Free Republic

No to Carlos Moreno.

Moreno voted to overturn Prop 22 (traditional marriage statute) and was the only CA SC justice to vote against Prop 8 (traditional marriage amendment). IIRC, he also is weak on the 2nd amendment.

One site I found with recommendations was
http://governmentforthepeople.us/2010_General_Election.html
I am not familiar with that site, and you may or may not agree with their reasoning (there's very little information on most of the judges).

"The staff of the SEC has expressed its belief that California's recently issued IOUs are 'securities' under federal securities law. As such, holders of these IOUs and those who may purchase them are protected by the provisions of the federal securities laws that prohibit fraud in the purchase or sale of securities," the agency said.

Doesn't a securities issuer need to file some SEC paperwork or comply with some rules before issuing the securities? These IOU's became "securities" after they were issued, and the recipients had no choice whether they wanted to "invest" in these "securities."

So the IOUs are really 0% bonds?

The IOU's pay 3.75% (annual rate), supposedly tax-exempt. Perhaps that is why some banks are honoring deposits of IOU's -- for in addition to retaining customers, matching the other banks' policies, and not raising the ire of the state government, maybe the banks hope to collect the higher interest rate? If eventually the IOU's bounce, the banks can always take the money back from the customers and possibly charge them NSF/bounced-check fees.

But, unless you're a bank, bonds are better investments, unless one can get a good discount off the face value of the IOU's. Bonds are paid before these IOU's, and given CA's declining credit rating, the bond yields may even be higher.

the average price of a textbook is $75 to $100

Assuming the average textbook gets used 7 years, books cost CA taxpayers $60-$100 per student per year. Compare that with the $11k per student per year education spending in CA.

Cutting that essential part of education (reading textbooks) will save less than 1% of the education budget. Instead, Arnold and the legislature should cut the excessive education bureaucracy. What do the administrators above the level of school principal do, and what less would they accomplish with a 50% cut?

two Hispanics qualified

Wonder why Sotomayor threw it out? Her "group" got what it wanted. That's all that matters, right?

No, you missed the point of this case.

Out of 118 applicants, 17 white and 2 Hispanic (presumably not counted among the 17 white) firefighters got high scores on the promotion eligibility exam, but no black firefighters got high enough scores.

But, the city threw out the test results as discriminatory, since no black applicants would have been eligible for promotion. Some of the white firefighters and one Hispanic firefighter sued. La Raza was not involved, and Sotomayor didn't help Hispanics. But, she demonstrated her strong support for discriminatory policies based purely on race.

The marriages were legal when they were entered into. Whether or not one agrees with the court’s decision last year to legalize gay marriage, it’s absolute fact that the marriages entered into after that decision but before prop 8 were done so legally . The question before the court was whether prop 8 invalidated such marriages or just applied going forward. The court decided that under its precedent the prior marriages should remain valid.

Under that logic, shouldn't CA recognize illegal marriages into which a pair of men or a pair of women legally entered in other states such as Massachusetts?

Prop 8 was very simple, and under any normal definition of the word "is," same-sex "marriages" from last year should no longer be valid or recognized here.
"Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California"

Is “edible” the new “vegetable?”

Sort of, but "edible" also comprises flowers and herbs.

I went back and visited my college recently. They started an "edible tour," with signs designating edible flowers, herbs, and vegetable plants tucked in planters along some pathways through campus.

This school previously already had many mature fruit trees and roses. They keep spending on the beautiful landscaping but, unfortunately, they're closing the school bookstore to save money.

Starting a vegetable garden when it's almost summer? That's kind of late....

Plus, CA is in a drought. Agriculture consumes lots of water, and water rates are increasing. Maybe she should encourage people to convert lawns and gardens to desert landscaping, instead.

I disagree with Tom McClintock on D and E.

Voters approved those additional taxes to fund XYZ special programs, which voters thought were worthy of getting extra funding, not for the general fund. This happens with gas taxes all the time (except that they don't ask us) -- raise gas taxes to improve roads, and then raid the gas tax collection fund while leaving the roads in disrepair. If the legislators wanted to raise taxes for the general fund, then they should have asked directly.

No on all six 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 1E, 1F.

“stereotype threat.” According to this theory, high-stakes tests such as the exit exam particularly stress minorities and girls because they fear the results will “confirm negative stereotypes about the academic skills of their group.” If told, for instance, that a test measures intelligence or asked to write their race, ethnicity and gender on the answer sheet, low-achieving girls and minorities underperform, but similarly low-achieving whites and boys do not.

Two easy solutions:
1. don't ask for race, ethnicity, or gender.
or
2. ask those questions _after_ the students complete the tests.

"Gold" refers to a color, as well as to the precious metal. The names of the other light rail lines in the LA MTA are Red, Green, and Blue Lines, so it follows that "Gold" refers to the color, not to the metal.

"Oro" translates as "gold," but I always thought of it as just the metal. Does "oro" also refer to the color in Spanish? If so, shouldn't the proper Spanish translation be La Linea Oro, where "oro" would be used as an adjective; if not, then why doesn't the Spanish-speaking lobby propose La Linea Amarilla?

This is a man of principle and should be one of us..is he?

us? He's from the Thomas More Law center.

Shriver's office is still working out details, but the 800-square-foot "demonstration garden" will be on the east side of the Capitol building and will be planted in May.

May is pretty late to start a garden in CA.

IIRC, Charles LiMandri was the lead attorney for the preservation of the Mt. Soledad National War Memorial a few years ago. A district judge had ordered the destruction of the memorial cross, because an atheist had objected to seeing the cross. The cross (and land) was transferred to the federal government. He seems to be on the right side of these issues.

rising CO2 levels all throughout this 400,000-year period actually *followed* temperature increases -lagging behind by an average of 800 years!

Solubility happens quickly, so the CO2 should change quickly with ocean temperature changes. Why would the CO2 levels lag by such a long period of time? Is it because ocean temperatures lagged the atmospheric temperatures?

The land will be released after Reid buys it for pennies on the dollar. Follow this one for the next 5 years.

Or perhaps Feinstein has friends who would benefit from the wind/solar energy contracts going to a second-choice site.

It is still below Cook County's (Chicago's) sales tax of 10.25%. So, there's room to catch up with those that got promoted to Washington from that City.

Some cities in LA county will match that rate, and one city in LA county -- South Gate -- will have 10.75% starting this summer. (It will be 10.25% for 3 months beginning April 1, 2009, before the additional 0.5% adds in July.)

Do you realize how funny that sounds to me? You want this child’s BIRTH certificate to state his MOTHER is “UNKNOWN”. This is rich...

The parents' identities are not always known. Some states (like CA) have laws that allow parents to abandon unwanted newborn babies. The purpose of these laws is to reduce infanticide and child abuse. When an infant is given up in this manner, there usually is no birth certificate or name of either parent. Yet the newborn's birth must be registered, so that he can qualify for public assistance or eventually enroll in school, so the records offices probably use "unknown" or some form of jane/john doe.

The sales tax in Los Angeles County will rise from 8.25 to 9.75 percent as of April 1.

ABC's not quite right. They should have written:
The sales tax in Los Angeles County will rise from 8.25 to 9.25 percent as of April 1.
It will then rise further to 9.75 percent as of July 1, 2009.

Would require Congressional approval.

US Constitution Article IV Section 3

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
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