Mansoor Passes The Baton

Geez, a guy can't even take a few days off over the holidays without stuff hitting the fan at home!

MANSOOR ABDICATES
Both the Daily Pilot and the Orange County Register reported Thursday afternoon that our young jailer mayor, Allan Mansoor, has decided to step down as mayor early next year after three contentious years on the throne. As might be expected, the CM Press immediately leaped on this issue with a little posting to announce the decision.


REMAINING STOOGES MAY SWAP SEATS
In my view, this is a perfectly played political hand. Mansoor will turn the reins of his dictatorship to his sidekick, the court jester, Mayor Pro Tem Eric Bever. They will, in turn, nominate and elect the third member of the troika, Wendy Leece, as Mayor Pro Tem. This will perpetuate the power of the current majority. Bever will be able to run as an incumbent mayor and may actually also be able to rack up three years in that role.



FOLEY AND DIXON STILL MARGINALIZED
This incestuous arrangement also perpetuates the marginalization of both Linda Dixon and Katrina Foley, both of whom have one year remaining on their current terms. It's widely thought that Foley will run again, but Foley is playing her cards close to the vest this time around.

BEVER'S TRUE SELF WILL SHOW
While this might look like a masterstroke of political planning to most observers, I think this just might come back to bite Bever where he sits. History shows us that he has only the most tenuous inclination to follow proper procedures - he's been chided several times for near-Brown Act violations on the dais, for example - so there's a very good chance that he will demonstrate for the electorate just how willing he is to play fast and loose with the rules when it's convenient for him to do so. There will be more than a few of us watching, ready to report his transgressions. I suspect the first of such opportunities will occur before the end of January.

THE FUN NEVER STOPS
So, dear readers, the beat goes on. I suspected this next year would give us a very interesting campaign - this move only confirms it.

On that note I wish you all a very Happy New Year.

My Christmas Gift To You

'Tis the season, so here's my little Christmas gift to you. Treat yourselves to a truly wonderful experience - one that can be accomplished with a little drive over a weekend.

A TRIP WORTH TAKING
The big galoot you see above is an Alpha male Northern Elephant Seal. He will be around 20 feet long and weigh around 5,000 pounds. This time of the year he hauls out, along with several thousand others, onto the beaches just north of Hearst Castle on Highway 1 above San Luis Obispo. This colony, which makes two visits a year to this particular stretch of beach, has grown from a dozen critters in 1990 to well over 16,000 now. Last year more than 4100 pups were born to this colony.


EASY VIEWING
This colony is the most accessible in the United States - the main haul out beach is beside Highway 1 - and there is more than ample parking and a cadre of docents to help you understand what you'll be seeing.
PRIME TIME BEGINS NOW!
This is the beginning of "prime time" for this colony. The first pregnant females began arriving a week ago and the first pup was born on the beach on December 18th. These little guys - they weigh around 60 pounds at birth - will nurse for nearly a month, gaining around 10 pounds a day, ending up at around 350 pounds. When the female goes into estrus she stops nursing the pup, engages in mating with at least one of the males in attendance, then leaves the pup on the beach while she departs for her prime feeding grounds off the Washington/Canadian coast.

BIG GUYS FIGHTING FOR MATING RIGHTS
You'll have a chance to see the large males establish and defend their harems - anywhere from 10 to 50 females - from interlopers. Usually, the Alpha males only have to pop their heads up from their normal snooze and the lesser bulls will scatter. However, it's not at all unusual to see bloody pitched battles between males as they try to establish their dominance. In these photos the two males fight to establish dominance, but neither will mate for a few more years, if ever. Only a very small percentage of these guys ever mate - 5-10%.

LOVE IS IN THE AIR
In my opinion, the best time to visit the colony is from the middle of January through the middle of March. Since there is so much amorous activity going on, Valentines Day turns out to be a perfect time. The Martin Luther King holiday is also a good time to visit because you get an extra day. For my fellow football fans, the weekend preceding the Super Bowl is a great time - no conflict of priorities.

OTTERS AND SEALS AND ZEBRAS - OH, MY!
Many days in January and February, in particular, it's possible to stand on the viewing boardwalk and see not only the elephant seals up close and personal, but view the otter colony that resides in the kelp just off shore. You'll also see Harbor Seals and seal lions in the rocks near the beach. It's even possible to see migrating whales and cruising dolphins. And, to further enhance your trip, the Hearst Ranch has a large herd of zebras that are usually visible from Highway 1 as you drive north from Cambria.

VISIT THIS WEB SITE
You can read much more, including slides shows showing births, etc., at the website operated by the docents mentioned above, Friends of the Elephant Seal, here.

INCLUDE HEARST CASTLE AND THE LIGHTHOUSE
I suggest you make a weekend of it by including a visit to Hearst Castle, which has recently renovated it's visitor center. Several tours are available. They also have an IMAX theater on the grounds where a docu-drama about the building of the castle can be viewed. Also, volunteers have, for the past few years, been cleaning up the grounds of the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse, which is immediately north of the elephant seal colony. Tours of the lighthouse grounds are conducted via the Hearst Castle Visitor Center.

RAGGED POINT
Further north a few miles you can stop at Ragged Point - the gateway to Big Sur - where it's possible to view migrating whales from the point.

WHERE TO STAY
Accommodations can be found in nearby Cambria and San Simeon. Our personal favorites are in Cambria along Moonstone Drive, which now has a terrific boardwalk to enhance your visit.

YOU WILL LOVE IT!
Trust me, regardless of your political leanings or whether you agree with all the other things discussed on this blog, you're going to love the experience at the elephant seal colony.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

More Byron, Commissioner Jim, Rehab Homes and More

There's an interesting mix of news in the Daily Pilot today.

MORE BYRON!
First, and most important, is the debut of the new, "improved" column by my pal and muse, Byron de Arakal. Byron moves to Wednesday every week instead of alternating on Thursday's with Barbara Venezia, so we get twice as much "Byron" as before. This is good news for the readers of the Daily Pilot. For example, in his inaugural column this morning Byron reaches right in and grabs the Costa Mesa ICE situation by the proverbial short hairs. As only he can do, he capsulizes the issue with a style that makes it easy to understand and also amuses at the same time. You can read his column at this link.

FISLER MAKES A CHOICE
Second, my old "pal" Commissioner Jim Fisler - appointed to the Planning Commission by the Mansoor majority - has announced he will run one more time for the City Council next year. Readers of this blog and the comment threads herein know that Commissioner Jim is not reluctant to present his views and actually uses his own name to do it. We frequently disagree, but he's always welcome to try to set me straight here. Perhaps the most interesting part of Fisler's announcement - to me, anyhow - is the almost instantaneous endorsement by a very, very controversial blog operator here in town. You can read that entry here. After I read that I dropped Commissioner Jim a little note to remind him that we all are known by the company we keep. It's his choice, but we all know how long the stench lingers when you run over a skunk. I don't think Commissioner Jim is necessarily a bad guy, but there is only so much baggage a person should be expected to carry with him on the campaign trail.

FOLEY HATERS IN FULL STRIDE
And, as Commissioner Jim launches the local 2008 election season, the Katrina Foley haters are already in full stride. Of course, this began the day following last year's election, when the "No Foley!" chants could be heard in the back of the Mansoor/Leece bus. The same guy that is touting Fisler is the leader of the band on this issue, too. It is apparently not enough for them to have, both literally and figuratively, shoved Foley and Linda Dixon aside on the dais, but now they want to shove both of them off - Foley in particular. Our young jailer/mayor, in particular, doesn't like having her up there making him look even more incompetent than he already is. It's just a good thing for him that he controls the majority, because his arguments on important issues just don't hold water and his exchanges with Foley prove it. In fact, he has recently begun openly attacking her on the Daily Pilot blog - a low-class move that is not entirely unexpected. Ah, the stories I could tell you.... Who know, maybe I will one of these days.
WHO ELSE IS RUNNING?
So, it's going to be a very interesting year - even more so when the full slate of candidates becomes known. Rumors have swirled about former Mayor Gary Monahan throwing his hat in the ring to add more years to his retirement fund. First he's in, then he's out. We certainly expect the court jester, Eric Bever, to run again - and continue to make a fool of himself at least twice a month. No word on whether carpetbagger Jim Righeimer will run - maybe he's waiting for a better offer from Fountain Valley or Garden Grove. Even Dixon is mum on whether she plans to try to hold on to her seat, so to speak.

REHAB RICHES RANKLE
Our friends over in Newport Beach continue to rail about the proliferation of Rehab homes, particularly on the peninsula. The screaming seems to be led by one particularly rabid activist, to whom I have referred as "Newport Lori" on the Daily Pilot blog. The poor thing must have typed her fingers to the bone by now. I tease, but this is a serious problem for them, and one that presents a curious dilemma for their leaders. Here we have Newport Beach - bastion of conservatism unmatched in this country - having to deal with rehab operators who have, following all the tenets of conservative entrepreneurship, created a business model that is just like picking up diamonds in an open field. First, they buy a large home on the sand, then open it up as a rehab facility where they can charge astronomical fees to their "clients", which enables them to buy more big houses on the sand and open more rehab "diamond mines", etc., etc. etc. Until Lori and her buddies exposed them their biggest problem probably was what to do with all that money. Now they know - spend it on lawyers.
LAWRENCE JAMES MOORE (7/30/41 - 12/19/03)

Finally, today marks the fourth anniversary of the passing of my lifelong best friend, Larry Moore. Four years ago this evening - after overseeing his care in Las Vegas for six weeks and watching the staff of the Trauma Intensive Care Unit that had worked so diligently with him all that time try for his final fifteen minutes to bring him back to us once more - I had to tell them to stop. It was the most difficult decision in my life and I can still see that moment so clearly in my mind's eye that it could have happened yesterday. So, through these tear-filled eyes, I remind you all to wrap your arms around those you love - especially this time of the year - because you never know what's on the road ahead... Rest in Peace, my friend. I miss you.

Orange County Register Immigration Report

REGISTER COMPREHENSIVE REPORT
Yesterday the Orange County Register began a three-part series on immigration, the result of a year-long effort by several reporters. Having read the first two installments, it looks like they've done a good job on the subject.

READ IT YOURSELF
I'm not going to attempt to paraphrase the articles, unlike another notorious blog operator here in town. Here are the links to the First Installment and the Second Installment. You can read them, review the charts and graphs provided and draw your own conclusions.

INSTALLMENT 2 CITES COSTA MESA
I will say, however, I think the authors captured the essence of the issue as it relates to Costa Mesa in the second installment. I've given my opinion on this subject many times over the past couple years. I'm convinced that our young jailer/mayor's initiative to cross-designate ever CMPD officer as an immigration screener two years ago was not to rid our city of "dangerous illegal alien felons", as he so frequently pronounced, but was designed as an attack on all immigrants of hispanic origin.

FOLLOW-UP COMING
Each article is lengthy, but worth the read. I'll likely provide an opinion of the series tomorrow, following the publication of the final installment.

Putting A Damper On Christmas

'TIS THE SEASON
I know some folks get depressed this time of the year. All the hub-bub of scurrying around buying presents, decorating every available surface with ornaments and faux foliage, the parties, etc. kind of gets to you. We lose track of what this season is really supposed to be all about. You know - "peace on earth, good will toward men" and all that stuff.

BLOGS TO BLAME!
This year it's been worse for me than others and I think I've discovered the reason. It's the darned blogs! Of course, it's my fault because I've allowed myself to become hooked on reading comment threads on our local newspaper of record, the Daily Pilot, and others.

ANONYMOUS GRINCHES
I'm depressed because it seems that, regardless the theme, some anonymous grinches will defile a wonderful communication tool and use the comment threads to criticize, demean, defame and slander folks. In a recent comment thread attached to an article about a long-time football coach at one of our high schools being fired, the more than five dozen comments shredded him, current and former players by name, parents and each other.

NO SUBJECT IS SPARED
Almost any article about education will typically end up with a long comment thread which can be guaranteed to be turned into an anti-illegal immigrant screed - even when those comments are completely irrelevant to the subject. When education articles discuss significant accomplishment at one of our local schools, comments will be posted twisting the accomplishment and attempting, again, to divert the praise for the accomplishment into a harangue about illegal immigration.

PETULANT POLITICIANS
I'm also disappointed and depressed that some of our local politicians - our young jailer/mayor and his buffoonish sidekick, the mayor pro tem, for example - use the comment threads as a forum to chide and criticize fellow council members. Sure, they can do it if they choose, but it certainly is a low-class move and pretty typical of them in everything they do. That's what we get when we elect small people to big jobs.

GUTLESS ANONYMOUS POSTERS (GAPS)
I'm depressed when I realize that the comment threads seem to be dominated by only a few people - some of whom certainly post under several anonymous names on the same thread. Much like stuffing the ballot box, this practice makes it appear that there is overwhelming support for his position. (I say "his" because I know who it is) My personal opinion is that no anonymous posts should be permitted. I mean, who knows where those comments are coming from? They could be from Irvine, Santa Ana or Rancho Cucamonga. It's my opinion that the Daily Pilot should hold the folks who post comments on their threads to the same standards that they do letters to the editor in the print edition, which requires signing your name and providing a telephone number for verification purposes. My pal, Byron de Arakal, has described these prolific anonymous posts as "graffiti", and he may be right.

MAY YOUR DAYS BE MERRY...
So, with just over a week until Christmas, I'll leave you to ponder those thoughts. And, in the spirit of the season, I'll leave you this time with the chorus from one of the classic Christmas songs of my youth - Stan Freberg's "Green Chri$tma$":



We wish you a merry Christmas,
We wish you a merry Christmas,
We wish you a merry Christmas,
And please buy our beer!



Bah! Humbug!

Development vs. Parking - What's The Solution?

MUSHROOMING DEVELOPMENT
Driving around our town you cannot help but notice the growing proliferation of common interest developments - former single family lots that were purchased by developers, who scraped the little homes from them and built 4-6 units in the same spot. They replaced a 1200-1400 square foot, 2-bedroom, 2 bath residence with 12,000 square feet of living space in the form of a half dozen two-story 3 and 4 bedroom, 3 bath dwelling units. In most cases, the parking spaces provided don't come close to those necessary to meet the needs, which means the excess spills out onto the neighborhood streets. These kind of developments are popping up like mushrooms. Most of them really look nice, but severely overtax the infrastructure, including parking.

TWO EXAMPLES
Last week my travels took me past a couple recent housing developments in our city - the Standard Pacific project near Harbor and Adams behind Mesa Verde Center and the Richmond Homes development at the former site of the Daily Pilot on Bay Street. Two things stuck me as I drove through both of those neighborhoods. First, you get the feeling that everything is just too close together - like driving through a series of canyons. Second, the parking is abysmal! In fact, driving through the Richmond Homes development is kind of like driving through an open wound because of the proliferation of red curbs.

PARTY TIME! - BRING YOUR HIKING BOOTS
With the holidays just around the corner and parties being planned, I found myself wondering how the residents in those two developments plan to handle visitors to their homes. At the Standard Pacific development, if they invite more than two couples someone is going to walk a quarter mile from the closest parking space. At the Richmond Homes development extra cars almost certainly already spill out onto the surrounding neighborhood.

SYSTEMIC PROBLEM
The problem here, as I see it, is systemic. Our ordinances, as administered by our Planning Commission and City Council, permit developers to squeeze every last square inch of space on a lot without enough consideration to what happens after the last home is sold and the residents are left to deal with the traffic flow, parking and general congestion of such developments. I understand that we can't expect developers to do business in Costa Mesa if we impose such draconian restrictions that they cannot make a profit, but I suspect that's not the case.

RETAIL AFFECTED, TOO
This is not only a problem in new housing developments, either. It's a problem with many retail projects, too. For example, on the far eastside there is a strip mall on the corner of East 17th Street and Irvine Avenue that suffers from severe underparking. It's a real Catch 22 situation. Businesses that move into this particular mall and are successful eventually suffer business loss because of their success and the success of the businesses around them. As a result, there is a steady stream of new businesses passing through the mall.

MY SOLUTION? FEWER UNITS, MORE PARKING
What's my point? Well - and this will make my old pal, Planning Commissioner Jim Fisler happy - I think we need to fine-tune our rules about parking. I think we need to strictly enforce those rules already in place - which doesn't seem to happen very often - and make it clear to any developers planning to do business in Costa Mesa that we will be unwavering in the enforcement of adequate, off-street parking for any new projects.

DISCOURAGE DEVELOPMENT?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what's coming next. You're going to tell me that this will discourage development. Maybe, but I don't think development for development's sake is necessarily a good idea. Yes, it's a good idea to encourage ownership housing to a greater extent - our ratio of renters to owners is upside down. However, I don't think jamming five or six times the number of people onto a residential lot than was originally planned is a smart way to go.

BUILD SMARTER
I need to have someone explain to me why it's important to just keep packing more and more people into what is constantly referred to as a "built-out city". If we were to magically tear down half of the apartment buildings in this city and replace them with condos or single family homes that would accommodate only two-thirds of the people, is that necessarily bad? I don't think so. More people doesn't necessarily make for a better city - only a bigger one, with all the problems that come with compressing the population. We should take the same view with these insidious common interest developments, too. More people stuffed into otherwise quiet neighborhoods doesn't make them better, only more crowded.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?
That's my view on this subject. I expect to hear from Commissioner Jim on this one, but what about the rest of you? Any ideas?

December 7, 1941 - A Perspective

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of American was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."
---President Franklin Delano Roosevelt


AN INFAMOUS DATE
66 years ago the Empire of Japan attacked the United States military bases in Hawai'i and dragged our country into World War II. With those words above as the preamble, President Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war for that dastardly deed. The rest, as they say, is history. I don't remember that date - I was four months old at the time - but I've studied World War II throughout my life and today, on this anniversary, I cannot help but compare that sneak attack on Pearl Harbor to the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 and the resultant conflicts.

TERRIBLE LOSS
World War II - which for the United States lasted four months short of four years - took more than 400,000 American lives. More than 16,000,000 Americans participated in that war. As terrible as those numbers are, worldwide the loss of life totaled more than 70 million. While no war is "popular", World War II was a unique time in this country - a time when most Americans pulled together, sacrificed much in terms of lives and treasure and united to fight the common enemy - and were successful.

"THE GREATEST GENERATION"
That generation of Americans - my parents generation, which Tom Brokaw has defined in his books as "The Greatest Generation" - is passing on at a rate of around 1,000 per day. A few continue to try to give us some perspective on what it was like for them - like Daily Pilot columnist Joe Bell, who served this country as a Navy flier. He wrote another moving piece in the Pilot yesterday, which can be read here. That generation's story has been chronicled in many books, motion pictures and television series, like "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers", but despite those excellent portrayals, I'm not sure many of "The Greatest Generation's" children and grandchildren really understand what they went through to defend this country more than a half century ago.

SACRIFICE REMEMBERED
There was no American life that was not disrupted during World War II. The bloodlines of thousands of American families were severed at the roots with the death of so many young men in the flower of their youth. Fathers, sons and brothers were buried on foreign soil, thousands of miles from home. Those who survived came home very different men than those who volunteered to serve our country at the outset of the war. They came home with the ghosts of war in their heads, but also brought with them a resolve to make our country a better place - a place where their children wouldn't have to face the same horror of war that they experienced. Sadly, that was not to be.

PROSPERITY AND DEFEAT
In the six decades since the end of World War II the United States of America has experienced prosperity in such a short time unmatched in human history, but she also fought and lost two divisive "wars" in Korea and southeast Asia.

A NEW ENEMY
Today we face an enemy that is every bit as dangerous as were the Axis powers in 1941. On September 11, 2001 those extremists snuffed out more lives than the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Since President Bush declared a "War on Terror" more than six years have passed and, as I type this, nearly 4,000 young Americans have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Every one of those brave young people volunteered to do what they perceived to be their duty - to protect this country from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

MISSING RESOLVE
Today this country is far from united about the War on Terror. This is probably due, at least in part, to the bitter memories of the unsatisfactorily-resolved Korean and Viet Nam conflicts. I'm deeply troubled by our apparent lack of resolve and unity regarding our battle against those terrorists who seem determined to exterminate us and our way of life. I find myself wondering just how many more "9/11" events it will take for the anti-war proponents to realize what this is all about.

DIVISIVE ISSUE
Of course, it doesn't help that we have a federal election staring us in the face - a time which, under the best of circumstances, we see candidates routinely lie and misrepresent their opponents positions on every issue. This war will be the most contentious and emotional of issues this time around and some of those politicians will use it to further divide our country. Some of the current crop of candidates seem more than willing to yank our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, abandoning our allies in the area, to be slaughtered as our troops dust off for the last time.

PROGRESS AND CAUTION
Progress is being made in this war and no one who gives serious consideration to it expects our country to withdraw form either venue soon. In the meantime, we must continue to be vigilant to prevent other catastrophic attacks on our soil.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF WAR
This is going to be a long battle, one not fought in the hedgerows of Normandy or on the decimated islands of the Pacific with visible and clearly defined enemies. No, this one not only pits us against Muslim extremists, but has many of those factions fighting among themselves for control - particularly in Iraq. There are some who think we should just pull out and let those factions fight it out among themselves. Others think we should abandon the arbitrary political boundaries established for that region at the end of World War I and re-align the area into their historic "tribal" areas. Most informed observers of the area know this would likely create an opportunity for even more instability in the area, with Iran, Syria, Turkey and maybe even Russia, all vying for partial or complete control. No, we can't leave yet.

PERSPECTIVE
So, on this anniversary, let's try to keep some perspective. 4,000 American lives over the past six years is a terrible loss, but it doesn't come close to the losses in World War II, or Korea and Viet Nam, for that matter. Regardless who ends up in the White House in fourteen months, we Americans must unite on this issue and give our leaders and military men and women the support they need to succeed. To fail to do so will only encourage our enemies to continue to plan our annihilation. The future of our country and our very way of life depends on a successful resolution to this war.

NEGOTIATION?
It doesn't seem as though negotiation will accomplish much in this conflict. We have no entity with which to negotiate, only ethereal bands of jackals - some of whom are likely to be state-sponsored - who seem more than willing to die in order to defeat us and be greeted by those 72 virgins promised to them. Until we can convince those states in the region who provide support for the terrorists to stop, we should use every resource and tactic available to us to help the terrorists find those virgins as quickly as possible.

STRENGTHEN OUR RESOLVE
In the meantime, we, as a nation, must strengthen our resolve. We need to reach deep and try to find the courage and determination that The Greatest Generation found to defeat the enemies of World War II.

Never Forgive and Never Forget

MAX BOOT - MYTH BUSTER

MANSOOR'S THE REASON
You know, I really don't want to turn this blog into a venue dedicated to the illegal immigration issue. Despite the fact that Costa Mesa's young jailer/mayor, Allan Mansoor, has placed himself and our city squarely at the forefront of this issue and used it to get re-elected last year, I think it's been blown all out of proportion.

MAX BOOT NAILS IT!
Yesterday, Los Angeles Times columnist Max Boot, shown above, hit the nail right on the head. In a column entitled, "Immigrants are a boon, not a curse", he articulated how I have felt about this issue for a long time - only much better than I ever could. As an interesting aside, in the print edition of the Los Angeles Times the editors chose to entitle Boot's commentary, "End the immigrant hysteria". Regardless the title, the message remains the same and was stated concisely in the sub-title, "Republicans should stop treating millions of people who want to better their lives as a threat." Well said! You can read his column at this link.

Boot's a pretty smart fella. He's a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Times Opinion section and the author of "War made new: Weapons, Warriors, and the Making of the Modern World."

MYTHS DEBUNKED
In his column Boot addresses many of the myths currently being foisted upon us by the more rabid anti-immigrant factions in this country, like Jim Gilchrist and his not-so-merry band of malcontents in the most recent iteration of his Minuteman Project - whatever they're calling it today. Among those are that illegal immigrants are taking jobs from "real Americans", and thereby stifling economic growth. Humbug! Read Boot's column!

AMNESTY?
He also addresses some solutions, among them the creation of a method of legalizing many of those illegal immigrants already here. Read Boot's column!

MY VIEW
As I've said many, many times on this blog, in my view the first thing that needs to happen is that our borders need to be secured. Anything else comes after that. Once the borders are secured we need to develop a method of "earned amnesty" - a way those illegal workers already here can pay some form of restitution and be granted immunity for their "dastardly transgression" - trying to make a better life for their families. It is also likely that some method of providing "guest workers" will also be necessary to fill the ongoing demand for labor that is being filled by illegal immigrants. This is not rocket science - it was done in the middle of the last century through the bracero program and worked just fine.

FEAR AND LOATHING
It is also my view that illegal immigration is not what drives our mayor and his motley crew. I think it's something much darker than that - an abhorrence of those brown skins among us - the illegal immigrants just make an easy target for their wrath. I've chronicled just why I feel that way from nearly the first words I wrote on this blog and it's predecessor more than two years ago and in newspaper commentaries before that. I won't re-hash all that here.

WRITE, BUT READ FIRST
I welcome comments on this blog, but before you go all apoplectic on me and melt the comments inbox with your rants, please take the time to read Boot's column. It will either provide you with some answers or give you more ammunition, depending on how firmly you've got your feet dug in. Remember, I'm the sole arbiter of what appears here. I'll publish your comments unless you use bad language or libel someone. Put a name on them, even if it is fictitious - no comments addressed as "anonymous" will be published. My blog - my rules.

Mansoor Endorses Ron Paul

BIG DEAL!

HAIRBALL ALERT!
My Google Alert system coughed up another political hairball this weekend. This time it was an entry by Irvine commodities broker and self-styled political pundit Allan Bartlett in his Powder Blue Report blog. You can read the entry here.



PUPPY LOVE?
Bartlett's entry - a fawning little essay about our young jailer/mayor, Allan Mansoor, that really tested my gag reflex - tells us that Mansoor has confided in him that he's endorsing Texas Republican Ron Paul for president - Big Whoop!

WHO CARES?
It sure looks to me as though our young jailer/mayor assumes that his position on the tip of the lance being used to force immigrants from our country has made his opinion valuable to a broader audience. Puhleeze!

REVIEWING HIS PATH TO OFFICE
Mansoor rode to re-electon last year on the backs of the latinos in Costa Mesa, dragging his running mate Wendy Leece along for the ride - using the flames of intolerance fueled by a few Neanderthal "activists" in our city and fanned by out-of-town interlopers like Minuteman Grand Pooba Jim Gilchrist and his frothing followers.

MARGINAL QUALIFICATIONS
Anyone who has watched Mansoor during his reign on the City Council knows that the poor young man has great difficulty putting two un-scripted words together. His "aw-shucks" act got old very early. Here is a man who is an under-educated, under-achieving deputy sheriff who spends his work day in the bowels of the county jail system, dodging effluent and dealing with the very worst in our society.

UNTRUSTWORTHY
Mansoor has talked out of both sides of his mouth, making it impossible to believe him on many issues. For example, he touts the advantages of increasing the level of home ownership in Costa Mesa, yet he sold his own Westside home, took his profit and now rents an apartment.

IGNORES WISE COUNSEL
He talks about being a strong advocate for law enforcement - something that shouldn't surprise us, since he's a deputy sheriff - yet he consistently and frequently overtly ignores the wise counsel of his top law enforcement officers. The most recent three past chiefs of police in our city who represented more than 100 years of law enforcement command experience between them.

EASILY MANIPULATED AND DISLOYAL
He's demonstrated that he is easily manipulated by his small cadre of Costa Mesa "improver" malcontents and Orange County GOP mucky-mucks. He's also shown that he places his own political future ahead of the well-being of Costa Mesa residents by appointing carpetbagging GOP activist Jim Righeimer to the Planning Commission as political pay back, ignoring freshly coiffed and snappily dressed loyal foot-soldier Paul Bunney - who appeared to be prepared to accept that seat - in the process.

AGAIN, WHO CARES?
Why anyone would want Allan Mansoor's opinion anything, much less care about who he is supporting for president, is beyond me.