Negative Space: California
- Bowe Bergdahl freed from Northern California
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The captive soldier was released after talks with President Obama, in exchange for three federal prisoners and two Fox News viewers to be named later.
- California 2012
- 2012 is going to be a very important election for San Diego. Do we continue to reform the city’s financial state, or do we resume the path to insolvency?
- California 2013
- News and Stuff about California and San Diego in 2013.
- California bans multiple pregnancies
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Democrats pass bills requiring 30-day waiting period for abortions and a license to walk in public while pregnant.
- California eminent domain reform: 98 or 99?
- Thanks to Ilya Somin on the Volokh Conspiracy for explaining why proposition 98 is the one that needs supporting.
- California never had a free market power failure
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California’s experiment in free market power generation has become mythological in how it is remembered. The left is desperate to tar it as a free market failure. But California’s experiment wasn’t free market. It was a massive government-managed exchange practically designed to cause high prices.
- California Proposition 14: the one-party act
- Proposition 14 appears to answer the question beltway politicians have been asking for months: how to stop future Scott Browns and Doug Hoffmans.
- California threatens Amazon, kills affiliate programs
- By this time, California had to know that its new law would not bring in new tax revenue. The tax headaches aren’t worth the trouble of maintaining affiliate programs. The only reason to pass the law was to kill affiliate programs at places like Amazon and Overstock. I don’t understand; what is it about affiliate programs that states don’t like?
- Can Californians drink a train?
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The meme goes that even if we’re wrong about global warming, the money spent will still make the world a better place. That is only true if you can drink a high-speed train.
- Caught between the sane and the insane
- Two very smart articles describe hope for the future… everywhere except California.
- A compromise proposal for Kentucky Quakers
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The left’s hypothetical Quaker already exists across the country, denying carry licenses because he disagrees with a constitutional right to bear arms.
- Cornering the wild government in California
- Watching the reaction of the cocktail party politicians and big-government leeches to this year’s political rebellion is a lot like watching a wild animal, cornered. The wild animal may yet win, but it’s lashing out randomly and without regard for who it hits. It just wants to get free.
- Driving laws too complicated for DMV
- It appears that California’s driving laws are so complicated that even the DMV and the California Highway Patrol get confused.
- Elizabeth Emken interview at Daily Caller
- Elizabeth Emken has an interview today in the Daily Caller, and she sounds like a serious contender for the California Senate.
- Fair and open competition—closed and bitter politicians
- The arguments against Proposition A are based on a law that passed less than a month ago, in response to Proposition A. That response is a prime example of why we need to break the chain that locks government unions to politicians.
- Government-assisted water shortage
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Congress-created dust bowl signs line I-5 in California—a coastal state.
- L.A. Story
- Steve Martin and Victoria Tennant star in this story about quoting Shakespeare in a magical Los Angeles. Recommended only for dreamers and lovers. The DVD has the most involved menu I’ve yet seen on DVD. You can watch it in with English or Spanish subtitles.
- Life, Loves, and Meat Loaf
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Subtitled, “For the barefoot gourmet, a cook book for the bachelor-minded male,” this is a book about early California beach philosophy as much as it is a book about recipes.
- Lord Christopher Monckton in San Diego
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I went to see the Americans Protecting Private Property Rights presentation by Lord Christopher Monckton about the economic and scientific fallacies of the anthropogenic global warming movement last night. It was mostly stuff I’ve seen before, mainly from the climategate emails and software leak.
- Mozilla Foundation fires most of California
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In the aftermath of JavaScript creator and Mozilla founder Brendan Eich’s departure, the Mozilla Foundation has further outlined the limits of employment at their Mountain View offices.
- Nick Popaditch debates Bob Filner in CA-51
- Popaditch comes off as far more responsive to the needs of the community in this debate.
- Nobody can beat Dianne Feinstein?
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Nobody likes Dianne Feinstein. Not even her former campaign workers. But she always wins by huge margins. Can the Republicans do better in 2012 than they did against Barbara Boxer in 2010?
- None of the Above
- Vote “Yes” on “None of the Above”, “No” on “Limit on Marriages” and “No” on repealing the two-thirds majority required for new taxes.
- None of you has ever seen a dead donkey
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If Democrats won by shifting to the right, we may not see much difference in the next two years.
- The one true gun law loophole
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The only true gun law loophole is that criminals are willing to break the law. Law-abiding victims are not. Gun laws disarm victims but do not disarm murderers.
- Orwellian proposition 91
- When a bureaucracy makes rules about what constitutes a “for” or “against” argument, it’s inevitable that common sense will take a back seat to the rules
- The Player
- Whether or not you like this movie seems to depend solely on whether or not you take part in the movie industry. Insiders like it. Everyone else can give it a miss.
- Progressives ruin a different kind of race in New Jersey
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As a potential triple-crown winner prepares for the third race of the Triple Crown, it’s almost impossible to place a bet in Atlantic City, NJ.
- Proposition 75 and the California prison system
- Public-employee unions today are a money-laundering service for the state government and for perpetuating government programs.
- Public Citizen: Democracy is for Individuals, Not People
- Where two people join together, there is a giant corporation that needs to be squashed.
- San Diego: 5th Avenue Books and Bluestocking Books
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Facing each other across Fifth Avenue in Hillcrest, these two great bookstores complement each other well.
- Sometimes you wonder, other times you expunge the vote
- California state assembly so proud of vote they… erase it from the public record.
- A Star is Born
- Probably Judy Garland’s best movie, released in 1954 with James Mason, directed by George Cukor (of “Philadelphia Story”) and produced by none other than her husband. Production values are high, acting is top-notch, and the singing is Judy Garland. The DVD has a few nice extras also.
- Tax event horizon
- How close are we to a tax event horizon, where so many people’s income depends on complicated tax laws that they can never be reformed?
- Taxing the rich to pay for preschool in California
- Yeah, okay, my bias is that I hate complicated tax systems. And I hate tax systems that pretend to be about taxing the rich and end up, in the end, taxing everyone. For that matter, while it beats the hell out of taxing the poor, I don’t particularly like singling out one class for taxes that benefit everyone. But I do love me some irony.
- The Ultimate Government Accountability Reform
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You really want to make government accountable? Define a simple process by which voters can choose to have their state exit the United States of America.
- Why firing bad teachers won’t make room for better ones
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Bad teachers provide an immense service to this country. You don’t see private industry firing bad workers. The best companies are the ones that have the most bad workers.
- The withholding of the beast
- Does this prove that taxes are sinful? Or that the end of the world is nigh?
More Information
- California’s Assorted Rocks and Hard Places
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“News came out on Thursday that the California budget deficit is actually closer to $25 billion, twice what we are told. This follows from last year’s $42 billion shortfall, which was closed by all sorts of one-time tax increases and gimmicks. Here is our general dilemma in a nutshell.”
