Author: Staff

Over 50 people and a gorilla created a carnival atmosphere at a sunset beach party on the last day of Bush’s presidency as they gave Bush the Boot! Inspired by the Baghdad journalist who threw his shoes at Bush as a sign of disrespect, Ground Zero Players constructed a life-size Bush effigy, stood it up on the beach in Ocean Beach, and invited people to hurl away. At the moment the sun disappeared below the horizon, spontaneous cheering, bell-ringing and drumming erupted. A simultaneous shoe hurl was accompanied by singing a few stanzas of Tanks in My Memory from bushisgone’s You Tube video.
Bye Bye Bush! Don’t let the shoes hit you as you slink out of Washington.

There are two kinds of San Diego City Councilmember’s: “staffers” and “legislators”. The “staffers” are Faulconer, Gloria, Young and Hueso and the “legislators” are Lightner, DeMaio, Frye and Emerald. “Staffers” are easily identifiable by their “institutional” mentality. They demonstrate a natural sympathy with the bureaucratic mind and identify more with city staff who come before them for “Council Action” than with the electorate.

LETTER FROM BETHLEHEM: Dear Friends and Family- It’s 2009 but I have a hard time calling it a new year. I didn’t go to a new year’s eve party – they were all canceled out of respect for the people in Gaza. Instead Hazem and I went to dinner with a few friends and came home to once again watch the news. The broadcasted firework displays, which have always amazed and dazzled me, only reminded me of the sky in Gaza.

Don Bauder, blogger for the San Diego Reader, wrote a recent post “Football Yes, Libraries No” – reposted below. We wanted to share images of the $26 million pedestrian bridge that Bauder mentions. Groundbreaking ceremonies on the Harbor Drive Pedestrian Bridge just occurred back on October 23rd. It will allow Petco Park visitors – baseball fans – easier access to the ballpark from across Harbor Drive. San Diego says Yes to baseball. CCDC is driving this project. Now what with the Chargers’ revival, all of this is even more relevant. This bridge is way more important for our civic life than branch libraries or even a new downtown one. Easy access to baseball but not to books.

Statewide and national media reported that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced it would be increasing oversight at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) upon discovering that an emergency backup battery system had been inoperable for the past four years due to inadequate maintenance.

Early Monday morning a coal slurry impoundment at the TVA Kingston Power Plant near Harriman, TN burst, allowing approximately 500 million gallons of toxic coal ash to rush into the surrounding community. There were no serious injuries – perhaps the only victory in this ordeal. Monday’s spill is forty times larger than even the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, the most memorable of these unnatural disasters.

President-Elect Obama’s initial choices for his environmental team look promising in terms of their commitment to climate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, fund green jobs and develop renewable energy systems. They are certainly a breath of fresh air compared to the Lame Duck’s last minute pollution exemptions.

What Cheney has advanced is that the president has the right to dissolve the constitution permanently. That he has the right to commit war crimes with impunity. That there is no legal authority to which he is ever required to pay deference in a war that is his and his alone to declare and end. Now when you consider that, in Cheney’s view, these war-powers are limitless, and that war is declared not by the Congress but by the president, and can be defined against a broad, amorphous enemy such as “terrorism”, and never end, you begin to see what a dangerous man he is, and how much danger we have all been in since he seized control of the government seven years ago.

The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday cleared the way for construction of the Sunrise Powerlink, a contentious transmission line that promises to bring more reliable and renewable power from the Imperial Valley to San Diego. The 4-1 vote allows San Diego Gas & Electric Co. to move forward with the 123-mile, $1.9 billion power-line project, which could deliver enough electricity to serve 650,000 households. At the same time, it was a disappointment to for many environmentalists, who worry about the effects of 150-foot-tall towers on unspoiled deserts and mountains. “Corporate profit won out today,” said the Sierra Club’s Micah Mitrosky.

W. Mark Felt, who was the No. 2 official at the F.B.I. when he helped bring down President Richard M. Nixon by resisting the Watergate cover-up and becoming Deep Throat, the most famous anonymous source in American history, died Thursday. He was 95 and lived in Santa Rosa, Calif.His death was confirmed by Rob Jones, his grandson. In 2005, Mr. Felt revealed that he was the one who had secretly supplied Bob Woodward of The Washington Post with crucial leads in the Watergate affair in the early 1970s.

The Department of Commerce on Thursday upheld the California Coastal Commission’s rejection of a proposed 16-mile toll road extension that would cut through San Onofre State Beach, one of the state’s most popular parks. Federal officials determined that lengthening state Route 241 is not essential to national security and mentioned at least one viable alternative path.

A session of the Iraqi Parliament erupted in uproar on Wednesday as lawmakers clashed over how to respond to the continuing detention of an Iraqi television reporter who threw his shoes at President Bush during a Baghdad news conference earlier this week. As Parliament began to discuss legislation on the withdrawal from Iraq of armed forces, a group of lawmakers demanded that the legislature instead take up the issue of the detained journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, 29.