California Politics: Madame Senator, this is a morgue

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > California Politics: Madame Senator, this is a morgue

«‹›957 »

The Aardvark: Aug 19, 2013

Hadlock posted:

I have very little pity for the desert dweller living in a 1000 year flood plain who had well over a week to get their poo poo in order and move to higher ground. Literally saw this coming 1000 miles away

The burning man Facebook group has been with the head in sand posting going on over there

If you're in an affected area I would plan on being stuck in your house for at least three days, poo poo is going to be off the hook. I'm not a weed dude but if I lived in socal I'd probably buy Skyrim for the switch and a 1lb bag of weed gummies and all the flamin hot cheetos

Yeah dude, they just need to bootstrap and move to where the cheap housing is with the money they definitely have to move.

# ? Aug 21, 2023 14:15

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 16, 2024 05:22

The Glumslinger: Sep 24, 2008; Coach Nagy, you want me to throw to WHAT side of the field?; Hair Elf

Also, pretty sure Burning Man isn't in California

# ? Aug 21, 2023 15:38

Steve French: Sep 8, 2003

Tayter Swift posted:

Burning Man is like 300 miles north of the path of the storm dude

It is still bringing weather up there, I think they got a half inch of rain overnight which is quite a bit for this time of year (like double monthly august average or so?). No idea how much it�ll actually affect things

# ? Aug 21, 2023 15:50

Spazzle: Jul 5, 2003

Steve French posted:

It is still bringing weather up there, I think they got a half inch of rain overnight which is quite a bit for this time of year (like double monthly august average or so?). No idea how much it’ll actually affect things

Rain happens at Burning Man every few years. It reportedly just locks things down for a day due to mud. The rain there is going to stop tomorrow. The event opens in 6 days on sunday. It will effect groups going early to build big structures.

# ? Aug 21, 2023 16:14

GhostofJohnMuir: Aug 14, 2014; anime is not good

Hadlock posted:

I have very little pity for the desert dweller living in a 1000 year flood plain who had well over a week to get their poo poo in order and move to higher ground. Literally saw this coming 1000 miles away

The burning man Facebook group has been with the head in sand posting going on over there

If you're in an affected area I would plan on being stuck in your house for at least three days, poo poo is going to be off the hook. I'm not a weed dude but if I lived in socal I'd probably buy Skyrim for the switch and a 1lb bag of weed gummies and all the flamin hot cheetos

finally someone willing to take all those rich idiots in el centro down a peg

# ? Aug 21, 2023 16:24

Scott Forstall: Aug 16, 2003; MMM THAT FAUX LEATHER

storm totally went around SD. We got 2 inches over the course of the day but schools are still closed, which kinda sucks.

from the SD subreddit:

# ? Aug 21, 2023 17:07

Tacier: Jul 22, 2003

Spazzle posted:

Rain happens at Burning Man every few years. It reportedly just locks things down for a day due to mud. The rain there is going to stop tomorrow. The event opens in 6 days on sunday. It will effect groups going early to build big structures.

They were anticipating record rain as far north as Boise and Southeast Oregon, but it looks like it�s fizzling out. If earlier predictions held true, parts of the Black Rock Desert could have become a bathtub, but the burners appear to have gotten lucky.

# ? Aug 21, 2023 18:38

Arsenic Lupin: Apr 12, 2012; This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.

fermun posted:

If you're not joking, then it's because of the ties between the Getty and Newsom families. William Newsom III, Gavin's father, was the family lawyer that was trusted to deliver $3.2M in 1973 when the Gettys finally eventually agreed to pay the ransom for the kidnapped John Paul Getty III. William Newsom III was high school friends with Gordon Getty, Ann Getty's husband, and when William Newsom III was a judge, he ruled on a lawsuit that resulted in Gordon Getty inheriting a larger share of the Getty fortune, then was hired to administer Gordon Getty's $2B family trust after he retired from being a judge. Gordon and Ann Getty also acted as a sort of aunt and uncle for Gavin after his father's divorce. The Gettys basically financed Newsom's rise

As an aside the reason the Newsom imports wine from Argentina is because Newsom's father was business partners with a SS Gestapo member named Otto von Bolshwing who was brought to the US under Operation Paperclip and had connections in Argentina that let him get good deals on wines and passed on some of those connections to the Newsom family.

Oh, thanks for the fascinating details!
No, I wasn't clear. I know about the Newsom/Getty relationship. My question was, "Why did aspiring politician Newsom think the mansion of the richest woman in town was a good look for a photoshoot?"

# ? Aug 21, 2023 18:51

jokes: Dec 20, 2012; Uh... Kupo?

Because rich people's brains are broken from an early age

# ? Aug 21, 2023 19:11

BeAuMaN: Feb 18, 2014; I'M A LEAD FARMER, MOTHERFUCKER!

jokes posted:

Because rich people's brains are broken from an early age

This

But also if they're aspiring to look like the Kennedy's then it is trying to look rich. When JFK became president, him and the wife were young, rich people who would then do many trips with private jets, hosting lavish parties, etc. It was all a bunch of glamour and people loved it. You could say, of course, that JFK is a much better politician than Newsom, and sure, but this lavish, glamorous wealth with a young political power couple is what that photo is trying to capture. And everyone likes JFK, right? The whole "Camelot" shtick?

I'm not a fan of pomp and circumstance; what I found inspiring was when a friend from the UK told me their representative had a lovely little office above a laundromat. Every politician should be toiling away in the equivalent.

# ? Aug 21, 2023 20:46

Greg12: Apr 22, 2020

The Wiggly Wizard posted:

1000 year flood plain? What the gently caress are you talking about

1,000 year flood plain

place where there is a 0.1% chance of inundation in any year

500 year flood plain

place where there is a 0.5% chance of inundation in any year

100 year flood plain

place where there is a 1% chance of inundation in any year

# ? Aug 21, 2023 22:31

Hadlock: Nov 9, 2004

This is correct, and FEMA owns generating the maps, which are then important for land use and city planning

Starting in 2018 FEMA updated their flood calculations which made a bunch of people in NC very mad as basically any land within 300' of water is now in a 100 year flood plain which has serious knock on effects to property insurance and major factor in whether or not you can even get a construction loan from traditional lenders. A bunch of narrow 5 acre river front lots went from future family river house, to, unbuildable mosquito ridden swamp selling for $10k/acre (down from about 60k/acre)

If you have insurance and you have land you know if you're on a flood zone, and if so what kind. Like owning rural California land and knowing how many feet or miles you are from a calfire station

# ? Aug 22, 2023 02:10

Rodenthar Drothman: May 14, 2013; I think I will continue
watching this twilight world
as long as time flows.

So I�m not gonna go digging and spend a ton of time on getting hard data this, but from my personal experience growing up in the rear end end of nowhere where it flooded yesterday: it�s not a 1000 year flood plain until waaaaay further out, if at all. There�s tons of ephemeral lakes out in the western Mojave that fill up at least every decade or so (usually). Acting like rain literally never falls out there and that the people aren�t used to dealing with flooded-rear end streets every few years is ridiculous.

# ? Aug 22, 2023 02:17

Arsenic Lupin: Apr 12, 2012; This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.

Hadlock posted:

If you have insurance and you have land you know if you're on a flood zone, and if so what kind. Like owning rural California land and knowing how many feet or miles you are from a calfire station

Doesn't have to be rural California; any insurance application will ask how far you are from a fire hydrant/station. I don't know if that's true in other states.

# ? Aug 22, 2023 02:51

The Wiggly Wizard: Aug 21, 2008

Greg12 posted:

1,000 year flood plain

place where there is a 0.1% chance of inundation in any year

I know... so very unlikely to flood.

# ? Aug 22, 2023 03:46

Hadlock: Nov 9, 2004

The Wiggly Wizard posted:

I know... so very unlikely to flood.

Go make this assertion over in the home buying thread :allears:

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Aug 22, 2023 05:29

Greg12: Apr 22, 2020

The Wiggly Wizard posted:

I know... so very unlikely to flood.

so why did you ask

# ? Aug 22, 2023 14:18

Greg12: Apr 22, 2020

anyone can download a flood insurance rate map

they're free from the government online

there's no need to bicker

https://msc.fema.gov/portal/home

just type in a location

# ? Aug 22, 2023 14:28

CPColin: Sep 9, 2003; Big ol' smile.

I tried searching for "ur dads butt" and my apartment burned down :mad:

# ? Aug 22, 2023 17:48

The Wiggly Wizard: Aug 21, 2008

Greg12 posted:

so why did you ask

That guy said anyone in a 1000 year floodplain has it coming if they don't evacuate (or like sell their house and move? I dunno). Living in the 1000 year flood plain is low risk, so you should feel sympathy for someone who gets unlucky there. If they had an evacuation order, that's entirely different.

Greg12 posted:

anyone can download a flood insurance rate map

they're free from the government online

there's no need to bicker

https://msc.fema.gov/portal/home

just type in a location

You will notice that the 1000 year flood plain is rarely, if ever, mapped. The 500-year floodplain (twice as likely to flood as 1000) is defined as "area of minimal flood hazard" in FEMA's key

Hadlock posted:

Go make this assertion over in the home buying thread

I don't read the house buying thread sorry. I'm sure you have some great posts over there too

# ? Aug 22, 2023 19:09

Arsenic Lupin: Apr 12, 2012; This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.

The Wiggly Wizard posted:

Living in the 1000 year flood plain is low risk,

My understanding, and I'm happy to be corrected, is that all the "hundred-year flood" and equivalent zones haven't been recalculated since global warming started to hit hard. Places that didn't use to be high-risk are now.

# ? Aug 22, 2023 20:25

Hadlock: Nov 9, 2004

That's mostly correct yeah. There was a recalculation done that uses more up to date data (2012?) but in a lot of cases what was a 100 year flood zone is likely to be a 10 year flood zone by 2050, current FEMA flood maps are way better than they were, but they're not forward looking

The market has already responded though, waterfront property values in low lying areas already has global warming/future development/insurance costs baked in

Also lol at the guy "1000 year flood zone :rolleye:

" and when challenging his assertion they just loving fold, in D&D of all places, ok

# ? Aug 22, 2023 20:54

OgNar: Oct 26, 2002; They tapdance not, neither do they fart

https://twitter.com/megoconnor13/status/1694489527887523995

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-24/lapd-union-contract-raises-crime-rate-down-los-angeles

quote:

What�s missing in this rush to spend roughly $1 billion more over four years to �keep our city safe� is that, for the most part, our city is already getting safer.

Crime, believe it or not, is on the decline when compared with last year � and it remains nowhere near historical highs.

According to data reported by the LAPD, homicides are down 24% while robberies have declined 13% for the reporting period that ended Aug. 12. Earlier this summer, the department also reported drops in hate crimes and the number of shooting victims.

# ? Aug 24, 2023 18:58

Kenning: Jan 11, 2009; I really want to post goatse. Instead I only have these🍄.

You gotta pay the ransom to the local warlord and his coterie.

# ? Aug 24, 2023 19:24

jokes: Dec 20, 2012; Uh... Kupo?

Maybe it�s be better to have less cops and more money going to them, to encourage the dept to fire the worst ones

# ? Aug 24, 2023 19:29

OgNar: Oct 26, 2002; They tapdance not, neither do they fart

Ex cop follows estranged wife to bar and shoots up the place.
3 dead 6 wounded. Then killed in the shootout.
Guy had 2 handguns and a shotgun.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-23/mass-shooting-cooks-corner-biker-bar-trebuco-orange-county

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3A-DC1hoCQ

# ? Aug 24, 2023 21:46

OgNar: Oct 26, 2002; They tapdance not, neither do they fart

More LAPD gang stuff, seemingly released after normal hours.
And certainly after they got that 1 billion contract.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HBvFsFAH-A

https://twitter.com/FilmThePoliceLA/status/1694877785859453091

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-24/lapd-mission-gang-officers-under-investigation

quote:

The precise nature of the allegations against officers remains unclear, but, according to multiple sources who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation, some of those targeted by the search warrants were found to have routinely switched off their body cameras during traffic stops.

The locker searches, which one senior police official described as a once-in-a-decade occurrence, sent a shudder through the department�s ranks as rumors spread of an investigation that has put an unknown number of officers under scrutiny. The case remains shrouded in secrecy, and tight-lipped LAPD officials would only confirm that the searches occurred last Thursday at the Mission Division in the San Fernando Valley.

Internal affairs detectives showed up at the station to serve the warrants and peek inside the officers� lockers, according to two sources. It was not immediately clear what they were looking for or what, if anything, they took.

OgNar fucked around with this message at 11:45 on Aug 25, 2023

# ? Aug 25, 2023 11:39

The Wiggly Wizard: Aug 21, 2008

Turns out it's a bunch of silicon valley vc dorks buying up that worthless land near fairfield.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/business/land-purchases-solano-county.html

quote:

The Silicon Valley Elite Who Want to Build a City From Scratch

A mysterious company has spent $800 million in an effort to buy thousands of acres of San Francisco Bay Area land. The people behind the deals are said to be a who�s who of the tech industry.

[...]

Since then, a company called Flannery Associates has been buying large plots of land in a largely agricultural region 60 miles northeast of San Francisco. The company, which has little information public about its operations, has committed more than $800 million to secure thousands of acres of farmland, court documents show. One parcel after another, Flannery made offers to every landowner for miles, paying several times the market rate, whether the land had been listed for sale or not.

[...]

Flannery is the brainchild of Jan Sramek, 36, a former Goldman Sachs trader who has quietly courted some of the tech industry�s biggest names as investors, according to the pitch and people familiar with the matter. The company�s ambitions expand on the 2017 pitch: Take an arid patch of brown hills cut by a two-lane highway between suburbs and rural land, and convert into it into a community with tens of thousands of residents, clean energy, public transportation and dense urban life.

The company�s investors, whose identities have not been previously reported, are a who�s who of Silicon Valley, according to three people who were not authorized to speak publicly about the plans.

They include Mr. Moritz; Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder, venture capitalist and Democratic donor; Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon, investors at the Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm; Patrick and John Collison, the sibling co-founders of the payments company Stripe; Laurene Powell Jobs, founder of the Emerson Collective; and Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, entrepreneurs turned investors. Andreessen Horowitz is also a backer. It was unclear how much each had invested.

[...]

The land that Flannery has been purchasing is not zoned for residential use, and even in his 2017 pitch, Mr. Moritz acknowledged that rezoning could �clearly be challenging� � a nod to California�s notoriously difficult and litigious development process.

To pull off the project, the company will almost certainly have to use the state�s initiative system to get Solano County residents to vote on it. The hope is that voters will be enticed by promises of thousands of local jobs, increased tax revenue and investments in infrastructure like parks, a performing arts center, shopping, dining and a trade school.

The financial gains could be huge, Mr. Moritz said in the 2017 pitch. He estimated the return could be many times the initial investment just from the rezoning, and far more if and when they started building.

�If the plans materialize anywhere close to what is being contemplated, this should be a spectacular investment,� Mr. Moritz wrote.

The Bay Area is among the country�s most expensive regions, even after rent and home prices fell after the pandemic. Economists and housing experts have for decades blamed a longstanding housing shortage and California�s inability to build enough to meet demand.

Mr. Moritz nodded to this in the email to the investor, arguing that �this effort should relieve some of the Silicon Valley pressures we all feel � rising home prices, homelessness, congestion etc.� He added that his group had secured some 1,400 acres for less than $5,000 per acre. The price per acre has since escalated, and the company�s most recent purchases have neared $20,000 per acre, according to court documents and people familiar with the matter.

The purchases burst into public view this spring when lawyers for Flannery filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, accusing landowners of colluding to inflate prices.

The group focused on Jepson Prairie and Montezuma Hills, an agricultural patch of eastern Solano County between the cities of Fairfield and Rio Vista, according to the lawsuit. This area is mostly unpopulated and covered with ranches, windmills and power lines.

[...]

Ms. Moy cited poor infrastructure, including the two-lane highway bisecting the region that she said was already clogged by super-commuters driving to the edges of the Bay Area and beyond. The area is also prone to regular droughts and is at high risk for wildfires.

�It seems very pie in the sky,� she said.

Good luck, bozos.

# ? Aug 25, 2023 23:01

BeAuMaN: Feb 18, 2014; I'M A LEAD FARMER, MOTHERFUCKER!

And I guess the Mayor Breed and some others are mad at the federal court preventing them from removing homeless from the streets of San Francisco?
https://abc7news.com/san-francisco-encampments-homelessness-sf-rally-encampment-appeal/13690093/
Doing some selective quoting

quote:

"The fact that the courts have crippled our ability to do our job to help get people into shelter is criminal. If we have a place for someone to go. They need to go. There has to be accountability," San Francisco Mayor London Breed.
...
Here's where there's disagreement- the city says those on the street won't take the help and are refusing shelter.
...
However, the Coalition of Homelessness said that isn't true. Instead, they claim the city only has enough shelter beds for half the unhoused population, and that the city is simply marking people down as "refusing" shelter.
...
The latest Point-in-Time Count from 2022 found that 7,754 people were experiencing homelessness in San Francisco.

According to the city's Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, there are almost 3,100 beds across 46 shelter sites. City data shows the shelters are 92% full.

# ? Aug 26, 2023 01:19

Vincent Van Goatse: Nov 8, 2006; Enjoy every sandwich.; Smellrose

The Wiggly Wizard posted:

Turns out it's a bunch of silicon valley vc dorks buying up that worthless land near fairfield.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/business/land-purchases-solano-county.html

Good luck, bozos.

It's California City 2.0, baby!

# ? Aug 26, 2023 01:23

BeAuMaN: Feb 18, 2014; I'M A LEAD FARMER, MOTHERFUCKER!

OgNar posted:

More LAPD gang stuff, seemingly released after normal hours.
And certainly after they got that 1 billion contract.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HBvFsFAH-A

https://twitter.com/FilmThePoliceLA/status/1694877785859453091

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-24/lapd-mission-gang-officers-under-investigation

Sounds like just another day of California police corruption, given the recent FBI probe

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/17/us/police-officers-fbi-raid-antioch-california.html

Also selectively quoting...

quote:

Ten local police officers in Northern California were arrested and charged on Thursday after a series of F.B.I. raids stemming from a two-year investigation that the authorities said had uncovered a raft of crimes, including falsifying records to receive raises, illegally distributing drugs and improperly deploying dogs that harmed residents.
The officers worked at the Antioch and Pittsburg Police Departments in the Bay Area, where Ismail Ramsey, the U.S. attorney for California�s Northern District, said in a news conference that the officers had �acted as though they were above the law.�
...
The first part was described as a �college degree benefits fraud� that two officers from the Antioch department and four officers from Pittsburg had participated in.
...
The second indictment states that two Antioch officers conspired to distribute anabolic steroids, with one of them agreeing to destroy evidence of the illegal conspiracy.
...
One Antioch officer is accused in the third indictment of destroying, altering and falsifying records in an effort to obstruct a federal investigation. The officer is also charged with a civil rights violation for grabbing a person�s phone and damaging it to prevent the retrieval of evidence, Mr. Ramsey said.
...
The fourth indictment was described by Mr. Ramsey as a �disturbing litany of civil rights violations by three officers of the Antioch Police Department.�
The 29-page indictment describes how three officers boasted about their illegal use of force in text messages with one another.
One officer who worked with a dog took photographs or videos of a person�s injuries from a dog bite and shared them on his personal cellphone with officers who had not been involved in the episode. On Dec. 19, 2019, he wrote: �I�m gonna take more gory pics. gory pics are for personal stuff. cleaned up pics for the case.�
Another officer also took photographs of injuries on people whom he had attacked with a firearm that fires less-lethal ammunition.
He would then gather the spent ammunition �to create a display,� telling other officers that he was making a �mantle� and a trophy flag from the material, the indictment states.

The question is, given it's mulit-department FBI probe... is this only the beginning of the indictments or is this it?

# ? Aug 26, 2023 01:26

OgNar: Oct 26, 2002; They tapdance not, neither do they fart

Like my bills werent high enough
https://twitter.com/ReutersLegal/status/1697715850667806785

"In a complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court, the government said the fire began on Sept. 6, 2020 when a poorly maintained tree contacted power lines, igniting vegetation on a branch that then fell to the ground, spreading the fire.

SCE and Utility Tree Service, a contractor also named as a defendant, knew for "months" before the fire that the tree posed a danger but did nothing to address it, the complaint said.

The government is seeking to recoup more than $121 million, representing property and natural resources damages and costs to fight the fire, and double or triple damages for harm to timber, trees and underwood."

# ? Sep 2, 2023 06:08

VikingofRock: Aug 24, 2008

Sounds about right to me. I called SCE to report a power line that was actively sparking right next to a tree in my neighborhood, and they didn't fix it for weeks.

Municipalize energy companies. Power to the people!

# ? Sep 2, 2023 18:19