Some thoughts on Valley & Hollywood secession

The vote on Hollywood and Valley secession from the City of Los Angeles is less than two months away.  Watching the secession  campaigns, one wonders if they aren’t training at the Bill Simon Institute for Political Campaigning.  Yes, these are grassroots campaigns, so some inexperience can be expected.  But the ineptness and blown opportunities here are, well, I think they may have already blown it.

First and most important, the campaigns have been hugely self-centered, and focused entirely on their respective home turfs.  Every Valley secession press conference and rally has been in the Valley, and every Hollywood secession event has been in Hollywood.  Maybe someone should tell them the measures have to pass in all of Los Angeles, not just in their areas?

Are the campaigns doing any outreach to other communities?  Not that I can see.  A few months back a group of Black ministers stated publicly they might favor a Valley secession (thus giving Blacks more say in the remaining City of Los Angeles). Now this should have been a wonderful chance for the Valley secessionists to publicly meet with the ministers, but I don’t recall hearing a word about it in the press.  Not a peep.  Did they even try?

In the meantime, Magic Johnson, a serious player in LA politics, and ex- Police Chief Bernard Parks, also Black, have come out against secession.  So, the chance of an alliance between Valley Secession and South Central is long gone.

Also, they appear clueless that they need to give the rest of Los Angeles good reasons to vote for secession.  Why should someone who doesn’t live in the Valley or Hollywood vote for secession?  How does this benefit them?

The city of LA has 4 million people now.  A Valley City would have 1.2 million.  To win, Valley seccessionists need to concisely explain (and please, no ranting about the Big Bad Bear Billionaires from Downtown) -

1) Why is a Valley City of 1.2 million people inherently easier to govern than a city of 4 million?

2) How would Valley Secession benefit the rest of Los Angeles?  What’s in it for the voters in the rest of City if they vote Yes?

If they can answer those questions clearly in the next two months, they might actually have a chance of winning.

No Comments »

New gas engines rated nearly pollution-free

Gasoline engines now in production can be nearly pollution-free, a California university engineering laboratory reports after three years of study.  ”You won’t get to zero (emissions), but you will get pretty close,” says Joseph Norbeck, director of the facility that performed the challenging tests at the University of California-Riverside.

For now, the promising technology is limited to California because to work right, the engines require low-sulfur gasoline that is widely available only there.  It probably will take a federal mandate for the clean fuel to become available across the USA, opening the door to cleaner-burning engines everywhere.

No Comments »

Hijacking history

Op-ed from the Sydney Morning Herald, making the point that, after all the bluster and swaggering of the Bush Administration, they’ve accomplished very little in preventing another 9/11.

Everything changed when the first plane struck on September 11. America was the empire on its knees and all the old certainties lay in the rubble. But, writes Paul McGeough, the carnage of that day may be dwarfed by the conflict to come.

All of this means that any comfort Americans might have taken from the dramatic collapse of the Taliban regime and the dispersal of the al-Qaeda hierarchy should pale against the network’s profile one year on. Bin Laden and most of his key lieutenants are almost certainly alive, they are cashed up, they are geared for operating under what might appear to be a fractured command structure and, some intelligence sources say, they still have a sleeper cell in the US that was independent of the September11 operation.

They say it is underground, biding its time, and it has plans for another attack.

No Comments »

Like watching a car wreck in slow motion.

The wheels are falling off the Republican Bill Simon for California Governor campaign. ”Former Reagan advisor Lyn Nofziger says the gubernatorial candidate is ‘inept, weak … and too dumb.’ “

GOP Stalwart Attacks Simon

“Californians now are going to have a clear choice when they go to the polls to elect a governor this November,” Nofziger wrote.

“They can reelect an inept, corrupt incumbent Democrat named Gray Davis,” he added. “Or they can elect an inept, weak and not very bright Republican named Bill Simon. Take your pick. But be smart. Bet on Davis. Simon is too dumb to win and his senior consultant, Sal Russo, isn’t much better.”

No Comments »

But not your blood, I’m betting, eh Tony?

Britain will pay ‘blood price’ - Tony Blair

Britain must be prepared to pay a “blood price” to secure its special relationship with the US, Prime Minister Tony Blair has told the BBC.  <Jeez Tony, this isn’t a Mafia initiation…>

But Britain was not America’s puppet, the prime minister said <Methinks he doth protest too much> in an interview with the BBC Two programme Hotline to the President.

Meanwhile, almost 100 British and United States war planes attacked an air defence base in western Iraq <Uh, this already sounds like a war>. Defence sources say the raid was part of the enforcement of the no-fly zone, but it was much larger than normal <Uh, this sounds like Orwellian doublespeak>.

No Comments »