Worth Knowing, Probably Not Quite Threadworthy 12/29

[SVPete]

Insert Completely Gobsmacked Pacific Palisades Fire Headline Here

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2025/12/29/insert-completely-gobsmacked-pacific-palisades-fire-headline-here-n4947633

A batch of just-released text messages and other communications between California officials and the Los Angeles Fire Department from the run-up to the Pacific Palisades Fire reveals a system more concerned with a few endangered plants than with massive destruction and death.

Twelve people died in the fires during three weeks of January 2025, with 6,837 structures destroyed (and another thousand or so damaged), more than 23,000 acres burned, and total damages currently estimated at about $25 billion with a B in the Palisades, Topanga, and Malibu areas of Los Angeles County.

We learned why on Saturday in a Los Angeles Times report so shocking that it led to a city-wide epidemic of shattered teeth from jaws hitting the floor at velocities approaching the speed of light.

An hour after midnight Jan. 1, as a small brush fire blazed across Topanga State Park, a California State Parks employee texted the Los Angeles Fire Department’s heavy equipment supervisor to find out if they were sending in bulldozers.

“Heck no that area is full of endangered plants,” Capt. Richard Diede replied at 9:52 a.m, five hours after LAFD declared the fire contained.

“I would be a real idiot to ever put a dozer in that area,” he wrote. “I’m so trained.”

To be honest, I'm surprised the California State Parks employee had the temerity to make that request. Refusing to clear underbrush and other fuel has been forest manglement orthodoxy for the Feds and the state for decades, in collusion with enviros.

[SVPete]

The J6 Pipebomber Explains His Motive, and the Left Won’t Be Happy

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/12/29/the-j6-pipebomber-explains-his-motive-n4947643

Cole was arrested earlier this month for planting two pipe bombs near the DNC and RNC headquarters on the night of Jan. 5, 2021. Cole faces two federal felonies: transporting an explosive device in interstate commerce with intent to kill, injure, intimidate, or damage property, and malicious destruction or attempted destruction of property by fire and explosives. Cole’s detention hearing is expected to take place on Tuesday. Ahead of that detention hearing, the DOJ filed a memorandum in support of Cole's pre-trial detention.

Ahead of that hearing, the Trump Justice Department filed a 23-page detention memo that lays out Cole's own words about why he did what he did. And those words don't match the conspiracy theory that the left wanted to blame.

Cole told investigators he followed the 2020 election controversy on YouTube and Reddit after things "started happening" and felt "bewildered" by what he saw. But it wasn't just one side that captured his attention. He believed that both major parties were ignoring legitimate concerns from voters who felt something was wrong. The real trigger? How both parties were dismissing and labeling those concerns.

"I really don't like either party at this point," Cole told agents when they asked him why he targeted both the RNC and DNC.

He wasn't some Trump cultist. He was angry at everyone in charge.

This is likely the reason LIEden's InJustice Department sat on evidence pointing to Cole. They knew he wasn't targeting Congress and that he was an "a pox o' both your houses" non-partisan. IOW, he did not fit and instead complicated the partisan narrative they were crafting.

[SVPete]

Ukraine delivers humiliating Christmas Day blow to Putin by recapturing key city

https://nypost.com/2025/12/25/world-news/ukraine-delivers-humiliating-christmas-day-blow-to-putin-by-recapturing-key-city/

Ukraine dealt Russian dictator Vladimir Putin a humiliating Christmas Day blow when it routed Kremlin troops to wrest back control of its key eastern city of Kupyansk, a vital railroad hub, Kviv said.

The staggering setback for the Kremlin occurred as fighting continued between both sides for nearly the fourth straight year and a US-brokered peace plan remained stalled.

“Kypyansk currently has several dozen [Russian troops], they are surrendering, Viktor Trehubov, the spokesman for Ukraine’s Joint Forces, told the Kyiv Post on Thursday. “There have even been cases of foreigners — foreign mercenaries for the Russians — giving themselves up.

“Even Russian propagandists have switched to a line acknowledging that the city is no longer under their control,” Trehubov said. “In reality, it was never fully taken by them in order to be lost, aside from a short period in 2022.”

[SVPete]

Jewish group warned police of terror plot at Hanukkah event before Bondi Beach attack

https://nypost.com/2025/12/27/world-news/jewish-group-warned-police-of-terror-plot-at-hanukkah-event-before-bondi-attack/

A Jewish security organization warned police there was a high risk of a terror attack during the Chanukah by the Sea event in Bondi, just weeks before their fears became a reality, a leaked document reveals.

The confidential document produced by the Community Security Group NSW (CSG NSW) raised the alarm about the threat of Islamic extremism and Jihadist-inspired lone-actor attacks, the ABC reports.

In the notice, CSG NSW specifically told authorities the Chanukah by the Sea event at Bondi Beach on December 14 carried a high risk of being the target of violent antisemitism.

Some antisemitism expresses itself with violence. Some antisemitism expresses itself through declining to act - to prevent or to investigate with due diligence.