Easter Eggs And Sunday News Snippets
By Walter Moore, Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles, MooreIsBetter.com.Happy Easter! May you find all your eggs before they smell like stink-bombs. Here are a few thoughts from reading the morning papers:
1. FORTY BILLION DOLLAR FAST-TRACK TO NOWHERE
Inspired by the new speed record set by the French Tres Grande Vitesse (TGV) train -- yes, I am a Francophile -- some local geniuses want to squander $40 billion to build a similar train here. Why? Per the Daily News: "The California High-Speed Rail Authority is set to hold public meetings in Los Angeles this month on a proposed Southern California route that promises 27-minute rides between Union Station and Palmdale." Fellahs, let me explain something. Palmdale is not Paris. If you're headed to Palmdale, there's really no rush, and riding a Greyhound would get you more into the appropriate state of mind for your destination.
2. ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS ALREADY A CRIME -- THAT'S WHY IT'S CALLED ILLEGAL!
For at least the second time in the past few weeks, the L.A. Times published an article with the following line it it: "[O]n March 25, 2006, when 500,000 protesters took to the streets over a proposed law that would have criminalized undocumented immigrants and those who help them."
In the same vein, I have heard people -- including our beloved Mayor -- say that illegal aliens don't commit disproportionately more crimes than American citizens.
The implication is that it is not ALREADY a crime to come into the country illegally, and not ALREADY a crime to aid and abet same. Wrong. Those actions are already crimes, punishable by fines and imprisonment. Don't take my word for it. Read the federal statutes for yourself: 8 U.S.C. Section 1324-25.
Where do they GET these "reporters?!"
3. NEWS BULLETIN: INCREASED POPULATION DENSITY MAKES TRAFFIC WORSE, NOT BETTER.
Steve Lopez discovered, by talking to traffic engineers at the unfortunately named "SCAG," that increasing population increases traffic. Duh. Per his article today, they said we could not get traffic back to 1984 levels due to the population growth since then. So do you REALLY think moving even more people into our 469 miles is going to make things better? Of course not. And don't tell me that high density will make L.A. more affordable either: look in any almanac, and you'll see that New York City, with all its high-density high-rises, has a much higher cost of living than L.A. We need to stop increasing density, and start creating more open spaces. Plus do all that other stuff in Plank No. 2 of my platform to get traffic moving. Go look at it, would you? MooreIsBetter.com
Posted by Walter Moore @ 4/08/2007 09:23:00 AM
10 Comments:
Does anyone know why NOT ONE LATINO politician was out with the ILLEGALS yesterday? The local nes media Chan. 7, 4, 2, 5, 11 aired a snipet of the march. Nothing like last year. Seems they've lost steam and how dare they carrying that huge sign saying LEGALIZATION NOW. Again, they are demanding instead of being glad their brown butts aren't being deported by ICE. I would love to see the raids in downtown LA like we had in the 70's. And yes folks I'm Latino and sick and tired of them ruining our city.
Walter,
I am sure the train is in the boondooggle category. I am even sure the politicians here can't perform as well as the French on this type of thing.
BUT...there is some merit to the idea of the train going to Palmdale to spur growth out there (where houses are cheaper and land is plentiful) and to spur the Palmdale Airport. I think that is sort of similar to what the French and Japanese have done.
Walter, I agree that there is no a pressing need for people to get from Los Angeles to Palmdale in a hurry, though I wouldn't have insulted everyone who lives in Palmdale. I think the pressing need is for people in Palmdale to get to work in Los Angeles, which is what this train would do (boondoggle or not).
Even the bozo reporters on KFI say, "marching for immigrant rights."
(Another) JANICE HAHN IDIOCY ALERT:
Hahn seeks to bar new anti-gang policy
Councilwoman says those listed in injunctions should not face possible deportation because criteria for determining membership is flawed.
By Patrick McGreevy, Times Staff Writer
April 7, 2007
A new policy of submitting the names of gang injunction violators in Los Angeles for possible immigration enforcement is drawing protests from some community leaders who say the injunction process is flawed because it lacks an easy way out for people who mend their ways.
Councilwoman Janice Hahn and several civil rights leaders said Friday that the city attorney's new policy should be suspended until major changes are made in the way that young people are included and removed from gang injunctions.
According to Census Bureau projections, the US population will reach 400 million in just over 35 years (some projections are even high than this -- possibly another 200 million people by mid-century). After the biggest population boom ever in our nation's history in the 1990s, our population now stands at 300 million.
These unprecedented massive increases are largely the result of legal and illegal immigration resulting from flawed 1960s legislation and the 1986 amnesty. (Sen. Ted Kennedy, who is pushing the latest amnesty bill, was a major proponent of this previous legislation.)
Latino pressure groups disregard the above and demand another immediate amnesty while complaining about "civil rights" for lawbreakers when our government takes token efforts at enforcing our laws. The Democratic Party and many members of the Republican Party support these groups based on the possibility of future votes and demands from their short-sighted corporate contributors who want cheap labor at all costs so they can minimally increase profits while shifting the social costs to taxpayers and communties across the nation (e.g., crime, health care, education, Hazelton, PA.)
The growing population will result in more crowded cities and roads, new strains on natural resources, more crime and a marked deterioration of our quality of life in the immediate years to come. This is not "picking on" on any ethnic group, this is the stark reality. Our country simply needs time to absorb and assimiliate the tens of millions of new arrivals.
Please get involved. Call, write or e-mail your Congressional member and Senators Boxer and Feinstein and tell them NO AMNESTY, NO expansion of guest worker programs.
Visit www.numbersusa.com or www.fairus.org for more information.
Hopefully anyone in Palmdale can take a joke. Heck, they presumably make the same kind of joke about how awful it is to live in L.A.
The U.S. is full of functioning cities -- places that ALREADY have homes, schools, commerce, factories, etc. If people cannot afford to live here, or do not want to live here, they should consider moving to one of those functioning cities.
To the extent Palmdale is not a thriving city already, that is nature's way of saying, "You might want to try somewhere else." Building a train or opening an airport or bribing airlines to fly to Palmdale -- which City Hall is now doing -- is not a good investment in my opinion. There's no reason to go to Palmdale, as far as I can tell. If there were, the private sector would already be taking care of it.
Show of hands: Who here has actually spent the night in Palmdale? Who here would move to Palmdale if you could instead afford to stay in L.A.?
For a francophile, you sure are ignorant.
It's "train à grande vitesse".... not "tres" grand vitesse...
Salope.
To the extent Palmdale is not a thriving city already, that is nature's way of saying, "You might want to try somewhere else."
Palmdale is thriving, and that's the point. 150,000 residents and growing. The Antelope Valley as a whole is nearing 500,000 residents and is expected to be the fastest-growing part of L.A. County for the foreseeable future.
If you need to travel between the Antelope Valley and L.A., you need to drive on the 14 and pass through the massively clogged junction of the 5 and 14 near Santa Clarita. Traffic is going to get much worse, making life difficult for commuters and discouraging people from using Palmdale Airport.
Building a train or opening an airport or bribing airlines to fly to Palmdale -- which City Hall is now doing -- is not a good investment in my opinion.
I thought you first decided to run for Mayor because you opposed expansion at LAX. If LAX doesn't expand, where will increased air traffic go? Ontario and Palmdale. There is a need to get Palmdale Airport up and running, but it can't happen until the traffic issue is resolved. The junction of the 5 and 14, which was damaged in two earthquakes, can't be expanded much more due to the mountains surrounding it.
Who here would move to Palmdale if you could instead afford to stay in L.A.?
Fewer and fewer people can afford to live in L.A., so they are moving to Palmdale and will continue to do so. A lot of folks in the Antelope Valley commute to jobs in L.A., which affects our traffic and quality of life. High-speed rail makes sense for these long-distance commutes.
The Mayor of L.A. needs to have a regional perspective on these issues. Dismissing the growth of the Antelope Valley and its impacts on L.A. is not good policy. It won't win you many friends in the Antelope Valley, whom you're going to have to work with at MTA and SCAG.
Sorry 7:21 you are way off base.
We must have regionalization to survive as a world class city.
LAX is maxed out and Palmdale is one of two alternatives owned by the City of LA, the other being Ontario.
In Palmdale, LAWA owns 17,500 acres of land and the Palmdale and Lancaster people actually want an airport.
Once there is rail connectivity, we can transfer goods and do maintenence and lower the traffic on the 405 around LAX. But that is just for starters. Ultimatgely, the big boys from other continents will land in Palmdale and people will get to their destinations by high speed rail.
It is the regional solution and it is inevidable.
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