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* LAUNCH OF CHILDREN’S BOOK WITH ART BY OB ARTIST KIM HOWELL

* NEWPORT AVE PET STORE LOOKING FOR ARTISTS AS PART OF PR FOR ANIMAL RESCUE

As you probably know, each week we run a poll in our sidebar.

Usually our fine gaggle of bloggers and commentators come up with some juicy local issues. But now? Geez! is all I can utter.

So, we are turning to you, our reader, for help.

Our hidden and invisible citizen reporters are everywhere. Thursday, August 13th witnessed a watermain break on Bolinas Street in northeast Ocean Beach.

Here are early a.m. scenes from that street. Hopefully, the spilled water will be used to water Collier Park, just down from this area.

By Monica Unhold / The Daily Transcript / August 11, 2009

An Ocean Beach architecture firm’s new offices will be the first commercial building in San Diego County to qualify as net zero — meaning it generates as much energy as it consumes.

Architects Hanna Gabriel Wells converted the 54-year-old Ocean Beach Auto Repair shop into a modern office building expected to enjoy no monthly energy costs …

by Anna Daniels

Last night’s meeting provided a sharp contrast to the event held by Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania (see link inside). Ground rules were quickly laid out- no disruptions- and civility was maintained by the hundred plus people in the sweltering room.

Davis, a congresswoman from the 53rd district, presented a brief over view of the current House bill on health care. (See inside for details…)

by Emily Taylor

My husband and I moved to Ocean Beach back in February after falling in love with it during a visit. We love that it feels like a small town even in the middle of a huge city; we love how laid-back everyone is; and we love that it’s so dog-friendly.

But my question is: Where do all these people with dogs live?? Every rental property that I call inevitably tells me “No pets.”

It’s time to sit down with our readers and discuss where we think our little blog is going. Actually, it’s not that little any more. We started out in October 2007 and for the first six months we averaged a little over 2100 visitors a month.

Now, as we near our second anniversary (October), we’ve reached nearly 23,000 visitors a month. Check out the graph below which shows our monthly visitors for the last year. It’s obvious that we are growing and that our readership from OB is expanding. We feel we have a strong community base, solid legitimacy and a genuine acceptance by the residents and businesses of our seaside neighborhood.

by Chalmers Johnson

However ambitious President Barack Obama’s domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch.

Think of it as the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room: our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous global empire of bases that goes with it.

The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment and …

by Concerned OBcean

While my son and I were in town last night having dinner, I saw someone spinning fire Poi at the west end of Newport. Surprised by the boldness of the spinner to be spinning right there in plain sight on a public corner, I pointed him/her out to my son. Thinking, perhaps hoping, it was simply a drunken fool performing a one time event, I didn’t think much of it.

Yet it continued. …

Organizers are urging constituents of US House Rep Susan Davis to attend a forum on healthcare reform tonight – Tuesday, August 11th. Organizers say Rep Davis will be talking to constituents and gathering feedback and that “this is an ideal opportunity to make sure your support for health insurance reform is seen and heard at exactly the right time.”

Rep Susan Davis represents several San Diego communities including Ocean Beach.

The recent spate of town hall dustups may look like an overnight sensation, but they’ve been years, even decades, in the making.

Since the days in the late 1970s, when the New Right began its takeover of the Republican Party, it has cultivated a militia of white people armed with a grudge against those who brought forth the social changes of the ’60s.

FOX News has always been the propaganda arm of the Republican Party, willing to twist facts and even lie to promote the Republican agenda.

But the election of President Obama in 2008 pushed FOX News into outright hate-mongering and incitement of violence, which is intolerable in a democracy.

Here are some examples of intolerable hate speech and incitement to violence (go inside for links):

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