Category: San Diego

Former SD Imam Calls for Jihad on US

Partial transcript of remarks by former San Diego imam and SDSU grad student Anwar al-Awlaki, who’s holed up in Yemen and corresponded with Maj. Nidal Hasan before the Fort Hood shooting (Via Fox News):

… I for one was born in the U.S., I lived in the U.S. for 21 years. America was my home. I was a preacher of Islam involved in non-violent Islamic activism. However, with the American invasion of Iraq and continued U.S. aggression against Muslims I could not reconcile between living in the U.S. and being a Muslim.

And I eventually came to the conclusion that Jihad against America is binding upon myself just as it is binding on every other able Muslim. Nidal Hasan was not recruited by Al-Qaeda. Nidal Hasan was recruited by American crimes and this is what America refuses to admit. America refuses to admit that its foreign policies are the reason behind the man like Nidal Hasan — born and raised in the U.S. turning his guns against American soldiers. And the more crimes America commits the more mujahedeen will be recruited to fight against it. … 

SD County Pension Boosts Leverage

This is probably not a good idea:

The San Diego County Employees Retirement Association has adopted a new asset allocation that adds leverage to the $7.2 billion fund, Pensions & Investments reports. The leverage brings the total target allocation to 135 percent.

Pension funds are supposed to be boring, long-term investors. Not SDCERA. Taking on leverage is not a sure, safe way to save money for retirement. It is an aggressive, high risk strategy. It means you are essentially wagering more money than you have. Ask Lehman Brothers how that feels.

Leverage is a way of boosting returns by taking on more risk. The net expected return from this new strategy is now 10 percent (up from 8.25 8.5 percent), which is supposed to add an additional $1 billion over the next 10 years. But that’s if — and it’s a big if — if everything goes as planned.

A few years ago, the flavor of the month was hedge funds. Investment guru David Deutsch plowed 20 percent of the fund into hedge funds, including winners like Amaranth, which imploded when a single trader lost $6 billion in a bad bet on natural gas prices, and WG Trading, whose managers were arrested for fraud.

Instead of taking its lumps, however, SDCERA has spent two and a half years suing to get its money back from Amaranth. A federal judge in New York threw out SDCERA’s lawsuit against Amaranth today, but the pension says it will appeal.

Well, they don’t have Deutsch to blame anymore.  He got booted out last year when the fund lost 25 percent. The board decided to outsource his job to Lee Partridge, a guy who didn’t even apply for the job and who stands to earn as much as $1.2 million.

Did You Know…

Disneyland is part of the U.S.-Mexico border?

According to federal codes and regulations, it is.

Customs and Border Patrol agents searching for aliens can board any plane, vehicle, railway car, or conveyance a “reasonable distance” from the border.

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution typically requires a warrant for such searches, but an exception is written into federal law. (See here.)

To find out how far that is is you have to look at US Code of Federal Regulations. 

Turns out a “reasonable distance” is within 100 “air miles” from any external boundary of the United States.

That includes Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Irvine, Costa Mesa and half of Catalina Island.

SBInet: "Can we Get a Refund?"

Two House subcommittees held a hearing today on the ongoing problems with the multi-billion dollar “virtual border fence” being built by Boeing Corp. along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Earlier this week, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano froze funding out of concerns that the program, called SBInet, was plagued with problems. More than $1b has already been spent but the system has only been installed along 28 miles of the 2,000-mile border.

At the current rate of 28 miles every 4.5 years, it would take 320 years – or until the year 2330 – to deploy SBInet technology across the Southwest border.

The GAO’s latest findings reveal that 1) he number of problems in the program are outpacing those being fixed and 2) about 70 percent of SBInet testing procedures apparently were changed at the last minute to “pass the test” rather than qualify the system.

    Asked Chairman Chris Carney, D-Pa., “Can we get a refund?”

    Laura Duffy, Salon Owner

    I wonder how many U.S. attorney nominees are part owners of a hair salon.

    Main Justice reports that Laura Duffy, President Obama’s nominee for U.S. Attorney in San Diego, reported receiving a $23,637.50 distribution in 2009-2010 from Gila Rut, an Aveda salon in Chula Vista. Duffy has a 45 percent ownership stake in Gila Rut in Chula Vista.

    She also reported earning $35,400 from nine speaking engagements at the Aveda Business College Seminar.