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Bob Filner, the mayor of San Diego, has gotten caught in a sexual harrassment suit, but seems to be avoiding resignation, despite calls from basically everyone. http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/jul/11/filner-responds-sexual-harassment-allegations/ I don't think his statement is going to help, so he'll probably wind up being forced from office.
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Jul 11, 2013 23:46
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Glass of Milk posted:Bob Filner, the mayor of San Diego, has gotten caught in a sexual harrassment suit, but seems to be avoiding resignation, despite calls from basically everyone. Doesn't the office of San Diego mayor tend to be a revolving door of corruption and scandal? etalian fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Jul 12, 2013 |
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Jul 11, 2013 23:48
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etalian posted:Doesn't the office of San Diego mayor tend to br a revolving door of corruption and scandal? Or ineptitude. Apart from the last mayor, Jerry Sanders, there was Michael Zucchet (convicted of extortion, conspiracy and wire fraud), Dick Murphy (resigned due to being awful and starting a pension crisis) and Susan Golding (Shady ticket deal with the Chargers).
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Jul 12, 2013 00:02
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CAHSR is not planned to share track with the freight line north of Los Angeles. It will have its own line, but that is one of the last bits, not to be completed until 2028. Anyway, if they can sort out the eminent domain issues through San Jose, I have few doubts that right of way can also be had through Castaic and Hungry Valley.
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Jul 12, 2013 00:32
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Glass of Milk posted:Or ineptitude. Apart from the last mayor, Jerry Sanders, there was Michael Zucchet (convicted of extortion, conspiracy and wire fraud), Dick Murphy (resigned due to being awful and starting a pension crisis) and Susan Golding (Shady ticket deal with the Chargers). also Maureen O' Connor (gambled so bad she extorted money from her own foundation, although that was after her terms) and Roger Hedgecock (forced from office due to corruption, white supremacist) and I guess we can throw in the fact that it catapulted noted gubernatorial failure Pete Wilson's career
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Jul 12, 2013 02:24
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GD_American posted:also Maureen O' Connor (gambled so bad she extorted money from her own foundation, although that was after her terms) and Roger Hedgecock (forced from office due to corruption, white supremacist) and I guess we can throw in the fact that it catapulted noted gubernatorial failure Pete Wilson's career They need to put up one up something similar to the days without injury sign, "Over 60 days without a scandal"
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Jul 12, 2013 04:15
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Apparently, Napolitano might leave Obama's cabinet to become the new UC President.
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Jul 12, 2013 17:38
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High speed trains can reach insanely high speeds but the noise pollution and safety issues are the problem.
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Jul 12, 2013 18:06
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I just had a quick look and yeah, the Japanese shinkansen could run at 320 KPH right now and they're aiming for 360 soon. But way more impressively, they've got a maglev train running at 500 KPH. Tokyo to Osaka in just over an hour. Jesus.
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Jul 12, 2013 18:13
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I am OK posted:I just had a quick look and yeah, the Japanese shinkansen could run at 320 KPH right now and they're aiming for 360 soon. By the way, the fastest section of CHSRA is planned to reach an average of 180mph, or 290kph. So really not that much slower when you consider those Japanese numbers are maximum speeds.
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Jul 12, 2013 19:25
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Trabisnikof posted:By the way, the fastest section of CHSRA is planned to reach an average of 180mph, or 290kph. So really not that much slower when you consider those Japanese numbers are maximum speeds. And the the inter-station distances are long enough that it might actually be feasible to accelerate to the max speed!
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Jul 12, 2013 19:33
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Coming out of lurker mode to post about the glorious shitshow going on RIGHT NOW in sunny San Diegan politics. Basically, as was mentioned above, our beautiful city loves scandals. Our current mayor is quite a peach. Mayor Bob Filner has been in the office since December 3rd, 2012. Since then, he's been really busy doing stuff such as pissing off the city council, the city attorney, the powerful hotel industry et al. He also took a trip to Paris for some stupid reason, got caught up in a pay-for-play scheme, and now - most recently, has had former supporters call for him to resign over sexual harrasment claims. Days before this sexual harassment stuff went down, his wife-to-be left him. -Here is a decent timeline of Mayor Bob's term. -Voice of San Diego is providing excellent coverage on everything. San Diego politics have always been strange but quiet. This time, everything is beyond weird and out in the open. This mayor has managed to turn EVERYONE against him in a little over 6 months. A recall isn't out of the question, but we'll see. Bust out the popcorn because this poo poo is just getting started. 
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Jul 12, 2013 20:02
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I remember the U-T being a fishwrapper even when I lived there as a teen, apparently it's gotten worse: http://deadspin.com/the-chargers-want-700-million-in-public-money-for-a-ne-754736203
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Jul 12, 2013 21:46
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GD_American posted:I remember the U-T being a fishwrapper even when I lived there as a teen, apparently it's gotten worse: Well seeing how San Diego is so close to the sea it's a very convenient arrangement.
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Jul 12, 2013 23:30
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Dick Murphy is a cool name. Also, I love Qualcomm Staduim/The Murph but lmao that loving thing is ancient as gently caress. The UT is a terrible piece of poo poo rag that's just gotten worse since Doug Manchester bought it and started using it as his personal conservative bullshit PSA machine. Chinatown fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Jul 13, 2013 |
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Jul 13, 2013 06:37
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giznot posted:Coming out of lurker mode to post about the glorious shitshow going on RIGHT NOW in sunny San Diegan politics. Basically, as was mentioned above, our beautiful city loves scandals. Our current mayor is quite a peach. I hope Sand Diego can get a good mayor at some point.
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Jul 13, 2013 06:43
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Zeitgueist posted:Someone posted this over in the picture thread. This is an old map. DesertXpress (which is now called XPressWest) has since announced plans to hook into the CHSR system at Palmdale. However, yesterday there was a new wrinkle: The Las Vegas Review-Journal posted:WASHINGTON — The government has halted its review of a multibillion-dollar loan request for high-speed rail line connecting Las Vegas and Southern California, a potentially staggering hit to the ambitious project. And as a Vegas person, let me say the following: yes, you are correct that this is Harry Reid bringing home the delicious pork. And yes, the main point of this is to bring in hella tourist money from Southern California. But Southern California is also a big tourist destination for us - whenever there's a holiday weekend, people head to LA and San Diego for the beach, or the theme parks, or the concerts and shows that don't come to Las Vegas. Of course Las Vegas would profit more from the connection, but a rail connection would benefit Southern California's economy as well. Unrelated: what opinion do people have of the Los Angeles Times? Vegas has two papers, one of which is underfunded, and the other is semi-underfunded and has an insane libertarian editorial slant. The Times occasionally does reporting on Vegas issues, and they seem well-done and unbiased, but I don't know enough about it to accurately judge.
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Jul 13, 2013 06:44
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Chinatown posted:Dick Murphy is a cool name. It looks like a parking structure.
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Jul 13, 2013 06:49
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Ponsonby Britt posted:Unrelated: what opinion do people have of the Los Angeles Times? Vegas has two papers, one of which is underfunded, and the other is semi-underfunded and has an insane libertarian editorial slant. The Times occasionally does reporting on Vegas issues, and they seem well-done and unbiased, but I don't know enough about it to accurately judge. The Times is a good paper. It's got that same neoliberal bent that most US papers have (and in my opinion wastes way too much space on food and fashion and real estate), but it's a good rag. The only US daily I've seen with better international coverage is the New York Times, although it's still pretty sparse.
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Jul 13, 2013 08:20
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Bobby Digital posted:It looks like a parking structure. Brutalist architecture is kinda cool but otherwise pretty depressing. DO YOU LIKE REPEATING CONCRETE GEOMETRY?!?!?
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Jul 13, 2013 10:41
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Ponsonby Britt posted:And as a Vegas person, let me say the following Okay, what is it with this drat state being so tightly linked to Cali? Reno here, and while we have our own papers and news, a fair bit of people still get their info from bay area news stations. It's also fairly common for people here to head into south lake or Truckee on a whim, or drive out to sac or San Fran for a weekend trip. A good rail line that meant you don't have to drive over the pass that killed the Donner Party would bring a fair bit of tourism to NorCal too. Can we Just divvy Nevada up and give vegas to SoCal and Reno to Norcal, and maybe elko/ely to utah?
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Jul 13, 2013 23:52
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Quantumfate posted:Okay, what is it with this drat state being so tightly linked to Cali? Reno here, and while we have our own papers and news, a fair bit of people still get their info from bay area news stations. It's also fairly common for people here to head into south lake or Truckee on a whim, or drive out to sac or San Fran for a weekend trip. A good rail line that meant you don't have to drive over the pass that killed the Donner Party would bring a fair bit of tourism to NorCal too. Can we Just divvy Nevada up and give vegas to SoCal and Reno to Norcal, and maybe elko/ely to utah? I love how when you drive across the border on 80, the state line precisely coincides (to within like a few hundred yards) with the sudden and drastic change in biome. Basically Nevada gets the land that's in the Sierra's rain shadow, and California gets the land that has water and trees and poo poo on it. And that's why Nevada doesn't belong to California. We got the nice stuff and you guys got desert basin-and-range. Now, it turned out you had a bunch of mineral wealth, but I'm guessing by the time the comstock lode was found, it was way too late for us to re-draw the lines and try to steal it. Anyway people from low-tax, low-regulation Nevada coming to California to spend their money is a good demonstration of why (to the consternation of conservatives everywhere) California is not, in fact, crippled by excessive taxes and regulation. People actually want to live here, more than they want to avoid state income tax or smog checks or whatever. Because it's gorgeous here, and we have a lot of nice stuff.
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Jul 13, 2013 23:58
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Quantumfate posted:Okay, what is it with this drat state being so tightly linked to Cali? Reno here, and while we have our own papers and news, a fair bit of people still get their info from bay area news stations. It's also fairly common for people here to head into south lake or Truckee on a whim, or drive out to sac or San Fran for a weekend trip. A good rail line that meant you don't have to drive over the pass that killed the Donner Party would bring a fair bit of tourism to NorCal too. Can we Just divvy Nevada up and give vegas to SoCal and Reno to Norcal, and maybe elko/ely to utah? Well, we sort of only exist because of California. Reno (oasis between a huge desert and the Donner Pass) and Vegas (oasis halfway between SLC and LA) were both originally settled by white people to facilitate the migration to California. Washoe's early economy was based on providing commodities (meat and milk) to NorCal miners, just like Vegas' early economy was based on providing commodities (electricity and water) to the SoCal defense industry. Both Northern and Southern Nevada had mining booms, which were driven by capital from San Francisco (which coincidentally took all the profits). And today both Vegas and Reno are heavily dependent on tourism from our California counterparts. We're basically a colony of California, at this point. (Also, I am 100% down with your "give away Elko/Ely plan".) Leperflesh posted:Anyway people from low-tax, low-regulation Nevada coming to California to spend their money is a good demonstration of why (to the consternation of conservatives everywhere) California is not, in fact, crippled by excessive taxes and regulation. People actually want to live here, more than they want to avoid state income tax or smog checks or whatever. Because it's gorgeous here, and we have a lot of nice stuff. Well, this is only kinda true - the Californians who hate income tax have all moved to Nevada. That's actually a win-win, though; as your state has gotten less economically libertarian, our state has gotten more socially liberal. Anti-discrimination laws for LGBT, a moratorium on the death penalty, a gun control bill (that got vetoed by the governor, but still) - these are all policies that would have been impossible twenty years ago, but passed the legislature this year, in large part due to the influx of Californians (and Hawaiians, and various foreign immigrants).
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Jul 14, 2013 00:44
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Leperflesh posted:Anyway people from low-tax, low-regulation Nevada coming to California to spend their money is a good demonstration of why (to the consternation of conservatives everywhere) California is not, in fact, crippled by excessive taxes and regulation. People actually want to live here, more than they want to avoid state income tax or smog checks or whatever. Because it's gorgeous here, and we have a lot of nice stuff. It's sort of flawed dream with being a playground for the rich but still preferable to getting stuck in Nevada.
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Jul 14, 2013 00:47
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A good friend of my fathers moved to Vegas (from San Diego) because of (business)taxes. I enjoyed his emails complaining about it being 100F and how its awful, in June.
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Jul 14, 2013 12:01
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What taxes exactly are strangling business in California?
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Jul 14, 2013 12:05
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VideoTapir posted:What taxes exactly are strangling business in California? Nevada has little or no corporate taxes and no income tax and has state services to match.
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Jul 14, 2013 13:17
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VideoTapir posted:What taxes exactly are strangling business in California? It's sort of a myth, the business tax rate is in line with many other states (4.8%). The corporate tax rate is higher than most states(8.7%) but it cancelled out by things such as generation R&D credit system/flat rate regardless of corporate income. The state also doesn't even have a extraction tax for oil unlike other states such as Louisiana and Texas. It's pretty much the standard US job creator story in which companies such as HP sometimes even get a big tax refund from the state due to their legions of clever accountants and lawyers. Pretty much the same sad song where corporations whine about taxes despite gaming the system in clever ways and only paying a small percentage of the max tax rate through things such as the Google offshore business plan. The multi-national nature of companies such as Google means they pretty much abuse the offshore tax tricks to the maximum potential. For example Google uses Ireland to declare its EU zone revenue since Ireland offers a special 12.1% rate to corporations. More in-depth article: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/oct/24/business/la-fi-adv-biz-taxes-20101024 Article on actual tax collected by CA for big names companies such as Broadcom and Google: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/-299457--.html etalian fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Jul 14, 2013 |
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Jul 14, 2013 16:06
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Nevada itself is basically the "Ireland" of the West Coast, businesses only have a 200 flat fee. The state makes most of its money off of gambling, liquor and sales taxes. That said overall it hasn't been that successful, and Las Vegas isn't exactly a great place to live. In fact, Las Vegas is probably one of the saddest places on the planet (writing this from Moscow, Russia). Oregon has actually a really fairly decent tax system, no sales tax, and a inflation linked minimum wage. I just wish there were higher corporate taxes and few more income backets to give the state more income.
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Jul 14, 2013 16:30
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Quantumfate posted:Okay, what is it with this drat state being so tightly linked to Cali? Reno here, and while we have our own papers and news, a fair bit of people still get their info from bay area news stations. It's also fairly common for people here to head into south lake or Truckee on a whim, or drive out to sac or San Fran for a weekend trip. A good rail line that meant you don't have to drive over the pass that killed the Donner Party would bring a fair bit of tourism to NorCal too. Can we Just divvy Nevada up and give vegas to SoCal and Reno to Norcal, and maybe elko/ely to utah? No, that's not a good idea. Hop on the California Zephyr if you want a train ride over the pass, or man the gently caress up and throw iron in the winter. Don't forgot your happy California cows live off Nevada and Utah hay, and you eat our potatoes too.
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Jul 14, 2013 16:36
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Ardennes posted:Nevada has little or no corporate taxes and no income tax and has state services to match. Last time I was in Vegas I noticed a lot of very nice new civic buildings (libraries, schools, etc)
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Jul 14, 2013 16:40
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Ardennes posted:Nevada itself is basically the "Ireland" of the West Coast, businesses only have a 200 flat fee. The state makes most of its money off of gambling, liquor and sales taxes. That said overall it hasn't been that successful, and Las Vegas isn't exactly a great place to live. In fact, Las Vegas is probably one of the saddest places on the planet (writing this from Moscow, Russia). Las Vegas is pretty much captures some of the worst aspects such as sprawl, sense of isolation, lack of unique neigborhoods and lots of cookie cutter Mcmansion developments.
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Jul 14, 2013 16:52
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FMguru posted:NV gets a lot of money from out-of-state tourists showing up every weekend and pouring money into hotels, car rentals, airplane landings, and gambling. It's ideal - outsiders come, blow their cash on high-tax items that don't affect locals, and then leave without consuming any services (welfare, schools, fire departments, hospitals, libraries, senior centers, etc). There's a reason so many states have legalized gambling over the last 25 years - they're tired of spraying firehoses of their money into Nevada's coffers. There might be some nice new civic buildings but from what I heard the state of education is quite poor and most of the infrastructure looked pretty jury-rigged together. It is a nice system for them in some ways, but to be honest I have a hard time envying people living in Las Vegas. Yeah, they get all this out of state money coming in but the city (as well as Reno) is quite a hole because of it. quote:Las Vegas is pretty much captures some of the worst aspects such as sprawl, sense of isolation, lack of unique neighborhoods and lots of cookie cutter Mcmansion developments. It does really seem like a city built around casinos and some depressed residential areas to house the workers (as well as some Mcmansions for people with money obviously). It is like if you took San Bernardino, sprinkled it generously with gambling and prostitution and drop into the middle of the desert. There isn't really much there too do anyway unless you want that "classic" experience. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Jul 14, 2013 |
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Jul 14, 2013 16:52
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FMguru posted:NV gets a lot of money from out-of-state tourists showing up every weekend and pouring money into hotels, car rentals, airplane landings, and gambling. Not just that, but warehousing/distribution as well.
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Jul 14, 2013 16:53
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etalian posted:Las Vegas is pretty much captures some of the worst aspects such as sprawl, sense of isolation, lack of unique neigborhoods and lots of cookie cutter Mcmansion developments. Because it's a new city, full of people from Southern California.
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Jul 14, 2013 16:55
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Ardennes posted:It is a nice system for them in some ways, but to be honest I have a hard time envying people living in Las Vegas I see you've never lived in Arizona.
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Jul 14, 2013 16:56
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VideoTapir posted:I see you've never lived in Arizona. Touche, I guess but there is a price to pay for "low taxes."
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Jul 14, 2013 17:02
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Let's not forget convention space. Las Vegas is the world's largest convention host, and people come from all over the planet (not just California) for them. The casinos are obviously the big revenue monsters, but convention space pulls in lots of tax money too. To be honest I quite like Nevada. I've gone opal mining in the northwest corner of the state a few times back in the 1990s. The basin-and-range geology is interesting, you have big sky and lots of space and there's actually quite a lot of nature to be explored. You can also prospect and make mining claims easier in Nevada than anywhere else in the country (although basically everything that you'd want to dig up has probably already been found and claimed, often more than once). But I wouldn't want to live there, no.
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Jul 14, 2013 19:30
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Leperflesh posted:Let's not forget convention space. Las Vegas is the world's largest convention host, and people come from all over the planet (not just California) for them. The casinos are obviously the big revenue monsters, but convention space pulls in lots of tax money too. Admittedly, I do sort of admire the wide open expanses of desert especially since so much of it is relatively untouched. Yeah, if you wanted some time to yourself, it isn't such a bad place as long as you bring a really good hat. Yeah conventions do bring in a lot of money, but of course thats directly routed in gambling itself (if your going to build a giant hotel, why not add plenty of convention space)? Las Vegas is indeed a young city, but I think the gambling industry is many ways limiting its development and social diversity that other cities offer. If everything is more or less build around the strip and other casinos, the city is going to be gear toward that industry. Also, by being a sprawling post-war city dominated by cars radically reduces the chance for real neighborhoods to form.
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Jul 14, 2013 19:39
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It is surreal flying into Vegas over residential subdivision that have been graded, had some streets built, then abandoned.
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Jul 14, 2013 19:44
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