I've always liked Todd, voted for him and think he's a smart guy with his constituent's best interest in mind. I just hope he isn't too swayed by the powerful, deep pocket special interests of downtown SD. A stadium would be great IF the public's money spent is minimal and well spent. In my opinion, the ball club owners should put up the majority of the$$$$'s.

It would appear that if any person or persons are beneficiaries of David's will, he/she/they are not interested in having any of the goodies. The homes are for sale, now the yacht is for sale. I'd guess that this means just about everything will be liquidated.

If that poop deck could talk.

I was just saying to someone today that the movies today have weak stories and too much emphasis on special effects. I think they are boring and really show little creativity. A good story is murder to get right.

I think the books and movies of today show thoughtlessness as do many of the people under forty. It is shocking to me. Even my own kids are thoughtless. If you ask me, I think it has something to do with technology. They think like computers. There really is no heart in some of the stuff coming out today. Even some of these television shows have female doctors that act stupid. I really don't get it. Like generations before me, I feel like the world is going to hell in a hand basket.

PS: I went to the party school, SDSU, and I turned out okay.

Early Shakespeare performances were raucous affairs, with aggression, food and beverages not unlike Insane Clown Posse events. Look it up...theater didn't start out as literature.

Opera was often scandalous, and early Mozart critics claimed the music had too many notes!

These are entertainments, in each era, as true in 2013 B.C as today, which are denounced by those of us over 40.

We oldsters sniff that the newfangled gadgets are destroying the youth and making them violent super-predators. "Dang Og and those stupid kids! Banging sticks on rocks makes them crazy and they go out and hunt mastodons all week. It will all end in tears, I tell you."

Yesterday it was Frank Zappa's music that would make us all serial killers (and today he is a revered Saint of Music and Human Rights Activism, bless his hairy...) Today we have the oh-so-deadly video gamer, tuning up his killing skills.

I am an archer, Navy Vet., and a software professional who has played video games. I can tell you that shooting a real bow and arrow or gun is nothing like doing so in a video simulation. I suspect that were a gamer to shoot a real gun, the shock of the recoil would make them drop it like a "hot potato" (to use the idiom of my revered elderly readers, who presumably are the only ones still reading, the youngsters having long lost interest).

Hey...I sympathize my geriatric comrades, colleagues and friends. I don't like stupid movies, but they don't cause mayhem. Violent video games are enjoyed most fervently by young men...and young men are the ones most associated with violent crime. That's a basic demonstration of the statistics of correlation. It doesn't prove that video-games, music, or crappy films cause or encourage real world violence, only that young men are associated with both independently.

Contrast this with ACTUAL violence. Not a simulation...witnessing or experiencing the real thing. On a football field, for example, or a Roman Colosseum, or a religious crusade and related local pogroms. Or in our poor neighborhoods today, as often brutalized by the police as by the hoodlums, in the home by family far more often than at the hands of strangers.

That's what science KNOWS causes violent behavior. First hand experience, especially as a victim while young.

Science has looked at, repeatedly, and never proven strong causal links with playing video games and violence...only an obvious correlation which is to be expected since the fans of video games are young males, who also disproportionately perform acts of violence.

Video games might be any young violent man's preferred entertainment, but that's simply because in his entertainment preferences he is mostly normal.

In comparison to real violence, like high school football programs, the video games certainly don't prepare him or train him or compel him to violence.

To me, this one seems pretty simple. Here's what I think. The real beneficiaries of more convention business are the hotels on Harbor Drive within walking distance of the convention center. The Marriott, Hyatt, and Hilton. Maybe throw the Omni in there. These hotels will fill up to capacity at $400+/rm/nite during a big convention - vs. less than full occupancy at maybe $250/rm/nite other weeks.

There are some other economic impacts (e.g. bars and restaurants get more business) but I'll bet it's a much smaller impact to those businesses than to the Harbor Drive hotels.

If those 3 hotels on Harbor Drive want to get together and pay for a convention center expansion, let them. If not then, don't expand it.

That's what I think.

City Attorney Goldsmith has been commenting on the new Hotel Tax on SDROSTRA. Goldsmith gave himself a legal loophole that moved legal responsibility to the City Council for increasing taxes without the required 2/3 voter approval.

See Page 6.
"Absent clear direction from the courts or legislature, this Office advises that the City should not impose a new business-based assessment without voter approval unless the program of improvements and activities to be funded by the assessment can be limited to benefits or services provided directly to the charged businesses and not to others who are not charged."

http://sdrostra.com/?p=32766

"Please see our July 7, 2012 Memorandum of Law, which is published on our website. Read it carefully, particularly pages 6 and 9.

http://docs.sandiego.gov/memooflaw/MS-2012-21.pdf

Jan Goldsmith

The July 27 memo I cite above summarizes the legal issues and specifically references the TMD. We have more reports and legal opinions published.

The issue before the city council was whether to move forward despite the risks we outline. The hotels point out that other cities competing for tourism dollars have done so and the lawyer hired by the TMD believes strongly that they have structured the TMD to meet the legal standards discussed in our memo.

The TMD and city decided to move forward, but with some protections for the city. The city is protected through an indemnity provision in the TMD operating agreement (which the mayor has not signed). In addition, the funds collected under the new TMD are frozen — not being spent — until expressly authorized by the city council."

Hey David. Better get a new writer for your headlines. "suspention" ?#@%! WOW !!!

Thanks, Derfman. Now it's spelled correctly. –Bobo.