I live near LA and have been following the wildfire story pretty closely. Yesterday a story came out from a lady living in Malibu that was NOT independently confirmed by any news sources.
I found her story fishy. I am not suggesting she did anything illegal, but there has to be more to it than what she is describing. Her name is Shelley Sykes, and she said that her son, Rory Sykes, died in a cottage on her property from carbon monoxide poisoning, because there was no water available to put out the fire. She said the Malibu Fire Station she went to had no water.
The son's cottage burned to the ground and her house was untouched. She announced this on social media, but the local TV stations have not picked this up. She was on an Australian news program, claiming she had a "broken arm" and was unable to help him, yet she seems to have good range of motion in both arms and is wearing no brace or sling.
Again, I am not accusing her of anything, but the story makes no sense. I don't know if they were under evacuation orders? Why were there no other people around on a 17-acre property when she has an adult disabled son? Just wondering if anyone has the wherewithal to look into this.
Out of idle curiosity I checked Realtor.com to see what was listed in my old neighborhood in Malibu. There are a handful of houses on the market, each for sale at around $2.5M. I've gotta wonder if anyone will buy them under the circumstances. My question for any buyer would be, are you feeling lucky?
The other question would be: "Can you pay the homeowner's insurance rate now?" You know after this that the insurance companies will raise those rates.
Your location seems pretty safe from this kind of a disaster though I wouldn't want to accidentally lock myself out of your house on a winter's day. A friend of mine who lives in my aforementioned neighborhood had to abandon ship the other day because of the smoke. He has respiratory issues. That's really a best case scenario in that location. In 2018 Mr. O and I fled from the Woolsey fire with six cats and a dog in a small car. For the next two days we thought our house was gone. Eventually we learned that it had survived, though three houses around the corner hadn't made it. It's a risk living there and it seems the fire season is getting longer every year.
I wish that was true. When I was younger, we might have a bad smoke year once every 5 to 10 years. Now it’s almost every summer. There have been summers when millions of acres have burned. We’ve had a bad infestation of gypsy moths and spruce beetles that weaken the trees, or kill them, and then a lightning strike will set them off.
A couple of years ago there was a fire that was so close that a friend and I were texting each other back-and-forth about its location.
Also, I have multiple ways of getting into my house if I lock myself out, having learned that the hard way on a night when I got home to find a plumber had left a pipe open and running in my house, and Water was splashing out of a ceiling fixture downstairs, and I got it turned off, and I was mopping up the living room and kitchen and started a fire to dry the place out and went outside to get wood and shut the door behind me and the house sitter had locked the door knob instead of the deadbolt. And this was three minutes after I had passed the upstairs door and thought oh it’s late I should lock up.
Indeed. I ended up going down to the neighborhood gas station/convenience store to try to call a locksmith. The lady that worked there introduced me to a drunk that was flirting with her, assured me he was harmless, and he came over to my house and broke the door knob off. It was a night to remember, but fortunately, famine and pestilence didn’t make a showing.
We saw it and wonder WTAF did this devolve into? We didn’t even finish it when it just got, IMHO, just silly. Were they trying to duplicate a scene from the end of Brazil? Cuz THAT worked but this was a mess to me to put it nicely.
James Woods went on CNN and started crying about his house burning down and smacked talked the response from officials in California for the wildfires.
But his house is still standing.
Is he gonna praise firefighters and thank Gavin Newsom now or nah?
I think he has been in a few really bad movies. The kind that starting directors do that go straight to video. Other than that I don't think a class A director has directed him in a very long time.
One plus side of climate change (for desert rats) is that real estate value has only doubled in hardcore desert areas. Everybody is moving to elevation to escape the heat, but all the SW forests are tinderboxes. Hope I find a sweet Boomer camp, because I have only found 2-3 high biodiversity parcels except in the Sonoran. AZ has the highest plant biodiversity. Geographical isolation created by continental uplift 200 mya which formed the rough elevation habitats.
One time an old hippie dippie told me sagebrush was sacred, sprinkle a little in my coffee for Mother Earth, etc. Sagebrush is an invasive plant from overgrazing. When you get sage, you lose grass, then soil, then ranchland itself. Good high desert land is full of grass and pygmy trees like pinyon, juniper.
Partial credit. Sagebrush is part of the natural ecosystem and is not an “invasive.” Cheatgrass which can replace native grasses and is a fire hazard among other negative things is an invasive. Sagebrush populations can increase when desert lands are overgrazed but many different kinds of wildlife depend on sagebrush for their existence.
So apparently Alina Habba has a "thing" for Andrew Tate, the alleged rapist and sex tracker, and "masculinity" influencer of the sad little incel boys. Totally fits.
As Habba told Tate on Friday, “I think your anger is the same that President Trump has for our country. And the time is now for us to stop being wimps.”
She then went on, “I also have to say that I sympathize with you because I think you go through a lot of the same ‘show me the person, I’ll find the crime’ that President Trump has gone through.”
As Rs gear up to cut healthcare, Sen. Marshall says, "Look, about 70% of your health outcomes are determined by you. It's determined by what you eat & what you're surrounded by. By the time you come to my office as a doctor, I can impact maybe 10 or 20% of your health outcomes"
Our next movie is 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐞𝐧.
https://open.substack.com/pub/ziggywiggy/p/wonkette-movie-night-jan-18-the-african?r=2knfuc&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Followed on Jan. 20 with 𝐒𝐞𝐥𝐦𝐚. Time to be announced.
So stoked! Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart! And funny, dramatic, and just plain awesome.
Elsa Lanchester is so delightfully eccentric in this film! Only celebrity I've ever written for an autograph (and received, back in the 70s.)
.
Mrs. Betty Bowers said it better:
https://bsky.app/profile/mrsbettybowers.bsky.social/post/3lfip2vt4hs2h
I live near LA and have been following the wildfire story pretty closely. Yesterday a story came out from a lady living in Malibu that was NOT independently confirmed by any news sources.
I found her story fishy. I am not suggesting she did anything illegal, but there has to be more to it than what she is describing. Her name is Shelley Sykes, and she said that her son, Rory Sykes, died in a cottage on her property from carbon monoxide poisoning, because there was no water available to put out the fire. She said the Malibu Fire Station she went to had no water.
The son's cottage burned to the ground and her house was untouched. She announced this on social media, but the local TV stations have not picked this up. She was on an Australian news program, claiming she had a "broken arm" and was unable to help him, yet she seems to have good range of motion in both arms and is wearing no brace or sling.
Again, I am not accusing her of anything, but the story makes no sense. I don't know if they were under evacuation orders? Why were there no other people around on a 17-acre property when she has an adult disabled son? Just wondering if anyone has the wherewithal to look into this.
Teen charged in Michigan’s largest mass shooting that killed 2, injured 19:
https://www.mlive.com/news/2025/01/teen-charged-in-michigans-largest-mass-shooting-that-killed-2-injured-19.html?
A good read from MLive regarding the difference in high school and college graduation from 1970 and 2023, with a map:
https://www.mlive.com/data/2025/01/1970-vs-today-high-school-college-attainment-rates-in-every-michigan-county.html?
In Wayne County only 26.9% of adults were college graduates in 2023. We need more college graduates in this county.
Out of idle curiosity I checked Realtor.com to see what was listed in my old neighborhood in Malibu. There are a handful of houses on the market, each for sale at around $2.5M. I've gotta wonder if anyone will buy them under the circumstances. My question for any buyer would be, are you feeling lucky?
The other question would be: "Can you pay the homeowner's insurance rate now?" You know after this that the insurance companies will raise those rates.
Yep. Our homeowners doubled after the Woolsey Fire in 2018.
And a little voice in my brain said, “are any of us feeling lucky?“
OK, I’m gonna make that little voice get up and put wood on the fire and feed the cats and clean the litter boxes. That’ll learn it.
Your location seems pretty safe from this kind of a disaster though I wouldn't want to accidentally lock myself out of your house on a winter's day. A friend of mine who lives in my aforementioned neighborhood had to abandon ship the other day because of the smoke. He has respiratory issues. That's really a best case scenario in that location. In 2018 Mr. O and I fled from the Woolsey fire with six cats and a dog in a small car. For the next two days we thought our house was gone. Eventually we learned that it had survived, though three houses around the corner hadn't made it. It's a risk living there and it seems the fire season is getting longer every year.
I wish that was true. When I was younger, we might have a bad smoke year once every 5 to 10 years. Now it’s almost every summer. There have been summers when millions of acres have burned. We’ve had a bad infestation of gypsy moths and spruce beetles that weaken the trees, or kill them, and then a lightning strike will set them off.
A couple of years ago there was a fire that was so close that a friend and I were texting each other back-and-forth about its location.
Also, I have multiple ways of getting into my house if I lock myself out, having learned that the hard way on a night when I got home to find a plumber had left a pipe open and running in my house, and Water was splashing out of a ceiling fixture downstairs, and I got it turned off, and I was mopping up the living room and kitchen and started a fire to dry the place out and went outside to get wood and shut the door behind me and the house sitter had locked the door knob instead of the deadbolt. And this was three minutes after I had passed the upstairs door and thought oh it’s late I should lock up.
Whoops!
Indeed. I ended up going down to the neighborhood gas station/convenience store to try to call a locksmith. The lady that worked there introduced me to a drunk that was flirting with her, assured me he was harmless, and he came over to my house and broke the door knob off. It was a night to remember, but fortunately, famine and pestilence didn’t make a showing.
Has anyone else seen the movie "Substance" yet?
I love Demi and glad she got the Golden Globe for this...this....this....movie, but I wouldn't want to receive the Oscar for this thing if I were her.
Holy shit.
We saw it and wonder WTAF did this devolve into? We didn’t even finish it when it just got, IMHO, just silly. Were they trying to duplicate a scene from the end of Brazil? Cuz THAT worked but this was a mess to me to put it nicely.
Since Ziggy didn't feel up to trivia questions, I thought that I would fill in with one.
Screenwriter, playwright, and producer, Richard Maibaum, was listed as producer for this film.
What was he most famous for?
The Big Clock novel was fhe basis of the Kevin Costner thriller 'No Way Out'.
Writing the Jamex Bond movies and contributing to the 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' script.
Well done.
Playing Beethoven’s 5th Symphony on a kazoo?
Brilliant, but wrong.
I looked it up, I have seen a lot of his work.
Ok, all you lovelies, I am out for the time being. Everyone stay safe wherever you are. Peace Out.
Have a good day, Rosy!
Huh, so his appearance on CNN was for what?
Art Candee 🍿🥤
@artcandee.bsky.social
James Woods went on CNN and started crying about his house burning down and smacked talked the response from officials in California for the wildfires.
But his house is still standing.
Is he gonna praise firefighters and thank Gavin Newsom now or nah?
Or even apologize for lying?
Has he had a role in the last ten years?
Aside from stalking 16 year old girls?
Curmudgeon?
No, but I did like Against All Odds in 1984.
He plays an asshole in that film. Perfect casting.
His biggest roles I saw on Wiki are voicing himself on The Simpson and Family Guy.
I think he has been in a few really bad movies. The kind that starting directors do that go straight to video. Other than that I don't think a class A director has directed him in a very long time.
apologize? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Lying?
If he's breathing.
One plus side of climate change (for desert rats) is that real estate value has only doubled in hardcore desert areas. Everybody is moving to elevation to escape the heat, but all the SW forests are tinderboxes. Hope I find a sweet Boomer camp, because I have only found 2-3 high biodiversity parcels except in the Sonoran. AZ has the highest plant biodiversity. Geographical isolation created by continental uplift 200 mya which formed the rough elevation habitats.
One time an old hippie dippie told me sagebrush was sacred, sprinkle a little in my coffee for Mother Earth, etc. Sagebrush is an invasive plant from overgrazing. When you get sage, you lose grass, then soil, then ranchland itself. Good high desert land is full of grass and pygmy trees like pinyon, juniper.
Partial credit. Sagebrush is part of the natural ecosystem and is not an “invasive.” Cheatgrass which can replace native grasses and is a fire hazard among other negative things is an invasive. Sagebrush populations can increase when desert lands are overgrazed but many different kinds of wildlife depend on sagebrush for their existence.
Thanks
Thank you -- Mama sage
No fucking way I am moving to Arizona. I'm too warm when it's 65 out. I have lived in the fog for too many years.
I currently live in TX, so anything is an improvement, and I have cracked the mystery of ice cold motel AC needed to survive
I just moved back (I'm an AZ native and had been in NoCal since 2002).
So apparently Alina Habba has a "thing" for Andrew Tate, the alleged rapist and sex tracker, and "masculinity" influencer of the sad little incel boys. Totally fits.
•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•
As Habba told Tate on Friday, “I think your anger is the same that President Trump has for our country. And the time is now for us to stop being wimps.”
She then went on, “I also have to say that I sympathize with you because I think you go through a lot of the same ‘show me the person, I’ll find the crime’ that President Trump has gone through.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-lawyer-fawns-over-accused-sex-trafficker-and-rapist-andrew-tate/
•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•---•
Ew. Get a sex dungeon, you two.
Isn’t he accused of rape and human trafficking of women and making them perform sex acts? Will that be Alina’s next (involuntary) vocation?
Somehow I suspect that it's Tate's wallet that Habba has eyes for.
She’s gonna have to “work” for it then.
Those expensive designer purses she likes so much aren't going to pay for themselves.
We do need to stop being wimps... and to put the boots to men like Trump and Tate. Charlatans deserve to be oppressed.
Huh who would of thunk it that JibberJabba has a thing for rapists!
Except they both have done crimes. Maybe Habbadabbadoo has a thing for *true* bad boys?
Good Morning. I sincerely hope this Dr loses all of his patients
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com
As Rs gear up to cut healthcare, Sen. Marshall says, "Look, about 70% of your health outcomes are determined by you. It's determined by what you eat & what you're surrounded by. By the time you come to my office as a doctor, I can impact maybe 10 or 20% of your health outcomes"
Sen Marshall is an OB/Gyn.
I would not want him up in my lady parts.
So a diet of beer, wings, fries and BBQ is probably bad for you, especially after to trip to the gun range breathing lead. Spread the word, Sen/doc.
Outcomes seem high there "doc."
It's hard to tell the truth.
Good thing everyone has access to healthy food, clean air and water, and plenty of peaceful nature in their local environment.
Just from his numbers, that 10-20% translates to 60-70% of the serious health problems when I need a doctor, which is kind of important.
Marshall shat all over the Hippocratic Oath right there.
Yeah, bullshit.
This is a person who deserves clogged arteries. NOT with votes.
We had a guy on our Home Talent League baseball team and his name was Fog Zimmerman . Good pitcher. Lefty, had mean fast ball and nasty drop curve.