Category: California
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Arizona and California Gas Prices
Big road trip last weekend: Phoenix, Barstow, Bakersfield, Santa Barbara and back by a different route. The Jeep Wrangler runs on unleaded regular. Paid $3.349/gal on 9/27 at Quartzsite, AZ off of I-10, one of the last Arizona gas-ups enroute to California. Wait 'til Blythe on the California side of the Colorado River and…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Los Angeles Bands
Buffalo Springfield, Blue Bird. Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing. (Features a time signature change.) Dick Dale and the Deltones, Misirlou. Before Clapton, before Bloomfield, my first guitar hero. "King of the Surf Guitar." Pipeline (with Stevie Ray Vaughan). Nitro (with So Cal scenes). Let's Go Trippin', 1961. The first surf instrumental? Beach Boys, Don't Worry…
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I Feel the Earth Move Under my Feet
I missed Saturday Night at the Oldies because I was in La Mirada, California, for a conference at Biola University. Ed Feser gave the keynote address and I was the commentator. More about the proceedings later, perhaps. But for now a quick make-up: Carole KIng, I Feel the Earth Move, from her 1971 Tapestry album.…
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Blue on Blue: California Asians Object to Affirmative Action
A rift within Democrat ranks. Excerpt: California’s Democrats have long chafed against Proposition 209, a 1996 voter-backed measure that said: “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, colour, ethnicity, or national origin” in public employment or education. In January SCA 5,…
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I Add to My Supply of Incandescents
On 11 June 2011, I wrote: Banned on the Left Coast in the People's Republic of Californication! It figures. It's sad to see what has become of my native state. But I am fortunate to flourish in Arizona where bright sun and hard rock and self-reliant liberty-lovers have a suppressive effect on the miasma of…
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California Regulators Go After Sriracha Hot Sauce
Pope Francis recently spoke, quite foolishly, of "unfettered capitalism," as if there is any such thing in the world. A more worthy cynosure of disapprobation is the slide toward unfettered regulation and omni-invasive government spearheaded by presumably well-meaning liberal-fascist nanny-staters. You know things are getting bad when they come after your hot sauce. An Asian…
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Medieval California
Victor Davis Hanson on the once Golden State. Beautifully Medieval California. California at Twilight. The California Mordida.
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Driving in California Ain’t What It Used to Be
I left my native state of California in 1973 and headed for Boston. Back in the day, California drivers were very good. So I was appalled to experience the awful driving habits of Bostonians. Not as bad as Turks who perform such stunts as driving on sidewalks and backing up in heavy traffic on account…
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Good Government Costs Money
And Los Angeles City Council members earn every penny of it.
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Why We Need California
John Stossel: Thanks, California! Thanks for your monstrous spending and absurd regulatory overreach! America needs you. We need Connecticut and Illinois, too! We need you the way we needed the Soviet Union, as models of failure, to warn us what happens if we believe those who say, "Government can." Moving to California was once the…
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Death Spiral States
Do you live in a death spiral state? Buying real estate or municipal bonds in such a state may prove to be a foolish move. Here is a list with each state's 'taker ratio': Ohio 1.0 Hawaii 1.02 Illinois 1.03 Kentucky 1.05 South Carolina 1.06 New York 1.07 Maine 1.07 Alabama 1.10 California 1.39 Mississippi…
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California: Road Warrior is Here
Another great column by Victor Davis Hanson. Meanwhile San Berdoo bites the dust. Excerpt: Intellectually bankrupt, morally bankrupt — the city is under criminal investigation for sundry financial shenanigans — San Bernardino is above all old-fashioned bankrupt bankrupt, a pitiful penniless pauper that cannot even afford a cup of coffee: Seriously — the coffee guy…
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The Range of Light
John Muir (The Mountains of California, 1894, Ch. 1) on California's Sierra Nevada mountain range: . . . the Sierra should be called not the Nevada, or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light. And after ten years spent in the heart of it, rejoicing and wondering, bathing in its glorious floods of light, seeing…
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The Harbor Freeway in Los Angeles
This comes as no surprise: The single most congested stretch of highway in the United States, according to the researchers, is on the Harbor Freeway in Los Angeles, specifically the three-mile stretch of northbound California Highway 110 near Dodger Stadium. Been there, done that.
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Arizona is not California . . .
. . . and proud of it. The Golden State is crumbling.