You are currently browsing the daily archive for April 20, 2007.
Mendo D.A. elect Meredith Lintott fired her election opponent Keith Faulder a few days after taking office. She insists that there won’t be many more firings, but as we know in Humboldt County, when there is a significant change in the philosophy of the office you tend to lose the old guard. From the Press Democrat:
As a result of the immediate dismissal, a murder case scheduled for Monday may be rescheduled, Lintott said.
Caleb Flitcroft was set to go on trial for allegedly shooting and killing his girlfriend, Brittney Syfert, in a fit of jealousy during her birthday party in Potter Valley in 2005.
Faulder has prosecuted the lion’s share of the office’s more serious homicide cases during his eight-year tenure with the office.
“I’m sorry to see him go,” Ukiah Police Sgt. John McCutcheon said. “He’s the most skilled attorney in that office.”
Reverse the politics and it’s deja vu all over again.
I’m also sorry to see Faulder go, but as with Gallegos, Ms. Lintott has the right to reshape the office to her vision, even if it means some short term difficulties. There are distinct philosophies about the office. It’s not merely a bureaucratic position. Probably Gallegos’ mistake was to wait too long to clean house. Lintott seems to have learned from his mistakes.
4/20 is celebrated by the marijuana using folk, because of the false legend that there are 420 active substances in the drug. As it happens, there are only about 315 (over a hundred of which are confirmed carcinogens, but I’ll let it rest).
April 20 is also Adolf Hitler’s birthday. Consequently, it is also the date of events like Columbine and the Oklahoma City bombing.
On the upside, all of these people were born on this day.
Although the date is disputed, it is also believed by some to be the birth date of the Prophet Muhammed.
Of the most significance, it is my birthday. And apparently Stephen Colbert and I were born within hours of each other.
Filed by the former CDF head Richard Wilson (if you remember he made some statements on behalf of Gallegos in the home stretch of the recall campaign), the suit. Heraldo has the links.
From the SF Chronicle:
Pacific Lumber also offered a plan that would allow it to cut a certain amount of lumber each year without degrading the quality of its forests. But, the suit alleges, that plan relied on an intentionally flawed computer model that exaggerated the rate at which the company’s forests would be regenerated after cutting.
In the whistle-blower lawsuit, Wilson and Maranto, the state officer in charge of sustainable forestry, say they concluded last year that there was a problem in the computer model.
“Defendant’s deceptive growth and yield model made its sustained yield plan false,” the lawsuit says.
“Had defendants fully disclosed the nature of their … computer simulations,” the lawsuit says, “the California Department of Forestry would not have approved the sustained yield plan, and defendants would not have received that $213.7 million in state funds.”
Former Rep. Pete McCloskey, whose Redwood City law firm is part of the plaintiffs’ legal team, called the alleged deception “an elaborate fraudulent scheme fueled by corporate greed.”
Wilson and Maranto filed the suit under California’s false claims law, which allows people who allege that state or local governments have been defrauded to file suit. Such suits are sealed while the state attorney general examines them.
The suit was unsealed on Monday.
The bankruptcy stay may not apply to this suit as Maxxam and Charles Hurwitz are named as defendants. I’m not sure how it works from here. I imagine PALCO will make a motion.
Addendum: The story made Forbes.
Well, tactically speaking I don’t support the push for impeachment, however, the event does look interesting.
IMPEACHMENT SUMMER BEGINS RIGHT WITH COL. ANN WRIGHT Retired Army Colonel Ann Wright speaks on Impeachment, the Law and the Iraq War on Sunday May 6 at the Vet’s Hall in Garberville. Her presentation will begin at 7 PM after a potluck meal at 6 PM. Ann Wright, after 35 years of military and diplomatic service, resigned in March 2003 in protest of Bush’s war. The decision to wage war in Iraq, she says, “violated international and domestic law and is an impeachable offense.” The March 2007 Greenfuse printed her testimony to the Washington State Senate on the necessity of impeaching Bush and Cheney.
Col. Wright is an outspoken anti-war activist who has appeared often on Democracy Now! She has been featured in the Washington Post magazine, Ms. magazine, Foreign Service Journal and the film “Uncovered: The Truth About the Iraq War.” She also spent 26 days in the ditches at Camp Casey with Cindy Sheehan and has been arrested numerous times since then protesting the war. Most recently she was carried out of Rep. John Conyers committee because she has most certainly not taken impeachment “off the table.”
Col.Wright has seen diplomatic service in 9 countries, 5 of them during crisis periods (Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.) This included reopening the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2001. She received the State Dept.’s Award for Heroism for her role in evacuating 2500 persons from the Sierra Leone civil war.
Be there May 6: potluck at 6 PM, presentations and Q & A, from 7 to 9pm. A donation is suggested to defray her expenses, but no one will be turned away.
Impeachment Summer begins Nationwide on April 28. Help get the celebration off to a rousing local start with someone who knows what she is talking about.
For more info, contact Paul 923 4488
The photo is from Wikipedia, linked above.
It may be in the works. Among other things, the Russians want to build a tunnel under the Bering Straight.
And we can’t even get a by-pass for Willits!
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