Month: August 2012

Local Tribes Oppose Wind Turbines in Sacred Lands – Also Windy

By Nadin Abbott / East County Magazine / August 25, 2012

Watching activists defend “green wind energy” as if it was the only solution turns my stomach. It is like talking to a wall. Facts, and there are facts, make little difference. Green energy is nice and green energy is good, go blindly hug a wind turbine, seems to be the message.
So let me ask these same activists: should Pattern Energy, a division of the Carlyle group, target the Rosecrans National Cemetery for development? How dare I suggest this? Well, it’s windy there, …

A second sexual assault was reported in Ocean Beach late Saturday night, the 25th of August. This makes the second such assault within ten days in OB – not a very proud mark for the community. This one was called an “attempted assault” but an attempted assault is still an assault, according to the legal dictionary.

The latest assault occurred on the 5000 block of Muir Avenue at about 2:10 a.m. Saturday night. The victim told police she was walking home alone from an early-morning party. According to the report, the man was somehow spooked during the attempt, and took off. The woman was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

One day after OB Town Council President Jim Musgrove covered for San Diego mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio’s tardiness to the town council debate Wednesday night, Musgrove joined DeMaio at a press conference in Ocean Beach. In doing so, Musgrove assisted in showcasing DeMaio’s failed environmental record.

And Musgrove – by jumping into the mayoral campaign and attempting to be a booster for DeMaio – has shown just how partisan he actually is in his politics. So, doing so, Musgrove did two things.

First, he helped bring attention locally to the extremist councilman’s dismal record on the environment. More on that below.

Second, he showed his own hand to be one of a deeply partisan and radical nature – that is, with his public display of support in favor of DeMaio – Jim Musgrove has given the village insight into his philosophy as head of the town council.

The following ran as an editorial at today’s San Diego Free Press:

We un-nominate San Diego as a convention city in case Hurricane Isaac forces the Republicans to flee Tampa. What?

Today’s news had two items of interest: Hurricane Isaac barreling toward Florida just may disrupt or adversely affect the Republican Convention being currently set up in Tampa. Romney & Co may have to relocate their shindig.

The other bit – actually an editorial in the U-T San Diego – had this headline: “If Isaac Roars, San Diego Should Welcome GOP”, and goes on to declare:

“But if the worst should happen, and Republican officials are suddenly forced to relocate the GOP national convention to begin Monday in Tampa, we nominate San Diego as the new convention host city.”

Midway Express Car Wash
3460 Midway Dr.
San Diego, CA
619-223-1691

I have never owned a new car before. I mean “really new.” My new Camry L had only 25 miles when I drove it off the lot. I have had it almost 5 months, and have had it “professionally” washed two times. (See my first review several months ago.) For the most part, I have washed it myself but for some reason the birds are attracted to the sky blue color, and this time I could not reach the middle of the roof when it was splattered by bird feces when I parked under a tree to keep the car cool. OK – dumb. But…the car was cooler than if I hadn’t parked under the tree; and the bird droppings didn’t bake on to the roof like it might have if it was out in the sun. OK – you are right. It was dumb.

I decided to take the car to the “Midway Express Car Wash” because there are three car washes in the area that I wanted to try.

Nuclear expert Daniel Hirsch speaks on Saturday, August 25, 2012

The crippled San Onofre nuclear reactors pose an unacceptable and unnecessary risk to our environment and our communities. They leave Southern California Edison ratepayers footing a 670.8 million dollar bill for critically-flawed steam generator equipment.

Professor Daniel Hirsch, will speak on “The Risks of Restarting the Damaged San Onofre Nuclear Plant” at two presentations, on Saturday, August 25, 2012. Both programs are free and open to the public.

It was about 6:30 pm and I was driving south on Sunset Cliffs Boulevard. Wanting to ensure a parking space at the Masonic Center for the Ocean Beach Town Council’s mayoral debate Wednesday night, I slid into the lot adjacent to the building owned by the Masons. It’s a massive white two-story building at the dangerous corner of Sunset Cliffs Boulevard and Santa Cruz – I know, I lived for nearly a decade in that neighborhood and we’d be sitting around usually in the early hours of the evening and hear those sounds of screeching brakes and then the distant din of breaking glass and metal.

The daily fishwrap conducted a poll very recently of foodies’ choices of Mexican fast-food establishments. And our Robertos’s on Voltaire received an ‘honorable’ mention by Charles Kaufman, baker, owner of Bread & Cie Café, and here it is:

The Roberto’s in Ocean Beach. I go off on their fish taco. If you’re in an “I don’t want to eat healthy” mood that’s the place you want to drive-thru. I love it.

By George Varga / U-T San Diego / August 23, 2012

Its name notwithstanding, Slightly Stoopid is seeming pretty smart these days. When this unassuming Ocean Beach band started off nearly 20 years ago, major record labels were still the dominant force in the music industry. Bands toured to promote their latest albums, MTV was still a major force and the Internet was more of a hazy concept than a game-changing reality.

Today, the record industry is fighting for its life …

Yes, we do have a winner. Several weeks ago we ran a T-shirt contest for whoever could find quotes from the OB Rag in the ceiling of the new Brighton Avenue beach “comfort station” would win one of our T’s for posterity.

It took Joe Ewing – known locally for his web talents – to find the quotes. He told us that he took a couple of photos of key words and isolated the phrases then googled them. “OB Rag was #1 so from there on it was easy.”

Local OB Groups Gear Up for the Village’s 125th Birthday

As part of the village gears up to celebrate OB’s 125th “birthday”, we raise the question: is Ocean Beach really 125 years old? Was the year 1887 really the village’s birth year?

Several local organizations – such as the OB Mainstreet Association – are prepping up for the 125th celebration; the logo has been established, T-shirts have been printed up, arrangements have been made. But is OB really this old or really this young? There are different theories.

Editor: The following lesson in immigration law by our blogger Jack Hamlin – a lawyer and law professor – was initially set as a comment to an article criticizing the US Supreme Court upholding Arizona’s draconian SB 1070’s main provision, “show me your papers.” The court left standing SB 1070’s most controversial provision requiring Sheriff Joe Apario type, “state and local police to check the immigration status of anyone that they suspect is in the country illegally; if that person was initially detained for other legitimate reasons.”

The Arizona v. U.S. decision, from what I understand, came down on two points of law. 1) Separation of Powers/Supremacy Clause, and 2) The Preemption Clause. Let me explain, while you must take into consideration it is mid-afternoon on a sunny, summer, Sunday, in OB, California.