[9/24/07]
[Senator
Tom McClintock]
12:07 am [permalink]
Unfinished Budget Business... As the state budget continues to unravel, it’s important to address a matter of unfinished business: the ongoing campaign to recall State Senator Jeff Denham for – gasp – insisting that the state budget be balanced.
Denham’s Merced-area Senate seat was carefully drawn in the last reapportionment to elect Democrat Rusty Areias, but a funny thing happened on the way to the coronation. Denham beat Areias in a hotly contested race in 2002. His seat remains one of the most competitive districts in California.
So when Denham stood with Senate Republicans to demand a balanced budget, he was the one the spending lobby targeted. Arnold Schwarzenegger actually campaigned in Denham’s district during the initial phase of the recall campaign, attacking Jeff for delaying state checks during the impasse. (Never mind that it was Denham who tried to get a continuing appropriation to avoid any delay, only to be blocked on a party-line vote by the Democrats).
In the next few months, I think it will become graphically clear to voters why Senate Republicans tried to hold out for a balanced budget. But in the meantime, the left is continuing to gather signatures.
If Denham is recalled, it means that Abel Maldonado, (the Democrats’ favorite Republican Senator) can combine with the Democrats to pass any tax increase or override any veto. It would effectively deliver to Democrats 2/3 control of the State Senate.
What can you do?
First, click here to sign and rush-return the attached Petition to Oppose the Recall. For every recall signature, let’s show many more from Californians who appreciate Jeff’s stand for a balanced budget – and his courage in standing up to Schwarzenegger and the spending lobby.
Second, use the form on the petition to send a contribution to help Jeff fight this dangerous recall. For more information you can also visit Jeff's website at: www.joinwithjeff.com.
Let’s show the spending lobby and California’s left-wing power-brokers that we will stand behind those who stand behind the taxpayers of our state.
[9/17/07]
[Bill Leonard]
- 12:05
am [permalink]
Random Thoughts on the Governor’s Random Thoughts The news media enjoyed covering Governor Schwarzenegger’s comments to the California Republican Party members at the state convention. The Sacramento Bee’s headline proclaimed that his remarks were a “bitter dose for the GOP.” Dose of what? Medicine or poison? Both can be bitter.
The Governor talked about the lush, green middle and urged the party membership to go there and welcome independents to join them. Yet, he only mentioned the environment and highway building as the issues key to that middle. Unfortunately, in our state at this time, those two issues are seriously incompatible and the Governor did not explain how he meant for them to co-habitat in that verdant valley he speaks of so glowingly. In my mind, the beautiful center of a valley is so green because it is also the flood plain where is not safe to build.
[9/5/07]
[Bill Leonard]
- 12:05
am [permalink]
11th Hour Movie Another Hollywood Sham There was another terrific article, this time by Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore, in the Vancouver Sun last Wednesday. Moore whacks his old organization and Leonardo DiCaprio for bad science in their film, The 11th Hour. Moore points out that if DiCaprio and other climate alarmists were really serious about combating global warming they would not be advocating leaving forests to their own, unmanaged, end. Moore agrees with the Hollywood crowd that trees are great carbon consumers, and are thus a terrific weapon to combat whatever global warming is caused by carbon dioxide. But Moore says DiCaprio’s call to not cut trees is based on bad science. The reason is simple. Turns out that the older and larger trees get, their capacity for taking carbon out of the air decreases.
Moore points out that trees harvested to make furniture during the Elizabethan age still contain the carbon those trees took from the air. In contrast, when trees are allowed to grow until they are diseased, struck by lighting, burned in fire, or die by other means, the carbon collected during the trees’ life is released back into the atmosphere.
So, if you want to get carbon out of the air, you really need lots of young trees. This is accomplished by cutting down older trees, thus capturing the carbon contained in them, and replacing them with a new crop. While there seems little chance of converting the millions of acres of federally protected -- but rotting -- old growth forests, we should acknowledge the great good private forestry management does, not just by providing us with wood products, but for also providing the world with more carbon-free air.
Having strong feelings about trees, or other natural things, does not in itself make one in tune with nature. Despite the assumed enlightenment of the modern environmental movement, I predict history will remember this age’s pop-science culture as being as intellectually dark as pre-Medieval times.
Hat-tip: Drudge Report
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=67623834-a1af-42e4-91cb-28492a462651
