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North Island repair shop busts Navy's budget
It's incredible that the US Navy's Not-Quite-Ready Fleet Readiness Center over on North Island keeps upping the ante and raking in more and more cash while significantly "underperforming" -- i.e. making contracted necessary repairs on aging fighter jets. And this is apparently a pattern dating back at least as far as 2004! (Wasn't that even before Twitter?) But apparently full employment for engineers and "artisans" will prevail in this fiscal year and maybe that will make a dent in the backlog of broken F-18 Hornets. Thank you, auditors and Reader sleuth, Matt Potter. Without you, we'd never have known.— July 7, 2015 7:12 p.m.
Mayor wins big in spin and dollar wars
Love the writer; hate the story. B-o-r-i-n-g.— July 6, 2015 10:50 p.m.
Dave Roberts hand-slapped for hidden $5000
Only-Dem Supervisor Dave Roberts has had a bad Spring, but he did self-report this behesting matter and I'm hoping his evil staff has now departed the premises, so he can get back to doing good -- or whatever it is that Supervisors do. Mostly, they seem to feather their own nests for life. I'm hoping Dave Roberts is different and better than his GOP colleagues.— July 6, 2015 8:02 p.m.
Party like its 2016
Good questions, as they say in every interview these days while stalling to find an answer. The stats on enrollment at UCs for 2015 are just out, and more out-of-$tate and foreign $tudent$ were admitted this year than last year, in spite of public outcry. UCSD was one of the leaders in that outrageous trend. You can't even call the local UC your own -- even though you're paying for it. How about we get rid of UC President Janet Napolitano, a former Homeland Security heavy and Governor of Arizona? Whose idea was it to give her so much power over California's premier schools? She's not even an educator. Then there are Dems like Scott Peters and Susan Davis who feel free to vote for fast-track trade deals in Congress -- against the explicit interests of their organized Labor backers. And Dems like Juan Vargas manage to be AWOL on the day of the vote, totally finessing any embarrassment with either voters or big givers. I'm discouraged thinking about your admirable list of saviors. Two alt-newspaper scribes, one blended-daily watchdog and Sancho Panza on the radio.— July 2, 2015 10:22 p.m.
Party like its 2016
Just say no, folks, when your phone is ringing off the table and the mailbox is full of expensive full-color flyers asking for your political contribution to anything or anyone. Admittedly, it's small beer, but it's a gesture that matters. Politicians need big money to survive, but they also like to note how many small individual contributions they receive. Just say no.— July 1, 2015 8:50 p.m.
Juan’s foreign affairs, cont’d
No doubt understanding Turkey is as important for Congressman Juan Vargas today as it was for former Congressman Filner. Turkey is the longtime NATO home of a huge American military base, hosts many thousands of refugees from war-torn Syria, shares a porous border with Syria close enough to observe Syrian towns being threatened by ISIS and defended by Kurds, an ethnic group with whom Turkey has a problematic relationship. But fine-dining in tragic Sarajevo adjacent to a former-minefield-now-golfcourse dating from the time of the Bosnian conflict and ethnic cleansing? Hearing a luncheon lecture about the bloody battle of Gallipoli during WW I where Australians were slaughtered by Turkish forces? Seems callous to me. American Congressmen don't have to go along with a lavish foreign host's entire controversial program, no matter how all-expenses-paid it is. Vargas could have made himself scarce for these objectionable activities -- same way he went AWOL during the crucial House vote last month on the fast-track Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership. Just plead a headache.— July 1, 2015 8:27 p.m.
Yellow bricks and rain-slicked asphalt
OMG, Scott Marks as emcee plus a big-screen showing of the "Wizard of Oz!" But wait, what kid over five is available summer week-days at 10 a.m.? Like, every kid I know goes to some kind of organized summer "fun" -- paramilitary junior lifeguards; a YMCA pot-pourri of sports, arts, crafts and snacks; a quickie overview of world religions; backyard science study. I think Reading theater managers may be living in the past on the timing. But it would be fun to relive history. I was scared to death as a child to see the first "Wizard" in a movie theater long ago. Then I saw it years later on a TV special and the flying monkeys were still scary. When I took my own kids to see it at the (now-defunct) Unicorn Theater in La Jolla, a young couple ahead of us was locked in distracting amorous embrace. (I never could figure out the connection between that film and hooking up.) I saw the movie again in the late '70's, flickering on a television screen in the crowded apartment of a Vietnamese family of newly-arrived refugees in NYC whom my sister-in-law was sponsoring. Now my kids' children watch the "Wizard of Oz"over and over on DVD home screens. Definitely an icon.— July 1, 2015 7:23 p.m.
Conflict of interest charges haunt city's Chargers bid
It seems there's been only a brief hiatus in the 13-year year sports stadium "analysis" (aka repackaging of old data) paid by San Diego taxpayers to propagandize San Diego citizens. When will it end? Never, apparently. Today a second-grader told me the Chargers were going to leave San Diego unless they got a new stadium.— June 29, 2015 5:09 p.m.
In search of Romeo and Juliet
Better check that balcony for dry-rot.— June 25, 2015 7:28 p.m.
UCSD finally gets body parts oversight board
Ew, I have a few questions. Who's the lucky "public member" of UCSD's new Human Anatomical Specimen and Tissue Oversight Committee? Could it be Nathan Fletcher? Also, will Committee members be bagging six-figure salaries like other recent hires to this UCSD administration? Finally, what accounts for "the growing wave of human materials acquired by donation or purchase by the university's various departments and researchers each year?" Outside the Medical School, who is using body parts up at UCSD?— June 25, 2015 7:17 p.m.