fire down below...

rap-sody in blue

I went to the Ranch with fire in my Pants
the sign was saggin' so I went baggin'
lookin for Snoop to get the latest poop
cruisin' in my truck, runnin' outta luck

the trees was invasive, the streets was sloppy
and they was Snoop in his Escalade jalopy
riding wid a group, coulda been his posse
I pulled up beside and almost hit a hossey..

I said hey Snoop, wut up my nigga
then he pulls outta gun and puts his finger on the trigga

I say whoa wait, I'm keepin it real
he says you white boys is slippery, like a banana peel

then we saw Wendy, riding in her tank
I said hey Snoop, that bitch is so blank
Snoop said buzz you look like da fuzz
so I headed for the sand, and gotta a little tan...

taking care of business

and working overtime....

so I was looking forward to attending the criminal trial of "sometime News-Press five time Emmy award winning former ABC investigative journalist" Peter Lance, but I looked on the court calender and they moved it to late July...and no trial but rather a settlement hearing with Judge Brian Hill... Hill hears a lot of domestic violence cases, but I don't want to chase this thing until 2012...justice is a slow boat to China it seems....

so I looked at the new publication online called the Montecito Messenger and was underwhelmed....it was rather boring...the first edition needed a hook....not a bunch of old news about the Miramar and interviews with people nobody knows.... step it up people!!!

there's a bunch of stories the local news media won't touch..instead they are content to report on stabbings in Oxnard, car accidents, pensions of public workers, bank robberies..that's it..that's what their news cycle revolves around! and they are content to sip wine at tasting parties and attend ballroom functions honoring old Santa Barbarans with lots of money....it's too sick...when are the local media gonna start taking care of business??

unions vs nonprofits

so the News-Press released the results of its latest push poll..with anti-union slants..and this time they claimed 900 people responded...of course most said the unions were causing the budget problems in the county...on the Voices page they had two opinions by Team Wendy members Lanny Ebenstein and Mike Stoker... both guys had the same message to end gov't worker pensions and keep giving to nonprofits...

Lanny always repeats this idiotic line "government does not exist to provide pensions to retired government workers; government exists to provide services for the people".....
Lanny, lemme tell you something: government exists to compensate hired employees for services rendered.. government does not exist to hand money to nonprofits...do you understand that, you dumb fuck???

Stoker said as a former supervisor in 1992, he was trying to manage a 30 million dollar county deficit...were the unions to blame back then, too??? of course not...

if you read Stoker's opinion, it was a jumbled mass of confusion and self congratulations about what he accomplished 20 years ago....the point was Mike wants to save the non-profits..and all of a sudden Team Wendy is concerned about the poor and disadvantaged!

well, all those tax exempt entities that ask the county for money and the tax payers for money double dip all the time and councils always give away your tax dollars...and all these folks on Team Wendy love nonprofits..Wendy's got one in her own name..the Wendy Pee McCaw Foundation...she parks about 35 million dollars there for tax purposes, I bet...and the News-Press must be a nonprofit since it hasn't turned a profit in 10 years!!

so Mike wants the county to keep giving to the nonprofits....nonprofits that are sitting on billions and overpaying their CEOs!! that's a major reason why budgets are in crisis...it is easier to blame the unions and the public workers and Wendy, always looking for the easy way, continues to use the poor for political purposes...

there is no reason any government body should give handouts to the nonprofits..if they want to exist, they can raise their own money..and the county should do what Boston did.....start retrieving cash from the foundations who have been stealing from the public for too long....

BOSTON — The City of Boston has been mailing voluntary property tax bills to major hospitals, universities and museums. As nonprofits, they don’t have to pay taxes, but Boston Mayor Thomas Menino says they should. He is asking them to pay a quarter of what they’d have to pay if they were taxable institutions.
While Boston has long collected voluntary payments from its nonprofit institutions, it has done so haphazardly, with some universities paying millions of dollars, while their peers paid little or nothing." The City is to be given some credit for finally turning up the heat on some of these nonprofit institutions which get away virtually scot-free from paying taxes under a law that dates from 1830(!).

and.....I read in the Daily Sound that Mike's friend, JoeArmenrdariz, Carp city council member, was having trouble paying his property taxes..and I see Joe just sold his house..looks like a short sale (read in the News-Press real estate section) .....and I see Joe is now working for Wendy's radio station as a co-host of "Voice of Santa Barbara AM 1290"..that's Lanny's show!! remember when the News-PRess was doing stories on the SB City Council members with personal issues, like Barnwell and Babatudne et al...well maybe they will check out Joe's issues...

“What really impresses me about Joe Armendariz is he is a Republican that was elected in a city with a large Democrat majority. He was able to do in Carpinteria what Governor Schwarzenegger did in California, build broad coalitions.” – Andy Granatelli, retired professional race car driver

In short, I recommend Joe Armendariz for any opportunity or position for which he might apply or seek. No one could do a better job.” – Lanny Ebenstein, Professor of Economics....UCSB economics professor??? hey, Joe, Mike and Lanny are back together again....what next fellas, are you gonna conduct Real Estate seminars on how to lose properties??

but... I guess these guys will just never learn...if you preach financial and personal responsibility you need to practice what you preach...and if you go after hard working thrifty public workers when you can't even manage your own checkbooks, then perhaps it's time to leave the public eye and work on these things...or you could just run to Wendy when the going gets tough....

it's the work that we avoid and we're all self employed, we love to work at nothing all day...

there goes the neighborhood...

Dope Ranch....

so I was wondering what the News-Press was so afraid of...constant opinions and guest opinions crying that the public is at risk..we need more cops on the streets...safety will be a casualty if any more public employees get pensions.....we need cops says Wendy and Lanny...cops and more cops...we need to be protected..from gangs and from homeless people..and on and on....

Wendy, it seems, is frightened of something....or someone....but who or what I asked myself....Nipper seems scared too....you get a sense of impending doom or a cloud of fear hanging over the News-Press....next time you read it, look for a story or opinion about things that scare Wendy....

so there I was wondering to myself and then I thought about Hope Ranch where she lives..is something bothering her in the secluded enclave? It's a pretty place with lots of trees and you can wander around without getting shot at..or it used to be that way ...

now, here's something I didn't even know..a former member of the Crips lives in Hope Ranch...the Crips is an LA gang that kills lots of people for no reason....and a former member lives near Wendy..and that member is Snoop Dogg! He bought a house in 2006.... right about the time Wendy started getting scared..

hey Wendy, I'd be scared to if a Crips dude lived next to me....the thought of a black man in Hope Ranch is very unsettling! how'd the Hope Ranch Homeowners Association let that happen???

"Game Of Life"

[Snoop:]
GAME that's my thang
and it ain't no rules when you in this game
[3X's]

Gunblast [gunshots] echo fast and all I seen was loose cash
I hit the flo' & when they go I make sure I grab all the dough
The Scene: Long Beach yeah '86
Where: The liquor store nigga on some devilish shit
I went in to grab a drink but I came out a felon
my homeboy got away but shit I wasn't tellin'
So I fell in a trap with no getback
they threw away the key and now I'm a OG
In the County jail rappin & bangin' at the same time
and since I don't smoke cigarettes loc
shit I gotta slang mine
And I ain't tryin' to get on swole so I ain't fuckin' with the iron
I got bitches bringin' me money & ain't a godamn thing funny....

so maybe Snoop is, when he's not riding his horse or attending functions at Laguna Blanca school, maybe Snoop is attracting a gang element to the Hope Ranch area...the stabbings at Hendry's and the lowlifes that hang out there now could be Snoop's fans!! and they could be partying below Wendy's properties and scaring her which is why she wants them OFF HER BEACH BITCHES!!!

butt remember Wendy, when you're rich, it's all a game, that's my thang
and it ain't no rules when you in this game ....

Moon River....

breakfast at Tiffany's.....

when the going gets tough.....the wealthy go on a cruise in their yachts on the Mediterranean!!

if you'll recall that's what Wendy did when she first bought the News-Press..the inner workings of her business were imploding so she and Nipper went for a Mediterranean cruise..when they got back, the News-Press was in disarray with key employees resigning left and right...oh, those were good times!

so I laughed when Wendy's pal Newt Gingrich who spoke at Wendy's Reagan Ranch Center on lower State St a few times, did the same thing.....his presidential campaign was floundering with news of his huge debt owed to Tiffanny's because his weird Barbie doll wife likes expensive jewelry, so Newt goes on a cruise to a Greek Isle...when he returns, most of his staff has resigned!

California Republican wants Iraq to pay for America's invasion of their sovereign nation!

BAGHDAD -- A U.S. congressman visiting Baghdad Friday suggested that Iraq pay back the United States for the money it has spent in the eight years since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher spoke during a one-day visit by a group of six U.S. congressman. The California Republican said he raised the suggestion during a meeting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that some day when Iraq is a "prosperous" nation it pay back the U.S. for everything that it has done here.

uh oh

SB City Council member Mike Self, whom I praised recently, stood outside City Hall with a quorum of conservative members of the council, and spoke about city issues and her plans to run for re-election.....this was not a noticed meeting, therefore a blatant violation of the Brown Act....

what is with these people???

another brick in the wall...

cashing' in....

Brian Sarvis was the pits as Santa Barbara schools superintendent, flubs and mistakes were his trademark...he was well liked by slumlord pot houser and News-Press writer Lanny Ebenstein...

David Cash is the new Santa Barbara schools superintendent... Lanny likes him too and wrote a glowing op-ed piece about him....Cash was schools chief in the town of Clovis near Fresno and he has some baggage...and plenty of controversy surrounding his career as an educator..especially interesting is the sex education program in Clovis where they taught abstinence over biology, ie rightwing religious indoctrination, and issues he had with students getting drunk on a bus after the prom and sexual assaults on the wrestling team!! "We can’t leave a single child unnoticed in any school,” Cash said...... or any bus apparently....the question is why did Cash "retire" two years into a four year contract...to intercept his imminent firing by the Clovis school board??

will he be just another incompetent overpaid official in the Santa Barbara schools system...so far, it doesn't look good..the board did not do their homework!!! I am hoping that Monique Limon will take a bigger role in the future vetting the people who are responsible for educating kids...

from the Fresno Bee fresnobee


Cash's sudden departure is as surprising and mysterious as that dead leopard shark turning up in a Clovis canal. Three weeks ago, a confident Cash was selling the district's performance and beating the drum for a possible $300 million bond measure to spiff up Clovis Unified's fabulous -- but aging -- facilities. Next thing you know, the district is robo-calling news of his retirement to staff.
What happened behind the scenes is anybody's guess. Perhaps dozens of small board concerns grew into a tsunami of regret over Cash's hiring or the direction he was taking the district.

"the board served Cash with notice on Thursday that they would schedule the Friday meeting to discuss a range of options for Cash's future, including discipline, suspension, dismissal or release.
But before the meeting started, Cash said, he called the district's lawyer to say he was retiring.
Cash, 55, said he was asked by the district's lawyer not to attend Friday's meeting but to be available by telephone. He would not discuss details of the evaluation.
But Cash said that, contrary to some news reports, issues at Buchanan High School involving the wrestling team and students who were caught drinking alcohol on a chartered bus after the prom two weeks ago had nothing to do with his decision to retire.
The board voted 7-0 Friday to accept Cash's decision to retire, said Hovsepian.
The same board members voted 7-0 to make Cash the superintendent in 2009.

Lanny's got Eureka and Cash has got Clovis...and the local media will have none of it!!

darkness darkness

News-Press plague visits SB City Councilman Dale Francisco..

less than a week after a News-Press endorsement, councilman Dale Francisco starting acting funny...he let his hair grow another 1/4 inch and railed against his endorsers, the News-Press of Santa Barbara...at issue is the Brown Act, which requires government meetings be open to the public....

also in an unrelated matter, can someone please explain KEYT chick Lauren Pozen to me? I get a chill up my spine everytime she appears on the screen...

in the past, the News-Press has used the Brown Act to go after their arch enemy David Pritchett who had the audacity to stand on a stage in De La Guerra Plaza and make fun of Wendy McCaw!! so when it was discovered that Dave was having lunch with some other commission members who perhaps talked about city business related to De La Guerra Plaza (not sure what the details is), the News-Press sued citing the Brown Act had been violated... the question is what is a meeting..now in a stunning turn of political benches, Dale Francisco has come to the defense of Pritchett!!!

and why can't you have lunch and talk to people without some idiot suing you?? Well, idiot Wendy sued the City of SB and Travis bragged about it for months until he was driven out of town by irreverent blogsters, or whatever the reason was...

geez, we got way too many laws so if Franny wants to get rid of a few, I'm all for it!!

but people are crying foul..saying that Dale is trying to prevent public participation like conservatives really want anyway....they would much rather you all just go away and let them handle things..very paternalistic behavior....but the problem is they can't be trusted when they are controlled by outside wealthy individuals.....public participation is essential to the process and it is very entertaining to boot......so the question is did Dale step in Wendy's Dog Chris's doo doo...

will she sue him if he dines with fellow members of the finance committee? what if there's no quorum?? is it still a meeting?? will Wendy sue just to sue..or does Wendy only sue her enemies? why hasn't she sewn me??

beware politicians..Wendy may flash her golden undies at you, but an endorsement from the News-Press is the usually kiss of death...the black plague...not good

the book of Ruth...

Mick's Chris Sam and Dave Blog....

I just heard that Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in La Cumbre Plaza was closing....why is it closing? because their name evokes a violent outburst in some people! I've never been there, but I heard they charge an arm and a leg for a tenderloin....did you know that beef has about twelve cuts: chuck, rig, round, brisket, etc....if you wanted any of them at Ruth's Chris, they would charge an arm and a leg....they shoulda called it the Arm n Leg Steakhouse....

Ruth's Chris Steakhouse...what a dumb name for a restaurant! like if I opened a hamburger joint, I would call it Mick's Jean Burgers, to drive away customers...or Wendy's Nipper Suishi House...I mean whoever is coming up with these names should get another job at the Polo fields cleaning the horse stalls...

People want simplicity and value when they go out...they want to be the stars, not the restaurant...if your server has an attitide, then they are the star, not you..and that's not good..

and you need to know what kind of people run the restaurant...like Carl's Jr for example..we know what a dump it is and how it can't compete with the other fast food places, but they also support bigotry!! the one thing I hate is a group of people trying to mess with the civil rights of another group of people..the founder of Carl's Jr, Karl Karcher was a John Bircher conservative who hated gays and free choice for women...

In 1978, Karcher provided $1 million USD to California's Prop 6, also known as the Briggs Initiative. He was the initiative's biggest financial supporter. The proposition was a ballot measure requiring the termination of all gays and lesbians from employment in public schools. The initiative was defeated by over one million votes.

aside from the weird name, Ruth's Chris had a controversy when a restaurant manager sent a racist insult about an African-American customer to another employee via email. This offensive email made its way to the customer by accident....a little stupidity goes a long way...
so if you are a racist or a bigot, you probably won't do very well in the food industry...maybe you'll do us all a favor and move to Texas!