Free Republic

Pretending to be green is expensive. Californians have set the pace for adopting the trendy lifestyle choice but recently have cried out for relief when confronted with the true cost of saving the planet from “global warming.” As new evidence emerges about extraterrestrial forces that shape Earth’s climate, Americans from coast to coast may come to a similar realization of the futility of trying to bring down temperatures before their bank balances dry up. Golden State residents bear some of the nation’s highest energy prices, and for a simple reason. Sacramento bureaucrats force refiners to produce gasoline according to a...

STANFORD, Calif. (AP) - Even before neuroscientist Zach Hall was formally given the job Tuesday to run California's $3 billion stem cell research institute, his salary came under fire. Charles Halpern, a Berkeley writer who filed a legal petition with the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine protesting some of its activities, complained that Hall's $389,004 annual paycheck to serve as interim president was too lucrative. Halpern and other institute critics complained that the institute president should be paid a salary comparable to the head of the National Institutes of Health, which is roughly $100,000 less than Hall's pay. The language...

SACRAMENTO -- It's been a roller coaster first term for Democratic Assemblywoman Nicole Parra. When the two-year legislative session ended late last month, she had won credit for passage of a bill to make it easier for parents to check for convicted sex offenders in their neighborhoods by putting the Megan's Law database on the Internet. She was also instrumental in boosting state funding to protect military bases from closure. But she also spent most of the time walking on political eggshells to avoid making mistakes that could be exploited by her Republican challenger in what is expected to be...