Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Council Votes to Put Tax Increase on Ballot
California law cannot demand the impossible, Cal. Civ. Code 3531. If it is impossible for the City of San Diego to ever meet its pension retirement AND health obligations, then this state's maxims of jurisprudence may provide the way out, although I doubt that the above will be employed by the City Attorney this side of bankruptcy.— August 5, 2010 4:15 p.m.
Maloni on Voting as Legalized Gambling on Redevelopment Projects
And think of all the clerks and interns we'd be having gainfully employed (if we had the time ;-) I know that there is somebody at the headquarters of the San Diego Community College District, somewhere deep in the bowels of the building formerly known as Stadium Plaza, whose job it is to seek out and find every media use of the noun phrase "San Diego Community College District" or SDCCD, then copy or cut out that article, editorial or other writing and paste it into a giant binder, so that the Board of Trustees members can see that they are having an impact or are otherwise being talked about in the media. I know this because it was the practice back in the late 1980s when I was in the habit of attending BOT meetings as City College's student body president.— August 5, 2010 4:04 p.m.
What Does Ethics Mean?/edited again 8/7/2010
A short time after I held those public offices, I received a rather pricey private education at the University of San Diego (or University of Spoiled Daughters, as us male transfer students and the Navy veterans taking NROTC referred to it in the dorms), and Father Shipley's various undergraduate ethics classes became a staple of my semester schedules. His Ethical Decision Process consisted of applying utilitarian standards to things in general, where the majority rules, but tempered by deontological principles that preserve individual rights against the tyranny of majority in the mob's less cohesive moments. RE #92: I have been threatening to write a blog post outing the American Christian theocracy. I risked my own health by being a Proposition 65 private enforcer in the public interest in the matter ENCANTO GAS HOLDER VICTIMS v. SDG&E and SEMPRA ENERGY. I did it because I believed then as I believe now, that SDG&E's asbestos abatement practices then were criminally negligent. Apparently the US Department of Justice and the FBI believed more or less the same thing, which is why SDG&E was found guilty in UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. SDG&E of federal environmental crimes back in 2007, mostly because people besides myself in the communities of Encanto and Lemon Grove picked up the phone and spoke up about what they saw as wrong. It's not like California's Department of Toxic Substance Control was going out of its way to look out for us. Generally, I try to treat others with love as I would have others treat me with love. It is what Jesus asked of his followers two thousand years ago, and it seems appropriate for me to define my ethics in those terms now. At the same time, it should be remembered that the Gospels record at least one instance of Jesus in his adult life taking the whip to somebody, and in another instance, not speaking too kindly about religious leaders who coincidentally had the powers of government among them.— August 5, 2010 3:56 p.m.
Lots of Harlots
"Angel de la Torre Casillas, municipal director of health, stated that those who contract with a sexoservidora should ask to see her health card before indulging." Sage advice for those in search of.— August 5, 2010 3:08 p.m.
Prop 8
I am inspired by this to write a blog post. It's time to out the American Christian theocracy.— August 5, 2010 3:06 p.m.
Maloni on Voting as Legalized Gambling on Redevelopment Projects
RE #4: Wow... you just got the gears grinding in my mind... I wonder what happens when I put in the same blog post the phrases [SEVERELY SELF-CENSORED]? And Halliburton. Lots of Halliburton.— August 5, 2010 3:02 p.m.
What Does Ethics Mean?/edited again 8/7/2010
Having held a more than couple of low-level public offices, one with the title of "treasurer" and another with the title of "president", I tend to adhere to a minimal governance ethical standard: Obey the Constitution and Obey the Law. If the public cannot expect government employees, managers, and political representatives to Obey the Constitution and Obey the Law, then we don't really have much of anything when it comes to expecting ethical behavior at all. After all, government employees, managers and political representatives hold their public offices as a matter of public trust, and there is no trust in those who cannot Obey the Constitution and Obey the Law. For that matter, why should any of us be expected to have any ethics at all if we ourselves can't field a government in a democratic republic that will Obey the Constitution and Obey the Law? Government corruption is only a mirror to the corruption in the public as it exists in the first place. After all, we did elect the representatives who appointed the managers and employees IN OUR NAME. No fair claiming that some of us abstained from voting, as under Robert's Rules of Order, we are merely counted on the prevailing side as going with the majority.— August 5, 2010 2:20 p.m.
Dodd-Frank Protects SEC from Releasing Information
You do us a service in pointing out Congress' role in financial fraud cover-ups due to these SEC loopholes for tossing Freedom of Information Act requests into the SEC's trashbag-lined file on the floor.— August 5, 2010 2:10 p.m.
Maloni on Voting as Legalized Gambling on Redevelopment Projects
RE #1: I expect that this sort of blog post will be cited in an election campaign, either for or against a half-cent sales tax increase in the City of San Diego. As for attorneys, see California Evidence Code at Section 451: "Judicial notice shall be taken of the following: .... (f) Facts and propositions of generalized knowledge that are so universally known that they cannot reasonably be subject to dispute." Also see Section 452: "Judicial notice may be taken of the following matters to the extent that they are not embraced within Section 451: .... (g) Facts and propositions that are of such common knowledge within the territorial jurisdiction of the court that they cannot reasonably be the subject of dispute. (h) Facts and propositions that are not reasonably subject to dispute and are capable of immediate and accurate determination by resort to sources of reasonably indisputable accuracy." This is why I write what I write in the Reader blogs, with links to source documents filed with government agencies as I find them, as a form of publication that I know is searched and cataloged by both Google and the Reader. This is why there are attorneys out there who do not leave comments but definitely make copies of these blogs, whether Reader bloggers are aware of that fact or not. I know this to be true because Sempra Energy attorneys for SDG&E pretty much showed me in deposition everything I had posted over years that related to the Encanto Gas Holder site, Proposition 65 private enforcement in the public interest, or comments on the guilty verdicts obtained in UNITED STATES OF AMERICA V. SDG&E (2007, retrial dismissed). If any reader doubts whether Google gets this stuff, google "Downtown San Diego Partnership" then hit the "News" link. Yeah, they don't make much noise, but they copy like sons of barristers.— August 5, 2010 2:01 p.m.
Greased wheels
This is just my opinion, but the biggest local government giveaway to "lobbyists" (in the form of developers as redevelopment agency clients) will be the $6 billion Tax Increment CAP increase to $9 billion, if it hasn't already been approved...— August 3, 2010 10:55 a.m.