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Uploaded: Thursday, October 15, 2009, 3:24 PM

Raising the blue flag  

Posted by Merrill Lyman Roe, a resident of another community, on Oct 15, 2009 at 7:45 pm

<<the city's goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 5 percent by 2012.>>

The continued recession and cutting back the number of city employees should help the city reach its goal!

Posted by Citizen, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Oct 15, 2009 at 8:24 pm

"assistant to city manager for sustainability" - seriously? This sounds like a pretty easy position to eliminate. We are supposed to support new taxes so makework positions like this can exist?

Also, the UN flag? Why didn't they just raise the Hamas flag?

Posted by Jim H., a resident of the Duveneck/St. Francis neighborhood, on Oct 15, 2009 at 9:18 pm

To Citizen,

And it's a well paid position, paying up to $116K +"excellent benefits".

Yet, we still have a HUGE backlog of basics like infrastructure improvements. Hey, why fix the roads when we're not supposed to be using them with those horrible polluting automobiles???

Posted by Kate, a resident of the Duveneck/St. Francis neighborhood, on Oct 15, 2009 at 10:39 pm

Many times I've driven downtown and there are no American flags flying at City Hall - on the 4th of July, Memorial Day, Flag Day, Veteran's Day or any other "American" Day. But for the UN? Big deal. Maybe there will be flags for the new Harvey Milk Day.

Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Oct 16, 2009 at 3:44 am
Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online

I went to war under that blue flag, a war that left South Korea free, juxtaposed to the North Korea slave state [check the night satellite photos]. Then the USSR returned and converted the UN to an organization to focus the envy of loser states against US interests. Time to move the UN headquarters to some poorer nation.

Reducing our access to energy is an assault on our fundamental rights, that if externally imposed would be more than adequate as a justification for war.

Posted by Perspective, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Oct 16, 2009 at 7:06 am

I have to admit, my first thought was "this is a disgusting photo". Raise the flag of an organization that is 3/4 Dictatorships, who ALWAYS works against freedom, the USA and Israel?

No thanks, I want NOTHING to do with this organization. I resent taxes and land going to them, I resent us hosting them anytime, and I resent any credibility given to them. They do nothing on our soil but abuse and denigrate the majority of the USA citizens, ( except for when they are wishing BHO were their son and President for Life)

Recommend a good book, called, "United Nations, the first 50 years" by Meisner, or Meisler, I think.

It is simply a factual account ( not "right", not "left") from start to 50 years of what the UN did ( and did not) do in response to various crises in the world. If you fill in the connective tissue, I sStrongly recommend it in order to help understand what the organization was to be, originally, and how it evolved into today's corporation.

Posted by Just wondering, a resident of Stanford, on Oct 16, 2009 at 8:32 am

Why is it that some people who post on this forum feel the need to try to turn threads into a forum for the expression of their hatred for the democratically elected leader of the United States, President Obama? Is this thread really related to Obama or has their been a dearth of political threads on this forum for them to vent their hatred?

Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Oct 16, 2009 at 10:19 am
Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online

[Post removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]

Posted by Just wondering, a resident of Stanford, on Oct 16, 2009 at 10:28 am

[Post removed by Palo Alto Online staff.]

Posted by Paul, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on Oct 16, 2009 at 10:29 am

"Reducing our access to energy is an assault on our fundamental rights, that if externally imposed would be more than adequate as a justification for war."

It occasioned Pearl Harbor. It follows you think the Japanese were totally justified, and the US should have meekly walked away feeling properly chastised.

Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Oct 17, 2009 at 5:22 am
Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online

For some reason the censors will not allow me a defense, but I'll try, Paul, to answer your question. The oil embargo was imposed on Japan in answer to the Japanese invasion of China designed to compel a change in Japan's policy. When a crook shots at a cop, chastisement is not an appropriate response and only someone desperate to score a coup would suggest such.

Getting back to my initial point, our level of civilization is almost directly proportionate to the availability of affordable energy. Our governments, on specious reasoning, has doubled and redoubled the cost of that energy, to the extent that comforts previously available to all are increasingly being priced out of the middle class. I have challenged those who pray at the throne of the Hansen magic box to, in support of any additional surcharge or restriction, demonstrate WITH HANSEN'S OWN PROGRAM, the difference that specific change will make in the future temperature. In case I am not clear, I believe the Hansen inspired "Global Warming" is a knowing fraud designed to reduce the life options of the working class.

Posted by Perspective, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Oct 17, 2009 at 10:59 am

Back to the assertion that I was trying to post some hatred of our democratically elected President..uh..how is it that quoting Qhaddafi's wish that our POTUS were his son and could be President for Life is a post of hatred? Aren't you happy that somebody in the UN finally has praised a President of the USA at the UN building, paid for and maintained by hard-working Americans' dollars, in NYC? It was a statement of fact ( look it up, the speech by Quaddafi) and posted as one of the exceptions to the constant hatred poured out against us at the UN. Do you want me to post the rest of the speeches of praise to validate it? I could reference Chavez's praises, also speechified at the UN..would that make you feel better?

Ok, back to the regular programming.

Posted by Just wondering, a resident of Stanford, on Oct 17, 2009 at 12:46 pm

If the show fits, perspective...

Anyway, you must not be up to speed--we are now friend's with Quaddafi--Conzaleeza Rice declared it last year:

Web Link

Back to the original question--what does our mayor raising the UN flag have to do with Obama in this thread?

Posted by Overbloated 7th floor, a resident of the Adobe-Meadows neighborhood, on Oct 18, 2009 at 12:05 am

Ms. Debra van Drynhoven is the expensive new Sustainability Coordinator. She earns more working for Palo Alto than my son does as a climate scientist for NASA!!!

Her other title is "Assistant to the City Manager." I suppose she gets this title so she can be given a corner office on the 7th floor.

Anyway she is part of the City Manager's team which already includes a Deputy City Manager, another Assistant to the City Manager and Jim Keene is busy interviewing for the position of Assistant City Manager. All these positions have secretaries as well.

Our City Manager's full time job will be delegating, and keeping all these people busy with make work jobs.

Posted by Perspective, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Oct 18, 2009 at 9:50 am

JW, yes I have known for many years that we were on our way to a "new phase" with Qaddafi. Recall he was one of the first to roll-over and give up his aspirations for Libya on nukes and give up his ties to terrorists and hand them over to us after we went into Iraq ( one of the many underreported "domino effects" of our giving teeth to the 17 UN Resolutions that Saddam ignored).

What does that matter to the point that I have no desire to be part of or host the UN, 3/4 of whom are dictators along the lines of Qaddafi, let alone idolize it with a flag in our city? The utopian vision of a united world working together for the good of all is all pretty and everything, but the reality is just the opposite, and I want nothing to do with it.

Posted by Paul, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on Oct 18, 2009 at 8:38 pm

" The oil embargo was imposed on Japan in answer to the Japanese invasion of China designed to compel a change in Japan's policy. When a crook shots at a cop, chastisement is not an appropriate response and only someone desperate to score a coup would suggest such."

Indeed. If you appoint yourself cop you shouldn't whine if the other side doesn't go along. Remember, there was no UN in 1941, therefore there was not even a veneer of legitimacy for the embargo. The US stuck its nose out and got it punched. The Japanese invoked your eloquent statement: "Reducing our access to energy is an assault on our fundamental rights, that if externally imposed would be more than adequate as a justification for war."

Posted by Walter_E_Wallis, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Oct 19, 2009 at 2:43 am
Walter_E_Wallis is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online

While the US foreign policy today is whining, back in 1941 we still held national self defense to be a primary duty of government, and that retaliation was an appropriate response to violence. While we were not a member of the League of Nations we sill held the same view of human rights, and of the appropriate response to international violence. I assume you would have been one of those ignoring Kitty Genovesi's cries for help - I would have responded.

Posted by Paul, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on Oct 19, 2009 at 11:57 am

"Would have," "would have." Always "would have." You gotta polish your fiction style or you'll never write that great American novel, Walter.

But "would have" has it's appeal. I'm sure you would have been right there at Genovese's side, too preoccupied with reviling everyone else to help her.

But what has this got to do with energy and war?