Every Month It’s Something New...

One more thing about illegal aliens, and I don’t mean men from Mars

Thu, 8 Sep 2011 09:53:29 -0700

Seven states now issue licenses regardless of immigration status, and many people (read Republicans) make a big fuss about it. Issuing illegals licenses actually improves security with respect to terrorism because applicants must produce a passport or other proof of identity as well as proof of residency in the state, and in New York, the proposal has been amended to allow the undocumented to obtain a driver’s certificate that cannot be used for federal identification purposes, as in boarding airplanes.

Oilmen gush about their tax breaks

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

If “Un-American” activities were discussed in our legislature, it used to have to do with spying. Today, according to the oil companies, it would include propositions that would slow their big businesses from becoming bigger businesses.

The CEOs of the largest oil companies do not want to give up their tax breaks. As our national debt shoots past 14 trillion, we must look to many different ways to provide revenue to decrease our debt. The oil companies do not feel it is in their or our best interest to have them tighten their belts too.

John Watson, from Chevron, sees it differently. “I don’t think American people want shared sacrifice, I think they want shared prosperity” alluding to big oil’s mantra that taking away their tax credit will mean higher energy prices.

I, as an American, do not share his view. I believe Big Oil’s massive annual profits could be reduced from huge to substantial without hurting their bottom line, and provide our government coffers with some substantial needed cash.

How much profits do the five oil companies (BP America, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Shell and ConocoPhillips) make? 70 BILLION for the first half of 2011. Eliminating just some of their tax breaks could raise 2 BILLION a year from them. I think this is a great way to reduce debt. I’ll bet students, who have seen their financial aid cut, and seniors in need will agree with me.

Actually, who, apart from the oilmen, WOULDN’T agree?

“The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?” Pablo Casals

Mon, 4 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

I understand the frustration of Californians with the issue of illegal immigration, and the flood of Spanish speaking immigrants living here. I think the best way to learn a foreign language is to try and speak it every day. I think we should teach the children of immigrants English in our schools and not publish local and state government documents in foreign languages. I do not wish to push “2” to speak to someone on the phone so that I may converse in English either.

When we changed our crosswalk signs from the words WALK and DON’T WALK to a little green walking person and a red hand, costing the state tens of millions of dollars, I thought it incredible that pedestrian foreigners wouldn’t learn two important words in English and thereby protect themselves from getting run over in the street.

Our borders with Mexico run alongside of California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. Our borders with Canada run alongside Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, but nobody seems too worried about Canadians flooding in from above.

To secure our 850 mile border (with Mexico) the Bush administration approved a plan to build a fence. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimated a double-layer fence would cost a little over $1 million a mile, not including buying the land on which it would be built. In addition, maintenance would run from to $70 million a mile over 25 years, the Corps said.

The Homeland Security Department contracted with Boeing for the Secure Border Initiative, consisting of a "virtual fence" of cameras, surveillance technology and new procedures for border agents. A recent audit report said that project could cost up to $30 billion, and so the program was mothballed by the Obama administration.

I don’t think erecting a fence will ever be effective. I think we should encourage our state and federal governments to work with the Mexican government on plans to ameliorate the poverty that drives their poor into California and other border states, through importing and exporting incentives and the establishment of manufacturing sites in Mexico led by American corporations (which is happening a bit). This is just one idea, of many, to work with our southern neighbor.

California Redistricting

Wed, 8 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

A voter-created panel of citizens, rather than the Legislature, drew the boundaries for new districts to reflect California’s population changes. There are no Republican or Democratic districts, and there were actually none to begin with, but over time, “gerrymandering,” the art of creating districts that would weigh heavily toward voting for one political party, became a part of district design. No longer!

Republican commissioner Vincent Barrabba, a former director of the U.S. Census Bureau said the newly designed districts are fair, but California Republican State Party Chair Tom Del Becarro said a referendum will be filed against both the Senate and Congressional district’s new maps as Republicans worked for years to gerrymander districts to be effective tools for their own party’s elected officials, and hate to see it end.

They will have to hit the streets and collect 500,000 signatures and spend $2,000,000 in the hopes of overturning the hard work of the commission, of which, half the members were Republicans. Of course, our own Senator Tony Strickland is all for spending the money to attempt to reverse the conscientious efforts of the redistricting committee. And apparently has pledged to throw his own campaign warchest dollars behind it too.

No matter how or where the lines are drawn, Republicans are at a continuing and increasing disadvantage because they are at an all-time historical low – 30.9 percent of California’s voting electorate -consistently take hard-right positions that are at odds with a majority of voters.

California: Bloated or Lean?

Fri, 20 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Bloat -It depicts fat, lazy, pencil pushing bureaucrats, and the Republicans will tell you this is where our troubles lie.

Who are those State employees and what do they do?
More than 37% of California’s public employees work in K-12 public education, and the ratio of K-12 employees per resident (182 per 10,000 residents) is the fifth-lowest in the country. Texas is the fifth highest. Although almost all of California schoolteachers are technically employed by local school district, two thirds of district funds come out of the state budget.

Proposition 13, isn’t this a good thing as it keeps property taxes low?
If you are in your thirties or younger, Proposition 13 was implemented before you were born, so you don’t have a basis of understanding of how things changed. It slashed local property taxes, which were set on the basis of the cost of a home each time is was sold/purchased. To make up for the loss in local revenue, our state government stepped in and became the principal funding source for local schools and assumed a major role in financing counties.

Taxes too high?

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Actually, as a share of the nation’s economy, Uncle Sam’s take this year will be the lowest since 1950. And for the third straight year, American families and business will pay less in federal taxes than they did under former president George W. Bush. Income taxes this year are 13% lower than they were in 2008. Corporate taxes are lower by a third.

As much as Americans and their politicians gripe about taxes, the U.S. Tax burden at about 25% is one of the lowest in the developed world.
Canadians 31%
Brits 34%
Germans 37%
French 42%
Swedes 46%
Danes 48%

ONLY TURKEY, CHILE AND MEXICO HAVE LOWER TAXES THAN THOSE OF US IN THE UNITED STATES!

Western Europeans demand and expect a high level of government services and social benefits – free health care, cut-rate child care, free higher education, generous government funded pensions, heavily subsidized public transportation and are generally uncomplaining about paying for it. (OP ED 4/12/11 The Ventura County STAR)

U.S. families and individuals provide 36% of all tax revenue and businesses supply 12% (OECD).

Western European countries to generate revenue have the value-added tax, a consumption tax. It is imposed on the value added at each stage of manufacturing or distribution. The final purchaser ultimately pays the VAT. The U.S. is the only major county without a VAT.

This creates LACK OF REVENUE. Our government borrows forty cents for every dollar it spends.

Why I love Obamacare

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

1. No child can be denied insurance coverage because of a pre-existing condition.
2. Coverage can no longer be canceled when a policyholder gets sick.
3. Insurance companies can no longer impose annual limits on payments for care.
4. Adult children can remain on their parent’s policies until they turn twenty-six.
5. Policyholders cannot be charged extra for seeking urgent care at an emergency room that is not in the insurance company’s approved network of providers.
6. The requirement that insurance companies spend a certain percentage of the premiums they collect on actual care.
7. A discount on prescription drugs for some seniors covered by Medicare.
8. Free screening for cancer and other diseases.
9. Well-woman visits, prenatal care, HPV testing, HIV screening, breast feeding support, supplies and counseling.

Don’t let the Republicans tell you it all involves too much paperwork! And shame on anyone who complains about free birth control pills for all women. Unintended pregnancies carry health consequences for the mother – psychological, emotional and physical, as well as consequences for the newborn.

It is not about condoning sex, it is about population control, and having women make choices about the number of children, if any, they wish to produce. If you want to complain about condoning sex then stop the subsidized handouts of Viagra for men.

All of these initiatives in OBAMACARE are good things. These are important things. These are necessary in today’s society.

Facebook and Twitter giving you the short end of the stick

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

I am so frustrated with the average Joe who blogs, tweets or Facebooks his or her views and opinions, and acts as if they are just as valuable as those of media professionals who have gone to college, studied civics, and trained as writers, and producers. Newspapers are losing revenue, and people are not taking the time to read respected, qualified commentary. What you get from qualified news sources is research and analysis, with a lot of fact-checking thrown in.

This form of communication is not one that is likely to convey, let alone work out, ideas, great or not. “FaceBook billboards our personal blathering, the effluvium of our lives, and they wind up not expanding the world but shrinking it to our own dimensions,” muses Neal Gabler, in the LA TIMES OP ED section. “You could call this a metaphor for modern life, increasingly narcissistic and trivial, except that the sites and posts ARE modern life for hundreds of millions of people. Empty communications drive out significant ones. Zuckerberg is the anti-Gutenberg. He has facilitated a typography in which complexity is all but impossible and meaninglessness reigns supreme. Gutenberg’s Revolution left us with a world that was intellectually rich. Zuckerberg portends one that is all thumbs and no brains.”

Don’t just think. Think harder. Think more often, and for longer periods of time. Don’t rely on Facebook or Twitter for real, qualified information. DO YOUR HOMEWORK. We should all spend the same amount of time researching data that we do scrolling through our “friends” and “friends of friends” chatter.

Save the Beezzzzzzzzzzzzz

Wed, 5 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Overloaded with parasites, viruses, bacteria and pesticides, the bees are abandoning their hives and flying off to die. Three out of five pollen and wax samples from 23 states had at least one systemic pesticide – a chemical designed to spread throughout all parts of a plant.. One study found 121 different types of pesticides within 887 wax, pollen, bee and hive samples.

One of the most serious and important public health and environment debates today centers on how we fully protect people, wildlife, and the environment from pesticides and reduce our family, community and national reliance on hazardous materials. This debate takes center stage as people face increasing rates of cancer, neurological disease, and reproductive and immune system damage, not to mention the loss of bees.

A pesticide may be defined as a chemical used to eradicate pests, a term which includes unwanted plants, such as weeds; insects, such as ants; or animals, such as mice. Chemicals designed for use against plants or insects are widely used in agriculture and their use is generally termed crop protection.

Chemicals that are used as pesticides are generally toxic to various species, including man. They often exhibit both short term, or acute toxicity, or long-term, chronic toxicity and because of this their use is regulated buy the U.S. government. All pesticide chemicals are assigned food crop tolerances which are promulgated under section 408 of the food, Drug and Cosmetic Act administered by the EPA.

Researchers have identified pesticides that disrupt the hormonal balance of humans and animals. Dubbed “endocrine disrupting chemicals” (EDC’s) they include large chemical families such as the 209 polychlorinated biphenyls, the 75 dioxins and the 135 furans. Included In the list of endocrine disruptors is atrazine, the most heavily used pesticide in U.S. agriculture.

Do not think that because you do not live adjacent to crops treated with toxic chemical that you are not exposed to them. According to the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides (NCAMP), in our country over 2 billion pounds of pesticides (in 21,000 different products) invade our lives every year through the air we breathe, the food we eat and the water we drink.

Every day that pesticides are used, we allow the poisoning of our children and families. Sometimes the effects are vivid and dramatic, as captured by studies linking elevated rates of childhood leukemia and brain cancer to pesticide use (home and agriculture). Or the effects may be subtle and take the form of learning disabilities or problems with physiological development.

Most farmers that use fumigants believe there is no alternative to fumigation. I believe the transition to less harmful products or organic farming will take time, research, and commitment, but there has been little incentive from our government to find alternatives as the agricultural commission is funded by the sale of pesticides. Chemical spraying is a program paid by tax dollars and conducted by public agencies.

We can all be a part of the dialogue and process to create an informed citizenry and work to establish safer agricultural programs near our home and schools. We can also be aware of the value of the mitigated affect of organic farming, and of the foods we prepare for our families and ourselves.

DON’T PANIC: Thanks to Republicans we can still use plastic bags

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Each year in the US about 100 billion plastic bags are distributed by retail checkout counters. It takes about 35 million barrels of oil to produce them. Only 1% ever get recycled, but Republican lawmakers assailed the bill to stop the use of plastic grocery bags as an unnecessary regulation that will increase costs to consumers (as they will have to buy and bring their own bags to the store).

Even the conservative California Chamber of Commerce and the California taxpayers Association dropped their opposition, understanding consumers use plastic bags on average for 12 minutes before disposing of them. Those bags linger in the environment for decades. Plastic does not biodegrade, it photodegrades, breaking into increasingly smaller bits, contaminating the soil and waterways, and ultimately and fatally damaging the food web when ingested by animals.

Supporters believed recycling activities, which have generated 125,000 jobs in CA over the past two decades, would have been enhanced by the requirement for paper bags made from recycled stock. Local governments could have reduced the $25 million they spend each year cleaning litter from riverbeds and beaches. San Francisco, that has successfully implemented a ban, says the consumer fears of potential charges never materialized.

Not that paper bags are much better. The manufacture of paper bags produces more air emissions than manufacturing plastic. What we need to use are our own bags that we wash and reuse. Maui customers at checkout don’t hear “Paper or Plastic” They choose between biodegradable corn and reusable canvas, and no one is complaining.