OB Rag

Massive protests in Cairo and other citeis against military rule as their candidaten declares himself winner of presidential vote.

AlJazeera/ June 20 , 2012

Thousands of Egyptians have packed into Cairo’s Tahrir Square to protest against the ruling military council’s decision to claim new powers, amid contesting claims by both presidential candidates of victory in the weekend’s election.

In the hub of the uprising that deposed president Hosni Mubarak, protesters chanted against his military successors, with a steady trickle of people joining the demonstration after sunset.

The demonstration on Tuesday comes against a backdrop of uncertainty over the winner of the presidential vote, with the Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi and his rival, former prime minister Ahmed Shafik, both claiming victory.

By Frances O’Neill Zimmerman
A veterans’ group led by the owner of the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club wants to light up inky-dark Mount Soledad nights and is seeking official approval next week for this unprecedented alteration to the highest viewpoint on the west side of the city of San Diego.

At stake is encroaching light pollution within our urban area and maintaining Mount Soledad as a sacred dark space for viewing the night sky — shooting stars, unusual planetary alignments, spectacular moonrises, eclipses of the moon. Generations of San Diegans and visitors to San Diego have experienced the beauty of the nighttime sky and the 360-degree panorama of the city below from atop Mount Soledad.

By Michael Blood / HuffPost / June 19, 2012

AN JUAN CAPISTRANO, Calif. — A botched computer analysis resulted in design flaws that are largely to blame for unprecedented wear in steam tubes at the San Onofre nuclear power plant, but it isn’t clear how the problems can be fixed, federal regulators said.

The preliminary findings by a team of Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigators were disclosed Monday night nearly five months after the seaside plant was shut down following a break in a tube that carries radioactive water. There is no date to restart either of its two reactors.

The problems center on excessive tube wear in steam generators that were installed at San Onofre during a $670 million overhaul in 2009 and 2010. Tests found some tubes were so badly corroded that they could fail and possibly release radiation, a stunning finding inside the virtually new equipment.

Here’s the line up for the bands at this Saturday’s OB Street Fair, by stage for Saturday, June 23rd.

The Auto Scrubber
3405 Rosecrans St.
San Diego, 92110

Different Kind of Review – It’s a Wash!

Eating out several times a week is not helping me maintain my “girlish” – ok, “matronly” – figure, so I thought I would try reviewing something else that didn’t put the weight on. As I pondered what it might be, it came to me that I had told my beautician just this morning that I needed to have my car washed. I asked her where she went – her shop is just across the street from the GENIE Car Wash so I thought she would mention it. She surprised me by telling me that since she lives in Escondido she has her car washed closer to where she lives. Imagine living in Escondido and driving to Ocean Beach to work 4 days a week!

According to the U-T San Diego’s precinct-by-precinct election analysis, Ocean Beach voted for Bob Filner for mayor of San Diego. This is all too obvious when you look at the precinct maps for OB. The gray areas in the map are precincts that voted for Filner, the red are precincts that voted for Carl DeMaio, and the purple areas went for Nathan Fletcher.

In comparison, the 2nd map shows more of the beach area and more of District 2, which OB is part of.

Last week I commented on the larger economic significance of the Wisconsin recall for the average American, but it is also worth noting what it may very well mean for American politics and the soul of the Democratic Party. One thing is quite clear: Obama threw labor under the bus in Wisconsin. As a candidate in 2007, the President famously said, “If American workers are being denied their right to organize, I’ll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. I’ll walk that picket line with you as President of the United States.”

But when the rubber hit the road in Wisconsin, he sent a twitter message, had Bill Clinton sub for him, and walked the other way. Indeed, back at the height of the drama in the Badger state, all the President could muster was a feeble statement about how union workers were “friends and neighbors.”

From San Diego Free Press

If it feels like open game season has been declared on women, your feelings are absolutely correct. Our putatively job creation obsessed Congress has been singularly incapable of delivering the goods. They seem instead to have settled for the deeply gratifying right wing pursuit of scuttling Obama’s and the Dem’s attempts to actually do something about jobs, tuition relief for students, tax fairness and infrastructure investments.

By Norma Damashek / NumbersRunner

Posted at the San Diego Free Press

Take a break, friends and fellow voters. We could all use a brief respite from campaign-season frenzy. Soon enough San Diego’s two heavyweight contenders for mayor will be climbing back into the ring for what’s guaranteed to be a nationally publicized, brutal battle for the heart and destiny the 8th largest city in the USA. Our town.

So sniff the flowers while you can and begin preparing yourself for the Filner-DeMaio race for mayor. It’s no ordinary contest. The stakes are at an all-time high, not just for San Diego but for cities across the nation. If this sounds dramatic, you can bet it is.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission to Release Investigation Findings on San Onofre Monday, June 18 in San Juan Capistrano

Anti-nuke, environmental activists and their supporters plan to rally at today’s – June 18th- NRC hearing and demand that the nuclear power plant at San Onofre be closed for good. They also plan on holding a press conference – all at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission public meeting on Monday, at the San Juan Capistrano Community Center at 25925 Camino Del Avion, San Juan Capistrano, California.

The rally and press conference in opposition to continued operation of the San Onofre nuclear plant is at 5pm prior to the 6pm public meeting scheduled by the NRC.

This will be the first public hearing of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after the emergency shut down of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station on January 31, 2012. The NRC has had months of investigation into the steam generator failures.

The Shingle Chronicles

This is the fourth and final installment of a series about my recent run-in with a most unpleasant malady, Shingles. I hope it will encourage those who have not had the vaccination to set aside all your acrimony and distrust toward “Big Pharm,” and get vaccinated. It is also a lesson learned and an acquisition of empathy for all those who suffer from disabilities and illness we cannot “see.” (Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.)

Part Four: Emergence, False Starts and Realizations

Sitting in an AA meeting somewhere years ago, I remember the talk turned to what is referred to as “the moment of clarity.” Not quite on par with an epiphany, which is more of a mystical experience, a moment of clarity occurs when you realize you have had enough of a certain behavior; it is counterproductive at best, and self-destructive on the other end of the spectrum.

Five Things To Know About The Republican Witchhunt Against Attorney General Holder

By Ian Millhiser / Think Progress /Jun 13, 2012

In 2006, during the presidency of George W. Bush, the Justice Department launched the first of a series of misguided “gunrunning” schemes that eventually led to the death of federal Agent Brian Terry. Rather than look to ways to prevent such a tragedy from happening again, however, House Oversight Chair Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) spent his tenure as a committee chair trying unsuccessfully to embarrass Attorney General Eric Holder.

This week, Issa escalated this witchhunt by holding an committee vote on a resolution to hold the Attorney General in contempt of Congress. Here’s what you need to know about this vote:

1. Issa Has No Case: Issa’s uncovered no evidence showing Holder bears any blame for the botched operations begun under George W. Bush, even though the Justice Department turned over thousands of pages of documents concerning the operations.