Author: Source

Editor: This was sent to us as a comment from an anonymous food stamp worker to this article posted back in February of 2009. We wanted to elevate it so more would see it.

by a food stamp worker

I would just like to clear up a few things. I am one of those horrible Food Stamp workers some of you like to complain about, so I do know a little bit about the subject. The rules for FS are created by the Federal Government, not case workers. Please do not blame us for doing our job.

A federal court last week handed down guidelines that limit the ability of police to use tasers at will. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals made its decision in response to a 2005 incident where Coronado Police Officer Brian McPherson tasered and injured motorist Carl Bryan, then 21, over a minor seatbelt infraction.

The court described in detail how Bryan had spent the morning driving 180 miles from Camarillo to Coronado only to be stopped by the highway patrol for allegedly speeding on the 405 Freeway. Bryan, upset by being hit with an expensive ticket, forgot to buckle his seatbelt before continuing on his journey.

Congress has appropriated an additional $136.8 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the 2010 fiscal year. National Priorities Project estimates that for this fiscal year, $64.5 billion is directed to Iraq and $72.3 billion to Afghanistan. …

These new appropriations bring total war-related spending for Iraq to $747.3 billion and for Afghanistan to $299 billion, with total war costs $1.05 trillion

By Mike Lee / Union-Tribune / Originally published January 6, 2010

Nearly five years after regional water-pollution cops announced a landmark order to clean toxic muck in San Diego Bay, they’re back with a plan that would remove just 16 percent of the sediment targeted initially.

The latest strategy was crafted during months of confidential talks with groups on the hook for the work. It’s expected to cost about half of the $96 million price tag from the original cleanup order, which the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board spent years developing so it could withstand courtroom challenges.

by: Ángel Luis Lara / La Jornada (Mexico) – truthout / 04 January 2010

We live in the era of hype. The word, which bounces and bounds throughout the matrices of our information age, refers to a cultural product that has been so juiced up with marketing that its popularity takes off independently and regardless of its quality. It is the wrapping that matters: the advertisement is louder, more important and more real than what is advertised. James Cameron is the author of the latest, greatest global hype: “Avatar.”

The force behind the bludgeoning impact of “Avatar’s” promotional blitz has been driven by three main factoids: it’s the most expensive movie in the history of movies, it has revolutionized the world of special effects and it was shot in 3-D.

The California Court of Appeal for the Fourth District on Tuesday ruled that a state agency may not pull over and search a motorist on a mere hunch that a lobster might be hidden in the vehicle. The court considered the case of Bounh Maikhio, a motorist stopped by Department of Fish and Game Warden Erik Fleet on August 19, 2007 at 11pm. That evening, Fleet had been spying through a telescope on the Ocean Beach pier in San Diego when he saw Maikhio put something into his bag.

Occasionally news in San Diego affects us at the beach. Here are a few recent headlines of interest to sand crabs, seagulls and smoldering fire pits:

Lawyers Group Honors Judge Boycotted by DA Dumanis

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in town pushing for jobs

City Council declines endorsement of medical marijuana regulations

Court upholds San Diego School District’s right to assure that school construction jobs will employ local residents

By Patrick Goldstein / Los Angeles Times / January 5, 2010

It’s no secret that “Avatar” has been stunningly successful on nearly every front. The James Cameron-directed sci-fi epic is already the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time, having earned more than $1 billion around the globe in less than three weeks of theatrical release. The film also has garnered effusive praise from critics, who’ve been planting its flag on a variety of critics Top 10 lists. The 3-D trip to Pandora is also viewed as a veritable shoo-in for a best picture Oscar nomination when the academy announces its nominees on Feb. 2.

But amid this avalanche of praise and popularity, guess who hates the movie? America’s prickly cadre of political conservatives.

Originally posted Jan. 4, 2010

by Dickie Magidoff / January 4, 2010

For the New Year I send you all great appreciation and thanks from up here in the north country of California.

For me, reading the OB Rag online is something like having a great reality show or Sims computer game to watch – the biggest difference of course being that, unlike reality shows,
OB is real – and reading about the community good times, the community struggles, the great pictures, the genuine controversies, with real people going back and forth (with some humor) evolving a community perspective dazzling in its texture, inspiring in its purpose, and potent in its action—it helps keep me going in this very conservative place where I live.

By Dwight Garner / The New York Times / December 29, 2009

Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1998 movie, “The Big Lebowski,” which stars Jeff Bridges as a beatific, pot-smoking, bowling-obsessed slacker known as the Dude, snuck up on the English-speaking world during the ’00s: it became, stealthily, the decade’s most venerated cult film. It’s got that elusive and addictive quality that a great midnight movie has to have: it blissfully widens and expands in your mind upon repeat viewings.

“The Big Lebowski” has spawned its own shaggy, fervid world: drinking games, Halloween costumes, bumper stickers (“This aggression will not stand, man”) and a drunken annual festival that took root in Louisville, Ky., and has spread to other cities.

It’s often assumed that the atheist position on what is politely termed “the holiday season” is one of disregard at best, contempt and annoyance at worst. After all, the reasons for most of the standard winter holidays are supposedly religious — the birth of the Savior, eight days of miraculous light, yada yada yada. Why would atheists want anything to do with that?

But atheists’ reactions to the holidays are wildly varied. Yes, some atheists despise them: the enforced jollity, the shameless twisting of genuine human emotion to sell useless consumer crap, the tyrannical forcing of mawkish piety down everyone’s throats. (Some believers loathe the holidays for the exact same reasons.) But some of us love the holidays.

If you have spent one day in OB, you know about the OB Seagull – a decal logo plastered on just about every car in town. And then some. The creator of the logo – another Ocean Beach artist – has passed away. Donald “Rick” Sorben died on December 2nd, after a brief illness. He and his brother were creators of the OB Seagull Logo, a community icon.