1. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, Calif.
2. Bakersfield, Calif.
3. Visalia-Porterville, Calif.
4. Fresno-Madero, Calif.
5. Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Yuba City, Calif.-Nevada
6. Hanford-Corcoran, Calif.
7. Houston-Baytown-Huntsville, Texas
8. San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, Calif.
9. San Lois Obispo-Paso Robles, Calif.
10. Charlotte-Gastonia-Salisbury, N.C.
But perhaps worse for the general public is that, according to the ASA, nearly six in 10 Americans live in areas with unhealthy levels of air pollution. Other portions of the report break down year-round particle pollution, worst particle pollution over a 24-hour period, efforts to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants and the transition to cleaner diesel fuels and engines. The results were particularly condemning for L.A., which had slightly worse average levels than in the American Lung Association's 2009 report. The one positive note for the Los Angeles metro area is that it recorded its second lowest ozone levels since the association's first report in 2000. Also according to the ASA, cities in the East and Midwest, such as Atlanta, Cincinnati, Cleveland, New York, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore area, have greatly benefited from clean-air efforts and have seen their air quality make significant progress in the past few years. As for you Cali, step your game up…………
- I quite frankly don’t care what The Nielsen Company says, I still hate the New York Yankees more than any other team in baseball - narrowly edging out Boston. According to research done by Nielsen, the team that fans love to hate more than any other is the freaking Cleveland Indians, a middle-market team that hasn’t work a World Series since 1954 and nearly lost 100 games last season. Nielsen pegs the Indaians as the No. 1 most-disliked team in baseball, according to a formula that helps determine whether consumers have positive, negative or neutral reactions to brands in their online messages. The "Sentiment Rankings" range from 5 to minus-5 and the Indians had the lowest number. In second place was those darned Boston Red Sox, a team that actually belongs near the top of the rankings. The Red Sox are the only team with a payroll nearly as ridiculous as the Yankees and a matching propensity to attempt to buy a championship every season. What doesn’t make sense is the rest of the top six, which includes an obvious choice (the Yankees at No. 5), but also the Cincinnati Reds (No. 3) and Houston Astros (No. 4) ahead of the Yanks and the Washington Nationals (No. 6) right behind them. The Reds, Astros and Nats all suck and do so on an annual basis, so why the outrage? Unless the survey solely counts people who consider themselves fans of those teams they espoused negative perceptions of, I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t fans of other teams love the Indians, Nats or Reds? Playing those teams is almost an automatic win, which is good for the team you root for. Using the Nielsen formula, only six teams scored a rating of less than 2 and none managed a negative rating. I guess that palpable arrogance, a classic rich guy complex and 27 World Series championships are no longer enough to make a team truly hated. Also cracking the top 10 were: Chicago White Sox (No. 7), Baltimore Orioles (No. 8), New York Mets (No. 9) and Los Angeles Dodgers (No. 10). Surprisingly, the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics were the most popular teams among fans, according to Nielsen's study. Why these teams are so well-liked, I have no idea. Both are typically competitive and pose a real threat to other teams’ postseason chances on a regular basis. In other words, you all are not making sense, baseball fans……….
- Quite the balls play by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, announcing Thursday that he will run for the United States Senate as an independent rather than a Republican. Crist attempted to paint his move as one wrought from his abiding loyalty to the people of his state, but something (the fact that he’s a politician?) tells me that there might be more to the story. Either way, Crist’s decision sets up the possibility of a three-way…….Senate race, that is. Crist seems confident that he can win a seat in the Senate without the formal backing of a political party. "I could have chosen to stay in the [Republican] primary, but frankly for me, this is your decision," he told a crowd of about 300 supporters and campaign volunteers. "It's not one club's decision or another." Oh, and as for that something more……as it turns out, pretty much every poll that was done over the past few weeks has pointed strongly to the fact that he stood no chance of winning the GOP nomination over his chief rival, former House Speaker Marco Rubio. Rather than continue to run the race as a Republican, he elected to hit the eject button with a sledgehammer and try to spin his decision as a vote for his belief in and loyalty to the people of his state. Asked if he could raise the kind of money needed to run a legitimate campaign, Crist responded: "I already have." He went on to ratchet up the brown-nosing with constituents, saying that if elected, he will "caucus with the people." As much as I am not a huge fan of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, he seemed to hit things right on the nose in assessing Crist’s decision to jump ship. "This decision is not about policy or principles. It is about what he believes is in his political self-interest," Bush sniped. The decision isn’t playing well with Republican Senate leadership, which said it will ask Crist to refund all of its campaign donations and called on the governor to also return money to the "thousands of Republican donors" who have supported his campaign. Those same leaders - Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn - also plan to support Rubio, one of their party’s “emerging stars." To top off Crist’s GOP defection, he also lost his Republican polling firm, Public Opinion Strategies. "It has been an honor to work for Gov. Crist, and I wish him all of the best," said Communications Director Andrea Saul, who resigned within moments of the announcement. Crist did have his supporters in the decision, but methinks he may have just postponed the inevitable by staying in a race he cannot win no matter what party he represents……….
- Count another one of Apple’s competitors in the world of online music out of the fight. After Apple purchased cloud-streaming music site Lala back in December, few expected the site to have much of a shelf life and sure enough, customers received an email today informing them that the service will be discontinued as of May 31. The email explained that subscribers will receive a credit to the iTunes store for the amount of their ten-cent Lala streaming-song purchases and/or remaining balance, or refunds upon request. The lone positive is that all downloaded songs will continue to play in their owners’ music libraries. Those who follow Apple and/or the world of technology with any regularity rightly anticipated that when Apple purchased Lala, the primary goal was to absorb the Lala technology and use it to make Apple’s own products and services better. Lala’s structure houses users’ music libraries in a “cloud” (remote server), rather than on any one device, and speculation is that Apple intends to launch a cloud-based version of iTunes. As some with a ginormous……iTunes library, I can’t say as I am enthusiastic about that concept. I likes my iTunes collection on my hard drive (along with external hard drive and iPod) and as much as tech giants promise that cloud computing is safe and data stored in clouds is secure, I still feel much better knowing my data has a physical location of which I am in control…………
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! It has been far too long since everyone’s favorite overview of social dissidence ‘round the world visited our friends in Albania and for that reason alone, I couldn’t be prouder of my peeps in Tirana, Albaniam as literally tens of thousands of them took it to the streets in the main square of the Albanian capital Friday, vowing to stay until the government conducts a partial recount of an election the opposition claims involved vote-rigging. And yes, allegations of vote-rigging have become so commonplace that they are almost clichéd at this point, but I’ll allow it here because those claims have sparked a massive and very angry uprising against Prime Minister Sali Berisha, whose conservatives narrowly won the June 28 general election. No sooner than the results were announced, opposition Socialists began boycotting parliament, demanding the recount of ballots in several districts. Those boycotts continue and now they are accompanied by huge protests in the capital city even as the government insists that the demand for a recount is illegal. And heck, why allow a recount if you and your allies control 75 of parliament's 140 seats? Choke out the will of the people, continue to oppress them and make them react. What I don’t like about all of this is Socialist leader Edi Rama urging the demonstrators to show "peaceful resistance" with a campaign of disobedience against the government until the recount demand is met. "We must all tell the government that its fate begins and ends with our call: Open the ballot boxes or leave," said Rama. No E., “peaceful resistance” are not what you need. Burning police cars, looted storefronts, dumpsters set ablaze, rocks thrown and plumes of black smoke rising to the sky are what you need. Nothing says, “Give us our damn recount, you filthy animals,” quite like threatening to burn your capital city to the ground unless you get what you want and then backing that threat up. Tossing added blame on the government for economic hardships in the impoverished nation is a good move, but it’s not enough. The international community has urged Albania, a new member of NATO, to resolve the election issue but those demands haven’t been met, not be a long shot. In short, I like the direction this is heading but I am going to need to see a lot more violence and angry clashes with police and security forces in order to upgrade this to a top-notch riot/protest…………
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