Category: Politics

politics: workings of government

Big unions opposed to automated checkout lanes spend lavishly on CA Rep. Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco

no automatic union dues
no automatic union dues


Follow the money that flows from the Big Unions to CA politicians. It’s time that CA voters pass a law that stops automatic removal of union dues by employers who then pay the unions.

Change the law so the unions have to get the union dues directly from members.

That would sever the stream of money that flows into the politicians pocket book via unions. DrCameronJackson@gmail.com
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Baptists & bootleggers won’t let kids buy booze in the self checkout line by Katherine Mangu-Ward 1-9-2012

http://reason.com/blog/2012/01/09/baptists-and-bootleggers-wont-let-kids-b

One of the 40,000 new regulations that went into effect on January 1 was a California rule prohibiting the sale of alcohol in self-checkout lines, sponsored by state Rep. Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco). Why? For the children, of course!

Will the ban prevent the kids from getting their Bartles & Jaymes on? Let’s go to the numbers:

The study quoted in Ma’s literature was undertaken in 2009 at UCLA. If you can look past the obsequious photos, the data is interesting. Ma’s money shot is this passage:

…participants were able to override a locked self-checkout machine or purchase alcohol without an employee’s assistance and thus bypass the system 19 times out of 97 attempts (about 20 percent of attempts).

Another study, from San Diego State, found an even lower percentage of young people—of a sample pool more than twice as large — were able to make off with booze in the self-checkout line: 8.4 percent.

Meanwhile, another set of numbers about Rep. Ma— unions love her, it seems, almost as much as they hate automated labor saving technologies!:

By the by, does the name Fiona Ma ring a bell? It should. She’s the source of one of my favorite lines in recent memory from a reason.tv video. Of her effort to crack down on raves in California, she says: “I found out later on that constitutionally you cannot ban a type of music.” Oops.

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biovocational ministry (work & minister) can work for small Christian churches says Carl Trueman

Part time pastors

Most American Christian churches are small — less than 100 members. Only a few churches are mega-churches. So how can little churches survive given the financial meltdown of last few years? Carl Trueman advocates that small churches call clergy who can serve part time and also have paid employment in another occupation.

Conservative writers include Carl Trueman, a Christian theologian who writes astutely about the American political scene. Go to www.reformation21.org/blog for more information.

Below, Trueman writes about “biovocational ministry” as the wave of the future for small churches.

Trueman asks, if there are a 100 poor family can they only have a poorly paid full time pastor? Truman plans to match actions with words and — if called in February, 2012 — to take a part time position as a pastor. You can find Carl Truman’s writings at www.reformation.21.org See link below. written by DrCameronJackson@gmail.com

http://www.reformation21.org/articles/an-important-and-positive-lesson-from-the-liberals-which-you-might-not-hear-else.php

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Dog owners are positive force on Santa Cruz beaches

Live Oak Beach Club
Live Oak Beach Club
Frolicking dogs at beach
Frolicking dogs at beach

I live at the beach in Live Oak, CA and am very aware of some of the problems associated with dogs on the beach and understand the concerns addressed in a recent article.

I also believe the incidents are infrequent and in the 10 years I’ve lived here, I have seen a positive change in the attitude of the local dog owner community.

The beach here has long been recognized as an off-leash haven, despite the law, which also prohibits fireworks, littering, glass containers, alcohol and bonfires. I have never seen efforts by the county to monitor activities that include these.

Why punish an entire community of happy frolicking dogs and responsible dog owners for the actions of a few rotten tomatoes? There are other ways to address this issue such as off-leash hours or joining community efforts to promote public awareness and pro-active measures in keeping our beaches and parks clean and safe for everyone.

One such group is Live Oak Beach Club for which information can be found on Facebook.

It’s not unusual to see a group of these local dog owners picking up the trash and broken glass left in smoldering bonfires by drunken revelers from the night before. And no, they don’t leave their waste in bags.

Letter by Marion Morris, member of Life Oak Beach Club, published 1-29-2012 in Santa Cruz Sentinel, B2

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Firenze Sage: Who are the cheapstakes? [charity donations by Al Gore? Joe Biden? Obama? Gingrich? Romney?]

worst cheapskate politicians?
worst cheapskate politicians?

Romney raked in about $42 million in 2010 and 2011. His effective tax rate was just below 14 percent, lower than that for many American taxpayers. Romney paid $6.2 million to the taxman and donated a staggering $7 million to charity, including $4.1 million to the Mormon church.

In fact, in those two years, Romney paid 16 percent of his income to charity, compared to, er, 2.6 percent by Newt Gingrich.

And what about President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in the run-up to their 2008 campaign?

USA Today broke it down here. In 2007, the Obamas gave more than $240,000 to charity, about 5.7 percent of their income. The Bidens gave an average of $369 to charity a year for the decade before he moved to the Naval Observatory – about 0.3 percent of their income. Back in 1997, then veep Al Gore and his then wife Tipper gave $353.

Since becoming veep, Biden hasn’t become much more generous. In 2010, Biden gave $5,350, about 1.4 percent of income. That same year, Romney gave some $3 million. The national average is about three percent.

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Did you hear the one about Biden giving the homeless guy a cup of coffee. Never mind, no one did.

jaj48@aol.com JAJ48@aol.com http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/109312

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Firenze Sage: See the pyramid for life … [Egypt detains son of U.S. Transportation secretary]

detained in Egypt
detained in Egrypt

Six Americans working for publicly funded U.S. organizations promoting democracy in Egypt have been barred from leaving the country. The U.S. demands that that Cairo’s new military rulers stop “endangering American lives”.

Among those hit by travel bans – one of those targeted called it “de facto detention” – include a son of the U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Other foreign staffers are also detained. How come he was detained?
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Ah, springtime in Egypt — whether you like it or not!

JAJ48@AOL.COM

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Congressman Sam Farr’s failure to raise $ govt payments to physicians

Congressman Sam Farr is simply ineffective. He claimed that if Democrats were in control then MD and other health professionals could be paid as ‘urban’ and not ‘rural’ MDs. He has failed and continues to fail to change the designation so our MDs are paid appropriately.

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Farr fails to change MDs designation
Farr fails to change MD's designation

Congressman Sam Farr has failed to get local MD’s and other health professionals paid equivalent to urban MDs. Sam Farr represents Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties.

Is Sam Farr simply ineffective? You decide:

Payment to health providers: Various health professionals (including MD physicians, psychiatrists and psychologists) in Santa Cruz & Monterey Counties are paid much less per patient than physicians in urban areas such as San Jose and near by cities.

So what? It matters because MD’s and other health providers do not want to take on more patients when paid only through federal government. Hence, the pool of doctors and other health providers available for older citizens is shrinking and shrinking.

This has been an on-going problem for years. Repeatedly, Democrat congressman Sam Farr has been asked to get the designation changed so that Santa Cruz, CA and Monterey are not considered ‘rural’.

Congressman Sam Farr has failed — and continues to fail — to get the designation changed.

Back in 2007, Sam Farr said in public meetings that the best way to increase reimbursements for our ‘rural’ medical doctor MDs was to vote in the Democrats.

Well, Sam Farr got what he said was necessary: Since 2008, the Democrats have been in control. And the Democrats have passed just about everything they want.

Despite control by the Democrats, Sam Farr has still never gotten the designation changed so that local MD doctors are paid equivalent to near by urban areas.

So, Sam Farr failed under the Republicans and he has failed under the Democrats to get the designation changed so our MD’s and health professionals are paid equivalent to those in San Jose and urban areas.

How much failure by Sam Farr should voters accept? Enough is enough seems to me.

What say you?

DrCameronJackson@gmail.com

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Republican candidates’s websites need to listen to voters. Romney’s website is a bill board & there’s no way to communicate to him…

how contact Romney & say focus on REPEAL OBAMA-CARE
how contact Romney & say focus on REPEAL OBAMA-CARE

If you go to Romney’s site — there is no way to contact Romney on his site. It’s only a bill board saying what he wants to say.

So how do voters contact Romney to say stop going after the other contenders for the Republican nomination. FOCUS on what has happened on Obama’s watch (e.g., gas prices are double what they were before elected) and

The only email address listed on Romney’s site is: info@mittromney.com

Take a look at Romney’s site and let him know that you have something important to say. Please make it easy for voters to communicate to you. For example, how about a simple plan how to reform the tax code?
DrCameronJackson@gmail.com

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Firenze Sage: The TSA is a huge, dangerous joke …

Meanwhile, granny is still prostrate on the TSA floor showing her colostomy bag.
A soldier arrested on Dec. 31 at the Midland, Texas, airport with C4 explosives in his bag said he probably carried the bomb material on a flight from North Carolina to Texas.

Screeners delayed the soldier after finding and confiscating a smoke grenade but let him on that first flight.
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Meanwhile, granny is still prostrate on the TSA floor showing her colostomy bag.

JAJ48@aol.com For more Firenze Sage: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/109312

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Firenze Sage: Pass the wine and the lifeboat… [ship wreck off Italy’s coast]

boat wreck and dinner for two
boat wreck and dinner for two

The captain of the Costa Concordia ordered dinner for himself and a woman after the ship struck rocks off Italy’s coast, a cook from the ship told a Filipino television station.

In an interview with GMA Network, cook Rogelio Barista said Capt. Francesco Schettino ordered dinner less than an hour after the accident.

“We wondered what was going on. … At that time, we really felt something was wrong. … The stuff in the kitchen was falling off shelves and we realized how grave the situation was,” Barista told GMA.

Schettino ordered dinner around 10:30 p.m. Friday, Barista said. Authorities say the ship struck the rocks at 9:41 p.m.
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A romantic dinner cruise complete with shipwreck.

JAJ48@aol.com
for more Firenze Sage:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/109312

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Firenze Sage: It gets sillier and sillier … [Couger as name for sports team not OK]

Couger
The Couger name for a sport team is not OK says a school. Why? Because ‘couger’ refers to older women who prefer younger men. Corner Canyon High School hasn’t even opened yet, and it’s already facing controversy.

The new school, scheduled to open in 2013 in Draper, Utah, announced this week that it had chosen its mascot and school colors.

According to KSTU-TV, future students within the school’s boundaries were mailed ballots to vote for the sports teams’ colors and mascot. The colors navy, silver and white were selected and the Charger was named the mascot — the first in Utah to use it.

The Chargers was not the most popular team name with the kids. The most popular name was the Cougars, getting 23 percent of the votes. Other choices included the Chargers, Diamondbacks, Falcons, Raptors, Broncos, Bears and Cavaliers.

But the Cougar was rejected as the mascot.

Why?” Because board members decided it might be seen as offensive to middle-aged women. [For those who are not in the know, a couger is an older woman who gets a younger man.]
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No more soda pop, manhole cover, or bogeyman too?

JAJ48@aol.com For more Firenze Sage posts, go to:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/109312

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