As the falling rain pings against my window here in North California, I am relieved that it will alleviatesome of the shortage of stored water predicted for this upcoming usage season in California. Dramatic reductions in water delivery, especially to Central Valley agriculture are very likely. Those in the cattle business are lamentingwhat has been the shortest rainfallduring this area’s winter months, [January being one of the driest on record in California]for as long as they can remember, with grazing lands short of foliage and already starting to turn to the summer brown. These rains in recent days can only help.

What else would help is some real action by humans on providing for their own water needs. Relying on rain dances, good luck, or if you’re the 1948 Boston Braves with only 2 reliable pitchers for a7 gameWorld Series, "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain", we canask for Divine intervention every rain year and do nothing with our God-given abilities to help ourselves.

Governor Schwarzenegger has made a firm commitment to building above ground water storage in this state, something we used to do, and do… Read More

Rider on Tax Freedom Day… The ever-analytical Richard Rider sends along some info from the Tax Foundation on Tax Freedom Day (TFD), and he focuses particularly on California. We’re losing ground (no surprise there), with this year’s TFD on April 30 butCA’s a week later.

TFD, of course, is the symbolic day upon which the average person would have paid all their taxes for the year, with the balance of the year their income to keep to themselves, if we paid taxes that way, of course. Given CA is one of the worst state’s in the nation, this info is of particular interest considering the legislature is once again considering an a "softening" of Prop 13.

Rider’s take:

Bad news — we Americans work two more days this year than last, with the nationwide Tax Freedom Day this year being 30 April, 2007. After some tax relief in the early part of the decade, thanks to desperately needed tax cuts (too bad spending mushroomed at the same time), the tax burden is once again rapidly growing.

For Californians, the news is even worse.… Read More

For quite some time, this website tracked all of Governor Schwarzenegger’s appointments — with a careful eye on partisan registration. We ultimately stopped because it was too disappointing. As a Republican Governor, I expected Schwarzenegger (like Wilson, like Deukmejian) to fill his open positions in state government with like-minded Republicans. By setting this standard for the Governor, I found myself being consistenly disappointed. The number of Democrats who have been appointed to judgeships is downright appalling. And on the plethora of non-judicial appointments, it was often the case where barely 50% of any given list (appointments typically are announced in groupings of 10 to 15) were GOPers, with most of the rest being Democrats, and a smattering of appointees to registered as Decline-to-State (one appointee wasn’t registered to vote at all!). I had one FR reader who follows things closely tell me that the numbers are even more misleading as a significant number of the Republican appointments are to positions like local Fair Boards thus ‘inflating’ the GOP numbers… This week, the Governor released two lists… Read More

For quite some time, this website tracked all of Governor Schwarzenegger’s appointments — with a careful eye on partisan registration. We ultimately stopped because it was too disappointing. As a Republican Governor, I expected Schwarzenegger (like Wilson, like Deukmejian) to fill his open positions in state government with like-minded Republicans. By setting this standard for the Governor, I found myself being consistenly disappointed. The number of Democrats who have been appointed to judgeships is downright appalling. And on the plethora of non-judicial appointments, it was often the case where barely 50% of any given list (appointments typically are announced in groupings of 10 to 15) were GOPers, with most of the rest being Democrats, and a smattering of appointees to registered as Decline-to-State (one appointee wasn’t registered to vote at all!). I had one FR reader who follows things closely tell me that the numbers are even more misleading as a significant number of the Republican appointments are to positions like local Fair Boards thus ‘inflating’ the GOP numbers… This week, the Governor released two lists… Read More

According to Google, there are 538 articles online talking about the situation with Congressman John Doolittle.

But I digress. I thought if you were stopping by the FR this weekend, you might enjoy this video from the Heritage Foundation, on the big deficits that exist in funding current Social Security and Medicare obligations. It’s about two minutes long. … Read More

Watching the Alberto Gonzales hearings yesterday was sickening. How much RNC, NRSC and other money went in to saving Senator Arlen Spector’s political life against GOP primary challenger Pat Toomey? We pour millions into races to save the likes of Lincoln Chafee and Jim Jeffords.

I have pasted below a piece I just had published in the Valley Conservative here in the Central Valley. Enjoy.

IS CONSERVATISM DEAD

Over the past twelve years, conservatism for me has become hollow words, empty promises, and abandoned principles.I know that most of you agree. How many times do we have to bear the unbearable – the sight of a Republican candidate or elected official talking about “less government, lower taxes, school choice, less regulation, energy independence, reforming Medicare and Social Security” – knowing full well that these issues will not ever see solutions?In fact, the vast majority of our elected officials have continued to cast votes making these problems worse, not better.Do Medicare Part D and … Read More

I just saw this on Red County/San Bernardino:

BREAKING – Congressman Dreier Urges Presidential Action On Jailed Border Patrol Agents

Breaking news from Washington, DC:

Just posted on Congressman David Dreier’s official Congressional website, both a press release and official letter in which the Ranking House Rules Committee Member urges President Bush to consider granting an executive pardon to imrpisoned Border patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.

The controversial case of Compean and Ramos has generated anger and disbelief among anti-illegal immigration advocates. Many activists, commentators and public officials have called for a Presidential pardon of the two officers, and… Read More

Its very possible that Congressman John Doolittle will resign because of circumstances relating to the ethical (and maybe legal) charges being brought against him.

With ethical issues being at the forefront at the national level, Doolittle’s next challenge may be from the leadership in the Republican party — asking him to step aside for “the good of the party”. It is also possible that a federal judge and/or US attorney forces this congressional seat open in a less subtle manner.

For those not familiar with the seat, this North Eastern California Congressional District is solid GOP territory that stretches from the Sacramento suburbs up to Lake Tahoe and all the way north to the Oregon border. The district has a 48% to 30% GOP registration advantage and Bush received 61% of the vote in 2004. If Democrat challenger Charlie Brown couldn’t win this district in the perfect storm last year, he sure wont win it in 2008 against a well qualified Republican… Read More