from the people and politicians of California was not to reduce the fire risk, but cap the insurance. 3) fire happened.
I thought what the world needs now was love, sweet love, no, not just for fun but for everyone.
Dreadful scenes from Los Angeles once again on the New Zealand evening news followed by confirmation 2024 was Earth’s warmest year. Sometimes the impact of climate change doesn’t become real until it becomes personal - a bit like immigration...
It's still not real for an awful lot of people. LA was entirely down to the governor, not climate change, apparently.
Have you seen the excruciating interview with the mayor of LA where she is asked some pretty simple questions like “why did you go abroad during the fires” and she simply freezes? That’s one career finished
The LA Fire Department had their budget cut by $17.5m this year, had to cancel the planned testing of fire hydrants last week - but of course still had enough budget for the $250k Head of DEI, and waving flags at the Pride march while writing articles moaning that the FD has “a white man problem”.
The City also failed to clear scrub from the forests, and the water utility failed to ensure that the reservoirs used for firefighting were full. The water utility head (on $750k per year) did an interview that was equally excruciating. She had one job to do.
Simples. Keep the head of DEI, the flags and tax the rich more.
The US super-rich are leeches. They usually have the money to avoid the worst of their acts, but it seems fire is hard to avoid.
I like how in Sandpit's eyes the $250k on the DEI director is the real problem, while the LAPD (not the world's wokeist institution) got a funding increase of $126 million to total funding if $2.14 billion.
Oh dear. They had to shower money on the LAPD, because they tried “defunding the police” for political reasons and it resulted in a massive crime wave. So they gave the police the money, and took it from the fire department, so the LAFD were unprepared for severe fires.
The problem isn’t a lack of money, it’s the choices made by the politicians (and, as @rcs1000 has mentioned, by the public themselves in various referenda over the years).
LA already has the highest local income tax and some of the highest property taxes in the whole of the USA.
Certainly there is a lot of violent crime in America generally, but I am not clear what you mean by a "massive crime wave" .
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
I don't know about January, but LA has a lot of trouble with fires, and drainage and so flash floods. I remember reading about this years ago, and the book I read might have been written decades before that. But LA is such an attractive place to live that the city kept expanding up into the hills and areas where it might not have been prudent to do so.
Basically people who know about these sort of issues have been warning about them for a long time.
Yes there’s always been fires in the area, and people have been warning about ‘the big one’ for years. Just requires the right combination of dryness and wind direction.
Building houses in the canyons was always a silly idea, but as you say the city expanded and the demand was there. Some of the largest and most expensive houses in the whole city are in the hills, surrounded by trees.
Same around Sydney. Went hiking in the periurban rough valleys with woods and bush with a friend (prof at Sydney) who showed me the fire-adapted vegetation (eucalyptus, banksia, etc.) and pointed out how new houses were being built in hazardous areas. Though perhaps not to the same degree?
On the Truss/Kwarteng budget, it's rarely mentioned now but in my view the most egregious part of it was cutting the top rate of tax from 45% to 40%. This meant the highest earners would gain an extra £10k instantly, on average. At a time when most people were really struggling with the cost of living, they were just taking the piss. It's no surprise they had to U-turn on this pretty quickly, but the damage had been done.
I'm nowhere near that tax bracket BUT (Obviously this didn't happen) if it had attracted more rich people, and rich people to work more and earn more and spend more and generate economic growth though .... would it have been so wrong ?
I’m loving the revisionist history from PB Tories. Of course she didn’t crash the economy. And as a result she didn’t have to sack her chancellor and hire the guy to rip up and immediately reverse the things she had done to crash the economy. Because she hadn’t. So it didn’t happen. Indeed it’s such a lie because she’s still our PM. And she’ll sue anyone who claims that having crashed the economy, sacking her chancellor and having to scrap her entire programme to stop the crash being permanent that she then was forced to resign.
It’s defamation.
The difference in politics today is less between left and right and more between those who live in reality and those who live in fantasy. Truss didn’t crash the economy, Canada will join the US, threatening Greenland is a sensible policy, Russia only invaded Ukraine because they felt threatened by NATO expansion, Matt Gaetz would be a good Attorney General, etc.
Also: the virus came from a wet market and everyone agrees on that and it’s all settled can we now move on, thanks
This may be the most perfect reply I've ever received to a post.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
It seems wildfires are possible anytime from when the summer heat has finally dried out all the brush & foliage to the arrival of the first rains of the winter / spring.
IIRC I saw somewhere that it’s been an unusually dry winter in LA this year, which perhaps explains how a wildfire in the middle of January is possible.
“After a typically arid summer and fall, the Los Angeles area has also had a dry winter so far. December, January, February, and March are usually the wettest months in the region by far. More than 80 percent of Los Angeles' rain comes during these colder months. But this year, during December, the region received, on average, less than one-tenth of an inch of rainfall. Normal totals are on the order of 2.5 inches in December.
So, the foliage in the area was already very dry, effectively extending the region's wildfire season.”
Today had an interview with the former Fire chief for LA, he said that the fire risk was dependent on whether the rain or wind arrived first. He also said that, because it had been a few years since the last big wildfire, the authorities had lost focus on prevention measures.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
I don't know about January, but LA has a lot of trouble with fires, and drainage and so flash floods. I remember reading about this years ago, and the book I read might have been written decades before that. But LA is such an attractive place to live that the city kept expanding up into the hills and areas where it might not have been prudent to do so.
Basically people who know about these sort of issues have been warning about them for a long time.
And I've figured out what I'm thinking of.
It was John McPhee's book The Control of Nature, which contains an essay from the New Yorker magazine called Los Angeles Against the Mountains, that was published originally in 1988.
Like everything else I've read by John McPhee it's well worth a read.
Musk leaps ahead of the standard sign of ahistorical dimwittery (Hitler was a socialist actually) by agreeing with the leader of AfD that Hitler was a communist who nationalised businesses. We really are at the stage of folk with swastika t-shirts endlessly bellowing 'NO, YOU'RE THE REAL NAZI!'.
There's no question that Musk is ar the Erno Goldfinger stage.
In his interview with the AfD yesterday, he said that "X is the collective consciousness of humanity, good and bad." Now the collective consciousness is going to overthrow the British government, and send a select few of us into space.
I know a lot of us on PB don't like Brutalists, but surely you mean Auric!
Well, he upset Ian Fleming when he built his masterpieces at 1-3 Willow Road in Hampstead on the site of a terrace he demolished that Fleming preferred.
There was a modest dispute about the villain name, and Fleming threatened to rename him "Goldprick".
Shades of Jean-Pierre the Pervert. "This is not the Post Office Tower. It is the Post Office PRICK."
I had not heard of that building, but looking that up, my sympathies are with the author. My instant reaction was that I was looking at a carpet emporium converted to housing in the currently fashionable manner.
I thought what the world needs now was love, sweet love, no, not just for fun but for everyone.
Dreadful scenes from Los Angeles once again on the New Zealand evening news followed by confirmation 2024 was Earth’s warmest year. Sometimes the impact of climate change doesn’t become real until it becomes personal - a bit like immigration...
It's still not real for an awful lot of people. LA was entirely down to the governor, not climate change, apparently.
Have you seen the excruciating interview with the mayor of LA where she is asked some pretty simple questions like “why did you go abroad during the fires” and she simply freezes? That’s one career finished
The LA Fire Department had their budget cut by $17.5m this year, had to cancel the planned testing of fire hydrants last week - but of course still had enough budget for the $250k Head of DEI, and waving flags at the Pride march while writing articles moaning that the FD has “a white man problem”.
The City also failed to clear scrub from the forests, and the water utility failed to ensure that the reservoirs used for firefighting were full. The water utility head (on $750k per year) did an interview that was equally excruciating. She had one job to do.
Simples. Keep the head of DEI, the flags and tax the rich more.
The US super-rich are leeches. They usually have the money to avoid the worst of their acts, but it seems fire is hard to avoid.
I like how in Sandpit's eyes the $250k on the DEI director is the real problem, while the LAPD (not the world's wokeist institution) got a funding increase of $126 million to total funding if $2.14 billion.
Oh dear. They had to shower money on the LAPD, because they tried “defunding the police” for political reasons and it resulted in a massive crime wave. So they gave the police the money, and took it from the fire department, so the LAFD were unprepared for severe fires.
The problem isn’t a lack of money, it’s the choices made by the politicians (and, as @rcs1000 has mentioned, by the public themselves in various referenda over the years).
LA already has the highest local income tax and some of the highest property taxes in the whole of the USA.
Certainly there is a lot of violent crime in America generally, but I am not clear what you mean by a "massive crime wave" .
The problem wasn’t the violent crime gangs, it was petty retail crime and phone muggings. Retailers were abandoning the area because the police and the DA had effectively decriminalised anything below $1,000.
On the Truss/Kwarteng budget, it's rarely mentioned now but in my view the most egregious part of it was cutting the top rate of tax from 45% to 40%. This meant the highest earners would gain an extra £10k instantly, on average. At a time when most people were really struggling with the cost of living, they were just taking the piss. It's no surprise they had to U-turn on this pretty quickly, but the damage had been done.
I'm nowhere near that tax bracket BUT (Obviously this didn't happen) if it had attracted more rich people, and rich people to work more and earn more and spend more and generate economic growth though .... would it have been so wrong ?
On the Truss/Kwarteng budget, it's rarely mentioned now but in my view the most egregious part of it was cutting the top rate of tax from 45% to 40%. This meant the highest earners would gain an extra £10k instantly, on average. At a time when most people were really struggling with the cost of living, they were just taking the piss. It's no surprise they had to U-turn on this pretty quickly, but the damage had been done.
I'm nowhere near that tax bracket BUT (Obviously this didn't happen) if it had attracted more rich people, and rich people to work more and earn more and spend more and generate economic growth though .... would it have been so wrong ?
Yes. And anyway, why is it that it's always rich people who need incentivising? If middle and lower income people earn more, they're much more likely to actually spend their extra money than the rich.
Musk leaps ahead of the standard sign of ahistorical dimwittery (Hitler was a socialist actually) by agreeing with the leader of AfD that Hitler was a communist who nationalised businesses. We really are at the stage of folk with swastika t-shirts endlessly bellowing 'NO, YOU'RE THE REAL NAZI!'.
There's no question that Musk is ar the Erno Goldfinger stage.
In his interview with the AfD yesterday, he said that "X is the collective consciousness of humanity, good and bad." Now the collective consciousness is going to overthrow the British government, and send a select few of us into space.
I know a lot of us on PB don't like Brutalists, but surely you mean Auric!
Well, he upset Ian Fleming when he built his masterpieces at 1-3 Willow Road in Hampstead on the site of a terrace he demolished that Fleming preferred.
There was a modest dispute about the villain name, and Fleming threatened to rename him "Goldprick".
Shades of Jean-Pierre the Pervert. "This is not the Post Office Tower. It is the Post Office PRICK."
I thought what the world needs now was love, sweet love, no, not just for fun but for everyone.
Dreadful scenes from Los Angeles once again on the New Zealand evening news followed by confirmation 2024 was Earth’s warmest year. Sometimes the impact of climate change doesn’t become real until it becomes personal - a bit like immigration...
It's still not real for an awful lot of people. LA was entirely down to the governor, not climate change, apparently.
Have you seen the excruciating interview with the mayor of LA where she is asked some pretty simple questions like “why did you go abroad during the fires” and she simply freezes? That’s one career finished
The LA Fire Department had their budget cut by $17.5m this year, had to cancel the planned testing of fire hydrants last week - but of course still had enough budget for the $250k Head of DEI, and waving flags at the Pride march while writing articles moaning that the FD has “a white man problem”.
The City also failed to clear scrub from the forests, and the water utility failed to ensure that the reservoirs used for firefighting were full. The water utility head (on $750k per year) did an interview that was equally excruciating. She had one job to do.
Simples. Keep the head of DEI, the flags and tax the rich more.
The US super-rich are leeches. They usually have the money to avoid the worst of their acts, but it seems fire is hard to avoid.
I like how in Sandpit's eyes the $250k on the DEI director is the real problem, while the LAPD (not the world's wokeist institution) got a funding increase of $126 million to total funding if $2.14 billion.
Oh dear. They had to shower money on the LAPD, because they tried “defunding the police” for political reasons and it resulted in a massive crime wave. So they gave the police the money, and took it from the fire department, so the LAFD were unprepared for severe fires.
The problem isn’t a lack of money, it’s the choices made by the politicians (and, as @rcs1000 has mentioned, by the public themselves in various referenda over the years).
LA already has the highest local income tax and some of the highest property taxes in the whole of the USA.
The Republicans will get in, remove all the DEI folk, then another fire will happen despite it.
On the Truss/Kwarteng budget, it's rarely mentioned now but in my view the most egregious part of it was cutting the top rate of tax from 45% to 40%. This meant the highest earners would gain an extra £10k instantly, on average. At a time when most people were really struggling with the cost of living, they were just taking the piss. It's no surprise they had to U-turn on this pretty quickly, but the damage had been done.
I'm nowhere near that tax bracket BUT (Obviously this didn't happen) if it had attracted more rich people, and rich people to work more and earn more and spend more and generate economic growth though .... would it have been so wrong ?
You can make this argument about any tax and there are many people facing higher marginal tax/benefit withdrawal rates than 45%. Speaking personally, it would have shaved a significant amount off my tax bill and wouldn't have encouraged me to work a day more or spend a penny more.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
I don't know about January, but LA has a lot of trouble with fires, and drainage and so flash floods. I remember reading about this years ago, and the book I read might have been written decades before that. But LA is such an attractive place to live that the city kept expanding up into the hills and areas where it might not have been prudent to do so.
Basically people who know about these sort of issues have been warning about them for a long time.
Yes there’s always been fires in the area, and people have been warning about ‘the big one’ for years. Just requires the right combination of dryness and wind direction.
Building houses in the canyons was always a silly idea, but as you say the city expanded and the demand was there. Some of the largest and most expensive houses in the whole city are in the hills, surrounded by trees.
Same around Sydney. Went hiking in the periurban rough valleys with woods and bush with a friend (prof at Sydney) who showed me the fire-adapted vegetation (eucalyptus, banksia, etc.) and pointed out how new houses were being built in hazardous areas. Though perhaps not to the same degree?
Australia has also seen fire issues when they have stopped measures such as clearing brush etc near houses (you know, the flammable stuff that gets fires going really well).
No one rational doubts man's had in climate change but too often other explanations for events are brushed away by zealots (usually in the media, to be fair) pushing agendas.
On the Truss/Kwarteng budget, it's rarely mentioned now but in my view the most egregious part of it was cutting the top rate of tax from 45% to 40%. This meant the highest earners would gain an extra £10k instantly, on average. At a time when most people were really struggling with the cost of living, they were just taking the piss. It's no surprise they had to U-turn on this pretty quickly, but the damage had been done.
I'm nowhere near that tax bracket BUT (Obviously this didn't happen) if it had attracted more rich people, and rich people to work more and earn more and spend more and generate economic growth though .... would it have been so wrong ?
Yes. And anyway, why is it that it's always rich people who need incentivising? If middle and lower income people earn more, they're much more likely to actually spend their extra money than the rich.
If the weren't extremely motivated by money, they wouldn't have chosen to live in a way that caused them to accumulate so much money.
Luke 12:16-19. Even if you don't buy the Son of God stuff, Jesus had genius level insight into the human condition.
Musk leaps ahead of the standard sign of ahistorical dimwittery (Hitler was a socialist actually) by agreeing with the leader of AfD that Hitler was a communist who nationalised businesses. We really are at the stage of folk with swastika t-shirts endlessly bellowing 'NO, YOU'RE THE REAL NAZI!'.
There's no question that Musk is ar the Erno Goldfinger stage.
In his interview with the AfD yesterday, he said that "X is the collective consciousness of humanity, good and bad." Now the collective consciousness is going to overthrow the British government, and send a select few of us into space.
I know a lot of us on PB don't like Brutalists, but surely you mean Auric!
Well, he upset Ian Fleming when he built his masterpieces at 1-3 Willow Road in Hampstead on the site of a terrace he demolished that Fleming preferred.
There was a modest dispute about the villain name, and Fleming threatened to rename him "Goldprick".
Shades of Jean-Pierre the Pervert. "This is not the Post Office Tower. It is the Post Office PRICK."
I had not heard of that building, but looking that up, my sympathies are with the author. My instant reaction was that I was looking at a carpet emporium converted to housing in the currently fashionable manner.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
I don't know about January, but LA has a lot of trouble with fires, and drainage and so flash floods. I remember reading about this years ago, and the book I read might have been written decades before that. But LA is such an attractive place to live that the city kept expanding up into the hills and areas where it might not have been prudent to do so.
Basically people who know about these sort of issues have been warning about them for a long time.
Yes there’s always been fires in the area, and people have been warning about ‘the big one’ for years. Just requires the right combination of dryness and wind direction.
Building houses in the canyons was always a silly idea, but as you say the city expanded and the demand was there. Some of the largest and most expensive houses in the whole city are in the hills, surrounded by trees.
Same around Sydney. Went hiking in the periurban rough valleys with woods and bush with a friend (prof at Sydney) who showed me the fire-adapted vegetation (eucalyptus, banksia, etc.) and pointed out how new houses were being built in hazardous areas. Though perhaps not to the same degree?
Australia has also seen fire issues when they have stopped measures such as clearing brush etc near houses (you know, the flammable stuff that gets fires going really well).
No one rational doubts man's had in climate change but too often other explanations for events are brushed away by zealots (usually in the media, to be fair) pushing agendas.
It is true that no one rational doubts man's role in climate change. However, the irrational are now in charge in the US.
On the Truss/Kwarteng budget, it's rarely mentioned now but in my view the most egregious part of it was cutting the top rate of tax from 45% to 40%. This meant the highest earners would gain an extra £10k instantly, on average. At a time when most people were really struggling with the cost of living, they were just taking the piss. It's no surprise they had to U-turn on this pretty quickly, but the damage had been done.
While revisionism is all the rage, in hindsight it's nowhere near as dramatic as it is now portrayed. Kwarteng lasted 3 weeks after delivering the budget and Truss almost a month. Though she certainly exceeded my expectations, I was expecting a year to 18 months long car-crash.
On the Truss/Kwarteng budget, it's rarely mentioned now but in my view the most egregious part of it was cutting the top rate of tax from 45% to 40%. This meant the highest earners would gain an extra £10k instantly, on average. At a time when most people were really struggling with the cost of living, they were just taking the piss. It's no surprise they had to U-turn on this pretty quickly, but the damage had been done.
I'm nowhere near that tax bracket BUT (Obviously this didn't happen) if it had attracted more rich people, and rich people to work more and earn more and spend more and generate economic growth though .... would it have been so wrong ?
It was the wrong priority, they should have looked at marginal rates for child benefit withdrawal and allowance withdrawal, both of these would have helped more people and cost about the same.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
Fires are due to lack of water, not air temperature. California is prone to several long term weather patterns, some of which are dry. Not everything that happens is down to climate change.
I thought what the world needs now was love, sweet love, no, not just for fun but for everyone.
Dreadful scenes from Los Angeles once again on the New Zealand evening news followed by confirmation 2024 was Earth’s warmest year. Sometimes the impact of climate change doesn’t become real until it becomes personal - a bit like immigration...
It's still not real for an awful lot of people. LA was entirely down to the governor, not climate change, apparently.
Have you seen the excruciating interview with the mayor of LA where she is asked some pretty simple questions like “why did you go abroad during the fires” and she simply freezes? That’s one career finished
The LA Fire Department had their budget cut by $17.5m this year, had to cancel the planned testing of fire hydrants last week - but of course still had enough budget for the $250k Head of DEI, and waving flags at the Pride march while writing articles moaning that the FD has “a white man problem”.
The City also failed to clear scrub from the forests, and the water utility failed to ensure that the reservoirs used for firefighting were full. The water utility head (on $750k per year) did an interview that was equally excruciating. She had one job to do.
Simples. Keep the head of DEI, the flags and tax the rich more.
The US super-rich are leeches. They usually have the money to avoid the worst of their acts, but it seems fire is hard to avoid.
I like how in Sandpit's eyes the $250k on the DEI director is the real problem, while the LAPD (not the world's wokeist institution) got a funding increase of $126 million to total funding if $2.14 billion.
Oh dear. They had to shower money on the LAPD, because they tried “defunding the police” for political reasons and it resulted in a massive crime wave. So they gave the police the money, and took it from the fire department, so the LAFD were unprepared for severe fires.
The problem isn’t a lack of money, it’s the choices made by the politicians (and, as @rcs1000 has mentioned, by the public themselves in various referenda over the years).
LA already has the highest local income tax and some of the highest property taxes in the whole of the USA.
Certainly there is a lot of violent crime in America generally, but I am not clear what you mean by a "massive crime wave" .
The problem wasn’t the violent crime gangs, it was petty retail crime and phone muggings. Retailers were abandoning the area because the police and the DA had effectively decriminalised anything below $1,000.
Some of the stats are also unreliable, because the victims simply stopped reporting crime knowing that nothing would be done about it.
This is the graph of property and violent crime in LA over time:
There has been an increase in shoplifting in recent years, as indeed there has been in the UK, for a variety of reasons including automation and the rise of homelessness., but overall no real evidence of a crime wave driven by calls to "defund the police". Not that defunding actually happened of course.
I thought what the world needs now was love, sweet love, no, not just for fun but for everyone.
Dreadful scenes from Los Angeles once again on the New Zealand evening news followed by confirmation 2024 was Earth’s warmest year. Sometimes the impact of climate change doesn’t become real until it becomes personal - a bit like immigration...
It's still not real for an awful lot of people. LA was entirely down to the governor, not climate change, apparently.
Have you seen the excruciating interview with the mayor of LA where she is asked some pretty simple questions like “why did you go abroad during the fires” and she simply freezes? That’s one career finished
One unremarked villain is the Sierra Club. While they're in the right side of the climate change argument, they've regularly litigated, using clean air legislation, to prevent controlled burning of forestry, which is about the only reliable way of preventing disasters like this.
There's always a tweet.
Unfortunately yes. In 2007 the Sierra Club successfully sued the Forest Service to prevent them from creating a Categorical Exclusion (CE) to NEPA for controlled burns (the technical term is "fuel reduction"). The CE would have allowed the forest service to conduct burns without having to perform a full EIS (the median time for which is 3.5 years). See: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-9th-circuit/1175742.html
John Muir project helped to claw back the full scope of Categorial Exclusions from the 2018 Omnibus Bill as well (though some easement did make it through).
On the Truss/Kwarteng budget, it's rarely mentioned now but in my view the most egregious part of it was cutting the top rate of tax from 45% to 40%. This meant the highest earners would gain an extra £10k instantly, on average. At a time when most people were really struggling with the cost of living, they were just taking the piss. It's no surprise they had to U-turn on this pretty quickly, but the damage had been done.
I'm nowhere near that tax bracket BUT (Obviously this didn't happen) if it had attracted more rich people, and rich people to work more and earn more and spend more and generate economic growth though .... would it have been so wrong ?
It was the wrong priority, they should have looked at marginal rates for child benefit withdrawal and allowance withdrawal, both of these would have helped more people and cost about the same.
True, the cliff edge is startlingly large at £100k particularly if you have nursery age children.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
It seems wildfires are possible anytime from when the summer heat has finally dried out all the brush & foliage to the arrival of the first rains of the winter / spring.
IIRC I saw somewhere that it’s been an unusually dry winter in LA this year, which perhaps explains how a wildfire in the middle of January is possible.
“After a typically arid summer and fall, the Los Angeles area has also had a dry winter so far. December, January, February, and March are usually the wettest months in the region by far. More than 80 percent of Los Angeles' rain comes during these colder months. But this year, during December, the region received, on average, less than one-tenth of an inch of rainfall. Normal totals are on the order of 2.5 inches in December.
So, the foliage in the area was already very dry, effectively extending the region's wildfire season.”
Today had an interview with the former Fire chief for LA, he said that the fire risk was dependent on whether the rain or wind arrived first. He also said that, because it had been a few years since the last big wildfire, the authorities had lost focus on prevention measures.
Why is no-one mentioning the obvious? That these fires were probably deliberately started by a human. Is it a wildfire if it is arson? One man has already been arrested for starting one of them.
On the Truss/Kwarteng budget, it's rarely mentioned now but in my view the most egregious part of it was cutting the top rate of tax from 45% to 40%. This meant the highest earners would gain an extra £10k instantly, on average. At a time when most people were really struggling with the cost of living, they were just taking the piss. It's no surprise they had to U-turn on this pretty quickly, but the damage had been done.
I'm nowhere near that tax bracket BUT (Obviously this didn't happen) if it had attracted more rich people, and rich people to work more and earn more and spend more and generate economic growth though .... would it have been so wrong ?
Yes. And anyway, why is it that it's always rich people who need incentivising? If middle and lower income people earn more, they're much more likely to actually spend their extra money than the rich.
Surely the rise in the minimum wage is an incentive for far more people than the higher tax band?
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
It seems wildfires are possible anytime from when the summer heat has finally dried out all the brush & foliage to the arrival of the first rains of the winter / spring.
IIRC I saw somewhere that it’s been an unusually dry winter in LA this year, which perhaps explains how a wildfire in the middle of January is possible.
“After a typically arid summer and fall, the Los Angeles area has also had a dry winter so far. December, January, February, and March are usually the wettest months in the region by far. More than 80 percent of Los Angeles' rain comes during these colder months. But this year, during December, the region received, on average, less than one-tenth of an inch of rainfall. Normal totals are on the order of 2.5 inches in December.
So, the foliage in the area was already very dry, effectively extending the region's wildfire season.”
Today had an interview with the former Fire chief for LA, he said that the fire risk was dependent on whether the rain or wind arrived first. He also said that, because it had been a few years since the last big wildfire, the authorities had lost focus on prevention measures.
Why is no-one mentioning the obvious? That these fires were probably deliberately started by a human. Is it a wildfire if it is arson? One man has already been arrested for starting one of them.
On the Truss/Kwarteng budget, it's rarely mentioned now but in my view the most egregious part of it was cutting the top rate of tax from 45% to 40%. This meant the highest earners would gain an extra £10k instantly, on average. At a time when most people were really struggling with the cost of living, they were just taking the piss. It's no surprise they had to U-turn on this pretty quickly, but the damage had been done.
I'm nowhere near that tax bracket BUT (Obviously this didn't happen) if it had attracted more rich people, and rich people to work more and earn more and spend more and generate economic growth though .... would it have been so wrong ?
It was the wrong priority, they should have looked at marginal rates for child benefit withdrawal and allowance withdrawal, both of these would have helped more people and cost about the same.
That would be a practical effect.
But it wouldn't have made a good media headline.
Politicians seem to believe that there is a huge wave of money that can be unleashed by a good headline.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
It seems wildfires are possible anytime from when the summer heat has finally dried out all the brush & foliage to the arrival of the first rains of the winter / spring.
IIRC I saw somewhere that it’s been an unusually dry winter in LA this year, which perhaps explains how a wildfire in the middle of January is possible.
“After a typically arid summer and fall, the Los Angeles area has also had a dry winter so far. December, January, February, and March are usually the wettest months in the region by far. More than 80 percent of Los Angeles' rain comes during these colder months. But this year, during December, the region received, on average, less than one-tenth of an inch of rainfall. Normal totals are on the order of 2.5 inches in December.
So, the foliage in the area was already very dry, effectively extending the region's wildfire season.”
Today had an interview with the former Fire chief for LA, he said that the fire risk was dependent on whether the rain or wind arrived first. He also said that, because it had been a few years since the last big wildfire, the authorities had lost focus on prevention measures.
Why is no-one mentioning the obvious? That these fires were probably deliberately started by a human. Is it a wildfire if it is arson? One man has already been arrested for starting one of them.
Citizen's arrest, and on suspicion ... and it may not have been deliberate. Idiot with barbecue syndrome is a thing.
But it could be a bit of broken glass, or a power line going sparky, or an old disposable vape lithium battery. The way the wider risk is, does it make much difference?
LIBDEM GAIN FROM CON NORTH DEVON DC: Instow Ward 🔶 LibDem, Becky Coombs, 197, 38% 🔵 Con, 166, 32% ➡️ Reform, 99, 17% *️⃣ Ind, 49, 9% 🟢 Grn, 17, 4%
Hard one to read as last time there were 3 independents standing, as well as a small Labour showing, and no Reform or Lib Dem.
Looks like Reform has cost the Tories that one.
I don't think you can deduce that. It is far more complicated. Firstly there were 3 indys last time including the LD who stood as an Indy, so the LDs probably stood to one side previously because of that. The combined Indy vote was nearly 40%. Also Labour previously got over 9%. So there was nearly 50% of the vote up for grabs many if which would have been favourable to the LDs. It is also reasonable to assume Reform attracted Labour inclined voters.
Basically you can deduce nothing from that result unless you were locally involved. Based on the data available it was an obvious target for the LD once you have a popular indy converted.
On the Truss/Kwarteng budget, it's rarely mentioned now but in my view the most egregious part of it was cutting the top rate of tax from 45% to 40%. This meant the highest earners would gain an extra £10k instantly, on average. At a time when most people were really struggling with the cost of living, they were just taking the piss. It's no surprise they had to U-turn on this pretty quickly, but the damage had been done.
I'm nowhere near that tax bracket BUT (Obviously this didn't happen) if it had attracted more rich people, and rich people to work more and earn more and spend more and generate economic growth though .... would it have been so wrong ?
Yes. And anyway, why is it that it's always rich people who need incentivising? If middle and lower income people earn more, they're much more likely to actually spend their extra money than the rich.
Surely the rise in the minimum wage is an incentive for far more people than the higher tax band?
It should also be an incentive to automate. A topic Eek is keen on. Next have already said they are looking at putting in self service checkouts, for example.
Of course no consolation for people losing their jobs but maybe a side effect of the budget.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
It seems wildfires are possible anytime from when the summer heat has finally dried out all the brush & foliage to the arrival of the first rains of the winter / spring.
IIRC I saw somewhere that it’s been an unusually dry winter in LA this year, which perhaps explains how a wildfire in the middle of January is possible.
“After a typically arid summer and fall, the Los Angeles area has also had a dry winter so far. December, January, February, and March are usually the wettest months in the region by far. More than 80 percent of Los Angeles' rain comes during these colder months. But this year, during December, the region received, on average, less than one-tenth of an inch of rainfall. Normal totals are on the order of 2.5 inches in December.
So, the foliage in the area was already very dry, effectively extending the region's wildfire season.”
Today had an interview with the former Fire chief for LA, he said that the fire risk was dependent on whether the rain or wind arrived first. He also said that, because it had been a few years since the last big wildfire, the authorities had lost focus on prevention measures.
Why is no-one mentioning the obvious? That these fires were probably deliberately started by a human. Is it a wildfire if it is arson? One man has already been arrested for starting one of them.
Citizen's arrest, and on suspicion ... and it may not have been deliberate. Idiot with barbecue syndrome is a thing.
But it could be a bit of broken glass, or a power line going sparky, or an old disposable vape lithium battery. The way the wider risk is, does it make much difference?
You don't think that the actual cause of a fire, that has killed 10's of people and caused billions of pounds worth of damage, is important? Odd. Surely that is the critical starting point for any investigation.
The temperature out in LA is about 19, maybe 20 degrees during the day, down to 11 at night, at the moment.
Very odd that that you are all willing to gloss over a pretty pertinent point, yet concentrate heavily on others.
On the Truss/Kwarteng budget, it's rarely mentioned now but in my view the most egregious part of it was cutting the top rate of tax from 45% to 40%. This meant the highest earners would gain an extra £10k instantly, on average. At a time when most people were really struggling with the cost of living, they were just taking the piss. It's no surprise they had to U-turn on this pretty quickly, but the damage had been done.
I'm nowhere near that tax bracket BUT (Obviously this didn't happen) if it had attracted more rich people, and rich people to work more and earn more and spend more and generate economic growth though .... would it have been so wrong ?
Yes. And anyway, why is it that it's always rich people who need incentivising? If middle and lower income people earn more, they're much more likely to actually spend their extra money than the rich.
Surely the rise in the minimum wage is an incentive for far more people than the higher tax band?
It should also be an incentive to automate. A topic Eek is keen on. Next have already said they are looking at putting in self service checkouts, for example.
Of course no consolation for people losing their jobs but maybe a side effect of the budget.
They have to follow Uniqlo, it's given Uniqlo a much lower in store cost structure than Next and Uniqlo has proven the value of self serve in clothing and proven very low theft rates with their system.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
It seems wildfires are possible anytime from when the summer heat has finally dried out all the brush & foliage to the arrival of the first rains of the winter / spring.
IIRC I saw somewhere that it’s been an unusually dry winter in LA this year, which perhaps explains how a wildfire in the middle of January is possible.
“After a typically arid summer and fall, the Los Angeles area has also had a dry winter so far. December, January, February, and March are usually the wettest months in the region by far. More than 80 percent of Los Angeles' rain comes during these colder months. But this year, during December, the region received, on average, less than one-tenth of an inch of rainfall. Normal totals are on the order of 2.5 inches in December.
So, the foliage in the area was already very dry, effectively extending the region's wildfire season.”
Today had an interview with the former Fire chief for LA, he said that the fire risk was dependent on whether the rain or wind arrived first. He also said that, because it had been a few years since the last big wildfire, the authorities had lost focus on prevention measures.
Why is no-one mentioning the obvious? That these fires were probably deliberately started by a human. Is it a wildfire if it is arson? One man has already been arrested for starting one of them.
Yes, there are multiple causes for the fires, but a fire cannot burn without fuel, and the absence of rain this winter is an obvious causal factor.
But no, it's because some fire chief went on a Pride march, not climate change.
Whatever the cause, the film industry is currently in, er, meltdown. Financing is collapsing, deals to get stars attached are on hold, people just not there to do their jobs.
Already, suggestions the fires could ultimately be very good for the UK film industry. Assuming the residents of 10 and 11 Downing Street don't burn down the UK economy in the meantime. Can we bring them in for questioning about setting fire to the nation's finances?
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
It seems wildfires are possible anytime from when the summer heat has finally dried out all the brush & foliage to the arrival of the first rains of the winter / spring.
IIRC I saw somewhere that it’s been an unusually dry winter in LA this year, which perhaps explains how a wildfire in the middle of January is possible.
“After a typically arid summer and fall, the Los Angeles area has also had a dry winter so far. December, January, February, and March are usually the wettest months in the region by far. More than 80 percent of Los Angeles' rain comes during these colder months. But this year, during December, the region received, on average, less than one-tenth of an inch of rainfall. Normal totals are on the order of 2.5 inches in December.
So, the foliage in the area was already very dry, effectively extending the region's wildfire season.”
Today had an interview with the former Fire chief for LA, he said that the fire risk was dependent on whether the rain or wind arrived first. He also said that, because it had been a few years since the last big wildfire, the authorities had lost focus on prevention measures.
Why is no-one mentioning the obvious? That these fires were probably deliberately started by a human. Is it a wildfire if it is arson? One man has already been arrested for starting one of them.
Citizen's arrest, and on suspicion ... and it may not have been deliberate. Idiot with barbecue syndrome is a thing.
But it could be a bit of broken glass, or a power line going sparky, or an old disposable vape lithium battery. The way the wider risk is, does it make much difference?
You don't think that the actual cause of a fire, that has killed 10's of people and caused billions of pounds worth of damage, is important? Odd. Surely that is the critical starting point for any investigation.
The temperature out in LA is about 19, maybe 20 degrees during the day, down to 11 at night, at the moment.
Very odd that that you are all willing to gloss over a pretty pertinent point, yet concentrate heavily on others.
While this person may or may not be a murderous idiot, the facts are these - the area was and is a tinderbox. Literally. Super dry forests and scrubland, high temperatures and high wind.
It’s like a defective bridge. Yes, the drunk driver in the truck who rammed into the abutment was the immediate cause of the collapse. But it was an accident waiting to happen.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
It seems wildfires are possible anytime from when the summer heat has finally dried out all the brush & foliage to the arrival of the first rains of the winter / spring.
IIRC I saw somewhere that it’s been an unusually dry winter in LA this year, which perhaps explains how a wildfire in the middle of January is possible.
“After a typically arid summer and fall, the Los Angeles area has also had a dry winter so far. December, January, February, and March are usually the wettest months in the region by far. More than 80 percent of Los Angeles' rain comes during these colder months. But this year, during December, the region received, on average, less than one-tenth of an inch of rainfall. Normal totals are on the order of 2.5 inches in December.
So, the foliage in the area was already very dry, effectively extending the region's wildfire season.”
Today had an interview with the former Fire chief for LA, he said that the fire risk was dependent on whether the rain or wind arrived first. He also said that, because it had been a few years since the last big wildfire, the authorities had lost focus on prevention measures.
Why is no-one mentioning the obvious? That these fires were probably deliberately started by a human. Is it a wildfire if it is arson? One man has already been arrested for starting one of them.
Citizen's arrest, and on suspicion ... and it may not have been deliberate. Idiot with barbecue syndrome is a thing.
But it could be a bit of broken glass, or a power line going sparky, or an old disposable vape lithium battery. The way the wider risk is, does it make much difference?
Or lightning. Wild fires have happened since forever, and long before any human habitation.
Literally the only good solution (short of complete deforestation) is controlled burns outside of the dry season.
Without them the burns will happen anyway, but in a devastating manner.
Non-contentious post of the day: I absolutely bloody love England in the snow. Took half an hour after school drop-off for a walk across the recreation ground full of happy dogs gambolling through crunchy snow beneath a bright blue sky and through the park full of the icy forms of yesterday's snowmen - boots crunching satisfyingly all the way - then into town for a coffee and a bun, boots struggling slightly for purchase on the icy but beautifully sparkly pavements. I illustrate this not with the Brugellian snowscapes so described, but with the frozen Bridgewater Canal in the centre of town, just to illustrate how parky it is.
Ah, more use of our libel laws as intended. Warms the heart.
You should read that David Allen Green link in the header.
I did, partly. I stopped reading it when I got to the bit about Andrew Lilico, a man who thinks it would be cheaper to terraform Mars than Earth (yes, really).
Then I started reading it again. Although prolix, it is a useful guide on the characteristics of a cease-and-desist letter and I have bookmarked it for future reference.
Comments
The victims of this fire are seen, by some, as less than worthy of our sympathy as we are talking the fabulously wealthy by and large.
Although it was pointed out there are plenty of people who will be victims of this who are just ordinary people who just happen to live there.
Pulp's Common People is most prescient.
If these fires were in a working class community the posh boys here would be radiating their worthiness all over it.
I mean I know it's ( *checks* ) 34 degrees north, but that's still 11 degrees north of the tropic of cancer so I'd have thought we're closish to the coldest (normal) point of the year there. I presume if fires are happening now they can happen at literally any time of year ?
We really are at the stage of folk in swastika t-shirts endlessly bellowing 'NO, YOU'RE THE REAL NAZI!'.
https://www.politico.eu/article/elon-musk-german-far-right-politics-alice-weidel-afd-olaf-scholz-donald-trump/
One unremarked villain is the Sierra Club. While they're in the right side of the climate change argument, they've regularly litigated, using clean air legislation, to prevent controlled burning of forestry, which is about the only reliable way of preventing disasters like this.
One unremarked villain is the Sierra Club.
In his interview with the AfD yesterday, he said that "X is the collective consciousness of humanity, good and bad." Now the collective consciousness is going to overthrow the British government, and send a select few of us into space.
Apropos of nothing one of my fave songs, Babylon Sister by Steely Dan mentions the Santa Ana winds, it's kind of peak LA for me.
It’s similar to the people who shrug at the wealthy leaving the UK and say “good riddance”, there is a whole world of ordinary people who live side by side and service and depend on the “rich” for their livelihoods so whilst cheering the rich suffering or leaving they aren’t dipping in their pockets to cover the loss of jobs and incomes for many many ordinary people.
The US super-rich are leeches. They usually have the money to avoid the worst of their acts, but it seems fire is hard to avoid.
Unless your're Don Jnr.
https://www.politico.eu/article/trump-junior-blames-los-angeles-wildfire-response-on-fire-department-ukraine-donations/
Between 2020 and 2022 the Tories had five different Chancellors.
IIRC I saw somewhere that it’s been an unusually dry winter in LA this year, which perhaps explains how a wildfire in the middle of January is possible.
https://bsky.app/profile/mrsbettybowers.bsky.social/post/3lfcxbnjxp22a
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/09/los-angeles-wildfires-climate-disasters
Here’s a video of a Russian weapons factory on fire. They make and repair electonics there for missiles and planes, parts which are already in very short supply thanks to sanctions.
https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1877578901171339296
Last year was the warmest ever, and that has climate consequences, in LA that means no rain, in other places rather too much, such as Leicestershire last week.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true.
Here’s the letter from the FD Chief to the Mayor last month, saying that the budget cuts are affecting performance and readiness.
https://x.com/realsaavedra/status/1877184214296068346
Here’s local ABC News LA with the $17.5m figure https://x.com/abc7newsbayarea/status/1877480490619277511
Which likely means lots of money for construction workers in the next few years.
At that point in time, a lot of right-leaning Germans saw the SPD as the only patriotic organisation that could maintain order and prevent revolution. Royal governments had essentially collapsed without a fight.
The stab in the back myth came later.
https://www.dailynews.com/2025/01/09/factcheck-was-the-lafd-budget-cut-no-it-actually-increased-heres-how/
Though of course right wingers are usually in favour of cuts to government spending...
The problem isn’t a lack of money, it’s the choices made by the politicians (and, as @rcs1000 has mentioned, by the public themselves in various referenda over the years).
LA already has the highest local income tax and some of the highest property taxes in the whole of the USA.
Basically people who know about these sort of issues have been warning about them for a long time.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-51832504
https://andrewtickell.co.uk/2021/03/07/why-reforms-to-scotlands-defamation-law-were-long-overdue/
https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/01/why-are-wildfires-raging-across-southern-california-well-its-complicated/
Written by an actual meteorologist
“After a typically arid summer and fall, the Los Angeles area has also had a dry winter so far. December, January, February, and March are usually the wettest months in the region by far. More than 80 percent of Los Angeles' rain comes during these colder months. But this year, during December, the region received, on average, less than one-tenth of an inch of rainfall. Normal totals are on the order of 2.5 inches in December.
So, the foliage in the area was already very dry, effectively extending the region's wildfire season.”
There was a modest dispute about the villain name, and Fleming threatened to rename him "Goldprick".
Shades of Jean-Pierre the Pervert. "This is not the Post Office Tower. It is the Post Office PRICK."
Building houses in the canyons was always a silly idea, but as you say the city expanded and the demand was there. Some of the largest and most expensive houses in the whole city are in the hills, surrounded by trees.
1) insurance rates rose, due to increasing fire risk. This was a warning.
2) the response from the people and politicians of California was not to reduce the fire risk, but cap the insurance.
3) fire happened.
Here are the stats on violent crimes in LA.
https://www.laalmanac.com/crime/cr01.php
It was John McPhee's book The Control of Nature, which contains an essay from the New Yorker magazine called Los Angeles Against the Mountains, that was published originally in 1988.
Like everything else I've read by John McPhee it's well worth a read.
https://architectuul.com/architecture/1-3-willow-road
https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-california-stores-closed-due-crime-1882924
Some of the stats are also unreliable, because the victims simply stopped reporting crime knowing that nothing would be done about it.
*confused Pikachu*
No one rational doubts man's had in climate change but too often other explanations for events are brushed away by zealots (usually in the media, to be fair) pushing agendas.
Luke 12:16-19. Even if you don't buy the Son of God stuff, Jesus had genius level insight into the human condition.
Expect a shakedown letter under the OSA
https://news.csusm.edu/ask-the-experts-drought-and-climate-change-in-california/
https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-california-stores-closed-due-crime-1882924
Some of the stats are also unreliable, because the victims simply stopped reporting crime knowing that nothing would be done about it.
This is the graph of property and violent crime in LA over time:
There has been an increase in shoplifting in recent years, as indeed there has been in the UK, for a variety of reasons including automation and the rise of homelessness., but overall no real evidence of a crime wave driven by calls to "defund the police". Not that defunding actually happened of course.
Unfortunately yes. In 2007 the Sierra Club successfully sued the Forest Service to prevent them from creating a Categorical Exclusion (CE) to NEPA for controlled burns (the technical term is "fuel reduction"). The CE would have allowed the forest service to conduct burns without having to perform a full EIS (the median time for which is 3.5 years). See: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-9th-circuit/1175742.html
John Muir project helped to claw back the full scope of Categorial Exclusions from the 2018 Omnibus Bill as well (though some easement did make it through).
In 2021 the outgoing Trump BLM was served with the following notice of intent to sue by the Center for Biological Diversity for their fuel reduction plan in the Great Basin: https://biologicaldiversity.org/programs/public_lands/grazing/pdfs/Fuel-Breaks-Fuels-Reduction-NOI-Draft.pdf
BLM backed away from the plan after the transition.
These are specific cases, but the cumulative outcome is that CA state agencies don't even try it because they know they'll be sued...
https://x.com/isaiah_p_taylor/status/1877049594313314525
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/man-arrested-on-suspicion-of-starting-los-angeles-fire/ar-BB1rcX4t?ocid=msedgntp&pc=LCTS&cvid=f8b0c6a22c544ef2b44a5a77fc169f9b&ei=11
But no, it's because some fire chief went on a Pride march, not climate change.
But it wouldn't have made a good media headline.
Politicians seem to believe that there is a huge wave of money that can be unleashed by a good headline.
But it could be a bit of broken glass, or a power line going sparky, or an old disposable vape lithium battery. The way the wider risk is, does it make much difference?
A certain orange man bad, on a certain very popular podcast, ranting for seven minutes about the water and forest problems in California.
https://x.com/collinrugg/status/1877048612519121223
Unfortunately, the vast majority of what he said is completely right.
Presidential Security Service chief has submitted his resignation to Acting President Choi Sang-mok.
https://x.com/yejinjgim/status/1877622299022557202
Basically you can deduce nothing from that result unless you were locally involved. Based on the data available it was an obvious target for the LD once you have a popular indy converted.
PS Also the Conservative percentage went up.
Of course no consolation for people losing their jobs but maybe a side effect of the budget.
The temperature out in LA is about 19, maybe 20 degrees during the day, down to 11 at night, at the moment.
Very odd that that you are all willing to gloss over a pretty pertinent point, yet concentrate heavily on others.
Already, suggestions the fires could ultimately be very good for the UK film industry. Assuming the residents of 10 and 11 Downing Street don't burn down the UK economy in the meantime. Can we bring them in for questioning about setting fire to the nation's finances?
Which gives you this - https://bsky.app/profile/luckytran.com/post/3lfbnfhqf422m
It’s like a defective bridge. Yes, the drunk driver in the truck who rammed into the abutment was the immediate cause of the collapse. But it was an accident waiting to happen.
Wild fires have happened since forever, and long before any human habitation.
Literally the only good solution (short of complete deforestation) is controlled burns outside of the dry season.
Without them the burns will happen anyway, but in a devastating manner.
Then I started reading it again. Although prolix, it is a useful guide on the characteristics of a cease-and-desist letter and I have bookmarked it for future reference.