Lawmakers Back More Money to Confiscate Illegal Weapons from Californians

The state Department of Justice is likely to win legislative approval by the end of April to use $24 million in registration fees paid by gun owners to speed up taking away weapons from Californians prohibited from owning them.

Emergency legislation is awaiting action on the Assembly floor that would earmark the money, already collected by the department, to enforce the findings of its Armed Prohibited Persons System, which has identified 38,563 handguns and 1,647 so-called assault weapons in the hands of 19,770 Californians, such as felons or the mentally ill, who the law says can’t possess them.    Read more »

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Margaret Thatcher Remembered

“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”

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“Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.”

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“If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a  woman.”    Read more »

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Sacramento Has Apparently Been Annexed By Los Angeles

Eric Garcetti is running for Los Angeles mayor “with a focus on job creation and solving everyday problems for LA residents,” his campaign biography says.

He was president of the Los Angeles City Council from 2006 to 2012. 

Additionally, the biography notes that Garcetti was raised in the San Fernando Valley, graduated from Columbia University, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and the London School of Economics and taught at Occidental College and the University of Southern California.    Read more »

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Of Foreign Relations and Testosterone

“Foreign relations, to a great extent, has a lot of male testosterone involved,” U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said April 4 in San Francisco.

The comment by the senior senator from California came during an answer to a question about tensions In North Korea at the University of California at Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies annual Salon Gala dinner.     Read more »

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A Fairer Way to Fund Schools

By Christopher J. Steinhauser 

Hanging on the wall just outside my office here at the Long Beach Unified School District is a framed, yellowing copy of a budget for a local grammar school from 1913.  Created with pencil and ruler, the budget is a simple ledger of revenue and expenditures. It takes up just one page.    Read more »

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Not Sleeping Enough Can Make You Fat

Maintaining a normal metabolism requires a certain amount of sleep. Less sleep affects metabolism, which can contribute to cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. In one study, those sleeping five hours instead of eight had higher levels of ghrelin, a hormone the stomach releases to signal hunger.

(See “Childhood Obesity from Lack of Sleep?”    Read more »

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Fevered Tail-Wagging and Lolling of Tongues

A bill its author says will help open more dog parks around the state by protecting cities and counties from liability for any “injury or death suffered by any person or pet” occurring at those parks won unanimous approval April 3 by the Assembly Judiciary Committee.

The bipartisan agreement on the measure might stem from its subject matter.    Read more »

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Thorough and Deliberative Policy Committee Hearings?

 “California lawmakers hurriedly pass hundreds of bills with little or no discussion.”

Words like those will appear in various media reports during the week ending May 31 when Assembly bills must move to the Senate and vice versa.

Even though this feverish several-day flurry of seemingly indiscriminate bill passage occurs annually, it’s a spectacle worth spotlighting.    Read more »

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