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Muslims advocates gathered at the California state capitol. Photo courtesy of the Council on American-Islamic Relations CA. Sacramento, Calif., Jul 10, 2014 / 04:07 am (CNA).- Proposed California food safety rules for butchering animals have raised concerns among the state’s Muslims, who say the rules would prevent them from practicing their religious beliefs. “Religious freedom is an important issue for all Americans. It is at the core of the freedoms our country was founded on and a value we pride ourselves on,” Zahra Billoo, executive director of the Council of Islamic Relations’ San Francisco Bay Area Office, told CNA July...

We felt it here in the high desert, north of BBL.

Bl. Junípero Serra and the Holy Family Sean FitzpatrickOn September 25th, 1988, Pope St. John Paul II beatified a swarthy, Spanish, asthmatic priest of small stature who was a dazzling scholar, a tireless apostle, and the founder of many missionaries from San Diego to San Francisco—Junípero Serra, who walked the western desert to irrigate souls with the water that becomes a spring welling up to eternal life.Born Miguel Jose Serra Ferrer on November 14, 1730, in Petra, Majorca, Spain, this servant of God and God’s people became a Franciscan after a brilliant career as a scholar of philosophy, taking...

bill that has just passed the California State Senate could effectively make criminals out of many people- just for having sex. The bill, SB 967, would require “affirmative consent” before college-age couples can have sex. This would essentially outlaw sex that is had “while in the heat of passion”. From Breitbart News: SB 967, amended last week by state Sen. Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles), would mandate that college students obtain “an affirmative, unambiguous, and conscious decision by each participant to engage in mutually agreed-upon sexual activity.” ……….. “Obviously, there is a problem,” he said in the report. “SB 967...

While examples of the old media using their power to push for ever more restrictive gun laws are so common as to be the norm, this segment by CBS is a particularly clear example: Newtown families have high hopes for N.J. gun ammo bill Exactly one family was said to be present lobbying for the bill; the father cites a theory with little to no evidence to support its premise.  An emotional father who lost a son is pushing for more gun restrictions that are virtually irrelevant to mass shootings;  the mass shootings are a tiny segment of homicides...

After the shooting at University of California, Santa Barbara on Friday, a rampage that left six students dead from gun or knife wounds, many parents and politicians found the federal government's past responses to similar tragedies to be one of the culprits. “Have we learned nothing?”

Firefighters have known for years that burning small arms ammunition produces a very low level of danger  to firemen.   This is from the SAAMI paper, "Facts About Sporting Ammunition Fires":  Ammunition fired in the open, not enclosed in a gun's chamber, discharges with such inefficiency that the projectile will not even penetrate an ordinary fiberboard shipping container panel at very close range. When not strongly and tightly confined, smokeless propellant powders burn relatively slowly and do not explode as we know they do when fired in a gun. Pressure within a cartridge case must build up to several...

Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow are not laughing over a film critic's op-ed that suggested their movies could have influenced the mass murder in Santa Barbara, Calif.

His parents said they were so concerned that they called police. Officers who showed up at Rodger’s doorstep for a mental health check in April, however, found a well-mannered if shy young man whom they concluded posed no risk. They hadn’t seen the videos, and by the time law enforcement had, it was too late: Rodger had gone on a deadly rampage. The sheriff’s office “was not aware of any videos until after the shooting rampage occurred,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Kelly Hoover said. Sheriff Bill Brown has defended the officers’ actions, but the case highlights the challenges...

Only when cops entered Rodger’s nearby apartment did they find his first victims: three multiply-stabbed men whose names were withheld Saturday night, pending family notification. It remained unclear Saturday night if any of the three were Rodger’s two roommates. He had written in the manifesto that he would “have to kill” them so he could turn the place into “my personal torture and killing chamber.” “I will start luring people into my apartment, knock them out with a hammer, and slit their throats. I will torture some of the good looking people before I kill them, assuming that the good...

A gunman went on a drive-by shooting rampage in a Santa Barbara student enclave and at least seven people were killed, including the attacker, authorities said. Investigators believe a gunman driving a black BMW acted alone in the shootings late Friday night near the University of California, Santa Barbara.

On the first of May, the Ninth Circuit ordered  that Appellee William Gore, the San Diego Sheriff, respond to the State of California request to intervene in the Peruta case.  Peruta is the case where the Ninth Circuit ruled that Sheriff Gore had to issue concealed carry permits to the public for general self defense.   The order is on hold because  of the request to intervene.  Currently, the Sheriff only issues permits if the applicant demonstrates a unique need under  “circumstances that distinguish [him] from the mainstream,”.  This is commonly referred to as a "may issue" policy. Sheriff Gore,...

California (Rest of the country is in separate threads, see links below) There are numerous important House Primary Races! And places where we can WIN! PLEASE contribute! And if you can't contribute money ... the least we can do is go to their pages and give them a "like" or a tweet. All of these candidates are involved in primaries that are close (or could be close) against generally more moderate or liberal Republicans. All of these districts are winnable in November. California: Igor Birman, CAL-7, JUNE 3rd .... Sacramento County. DEM incumbent is Bera Endorsed by: Sen. Mike Lee,...

Denisse Rojas earned a biology degree from UC Berkeley and has set her sights on medical school. But one big obstacle stands in her way. To practice medicine in California, doctors must obtain a license from the state, and applicants are required to provide a Social Security number as proof of identity. Rojas, 25, does not have such a number. She is in the United States illegally, having been smuggled into the country from Mexico by her parents when she was 6 months old. But a group of legislators wants to help her — to do for doctors, dentists, nurses,...

The tree trimmer at the center of a federal and state investigation into the destruction of nests and slaughter of baby birds in Oakland said Thursday that he "screwed up" because he allowed his crews to chain-saw trees even as baby birds were falling out. Pulido was the supervisor for a crew of tree trimmers hired Saturday by the U.S. Postal Service's Civic Center Annex in Oakland. The post office ordered trees containing the nests of egrets and black-crowned night herons, species protected by the U.S. Migratory Bird Act, to be cut because the nesting birds were defecating on mail...

HOUSTON (CBSDFW.COM) – Deputies with the Harris County Precinct One Constable’s Office say a man has been terrorizing a neighborhood in the Woodland Heights area of Houston by going to the bathroom in several yards at night. “We’ve had reports from six to eight neighbors out there that someone is actually coming into their yard and defecating — generally on their driveways,” said Sgt. J.C. Mosier. Authorities believe the unknown man is committing the act between 1:00 and 4:00 a.m., but a motive for crimes has not yet been established. “I think the neighbors are laughing about it, but that’s...

Above: Afghanistan combat veteran Andrew Tahmooressi- by Brian Hayes | Top Right NewsSo our last report saw Mexican troops invading our borders -- even drawing weapons on our agents on U.S. soil -- and facing absolutely no consequences by the Obama Adminstration. But let one American make a wrong turn into Mexico -- and there will be hell to pay. That's exactly what happened to a U.S. Marine veteran last month, after he accidentally drove into Mexico with three legally owned guns in his truck. And he has been rotting in a brutal Mexican jail in Tijuana ever since.California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter...

A new report analyzing the financial ramifications of a takeover of some of Nevada’s millions of acres of federal lands suggests the state would benefit from such a transfer. A transfer of 4 million acres of U.S. Bureau Land Management land could bring in anywhere from $31 million to $114 million a year, based on a review of four Western states that have significant amounts of trust lands under their control, the report says.

Why do our well-meaning elites so often worry about humanity in the abstract rather than the real effects of their cosmic ideologies on the majority? The dream of universal health coverage trumped the nightmare of millions of lives disrupted by the implementation of it. Noble lies, with emphatics like “Period!” were necessary to sell something that would hurt precisely those who were told that this was going to be good for them. A myriad of green mandates has led to California’s having the highest-priced gasoline and electricity in the continental United States, a fact that delights utopians in San Francisco...

California is proposing to ban members of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) from serving as judges because the Boy Scouts do not allow gay troop leaders, The Daily Caller has learned. In a move with major legal implications, The California Supreme Court Advisory Committee on The Code of Judicial Ethics has proposed to classify the Boy Scouts as practicing “invidious discrimination” against gays, which would end the group’s exemption to anti-discriminatory ethics rules and would prohibit judges from being affiliated with the group.