Water
Agriculture
Enviros trade in human misery
SACRAMENTO – One of the most unusual vote-buying scams the Obama administration may have used to pass its health care socialization plan was an alleged promise to two Democratic congressmen to increase federal water supplies to the San Joaquin Valley. It’s the nation’s most fertile farm region, but a region ...
Business & Economics
Vallejo’s Painful Lessons in Municipal Bankruptcy
Two years after going broke, the California city still isn’t free of its crushing pension obligations. In 2008, Vallejo, Calif., was nearly broke. Faced with falling tax revenues, rising pension costs, and unmovable public-employee unions, the city was unable to pay its bills and declared bankruptcy. Now, as it prepares ...
Agriculture
Same Old Water Policy Won’t Get the Job Done for California
Snowpack estimates have experts predicting an average or higher amount of runoff water from the spring snowmelt in California this year. Shasta Lake, the states largest reservoir, is standing at an average fill level for this time of year, though several years of drought have taken their toll. Lake Oroville, ...
Business & Economics
The $2 Trillion Hole
Promised pensions benefits for public-sector employees represent a massive overhang that threatens the financial future of many cities and states. LIKE A CALIFORNIA WILDFIRE, populist rage burns over bloated executive compensation and unrepentant avarice on Wall Street. Deserving as these targets may or may not be, most Americans have ignored ...
Climate Change
In Denial
It is increasingly clear that the leak of the internal emails and documents of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in November has done for the climate change debate what the Pentagon Papers did for the Vietnam war debate 40 years agochanged the narrative decisively. Additional ...
Commentary
Obama wants to lower the bar at schools
Orange County Register, March 9, 2010 Despite the recent news that California wasn’t chosen by the Obama administration as a finalist state for the $4 billion Race to the Top education-funding program, with its required adherence to new national standards in English and math, the state will still be forced ...
Education
“Spirit of Central Falls” Trumps Special Interests
Last week Central Falls, Rhode Island, School Superintendent Frances Gallo fired her entire high-school teaching staff when they refused to implement essential reforms to turn around the failing school. Little did Dr. Gallo know that hers would be the pink slips shot round the world-beginning with a billboard in the ...
Business & Economics
State not exactly the well-oiled machine
SACRAMENTO A new report from the California State Auditor should throw cold water on those who believe that the best way to solve the state’s problems is by expanding government power, increasing government funding and creating new regulatory powers and agencies. The auditor has released its annual report analyzing how ...
Environment
Sense of Proportion
The Senator boasts that implementing AB 32 will create new jobs and businesses however California’s industries are struggling and unemployment sits in double digits. Pavley cites 125,000 new jobs as a result of AB 32 yet this represents an extremely small proportion of the unemployed–currently over 2.25 million, according to ...
Business & Economics
We asked, they answered
Washington should try being honest and sensible about health care legislation Will Barclay of Pulaski represents the 124th district in the New York State Assembly to which he was elected on the Republican, Conservative and Independence parties’ lines. By WILL BARCLAY Just four days after Bill Owens defeated Doug Hoffman ...
Enviros trade in human misery
SACRAMENTO – One of the most unusual vote-buying scams the Obama administration may have used to pass its health care socialization plan was an alleged promise to two Democratic congressmen to increase federal water supplies to the San Joaquin Valley. It’s the nation’s most fertile farm region, but a region ...
Vallejo’s Painful Lessons in Municipal Bankruptcy
Two years after going broke, the California city still isn’t free of its crushing pension obligations. In 2008, Vallejo, Calif., was nearly broke. Faced with falling tax revenues, rising pension costs, and unmovable public-employee unions, the city was unable to pay its bills and declared bankruptcy. Now, as it prepares ...
Same Old Water Policy Won’t Get the Job Done for California
Snowpack estimates have experts predicting an average or higher amount of runoff water from the spring snowmelt in California this year. Shasta Lake, the states largest reservoir, is standing at an average fill level for this time of year, though several years of drought have taken their toll. Lake Oroville, ...
The $2 Trillion Hole
Promised pensions benefits for public-sector employees represent a massive overhang that threatens the financial future of many cities and states. LIKE A CALIFORNIA WILDFIRE, populist rage burns over bloated executive compensation and unrepentant avarice on Wall Street. Deserving as these targets may or may not be, most Americans have ignored ...
In Denial
It is increasingly clear that the leak of the internal emails and documents of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in November has done for the climate change debate what the Pentagon Papers did for the Vietnam war debate 40 years agochanged the narrative decisively. Additional ...
Obama wants to lower the bar at schools
Orange County Register, March 9, 2010 Despite the recent news that California wasn’t chosen by the Obama administration as a finalist state for the $4 billion Race to the Top education-funding program, with its required adherence to new national standards in English and math, the state will still be forced ...
“Spirit of Central Falls” Trumps Special Interests
Last week Central Falls, Rhode Island, School Superintendent Frances Gallo fired her entire high-school teaching staff when they refused to implement essential reforms to turn around the failing school. Little did Dr. Gallo know that hers would be the pink slips shot round the world-beginning with a billboard in the ...
State not exactly the well-oiled machine
SACRAMENTO A new report from the California State Auditor should throw cold water on those who believe that the best way to solve the state’s problems is by expanding government power, increasing government funding and creating new regulatory powers and agencies. The auditor has released its annual report analyzing how ...
Sense of Proportion
The Senator boasts that implementing AB 32 will create new jobs and businesses however California’s industries are struggling and unemployment sits in double digits. Pavley cites 125,000 new jobs as a result of AB 32 yet this represents an extremely small proportion of the unemployed–currently over 2.25 million, according to ...
We asked, they answered
Washington should try being honest and sensible about health care legislation Will Barclay of Pulaski represents the 124th district in the New York State Assembly to which he was elected on the Republican, Conservative and Independence parties’ lines. By WILL BARCLAY Just four days after Bill Owens defeated Doug Hoffman ...
