The Ventura County Assessor Race

Friends and fellow bridge players:

Are you content with our national, political dialog? Do you believe our system is fair to all and that our democratic traditions are safe?

We are now looking down the barrel of our political system, as it exists today; and we’re being asked to vote on it.

Religion in this country is a $100 Billion business. (Religion is the business of spirituality.) Churches and such control about a Trillion dollars in property. By federal law, this enterprise is largely untaxed, both the revenue and the property. You and I pay for this short-fall in tax revenue either with OUR taxes, or by having it tacked onto government debt.

County governments levy property taxes and monitor exemptions. Assessors in the counties are charged with 1) overseeing the payment of taxes and 2) assessing property values. To some extent they have the prerogative to oversee tax laws; and as such, by offering extended exemption they can INCREASE the value of untaxed property, simply by ignoring tax laws.

We are being asked by our esteemed officials to consider two candidates for Ventura County Assessor: 1) the incumbent, Dan Goodwin, and 2) the challenger, John Griffin. In recent mailings our officials presented a fair assessment of the issue from the standpoint of how our bridge venues MAY be affected, and from the standpoint that we MAY have to pay slightly more to play bridge.

So how does this fit into our national dialog?

John Griffin, challenger and “Central Committee” member of the Ventura County Democratic Party, has launched a campaign to unseat the incumbent. His premise is that the incumbent assessor is endeavoring to “…set tax policy in Ventura County, by himself…” 

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County statutes demand that for a TOTAL exemption, a qualifying property must be used exclusively for the stipulated purpose. But since the statutes allow for “proportional” assessment based upon the extent to which non-qualifying activities are engaged, this accusation IMPLIES that Mr. Goodwin is threatening to retract the entire exemption. Furthermore, Mr. Griffin is deploying the “tax card,” which is designed to make us see red. 

His accusation is untrue. It is the prerogative of the Board of Supervisors, not the assessor, to make tax laws. In fact, Mr Goodwin is ENFORCING county tax laws, not “setting” or undermining them. 

Do you tire, my friends, of looking at ballots with confusing, ambiguous propositions? Are you irritated by claims and contradictory counter-claims that you know are false or misleading at best? Are you fed up to here with being manipulated by lying politicians?! Mr. Griffin, the challenger, has used coded words, misleading claims and inflammatory language designed to appeal to our emotions, rather than a rational description of the situation and what he intends to do about it. 

What he proposes, in coded language, is to turn around the incumbent's efforts by ignoring tax codes on behalf of those interests that pay into his campaign. This is classic ”political patronage for sale.” For us, about 250 active bridge players in the county, he offers a few dollars a week of  “tax relief.” So Mr. Griffin is proposing to do precisely what he has falsely accused the incumbent of doing.  

What about his similar claims regarding museums and affordable housing providers?

Under the rules for welfare exemptions, affordable housing projects must spend what they save on property tax to "maintain the affordability of, or reduce rents otherwise necessary for the units occupied by lower income households.”

The truth, unmentioned by Mr. Griffin: of the eighteen groups in the county engaged in this enterprise, only four contractors are under scrutiny. They are reaping annual profits of nearly $250,000 by using PILOT contributions instead of the required procedures. Under the PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) program, they make the payment to a municipality, which then returns “certain favors.” Presumably by paying into Mr. Griffin’s campaign, these contractors will also be able to preserve their illegal savings.

So, my friends, we have the opportunity, by voting against this kind of politics to say that we place greater value on the integrity of government than upon the small price that our microscopic group will have to pay to play bridge. And, by the way, in a May 3 editorial, the Ventura Star has endorsed  Dan Goodwin, the incumbent, for re-election. 

I apologize for bringing politics to your bridge table. And I appreciate your time and consideration. Maybe by spotlighting this matter we can prevent this kind of thing from coming our way again. Now, whose bid is it?

Sincerely, Mark Robbins

A Brief History of The Earth

by Jackson Dave

Our solar system was born from the swirling debris of exploding stars some 4.5 Billion years ago. Our emerging star, at the center, pulled in most of the matter, leaving eddies and pockets of stuff to congeal into planets, moons, asteroids, comets and stray debris. 

As gravity pulled the matter together, forming Earth, it compressed and heated up. Frequent collisions with astral bodies produced a wildly hostile environment. Finally, an extremely large passing body crashed into our young planet, knocking its rotation askew. Gravity trapped the attacker, and its mass stabilized our small “binary system.” We call it Moon. It slowed our rotation, gave us seasons and has been slowly moving away ever since.

As the planet compressed, volcanic activity began in the center and started radiating outward. The mass of our planet was in the correct zone that caused formation of a solid surface. Water from comets, as well as vaporized rocky mass from the lunar collision, began collecting into pools. Trapped by gravity, an early atmosphere of poisonous (to us, but we weren’t there) gases developed from the exhaust of intense volcanic activity.

Spurred on by chemicals and lightening, amino acids formed, which eventually led to DNA, then life in the water. Next, autotrophs emerged, which eventually became the whole basis of the food chain. At the 1 Billion year mark, cyanobacteria started photosynthesis, producing oxygen.

With an atmosphere rich in carbon-based gasses from the core of the planet, over the next 3 Billion years, plant life teemed in the sea. This life poured oxygen into the atmosphere, which from growing air pressure also accumulated in the water. As it cooled, the water absorbed most of the gasses that would be poisonous to animal life.

 

Finally, Pangea emerged. Plants took hold on the land; and eventually, lignite appeared, which allowed them to go up-up-up into trees. For a hundred million years, Earth was “Planet of the Trees.” Forests contributed to the massive production of oxygen; and with no animals (termites), the trees piled up in massive deposits, forming coal.

 

In a world, then, where life had existed for 3 Billion years, over a brief period of 40 MILLION years, what is called “The Cambrian Explosion” suddenly produced every phylum of animal that lives today—including vertebrates. The sea offered animals an enormous banquet of plant life, and oxygen to breathe.

The explosion of animal life in the sea, then on land, was promoted by a concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere that reached 35% . With high partial pressure of oxygen some could virtually absorb it through their exoskeletons. Millipedes, which now measure up to 6 or 7 inches, weighed in at 6 to 7 feet!

Now things start to get interesting. For the previous 3 Billion years, when organisms died, they descended, absorbed into the crust of the earth. Over the eons, all of this carbon-based material, heated and compressed by the enormous pressures of the oceans, collected and formed into giant deposits of ———- petroleum!

But an important new development changed all: life on the land doesn’t sink to the bottom of the sea when it dies. Living plant life, be it grasses or rain forest, adds oxygen to the atmosphere, but when it dies, and as it sheds growth tissue, it's eaten, it rots, or burns. That consumes as much oxygen as the plant produced in its lifetime. 

So over the next 350,000,000 years a new equilibrium was achieved. This led to the atmospheric conditions and the climate under which WE emerged and thrived. This was responsible—and essential—for our existence.

Fast forward: Our healthy seas continue to contribute oxygen to the atmosphere, but animal life on the land depletes it. And our oceans’ health are deteriorating. The disappearance of vast tracks of forest and other plant life subtracts oxygen also. When things burn, oxygen is removed from the atmosphere and hydrocarbons take its place; and the planet heats up. 

You can see where this is going: Our existence is a product of the accumulation of oil buried in the crust of our planet. By extracting the petroleum, burning it and spewing the exhaust into the atmosphere, WE are reversing the process that made our existence possible. The notion that we can get away with continuing this is folly. 

Our climate is already on the brink of massive “correction.” Poisonous carbon-based gasses that were absorbed from our early atmosphere into the oceans have been held in check by constant, low temperatures in the depths. IF, or when, the oceans begin to release those gasses, we may be looking down the barrel of our own extinction—-as did the dinosaurs when an asteroid struck 65,000,000 years ago.

Would that happen in a lifetime? Not likely. But as conditions deteriorate, the social, political and military chaos that is likely to erupt as world governments maneuver toward the end times may make our existence a living hell. 

The time is nigh, my friends, to take these warnings seriously.

 

Jackson Dave is a Robbinsense staff writer

Myths of the Road, and Internet Wisdom

by C. O. Jones

I love it when friends forward emails filled with information and caveats that I’ve have never heard before…..especially when there’s no documentation! Among our favorites are driving tips.

Twenty years ago I attended a dinner party with about thirty middle-aged, well-educated people, split between sexes. Something came up, and one of the men announced: “Oh yes, you should NEVER use your emergency brake for normal driving because it could put you through the windshield.” It’s hard to imagine braking that could rip seatbelts from their mounts; but nonetheless, several men nodded and grunted concurrence. Since it was the host who said this, none but your intrepid reporter had the gall to question this bit of wisdom. I had heard it before.

In the early days of motoring, mechanical problems occurred often. Before the advent of safety glass, head-on collisions were frequently fatal because going through the windshield produced severe lacerations. Even in minor accidents, motorists often bled to death. Braking systems were inefficient, often faulty. In the event of brake failure, the “emergency” brake, if there was one, was so poor that generally the vehicle could not be stopped. This is perhaps the source of this connection between use of the emergency brake and going through windshields. 

It really seemed that the brake to use in an emergency would be the “emergency” brake. Surely that would produce the shortest stopping distance. The problem with this illogic is that the only emergency for which this mechanism is designed is failure of the normal braking system. So in the face of this myth gathering steam, about 30 years ago auto makers stopped calling the auxiliary brake an “emergency” brake. The unit became called a “parking” brake, and usually came with the caveat of never being used while driving…not because it would put motorists through the windshield, but because the crash resulting from the unit’s poor performance might actually produce this result. 

Parking, or “emergency” brakes, usually use mechanical linkage to the back wheels only. The back wheels produce less than 25% of braking performance because the units are smaller and during heavy braking the great majority of the vehicle weight is thrown to the front tires. There are no anti-skid systems linked to parking brakes and they easily lock up, which reduces braking even more.

OK, next:  A couple of times in the last few years we have seen emails circulating with warnings about using cruise control on slippery pavement. According to an unnamed Highway Patrolman, “Driving on wet pavement using the cruise control risks runaway acceleration if the vehicle hydroplanes and exits the pavement.” Really!!? I’m afraid this fails the Robbinsense Bull#@&t test.

Let’s consider: 

1) Modern highways are crowned to prevent water accumulation, and grooved for added traction. The grooves in the pavement act the same as tread on tires, channeling water, which prevents hydroplaning. At “normal” speeds this will not occur.

2) Most of the data accumulated to study hydroplaning is for aviation, where takeoff and landing speeds are necessarily high. Formulas center around air pressure in the tires, which is critical because aviation tires are rounded like on a motorcycle. Rounded tires help prevent hydroplaning, but are poor for cornering traction, which airplanes don’t need. For automobile tires that have flat surface area at the road, the most significant factor is speed. 

For most drivers, accustomed to tooling along at 70+ miles per hour, driving on a rural highway, which may not be crowned or grooved, may easily present a challenge in speed control. On wet roads the absolute best thing you can do is keep your speed down! There is no better tool for this than a cruise control. A cruise control set at 52 will not waver from that speed, unlike a momentarily distracted driver on foot control, for whom 52 mph feels like standing still. Clearly, under circumstances where road conditions are rapidly changing, greater caution is required, and in this case the driver will probably be attentive to his task and the cruise control is a nuisance anyway. For every driver who (may, conceivably) encounter the aforementioned bout with hydroplaning and uncontrolled acceleration, there are probably ten who would stay on the road because they’re not driving too fast!

3) Let’s look at the operation of a modern cruise control, which does not monitor vehicle speed. In the alleged scenario above, a vehicle loses traction, which causes the vehicle to slow, which causes the cruise control to increase the throttle. An antiquated throttle lock, or “throttle friction” would do this. Instead, a modern cruise control monitors drive train speed. When the tires lose traction, the wheels speed up, while the vehicle may or may not be slowing down. As the drive train speeds up, the cruise control will decrease throttle, and if engine speed increases fast enough, will disconnect, perhaps sooner than a distracted driver would release the throttle.

4) Modern vehicles respond to irregularities in the road much faster even than the cruise control can intervene. Most expensive cars are equipped with an “active handling” system. This measures traction at each tire and applies braking and throttle inputs that are individual and beyond the scope and awareness of the driver. Active handling would intervene to disconnect a cruise control. In addition to that, basic “traction control,” standard on almost all newer cars, would do the same.

So there it is, friends! Merit or Myth? You choose. To stay on the road, keep your speed down! Meanwhile, be skeptical of the stuff you get on the internet. Most of the people writing these tracts have an ax to grind, or just want to propagate their opinions.

C. O. Jones is a Robbinsense staff writer