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Scott Kessler works with FBI investigating Marco Li Mandri
For your wide-screen enjoyment... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2SpROYbYig Off to the lobby with ya!— March 21, 2010 12:26 p.m.
Scott Kessler works with FBI investigating Marco Li Mandri
I've made mention of catastrophe theory before. It's only my opinion, but I believe we're only one good wildfire away from making like Floatopia to get away from the flames as Enron by the Sea burns to the ground later this year. A little corruption in government is annoying but tolerable. At least that's the way it's been here for decades, since the filming of IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD. If there's any doubt about that, then note the police map that Captain Culpepper points to and the prominent use of Yellow Cabs at the climax of the film. Now, the corruption is sufficient to reduce public safety services, put government employee pensions at risk, reduce library hours, pink-slip teachers, close schools, and ration our water and electricity while developers continue to contribute their way to filling the hillsides with homes that are barely selling anyways. I say that everybody needs to do some preparation for the disasters to come. I have a PDF list of all FEMA Emergency Management Institute online courses offered free to US citizens at http://cemis.stickywebs.com/ispindex.pdf that contains links to each course's study materials and final exams. I obsessively compile such lists because I was an old senior patrol leader from Troop 376 in Lemon Grove, even before Nixon resigned. Be prepared! Some of you may think this is a silly approach, but when things get REALLY screwed up here, I'm hoping that some of us knowing how emergency incidents ought to be managed under "best practices" will keep us from looking like New Orleans on a very bad day after Katrina... At least it just might help those of us who want to know how all that emergency money from Uncle Sam gets spent. Or is supposed to be spent. Whatever.— March 21, 2010 12:17 p.m.
Scott Kessler works with FBI investigating Marco Li Mandri
RE #12-15: Discussion of BIDs, MADs and PACs is due for airing out in public. In my hot little hand, I am holding a 16-page SEDC document handed out late last year, calling for the formation of one consolidated Project Area Committee (PAC) on merging project areas to allow for increased bond capacity up to $29 million, with a stated goal of "Achieve a financial surplus for community projects and prioritization". This is the same SEDC that may or may not have executed loan agreements regarding HUD funds, part of the $139 million in undocumented inter-agency loans that nobody at Economic Development for City of San Diego will return an email about. The agreements covering that much money were necessary under the HUD Office of Inspector General audit (http://www.hud.gov/offices/oig/reports/files/ig09…) mentioned in Kessler's lawsuit (http://media.sdreader.com/pdf/kessler-suit.pdf). I did not know that SEDC was authorized to have it, its PAC or any other part of it acquire a "financial surplus"... unless Carolyn Smith has been hired recently as another under-the-SEDC-board's-radar consultant...— March 20, 2010 1:21 p.m.
Sempra Gives the Boot to 90 Employees
RE #1: California's Public Utility Code states that actions of a public utility employee are acts of the public utility, relating to assessment of fines for violating CPUC orders, state laws, Constitution of California, or the like. It could be that the Sempra Energy employees that did not "impact" Sempra Energy were merely being used to skirt the Public Utility Code on acts of the Sempra-owned utilities. See record of trial for UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. SDG&E on "Sempra Entities" employees with at least two sets of corporate-issued personal business cards...— March 20, 2010 1:07 p.m.
Sempra Gives the Boot to 90 Employees
According to U-T blurt on Saturday (3/20), some jobs are heading back to SDG&E.— March 20, 2010 12:59 p.m.
San Diego Unified charges all kinds of illegal fees
There are a number of examples regarding the institutional arrogance of school administrators that I can think of. The two that immediately come to mind: 1) A school administrator convicted of contract fraud or other contract irregularities appealed because the administrator was charged under the Penal Code, not under the weaker variant contained in the Education Code. The appeal was lost; defendants do not have the right to choose what law they are charged under. Further, separating the laws of California into distinct codes is merely a convenience for readers; the people of California speak with one voice through the entirety of the California Codes. 2) When was the last time ANYBODY ever heard of a school principal or community college president having a discussion with the state Adjutant General over the creation of a company or more of the California Cadet Corps? The law is the law, especially when not following the Military & Veterans Code is costing California schools in lost homeland security and other federal emergency preparedness funding opportunities. School board members, stand by on being called out for statutory neglect.— March 17, 2010 4:08 p.m.
Scott Kessler works with FBI investigating Marco Li Mandri
"At one point, FBI agent Cook told Kessler of a rumor that he might be fired. Murray wondered if something uttered at a secret meeting she had attended had been leaked. She asked Kessler, “Do you think our offices are bugged?” Kessler asked her if she were serious. She replied, “Really, do you think the 11th floor [of City Hall] is bugged?” The offices of those indicted in the Strippergate scandals had been bugged, she pointed out." I was in the jury pool for the Strippergate federal criminal trial. A jury was sworn in before I made it onto the jurors' box. As part of sitting in the pool, we were treated by an hours' long reading of the indictment with breaks, essentially an extremely long list of individual recorded telephone calls between the indicted council members and various persons related to the Cheetah's strip club or other interests in Las Vegas. I'm glad I didn't make it into the jury box. From the fidgeting alone of the council members and their attorneys during the reading of the indictment, they all sure looked pretty darn guilty to me. I didn't help matters that my own council member got out of it by death before appearing for trial.— March 17, 2010 3:54 p.m.
Peace’s pieces
California's Public Utility Commission also reached back for the memory of the 2000-2001 California energy crisis today to revisit the issue of direct access (DA) transmission caps, where customers were allowed to bypass SDG&E and other investor owned utilities (IOUs) in favor of purchasing power directly from independent electricity service providers (ESPs). DA was part of that mess o' stuff that resulted in the ascendency of the Governator in a recall election. See http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PUBLISHED/FINAL_DECISION/…— March 15, 2010 7:30 p.m.
Fundamentalist Group Wants to Reform Court System
I gotta proofread my stuff before hitting the post comment button...— March 15, 2010 12:09 p.m.
Fundamentalist Group Wants to Reform Court System
Does "conservative" mean "keep things the same" or does it mean "change things NOW already to re-acquire a previous state of things"? Or are there still other meanings? Don Bauder picks really good topics to write about. Locally, he's my hero. In any case, I predict controversy, especially on that part about "bringing 'religion' into the justice system". After all, if religion cannot be brought into the justice system at all, then that would have the affect of rendering the Courts' ability at all levels to make sensible rulings on much of the First Amendment relating to free speech and assembly. The Courts cannot rule on matters that cannot be brought before them (Marbury v. Madison, 5 US 137, http://www4.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/…).— March 15, 2010 12:05 p.m.