Gov. Jerry Brown stirred a meeting of water agency officials yesterday, saying that critics of his twin tunnels Delta plan need to “shut up” until they’ve done more research. From David Siders and Dale Kasler at the Sacramento Bee:
“Brown’s remarks prompted laughter at a meeting of water agency officials in Sacramento, and his office said he made them in jest.
“But they came amid heightened tension over Brown’s controversial tunnels plan and new statewide conservation requirements.
“Brown last week announced major changes to his plan to build two tunnels to divert water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the south. The administration, while moving forward with a $15 billion conveyance, dramatically reduced the amount of habitat restoration originally proposed.
“’Until you’ve put a million hours into it,’ said Brown, estimating the amount of staff time devoted to the project, ‘shut up.’”
Meanwhile, Brown also said that water problems are nothing new in California, calling them “deja vu all over again.” From Capitol Weekly’s John Howard:
“’For 50 years, people have been trying to figure out how do we deal with fish, how do we deal with the conveyance of water, what’s the most efficient way to do it.’ he said. ‘The drought is very much a part of California’s past and future. We get droughts. We’ve had droughts before, but now we have droughts and higher temperatures and the fire season is so much longer than it used to be.’”
And, it was bound to happen: here’s George Skelton’s ‘Get off my lawn!’ column:
“Gov. Jerry Brown apparently wants to turn California's green lawns into the dreary color that matches his name…
Now ”California's political elite is trying to make one of civilization's soothing pleasures — the green lawn — the evil culprit in our historic drought.
“If a green lawn isn't important to you, there are many other places to call home in the developing countries of Central America, Africa and the Middle East, where dirt dominates. The Communist Chinese ripped out lawns established under American and British influence, and we know how polluted their air became.”
Calm down there, George…
In a bizarre story that rocketed across social media yesterday, three members of a religious philanthropy group, including a man described as an aide to California Attorney General Kamala Harris, have been arrested and charged with impersonating police officers. From Joseph Serna, Javier Panzar, and Matt Hamilton at LAT:
“[Three] people were charged with impersonating police officers. They are David Henry, who told [Los Angeles County Sheriff's Capt. Roosevelt Johnson] he was the police chief, Tonette Hayes and Brandon Kiel, an aide to state Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris.
‘It turns out Henry, Hayes and Kiel had allegedly introduced themselves to police agencies across the state, though it is unclear why. A website claiming to represent their force cites connections to the Knights Templars that they say go back 3,000 years. The site also said that the department had jurisdiction in 33 states and Mexico.
“’When asked what is the difference between the Masonic Fraternal Police Department and other police departments, the answer is simple for us. We were here first!’ the website said.”
“Los Angeles County prosecutors said the whole effort was a ruse, though for what purpose remains unclear. The investigation is continuing.”
Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Senator Sam Blakeslee yesterday announced the launch of Digital Democracy, an online search tool that allows users to dig into public information in ways not previously available. From Melody Gutierrez at SFGate:
“The site… puts several online tools in one place, including campaign contributions, conflict of interest filings and voting records of lawmakers. The site will also open up the world of lobbying in a way not seen before by identifying their comments at legislative hearings, tracking them back to their employers and showing who their clients are.
“While much of the information is already available online through a myriad of different websites, Digital Democracy also digitizes transcripts of what was said during hearings, allows a user to tie those comments back to the video clip and to easily share it through social networking.”
And, here’s one for Jennifer Fearing: we’ve heard of a bullet-proof stomach, but this is ridiculous.
"’Benno’ the Belgian Malinois has eaten enough strange objects over the course of his four years, you'd think his digestive tract is bulletproof. As it turns out, that's not quite the case. His owner had to take the dog to the vet's office after Benno ate 23 live rounds of .308 caliber ammunition.
“And when we say ate, we mean chewed vigorously to the point of mangling the ammo, then swallowing each round. Benno eating something inappropriate is not unusual, according to his owner Larry 'Sonny' Brassfield of Mountain Home…
"’You can baby proof a house,’ Brassfield said, petting the happy, hyper dog. ‘But I don't think it's possible to Benno-proof a house. Lord knows, we've tried and failed.’"
Click the link for photos and to see the LONG list of inappropriate items Benno has eaten.
