Peter Eater

In simplest terms, this is called bullshit. Complaining that a short-term policy creates a terrible long-term problem because it’s only a short-term solution is absurd. That’s what the law was designed to be. And claiming it creates impediments to getting labor and materials for rebuilding is, frankly, beyond absurd. I mean, seriously? This is your policy argument?

Under California law, price gouging protections kick in during a state of emergency and generally bar landlords, hotel and motels from charging more than 10% more than what they were charging or advertising before the crisis. The protections were set to expire in February, but Gov. Newsom issued an executive order today that extends them in L.A. County until March 8. Since the fires broke out last week, a wave of landlords have raised rent on their properties well beyond what the rules allow, including increases of more than 50%, according to online listings.

The misinformation (and in a few notable cases, disinformation) being posted here is unfortunate, especially as the disastrous emergency continues to unfold. So far, I have 11 friends whose homes have been destroyed. There are likely to be more.

Common knowledge. That cut-and-paste has been making the social media rounds, but it is irrelevant to the current disaster.

Most excellent. Thanks for this.

It is also a crime.

Incorrect. If what you suggest were true, rather than simply an unsupportable rightwing philosophy, we wouldn’t have things like building codes. We do.

Price gouging after a disaster is illegal in California. It is a crime to raise prices more than 10% within 30 days of the disaster’s official end, determined by the state, and the fires are still burning.

Wrong. Northern California water has zero to do with this disaster.

Thank you for this. It corrects many of the uninformed guesswork posts.

This is false.

Utter nonsense. Climate change is the cause of this epic “hurricane of fire.” Period. Forest management is an irrelevant distraction.

Nope. Ag water-use is certainly an ecological issue, but it is irrelevant to Southern California firefighting.

Nope. Water from Northern California has nothing to do with water for firefighting in Southern California.

Yes to the first three, but the drought is relevant only to creating the fuel for fire, not to fighting it.

This is not correct. The low rainfall since spring has nothing to do with water in fire hydrants.

Your question is based on false information about fire hydrants and not enough water. False.

I was having “a real discussion,” you misrepresented my comment, I politely corrected you, you ignored the correction - end of discussion. I am not interested in preparing a dissertation for you to continue to misrepresent and/or ignore. Why bother? And now, back to our regularly scheduled post on who the handsome men are…

Can a “boi” really be 35?

See above.

No one said it was “the full picture.” Symmetry was presented as a single example — “scientific fundamentals like symmetry,” and “one of those qualities.” The words fundamentals and qualities are plural.

No one said “cultural influences don’t matter.” Cultural influences are just that - influences, not primary causes.

Nah. It is an understandably common misconception that our ideas of beauty come from cultural influences such as movies and magazines. Most of us believe that we are “taught” what is beautiful based on the images presented to us throughout our life. If this were true, that would mean that what defines attractiveness would differ based on culture and era. More important are simple scientific fundamentals like symmetry, the extent to which one half of an object is the same as the other half. Our faces are not exactly the same on both halves. Symmetry is one of those qualities that consistently rates as desirable across cultures. Media did not teach us that.

Model/actor portfolio pix are pretty common in LA.