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 Los Angeles |
from ExileStreet.com Observations On The Fly by Burt Prelutsky [scriptwriter] 5/12/08 |
Living in L.A., I sometimes think I spend less time sleeping than tied up in traffic. In order that the time spent idling on the freeway shouldn’t be a total loss, I occasionally jot myself a note. After a while, I gather up these random musings just for you. This is such an occasion. No thanks necessary, as I’m sure you’d do the same for me.
To begin with, while listening to somebody on my car radio mention that, thanks to people being more health and diet-conscious than they used to be, 60 is the new 50, and 50 is the new 40, I found myself wondering if these days, a college degree, particularly one in liberal arts, is the new high school diploma.
Next, although I am not as favorably disposed to President Bush as I used to be, I do not understand why so many people who write to me, attacking the man, so frequently allude to the Patriot Act. I invariably write back asking what specific freedoms they have lost over the past few years. Usually, I don’t get an answer. [more]
 Coronado |
Demonizing Big Oil by J. F. Kelly, Jr. 5/9/08 |
Politicians are under more or less constant pressure to do something. Sometimes, the best course of action is no action on the part of the government, at least until a comprehensive solution can be developed. A poorly thought out, quick response often makes matters worse. No action, however, is a non-starter in politics. Voters want action and they want it now.
The economy has risen to the top of the national worry list and the voters are rightly incensed over the price of food, fuel and other essentials. While we aren’t experiencing riots in the streets, action at the federal level is demanded so politicians, eager to be seen as responsive, feel compelled to do something if only to demonstrate that they feel our pain. The pressure may result in actions that may be popular but which fail to deal with the underlying problems. President Bush’s tax rebate was a lovely thing to do for the taxpayers, but its effect, being temporary, won’t do much to solve the basic problems facing the economy. [more]
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 Irvine |
Energy Conservation Is Not Enough by Chuck DeVore [legislator, novelist] 5/8/08 |
If $4.00 for a gallon gasoline is pinching your checkbook, just wait until you see your electric and natural gas bills in the coming year.
California gets 42 percent of its electricity from natural gas. Many homes also use natural gas for heating, cooking, and hot water. Natural gas prices increased 45 percent in the past year. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that gas costs may double soon.
Gas and coal power 70 percent of America’s grid. Coal prices have already doubled, following demand and oil price increases. This has caused electrical rate increases across the nation. Virginia is looking at a 29 percent rate increase this summer. Oregon saw a 10 percent rate increase last year with another 9 percent by next January. Maryland residents will see their electric bills rise almost 8 percent in June, increasing home electric costs by $137 a year to $1,800 annually. Maryland’s commercial customers can expect rate hikes of 27 percent to 41 percent price by the summer. [more]
 San Francisco |
The Contrarian: Actions Speak Louder than Words by Sally C. Pipes 5/7/08 |
A Contrarian column, as readers have come to know, is a relatively simple matter of refuting the latest foolishness from militant feminists and socialists, who are often the same people. In that cause, however, I have never attempted anything on the scale of Adam Shepard, author of Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream. So let me bring his story to your attention.
As a student at Merrimack College in Andover, Massachusetts, Mr. Shepard was force-fed books by pop-socialist author Barbara Ehrenreich. As he explains:
"My story is a rebuttal to Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch, the books that spoke on the death of the American dream. With investigative projects of her own, Ehrenreich attempted to establish that working stiffs are doomed to live in the same disgraceful conditions forever. I reject that theory and my story is a search to evaluate if hard work and discipline provide any payoff whatsoever, or if they are, as Ehrenreich suggests, futile pursuits." [more]
 Sacramento |
Legal Analysis of Prop. 99 Exposes Fatal Flaws Homeowner "Protections" Easily Circumvented by Jon Coupal 5/6/08 |
For the past several months, local government interests, including the League of California Cities and the California State Association of Counties, have spent millions of dollars touting Prop. 99 as ironclad protection for Californians who fear having their homes seized by local governments to be turned over to private developers for strip-malls and other for-profit projects.
But the list of property rights experts who reject this claim is growing. This is because Prop. 99 includes significant loopholes that will allow public agencies to continue to forcibly seize owner occupied homes and give them to wealthy and politically connected developers, even if the measure wins voter approval.
According to the Institute for Justice (IJ), an independent non-profit organization that represented Susette Kelo before the U.S. Supreme Court in the controversial Kelo v. New London case, public agencies could circumvent Prop. 99's purported homeowner protections by merely rezoning residential neighborhoods for business use. [more]
Los Angeles |
from ExileStreet.com Liberals And Their False Idols by Burt Prelutsky [scriptwriter] 5/5/08 |
There are major differences between liberals and conservatives, and that’s why I never know what people such as Barack Obama are talking about when they speak of bringing us all together. And I suspect that Jeremiah Wright’s surrogate son doesn’t know, either.
For instance, if I support the surge in Iraq and you insist on bringing the troops home by next Thursday, what’s our compromise? Bringing our troops only partway home? Say as far as the Canary Islands?
If you’re in favor of same-sex marriages and I happen to think the whole idea is a very silly joke, where’s our common ground? Doing away with opposite-sex marriages? [more]
 Oceanside |
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed Reviewing the Philosophical Issues by Richard Kirk 5/2/08 |
As expected, Ben Stein’s new documentary has been given a chilly reception by most reviewers—by folks inclined to sympathize with the moral stylings of Joy Behar and reluctant to express opinions at odds with gray eminences at The New York Times.
Outside of “the usual suspects” (like Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center) few have been willing to put their heads on the cultural chopping block for the sake of open dialogue about a scientific hypothesis called “Intelligent Design.” Instead, as the movie itself asserts, most commentators are content to reiterate the boilerplate descriptions typically employed whenever this topic is broached.
A San Diego radio newscaster, for example, pigeonholed the production as a “movie about religion.” In fact, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed isn’t a movie about religion. It’s a documentary that shows how academics and other cultural elites are blocking honest discussion of a theory that undercuts purely materialistic explanations of the origin of life. [more]
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