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California, along with many other states, has unfunded public pension obligations that it hasn't the remotest possibility of being able to meet. A Stanford study last April determined California's unfunded pension liabilities to be $500 billion. That's right, California owes half a trillion dollars and it hasn't a clue where the money will come from. This sorry state of affairs is due to multiple factors. California public pension funds have been mismanaged for years and have used unrealistic e

Arizona allows anyone concerned about the mental health of another to report them to authorities to be evaluated, even as they continue to slash their mental health budget. Many other states including California are of course doing the same. Such cuts do put those needing help more at risk.  However, the key to recovering from mental illness is for the person to want to change. States can't make anyone change nor can they lock someone up for acting oddly. This is certainly a good thing as such

The Department of the Interior and the Department of Energy have targeted 21 million acres of public land as now available for right-of-way applications with over 677,000 acres designated as Solar Energy Zones (SEZ) and appropriate for solar power installations. SEZ land is chosen based on its high solar energy potential and fewest potential environmental conflicts. There are currently 104 active solar power applications on public land which could generate a whopping 60 GW of power. By designat

Looking back on 2010, we'll all remember what a strange year it was. But while replete with iPads, vuvuzelas, Lady Gaga outfits, earthquakes, treacherous winter storms, Old Spice commercials, Taylor Swift, and YouTube videos of that 2-year-old Indonesian baby chain smoking, the single most significant event of 2010 might very well be the mobilization of the Tea Party protests into an electoral machine. The modern (post-Obama) "Tea Party" started as a series of nationwide protests in 2009, focus

All four Senators from California and Nevada, one Republican and three Democrats, are jointly sponsoring the Lake Tahoe Restoration Act of 2010. A new report by UC Davis scientists using 100 years of data and computer models of the future shows why immediate action is needed. They are projecting a bleak future for Lake Tahoe as the effects of climate change damage the lake. Among the potential impacts of climate change by 2100 are: Less snow and more rain. Water will get released faster with le

The Justice department issued an appeals court briefing last Friday that has the potential to change the face of patent law and reshape the biotech industry as we know it. After a lower court ruling in March, which overturned several decades of gene patenting policy, Myriad Genetics corporation has appealed the decision, asking the higher court to recognize its supposed right to patent a sequence of the human genome. If the decision is upheld, the biotech industry mainstay of patenting not only

The highly respected and non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) says the California Unemployment Insurance Fund is insolvent and worse, will face a deficit of $20 billion by the end of 2011. The numbers are really dismal. In 2009, the fund paid out $11.3 billion in benefits while only taking in $4.5 billion from employers, and has been getting interest-free loans from the federal government to help make up the shortfall. But those loans will soon start charging interest, which means an

Last winter’s bountiful snowfall in the Sierras pulled California out of its four-year drought and provided much-needed water to farms, homes and businesses.  This past summer was unusually cool and wet, bringing some changes in the growth pattern of vegetation.  So what’s on tap for the coming winter season? According to Tahoe Weather Geek, we can expect a mixed bag for the state, with a strong possibility of wet weather in the north but a dry year in the south.  The big question is, where is

Some are making the argument that legalizing gay marriage is a slippery slope towards legalization of polygamy. Once gay marriage is legal, then what prevents polygamy from being accepted, then legalized? This can be a libertarian issue too, as in, let's keep the government out of our bedrooms. Others might wonder why there is a ban against polygamy at all. Writing in 2008, conservative William Saletan sees nothing that would really prevent polygamy from becoming legal, even as he expresses unea

Personally, I don't have a problem with marijuana legalization.  But, current marijuana users do need to know that their marijuana (or other drugs too) almost certainly comes via Mexican drug cartels and their affiliates, and it is quite literally drenched in blood and corruption. Since 2006, at least 22,000 people have been killed, often after being tortured, in the raging drug wars just south of the US border. It's not just cartel members who are being killed. Innocent passersby are being sla