Daily Archives: August 11, 2015

Developers can prey on the elderly the most in places like San Jose…….

With the most mobile home parks in California, San Jose may take the unprecedented step Tuesday of suspending closures of what has become a critical part of the affordable housing stock in the Capital of Silicon Valley but also a target for developers in a hot real estate market.

The City Council on Tuesday will consider a six-month moratorium on mobile home park conversions proposed by Mayor Sam Liccardo and four City Council members. The decision comes just over a week after the announced closure within two years of Winchester Ranch Mobile Home Community, which threatens to displace more than 100 mostly elderly residents. A moratorium would freeze that process.


Alba Salciccia, 76, walks her dog, Fernando, at the Winchester Ranch mobile home park in San Jose, Calif., on Friday, July 31, 2015. (LiPo Ching/Bay Area News Group) (LiPo Ching)

As San Jose’s real estate market sizzles, the value of land beneath the city’s 59 mobile home parks has more than tripled — pushing landowners to sell to eager developers chomping at the bit to build market-rate housing. And in a city where the average rent reaches $2,500, mobile homes have become the only alternative for roughly 35,000 San Jose residents, including senior citizens and lower-wage workers.

City officials already were considering updates to a never-used 1986 ordinance that laid out rules for closing mobile home parks. The proposed moratorium is aimed at buying more time for the city to do that.

“There is a very hot real estate market operating right now, and it’s got thousands of our residents very scared about being displaced,” said Liccardo, adding he’s unaware of any other Bay Area city that has approved a mobile-home park conversion moratorium. “We’d like to finish our work on this policy and this will hit the pause button until we can do that.”

San Jose officials fear the city could be headed down the same road as Palo Alto, where the proposed closure of that city’s only mobile home park, Buena Vista, would uproot nearly 400 residents living in one of the Bay Area’s priciest cities. Palo Alto and county officials pledged funding to preserve it, but it’s unclear if it will be enough to stave off a sale for private development.

San Jose residents fearful of losing their mobile homes urged the city to beef up the 1986 ordinance that outlines the process of closing a mobile home park for other uses. Though the ordinance has never been applied, residents called for stronger tenant protections.

The City Council earlier this year requested a revised ordinance, and a plan for developing one will be presented Tuesday. Ideas include increasing relocation compensation for tenants, market value assessments and requiring council approval for park conversions.

But while the city hammers out the details of a revised ordinance, anyone can apply to close a park, leaving its tenants facing an uncertain future. That’s what prompted Liccardo, Vice Mayor Rose Herrera and Councilmen Chappie Jones, Tam Nguyen and Manh Ngyuen to propose the temporary moratorium.

“By doing this, we’re reducing the pressure and anxiety the residents are feeling,” said Jones, whose district covers Winchester Ranch.

But Councilman Johnny Khamis has concerns. He worries about trampling on the rights of land owners to sell if they no longer want to stay in business, and about creating conflicts with the city’s official plan for future growth, which includes densely built urban villages. At least five mobile home parks, including Winchester Ranch, are in parts of San Jose envisioned as urban villages, but Khamis recommended exploring the possibility of removing that designation.

The owners of Winchester Ranch said they planned to file paperwork to begin the closure process by the end of the year. But if the City Council approves the moratorium Tuesday, it would block that process.

Winchester Ranch owners and a nationwide developer buying the land, PulteGroup, had no comment on the proposed moratorium, other than to say they’re “committed to following local and state law” for the closure process.

But residents at Winchester Ranch are breathing a sigh of relief — at least for now.

“People are very stressed out when you talk about losing your home and this provides some relief,” said Mari Jo Pokriots, 71, who’s lived at the park for nearly 40 years. “I’m very happy to hear that they are willing to put a stop to anything until the plan has been thoroughly vetted and brought back to City Council.”

Follow Ramona Giwargis at Twitter.com/ramonagiwargis or contact her at 408-920-5705.

I have seen this reporters work for some time now and she is very good and is one of the few that carries some good credibility with me. So I can trust in the accuracy of this article.

Here’s why your local police force owns a tank


Government documents obtained by journalists reveal the justifications behind hundreds of police requests to the Pentagon for military-grade equipment.

More than 450 requests analyzed by Mother Jones reveals that drug enforcement is the most common reason police requested access to mine-resistant ambush vehicles, or MRAPs, the armored military transports that were famously deployed against protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, last fall in the aftermath of Michael Brown shooting.

In total, a quarter of the police departments cited drug enforcement as the primary reason for requesting the military vehicles.

One out six departments were “prepared to use the vehicles to serve search or arrest warrants on individuals who had yet to be convicted of a crime,” Mother Jones found, while more than half of the departments indicated that they were willing to deploy the vehicles in a “broad range of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) raids.”

Defense Logistics Agency

Only a small fraction of law enforcement cited barricaded gunmen (8 percent), hostage situations (7 percent), or active shooters (6 percent). Only “a handful” referenced terrorism, the report says.

The reported noted how a Florida sheriff’s department requested an armored tactical vehicle capable of carrying “multiple troops” to serve drug-related search warrants.

Thousands of police departments have participated in the Pentagon’s 1033 program, which is responsible for the transfer of military equipment to civilian agencies, since it was first launched in 1997, primarily to aid in the war on drugs. The U.S. government has reportedly transferred to civilians $5.6 billion in combat equipment in the years following the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The transfer includes roughly 80,000 assault rifles and 20,000 grenade launchers, according to an NPR reported cited by Mother Jones.

Jim Pasco, the director of the Fraternal Order of Police, reportedly told Mother Jones that police agencies were likely filing the requests based on whatever they thought the Pentagon wanted to hear, but that the military equipment is “almost exclusively used as defensive tools.”

Mother Jones published the entire cache of requests from January 2012 to October 2014 on its website.

If there are grenade launchers and bayonets on those lists I really have to wonder why. Tanks and automatic weapons I can see for special ops but not grenade launchers.

Cops love their toys and always fascinate themselves with being in the military, it just does not present a good public image. People do not want to feel they live in a war zone. And part of the problem with the publics mistrust.

Dipshit of the day: The parents of the year……..

Family drives 90 miles before realizing they left daughter at rest stop


A 3-year-old girl was mistakenly left behind by her parents for more than two hours at a highway stop in southern France, local authorities told ABC News.

“Another family was at the rest stop and noticed the girl was alone for a while,” Clara Thomas, deputy prefect of the town of Die, in the Drome region, said on French TV. “They took care of her and called police to let them know.”

The 3-year-old was only able to tell police officers what her car looked like and said “Daddy’s car drove away,” according to French media, which reported the incident on Sunday.

After driving more than 90 miles, the family heard on the radio a message from police asking them to pick up their daughter.

“They were obviously traumatized,” Thomas said, adding that the parents, who had “no previously reported problems,” were reunited with their daughter at a police station.

The family was heading south towards the coastal town of Saint Raphael, authorities said. They reportedly asked their other children, a boy and girl, if everything was okay, and no one noticed the toddler was missing.

Local police said they would talk to the prosecutor in Valence, the nearby town, to assess whether further action should be taken.

Someone has some splainin to do……..

90 Pounds Of Cocaine Found On Cargo Ship Owned By Anti-Drug Senator’s Family


A cargo ship connected to Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell was recently stopped and searched before departing from Colombia. During the search, Colombian Coast Guard agents seized roughly 90 pounds of cocaine.

The drugs were found on the Ping May, which is a vessel operated by the Foremost Maritime Corporation, a company owned by Mitch McConnell’s in-laws, the Chao family. This connection is not only relevant because of the family connection, but also because the Chao family has often made large donations to McConnell’s campaigns.

In fact, the Chao family has been funding McConnell since the late 1980s. Years later, in 1993, McConnell married Elaine Chao and secured the Chao family as one of his primary sources for investments.

A gift worth somewhere between 5 and 25 million dollars from the Chao Family made McConnel one of the richest senators in the country in 2008.

The Foremost Maritime Corporation is currently operating 16 dry bulk cargo ships, most of which are currently still in service.

What makes this case even more interesting is that McConnell is well known as a staunch prohibitionist. In 1996, McConnell sponsored “The Enhanced Marijuana Penalties Act”, a bill designed to increase the mandatory minimum sentencing for people caught with marijuana.

Luis Gonzales, an official with the Colombian Coast Guard in Santa Marta told The Nation that the Ping May’s crew were questioned as part of the investigation, but that they have yet to file any charges in the case.

The war on drugs is an insult to the intelligence of the American people. There are mountains of evidence proving that the biggest importers of harmful, addictive, mind diminishing street drugs is the government. The drug laws that exist do not apply to the government agencies that bring these substances to our country. They are only designed to keep everyone else from this extremely lucrative business and give the establishment another reason to oppress people.

We have seen this all before during alcohol prohibition, where the government, law enforcement and organized crime were all working together and making an unbelievable amount of money in the black market. When black markets are created the crime rate goes up, taxes go up, prices go up and the police become more corrupt, all of this is inevitable. These are in fact the very consequences that any type of prohibition intends to create.

To solve these problems all that we have to do is end all prohibitions, this would cripple the black market and drastically reduce violence. This would also drastically reduce the reach of police and the state in general, which is why it is looked at as such an impossibility. Drug laws don’t do anything to prevent drug problems in our society, they only encourage violence, raise prices and criminalize half of the population.

Gee is this a fucking surprise either?


Ronda Rousey Says She Would Beat Floyd Mayweather in a “Ruleless Fight”

It all started when Floyd Mayweather referred to Ronda Rousey as a “he” a little more than a year ago. Since then, Rousey has fired off one jab after another until Mayweather responded with a very Floyd-esque comeback. When it looked like their little verbal back-and-forth was going to die down, the UFC‘s Twitter account added their two cents, re-igniting the feud.

Fittingly, Rousey participated in Reddit AMA on Monday and, as expected, Mayweather’s name was brought up. While there were probably plenty of questions regarding Money Mayweather, the UFC Bantamweight champion responded to the one asking if she could “legitimately beat Floyd Mayweather in a ruleless fight”?

Do I think I would legit beat Mayweather in a ruleless fight? Floyd is one of the best boxers of all time. He would definitely beat me in a boxing match. I unfortunately don’t get into “matches.” I fight for a living. In a no rules fight, I believe I can beat anyone on this planet. Boxing is a sweet science with strict rules that I respect very much and aspire every day to improve at. But you said ruleless fight, and that’s my honest answer.

It will never happen but man would I love to see Mayweather get his ass whipped by super chick

Zimbabwe has lifted its ban on trophy hunting

Zimbabwe’s temporary ban on trophy hunting lasted for just over a week. South Africa’s News24 reported yesterday that the ban, introduced after last month’s scandal over the killing of Cecil the lion, has been lifted.

According to the report, a statement from the Zimbabwe Professional Hunters and Guides Association was leaked during the weekend, announcing the lifting of the ban. “We are pleased to inform you that, following some useful discussions between operators and the relevant Zimbabwean authorities, the suspension has now been uplifted throughout the country”, it reads.

There are exceptions, according to News24: a ban continues on trophy hunting in certain areas such as the Antoinette farm, where Cecil the lion was illegally killed, and on the hunting of “collared iconic animals.” (Cecil was wearing a collar.)

Writing on al-Jazeera last week, Tendai Marima, a journalist based in Zimbabwe, reported fears that although hunting contributes less than a tenth of Zimbabwe’s $200 million or more in annual ecotourism income, a hunting ban could hurt the country in the current tough economic climate. “Some Zimbabwe-based hunting organisations fear that, in addition to their own losses, communities dependent on commercial hunting could be negatively affected by the temporary ban,” wrote Marima. She also cited fears that the ban on hunting might aggravate poaching instead.

Always follow the money, there is too much Money at stake to not allow this hunting.

Dipshit of the day: Mayweather the chump…….

Floyd Mayweather thinks he’s a much better boxer than Muhammad Ali (what an idiot)


Floyd Mayweather stopped by ESPN Deportes last week and ranked the top five boxers of all time. It’s all part of the media blitz for his upcoming September 12th bout with Andre Berto.

Here’s how the list turned out:

  1. Floyd Mayweather
  2. Roberto Duran
  3. Pernell Whitaker
  4. Julio Cesar Chavez
  5. Muhammad Ali

No surprise that Mayweather ranked himself top of the list — he explains why extensively in the video while referring to himself in the third person, and he constantly calls himself “TBE” for “The Best Ever”. But putting Muhammad Ali No. 5? Madness!

Mayweather says it was because Ali only fought in one weight class, and because he lost to Leon Spinks when “Spinks only had seven fights when he beat him.” No mention of Sugar Ray Robinson or Leonard in the top five, either, while Mayweather’s fellow undefeated boxer, Rocky Marciano, also missed out.

It was not worth embedding the video so here is the link of this shitheads list if you are interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyPzXEFNXsw

Retro of the day: Joan Jett

“I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” is a rock song written in 1975 by Alan Merrill and Jake Hooker of Arrows, who recorded the first released version.

The song was later made famous by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts in 1982.

The only Arrows band member still living, Alan Merrill has been playing the song recently live in England, Europe, Japan and most often in his home town New York City.

Joan Jett saw Arrows perform “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” on their weekly UK television series Arrows.

When she was touring England with The Runaways in 1976. She first recorded the song in 1979 with two of the Sex Pistols: Steve Jones and Paul Cook.

This first version was released on vinyl in 1979 on Vertigo records as a B-side to “You Don’t Own Me”. In 1981, Jett re-recorded the song, this time with her band, The Blackhearts.

This recording became a U.S. Billboard Hot 100 number-one single for seven weeks.


Billboard ranked it at the No. 3 song for 1982.

The single was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, representing two million units shipped to stores with Jett’s I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll album reaching number two on the Billboard 200.

Joan Jett’s version was ranked #89 in the list 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of Rolling Stone

Jett’s version has received many accolades, including:

Chart performance

Chart (1982)

Peak
position
Australia (Kent Music Report)[10]

1
Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40)[11]

4
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)[12]

2
Canadian RPM Top Singles[13]

1
France (SNEP)[14]

4
Germany (Official German Charts)[15]

6
Irish Singles Chart[16]

2
Italy (FIMI)[17]

42
Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)[18]

1
Netherlands (Single Top 100)[19]

1
New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ)[20]

1
South African Chart[21]

1
Sweden (Sverigetopplistan)[22]

1
Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade)[23]

3
UK (Official Charts Company)[24]

4
U.S. Billboard Hot 100[25]

1
U.S. Billboard
Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks[25]

1
U.S. Billboard
Hot Dance Club Play[25]

31