Archive for the ‘California Über Alles’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Yo! Omar’s covering up!

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

Remember James Kwon, “Maritime Director” of the Port of Oakland? Mister “Spent $4,500 on strippers at Treasures”?

New developments: Mr. Kwon has a boss, “Executive Director” Omar Benjamin.

Port officials, however, redacted Benjamin’s name from the copies of the party receipts that were turned over to us and others in response to public-records requests. According to a source close to the investigation, Benjamin insisted he didn’t remember being at the club.

Would you like to guess what Mr. Kwon is saying? Yes: not only was his boss at Treasures, but Mr. Benjamin actually authorized him to pick up the tab. Mr. Benjamin and Mr. Kwon are both on paid suspensions from their positions.

Also, the receipt in question “listed a half dozen directors and vice presidents from BNSF Railway as being in attendance”. This is interesting, because the port claims they followed “‘a standard protocol of redacting the names of all persons that appeared on the reports’ – except the person named in a media public-records request” in explaining why Mr. Benjamin’s name was redacted from the receipt. So if they redacted all the names, how were the BNSF directors listed?

Setting that aside, though, BNSF says that they’ve checked travel records and spoken to their people, and there’s “no evidence its executives were at the party, or even in Houston at the time”. (If they were in Houston, it could have been perfectly legit, as there was a conference going on.)

The way the press is treating this story also strikes me as odd. Both the SFChron and the HouChron seem to be treating this as more of a gossip column item (the HouChron even reprinting, word for word, the SF paper’s story) instead of a story about political corruption, while the Oakland paper seems to be totally silent about the entire issue.

Is it the strippers? Do the papers just not take stories that feature strippers seriously? Remember: it was a stripper that brought down Wilbur Mills.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law, Media, Stupid | Comments Closed

Random fun: October 24, 2012.

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

Remember our old friend Randy Adams, former police chief of the California city of Bell, who was seeking a $510,000 a year pension based on his contract with the city?

Ask not who the fail whale tolls for: it tolls for Randy Adams.

The chief, the judge wrote, also wanted to keep confidential an agreement that would have eventually granted him a disability retirement, meaning that half his pension would have been tax-free. His decision included an email that Adams sent to Spaccia during contract negotiations. “I am looking forward to seeing you and taking all of Bell’s money?!” he wrote. “Okay…just a share of it.”

Adams still has the option to appeal the ruling. In the meantime, instead of collecting $510,000 a year, his pension will be a mere $240,000 a year.

Glen Berger is writing a book. “Who?” Glen Berger, one of the writers of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark”. Mr. Berger’s book currently bears the title “Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History”.

Mr. Berger is by no means an impartial observer in the troubled gestation of “Spider-Man,” the most expensive show in Broadway history. He was brought onto the project by Tony winning director Julie Taymor, with whom he co-wrote the book, but he and Ms. Taymor had an ugly split when she was fired in 2011, and a new writer and director were brought in to make the musical more family- and tourist-friendly.

And in other news, the NYT would like for you to shed some tears over the death of poor pitiful Dan Fredenberg.

What did Mr. Fredenberg do?

It was Sept. 22, and Mr. Fredenberg, 40, was upset. He strode up the driveway of a quiet subdivision here to confront Brice Harper, a 24-year-old romantically involved with Mr. Fredenberg’s young wife. But as he walked through Mr. Harper’s open garage door, Mr. Fredenberg was doing more than stepping uninvited onto someone else’s property. He was unwittingly walking onto a legal landscape reshaped by laws that have given homeowners new leeway to use force inside their own homes.

Harper shot and killed Fredenberg. The DA declined to prosecute, stating that the shooting was justified under Montana’s “Castle Doctrine”. This greatly upsets the NYT, and many of the morons who read the paper and leave comments.

But there are some inconvenient facts.

  1. Mr. Fredenberg was drunk at the time he was shot.
  2. Mr. Fredenberg entered Harper’s home; he wasn’t standing in the driveway or out on the sidewalk.
  3. Mr. Fredenberg and his spouse had a history of mutual spousal abuse (physical and verbal), according to the local DA.
  4. Mr. Fredenberg’s spouse was having a relationship of some sort with Harper. She denies it was sexual, but states that they were “intimate”.
  5. Mr. Fredenberg and Mr. Harper had “once clashed at Fatt Boys Bar & Grille in Kalispell”.
  6. Ms. Fredenberg and Mr. Harper were driving around the block that evening shortly before the incident; they were pursued by Mr. Fredenberg, which led to the shooting.

“You don’t have to claim that you were afraid for your life,” Mr. Corrigan, the county attorney, said. “You just have to claim that he was in the house illegally. If you think someone’s going to punch you in the nose or engage you in a fistfight, that’s sufficient grounds to engage in lethal force.”
It was immaterial that Mr. Fredenberg was unarmed. What mattered was what Mr. Harper — who declined to comment through his lawyer — later told investigators: that Mr. Fredenberg was charging toward him, angry, “like he was on a mission,” and that Mr. Harper was scared for his life.

Was Mr. Harper supposed to wait until he was attacked by a drunk man who he’d previously had an altercation with, in the privacy of his own home? Apparently, the NYT thinks the answer to this question is “yes”.

Castle Doctrine didn’t kill Mr. Fredenberg: poor judgement killed him.

Posted in Books, California Über Alles, Clippings, Guns, Law, Theatre | Comments Closed

Banana republicans watch: October 22, 2012.

Monday, October 22nd, 2012

Gas is expensive in California.

Even as gasoline consumption has declined in California in recent years because of high unemployment and increased vehicle fuel efficiency, refiners have been able to keep prices about 35 cents a gallon higher than the rest of the country.

Gee, I wonder why that is?

…the reason refiners made a killing while retailers such as Arya lost their shirts isn’t conspiracy, it’s economics. Oil companies operate what amounts to a legal oligopoly in California — an arrangement that probably will contribute to more wild gas spikes in the future.

You don’t say? Tell us more, Los Angeles Times.

That’s because the Golden State’s gasoline market is essentially closed. The state’s strict clean-air rules mandate a specially formulated blend used nowhere else in the country. Producers in places such as Louisiana or Texas could make it, but there are no pipelines to get it to the West Coast quickly and cheaply. As a result, virtually all 14.6 billion gallons of gasoline sold in California last year were made by nine companies that own the state’s refineries. Three of them — Chevron, Tesoro and BP — control 54% of the state’s refining capacity.

But why doesn’t someone come into the California market and open new refineries? Or re-open some of the mothballed ones?

Refiners contend that the price of gas reflects the higher cost of doing business in California. It costs as much as 15 cents a gallon more to refine the state’s clean fuel blend, and green regulations chip away at the bottom line. Fuel taxes, too, are higher than in many other regions.
“It’s a very difficult, challenging market,” said Tupper Hull, spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Assn., whose members include most of the region’s oil companies and refiners.
In August, the group released a report predicting that state rules to limit greenhouse gas emissions and push alterative fuels could force as many as eight of California’s refineries to close in coming years.

By the way:

At the same time, the number of refineries operating in California has declined to just 14 today from 27 in the early 1980s.

Posted in California Über Alles, Cars, Clippings, Law | 1 Comment »

Banana republicans watch: October 18, 2012.

Thursday, October 18th, 2012

We may need a banana republicans police blotter, too.

The mayor of the city of Hawthorne has been charged with two counts of perjury.

[Daniel] Juarez is the second mayor of the South Bay city to be charged by the L.A. County district attorney’s public corruption unit and the third member of the council in recent years.

The charges against Juarez allege that he took a $2,000 cash contribution from the manager of a Gold’s Gym in Hawthorne, and didn’t report it. This was in 2010:

The gym closed in 2012 after filing for bankruptcy protection and defaulting on a $2.5-million loan from the city.

Which makes me say, “Gold’s Gym needed a $2.5 million loan from a municipal government to open? They couldn’t get a private loan? Doesn’t that…I don’t know…tell you something?”

Meanwhile, L.A. County Assessor John Noguez has been charged, along with two other gentlemen, with taking bribes to lower property taxes.

Last year, distric attorney’s investigators began probing secret, improper tax breaks granted to more than 100 wealthy Westside property owners since Noguez’s election. They also started looking into complaints from assessor’s office employees who claimed they were under pressure to lower property taxes for clients of prominent Noguez contributors, like [campaign contributor Ramin] Salari.

Salari, also indicted, allegedly “loaned” Noguez $180,000, and contributed $5,000 to his campaign. The indictment apparently alleges that the contribution and the “loans” were actually bribes; supposedly, bank records show that repayment of the “loans” started after the LAT began asking questions.

(The third person indicted is Mark McNeil, Noguez’s aide.)

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

Random notes: October 16, 2012.

Tuesday, October 16th, 2012

As expected, the NYT has a longer story on the “Rebecca” arrest.

The stockbroker, Mark C. Hotton, collected $60,000 for his efforts before his arrest early Monday by federal authorities, who described the scheme as a complex fraud that was “stranger than fiction.”

It looks like Hotton was using some of the same phony “investors” to scam other people as well. And:

…Mr. Hotton and several accomplices, including his wife, Sherri, had secured $3.7 million by creating sham invoices for companies they controlled and selling that debt at a discount to unsuspecting companies.

I’d never thought of that kind of scam before. That’s clever.

George Whitmore Jr. died a week ago Monday.

(waits for the cries of “Who?” to die out)

Whitmore was at the center of a famous criminal case in 1964. He was picked up for “questioning” by the police for an attempted rape; by the time the police finished their interrogation, he’d confessed to three murders (including the murders of Janice Wylie and Emily Hoffert, aka the “Career Girls” murder case).

Whitmore later recanted his confession, and the police developed evidence showing someone else was responsible for the Wylie/Hoffert murder. Ultimately, all the charges against Whitmore were dismissed.

The Supreme Court cited Mr. Whitmore’s case as “the most conspicuous example” of police coercion when it issued its 1966 ruling in Miranda v. Arizona, establishing a set of protections for suspects, like the right to remain silent. Mr. Whitmore was tried several times in the Edmonds murder, with each trial ending in a hung jury.

The city of Eagle Rock, California, had an election over the weekend. Eagle Rock is engaged in a fight over medical marijuana dispensaries: the neighborhood council passed, and then repealed, a ban. On the pro-dispensary side is the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which has “organized workers at more than two dozen dispensaries across the city”.

Here’s interesting thing #1:

City rules allow anyone who does business in a neighborhood to cast a ballot as an “at-large stakeholder.” [Rigo] Valdez [of the UFCW union] urged supporters to “go into Eagle Rock and purchase gas, coffee, or whatever … and keep a receipt as proof” of doing business in the neighborhood.

And here’s interesting thing #2:

Most disturbing to some neighborhood activists were fliers circulated before the vote that promoted pro-dispensary candidates and offered $40 of free medical marijuana to those who could show evidence of casting ballots.

Only two of the pro-dispensary candidates won, but I can’t tell from the LAT article how many seats were open, or what the pro/anti-dispensary breakdown on the council was before the election.

James Kwon is the “Maritime Director” of the port of Oakland. James Kwon was in Houston for a conference in 2008. James Kwon decided to take “about a dozen shipping industry executives” out for a party.

James Kwon decided to take them to Treasures. I probably don’t need to tell you what Treasures is, as I imagine you can guess. Strippers. Always with the strippers. Mr. Kwon spent $4,537 on this “drink and dinner” reception. (If you figure 13 people, including Mr. Kwon, that’s about $349 per person. That seems like a lot for strip club food, but I’ve never been to Treasures. Maybe they have Beef Wellington. And who knows what they paid per drink for strip club drinks.) Now port officials are asking questions, four years after the fact.

Kwon’s strip-club spending spree didn’t come to port officials’ attention until just recently. The timing is especially terrible for the port, which is in the midst of a protracted labor fight with maintenance and other workers over terms of a new contract.

As the HouChron notes, Treasures also has a colorful history of “prostitution, drug dealing, weapons crimes and sexual assaults”.

I’ve written previously about the strange and sad case of Robert Middleton, and the legal wrangling over whether the boy who set him on fire can be tried for murder. New development:

…[Montgomery County attorney David] Walker has dismissed the murder petition he had filed against [Don] Collins seeking to have his case transferred from juvenile to district court and plans to refile it as a felony murder. This charge requires the murder to have occurred in conjunction with the commission of another offense – in this case the alleged sexual assault.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Cops, Law, Theatre | 1 Comment »

Almost as much fun as the circus.

Monday, October 15th, 2012

I’ve written previously about the election results in the notoriously corrupt California city of Vernon. When last we left Vernon, the city council had decided they were going to hire a hearing officer and conduct their own inquiry into alleged voter fraud, after the LA County registrar refused to throw out some of the ballots.

Well, the results of the hearing are in.

If approved by the City Council, the decision would tilt the race in favor of candidate Luz Martinez, a former secretary to Vernon’s top administrator, who had trailed 34 votes to 30. It would also reverse a previous decision made by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder, which dismissed the voter challenges this summer and called the race for Martinez’ opponent, Reno Bellamy.

Mr. Martinez was endorsed by the Vernon Chamber of Commerce, which also supported the vote challenge.

To be fair, however, the hearing officer (who was paid “nearly $1,000 an hour” by the city) “sided against the Chamber in two cases where voters claimed multiple residences”. Good to know.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Mulligan update.

Monday, October 15th, 2012

Remember Brian C. Mulligan, the Deutsche Bank executive who was suing the city of LA for $50 million dollars after a series of unfortunate events? (The whole story is too long and bizarre to summarize here; the above link takes you to a longer account.)

It seems that Mr. Mulligan had an encounter with the Glendale PD a few days before his wild night with LAPD. It also seems that Glendale PD recorded that encounter. And it seems that Mr. Mulligan admitted using “bath salts”.

On the recording, Mulligan acknowledged snorting the bath salts as many as 20 times. He said he had been trying to find something to help him sleep because he has a “stressful job” and travels extensively. He said he tried to throw the bath salts away and promised the officer to never buy more.

(You may recall from the previous article that Mr. Mulligan was prescribed “medical marijuana” for “insomnia”. Guess that didn’t work.)

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Cops, Law | Comments Closed

A history of violence.

Friday, October 12th, 2012

Daniel Bissman admitted liaisons with prostitutes. When he applied for the job, he was still on probation for punching a man unconscious. Then there was his drug use, dishonesty and involvement in what he estimated to be as many as 100 domestic violence incidents, according to confidential sheriff’s employment records reviewed by The Times.

The job he applied for was “courthouse security guard”. Apparently, Mr. Bissman would not be carrying a gun in this position (which makes me wonder what the point is). And anybody can apply for any job, of course.

Despite an extensive background investigation detailing Bissman’s misdeeds, he was hired for the $25,944-a-year job in November 2009. After a reporter’s inquiry, Bissman, 36, was placed on leave and an internal sheriff’s investigation was launched into the circumstances of the hiring, including whether Bissman received special treatment, according to a department spokesman.

By the way, Mr. Bissman’s mother “is the longtime personal secretary for Undersheriff Paul Tanaka”.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Cops, Law | Comments Closed

Bad sheriff. No biscuit. No, wait…

Wednesday, October 10th, 2012

I’ve written previously about San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, who has been convicted of domestic violence.

The mayor of San Francisco needed nine out of eleven votes from the city’s Board of Supervisors to fire Sheriff Mirkarimi.

He didn’t get them.

Four members of the board rejected Lee’s call that Mirkarimi be permanently removed for committing official misconduct, an allegation that stemmed from a New Year’s Eve fight with his wife for which he later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of false imprisonment.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Cops, Law | Comments Closed

Life imitates:

Monday, October 8th, 2012

An episode of “Seinfeld”:

California’s generous recycling redemption program has led to rampant fraud. Crafty entrepreneurs are driving semi-trailers full of cans from Nevada or Arizona, which don’t have deposit laws, across the border and transforming their cargo into truckfuls of nickels. In addition, recyclers inside the state are claiming redemptions for the same containers several times over, or for containers that never existed.

A WCD post:

In what was billed as a major foreign policy address, Mitt Romney blasted President Obama’s leadership in the Middle East on Monday, saying that a withering of American resolve had made the region a more dangerous place where the United States has less leverage.
“Hope is not a strategy,’’ Romney said.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law, Politics, TV | Comments Closed

Timeless. Changeless. Ways.

Monday, October 1st, 2012

In this case, not the timeless changeless ways of the Amish, but those of the…Emerald Triangle pot growers, who find their way of life threatened. Not by the fact that what they do is, you know, friggin’ illegal, but

Battered by competition from indoor cultivators around the state and industrial-size operations that have invaded the North Coast counties, many of the small-time pot farmers who created the Emerald Triangle fear that their way of life of the last 40 years is coming to an end.

Yes. They’re being threatened by competition.

Since the mid-1990s, the price of outdoor-grown marijuana has plummeted from more than $5,000 a pound to less than $2,000, and even as low as $800.

More:

…the liberalization of marijuana laws in the last decade upended the status quo.
From Oakland to the Inland Empire, people began cultivating indoors on an unprecedented scale at the same time that growers from around the world flooded the North Coast because of its remoteness and deep-rooted counterculture.

Medical marijuana dispensaries, according to the LAT, prefer weed grown indoors; I’m no expert on growing dope, but I’d figure that growing indoors gives you a more consistent product and more reliable sourcing.

The locals complain that back in the old days (we’re talking about the 1980s here), dope farmers “paid for community centers, fire departments, road maintenance and elementary schools.”

Even today, small cannabis-funded volunteer fire stations and primary schools are scattered throughout the ranges. And the local radio station, KMUD, announces the sheriff’s deputies’ movements as part of its public service mandate.

But now:

Longtime residents complain that the newcomers cut down trees, grade hillsides, divert creeks to irrigate multi-thousand-plant crops, use heavy pesticides and rat poisons, and run giant, smog-belching diesel generators to illuminate indoor grows. They blaze around in Dodge monster trucks and Cadillac Escalades and don’t contribute to upkeep of the roads or schools.

And:

“Ultimately we worry about Winston or Marlboro getting some land and doing their thing,” said Lawrence Ringo, a 55-year-old grower and seed breeder deep in the wilds of Sohum. “We see it time after time in America — big corporations come in and take over.”

Wow, Ringo. Did you really think that when dope was legalized, R.J. Reynolds was going to come down out of the hills and start purchasing your organic free-range ganja in quantities large enough to satisfy the American consumer?

“How can sun-grown not be better medicine?” Anna asked. “If you’re sick, you want something that has chemicals in it? You can’t grow indoor organically. Not to mention the fossil fuels it burns up.”

“If you’re sick, you want something that has chemicals in it?” Yes, you stupid bitch. We in the civilized world call that “medicine”. And here’s another big fucking hint for you: everything has chemicals in it, including your organic brown rice and that dope you’re growing.

The libertarian side of me believes that marijuana should be legalized. The non-liberatarian side of me is starting to lean more towards legalization, if it means that these idiots will be forced to find some sort of useful work.

Legalization “has the potential to be devastating,” she said.

The most shocking thing about this story? That the LAT apparently printed it with a straight face.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law | 1 Comment »

Random notes: September 28, 2012.

Friday, September 28th, 2012

So Bo Xilai has been expelled from the Chinese Communist Party, and faces criminal prosecution on charges related to bribery and the criminal case involving his wife and her alleged murder of a British businessman. That’s pretty much news everywhere.

But here’s something interesting:

A senior Chinese forensic scientist who works for the government has said that the evidence presented in a prominent criminal trial last month did not prove that Neil Heywood, a British businessman, was killed last year by cyanide poisoning.

More Herbert Lom obits: NYT. A/V Club. LAT.

Good news, everyone! If you work in the Texas state prisons, a Facebook friendship with a convict no longer violates the ban on fraternization!

About two weeks ago, officials reinstated the sergeant after an internal investigation determined that a number of other prison employees had the same online friend, including the prison system’s chief financial officer.

Joseph Wolfe, a former police officer with the Fullerton police department, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and excessive use of force in the beating death of Kelly Thomas. Officer Wolfe is the third officer to be charged in this case. (Previously. Also previously, and graphic image warning.)

The findings suggest that voters are leery of sending more cash to Sacramento in the wake of a financial scandal at the parks department, spiraling costs for a multibillion-dollar high-speed rail project to connect Northern and Southern California and ill-timed legislative pay raises.

Really? That’s a shocker.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Cops, Law, Obits, Politics | Comments Closed

Random notes: September 21, 2012.

Friday, September 21st, 2012

Somewhere, deep within the Bronx, is a horse stable. Back in the old days (some twenty years ago) people went to the stable and rented horses for rides on a trail that runs past Pelham Parkway.

The stable has been condemned by the building department, and the owners of the property haven’t paid taxes since 2007. But just because the stable is condemned doesn’t mean there’s nothing left inside.

What remains? A horse, of course. A horse named Rusty that the residents are trying to “save”.

Rusty is a mystery to even those who want nothing more than to save it. The residents and animal activists at the rally did not know its age, whether it was male or female, or how it came to be living in the stable, which has no posted name but was once known as Bronxbuster.

Noted here for family reasons: Texas Tech men’s basketball coach Billy Gillispie resigned yesterday. Gillispie had coached the team for one year.

This doesn’t sound like a firing: Gillispie states he resigned for “health reasons”. However, the university was investigating “allegations of player mistreatment” (Mike Leach, call your office, please), and Gillispie’s performance last season was disappointing, to put it mildly.

(I apologize for linking to the Statesman, but the Lubbock newspaper’s site isn’t working for me this morning. Here’s the HouChron story, which is a little longer.)

(Edited to add: Slightly different story, also from the HouChron.)

(Edited to add 2: I couldn’t pull it up at work – I kept getting errors from a proxy, and I don’t think it was ours – but now that I’m home, here’s the Lubbock paper’s coverage.)

Randy Adams had a hearing before a panel of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System yesterday. Mr. Adams is appealing the decision by the system not to include his one year as police chief of Bell in calculating his pension. (Previously.) If Mr. Adams wins his appeal, he’ll get a pension of $510,000 a year, “making him the second-highest-paid public pensioner in California” according to the LAT.

So how did the hearing go?

He was asked if he was Bell’s former police chief.
“Yes,” he replied.
Did he send an email to a Bell city official saying, “I am looking forward to seeing you and taking all of Bell’s money?!”
“On the advice of counsel I am going to exercise my right to remain silent,” he replied.
For the next 14 minutes, the man who had been a lawman for nearly 40 years, a police chief in three cities, exercised his constitutional right against self-incrimination over and over, refusing to answer most questions.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’m not sure I understand California law. Does the Fifth Amendment apply in an administrative proceeding? Or is Mr. Adams taking the Fifth because he’s concerned that evidence presented in the administrative proceeding could be used against him in a criminal case? (Remember, Mr. Adams has not been charged with any crimes. Yet.)

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Cops, Horses, Law, Sports | 1 Comment »

This is for Andrew.

Sunday, September 9th, 2012

An article from this week’s NYT Magazine:

How Dangerous Is Your Couch?

Unfortunately, the article isn’t about couches with knife-like edges on the underside, but rather about the alleged dangers of flame retardant chemicals used in couch foam.

Since 1975, an obscure California agency called the Bureau of Home Furnishings and Thermal Insulation has mandated that the foam inside upholstered furniture be able to withstand exposure to a small flame, like a candle or cigarette lighter, for 12 seconds without igniting. Because foam is highly flammable, the bureau’s regulation, Technical Bulletin 117, can be met only by adding large quantities of chemical flame retardants — usually about 5 to 10 percent of the weight of the foam — at the point of manufacture. The state’s size makes it impractical for furniture makers to keep separate inventories for different markets, so about 80 percent of the home furniture and most of the upholstered office furniture sold in the United States complies with California’s regulation.

The big problems are:

  • These chemicals apparently don’t stay bound to the foam, but migrate into the environment.
  • These chemicals allegedly have negative side effects on human health.
  • And these fire retardants may not be doing a damn bit of good in any case.

In Babrauskas’s view, TB 117 is ineffective in preventing fires. The problem, he argues, is that the standard is based on applying a small flame to a bare piece of foam — a situation unlikely to happen in real life. “If you take a cigarette lighter and put it on a chair,” he says, “there’s no naked foam visible on that chair unless you live in a horrendous pigsty where people have torn apart their furniture.” In real life, before the flame gets to the foam, it has to ignite the fabric. Once the fabric catches fire, it becomes a sheet of flame that can easily overwhelm the fire-suppression properties of treated foam. In tests, TB 117 compliant chairs catch fire just as easily as ones that aren’t compliant — and they burn just as hot. “This is not speculation,” he says. “There were two series of tests that prove what I’m saying is correct.”

One question sort of implied, but not explicitly asked, by this article: many of these standards, like TB 117, were implemented at a time when far more people smoked, and smoke detectors were far less common. The idea was to keep Grandpa’s cigarette from setting the couch on fire if he dozed off in front of the TV set. Now that smoking has decreased dramatically, and smoke detectors are everywhere, do these standards continue to make sense? And shouldn’t this be a consumer choice? If you have kids, buy a couch with all natural fabric and stuffing. If you smoke and drink in front of the TV set and frequently doze off, get a couch that you couldn’t set on fire with a blowtorch and napalm.

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Law, Safety | Comments Closed

Banana republicans watch: September 8, 2012.

Saturday, September 8th, 2012

Friday’s LAT had an interesting article about the tensions between LAPD beat officers and the homeless in downtown LA. Specifically, the homeless beer vendors:

One by one, his customers approached, handing over $1.50 for cans of Colt 45, Steel Reserve or Heineken that he kept hidden in a blue cooler beneath a shopping cart. Government checks had arrived a few days before. Business on skid row was good — as it has been all year.

Yeah, yeah, illegal, yeah, yeah, alcohol drives crime on skid row, yeah yeah. But I have to admit that my first reaction was “Damn, I wish Austin’s homeless were that entrepreneurial.” Seriously, it’d be kind of nice to be able to walk down the street and pick up a cold bottle of something to sip on for $2.50 or so. (This being Austin, you couldn’t get away with selling that Colt 45 or Steel Reserve crap on the streets. You’d have to go with the local craft brews; Shiner Bock in bottles, maybe some Fat Tire. Leave the malt liquor to the gas stations.)

Come to think of it, you don’t even have to limit yourself to beer, and all the problems associated with that. There are times when, if that guy on the street corner wasn’t panhandling for cash, but had a cooler full of ice and cold sodas and bottled water, damn sure I’d give him at least $2 bucks for a cold drink when it is 103 degrees out there. I know someone who tried this experiment a while back, but I’ll let him report in comments if he wishes.

(And before you jump on my case: I know the problem is more complex than I’m making it sound, and selling bottled water and sodas on street corners isn’t a surefire way to get folks from homelessness to prosperity. But providing a useful good and/or service to a willing customer beats begging for bucks in my mind.)

Posted in California Über Alles, Clippings, Cops, Law | Comments Closed

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »