(Mod: Usually we begin these Sunday News reports with a dry monologue
belittling the effort and questioning the value of the report itself.
We are not going to do that this week. However, there is something of a
problem with this approach, and that is it leaves us with very little
else to talk about. Normally we can bang out a couple of paragraphs
knocking the entire effort. But that won't happen today. So instead we
are just going to jump right into the week's news without any further
delays.)
Dan Walters: Corruption flourishes in Los Angeles County (
link)
Los Angeles County contains a quarter of the state's population
and is home to the nation's second most populous city, more than 80
smaller cities, a like number of school districts and literally hundreds
of single-purpose districts providing fire protection, water, parks,
recreation and other services.
The county itself and each of those entities has its own board,
administrative superstructure and the power to extract fees and taxes
and to borrow money. Collectively, they probably disburse about $100
billion a year for one purpose or another.
That's big money in anyone's book, but the impact of Los Angeles' local
governments goes beyond collecting and spending money. Their actions
have other, immense economic consequences, such as deciding whether land
developments can proceed and under what conditions, or who pays what
for water.
Los Angeles County's bewildering mélange of overlapping, and
sometimes competitive, local government entities has existed for many
years, but in the last couple of decades another element has been
introduced – its evolution into the nation's most ethnically diverse
metropolitan area, thanks to an immense wave of migration from other
countries.
When coupled with the decline of the county's once-powerful aerospace
industry, one effect has been its sharp bifurcation into enclaves of
self-indulgent wealth, surrounded by vast tracts of poverty – especially
in the immigrant-heavy smaller cities in the county's southeastern
quadrant.
A corollary impact has been, unfortunately, the corruption of many local
governments that function semi-secretly, little noticed by media and
ignored by their residents, many of whom are noncitizens who cannot
vote.
When the
Los Angeles Times revealed outrageous self-dealing by politicians who had seized control of the small, poverty-stricken city of
Bell
a few years ago – resulting in criminal prosecutions – those
knowledgeable about the region knew that it was just one of many such
situations.
The county is rife with corrupted local governments – and that's just the half-dozen that have been publicly exposed.
(Mod: A good report, and there is more of it if you hit the link. But
it is one thing to talk about LA County's general corruption. It is
quite another to dig out the specifics. We need more specifics.)
Obama confuses British chancellor with soul singer (
link)
Politics can be hard on the ego, as British Treasury chief
George Osborne learned when
President Barack Obama apparently forgot his name at this week's G-8 summit.
Britain's Sun and Financial Times newspapers reported Thursday that
Obama repeatedly referred to the Chancellor of the Exchequer as
"Jeffrey" -- and later apologized, saying he had been thinking of soul
singer
Jeffrey Osborne.
Jeffrey Osborne, whose hits include "On the Wings of Love," said he was
delighted the president was a big fan. He added, "Tell the chancellor
when I come over I will have to hook up with him and we will do a duet."
George Osborne, who changed his name from Gideon as a teenager, tweeted: "One unexpected breakthrough from
G8 -- offer to sing with legend."
(Mod: What this story does not mention is that the British PM had first mistakenly referred to the President as O'bieber.)
Lingering Odor Perplexes Neighboring Cities (
link)
Neighboring
Pasadena and
Arcadia residents are confused by the lingering odor emanating from
Sierra Madre, according to reports.
"It's so weird," says
Lilac Flores, 47, an Arcadia resident. "I always knew Sierra Madre for the trees and taxes."
The smell has been described as that of a high school locker room full
of old cheese, dirty workout clothes belonging to an Olympic
weightlifter, or week-old sushi dipped in mechanical grease. Residents
are unaware of the smell, which local psychologist
Ian Madd attributes to high familiarity with this odor.
"I've forgotten about it, honestly," he said, loosening his tie and
eying his armpits. "Even though I have a PhD, I'm not immune." However,
he claims "They're just pheromones," and that local citizens have no
reason to worry for their health.
A team of volunteers from
Monrovia,
Pasadena,
Arcadia, and
San Marino
was sent in to investigate. Half of the volunteers requested gas masks
while entering the city limits, and by an hour in, two experienced
significant discomfort. However, data was gathered despite
complications: the smell was present in all areas but
City Hall, where an overwhelming scent of air freshener and window cleaner was found to overcome the all-encompassing stench.
City officials could not be reached for comment, though an anonymous
councilmember was seen outside wearing a hazmat suit, doing the cha-cha,
watering her driveway, and turning on her sprinklers. When asked about
the situation, she shouted "you aren't invited" and squirted this
reporter with her hose.
Recently, restrictions on water have been put into place requiring
residents of Sierra Madre to reduce their water use by twenty percent or
face penalties. A press release from City Hall states the following:
"The
City of Sierra Madre maintains that the 'odor' reported by
citizens of nearby municipalities is not related to water restrictions,
nor are the five dehydration-related illnesses. The City sends its
regrets to all affected."
Until more research is done, the origin of the odor could remain unknown for weeks to come.
"Somebody should spray the city with
Lysol until then," jokes Flores.
(Mod: I know that I myself have smelled nothing, though it is
disturbing to think that we as Sierra Madreans could soon be be odor
profiled.)
Unelected swarms of bureaucrats hope to harass Bay Area citizens (
link)
A brilliant American leader once wrote: “He has erected a multitude of
New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people,
and eat out their substance.” That brilliant American was Thomas
Jefferson, as he refered to King George III of England, in the
Declaration of independence, which he authored.
Something similar to the autocracy of
King George III is coming to the
Bay Area. What is arriving is
Plan Bay Area, a long document that will, if enacted, irreversibly transform the Bay Area’s land-use patterns.
Plan Bay Area’s goal is to curtail the use of cars and push Bay Area
residents into high-rise, high-density housing. The housing, often
called “stack and pack” housing, is to be located near such transit hubs
as
BART stations. In theory, stack-and-pack housing will lead to
less carbon dioxide pollution, and — again in theory — keep the planet
from becoming too warm.
Two main forces behind Plan Bay Area are the
Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and the
Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC).
ABAG and MTC respectively have boards of directors who have never been
elected directly by voters. Thus, ABAG and MTC are similar to King
George III, an unelected ruler who told the American colonies how to
behave.
To help these
ABAG and
MTC rulers achieve their goals of
having Bay Area residents ditch their cars and live in stack-and-pack
housing, urgent legislation needs to be passed immediately by the
California Legislature.
The legislation must require all ABAG and MTC directors and all ABAG and
MTC employees to surrender their driver’s licenses and move into
stack-and-pack housing.
If less driving and more stack-and-pack housing are such good ideas, let
those bureaucrats who want to implement Plan Bay Area be examples for
the rest of us.
(Mod: I like the idea of government SB375 enforcement committees
being forced to give up their driver's licenses and forced to live in
400 square foot apartments. Just as long as they don't do it here.)
Suicide prevention signs to be placed on Colorado Street Bridge (
link)
City officials earlier this week approved a plan to post suicide-prevention signs on Colorado Street Bridge. The
Pasadena Public Safety Committee approved the project at their meeting Monday, Pasadena spokeswoman
William Boyer said.
More than 150 people have jumped to their deaths from the bridge since
the bridges first recorded suicide in 1919, city officials said. The
bulk of the suicides took place during the
Great Depression,
however 13 suicides have occurred at the bridge since 2006. Some have
come to call the structure "Suicide Bridge" because of the deaths that
have taken place there.
In an effort to combat the issue and save lives, the committee approved
plans to place bearing messages of hope and suicide prevention hotline
phone numbers at the pedestrian entrances to the bridge, Boyer said. The
final design of the signs was not complete, however officials were
considering messages such as "There is hope," and "You are not alone."
The signs were tentatively expected to be put in place in August. "The
key point is that we value human life and we want to keep our residents
safe," Boyer said. "There have been studies that have been done. The
survivors of attempted suicide, for the most part, regret their
actions."
"We're coming up with language and a message to give people and extra moment to contemplate what they're doing," Boyer said.
He added that similar programs have been successful in other
jurisdictions in helping to prevent suicides by giving those who are
considering taking their own lives "an extra moment to pause."
reported
only a minimal relationship between higher density and less driving per
capita. In a meta-analysis of nine studies that examined the
relationship between higher density and per household or per capita car
travel, they found that for each 1 percent higher density, there is only
0.04 percent less vehicle travel per household (or per capita). This
would mean that a 10 percent higher density should be associated with a
reduction of 0.4 percent in per capita or household driving.
More people in the same area driving a little less means overall driving is greater, as
reminds
us. This is illustrated by the Ewing-Cervero finding --- a 10 percent
increase in population density is associated with 9.6 percent increase
in overall driving, as is indicated in Figure 1 (the calculation is
shown in the table). Ewing and Cervero placed this appropriate caution
in their research: "we find population and job densities to be only
weakly associated with travel behavior once these other variables are
controlled."
There is another limitation to the density-transit research. The
comparison of travel behaviors between areas of differing density
provides no evidence that conversion of an area from lower to higher
density would replicate the travel behavior of already existing
(historic) areas of higher density.
Moon maniacs, this is your weekend. A so-called supermoon will rise in the east at sunset on Saturday.
A supermoon occurs when the moon is slightly closer to Earth than it
typically is, and the effect is most noticeable when it occurs at the
same time as a full moon, according to
This full moon is not only the closest and largest full moon of the
year, according to astronomy website EarthSky. It's also the moon's
closest encounter with Earth in all of 2013. So it's not just a super
moon — it's the closest super moon of the half-dozen or so that will
occur this year, EarthSky reports.
. Nolle used the term to describe a new or full moon that occurs when the moon is at or near its closest approach to Earth.
The moon will pass within about 221,000 miles from the Earth on Saturday
night, compared with its "typical" distance of about 238,000 miles.
Garvin says the moon may seem bigger, although the difference in its
distance from Earth is only a few percent. For instance, the moon on
Saturday night will appear 12% to 14% larger than it will next month.
The moon's effect on ocean tides is higher during a super moon than any
other time, so expect higher and lower tides than usual, reports
.
(The high tide this weekend is also known as a "king" tide.) There is
no connection between the supermoon and earthquakes, according to the
"If you're looking for a more thrilling lunar event, a larger supermoon
is expected on Sept. 28, 2015, and the largest supermoon until 2034 will
occur on Nov. 14, 2016," Breslin says.
