Knowledge is Power

not chilling at all

After the recent week where some Calizuelans were powerless without electricity for up to a week due to a RED FLAG fire warning, here comes another type of RED FLAG warning.

[Gov. PrettyPrettyGavin Newsome signed] a so-called “RED FLAG” law to allow co-workers, employers and educators to seek gun violence restraining orders against firearms owners they fear are a danger to themselves and others…

Those seeking the orders will be required to file sworn statements detailing their reasons for doing so.

The educated, experienced, wise and self-restrained judgement of your cow-orkers’ fears is all it will take call down the armed response of the police and the legal system on your right to defend yourself. Or perhaps even your freedom.
[shiite. It just crossed my mind how exposed making that statement made me feel. ...and I don't even *have* an employer. or employees. or go anywhere near schools.

That ain't right, that feeling.
That just ain't right ]

Looka that language being Proggie-co-opted there: gun violence restraining order. Accused and prosecuted for … what act? On what hard evidence? The feelings of … who? some skool administrator?

…[also] a companion bill allowing the gun violence restraining orders to last one and five years guessing here they mean either 1 or 5 years? differentiated by…? and then yoou get your possessions back?, although the gun owners could petition to end those restrictions earlier.

Sure. Petitioning for your rights back from the government — works every time.

The bill also allows judges to issue search warrants at the same time as they grant the [relinquishment] orders.

A judicial search warrant based on zero objective evidence of law-breaking — just than a “fear” of a coworker or skool administrator.

The warrants can be used immediately if the gun owners are served with the relinquishment orders but fail to turn over the firearms or ammunition.

“Immediately.” Cuz we wouldn’t want to be hasty or anything. Cuz what’s to be gained by haste in a matter like this? …

I am completely sure that this will result on absolutely zero incidents of resentful coworkers, employees, employers, others using this to mess with anyone with whom they have a gripe.

The cops, I am sure are completely delighted to be handed this additional duty.

‘S funny. It’s dang near impossible to get a 5150 [involuntary mental health hold] in this state for a fella standing on the railing of a freeway overpass with knife to his own throat arguing with a lamp post, but this? …

[Democratic Assemblyman Phil Ting of San Francisco, author of this abomination] also has a companion bill that would allow gun owners starting next September who are the subjects of restraining order requests to file a form with the court saying they won’t contest the requests and are surrendering their firearms. Under current law, even those who agree to give up their guns must go through a court hearing, which Ting says wastes time and resources.

Yep. Just sign this handy form admitting your …guilt? compliance, and your pesky Constitutional Rights will never be a cause of “wasting the time and resources” of the court system.

The laws will take effect Jan. 1, 2020.

Life as a Prole in the NationState of Haiti-fornia — Day 3

“California is America’s coming attraction.”

–PrettyPretty Gavin Newsome, Proud Governor of Haitifornia

I gotta tells ya; it’s quite a thrill to flip a switch and *bam* it’s light in here. Push a button and *vroom* it starts to get warm in here. The water pressure goes up, the coffee heats, ahhhhhhhh… I HEART Fossil Fuels!

Yepperee, about 10:30 last nite, Teh Mister got a call from the PG&E tool-belt wearers [among whom we've made some good pals ] saying he was at the gate and on the way to replace our pole fuses cuz we got powah! W00t!

[Aside: srsly, people are stupid: these guys were saying that they'd been cussed at, glared at, and flipped off all day - on sites and on the road. People, please: it's not the guys in the toolbelts: it's the guys in the ties that got us here and will keep us here. The PUC appointed by the politicians: cuss them out ]

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, they replaced the fuses they had pulled so they wouldn’t blow and make fire when the newly turned on power surged thru. They didn’t ‘replace the fuses’ with new fuses cuz that kind of fuse set-up isn’t even made any more. Hasn’t been for years. Decades? We’ve been promised that the work order to change out the whole works to the “new” fuses is “on the list” for a coupla years now. Meanwhile, the guys have some of the old ones saved out and hidden “just in case.”

NB The above is a fictional representation printed solely for the purpose of humorous content.

‘S funny. People talking under difficult or unusual circumstances often go beyond the ordinary superficialities and the real shiite plops out. And thus we find that we have much more in common than we have been led to believe by the “common wisdom” which tells us that the story below actually, of course, makes sense to everyone.

The CEO of PG&E has apologized after it was revealed several of its employees mingled with some of its top [natural gas] customers at a wine tasting event paid for by the company while hundreds of thousands of people in California were facing an unprecedented power outage.[Classism!!!]

…the [Silver Oak Winery*] in question is located in Sonoma County, an area which was hit by major wildfires in 2017, the cause of which were blamed on PG&E power poles igniting.

“I want to apologize to every one of our customers,” [Bill Johnson, CEO of the utility's parent company PG&E Corp.] said. “Insensitive, inappropriate, tone deaf are the terms I would use to describe this.”

soooo…. Yer telling me that once you’ve burned down someone’s business/town, it is “insensitive, inappropriate, tone deaf” to employ them to stage a high-end dinner event. Which is their daily business.

Or it it “insensitive, inappropriate, tone deaf” to wine & dine big customers?

What’s the knee-jerk here? Don’t rub it in the faces of the proles that Our Betters&trade have fancy events? Even if that is business of Prole Town? October is harvest/crush season – a very time-sensitive process. Very. This outage cost the industry a pretty penny. But giving them the business of even one evening’s entertainment is somehow “insensitive, inappropriate, tone deaf?!?!” wtf.

Yeah. We had a lot of conversations in the yard with a lot of people who see things just as we do but who each believe they and their family are alone is this vast Prog wasteland. I tell each one, we gotta speak out just like we’re doing now, say what we see. We gotta mock the snowflakes, just cuz it’s fun. Only then will we — and they — learn just how small a minority they are.

Mockable, see?

[PrettyPrettyGavin Newsom, Gov of Haitifornia] This is not, from my perspective, a climate change story as much as a story about greed and mismanagement.”

“A desire to advance not public safety but profits. Over the course of years and years and years, the kind of hardening of the grid was not done,”

“It’s decisions that were not made that have led to this moment in PG&E’s history and the state of California as it relates to our major investor-owned utility,”

Is that the “There it is!” moment? The Plan to nationalize [state-ize?] the Electric Utility?

Let’s be clear about our “major investor-owned utility”: the majority of investors / stock owners are pension funds [nurses, teachers, cops, etc]. Yanno; widows and orphans. 401K holders.

Hey, PrettyPrettyGavin, tell us about the politcian-appointed PUC without whose permission PG&E can do nothing. Nothing, like, say, fix / maintain their equipment. Nothing, say, like funnel the funds for fixing said equipment into …. well, where is the money that didn’t go to dividend-earners, PrettyPrettyGavin? PG&E has paid no dividends for a coupla years now. That money ain’t going to those in the lawsuits. It sure ain’t going to fix ["harden" hahahahahahahahaaa] the lines.

Let’s not even go into the stories of the 80′s, 90′s, 2000′s, etc, etc. Let’s not berate people for “wasting $4 gas to charge their phones in their cars” [1 gallon?]. What most will be doing is charging their phones in their cars while crossing the border to Nevada as they drive to their new homes in all points East of here.

uh oh… Apparently the northern San Fernando valley has a big fire going on; started last night. “Cause unknown at this time”

Using Haiti-fornia Logyk, tell me what’s worng with this pic?

Life as a Prole in the NationState of Haiti-fornia — Day 2

One flushing toilet away from Life in a Turd World Country

Well, the “Wind Event” finally arrived last nite, only about 24 hours later than predictions. meh… weather; who could possibly predict it?

They said the wind on the high ridges [above 1,000 ft] would be gusting 35-45 mph with single digit humidity. I did not hike my hinder up there packing my Acme Wind-o-Meter so more I cannot say. I do know that at 500-600 feet it was gusty from time to time [maybe once an hour] from 11pm to about 3am at an estimated 15-20mph, alternating with dead calm. The Dead f’n Calm *is* an unusual weather event as we most commonly have a perpetual westerly; not even a full breeze, just fresh moving air.

In some low-lying valleys it was reported 29 degrees with hard frost overnite. so there’s that.

the power may not return until Tuesday, perhaps longer.

…the outages weren’t limited to fire-prone areas because the utilities must turn off entire distribution and transmission lines to much wider areas to minimize the risk of wildfires.

hm…

The massive interruption was designed after a growing tally of wildfires that forced the utility into bankruptcy over an estimated $30 billion in potential damages from lawsuits.

hm… checking… funny! those are the people are in the dark. imagine.

“The safety of our customers and the communities we serve is our most important responsibility, which is why PG&E has decided to turn power off to customers during this widespread, severe wind event,”

Well, that there is a pretty dang clear admission — from the company — that their equipment has been so poorly maintained over the decades that it cannot withstand winds considered normal in mountain and plains fly-over country. In 2/3 of the counties in the state. Thank you for your clarity.

California’s governor [PrettyPrettyGavin Newsome] says residents should be outraged and infuriated by news of a widespread power shut-off to prevent deadly wildfires but that the utility had no choice.

whaaa?

Gavin Newsom asks for timeout in PG&E takeover fight war. [JULY 24, 2019 ]

*head*desk*head*desk*

Meanwhile…

The California Public Utilities Commission issued a resolution in July 2018 supporting the use of this “last resort” tactic to mitigate the risk of wildfires. PG&E last year set out its list of criteria for the so-called public safety power shutoffs. Among the potential triggers: a National Weather Service’s declaration of a red-flag fire warning, humidity levels of below 20% percent, wind forecasts of 25 miles an hour, or gusts of 45 miles an hour.

The PUC is the state board of bureaucrats and political activists that tells the publicly held PG&E what it can and cannot do. And apparently a PUC resolution carries the force of Law. Like when it is permitted to replace aged-out equipment. Like for instance the bit of equipment that started the Camp Fire that took out Paradise CA: PG&E had been waiting a year for the permission to replace it.

PG&E has emphasized in recent weeks that full restoration of power requires visual inspection of all transmission and distribution lines throughout the affected areas. That equates to thousands of miles of overhead lines, including some in rugged areas.

…An army of linemen and engineers with a “prioritized” approach would need to inspect power lines on nearly every mile of wire after the predicted winds…

“Prioritized”. Get Oakland back online before the flats begin to go Purge [movie ref.: look it up. eek.] as they were advocating on social media last nite. And the flats aren’t even in blackout; just the hills where da rich folks live.

“Prioritized” We rurals might have power for Halloween?

No financial outlay there. Most of the fellas we’ve seen in the last coupla years are from IL, FL, MI, and points in between. Not expensive at all, eh. One group of fellas checks lines, then the next group double checks. The next group checks the work of the first group and the group after that checks the checking of the checkers. All separated by about two weeks. A month later, the cycle starts over.

I’m just hoping this gets over ‘n’ done before our water tanks run dry. [yep. we stoopud rurals need power for our pumps to get the water into the tanks.]. I love a flushing toilet. It’s like the last shred of dignity we have.

[Aside: actually I am in dang good shape because The Mister used his "Toxic Masculinity™" to set us up pretty well with a generator that will run the fridge, the tv and a little charging station for the electronics. He's calling it "glamping." I call it "Lucky Me."]

Moar info at this LATimes piece: California’s huge, humiliating power outages expose the vulnerabilities of PG&E’s power grid

“This is going to be what we do for a while… but it’s going to have to be refined, instead of just relying on this one very blunt instrument.”

The power utility in Sacramento announced it does not have any public safety power shutoffs planned while PG&E customers face power shutoffs.

The corruption and bullshitte around the PG&E cashcow has been going on since long before the Enron dealio. It’s positively Byzantine.

Instead, the scene is decidedly downbeat – not to say dark – as the proles stay downtrodden while the offspring of party elites rule the neo-capitalist market in the age of reform.
– random quotes from da innarToobs – which is still up on cellular!!!

Bemember: “As goes California, so goes the nation.”
so watch things in your own neighborhood, eh?