He’s got the solution to the oil price crisis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yh1NHRP3NA
Our Saudi brothers and sisters and people from those other countries with oil need to send it over so Diddy can fly his private jet again. Funny stuff.
Perfect!
Paul
Categories: Uncategorized
From the Washington Post web site:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/08/mccain_picks_palin.html?hpid=topnews
DENVER — John McCain has selected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate, according to the McCain campaign, a surprise pick sure to shake up the race and reinforce the idea of the Arizona senator as a reformer.
The news that Palin, the mayor of a small town in Alaska just two years ago, was the pick came after CNN reported that a private plane had traveled from the Last Frontier to Dayton, Ohio where McCain is set to unveil his vice presidential pick later today. The Palin news came after the two supposed frontrunners — Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — each confirmed he would not be traveling to Dayton today.
In picking Palin, McCain is taking a calculated risk. She is totally unknown and untested on the national stage but also has impressive credentials in her short time in public life.
Of Palin, former White House political svengali Karl Rove said this morning on Fox News Channel: “It would be a clear sign from the McCain campaign that they were going to be making a very strong bid for the women whom they see up for grabs — both the traditional, swing independent suburbanites and then the Hillary Clinton supporters who remain disillusioned.”
Palin was a star at a young age in Alaska — a member of the Wasilla basketball team that won the state championship (her aggressive style won her the nickname “Sarah Barracuda”) in 1982 and Miss Wasilla two years later.
Palin’s political career began a decade later when she was elected to the Wasilla City Council and, four years after that, in 1996, she won the mayorship — knocking off the incumbent by just a handful of votes.
After a near-miss run in the Republican primary for lieutenant governor in 2002, Palin set her sights on the state’s top office four years later. She campaigned on a platform of reform and was aided by the fact that the public had tired of Gov. Frank Murkowksi, and that the looming Veco scandal, which would come to badly imperil the state’s Republicans, had begun to get real traction.
Palin won the Republican primary overwhelmingly (Murkowski finished third) and went on to defeat former Gov. Tony Knowles (D) in the general election.
In her two years in office, she has largely made good on her promises of reform — and watched as her constituents have made her the most popular governor in the country.
Palin is a mother of five — including a newborn with special needs — which led many people to speculate that she would not ultimately be the pick. During an interview with washingtonpost.com earlier this year in Washington, Palin said being picked as the vice president was an “impossibility” but that the idea of serving in national office intrigued her.
Wow! McCain does as Obama did, and made a pick that strongly shores up his own weaknesses and brings some new excitement to the Republican ticket.
I’m cynical (so cynical I asked Laurie if she knew of any female black Republicans McCain could pick), but even at its most political, choosing Palin is a tremendous boost for McCain. The ultimate working woman (she had a baby while serving as governor of Alaska), a real reformer (who’s actually accomplished reform), strong pro-lifer with a son in the military deploying to Iraq.
What’s a Hillary Democrat to do? A McCain win in November puts a woman a (very short) hearbeat from the presidency.
McCain may have undermined Obama’s big triumph last night.
Wow! I’m honestly surprised.
Paul
Categories: Uncategorized
It’s telling when the means of communicating the decision gets more press than the decision does.
I know. Biden’s a safe choice for Obama. Lots of foreign policy experience, decades in the Senate, middle East Coaster…
But how fun would it have been for him to pick somebody we didn’t expect? Another up and comer? Somebody who was chosen for their new ideas? A fresh face? Or fresher, anyway?
It’s not good news for Obama when his big news item falls to the middle of the local news, after the weather.
Wonder who McCain’s going to pick?
Paul
Categories: Uncategorized
The Star-News is reporting that Edmund Fry’s Rose Tree Cottage is relocating to Pasadena Avenue, and a bigger venue. Tea’s really not my thing, but for the many who enjoy that sort of thing, apparently including Helen Mirren, saving Rose Tree Cottage is a major plus for Pasadena.
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_10281531?source=rss_viewed
PASADENA – A portrait of Queen Elizabeth II is propped up above the fireplace and, under Her Majesty’s gaze, Edmund and Mary Fry are getting ready to open the new Rose Tree Cottage tearoom.
After more than 25 years in a succession of little bungalows in Haskett Court off California Boulevard, the couple will close up and move out on Oct. 31 to make way for an affordable housing complex.
They plan to open in the new location at 801 S. Pasadena Ave. in early November.
“This is rather larger – 5,000 square feet – so it’s a huge expansion,” Edmund Fry said while walking around the two-story 1930s Colonial-style house they’ve leased from Caltrans for 10 years.
“There’s going to be tea outside, too,” Fry said Friday. “We’ve called ourselves an English tea garden all these years and now we’ve actually got a tea garden. Our challenge here will be to create the same coziness in much larger premises.”
The move marks the end of a long-running teatime soap opera enlivened by such cozy dramas as the theft of Edmund Fry’s Father Christmas suit, the kidnapping of the shop cats (Mrs. Ribby and Miss Moppet) and Margaret Thatcher dropping in for a cuppa.
The queen, on the other hand, “drove right past us” Edmund Fry recalled. “But we did have a king. The King of Rwanda.”
The Frys aren’t expecting the king or the queen to show up for the planned opening bash either, but are hoping “The Queen” – actress Helen Mirren, who’s a longtime regular – will be there. Maybe Deborah, the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, will look in again, and Angela Lansbury, Sting, or Adam Ant – who, Mary Fry recalled, used to come in with different lady friends (including actress Heather Graham) and “snog” in the back room.
Adam Ant “snogging” with Heather Graham?
FYI-for all things Brit, you might want to draw a pint or two at Brit’s on Colorado.
Paul
Categories: Uncategorized
Horse Dancing. Really it’s called freestyle dressage, but it’s horse dancing. It’s on right now.
Never seen anything like it:
They have a horse and rider performing a “freestyle” routine to music. Mostly it’s real slow, plodding classical music the horses perform to, but one guy used Sympathy for the Devil and You Can Dance if You Want To. Here’s what it looks like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKQgTiqhPbw
More info here: http://www.freestyledressage.co.uk/
Wonderfully odd stuff.
Paul
Categories: Uncategorized
Some in Pasadena have been advocating consideration of a streetcar to link the downtown business districts. Honestly, this isn’t a transit solution, but a marketing and development tool – and a good one.
From LA Time’s Road Sage Steve Hymon:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/bottleneck/2008/08/what-can-portla.html
I recently spent a long weekend in Portland, Ore. The trip was for fun, but it was hard not to look and sometimes marvel at the many things that Portland does well on the transportation front and wonder if they can be applied here.
Of course, comparing the Portland area to the Southland is a bit unfair. The city of Portland has a population of about 537,000 (about 10% larger than Long Beach) and the metro area has about 2.1 million people. Los Angeles County alone has about 10 million people.
In other words, they’ve got the advantage of being smaller and in the world of urban planning, smaller usually translates to getting things done faster.
Census Bureau numbers from 2006 show that 4.1% of commuters in Portland use bikes to get to work compared with six-tenths of one percent in the city of Los Angeles. Portland transportation officials say that their own surveys show that actually 6% of the city’s residents are pedaling to work — tops in the nation for a large city.
I’d be skeptical of that number ordinarily. But on a Monday afternoon I sat on my rental bike watching the number of bike commuters heading out of downtown on the Hawthorne Bridge at rush hour. It was one bike after another on the bike lane on the bridge. Upon reaching the east side of the bridge, some cyclists used a special bike exit ramp to reach a bike path running along the Willamette. Amazing.
The funny thing about Portland is that the area really doesn’t have a tremendous number of miles of separated bike paths. Instead, the city has put bike lanes and routes on streets with lower volumes of traffic and emphasized connections. In other words, someone actually went out and came up with a strategy for cyclists to get from Point A to Point B.
Here’s an example: I rented a bike on the northwest side of Portland. The city’s bike map helped me easily navigate to the riverfront bike path to the Hawthorne Bridge, which has bike lanes on both sides of it.
I lived in New Orleans while I was in college and know historic streetcars add a lot to how someone experiences a city. They’re fun, quaint, easy to use, functional and add an aesthetic quality to a downtown. Portland’s streetcar is modern and seems to work well as an economic development tool.
This is certainly something we should be considering here, though there’s a lot of work to do in advance of even considering a proposal, defining a route of figuring out how we’d pay for it.
Paul
Categories: Uncategorized
A couple of things to ponder:
Pasadena Water and Power is formulating its integrated resource plan. That plan will envision where PWP will get its power from and, by extension, what rates Pasadena’s electric customers will pay.
It is clear this planning is in reaction to state, federal and local mandates to use fewer carbon spewing electricity sources and more renewables. I don’t think anyone quibbles with the notion of buying more power from sources such as solar, wind and geothermal, rather than gas and coal generated power.
What we do need to consider is that the new energy will be more expensive. That means it is important to push the power company to do everything it can to tighten its belt, right-size its workforce and streamline its processes to ensure that the cost to PWP consumers is as low as possible.
Perhaps this would also be a good time to examine the totality of costs that face Pasadena utility consumers so we do our best to create a total environment that is competitively priced. Do we really need all those fees, taxes, charges, reserves, transfers and fines? I don’t think anyone would argue with paying more for power if we were assured that, overall, our costs are among the lowest in the region.
Of course , with PWP also looking at restructuring rates for water users, is this achievable?
It would be nice to think there would be an initiative to look at what is costs to live, work and do business in Pasadena and that careful consideration would be given to each and every cost to ensure that, in totality, costs in the City of Pasadena were as low as possible.
Oh, and let’s not forget those fines for overuse of water, though our neighbors in Glendale seem to be mandating excessive water use.
http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-me-lopez6-2008aug06,0,1567219.column
Here we go again, back to my favorite place in all of Southern California — the city where no good deed goes unpunished.
Glendale.
This time it’s not about the ban on frontyard fences, or a threatened $347,000 fine for a little tree trimming. This time we’ve got a case of City Hall yard cops cracking down on a resident who has gone native, replacing a green but thirsty lawn with drought-resistant plants.
Socially responsible?
Yes.
In compliance with city code?
Not on your life.
If this seems like déjà vu all over again, that’s because the case is quite similar to the one I wrote about in February. Back then, Pete Anderson and Sally Browder were threatened with “criminal charges” after switching from water-guzzling landscaping to native California plants and a rock bed.
“No brown, all green,” an ever-vigilant Glendale official had warned, but the city backed off after a little crusading here in this space.
With that in mind, Glendale resident Dvoshe Walkowiak wondered if I could make another house call.
“Please,” she said in an e-mail. “Glendale is out of control.”
Always happy to help.
On Monday afternoon, I drove out to the house in question. Walkowiak lives on the western edge of the city, and as I approached, I saw one green lawn after another, with sprinklers running at some houses.
In a drought, shouldn’t they be the people who are cited?
Huh?
Paul
Categories: Uncategorized
Fallout from the subprime fiasco hits local credit union, even though Wescom made no subprime loans.
Again from the Star-News:
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_10220809?source=rss_viewed
PASADENA – The global crisis in the financial markets is now affecting a local credit union.
Pasadena-based Wescom Credit Union, which saw four straight quarters of net losses, is closing 11 of its 55 branches, according to a statement from the company released Friday.
Wescom began as a bank for communications workers and now serves 315,000 members in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. The only requirement to join is live in one of those counties. Wescom reports $3.69 billion in assets and claims to be one of the largest credit unions in the country.
The statement did not say which branches would close, and it also did not say if any employees would be laid off.
This newspaper was not able to reach Chief Executive Officer Darren Williams or Chief Financial Officer Jane Wood for more details.
In the statement, Williams said a general downturn in banking was starting to affect Wescom’s customers.
“While we have never participated in the subprime or alternative real estate market, some of our members have loans of this nature from other financial institutions and have been negatively impacted by current economic conditions, and certainly most Southern California homeowners have experienced significant declines in their home equity. As a result, many are having difficulty meeting their consumer loan obligations,” the statement said.
Wescom has five branches in the San Gabriel Valley and Whittier areas.
It’s even catching up with those who were prudent enough to stay away from risky financial instruments.
Paul
Categories: Uncategorized
From the Star-News:
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/business/ci_10226565
NEW YORK – Economists and the media keep talking about the state of the fragile consumer, but it might be time to look at how businesses are spending, too.
Construction of new plants, stores and more is growing at a brisk pace, factory orders are at six-month highs and corporate purchases of things like computers and software is slowing but not by much.
That’s good news – as long as it lasts. The trouble is that spending could begin to fizzle fast. There are some temporary tax write-offs for equipment that run out at the end of the year and fewer new building projects are slated going forward.
How this shakes out in the coming months matters because of the widespread effect that corporate investments have on the overall economy. Private business investment contributes about 10 percent to U.S. gross domestic product but it also plays a big role influencing the labor market.
Already, companies have been slashing jobs as they struggle with a faltering economy, soaring costs and tight credit conditions. New applications filed for unemployment benefits rose to 455,000 during the last week in July, the most since late March 2002, when the job market was struggling to get back on its feet after the 2001 recession.
Should the weak business climate spur companies to slow expansion drastically, that could further weaken the labor market. And if that were to happen, it could put more pressure on American consumers, whose expenditures fuel 70 percent of economic growth.
I know there is investment poised to support commercial development in Pasadena. Are we going to welcome enhancement to our economic base of do our best to chase investment out of town? I certainly hope we all are careful as we consider potential investment in Pasadena.
Paul
Categories: Uncategorized
I’d say this makes it official:
CITY OF PASADENA PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICE
NEWS FOR RELEASE: August 11, 2008
MEDIA CONTACT: Mayor Bill Bogaard, (626) 744-4311
MICHAEL J. BECK ACCEPTS PASADENA CITY MANAGER POSITION
The Pasadena City Council has offered Michael J. Beck the position of city manager and he has accepted pending agreement on contractual terms and conditions.
He will begin the transition in September, spending time at Pasadena City Hall and in the community, and will assume his new position on Oct. 1.
Beck, who is assistant city manager in Riverside, oversees the airport and the departments of community development, development, public works, public utilities, and parks, recreation and community services. Riverside has a population of 300,000 and a nearly $1 billion operating budget. He has provided leadership in strengthening Riverside’s local economy, developing renewable energy sources, establishing successful community partnerships, advocating for local government at the state and federal level, and directing the $1.8 billion Riverside Renaissance Initiative that will complete 30 years of capital projects in five years.
Prior to joining the city of Riverside in 2001, he was director of economic development and real estate services for the University of California-Riverside.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in business economics and a master’s degree in business administration from UC Riverside.
“Michael Beck has demonstrated the experience, talents and judgment we have been looking for,” said Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard. “He has a strategic vision and strong management skills, and is highly respected for his participative management style. He has established a strong presence in the Riverside community as a good listener and an innovative problem solver, consensus-builder and a person who gets things done.”
He and his wife Brigid are the parents of five sons, the oldest of whom will start at UCLA in September as a chemical engineering major. Their other children include a 15-year-old high school sophomore, 10-year old twins and a 10-year-old foster child.
“On behalf of our entire community, I offer gratitude and congratulations to Interim City Manager Bernard Melekian, who has demonstrated during the last nine months his standing as one of California’s finest public officials,” Bogaard added. “Chief Melekian makes Pasadena proud.”
Melekian will work with Beck during the transition period and will return to the Pasadena Police Department as chief of police and incoming president of California Police Chiefs Association.
Paul
Categories: Uncategorized
