Saturday Open Thread

Remember Father Guido Sarducci's five-minute college degree?

Of course you don't. You were born, like, 10 minutes ago.

He was a comedian who would teach you, in five minutes, everything you would have remembered from your education if you had gotten a college degree 10 years earlier, which is to say, not very much.

In that same spirit, here's all you need to know about today's news: a teeenager was murdered in the Valley, by other teenagers; raccoons are on a rampage of violence in Venice against homeowners' pets; the County, flush with cash, is flushing away your money on 15% pay raises over the next three years and, therefore, all of eternity (can't wait to see the pension funds come due on that); and last, but not least, the FDA has given new meaning to "you MUST be gellin'," by approving the re-release of silicon gel breast implants, as opposed to those unnatural saline jobs.

Oh, and there's one more, the one that bugs me probably even more than paying a grifter $2.7 million. What is the most distinctively "L.A." tree? What tree, when you see it, induces calming tropical thoughts? That's right: the palm tree. So naturally, the City Council wants to get rid of them. Just when you think the City Clowncil could not possibly do anything more stupid, they come up with a novel way to reach a new low.

Per the L.A. Times: "Councilwoman Hahn said the city's move away from palm trees was spurred in part by a public works analysis of satellite imagery that suggests that only 17% of Los Angeles is covered by a tree canopy. The average U.S. has 28% shade coverage."

Well THAT certainly proves the palms are fault, doesn't it? I mean, the lack of trees couldn't possibly have anything to do with the ongoing replacement of houses, with yards, by giant apartment complexes with zero set-backs, could it? And comparing L.A. -- with its 3.9 million people crammed into 469 square miles -- to America's "average" city certainly makes sense.

Hey, Janice, instead of giving tax dollars to developers to build more and more, why not use that same money to buy land all around the City to create "pocket parks" full of trees so families can have somewhere nice to walk in their own neighborhoods?

Nyah. There's no campaign money in doing something for the public interest, is there?

Okay, people, time for you readers to go out there and earn some money. The City's millionaires are counting on you to generate the taxes they need to turn a profit on their next construction project.

But before you do, blog away.