A public bank for LA: instead of sending hundreds of millions to predatory finance, Angelenos' taxes can fund community development

from Boing Boing:

The City of Los Angeles sends the nation-wrecking finance industry more than $100MM/year in the form of fees and penalties for its banking business, supporting the institutions whose racist lending practices, financial engineering and mortgage fraud have wreaked untold harm on the city's residents.

This November, Angelenos will get to vote on a proposition to create a public bank that will back LA's smaller community banks and do the city's business without lining finance's pockets. This bank will be able to fund community projects from housing to transit to health-care, and will be able to take deposits from the city's burgeoning cannabis industry, which is presently shut out of the federally guaranteed bank system and relies on safes in entrepreneurs' homes or businesses to stash millions in cash.

The finance industry hates and fears this proposal and is spreading FUD about how a bank that is under democratically elected political control will inevitably become corrupt -- while the discipline of the market will supposedly keep banks on the straight and narrow. Tell that to the millions of Americans whose suffered from Wells Fargo's corruption.

And those are not the only benefits of a public bank, backers claim. A public bank would enable the city to loan money for badly needed affordable housing development. They believe a city-owned bank could extend the credit lines of community banks and credit unions to offer loans to low-income residents and help bankroll affordable housing.

Another benefit touted by bank promoters: badly needed investment in infrastructure. They hold out the example of Costa Rica’s public bank, Banco Popular. Advocates claim that this bank has been the financial linchpin behind the financing of water supply systems, residential solar panels, and hydroelectric generators.

“A public bank could make some investments that in the long-term would be profitable for LA… [investments that] no bank focused on short-term profit would dare to invest in,” Baradaran asserted.

A public bank is also seen by many as a means to local self-determination and bypassing high Wall Street interest rates. For example, LA public bank advocates estimate Los Angeles pays $3.14 billion in debt service, the cost to borrow money, from Wall Street. They argue a municipal bank would allow the city to recapture that money and give Los Angelenos a say in redirecting this funding toward local projects.

Public Bank LA

Banking on the Public Option: Will LA Lead the Way for People-Owned Banks? [Glenn Daigon/Whowhatwhy]

(via Naked Capitalism)

Black Flag radio interview during their first visit to the UK 1981 (10 minutes audio)

Yeah, somehow one of my first photos of the band with Henry in it got attached to this clip...
back behind the "Cuckoo's Nest" in Costa Mesa (by Huntington Beach) August '81

Sunday Science: California Is About to Do Something Great That No State Has Ever Done Before

from MotherJones

"If California can do this, it could really be the beginning of the snowball."
—By Tim McDonnell



Back in January, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) made a promise. His state, he said, would pursue a new package of climate goals that are the most ambitious in the nation (and among the most ambitious in the world). California was already a leader in efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean energy. Brown pledged to go further. By 2030, he declared, California would double the energy efficiency of state buildings; get half its electricity from renewables; and halve consumption of gasoline by cars and trucks.

At the time, all those nice-sounding goals were just words in a speech. But they could very soon become the law of the land. The state legislature is currently considering several bills (SB 350 is the most important) that would codify Brown's climate agenda. The legislation is widely expected to pass before the end of the legislative session next Friday, but not without a fight from the state's powerful oil lobby.

Before we get into the bills themselves, let's talk about California. Believe it or not, the state where America fell in love with cars and highways is now leading the nation, and the world, when it comes to climate action. And that matters, because California, the world's seventh-largest economy, is a world-class emitter of greenhouse gases. It ranks second for state emissions, behind Texas, and if it were its own nation, it would rank 20th globally, right between Italy and Spain. Still, it's remarkably clean for its size: On a per-capita basis, it ranks 45th among US states and 38th when compared with countries around the world. (Below, the bars represent total emissions and the dots represent per-capita emissions.)



California is also special because of how much of its emissions come from road transportation (cars, trucks, buses, etc.), which is why a major reduction in gasoline use would be so significant. Nationally, just 27 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are from transportation; in California, it's 37 percent. Another way to crunch those numbers: One-tenth of the nation's road transport emissions come from California. Unsurprisingly, California is also the biggest consumer of gasoline, accounting for one-tenth of the national gas market. As a result, it also has an infamously aggressive oil lobby—more on that in a minute.

California first stepped onto the national climate stage back in 2006 during the Arnold Schwarzenegger administration, with the passage of AB32, known as the Global Warming Solutions Act. That law sets a target of reducing the state's economy-wide carbon footprint to 1990 levels by 2020. Since the bill was enacted, gasoline consumption in the state is down 9 percent—double the nationwide decline. Total carbon emissions are also down, while GDP and population are both on the rise. Roll those things together and you get the most impressive number: The carbon intensity of the state's economy (that is, emissions per unit of GDP) is down 28 percent. The upshot is that California has become a proving ground for the notion that strong economic growth and climate action can go hand in hand:



That's where the current bills come in. SB 350 would bring the state's gasoline consumption down to about where Florida's is now, while setting new targets for clean energy and energy efficiency projects. There's also SB32, which would build on Schwarzenegger's targets and require the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 (to meet that target, emissions have to start falling about five times faster than they currently are). That would be the most aggressive state target in the country; nationally, the furthest President Barack Obama has gone is to aim for a 26-28 percent reduction by 2025 (and that's not enshrined in law, either). Both bills passed the state Senate in June by a wide margin; they're due for a vote in the Assembly within the coming week. If they pass, they'll head to Brown's desk for a signature.

Neither bill includes specific prescriptions for how to meet the targets. Those are left to the state's Air Resources Board (CARB), which would be required to turn in an enforcement plan by 2017. The gas consumption target would likely require some combination of new fuel efficiency standards for cars, incentives for alternative fuels and biofuels, cooperation with local planning agencies to improve public transit and make communities less car-reliant, and a push to get people to buy more electric vehicles. (California is already home to half of the roughly 174,000 electric vehicles on the road in the United States.)

"If California can do this, it could really be the beginning of the snowball," said Tim O'Connor, director of California policy for the Environmental Defense Fund. "This is how California can really shake up the national conversation on climate."

Combined, these efforts are expected to create up to half a million jobs, according to a recent University of California-Berkeley study, and draw billions in clean tech investments (for which California is already the undisputed national champ). The bills' supporters in the California capitol also say they will save millions of dollars in traffic-related public health costs and result in reduced energy bills.

The bills' other supporters include Obama; both the state's US senators and a majority of its congressional delegation; and a coalition of California businesses, large and small. But they also have some powerful enemies who are pushing back hard.

Because of the state's share of the gasoline market, and its robust oil and gas production industry, the oil lobby has long been the most powerful special interest in Sacramento. The biggest group, the Western States Petroleum Association, spent $8.9 million on lobbying last year. Now, Californians are getting blitzed by ads like the one below, from the so-called California Drivers Alliance (backed by WSPA, and representing "fuel users & providers"). The ad claims SB 350 will lead to gas rationing and is all about "limiting how far we can drive" and "penalizing drivers for using too much gas." The bill's sponsor, Sen. Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles), called the ad "absurd" and "fear-mongering."



"There's a significant amount of inertia protecting the industry," O'Connor said. "The lobby is putting its aim right at the center, at swing moderates" in the Assembly.

We'll have to wait and see how this pans out. But California has a strong history of leadership on climate policies—including carbon trading programs (it created the nation's first economy-wide cap-and-trade market in 2012) and clean vehicle standards—so the odds are pretty good.

"The governor has put his reputation on the line," O'Connor said. "It's hard to imagine 350 won't pass."

The solution to California's drought: if you eat beef, don't wash – video

from The Guardian

Would you stop showering if it meant that was the only way you could keep eating beef? California's ongoing drought needs radical action. But in a state dependent on water-hungry meat production, it would be politically dangerous to suggest eating less beef. Activists the Yes Men collaborated with comedy video website Funny or Die to produce a spoof campaign encouraging California's hipsters to skip showers for beef. Did it fool anyone?

--------

from Business Insider

One chart sums up the real problem in the California drought — and it isn't almonds

You might've heard that if there's one food you shouldn't be buying in the middle of California's drought, it's almonds.

Compared with many other nuts and veggies, almonds seem particularly wasteful, requiring a whole gallon of water per nut.

But what about the foods we eat that aren't nuts or vegetables?

I'm talking about meat.

Red meat, in particular. From raising the cows to washing and processing the meat, burgers and steaks require far more water per ounce than a handful of nuts do.

This chart, from a presentation made by University of California Davis professor Blaine Davis, makes the difference pretty clear:



Those arrows point to "forages" and alfalfa — crops raised almost exclusively for feeding farm animals. In California, the largest milk-producing state in the US, the vast majority of these animals are cows. "Forages" include the fields that get watered for cows to graze on and the corn and other irrigated crops that later get churned into cow feed.

Both of these use way more water than the almonds and pistachios shown near the top of the chart.

The difference is even more dramatic when you think about how much water is required to produce just one ounce of each food.

A whopping 106 gallons of water goes into making just one ounce of beef. By comparison, just about 23 gallons are needed for an ounce of almonds (about 23 nuts), the Los Angeles Times reported recently.

So stop with the almond shaming, and start eating less red meat.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/real-villain-in-the-california-drought-isnt-almonds--its-red-meat-2015-4#ixzz3icn1hzz7

OH SHIT! Here's it comes Straight Outa Compton, The Movie

REPUBLICANS ARE VILE CREEPS

from our friend Richard Metzger over at Dangerous Minds:

“Some people are shits, darling.”—William S. Burroughs

Like Republicans.

I live in Los Angeles, where I honestly don’t know ANY Republicans. I’m sure there must be at least a couple of them living here, but I’m not planning to actually go out looking for them any time soon. Let ‘em stay under those rocks. In fact, I don’t even know a single Republican who I am not related to by blood or by marriage. As in none, not one, zero.

These family members aside, I do not like Republicans. I hate them. If you are a Republican, I hate YOU. Seems like the majority of my fellow Californians might feel the same way, luckily—the GOP is a politically insignificant entity in California, where the Democrats hold a supermajority and practically every top job in the state—so Republican idiocy will probably never touch my life in any sort of meaningful way, except, of course, for reading annoying, blood-pressure raising articles about the GOP asshats we do still have here, like this at The LA Times.

Opponents of the Affordable Care Act never stop producing new tricks to undermine the reform’s effectiveness. But leave it to California Republicans to reach for the bottom. Their goal appears to be to discredit the act by highlighting its costs and penalties rather than its potential benefits.

The device chosen by the Assembly’s GOP caucus is a website at the address coveringhealthcareca.com. If that sounds suspiciously like coveredca.com, which is the real website for the California insurance exchange, it may not be a coincidence. Bogus insurance websites have sprung up all over, aiming to steer consumers away from legitimate enrollment services. Just a couple of weeks ago California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris shut down 10 bogus insurance sites, some of them with names very similar to the real thing. She must have overlooked the GOP’s entry.

A goddamn fake healthcare website! How low is that? If you click on a tab that reads “Don’t have health insurance” on the homepage, you are taken to a “penalty calculator” and not a premium calculator. Shits! They’re evil shits. Imagine that you’re an earnest person with preconditions seeking affordable health insurance and you stumble into this site by accident. It would be infuriating.

The GOP site also takes careful pains to explain to the young how THEIR money will be subsidizing health care for the old. Keep it classy GOP… Hey wait a minute: I thought old people were the GOP base?

And don’t young people eventually become old people? This may have already occurred to some of them. Bit of a mixed message there, isn’t it? Not like cognitive dissonance has ever been much of an impediment to Republicans, but this strikes me as being as incompetent as it is evil and in such a small, petty way. There’s even a section devoted to scaring people that signing up for Obamacare will result in identity theft!

Shits.

Hunter at Daily Kos wrote:

If you are so nasty a person that you can’t live with the thought of insuring yourself because it means some other person might get healthcare using one one hundredth of a cent of your money, the world will certainly not be missing you much after you are gone. Godspeed!

This is yet another of the reasons the current incarnation of the Republican Party is little more than a political oozing sore. There is probably a downside to trying to kill off your own voters to score a momentary political point, but let’s just say the members of the party brain trust in my state could meet in a closet and still have enough room for the vacuum and boxes of Christmas decorations.

Yep, that’s our Republicans. How I love California.

It's Still Fucking Hot

California version (1966)

The Californians (SNL)

I found this pretty fucking funny

SKATEBOARD Evolution and Art in California

I've loaned one of my old hand made boards from 1977 to this exhibition, as well as several photos from my archive. I can't vouch for the quality of the display since i'm not there or having anything to do with the hanging, but some good folks are involved so i have my fingers crossed for those who go to check it out. If you happen to make it by, by all means please leave a note in the comments to let me know how it looks.

from the museum website:
Opening November 14, 2009

The California Heritage Museum is proud to present “SKATEBOARD: Evolution and Art in California.” The show opens to the general public on Saturday, November 14, 2009 and continues through Sunday, May 30, 2010.

Guest curated by legendary Z-boy Nathan Pratt in conjunction with museum staff curator Michael Trotter and advisory committee members Jeff Ho, Skip Engblom (Zephyr co-founders), Cris Dawson (1966 Hobie Champ), Z-Boys Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta, and 1980’s world champion Christian Hosoi, the exhibition traces the evolution of boards from pre-1950 to the present showcasing the riders, designers, artists, and manufacturers that created the California phenomenon known as the skateboard. From the first planks of wood with metal roller skate wheels nailed to the bottom to the modern polyurethane wheels and kicktails, the boards have rocketed the skaters to greater heights of performance and style while taking “sidewalk surfing” from a homegrown activity to a worldwide cultural phenomenon.

More than 275 rare boards from the world’s finest collections including Jason Cohn, Dale Smith/Skate Designs Inc., Todd Huber/Skatelab Skatepark, Ray Flores, James Lang/South Bay Skates.

Additional lenders included are Kevin Anderson/Model Worm, Art Brewer, Terry Campion, Cris Dawson, Deluxe Distribution, Earl, Skip Engblom, Craig Fineman, Wayne and Donna Gunter/Surfing Cowboys, Mike Horelick/Tunnel Skateboards, Chuck Katx, Mike Kolar, Gordon McClelland, Jim McDowell/RIPWynn City Skates, Marc McKee, Aaron Murray, James O’Mahoney/Santa Barbara Surfing Museum, Nathan Pratt, Mark Richards/Val Surf, Ronnie/Animal House, Steve Salyer/Pastures of Heaven, Gabriel Steptoe, Joel Tudor, Wentzle Ruml IV, Cary B. Weiss, Z-BOY Archive, and Z-CULT Skates. Photographs and art by C.R. Stecyk III, Glen E. Friedman, Craig Fineman, Wynn Miller, Kevin Ancell, Wes Humpston and more document the movement and its personalities.

This is the first exhibition of the California skate movement to be shown in “Dog Town”, the Santa Monica/Ocean Park area where modern skateboarding was born and the skate became an art form. The California Heritage Museum is located in the vortex at Main Street and Ocean Park Boulevard.

A full series of events, including film screenings of Dogtown and Z-Boys, Skater Dater and Rising Son: The Christian Hosoi Story, will take place at the museum and the downtown Santa Monica Library. Talks, photo exhibits, special guest appearances and autograph sessions will take place throughout the exhibit run into 2010.