Oops:Water Conservation Plan Caused LA Water Main Breaks

Nothing like your government thinking ahead before imposing onerous restrictions upon its citizens. As a result a plan to save water winds up wasting millions of gallons of it.

Genius in action.

The series of major water main breaks that occurred around Los Angeles last year was caused by the city's water conservation program, which put too much pressure on the city's aging cast iron pipes, according to a city report released Tuesday.

The report is a step forward in solving a mystery that bedeviled city officials and engineers and enraged some residents who had to endure the flooding and road damage.

A team of scientists charged with looking at the pipe breaks concluded that the city should rework its conservation plan, which limited the use of sprinklers to Mondays and Thursdays.

One alternative would be to require homes with even-number addresses to conserve on even-numbered days and requiring homes with odd-numbered addresses to conserve on odd-numbered days, the team said.

“The bottom line is, you want to create a more even usage of water pressure so you don’t have a sudden drop of water pressure at a given time of the day,” said Jean-Pierre Bardet, a USC engineering professor who headed the team.

The investigation team, which appeared before the council’s Energy and Environment Committee, found a connection between the city’s water-rationing program and the increase in pipe breaks last summer, particularly with cast iron pipes.

At various locations in the L.A. Department of Water and Power distribution system, water pressure fell significantly on Mondays and Thursdays after the beginning of the water-rationing program on June 1, 2009, the report said.

“Those water pressure drops on these days were caused by an increased water flow during the watering of lawns,” the report said. “As a result, the cyclic levels of water pressure increased and accelerated the metal fatigue failures of aged and corroded cast-iron pipes.”

Isn't This Special: White Powder Sent to Mormon Temples in Utah and Los Angeles

No doubt the Mormons will cave and go along with gay marriage now. I mean, what else sends the message of tolerance more than sending suspicious white powder?

Letters containing a suspicious white powder were sent Thursday to Mormon temples in Los Angeles and Salt Lake City that were the sites of protests against the church's support of California's gay marriage ban.

The temple in the Westwood area of Los Angeles was evacuated before a hazardous materials crew determined the envelope's contents were not toxic, said FBI spokesman Jason Pack.

The temple in downtown Salt Lake City, where the church is based, received a similar envelope containing a white powder that spilled onto a clerk's hand.

The room was decontaminated and the envelope taken by the FBI for testing. The clerk showed no signs of illness, but the scare shut down a building at Temple Square for more than an hour, said Scott Freitag, a spokesman for the Salt Lake City Fire Department.

None of the writing on the envelope was threatening, and the church received no calls or messages related to the package, Freitag said.

Protests in recent days have targeted the Mormon church, which encouraged its members to fight the recently passed amendment banning gay marriage in California.

Authorities are looking into several theories on who sent the letters and why, Pack said.

Here's a theory: It was some angry radical gays who are now in Day 10 of a massive temper tantrum.

Since the Obama-supporting black community voted overwhelmingly for Prop 8, should we expect black churches to be receiving mysterious packages of white powder?

An Early Summer Evening

Click on image to enlarge
Mt. Wilson Observatory towercam gives us an evening view of the south and west portion of the Los Angeles Basin.

The view is looking towards Santa Monica Bay. The camera had been turned in order to view the pillars of smoke generated by the massive Universal Studios backlot fire June 1, 2008.

Photo courtesy of UCLA Department of Physics & Astronomy (June 3, 2008 @ 9:00PM PDT).

Updated every 2-3 minutes.

By The Moon's Eerie Light

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Southern California's Mt. Wilson Observatory illuminated by full moon.

For those familiar with the San Gabriel Mountains, the view is looking northeast towards Mt. Waterman and Twin Peaks.

Photo courtesy of UCLA Department of Physics & Astronomy (June 18, 2008 @ 9:39PM PDT).

Updated every 2-3 minutes.

Latino Gangbangers Targeting Blacks

Ethnic cleansing comes to LA. Let's see how quickly the racial hucksters jump all over this one.

LA Gang F13 Accused of Targeting Blacks

LOS ANGELES -- In a murderous quest aimed at "cleansing" their turf of snitches and rival gangsters, members of one of Los Angeles County's most vicious Latino gangs sometimes killed people just because of their race, an investigation found.

There were even instances in which Florencia 13 leaders ordered killings of black gangsters and then, when the intended victim couldn't be located, said "Well, shoot any black you see," Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said.

"In certain cases some murders were just purely motivated on killing a black person," Baca said.

Authorities say there were 20 murders among more than 80 shootings documented during the gang's rampage in the hardscrabble Florence-Firestone neighborhood, exceptional even in an area where gang violence has been commonplace for decades. They don't specify the time frame or how many of the killings were racial.

Los Angeles has struggled with gang violence for years, especially during the wars in the late 1980s and early '90s between the Crips and the Bloods -- both black gangs. Latino gangs have gained influence since then as the Hispanic population surged.

Evidence of Florencia 13, or F13, is easy to find in Florence-Firestone. Arrows spray-painted on the wall of a liquor store mark the gang's boundary and graffiti warns rivals to steer clear.

The gang's name comes from the neighborhood that is its stronghold and the 13th letter of the alphabet -- M -- representing the gang's ties to the Mexican Mafia.

Federal, state and local officials worked together to charge 102 men linked to F13 with racketeering, conspiracy to murder, weapons possession, drug dealing and other crimes. In terms of people charged, it's the largest-ever federal case involving a Southern California gang, prosecutors say. More than 80 of those indicted are in custody.

Read the rest.

It would be interesting how know how many illegals are involved with this vicious outfit.

This charming crew even appears on YouTube. They're quite popular.

Homeless Overrun Los Angeles

Anyone who lived or worked in New York City during the 1980s into the mid-1990s knows well about the homeless plague that severely damaged the quality of life.

The left misguidedly blamed the problem on Ronald Reagan without even addressing the pathologies that lead to a person winding up on the street.

Thankfully, Rudy Giuliani began addressing the problem with a crackdown on quality of life issues and things have steadily improved to date under Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

However, out west, cities such as San Francisco have now been totally overrun, and just now are realizing something has to be done.

However, down the coast in Los Angeles, the problem is getting worse and there's no hope in sight, apparently.

L.A. Falters Where N.Y.C. Got Smart

FOR years now, on any given evening, downtown Los Angeles has looked like a photo shoot from the Great Depression, with more than 5,000 homeless camped on sidewalks and streets. Some tents are tidy, well kept and seemingly well provisioned; others are filthy and decrepit. And some people are just sleeping on benches or concrete. All are living without bathrooms - or any running water except from hydrants.

This is a huge, dramatic version of the kinds of encampments (72 in all) that Mayor Bloomberg shut down all over New York last summer. It's also a vision of what might have hit this city if our leaders hadn't refused to take the politically correct course on street homelessness.

L.A.'s problems are about to get worse. Thanks to a recent agreement between the city government and the local American Civil Liberties Union branch, the mess will soon expand citywide. Homeless people in Los Angeles will be allowed to sleep on the streets and sidewalks of any neighborhood, from Skid Row to Bel-Air, from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m.

Call it a Bloomberg strategy in reverse.

Before this, police officers could remove anyone who violated L.A.'s overnight sleeping ban, which applied everywhere but downtown. Now, under the settlement, the city can't enforce the ban anywhere, even in residential neighborhoods, until it builds 1,250 units of "supportive housing" - which is at least three years into the future.

It's terrible public policy - a capitulation to the worst ideas of the 1960s and '70s, when street people roamed American cities while advocates and officials told irate citizens that nothing could or should be done.

It gets even more depressing.

Read it all.

LA Tops in Pollution, Iran Tops in Terror

How much do you want to wager a story about pollution in Los Angeles will get more notice from the American left than a story about state sponsors of terrorism?

Of course, pollution is a concern, but it often seems many in this country have their priorities way out of whack.