Ladi6 - Hold Tight from Robert Wallace on Vimeo.
Motionpoems - 'Working Order' from Gentleman Scholar on Vimeo.
The American Dream from Sean Buckelew on Vimeo.
A Horse Throat from DavidBK on Vimeo.
SEINABO SEY "HARD TIME" from casper balslev on Vimeo.
Down to the lake from Alex Horner on Vimeo.
Moonfishing from David Michael Friend on Vimeo.
Somewhere in Vietnam // from Menassier Gabriel ///mg image on Vimeo.
Cole Haan "Maya Angelou (Director's Cut)" from Ben Hughes on Vimeo.
KING SOLOMON from Jared Rosenthal on Vimeo.
KING SOLOMON from Jared Rosenthal on Vimeo.
The Incredible Marrec (english) from L'Incroyable Marrec on Vimeo.
Bites - Sine from Bites on Vimeo.
PHOENIX University : Supply & Demand from Cyril Izarn on Vimeo.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
"Time for me to get my "Mad Max" on"
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| "I show them I can fight. I'll just point out that all the endorsements went to my opponent. Time for my WILD SIDE to come out" Let's see. She has sent three "emergency" emails in the last few weeks to District One. How many EMERGENCY emails did she send out about Plan Bay Area, the Marinwood Priority Development Area or the Housing Element that places 71% of all affordable housing for unincorporated Marin in Marinwood-Lucas Valley? ZERO. Vote Tuesday, June 3rd for Damon Connolly. Polls are open 7 AM to 8 PM at the Marinwood Community Center at 775 Miller Creek Avenue. This is an important election. Your vote counts! |
My Letter to the Larkspur Planning Commission
Dear "Steward of Larkspur and Marin's future ":
The Larkspur Station Area Plan EIR must consider the
cumulative impacts of increase traffic pollution and congestion throughout
Marin and most especially along the 101 corridor who will be severely impacted.
As you know, Sonoma is planning for an additional 24,000
housing units in Plan Bay Area. Marin is planning for at least 4400 units
in it's latest RHNA allocations not including private development which could
mean many more thousand housing units.
In short, Marin is targeted for urbanization with a suburban
infrastructure. If Larkspur is allowed to develop it's behemoth
development, the 101 freeway must be expanded, infrastructure such as schools,
water and sewer will need to be expanded and St Francis/101 freeway interchange
must be redesigned.
No plans should go forward until a complete plan for
infrastructure is considered and built. To approve the Larkspur Station
Area plan without proper planning, is not only irresponsible, it borders on the
criminally negligent. Future generations will have to pay for our
folly. Do not become the government official to destroy the legacy of
Marin.
I wholly endorse many more points made in the letters
written by Edward Yates, attorney for Community Venture Partners and Bob
Silvestri which you have received.
I respectful request that Larkspur "go back to the
drawing board" and design a new plan with the principles of
sustainability, community values and limitation of infrastructure
capacity are considered.
Respectfully submitted,
Stephen Nestel
Peter Singleton on The Mass Urbanization of Redwood City (warning to Marin)
Peter Singleton, current resident of Larkspur, remarks on forced urbanization" with 50 million dollars of government subsidies for property developers. These "public-private partnerships' are good old fashioned crony capitalism that exploits local taxpayers forced to pay additional taxes to enrich private interests.
This is exactly what we are fighting against in Marin. Politicians are eager to shovel millions of dollars of subsidies to private development that will only leave Marin urbanized without a sustainable tax base.
This is exactly what we are fighting against in Marin. Politicians are eager to shovel millions of dollars of subsidies to private development that will only leave Marin urbanized without a sustainable tax base.
Friday, May 30, 2014
The Founding Fathers Would Have Protected Your Smartphone
The Founding Fathers Would Have Protected Your Smartphone
The Fourth Amendment grants to the people the right to be “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” It did not find its way into the Constitution by accident. It was, rather, a specific response to a principal grievance of colonial Americans under British rule — namely, the use of the “general warrant” whereby the crown gave officials almost unfettered authority to search colonial homes, rifle through papers and scour personal belongings.
There can be little doubt that the modern smartphone is today’s equivalent of our Founders’ “papers and effects.”
The Fourth Amendment protects us from unreasonable, warrantless searches of these modern-day versions of “papers and effects.” Indeed, as the Cato Institute observes in its own friend-of-the-court brief, allowing for warrantless searches of cellphones “would throw open too-wide a door onto suspects’ personal and private information without judicial supervision. Cellphones are doorways into people’s lives as broad as the front doors of their homes.”
The government argued that public safety demands the police have unfettered liberty to search a person under arrest. This is a false tension between liberty and security; robust protection of our Fourth Amendment rights can coexist with the prerogatives of law enforcement. The Supreme Court already recognizes an exception when a search is necessary to protect officer safety or the destruction of evidence; that’s not at issue.
At issue is: What happens when a police officer has absolutely no reason to believe that a cellphone poses such a threat? In that case, the Fourth Amendment and the privacy values that it enshrines require that a police officer go to a judge and get a warrant, justified by probable cause, before conducting a search.
The evolution of technology and modern life creates challenges for a Constitution ratified 235 years ago. Riley and Wurie will not be the last time the Supreme Court will have to contend with the intersection of the Fourth Amendment, modern communications technology and our long-standing constitutional abhorrence of general warrants. How the Supreme Court addresses this challenge will set an important precedent as technology continues to present capabilities and threats never specifically considered by our Founders.
Technology will continue to evolve, but our Constitution endures. We took an oath to uphold the Constitution. So did every member of the U.S. Supreme Court. The government says that it has the authority to search phones without a warrant.
As a matter of text and history, however, the Fourth Amendment says that they do not. We hope the Supreme Court agrees.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
ABAG Economists and their Crazy Schemes for Social Engineering
Susan Adams served on ABAG ten years
and helped create/approve
Plan Bay Area and the Housing Element to urbanize Marin
For Related Story, see "How the Magic Formula for Housing was Created"
For ABAG Maps. see Upzoning Policy Maps,etc.
For ABAG Maps. see Upzoning Policy Maps,etc.
Plan Bay Area II "We don't like the Plan (Don't patronize us)"
For more on plan bay area visit www.onebayarea.org
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Charles Cagnon: Technology is solving our problems now. Car gets 300 mpg.
In San Francisco, you would think we would have greater faith in technology. Why are we looking at 19th century solutions to 21st century transportation problems? Even the 51 mpg Toyota Prius is far more efficient per person per mile than any bus or train. This Volkswagon XL1 gets 300 mpg!
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Capitalism and Socialism: Crash Course World History
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| The Association of Bay Area Governments created Plan Bay Area that will urbanize Marin and radically change property rights and local democracy. Citizens everywhere are rising up. |
Monday, May 26, 2014
AB1537: A High Density Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing AB1537: A High Density Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
AB1537: A High Density Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
AB 1537 – a wolf in sheep’s clothing?
Supposedly, if enacted, AB 1537 will change the default density for Marin from 30 to 20 units per acre. Sounds great, right? But the more I dig the more I think the supervisors and Levine may be pulling a fast one on residents - by supporting AB 1537 we may actually increase densities and have little or no impact on reducing densities of new developments.
AB 1537: Upzoning Disguised as Downzoning Densities
There are existing apartment buildings and land areas zoned at under 20 units per acre. AB 1537 effectively upzones these properties – but this is not being clearly disclosed to us. We are being given the impression that AB 1537 will result in an across the board reduction.
AB 1537 Doesn’t Affect Existing Sites Like St Vincents & Strawberry
While Supervisor Adams reassured me that once AB 1537 passes the default of 20 units per acre is restored, she confirmed that the sites identified in the current housing element with their higher densities would remain.
Supervisor Adams dismissed that this would be an issue as residents could simply work to ensure the next housing element reduces this number (which will only address a tiny 114 incremental units – the element that just passed was the mother of all housing elements at 1,000+ unts).
Supervisor Adams stated that any project in the interim would surely be denied due to ferocious community opposition – well we’ve seen just how broken that process is.
What this means is that now there is a wide open window while this Housing Element is in place, before the next one is ratified (surely years away) when a developer can sweep in, buy land and make a proposal. Remember for WinCup the gap between the Housing Element being approved and the purchase by developer MacFarlane was less than 3 weeks!
So even if AB 1537 goes through (and last time it was tried it failed, and now we’re becoming wise to it) this leaves the following locations vulnerable to WinCup like densities:
- Strawberry’s PDA and the seminary
- Marinwood
- Grady Ranch (although I understand this is highly unlikely to occur)
- St Vincent / Silveira
30 Units Per Acre is Just the Minimum for Strawberry & St Vincents
The next piece of spin we’re getting is that the densities in the housing element are 30 units per acre (remember WinCup is 40). BUT this is actually only the MINIMUM DENSITY! Developers can secure density bonuses of up to 40 units per acre by including affordable and low income housing, possibly more.
Someone asked me what if the initial developers proposal is a high number of affordable units to get the high densities, then after approval of the density they go bankrupt or something else happens and they drop the number of affordable units (but remain dense). We’ve already seen the bait and switch game played with WinCup that supposedly was allowed in order to meet much higher numbers of affordable units; but this descended into a negotiation and WinCup ended up with far fewer affordable units than that mandated by ABAG in it’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment Numbers.
Traffic Impact No Longer a Consideration
The supervisors have also continued their hypocrisy, driving cars like us and even accepting nearly $10,000/year in car allowances while disregarding that that’s how most of us get around Marin and taking public transit or biking is impractical. But the supervisor’s Housing Element states the following:
“For affordable housing projects, mixed-use projects that include affordable housing, second units, and projects developed in accordance with the Housing Overlay Designation, allow densities above the low end of the range in areas with Traffic Level of Service D, E, and F”
So while many communities are being told the only way they can get enough funding to address their current traffic problems it to be volunteered as a PDA (for paltry amounts of money compared to what’s actually needed) the Housing Element is setting them up to be saddled with much more housing – with utter disregard for the traffic impact.
To recap – Level of Service measures traffic delay at intersections. It’s like a school grade. “C” is a pass or a target. Anything below “D” and county or cities should normally be looking to invest money to remedy the traffic delays. But now high density housing near transit can be built in locations with existing traffic issues, with residents offered near meaningless funding amounts that barely address current traffic problems, and the new housing can take the congestion to record levels – and there’s no protection in the Housing Element or amendments.
We simply cannot trust the public review processes – input is either disregarded or not heard. The public’s vision is not the supervisor’s vision, the supervisors think they know best.
Consequently we need the protection of documents like the Housing Element, and institutions that respect, uphold and enforce the law as written.
What Can You Do? Donate to Marin Community Alliance
The single most important way that you can help is to donate to the Marin Community Alliance who have filed suit against the county Housing Element. So if you don’t want to see a WinCup sprout up next to your property – a property you have no doubt invested hundreds of thousands in – then be sure to donate.
Donating is easy – you can send a check or
even donate online via PayPal:
Help keep Marin the place you love!
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