Archive for February 8th, 2013

Administrative update.

Friday, February 8th, 2013

In the approximately 24 hours I’ve had WP-Ban in place:

  • It has blocked 874 IP addresses associated with spam. One specific IP address associated with spam attempted to access my blog 211 times, and there are two others that made well over 100 attempts.
  • I am still getting some spam comments, but the total in the past 24 hours was probably just under 100, as opposed to the 600+ I had yesterday. I can manage that. I’m also still actively adding spam IPs to the WP-Ban list, so I am hopeful that the count will go down.
  • I have not had anyone complain that I am illegitimately blocking them from accessing the site.

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Emu meat!

Friday, February 8th, 2013

The one thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history:

In 1998, there were some 5,500 farms and ranches across the country raising emus, the gawky, five- to six-foot-tall flightless birds; now, the best guess is that there are 1,000 to 2,000. Once, emus were viewed as a potential growth industry, a godsend to struggling farmers.

…

But several years ago, word started getting around about the oil. The birds, like the ostrich, evolved to store a lot of fat to survive in the outback of their native Australia. Processed and rubbed into a person’s skin, the oil is hailed as a treatment for wrinkles, burns, acne, arthritis, psoriasis and eczema, among other things. It is used in shampoo and cosmetics. Taken orally, it is used to treat cholesterol, symptoms of premenstrual syndrome and allergies.

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Banana republicans on trial: February 8, 2013.

Friday, February 8th, 2013

Yesterday’s developments:

Former councilman and assistant to the food bank administrator, Victor Bello, wasn’t just a rat. He’s also crazy, at least according to his lawyer.

It has been mentioned previously that Bello was banned from City Hall. But the reasons haven’t been discussed until now:

…an incident at a city affair at which Bello thought city manager Robert Rizzo made a derogatory statement about him, the defense attorney said.
“He came up to Mr. Rizzo and confronted him,” Moriarity said. “He got very, very angry. There was yelling back and forth.
“Some people say Mr. Bello grabbed Mr. Rizzo by the lapels. Others say that didn’t happen,” he added.

It could also have had something to do with the condom incident. Moving along, the first witness for the defense was Teresa Jacobo, one of the indicted council members.

…Jacobo testified she made $500 a month when she came onto the council in 2001 and continued selling real estate.

And then one magic day, according to Jacobo, Robert “Ratso” Rizzo and Edward Lee, the city attorney, called her in and told her…

“…I would be able work full time and devote all my time and effort to this community of Bell and I was now getting a full-time salary.”

But Jacobo testifies that Ratso didn’t tell her how much she’d be making. I’m sorry, but if someone told me I could devote all my time and effort to the community and I’d be making a full-time salary, I’d freaking ask what that salary would be.

Much of the defense has been that the council followed Rizzo’s lead, that the city attorney never said anything was wrong with their salaries, and that their positions were really full-time jobs. Jacobo bolstered the portrayal of Rizzo as a control freak who didn’t want council members to speak to city staff or to question him.
“He said I asked too many questions,” she testified.

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