Sunday, October 1, 2006
Returning from a relaxing weekend away, I made the rounds of
web sites of interest to see what I've been missing for the past
couple days.
It's of no surprise to me that an activist who very much resembles my theoretical character, Your Neighbor, has been up to his old tricks again. This time he's posted a couple entries on his "little newsletter" - now blog - that spin recent events like he was riding the Teacups at Disneyland. The man has no shame!
In his most recent entry he attempts to bury the truth in pure piles of verbiage, publishing what amounts to his version of a chemistry text book in an attempt to discredit the candidacy of Bruce Garlich - arguably the candidate most likely to foil his plans for a Mansoor/Leece tandem win in November.
He rant and raves about the pollution of his precious Westside (he lives in the north part of town, several miles from the Westside), and invites readers to visit a particular web site and enter the zip code 92627 to find out just how polluted our city really is - so I did. That's my zip code, so I wanted to find out what kind of jeopardy I've been living in all these years.
Guess what? The site only breaks down the pollution by counties, with no individual numbers regarding my zip code or any other! I suspect our pal, Your Neighbor, didn't expect anyone to actually accept his invitation to visit the site and call his bluff.
While at the site it clicked on the link to see just who the biggest polluters are in my "community" (county). Since this guy rants and raves about this all the time, I figured there must be at least a half dozen Costa Mesa companies fouling our air. I scrolled down the list of the top twenty polluters in Orange County. Nope, way down near the bottom of the list is one Costa Mesa company, at number 19. In fact, Costa Mesa is tied with Huntington Beach, Buena Park, Irvine, Tustin and Aliso Viejo with one company each on the list of the 20 worst industrial polluters. So, who leads the pack, you ask? Well, there are some familiar names on the list. Fullerton has two of the top twenty. Santa Ana has three. Anaheim, a city I thought might be the leader, has four - 20%. But, leading the pack with 5 companies - 25% - is The City of Orange.
Figuring I must be missing something, I dug further into the data on this web site. I found another table that lists 96 companies in Orange County by the amount of toxic chemicals released into the environment. I thought, with nearly 100 companies on this list, certainly a large percentage would be from Costa Mesa, since Your Neighbor seems so adamant about it. Guess what? Four companies from Costa Mesa were listed - one in the top 20, (the same one mentioned above) two others in the top 50 and the remaining company way down at number 87. The two lowest have shown a DECREASE in excess of 99% in the release of the chemicals for which they were cited for the period of 1998 - 2002.
Some might remember that, not too long ago, this same activist and a few others of his Westside buddies were so agitated over this "pollution" issue that they demanded, and received, an assessment by the AQMD for the Westside of town. Guess what? The AQMD gave that area a clean bill of health. Never one to let facts get in the way of his plans, Your Neighbor continues with his scare tactics, knowing full well that most voters won't take the time to do any fact-checking on his information. When his case is weak, as it is in this instance, he just buries you with words - piling them on like he was shoveling manure. (I apologize for that painfully accurate metaphor)
He continues to conjure up smoke screens - pardon the pun - to try to confuse the residents of this city about pre-fabricated issues, hoping to sway the voters to vote for his chosen pair, Allan Mansoor and Wendy Leece. Their platform is so weak and full of bogus claims and innuendo that Your Neighbor - smart fella that he is - realizes that their campaign is on shaky legs. Nothing he will say or do over the next month or so will surprise me. He writes so much fiction that it eventually becomes the truth to him. What a sad, pathetic life he leads.
This week, Tuesday, brings us another City Council meeting and another opportunity to see our "leaders" in action. There's no doubt in my mind that Wendy Leece will show up to speak on one issue or another - even though she usually has no clue about what's going on. No doubt the Mayor will congratulate the police department for their apprehension of the alleged murders of Israel Maciel last week - even though his "reward" strategy was not responsible for their capture. No doubt the mayor will utter some completely inappropriate political comment from the dais. That's just the way things go these days.
On November 8th I'm going to be one happy guy. First, all this political effluent will have been flushed from our daily lives and, second, our young jailer/mayor will be able to return to his full time job in the bowels of the Orange County Jail and Ms. Leece will be able to spend more time with her grandchild. We all deserve that outcome.
11:50 pm pdt
It's of no surprise to me that an activist who very much resembles my theoretical character, Your Neighbor, has been up to his old tricks again. This time he's posted a couple entries on his "little newsletter" - now blog - that spin recent events like he was riding the Teacups at Disneyland. The man has no shame!
In his most recent entry he attempts to bury the truth in pure piles of verbiage, publishing what amounts to his version of a chemistry text book in an attempt to discredit the candidacy of Bruce Garlich - arguably the candidate most likely to foil his plans for a Mansoor/Leece tandem win in November.
He rant and raves about the pollution of his precious Westside (he lives in the north part of town, several miles from the Westside), and invites readers to visit a particular web site and enter the zip code 92627 to find out just how polluted our city really is - so I did. That's my zip code, so I wanted to find out what kind of jeopardy I've been living in all these years.
Guess what? The site only breaks down the pollution by counties, with no individual numbers regarding my zip code or any other! I suspect our pal, Your Neighbor, didn't expect anyone to actually accept his invitation to visit the site and call his bluff.
While at the site it clicked on the link to see just who the biggest polluters are in my "community" (county). Since this guy rants and raves about this all the time, I figured there must be at least a half dozen Costa Mesa companies fouling our air. I scrolled down the list of the top twenty polluters in Orange County. Nope, way down near the bottom of the list is one Costa Mesa company, at number 19. In fact, Costa Mesa is tied with Huntington Beach, Buena Park, Irvine, Tustin and Aliso Viejo with one company each on the list of the 20 worst industrial polluters. So, who leads the pack, you ask? Well, there are some familiar names on the list. Fullerton has two of the top twenty. Santa Ana has three. Anaheim, a city I thought might be the leader, has four - 20%. But, leading the pack with 5 companies - 25% - is The City of Orange.
Figuring I must be missing something, I dug further into the data on this web site. I found another table that lists 96 companies in Orange County by the amount of toxic chemicals released into the environment. I thought, with nearly 100 companies on this list, certainly a large percentage would be from Costa Mesa, since Your Neighbor seems so adamant about it. Guess what? Four companies from Costa Mesa were listed - one in the top 20, (the same one mentioned above) two others in the top 50 and the remaining company way down at number 87. The two lowest have shown a DECREASE in excess of 99% in the release of the chemicals for which they were cited for the period of 1998 - 2002.
Some might remember that, not too long ago, this same activist and a few others of his Westside buddies were so agitated over this "pollution" issue that they demanded, and received, an assessment by the AQMD for the Westside of town. Guess what? The AQMD gave that area a clean bill of health. Never one to let facts get in the way of his plans, Your Neighbor continues with his scare tactics, knowing full well that most voters won't take the time to do any fact-checking on his information. When his case is weak, as it is in this instance, he just buries you with words - piling them on like he was shoveling manure. (I apologize for that painfully accurate metaphor)
He continues to conjure up smoke screens - pardon the pun - to try to confuse the residents of this city about pre-fabricated issues, hoping to sway the voters to vote for his chosen pair, Allan Mansoor and Wendy Leece. Their platform is so weak and full of bogus claims and innuendo that Your Neighbor - smart fella that he is - realizes that their campaign is on shaky legs. Nothing he will say or do over the next month or so will surprise me. He writes so much fiction that it eventually becomes the truth to him. What a sad, pathetic life he leads.
This week, Tuesday, brings us another City Council meeting and another opportunity to see our "leaders" in action. There's no doubt in my mind that Wendy Leece will show up to speak on one issue or another - even though she usually has no clue about what's going on. No doubt the Mayor will congratulate the police department for their apprehension of the alleged murders of Israel Maciel last week - even though his "reward" strategy was not responsible for their capture. No doubt the mayor will utter some completely inappropriate political comment from the dais. That's just the way things go these days.
On November 8th I'm going to be one happy guy. First, all this political effluent will have been flushed from our daily lives and, second, our young jailer/mayor will be able to return to his full time job in the bowels of the Orange County Jail and Ms. Leece will be able to spend more time with her grandchild. We all deserve that outcome.
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