ballad of a thin man...

something is happening but you don't know what it is...do you, Mr. Jones?

from the first day months ago that I entered the court room to check out the Lance hearings, I was amazed at the atmosphere..it looked like Romper Room!

Romper Room tried to teach its young charges to be polite. For instance, the hostesses were always addressed as "Miss." Many of the hostesses had prior experience in working with small children, as many were former kindergarten teachers.
The hostess would also serve milk and cookies to the children and drunk drivers with prayer offered before eating. The famous Romper Room prayer went "God is great, God is good. Let us thank him for our food. Amen."

God is great??? isn't that what the 9/11 terrorists said???

anyway, back to the courtroom: people were wandering around, playing, lawyers were jumping up to the microphone to solicit business, spectators were visiting with each other, and the presiding judge, Brian Hill looked overwhelmed..in over his head....clueless

I do believe that if the original judge Eskin had stayed, the Lance trial would be over now..but Genis did all he could to remove Eskin from the proceedings....and how many DUI cases in Santa Barbara have been dismissed due to unreasonable searches??

to allow this thing, this hearing, to drag on for months and months simply highlighted Judge Hill's incompetence...I can appreciate the tough job being a judge is, but I didn't see him use the gavel once! it was like he was afraid of it...afraid to issue contempt of court or gag orders...Hill was afraid of the News-Press.....and Genis knew it...

ok, so Lance and Genis ran to Wendy's News-Press and got a front page Jake and Elmo moment..a victory dance to celebrate what these clowns got away with...I would hope in the future that the authorites representing "the people" would start earning their money because I'm one of the people goddammit!! and I want drunk drivers punished...no more lame excuses..

so there's Lanny Ebenstein AGAIN in the News-Press crying about the unions AGAIN trying soooo hard to steal the pensions of cops and firefighters probably because they busted his pot house operation in Eureka.....and he blames them for driving his other houses into foreclosure

...not a good businessman ol' Lanny....just a romantic idealist!!

....and as the conservative OC Register points out..Lanny is a rather quixotic fellow... or a romantic idealist who's not very practical.....

Taxing public pensions in excess of $100,000 a year could bring an extra $60 million into state coffers — – but would likely drive retirees from the Golden State, and would surely be challenged in court, says an analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.
We told you recently that Lanny Ebenstein, a rather quixotic visiting economics professor at UC Santa Barbara, filed this and two other initiatives for the California ballot – including one that would strip public employees of the right to collective bargaining.

http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/08/23/100k-pension-tax-could-cost-ending-collective-bargaining-could-save/94557/

and the guys who are writing these initiatives are scrambling for money, signatures and rewriting the bills due to constitutional concerns....all the while Brown started his own reform..and the teabagger govs are getting blown out of the water....this should be interesting come November 2012...

and Lanny, if you had managed your finances better, you would not have lost all those houses in Eureka..it's not the union's fault, it's your fault....own it!!