Looks like Cal-eee-forn-eee-a is pushing to legalize pot to shore up their budget shortfall.  Wonder when this is going to go national?  There are a lot of things that we can pay for with tax revenue from pot:

1. Health Care for Everyone (in the form of pot)
2. Greener Everything (what kind of carbon footprint does pot have?)
3. Education for all…everyone can have a PhD!
4. Everyone has a home, cell phone, Internet access, car, wii and Pop Tarts

Once it’s nationally legalized, can I get farm subsidies to grow it?  I think I could get one for being a really bad farmer…hmmmm.

I haven’t read too much on it, but wasn’t Prohibition repealed in 1933 when federal government was trying to save the economy?  Just thinking…if pot doesn’t work, we can just name off the vice that we’ll legalize for the revenue…what a wonderful government we’ll have with an endless revenue stream!  All our problems will be solved!  Woo hoo.  Can’t wait.

Apparently the real victory for Mr. Maldonado, the Republican who broke ranks to end the “crisis” (by raising taxes by almost $13billion) was a provision to create (or potentially create, subject to a referendum, of course) an “open primary” system.

A proposed constitutional amendment would go before voters in June 2010 instituting a “top-two” primary system, which would effectively eliminate party primary ballots, erase candidate party labels in primary elections and allow voters to choose the two candidates - of whatever party - who would compete in the general election.

An open primary would dissolve the current political primary system, and has the potential to seriously erode party power and change the entire landscape of state politics.

The measure was the work of Republican state Sen. Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria (Santa Barbara County), the swing vote Democrats needed to push through state budget legislation Thursday morning. That vote earned him the wrath of his party.

So, in other words, Maldonado has cut a deal whereas while earning the wrath of his party he weakens the party, therefore weakening the party’s ability to affect his reelection (by pushing an alternative in the primary). How “courageous” of Maldonado to cut a deal to protect his job, and how “bi-partisan” of all the other legislators to agree to protect their jobs from “party politics.”

Meanwhile, about $26 billion dollars of the Stimulus Package will be coming California’s way. Wonder how much of that will given BACK to Californians in a tax cut? Anyone want to guess?

Just spoke with a friend who bought a house in the suburbs. The house was fairly cheap and discounted, the interest rate was 5% and only a 3% down payment was needed for closing. It’s out in one of these planned neighborhoods and the builder is still building houses, and they must be getting desperate because the builder covered the closing costs and even threw in a plasma TV. Whether the TV was refurbished from a recent foreclosure, I can’t tell.

Current Homeowners in these sprawling burbs aren’t doing so hot. I think it depends on where you are, however. Here in Texas, a home in the burbs cost between 100-190K.The top end of that is closer to 150K now. In a sprawling burb an hour away from the outskirts of a city in California, the house price was close to 400K, and is now close to half that. Because a large part of the media industry belongs in California, we are led to believe that society, government, and culture there is far more enlightened than it is here in Texas. Part of the reason those house prices were so high was because zoning regulations in California cities are so strict that it creates artificial scarcity, inflating the prices sky high. Not only does this encourage homelessness, the cities create a market for homelessness by subsidizing it. Meanwhile, here in Texas the homelessness rate is nonexistent…I’ve lived in Houston for 1 year and have seen the same five guys panhandling near the mental hospital. There are some shoddy houses in some shoddy neighborhoods, you betcha, but no one here acts all high and mighty about how here in Houston we have plenty of cheap housing. Even if they did, the industry here is oil and health care, both evil according to the left, and not the media, banking, or lawyering, like on the coasts. Since the coasts control the media, the coasts are enlightened and here in the South and Midwest we just don’t get it. Funny how that works.

Oh, Instapundit had a great article on killing the Community Reinvestment Act.

This might be the next real big Supreme Court Case:

http://getliberty.org/blog/the…_is_at_stake/

A 5-4 decision as to whether we can defend ourselves in our homes, might indeed be followed (next yearm\, most likely, by a 5-4 decision as to whether we can raise and educate our children as we see fit. This is an extremely fundamental and decidedly important case. Truthfully, to me, the thought of the Government having an absolute right to be the one and only arbiter of the education of your children is as scary, or perhaps even more scary, than the thought that the Government can be the only ones to carry guns.

Hopefully, someone will convince a “Progressive” or two might be convinced that ACCESS to public education and REQUIREMENT of public education are two completely different things.

I just can’t resist this. In what world does it make sense to save the planet and refuse to burn too much carbon dioxide, by cutting down trees, which–last time I checked–breathe in carbon dioxide.

Associated Press story.

My favorite quote from a man who spent $70,000 on solar panel equipment and THEN went next door to demand his neighbor cut down his redwoods (Apparently he never thought about it or talked about it with his neighbor BEFORE investing $70,000):

“I think it’s unfair that a neighbor can take away this source of energy from another neighbor,” he said.

Wow…take away? The real trick here is that when I was younger I thought I remember redwood trees being absolutely sacred in California. Turns out this law that says it’s illegal to block solar panels with your trees was written in the 70s.

The tree-owner’s defense?

Treanor and Bissett, who drive a hybrid Toyota Prius, argue that trees absorb carbon dioxide, cool the surrounding air and provide a habitat for wildlife.

But the solar panel investor counters:

Vargas, who recently bought a plug-in electric car, counters it would take two or three acres of trees to reduce carbon dioxide emissions as much as the solar panels that cover his roof and backyard trellis.

Only in California would you have a “I’m greener than you” pissing contest in a court of law. And, I have to say, this is the problem I have with the religion of global warming: That is that it completely sacrifices common sense conservationism on the altar of “reducing our carbon footprint” and completely dismisses the whole “act local” part of the equation.

The REALLY neat thing is that it makes the “classical” environmentalist concept downright reasonable and logical.  So maybe after all of this trend of global warming becoming “mainstream” and scientific fact by scientific consensus, might drive yours truly to be a real rebel and become a tree hugger.

This is proof positive that some people can convince themselves of anything. The Berkeley City Council has not only made it against the law for Marine Recruiters to recruit in Berkeley, but has allowed and encouraged the organization called “Code Pink” to actively impede the Marines from doing so.

…The council also voted 8-1 to give the anti-war Code Pink organization a designated parking space directly in front of the U.S. Marine Corps’ 64 Shattuck Ave. recruiting office and encouraged Code Pink to “impede” Marine recruitment. It’s pretty clear that Spring has heard of free speech, but she has no idea what it is.

It’s one thing for Berkeley to pronounce U.S. troops, who put their lives on the line every day to defend America, as unwelcome. That’s protected speech — that signals Berkeley residents’ disdain for U.S. troops. It’s also the sort of rude, we’re-better-than-the-rest-of-America action that invites outsiders to wonder if a city that tries to divorce itself from military recruitment deserves the benefits that the federal government bestows.

Further evidence that in the bizarro world of the radical left, free speech only applies to those who agree with the radical left point of view.