Photographer: Kevin Herrera

Dateline: Santa Monica, CA

As of tomorrow, you can’t have your store merchandise given to you in a single-use plastic bag, and a paper one will cost you an extra dime . . .

They are making speed limits slower all over town and encouraging everyone to stop driving and move to bikes . . .

Restaurants have to send your leftovers home in paper boxes, even though they leak . . .

WE have an extra 1/4% sales tax, just because the city REALLY needs more of our money.

But . . .

It’s A-OK to show up on the 3rd Street Promenade in your Victoria’s Secret or Calvin Kleins in order to score some “free stuff”!

ANYTHING FOR FREE STUFF

Nearly naked shoppers rush into the Desigual boutique on the Third Street Promenade on Tuesday morning. About 150 people showed up in their underwear as part of a promotion. Those in undies were able to select two clothing items and take them home at no cost.

Gotta love the perv in the blue shirt with the camera . . .

Giving Santa Monica’s homeless a voice come November

October 01, 2010
STEP UP — As candidates go door to door to drum up support ahead of November’s election, there’s one potential voting block they’re almost certain to miss: the men and women who spend their days and nights on Santa Monica’s streets.

Step Up on Second, a Santa Monica-based homeless services provider that focuses on those with mental illness, is doing its part to bring those who don’t have a door to knock on inside the registered voter tent.

In tandem with the League Of Women Voters Of Santa Monica, the nonprofit held its second-ever voter registration drive for the homeless on Thursday, hoping to give people who have never been to the ballot box a voice come Nov. 2.

So, now we’re registering the psychotic homeless to vote here in good ol’ Santa Monica.

What could go wrong?

Like it’s a real stretch to figure out that one?

For whatever reason, and I mean whatever ’cause there have been a myriad of opportunities to get this done over the past 32 years — Roman Polanski was finally arrested as he entered Switzerland. If you need a refresher of why the perv was collared this Salon piece details his drugging, raping and sodomizing of a 13 year old girl. I agree with what Bob Beckel said on Hannity the other night, “If it had been my daughter he’d be dead!”

Lefties out here in media-sotted La La Land are rushing to Polanski’s defense, begging for mercy and forgiveness as the old bastard is 76 years old, the girl’s mother was all for the deed in the first place, the victim doesn’t want to go through any of this again, and the trial judge was a bit “hinky”. I think Ace has that last point covered quite well:

One can make a reasonable case that Polanski had reason to flee given this weirdness with the judge, but, again, the judge was then removed from the case and he had every opportunity to negotiate his return to the American criminal justice system.

At the end of the day: He forcibly (or at least statutorily) raped and sodomized a 13-year-old girl and we’re supposed to get all weepy about his plight because in the interim he’s delivered such major cultural contributions as Frantic and Pirates!

Oh, Here’s My Proposal: Because the judge tried to stage-manage the trial and so it wasn’t really “justice” at that point but a scripted faux reality show, we give Polanski a pass on any additional charges he might get for being a fugitive from justice.

So, we toss that stuff. Done. The judge acted badly, so we don’t prosecute for actions that one can reasonably say were connected to the judge’s bad behavior.

Now, we simply proceed to sentencing him for drugging, raping, and sodomizing a 13-year-old child, as should have been done 32 years ago, rather than letting him vamp off to Europe to direct a movie.

Exactly! This old used-up child molester deserved to draw his last breath in a dank cell with some hairy Bubba buggerin’ him up the old wazzoo!

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Over at Hot Air Ed Morrissey tells us about a federal law suit lead plaintiff Nancy Baird, who as a small business owner was paid by the great state of California in currently worthless IOUs. Our wonderful state government then declared that those receiving these useless pieces of paper owed taxes on that income, but refuse to let folks pay those taxes with the very same IOUs. WTF?

Small businesses that received $682 million in IOUs from the state say California expects them to pay taxes on the worthless scraps of paper, but refuses to accept its own IOUs to pay debts or taxes. The vendors’ federal class action claims the state is trying to balance its budget on their backs.

Lead plaintiff Nancy Baird filled her contract with California to provide embroidered polo shirts to a youth camp run by the National Guard, but never was paid the $27,000 she was owed. She says California “paid” her with an IOU that two banks refused to accept – yet she had to pay California sales tax on the so-called “sale” of the uniforms.

The class consists mostly of small business owners, many of whom rely on income from government contracts to keep afloat. They say California has used them as “suckers” as it looks for a way to bankroll its operations while avoiding its own financial obligations.

Says Ed:

When governments start issuing IOUs instead of actual US currency, they are legitimizing that kind of transaction for themselves. To give Baird a pile of literally worthless paper and then object to Baird responding in kind is the worst kind of hypocrisy. Either California’s government deals in scrip, or it doesn’t, but the rules should be the same in either direction.

It’s difficult to think of a more breathtakingly stupid series of actions in government than what we’ve seen in California over the last few months. This one is practically pathological.

“[P]ractically pathological” — that pretty much sums up California. Oh, ya betcha!

And, our Governator signed the new state budget last month that automatically implements an “optional” 10% increase in state withholding on wages, with no advance notice. To opt-out one needs to change their number of deductions on their W4s. Gee, an interest-free loan to the state, that likes to pay its debts with worthless IOUs.

Boggles the mind . . .