Griffith Park Blog » Forest Fire

Too many big animals died in the Angeles Station Fire.

Donna Barstow — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:42:25 +0000

I was very sad about the 2nd column I wrote for the LA Weekly about animals killed in the horrific Angeles Station Fire. (I mean, the topic: the column itself came out fine.)

bobcat, Marin County, by ehoyer, link at bottom

The L.A. Times wrote that a huge number of big animals had died in the fire. I was going to call about this anyway, but the Weekly gave me the excuse I needed. I spoke with Kevin Cooper, a biologist with the US Forest Service, who was also mentioned in the Times article, briefly.

Since my first post in my Griffith Park blog, a Google keyword phrase that people have been using to find my Griffith Park-oriented blog is, “how many animals were killed in the fire?”

A USFS team spent two weeks in the Station Fire area examining its effects but wasn’t focused on evidence of animal deaths. However, when they stopped the vehicles, Cooper and others came upon three three bears, 12 deer, two coyotes, one bobcat and a fox. (The Times said they found mountain lions, but this is not correct.)

“Normally, we rarely see big mammals like this after a fire, because they’re able to outrun it. In my 20 years of experience, this is one of the worst,” says Cooper.

Mr. Cooper told me that of course there were many more animals killed than the few they spotted. The only ones he kept track of were those seen when they stopped the truck, or came across them in their survey. Here’s the part that sent chills up my spine:

He believes that because this fire often ran uphill in very steep terrain the animals just couldn’t outrun it. Fire moves uphill 16 times faster than it moves in flatter terrain, so even very fleet animals were overtaken. Also, the brush was incredibly thick there, and bigger animals got caught in it, or couldn’t run through it.

This is why I started this blog. This is why I continue it. Thanks to Mr. Cooper for the information, and to Jill Stewart and the LA Weekly team for allowing me to write about it. Go read the rest of the story there.

Photo thanks to ehoyer at flickr.

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I’ve forgotten, which fire are we in now?

Donna Barstow — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:38:11 +0000

More importantly, who set the Station Fire? If you tell me, I’ll share the $150,000 reward with you, 50- 50.

It’s unbelievable, this wretched fire is still burning in places, several weeks later. KHTS:

The Station Fire is 94 percent contained, with full containment now expected September 22. So far, the incident has consumed 160,557 acres of the Angeles National Forest which has not seen major fire activity in more than 40 years. It is the largest fire in the recorded history of Los Angeles County and the 10th largest in California history.

As it turns out, my cartoon below I did for Slate is right; there was an arsonist, although I have much stronger words for him than crazy. They’ve established that it’s arson – caused by “some substance” – and it’s homicide, since 2 firefighters died. (also, at least thousands of animals, birds, reptiles and trees – DB)

I was really happy that Daily News ran this cartoon the week of the fire. I felt like I was part of Los Angeles, and like it was something I could do to contribute towards awareness of this terrible tragedy.

LA Observed reported that San Fran wasn’t willing to help us out with the Station Fire. But FINALLY -okay, I won’t ask why it took them so long – good old neighbor to the North Canada sent us 2 Super Scoopers! . :( Best part? We get to keep the SuperScoopers til December!

Because I wanted to draw the fawn correctly, and don’t have any in my back yard – I wanted it vulnerable, yet real – I looked up photos and for some strange reason, found several of fawns with horses! I could not believe how beautiful, cute, and squee-worthy these were! Aahhh…!

More photos like this at gentlehorses.com.

And the animalliberationfront includes a story of how they saved this fawn from some coyotes!! Amazing!

Cartoon Caption: Smokey the Bear asks, Can YOU prevent forest fires? Government bailouts? US Forest Service? Local Fire Depts? Crazy arsonists? Careless smokers?

I know, government bailouts don’t seem to fit in with the rest, but the money the state got SHOULD have been used for fire protection in this terrible fire-prone state.

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LAFD Fail in the Station Fire.

Donna Barstow — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:58:10 +0000

I started this blog because of fire, and I’m picking it up again for the same reason. This time it’s the Station Fire. What, you expect me to just stand by while once again terrible things happen in LA because the city can’t take care of the Fire Department? I live in LA proper, and at this moment I can see over 20 separate fire peaks blazing in 5 different areas in the San Gabriel Mountains, La Canada, and whatever mountains and hills are out that way. And this has been happening for 4 days now. Even worse, is that 2 firemen were killed as their truck rolled over near Acton.

“This accident is tragic,” Bryant said, choking up as he spoke Sunday evening. “This is a very difficult time for L.A. County Fire Department and the men and women that serve day in, day out.”

It certainly is.

Have you ever heard the expression, “fire season” in LA? [/sarcasm] How long does it last now, 5 or 9 months? It’s not new. It’s not occasional, like an earthquake. It’s EVERY F-ING YEAR. So you’d think LA city and county would get prepared, wouldn’t you? But no. Same old, same old, year after year. Can you remember a year when anyone reported, gee, the LAFD is getting better and better at putting out wildfires? No, because it isn’t.

It’s not the fault of the brave firefighters that we all admire so much. It’s the fault of the LAFD headquarters, and either they’re not asking for, or not getting, the equipment they need. It’s so sad. It’s only money, after all.

I’m not a firefighting expert, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that normal fire trucks just might have a tough time navigating steep hills or tricky small roads. When I investigated the Griffith Park Fire 2 years ago I quickly discovered through my research, interviews, and tips from firefighters that the Los Angeles Fire Department just doesn’t have the trucks to fight wildfires effectively. Please reread this. I don’t mean the firefighters can’t take care of city fires. They are great, really great, can’t ask for better at that. I mean wildfires, anything offroad and actually anything just yards from the beaten path.

From the Dept of the Interior: Fire Engine Ratings. It’s a simple orderly list from Type 1 to Type 7 with various size tanks and crew, and engines that get more rugged by the number. What they call Wildland Engines don’t start until Type 3, and go up to Type 7.

The LAFD has only OES type 1 trucks, nothing higher. This is according to Officer Brian Humphrey, the esteemed and vigilant fireman who runs the LAFD website, and according to half a dozen other firemen I talked with. Officer Humphries commented last year:

I look forward to your visit with the staff at Battalion 5 Headquarters, and if possible, hope to get you out in the hills of Griffith Park aboard one of those 15 (for indeed that is how many you paid for) LAFD Brush Patrols. :)

While no single vehicle is going to answer all of the many challenges that face a crew on a wildfire, I think you’d be surprised at how these nimble and highly affordable ‘quick attack’ vehicles are able to spryly respond across the diverse geography of the Santa Monica Mountains. We’d love to have more, bigger, better faster of everything the taxpayers so generously provide us to with, but it is not in our financial realm.

If I were in charge, we’d have 20 Helitankers year round… but I digress :)

I talked with several firemen last year that say the LAFD has only 4 Brush patrols:

I talked with Captain Comfort, in the hydrant unit… He said in a wildland situation (in any hilly area without roads) “we don’t chase fires, we just contain it.” And since they don’t have any large off-road fire trucks, their range is limited to the length of the hoses: only 300 to 500 feet! He added that the longer the hose, the more loss of water pressure, too. There are a limited number of small Brush Patrol trucks (4), used in Red Flag situations, that are off-road, and able to go deep, but obviously interior areas are mostly dependent on helicopters for big firefighting.

In any case, all the fire departments agree that Los Angeles has only Type 1 trucks!

The California OES bought 5 new engines for the state under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. (There’s no date for this event, but it looks like it’s 2007.) These trucks cost about $250,000, less than the price of one average home in LA. None of the trucks went to the LAFD, however.

The new engines, costing $250,000 each, feature modern radios, an automatic transmission and other features that meet National Fire Protection Association standards. The vehicles, which qualify as Type 3 Light Urban Search and Rescue apparatus (USRA), are equipped with a shorter wheel base, allowing them to be used in wildland-urban interface fires as well as earthquakes and other emergencies.

Type 6 truck from Colorado on Wiki.

I reported the discrepancy between what transportation the LAFD actually had in LA, and what they SHOULD have to fight forest fires in our urban forests and right outside the city, before, of course, over 2 years ago, and again last year.

I wrote more about the Griffith Park 2007 fire than any other media in print or online, including the LA Times. I called the LAFD, investigated truck types, called other fire agencies, called our only wildlife worker in LA (shameful to have just one), called and queried the rangers, city officials, biologists, consultants, state and county departments, etc. Then Dave Gardetta wrote an article about the fire in November 2007 for Los Angeles Magazine (no online link), confirming all my facts, and strangely enough, hitting all the same beats. Hmm. Gosh, it’s almost as though he got the angle – and all the facts – from me! Huh! He also questioned the Fire Department’s strategy, and strategic placement of fire equipment, and even their trucks as being unfit for the job. (Then he wrote an opinion on arsonists in the LA Times last year, as an “expert,” because of his article in the magazine.) Nothing has changed in the LAFD.

You’ve seen the horrific pictures and heard the news of this week’s Station Fire in Angeles Forest – that it’s too smoky for helicopters to make many water drops, and the firefighters are concentrating on backfires and controlled burns, just as Captain Comfort explained their strategy above. Surely, starting fires to stop fires is a last resort. Who knows how many of these various fires could be snuffed out early on, with the right firefighting water tanks? For several days, the LAFD has been describing it as between 0% and 5% contained, even with all the kind aid from other communities. The Times said about the Angeles National Forest fire this week:

More than 2,800 fire personnel from around the state have converged to battle the Station fire, along with 12 helicopters and eight air tankers.

Gratitude is certainly in order. Yet I gotta ask, could the fire have been handled better with the right equipment? Even if it was only a small percentage better, that victory would save wildlands. 18 houses lost so far, and 2 firefighter’s lives, Ted Hall and Arnie Quinones. (And perhaps this is insensitive of me to point out, but they were driving a fire engine on a winding mountain road, which apparently flipped down a cliff. If they had been driving a fire engine made for wildlands, might their lives have been saved?)

I do editorial and political cartoons for Slate now, which is the main reason I haven’t posted here in so long. For the first time in my cartoonist’s career, I get called names, lots of names. Last week one reader called me “a typical Godless liberal.” He got at least one of those names wrong; I am God-fearing, and have been praying for the firefighters, people whose homes were lost, the 2 men, and all the thousands of animals and birds needlessly killed, for several days. (The LA Times writes: “small rodents overcome by smoke lay dead on the ground.” Rodents? Are you a godless word-slinger?) I know that God is first. But I think there’s some hard work to be done by the LAFD to make them the powerful, protective force that Los Angeles deserves.

The comparatively low price of these trucks vs the cost of houses, diminishing parkland, innocent animals lost, and priceless human lives reminds me of that movie a few years ago. What was the name of it? The makers of the Pinto knew that the engine tended to catch on fire in a crash. They weighed the price of being sued for death and accidents vs the price of fixing the engines. They didn’t fix the engines. People died.

Is the state, the city, the county, the laid-back LAFD like that car company? I was kind of hoping the story of the LA Wildfires Station Fire, in 2009, would have a happier ending.

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New source of water in Griffith Park! (Hands OFF, LADWP.)

Donna Barstow — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:34:17 +0000

George Grace, founder of the Griffith Park Natural History Survey, was also clever enough to find a new stream of water in the park!! (Well, the only stream, actually.) And he didn’t even have to use a divining rod.

There is a subterranean stream under the Toyon landfill (garbage dump) in Griffith Park that the Master Plan Committee recently learned about…but that the Department of Public Works has apparently known about for many years. George sent out an email blast:

What a great thought, to have a meadow on top of Toyon landfill with a real free flowing stream!

Javier L. Polanco, P.E. of the Department of Public Works wrote:

Yes, the presence of a groundwater stream beneath the Toyon Landfill
is well documented. At this time we are having a geotechnical
consultant perform an engineering feasability study to intercept the
groundwater from hydrogeological formations upstream of the landfill
and restortation of a running stream through Griffith Park below the
landfill. This may be an opportunity to restablish a water resource
through the park and reduce the formation of leachate within the
landfill.

I wrote to ask him for some more information about the discovery of this secret stream of water that is apparently well known to the city. To a city desperate for water. For a park with horrific fires, and no rain for 8 months and counting.

Donna, The landfill operated from 1957 to 1985. There may not have been extensive data at the time as to the groundwater flow characteristics through area. Even so, due to the complex geologic features beneath and surrounding the canyon it would have been difficult to predict with any level of certainty the path the groundwater would be taking through the site. In 1981 the a leachate barrier was constructed at the bottom of the landfill to intercept leachate and direct to a discharge sewer line.

…Leachate is formed when intermittent groundwater water flow from the canyon walls come in contact with the buried refuse. We are investigating the possibility of intercepting these groundwater sources upstream of the landfill and potentially diverting it away from the landfill and so it is instead directed through Griffith Park as a low flowing stream.

Leachate is bad, very bad. In other words, to turn this underground water into a stream, and divert it from the landfill crap, where it’s doing scary things, benefits both the park and the DPW. Win-win, yes? According to Cornell:

Water percolating through landfills produces leachate, which may contain undesirable or toxic chemicals.

Not to mention, can you imagine the smell of this water? Yes, let’s get it far away from the garbage. According to Wiki:

The physical appearance of leachate when it emerges from a typical landfill site is strongly-odoured yellow- or orange-coloured cloudy liquid. The smell is acidic and offensive and may be very pervasive…

Then we get to the show me the money part. Javier writes:

The cost of either option over a 10 yr. period including capital
and O&M costs range from $1.4M to $1.7M. We don’t have the
capital or potential funding sources identified at this time to
construct the project.

So let me see: a NEW source of pure wonderful life-giving water for Griffith Park, or a toxic underground stream?

Back in May, muk said the city ONLY has $163 million budget for the parks this year. Huh. Jon Kirk M, your play.

Extra: Kevin Uhrich, writing for LA Citybeat has some more history here.

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The arsonist is a shoeless person!

Donna Barstow — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:11:18 +0000

Not that I’m one to call people names. Some people are referring to him as a transient. Some call him homeless. Me, I like how Councilman Tom LaBonge describes our gp visitors with poor money management skills:

“As we all look around at each other here..and down at our shoes and socks… we’re living a step up from some people. Not everyone has shoes. That’s why we still allow barbecues in gp!”

The shoeless person has a name and a face:

Gary Allen Lintz, alleged arsonist. Alleged, my arse.

He was arrested Saturday. (although our own Kristin Sabo reported it here in comments a half hour earlier!) He was convicted of arson last year!!!! WTF was he doing out????

The Times said:

Gary Allen Lintz was spotted by hikers leaving an area near Griffith Park Drive where a slow-moving brush fire broke out shortly after 2 p.m. Saturday…Undercover arson investigators then observed Lintz riding in a group of bicyclists and stopped him for questioning, Miller said. Lintz stood out because he was not dressed in racing apparel.

Douchebagsonbikes had the photo and a good take on it:

Sure, he probably thought laying down a few hundred bucks to make a proper “cyclist disguise” was a waste of beer and lighter money but that amount is chump change compared to his $75, 000 bail.

Wildfire Today talks about why firefighters (and possibly arsonists) are attracted to fire. And Dave Gardetta wrote an opinion on arsonists in the LA Times last year. I don’t agree with some of his facts, which are really opinions, but I agree with this:

Wildfire arsonists, like serial killers, are generally considered to be deviants.

He lists the profile of the typical arsonist which doesn’t fit the arsonists in his article, nor this guy, so you can throw that one out the window. One study was interesting, though:

[they] found that whenever a fire was burning through a Southern California national forest, there was a nearly 1-in-4 chance that another national forest would erupt in flames – suggesting copycats at work…

These fires in gp were not far away from the barbecues that LaBonge makes sure are burning bright for the shoeless. Even though we have no smoking signs, and have used up umpteen expensive hours of firefighter men and women power, fires rage on there. I don’t think this wacko was inspired by them, but certainly smokers that want to light up think, if them, why not me? I had written before that I thought there were at least 50 barbecues in gp. However, I got word from Kevin Regan at Rec & Parks that there are 75 barbecues, all active and working! Fire for everyone!

Toads may have perished.

Some clueless person might wonder, why the big deal on these wildfires? No people died, no buildings gone. Well, we’re talking about a PARK, where people and buildings are not the biggest attraction. We have no idea how many of the rare chocolate orchids died, or which other plants and animals are now extinct. Since these creepy fires were all in daytime, I’m thinking almost all the birds and bigger animals were not too disoriented to escape. But I think about the small ones, whose spend their whole lives in a few square yards, and whose spindly legs can’t outrun a fire, like mice.

Or toads or other amphibians. A couple months ago I posted Gerry Hans‘ pictures of the toads one night, valiantly trying to climb a little bluff. Start, webbed feet slowly grasp the dirt, fall back down the hill, try again. Do you think they made it through these “brush” fires?

Oh, Lintz pled “not guilty.” Go to f-ing hell, you shoeless degenerate.

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Tom LaBonge says the shoeless people are more important than Griffith Park.

Donna Barstow — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 06:21:09 +0000

There were tv crews and everything at the meeting on arsonists tonight. Carolyn Ramsay, of Councilman LaBonge’s office, was at the door handing out important pieces of paper. I reached for one, and she said the agenda was on the seats. There weren’t any seats left, so I held my hand out to her again, and when I took one of the important pieces of paper, she took it back from me and said, “If you don’t mind, please just take one of the papers on the seats. These are for the press.”

Do I look so very unimportant? Is it my blue guileless eyes? I wore a nice skirt and top. My hair was slightly damp from my shower. Do journalists not bathe?

pb Dan Steinberg / Associated Press, from the LA Times.

Eventually she did give me one of the important pieces of paper. Behold, a press release. To summarize it: five fires broke out in different sections of the park on Saturday, and 300 firefighters battled them. About 50 acres burned. That is really horrible.

Of course LaBonge had a lot to say, and introduced Griffith Park Ranger Doug Kilpatrick and LAFD Battalion Chief Chris Logan, who confirmed Tom’s statement that this was definitely ARSON. He didn’t say how – I guess they don’t know yet. He said while they were fighting the first one 3 more were lit. Gross. Someone from the park said arson is one of the most punished crimes, and that fire season would be even worse in November.

The area is west of the zoo, and the Skyline Trail, near Toyon.

They said the LAFD had beefed up patrols in the park, and now had apparatus IN the park, with brush patrols (which Tom described as a pickup truck with 2 men in it), and the arson unit. Just as Kristin Sabo has said previously in comments, he said cell phones don’t work in the park, and that’s pretty ridiculous, even for normal situations. (Yes, it is!) They are going to add cell towers on top of the DWP tanks scattered in the park.

They said not to confront suspicious activity, but to report it right away. Someone from the public asked if the Rangers were enforcing No Smoking in the park. At this point, Tom made a very very very very very very funny: “Yes, did you count how many butts were Marlboros and how many were Pall Malls?” Ranger Kilpatrick was too dignified to answer this remark. (Hmm. Did Councilman LaBonge used to be a smoker?)

LaBonge added that they were enforcing the No Smoking areas on the Golf Course, except for the areas that they DON’T enforce No Smoking. It’s a technical golfer type arrangement, so don’t worry about it. Even though that’s where the 2007 fire started that burned 800 acres. It’s all about golf, when it’s all about green fees.

But as our Councilman Tom would be the first to tell you, money doesn’t talk in Griffith Park. Nope. He said:

“As we all look around at each other here..and down at our shoes and socks… we’re living a step up from some people. Not everyone has shoes. That’s why we still allow barbeques in Griffith Park!”

So as LaBonge continues playing in his fantasy world of the poor little match girl, let’s look at reality here. There must be at least 50 barbecues in Griffith Park, all roaring merrily away on weekends. It’s not easy to step into the nasty little mind of an arsonist, but if I were someone who liked to play with matches, or smoke something or other, and I drove down the 5 past the billowing smoke and fumes of the meat frying in the BBQ pits, I might think those No Smoking signs in the park had nothing to do with me.

The Crystal Springs picnic area, home of BBQs galore, is by far the stinkiest, most fouled area of the whole park, and is very close to the arson areas. I’ve written before that I stopped running on weekends there because the stench of barbecue fire lighter fluid is so overpowering that I thought I would faint.

Barbecues are all about fire, are they not? Regardless of the pollution (and they are more polluting than cars or some trucks), they certainly don’t give the impression to park goers that fire is bad, or a danger. Can anyone remember the last time we had rain? We’ve had hundreds of acres destroyed by fire this year and last, and millions of dollars of damage, but Tom just can’t accept life without BBQs. And he’s pretty sure the people “a step below” can’t, either.

Tom closed the meeting early because he wanted to talk to the hundreds of Sierra Club hikers about to start walking. He said he planned to “deputize” them.

Tell me, are all Councilmen like him?

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Arson in Griffith Park?

Donna Barstow — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 00:30:38 +0000

This is the 3rd fire in gp near the zoo, in a month. And now arson is suspected, writes Channel2. There is nothing in the LAFD blog yet about it.

Firefighters say they have detected as many as five separate ignition points as they battle a series of brush fires in Griffith Park Saturday, the third likely arson incident near the Los Angeles Zoo in three weeks.

Note that the alert Kristin Sabo, who is caretaker of Amir’s Garden in the park, suspected arson on July 29, in my comments. This was the day of the first fire, and she said as much to Officer Humphreys of the LAFD:

I assume the arson unit is working on this fire. From my excellent vantage point at the Garden, the ignition point was in a location that pretty much screams “arson”. That makes me very nervous…

The Channel 2 news reports what I asked Officer Humphreys about 2 weeks ago, although I haven’t heard back from him yet:

No cause was ever announced for that fire, or for another small fire that burned 3-5 acres on Aug. 5.

I have pictures of the water helicopter here.

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Hellfire in LA, the Devil in Manitoba.

Donna Barstow — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 00:27:33 +0000

lao found a fascinating article in the Ventura County Star today.

Firefighters are monitoring a patch of land north of Fillmore where the ground climbed to 812 degrees on Friday for unknown reasons.

Possible theories include that natural hydrocarbons such as oil or gas are burning deep in the earth. But nobody knows for sure what might have ignited the materials.

Let’s see, it’s 812 degrees underground, and could be as deep as 100 feet. There are wisps of smoke coming from cracks in the ground. Hmm, what could this possibly be? It doesn’t take a cartoonist to figure out it’s obviously a portal to hell. /raises hand excitedly, proud watcher of Reaper, best show on TV.

Man with bad back complains in hell

I mean really, they have NO explanation at all for this. So funny how they write about it, all deadpan-like, even though the science is vague.

But I’ll tell you who wouldn’t be ashamed to talk about hell: Canadians. (Where Reaper is filmed, btw.) I’ve been following the story of Vince Weiguang Li, who stabbed Tim McLean on a Greyhound bus in Canada. From CNN:

Witnesses on the bus said McLean had been sleeping with his head leaning against the window when the attack happened.

Colwell said there was no immediate indication of what prompted the attack. He said he didn’t know how many times the victim was stabbed. Witnesses described the weapon as a large butcher-type knife.Colwell praised the “extraordinary” calmness and bravery of the bus driver and passengers.

Bravery? I don’t think so, Colwell. So 37 passengers are helpless against this man, hearing and seeing him kill someone? Calm because they were in shock, perhaps. However, that didn’t last long, because then they trampled others running up the bus aisle, including at least one woman on the floor.

Here’s a full report with all the details. (Warning: GRAPHIC DETAILS.) The video of one witness, Garnet Caton (what a great name) is the best. News sources wrote that after Li stabbed the sleeping victim (who screamed in a horrible fatal way), oh, 40 or 50 times, he cut off his head. By this time, everyone else was off the bus, so Li ran to the front of the bus and held the head aloft. Then he just dropped it. (and people got sick.)

The internet found a police scanner recording before the MSM did: (WARNING- DO NOT WATCH the images there), which said Li (who they call “Badger”) is cutting the victim with scissors. And then eating him.

You can’t tell me this is the first time he’s done this, at 40. Let’s get some history on this immigrant.

There are comments at all the sites, although I found this one from C.B.C Canada particularly enlightening. The interesting thing to me is how so many Americans thought as I did: why didn’t the other bus passengers do something?? One commenter there re-enacted the bus scenario with chairs and a friend to see if anyone could have stopped Li! And I may have fallen just a little bit in love with this commenter:

Just try getting out of your seat on a bus with a passenger beside you, and making your way to the toilet on a moving bus. That alone merits a medal of some sort.

Canadians are responding by saying Americans are gun-happy liberal killers – oh, hell, I’ll let them speak for themselves:

It is despicable – but all too predictable – seeing liberals finding something in this horrifying incident to bash the Conservatives, Americans (as if the US has anything to do with this), gun-owners, or whatnot…

As sure as the sun rises and sets every day, a dangerous criminal in Canada will be coddled. Hugs for the criminals, kicks to the breadbasket for the victims…

People who are Christians follow Jesus Christ whose stated aim was to have followers who were FREE of the Jewish law…

Those who follow the bible and Christ are true christians. They are not killers, liars, and thieves…

The last two comments are ones I don’t often see on American blogs! No one bashes any of these religious commenters, either. I guess it’s okay to talk about God there.

And if any of them hear about our own private underground fire here in lawless LA…well, I can’t wait to read their comments!

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