What Every Boy Scout Already Knows...

I'm guessing it would come as a surprise to many here in Taxforinia to learn that you need three things for a fire to burn.  They are:

  -   Oxygen
  -   Fuel
  -   An ignition source

If you had your Boy Scout merit badge in firestarting, which I do, as a matter of fact, you'd know the foregoing.  You'd have to or you wouldn't have been able to heat up your beans on the camping trip.

But folks here in authority don't seem to grasp these facts.  And put simply, as it relates to our recent fire emergencies here in Taxifornia, here goes:

          -  We have plenty of oxygen here.

          -  We have all kinds of ignition sources.

          -  And God knows, we have scads of fuel.  And that, my friends and Patriots, is our problem.

About ten years ago our Republican minority here in Taxifornia offered up legislation to clean up dead trees and scrub brush and overgrown weeds throughout the more fire-prone areas of our once-Golden State.  That would mean eliminating available fuel sources so as to prevent the next fire.  Yeah, good idea, right?

Not to Democrats.

No, no.  Democrats were afraid that clearing dead trees and scrub brush might deprive spotted owls of a place to plant their little feet.  Err, claws.  Errr, talons.  And crazed tree-huggers of a tree to hug.  So they voted down the Republicans' plan and sunk the money into curing global warming.  Or something.  The net result, however, was to permit an overgrowth of potential fuel.  Even fuel in Malibu, where all the rich swells live.  And where they just learned their money and their political connections won't keep them from burning alive if a wildfire breaks out.

And one just did.  All over our state.  From north to south, a dozen of them.  The stuff we should have cleaned up and carted away caught fire.  And our "leader's" response?  Blame Republicans for global warming.  

Oh yeah, and the power companies turned off the electricity.

You may not know it but our largest utility just declared bankruptcy.  They just took a $2.5 Billion Dollar charge due to that filing.  And the reason they pulled the plug?  It seems that last year's "Paradise" fire was started by PGandE power lines, making them responsible for a $Billion in losses and a dozen deaths.  Not good.

But what if those sparks from a power company power line had hit...nothing?  The nothing that would have been there if the brush and weeds and overgrown trees had been removed.  The stuff that would have been removed had the Democrats not chosen to our their money on...unicorns and rainbows.  

And then PGandE just decided that to prevent future wildfires, they would just turn off the power.  They wouldn't want to cause peoples' houses to burn down now, right?  So the richest state in the nation with the highest taxes in the nation and the highest gas prices in the nation...has fires burning from the sea to the mountains, and no electricity to run its generators.  

Everyone out there in Flyover Country: if you're thinking about possibly moving to California, please think again.  You have electricity.  And cheap gas.  And adult leaders. Stay where you are.  You'll be much happier...