They should call California the "Granola State": what ain't fruits and nuts is flakes. - GallagherOur very own "The Scum" with no particulat malice gives voice to a common attitude: Yet another fire destroying overpriced shit boxes in Klownifornia...just like EVERY year. The rest of the country just doesn't give a craptacular shit about a few California fires. You choose to live there you deal with the consequences.
I hope yours and your loved ones are all okay (yes I do have personal empathy even while questioning mob pity seeking).
There are some areas of the country that don't burn up every year. Of course they might not meet your 'lifestyle' needs.
Nothing I haven't heard or possibly said myself for over 30 years. Truth is that Kalifornia is still America writ large. If you want to know where the US is headed look to the tip of the spear.
As to the specific issues; We may have an earthquake and we may have a firestorm but we will have temeperatures averaging 70 degrees for the next 4 months and 90% sunshine. Excuse me now as I check the lawn for any avocados or oranges that may have fallen in the winds last night.
20 comments:
Makes me think of the FIRST snow and the MURST skiing this year!
Yeah, and all those tornadoes and hurricanes just add to the Cali misery. Oh, wait...
rob, how bout a picture of the orange and avocado tree(s) in your yard?
California is a beautiful place, and was once a wonderful place to live, and still has that potential. But WOW!, does it have serious problems. We've come a long, long way from the 50's, when life was simple and very good.
But Californians got greedy, and get-rich-quick schemes took over the economy, first the dot.com madness and then the real estate bubble. Worse, Californians started getting very high opinions of themselves, and started thinking that they were above construction work or lawn care or cleaning or raising their own children, and hence needed an ample supply of "help". Now the state is in dire financial straits, the economy is collapsing . . . and, oh yeah, there aren't any jobs left in the service sector because they are already filled by uncounted numbers of recent immigrants. Oh, and there will be hundreds of thousands of recent immigrants who will need to find work because there isn't any more work in construction--and if they don't find work, umm, well, don't ask that question.
Good luck, California, you're going to need it.
(And you're right Rob, California is, sadly, a leading indicator for the rest of the nation.)
Actually you have it backwards. California has historically been the last state to enter into a recession and the last to come out. It is not a leading indicator, in fact it is the reverse.
CA is a mess, which is too bad since I grew up in the Bay Area and would have loved to retire there if it had not changed so drastically. As one of our favorite characters would say "It's all good" for me at least.
Sold my PoS shack in the east bay in 2005 for $700K more than I paid for it in 1993 and am now living the life of my dreams in Austin, TX. My salary is the same as it was in CA and now I have no mortgage, no state income tax, and EVERYTHING is cheaper here.
Enjoy your fun in the sun out there, oh thats right...we have plenty of that out here too and we don't have 30 degree temperature swings every night.
But Californians got greedy, and get-rich-quick schemes took over the economy, first the dot.com madness and then the real estate bubble.
I think it goesa back a bit further... That's why the State Motto is "Eureka!"
What happened was California got "comfortable." Rested on its' laurels if you will. Another problem is very clear to me but will piss people off until I explain. The State legislature became a single party Democrat body. Now, hold on. While I believe most of the problems facing the State are directly attributable to the liberal Democrats that have a stranglehold State policies at every level I think it is the nature or single party politics not that they are Democrats in this case that is responsible. Were it the Republicans that had staged staged a coup we'd be facing an entirely different set of equally bad problems. As it is we are high tax, business hostile, anti-productivity, expansionist government spendthrifts. Short of a revolution or less likely court mandated redistricting plan that won't change either.
After the revolution I plan on using SLO as my new Capital of El Centro de Kalifornia. Stretching from San Vincente Blvd at the base of the Pacific Palisades to my summer Palace at San Simeon, encompassing the Santa Monica Mtns., Santa Lucia Range, San Rafael Mtns inland to as far as Taft, my
benevolent dictatorship will rule in peace and prosperity. After the rotting corpses of any remaining lawyers are dealt with my first act will be to outlaw public transit. My second act will be to replace all these damn compound Spanish place names. Henceforth Santa Barbara will be simply known as "Babs."
Regards from the temporary exile HQ in "Cam,"
El Roberto de Dawg
aka. El Supremo de Nueva Kalifornia
He he. Pretty funny Rob. Everyone knows that California is home to Ronald Reagan and the John Birch Society. It probably has more trailer parks per capita than any other state. It certinly has more pickup trucks than any other state. I hope this is the part of the state that you are taking over. The stated goal of the republican party is to bankrupt the government. Why is is so hard to place the blame?
In many ways the fires and earthquakes (volcanic eruptions, tsunamis?)promote the "lifestyle", do they not? What burns or falls then allows for each place to be "re-invented." Hard on nostalgia buffs, but that's why California is always "new".
There sure are a lot of myths about California. Look, I live this piddling little county in California. Really, if it weren't for the occasional firestorm or earthquake or flood you'd never have heard about it at all. Despite that Ventura County as a US State on its own would be more populous (815k) than Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska and South Dakota.
In land area tiny Ventura at 2,208 sq mi is still much larger than Rhode Island and nearly the size of Delaware (2,489). By median income it would rank 4th. In terms of crime it would stand so much safer than every other state that it would break every existing graph for comparison purposes. Agricultural production comaprisons alone would easily be in the top 10. And this is just a piddling little county in this State. There are 58 counties, a great many of which would qualify as States in a rational allocation.
Rob Dawg:
(Or "El Doggo" if'n you prefer)
"If you want to know where the US is headed look to the tip of the spear."
Gee...burning up, mudsliding into the ocean, or falling down in a temblor, all while stuck in a traffic jam in the middle of a race riot and being taxed to death by a chief executive for whom Spanish is a second language?
Say, y'all wouldn't get too upset if'n us folks from south of the Mason-Dixon line stepped out for a spell to caucus?
Last time you folks caucused fer a spell Nixon lost Texas.
We may have an earthquake and we may have a firestorm but we will have temeperatures averaging 70 degrees for the next 4 months and 90% sunshine. Excuse me now as I check the lawn for any avocados or oranges that may have fallen in the winds last night.
There are plenty of places with nice winter weather that don't cost 10x AHI. Granted, the summer weather sucks, but there are lots of places you can grow oranges and play golf in January.
California gave us Hollywood, Ronald Reagan, Disneyland and The Beach Boys, but California also gave us Casey Serin and Richard Nixon. Don't knock California. If about half the population can be culled through disease or migration, California would once again be a nice place.
"Broken Window Syndrome." Mostly myth. The first worms are crawling on the corpse. Latest is the call for California to spend more for more water infrastructure. Newsflash ghouls, that only subsidizes more growth on the margins.
I've heard good things about the Pac Northwest, specifically Portland OR. My friends up there seem to have an almost evangelical fervor for their town. Some folks live in Vancouver WA (which has no property tax) and work/buy stuff in Portland (which has no sales tax.) It's livable, has four seasons. Gets dreary in the winter but not as bad the northeast or the midwest. Downtown is very pedestrian and bike friendly, and you can always pick up a FlexCar (tm) if you need a vehicle for a short term. Best of all, pot is as readily available as tobacco (with less stigma) and of far higher quality than the medical mj you get down here in Cal dispensaries.
When this is all over they will rebuild the tinderbox McMansions, even bigger than before.
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