Advisor Blogs

For two years or more, an inflammatory anti-Mexican immigrant (legal and illegal) chain letter email has circulated the Internet. It lists a series of truly disturbing statistics demonstrating that these illegal immigrants (ALL people of Mexican descent are assumed to be illegal immigrants) are the number one problem in America -– raping, pillaging and welfaring their way across the land.

The recession is upon us.

While still not official, most agree that we are in an economic downturn. Unemployment is rising, housing prices are plummeting and energy costs are soaring. As a result, in this election year, the federal government is offering tax rebates (admittedly ill-advised) to lessen the pain.

But in California, politicians think there are only two times to raise taxes -- good times and bad times. Oddly enough, this is one of those times.

I have a new/old laptop computer and I love it -- finally -- because I dumped Microsoft Windows Vista.

In June 2007 I got a new Lenovo ThinkPad T61 with Windows Vista. I expected to be thrilled with my new laptop, but instead, it was horrible. Whatever I tried to do, the new computer fought me -- and usually, it won. By "do" I mean basic stuff: save a file, connect to my office network and the Internet, turn on, turn off, copy some files. It's MY computer -- shouldn't I be allowed to do these things? Nope, not without lots of effort, wasted time, and sometimes, complete failure.

1. Local College Econ Prof Parrots "Wisdom" from Internet Spammers
2. Duncan Hunter's HUGE Fund Raising a Farce
3. All of Rider's Major Lawsuits Have Been about Properly Voting for Tax Increases and Issuing Bonds
4. In This Game, God Abandoned the Methodists
5. The Insanity That Is Oakland: Illegal Affirmative Action in Firefighter Selection
6. Here's My $10 Cash Christmas Present -– from Me to YOU!
7. CraigsList Bans Our Gonzo San Diego Firefighter Ad
8. The New (Well, Recent) Multi-TRILLION Dollar GOP Spending Plan
9. End the War on LEGAL Drugs

Public vs. private salaries, California business climate, Republican Party straw poll, make a will, fire fighter jobs, beach booze ban, Second Amendment, Omaha Mall shooting

It's screwy: TV networks MUST have watchers -- lots of us -- or they go out of business. So why are they making it so hard to watch their shows?

I'm talking about the wacky practice of scheduling shows at odd times and odd lengths. It's in pursuit of a bone-head theory about preventing channel switching, but it more likely prevents watching in the first place.

Here's an inaccurate printed rebuttal column, written by a firefighter, responding to my North County Times op-ed on "Expanding our Firefighting Options."

Six Items – Five on San Diego fires, last one on home prices.

Eight items, all related to the San Diego area fires. Interesting tales from folks affected by the blazes.

This is devoted entirely to fire fighting in general, and the San Diego County fire disaster in particular. The good news is that -- at TREMENDOUS expense and tragic loss of life -- we had an opportunity to learn from the 2003 massive Cedar fire, with four years to implement needed improvements and reforms. The bad news is that, in some critical matters, our politicians and bureaucrats didn't seem to learn a damn thing.