I’m sure you all thought I was struggling to justify my exisitence as the vaunted Northern California/Sacramento guy when I posted on Levees, Katrina’s political legacy and the like.

But soooommmmmeeeebody was reading my pablum (or is it that this stuff isn’t that hard to get?). Check out today’s Bee and see the photo…and read how the Gov is making levee repairs an issue….… Read More

The Left can never resist an opportunity to exert influence over impressionable young people, exploiting their lack of cynicism for political gain.

Case in point: Gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides speaking to school children at Oscar Loya Elementary Schoolyesterday.In the middle of his speech, Angelides suggests his audience of fourth graders nag their parents to go see Al Gore’s enviro-horror flick,An Inconvenient Truth.

Happy meals at McDonalds (for the new prizes), the new American Girls store, the local trading card/comic bookshop, these motivate fourth graders Phil. An Inconvenient Truth? A movie largely featuring an irate, pudgy, older man who appears as a principal, verbally rapping our knuckles? With this sort of suggestion, I’m amazed Megan, Christina, and Arianna turned out normal enough to stump for you on television.

Here’s a partial transcriptionof the event:

"You know what movie I just saw that’s a great movie you should all go see, andI would encourage your parents to go… Read More

There was an interesting comment posted yesterday responsding to what Kate Folmar wrote on the San Jose Mercury’s blog about the gubernatorial campaign and the theme of taxes. It’s a comment I can’t stop thinking about it. It reads:

"I really wish someone (Angelides campaign? the press?) would call Schwarzenegger out on this taxes thing. What does "not raising taxes" have to do with the 7 million Californians without health insurance, or the millions more who are struggling to survive under skyrocketting housing, child care and other costs? These are the problems that need fixing, and these are the problems that should be at the center of the debate.

"Raising taxes vs. not raising taxes is such a red herring, and out [sic] state will continue to suffer if that is where the debate is focused."

Indeed, there are a great many things at stake in California aside from tax increases. I’m beginning to wonder if there isn’t some truth to the idea that taxes are a red herring.

Our attention is being diverted from the ugliness of liberal corruption… Read More

Sometimes you read an article in the newspaper, and you just wonder aloud how some people’s views of the world can be so skewed, and wonder if they are even from the same planet as you. Now I admit that usually, in the context of politics, that is me reading the latest rant of a Howard Dean or an Al Gore. But in the article I am referring to today, it is Congressman Tom Davis of Virginia, a Republican, who heavily quoted in an article in today’s Washington Times entitled, GOP Left Slams Club for Growth. Davis is the head of a GOP Congressional ‘interest group’ called the Republican Main Street Partnership. On their website, the RMSP proclaims that they were founded in 1998 to, "promote thoughtful leadership in the Republican Party, and to partner with individuals, organizations and institutions that share centrist values." The translation of this lofty mission statement is that this organization has been formed by wishy-washy liberal GOPers who… Read More

Sometimes you read an article in the newspaper, and you just wonder aloud how some people’s views of the world can be so skewed, and wonder if they are even from the same planet as you. Now I admit that usually, in the context of politics, that is me reading the latest rant of a Howard Dean or an Al Gore. But in the article I am referring to today, it is Congressman Tom Davis of Virginia, a Republican, who heavily quoted in an article in today’s Washington Times entitled, GOP Left Slams Club for Growth. Davis is the head of a GOP Congressional ‘interest group’ called the Republican Main Street Partnership. On their website, the RMSP proclaims that they were founded in 1998 to, "promote thoughtful leadership in the Republican Party, and to partner with individuals, organizations and institutions that share centrist values." The translation of this lofty mission statement is that this organization has been formed by wishy-washy liberal GOPers who… Read More

I voted for it before I voted against it…

More cellular coverage is a good thing and I have voted to support cel sites whenever they have come before me as an Irvine Planning Commissioner.

However, last month Sprint had an application before my commission for 10 ‘repeaters’ in the Turtle Rock area of Irvine (a hilly community notorious for lacking cel coverage). Repeaters are much smaller than traditional cel sites. They are simply appendages that attach to either side of a street light standard and tie into the local cable company’s fiber optic network below the street.

The LA Times had a story a couple weeks ago that indicated that I had voted against the proposal. In fact, I voted for it, before I voted against it. Weak, I know. But I had a good reason.

That night the commission was lacking one commissioner and the vote was two-to-two. After realizing I was not going to be able to muster the votes for an approval, I assumed as with any other 2-2 vote that it would be deemed a denial and the applicant (Sprint) could appeal the… Read More

As I have mentioned before, Orange County’s oldest and largest Republican finance organization is the Lincoln Club. Founded many decades ago by some of the icons of Orange County Republicanism, the Lincoln Club continues to make a difference on behalf of Republican candidates and causes both in "The OC" and well beyond, to the state and national level. For the past five and a half years, the day-to-day operations of the Lincoln Club have been handled by their Executive Director Beth Holder. I have known Beth for many, many years and I can assure all FR readers that she has done a tremendous job for that organization. That said, Beth called me last week to let me know that she would be moving on from the Lincoln Club, on to new and different challenges. Beth had been serving in this job in a part-time capacity (choosing to devote some of her family) — and the Lincoln Club President, Richard Wagner, had made a decision to elevate the Executive Director post to a… Read More

OK, so it was in medieval England, but still, can you imagine how the wine collectors felt to see their vintage bottles go from a 96 Wine Spectator rating to a 20 or 30 due to climate change?

The Chronicle today, as part of the Al Gore and the MSM’s continued attempts to get the public whipped up about climate change, ran a story that predicts that global warming will ruin the state’s wine industry by the end of the century. To support their charge, one of the report authors pointed to past climate changes:

"We know that climate change has affected wine production in the past," said Noah Diffenbaugh, assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Purdue… Read More