A few random thoughts for your Tuesday amusement…

• One has to wonder when observing the "Christopher Columbus Myth Free Zone" signs when entering Berkeley if there are any normal people left in that city, which has become a petri dish of left-wing experimentation.  Tonight the City Council will consider a resolution that more or less heaps exalted status on Private First Class Bradley Manning, who is suspected of providing WikiLeaks with over a quarter-million confidential military documents, a new city policy concerning radioactivity from cell phones, and receive a staff report letting them know that their decision to create two "parking meter holidays" in December will cost the city $52,000 bucks.   All in a nights work in whacky-town.
• This week State Senator Mark Leno, who hails from San Francisco, introduced legislation that would require that public school classroom textbooks be re-written with historical details about the gay movement, and to highlight GLBT people who have played a significant role in our country’s history.  GLBT stands for gay/lesbian/bisexual/transsexual.  According to Wikipedia, "Transsexual people identify as, or desire to live and be accepted as, a member of the sex opposite to that assigned at birth." I don’t think I need to say anything more on the topic.
• Speaking of the craziness of the Bay Area — the San Francisco City/County Board of Supervisors is looking at charging a toll, perhaps as much as $6/day, to those people commuting into the city at rush hour from or through San Mateo County to the south.  Unlike a bridge toll, this is what is being called a "cordon toll" and would appear to be SF’s latest effort to both socially engineer the people under their thumb, as well as figure out how to pull more money into the city treasury to spend on the whims of Ess Eff politicians.  Well the politicos of San Mateo County aren’t taking this lightly.  There is talk that if San Francisco does implement such a cordon toll, that they will reciprocate with an even more draconian one for those coming south from San Francisco.  Good grief.
• From where I sit, the "tax deal compromise" which was overwhelmingly approved by the U.S. Senate yesterday and is on its way to the Congress is fatally flawed.  Extending the "Bush" tax cuts for only two more years does little to provide long-term economic certainty.  Extending welfare benefits to the unemployed and just throwing the enormous cost of that onto the deficit is scandalous.  But worse of all is a quick post-election return to the time-honored tradition of "buying off" voters for (expensive) political favors — tax credits for ethanol production, tax credits for "green" home builders, tax credits for biodiesel and more.  Very disappointing.
• In case you thought stupidity was limited to just the Bay Area…  In this coming election cycle much will be made of the scandalous practice of part-time elected officials taking full-time benefits, like gold-plated health care coverage.  But it will be hard to top the $715/month "car allowance" perk available to members of the Irvine City Council.  By the way, one can drive across the entire width of the city in fifteen minutes.
• Apparently an inmate at the OC Jail who was able to get preference meal service because he celebrates "Festivus" — yes, this it the fictional holiday created by Jerry Seinfeld.  It took an action by the courts to allow the Sheriff’s Department to serve him typical jail cuisine — which took two weeks.  Come to think of it, Jerry Brown’s "budget summit" in Sacramento last week was very much like the "Airing of Grievances" from that Seinfeld episode.
• In what can only be characterized as good news for taxpayers, the bid of Jerry "The Minority Maker" Lewis (R-CA) to once again be Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee failed.  Unfortunately he was replaced by Hal "The Prince of Pork" Rogers.  It’s time to seriously consider doing away with the committee altogether.  No good can come from a Congressional committee that is all about spending taxpayer dollars.
• Speaking of California Republicans in Congress, one has to give a round of applause to Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher who spent a great deal of his time last weekend waging a passionate "Twitter War" with advocates of the so-called "Dream Act" that would give preferential treatment to criminal aliens over U.S. Citizens.
• One has to wonder what Gubernatorial appointments may be waiting in the wings for the remaining Republicans who voted to stick taxpayers with the largest tax increase in the history of any state last year.  Already ex-Assemblymembers Anthony Adams and Mike Villines have been given plum appointments.  That leaves Abel Maldonado, Roy Ashburn, Dave Cogdill and Roger Niello….

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 14th, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.