"Evacuations, outages as storm hits Calif." by Associated Press | January 19, 2010
LOS ANGELES - Authorities ordered the evacuation of 64 southern California homes yesterday as heavy rains pounded a neighborhood just below an area scarred by a massive wildfire....
More than 12,000 southern California residents lost power yesterday because of a heavy winter storm sweeping through the region that caused mudslides in fire-ravaged areas....
Residents in southern California foothill communities were seeing the first of three storms this week. Forecasters said some areas could get up to 1.25 inches of rain an hour. No major damage was reported. Forecasters said storms lasting through at least Friday could drop 20 inches of rain inland and 8 inches along the coast and in the valleys of southern California.
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Only one thing to do, Californians: LIGHT UP!
SAN FRANCISCO - A unanimous California Supreme Court struck down a law yesterday that sought to impose limits on the amount of marijuana a medical patient can legally possess.
The California Supreme Court ruled that state lawmakers were wrong to change provisions of the voter-approved Proposition 215. The 1996 measure allowed for patients with a doctor’s rec- ommendation to possess an unspecified amount of marijuana.
Now I know I'm dreaming because I'm not stoned!
WHO struck a BLOW for FREEDOM, huh?
The Legislature, seeking to give law enforcement guidance on when to make marijuana possession arrests, mandated in 2003 that each patient could have a maximum of 8 ounces of dried marijuana.
No, I knew it wouldn't be the Legislature.
The high court says only voters can change amendments added to California’s constitution through the initiative process. The ruling by Chief Justice Ron George left in place the portion of the new law that protects patients from arrest who possess a state-issue medical marijuana identification card.
I don't like the sound of that last bit, but all life is a trade-off, right?
George did note, though, that police are still authorized to make arrests if they believe the cards to be forgeries or reasonably suspect a crime has been committed. Also yesterday, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that a doctor’s permission to use medical marijuana does not preclude police from arresting a patient or searching a home.
In other words, not much has changed.
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Wake up, readers!
"Residents return to homes after storms
LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE - Hundreds of Southern Californians were back in their homes yesterday as a stampede of storms that brought lightning, vicious downpours, and tornadoes turned to sunshine.
In southern California?
Fears of debris flows northeast of Los Angeles subsided.
Actually, just got carried further downriver.
Mandatory evacuation orders for hundreds of homes were lifted after public works specialists determined the ground was safe - for now. The homes are in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains burned bare last summer by wildfire.
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Yeah, just be careful when leaving again:
"$338m speed trap plan in Calif. faces roadblocks" by Christopher Palmeri, Bloomberg News | January 24, 2010
LOS ANGELES - Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to snap photos of speeders to raise $338 million faces opposition even from within his party, a sign of the challenge he faces in closing a $20 billion budget gap.
I thought things were only supposed to be for terrorists.
The Republican’s Jan. 8 proposal, which would install 500 cameras and charge as much as $325 a ticket, may be too costly for residents struggling with joblessness and tax bills amid the worst recession since the Great Depression, said state Senate Republican leader Dennis Hollingsworth, one of 14 in his party in the 40-member body.
“I don’t think there’s much, if any, support among Senate Republicans for such a proposal,’’ Hollingsworth, of Murrieta, said in a statement. “We should control spending, and not allow the budget problems of the state to cause us to continue soaking Californians.’’
Good thing he is leaving in November, 'eh, California?
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Even with support from all 25 Democrats in the Senate, Schwarzenegger would still need backing from at least two Republican senators for the two-thirds majority required to pass his proposal. The budget plan also needs to go through the state Assembly....
Schwarzenegger, 62, joins governors including New York’s David Paterson in seeking ways to balance spending plans after state tax collections nationwide fell the most in 46 years in the first three quarters of 2009, according to the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government....
And what they do collect they stuff in their own pockets and pass out to well-connected interests and friends.
Paterson, 55, a Democrat, this month proposed putting 50 speed cameras on highways as part of a plan to raise $1 billion with new taxes and fees, which also includes a levy on sugar- sweetened beverages.
So when are they going to start weighing s***s and charging for those, huh?
Just a matter of time, AmeriKa.
Arizona raised about $700 million this month through a sale-leaseback of buildings including prisons, while Pennsylvania is expanding gambling to boost tax revenue.
Yeah, invite those immoral, degenerate, community-destroying criminals in, that will help.
Assemblyman Mike Eng, a Democrat from Monterey Park, in an interview last week:
“I think the public will have to be convinced it’s an issue of public safety and not just revenue.’’
We know what it's about.
Eng, chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, sponsored legislation that would have put cameras on street sweepers to photograph cars parked illegally and blocking cleaning. Schwarzenegger vetoed that bill in October, saying it presented “a significant risk of violating an individual’s privacy’’ and could “lead to the unwarranted proliferation of camera enforcement in many other arenas.’’
Pick your poison, 'eh, California?
Want a D or an R on the bottle?
That's your "choice" here in AmeriKa -- and Kalifornia!!
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Oh, yeah, about the storms:
"After the deluge in S. California, a mess; Storm-battered Coast, Southwest begin cleanup" by Gillian Flaccus, Associated Press | January 25, 2010
SEAL BEACH, Calif. - Spare tires, rusted shopping carts, and steaming trash covered this ocean beach - ugly remnants from the series of damaging rainstorms that pelted Southern California and went on to pummel Arizona and New Mexico....
The mounds of soggy sofa cushions, plastic children’s toys, dented refrigerators, and hundreds of plastic cans and food wrappers - debris swept down rivers to the sea - were just one calling card left by a week of punishing storms that moved across the Southwest....
At higher elevations, forecasters warned of blowing and drifting snow and issued winter weather and wind advisories for southern New Mexico, with heavy snow expected in the Gila and Sacramento mountains. More than 2 feet of snow have fallen in the Chama area in northern New Mexico, while parts of southwestern New Mexico got 27 inches of snow.
Yeah, but with a global warming agenda to push the Glob is curiously silent on these weather emergencies -- at least, when it conflicts with the agenda.
Harsh winter weather also hit the Dakotas, where thousands of people were without power after icy weather toppled miles of power lines.
Losing power in a freezing blizzard!!!
Another smaller storm was forecast for Southern California beginning tomorrow evening and expected to last about two days, said National Weather Service meteorologist Steve Vanderburg.
But that storm was the farthest thing from the minds of weather-weary Southern Californians, who ventured to the region’s famous beaches by the dozens over the weekend to bask in the sunshine and balmy temperatures.
Enjoy it for the few hours it lasts, dude!
Many were shocked to find the trash from the storm’s urban runoff and picked gingerly through tangled garbage to reach the water....
Gotta quit smokin' that demon weed, damn ya!
That has to be what the MSM is smoking, though:
"Scientists try to envision impact of a ‘Frankenstorm‘" by Alicia Chang, Associated Press | January 25, 2010
LOS ANGELES - Weather researchers say West Coast storms could get more frequent and severe with climate change....
Last fall, a team of federal, state and academic officials was formed to tackle what would happen if a series of powerful storms lashed at the state for 23 days. The scenario is expected to be completed this summer and will be used in a statewide disaster drill next year.
What, are they gearing up the HAARP for something else?
Ironically, the team had scheduled meetings at Caltech to discuss the fictional storm’s impact to dams, sewage treatment plants, transportation, and the electrical grid. About a dozen members canceled due to the weather.
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LOS ANGELES - A lawsuit alleges that the California Science Center, a state-owned center in Los Angeles, improperly bowed to pressure from the Smithsonian Institution, as well as e-mailed complaints from University of Southern California professors and others....
The suit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by the American Freedom Alliance, a Los Angeles-based group described by senior fellow Avi Davis as a nonprofit, nonpartisan “think tank and activist network promoting Western values and ideals.’’ The AFA seeks punitive damages and compensation for financial losses, as well as a declaration from the court that the center violated the Constitution and cannot refuse the group the right to rent its facilities for future events....
And who is going to have to pay for this? YOU ARE, taxpayers!
Intelligent design is the theory that an intelligent being, rather than impersonal forces such as Darwinian natural selection, is responsible for shaping life on earth. An overwhelming majority of scientists and science and natural history museums consider the theory of evolution to have been proved beyond a doubt by genetic and fossil evidence. Critics of intelligent design have dismissed it as a superficially scientific cloak for the straightforwardly religious belief known as Creationism that’s anchored in a literal reading of the biblical Book of Genesis.
Who knows what to believe when it comes to the scientists anymore?
The doctors are bought off by the drug companies, and the warmers are bought of by globalists. You stand just as much chance going with the religion in my book now.
Too bad you guys all lied about the warming temperatures, and too bad the MSM sold it all. That was a real death blow to the MSM.
The AFA’s Davis said his group has no position on Darwinism and intelligent design but is concerned that debate is being stifled by the scientific establishment.
Hey, it has happened before.
Besides, there has to be some higher power guiding in some of my horrendous-looking basketball shots.
During the fall, the AFA organized a series of public events, including the film screening, geared to the 2009 bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of his landmark work, “On the Origin of Species.’’
Related: England Honors a Eugenicist
Strange how our leaders and the authorities either commit it directly via mass-murdering wars, or seek to cull us for our own "health," right?
On Oct. 5, the science center, one of 165 national affiliates of the Smithsonian that enjoy special access to loans from its massive collection, received an alert - and a complaint - from Harold Closter, director of the Smithsonian’s affiliates program. Closter gave the science center the heads-up about a news release that had been issued not by the AFA but by the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank that promotes intelligent design....
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