The Golden Gate

A federal jury on Thursday awarded $15 million to three Los Angeles police officers who alleged they were falsely arrested and maliciously prosecuted during the Rampart corruption scandal that roiled the LAPD for years beginning in 1999.

The jury award represents a bitter pill for the city, which already has doled out about $70 million in Rampart-related settlements to gang members, drug dealers and other victims of police abuse — and now faces the prospect of paying another significant judgment to officers who were accused of committing some of that same misconduct.

The Orange County jury deliberated for 2 1/2 hours before voting unanimously in favor of Sgt. Edward Ortiz, Officer Paul Harper and former Sgt. Brian Liddy. The award was split evenly among them.

“It was real, real obvious that they were made the fall guys,” said juror Rose McKay. “We listened to the evidence for three weeks and never heard any hard evidence against them.”

Dale Goldfarb, a private attorney hired to defend the city, said he disagreed with the verdict and planned to challenge it in post-trial motions. “We think the verdict was completely wrong and was not supported by any evidence at the trial,” he said.

A spokesman for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the city probably would appeal if those motions failed. “It’s obviously a significant amount of taxpayer money,” spokesman Joe Ramallo said. “It’s serious.”

The verdict could hardly come at a worse time for the mayor. Villaraigosa, who has pledged to expand the Police Department and tackle other city needs even as the government faces a persistent structural deficit, is working to prepare the first city budget of his tenure since being elected last year.

The $15 million, Ramallo noted, would be enough to fund 150 more police officers.

Ortiz, Liddy and Harper were arrested in April 2000 on corruption-related charges stemming from the then-unfolding Rampart scandal, in which corrupt former Officer Rafael Perez alleged that he and his colleagues routinely framed, beat and otherwise mistreated suspects.

You know you want it.

This from the man who ran the Bush Cheney Blog during the campaign, so it is legit. Patrick Ruffini Gives us W’s iPod playlist here. and for you people who just want the screenshot it is here.

Methinks you may be surprised.

From Cox & Forkum

The caption:

Diana Ponce talks on a phone in the yard of her San Pablo home Wednesday, the fifth day of a hunger strike to protest the gathering of armed volunteers, the Minuteman Project, at the Arizona-Mexico border to keep illegal immigrants from entering the United States. Chronicle photo by John O’Hara

Photo credit: SF Chronicle

I could make up my own caption, but discretion is the better part of valor. I do wonder, though–does she see the irony?

Dave over at Logical Meme has a great blog. It is in my top 5 for the depth he goes to in his posts [just deep enough] and the scope of issues and topics he addresses. Go check him out and just keep scrolling. It is all good.

Here is a recent piece on the “Flat Tax Revolution”. Enjoy.

If you’re stuck with inferior technology, you might as well make it look pretty. Check this stuff out. Uber-cool.

Makes me almost wish I weren’t using Panther. Almost. Of course with Tiger coming out IN 15 DAYS, it is not even a close call.

This guy is one of my favorite strategists, and as I have said before if you are not reading/seeing/listening to Dr Barnett, then you can not truly understand what is happening in the world and the Middle East today. At least your understanding will be horribly partial and incomplete without his thinking. He does regular news analysis on his blog. Here is a sample of it:

China builds a military that’s clearly designed to counter our ability to do whatever we damn well please in Asia. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Doesn’t being the world’s Leviathan mean we get to have everyone unable to stand up to us no matter what we do or where we do it? No, it just means it’s impossible to wage war successfully unless the U.S. agrees to that proposition. That’s real power all right, it’s just not unlimited with regard to our own desires. Being Leviathan doesn’t mean you’re God, just that you can prevent anyone else from assuming that role on anything significant.

When someone gets to the point of accumulating power that calls into question your ability on some specific issue, then you have to start viewing both the rising power and the issue in question differently. We are not doing this yet. We see only the danger, not the possibility. We ask, Will China “behave” in the Gulf? Hopefully not like America does! One Big Banger in the region is enough, I would say.

China’s just waking up to a world in which the Core relies on the unstable regions of the Gap for its short-term economic security via energy. You can change that dependency if you want, but it will take some time. Other route is to work the issue with military, but that’s takes a military, now doesn’t it? We’ve got one, so we work it. China doesn’t, so it’s getting one. Sound odd to you? Sounds pretty “real” to me.

I suggest checking him out on a regular basis.

My grandfather passed away last week. He was 85-ish [they are not really sure]. He went quickly–collapsed and was taken to the hospital at Arkansas State University. My mother flew out there that evening from San Francisco and when she arrived in his hospital room, tears began rolling down his cheeks and peace came over him and he flatlined. She said he was waiting for her. I would not doubt it, given his fortitude.

His wishes were to have a quiet grave-side memorial and nothing more. That is what they were doing in Fayetteville Arkansas last Wednesday at noon PST.

He was a good man. One of my favorites. My mother’s father. I am also his spitting image–at least when he was younger. Shortly after my father committed suicide, I changed my last name and took grandpa’s when I was 24–a decade ago. Given that he had all daughters, this meant I would be the one to carry on his name–something I had not even thought of. I just wanted to honor him and leave my father’s side of the family to distant memories. Shortly before I was married, grandpa gave me *his* grandfather’s pocket watch. An old railroad man’s watch that still works. Built like a tank.

He fathered 4 daughters. He leaves 3 behind. One died in a car accident years ago. My grandmother, Lucille, who is the same age-ish survives him as well. He was an elder in the Church of Christ [protestant] for 30 years. He was good natured, jovial, and basically believed that men should not cry and you did not marry outside your own race. He used to talk about his investment [investing groceries in his belly] while rubbing his pot belly. I took to teasing him about it and rubbing his pot belly when I saw him and asking him how his investments were doing.

They owned 5 acres in Fayetteville Arkansas. one of those acres was their “garden”. They grew corn, berries, vegetables, melons, etc. Grandma used to sell fresh ready-to-bake pies to anyone who drove by and saw their sign until the health department found it to be their business to put a stop to it for no reason other than the vague “public health/safety” declarations.

There was a great fondness between us–as infrequent as our communication was.

They flew out for my wedding in 2000. It is the last time I saw him.

Everything has a nature–it arises and passes away. This is the law of impermanence. This has me smile.

Rich is a baseball guy. I am a football guy. ‘Nuff said.

UPDATE: I was wrong. There is more to be said. That means he gets months of sunshine filled joy with all the bad food a guy could want and I get…well, I get to wait while the Niners figure out if they want to run the team like a business and cut costs, or they want to win.

Apologies to our readers. Rich and I are both slammed and some personal stuff has had me focused elsewhere. My grandfather just passed. One of my favorite men in the world. Other things as well. More to come later in the week when full raging blogging should return.

There’s this new expression that I’ve fallen in love with — “hysterical screedmongering.” I came across it this morning over breakfast. Ray Ratto’s columns for the San Francisco Chronicle’s sports pages are always entertaining, and in this morning’s Baseball Preview column , he came up with this absolute doozy: “This story has been reported to newsprint dust, with the requisite amounts of solid reporting and hysterical screedmongering.”

Hysterical screedmongering. God, that expression is just perfect.

It’s perfect in that it just so beautifully captures the kind of sloppy, yet foam-flecked writing that’s found, say, here — on San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly’s blog. As Ratto observes, hysterical screedmongering is distinct from “solid reporting,” and, I would add, it’s totally distinct from thoughtful opnion.

We’ll be taking on the hysterical screedmongers (like Supervisor Daly) and picking their hysterical screeds apart in future installments of The Golden Gate.

But for now, I just want to thank you, Mr. Ratto, for coining such a precise and elegant term. Precision is power, after all — and this new term brings a smile to my face every single time I see it.

Oh man. They are at it again on the newly expanded IMAO. with Signs that the Terrorists are Losing.

Since we are talking about Capitalism, I think it is worth asking the question: what is capitalism? First of all, I think it is worthy of note that Marx, a long discredited economist, coined the terms “capitalism” while framing the debate that it was “bad”. Before that, it was simply liberty applied. So what then IS capitalism? I prefer this definition: The ability to freely associate for mutual benefit. Period.

But of course, we do not have capitalism in this Country. We live in a Mercantilist system. Alas, it is too easy to use the derisive term coined by someone whose thinking was in error and paint it as the modern day boogey man and then lock it in a closet.

Slugger Pushed Him Over the Edge, Baseball Journalist Says

A journalist who has covered baseball for his entire career called it quits today, blaming San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds.

Reporter Herb McCaugh, 52, who has written about the sport for the past twenty-three years, said that Bonds’ persistent refusal to answer his questions had finally pushed him over the edge.

In an angry, expletive-laden press conference, McCaugh took a parting shot at Bonds, whom he called “the sole reason” for his decision to exit journalism.

“Barry, you wanted me to jump off the bridge, I finally have jumped,” he said. “You wanted to bring me down, you’ve finally brought me and my family down. So now go pick a different person.”

Read the whole thing, for the Borowitz Report is always good.

As long as we are on price [in this case rent] controls, I must reference Dr Thomas Sowell who has thoroughly deconstructed the politically popular and entirely ineffective rent control. Here is a general sample:

Although there was no less housing space per person than before, the shortage was very real at existing prices, which were kept artificially lower than they would have been because of rent control laws that had been passed during the war.  At these artificially low prices, more people had a demand for more housing space than before rent control laws were enacted.  This is a practical consequence of the simple economic principle already noted in Chapter 2 that the quantity demanded varies with how high or low the price is.

Some people who would normally not be renting their own apartments, such as young adults still living with their parents or some single or widowed elderly people living with relatives, were enabled by the artificially low prices created by rent control to move out and into their own apartments.  These artificially low prices also caused others to seek larger apartments than they would ordinarily be living in.  More tenants seeking both more apartments and larger apartments created a shortage, not any greater physical scarcity of housing relative to the population.  When rent control laws expired or were repealed, the housing shortage likewise quickly disappeared.

Read the whole excerpt.

And for the serious students of what works, check out Basic Economics: a Citizen’s Guide to the Economy. HERE is a large sample [PDF doc] and HERE is where you can buy the whole book.

It is a must read for anyone who is interested in politics and things like rent control. it will give you a little reality around this oh-so-popular subject–empirical data.

Oh: here is a review of Basic Economics.

Hello, and welcome. My name is Rich and I am the other primary voice of The Golden Gate. (We may feature other voices on here as guestbloggers from time to time. But that’s down the road a piece.) Right now, it’s my turn to step to the microphone…

> boomp, boomp< Is this thing on?

So, what are we up to here? Well, Jason’s done a good job of setting the tone thus far. You can look over there at the “Categories” sidebar and see the kinds of things we’re planning to talk about on a regular basis. So, stay tuned. This blog will be be a work in progress, and we’ve got our sleeves rolled up, and we’re rarin’ to go. We think you’re gonna dig what we’ve got in store.

All I’ll add at this point is that we tend to get real uneasy around orthodoxies and “given limits.” Both Jason and I are big on freedom and possibility. That said, we don’t always see everything eye to eye.

And that’s cool. Because, y’know, monoculture is inherently unhealthy and all that.

What else about me? I am a fifth-generation San Franciscan, and one of my particular areas of interest is the often zany and madcap world of San Francisco politics and culture.

Oh yes — and baseball. I’m real big on baseball. So, you will undoubtedly get the occasional baseball anecdote or metaphor from me.

Okay, that’s enough talking about myself, for now. Res ipsa loquitur, and all that.

~rich

Exposed by Democracy Guy.

Beats me. Here is an excerpt:

AUSTRALIAN soldiers drew arms to protect themselves from Jordanian peacekeepers after a Digger blew the whistle on other Jordanian soldiers’ sexual abuse of East Timorese boys. Corporal Andrew Wratten had to be evacuated and Australian commandos sent to protect Diggers in Oecussi, an East Timorese province in Indonesian West Timor, after he told the UN of the pedophilia that occurred in May 2001. The Australians drew their Steyr assault rifles after being confronted by Jordanians armed with M-16s, in an escalation of verbal threats triggered by the later betrayal of Corporal Wratten by a Jordanian officer in the Dili headquarters of the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor. Corporal Wratten, who was working at a fuel dump in the enclave, was told by a group of children that Jordanian soldiers had offered food and money in exchange for oral sex and intercourse. The allegations involved East Timorese minors, all boys, the youngest of them just 12 years old.

Hat Tip: LGF

Oh, I figured it out: they have stolen more money in the biggest all-time financial scam [Oil for Food scandal which is the main reason Russia, China, and France opposed the invasion of Iraq], raped more boys [see above] and raped and prostituted more women [Congo "peacekeepers"] than anyone else.

Clear moral authority in a world of moral relativism. Yup. Uh-huh.

A little humor to start us off: IOWAHAWK is at it again. pointing out the oh-so-obvious inconsistencies and ironies we experience in the world in a way that must leave the “other side” seething. [The other side for him, not me].

Day by Day rocks as usual, especially now with the FCC musing whether free speech is “legitimate”. Check him out and keep clicking the “back” link and read the strips for the last week [or more].

And last, but certainly not least, [I just like 3s] the Democracy Guy has a humor section that is not often posted to, but is quite funny to me. He is also a centrist and rational Democrat who worked on Bill’s campaigns who has been banned from Daily Kos, Atrios and MyDD for trying to talk sense. No, I am not linking to them.

Saw this in the Drudger Reporter today:

“St Patrick’s Day has claimed another victim: the world-renowned Hubris has not posted since March 17th. Insiders claim is it not due to his reported fascination with Patrick Swayze, and the recent depression stemming from maniacally watching Road House, but simply bad fish and chips. However lately, his corporate underlings have complained of him continually muttering “should’ve taken the Oscar” under his breath in meetings he is supposed to be facilitating. He is also reportedly growing a mullet. Developing…”

If you are an American citizen and you are politically active, it is impossible to be responsibly politically active unless you have read the Federalist papers. It is through reading the Federalist Papers that you can begin to truly understand the rules of the game we are playing in this Country [or supposed to be playing]. You can read them here for free.

UPDATE: read them before you go out and vote again.

Tired of the left-right polarization in the political discourse today? Feel like neither really characterizes you well? Don’t feel like a “centrist” either? Find yourself agreeing with the Democrats on some things and Republicans on others? Check out the 4 quadrant model here. Take the test. Enrich and deepen your understanding of yourself and others.

Looking for the best in integrative thought, where the brightest thinkers in all fields of human development and conscious evolution are gathering? Check out Ken WIlber and David Deida’s site Integral Naked . If you want to see what Ken thinks of the War in Iraq, bringing the Spiral Dynamics model into play, check that out here.

Here’s a sample:

there are second-tier reasons not to go to war. but there are also second-tier reasons to go to war. green doesn’t have a choice–it won’t go. second tier has a choice, so weigh the evidence carefully. second tier might indeed recommend war, it might not. but you can check and see if you are “merely” green by asking under what conditions you would recommend war. if you can’t think of any, ahem, welcome to green. still, the issue is enormously complicated, even through integral lens, so again, weigh the evidence carefully. The problem with this discussion at large is that it is entirely first-tier. blue says bomb the hell out of the evil ones; orange says, okay, but hurry, because it’s hurting the stock market; green says, no way, let’s be loving. first tier has such a hard time seeing big pictures, so it moves around within the partial value structures that define it. this is a discussion that i have stayed out of since doing WTC essay. it’s just a big first-tier food fight.