Diamond:
I previously covered the Irvine Council’s vote on that city’s hosting a veterans cemetery. Now let’s review the glorious details at our weekend leisure. Here’s how.
Go to this page hosted by the City of Irvine: http://www.irvinequickrecords.com/SIREICTV/mtgviewer.aspx?meetid=4611
Click on the video in the upper right. Move the slider to start at about 1:59:20.
From there to about 3:21:20, you can watch 82 minutes of veterans and their supporters urging the Irvine City Council to signal their interest in making at least 100 acres of land available to the state for a construction of a veterans cemetery. (The only viable site option that has been presented, to this point, is on land located within the Great Park, but which is not within the section owned by Five Point.)
It’s really good, uplifting, video. (If anyone knows how to embed it, please let me know.)
Then, from about 3:21:20 to about 4:23:20, you can enjoy (or watch without enjoyment, depending on how you’re bent) 62 minutes of the Irvine City Council deliberating over both the main motion to approve the expression of interest — and of a “killer amendment” intended to keep AB 1453 from having any substantive meaning by delaying approval until it was too late for it to clear the legislative hurdles by this year’s deadlines.
You keep hearing that the final vote was 4-1. The important vote — shown in the screenshot below — was 3-2, in which Shea and Choi voted in favor of the killer amendment. The debate preceding this vote is absolutely fascinating. You will see politicians saying things that you never imagined that they would say.
For some reason, the camera never showed more than this long shot to document Mayor Choi voting for this killer amendment — but luckily, you can hear the City Clerk announcing his “yes” vote at around 4:21:50. Or you can listen to his wacky speech, not too long before that.
Vern: I’m gonna start putting up a YouTube once a week of me doing one of my favorite songs. This one, I’m gonna have to re-do because I just noticed it only comes through one speaker, but you can’t really tell so much on a laptop:
This is your Weekend Open Thread. Talk about that, or anything else you’d like, within reasonable bounds of discretion and decorum. (A belated 1st anniversary Dearthwatch will appear if there’s time.)
A great deal of Orange County was built on the backs of the military, a small tribute of a 100 hundred areas is a minimum pay back.
Not at all to minimize their personal sacrifice, but the military, LIKE Orange County was built financially on the backs of the taxpayers. Has anyone thought to hit up defense contractors, (voluntarily or otherwise) who emerge from ALL conflicts unscathed? The millions spent on self-promoting TV and other advertising are trumped redundantly by PAC contributions, why not instead do some good with the same money? A ‘profits’ levy, however well deserved, targeted and intentioned, would sadly boomerang right back to the taxpayers, as would tax write offs for ‘donated’ land. Was Alfred Nobel the last defense contractor with a conscience?
Actually, the federal government — which recognizes the great need for more veterans cemeteries and the difficulty of providing them — will pick up almost the entire cost in such situations. The catch is that the landowning applicant must be a state, rather than a city, non-profit, special district, etc. That’s why Irvine has to decide to give the land to the state — or at least, at this point, express something between a willingness and interest in doing so.
(If your argument is that defense contractors should reimburse the federal government — well, I’m a Democrat, guess whether I’d agree!)
This is one of those rare situations where the local, state, and federal governments can collaborate to do something that really is needed and that wouldn’t otherwise get done. Even Five Point, in the long run, will I think accept that it helps to make their development “special” — even “great” — in a way that it otherwise wouldn’t. That’s part of why pursuing this has been such a satisfying political experience.
*How do we reserve a spot? Can we buy now and pay later? How about making it like
Arlington in D.C. You have to have served in war time and have to have been either wounded or decorated to get a spot without being selected from a pool.
Just about any honorably discharged vet qualifies. In 1980 President Carter / Congress made it harder of qualify if you were not killed in action. (The 24 month time needed)
We checked with the VA when it looked like I wasn’t going to make it thu the year, I qualify for the full boat. (Yippee) For prior 1980 service, Vietnam early 70’s.
This cracked me up. Enjoy!
So what do the proponents of an unfettered free market think about the fact that several States are moving to ban Tesla Motors from selling cars in Tesla-owned retail outlets (ie. outside a dealer network)?
This was a consent calendar item on Fullerton Council’s agenda a couple of weeks ago. Marilyn Harris from the local VFW gave an excellent presentation. The only “no” vote came from Bruce Whitaker, who said the Department of the Navy should have addressed this when it vacated Marine Base El Toro. Actually, that would have been up to the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, not the Navy. Then again, Mr. Whitaker rarely votes yes on anything that doesn’t personally make him look good.
I had not realized the impact of the tracking and hacking technologies on our personal lives until I watched Bill Moyer’s talks with investigative reporter Julia Angwin, author of Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance.
“Here are some of the ways you may be already being hacked:
• You can always be found.
• You can be watched in your own home — or in the bathroom.
• You can no longer keep a secret.
• You can be impersonated.
• You can be trapped in a “hall of mirrors.”
• You can be financially manipulated.
• You can be placed in a police lineup.”
.
http://billmoyers.com/2014/03/13/heres-how-you-may-already-be-getting-hacked/
http://billmoyers.com/2014/03/13/tips-for-protecting-your-privacy-online/
Anti-fracking rally happening today in Sacramento http://www.news10.net/story/news/politics/2014/03/15/thousands-rally-at-fracking-protest/6471383/
Maybe that will be an eye-opener.
The environmental impact of the drug war:
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/marijuana-weed-pot-farming-environmental-impacts
I bet those pot farmers do not even do the required EIR.
THIS JUST IN! The head of the Westboro Baptist Church, dies at 84 , per the LA Times-
http://www.latimes.com/obituaries/la-me-fred-phelps-20140321,0,4718547.story#axzz2wWWfSrzB
Can I be the first to speculate, what HIS funeral is going to be like? LOL.
A HUMOR FEST! This was the winning comment below the Yahoo article, and watching the ‘like’ numbers update, is like watching the pump numbers during a gas fill-up! LOL.
humm61 • 43 minutes ago
To paraphrase a famous actress, “My mother said to only say nice things about the dead. He’s dead. How nice.
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