Agriculture

Agriculture

Earth Day: Opposing Progress Trumps Protecting the Planet

By Henry I. Miller, M.S., M.D. and Jeff Stier Today is Earth Day, a celebration originally conceived by then-U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis.) and first held in 1970 as a “symbol of environmental responsibility and stewardship.” In the spirit of the time, it was a touchy-feely, consciousness-raising, New Age experience. ...
Agriculture

Does California Have a Future?

Republican California State Assemblyman Vince Fong recently tweeted about California’s 19 percent poverty rate, which he said “is driven by the extreme high cost of living here.” “Yet,” said Fong, “Sacramento continues to pass policies that make it even more expensive.” In a story illustrated by an artist’s rendering of a family in ...
Agriculture

An April Fool’s Day Quiz

Right by the Bay is celebrating (or lamenting) April Fool’s Day by creating the following quiz on weird and goofy laws beginning in 2019 in California.  If you get a perfect score, you get a one-way ticket to Texas (April Fool’s!). True or False: Surfing is now the official sport ...
Agriculture

Don’t Scapegoat Charter Schools For School Districts’ Fiscal Woes

Governor Gavin Newsom’s move to have State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond create an expert panel to review the financial impact of charter schools on regular public schools, and put out a report by July, smells like an attempt to scapegoat charter schools. First, comments by the governor’s office ...
Agriculture

America’s Citrus Fruits Are Being Decimated By An Incurable Disease — We Need GM Science to Save Them

Farmers in the major U.S. citrus-producing regions—Florida, California, Texas and Arizona, in particular—are facing a plague of epic proportions. Oranges and a range of other citrus fruits are being decimated by an incurable disease, a lethal, bacterial infection known as “citrus greening”—or Huanglongbing. It is spread by a tiny insect, ...
Agriculture

Americans Who Want Socialism Should Consider Moving to California

Trump adviser and distinguished economist Larry Kudlow wants to put socialism on trial, challenge it, debate it, rebut it — and convict it. “I don’t want us to stand idly by,” Kudlow said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland. “I don’t want to let this stuff fester.” It ...
Agriculture

Do organic farms really produce ‘chemical free, healthier food’?

In “The Wealth of Nations,” the 18th century economist and philosopher Adam Smith observed about the chicanery of some businessmen, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” ...
Agriculture

CAPITAL IDEAS: The Ripple Effects of Scientific Illiteracy Can Have Dire Consequences

DOWNLOAD THE PDF There is currently a trend toward misunderstanding or misrepresenting science, and it starts early. A grade-school teacher asked the class whether a whale is a fish or a mammal. One boy raised his hand and offered, “Let’s take a vote!” This phenomenon, variously dubbed “the death of ...
Agriculture

This May Be the Worst Regulation Ever

By Henry I. Miller, M.S., M.D., and Drew L. Kershen The U.S. Department of Agriculture has created what may be the most bewildering, least cost-effective regulation ever. In July 2016, Congress passed a law mandating that all food containing genetic material that has been modified with recombinant DNA or “gene-splicing” ...
Agriculture

The Shape of Water Tax

California’s rural residents and coastal elites have at least one thing in common: they’re both drinking bottled water.  A McClatchy analysis of data compiled from the State Water Resource Control Board estimates that 360,000 Californians – mostly in inland areas — are served water from unsafe water systems.  These include ...
Agriculture

Earth Day: Opposing Progress Trumps Protecting the Planet

By Henry I. Miller, M.S., M.D. and Jeff Stier Today is Earth Day, a celebration originally conceived by then-U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis.) and first held in 1970 as a “symbol of environmental responsibility and stewardship.” In the spirit of the time, it was a touchy-feely, consciousness-raising, New Age experience. ...
Agriculture

Does California Have a Future?

Republican California State Assemblyman Vince Fong recently tweeted about California’s 19 percent poverty rate, which he said “is driven by the extreme high cost of living here.” “Yet,” said Fong, “Sacramento continues to pass policies that make it even more expensive.” In a story illustrated by an artist’s rendering of a family in ...
Agriculture

An April Fool’s Day Quiz

Right by the Bay is celebrating (or lamenting) April Fool’s Day by creating the following quiz on weird and goofy laws beginning in 2019 in California.  If you get a perfect score, you get a one-way ticket to Texas (April Fool’s!). True or False: Surfing is now the official sport ...
Agriculture

Don’t Scapegoat Charter Schools For School Districts’ Fiscal Woes

Governor Gavin Newsom’s move to have State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond create an expert panel to review the financial impact of charter schools on regular public schools, and put out a report by July, smells like an attempt to scapegoat charter schools. First, comments by the governor’s office ...
Agriculture

America’s Citrus Fruits Are Being Decimated By An Incurable Disease — We Need GM Science to Save Them

Farmers in the major U.S. citrus-producing regions—Florida, California, Texas and Arizona, in particular—are facing a plague of epic proportions. Oranges and a range of other citrus fruits are being decimated by an incurable disease, a lethal, bacterial infection known as “citrus greening”—or Huanglongbing. It is spread by a tiny insect, ...
Agriculture

Americans Who Want Socialism Should Consider Moving to California

Trump adviser and distinguished economist Larry Kudlow wants to put socialism on trial, challenge it, debate it, rebut it — and convict it. “I don’t want us to stand idly by,” Kudlow said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland. “I don’t want to let this stuff fester.” It ...
Agriculture

Do organic farms really produce ‘chemical free, healthier food’?

In “The Wealth of Nations,” the 18th century economist and philosopher Adam Smith observed about the chicanery of some businessmen, “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” ...
Agriculture

CAPITAL IDEAS: The Ripple Effects of Scientific Illiteracy Can Have Dire Consequences

DOWNLOAD THE PDF There is currently a trend toward misunderstanding or misrepresenting science, and it starts early. A grade-school teacher asked the class whether a whale is a fish or a mammal. One boy raised his hand and offered, “Let’s take a vote!” This phenomenon, variously dubbed “the death of ...
Agriculture

This May Be the Worst Regulation Ever

By Henry I. Miller, M.S., M.D., and Drew L. Kershen The U.S. Department of Agriculture has created what may be the most bewildering, least cost-effective regulation ever. In July 2016, Congress passed a law mandating that all food containing genetic material that has been modified with recombinant DNA or “gene-splicing” ...
Agriculture

The Shape of Water Tax

California’s rural residents and coastal elites have at least one thing in common: they’re both drinking bottled water.  A McClatchy analysis of data compiled from the State Water Resource Control Board estimates that 360,000 Californians – mostly in inland areas — are served water from unsafe water systems.  These include ...
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