OB Rag

A massive ice island has formed in northern Greenland – it had been part of the Petermann Glacier, but last week it broke free. 92 square miles of ice – four times the size of Manhattan – now floating in the Arctic Sea. It could threaten shipping lanes, oil rigs, and float into the area where the Titanic hit an iceberg in 1912 and sank.

Already, the giant has assumed biblical proportions, becoming part of the slate of environmental evidence of global warming – as the planet heats up, with oil spills, raging fires, devastating heat, and deadly flooding scoring the season as a record-breaker. July 2010, for example, is the hottest July on record. Nothing else that has happened this summer symbolizes climate change as much as the creation of this new Arctic Sea island – the largest ice island in over half a century.

Editor: In our quest to find and highlight other local San Diego County blogs with progressive bents, we came upon this South Bay located blog, Blue San Diego, uncovering more than sand castles – a new, budding dynasty of the Bilbray family? First, there were the Hunters, now the Bilbrays? Apparently, South Bay Democrats are running away from going up against someone with such a well-known family name and history as “Bilbray.”
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by Pepe / Blue San Diego / August 8, 2010

An interesting tidbit caught my eye last week. Brian Patrick Bilbray, son of current congressman Brian Bilbray has taken out papers to run for City Council in Imperial Beach. It isn’t clear yet if he has qualified to be on the ballot but he is apparently aiming for the special election ….

Community meeting Aug. 10, 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM Point Loma campus of the San Diego Community College – West…

by Ernie McCray

It’s been a little over a year since my Nancy passed away yet moving on is still the order of the day for our children, Carlos, Tawny, Nyla and me.

The kind of grieving we’ve experienced, in our various stages of moving on, has revealed just how fragile we are and how dependent we are on each other, how glad we are to just have each other around.

And just when it seemed that the pain in our lives was toning down, one of the twins, Nyla, announced, since her boyfriend who had been unemployed for about a year found a job in Vegas, that she was packing up and leaving town. Oh, the feeling of loss raises its ugly head again. Not with fangs this time but it’s come with a bite.

Spurred on by recent revelations that companies such as Target are dumping money into retrogressive political campaigns in California and other states, the progressive organization MoveOn.org is moving Tuesday, August 10th, against corporate corruption by pressuring San Diego’s two liberal Congressional representatives to sign an anti-corruption pledge.

by Elaine

After losing my job of more than 25 years, being unemployed for 8 months and finally being offered a job at half the money I used to make, I found myself close to foreclosure. Really close. I have been consistently 2 months behind on my mortgage for over 2 years and cannot catch up. If it wasn’t for the 2 roommates that live with me I would have given up and let the bank have the damn house, along with the negative equity.

The story behind how I ended up in this situation is one you’ve heard before. Simply stated, I got divorced at the height of the real estate market (my house was appraised for almost 3 times what I paid for it) and at the time the best thing I could do was to stay put. Buying another house would have cost me just as much, increased my property taxes and with the additional expense of moving, well it just seemed like the best option for me and my kids.

Editor: We received this report on San Diego’s best dog beaches from Wet Nose Guide, a New York City online dog directory that’s expanded to San Diego, and … surprise! Ocean Beach’s Dog Beach made the list! We knew we had the best dog beach, now “everyone” knows.
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by Doug Pierce / Wet Nose Guide

With the sun in their face and the sand at their paws, San Diego’s dog beaches provide the perfect controlled environment for your pooch to cast off her leash and enjoy a frisky carefree day at the beach. The list of dog-friendly San Diego beaches is long, but three in particular provide you and your pup a slice of laidback California beach life at its most relaxed. Ocean Beach Dog Beach, Coronado Dog Beach, and Fiesta Island Dog Park are the best for you and your pup to play fetch, doggy-paddle, or simply have a snore-fest on the warm sand.

There was a tea party rally yesterday (8-7-10) at Spanish Landing along San Diego Harbor, organized by a so-called “doctors” group against – what the extreme right calls – “Obamacare” – the newly enacted federal medical care reforms. Yet the rally – attended by approximately 400 protesters – displayed something rally organizers are not swift to admit – dwindling numbers of tea party activists coming out to such events – as earlier tea party rallies had upwards of a thousand people.

A small group of counter-protesters were out there in the sun as well, holding signs supporting medicare for all. About a dozen folks – organized by a progressive group of local doctors and healthcare workers – Physicians for a National Health Program – had somehow found parking and managed to get to the sidelines of the much larger crowd.

Editor: The following is an edited version of the “Report from the Open Forum Regarding Issues of Homelessness in Ocean Beach” just recently released by the Inter-Faith Community of Ocean Beach and the folks who actually ran that first forum on July 6th. We have only included the text of the report, …

Editor: One of our favorite OB doctors, Jeoffry B. Gordon, MD, MPH, is helping to organize a counter-rally to a Tea Party Doctors Rally.
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A local group of physicians, nurses, patients and health-care activists will rally at Spanish Landing (3900 Harbor Drive) on Saturday, August 7 at 12 noon to counter the National Tea Party Doctors Rally held to protest the recently passed Health Care Reform bill or as they refer to it as “Obama Care.”

OCEAN BEACH – It seems some people have found a way to steal electricity on the Ocean Beach’s dime, but the city has a plan to put an end to the theft.

Joe Castillo, a representatives with the City Streets Division, tells San Diego 6 that people are ripping off electricity from Ocean Beach lamp posts whose electrical sockets are meant for Farmers Market vendors. “We heard people are plugging their electric vehicles, electric carts, cellphones.”

Three Steps to Establish a Politics of Global Warming

By Bil McKibben / August 4, 2010

Try to fit these facts together:

* According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the planet has just come through the warmest decade, the warmest 12 months, the warmest six months, and the warmest April, May, and June on record.

* A “staggering” new study from Canadian researchers has shown that warmer seawater has reduced phytoplankton, the base of the marine food chain, by 40% since 1950. …