The State Helps Teenagers Get Free Condoms

Some California teenagers can receive a packet of 10 condoms and “personal lubricant” from a program co-sponsored by the state Department of Public Health and the California Family Health Council.

Launched on Valentine’s Day during “National Condom Week,” the Condom Access Project – CAP for short – is aimed at reducing the transmission of sexual diseases among 15-year-olds to 19-year-olds  “by ensuring that California youth have access to free condoms year round,” the council says in a press release on its website.

The program, whose slogan is “Put a Cap on It,” drew an angry reaction from Karen England, executive director of [....]

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Yet Another Legislative Attempt to Increase Disclosure in Florist Advertising

For the fifth time in 13 years, California lawmakers are trying to outlaw “absentee florists.”

The almost perennial measure – this year’s version carried by Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski — would prevent a florist from misrepresenting the location of their business.

The problem the Fremont Democrat bill aims to solve is that consumers can call a florist using their city or neighborhood in its name, which is actually a call center, located hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Under Wieckowski’s bill, AB 1581, florists using a local phone number or a local name must include their address – both in print, electronic and [....]

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A Subscriber Wonders What Exactly Constitutes a “Dumb” Utility?

  

PG&E HONORED AS ONE OF THE NATION’S SMARTEST UTILITIES

UtiliQ Ranking Focuses on Use of Technology and Innovation to Better Serve Customers

 

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.—Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has just been named one of the nation’s most “intelligent utilities” in the third annual “UtiliQ” ranking by Intelligent Utilitymagazine, which focuses on the smart grid and information-enabled energy, and IDC Energy Insights, a worldwide research and consulting firm. PG&E was second in the 2011 ranking, behind San Diego Gas & Electric, and up from third place in 2010.

The magazine defines an [....]

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Pat Brown on Jerry Brown — 1974

 

This clip comes from an October 19, 1974 KPIX Eyewitness News broadcast.

 

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A New Study Examines the Effect of Ballot Placement

Ballot order affects candidate success, a recently released study of 7,846 California city council, community college and school district elections shows.

“In between four and five percent of the elections we examined, the candidate listed first won office as a result of her or his ballot position,” report Marc Meredith and Yuval Salant in their 41-page study, On the Causes and Consequences of Ballot Order Effects.

In one out of 10 elections, candidates listed first win owe their victory to ballot placement, the study concludes.

Meredith and Salant say the-first-on-the-ballot effect is “similar in city council and in school board elections, in [....]

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Legislative Analyst: New Greenhouse Gas Fees Don’t Help the Budget as Much as Governor Says

The $500 million budget savings Gov. Jerry Brown says will occur from the fees California’s heavy industries will start paying this year to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is overstated by some $400 million, according to a report issued February 16 by the Legislative Analyst.

Lawmakers shouldn’t accept the Democratic governor’s claims without seeing specifics, the analyst recommends.

“The governor’s proposal regarding the allocation of (these) revenues raises some concerns,” the analyst says with its customary understatement.

Brown says he’ll give lawmakers details in early 2013 but is confident he will fund the full $500 million in savings.

The analyst’s [....]

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And Speaking of Social Media…

This from The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor:

“It was on this day in 1978 that social networking got its start when the first public, dial-up Computerized Bulletin Board System (CBBS) went online in Chicago, Illinois. The Internet was in its infancy, not available to most computer users. Two computer hobbyists, Ward Christiansen and Randy Seuss, got the idea to create a virtual message board where CBBS members could dial into the system using a telephone modem and post notes to each other in the same way a family might communicate by sticking messages to a corkboard using pushpins. It was [....]

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Getting More Social All the Time

These statistics come from the February 13, 2012 edition of Newsweek:

 In 2009, there were more than 2 million tweets daily. Today, it’s more than 250 million.

The number of Facebook users has grown from 100 million in 2009 to 800 million.

In 2009, blogs on Tumblr hit 1 million. Now they exceed 42 million. 

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Whey There Are More Dead Skunks on the Road this Time of Year

(Editor’s Note: Recently, several subscribers mentioned that they had seen a surprisingly large number of dead skunks littering California highways. Because California’s Capitol always puts its readers first, here is the following explanation.)

The reason so many skunks – most of them males — are accidentally finding their way to Skunk Heaven in February is because they are in lust.

February and March is skunk mating season.

Males, imitating their two-legged counterparts, are very excitable during this time, obsessively driven by their zeal in locating a mate.

Usually, the average range of a skunk is one-half to two miles. But [....]

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