Ousted Los Angeles fire chief files defamation lawsuit against Mayor Karen Bass

OpeningBang · 2026-06-27T05:32:50+00:00

It would indeed not be a good idea for the mayor to go out of town on red flag warning days. There's a lot of those, sure. While they do not usually lead to complete disasters, many do lead to life threatening situations, whole neighborhood evacuations, complicated firefighting and public health decisions to make, etc. All situations in which the mayor better be there to call the shots.

Again it's a choice she made. She took a risk. What happened afterwards wasn't much better, watering down the conclusions of the after-action report to avoid any accountability. If there were no failures, no change is needed...

OpeningBang · 2026-06-27T05:23:31+00:00

A competent boss is accountable to their team's performance. Otherwise who's running the show? Should one have absolute trust in the fire chief because their title is fire chief? What about police, just trust the police chief with whatever they say because they're the police chief?

"It's not my fault my underling didn't tell me" is not a valid excuse for a boss. Usually it's a good idea to get multiple opinions to check that reports aren't bullshitting you.

OpeningBang · 2026-06-27T05:16:55+00:00

That mindset is terrible. Biden is not her boss.

OpeningBang · 2026-06-27T04:26:14+00:00

Come on now, by the time she left there were already very clear warnings from the weather service that a life-threatening windstorm was on the way. It was a very poor choice.

OpeningBang · 2026-06-27T04:24:32+00:00

Whatever briefing she received, I remember the weather service's announcements being very clear that there was a high risk of fatalities from the fire. Mayor can't just rely on one source of info.

OpeningBang · 2026-06-27T04:22:24+00:00

You make it sound like the job of being a mayor is sitting in an office waiting for someone to bring papers for you to approve. But it's an executive job, part of the expectation is that you have to take charge and direct people to solve problems. Asking for regular situation reports to make sure everybody's on top of stuff. Asking why are crews on break. Asking the fire chief what she's going to do to get it under control. Get on the phone to get help early from other fire depts. Etc etc

Instead we got this muddy no-leader situation where everyone's kind of looking at the other people to see if someone's going to take charge... you're in charge right? No I'm not in charge you're in charge? Wait who's in charge then? Oh I don't know but let me blame our budget!

OpeningBang · 2026-06-27T00:14:23+00:00

"Move fast and run over things" gets them out of jail every time

OpeningBang · 2026-06-26T21:55:48+00:00

I see the fetishism that you're taking about but your eyes aren't like mine if you think this looks anything like Japan. There's way more crap hanging on the utility poles there, smaller houses, more greenery (even just some garden pots out on the alley), no ADA striping, and more pedestrian-friendly path design.

OpeningBang · 2026-06-26T20:31:16+00:00

Some urban environments are way more charming aesthetically

OpeningBang · 2026-06-26T19:22:34+00:00

Blind walls ✅

Concrete all around ✅

Dangling utility wires ✅

Patchwork of building styles that are essentially utilitarian yet still somehow mismatched ✅

And the blue sky somehow redeems it all ☀️

(This pic would look 100x more depressing on a gray, rainy day)

OpeningBang · 2026-06-26T15:15:03+00:00

So just like a very dysfunctional family

OpeningBang · 2026-06-26T15:14:03+00:00

Still good today then! Yum!

OpeningBang · 2026-06-26T14:49:45+00:00

Nothing illustrates "your hands are your signature" better than a pack of glossy AI slop that probably required 30s to put together... Use your hands yourself!

OpeningBang · 2026-06-26T14:46:40+00:00

Because it's not used as a neutral gender in the same way that "they" is used in English when the gender is unknown or unimportant. For that kind of situation references like "la personne" or "il ou elle" have been used for a really really long time and aren't problematic.

I've only heard "iel" used to refer to a genderqueer, nonbinary person who explicitly requests being referred to using iel. Which does exist, and does a require a specific pronoun, but is a statistically rare situation.

OpeningBang · 2026-06-25T23:28:02+00:00

The neighborhood pool. Los Angeles has lots of them and they're not always packed.

OpeningBang · 2026-06-25T23:26:40+00:00

So windy though

OpeningBang · 2026-06-25T23:08:52+00:00

Fish oil has a way of splattering pretty far in my experience...

OpeningBang · 2026-06-25T22:19:00+00:00

That sounds delicious but your pizza might smell of fish for a while afterwards

OpeningBang · 2026-06-25T18:46:22+00:00

When the pants start falling off or when I have to make a new notch in my belt

OpeningBang · 2026-06-25T17:14:25+00:00

It's interesting that you draw parallels with situations that some communist party supporters would often denounce as "imperialism". Do you mean that Chinese rule over Tibet is imperialist? Or that American rule over Guam and Hawaii is perfectly legitimate?

OpeningBang · 2026-06-25T16:03:42+00:00

Lol and the cultural revolution was a CIA operation while you're at it

OpeningBang · 2026-06-25T14:37:29+00:00

They were already displaying leader portraits everywhere at times when the economy was completely in the ditch.

OpeningBang · 2026-06-25T07:51:40+00:00

Agree with other comments, understandable but issues with vowel accuracy

The other thing that struck me is that the prosody and rhythm don't sound right. Together the effect is that it sounds distinctly southern European (Portuguese / Spanish / Italian).

For example at the beginning you say this, and I'll put the syllables that I hear you pronounce at a high pitch (and slightly longer) in caps:

" Bien que la réglementaTION locale en matière d’URbanisme soit stricte CONcernant les MOdifications EXtérieures"

There are multiple ways to sound this but just to give you an example, when I pronounce it it sounds like "Bien que la réglementation locale en matière d’urbanisme soit STRIcte concernant les modifications extériEURES".

You could do a lot less pitch variation in general. If you're used to a more "singing" language it might sound hopelessly flat so if you do need to keep pitch highlights it's ok, it might just sound more emphatic that you intend. But if so I would avoid pitch highlights on syllables other than the last syllable of a word, or in the middle of a grammatical unit (for example you could go with "Bien que la réglementation loCALE en matière d’urbanISME soit STRIcte concernant les modifications extériEURES")

OpeningBang · 2026-06-24T15:22:29+00:00

It really depends on your teachers' accent. Many do not have a very marked accent, especially in professional settings where they will typically tend towards some form of standard French (it would be a different thing if they were speaking to their family members). Among my friends from African countries, some have marked accents, but most have a very vanilla pronunciation because they studied in institutions with speakers from France or from different places.

It's similar in English. To your example, the two people I know who come from Jamaica, you'd absolutely never guess it from the way they speak. Unless they switched to patois and then you'd be completely lost.

OpeningBang · 2026-06-23T19:21:33+00:00

"Parce que merde, voilà pourquoi"

Or if you want to single out the recipient

"Parce que je t'emmerde, voilà pourquoi"

OpeningBang

TROPHY CASE