K. Lloyd Billingsley
Commentary
Investigate CARBifornia
In early April, UCLA will decide whether to fire epidemiologist James Enstrom, a fixture in the UCLA Department of Public Health since the 1970s. If UCLA does give him the boot, Assemblyman Dan Logue has threatened to hold hearings. Whatever happens to Enstrom, legislators have good reason to investigate. Enstrom ...
Business & Economics
The Wisconsinonsense Award
The Oscars may be over but the prize has yet to go out for the lamest statement regarding the battle between Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and government-employee unions. The competition is fierce, with filmmaker Michael Moore a leading contender. Mr. Moore sees the government-union protesters as representing “the working people ...
Business & Economics
Analyze This: Unelected Regulatory Zealots Don’t Need More Power
California’s Legislative Analyst (LAO) is a nonpartisan body “providing fiscal and policy advice to the Legislature for more than 70 years,” according to its website. Some of its recent advice is seriously misguided, such as a proposal to expand the power of an unelected body, headed by regulatory zealots, that ...
Commentary
Why Oscar snubbed ‘Superman’
“Waiting for Superman,” though hailed as “powerful” by President Barack Obama, popular with audiences and a winner at the Sundance Film Festival, failed to gain an Academy Award nomination. That should come as no surprise. The problem is not, as some contend, the filmmaking craft of director Davis Guggenheim or ...
Commentary
Why Retiring Baby Boomers Will find Medi-Cal a Bust on Long-Term Care
The new administration of Jerry Brown faces many challenges, including a tough one that will get worse on July 1, 2011. That’s when the federal funds that have propped up California’s troubled Medi-Cal system will disappear. That is bad news for retirees, including baby boomers, who in 2011 will be ...
Commentary
Jerry’s Kids: In 2011 California will still be ruled by government employee unions
On Monday, January 3, Jerry Brown starts his second run at governing the Golden State. He inherits a host of problems, some dating back to his first run as governor. Collective bargaining for government employees has not existed in California from times immemorial. It started during Jerry Brown’s first administration ...
Commentary
Education payouts lack payoff
As the budget wars unfold, federal employees complain of being targeted as overpaid bureaucrats. A better target would be redundant and counterproductive federal agencies, which seem off-limits to the media. The New York Times poster person for the issue is Iyauta Moore, a black single mother with a master’s degree ...
Commentary
Miracle Man Wants More Money
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the $3 billion state stem cell agency, is in the news again, but not because of any miraculous cure or therapy it produced. The news is that CIRM wants more money from Californians and that calls for a look back. CIRM was created ...
Commentary
California fails at giving kids a quality high-tech education
California’s new superintendent of public instruction is Tom Torlakson, whose election locks in a status quo that short-circuits California students on high-tech delivery of educational services. Countries such as Indonesia, Mexico, Singapore, Turkey, India and China, along with the European Union, are taking full advantage of online education. California, home ...
Commentary
32-23=0
California voters rejected Proposition 23 and thereby missed their chance to delay implementation of AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. That measure is certain to worsen a state economy still in recession, with an unemployment rate of more than 12 percent. AB 32 seeks to turn back ...
Investigate CARBifornia
In early April, UCLA will decide whether to fire epidemiologist James Enstrom, a fixture in the UCLA Department of Public Health since the 1970s. If UCLA does give him the boot, Assemblyman Dan Logue has threatened to hold hearings. Whatever happens to Enstrom, legislators have good reason to investigate. Enstrom ...
The Wisconsinonsense Award
The Oscars may be over but the prize has yet to go out for the lamest statement regarding the battle between Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and government-employee unions. The competition is fierce, with filmmaker Michael Moore a leading contender. Mr. Moore sees the government-union protesters as representing “the working people ...
Analyze This: Unelected Regulatory Zealots Don’t Need More Power
California’s Legislative Analyst (LAO) is a nonpartisan body “providing fiscal and policy advice to the Legislature for more than 70 years,” according to its website. Some of its recent advice is seriously misguided, such as a proposal to expand the power of an unelected body, headed by regulatory zealots, that ...
Why Oscar snubbed ‘Superman’
“Waiting for Superman,” though hailed as “powerful” by President Barack Obama, popular with audiences and a winner at the Sundance Film Festival, failed to gain an Academy Award nomination. That should come as no surprise. The problem is not, as some contend, the filmmaking craft of director Davis Guggenheim or ...
Why Retiring Baby Boomers Will find Medi-Cal a Bust on Long-Term Care
The new administration of Jerry Brown faces many challenges, including a tough one that will get worse on July 1, 2011. That’s when the federal funds that have propped up California’s troubled Medi-Cal system will disappear. That is bad news for retirees, including baby boomers, who in 2011 will be ...
Jerry’s Kids: In 2011 California will still be ruled by government employee unions
On Monday, January 3, Jerry Brown starts his second run at governing the Golden State. He inherits a host of problems, some dating back to his first run as governor. Collective bargaining for government employees has not existed in California from times immemorial. It started during Jerry Brown’s first administration ...
Education payouts lack payoff
As the budget wars unfold, federal employees complain of being targeted as overpaid bureaucrats. A better target would be redundant and counterproductive federal agencies, which seem off-limits to the media. The New York Times poster person for the issue is Iyauta Moore, a black single mother with a master’s degree ...
Miracle Man Wants More Money
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the $3 billion state stem cell agency, is in the news again, but not because of any miraculous cure or therapy it produced. The news is that CIRM wants more money from Californians and that calls for a look back. CIRM was created ...
California fails at giving kids a quality high-tech education
California’s new superintendent of public instruction is Tom Torlakson, whose election locks in a status quo that short-circuits California students on high-tech delivery of educational services. Countries such as Indonesia, Mexico, Singapore, Turkey, India and China, along with the European Union, are taking full advantage of online education. California, home ...
32-23=0
California voters rejected Proposition 23 and thereby missed their chance to delay implementation of AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. That measure is certain to worsen a state economy still in recession, with an unemployment rate of more than 12 percent. AB 32 seeks to turn back ...
