The city of San Francisco has a long relationship with the United States Naval Service. It was frequently the embarcation port for Marines departing for combat in the South Pacific. Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief of Pacific Forces during WWII, resided in San Francisco, and is buried in one of the cemeteries just beyond the city limits.

Marines Memorial Association, San Francisco

In 1946, the US Marine Corps chose to locate the Marines Memorial Association in downtown San Francisco, a short distance from Union Square.

But, more recently, San Francisco’s film czarina Stephanie Pleet Coyote, a former location manager and wife of actor Peter Coyote appointed in 2004 by Gavin Newsome as head of the city’s Film Commission, refused the US Marine Corps Silent Drill Team a permit to film a recruiting commercial.

The Marines wanted to shut down one lane of California Street for a few minutes at the start of morning rush hour on the anniversary of 9/11 so that the Drill Platoon could be filmed performing against the background of morning traffic. Ms. Coyote said that traffic control was the issue, but the production crew was offered permission to film on California Street as long as no Marines were in the picture.

Marine requests to use one lane of the Golden Gate Bridge were also denied by Ms. Coyote. So the Marines wound up filming in the Golden Gate Recreation Area, in Marin County, overlooking the Bridge.

San Francisco routinely permits traffic to be blocked by demonstrations, most notoriously by Critical Mass bicyclist demonstrators who on the last Friday of every month deliberately block commuter traffic.

This latest insult to the military follows a number of previous gestures by the city administration, including renaming Army Street for the late leftwing labor agitator César Chávez, refusing to berth the retired Battleship Iowa, abolishing Junior ROTC programs in city high schools, and unsuccessfullly trying to cancel the annual Blue Angels air show.

Stephanie Pleet Coyote

abc7news

4:17 video

Same recruiting commercial being filmed in Times Square 8:49 video

The democrat crazies in the California legislature strike again.

San Diego Union Tribune:

The Assembly sent the governor a bill yesterday requiring that the next generation of semiautomatic handguns stamp identifying serial numbers on spent shell casings.

The legislation that would establish the first law of its kind in the nation could have a lasting impact on the war on crime, according to backers. But the limited application of the bill does not figure to be felt for several years.

The bill covers only new models or brands of semiautomatic handguns approved for sale in the state after Jan. 1, 2010. That excludes nearly 1,300 different semiautomatics already sold in the state. Revolvers, which do not discharge shell casings, also are not covered.

Nonetheless, supporters said tagging microscopic codes on ammunition fired from the guns of choice for gang members and violent criminals could prove invaluable to law enforcement.

“Chiefs of police from Stockton to San Diego, from Fresno to National City, 65 of them standing together in support of this bill because they see the potential to solve gun crime,” said Assemblyman Mike Feuer, a Los Angeles Democrat who carried the measure, AB 1471. ...

But in a passionate debate between gun-control Democrats and gun-rights Republicans, critics dismissed the technology as unreliable, expensive and easily thwarted. They warned that it would drive up the price of guns and drive manufacturers out of the state.

“There is nothing like this is any other state, and no other state is seriously considering this because they know it doesn’t work,” said Lawrence Keane, general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Council, an industry trade association.

The Assembly approved the bill on a 43-29 vote that fell largely along party lines. The Senate narrowly passed the bill last week. All involved are now closely watching for a signal from Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has taken no position on the bill.

Oh yes, California’s gang violence over drug distribution turf invariably takes the form of an Agatha Christie-style country house murder, in which Sherlock Holmes needs an assist from Rube Goldberg in determining if it was Colonel Mustard who shot Professor Plum in the library by identifying the true owner of the still-smoking Webley found smack in the middle of the oriental rug.

And no one less wily than Professor Moriarity himself would ever think of taking a file to their proposed-stamping mechanism in order to thwart those cunning legislators. Right!

Francisco Linares of Rolling Hills Estates, California will be going to jail for six months. His crime? Getting into an argument with the authorities enforcing the Kafka-esque system of construction permits in his California town over a termite-infested fence on city property.

DailyBreeze:

The 51-year-old bought the nearly 1-acre property in the 4600 block of Palos Verdes Drive North in 1998. After tearing down an adobe house on the site and building a 3,000-square-foot French-style home, he began landscaping.

When Linares asked the city to repair the white three-railed fence behind his house, he was told it was on his property and his responsibility. So he replaced the termite-infested planks. Then the city reversed itself and said Linares had illegally built the fence on city property.

In October 2004, the city charged Linares with three misdemeanors: for not taking down the fence, having a retaining wall built higher than a 2-foot restriction and for erecting stone columns without a neighborhood compatibility analysis. Later inspections found eight other violations, including a lack of permits for plumbing and grading.

“He’s had a couple of years to correct the problems,” said Dean Pucci, a Fullerton attorney contracted as the city’s prosecutor. “His options were to obtain final permits or remove all of these structures built without permits.”

Linares lives in the house with his wife and three daughters. He contends that he didn’t remove the structures because he believed the permits would be approved.

However, Pucci said no permits are pending, since Linares failed to resubmit an application that was deemed incomplete.

At the sentencing, Hamar said his client was a good Christian man who has never committed a crime and who worked diligently – 142 hours – to try to resolve the issues with the city.

And the only reason he was not able to complete the stipulations of the plea agreement, he said, was because of the city’s confusing building codes and negligence in rendering a decision on his permit applications.

“We established that he did everything that was humanly possible to comply. And the un-rebutted evidence is that (the city) hasn’t ruled on the permits.”

I don’t suppose one is required to feel sorry for Silicon Valley’s millionaire working class economically exactly, but there is definitely something pitiable about seeing the Porsche and Mercedes stuffed into the minimum of parking associated with a 2000 sq. ft. 1950s tract house on a postage stamp lot.

California is in some respects a lot like Hell. Those condemned to reside in the Valley literally have its temperatures. And the great majority of the more favored, those cooled by balmy Pacific breezes, live like Sisyphus, in possession of real wealth, yet surrounded by conspicuously displayed examples of far greater wealth. Able to own a nice automobile, but still unable to afford a decent home.

“You’re nobody here at $10 million,” Mr. Kremen said earnestly over a glass of pinot noir at an upscale wine bar here. ...

“People around here, if they have 2 or 3 million dollars, they don’t feel secure,” said David W. Hettig, an estate planner based in Menlo Park who has advised Silicon Valley’s wealthy for two decades. ...

Celeste Baranski, a 49-year-old engineer with a net worth of around $5 million who lives with her husband in Menlo Park, no longer frets about tucking enough money away for college for their two children… Yet like other working-class millionaires of Silicon Valley, she harbors anxieties about her financial future.

“I don’t know how people live here on just a normal salary,” said Ms. Baranski. ...

David Koblas, a computer programmer with a net worth of $5 million to $10 million, imagines what his life would be like if he left Silicon Valley. He could move to a small town like Elko, Nev., he says, and be a ski bum. Or he could move his family to the middle of the country and live like a prince in a spacious McMansion in the nicest neighborhood in town.

But Mr. Koblas, 39, lives with his wife, Michelle, and their two children in Los Altos, south of Palo Alto, where the schools are highly regarded and the housing prices are inflated accordingly. So instead of a luxury home, the family lives in a relatively modest 2,000-square-foot house — not much bigger than the average American home — and he puts in long hours at Wink, a search engine start-up founded in 2005.

“I’d be rich in Kansas City,” he said. “People would seek me out for boards. But here I’m a dime a dozen.”

Read the whole thing

5:10 video

Innerspace says that it is finishing up production of its second dolphin-shaped submersible, the Seabreacher.

Nifty design, alright, and a lot of people would certainly like to own one of these (assuming it worked reliably, and users were not destined to experience the fate of the crew of the Hunley).

But, alas! this is one of those classic West Coast hippie companies. They’ve been playing with all this since 1998, and are happy taking their one prototype out to shows once in a while. They don’t actually want to sell any.

Can I buy or lease an Innespace Dolphin?

Innespace is focused on building vessels for racing and demonstration purposes only. We will be touring the country with our submersible watercraft, performing stunt shows at various events. Innespace is actively seeking corporate sponsors to partner with us in this endeavor. Our vessels will also be available to lease for film and commercial work.

You’ll have to build your own, I’m afraid, Bob.
———Hat tip to Robert M. Breedlove

The San Francisco Chronicle records the latest fashion accessory in PC Califormia.

Virtue may be its own reward—but as any self-respecting Prius Progressive can attest, the payoffs of hybrid ownership don’t stop there. Beyond the gas pump savings, the tax breaks, the entree to carpool lanes, the freedom to park without feeding meters and the aura of cool kinship with Hollywood hybriders such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz, comes something more visceral.

“Absolutely, they’re buying the car for the statement it makes more than anything,” Art Spinella, president of CNW Marketing, told reporters last week.

The firm’s research concluded that more customers pick the Prius over alternatives like the hybrid version of the Honda Civic precisely because the Prius is exclusively—and identifiably—a hybrid. While just 36 percent cited fuel economy as a prime motivator for buying a Prius, 57 percent said their main reason was that “it makes a statement about me.”

What’s more, in focus groups, many Prius buyers admit expecting acclaim from friends and co-workers for making such a socially responsible, planet-saving purchase.

But the satisfaction of some eco-drivers risks swelling to self-righteousness—like the Prius driver coasting down Highway 101 in Marin County last week with the bumper sticker: “How many lives to the gallon do you get?”

Read the whole thing.

Your monthly house payments exceed your monthly income.

You make over $300,000 and still can’t afford a house.

You take a bus and are shocked when two people carry on a conversation in English.

Your coworker has 8 body piercings and none are visible.

You speak Spanish, but you’re not Mexican.

Your child’s 3rd-grade teacher has purple hair, a nose ring, and is named Flower.

You don’t know anyone’s phone number unless you check your cell phone.

You’ve been to a baby shower that has two mothers and a sperm donor.

You have a very strong opinion about where your coffee beans are grown, and you can taste the difference between Sumatran and Ethiopian.

You begin to “lie” to your friends about how close you are when you know damn well that it’ll take you at least an hour to get there (see below).

Getting anywhere from point A to point B, no matter what the distance, takes about “twenty minutes.”

You drive to your neighborhood block party.

A really great parking space can totally move you to tears.

Gas is $1.00 per gallon more than anywhere else in the US

Unlike back home, the guy at 8:30 am at Starbucks wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses who looks like George Clooney really IS George Clooney.

You can’t remember … is pot illegal?

You pass an elementary school playground and the children are all busy with their cell phones or pagers.

It’s barely sprinkling rain outside, so you leave for work at least an hour early to avoid all the weather-related accidents.

Both you AND your dog have therapists, psychics, personal trainers and cosmetic surgeons.

You drive next to a Rolls Royce and don’t notice.

In the “winter,” you can go to the beach, ski at Big Bear, mow your lawn in your shorts and maybe get a sunburn all on the same day.

You eat a different ethnic food for every meal.

If your destination is more than 5 minutes away on foot, you’re definitely driving.

Calling your neighbors requires knowing their area code.

You know what “In-’N-Out” is and feel bad for the other states that don’t have any.

You don’t stop at a STOP sign, you do a California roll.

You’ve partied in Tijuana at least 3 times and you can’t remember at least 1 of them.

You go to a tanning salon before you go to the beach.

Your have a permanent impression on the side of your head from your cell phone.

You know that Venice is a beach.

The waitress asks if you want “carbs” in your meal.

You know who the tinsel underwear dude in Venice Beach is.

You classify new people you meet by their Area Code. An “818” would never date a “562” and so on…

You call 911 and they put you on hold.

You have a gym membership because it’s mandatory.

The gym is packed at 3pm … on a workday.

You think you are better than the people who live “Over the Hill.” It doesn’t matter which side of the hill your home is, you are just better than they are.

You know that if you drive two miles in any direction you will find a McDonald’s or a Starbucks.

You know what “sigalert,” “PCB,” and “five” mean.

You can’t remember . . . is pot illegal?

It’s barely sprinkling rain and there’s a report on every news station: “STORM WATCH.”

The Terminator is your governor.

You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from California.

PS —If you drive here illegally, they’ll take away your driver’s license. If you’re an illegal alien, they want to give you one!
————————————
Hat tip to Robert Breedlove and Michael Pierson.

The Daily Breeze, last Friday, reported a truly mind-boggling case of institutional insanity, of the sort that nearly always comes out of California.

A fifth-grade promotion ceremony in Rancho Palos Verdes turned into a free-speech battleground Thursday, when students were asked to remove weapons from toys that had been placed on mortarboard caps because of the school’s zero-tolerance policy for weapons on campus.

Each year, students decorate wide caps with princesses, football goal posts, zebras, guitars and other items to express their personalities and career goals. Cornerstone at Pedregal School is the only Palos Verdes Peninsula public school to practice the tradition.

On Thursday, before the ceremony, one boy was told he couldn’t participate unless he agreed to clip off the tips of the plastic guns carried by the minuscule GIs on his cap. Ten others complied with the order before the event.

Parents reacted angrily, calling Principal Denise Leonard’s decision censorship, but the Palos Verdes Peninsula School District defended her.

Cole McNamara and Austin Nakata, 11-year-old buddies who share an interest in all things military, said they put the toys on their hats to support American troops in Iraq.

“I was kind of mad because they just went over and clipped them off and didn’t say anything about it,” Austin said.

His father, Glen Nakata, said he was disappointed that parents were not approached or consulted on elimination of the “firearms.”

“I felt they were keeping the boys from expressing their patriotism, their strong beliefs toward the military,” he said.

Glen Nakata’s father served in the U.S. Air Force. And Austin wants to attend a military academy when he’s older. Cole wants to join the Marine Corps, said his father, Paul McNamara.

To treat the “injuries” caused by the order to remove the offending weaponry, Austin wrapped the plastic stumps in white gauze and painted on faux blood.

The principal pulled Cole aside Thursday morning, handed him a pair of scissors and said the guns had to go. ...

In enforcing the decision, the district cited its Safe Schools policy and the federal Gun Free Schools Act of 1994, a federal law designed to remove firearms from schools.

Susan Liberati, an assistant superintendent, said she believes “the principal has interpreted district policy accurately, and we support her in that.”

A copy of the district’s Safe Schools policy obtained by the Daily Breeze includes no mention of toy army men. Students found to be “possessing, selling or otherwise furnishing a firearm” are expelled for one year, the policy states.

Weapons are also mentioned in the board’s “weapons and dangerous instruments” policy that allows only authorized law enforcement or security personnel to possess “weapons, imitation firearms or dangerous instruments of any kind” on school grounds.

Board President Barbara Lucky declined comment on the incident or the policy.

“Sounds like a good question for legal counsel,” Lucky said.

It’s wrong for public institutions to adopt policies embodying extremist and Utopian forms of Pacifism or other doctrines wildly at odds with the religious views and moral philosophies of normal and rational Americans. But it is considerably worse to adopt policies which, whatever their philosophic content, represent pure insanity.

It’s bad enough that we have lots of people in this society so lacking in common sense that they hope to prevent criminal violence by trying per impossible to eliminate the material cause (the weapon), while opposing taking effective action to stop the operation of the efficient cause (the criminal). We’ve reached the point where persons in charge of educational institutions are incapable of distinguishing between real objects and their images. They shouldn’t let people that stupid go out by themselves, let alone trusting them to run any kind of school. The 5th graders have more sense.

Hat tip to Wordsmith from Nantucket.

A tractor trailer carrying 8600 gallons of gasoline hit a guard rail, then burst into flames. The burning tanker melted one of the overpass connectors from eastbound Interstate 80 to Interstate 580 and caused the collapse of 250 yards (228.6 meters) of the roadway.

AP story

1:56 video

AP:

A man and a woman were killed at a luxury oceanfront resort when police fired into their bungalow after they refused to drop a handgun, authorities said.

Is that so?

The story says there was an affluent couple, a domestic dispute, a naked woman, and two people pointing the gun at the police in turn.

They can’t really both have been pointing the gun at the police at the same time, now can they? So why did these cops need to shoot both of them? For that matter, since the police story does not include anyone actually firing at the police, why was it necessary to shoot anybody.

The last few decades have featured the ill-advised militarization of American police; a virtually infinite increase in police paranoia, cowardice, and incompetence; and the vanishing of common sense from police work. There are federal sources of training, operational standards, and philosophy behind these developments which badly need to be stopped.

AP:

JENNER, Calif.- Nibbles the elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris) is defying his tame nickname by killing smaller seals, menacing a kayaker and chomping on a surfer and a dog on the northern California coast.

The 2,000-pound lone male is seen frequently at the Russian River outlet to the Pacific, and local marine recreational outlets are warning the public about the seal’s aggression.

On Easter Sunday, the seal grabbed an 80-pound pit bull and only let her go after he was attacked by the dog’s owner.

“I was throwing a stick in the water for the dog,” Angel Garcia said. The dog “started to shake when this torpedo thing launched itself out of the water and grabbed her.”

On Tuesday, Nibbles growled at a kayaker, scaring him out of the water, said Suki Waters of Water Treks, a kayaking tour company.

Surf shop worker Craig Henderson said the seal and local surfers share the same turf. “It is scary when he jumps in the water with you. He is huge, like a VW bug or something,” he said.

Brit Horn, a California State Parks lifeguard, said the seal has been seen killing smaller harbor seals. They’ve now moved to other areas along the Sonoma County coast.

The elephant seal is an adolescent who likely hangs out alone at the river mouth because he is too small to compete for females at elephant seal colonies, Horn said. Adults can grow to 14 feet long and 4,500 pounds.

In a sane world, someone would shoot that seal before he hurts somebody, but “Nibbles” is in California, land of the moonbat tree-huggers, so he can look forward to nibbling on whomever he wants.

Malibu Times reports a vexing case featuring unseemly conflict between the rights of the owner of a piece of astronomically expensive California private property and science.

The discovery of a Clovis spearhead, believed to be thousands of years old, at a local home construction site has the homeowner and an archeologist at odds on what should be done with the site. The property owner wants to finish her home and move in, the archeologist wants to preserve the site, called Farpoint, and be allowed to conduct further research.

In September of 2005, Gary Stickel was the archeologist of record at the Farpoint site, then being developed by the private homeowner, and hired to oversee excavation at what was known as an “architecturally sensitive site.”

“Other objects, scrapers and micro-tools, had been found on the property,” Stickel said. “So we knew it was a culturally sensitive site. Then we found the spear point.”

The approximately 8-inch long, stone spear point is a tool produced by the Clovis people, believed to be the first human inhabitants of the Americas.

Not only does that date the piece to more than 11,000 years ago, the site of its location is the farthest point west in North America that the Clovis tribes can be traced, thus the designation “Farpoint.”

Dennis Stanford, director of the Paleoindian/Paleoecology Program at the Smithsonian Institute, in a written affidavit that authenticated the spearhead, said “... until the discovery of the Clovis occupation level at the Farpoint site, no “in situ” Clovis age sites are known along the West Coast of the Americas.”

The property owner, who is not identified to protect her privacy and the integrity of the archeologically sensitive site, has been cooperative through the last few years of research, but is ready to occupy her new house. And, Stickel said, she has shut down any further excavation.

Read the whole thing.

Wikipedia: Clovis point article.

If that Clovis Point is a legitimate artifact, and was not simply planted by an enterprising neighbor who prefered the site undeveloped, then there is a significant public interest in investigating, possibly in preserving, the site. But satisfying that public interest is indubitably a taking, and if the public wants to dig in that land, or to own that land, it ought to pay for it, not simply pass some regulations.

ABC News reports:

Pipe bombs found in an aqueduct that supplies water to millions in Southern California were probably not intended for sabotage, but for fishing, state officials said Thursday.

The five small bombs found in a branch of the California Aqueduct were typical of those used to stun and collect fish, the state Department of Water Resources said in a statement.

“Similar devices have been found previously when water levels in State Water Project facilities are drawn down for maintenance and other purposes,” the statement read.

The bombs were found this week in a section of an aqueduct branch in the Mojave Desert about 100 miles east of Los Angeles. Two had already been exploded, and the others were detonated by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

The bombs turned up along with cars and other debris when water levels were lowered for a routine cleanup.

Looking for California real estate?

Check out homes for sale by owner in California for the best deals. When you cut out the middle man and buy your home FSBO straight from the owner you can save a lot of money on real estate.

Roosevelt elk

Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are trying to make sure that hundreds of healthy Roosevelt elk and Kaibab mule deer living on Santa Rosa Island are exterminated by the federal government.

The animals have been living there since the 1910s and 1920s when the island’s former owners imported them to provide hunting opportunities on the 52,794 acre off-shore property, then being operated as a cattle ranch. The introduction proved extremely successful, and the island became noted for the trophy animals it produced.

In March 1980, however, Congress established a Channel Islands National Park. In 1986, the Federal Government purchased Santa Rosa Island. The purchase agreement, however, granted the former owners the right to continue ranching and operating a hunting concession for 25 years.

In 1997. however, the National Park and Conservation Association, another litigious self-appointed group of busybodies, sued to end ranching and hunting immediately, claiming that they interfered with public access. The lawsuit resulted in a settlement agreement ending ranching, and stipulating the removal of the elk and deer by 2011.

Hunting is cruel, you see, but exterminating non-native species (who have lived there for a century) is good conservation, California-style.

The National Rifle Association has taken up the fight to save the 1100 animals.

Mark Cuban (undoubtedly a resident of California) speaks out on behalf of the permanently infantilized.

When I started MicroSolutions I was 24 years old. I had just gotten fired from my job and was sleeping on the floor of a 3 bedroom apartment with 5 other guys living there. I didn’t have a closet or a bed, but I had 2 suits.

I bought both of those polyester wonders, one Grey pinstripe, the other blue pinstripe for a total of $99 dollars plus tax. To go with those fashion forward wonders, I had several white polo button downs that I had purchased used from a re-sale shop, and a couple ties that I had bought on sale or had gotten as hand me downs from friends.

I wore those babies when it was cold. I wore them when it was 100 degrees plus. I ironed them and when I could I got them dry cleaned…

Someone had once told me that you wear to work what your customers wear to work. That seemed to make sense to me, so I followed it, and expected those who worked for me to follow it as well.

After I sold MicroSolutions I decided that I never would wear a suit again…

With our new business, I decided that I would have to wear a suit, but would modify the rule so that I would only wear a suit when someone I was selling to was wearing a suit…

When Broadcast.com was sold, the suit went out the window completely.

The gentleman has obviously never owned a real suit, only hideous and inexpensive ersatz imitations thereof. Suits equal discomfort in his mind, because he has only worn cheap, ill-fitting articles of clothing made of intrinsically uncomfortable materials.

Beyond that, the gentleman fails to understand that dignity and formality are becoming to adults. And it is not simply a matter of convention and form; men wear suits fundamentally because any man looks better in a good suit.

T shirts and blue jeans or bermuda shorts have intrinsically limited capacities for both beauty and self expression. Adults wear adult clothing in order to express as fully as possible the possibilities of aesthetic expression in attire.

Suits have been de rigeur in business (outside the California playpen) since time immemorial, since it is impossible for most serious adults to imagine entering into a substantial relationship of trust or business with an individual too slovenly, too undignified, or too badly educated to know how to dress.

Obviously, people began making the rare exception for the eccentric scientific genius working in the most arcane outer reaches of technology, whose thoughts were so abstracted and unworldly that he couldn’t possibly understand how to live normally in the world, and the next thing you know every clod and lout in the Sunshine State of Self-Entitlement decides that he, too, is some kind of genius, operating at Olympian levels beyond normal civilization.

You Californians are wrong. You are operating far below the conventional levels of ordinary civilization, and you are not Einstein, you are Beavis and Butthead.

Back in April, Victor Davis Hansen published an editorial titled Eye of the Beholder which really puts the MSM’s reporting on the level of disaster in Iraq into perspective. With the Fall election approaching, I think more potential voters need to read it.

War-torn Iraq has about 26 million residents, a peaceful California perhaps now 35 million. The former is a violent and impoverished landscape, the latter said to be paradise on Earth. But how you envision either place to some degree depends on the eye of the beholder and is predicated on what the daily media appear to make of each.

As a fifth-generation Californian, I deeply love this state, but still imagine what the reaction would be if the world awoke each morning to be told that once again there were six more murders, 27 rapes, 38 arsons, 180 robberies, and 360 instances of assault in California — yesterday, today, tomorrow, and every day. I wonder if the headlines would scream about “Nearly 200 poor Californians butchered again this month!”

How about a monthly media dose of “600 women raped in February alone!” Or try, “Over 600 violent robberies and assaults in March, with no end in sight!” Those do not even make up all of the state’s yearly 200,000 violent acts that law enforcement knows about.

Iraq’s judicial system seems a mess. On the eve of the war, Saddam let out 100,000 inmates from his vast prison archipelago. He himself still sits in the dock months after his trial began. But imagine an Iraq with a penal system like California’s with 170,000 criminals — an inmate population larger than those of Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Singapore combined.

Just to house such a shadow population costs our state nearly $7 billion a year — or about the same price of keeping 40,000 Army personnel per year in Iraq. What would be the image of our Golden State if we were reminded each morning, “Another $20 million spent today on housing our criminals”?

Some of California’s most recent prison scandals would be easy to sensationalize: “Guards watch as inmates are raped!” Or “Correction officer accused of having sex with underaged detainee!” And apropos of Saddam’s sluggish trial, remember that our home state multiple murderer, Tookie Williams, was finally executed in December 2005 — 26 years after he was originally sentenced.

Much is made of the inability to patrol Iraq’s borders with Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey. But California has only a single border with a foreign nation, not six. Yet over 3 million foreigners who snuck in illegally now live in our state. Worse, there are about 15,000 convicted alien felons incarcerated in our penal system, costing about $500 million a year. Imagine the potential tabloid headlines: “Illegal aliens in state comprise population larger than San Francisco!” or “Drugs, criminals, and smugglers given free pass into California!”

Every year, over 4,000 Californians die in car crashes — nearly twice the number of Americans lost so far in three years of combat operations in Iraq. In some sense, then, our badly maintained roads, and often poorly trained and sometimes intoxicated drivers, are even more lethal than Improvised Explosive Devices. Perhaps tomorrow’s headline might scream out at us: “300 Californians to perish this month on state highways! Hundreds more will be maimed and crippled!”

In 2001, California had 32 days of power outages, despite paying nearly the highest rates for electricity in the United States. Before complaining about the smoke in Baghdad rising from private generators, think back to the run on generators in California when they were contemplated as a future part of every household’s line of defense.

We’re told that Iraq’s finances are a mess. Yet until recently, so were California’s. Two years ago, Governor Schwarzenegger inherited a $38 billion annual budget shortfall. That could have made for strong morning newscast teasers: “Another $100 million borrowed today — $3 billion more in red ink to pile up by month’s end!”

So is California comparable to Iraq? Hardly. Yet it could easily be sketched by a reporter intent on doing so as a bank rupt, crime-ridden den with murderous highways, tens of thousands of inmates, with wide-open borders.

I myself recently returned home to California, without incident, from a visit to Iraq’s notorious Sunni Triangle. While I was gone, a drug-addicted criminal with a long list of convictions broke into our kitchen at 4 a.m., was surprised by my wife and daughter, and fled with our credit cards, cash, keys, and cell phones.

Sometimes I wonder who really was safer that week.

Coastal California is made up of either Redwood forest or what is basically a desert nicely cooled by fogs from the Pacific. The non-forested portion of the California landscape had little to offer the eye beyond a modest variety of native weeds, and European settlers got right to work planting trees and flowers.

Today, the cult of extreme Environmentalism flourishes the length of the left coast, and purists in California have come to regard non-native Holland grass (originally planted to keep the sand dunes from eroding), Eucalyptus, wild rose and other non-native trees, plants, and shrubs as sacrilegious human affronts to Mother Nature’s original perfection.

San Francisco is going to spend a lot of money deliberately de-foresting the Presidio and other parks.

While in Southern California, botanical vigilantism is being prosecuted.

California Governor Schwarzenegger has signed a Republican-sponsored bill, acceding to the wishes of the Vietnamese community-in-exile in California, which will allow the flag of the fallen Republic of South Vietnam to be flown in California displays of the flags of world nations, instead of the Communist flag of North Vietnam.

California state buildings and parks now have the governor’s blessing to fly the former flag of South Vietnam during holidays and special occasions.

At an impromptu stop in Little Saigon on Saturday morning, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the long-awaited symbolic measure that gives the yellow flag with three red stripes the state’s official recognition.

About 10 states and over a dozen California cities and counties already have done so.

Schwarzenegger praised the Vietnamese immigrant community for its courage, vitality and cultural and economic contribution to the state.

Most Vietnamese immigrants fled their country after the communists’ victory and feel contempt for the country’s current red flag.

Vietnamese leaders have pushed for the traditional flag’s recognition for years, said Assemblyman Van Tran, R-Westminster.

The move gained momentum last month when Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher, R-Fullerton, who is running for state Senate in the district covering Little Saigon, appealed to the governor for help.

Both Schwarzenegger and Tran endorsed Daucher in her bid.

Among registered Vietnamese-born voters in Orange County, Republicans outnumber Democrats 2-to-1.

On Friday, the word spread that the move was final, and hundreds of Vietnamese gathered at the Rose Center in Westminster to cheer.

The spectacular scenery, a typically booming economy, and a climate which permits you to grow lemons and avocados in your backyard makes Californians seem rather spoiled to the rest of us. Californians typically express their appreciation for all their good fortune by the cultivation as a local art form of cloaking an unlimited sense of entitlement in the rhetoric of idealism.

How do you keep the other fellow (who actually owns the land) from doing anything with it that might deprive you of the pleasure of looking at it undeveloped? You just come up with an appropriate worthy cause: protecting some purportedly endangered amphibian, rodent or weed; avoiding sprawl; maintaining open space; and voila! You get to keep out the riff raff, and be spiritually enlightened too.

Today’s Wall Street Journal describes the plight of the Mexican immigrant worker in Monterey County renting out a room in the 1000 sq. ft. house that cost him half a million dollars, and still spending 70% of his income on his mortgage payment.

Meanwhile, Reuters describes the accelerating middle class exodus from idyllic coastal California to the baking hot interior Central Valley (renowned for its 110 degree temperatures) in search of affordable housing.

OAKLAND, California – Father Mark Wiesner has grown accustomed to wishing parishioners bon voyage as they flee the San Francisco area’s high housing costs for California’s Central Valley, where developers are increasingly transforming farms and ranches into a new suburbia.

“So many young couples I marry have to go to Modesto or Tracy to start their married lives,” said Wiesner, a Catholic priest in Oakland on the San Francisco Bay. “They simply can’t afford to stay here in the Bay area and to buy a single-family dwelling.”

Tracy and Modesto are 50 and 80 miles east of Oakland respectively. Both have seen blistering growth in recent years amid a middle-class exodus from California’s famed coastal urban centers in search of affordable housing.

Analysts say the middle-class flight will press on even if coastal home prices sag amid a national housing slowdown. Home prices near the state’s coastline would need to collapse to make buying a home there possible for many households.

Barring a collapse, ever more Californians will call the state’s Central Valley home because homes there are relatively affordable. July’s median home price in San Francisco was $771,000, compared with $438,000 in San Joaquin County roughly 60 miles to the east, according to real estate information service DataQuick Information Systems.

Southern California is seeing a similar exodus to Riverside and San Bernardino counties, known as the region’s Inland Empire, from Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties.

“Having been in the house market in Los Angeles, I can tell you a house with little bit of privacy and space to call your own is pretty hard to come by,” said economist Christopher Thornberg of the consulting firm Beacon Economics. “For many people getting out to that Inland Empire is the only way to really have a backyard for the kids.”

The ultra-wealthy, ultra-liberal community of Santa Barbara, just north of Los Angeles, (known locally as “Snotty Barbara”) has found the impact of its own regulations and restrictions on development sufficiently dramatic that it has decided it needs to build affordable housing for people making up to $160,000 per year. Not only firemen and policemen can’t afford to live in Santa Barbara. The town fathers are starting to worry about the lack of availability of housing for doctors and lawyers.

The City Council is considering whether to use the property to build affordable housing, a condominium complex called Los Portales for families earning up to $160,000 a year.

Now, “it’s hard to get sympathy for people making $160,000 a year if you’re down in Texas or something,” said Bill Watkins, head of the UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project.

Any household with that kind of money is in the nosebleed section of American earners, and “most of the country would think, ‘You’re going to subsidize that person’s house? You’re kidding me.’ ”

But in this city — where the median home price is around $1.2 million — that person needs help. And the Housing Authority of the City of Santa Barbara is about to become the rare public housing agency to assist the well-heeled along with the poor, to build shelter for those whose business cards come in designer leather cases and include words like “doctor,” “lawyer,” “director.”

The tallest building here is the eight-story Granada Theatre, built in 1924.

It could never be replicated today, in part because the City Charter strictly limits buildings to 60 feet, about four stories.

And even four stories is a hard sell.

Two teen-age girls expelled last September from California Lutheran High School in Wildomar, California for indecent conduct filed a lawsuit seeking readmission, along with unspecified damages and an injunction barring the Riverside County school from excluding gays and lesbians.

Last Wednesday, the California Supreme Court unanimously declined to review an appeal brought by the school, allowing the case to proceed to trial.

Down at Newport Beach in the OC, the problem of anchored sail boats being swamped by an excess of pinniped avoirdupois has recurred this Sprng. A male California sea lion can weigh 600 lbs.

AP reports:

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. – Authorities hope to deter sea lions from boarding boats by — get this — spraying them with water. The mischievous pinnipeds have returned to the bay after wreaking havoc last summer by trashing boat cabins and decks, swamping a vintage yacht and barking all night.

So far this spring, they’ve ransacked one craft and nearly scuttled a 20-foot sailboat, which was submerged to the rooftop before shipyard workers intervened, said Justin McCarthy, manager of Hill’s Boat Service.

“As soon as one is up, three jump on,” McCarthy said. “And it only takes four to tip one of these boats.”

Seeking to avoid a repeat of last year’s mayhem, harbor officials are testing a motion-activated sprinkler they hope will shoo the animals away from boat decks. Sea lions sunbathe to raise their body temperature and don’t like being squirted with cool water, said Chris Miller, the city’s harbor resources supervisor.

“It’s hard to control nature,” Miller said. “But we’re doing our best.”

The high-tech effort has one observer scratching his head.

“It’s funny because people don’t realize the old trick is you just put a little dishwashing soap (on the deck) and they slide right off,” said Hank Wiessner, co-owner of Fun Zone Boat Co.

My wife found the mental image of frustrated sea lions wallowing on board anchored boats, only to slip right off again, hilarious.

Red-backed Jumping Spider (Phidippus johnsoni) âu2122u20ac

Yesterday, I was working at my desk, when a large spider, sporting impressively bright-colored markings, descended down a filament of web, and landed with a noticeable thud on top of a television remote control, languishing unused at the far left corner of my monitor stand.

I debated for an instant between hand-to-hand combat, with me employing a handy ruler; or chemical warfare, involving a nearby can of Raid House and Garden. I decided to go for the high tech approach, and reached for the can of Raid. My alert opponent, however, cleverly divined my arachnocidal intentions, and dashed over the edge to the preferred refuge of all outlaws: the terra incognita between desk and wall. My hunting instincts were aroused. I had no intention of letting the quarry get away, but my search was unavailing.

I couldn’t nail the spider, so I figured I could at least entertain the wife a bit, so I sent the little woman (who is out of town on a business trip) an email, informing her that we had acquired a new roommate, and urging her to say hello for me, when she found the same spider on her desk some day(we share an office). My wife was not amused.

Well, Karen actually does get to come home, after all.

At pretty much the same time of day today, clearly the same uppity spider landed directly in the center of my desk with an even louder thump, erected its feelers, and advanced rapidly and purposefully in my direction. I could practically hear its thoughts: “Dare spraying bug spray at me, will you, villain? I see that can of Raid is out of reach, so let’s settle things here and now.” Further threats, and the arachnid’s further advance were prevented, however, by the rapid descent of a Paulownia wood Japanese box, containing a very nice Kaneiye sword guard.

I, of course, then proceeded to identify the specimen.

So perish all our enemies.

Hamaseh Kianfar

Not far beneath the haute bourgeois facade of “America’s dystopian future” lurks the primeval savagery of the frontier West of the cannibal Bender family, combined with the latest form of decadent perversity the New Age can invent.

Thomas Lifson at American Thinker reports a criminal case illustrating the propinquity of the Californian Utopia of Good Living to the American Heart of Darkness

A 75 year old woman and her husband were walking along Euclid Avenue, where it runs between the Rose Garden and Codornices Park. It is one of the most spectacularly beautiful urban scenes in the world, with panoramic views of San Francisco, the Bay, and its bridges on one side, and a hillside of architectural landmark houses and public spaces, including Bernard Maybek’s classicist masterpiece Rose Walk and the modernist Greenwood Common.

The elderly couple were walking home from a continuing education class at the University of California. The North Gate to its campus stands at the foot of Euclid Avenue, (Berkeley) less than a mile away. They moved aside to make room on the sidewalk to allow a pair of girls to walk by them. Suddenly, one of the girls grabbed Kate around the neck and slashed her throat with an 8-inch butcher knife all the way to a bone in what police say was an apparently random attack. Kate struggled briefly with her attacker, who released her. Then she reached up to her neck. “It was spurting blood,” she said from a hospital bed Friday. “It was just astonishing.”

Fortunately, the knife narrowly missed the important veins and arteries in the victim’s neck, and she survived the brutal and senseless attack. The area usually has many people enjoying its parks and views, and witnesses were able to see the attackers drive off in a very expensive car, a BMW M-3 convertible. Unless the car was stolen, these were not underprivileged children. Police relied on tips and arrested a 16 year old Oakland girl.

So, over a year later, Lifson follows up:

The wheels of justice have been grinding very slowly. The alleged assailant, Marilyn Webster, was a juvenille at the time. She has been found to be severely mentally impaired, and authorities have not been able to find a facility adequate to house her.

The alleged accomplice, Hamaseh Kianfar, was a county-employed mental health worker who had worked with Webster in an official capacity. Following the attack, she drove Webster from the scene, allegedly lied to police about the crime, and now her attorney expresses herself to be “incredulous” that her client is to stand trial.

Kristin Bender of the Oakland Tribune has been providing the best coverage of the bizarrae and shocking case. Here is her account:

As the woman laid on the street “bleeding profusely,” Kianfar drove the girl away, bought her clothing to wear following the assault and did not notify police about the incident for roughly 15 hours, said prosecutor Carrie Panetta. The woman recovered from her wounds. Panetta said Kianfar also did not tell police where the girl was staying and later “warned” relatives there was a warrant out for the teen’s arrest. “She knew very well where the juvenile was,” Panetta said. “She gave statements to police, but they were untruthful statements.” Kianfar met Webster while the teenager was serving a sentence in Juvenile Hall. Kianfar’s supporters have said the mental health worker befriended the girl in an effort to help her. Judge Jon Rolefson ordered Kianfar to return to court May 18 to begin routine court proceedings for the trial. She remains free on $15,000 bail.

Several aspects of the case remain mysterious. In the early aftermath, there were reports of a ritualistic aspect the crime, supposedly involving an occult practice called “blood-feasting.” Kianfar’s precise relationship to the mentally-impaired young woman has also not been detailed for the public.

Kianfar is entitled to a fair trial with the presumption of innocence. But her alleged behavior disturbs me deeply, as does her attorney’s apparent belief that one can leave a victim to die, spirit away the alleged perpetrator, buy clothing to disguise the evidence and lie to police, all without being charged.

California definitely features America’s most colorful crime. On Monday, a 68 year-old Sonoma former gaming executive grabbed his .357 Magnum revolver and dispatched an intruder who had pursued his 64 year-old wife into the house. The intruder was armed, and apparently dressed as a ninja.

Police investigators looking into the shooting death of a ninja-style assailant at a semirural home in Healdsburg say they have not yet been able to identify the masked intruder or establish a motive for his actions.

The intruder was shot dead Monday morning by Louis J. Phillips, a former tribal and Nevada gaming executive, shortly after the man attacked Phillips’ wife, Sandra, outside their home on Sunset Drive, police said. The man struggled with her and chased her inside, where Louis Phillips opened fire with his .357-caliber Magnum handgun.

“We don’t have a motive for the attack,” Police Chief Susan Jones said. “And we’d feel a whole lot better if we could identify the intruder.”

Jones described the dead assailant as a white man, about 35 to 40 years old. He was armed with a revolver and carried no identification. The man was dressed from head to toe in black, including a black mask and black leather gloves, Jones said.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has among its supplies significant quantities of plutonium, potentially useful to terrorists. Consequently, the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration are installing a defensive battery of Dillon Aero M134D Gatling guns, six barreled, electrically driven machine guns chambered in 7.62mm NATO (.308 Winchester) able to fire at a fixed rate of 3000 shots per minute.

The SF Chronicle, in characteristic MSM fashion, feigns neutrality, but gives prominence in its coverage to the clueless and the cowardly.

Word that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will install a battery of machine guns capable of spitting out 66 rounds a second with a range of nearly a mile was met by relief by some who think the weapons will deter terrorists but fear by others who worry they’ll be caught in the line of fire…

“I don’t think that’s cool at all—it’s going to be hitting my roof while I’m sleeping,” 23-year-old Daniel Cross said Friday after learning that his home on Shelley Street is within range of the weapon’s 7.62mm bullets.

His friend, Justin Blake, 21, let out some expletives as he tinkered with a Jeep Cherokee outside his friend’s home, where an American flag flies prominently.

“I ain’t seen nothing like that at the lab,” he said, marveling at the weapon’s firepower with a laugh and a shake of his head. “That’s pretty sick. I don’t think anyone’s gonna come into Livermore. I don’t think they need those Gatling guns.”

The leftwing paper throws in enough hints for the discerning reader to get the point:

The thought that Livermore, population 80,000, has an arsenal capable of shooting down a helicopter seems at odds with its motto of being “a friendly, dynamic community.”..

As for those concerned about bullets raining down on their homes, (Livermore Vice Mayor) Leider laughed.

“If they were firing something, I’m sure they would aim correctly and not just spray the rounds all over the place,” Leider said. “I have pretty good faith in that.”

CNN reports similarly, “balancing” the rational explanation:

“What we want to do is equip our protective force with the capability that will leave no doubt about the outcome,” said Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

with the local moon bat activist perspective:

Lab critics questioned the wisdom of putting such powerful guns at the lab, which is across the street from suburban homes. They say the real problem is that the lab site, which is relatively small at 1 square mile, is not a good place for nuclear materials.

“If you don’t have the firepower, that’s one kind of security weakness, but if you do have the firepower, you potentially endanger nearby workers and community members because it’s such a compact site,” said Marylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley CARES, a Livermore-based activist group.

Joel Engle on What’s the Rumpus excoriates the California-King-sized sense of entitlement of the planning-to-have-it-all “professional couple” who placed the following ad:

“IF THERE’S ever a Museum of Chutzpah, this recent classified ad in a community newspaper will be the featured exhibit:

‘NANNY — FULL-TIME — MONDAY-FRIDAY: Professional couple seeks responsible, happy, engaging nanny for 3-month-old infant. 7:30 AM-6 PM M-F; $300-350/week; breakfast, lunch provided. Would consider splitting into 2 positions (morning, afternoon). Interact/play with baby, daily stroller rides, no TV; housekeeping as time allows (during baby’s naps). Web cams present. No evenings/weekends/major holidays, no travel required. Qualification: infant childcare experience with references; college coursework in ECE or child development; current infant CPR/First Aid certification; fluent English; no smoking; reliable transportation to/from our … home; willingness for annual background/credit check, drug screening.’

It concludes with a phone number and, no kidding, an e-mail address. So let’s recap: A professional suburban couple needs someone to raise their child from scratch. Someone with a car who’ll brave two rush hours daily and work without rest 10 1/2 hours daily, 52 1/2 hours weekly, cleaning house when baby’s asleep instead of checking e-mail on her PowerBook. Someone fluent in not only English but also the advanced dialect of early childhood education and development. Someone who doesn’t mind Big Brother capturing her every moment for the comfort of her employers watching on the Web at their desks. Someone who’ll do all that for whatever’s in the fridge and $6.67 an hour — at the top end.

Hat tip to (wait for it…) Pajamas Media.

The leftwing European chattering classes have been seething in outrage over the State of California’s recent execution of convicted murderer (and Nobel Peace Prize nominee) Stanley “Tookie” Williams, and the Bush Administration’s treatment of terrorists.

Writing in the German news magazine Stern, Florian GüÃu0178gen condemns the harshness of American methods of dealing with malefactors. (Ray D. translates—and responds—in Davids Medienkritik):

Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. The same principle is also used by the USA in the worldwide hunt for criminals. Because George W. Bush and the CIA are hunting terrorists – mass murderers, they allow themselves the right to kidnap and torture – without consideration for principles of justice or international rights. The ends justify the means. There that German al-Masri is just kidnapped for a short time from the Balkans, dragged to Afghanistan, shut-in, interrogated, probably also tortured. The USA, the home of the “West” works with the same methods of the dark rogues of the Russian mafia.

As the Stern editorial demonstrates, anti-American PC is particularly strong in the territories of the former Reich. Leftwing politicians in his hometown of Graz, Austria, responded to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s decision to decline clemency for Tookie Williams with a petition-drive to remove Schwarzenegger’s name from a local stadium re-christened in his honor in 1997. The naturalized-American governor responded in unmelted-American fashion:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday told officials in his hometown in Austria to remove his name from a sports stadium and stop using his name to promote the city.

The governor’s request came after politicians in Graz began a petition drive to rename the stadium, reacting to Schwarzenegger’s decision last week to deny clemency to condemned inmate Stanley Tookie Williams. Opposition to the death penalty is strong in Austria.

In a letter that began “Dear Mister Mayor,” Schwarzenegger said he decided to spare the Graz city council “further concern” should he be forced to make other clemency decisions while serving as California’s governor. He faces another such decision regarding a 75-year-old inmate scheduled to be executed Jan. 17.

“In all likelihood, during my term as governor, I will have to make similar and equally difficult decisions,” Schwarzenegger said in the letter. “In order to spare the responsible politicians of the city of Graz further concern, I withdraw from them as of this day the right to use my name in association with the Liebenauer Stadium.”

Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Margita Thompson said the letter was faxed to Graz city hall on Monday.
In it, Schwarzenegger also said he would no longer permit the use of his name “to advertise or promote the city of Graz in any way” and would return the city’s “ring of honor.”

“Since, however, the official Graz appears to no longer accept me as one of their own, this ring has lost its meaning and value to me. It is already in the mail,” the governor wrote.

The letter notes that city officials will receive a follow-up letter from Schwarzenegger’s attorney.

Little Green Footballs and Bare Knuckle Politics (hat tip: Michelle Malkin) cover attacks on two liquor stores in West Oakland by “about a dozen African-American men wearing suits, white-collared shirts and bow ties — a trademark of the Nation of Islam.” Television news reports have studiously avoided mentioning the Islamic aspect of the attacks.