| Saturday, October
6, 2007 I have got to do the column and
mailbag this weekend.
Yesterday I spent most of the day at Century Plaza Hotel,
Marty Winston's "Big Event", which turned out to be more "medium" than big.
I had a good time talking with old friends, and the exhibits were more than
worth my time going down there. turnout wasn't bad, just not as large as
expected.
I also discovered that leaving my house at 0800 didn't get
me there before 0900, but part of that was the route I took. The map
directions -- you know, I don't even know what map engine I used -- told me
to go direct over the mountains and down to Santa Monica, and follow that to
Avenue of the Stars. I haven't been over that way in so long that I just did
it their way.
Turned out to be a mistake. There are far faster routes.
Not only is Laurel Canyon s l o w in the mornings (duh), but Santa Monica is
worse. The odd thing is that 30 years ago when I was in political management
we had offices not far from Century Plaza (and meetings there not
infrequently) and I knew a number of routes to and from Studio City to that
area. Coming home I used one of them, along Club View Drive, and while much
has changed along there, the routes work just fine.
Anyway, I have to get to work on the column. My head is
full of fiction items. The stuff at Winston's show was interesting, but I
keep wanting to think about medieval naval warfare, which is the next step
in Mamelukes...
=============
The conspiracy
Southern California is doing the nation a big favor. We
are occupying Al Sharpton's time, so he won't bug you. Meanwhile our entire
city government appears to be in a big conspiracy against the voters. We
have a telephone tax of 10% which has been ruled illegal. Oddly enough, it
is illegal because it was somehow wrapped up with the Federal telephone tax,
which was enacted as a temporary tax because of -- wait for it -- the
Spanish American War.
(http://www.fool.com/investing/general/
2006/02/03/youre-still-paying-for-the-spanishamerican-war.aspx )
When Congress decided that the Spanish American War has
been paid for and repealed the federal telephone tax, that turns out to have
affected the local city telephone tax of 10% (a tax almost no one was aware
of, because telephone bills are unreadable). The City Council and Mayor have
panicked. How will they pay themselves and their bloated staffs (when I was
Deputy Mayor of LA ((truth in advertising: my title then was Executive
Assistant, but the post held has since been re-titled Deputy Mayor)) we had
71 Civil Service Exempt ((i.e. political)) City Hall appointees. I was one
of them. The city now has over 600, and believe me, they are well paid; I
was and that was in the 1960's)? How will they pay for First Class travel to
First Class hotels in South America to study Global Warming? How will they
continue to pay pet law firms millions of dollars to do the work that the
City Attorney is too incompetent to do?
In their panic they declared a fiscal emergency. This lets
them put the restoration of the telephone tax on the ballot in a primary
election that few will turn out for. (Tax increases are supposed to go on a
ballot in a major election; that scares them a lot.) They also say it's a
TAX CUT since they are going to make the new telephone tax 9% in hopes that
people will vote for it, thinking that it's a cut from 10%. Of course it's
really a tax increase because the tax itself is null and void now.
So from city council to Congress, our politicians are all
in a giant conspiracy against the voters and taxpayers.
And we never catch wise.
=============
Most people have a higher than average number of legs.
Think about it.
.
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