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NOTHING is going to happen in California. Their budget is a joke. They have a double digit sales tax rate and the biggest deficit out of every state

Perhaps you should come up to date on California's budget situation. Even if California had the biggest deficit in the past, California has the largest economy of any state, by a wide margin, making everything relating to finances bigger in California than any other state.

California doesn't even have the highest sales tax rate.

Part of the problem is that some cities put their homeless people on a bus to other cities with generous programs for homeless people. I don't know how many people are bused in like this, but it definitely increases the number of the most problematic homeless people (sick, severely mentally ill, etc) in cities like SF, because these will be the first people that the other cities will want to get rid of.

Despite which, Utah is one of the greener western states -- even in its desert ag areas. Methinks when you actually manage your water, you also get more use of it. And contrary to city-slicker belief, there is no one more conservation-conscious than farmers; it's their very livelihood.

And on your list of cities, don't forget that California diverts a great deal of water to its major metros, with scant regard for what becomes of agriculture. I guess city folks don't need to eat.

I rant about that somewhere above, but here's an example:
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/01/...

Let me fix that for him:

"I expect when we run out this next decade, everyone will be very angry over the decisions we made to plant water-intensive cities in a very arid land for so many years".

I suspect the water diverted and used by Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix considerably exceeds the water used by all western agriculture combined. (And remember, ag use tends to return water to the soil. City use tends to flush it into the ocean rather more directly.)

A very good example is the Owens Valley. Old-timers have told me it used to be rich in water and lush with crops and livestock. Then Los Angeles took its water, and the Owens Valley became a desert dustbowl. (There are still a few isolated oases, where some spot doesn't drain to the Owens River.)

http://www.sacbee.com/2014/01/...

There already is a teacher shortage across the country.

Not true at all. Most job openings for teachers attract hundreds of qualified applicants for a single position. A local job fair for teachers attracted 700 people, with a line snaking around the block. You can Google for many other examples. Teachers in California make over $70k on average, get off at 4pm, get three months of vacation, and have gold-plated medical and retirement plans. Why would there be a shortage?

(I thought this reply got posted, but it hasn't appeared after 15 minutes.)

The Kleargear.com address at 2885 Sanford Ave. SW in Grandville MI is really a mail forwarding/disguised address popular with companies doing horrible things to people, and is run by a company called Mailbox Forwarding, Inc.: The mail-forwarding service is not unfamiliar to the BBB. “Over the years, we’ve had many issues with businesses that use that address”

Here's another address for them, thanks to this press release through United Business Media's PRNewswire. If they try to retract it, here's a copy at The Sacramento Bee:

Christophe Monette, CEO of Kleargear parent Descoteaux Boutiques, has been pleasantly surprised...

Margaux Banet
2885 Sanford Ave SW #19886
Grandville, MI 49418
United States

Descoteaux Boutiques
ZAC Paris Rive Gauche
118-122 Avenue de France
75013 Paris
France

And this press release also says "Kleargear is donating 2% of net sales between November 17th and December 17th to The American Red Cross in support of our friends and neighbors affected by Sunday's devastating tornado outbreak across the Midwest." Who wants to bet any of their money gets to anyone who's ever seen a tornado? Best to check on the legitimacy of these charity solicitations of course. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has been making charity fraudsters one of this pet projects lately: See "A Michigan Crackdown On Charity Fraud". I'll bet Schuette's office would be more than happy to hear about any problems from companies that happen to officially give their state of residence as Michigan and claim to help Michigan tornado victims. The Michigan Attorney General has a specific phone number for Questions About Charities.

Of course, maybe the French address is fake too. They're a bit pickier about that in France though, I think. Anyone have the contact info for the corporation regulators or charity regulators in Paris?

Also: The BBB gave Kleargear.com an F rating, before Kleargear.com inserted this ruin-your-customers-lives clause in their terms and then faked the A+ rating on their website. For those of you who can't see popups on the BBB site: As of November 28, 2012, the BBB became aware that the company's website is displaying a BBB Accredited Business logo and BBB Rating A+; however, the company is not a BBB accredited business and the BBB rating is not A+. The BBB contacted the company regarding these issues and this matter is pending the company's response. As of November 28, 2012, the BBB discovered that some pages of the company's website display the BBB Accredited Business Logo and state "BBB Rating A+", when neither is true. The BBB contacted the company at the Michigan mail drop address instructing the company to immediately remove the incorrect BBB logo and reference from their site. This matter is currently pending.

The Kleargear.com address at 2885 Sanford Ave. SW in Grandville MI is really a mail forwarding/disguised address popular with companies doing horrible things to people, and is run by a company called Mailbox Forwarding, Inc.: The mail-forwarding service is not unfamiliar to the BBB. “Over the years, we’ve had many issues with businesses that use that address”

Here's another address for them, thanks to this press release through United Business Media's PRNewswire. If they try to retract it, here's a copy at The Sacramento Bee:

Christophe Monette, CEO of Kleargear parent Descoteaux Boutiques, has been pleasantly surprised...

Margaux Banet
2885 Sanford Ave SW #19886
Grandville, MI 49418
United States

Descoteaux Boutiques
ZAC Paris Rive Gauche
118-122 Avenue de France
75013 Paris
France

And this press release also says "Kleargear is donating 2% of net sales between November 17th and December 17th to The American Red Cross in support of our friends and neighbors affected by Sunday's devastating tornado outbreak across the Midwest." Who wants to bet any of their money gets to anyone who's ever seen a tornado? Best to check on the legitimacy of these charity solicitations of course. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette has been making charity fraudsters one of this pet projects lately: See "A Michigan Crackdown On Charity Fraud". I'll bet Schuette's office would be more than happy to hear about any problems from companies that happen to officially give their state of residence as Michigan and claim to help Michigan tornado victims. The Michigan Attorney General has a specific phone number for Questions About Charities.

Of course, maybe the French address is fake too. They're a bit pickier about that in France though, I think. Anyone have the contact info for the corporation regulators or charity regulators in Paris?

Also: The BBB gave Kleargear.com an F rating, before Kleargear.com inserted this ruin-your-customers-lives clause in their terms and then faked the A+ rating on their website. For those of you who can't see popups on the BBB site: As of November 28, 2012, the BBB became aware that the company's website is displaying a BBB Accredited Business logo and BBB Rating A+; however, the company is not a BBB accredited business and the BBB rating is not A+. The BBB contacted the company regarding these issues and this matter is pending the company's response. As of November 28, 2012, the BBB discovered that some pages of the company's website display the BBB Accredited Business Logo and state "BBB Rating A+", when neither is true. The BBB contacted the company at the Michigan mail drop address instructing the company to immediately remove the incorrect BBB logo and reference from their site. This matter is currently pending.

1. land that is used to grow corn for ethanol is necessarily not used to grow other types of food for people and livestock.

It isn't just that other food can't be grown on farmland, unused land perviously set aside for conservation is being tilled to plant corn, which releases stored CO2 from the soil. Massive amounts of additional fertilizer are being applied -- fertilizer is made from natural gas. This fertilizer is increasing the size of the Gulf Dead Zone.

source: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/11/11/5902607/the-secret-dirty-cost-of-obamas.html

Corn is not sugar cane. Brazil can get away with ethanol because sugar cane is 6x more productive than corn: favorable corn estimates have an energy return about 1.3x energy expended while cane returns about 8x energy expended. If we were to have a rational ethanol policy, we'd make friends with Cuba and buy rum for our cars.

They're poised to be number 8 actually but that's not as impressive as you think it is. California has 12.1% of the US's population and they have something like 12.8% of the GDP.

I'm guess that the wealth created by the crazy real estate there might cover the higher than average difference. Finally, if you consider government debt (current and future) it doesn't look so good.

..just move the voting to sundays, like every other sensible western nation does it.

Some sensible nations do it on Saturdays!

Anyway there is a movement to try and change this in the US: Why Tuesday?

Also there are things like this: Bill would let Californians vote on Saturday

Looks like the little Nifong wannabe who fired him is looking at a trial of her own for lying to get a warrant.

-jcr

Unfortunately, most public schools pay the absolute minimum they can get away with.

My son's public school pays teachers an average of $79,787. Last year a teacher retired, and they received over 400 qualified applications before they even advertized the job vacancy. Local charter schools, which can pay market rates, have average teacher salaries below $50k, yet achieve slightly better results.

If you live in California, you can see how much your school district pays by clicking this link.

Solar panels are close to 40% efficient? As in, I can buy one of those now? Tell that to Sun Power that just released a panel with "World Record Breaking" efficiency of 21.5%.

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/03/5312696/sunpower-launches-x-series-family.html

Well we all know that Democratic Party members are pro-pedophile since they openly crushed a bill to punish pedophiles that happen to be teachers, feeding children sperm.

CA Democratic lawmakers kill teacher discipline bill union opposed

Out here in California the public schools are ranked between 48-50th in the nation. They suck despite receiving over 50% of the state budget every year. Yes, that's right. California is a large state that takes in vast amounts of tax revenue every year, at least 50% of which goes to schools, and yet our public K-12 education system is among the worst in the nation. Yes indeed, we sure are getting a good value for our tax money here. I'd rather have the money in my pocket and send my kids to private school, thanks.

This statement seemed like bullshit, so I did some digging:

The latest Quality Counts report from Education Week ranks California 47th overall in how much it spends per student.
Here's a nice map that shows K-12 spending per student for FY2010.

So it seems your per-student spending is right in line with your ranking...

Further, from the CA Dept of Finance:
All Education As a Percentage of General Fund Expenditures, 2012-13: 51.7% (PDF)
All Education as a percentage of total funding, 2012-13: 27.7% (PDF)

So your cited figure is a bit disingenuous, being that it ignores roughly 60% of the state's actual funding.

Step 0: Control media outlets and discredit all that are not under your power, Propaganda!!!
Why is this step 0? Because with the media intact and doing what it is required by society, none of the other crap would have happened, however the buck stops with the people, if the people aren't going to do anything about it then they get what they get.

Step 1: Create a crisis or allow one to happen.

"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."
-Rahm Emanuel

Create an enemy that will never go away (terrorist) and wage a war that will never end (terrorism) and define the enemy as "those without any rights" and can be held indefinitely (National Defense Authorization Act)

Step 2: Promise to protect the populace from said crisis/enemy by any means necessary, begin by restricting rights in the name of security.

Step 3: Implement a massive trillion dollar (data from The Economist) surveillance network HLS, TSA, NSA, DIA OMG, WTF, BBQ ), record all calls, maintain facial recognition database (thank you Facebook) fill the air with drones and the ground with cameras.
Monitor for dissent. (see: fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy below)

Step 4: Dis arm populace (http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/assault-weapons)

Step 5: Tighten grip further via martial law or other "required security protocols", rename political protest groups as "terrorist" deregulate corporations, dismantle workers rights, remove environmental protections, and finally ammo up. (Department Of Homeland Security Is Buying 450 Million New Bullets)

Anyone not complying or protesting is a terrorist. (see step 1)

http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2011/09/costs-homeland-security

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2012

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/12/fbi-treated-occupy-terrorist-group/60289/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-03-28/news/31247765_1_atk-rounds-bullet

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/27/5079151/california-gun-sales-increase.html

"Globally, five countries this year set heat records, but none set cold records."

"Jim River, AK closed in on the all time record coldest temperature of -80ÂF set in 1971, which is not only the Alaska all-time record, but the record for the entire United States. Unfortunately, it seems the battery died in the weather station just at the critical moment."
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/30/bitter-cold-records-broken-in-alaska-all-time-coldest-record-nearly-broken-but-murphys-law-intervenes/

LOS ANGELES -- Southern Californians awoke Thursday to record cold with sub-freezing temperatures in the mountains and deserts, but forecasters said a slight warming trend was on the way.
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/20/5066818/s-calif-winds-ease-as-cold-temps.html

Winter cold record broken in Kuusamo
http://yle.fi/uutiset/winter_cold_record_broken_in_kuusamo/6424159 ...

Right, because without tasers, no one has ever been killed or injured while resisting arrest.

I'll ask again - would you rather be tased (unpleasant, but no lasting damage in the overwhelming majority of people) or be restrained by force (unpleasant, also commonly end up with cracked ribs, dislocated shoulders/fingers, concussions, broken limbs, other bruises and other contusions) as a result of resisting your arrest?

Stop pretending like these people are standing around doing nothing when cops walk up and taser them out of the blue for shits and grins. They're being arrested, and they're resisting the arrest. At that point, the cops have two choices: tase the person, or pepper spray them, slam them to the ground, wrestle them into handcuffs, and hope they're not severely injuring or killing the person in the process. Neither way is gentle, or 100% guaranteed safe. You don't want to be tased? Don't get arrested; if you DO get arrested, comply immediately with the officer's instructions - the time to argue "wrongful arrest" or any other bullshit is IN FRONT OF A JUDGE, not on the roadside, or in the middle of a crowd of 50 other people.

Indeed: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/01/30/3362727/death-by-gps-in-desert.html

Some tragic stories here from Death Valley, one of the most hostile places on Earth:

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/01/30/3362727/death-by-gps-in-desert.html

The only manufacturer who seems to take this seriously is Tom Tom:

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/01/30/3362727/death-by-gps-in-desert.html

It's hard to prove beyond the one obvious case in 1969 from which the name is derived, and it led to the firing of the person responsible, so it's questionable to what degree anyone actually does this.

Guess you missed this in the news this year:

"The California Department of Parks and Recreation has been hit by scandal this summer. It began with news in July, first reported by The Sacramento Bee, of an unauthorized vacation buyout program offered to employees at agency headquarters, which resulted in payouts of more than $271,000. A week later, state officials revealed that the department had been sitting on $54 million in surplus money in two special funds, even as it moved to close 70 state parks because of supposed funding shortfalls. The long-serving department director, Ruth Coleman, resigned on July 19, and her chief deputy was fired. Numerous other employees have been demoted, and an attorney general's investigation is under way."

http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/

California State salary database, in searchable form.

I'm not terribly interested in digging through it to see what all it does, but I did recall it exists. Mayhaps the information you are interested can be determined with it (whether that's easy or difficult, I could not say).

where are you that teachers make $80K? That does not jive with national salary rates.

In my school district (Santa Clara, California) elementary school teachers make an average of $78k. Many make more than $80k. If you live in California, you can use this site to see what teachers in your district are paid.

But for us non-Americans (never mind non-Californians) what is the average salary for other jobs compared to teachers?

In Santa Clara, what is the average salary for a cop, bank manager, hairdresser or plumber?

where are you that teachers make $80K? That does not jive with national salary rates.

In my school district (Santa Clara, California) elementary school teachers make an average of $78k. Many make more than $80k. If you live in California, you can use this site to see what teachers in your district are paid.

Hey, if serial killers can get groupies and girlfriends, anyone can.

"I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL."

Does sound kinda romantic, doesn't it? But now my whole lifestyle is under attack

You know that's all public record, right? Why don't you request those balance sheets and publish it in the newspaper if it's true? The answer is because it's not, the unions are funded by union dues paid by the teachers ... of course, you don't know what's really going on or how really poor most schools and teachers are, you're just regurgitating talking points against unions that Glenn Beck or someone fed you.

OK, I call bullshit. See this for one example of Los Angeles school distract salaries. Considering the average education levels, local cost of living, and the schedule I would say that these salaries are high on average. On top of that the unions consistently keep bad teachers in the classroom.

So why would the unions be cheerleading for it? Just because they like to travel by train?

"""
Whether eroding public support will sway the Legislature is unclear. Brown, the Obama administration, labor unions and Democratic leaders, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi, are ramping up pressure on key state senators to cast aside doubts and commit funding this summer for an initial 130-mile section of track.
"""

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/06/02/4533938/public-opinion-wanes-on-california.html#storylink=cpy

Really? "Death penalty for child porn" is a very common reaction when someone is busted for it. Look at any discussion thread in any news site that reports someone even accused of a child porn crime, even without conviction, even if not producing the porn (and so directly exploiting a child). I searched for "child pornography" discussion in Google news, and one of the first results that had comments called for "ball peen justice", which is death for child pornography. Possession, not production. It's very common.

This is a great idea, but may be difficult to put into practice. Here in California, then-gov. Schwarzenegger tried to do essentially what you're describing with the Free Digital Textbook Initiative. I was involved in that as an author. AFAICT, the FDTI was a complete failure. State senator Darrell Steinberg is trying to do something similar, but I don't know if it will work any better this time around: [1], [2]. I think there are a number of fundamental problems. One is that textbook selection in K-12 education in the US tends to be extremely bureaucratic and top-down, and it's virtually impossible to change that overnight, as Schwarzenegger tried to do. It's completely different from higher education, where the assumption is that professors can choose whatever text they like as a matter of academic freedom. My experience is with writing free physics textbooks. They're written for college students, but have also been adopted by a bunch of high schools. However, almost all of the high school adoptions have been from private schools, mainly Catholic schools.

There is also a huge financial incentive for the non-free textbook publishers to maintain their positions in the market. The really enthusiastic supporters were hardware manufacturers. For them it looked like a huge opportunity, because they thought they could sell a ton of computers to schools in order to give students access to the electronic books.

Guess that's why more are retiring with 6 figure salaries, six-figure pensions soar for California school administrators.

Obviously none of you live in a utilities zone controlled by Southern California Edison or SDG&E. See, these government controlled monopolies continue to change the rules so that selling back energy is at a significant loss to the solar home owner.

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/13/4048786/home-solar-owners-deserve-a-fair.html

...or read this joke about how really screwed consumers are because the government owned monopolies in California need to continue to make 850% profit margins to finance utopia:

http://energycenter.org/index.php/incentive-programs/california-solar-initiative/faqs-about-solar

But I guess we should just feel privileged to exist now that the government owned virtual monopolies of Freddie and Fannie have turned everyone's home values upside-down for the next two decades.

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/08/4108979/red-cross-gamers-safe-from-war.html

TLDR version - you're idiots for falling for this

Since when is Roy Blunt not conservative?

Or do you just make things up to support your political agenda? Not surprising.

According to this article, the full list of senators who introduced the bill is: Enzi (R-WY), Durbin (D-IL), Alexander (R-TN), Tim Johnson (D-SD), Boozman (R-AR), Reed (D-RI), Blunt (R-MO), Whitehouse (D-RI), Corker (R-TN), and Pryor (R-AR). Six Republicans and four Democrats.

According to this article it was ten senators—six Republicans and four Democrats.

Note: That report was from 2002, and things have gotten much worse since then. Here's a more current story from the last week: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/26/4008283/college-prices-up-again-as-states.html

Another major factor is that -- even though faculty and facilities costs have not appreciably gone up -- the number and cost of non-teaching administrators have dramatically bloated (as part of the corporate-management takeover of universities in the last few decades). Today there are more administrators than teachers in colleges, which was not the case in the past. Article on that in the last month: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2011/features/administrators_ate_my_tuition031641.php

Thanks for asking. The sac bee is my source for this info. I have yet to see the text of the deal. http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/09/amazon-agrees-to-begin-collect.html I guess all those Californians who signed the petition to "stop the internet sales tax" are on their own now.

The Vietnam War was about stopping the spread of Communism in SE Asia by supporting the non-Communist government of the Republic of Vietnam.

By spring 1973 the US, South Vietnam and North Vietnam signed a peace treaty, by spring of 1975 the peace was broken and North Vietnam rolled into the south.

Communism did spread into Laos and for a little while into Cambodia before that all fell apart and unified Vietnam invaded them. But Communism didn't take hold in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia or the Philippines like people had feared it would.

So really, in the short term the US loses (Vietnam united, Laos and Cambodia go Communist), but in the long run its a draw or US victory (Vietnam turning towards more open markets, Cambodia no longer Khmer Rouge). Now the US and Vietnam have annual defense talks and Vietnam is even considering allowing the US to base ships at Cam Ranh Bay again. Last year the US cruiser Hue City (named for a major battle in the Vietnam War) visited Vietnam and is captained by a South Vietnamese refuge.

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/06/18/3711167/vietnamese-protest-china-amid.html

War often fixes things. Since WW2 there have been no massacres of Jews in Europe, no more Pogroms. The American Indian Wars ended tribal or tribal warfare, American Indian on white (Sioux uprising) and white on Indian attacks (Sand Creek). The American Civil War ended slavery in the United States and the defeat of the French occupation of Mexico, in the 1860s, ended European meddling in Central and South America.

but at least people are starting to realize it: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/06/09/3687455/jerry-brown-confiscates-more-than.html

Or they could rein in their budget.

They are, but it's a big deficit and cutting alone is in my opinion not the best option. For one thing, in budget negotiations, it isn't just the crap that gets cut, what gets cut is the most politically expendable. Closing tax loopholes on businesses is, in my opinion, preferable to cutting dropout recovery programs, women's shelters, and scholarships.

Isnt this the state that recently just spent $100 million on a new school, and wants to outfit all their students with ipads?

You tell me. I googled about the ipad thing and only came up with one private school arming all their students with ipads. That's not the California budget, if private institutions want to waste their own money, that's their money. I wouldn't put it past some idiotic individuals proposing that, but the legislature proposing -any- spending increase on education, let alone an ungodly amount as that, I would need to see in writing.

And 100 million for a school? Shocking! Trivial when you consider that the state deficit is 27 Billion, and I wonder how much of that 100 million came out of the state's coffers, but still, shocking!

And now theres supposed to be some kind of sympathy because theyre (still) running out of money?

They're not asking for sympathy, they're asking for the money they're supposed to be getting.

I don't think disinfectants do a very good job. Not to mention bacteria build up resistances to disinfectants and become more dangerous. Tossing them into a super heated furnace sounds like it would be much more difficult for them to adapt.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/03/04/hospital-bacteria-strain-killing-patients/

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/05/29/3661803/deadly-bacteria-lurk-inside-hospital.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/08/10/us-bacteria-hospital-idUSTRE5795AN20090810

And by hundreds I'm assuming that you mean hundreds of thousands.

Better RTFA

"Because of contract obligations, it is possible that we may not be able eliminate all 48,000 cell phones by June 1, but it is also conceivable that we can do it earlier - and that is my hope," Brown said.

Read more: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2011/01/brown-orders-48000-state-cell.html#ixzz1AqiqNlBM

Well, not necessarily... but considering what IBM has done to the states of Indiana, Texas and California, do you really want to trust Snake Oil Sam with the whole federal government?

Southwest, which has a reputation for stellar customer service

Do they? Last I checked, they hate people and they do not enjoy making money. First, there was the Kevin Smith incident, and more recently, there was an incident where a skinny woman was kicked off a plane so a fat person could have two seats. In what world is this "stellar" customer service?

Many states already pay more into the Federal System than they get out of it, because they have cities that have and use and subsidize mass transportation. Otherwise, Louisiana and the Dakotas and Alaska and Mississippi wouldn't have enough money to pay for the bridges that were built by Federal tax dollars.

Arguments blindly comparing Federal taxes paid by a state to Federal dollars dispersed to a state are usually made by people who have no understanding of basic economics using flawed logic. The two most common logical errors are 1) assuming that infrastructure paid for in whole or in part by Federal disbursements would not have been built without the Federal disbursements 2) ignoring the economic growth made possible by the flow of tax dollars through a politically well-connected state and the retardation of the economy of a poorly connected state caused by the Federal government extracting capital from that state. If 2) is hard for you to grasp, let me make this offer: give $10,000 today and I will pay you back more than $10,000 a year from now.

The only difference here is that you think ...

You should put your mind reading skills to good use by developing a a Vegas nightclub act.

( wikipedia quote included by copponex for no discernable reason )

When the Soviet Union collapsed, there was a period when the files of the KGB were thrown open for examination. Among the many people who looked through the files were researchers who published some their findings in an article in the Sacramento Bee newspaper. They had discovered that the KGB was the primary impetus behind the anti-nuke movement in the US. They also found that the KGB was controlling the SDS and pulling a bunch of strings on the anti-war movement of the 60s. Needless to say, these revelations were pretty embarrassing to the fools in the 60s who got played.

And yet that bullshit has no citation. Why am I not surprised.

I would imagine you are not surprised because you didn't think before you made your post. The Sacramento Bee article was published back in the early 90s IIRC. The Bee does have a pay-to-see archive on its website ( Sacramento Bee Archive ) that lets one search for some content for free, but judging from the website description, it looks like one would have to search through the microfilm at one of a number of libraries in CA in order to find a copy of the article that I am talking about.

30 years later and solar power is still not a viable option for large scale power production even with all the "more enlightened" countries of Europe working on it. That should tell you something.

Protip: No one's credibility is ever enhanced by quoting Jimmy Carter.

Didn't you just say that nuclear was fought and as a result it wasn't properly developed?

In your original post, you suggested that advocating the development of domestic oil reserves in the US was somehow nothing but empty rhetoric. I have merely pointed out that environmental activists, while slowing or preventing the development of every realistic method of energy production in the US, simultaneously advocate producing energy with technologies that are not yet mature enough to use. Your quote of Jimmy Carter is in line with the old joke that Liberals think that if Congress passes a law outlawing gravity, then everyone will immediately start floating in the air. A great deal of time, money and effort has already been sunk into developing so-called alternative energy sources by both the US and other advanced industrial nations. None of the alternatives are economically competitive unless you count nuclear power which, as I have mentioned, has been killed by the very people who demand that the use of oil and gas to generate power be curtailed.

The rail authority assumes that between 88 million and 117 million people will ride the trains each year. To put that in perspective, consider that the entire annual ridership of the Amtrak system, which includes 21,000 miles of routes and more than 500 destinations in 46 states, is less than 29 million. Amtrak's high-speed Acela Express service, which runs from Washington, D.C., to New York City to Boston, serves a larger and denser market than the planned California system and only commands a ridership of a little more than 3 million passengers a year.

http://reason.org/news/show/california-voters-were-railroa

Okay, okay, that's the Reason Foundation talking, and we know they're a bunch of libertarian loonies. But what about someone more sympathetic?

Even the pro-high-speed-rail California Rail Foundation found the project lacking, with its representative telling senators, "We can't believe any of the numbers presented in the business plan."

http://www.sacbee.com/politics/story/2484870.html

Our per prisoner cost is astronomical due to the prison employee unions who seem to have stolen CIA mind control tech or something. Or they just buy outTheir pensions are ridiculous and the envy of the private sector suckers who pay for it all.

And stop with the Prop 13 blame. It's BS. Jebus, even many progressive politicians here don't trot that one out anymore. Go back and look at what led up to Prop 13. It didn't form out of a vacuum. People were having to get *loans* to pay their property taxes. It is INSANE to tax people on unrealized gains!

California pulls in PLENTY of revenue, and income tax revenues have risen 800% in the past three decades.

http://www.sacbee.com/walters/story/2002341.html

There's plenty of money. It's just being squandered and mismanaged, despite the gobernator's good intentions.

http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/photos/2009/11/black-friday.html