The is an article this morning in the Sacramento Bee where is talks about how the top priority of newly sworn-in State Senate President Darrell Steinberg is to expand the role of government in California, moving the responsibility for the health of children from their parents to the state government.

Are you kidding, Senator?

This concept of yours is a major problem for a whole slew of reasons. But let’s start with the biggies.

**There is more – click the link**

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This morning at 9:55 PST, there will be many Pearl Harbor survivor groups around having a time of remembrancetoday. The numbers of those men that were there are dwindling fairly rapidly as that day of infamy has now been 67 years ago. Chances are there is a Pearl Harbor survivorgroup near you doing one this morning, see if you can’t go visit their ceremony.… Read More

President-Elect Barack Obama announced Saturday that he plans to revive the economy and create jobs by upgrading roads, schools and energy efficiency in the greatest public-works initiative since the interstate highway system in the 1950s.

His announcement was in response to news of more than a half-million American job losses last month. He reportedly offered no price estimate. As the Associated Press observed, “The president-elect’s address never once used the word ‘spend,’ relying instead on ‘invest’ or ‘investments,’ and pledging wise stewardship of taxpayer money in upgrading roads and schools, and making public buildings more energy-efficient."

Hmm. “Invest” in government spending… Echoes of Bill Clinton? Absolutely. One of Clinton’s first acts in 1993 was to push a package of public works money through a Congress controlled by his own party. Sounds familiar indeed. The current thinking by transportation policy advocates is to convince the government to put up about $65 billion… Read More

If you turn to page 15 of the Governor’s recommendations coming from his California Performance Review that he undertook after winning the recall election in 2003 with a mandate to “blow up the boxes,” you will see that one of the Commissions that the Governor had slated for elimination was the Integrated Waste Management Board. These days, the California Performance Review and the Governor’s proposed revisions to state government that were part of its roll-out are just growing electronic dust, occasionally linked-to by an online columnist like myself. Never mind the fact that had the Governor achieved the revisions he sought, as opposed to a wholesale abandonment of the whole project, our budget deficit issues would be significantly mitigated.

Well, we’ve certainly come a long was in just five short years. There is nothing left of the Governor (1.0) who was swept into office after a recall of former Governor Gray Davis was successfully qualified after Davis outrageously hiked the state car… Read More

If you turn to page 15 of the Governor’s recommendations coming from his California Performance Review that he undertook after winning the recall election in 2003 with a mandate to “blow up the boxes,” you will see that one of the Commissions that the Governor had slated for elimination was the Integrated Waste Management Board. These days, the California Performance Review and the Governor’s proposed revisions to state government that were part of its roll-out are just growing electronic dust, occasionally linked-to by an online columnist like myself. Never mind the fact that had the Governor achieved the revisions he sought, as opposed to a wholesale abandonment of the whole project, our budget deficit issues would be significantly mitigated.

Well, we’ve certainly come a long was in just five short years. There is nothing left of the Governor (1.0) who was swept into office after a recall of former Governor Gray Davis was successfully qualified after Davis outrageously hiked the state car tax.… Read More

Yesterday in their Capitol Alert blog, the Sacramento Bee reported that Chris Kahn, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Governor Schwarzenegger and Director of Legislative Affairs will be departing his post at the end of the year. This departure is the second extremely high-profile Republican in the Governor’s inner circle to step away in just a couple of months, with former Cabinet Secretary Dan Dunmoyer having recently left as well. In the Bee’s blurb about Kahn’s departure, they mention that he was “unavailable for comment” for his story.

Well, I thought that I would try to help fill in the blanks for those wondering what Chris “would have said” had he actually spoken out on his departure. Readers should understand that I have not spoken to him about this, and that this is an editorial on my part, presuming what Chris might say (if he could):

… Read More

Yesterday in their Capitol Alert blog, the Sacramento Bee reported that Chris Kahn, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Governor Schwarzenegger and Director of Legislative Affairs will be departing his post at the end of the year. This departure is the second extremely high-profile Republican in the Governor’s inner circle to step away in just a couple of months, with former Cabinet Secretary Dan Dunmoyer having recently left as well. In the Bee’s blurb about Kahn’s departure, they mention that he was “unavailable for comment” for his story.

Well, I thought that I would try to help fill in the blanks for those wondering what Chris “would have said” had he actually spoken out on his departure. Readers should understand that I have not spoken to him about this, and that this is an editorial on my part, presuming what Chris might say (if he could):

… Read More

Recycling is economically possible because there is a market for recyclable goods. However, a good deal of that market demand comes from Asia, and with the recent global economic downturn, recycling markets have become incredibly volatile and unpredictable, causing instability in our domestic recycling efforts. Recyclers are stockpiling recyclable materials in hopes of an upturn in the market, but if that doesn’t occur, how long before our recyclables end up in landfills? Even if you are an eco-Grinch who maliciously throws your cans and bottles in your garbage just to be a pill, the fact is that our landfills simply cannot hold the recyclables that will go into them if the market for these commodities evaporates. And that’s every taxpayers problem. The more we throw away, the more space we take up in landfills. When a landfill becomes a “landfull”, taxpayers have to build a new one. The less we throw away, the longer our landfills will last. The amount of taxpayer money we save by extending the longevity of our landfills is an important … Read More