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DeMaio's foe backed by big spending biotech lobby
I don't think Mr. Potter is suggesting who's a better candidate, just that incumbent Congressman Scott Peters' campaign for re-election is benefitting from his solid support for local biotech research and development. It's always interesting to know who's giving what to whom and why. (The narrative diversion about Biocom's lobbyist and a controversial former employer is just a forgivable side path from the main point, which is: in politics, what goes around comes around.) Another example of Scott Peters' being the perfect representative for the bio-tech-rich 52nd Congressional District.— October 31, 2014 2:40 p.m.
U-T circulation continues decline
Anon 92107 must be a civil servant pensioner or have a trust fund to urge all remaining U-T reporters to resign to salvage their good names. Anon forgets they are people with real lives and families to support and, as professional journalists, they may hope to continue to be employed under a new regime. And also, the signers of the Declaration of Independence were all landed gentry. Take a look at Mt. Vernon sometime: it's major view property.— October 28, 2014 10:19 p.m.
Manchester and Jackson: two debtors in Neverland
Visduh, would your regular rapacious bank ever say, "Befriend the bewildered?" I think not. What's so terrible about this guy? Annie Liebowitz was going to lose the rights to her entire body of photographic work. She got it back and gave up some real estate. Ditto for Michael Jackson, though going back to work led to his demise, but that wasn't Barrack's fault. I am interested that Thomas Barrack was an Undersecretary of the Interior under President Reagan -- and I do wonder with some trepidation what environmental deals he may have cut in that capacity.— October 28, 2014 1:24 p.m.
Check the kids’ bags for boo
It only takes one incident, Michael Valentine. Before scarfing down the sweeties, it's a good idea to scrutinize the haul under the kitchen table light. There's a lot of effervescing garbage that deserves to be tossed out anyway, let alone the random poisoned green apple or hallucinogenic brownie.— October 28, 2014 1:01 p.m.
U-T circulation continues decline
As we are all dancing in the line to the U-T's gravesite, I would like to speak in defense of the remaining excellent Watchdog and other reporters over there and about the U-T editor, Jeff Light, who seems to have been able to salvage good reporting in the U-T's news columns -- even with severe space limitations for those stories. I applaud Don Bauder's accurately chronicling the U-T's continuing slide in circulation. But there is a big qualitative difference between U-T Editor Light and his predecessors which a lot of Reader readers do not seem to appreciate -- e.g. the crack about "Der Sturmer manual of style." It's as if that critic reads only the cockamamie right-wing editorials ordered up by Papa Doug and nothing else. There remains a beating heart over at the U-T and I personally hope it can be salvaged with new ownership that works to make the daily print newspaper business viable while scrupulously keeping its hands off editorial direction.— October 28, 2014 12:49 p.m.
Latino officials to get free tour of Israel
On the one hand, if you ever think you might want to run for public office -- and what up-and-coming, attractive, well-situated Latino like Commissioner Castellanos doesn't think that's a possibility -- or even those entrenched-at-the-public-trough members of Congress Susan Davis or Juan Vargas who want to stay there as long as the round trips from D.C. to the West Coast are feasible -- they all will need re-election support from the San Diego Jewish Community whose richest and most prominent member is Irwin Jacobs, and sterling cred comes from firsthand observation that can be discussed at cocktail parties. On the other hand, these very expensive and exotic learning and lounging experiences paid by AIPAC are Israel's best line of defense -- keeping the United States Congress in its corner -- a strategy that impoverished Palestinians cannot begin to match. In this circumstance, Israel is Goliath.— October 25, 2014 8:25 p.m.
Ex-mayor Filner expresses support for embattled Carl DeMaio
This "almost factual" joke doesn't work. Equating ex-staffer Bosnich's allegations against DeMaio with the kangaroo chorus that did in Mayor Filner is a factual stretch, as the questions in this instance were raised by longtime respected objective journalist Tony Perry of the Los Angeles Times. Also, perp Filner was alleged to be verbally suggestive and a "head-locker," not [...], as perp DeMaio is reported to have been.— October 16, 2014 1:23 p.m.
Soviet Ebola ghosts haunt San Diego labs
Gee, thanks for this update on the possible "weaponizing" of the Ebola virus and info on the local bio-medical industrial complex that works to develop protective remedies. This may be an instance of what-you-don't-know-can't-hurt-you. Right now, I personally am focussed on avoiding Liberians, Frontier Airlines and nurses who have taken care of stricken Liberians. Reading today's LA Times description of the rigorous safety protocols followed by Doctors Without Borders working on Ebola in Africa, it is no wonder that American health-care workers have become infected, U.S. Center for Disease Control pronouncements notwithstanding.— October 16, 2014 1:07 p.m.
Seals and people to be together at last?
The hazmat-clad diver-lobby seems not to care about area water pollution as it persists in litigating the seal pupping-season closure of Casa Cove Beach. And it's not just seal crap in the water and on the sand -- there was a human sewage spill earlier this week that got a large stretch of coastline there officially shut down for three days. At this point you couldn't pay me to go swimming anywhere from Casa Cove north to the La Jolla Cove because of effects from marine mammal colonization. The air stinks and the water is a fecal soup.— October 16, 2014 12:22 p.m.
Jacobs backs Tuck
Matt Potter presents Irwin Jacobs' support for Marshall Tuck for Superintendent of Public Instruction in simplistic Us vs.Them terms to rile up the Readership. This is an important election that deserves serious attention. Potter drags in Jacobs' unfortunate local ventures but does not focus on this education race as it relates to education outcomes. Personally, I am voting for Marshall Tuck as a genuine education reformer. His opponent Tom Torlakson is a business-as-usual favor-trading pol. Electing Marshall Tuck to State Superintendent of Public Instruction could mean an end to the chokehold of the powerful California Teachers Association -- the richest lobby in all Sacramento with more money to spend even than Big Oil -- over the way California public schools have been run for the last 40 years. CTA is architect and guardian of the longstanding California trade-off that leaves students out in the cold: highest teacher pay in the nation in return for largest class sizes in the nation and near-lowest amount spent per pupil among all 50 states. Terrible. Disastrous for most of California's kids. Do we want more of same? I don't think so. Marshall Tuck believes in public education and has worked in inner-city Los Angeles to establish successful Green Dot charter schools to benefit children. Current State Supe Tom Torlakson is a termed-out state legislator, one-time-teacher-turned-politician and tool of the California Teachers Association. Torlakson is a placeholder for CTA and is seeking a second term. All of Torlakson's political campaigns have been heavily financed by the cash-rich CTA. Voters who want to see positive change actually benefit public school students support Marshall Tuck for State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Tuck believes that well-run charter schools have a place in the public school mix, as charters are permitted by state law and work well when managed well. Look at our own Preuss School at UCSD, Gompers Academy, High Tech High and Einstein Academy. Charter school numbers are growing because parents in many communities, especially inner cities, are desperate for something better for their children than places like the scandalous MiraMonte Elementary in Los Angeles which led to the Vergara lawsuit. Marshall Tuck is an intelligent good man, not a hack. If Irwin Jacobs is supporting Tuck's campaign -- modestly, by the way -- there are many worse things in this complicated world of strange bedfellows. Tuck is an independent thinker, but he needs money to counter the CTA blitz. Irwin Jacobs has long had an interest in public education and, in this instance, his interest in well-founded.— October 7, 2014 12:47 p.m.