At 6’6″, William “Big Willie” Andrew Robinson III — a bowler hat perched atop his head, his voice booming — cut an imposing figure among the youth of South Central Los Angeles during the 1970s. That figure both belied and contributed to his mission, which was to end gang violence and racial unrest through drag racing. Robinson died this past Saturday after a short illness. He was 70.

For a life lived in the furtherance of “peace through racing,” as was his mantra, Big Willie should get the Jalopnik Peace Prize. If there were such a thing.

His seemed an impossible task in a city whose racial entrenchment began decades before. Post-war racial violence in Los Angeles traced its roots to the 1920s, when blacks began to exit a claustrophobic ghetto, seeking elbow room in traditionally white areas, and were met with fists, blackjacks, knives, and gasoline bombs.

CONTINUED at Jalopnik.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Yesterday was a pretty emotional day for Paul supporters everywhere. The Paul campaign announced that they would no longer compete in the states that have not yet voted as it would cost too much money moving forward. In fact, here is what Ron Paul said himself:

Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted. Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have.

This is completely understandable and really just goes to show how fiscally responsible Dr. Paul truly is, especially when comparing him to his conservative counterparts who spent themselves into oblivion and racked up some serious campaign debt. With that being said, this is only more reason to vote for the man as he knows where to draw the line and also knows what all of Paul supporters know, which is that we will all continue to vote for the man regardless of the campaign’s inability to compete with the Wall Street funded Mitt Romney. When those Occupy kids are looking for a leader it should probably be the guy whose campaign is funded by the downtrodden 99 percent as opposed to the 1 percent big bank bank funded candidates like Romney and Obama.

This doesn’t mean that Paul is completely out of this race. As was just mentioned, his supporters are loyal and will vote for him despite this seemingly tragic pitfall. The hunt for delegates will continue and ultimately, Ron Paul will continue to surprise the doubters and make a serious impact on this race. This isn’t blind faith or overly-loyal Paulbot idiocy, this is facts. I doubted the campaign’s strategy but have since learned that in the realm of acquiring delegates, they are doing a hell of a job. The media doesn’t accurately report on what’s going on in the delegate hunt and honestly, you can go to various mainstream media sites and look at their delegate counts and the numbers don’t match – corporate media is clueless. Romney may have been announced the winner in Maine but Paul walked away with the most delegates. Santorum and Gingrich have lost theirs and with 11 states left to vote, Paul could continue to be a thorn in the side of the establishment beast. As I’ve said many times, this isn’t about winning, this is about the message and gaining enough support to stamp it on the leviathan’s forehead before it is once again let loose on the masses. In other words, Paul might not win the fight but he is going to break a motherfucker’s nose.

Even though the mainstream media has been quick to gleefully write Paul off as a quitter, his forces are moving forward – just more covertly in a way that is unique and foreign to these political experts spewing regurgitated pre-written bullshit through our television and radio speakers. In order to dispel the mainstream hogwash, Paul’s chief strategist Jesse Benton sent out an official statement. Here is some of what that memo states:

Let me be very clear. Dr. Paul is NOT ending his campaign. As Dr. Paul has previously stated, he is in this race all the way to the Republican National Convention in Tampa this August. Looking ahead, our campaign must honor that trust by maximizing our resources to ensure the greatest possible impact at the National Convention. So while our campaign is no longer investing in the remaining primary states, we will continue to run strong programs at District and State Conventions to win more delegates and alternate delegates to the National Convention.

To this end, our campaign has several positive and realistic goals: 1) Having recently WON Maine, we believe we can win several more states. 2) We will win party leadership positions at both the state and national level. 3) We will continue to grow our already substantial total of delegates.

We will head to Tampa with a solid group of delegates. Several hundred will be bound to Dr. Paul, and several hundred more, although bound to Governor Romney or other candidates, will be Ron Paul supporters.

Unfortunately, barring something very unforeseen, our delegate total will not be strong enough to win the nomination. Governor Romney is now within 200 delegates of securing the party’s nod. However, our delegates can still make a major impact at the National Convention and beyond. All delegates will be able to vote on party rules and allow us to shape the process for future liberty candidates.

We are in an excellent position to make sure the Republican Party adds solid liberty issues to the GOP Platform, which our delegates will be directly positioned to approve. Our campaign is presently working to get several items up for consideration, including monetary policy reform, prohibitions on indefinite detention, and Internet freedom.

Finally, by sending a large, respectful, and professional delegation to Tampa, we will show the Party and the country that not only is our movement growing and here to stay, but that the future belongs to us…

Considering that two of the biggest states, California and Paul’s home state Texas, haven’t yet voted, there are a shitload of delegates that could easily go Paul’s way, especially since he has performed well in both of those states. The race is still as interesting as it has been all along, even though the media is ignoring Paul and pretending he isn’t even a part of this race anymore. Their “out of sight, out of mind” strategy hasn’t worked in the past and it won’t work this time. Paul supporters aren’t going anywhere and their numbers will continue to expand.

In retrospect, was this even about winning the presidency or was this about turning the Republican Party on its head and making a real difference? Is this really about shattering one half of the two-party mold in an effort to fix the system from within? If so, will it work? Either way, this game has been well-played by the Paul camp and ultimately it’s up to us everyday people to see that the message is sent and clearly understood. From here on out, this game is going to get pretty fucking filthy. Put on your gloves because we aren’t done swingin’!

The world’s biggest banks are working with one another and police to gather intelligence as protesters try to rejuvenate the Occupy Wall Street movement with May demonstrations, industry security consultants said.

Among 99 protest targets in midtown Manhattan on Tuesday are JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America offices, said Marisa Holmes, a member of Occupy’s May Day planning committee.

Events are scheduled in more than 115 cities, including an effort to shut down the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, where Wells Fargo investors relied on police to get past protests at their annual meeting this week.

“Our goal is to kick off the spring offensive and go directly to where the financial elite play and plan,” she said.

After evictions and arrests from Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park to London that began last year, the movement against income inequality and corporate abuse will regain strength, said Brian McNary, director of global risk at Pinkerton Consulting & Investigations.

CONTINUED at The San Francisco Chronicle.

In the past four decades, cars have grown significantly cleaner and more fuel efficient, but it’s been a bumpy road getting there. These are Jalopnik readers’ picks for the ten most expensive, inefficient measures to make cars “green.”

Welcome back to Answers of the Day — our daily Jalopnik feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day’s Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It’s by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy!

Photo Credit: GM

10.) Solar Power

Suggested By: 3pedalsgood

Why it failed: The Solar Car Challenge is a yearly competition for high schools to build and race a solar-powered car. It’s a fine idea for getting people involved with engineering. But solar-powered cars? Other than a limited use of solar for powering accessories in vehicles like the Fisker Karma, it’s not happening anytime soon.

Photo Credit: Pspatry.

9.) Cadillac V8-6-4

Suggested By: zacarious

Why it failed: Today, more and more engines employ cylinder deactivation. What the systems do is shut down a number of cylinders when the driver is just cruising on the highway, using very little throttle.

Back in 1981, when the technology was new, GM decided that Cadillac should try it out to make their big V8s more fuel efficient. The engines were completely crude, the shut-off was the opposite of smooth, and the cars broke down regularly. Oh, and it produced 140 horsepower out of six liters of displacement.

Photo Credit: Cadillac/Old Car Brochures.

8.) California’s Cool Cars Initiative

Suggested By: Buckus

Why it failed: California’s Air Resources Board has one of the least enviable jobs of a government agency: cleaning up the air in a smog-ridden state that loves cars. Some of their draconian rules about smog equipment and old car certification can be seen as necessary evils, but CARB’s “Cool Cars” plan of the late 2000s was a complete flop.

The idea was to reduce the amount of air conditioning people would use. Air conditioning uses engine power, which sucks gas. The regulation would require manufacturers to use reflective paints in their cars. First, people thought that CARB was banning black paint, and then they realized that most of the heat soak in cars was through the windows. Over fears that GPS systems, cellphones, and ankle monitors wouldn’t work, CARB gave up on the whole plan in early 2010.

Photo Credit: Hashem Akbari, Berkeley Lab.

7.) Arizona alternative fuel rebate

Suggested By: iowncalculus

Why it failed: Back in 2000, Arizona offered to pay half the cost of any alternative fuel vehicle, in an effort to promote clean cars and improve the state’s surprisingly bad air quality. People figured out that they could fit a one-gallon compressed natural gas tank to an SUV and get the state to pay half the price.

When Arizona realized they would be paying half the cost of $50,000 leather-lined Excursions at an estimated total cost of $600 million dollars (that was 10% of the state’s yearly budget) they quit the plan, leaving people to foot the bill on these CNG-equipped vehicles themselves.

Photo Credit: GMC.

6.) E85

Suggested By: Viperfan1

Why it failed: Corn ethanol seems to make sense – there’s too much corn in the Midwest, so why not make it into a fuel that’s got a higher octane rating than pump gas? Well, you can’t put it in a pipeline, so you have to truck it everywhere, and it cuts into your gas mileage. Biofuels are really fantastic, but E85 is not the way of the future.

Photo Credit: Getty Images.

5.) CAFE’s light truck loophole

Suggested By: KillerKoala

Why it failed: CAFE stands for Corporate Average Fuel Economy. It defines how fuel efficient a car manufacturer’s vehicles must be, and it is broken down into different categories based on size and weight. Each different kind of vehicle has a different standard.

CAFE started out in the 1970s with much lighter fuel economy standards for light trucks than full-size family cars. This seemed to make sense, as trucks were used for work, and businesses needed cheap, powerful engines. US carmakers, however, capitalized off the growing market for recreational trucks and started building SUVs intended for people to just drive around in. These SUVs were cheap to build ad they didn’t have to comply with the tough emissions and fuel economy standards of regular cars.

This loophole meant that Americans just switched from driving big, heavy sedans to big heavy SUVs, without effecting any real change in fuel economy.

Photo Credit: Ford.

4.) SUV hybrids

Suggested By: claiborne

Why it failed: The most egregious manifestation of the light trucks loophole are SUV hybrids. The worst offenders are the ones from GM and Chrysler that come with big “Hybrid” badges to show off their mileage numbers bested by just about any station wagon on the market. In cities where hybrids are allowed special privileges, like exemption from London’s inner-city congestion charge, they’re just insulting.

Photo Credit: Cadillac.

3.) Cash for clunkers

Suggested By: My X-type is too a real Jaguar

Why it failed: The idea behind cash for clunkers was to get people out of smog-producing old cars and into new fuel-efficient ones. New car sales spiked only for a few months, used car prices have gone up and stayed up, and we’ve seen the death of all kinds of strange, beautiful old machines. It wasn’t worth it.

Photo Credit: Detroit Free Press.

2.) GM’s EV1

Suggested By: Wolc

Why it failed: Everyone loved the EV1. Everyone but GM. The car was doomed to slow sales, so GM cut the program early and crushed the cars. Ask anyone who owned one and they loved it. While Toyota was content to lose money for years developing the Prius, GM couldn’t stand a little bit of an investment in clean tech.

Photo Credit: Associated Press.

1.) 55 MPH speed limit

Suggested By: Irving Washington

Why it failed: In the year following the 1973 Oil Crisis, the Congress enacted the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act setting a national speed limit at 55. The double nickel was supposed to greatly cut fuel consumption and the ensuing pollution, as cars create significantly more drag at highway speeds. studies found it was a mere 22-45% as effective as anyone hoped.

This hellish restriction on the nation’s transportation network was finally fully repealed in 1995, after getting bumped up to 65 in December 1987. It was a dark time for this country.

Photo Credit: Associated Press.

Source: Jalopnik.

A public art controversy is blooming in San Diego thanks to a mysterious man who has turned 100 stop signs into flowers using yarn and wire.

Back in March, the computer programmer who only identifies himself as “Bryan” started a “yarn bombing” project in which he and a dozen others knitted and crocheted green stems and leaves onto 100 stop signs in his neighborhood.

“I went out at night and wrapped scarves that I had already knitted around the signposts and stitched them to the poles and added leaves that I made with yarn and wire,” Bryan told The Huffington Post. “At first, people ignored me, wanting to avoid that guy standing on a step-ladder near a stop sign, but as I got up to 50, 60 signs, people started to stick their heads out of their cars and tell me they loved what I was doing.”

But that love hasn’t bloomed in all corners. Recently, San Diego City official Bill Harris contacted Bryan through his website and told him to stop turning signs into trees.

“The City is forced to announce that the Stop Sign Flowers must come down. Even with the great community spirit this effort has generated, there are just too many restrictions to overcome,” Harris wrote in a letter that was excerpted in San Diego Citybeat. “City staff looked through state law and local policies trying to find some way of allowing the flowers to remain in place. Unfortunately, particularly with traffic control signs and including all other City assets, there is just no way to retain the works where they now are.”

Bryan has 10 days to remove them before city employees do so, and he is currently weighing his options.

“If I remove them, I can repurpose them, but if I leave them, it’s possible they just might stay,” Bryan said. “In January, 2011, I put up five as a test run and they are still there, so I’m hoping it was just the city doing their due diligence. But I’d like to think that if you were a busy city worker and had a whole day’s work ahead of you, removing this might be too much trouble.”

Although he is resigned to fate, others like San Diego City Councilwoman Lorie Zapf are trying to see if they can pull any strings to keep the yarn-coverings on the stop signs by gathering support via Twitter

Meanwhile, the artistic community is also rallying behind Bryan, a.k.a. “Knitter Guy,” according to San Diego arts and culture journalist Enrique Limon, who stitched together the first story on the stop sign flowers for San Diego Citybeat.

“The cool thing about this is that Bryan isn’t trying to be cool or edgy, he’s just trying to do a project to beautify his neighborhood,” Limon said. “I think removing them is detrimental to a city that is not exactly on the cutting edge of public art.”

Bryan would like the stop sign flowers to stay, but realizes that he may not be able to stop their removal. Still, he’s happy that he has a great yarn to tell his kids.

“I have two daughters — 11 and 13 — and this has been inspirational to them,” he said.

Source: The Huffington Post. Video at link.

Some of the most powerful unions in Los Angeles want to make sure that Wal-Mart doesn’t have a chance of opening anytime soon in Chinatown. Perhaps they should meet some of the Chinese senior citizens who support it. I did—and with the help of a translator and my own rusty Chinese, I learned that “fresh fruit,” “always low prices,” and “cheap stuff” sound good in Mandarin and Cantonese, too, especially to those immigrants and seniors living near the poverty line or in assisted living centers.

For decades, there’s been nothing on the vacant first floor of the apartment complex where Wal-Mart wants to open its Chinatown store—which it hopes will be the first of many “neighborhood marts” in Los Angeles County. Slightly smaller than a Whole Foods supermarket and only one-fifth the size of a typical Wal-Mart, the 33,000 square-foot store on West Cesar Chavez Avenue would offer fresh fruits and groceries, beauty products, and—most crucially for the seniors I spoke with—a pharmacy.

Right now, Chinatown has only one grocery store and a highly priced CVS drugstore to serve its nearly 50,000 residents. The lack of competition allows these stores to charge even more than the area’s high-priced small markets for what should be cheap products like aspirin.

In addition, many residents worry about the quality of the meat at some of the Chinese shops that Los Angeles city officials say a Wal-Mart will undercut. Indeed, all of the Chinatown residents I spoke with emphasized that at some of the Chinese markets, meats and other items are displayed on the sidewalk, exposed to the air and heat.

CONTINUED at Reason. Written by Charles C. Johnson.

California is broke. The national debt continues to spiral out of control. So, it’s perhaps a little bit of a surprise that the California Department of Transportation, along with some help from the federal government, spent $205,000 in 2010 to move a shrub that’s available at nurseries for about $15. Even the Knights who say Ni would find that too expensive.

There’s a good chance that the sole remaining in-the-wild Arctostaphylos franciscana would have escaped notice altogether, but for the keen eye of a botanist driving by a soon-to-be-removed median strip near the Golden Gate Bridge.

A low, leafy shrub which occasionally sprouts unexciting little flowers, the Franciscan manzanita is that kind of squat ground-cover found all over California. Like other types of chaparral, it’s not the sort of thing that draws close attention, but is part of the quilt of dark green sharing the light browns of the state’s many hillsides.

The Franciscan manzanita didn’t excite anyone until the last wild one was found. As it turned out, state and federal funds — some of it stimulus money — paid for the pricey shrub “translocation” project. Moving the plant and the weighty chunk of soil supporting its life cost $100,000, with $79,470 going to “fund the establishment, nurturing and monitoring of the Mother Plant” for a decade, as well as $25,605 to cover what federalese linguists call “reporting requirements.” All that added to a road widening project budgeted at more than $1 billion.

CONTINUED at Jalopnik.

A 23-year-old City Councilman from Riverbank, California was charged with a litany of offenses after crashing his Corvette into a parked car, while drunk, with his four-year-old kid strapped into the car. Councilman Jesse James White then proceeded to leave his bleeding son in the car as he ran away, only to be “tackled and held by bystanders” until the police arrived.

After spending nearly $69,000 to remove White from office, the City Council of Riverbank gave up because it was too expensive oust him.

It’s a victory for small government.

White’s accident happened back in February, but the story has continued as the young Councilman — who was elected when he was 19 — has fought to keep his seat and clear his name. Or, well, clear his name from the current set of charges.

In 2009, a grand jury concluded he wasn’t a registered voter in Riverbank when he ran for office initially. He was also arrested in 2010 on drug charges. But leaving your bleeding kid in a car you crashed while three-times above the legal limit is a bridge too far even for Riverbank’s non-discerning voters.

“What are you gonna do, you know, if people keep electing these idiots?” asked resident Elsa Bayly in in interview with the Sacramento CBS affiliate.

White pleaded not guilty to the charges and said he was going into rehab. His attorney then blamed the media for their coverage when they asked if he actually was going to rehab, saying “That’s not your business.”

The City Council is hoping voters will take care of White when his term is up in November, but White is apparently still running claiming people shouldn’t “believe the hype.”

My campaign will continue; I will not be deterred from initiating a petition to cut the huge executive pay raises in Riverbank rather than a sewer rate increase. This is at the core of recent events, liberal progressives who want to raise taxes.
None of the recent events alters that I am the only candidate who has been, and continues to work for you before asking for your vote. I have kept my promises as a Riverbank city councilman. I shall continue my crusade.”

You hear that liberal progressives? He will continue, even if he has to abandoned 100 bleeding, crying offspring in 100 wrecked Corvettes.

Source: Jalopnik.