See Fred Run. Fred Wants to Be the President. Run, Fred, Run

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Bit of History Found During Rainy Afternoon Garage Cleaning

17th Century Nun’s Prayer

“As we grow O Lord, and we are getting older, keep us from getting talkative and the awful habit of thinking that we must say something on every subject and on every occasion.

“Keep us from the recital of endless details. Help us to get to the point.    Read more »

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Assembly Bill Total This Year Is Much Smaller Than Past Years

As of March 21, the 80-member Assembly has introduced 1,415 pieces of legislation.

Many are placeholders that state the “intent” to change state law in some way or offer “technical, nonsubstantive changes” to existing law.

By any measure, this seems like scads of legislation, particularly for the first year of a two-year legislative session.    Read more »

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It’s Hard Sometimes to Distinguish Between Truth and Fiction

(Editor’s Note: It was Kevin Brett’s rather endearing custom to pen spoof press releases upon the ocassion of the birthdays of selected Capitol Press Corps reporters. In this case, 22 years ago, if was for the spouse of the governor’s deputy press secretary.)    Read more »

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Would it Be a Level of Threat Like, Say, Spraying Malathion?

Governor Brown and Director of Public Health Issue Statements on Radiation Safety

SACRAMENTO – Governor Jerry Brown and the interim director of the California Department of Public Health, Dr. Howard Backer, today assured Californians that public health and safety do not face any threat from radiation released at nuclear facilities in Japan this week.    Read more »

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Paging Bob Beverly and Ralph Dills, Please Come Immediately to the Senate Rostrum, Your Services Are Urgently Required

The state Senate has traditionally been the more decorous, less strident house of California’s Legislature. Republicans and Democrats tended to tilt mightily as adversaries but not engage in the sniping or juvenile one-upmanship antics of the more fractious Assembly.

Regrettably, with the advent of term limits, most senators are now graduates, if that’s the correct term, of the Assembly.    Read more »

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Lawmakers Pass a Budget But Key Pieces Are Still Unresolved

Over Republican opposition, Democratic lawmakers passed a bill authorizing a $123 billion state budget and other measures aimed at reducing state spending by $6.2 billion but did not act on three key measures necessary to balance the spending plan.

The budget voted on by the Legislature is close to that proposed by Democratic Gov.    Read more »

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Not Exactly a Cut But Delayed School Payments Have a Cost

Among the budget-related bills approved by the Legislature March 16 was one that postpones $5.2 billion in state payments to public schools.

Since the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, the state has shorted public schools $18.6 billion that schools are owed under the formulas dictating annual state support. More than $6 billion of the $18.6 billion was offset by one-time federal economic recovery aid.    Read more »

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Legislature Starts to Begin to Commence to Approve a Budget

The Legislature lurched toward passage of a budget plan March 16, sending bills to Gov. Jerry Brown aimed at reducing state spending by some $7.5 billion, about half of the savings coming from reduced payments to welfare recipients, less health care for the poor and scaled back services for the developmentally disabled.    Read more »

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Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, Page 400

“(Western Europe’s) superiority since the Renaissance is due partly to science and scientific technique, partly to political institutions slowly built up during the Middle Ages. There is no reason, in the nature of things, why this superiority should continue.

“In the present war, (World War II) great military strength has been shown by Russia, China and Japan.    Read more »

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