You Just Can't Make up This Sort of Thing

If you want to build it, they will already be there…

Headline: Shrimp to delay school’s opening.

The discovery of endangered fairy shrimp on a vacant lot in Otay Mesa will delay the opening of a school for at least a year, San Ysidro School District officials say

It is expected to take 18 months for the school district to come up with a plan that will protect the endangered fairy shrimp that were discovered in vernal pools on the land the school was to be constructed.

Vernal pools? Fancy enviro-speak for mud puddles. Mud puddles that are also breeding grounds for West Nile virus-carrying mosquitoes. And all evidence suggests these “pools” are not naturally occurring but are merely tire ruts from off-road vehicles. See. Off-roading: good for the environment.

A biologist with a company that surveyed the site said that the fairy shrimps loss can “reverberate up the food chain.” Can you feel it? Its noted that neither the name of the biologist nor the company is given in the article.

Estimates to “save” this critter that at 8-16 millimeters, can’t even be of benefit to a cocktail is estimated to be $27 million.

And this fairy shrimp is so endangered, it popped up out at the proposed site for a military cemetery at Mira Mar.

But we aren’t holding our breath to see any placard-carrying protests like we’ve seen over the past few months over budget cuts that are supposedly going to axe teaching positions. It’s a lot easier to get upset at politicians than fairy shrimp that are just so darn cute.

…and speaking of axes…

You know, there’s a reason why we could never get into politics or city/county/state-level bureaucracy. We’d be in jail for a carnage of disembowlments and severed limbs in our wake.

“Your Honor, I guess we just got carried away when we said we wanted to “slash” our way through all the red tape and bureaucracy. Our bad.”

The City of San Diego plays politics with National Security

Blackwater Worldwide, a private security firm has asked a federal judge to order the city of San Diego to issue the final certificate needed for that firm to open up their training facility in Otay Mesa. If they are unable to do so by this Monday then Blackwater will be in violation of their contract with the Navy. Story here.

The training facility, including the firing range is entirely indoors and will be used to train sailors and Marines in marksmanship, assembly and disassembly of weapons, new weapons systems and in arrest and apprehension techniques. Ostensibly, these sailors and Marines would mostly benefit the physical security forces of U.S. Navy and Military Sealift Command (civilian operated Navy supply ships and notoriously bad aims) vessels against terrorist and small-scale attacks on the same. Think USS Cole.

But with elections coming up, its obvious that Mayor Jerry Sanders and City Attorney Mike Aguirre are caving to the same pressure that denied Blackwater a proposed training facility in East County near Potrero. Unmentioned in article is the city councilman for the district in which the facility resides, Ben Hueso. Hueso has been a vocal critic of Bush the War in Iraq and not coincidentally, Blackwater.

This is a local issue with over-the-horizon implications. Point being, Blackwater is employed almost exclusively by veterans and former members of the military and the instructors who will be doing the training all live in the San Diego area. The sailors and Marines they will be training and the assets and men and women at sea and abroad they will be protecting are all San Diego-based.

For these agitators and obstructionists who wish to portray Blackwater as a shadowy para-military arm of the Bush junta and who will allow their distaste for this Administration and our presence in Iraq to trump the safety of their own neighbors is unconscionable.

Up to this point, Blackwater has jumped through every administrative, bureaucratic and environmental hoop for the city so when they cry foul and claim they are being held hostage by petty, agenda-driven politics, they are exactly right.

But Blackwater Worldwide is not entirely blameless. Let’s face it, were this any other security firm than Blackwater or perhaps Blackwater did not have as ominous a name, this would be a non-issue. So in the spirit of free advice, may we make a suggestion that instead of their current name, it becomes something more non-threatening, fuzzy and in keeping with spirit of peaceful dialog and conflict resolution with the bad guys….

We propose…….





…… Barney Worldwide