Ringo Starr - Time on My Hands

Musk Gets Schooled on His Moronic Posts on the LA Wildfires

Over the weekend, Tech-billionaire Elon Musk arrived "on-scene" to the comfort of a Los Angeles conference room to insert himself into the frenzy and get schooled on basic physics from County Fire officials whose time could have certainly been put to better use elsewhere.

In a bizarre press-conference-for-one, a member of the LA County Fire Command Team gave a lesson to Musk in the basic principles of water pressure — and shut down his racist assertion that municipal diversity efforts are somehow to blame for the fires raging in California.  In a strangely-shot livestream, LA County Fire Battalion Chief Christian Litz breaks the water system down for a fisheye-lensed Musk.

"If we have one building burning, we could flow 1000 gallons a minute... you can imagine 1,000 gallons per house, we couldn't do [it]," he said. "There really is no water system that's going to keep that pace."  Chief Litz dumbed it down further, explaining that in order to maintain water pressure, an equal amount of water must be going into the system as goes out. As demand for water has understandably skyrocketed in recent days, LA County Fire is compensating with dozens of tanker trucks.  "We were flowing an amount of water that the system couldn't hold," he added, "just because of the amount of water these firefighters were utilizing."

The video is most notable for directly refuting the harmful assertions Musk has made regarding the wildfires — chiefly the "powerful minorities" myth that ineffective DEI hires are to blame for "water shortages" exacerbating the wildfires.   Never one to waste a major crisis, Musk used the occasion to hawk his pet projects.  "We are going to position Cybertrucks with Starlinks and free Wi-Fi in a grid pattern in the areas that most need it in the greater LA/Malibu area," the CEO posted before the presser.  At the moment, it's unclear how many Cybertrucks Musk has requisitioned for the effort, or what else the billionaire will be offering to those who've lost everything — or who even asked him to begin with.

Musk also shamelessly shared a video on X  that used an AI-generated voiceover to claim that the 43-year-old billionaire's "astonishing decision" to "generously donate" Starlink internet terminals to LA allowed people in the "disaster zone" to see coverage of the fires.  And that as a result, "thousands of lives" were saved, the anonymously-created video claimed. "Many rescue requests and on-site firefighting operations were successfully carried out," the AI voiceover intoned, "thanks to the support of Starlink."

Musk has no sense of shame or modesty-- if you'll recall, he was the one who resorted to calling someone childish names after his half-baked cave rescue mission in Thailand didn't work, so his credibility is in the tank nowadays.

 

Grumpy Old Man Needs His Sleep!

 Convicted felon Donald Trump spent the wee hours of the night complaining about late night host Seth Meyers.  “How bad is Seth Meyers on NBC, a ‘network’ run by a truly bad group of people,” Trump wrote on his social media account shortly before 1:30 a.m. ET. “I got stuck watching Marble Mouth Meyers the other night, the first time in months, and every time I watch this moron I feel an obligation to say how dumb and untalented he is, merely a slot filler for the Scum that runs Comcast.”

As he has before, Trump complained that late night talk shows are “contributions” to the Democratic party. He also appeared to threaten Comcast, the parent company of NBC, which airs Meyers’ show. “These are not shows or entertainment, they are simply political hits, 100% of the time, to me and the Republican party,” Trump griped. “Comcast should pay a BIG price for this!” 

The president-elect has long complained about late night shows for making fun of him. He has called Jimmy Kimmel (whose joke at the Oscars really seemed to get under Trump’s skin) “one of the dumbest human beings ever.” Trump has also slammed Jimmy Fallon as “weak and pathetic,” attacked Stephen Colbert as a “total loser,” and dismissed all of the late night hosts as “the talentless, low rated CREEPS of Late Night Television.” Trump seems to especially dislike Kimmel, whom he attacks more frequently than others. During his previous term in office, Trump tried to have Kimmel censored.  There have been no reactions from Kimmel, Fallon, Colbert or Meyers-- apparently no one seems to care.  I do, however, have some advice for the orange jesus: Get some sleep, old man-- you look terrible!

 

Don't Ya Know It?

A Life of Hate Has Come to an End

Anita Bryant, the former singer and much-reviled bigot, has died of cancer and will finally (according to her beliefs) face her maker and be held accountable for her lifetime of hate. She was 84.

Bryant leveraged her pageant title of Miss Oklahoma 1958 (and second runner up to Miss America a year later) to launch a career as a singer.   Bryant released several albums on the Carlton and Columbia labels, which generated a handful of top 20 hits in the early 60's.  Faced with uncertain prospects in the music business, she pivoted to making multiple appearances with Bob Hope on his USO tours and on television.  Later in that decade, she attempted a transition to gospel music, which resulted in little success. 

In 1969, Bryant reinvented herself as a television spokesperson, most famously appearing in commercials and at live events for the Florida Citrus Commission. Her career prospered for a number of years until 1977-- when Dade County, Florida passed an ordinance that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Bryant led a successful campaign to repeal the ordinance, saying, “If gays are granted rights, next we’ll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail biters.”  The campaign marked the beginning of an organized opposition to gay rights that spread across the nation. Later the same year, Florida legislators approved a measure prohibiting gay adoption (which was overturned more than 30 years later when it was declared unconstitutional).

However, the success of Bryant's campaign galvanized her opponents, who organized a boycott of orange juice which gained traction with many celebrities.  Bryant's outrageous comments and unabashed bigotry made her a regular target of ridicule by comics and on late-night talk shows.  During a live TV appearance in 1977, she was hit in the face with a pie by a gay activist-- after which she cruelly ad-libbed, "at least it was a fruit pie."  By the next year, her efforts led to the Briggs ballot initiative in California, which would have made pro-gay statements regarding homosexual people or homosexuality by any public school employee cause for dismissal. Grassroots organizations, buoyed by public statements against the measure by Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and Jerry Brown led to a massive defeat at the polls.

The fallout from Bryant's political activism devastated her business and entertainment career.  The Singer Corporation rescinded their offer for Bryant to sponsor a variety show because of the "extensive national publicity arising from [Bryant's] controversial political activities." In 1978, she lost her bid to become vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and divorced her husband a few years later.  Bryant lost a major source of income after Christian fundamentalist audiences and venues shunned her due to the divorce.  The Florida Citrus Commission quietly allowed her contract to lapse, stating that Bryant had "worn out" as a spokesperson.

Bryant rapidly became an object of ridicule, as her image shifted from being a model Christian spokeswoman to that of a self-righteous bigot. This led to many of her endorsements being cancelled and sponsors abandoning her, as she was seen as a major liability.  Bryant tried to revive her music career in a series of small venues.  Her investment in a theater in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee was a complete failure, leaving behind a series of unpaid employees and creditors.   A venture in Branson, Missouri ended with the state and federal governments both filing liens claiming more than $116,000 in unpaid taxes. Bryant also filed for bankruptcy in Arkansas, after piling up bills from a failed venture in Eureka Springs-- among the debts were nearly $200K in unpaid state and federal taxes.

The sort of public discrimination Bryant fostered has long caused LGBTQ+ people to suffer from higher rates of financial hardship, suicidal ideation, and drug addiction.  To the very end, Bryant was an unrepentant bigot. In the years afterward, she continued to call homosexuals “human garbage” and members of a “deviant lifestyle” who groomed children through sexual abuse.  In 2011, Bryant told an Oklahoma newspaper, “I’ve never regretted what I did.”   Near the end of her life, she even condemned her own granddaughter for being gay.  Good riddance to a truly horrible woman.

 

Continuing Tragedy in Los Angeles

All this week, we have been reading about the unfolding disaster in Los Angeles.  Brave responders have been going above and beyond to protect lives and structures and stop the fires wherever they are.  The Los Angeles County medical examiner has updated the death toll from the fires to 11, attributing five to the Palisades fire and six to the Eaton fire.  Contrary to social media, LA is not out of water.  Part of the problem is trying to fight widespread fires using an urban water system that was only designed to provide fire-fighting services for urban fires that occur on a sporadic basis-- not continuous, widespread water needs.   Nevertheless, their are likely other factors contributing to lack of water pressure at hydrants, and Governor Newsom has ordered an investigation of that issue. 

Earlier in the week, LA Mayor Karen Bass said budget cuts at the department did not affect the city’s response to the wildfires. Yesterday, Los Angeles City Fire Chief Kristin Crowley contradicted that narrative, drawing a connection between $17 million in reductions to her department’s operations and the struggle to beat back the wildfires.  Crowley stunned many observers with an extraordinary television interview with the local Fox affiliate where she said the city (and by implication, Mayor Bass) had failed her and her department. She went on to describe the Fire Department as understaffed and underfunded, saying the situation is “no longer sustainable.”  As of this morning:

• The Palisades Fire, which has burned 22,628 acres, is 11% contained.
• The Eaton Fire, which has burned 14,117 acres, is 15% contained.
• The Kenneth Fire, which has destroyed  1,052 acres, is 80% contained.
• The Hurst Fire, which has burned 779 acres is 76% contained.
• The Lidia Fire, which has burned 395 acres is 98% contained.
  
• The Archer Fire, which burned 31 acres is 100% contained (no structures or homes affected)
  
• The Woodley Fire, which burned 30 acres is 100% contained.
• The Olivas Fire, which burned 11 acres, is 100% contained.
• The Sunset Fire, which burned 42 acres, is 100% contained.
  

With high winds fueling the infernos, planes are being used to drop water and fire retardants from the sky.  But now there is an emerging problem on that front.

Just Sayin'