OB Rag

The Ocean Beach branch library is set to re-open this Saturday, March 10th. This, after a period where it was remodeled with a new carpet, new paint, and a new roof.

But with just a few days away from the doors being swung open again to OB, our library needs help.

The place needs cleaning and all the books need reshelving. Before it can open again, there’s a bunch of internal work that needs to happen.

By Bob Sullivan / msnbc / March 6, 2012

If you think privacy settings on your Facebook and Twitter accounts guarantee future employers or schools can’t see your private posts, guess again.

Employers and colleges find the treasure-trove of personal information hiding behind password-protected accounts and privacy walls just too tempting, and some are demanding full access from job applicants and student athletes.

In Maryland, job seekers applying to the state’s Department of Corrections have been asked during interviews to log into their accounts and let an interviewer watch while the potential employee clicks through wall posts, friends, photos and anything else that might be found behind the privacy wall.

Previously, applicants were asked to surrender their user name and password, but a complaint from the ACLU stopped that practice last year. While submitting to a Facebook review is voluntary, virtually all applicants agree to it out of a desire to score well in the interview, according Maryland ACLU legislative director Melissa Coretz Goemann.

Women from all over San Diego County will rally in front of the US Federal Courthouse in San Diego on Thursday, March 8th, to support women’s rights to contraception on International Women’s Day. The rally will be held from noon to 1pm, and the Courthouse is located at 940 Front Street, in downtown San Diego.

The rally will address a number of recent attacks on a woman’s right to contraception and family planning:

• US Rep. Darrell Issa convenes a hearing about contraception with 5 men on the panel, and no women.

• Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum touts the “dangers” of contraceptives and that sex is “only for purposes of procreation.”

• Foster Friess, main donor to a super PAC for Rick Santorum, suggests women use aspirin as a contraception method.

• Rush Limbaugh, on a national radio show, calls a young woman a slut and prostitute because she speaks out in favor of birth control.

U.S. Supreme Court move backs game warden power over OB Pier fisherman

By Denny Walsh / Sacramento Bee / March 6, 2012

The claim of an unconstitutional search by a San Diego fisherman who got caught with an out-of-season lobster was rebuffed Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In denying review, the high court let stand a California Supreme Court opinion in June that people who hunt and fish have fewer of the privacy rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.

The state high court granted game wardens the authority to stop, question and search citizens without a warrant or even without probable cause to believe a law has been broken.

All the warden needs, the California court ruled, is knowledge that a person is or has been fishing or hunting.

Here is the agenda for the monthly meeting of the OB Planning Board, to be held Wednesday, March 7th, at 6 pm. The Board meets at the OB Rec Center, located at 4726 Santa Monica Avenue. The agenda below is in two pages, so be sure to scroll down for the second page.

The OB Planners are coming off a “win” of sorts, as last week they took the issue of improper variances being granted by the City to property owners to avoid the requirements of the OB Precise Plan to the city-wide body of community planners, called the Council of Planning Committees (CPC). The CPC agreed to investigate the issue as it could and perhaps does pertain to the rest of the city.

Arrests Cap Day-Long Demonstration By California Students Against Cuts to Higher Education

Calif. troopers arrest dozens in state Capitol

By Hannah Drier / Huffington Post / March 5, 2012 08:19 PM PST

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Highway Patrol officers arrested dozens of protesters who refused to leave the state Capitol Monday night after repeated warnings, capping off a day of protests over cuts to higher education that saw thousands descend upon Sacramento.

CHP Capt. Andy Manard said police expected the number of people arrested to be 68. They would be charged with trespassing, he said.

Police started pulling out protesters who remained in the Capitol rotunda around 7:30 p.m., more than an hour after they began warning them with a bullhorn to leave. Protesters chanted “We’re doing this for your kids,” as they were lifted up by the arms one-by-one, handcuffed with plastic ties and led them away.

The LA Times is reporting:

Thousands of students and activists marched through Sacramento’s streets and rallied outside the state Capitol on Monday to protest cuts to California’s colleges and universities. …

The plaza on the west side of the Capitol was teeming with protesters during the rally, which was billed as a chance to “occupy the Capitol.” Outside the building, student leaders and top Democrats who voted to slash higher education budgets last year addressed the crowd.

“We’ve cut billions of dollars and I’ve hated every minute of it,” said Senate President Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento).

Sacramento CBS is reporting that about 300 students have moved inside and are now occupying the rotunda. CBS:

Some of the thousands of students protesting at the State Capitol have moved inside and are now occupying the rotunda. About 300 people are inside the rotunda, some sitting on the floor.

By Dr. Mercola / Mercola.com / Originally published Feb. 28, 2012

High-risk patients with chronic, underlying health conditions that increase the risk of severe illness and death after influenza infection are among the first of all groups that public health officials target to receive flu vaccinations.

This population is targeted for vaccination despite the fact that very few studies have ever examined the efficacy – or safety – of vaccinations in this high risk group…

One recent study on the effectiveness of the 2009-2010 season’s H1N1 vaccine provides solid evidence against the effectiveness of vaccinating persons at high risk for complications from influenza infection.

The young man stabbed in an Ocean Beach alley less than a month ago has died of his wounds today, Monday, March 5th.

Andrew Bazan, 24, was suffered “horrific” wounds when he was stabbed on February 7th. He was found unconscious with his intestines exposed in the alley between Winstons and the Arizona Club, a half block from Newport Avenue.

No one has been arrested for the stabbing, now updated to murder, no doubt. That same evening, a man with a knife was ejected by bouncers from the Sunshine Company. No one has put the two incidents together. Maybe now they will.

HR 347 is an authoritarian bill some say is designed to restrict the Occupy movement and to outlaw protests near or at government buildings.

Editor: On the heels of the passage of the NDAA of 2012 comes a new bill, HR 347, designed – it appears – to outlaw protests near government buildings or against government services. President Obama has yet to sign it. Learn about it here and do something about it.

By Tom Carter / wsws.org / March 3, 2012

A bill passed last Monday (Feb. 27) in the US House of Representatives and Thursday (March 1) in the Senate would make it a felony—a serious criminal offense punishable by a lengthy prison term—to participate in many forms of protest associated with the Occupy Wall Street protests of last year. Several commentators have dubbed it the “anti-Occupy” law, but its implications are far broader.

The bill—H.R. 347, or the “Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011”—was passed by unanimous consent in the Senate, while only Ron Paul and two other Republicans voted against the bill in the House of Representatives (the bill passed 388-3). Not a single Democratic politician voted against the bill.

By Rodolfo F. Acuña / La Prensa San Diego / March 2, 2012

Throughout the history of Mexican Americans, education has been considered the stairway to the middle-class. Education meant security and basics such as health insurance. This heaven meant better jobs and a small house or two for old age.

As with the European immigrant, the stairway was built in stages. Those with limited education could often get union jobs. After a generation or two in factories, Mexican Americans accumulated sufficient capital to keep their children in school, and a few sent them to college.

To build the stairway, workers and their families fought for compulsory education, they petitioned school boards, and led walkouts protesting de jure and de facto school segregation.

With the first anniversary of the Fukushima disaster approaching, expect a barrage of “experts” braying that there was little to no damage to human health as a result of Fukushima’s radioactive releases.

But others say thousands have already died in the US alone as a result of Fukushima fallout.

This coming March 11 will mark the first anniversary of Fukushima’s multiple meltdown nuclear disaster.

The mainstream media has already begun trotting out assorted “experts” to assure us all is well and no one’s been harmed by all the radiation the reactors released. For example, on March 2, The Wall Street Journal-Japan ran a piece, “Fukushima Health Impact: Minimal?”

It lead off, “The health threat from radiation in the wake of the Fukushima accident is extremely low…according to a panel of American radiation experts who studied the Japanese case for the past year.”