All posts by Wintery Knight

https://winteryknight.com/

Who is responsible for wildfires burning down cities in Democrat-run California?

I have many Christian friends living in California, and I often ask them why they would choose to remain in a state that is controlled, from top to bottom, by secular leftists. And their answer is usually, “I like the weather in California”. But now the weather in California is fire and brimstone! Who is responsible for these fires? Is it the greedy Republicans? Is it the intolerant Christians? Let’s see.

This is from Daily Wire:

California State Representative Bill Essayli (R) explained how the mismanagement of the state’s fire policies made it vulnerable as a wildfire rages through Los Angeles County’s Pacific Palisades.

Essayli, a Republican who represents California’s 63rd State Assembly district southeast of Los Angeles, detailed different policies that he says have exacerbated the risk and severity of wildfires. Essayli’s comments come as a wildfire in the Pacific Palisades and the Eaton Fire just south of Los Angeles have taken at least two lives and destroyed an estimated 1,000 structures.

I had a quick look, and Pacific Palisades is the #1 wealthiest suburb in Los Angeles. All those limousine liberals are having their houses burned down. Who is to blame?

Back to Daily Wire:

“In the 1950s, the average timber harvest in California was around 6.0 billion board feet per year. Today, that number has dropped to ~1.5 billion board feet per year,” he went on to say. “California’s forests, which cover a third of the state, are now choked with nearly 163 million dead trees.”

“California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and other regulatory policies limit the ability of local government and fire management services to clear dead trees and vegetation. (This is a big deal and prevents much of the controlled burns we desperately need.)”

Essayli also explained that various pieces of legislation that could have helped prevent wildfires or limit their severity were rejected or failed to reach the desk of Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom or were vetoed by him.

Senate Bill 1003, for example, would have allowed local governments and fire management services to build more underground power lines, a measure that could prevent exposed power lines from lighting forest debris on fire.

Other pieces of legislation would have exempted wildlife prevention efforts from regulations imposed by the California Environmental Quality Act, he added.

“Many of the wild fires CA experienced could have been prevented or significantly mitigated with better management, policies, and funding. This is a time for accountability and, more importantly, change in how we approach fire policy,” Essayli added. “Many of the rejected proposals were brought by Republicans, and I suspect they were rejected for that reason. There is only one political party to blame for CA’s failures.”

I found another related story on Daily Wire:

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass faced backlash on Wednesday over policy decisions she made that left her city ill prepared for combatting the deadly fires that erupted this week, causing billions of dollars worth of damage.

Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of The Los Angeles Times, called out Bass’ failings in a post on X.

“Fires in LA are sadly no surprise, yet the Mayor cut LA Fire Department’s budget by $23M,” he wrote. “And reports of empty fire hydrants raise serious questions. Competence matters.”

[…]The New York Post reported that the cut was the second largest cut that Bass made in her 2024-25 fiscal year budget.

According to Wise Voter, California is the 5th most Democrat state in the Union, behind Vermont, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Hawaii.

I would really recommend that Christians and conservatives consider moving out of California, to a red state. In my rankings, Tennessee is number 1 for Christians, followed by Florida.

Just look at the Daily Wire company. They moved out of California to Nashville, TN, and Ben Shapiro moved to Florida. Seth Dillon is running the Babylon Bee out of Florida. A lot of the cultural change is coming from Tennessee and Florida.

Personally, weather isn’t as important as liberty, prosperity and security.

Pro-ID paleontologist Dr. Günter Bechly has gone home to his Lord and Savior

I don’t know what to say about this event. Yesterday, Rose and I found out about Dr. Bechly’s passing. He was the guest on our most recent episode of Knight and Rose Show. We knew that we wanted to do an episode on the fossil record and intelligent design, and we wanted to get the best person we could. Dr. Bechly was our first choice. Let’s find out about what he was really like.

So, previously, I blogged about his testimony, and on Tuesday night, I posted our episode of Knight and Rose Show with him.

What really impressed us about Dr. Bechly is how rigorous he was about forming his views of what was true. And how much integrity he had to pay the consequences of coming out in favor of intelligent design and eventually Christianity, in a very secular environment.

This article by David Klinghoffer at Evolution News told me a lot more about the man.

Excerpt:

We are shocked and grieved to report the death of our friend and colleague Günter Bechly, on January 6 in an auto accident in Austria. He was 61. “There is no easy way to say this,” said Center for Science and Culture Managing Director John West yesterday morning when we all found out. I could feel my scalp tighten from the grim tone of his voice before I even knew what was coming. Now try in vain to imagine how Bechly’s wife, Luise, and his two young sons are feeling. It seems beyond inadequate to wish them comfort.

Dr. Bechly, a paleontologist who was pushed out of his position as a curator at the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany, after becoming persuaded by the evidence for intelligent design, was not just a gifted and prolific scientist. He was a hero. Changing your view about a controversial matter when it costs you nothing is one thing. When it costs you, in the professional context, everything — that is quite another.

I’ve said before on this blog how weird it is for me to see how so many Christians in America think that Christianity will make you happy, successful, and popular. Christians in places like Africa do not usually hold these views. How Christians in America can get ideas like that from a suffering Savior is a mystery to me. But what we loved about Dr. Bechly was that he just loved to puzzle about what was really true. And when he decided that something was true, he lived by it, and no one else could shake him off it.

More from the article:

As an academic field, evolutionary biology is a bully’s playground where the use of intimidation to silence doubters is just the way things are done. Bechly refused to be bullied and thus gave courage to many in the science world, including friends of ID that you will be hearing more about in years to come. It could be called (not my formulation) the Bechly Effect. One person gives courage to others, and it builds from there.

He wanted to know what was true. In Germany, in organizing an exhibit at his museum celebrating the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth, he almost on a whim decided that if he was going to mock intelligent design, as he intended, he really ought to read a few books by those ID rascals. The experience changed him profoundly. That story is memorably told in the documentary Revolutionary. The switch to ID cost him his job but it won him many friends in the ID world. He will be terribly missed.

The rest of the article goes on to talk about what projects he had in the works, his most recent lecture at Cambridge University, his personal character, his spiritual journey. I recommend that you read it, because I think that Christians need to recapture what it is like for someone not raised in the church to work through the evidence, and decide that Christianity is the correct worldview.

Everywhere I look today, I see elite Christian leaders whose first priority, it seems, is to be liked by non-Christians. In every area, we ask non-Christians what their problems are, and what they would like us to do to solve their problems. We’re falling over ourselves trying to appease non-Christians because we want them to like us so badly. We have lost confidence in the Bible as an authority that tells people what their real problems are, and what their real solutions are, and what their real priorities should be, and how to be wise about making plans to achieve what really matters. On issues of race, climate change, sexuality, etc. elite Christian leaders just don’t believe that the Christianity can be recommended to a non-Christian based on the evidence. They don’t know what that evidence is. They never did the work themselves. And we – the rank and file – keep choosing them to lead. We disregard their laziness and ignorance, and choose them for their appearance and charisma.

But Dr. Bechly knew what that evidence was. He investigated. He found it. And he followed the evidence to a true worldview. If only we could convince our Christian leaders that this is the right way to go, the normal way of evangelizing others. Jesus used evidence.

Knight and Rose Show #57: Günter Bechly: The Fossil Record

Welcome to episode 57 of the Knight and Rose podcast! In this episode, Wintery Knight and Desert Rose interview Dr. Günter Bechly about whether the fossil record supports Darwinian evolution or intelligent design. If you like this episode, please subscribe to the podcast, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We would appreciate it if you left us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Note: We are releasing this episode a few days early, because of the tragic death of Dr. Bechly in an auto accident. You can read more about it here at Evolution News. Rose and I are devastated. This episode is Rose’s favorite episode of our entire podcast. We just liked talking to him so much. You can find his full testimony, which we thought was really, really valuable. We think that this would be a wonderful thing for you to share on social media to remember him.

Podcast description:

Christian apologists Wintery Knight and Desert Rose discuss apologetics, policy, culture, relationships, and more. Each episode equips you with evidence you can use to boldly engage anyone, anywhere. We train our listeners to become Christian secret agents. Action and adventure guaranteed. 30-45 minutes per episode. New episode every week.

Episode summary:

Wintery Knight and Desert Rose welcome paleontologist Dr. Günter Bechly to discuss the fossil record. Günter explains why the fossil evidence is more consistent with intelligent design than Darwinian evolution. He explains why mutation and selection are inadequate mechanisms for generating the biological information needed for new body plans. Finally, he explains his journey from atheism to Christianity.

Outline and transcript

Here is a transcript of the show (with timestamps) provided by TurboScribe AI. TurboScribe AI allows you to translate the transcript into many, many different languages. You can also export the transcript into many different formats, with optional timestamps.

Episode 57:

Speaker biographies

Günter Bechly, PhD, is a German paleontologist, senior fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, and senior research scientist at Biologic Institute in Washington state. He has written about 160 scientific publications, described over 180 new species, and been advisor for 3 BBC nature documentaries.

Wintery Knight is a black legal immigrant. He is a senior software engineer by day, and an amateur Christian apologist by night. He has been blogging at winteryknight.com since January of 2009, covering news, policy and Christian worldview issues.

Desert Rose did her undergraduate degree in public policy, and then worked for a conservative Washington lobbyist organization. She also has a graduate degree from a prestigious evangelical seminary. She is active in Christian apologetics as a speaker, author, and teacher.

Articles:

Lectures:

Debate:

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Music attribution:

Strength Of The Titans by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5744-strength-of-the-titans
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license