Environment
Business & Economics
Your Government Still the Main Threat to Your Freedoms
In my years writing for newspapers, I’ve always hated the commemoration ritual. What new insight can we offer about Thanksgiving? What words can still capture the essence of D-Day? And, this weekend, what can we really say that ameliorates the horror of 9/11? Mainly, I hate how commemorations, and national ...
Agriculture
Villaraigosa wants more of what doesn’t work
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s speech Tuesday at the Sacramento Press Club left many reporters wondering what the mayor is doing and what he is running for next. It seems odd for an L.A. mayor to fly to Sacramento, give a speech detailing a so-called “grand new vision” even as ...
Business & Economics
Unfounded fears threaten energy success story
Researchers at MIT recently forecast that natural gas production from five American shale reserves would double in five years and triple in 20. These U.S. sources of gas can transform America’s energy outlook, provided lawmakers don’t interfere with the process. Shale formations created from sea basins millions of years ago ...
Business & Economics
Was Obama’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve release the best way to lower gasoline prices?
On June 23, the Obama administration, in conjunction with other governments, announced a plan to release a total of 60 million barrels of oil from strategic oil reserves in the U.S. and other countries, at a rate of 2 million barrels per day for 30 days. That day, oil prices ...
Environment
Court cools global-warming controversy
The U.S. Supreme Court recently rebuffed environmentalists in their bid to get the judiciary to intervene in the global-warming controversy by invoking the old common law of nuisance, as though global warming could be solved through an injunction. But the irony of the court’s decision in American Electric Power v. ...
Business & Economics
Making public pay for budget cuts
Sacramento – Last year, one of my reporters and her adult son were walking in downtown Sacramento when a couple of young toughs tried grabbing her purse. She pulled back her purse, and the robbers lunged at the two of them, leaving the son’s face covered in blood. Despite a ...
Business & Economics
The Alameda incident: ‘First responders’ who don’t
On Memorial Day, a suicidal man waded into San Francisco Bay outside the city of Alameda and stood there for about an hour, neck deep in chilly water, as about 75 bystanders watched. Local police and firefighters were dispatched to the scene after the man’s desperate mother called 911, but ...
Health Care
Health Insurance Exchanges: What If They Issued 347 Pages of Regulations and Nobody Cared?
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has issued regulations governing Health Benefits Exchanges and Small-Business Health Options Exchanges under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). These regulations are poorly defined, confirming that the exchanges will empower state functionaries to reduce choice and competition in health ...
Business & Economics
The Truth About Energy Profits
America’s largest oil and natural gas companies recently reported quarterly earnings, and as expected, profits were up. But the caricature of fat-cat energy executives lining their pockets at the expense of the everyman doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. ExxonMobil posted quarterly earnings of $10.7 billion on Thursday, up 69 percent ...
Environment
Spectacular Waste in Redwood Forests
As I took the nearly six-hour drive from the Sacramento area, past Ukiah and up to Eureka, through the heart of California’s redwood- forested North Coast, I was reminded of the spectacular beauty of California. Driving through Mendocino and Humboldt counties also reminded me of the spectacular ways the state ...
Your Government Still the Main Threat to Your Freedoms
In my years writing for newspapers, I’ve always hated the commemoration ritual. What new insight can we offer about Thanksgiving? What words can still capture the essence of D-Day? And, this weekend, what can we really say that ameliorates the horror of 9/11? Mainly, I hate how commemorations, and national ...
Villaraigosa wants more of what doesn’t work
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s speech Tuesday at the Sacramento Press Club left many reporters wondering what the mayor is doing and what he is running for next. It seems odd for an L.A. mayor to fly to Sacramento, give a speech detailing a so-called “grand new vision” even as ...
Unfounded fears threaten energy success story
Researchers at MIT recently forecast that natural gas production from five American shale reserves would double in five years and triple in 20. These U.S. sources of gas can transform America’s energy outlook, provided lawmakers don’t interfere with the process. Shale formations created from sea basins millions of years ago ...
Was Obama’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve release the best way to lower gasoline prices?
On June 23, the Obama administration, in conjunction with other governments, announced a plan to release a total of 60 million barrels of oil from strategic oil reserves in the U.S. and other countries, at a rate of 2 million barrels per day for 30 days. That day, oil prices ...
Court cools global-warming controversy
The U.S. Supreme Court recently rebuffed environmentalists in their bid to get the judiciary to intervene in the global-warming controversy by invoking the old common law of nuisance, as though global warming could be solved through an injunction. But the irony of the court’s decision in American Electric Power v. ...
Making public pay for budget cuts
Sacramento – Last year, one of my reporters and her adult son were walking in downtown Sacramento when a couple of young toughs tried grabbing her purse. She pulled back her purse, and the robbers lunged at the two of them, leaving the son’s face covered in blood. Despite a ...
The Alameda incident: ‘First responders’ who don’t
On Memorial Day, a suicidal man waded into San Francisco Bay outside the city of Alameda and stood there for about an hour, neck deep in chilly water, as about 75 bystanders watched. Local police and firefighters were dispatched to the scene after the man’s desperate mother called 911, but ...
Health Insurance Exchanges: What If They Issued 347 Pages of Regulations and Nobody Cared?
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has issued regulations governing Health Benefits Exchanges and Small-Business Health Options Exchanges under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). These regulations are poorly defined, confirming that the exchanges will empower state functionaries to reduce choice and competition in health ...
The Truth About Energy Profits
America’s largest oil and natural gas companies recently reported quarterly earnings, and as expected, profits were up. But the caricature of fat-cat energy executives lining their pockets at the expense of the everyman doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. ExxonMobil posted quarterly earnings of $10.7 billion on Thursday, up 69 percent ...
Spectacular Waste in Redwood Forests
As I took the nearly six-hour drive from the Sacramento area, past Ukiah and up to Eureka, through the heart of California’s redwood- forested North Coast, I was reminded of the spectacular beauty of California. Driving through Mendocino and Humboldt counties also reminded me of the spectacular ways the state ...
