California

It’s hard to say the word “innovation” and not think of California. Technology has paced the state’s growth in everything from agriculture and oil to housing, entertainment, and aerospace. California has always been the harbinger of the American future, the promise of ever-greater economic and social progress.  read more »

For decades, New York has been the leading exporter of people to other states, though has been severely challenged since 2000 by California. During five years around the housing bust, more net domestic migrants left California than New York. Then, for a time, California’s annual losses were not quite as severe  read more »

For decades, Orange County was a reliable incubator of conservative politics, and, in the era of Nixon, Goldwater and Reagan, a fairly powerful force in the state and on the national level.  read more »

If Hollywood were to cast a governor and future president, and if a straight white male were still politically acceptable, he would look like California’s Gavin Newsom. The 53-year-old governor, a former mayor of San Francisco, Newsom handsomely epitomizes the preening politics of the California elite class that has nurtured and financed his career from the beginning.  read more »

California remains deep blue, but the good news from this week’s elections is that it has not yet achieved complete ballot-box unanimity.  read more »

California Governor Newsom has convinced himself that green EV’s made from “fairy dust” must replace those dirty gas-powered vehicles. Sharing a few realities of the darker side of his fairy dust beliefs may burst his bubble.  read more »

California is in far worse shape economically than the great majority of other states also struggling through the pandemic. COVID-19 may be the primary cause of our current distress, but the evolving structure of our economy has exacerbated this calamity. The worst part is our state leaders should have known this all along.  read more »

Before sky diving, you need to plan ahead by having a parachute before you jump. California Governor Newsom’s recent suicidal jump onto the EV train has a minimum of eight (8) lack-of-a-plan ramifications from his recent Executive order to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035 that will be devastating to the state’s economy and environment:  read more »

I took these photos at midday as I went about my usual chores. The forest fires that have been burning across California sent ash over San Francisco turning the sky a freakish shade of orange.  read more »

They paved paradise...And put up a parking lot...With a pink hotel, a boutique...And a swinging hot spot...Don't it always seem to go...That you don't know what you've got ‘til it's gone -- Joni Mitchell, “Big Yellow Taxi,” 1970  read more »