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More San Diego Convention Center Lies
"The culture here, which I think has been largely influenced by the military presence and the mentality that exists within it, produces an atmosphere where palms are greased and mum's the word and taxpayer money is there for the taking." This is a city where labor unions and developers control city hall: the military has nothing to do with it. Heck, Chicago's been the master of palm-greasing and I think their military presence could hardly fill a recruiting office. Your thesis is so far off-base as to be laughable, were it not so sad. The golden rule applies in all communities and cultures: them that has the gold makes the rules.— September 5, 2012 1:24 p.m.
How many people assassinated Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta?
At the time of that campaign I worked for the late Victor Diaz, owner of the Califormula Radio Group which had radio broadcast operations in Tijuana and Chula Vista. Victor loved to talk about politics and because of my past experience in US politics (including US-Mexico policy issues), the topic came up often, and he gave me some interesting insights into Mexican politics. One he we talked about the man he jokingly called "Don Donaldo," and said, "He will never be elected." That surprised me since being the PRI candidate was tantamount to being President-elect. The morning I heard Colosio had been killed I called Victor and reminded him of that statement. His voice became quite shrill and shaky as he almost shouted his response, "I never said that, I never said that and don't ever repeat that!" 1994 was also the year when the the secretary-general of the PRI was assassinated. A newspaper account noted, "The attorney general's office...released a report naming nearly 30 suspects. Some are "intellectual authors," some are "operational members," some are "incidental actors." Prosecutors even devised a flow chart that looks like a family tree." The facts of these assassinations were not exactly a secret: there were lots of people involved and thanks to some of them, word traveled fast after the deed was done. Victor had once told me how his personal chief of security (a former Mexican cop) had provided details on the killing of one public figure. I got that feeling that in Mexico sharing such details was a way to show that you were in the loop, such as it was. Between the stories and some of things i witnessed myself, I learned that the PRI was not going to go down without a fight, even if it involved live ammo. The man who replaced Colosio as the 1994 presidential candidate was the last PRI president elected and the end of his term marked the end of a 71 year virtual dictatorship by the PRI (the "perfect dictatorship," was the term applied to that reign by 2010 Nobel Prize recipient Mario Vargas Llosa). Last month the PRI retrieved the presidency it had lost 12 years ago. It could be said that Mexico experimented with democracy in the interim and it will be interesting to see if that experiment ends and heavy-handed authoritarianism returns. ¡Qué viva México!— August 8, 2012 8:46 p.m.
Will Brain Damage Kill Football?
Heck the NY Times reports, "On average, 24 horses die each week at racetracks across America," so if that "sport" is not being seriously challenged, football has nothing to worry about.— June 14, 2012 2:14 a.m.
Will Reduced Tolls Increase South Bay Expressway Riders?
This is the road to nowhere - it simply is not an alternative to Interstate 805 as it dumps into Spring Valley and almost-El Cajon, which are not destinations for the vast majority of traffic coming from the the road's southern terminus near the Otay Mesa border crossing. Those areas are also not destinations for very many of the residents who live along the toll road corridor, so even as a free road it would not meet the rosy projections that preceded n its construction. They now blame the problems on the economy, but in this case the bad economics are the decisions made before the road was even built by CalTrans, the feds and the private operators. Now, post-bankruptcy, SANDAG made another bad economic choice by paying almost a third-of-a-billion dollars (more than its appraised value) to buy the right to operator this turkey. That decision takes money from the widening of I-805, the road that actually goes where motorists want to go. Again, future toll road traffic projections were juggled to justify the decision. Now we get these meaningless toll reductions that will do nothing to entice even the few who have an actual need to go where this road less traveled will take them.— June 14, 2012 2 a.m.
You Participated In a Marathon
So is this tongue-in-cheek or actually, as it seems, a smug dismissal of your "friend's" effort?— June 5, 2012 9:45 a.m.
Build a stadium and Chargers will stay? Nope.
You can see some of the 2013 Petco numbers at http://www.sandiego.gov/fm/proposed/pdf/2013/vol2… The Padres will pay $570,850 in rent and the Petco Park fund will get most of its so-called revenue from public money: $4.5 million from TOT taxes and $11.3 million from a "Redevelopment Agency Loan Repayment." So most of the $17.7 million in revenue is the result of moving tax dollars from one pocket to another.— May 31, 2012 9:54 p.m.
San Diego Gas & Electric: Fat Profits, Fat Pay
Interesting, but SDG&E has thrived despite the presence of a local consumer utility watchdog, something most communities don't have.— April 17, 2012 10:43 p.m.
Carlsbad SWAT Officers Train (Loudly) for School Shooting Incidents
It is not a City Council's job to run the day-to-day operations of the police department or any other city agency.— March 5, 2012 7:06 p.m.
Do Manchester, Lynch Read Economic News?
"The old, Copley-run U-T was constantly putting "happy face" spin on local events..." I keep hearing that old stereotype repeated, but it always seemed to be something repeated by people who apparently didn't actually read the Union or Tribune. From my own perspective I remember that when I was leading the 1990 campaign to prevent the takeover of SDG&E by Southern California Edison, the U&T certainly did not play along with SDG&E management, which wanted the takeover. When I was Pete Wilson's campaign press secretary in 1988, the toughest coverage we got was from the San Diego Union's political writers: their coverage seemed to be based on bending over backwards to prove they were not showing favoritism to San Diego icon Wilson. Every major newspaper has editorial boards and publishes its corporate opinion on the editorial pages, but my experience has been that San Diego Union and Tribune reporters were an independent lot not afraid to report stories that gave San Diego's establishment anything but a happy face. Some of this anti-UT sentiment certainly dates back to the days when Jim Copley ran the papers, but he died 38 years ago, and despite his conservative legacy on the editorial board, San Diego has since elected such Democrats as DA Ed Miller, Congressmen Jim Bate and Bob Filner, and a slew of moderate Republicans to offices at all levels. Of course today we have a San Diego City Council that would give old Jim the fits. For a conservative, Navy town, we've elected darn few social conservatives over the past several decades. But I now fear that the paternalistic boosterism of Papa Doug Manchester will take away the journalistic independence that UT reporters have practiced for many decades. I love newspapers, but I've decided to not renew my UT subscription: Papa Doug and Junior Lynch have already given ample reasons why they shouldn't get any money from me.— December 16, 2011 7:51 p.m.
On January 1 Tourmaline becomes state marine reserve
And none of this will be addressed by these new restrictions, which are window-dressing and were able to be implemented only because they affect mostly the individual recreational fishers who are not the commercial divers who depleted the abalone stocks, who do not prowl our waters in Grand Banks schooners looking to fill holds with tons of fish, who don't do purse seining from their kayaks or catch bluefin tuna while casting from the beach. But, your bitterness towards this one individual shows why these meaningless regulations are enough to satisfy those who only want to do something for appearance sake: "By gosh we've stuck it to those spoiled paddleboarders! Now Sponge Bob can leave in peace."— October 6, 2011 6:39 a.m.