Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
January 12, 2025
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2025-007

Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:


Other issues:

Palestine:

LA Fire:

Boeing:

Use as open (not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine) thread …

Comments

I predict a major shift in the geo political tectonic plates, between Europe and america.
The games up trump and musk have ‘blown the gaff’
Its no surprise we new all along, the yanks have been playing a devide and rule game between Europe and Russia killing well over a million people.
America were ukraine peoples worse enemy.
Its clear now that the president elect is a convicted felon and child abuser.
His side kick musk tried to project those pedo ways on to an effnic group in britain and support the biggest facist pedos in our country. The far right. The british equilivent of banderites.
It’s crash and burn for the yanks now.
The gigs up.

Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 14:29 utc | 1

Nobody has said this about the L.A. fires so I will.
Fancy Californians can’t (or won’t) pay for a basement. Their redwoods were ravaged so that their houses can burn easily.
Stick frame slab on grade construction is cheap, regardless of the market price.
Price discovery is a bitch.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 14:41 utc | 2

Too scents @ 2
You may have something there..
Redwoods are fire prooth…
Dense spungey bark.
Its why they last a thousand years or more.
Problem solved.

Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 14:45 utc | 3

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 14:41 utc | 2
The only places with basements have cold winters as general rule, based on how deep you have to bury water pipes.

Posted by: qparker | Jan 12 2025 14:46 utc | 4

To add
plant them. For a fire barrier not so good fire proothing if you use them as a building materal.

Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 14:49 utc | 5

The only places with basements have cold winters as general rule, based on how deep you have to bury water pipes.
Posted by: qparker | Jan 12 2025 14:46 utc | 4

That is news to me. I’ve worked on older properties in San Fransisco with sub-basements.
My experience is that basements are simply a question of price. Value is discounted.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 14:53 utc | 6

Looks like the Iranians have taken a page from the US in Iraq. Seen some pics of the Saz Tunnel Machine, ah hem, looks like the Simmons one the US was using in Iraq, but who cares they can tunnel anywhere now. Was interesting to see the name written in English on the side of machine. Odd, like seeing protest signs in foreign countries all written in English…….target that audience.
Cheers M

Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Jan 12 2025 14:54 utc | 7

posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 14:53 utc | 6
There is a clue in that it was older properties in SF you worked on, perhaps built before refrigeration? In the entire span of the US sun belt one is hard pressed to find a new basement.

Posted by: qparker | Jan 12 2025 15:10 utc | 8

Its clear now that the president elect is a convicted felon and child abuser.
It’s crash and burn for the yanks now.
The gigs up.
Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 14:29 utc | 1
Other than conviction, meet the new boss; same as the old boss.

Posted by: Mary | Jan 12 2025 15:12 utc | 9

In the entire span of the US sun belt one is hard pressed to find a new basement.
Posted by: qparker | Jan 12 2025 15:10 utc | 8

Which reinforces my claim that the US housing stock is hot garbage.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 15:19 utc | 10

Karma, or geophysical boomerang?

The bitter irony doesn’t escape me: LA Mayor cut $17.6 million to its fire departments while California sent $610 million to Israel through taxpayers. The Wonderful Company, controlling nearly 60% of California’s water through the Resnick family, pumps millions into supporting the very territorial expansion that has turned Gaza’s landscape into an environmental catastrophe. That already, in 2025, Biden is trying to push for an additional 8 billion in military “aid” to fund a Genocide while thousands of U.S. citizens from Ashville, NC to Los Angeles are suffocating under the climate crisis. We are funding the flames that will eventually reach our own doorsteps.

https://mondoweiss.net/2025/01/the-flames-that-connect-us-all/

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jan 12 2025 15:23 utc | 11

Mary @ 9
Totaly agree with you.
It’s binary bad and bad chioce.
Which is no choice. And here we are.
Brain washed public and monsters in charge of our country’s.
It’s lookin bad.
Cheers.

Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 15:24 utc | 12

Which reinforces my claim that the US housing stock is hot garbage.
Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 15:19 utc | 10
Here I am in whole hearted agreement they are building some sorry crap these days.
I just don’t think it has much to do with basements being unneeded in the sun belt.

Posted by: qparker | Jan 12 2025 15:38 utc | 13

I thought basements were wear all the US trolls live,
Judgin by that there must be loads of basements.

Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 15:45 utc | 14

I just don’t think it has much to do with basements being unneeded in the sun belt.
Posted by: qparker | Jan 12 2025 15:38 utc | 13

There are plenty of houses in Southern Europe with basements that predate interior plumbing. And Bend Oregon is the poster child for a locality that freezes with new slab-on-grade construction.
The thing is that modern Western housing isn’t being built to outlast the mortgage that financed its construction.
When an asset depreciates faster that the debt that secures it there is going to be a problem.
Fires and other natural causes will accelerate that eventuality.
L.A. has always been the ultimate Potemkin Village. Let’s see how they spin the new thing.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 16:00 utc | 15

The yanks are very proud of their military.
Gen Eric Smith

Our experience in the cauldron of combat will give us an advantage in any future fight
Our last combat was captured on somebody’s iPhone 14,” Smith said on Saturday during a panel discussion at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California. “The Chinese’ last combat was captured on oil and canvas, and they should not forget that.”
“It is easy to bluster, but it’s another thing when you actually have to go toe-to-toe and go in harm’s way,” Smith said. “And we have a lengthy history of going in harm’s way in Iraq, in Afghanistan. So, I would not undersell the value that our combat experience brings to this fight.”

The Chinese are also VERY proud of their military but for a completely different reason.
Whenever disaster hit, they can always count on the PLA for rapid deliverance.
The yanks boast of their Rapid Response force, ‘able to hit any trouble spot within 24 hrs’
OTOH
PLA’s RRF speed in disaster relief is unmatched in the entire world
Comparison of the HAARP induced quake in China to the California fire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv7eK8UjOqs

Posted by: denk | Jan 12 2025 16:04 utc | 16

Basements, ask a Ukie or a Russian within 100 miles of the LOCC, where they sleep at night? One of many uses, also stable air temp, better for cold storage of root crop foods and canned foods. Some people still prep……
Properly constructed and finished basements increase occupant living space and decrease the house’s overall environmental foot print.
Cheers M

Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Jan 12 2025 16:05 utc | 17

Epiphany!
Wow some wild fire gyrations though the older threads comments !
There’s a new set of Unreliable Narrators and Cold Vomit Narratives repackaged …
Is it the ii/77th PR cohort? Is it the HasbaRats climbing out of their bomb shelters , full of the dead cat bounce? Or is it just the same old shitshow ’Marxists/Leninists’ Banker muppets trying to hang on to the dream swirling down the drain hole?
Go read the ones that came after the last two century’s old ‘Great Thinkers’ – The shapeshifters story writers and ideologies of their various neoreligious gobbledygook.
Read Gramsci for instance. Or Huxley instead of the Bolshies or Austrian or the Economic and Geopolitic gurus out of their ivory towers of old and Chicago schools… Dugin now, and various others mostly ignored or worse censored, persecuted , murdered.
While the fairytale land of Hollywood burns – destroying its ‘history’, just like Dresden fire did as the Red Army miraculously kept winning – we are told of the ‘suffering’ of the ‘stars’!!! Of Paris Hilton OnlyFan types… the sirens drawing in kids to be sex slaves to capture loyalty from the politicians, judges, professors and CEOs…as one of their many shag pads and porn stages burn.
We are supposed to feel sorry for them – every odious racist , fascist , ZioImperialist tub thumper selling the Great Lies.
Yes there are multitudes more who fed off their crumbs who suffer too. As do the prisoners who are forced to fight fire without water for a $ a day before returning g to their cages.
Nothing changed about slavery in the USA by claiming that the word was cancelled! It’s terrible how the slaves themselves trying to get a grip on the slippery pole and encouraged to climb and crush each other vicariously feel the sympathy that the Hollywood royalty are suddenly sucking up!
Let it burn. Let the evidence and crime scenes get obliterated.
It is History being rewritten- but unfortunately the digital world and internet is distributed. They can only control what is pumped down it now. That’s why total control is demanded of the Apps people use. That is why we will go to war with China and Russia. To silence the Voices. Telegram and TikTok.
Here too our days are numbered as server hosts and AI disappear web sites and blogs.. in the Walled Garden and our easily managed Golden Billion… yup Huxley had it a hundred years ago!
‘There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.
Aldous Huxley ‘

Posted by: DunGroanin | Jan 12 2025 16:05 utc | 18

Mark2@……speaking of trolls, didn’t the UK Parliament vote down a request for an inquiry into the ‘rape grooming gangs’ working out of the UK……UK trolls don’t even hide in basements they get elected and run the pedo compromised House?
Aunty says it’s old news to UKers? Is it? Just seems some Caplin(sp) guy came up on the wrong side of Elon or such ……a nothing burger like the soggy bottom Saville affair I suppose.
Cheers M

Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Jan 12 2025 16:19 utc | 19

Gordon Hahn’s article about “Ukraine turning East” is interesting and something I have wondered about already.
https://gordonhahn.com/2025/01/11/the-potential-for-an-anti-western-ukrainian-turn-to-the-east/
“Western backing is unlikely at any rate, since Western publics are tired enough of the corrupt, quasi-neo-fascist Maidan regime in its wartime iteration. Western backing of an outright neofascist regime of the kind a Yarosh or Biletskiy could head or strongly support seems a bridge too far even for today’s unprincipled West. An independent moderate regime or a Russian puppet regime seem more likely outcomes.”
If post-war Ukraine does turn east and eventually even to Russia, it will do so as part of a herd of European countries doing the same when the neocons finally give up rigging every single election in Europe and just reconcile themselves to the fact that normal people hate them and like Russia.
Even Britain – the motherfucker of parliaments – is now cancelling elections that look set to return Reform/Farage non-Russophobe winners.
In Germany Alice Weibul talks like she’s chancellor already and plans to get Nordstream going again.
Even Italy’s Georgia Meloni seems to have snapped out of her Harry Potter enchantment and remembered that she hates liberal neocons.

Posted by: Andrew Sarchus | Jan 12 2025 16:25 utc | 20

Alexander Mercouris usually comments on Gordon Hahn articles, interesting what will be his take on this one…

Posted by: Andrew Sarchus | Jan 12 2025 16:26 utc | 21

thanks b… the wikileaks publication from 2007 on greenland is very interesting to see..
so, we are talking about basements on the moa week in review thread now, lol… what’s next??

Posted by: james | Jan 12 2025 16:35 utc | 22

reposting from the end of the previous OT thread :
Political Nomenclature
It often bugs me when Political Category words are used in a way that only seems to confuse things, wasting us all a lot of time and words to explain what we really mean. It reminds me of that song by The Who, “Substitute” :
“The north side of my town faced east
And the east was facing south.”
IMO we should re-examine and clarify our nomenclature, to make our words clear. So here are a bunch of these words, and my thoughts on them :
Left : imo this word should usually be replaced by “Fake-Left”, unless we specifically mean FOR THE MASS OF PEOPLE, especially working class, poor and middle class. NOT catering to folks from other countries (pre-immigrants) and fringe demographics (identity politics).
Fascism : this word is problematic, and like a duffle bag full of mixed parts that folks often disagree on. Corporatocracy maybe ? Plutocracy ? Oligarchy ? Totalitarian is a similar weird word.
Socialist : obviously means “FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PEOPLE”.
Communist : can be a socialist version, if everyone gets an adequate living wage, or plutocratic, if it’s an extractive scam paying everybody peanuts.
Populist : appealing to the majority of people, but not necessarily the poor.
Right : seldom used, but means the same as plutocratic or oligarchic etc.
Far-Right : doesn’t this just mean Right ? But coined this way, to make it sound extreme ?
Alt-Right : popular word, but seems like a misnomer, as in fact it seems more Populist.
Anyhow, these are just some thoughts, cause it seems to me that muddy and inaccurate words don’t help clear thinking and discussion.
What do you folks think ?

Posted by: Featherless | Jan 12 2025 16:37 utc | 23

what’s next??
Posted by: james | Jan 12 2025 16:35 utc | 22

The Three Little Pigs borrowed against their housing.
The Big Bad Wolf Santa Ana Winds came and blew their investment away, and its déjà vu the GFC all over again.
Basements are foundational.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 16:45 utc | 24

Military News
Apr 10, 2023
US Air Base in Greenland Gets New, Inuit Name
Thule Air Base in Greenland [since 1940], the Pentagon’s northernmost military installation, has been renamed to better reflect the culture of the region, as well as its affiliation with the Space Force. . .here

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 12 2025 16:57 utc | 25

what’s next??
@ james | Jan 12 2025 16:35 utc | 22

cellars

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jan 12 2025 16:57 utc | 26

In response to

what’s next??
Posted by: james | Jan 12 2025 16:35 utc | 22

I think you are forgetting b’s posting about toilet paper some years ago

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 12 2025 17:01 utc | 27

Re: wildfires
The 2nd order effects will be profound. For Example; Think of all the mortgages that need to be written off.

Posted by: Exile | Jan 12 2025 17:01 utc | 28

I don’t understand what people think a basement would have accomplished for the fires we had here in CA … sure, the basement would have been unburned and left gaping open, but a family can’t live in an open basement. The great fires of Paris, Chicago, and SF in 1906 happened in cities with full basements … total rebuilds all. A lot of these Pacific Palisades homes were pretty palatial and well built per modern standards for earthquake country … these were not cheap homes.
The Tarik Amar article was pretty fun … hopefully this knowledge is starting to percolate into the EU masses, for what that’s worth given the complete co-option of the ruling class currently.

Posted by: Caliman | Jan 12 2025 17:02 utc | 29

Sean the Leprechcarn @ 19
Of Couse they wanted to stop an inquiry, and here’s why….
https://malatesta32.wordpress.com/2019/04/03/2019-far-right-sex-offenders-list/
Thats the convicted ones how many EDL and reform degenerates are unconvicted ?
Not to mention another data base of sex offender police envolved.
It’s just more fake, race hate propaganda and miss information.
You wanna inquury ? me too.
Thanks for the prompt.
Ps starmer needs locking up he’s no mate of mine. He got his ‘sir’ for loseing prosicution evedence on the savill case.
Its not binary, the lot of them are in the club. Your Farage and tommy robinson too.
Its not the good guys against the baddies. Dont be nieve.

Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 17:18 utc | 30

I don’t understand what people think a basement would have accomplished for the fires we had here in CA
Posted by: Caliman | Jan 12 2025 17:02 utc | 28

My house has masonry walls 50cm thick. It would laugh at a brushfire.
Masonry walls require a substantial foundation.
The masonry buildings I’ve worked on in SF pre-dated the 1906 fire, as did many surviving Chicago buildings.
Stick framed construction is by definition cheap. California stucco shitboxes underpin hundreds of billions of $ debt. Maybe equivalent to a Ukraine’s worth of fictitious capital?
Privatized water rights underpin the California real estate scam. Everybody knows its a ridiculous bubble.
Everybody thinks they can frontrun their neighbor.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 17:22 utc | 31

I’d imagine basements would be bad news in an earthquake same as masonary builds. Timber being lighter.
Not something i know much about.

Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 17:30 utc | 32

I’d imagine basements would be bad news in an earthquake same as masonary builds.
Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 17:30 utc | 32

Tokyo manages.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 17:35 utc | 33

In response to

Privatized water rights underpin the California real estate scam. Everybody knows its a ridiculous bubble.
Everybody thinks they can frontrun their neighbor.
Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 17:22 utc | 31

Thx
Don’t forget the wannabe neighbor Arizona as another scamland.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 12 2025 17:43 utc | 34

Don’t buy Pistachios from California !
…..Oligarch farmers and the fires in Los Angeles – Yasha Levine / weaponized immigrant
Beverly Hills billionaires, fires, climate change, and the ecocidal terraforming system that underpins the California way of life……
The Resnicks are ruthless shysters and control the US pistachio market.

Posted by: Exile | Jan 12 2025 17:44 utc | 35

Two scents
Thats skyscrapers surly.
But nice come back.
You win. As i said i know nothing on
this.
But redwoods is a brriliant idea as fire barriers. No undegrowth kept clean. Sliws the wind catches the embers sense the heat vertcle.
I have two close relatives just moved from UK to that area. He was in mexico by chaince she was close enough to see hot embers landing in their garden.
Dosent drive but maniged to get a taxie out on wensday.
I told them not to go to america, but would they listen ooooh no.

Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 17:45 utc | 36

@Mark2 #1
LOL you.
Europe fucked itself.
Either change your governments or live with it.
It is as simple as that.

Posted by: c1ue | Jan 12 2025 17:46 utc | 37

@too scents #2
Gee, how exactly would a basement stop your house, your school, your neighborhood stores from burning down?
How exactly are you going to live in a neighborhood – even if your house survives as the concrete ones did – if there is no grocery store to buy food from, no school for your kids to go to anymore and lots of lovely char particles to breath?
Of course, this is Democrat run LA in Democrat run California.
Surely the fact that the top 3 officers in the LA Fire Department are DEI hires has no factor?
Or that Newsom and the LA mayor have been using the LAFD budget as a piggy bank?
Or that the unusual rains in California this year, plus ongoing “environmentalist” lawfare to prevent brush clearing and tree thinning, is not a factor either?

Posted by: c1ue | Jan 12 2025 17:50 utc | 38

@Mark2 #3
No, redwoods are not fireproof. They have some fire resistance but they still do burn.
What they are, is adapted to surviving fires better than other types of vegetation and benefiting from the resulting biomass clearance.

Posted by: c1ue | Jan 12 2025 17:53 utc | 39

@denk #16
The US military has lost almost literally every war it has fought since World War 2. It can win battles, but that is not the same as winning wars.
Dumbfucks like the general you quote are just that, dumbfucks.
But I can one-up you there: Lloyd Austin’s exiting statement as Secretary of Defense:
Remarks by Secretary Lloyd Austin

Today, some 50 countries of conscience are coordinating closely with Ukraine to send vital, consistent, and cutting-edge security assistance. And that has helped turn Ukraine’s struggle into one of the great military success stories of our times.

WTF

Posted by: c1ue | Jan 12 2025 18:00 utc | 40

as the concrete ones did
Posted by: c1ue | Jan 12 2025 17:50 utc | 38

Listen carefully and you will hear actuaries recalculating premiums.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 18:03 utc | 41

@ c1ue | Jan 12 2025 18:00 utc | 40
But of course it’s a great success story . . . if you’re an empty suit for Raytheon.

Posted by: malenkov | Jan 12 2025 18:13 utc | 42

@Featherless #23
Garbage.
Among other things, you fail to define what the core tenets of Left and Right are.
The original principles of Leftism were progressive – starting with the eradication of the feudal/aristocrat economic/political order into one which served the overall population and/or nation. That’s where Marx came from, that’s where the 19th century Progressives aimed at.
Note that the “enclosure of the commons” is in parallel with Marx’s era – that was the feudal lords/aristocrats response to attacks by the industrialists – the capitalists under Marx’s definition but which served to accelerate the progress of the Industrial revolution and the doom of the feudalists.
Then there’s the nonsense of Right meaning oligarchic. Your definition is like Doctorow’s garbage political views of conservatives.
No, conservatism has traditionally meant personal, religious, privacy, do unto others what you would want done to yourself, rejecting new nonsense if it is not superior to existing methods. The original settlers of the United States were fleeing religious persecution – they were conservative in this sense even as the forced religious views that chased them out of the UK and Germany and other places, are simply that eras version of DEI/woke.
Then there’s populism. Populism means just what it means: you do things that most people want. It doesn’t matter if they are rich or poor – all that matters is most. 100 years ago, it meant pushing for silver to also be a monetary metal as gold was then, because the people who held th gold, screwed the farmers via their stranglehold on credit.
None of the parties today in the US or Europe correspond anywhere remotely to the traditional definitions of Liberal or Conservative – both are primarily vehicles for societal power. Trump is attempting to force the Republicans to become populist – it remains to be seen if he will be successful but Trumpian populism is also clearly nationalist – another political view which is missing from your attempt at definitions.
Fascism in turn is neither Right nor Left. The Nazis were socialist – National Socialism hence “left” but they were also highly nationalist and ethnically discriminatory. The US in the Smedley Butler era was also fascist – witness the use of sovereign military power in the interests of private corporations…something which still occurs today whether it is Halliburton in Iraq or FirstSolar in the US.
There is no need for you to reinvent the wheel – all of this is already very well documented.

Posted by: c1ue | Jan 12 2025 18:15 utc | 43

Masonry construction is a real drag in an earthquake zone.

Posted by: furies | Jan 12 2025 18:17 utc | 44

@too scents #41
Home insurance has long since departed from simplistic actuarial models into profiteering. To be fair, some of it is due to the financial damage from decades of too low interest rates, but increasingly a lot of it is algorithmic theft.
Then there’s the increasing case of people building houses in the middle of fire zones aka forests.

Posted by: c1ue | Jan 12 2025 18:21 utc | 45

I’m told a hell of a lot of water has been diverted from that area into silicon valley.
Cooling computers and such.

Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 18:23 utc | 46

Masonry construction is a real drag in an earthquake zone.
Posted by: furies | Jan 12 2025 18:17 utc | 44

How do the pylons and anchors on the Golden Gate Bridge work?

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 18:23 utc | 47

@malenkov #42
Yes, but what he said is “military success”, not “financial success for Raytheon in particular and the MIC in general”.
And even there, I would argue over that. While Raytheon and Western MIC will certainly benefit short term – the destruction of the myth of Western weapon superiority is not a positive indicator.
Nor is the revealed weakness, likely to be a good thing from US government/military procurement going forward.

Posted by: c1ue | Jan 12 2025 18:23 utc | 48

@Mark2 #46
Utter and complete bollocks.
Water in California flows north to south, not the reverse.

Posted by: c1ue | Jan 12 2025 18:26 utc | 49

@clue – thank you for your thoughts

Posted by: Featherless | Jan 12 2025 18:26 utc | 50

Do people live in the golden gate bridge 👀

Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 18:28 utc | 51

@clue
I thought the terms Left and Right came from the French Parliament a few hundred years ago, where the King and the Rich were on the Right, and everybody else on the Left, and so the correct meanings of Left and Right should directly descend from that, ie.: class wars.

Posted by: Featherless | Jan 12 2025 18:33 utc | 52

Chill out c1ue think of your blood pressure,
Stress kills more than fires statiscaly.

Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 18:33 utc | 53

@ c1ue | Jan 12 2025 18:23 utc | 48
I don’t think our disagreement is substantial. For our military, “military success” *is* financial success; nothing else really matters, as the military exists first and foremost to serve corporate interests. And short-term profit is how Wall Street (of which the Pentagon is a subsidiary) rolls.

Posted by: malenkov | Jan 12 2025 18:34 utc | 54

Posted by: c1ue | Jan 12 2025 18:00 utc | 40
———-
How about this..
Gen William Looney, on Iraq

“They know we own their country. We own their airspace … the way they live and talk. And that’s what’s great about America, right now. It’s a good thing, especially when there is a lot of oil out there we need.”

Posted by: denk | Jan 12 2025 18:36 utc | 55

Do people live in the golden gate bridge 👀
Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 18:28 utc | 51

Yes.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Golden+Gate+bridge+restrooms

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 18:37 utc | 56

As a California registered P.E. who practiced for a few decades in the construction industry – the thought of trying to reinforce thick masonry walls in residential construction is simply terrifying .
There are plenty of methods to improve the fire resistance of Type V buildings.
However, the best method is DON’T BUILD on West Facing Chaparral Hillsides . Far Far too many developments built since the 1980s are in scary geographies. Like “what were they thinking ? Who approved that ?”
BTW the “fireproof” concrete Zane Grey Estate just burned to the ground.
https://la.curbed.com/2020/1/23/21078086/historic-home-for-sale-zane-grey-altadena

Posted by: Exile | Jan 12 2025 18:37 utc | 57

masonry walls in residential construction
Posted by: Exile | Jan 12 2025 18:37 utc | 57

Precast pretensioned is the way.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 18:43 utc | 58

@ Exile | Jan 12 2025 18:37 utc | 57
but they don’t show any pictures of the basement!! apparently i need to be very concerned about basements when considering california!!
oh, and elizabeth may – politician here in canada, suggested california become the 11th province… what do californians think?? the resnicks and their unwonderful corporation are not invited, lol..
@ Exile | Jan 12 2025 17:44 utc | 35
i saw yasha levines documentary ‘pistachio wars’ last night…. it turned me right off pistachios and almond from california.. if someone wants to see how someone is so full of shit, they can see mrs resnick on full display.. the disconnect is outstanding..

Posted by: james | Jan 12 2025 18:48 utc | 59

2008, prior to Beijing’s ‘genocide‘ Olympics, a monstrous HAARP induced quake hit Tibet
Sharon stone

Its karma !
Serve them right for disrespecting my good friend HMTDL

Someone posted this comment on Stone’s property loss in the California fire..

Hey Sharon, karma is a bitch eh ?

Posted by: denk | Jan 12 2025 18:49 utc | 60

Don’t buy Pistachios from California !
…..Oligarch farmers and the fires in Los Angeles – Yasha Levine / weaponized immigrant
Beverly Hills billionaires, fires, climate change, and the ecocidal terraforming system that underpins the California way of life……
The Resnicks are ruthless shysters and control the US pistachio market.
Posted by: Exile | Jan 12 2025 17:44 utc | 35
You are absolutely right, the entire LA population spends (50 million m3) less than 2.5% of the water spent growing pistachios (2 billion m3) in california… and yet they are guilt tripped into cutting 5-10% of what they spend, leaving dried gardens ready to burn and empty pools that cannot be used to wet the houses.
It’s the miserablization of the populace to push an agenda.
Nothing more. Nothing less.

Posted by: Newbie | Jan 12 2025 18:51 utc | 61

Re: the Yasha Levine piece b linked, I recommend checking out the companion/extension documentary he just released yesterday called “Pistachio Wars”. It won’t become obvious why the word “war” is in the title until the final 10 minutes or so, but let me just say that pistachios and pomegranates (two luxury agricultural products initially grown primarily for export) are now a multi-billion dollar industry in the US. Formerly another heavily sanctioned country starting with an “I” and ending with an “N” was the world leader.
In any case he gets into the politics of water in California, which hearkens back to the days depicted in the Roman Polanski film “Chinatown” – you have basically two major groups of private interests competing for (and effectively now in ownership of most of) the water: 1) Central valley big agriculture and 2) Developers of the type who built out LA’s suburbs and the homes currently engulfed in flames or burned down in the hills. Of course the public competes for this water too (i.e., the City of Los Angeles or even smaller private farmers and residents of places like Porterville or Lost Hills).
https://www.bourseandbazaar.com/articles/2018/12/18/californian-famers-waged-war-on-iranian-pistachios-and-won
If you want to cut past all the culture war bullshit and learn about what is really going on with the LAFD, funding, water, etc., I recommend this article from Drop Site:
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/los-angeles-firefighters-begged-the
It has nothing to do with (capital D) “Democrat vs. Republican” or “woke DEI” bogeyman hires.
I’m in agreement with those who say basements are unnecessary in most of the US. They were built for reasons specific to timing and geography. Furthermore, in most places I’ve lived, unless a home is somehow a culturally or historically significant structure – or it’s designed by a known/highly competent architect and built like a real bunker – the value in the property lies in the land upon which it sits. Especially as the first mortgage matures over 20 to 30 years. No, they don’t build them like they used to, but 30 years is long enough for the value of the plot to grow beyond the initial value of the home + plot.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 12 2025 18:52 utc | 62

“Pistachio Wars” documentary.
https://gathr.com/vod/537d592b/pistachio-wars
The movie is almost totally about water and water rights in Cali. I think it costs $6.99 to view on VOD. I didn’t have to pay so I apologize if I got the cost wrong, but I can say it’s worth it.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 12 2025 18:58 utc | 63

the value in the property lies in the land upon which it sits.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 12 2025 18:52 utc | 62

Try and get a mortgage on a tent.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 18:59 utc | 64

P.S. but yeah, I completely agree with c1ue, Exile and anyone else who has said that nobody should have been building homes, let alone so many hillside, far flung suburban and exurban neighborhoods in the semi-arid geography around Los Angeles, subject to long draughts and completely natural fires every so many years. Admittedly the frequency of such fires has increased dramatically from human causes.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 12 2025 19:02 utc | 65

All the prez men [2018 Trump]
James mad dog Mattis
of Fallujah’s fame

US is not out to contain China,
China must have respect for international rules and for all nations’ sovereignty
It’s fun to shoot some people.
Civilian Deaths in Syria and Iraq Are Fact of Life,

Posted by: denk | Jan 12 2025 19:02 utc | 66

Try and get a mortgage on a tent.
Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 18:59 utc | 64
You can get a long-term loan (effectively a mortgage) on almost any empty plot of land anywhere you want. Tent or no tent. LOL

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 12 2025 19:03 utc | 67

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 12 2025 19:03 utc | 67
Correction: “effectively a mortgage minus the insurance and other costs affiliated with a dwelling or business structure” – AKA a “lot loan” or “plot loan.”
If you decide to build, you have several options for other loans, including typical mortgages, depending on where you’re talking.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 12 2025 19:06 utc | 68

(effectively a mortgage) on almost any empty plot of land anywhere
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 12 2025 19:03 utc | 67

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac finance housing. They underpin the mortgage market.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 19:08 utc | 69

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac finance housing. They underpin the mortgage market.
Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 19:08 utc | 69
That’s a totally separate conversation. Plot loans are often more difficult to get than a home mortgage.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/credit-loans-mortgages/090716/land-loans-3-things-know-you-buy-land.asp

How Do Land Loans Work?
In general, a land loan works like a standard mortgage. If approved for this type of loan, your lender will give you the funds to buy your chosen lot of land. With interest, you’ll then pay them back over the following years.
However, qualifying for a land loan can be more complex than getting a regular mortgage because it is riskier for lenders. As a result, borrowers may have to prove that they have a good credit score and explain in great detail the intended use of the land.

Parts of my current neighborhood flooded due to Harvey in 2017. There are multiple empty residential “build-ready” plots up to 3 acres without homes on them up for sale (for obvious reasons many of them have been built up in elevation but remain empty).

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 12 2025 19:11 utc | 70

more difficult to get than a home mortgage.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 12 2025 19:11 utc | 70

Obviously.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 19:15 utc | 71

Obviously.
Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 19:15 utc | 71
Not really “obviously” for build-ready plots, which I’m guessing a lot of the ones where homes burned down around LA are. See the part about “improved land loans” in the Investopedia article. I imagine it would be quite easy to get a plot loan for the empty residential plots in my area, which already have utility (sewer, potable water, electric) tie-ins, street access, established zoning and surveys (boundaries).
But yes, obviously it’s going to be harder to secure a big loan on most totally undeveloped pieces of land due to the factors also discussed at Investopedia.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 12 2025 19:19 utc | 72

….. Precast pretensioned is the way.
Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 18:43 utc | ……
Connections between walls and roof ?
Connections between walls and foundation ?
Try and design those with the lateral loads involved.

Posted by: Exile | Jan 12 2025 19:30 utc | 73

Connections between
Posted by: Exile | Jan 12 2025 19:30 utc | 73

Steel is extremely strong in shear. Where that isn’t sufficient make the joints complaint.
This is settled engineering practice.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 19:36 utc | 74

Try and design those with the lateral loads involved.
Posted by: Exile | Jan 12 2025 19:30 utc | 73
Interestingly, about a ago I met with a company that does industrial tilt-up precast vertical construction in TX, NM and AZ. I think they pour and tension tilt wall panels on-site in casting beds to be attached to a structural steel frame. Connecting to the roof and foundation is pretty straight forward.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 12 2025 19:37 utc | 75

thats all folks !

Posted by: denk | Jan 12 2025 19:38 utc | 76

Too scents – Ah yes, masonry … as a civil engineer, I’d say while it’s certainly very possible to design and build masonry and (better and easier) reinforced concrete houses, the cost is typically prohibitive in EQ country. This is why stick construction is the new construction pretty much everywhere and new suburban neighborhoods look so much more alike now than they ever have across the country: they build CA style homes in Colorado and Carolina and the Midwest now too … it’s just much more efficient $ wise.
GG Bridge is a steel suspension bridge built into concrete foundations … the steel does the EQ loading … very resilient. Would be interesting to design a steel suspension home 🙂
Most modern homes are built on perimeter foundations with crawl space underneath, rarely slab concrete for various reasons, whether the walls are made of masonry or wood or some composite …

Posted by: Caliman | Jan 12 2025 19:40 utc | 77

build-ready plots,
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 12 2025 19:19 utc | 72

Further to the mortgage loan tent discussion.
There is a tiny minority of homeowners that build on naked land, and those that do have the means.
Everybody else seeks the services of a home builder, who mostly build spec homes.
What homebuilders are actually selling is mortgages. The construction comes along for the ride.
If they could sell tents, the would.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 19:42 utc | 78

No.
Nazis weren’t ‘socialists’
That was just a personal pronoun by these airheads.
Learn actual historical truth not what the MuskRat says s selling as rewriting history of Nazism.
‘…
Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
Jan 10
This is just completely deranged. Hitler was probably the most rabid anti-Communist that ever existed (although some Americans today come close).
Some quotes from Mein Kampf:
“The problem of how the future of the German nation can be secured is the problem of how Marxism can be exterminated.”
“The Jewish doctrine of Marxism rejects the aristocratic principle of Nature and replaces the eternal privilege of power and strength by the mass of numbers and their dead weight… It denies the value of personality in man, disputes the significance of nationality and race, and thereby withdraws from humanity the premise of its existence and its culture.”
While the Nazi party used “socialist” in their name, their ideology and actions were explicitly opposed to socialism and communism. The Nazi regime banned independent labor unions and sent trade unionists to concentration camps. Hitler had tremendous support within the German capitalist class and major industrialists, who backed him precisely because he promised to crush the labor movement and destroy communism. Major industrial leaders like Gustav Krupp, Fritz Thyssen, and Friedrich Flick provided significant financial support to the Nazi party, seeing Hitler as their best defense against communism and organized labor. And of course communists were among the first groups targeted for persecution by the Nazi regime and sent to concentration camps – hardly the action of a “communist socialist guy…’
Lots more here
https://nitter.poast.org/RnaudBertrand/status/1878298925880529159
Barflies are better than believing that shit.

Posted by: DunGroanin | Jan 12 2025 19:58 utc | 79

What homebuilders are actually selling is mortgages. The construction comes along for the ride.
If they could sell tents, the would.
Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 19:42 utc | 78
LOL no argument there. They build stick and siding homes as cheaply as possible because the buyer gets a loan (mortgage) whereby the lending bank pays the homebuilder the entire cost of the property up front. Some of them are little better than glorified tents with plumbing and electric.
https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/comments/1cusoin/under_construction_home_collapsed_during_a_storm/ (watch the video)
Which was part of my point regarding the “value” of said property, especially over time. The homebuyer has to hope that the neighborhood ‘takes off’ – ya know, a Target here, a Whole Foods there, maybe even a new Formula 1 racetrack and concert venue (like in Austin where I used to live). Along with the other market forces driving up the cost of housing (scarcity mainly), the hope is that my crappy DR Horton cookie cutter mcmansion or ‘starter home’ eventually goes up in value to the point a profit can be made. But at the end of the day (or 30 year mortgage), if things go well, the true value of the property is plot itself (again, assuming that scarcity remains and that the neighborhood/development becomes a ‘desirable’ place to live). I don’t know specifics, but I’d bet that it’s about 50/50 nationwide.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 12 2025 19:59 utc | 80

Did someone say tilt-up slab ?
A well known catastrophic failure
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-07-03-mn-788-story.html

Posted by: Exile | Jan 12 2025 20:04 utc | 81

Posted by: Exile | Jan 12 2025 20:04 utc | 81
That was a concrete reinforced ceiling collapse. Sounds like a badly designed structural steel frame/roof combo. Would need to know why a concrete ceiling in the first place.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 12 2025 20:08 utc | 82

Geez…

Gibbs called the building’s construction a conventional “tilt-up” style in which the concrete walls are poured, then hoisted into standing position. He said the roof was made of wood and steel and reinforced with a 3-inch slab of concrete for acoustical quality because the theater sits in the flight path of the Long Beach Airport.

3 inches of concrete is heavy. I don’t know that this building had a SS frame. Seems more like just plain tilt-up concrete panels. That isn’t how the firm I’ve talked to designs them.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 12 2025 20:11 utc | 83

Hiw much water does cilican valley consume upstream from los angalese ?
Dont piss about. It’s a sereous question.

Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 20:13 utc | 84

@ too scents | Jan 12 2025 19:42 utc | 78
i like how you framed that – home-builders are selling mortgages.. and i think the banks are quite happy with this arrangement too, as their is no oversight on banks.. we have a giant housing bubble and no banking oversight.. it reminds me of 2008 sub prime mortgage fiasco that the public was put on the hook for… as tom notes @ 80 -everyone is speculating in the r/e area, hoping for an expanding balloon.. at some point the music is going to stop and it will somehow be downloaded onto the public as the banks and politicians never take ownership over their role..

Posted by: james | Jan 12 2025 20:15 utc | 85

How not hiw typo
Dam small key pad.

Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 20:15 utc | 86

Hiw much water does cilican valley consume upstream from los angalese ?
Dont piss about. It’s a sereous question.
Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 20:13 utc | 84
c1ue gave you the correct answer the first time. Water in CA flows north to south. The amount of water consumed by Silicon Valley is minuscule compared to the amount of water diverted south from the delta for Central Valley agriculture. Someone else already provided the figures for how much water the city of Los Angeles consumes and it’s also a small fraction of the agricultural use.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 12 2025 20:15 utc | 87

@ Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 20:13 utc | 84
6.99 to watch the documentary articulating the answer to your question.. i recommend it..
https://yasha.substack.com/

Posted by: james | Jan 12 2025 20:17 utc | 88

Posted by: Exile | Jan 12 2025 20:04 utc | 81
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jan 12 2025 20:08 utc | 82

Sand’s sphericity makes it a bad add-mix for structural concrete aggregates. But it is cheap and plentiful so there you go.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 20:17 utc | 89

Tom
silicon valley is north of los angalese.
Therfore less water flowing south toward LA
How much warer does silion valley use ?
It’s like pulling teeth.

Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 20:21 utc | 90

…. 3 inches of concrete is heavy……
Sure is – our friend too scents wants little residential houses to be built out of ‘fireproof’ concrete – roofs included.

Posted by: Exile | Jan 12 2025 20:21 utc | 91

and it will somehow be downloaded onto the public
Posted by: james | Jan 12 2025 20:15 utc | 85

Why the “public”. The problem starts and stops with the people that bought (and sold) in.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 20:22 utc | 92

roofs included.
Posted by: Exile | Jan 12 2025 20:21 utc | 91

Clay tiles are heavier by volume as concrete. Real slate is heavier still.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 20:26 utc | 93

@ too scents | Jan 12 2025 20:22 utc | 92
what happened in the sub prime mortgage disaster in 2008 area?? the problem starts and stops with giving out mortgages that never should have been given out – all for profit for the banks… the banks got bailed, not the people that bought..

Posted by: james | Jan 12 2025 20:27 utc | 94

@ DunGroanin | Jan 12 2025 19:58 utc | 79
Wouldn’t think you’d be the one to refute that silly
and persistent claim that the Nazis were socialists because
they had that in their name. But thanks, DG – and good work!

Posted by: waynorinorway | Jan 12 2025 20:31 utc | 95

Silicon vally water consumption.
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/water-guzzling-silicon-valley-data-centers-california-drought-computers/
I’d imagine agriculture has been there for a long time,
Less so silicon valley.

Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 20:32 utc | 96

the banks got bailed, not the people that bought..
Posted by: james | Jan 12 2025 20:27 utc | 94

The sub-prime disaster would not have happened if the “people that bought” were innocent.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 20:33 utc | 97

@ too scents | Jan 12 2025 20:33 utc | 97
it is impressive how you absolve the banks of their role in all this..

Posted by: james | Jan 12 2025 20:34 utc | 98

it is impressive how you absolve the banks of their role in all this..
Posted by: james | Jan 12 2025 20:34 utc | 98

I do not absolve the banks. They encouraged and participated in the frauds committed by their customers.

Posted by: too scents | Jan 12 2025 20:38 utc | 99

Aparently half of those homes were’nt insured for this fire risk.
Thats gunna hurt a lot of people.

Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 12 2025 20:39 utc | 100