Dimming the Light In The Red Light District

For years, for as long as I can remember, Amsterdam has been held up as the bastion of freedom…you can buy drugs and sex at stores there like you can buy purses and DVD’s.  And we’ve been told that it’s good.  We’ve been told we should legalize drugs and prostitution here in America, too.  Afterall, it’s not hurting anyone.

Welllllll, they’re shuttin’ down some of those stores in Amsterdam.  Gee, it seems like the city is being overrun by the criminal element.  So they’re shutting businesses down, and dimming the famous the red light.

Amsterdam announced plans this weekend to close brothels, sex shops and pot cafes (marijuana is not legal in the Netherlands, the sale and use of which just ignored) as part of  “a major effort to drive organized crime out of the tourist haven”.  The city is going to focus its efforts on businesses that “generate criminality” which also include gambling parlors, peep shows, and massage parlors.  (Quotes taken from an AP article, link  to full story HERE).

They aren’t going to shut down these industries entirely.  They will be limiting the prostitution to designated areas.  Marijuana cafes will no longer be allowed near schools.

City officials want to bring hotels, restaurants, art galleries and boutiques to the city center and apparently these other “businesses” and the criminality which comes hand in hand with them don’t exactly create the right environment for these enterprises. 

Perhaps we should take a page from the Netherlands playbook and reconsider what sort of things we in America want to embrace with legality and which things might be best left on the law books as illegal.  Why do even more things which will need to be undone when the experiment fails just as it is failing in the freewheeling city of Amsterdam…

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$1.93

The last time I filled my car’s gas tank, I was sooo excited because I got 10 cents off per gallon because I had made it to the magic $100 number in purchases at the affiliated grocery store.  I filled up for “only” $2.29 a gallon! 

I still have 1/3 of a tank of gas left and on the way in to work today I passed multiple gas stations selling gas for well under the two dollar mark!

Just how low do you think the prices will go?

My take on this?  I think that maybe the middle eastern oil cartel is nervous.  I think they’re nervous because Americans truly did cut their consumption dramatically this past summer and I think that for the first time we (Americans) are all on the same page of needing to change how much we rely on others for our energy.  Our approaches to how this can be done are vastly varied, but we all agree that the time is now to start seriously affecting change.  They see that this time we’re serious and I think they want to lull us into a place where we stop caring again by slashing the prices.  If not in large part for America and its money for oil, the middle east is just a poor region that sits on top of a big gooey brown reservoir.  They “need” us more than we “need” them, and I think they got a glimpse of that…

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California In Danger of Falling Into the Ocean – Part II

I’m on the e-mail distribution list of L.A. Mayoral hopeful, Walter Moore.  I doubt he’ll ever win.  But he’s the most straight-talking, realistic-goal-setting, voice-of-reason to enter into politics in my lifetime.  When I lived in Southern California, though not in L.A. proper, I financially supported his first campaign.  He lost to Villaraigosa, unfortunately.  However, I have stayed on Mr. Moore’s e-mail distribution list just so I could make sure that my ulcer never completely heals!    Here’s one of his latest offerings.  I doubt he’ll mind that I have taken the liberty of reposting it here in its entirety.

Up In Smoke:  Common Sense
By Walter Moore, Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles, www.WalterMooreForMayor.com

Use a fireplace, go to jail.

The Philosopher Kings of the South Coast Air Quality Management
District (AQMD) have decided that government must stop you from
burning wood in your fireplace.

The AQMD — which is funded with $125 million of your money each year
– just made it illegal to install wood-burning fireplaces in new
homes, and adopted regulations to stop you from using your existing
fireplace on days they deem too polluted.

In a region where massive wildfires are as routine as televised car
chases, these kill-joys want to stop you from burning logs?  Are you
kidding me?

We’ve got ten jillion cars and trucks stuck in traffic, idling, for
about 18 out of every 24 hours.  We’ve got a governor who fires up the
Gulfstream twice a day to commute from L.A. to Sacramento.  We’ve got
kids getting shot while minding their own business.  And yet we need a
new law to ban the burning of logs in fireplaces?  Really?

Maybe I’ve led a sheltered life, but I don’t remember ever hearing
about a coroner listing, as the cause of death, “lived in a city with
wood-burning fireplaces.”

Laws like this make you wonder what they’re smoking at the AQMD.
Wonder no more:  our city’s representative on the AQMD’s board is Jan
Perry.  That’s right:  the same City Council Member who wants to
“protect” you from fast food in South L.A. because you’re too fat and
stupid to decide what to eat and where.

Remember common sense?  I really miss it, especially when it comes to
people who have the power to tax and regulate.

People used to understand the concept of “priorities” and
“reasonableness.”  Now we’ve created so many agencies that they need
to manufacture new problems to justify their continuing existence and
ever-increasing funding.

The AQMD will never issue a press release saying, “The federal and
state Environmental Protection Agencies, along with county and city
agencies, have pretty much taken care of everything, and since we’ve
gotten to the point of regulating wood-burning fireplaces, we
recommend that our agency be disbanded.”

Okay, enough ranting from me for one day.  I’ll think I’ll go buy a
McBreakfast and light up a cigar just to spite the Philosopher Kings.

I don’t even think I have anything pithy I can add to this well-crafted and succinct masterpiece.

More idiocy in bureaucracy at its finest…

A brief follow-up note:

Looks like Mr. Moore has someone searching LexisNexis!  I got an e-mail from him today!  Love the internet!  Here’s the nice note I got from him:

L.A. needs you!  Come back!

It is so crazy here.  I’m glad to see you stayed on my e-mail list.

And hey, I may win this time.  I’ve raised nearly $80,000, and 
Villaraigosa is SO bad that I think he’s going to increase turnout 
among people who would ordinarily ignore the election.

We’ll see.

Bye for now.

Walter Moore

I have decided to make “California In Danger of Falling Into the Ocean” a regular feature as I come across items that make me shake my head.  I’m sure I’ll be posting more from Mr. Moore in the future!

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