The Griswold Family Truckster comes to Encinitas

Don't ask what's on the roof.

Encinitas resident Steve Aceti promotes plastic bag ban

... and it looks like it might even pass.

Amid growing frustration over mounting garbage in the Pacific Ocean, California is poised to become the first state in the nation to ban plastic shopping bags.

A bill by Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, D-Santa Monica, would bar grocery, convenience and liquor stores around the state from bagging items with plastic throwaway bags, with the goal of encouraging shoppers to bring their own reusable cloth bags.

Shoppers who didn't bring their own bags would need to purchase recycled paper bags, for a nickel apiece, to bag their groceries. [...]

The bill has the support of environmentalists and grocers, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has indicated he will sign it if it reaches his desk. The plastic industry opposes the measure.

[...]

Steve Aceti, executive director for the California Coastal Coalition ---- which represents 35 coastal cities, five coastal counties and three regional associations across the state ---- said the group once preferred the recycling approach to a ban. Aceti said, however, that campaigns to encourage more recycling haven't made a significant dent in the problem.

"So many of these bags are showing up on beaches and in the ocean, and flying around in our communities," Aceti said. "It's just time for a solution, and that is a ban on a product that has outlived its usefulness."

He said it is time that Californians change their habits.

"We should start doing what people in Europe and other countries do, and bring our own bags to the store," he said.

I'm usually opposed to nanny state legislation, but this is kind of like smoking on airplanes. It's just common sense to me. Plastic bags are a real environmental problem, both in the production and the disposal, and they are of no benefit to consumers relative to more environmentally friendly alternatives.

Houlihan and Barth are on board:

[Activist Gina] Goodhill was joined at a news conference by Encinitas Councilwomen Teresa Barth and Maggie Houlihan, who support the bill.

"It's going to help us keep plastic bags off our beaches," Barth said.

Dirty Feds force WiMax towers on unwilling Leucadians

The Leucadia Blog has been covering the unwelcome Sprint/Clearwire WiMax antennas coming to the Cabo Grill.

Today the Coast News has a story on Dr. Dan Harper, who tried to speak out against the antennas but was told the city's hands were tied by federal law:

Dr. Dan Harper, M.D., was among the first to arrive at the Encinitas City Council meeting the evening of July 21. Carrying a 12-inch stack of medical journal articles about the health risks of electromagnetic field, or EMF, radiation, he was there to speak on behalf of his patient, Michael Schwaebe.

Schwaebe was appealing the placement of WiMAX towers on the site of the former Cabo Grill at Coast Highway 101 and La Costa Avenue. WiMAX is often referred to as “a cell tower on steroids.” [...]

Harper said he was frustrated, but not surprised, that he was unable to complete his presentation.

It would have been illegal.

The wireless industry is protected by Article 704 of the Telecommunications Act signed by President Clinton in 1996 which prohibits arguments of potential health risks from communications towers to be made at public hearings, even if they are legitimate.

I don't know about the science behind the dangers of WiMax, but given the choice, I probably wouldn't live next to a WiMax tower.

Permit me to make an ideological point, though. This is what you get when you vote for Senators and Congresscritters who don't believe in limited government: you get heavy-handed orders from Washington saying locals have no control over what goes on in their towns, in their states, or in their private lives.

Read the Constitution. Pay special attention to the Bill of Rights. Then go vote for someone who has read it too.

AAII investor meeting with CEOs of local public companies

Leucadia's own Chris Girand is the president of the San Diego chapter of the American Association of Individual Investors, and he's kicking off a series of chapter events with a big meeting with management from four local public companies:

The first of a new series of meetings featuring publicly traded companies domiciled in our own backyard will be held on October 2nd at the Scottish Rite center in Mission Valley. The meeting will run from 9:30 A.M. - 12:00 P.M. We'll meet with upper management of four profitable companies that share our San Diego roots. The floor will be open for discussion.

Andrew S. Clark / CEO / Bridgepoint Educations (NYSE: BPI)
Greg Garrabrants / CEO / Bank of Internet (Nasdaq: BOFI)
Gwen Rosenberg / Vice-President / Senomyx (Nasdaq: SNMX)
John M. Heffner / CFO / PriceSmart (Nasdaq: PSMT)

It's open to non-members. Cost is $5 to cover facilities and parking.

Anarchy in the ENC

Cardiff's Ken Harrison, writing in the Coast News Aug. 6 dead tree edition, apparently not available online, reminds us that people can still get together to get things done themselves rather than waiting for government action.

Folks in Encinitas are known for their roll-up-the-sleeves attitude, taking matters into their own hands, and getting community projects done. Prior to cityhood, local chapters of the Elks, Optimists, Soroptimists, Kiwanis, Lions, and other service clubs personally built almost every ball field in the area.

Twenty-seven years ago, Cardiff residents raised money and poured 1.2 miles of sidewalk along Birmingham Drive because the county refused to build a sidewalk on the busy thoroughfare. They financed the construction by selling one-foot squares where "owners" could put handprints and messages in the wet cement.

Such was the case recently for a band of 40 Crest Drive residents. In an act of "independence" on the July 4 holiday weekend, after waiting six years for the city of Encinitas to landscape the unsightly northwest corner of Crest Drive at Santa Fe Drive, residents took matters into their own hands.

He goes on to detail how 40 residents donated a little time and money to landscape the corner. If the city had done it, it would no doubt have cost 10 times as much and required fat contracts with city council cronies and many hours of studies by bloated-pension-getting city workers.



This is one of the things I love about Encinitas. The community spirit of the people has not yet been crushed by the bureaucrats and the public employee unions. That's becoming harder and harder to find these days.

And I bet you didn't even think of yourself as an anarchist.

Family fun nights at Quail Gardens

So I've missed the first half of this summer's Quail Gardens' Thursday Family Fun Nights. I won't make that mistake again. Bring a blanket and a picnic and the kids.

Suzy Brown resurfaces as "Suzy Tesla" at "XP Vortex" pitching free energy and Usana multi-level marketing

I am not making this up.

Thanks to Anonymous for the tip. Someone who looks an awful lot like Monster House Suzy Brown has shown up as "Suzy Tesla" with a web site called "XP Vortex."

The XP Vortex was the brainchild of a dream to spend more quality time with loved ones and be financially free to pursue my passions. I also wanted to create a business that would do the very same thing for others… a self-propelling business to free YOU financially. If you want to make a lot of money, first you need a dream or a passion about what you would do with the money. Then dream about your dream, visualize it, feel it, taste it, enjoy it. Not only WILL it happen, it MUST happen. That is how the Laws of Universe work. For me, my dream is about following in Nicola Tesla’s footsteps in recreating his dream for ‘Free Energy.’ What is Free Energy? Believe it or not, we can produce unlimited amounts of energy without consuming any fossil fuels, gases, masses, or even sunlight. No pollution and nothing gets consumed in the process. We can heat homes, drive cars, and power our homes without relying on a man-made ‘energy’ sources. Nicola Tesla, the inventor of electricity and wireless communication, almost finished his most important invention of all, Free Energy that could be transmitted everywhere in the world. JP Morgan pulled the plug over 100 years ago when he realized his investments in oil, coal, electricity and even the railroads would become worthless and obsolete. Never again. The XP Vortex is designed to fuel the research, development and engineering of Free Energy indefinitely. This is my dream and my life’s purpose. What’s yours?

I'm not sure how you get free energy from your run-of-the-mill multi-level-marketing scheme, but here's the pitch.

I hope the MLM investors do better than the Olivenhain rehab facility investors did!