Tag Archives: Hypocrisy

Smarmy BID Patrol Officer Baxter Performs Now-Illegal Creepy Cop Trick Live on Camera

January 20, 2015 kohlhaas Leave a comment

What if you entered a building intending to steal something and you stole it and then someone died because it wasn't there and that person would have invented a way to prevent any baby anywhere in the world from dying ever?? You'd be responsible for all those deaths!! How does that make you feel, you miserable little creep?? Bzzzztttt!!!! — What if you shoplifted but it was really felony burglary and then someone died because of what you done and that person would have invented a way to prevent an asteroid from hitting the earth and killing EVERYONE?!? You’d be responsible for genocide under the FELONY MURDER LAW!! You know you’re not supposed to commit genocide, don’t you, you maniac?!

Look and listen here as a smarmy, self-satisfied little BID Patrol guy whose name seems to be Baxter interrogates his victim, who evidently stole a bottle of Justin Timberlake™ perfume of some sort. (NOTE: We made the video private at the request of the subject. The transcript is accurate, and you can obtain a copy from Kerry Morrison under the CPRA like we did if you want one)

In the video (complete transcription after the break), Baxter, in his smarmy cop interrogation tone of voice, gets the man to admit that he entered the store intending to shoplift. This used to be a favorite creepy cop trick for inflating minor charges beyond all reasonable proportion. Once on a time California Penal Code §459 could be used to charge such an act as burglary instead of mere theft. Security minions such as Baxter, not content with merely protecting the interests of their employers, would routinely use this nasty little loophole to overcharge people. Why? That’s just what they do, these icky little lawboys. It’s how they keep score in their psychotic little game.

Of course, as with all such nonsense, it ends up being the people of California who pay the price. Not just the petty criminals who get overcharged into oblivion, whose lives get ruined by undeservedly severe criminal records and the horrific collateral consequences that ensue, but also the taxpayers who have to support prisons full of nonviolent people, support courts and jails and probation offices and all the apparatus necessary to track and control the people dumped into the justice system by creepy private security henchmen who are so pleased with their delusory cleverness that they film themselves in the act so they can laugh about it later with all their cop buddies…

Well, as will sometimes happen, the people of California got wise to this nonsense and fed up with it as well and, in 2014, passed Proposition 47 which, among other things, added the following language to the penal code:
Continue reading Smarmy BID Patrol Officer Baxter Performs Now-Illegal Creepy Cop Trick Live on Camera →

Hollywood Property Owners Alliance

So-Called “Donation Stations” in Hollywood and Aktion Arbeitsscheu Reich: A Curious Instance of Convergent Evolution

January 16, 2015 kohlhaas Leave a comment

It's hard to tell the cactus from the euphorbia, isn't it? Just like it's hard to tell the BID patrol from the gestapo. Hint: one is an armed gang of thugs, brutally enforcing the racist policies of their masters against the most helpless members of society and the other is a bunch of Nazis. — Convergent evolution: It’s hard to tell the cactus from the euphorbia, isn’t it?⁸ Just like it’s hard to tell the BID patrol from the Gestapo. Hint: one is an armed gang of thugs, brutally enforcing the racist policies of their masters against the most helpless members of society. The other is a Nazi organization.

Convergent evolution occurs in biological species when two types of organism occupy similar niches, are subject to similar selection pressures, have to solve the same sorts of problems in order to succeed in the tasks that their environments set for them,¹ and so on. Thus when two organisms have evolved similar survival tactics, it’s reasonable to draw the conclusion that they’re trying to solve similar problems in the world, that they play a similar role in the grand scheme of being.²

It's also hard to tell the HPOA device from the Nazi one. Read on for details! — More convergent evolution: It’s also hard to tell the HPOA device from the Nazi one, for about the same reason. Hint: One is a vicious tool of oppression used by quasi-privatized gangs of thugs as an essential tool in their politico-corporate masters’ program of social cleansing. The other is a milk-can with a swastika painted on it. Read on for details!

And it’s an undeniable fact that Kerry Morrison and the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance are, against the express will of Jesus Christ, obsessed with discouraging people from giving money to panhandlers directly. Just the briefest glance at any of their newsletters will convince you of this. In particular, see page 7 of the Summer 2014 issue, in which Kerry Morrison asks herself and, by extension, you, the reader, if she should give money to panhandlers (SPOILER: no!). Kerry gives no real reasons at all here or anywhere, so far as we can see.

Admittedly she gives what seem like reasons at first glance, e.g. she asserts that the homeless will spend the money on alcohol and then get arrested by the BID patrol for drinking it in public, but there’s no explanatory force here. Kerry’s the Executive Directrix of the HPOA and thus the big boss of the BID patrol. She is a woman under authority, with soldiers under her; and she says to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes.³ If she doesn’t want people getting arrested for drinking in public, all she’s gotta do is tell her gunmen to stop arresting them. There’s no need to propagandize against giving money to the poor if the goal is merely to arrest fewer people.

And it doesn’t stop with propaganda, either. There are actual machines involved. See, e.g., page 5 of the Summer 2014 HPOA Newsletter, in which Kerry promotes machines that people can put money into instead of handing it personally to panhandlers. This, says she, is “a positive option for passersby to contribute change to help people.” These machines cost $2500 a pop and they’re looking at getting 12 of them. That comes to $30,000 altogether, which is actually about 2% of the HPOA’s annual security budget. There’s some serious purpose at work or the HPOA wouldn’t be willing to spend such an outrageous amount of money,⁷ but we’ll be damned if we can see what it is. Fortunately, we have an analytic tool that will let us understand everything and then explain it to you!
Continue reading So-Called “Donation Stations” in Hollywood and Aktion Arbeitsscheu Reich: A Curious Instance of Convergent Evolution →

Joint Security Committee

Somebody at HPOA Is at Least as Good at Public Relations as Heinrich Himmler

January 9, 2015 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Odilo Globocnik, a guy who was very proud of his work and prone to boast about it in public although not, so far as we know, in poetry. Globus, as his SS buddies called him, had to be told by his boss Heinrich Himmler to shush up because his antics were interfering with the mission. — Odilo Globocnik, “the vilest individual in the vilest organization ever known,”¹ master architect of mass murder and a guy who was very proud of his work, enough so to boast about it in public although not, so far as we know, in poetry. Globus, as his SS buddies called him, had to be told by his boss Heinrich Himmler to shush up because his antics were interfering with the mission.

Odilo Globocnik first came to the attention of SS bossman Heinrich Himmler because of his relentless antisemitism and his willingness to murder the Jews of Vienna on a freelance basis even before such practices were sanctioned by German law. Consequently, in 1939 Himmler promoted Globocnik and moved him to occupied Poland. In 1941 Himmler directed Globocnik to oversee one of the most enormous instances of genocide in the history of the world: Aktion Reinhardt.

This was a big step up for Globus, as Odilo was affectionately known to his buddies in the Schutzstaffel, “the vilest organization ever known.”¹ In localized modern terms, it’s like being moved from the suburban backwater of Inglewood to the big-time bright-lights-big-city cosmopolis of Hollywood! Globus took to his new surroundings like Samson to the Philistines, and, by late 1943 when he wound up operations, more than 2,000,000 Jews were dead. The organizational aspects of this accomplishment were overwhelmingly intricate, so Globus felt understandably proud of his masterful work and wanted to crow about it.

STOP digging any more mass graves and clear up the old ones. Any form of publicity will be harmful. AND STOP WRITING POETRY, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!!! — STOP digging any more mass graves and clear up the old ones. Any form of publicity will be harmful. AND STOP WRITING POETRY, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!!!

However, Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS and Globocnik’s boss, had begun to notice that the rest of the world, and even a significant number of German citizens, weren’t too happy about the systematic deportation and gassing of human beings on this scale. As historian Bettina Stangneth has it:

The Nazis might have kept telling themselves that the extermination of the Jews was the only means for their survival, but they lacked sufficient faith in this view to share it with the rest of the world. The Nazi police state was born of the fear that not even its own population would understand its campaign of murder. Himmler guessed early on that this “glorious chapter of our history” could never be written, and he prevented Odilo Globocnik from sinking a memorial plaque into the earth for the heroes of Operation Reinhard…In summer 1942 [Himmler] ordered his commanders to find a way to avoid digging any more mass graves and to clear up the old ones. Any form of publicity would be harmful.²

Meanwhile, back on the home front, on December 11, 2014, the Joint Security Committee of the Hollywood Entertainment District BID and the Sunset-Vine BID held its monthly meeting.
Continue reading Somebody at HPOA Is at Least as Good at Public Relations as Heinrich Himmler →

Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, Hypocrisy

Kerry Morrison’s Cogent Argument Against Legal Street Vending Supports Outlawing Hollywood Real Estate Super-Villians CIM Group, Employer of HPOA President Monica Yamada

January 3, 2015 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Happy smiling white people at CIM Group plotting the destruction of Hollywood and raising the question of “how will taxes and permits be enforced, especially given that” CIM shenanigans are essentially “a symbol of the city’s failure to gain control over unpermitted outdoor signs”⁴? It’s almost certainly a coincidence that the woman on the left looks just like L. Ron Hubbard, right?

As we’ve previously discussed at great length, the palefaced economic elites of Los Angeles are all abuzz at the possibility that the City Council might legalize street vending of various kinds, an activity whose practitioners are, for the most part, not that palefaced. As part of their abuzzitude, the palefaces have produced reams of frantic pearl-clutching hysteria regarding the threats posed to truth, justice, the American way, etc. that would, they say, certainly ensue as a result of such legalization.

These white-privilege rage-rants, while mostly grounded in delusion and mental illness, occasionally contain valid and useful arguments. It can sometimes happen, as Albert Einstein said, that “a blind pig has found an acorn.”¹ A letter by Kerry Morrison, Executive Directrix of the HPOA, to Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell, is an example of this. Kerry argues that, amongst other reasons, street vending should not be legalized, at least not in Hollywood, because it “raises numerous questions that must be taken into consideration. For example, how will taxes and permits be enforced, especially given that this is a cash-only business?“²

Typical cash-only business in Los Angeles, beloved of the human residents but hated by the HPOA because of the difficulty of enforcing "taxes and permits." This one's owned by an extraordinarily wealthy former mayor of Los Angeles, who evidently didn't get the memo about how his business practices are RUINING EVERYTHING!! — Typical cash-only business in Los Angeles, beloved of the human residents but hated by the HPOA because of the difficulty of enforcing “taxes and permits.” This one’s owned by an extraordinarily wealthy former mayor of Los Angeles, who evidently didn’t get the memo about how his business practices are RUINING EVERYTHING!!

As an aside, this argument can also be used against iconic Los Angeles restaurants The Pantry, Nick’s Cafe, and Philippe’s. Will the HPOA soon be asking the City Council to shut down these landmark establishments?

In any case, Kerry also lists a bunch of other undesirable consequences that, in her view, are likely to ensue from the legalization of street vending. These are not all illegal, e.g. the horrifying prospect of the potential placing of trash into appropriate public receptacles, but they’re all, says Kerry, “not something we are requesting in Hollywood.” We will refer to these en masse as “Kerry Morrison’s cogent argument.”

In our previous post on this subject we mentioned that the city of Los Angeles has had some problems with the enforcement of “taxes and permits” regarding CIM Group, a real-estate investment conspiracy run by rich white people. There we discussed the whole John Noguez scandal and hinted at the difficulty of enforcing building permit terms and conditions against CIM. Subsequently we decided to do some further research on the subject, the fruits of which are the subject of today’s post.
Continue reading Kerry Morrison’s Cogent Argument Against Legal Street Vending Supports Outlawing Hollywood Real Estate Super-Villians CIM Group, Employer of HPOA President Monica Yamada →

Historical and Theoretical Perspectives

The History of Sidewalk Obstruction Enforcement in Los Angeles (Part 1)

December 30, 2014 kohlhaas Leave a comment

Jacob Kuhrts, 19th century LA councilman and either noble freedom fighter or monumentally self-righteous asshole, you decide. — Jacob Kuhrts, 19^th century LA councilman and either noble freedom fighter or monumentally self-righteous asshole, you decide.

This is the first in an occasional series of posts examining various episodes from the rich and disturbing history of the criminalization of sidewalk use in Los Angeles. As we shall see, the sidewalks of our city have been a site of contention for well over a century.

We begin in January 1887 when, according to the Los Angeles Times,

There has been great complaint about the abominable fashion in which the sidewalks—especially at street corners—are blocked up by loafers and by thoughtless citizens; and the police have been ordered to enforce the ordinances and abate this nuisance.¹

Even then, evidently, maybe especially then, an order to “enforce the ordinances” had a subtext. Ensuing events show that Officer Little didn’t understand these unspoken aspects:
Continue reading The History of Sidewalk Obstruction Enforcement in Los Angeles (Part 1) →

Hypocrisy

There’s a 98.72% Chance that at Least Two People on the HPOA/CHC Boards of Directors are Really, Really Hypocritical

December 8, 2014 kohlhaas Leave a comment

About a week's supply of Bourbon whiskey — About a week’s supply of Bourbon whiskey. The post is about vodka, but we found this picture more attractive.

According to scientists the top 20% of U.S. drinkers drink an average of 6.3 drinks per day.¹ At 0.6 ounces of pure alcohol per drink² that works out to 3.78 ounces all together. At 30 ml per ounce that comes to 113.4 ml of pure alcohol. Steve Seyler’s bête noire is something called Taaka vodka which is, we assume, 80 proof, or 40% alcohol. Thus 113.4 ml is equivalent to $\frac{113.4}{0.4}$ =283.5 ml of actual vodka.

The small bottles that everyone in the BID is so het up about are 200 ml, so we’re talking about $\frac{283.5}{200}$ =1.42 bottles of Taaka. What’s the chance that someone on the Board of directors drinks at this rate and still has the temerity to vote in favor of policies that target homeless people for arrest for doing the same thing that they do every freaking day? It’s pretty high, friends. Details below the fold.
Continue reading There’s a 98.72% Chance that at Least Two People on the HPOA/CHC Boards of Directors are Really, Really Hypocritical →

Hollywood Property Owners Alliance, Hypocrisy

Positions on Cheap/Affordable Alcohol Reveal Hollywood Property Owners Alliance to be Hypocritical, Insane, or (Most LIkely) Both

December 2, 2014 kohlhaas Leave a comment

The Hollywood Property Owners Alliance arguing with itself about alcohol. The moral? The rich are connoisseurs of fine spirits who appreciate a bargain. The poor are going to jail.

Look! The Hollywood Property Owners Alliance loves “affordable” “booze”!! For instance, there’s a new bar in Hollywood:

Whiskey Blu, located at 1714 N. Las Palmas, advertises $2 beer, including Pabst, Budweiser, and Coors as well as $5 shots of Makers Mark, Bullit, Crown, Jim Beam and more. … Whiskey Blu has stepped up to serve those who enjoy a nice, affordable drink.

And look again! Another bar closed down but now it’s back:

For several years, Dillon’s Irish Pub & Grill was a hub for sports fans, tourists and nightlife at the famed intersection of Hollywood and Vine. Known for its $3 beers…

And look again again!

For those who love a little booze and music, Hollywood & Highland’s summer series, Wine & Jazz, does not disappoint!

Ah, but Kerry Morrison doesn’t love it so much.
Continue reading Positions on Cheap/Affordable Alcohol Reveal Hollywood Property Owners Alliance to be Hypocritical, Insane, or (Most LIkely) Both →