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Polls Show
Many Americans are Simply Dumber Than Bush
Blind
Ignorance
Two recent polls, a Los Angeles
Times/ Bloomberg poll and a New York Times/CBS News poll, indicate why
Bush is getting away with impeachable offenses. Half of the US
population is incapable of acquiring, processing and understanding
information.
Much of the problem is the
media itself, which serves as a dis- information agency for the Bush
admin. Fox "News" and right-wing talk radio are the worst, but with
propagandistic outlets setting the standard for truth and patriotism,
all of the media is affected to some degree.
Despite the media's failure,
about half the population has managed to discern that the US invasion
of Iraq has not made them safer and that the Bush admin's assault on
civil liberties is not a necessary component of the war on terror. The
problem, thus, lies with the absence of due diligence on the part of
the other half of the population.
Consider the New York Times/CBS
poll. Sixty-four percent of the respondents have concerns about losing
civil liberties as a result of anti-terrorism measures put in place by
President Bush. Yet, 53 percent approve of spying without obtaining
court warrants "in
order to reduce the threat of terrorism."
Why does any American think
that spying without a warrant has any more effect in reducing the
threat of terrorism than spying with a warrant? The Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Bush is disobeying, requires the
executive to obtain from a secret panel of federal judges a warrant for
spying on Americans. The purpose of the law is to prevent a president
from spying for partisan political reasons. The law permits the
president to spy first (for 72 hours) and then come to the court for
permission. As the court meets in secret, spying without a warrant is
no more effective in reducing the threat of terrorism than spying with
a warrant.
Instead of explaining this
basic truth, the media has played along with the Bush administration
and formulated the question as a trade-off between civil liberties and
protection from terrorists. This formulation is false and nonsensical.
Why does the media enable the Bush admin. to escape accountability for
illegal behavior by putting false and misleading choices before the
people?
The LA Times/ Bloomberg poll
has equally striking anomalies. Only 43 percent said they approved of
Bush's performance as president. But a majority believe Bush's policies
have made the US more secure.
It is extraordinary that anyone
would think Americans are safer as a result of Bush invading two Muslim
countries and constantly threatening two more with military attack. The
invasions and threats have caused a dramatic swing in Muslim sentiment
away from the US . Prior to Bush's invasion of Iraq , a large majority
of Muslims had a favorable opinion of America . Now only about 5
percent do.
A number of US commanders in
Iraq and many Middle East experts have told the American public that
the three year-old war in Iraq is serving both to recruit and to train
terrorists for al Qaeda, which has grown many times its former size.
Moreover, the US military has concluded that al Qaeda has succeeded in
having its members elected to the new Iraqi government.
We have seen similar
developments both in Egypt and in Pakistan . In the recent Egyptian
elections, the radical Muslim Brotherhood, despite being suppressed by
the Egyptian government, won a large number of seats. In Pakistan
elements friendly or neutral toward al Qaeda control about half of the
government. In Iraq , Bush's invasion has replaced secular Sunnis with
Islamist Shia allied with Iran .
And now with the triumph of Hamas in the Palestinian election, we see
the total failure of Bush's Middle Eastern policy. Bush has succeeded
in displacing secular moderates from Middle Eastern governments and
replacing them with Islamic extremists. It boggles the mind that this
disastrous result makes Americans feel safer! What does it
say for democracy that half of the American population is unable to
draw a rational conclusion from unambiguous facts?
Americans share this disability with the Bush administration.
According to news reports, the
Bush administration is stunned by the election victory of the radical
Islamist Hamas Party, which swept the US-financed Fatah Party from
office. Why is the Bush administration astonished?
The Bush admin. is astonished because it stupidly believes that
hundreds of millions of Muslims should be grateful that the US has
interfered in their internal affairs for 60 years, setting up colonies
and puppet rulers to suppress their aspirations and to achieve,
instead, purposes of the US government.Americans need desperately to
understand that 95 percent of all Muslim terrorists in the world were
created in the past three years by Bush's invasion of Iraq.
Americans need desperately to
comprehend that if Bush attacks Iran and Syria , as he intends,
terrorism will explode, and American civil liberties will disappear
into a thirty year war that will bankrupt the United States. The total
lack of rationality and competence in the White House and the inability
of half of the US population to acquire and understand information are
far larger threats to Americans than terrorism. America has
become a rogue nation, flying blind, guided only by ignorance and
hubris. A terrible catastrophe awaits. ©
P.C.Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the
Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall
Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National
Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be
reached by email
|
|
Venice Outlaw RV
Reporting Request and More
(This
email is in
circulation among Venice
residents who want
to criminalize poor people who are living in their
vehicles. Editor)
Hello, Claudia Martin is our Venice area LA City
Neighborhood
Prosecutor. She is working with our LAPD Senior Lead Officers, Heidi
Llanas,
Theresa Skinner, and Robin Richard to try to help Venice clean up our
continuing problem of
illegal RVs/campers/vans/vehicles parked on our city streets and used
as living
quarters. She is asking us to help her. We need to witness these acts
and
document them and then report them to her as she is creating a running
log of
these acts for use as evidence as cases come up when arrests are made.
If you wish to
help in this endeavor,
the first thing to keep in mind is PLEASE BE SAFE. DO NOT PUT YOURSELF
IN
DANGER. We are witnesses not enforcement people. Ms Martin is asking
concerned
citizens to record and email her as much of the following information
you can
concerning people lodging in their RVs and other vehicles:
1) license
plate number. 2)
vehicle description. 3)
street address location. 4)
description of person(s) living in
vehicle. 5)
detailed information of
activities. 6) time
of activities. 7)
if the vehicle has moved, does it have a
schedule? 8) how
long has it been parked
in this location? 9)
as much other
pertinent information as possible.
A couple
more things:
1) Ms Martin
is asking us to become
witnesses. That means putting our names on our reports and being
willing to
testify if needed. You can still do anonymous reports to add to the
data base.
However actual witnesses carry much more weight with all city agencies
involved. 2) keep
copies for your own
records.
3) reports
from multiple sources are
great, especially if they track the movements of the vehicles. Thank
you,
L.A. City Council considers
revising Ocean Front Walk vending ordinance by Vince
Echavaria
The
Los Angeles City
Council is considering repealing specific sections of a city ordinance
that is being challenged in federal court that regulates vending and
the time, place and manner of public expression activities on Ocean
Front Walk in Venice. The City Council voted 14-0 Tuesday, July 3rd, to
approve a motion presented by City Councilman Bill Rosendahl requesting
the city attorney to prepare an ordinance repealing certain portions of
Los Angeles Municipal Code section 42.15, also known as the Venice
Boardwalk Vending Law. The specific sections that the council
is
considering repealing prohibit the vending of items that have more than
nominal utility apart from their communication and relate to the
regulation of noise on the Boardwalk. As part of the motion,
the
council requested that the city attorney's office work with Rosendahl's
11th District office, the city Department of Recreation and Parks and
the Los Angeles Police Department to create new and revised sections of
the vending law. The new ordinance should create additional
or
enhanced zones for performers, provide additional and more stringent
restrictions on commercial vending and restore restrictions on noise in
a "constitutionally compliant" manner, according to the council motion.
Mike Bonin, chief
of staff for
Rosendahl, said council representatives are still discussing exactly
how the new ordinance will be different. "We're still engaged
in
the settlement
talks," Bonin
said. Under
the current ordinance, which went into effect on the Boardwalk in March
last year, vending activity — defined as selling, offering
for
sale, soliciting offers to purchase or bartering — on the
west
side of the Boardwalk is prohibited. The provisions do not apply to
certain exemptions, such as performance artists, people vending
newspapers and items created by the vendor, or any other item that is
"inherently communicative and has nominal utility" apart from its
communication. According to the ordinance, examples of items
that
have "more than nominal utility" and may not be sold include
housewares, appliances, articles of clothing, lotions and jewelry.
Another provision
of the law is
that noise generated on the Boardwalk must be limited to a distance of
50 feet from the source. Persons engaging in the exempted
activities must hold a valid public
expression permit
issued by the city Department of Recreation and Parks, with spaces
allocated in a lottery system. Several months after the ordinance went
into effect, two lawsuits were filed challenging the constitutionality
of the law. n a lawsuit filed in federal court by attorney Carol Sobel,
the plaintiffs, including Boardwalk activists, alleged that the
ordinance violates both the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S.
Constitution. The plaintiffs specifically challenged the sections
dealing with the definition of nominal utility and the 50-foot noise
restriction. In a separate action, plaintiffs Michael Hunt
and
Matthew Dowd, both Boardwalk vendors, filed a preliminary injunction,
also challenging the constitutionality of the ordinance.
Hunt,
who sells shea butter, a product from West Africa, claimed that he
should be permitted to vend because the product is "inextricably
intertwined" with a political or religious message. Dowd, who sells
incense, also claimed that his product has religious significance.
Federal court Judge Dean Pregerson has not made an official ruling
regarding the lawsuits but has indicated to city officials that the
ordinance sections dealing with nominal utility and noise restrictions
are questionable, Bonin said. "We're very happy to have the judge's
assistance in the settlement process," Bonin said. Based on
the
judge's input regarding the two sections and in an effort to "better
position the city in the litigation," the two ordinance provisions
should be repealed, according to the City Council motion. The
city wants to ensure that the ordinance is "enforceable," as well as
that it protects free expression, restricts commercial activity and
protects neighbors from excessive noise, the motion states.
Linda Lucks, chair
of the
Venice Neighborhood Council Ocean Front Walk Committee, said the City
Council was taking a "proactive move" in considering to repeal parts of
the ordinance. "I'm looking forward to some final resolution on this,"
Lucks said. Plaintiffs Hunt and Dowd, who have expressed their
frustration with the vending law at numerous City Council meetings,
said they were pleased to see that the council agrees that changes
should be made, particularly regarding nominal utility. "It's
long overdue," Hunt said of the council vote July 3rd. At
Argonaut press time, Sobel, who filed the lawsuit in federal court, had
not returned phone calls seeking comment. When Sobel's lawsuit was
filed last year, city attorneys said the ordinance specifically defines
what items are allowed and not allowed to be vended on the
Boardwalk. City attorney spokesman Jonathan Diamond said the
city
attorney's office "felt strongly" about how the ordinance was
crafted. But now that the City Council has requested an
ordinance
repealing portions of Municipal Code section 42.15, city attorneys will
work on preparing a new and revised version of the law, Diamond
said. © Argonaut Newspaper
George
Bush’s New Executive Order July 17, 2007 Executive Order:
Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts
in Iraq
By
the authority vested in me as President, by the Constitution and the
laws of the United States of America, including the International
Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)
(IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA),
and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, I, GEORGE W. BUSH,
President of the United States of America, find that, due to the
unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign
policy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the
peace and stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economic
reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian
assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United
States to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency
declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in
Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for
additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and
Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004. I hereby order:
Section
1. (a) Except to the extent provided in section 203(b)(1), (3), and (4)
of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(1), (3), and (4)), or in regulations,
orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this
order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or
permit granted prior to the date of this order, all property and
interests in property of the following persons, that are in the United
States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or
hereafter come within the possession or control of United States
persons, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported,
withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: any person determined by the
Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State
and the Secretary of Defense, (i) to have committed, or to
pose a
significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have
the purpose or effect of: 
(A) threatening the
peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq;
or (B)
undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political
reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi
people; (ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or
provided
financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or
services in support of, such an
act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in
property are blocked pursuant to this order; or (iii) to be owned or
controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf
of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in
property are blocked pursuant to this order. (b) The
prohibitions
in subsection (a) of this section include, but are not limited to, (i)
the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or
services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and
interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order, and (ii) the
receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services
from any such person.
Sec. 2. (a) Any
transaction by a United States person or within
the United States that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or
avoiding, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in
this order is prohibited. (b) Any conspiracy formed to
violate
any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.
Sec.
3. For purposes of this order: (a) the term "person" means an
individual or entity; (b) the term "entity" means a partnership,
association, trust, joint venture, corporation, group, subgroup, or
other organization; and (c) the term "United States person" means any
United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under
the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United
States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States.
Sec. 4. I hereby
determine that the making of donations of the type specified in
section 203(b)(2) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(2)) by, to, or for the
benefit of, any person whose
property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order
would seriously impair my ability to deal with the national emergency
declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order
13315, and I hereby prohibit such donations as provided by section 1 of
this order.
Sec. 5. For those
persons whose property and interests in
property are blocked pursuant to this order who might have a
constitutional presence in the United States , I find that, because of
the ability to transfer funds or other assets instantaneously, prior
notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order
would render these measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for
these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency
declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order
13315, there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made
pursuant to section 1(a) of this order.
Sec.
6. The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of
State and the Secretary of Defense, is hereby authorized to take such
actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to
employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary
to carry out the purposes of this order. The Secretary of the Treasury
may re-delegate any of these functions to other officers and agencies
of the United States Government, consistent with applicable law. All
agencies of the United States Government are hereby directed to take
all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the
provisions of this order and, where appropriate, to advise the
Secretary of the Treasury in a timely manner of the measures taken.
Sec.
7. Nothing in this order is intended to affect the continued
effectiveness of any rules, regulations, orders, licenses, or other
forms of administrative action issued, taken, or continued in effect
heretofore or hereafter under 31 C.F.R. chapter V, except as expressly
terminated, modified, or suspended by or pursuant to this order.
Sec.
8. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right,
benefit, or privilege, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or
in equity by any party against the United States, its departments,
agencies, instrumentalities, or entities, its officers or employees, or
any other person. © GEORGE
W. BUSH, THE WHITE HOUSE
Bush To
Veto Ban On Mercury In Vaccines
Clear links
to neurological disorders ignored, removed from animal vaccines but
fine for babies Infowars.net | July
20, 2007 Steve Watson
President Bush is
to veto a bill that would ban mercury in flu vaccines for children
despite its known links to autism and other neurological disorders and
despite the fact that he pledged in 2004 to support such a move when
campaigning for re-election. The White House stated on
Tuesday that President Bush would veto the FY 2008 HHS-Labor-Education
Appropriations Bill because of the cost and "objectionable provisions"
such as a measure to ban the use of childhood flu vaccines that contain
thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, a press release from Autism
advocacy group Safe Minds on the PRNewswire-USNewswire states.
Bush
is calling for an amendment that would remove the children's safety
provision from the bill.
Safe
Minds warns: "Under
the current administration, mercury has been and will continue to be
knowingly injected into the youngest of American citizens. The
controversial mercury-containing preservative thimerosal has been
linked by thousands of parents as being the cause of their children's
mercury poisoning and autism."
The flu vaccine, which continues
to be manufactured with mercury, is recommended for all pregnant women,
infants and children despite the fact that the Institute of Medicine in
2001 recommended against the policy of exposing these same sensitive
groups to thimerosal containing vaccines. Mercury is the second most toxic
metal known to man behind Uranium. Thimerosal is used in vaccines not
because it is good for you, but purely because it prevents vaccine
contamination. Yet some have questioned why thimerosal is even
considered for vaccines because there are obviously safer alternatives
to preventing contamination. Questions also remain about how
pharmaceutical companies conduct vaccine research and how the
government regulates those companies. Despite these facts, sickening
reports such as the one below continue to make out that injecting the
second most poisonous substance in the world into babies is actually
GOOD for their health:
During Bush's reelection
campaign in 2004 he stated:
"I
support the removal of Thimerosal from vaccines on the childhood
national vaccine schedule. During a second term as President, I will
continue to support increased funding to support a wide variety of
research initiatives aimed at seeking definitive causes and/or triggers
of autism. It is important to note that while there are many possible
theories about causes or triggers of autism, no one material has been
definitely included or excluded." Despite this he now plans to
veto a bill that would remove Thimerosal because of "costs". What costs
would these be? Do the costs of big pharmaceutical companies and fat
government kickbacks outweigh the costs of the healthy brains of every
child in America? Seemingly so.
Furthermore, though Bush stated
that the evidence for links between mercury laden vaccines and autism
are not concrete, there are scores of studies and testimony from
credible figures asserting the exact opposite. Starting in the early nineties,
government regulators dramatically increased the amount of Thimerosal
exposure to babies by adding two new vaccines to the roster of
mandatory immunizations children must have before enrolling in school.
The combination of the Hepatitis B vaccine and the HiB vaccine more
than doubled the amount of mercury children. Mercury expert Dr. Boyd Haley of
the University of Kentucky has testified
before Congress and the Pentagon as well as the FDA as one of
the nation's leading experts on Thimerosal and mercury poisoning,
revealing that his research leads him to believe that some children are
genetically predisposed to storing mercury in their brains, leading to
neurological disorders, including autism.
The combination of the Hepatitis
B vaccine and the HiB vaccine more than doubled the amount of mercury
children in the 90s. "If you take a ten-pound baby
in, and it gets four shots on that one day, which is a common practice
- that's equivalent to giving a 100-pound person forty shots in one
day," said Haley. Haley has also proposed that
Thimerosal in infant vaccines was also the most likely toxic agent
involved in Gulf War syndrome and autistic spectrum disorders. Think
about this, they are injecting into babies something that is breaking
down the bodies of full grown combat veterans.
While the FDA questioned
thimerosal's safety in the 80s, noting that it was "not safe for 'over-the-counter'
topical use because of its potential for cell damage", and
while it was removed from animal vaccines for the same reason, the
government regulatory committees did nothing to question its use in
childhood vaccines. It's too dangerous for cats and
dogs but the government is happy for our babies to be pumped full of
the stuff on a regular basis. Dr Haley has also pointed out
that it is also well known by any good biochemist that thimerosal and
aluminum react dangerously when combined together. Given that Aluminum
is a compound added to many vaccines as a catalyst you would think the
government would have heeded this warning, yet it has still done
nothing.
Despite the continued reports
doubting the link between Thimerosal and autism, more studies have
continued to verify the link. As reported in the Capitol
Times recently: A study done at the University
of Washington in 2006 showed that baby primates exposed to injected
thimerosal (50 percent mercury), at a rate equal to the 1990s childhood
vaccine schedule, retained twice as much inorganic mercury in their
brains as primates exposed to equal amounts of ingested methylmercury.
We know from autometallographic determination that inorganic mercury
present in the brain, following the dealkylation of organic mercury, is
the toxic agent responsible for changes in the microglial population
and leads to neuroinflammation.
In other words thimerosal,
inorganic mercury, leads to neuroinflammatory disease which is proven
to be the underlying medical condition of autism. Furthermore In a study done at
the University of Arkansas last year, autistic children were found to
have significantly lower levels of the antioxidant glutathione.
Glutathione is the major antioxidant needed for the elimination of
mercury at the cellular level. Moreover, Professor
Philippe Grandjean, from Harvard University and the
University of Southern Denmark, considered the foremost scientific
authority on the development of children's brains, has recently claimed
that the average human IQ is plummeting primarily due to IQ points in
the population being chemically destroyed via low level mercury
exposure in children. The links between the ingestion
of mercury and neurological breakdown are clear and proven. Professors
all over the world are telling us outright that it is literally
destroying people's brains. Even if you choose to believe, in the face
of all the evidence, that the links are still somewhat questionable,
the solution is still obvious. GET IT OUT OF THE VACCINES NOW.
Safe Minds
also point out that according to the EPA, one in every six women of
childbearing age already has blood levels of mercury high enough to
cause neurological damage to their unborn children due to environmental
exposures alone. "Injecting
even more mercury into the bodies of pregnant women, infants and
children when it is not a necessary component of vaccines is just bad
medicine," said Lyn Redwood, president of Safe Minds and parent of a
mercury-injured child. "It defies logic that a flu vaccine must be
disposed of as a hazardous waste if it is not used, but somehow
injecting the same mercury-containing vaccine into a baby is
safe."
Yes it defies logic to someone
who believes in the unabated progression of the entirety of the human
race, however, to an elite devoid of all morality and interested only
in the endgame pursuit of their own biological, spiritual and financial
monopoly over the whole planet, it makes perfect sense. ©
infowars.net
|
The price of loving Venice
By Carla
Hall
A
real estate
broker who is an integral part of the colorful beach town embraces its
diversity, even though it nearly cost him his life. The
confrontation took place just inside the front entrance of the dream
house in Venice that Jack Hoffmann had been painstakingly renovating
for three years.
A homeless
man, strong
from bodybuilding, whipped out a knife and thrust it twice into
Hoffmann's chest. Then he sliced across Hoffmann's throat. When
Hoffmann raised his arm defensively, the man cut across it as well.
Then he speared Hoffmann's back with the knife, nicking his
liver. Hoffmann wondered: Is this it? And then: I haven't
even
finished the house. He chuckled softly at the memory. "I thought, yeah,
I'm not ready to go." Hoffmann is the owner of the Venice
Properties real estate brokerage, a purveyor of cutting-edge lofts,
houses and studio and commercial spaces that sell for millions. And he
is part of the cast of characters that has made Venice the colorful mix
he has loved so much — and still loves, despite his violent
encounter. Hoffmann represented architect Frank Gehry when he bought
Venice land for his own dream house; he counts artists among his
friends and collects their pieces for his home; and he presided over
the Venice Action Committee in the early 1990s when the group of local
business owners and residents wanted to beautify Venice and lobby for
better services from the city of Los Angeles.
Venice - 1
Bedroom 1.5 Bath Condo For Sale $1,199,000
"It's like he's the mayor of
Venice or something,"
his friend artist Chuck Arnoldi said. But it's a town with
rough
edges where diversity among residents means artists and entrepreneurs
rub elbows with hard-toiling renters, gang members and troubled,
sometimes drug-addled, street people. Hoffmann's attack
rattled
friends and neighbors accustomed to convenient, even self-conscious,
relationships with the homeless who frequent the streets and alleys of
Venice, often acting as informal security for homes and businesses. The
incident was a raw reminder that Venice's gritty street chic sometimes
gives way to violent crime. More
©
L.A. Times
Local Builder Makes Case
Against Granting Any Height Variances to Ray Hotel Developers by Marta
Evry, Venice
Forum
Dennis
Hathaway, a
local builder, makes a case against granting any height variances to
the Ray Hotel (planned for the corner of Abbot Kinney and Main). The
city planning department has recommended allowing the proposed Ray
Hotel in Venice to be built to a height of 45 ft., (40 ft. for the main
building, 45 ft. for a roof deck with pool and patio) which is 50 per
cent higher than the 30 ft. limit set by the Venice Specific Plan. The
department’s report says that this exception to regulations
is
justified under legal criteria for granting variances because the
project site presents difficulties that developers of similar sites in
the area would not encounter. According to the report, the major
difficulties are:
1. That the developer will preserve and incorporate into the hotel
lobby part of an existing warehouse on the site that was used by
Charles and Ray Eames as an office and studio for a number of years.
This (according to the developer) entails technical difficulties that
require extra height.
2. That someone building a purely commercial project on the site would
have an easier time, because a hotel requires deeper lot line setbacks
and therefore the added height is justified in order to achieve a
desired density.
3. That the proposed project is “green,” proposing
energy
and water conservation, recycling, and preservation of significant open
space.
Unfortunately, none of these justifications holds water. Firstly, the
so-called Eames studio as it now exists is 654 sq. ft. and 12 ft. high,
and the developer is proposing to only preserve 1/3 of that
building’s length. So it’s obvious that it will be
a very
small part of the overall hotel complex, and therefore the claim that
its preservation requires the hotel to pushed upward the equivalent of
another story is hardly credible.
Secondly, the setbacks for a hotel building are clearly more
restrictive than those for a purely commercial building, but these
regulations don’t just apply to the Ray Hotel property, they
apply to any property on which a developer wants to build a hotel. City
ordinances say that an exception to Specific Plan, such as added height
above the limit, can be granted only if conditions unique to the
subject property make it impractical or unduly difficult to comply with
regulations. There is no such unique condition on this property. In
fact, to adopt the planner’s logic is to reach the conclusion
that a developer wishing to building a hotel on any commercially zoned
property in Venice is entitled to an exception from Specific Plan
regulations. This is completely contrary to the letter and spirit of
the regulations, and in fact absurd.
Thirdly, none of the justifications related to the
“greenness” of the project have any legal standing
as to
the granting of relief from height limits and other regulations of the
Specific plan. Furthermore, one might ask why developers should be
given major concessions for doing something that is socially
responsible. Given the realities of our environment, it might be
reasonable to wonder why all developers shouldn’t be
voluntarily
doing these things on all projects, or even why they aren’t
required to as a matter of law without any quid pro quo. ©
Marta Evry
Our Awful
Dilemma by W.
George E. K. French
Now, today, our Country faces the most horrifying enemies we have ever
encountered, enemies who would destroy our land from within.
In
the past there have been threats to our future, but never anything to
rival this. I want you to forget, for the moment, what Bush
and
his gang have done so far. What is done is done, and we
cannot
change it. Therefore we must look to the future, and what we
CAN
do to save our nation. We must now use logic, and what little brains we
have left to resolve the situation. For the past six years, Bush has
had the CIA and other agencies crawling through the private lives of
every member of Congress. Politics being the dirty business
that
it is, you may rest assured that every single member of Congress has
had some sort of indiscretion. Now we have Bushes
blackmailing
bastards looking into EVERYTHING. Then
comes Carl Rove, probably the top spin-master of all time.
This
man could make a Sunday school picnic look like an Indian
Massacre. You wonder just why Bush runs around with that
insufferable smirk all of the time, looking like the cat that swallowed
the canary, and ignoring not only all of our laws, but also all
Congressional subpoenas and requests? It’s because
he has
enough dirt on every member of Congress to totally destroy them. True,
some of it might be just the Spin-master, Rove, at work, but a lot of
it is not. There is simply no other reason for the Congressional boys
and girls to fear this creep. They would never allow these
things
to continue if they could put a stop to it without ending their own
careers at the same time. This situation is NOT
going to change. Every member of the Senate or the House who
might hurt this thieving cabal is living in fear, every day.
Without destroying themselves, they cannot move against Bush and
Co. This is the only logical conclusion that we may
draw
from the facts. Knowing that the Congress can do nothing to
remedy this matter, and that it will simply get worse and worse as time
goes by, what options do we have left?
The
Bush bandits are destroying our military, digging us so deep in
debt that our grandchildren will be trying to dig us out fifty or a
hundred years from now. Bush is making a mockery of our
entire
legal system, and is destroying our Constitution as well. He has pocket
billions, personally, and so have his closest supporters. His corporate
cronies have profited to the tune of trillions, at our
expense.
Since our Congress people do not dare to attempt to stop him, he will
now try to clinch his dictatorship by declaring a catastrophic
situation, and taking complete control of all government
functions. This is NOT an idle threat. He
deliberately put
forth an attachment that will allow him to take over. He
plans to
do exactly this, and he will defy any and all attempts to stop
him. It is now time for the people of this country to rise up
and
put this man and his bandits where they can no longer imperil or
endanger our country or ANY of our people. To wait for this
action is to give him all of the advantages. We cannot
wait. If we do not stop him now, we will NOT be able to stop
him
later. This country will become a dictatorship. There will be
no
way to get to any of the Bush Bandits. Once they are in
control,
we, our children, and their children will be slaves in every sense of
the word. There is a very simple way to make sure that this
happens. Do nothing! That’s right, just
do
nothing. If we do not organize to stop them now, it will be
too
late. Since the day when this man stole the presidency from
those
who fairly won it, and from the American people, he has waged war
against us all. What do you think Bush would do if Congress DID issue
articles impeachment against him? © W.
George E.K.
French (Well, we should just try it anyway, and SEE what
happens! Editor.)
Dick
Cheney has admitted that he was "wrong" when he said two years ago that
the Iraqi insurgency was in "its last throes".
The trouble is that Dick Cheney has been
"wrong" about almost all his statements concerning Iraq. When does he
stop being considered "wrong" and start being considered a liar?
"My
estimate at the time - and it was wrong, it turned out to be incorrect
- was the fact that we were in the midst of holding three elections in
Iraq, elected an interim government, then ratifying a constitution,
then electing a permanent government, that they had had significant
success, we'd rounded up Saddam Hussein. Cheney said in an interview on
CNN's "Larry King Live"
"I thought there were a series
of these milestones that would in fact undermine the insurgency and
make it less than it was at that point. That clearly didn't happen. I
think the insurgency turned out to be more robust." Shortly after
Cheney's original remarks in 2005, the violence in Iraq sharply
increased and he received criticism to which he responded:
"If you look at what the
dictionary says about throes, it can still be a violent period, the
throes of a revolution," he said. "The point would be that the
conflict will be intense, but it's intense because the terrorists
understand that if we're successful at accomplishing our objective --
standing up a democracy in Iraq -- that that's a huge defeat for them."
What
else has Dick Cheney been "wrong" about concerning the war in Iraq?
© Infowars.net
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