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The Downgrading American Lifestyle

There is no getting around the fact that more people die in small cars.
 
The National Academy of Sciences, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Congressional Budget Office and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have separately concluded in multiple studies dating back about 20 years that fuel-economy standards force automakers to build more small cars, which has led to thousands more deaths in crashes annually.
 
And now, in his continuing quest to lower everyone's lifestyle in America, the Obama administration's sweeping fuel-economy and emissions initiative announced Tuesday reopens a fierce debate over tradeoffs between fuel economy and auto safety (USA Today)
 
As privately owned Auto dealerships all over the country are being forced to close because of Obama's government takeover of Chrysler and General Motors, this latest move is evidence of the control that environmentalists weild over the Democrats and Obama administration, and comes as automakers' dire financial straits are forcing safety to a back burner. (USA Today)
 
While elected Democrats continue to enhance their lifestyles in hired cars, private planes, drivers, limos, paid-for dinners and vacations, working Americans and small business owners are being forced to cut staff, cut pay, give up retirement, forgo salaries and the like. And now, the Obama administration is going to force us to give up our SUV's, trucks, large sedans and cars.
 
No. I will not. This is not the USSR (until now).  A concern for automakers is that if buyers return to their historical preference for bigger vehicles, manufacturers might end up behind the mileage and emissions curve and in danger of missing the mandated goal. That could force car companies to push smaller cars into the market.

"When regulations establish requirements on what people buy, not what we make, if people aren't buying those, we have to offer incentives," says Sue Cischke, Ford Motor's vice president for environment and safety. "We can't force people to buy what they don't want to buy." (USA Today)

I believe in the law of physics and drive a good-sized car for a reason. I also pay for it - gas, insurance, & upkeep. Because I maintain it wel, it is not polluting the way so many of the beater cars driven by low-life are... but are not required to register or maintain.
 
If the American government wants to see a revolution, keep it up. We are not running or cowering. We are not going to give up our safety, security or our hard-earned homes, cars, trucks, sports cars or RV's.
 
read the story HERE
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Sacramento City Council Performance

Last night as I sat in the audience watching the Sacramento City Council perform, I felt that I'd been ripped-off. The performance was bush-league, and not even worthy of  Middle-school production.
 
For several hours, they demonstrated how ill-prepared most of them are. They demonstrated that they prefer to let "staff" make decisions for them (Lauren Hammond). Council members demonstrated that they are not engaged at all in the issues (Rob Fong). They demonstrated that they are beholden to local union 39 (Ray Tretheway). Tretheway even demonstrated that he is oblivious to the conflict of interest he has as Executive Director of the Sacramento Tree Foundation, as he talked down to a City planner about the "tree canopy" and "Urban forest" he thought should be included in the updated Urban City design plan for downtown. As I sat there trying to take notes while Tretheway spoke, I found the task nearly impossible; he never completes a sentence of thought.
 
Councilman Kevin McCarty, Cohn  and Sandy Sheedy made sense a couple of times - McCarty when he pressed the City Finance Director for information about whether or not the City was laying off more line workers and saving management jobs and salaries - she could not answer. Sheedy made snese when she refused to vote for an intent motion for the budget as proposed.  All of the other council members voted to pass it. Cohn pressed city staff on a bogus contract.
 
One item of interest on the agenda was the Old Sacramento Tour Boat Interim Lease Agreement. A member of the audience and his attorney addressed the Council, asking why the bid process had not been open as they (Commodore Events) would have bid on it and probably won the bid instead of mega-tour boat company, Hornblower (who operates Alcatraz and Ellis Island tour boats). It was abundantly clear that there was only the one "bid" and the process had been done hurridly in order to award it to Hornblower, but not just the "interim" contract. Apparently Hornblower Company was going to be allowed to sign a long-term contract courtest of staff's recommendations - "5-10 years" as the city staff employee said sheepishly. She became defensive when Councilman Cohn asked her instead to consider a 2-year contract as the RFP for the process was already 5 years old. When  The Mayor asked the City Manager to step outside and meet with city staff and the disgruntled party to see if they coudl come to a compromise.
 
The groups eventually came back in and the calendar item was resumed, and promptly passed a unanimous vote of council. I wonder what went on in the back room to appease the attorney and his client...
 
Councilwoman Hammond on several occasions, challenged her colleagues on their questioning of city staff procedures saying "we already proved that when we don't let staff do their jobs, we are wrong." She clearly likes to have staff do her job for her as well. If the City council is not challenging city staff procedures, recommendations and policy, who will? The City Manager? I don't think so.
 
Councilman Rob Fong never once participated in the meeting, and he looked like a clown, dressed in a neon tie and even brighter shirt. Four audience members spoke about the need to maintain Land Park, and Fong never even acknowledged their presence, and never uttered a word. His lack of engagement in his own neighborhood is shameless.
 
Councilwoman Bonnie Pannell was also uncharacteristically quiet. 
 
The bulk of the audience members were present to argue budget cuts in park maintenance, speaking eloquently to a future of closed park bathrooms, weeds and uncut grass, garbage problems, crime, public urination, and a myriad of other problems that will arise if parks are allowed to degrade. Additionally, one speaker presented seven different options for cuts and budget reforms, for which both McCarty and the Mayor thanked the group, pointing out that they never recieve alternate proposals when city residents show up to challenge budget cuts. www.rescuesacramentoparks.blogspot.com
 
The Sacramento City Council is woefully inadequate on financial and business issues. They only seem to perk up when social programs are the issue. There are moments when several of the members seem to grasp the issue - Cohn with the tour boat issue, McCarty with the budget issue, Sheedy refusing to vote on the budget without more information - but mostly they sit back and allow the City Manager, City Attorney and various City staffers do the work for them, without ever verifying issues themselves, or even being prepared ahead with pertinent questions.
 
The Mayor is clearly only one voice, one vote, on the Council. After witnessing several council meetings lately, more than ever, Sacramento needs to change the City Charter and make the Mayor the CEO of the City. Last night's meeting would have gone very differently had a CEO been in charge. And we desperately need to elect council members who understand and are even vaguely familiar with finance and business.
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Props Smacked Down

I'd love to write something quippy and clever about California's election yesterday, but instead I'll let several experts do it: (Newsbusters) A Tuesday story on ABC's World News, which ignored soaring state spending, reflected frustration with California voters for the anticipated rejection of ballot initiatives to raise taxes as reporter Laura Marquezblamed the Golden State's budget deficit on an “unwillingness to raise taxes” stretching all the way back to 1978's Proposition 13. In fact, though personal income tax collections “dropped 14% last year,” a Tuesday Wall Street Journal article noted they “soared 70% from 2002 to 2007.”

Columnist George Will, a regular on ABC's own This Week, pointed out in a May 3 column what Marquez omitted -- that the state government has hardly been starving for money: “If, since 1990, state spending increases had been held to the inflation rate plus population growth, the state would have a $15 billion surplus instead of a $42 billion budget deficit.” In addition, in Arnold “Schwarzenegger's less than six years as Governor, per capita government spending, adjusted for inflation, has increased nearly 20 percent.”

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The TAXINATOR

 
The California Props are going down.
 
from Michelle Malkin: "Arnold Schwarzenegger was so preoccupied with lecturing the national GOP about the need to “rebrand” itself and move left that he forgot to mind California’s own business.

Today, his desperate tax-and-spend ballot measures are expected to all go down in flames at the polls. Tea Party activists of all political stripes have lambasted the deceptive initiatives. The intellectually and financially bankrupt state GOP is in full meltdown, having poured $650,000 into Schwarzenegger’s coffers to promote the phony spending cap measure before the state party waffled, then turned around and voted to oppose it and the other tax hikes."

read the whole story HERE
 
 
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Archbishop Chastises Notre Dame President

Finally a Catholic chastises Notre Dame President for his selling out to liberals. The liberal, cherry-picking Catholics have gone too far.
The Catholic News Agency reports that In a strong statement released today, the Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap, blamed Fr. John Jenkins C.S.C and the University of Notre Dame for betraying the true, original goal of Catholic higher education, not only by conferring a degree on President Barack Obama despite his anti-life record, but for attempting a disingenuous justification for the invitation during his commencement speech on Sunday.
 
"Notre Dame did not merely invite the president to speak at its commencement. It also conferred an unnecessary and unearned honorary law degree on a man committed to upholding one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in our nation’s history," he says.
According to Archbishop Chaput, in doing so, Notre Dame ignored the U.S. bishops’ guidance in their 2004 statement, "Catholics in Political Life," ignored "the concerns of Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon, Notre Dame’s 2009 Laetare Medal honoree – who, unlike the president, certainly did deserve her award, but finally declined it in frustration with the university’s action. It ignored appeals from the university’s local bishop, the president of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference, more than 70 other bishops, many thousands of Notre Dame alumni and hundreds of thousands of other American Catholics."
 
read the Bishop's entire statement: http://www.archden.org/index.cfm/ID/2081
 
 
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Soak The Rich - Lose The Rich

With the Obama administration determined to expand government under the guise of "jobs" and "stimulus," more than ever, America is divided between the contributors and working, productive members of society, and the takers, welfare, entitlement folks.
 
Being "rich" according to America's leftists, is anyone who operates a small business, drives a nicce car, lives in a nice house... or works in the private sector. A 'rich" government employee is just fine with leftists. They ought to feel right at home in California, where our fire fighters make $114,000 annually, and thousands of State Workers make more than $300,000 annually, and the private sector is shrinking. Obama is creating a permanent welfare state of mindless fembot followers, while Conservatives are desperately trying to get out the message that providing for yourself is far more rewarding.
 
Finally, statistics are being revealed to prove that high-tax states are losing 1,100 residents everyday, while low-tax states are enjoying an 89% increase in jobs. Duh? Do you think there is some connection?
 
Stephen Moore and Arthur Laffer wrote a fantastic article in the Wall Street Journal titled "Soak the Rich, Lose the Rich:" http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124260067214828295.html
 
It is a must-read and a must pass-along! And please, send it to college aged kids. We've got to end the entitlement mentality.
 
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Biden Reveals Secret VP Bunker

VP Joe Biden defies all human intelligence: he just revealed where the location of the "Secret" VP bunker is, at a dinner party this past weekend. One reader described Biden as having a "tent-flap for a mouth." Unfortunately, I can think of a few much less eloquent descriptions for Joe Biden. mostly, I cannot believe that the American people elected the not-ready-for-prime-time Obama/Biden comedy duo to run this country.
Be sure to read the comments 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/17/oops-biden-reveals-location-secret-vp-bunker/

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Is Arnold Dazed & Confused

Last night at 11:45 as my husband and I lay in bed trying to sleep, the distinctive smell of pot and cigarettes came wafting into our upstairs bedroom. Out next door neighbors are out of town and their oh-so-mature 21-year old daughter had "a few friends over."
 
As I sat in my home office yesterday late afternoon checking email, I looked out of the window and saw a beater car flipping an eratic U-turn right in front of my house, nearly taking out my flower bed near the sidewalk. The scuzzy occupants of the beater car parked between my house and the neighbor's. I knew immediately when I looked at the rest of the beater cars in front of their house that their Gothic-wanna-be daughter was "having a frew friends over." It was 4:00 pm.
 
So by the time we had walked our dogs in the park, had been to a neighborhood association meeting, made dinner, watched the news and went to bed, the gathering next door was still going on, 8 hours later. When the pot wafted into our bedroom, that did it for us.
 
My husband threw back the covers, walked out onto the balcony that overlooks our backyard (and theirs), and yelled at the partying scumbags. The neighbor girl stupidly mouthed off. My husband yelled louder to which I shhhh'd him. He didn't care; he wanted to the low-life punks next door to smoke their pot elsewhere and told them so.
 
And all I could think of was thank you Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for pushing for legalization of pot. The group partying next door was living proof that marijuana kills brain cells, stunts growth and makes people really ugly. yup, Smoking pot  can turn even the hottest guy or gal into a card-carrying double-bagger, hag or loser.
 
The mentally-challenged idiots next door required another round of directions from my husband before they took their toking elsewhere. Whoa dude, this group of future adults are dazed & confused, witless losers.
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Obama Attacks American Exceptionalism

President Obama just gave a commencement address at Arizona State, and spent the bulk of the speech running down hard-working, successful, exceptional Americans.... and the military.
 
Obama the apologist. Obama the excuse maker. Obama the America-hater. The American President is demonstrating deplorable behavior.
 
OBAMA:  It may be tempting to fall back on the formulas for success that have been peddled so frequently in recent years.  You're taught to chase after all the usual brass rings.  You chase after the big money, and you figure how big your corner office is.  You worry about whether you have a fancy enough title or a fancy enough car.  That's the message that's sent each and every day -- or has been in our culture for far too long -- that, through material possessions, through a ruthless competition pursued only on your own behalf, that's how you will measure success.
Rush Limbaugh does the best job of summing up Obama's scary speech: Here he is taking dead aim at the concept of self-interest and rugged individualism, because that's selfish.  And his wife -- his wife, I saw her, Michelle -- she makes her tours of the government agencies, and she said, I think it was yesterday or the day before, essentially the same thing.  "Well, you know, I had this great job, corner office. I was making more money than I ever thought I would make. I was a corporate lawyer, and one day I said, 'Why am I working for this big corporation? Where is the meaning in my life?'  There wasn't any meaning.  It just wasn't me."  Then she ended up getting 300 grand for a no-show job at a hospital when her husband got elected to the Illinois Senate!  So here's Obama out there on a dead tear telling graduates that pursuing wealth and pursuing success is the old formula, and it isn't going to be tolerated.  Don't do that anymore.  Meanwhile, one of his lead supporters, The Oprah, was at Duke University over the weekend bragging about all the houses that she owns, bragging about her private jet; talking about how important it was to her to have a private jet and how cool it was to have a jet and how cool it was to have all these houses.  The Oprah is sending the exact opposite message of The Messiah. 
 
President Obama and Mrs. are two of the phoniest, self-serving, scary socialists who don't walk the walk. But they want you to sacrifice. THey want you and your college kids to stop aspiring to success and greatness so you can join the Obama Army and mindlessly spew liberal pablum. Michelle Obama and her "job" with the hospital, granted to her after her husband was elected to the Illinois Senate... hmmmm, it doesn't take a Rocket Scientist (or a Political Scientist) to deduce that favor.
 
OBAMA:  A relentless focus on the outward markers of success can lead to complacency.  In recent years in many ways, we've become enamored with our own past success, lulled into complacency by the glitter of our own achievements.  We've become accustomed to the title of "military superpower," forgetting the qualities that got us there, not just the power of our weapons, but the discipline and valor and the code of conduct of our men and women in uniform. We've become accustomed to our economic dominance in the world, forgetting that it wasn't reckless deals and get-rich-quick schemes that got us where we are, but hard work and smart ideas, quality products and wise investments.
Obama is such a narcissistic sociopath that he is total denial about his own "greed factor," if you use his definition of "being lulled into complacency by the glitter of our own achievements." What about the two books he wrote... and got paid handsomly for? How about the dirty house deal he and Michelle made with Tony Rezko? And Michelle's $300,000 phony job at the hospital... who does this guy think he's talking to? I don't see them denying themselves. They're eating hundred-dollar Kobe beef in the White House, throwing weekly cocktail parties for people.  They spent $2,000 on the new dog named Bo (I've never named a dog after myself). And the fancy private school they send their daughters to instead of the DC public school system. They deny themselves nothing.
 
After telling the graduating students to give more of themselves and work for non-profits instead of big business, and work for free health clinics and poor high schools - unlike he and his wife or anyone they know and associate with. Graduating college students are not supposed to aspire to success according to Obama. They are not supposed to care about profit because profit is bad and evil. Who does obama think supports non-rpofits andf charities with their evil profit? It's not the civil servants.
 
If all of the graduates of Arizona State joined the Peace Corps, who will work? Who will pay taxes to support Obama and Mrs in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed and feel they deserve?
 
 
 
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Nancy Pelosi's "Most Ethical Congress"

Does everyone remember in 2006 when Nancy Pelosi stated that her Congress would be the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history."  She described the vote as a mandate "to restore stability and bipartisanship" in Washington and for "a new direction" in the war in Iraq." "The American people voted to restore integrity and honesty in Washington, D.C., and the Democrats intend to lead ," Pelosi said.
 
Her disreputible, lying, cheating tactics in the past few years have demonstrated that Pelosi is not only a prevaricating, double-dealing dullard, she is a political hack.
 
Today, she also demonstrated that she's not even a good liar. Under strong attack from Republicans, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA and Bush administration of misleading her about waterboarding detainees in the war on terror and sharply rebutted claims she was complicit in the method's use." To the contrary ... we were told explicitly that waterboarding was not being used," she told reporters, referring to a formal CIA briefing she received in the fall of 2002. Pelosi said she subsequently learned that other lawmakers were told several months later by the CIA about the use of waterboarding.
"I wasn't briefed, I was informed that somebody else had been briefed about it," she said. (AP, Yahoo News)  HERE
 
She's not nearly as good as either of the Clintons. "I wasn't briefed" and I wasn't informed" is not nearly as good as Bill Clinton's "It depends on what the meaning of the words 'is' is." ?"
   
After claiming that the CIA lied about methods used during interrogation, I wondered what Geroge Tenant might have to say.
 
How is it that Nancy was misled by someone who she claimed was stupid? Where does that leave Nancy?  Stupendously incompetent or a second-rate Liar or both?

Since Hillary Clinton used the same excuse of being "misled" by President Bush on the Weapons of Mass Destruction issue, it appears that George Bush was smarter that any Democrat in congress.

Nancy Pelosi has become a giant liability to the Democrats. Bets are on as to how long Obama will allow her to stay. Will he send her on another world tour? Will he send her packing? Frankly, I hope she is allowed to stay. She provides so much entertainment while destroying our country.
 
Thank goodness that Democrats don't last long in the White House - without completely discrediting themselves, but only after causing irreparable damage.
 
For an excellent history of Pelosi and her lies, take a look through Michelle Malkin's history of columns about her: HERE
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Michelle Obama Costs UC Merced $600,000

Michelle Obama's visit to the campus of UC Merced to be the commencement speaker at graduation is costing the university $600,000 for news media hookups and live broadcasting feeds.
 
The public education UC system claims it is financialy strapped and continues to dramatically raise student's fees.
 
If this was a conservative commencement speaker, he or she would have been told to pound sand and laughed out of the state.
 
read it for yourself HERE
 
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Liberal Hypocracy And Beautiful Women

Yesterday I wrote about the hypocracy of the left and Miss California... the same group of people who think it's okay to kill babies and old people, but oppose the death penalty and torture for bad guys and terrorists, but hate Christians and don't express outrage at the monsters who kidnapped and brutally killed American citizens by cuting their heads off with a rusty machete while filming it. Do you see the hypocracy?
 
Today Ann Coulter published her own thoughts on the hypocracy. It's delicious.

In her column titled Liberal Taliban issues fatwa against Miss California, Coulter writes "Not even Dick Cheney can incite the blood-curdling rage of liberals at the sight of a sexy evangelical Christian. Paula Jones, Katherine Harris, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and, most recently, Miss California, Carrie Prejean, have all come under a frenzy of attacks from liberals.

Christians are supposed to be fat, balding sweaty little men with bad complexions. It's liberals who are supposed to be the sexy ones. (I know that from watching "The West Wing" and all movies starring Julia Roberts.)

But sadly for liberals, in real life, the fat, balding sweaty little guy with the bad complexion is Perez Hilton and the smoking-hot babe is Carrie Prejean." It is gratifying that someone finally dared to describe Perez Hilton as he is: a nasty pig of a human. He is vile. He is flaming and outrageous. He relishes attacking beautiful women - probably because they can attract the guys he wants. (okay, cheap shot, but most likely true). Why Donald Trump allowed him to be a Judge in the Miss USA contest is surely a marketing decision, but one that is biting back.

For years I have described liberal hatred as hatred of women - expecially beautiful, attractive women. Unless of course, you are a liberal woman (but rarely will you find a liberal beauty). Coulter explains: "Liberals wouldn't attack James Dobson with the amount of bile they've directed at a 21-year-old beauty contestant. It's not just Christianity – it's women liberals hate.
From Jean-Paul Sartre, Pablo Picasso and Bertrand Russell, who treated women – mostly their mistresses – like dogs, to Teddy Kennedy and Bill Clinton in our own day, liberals are ferocious misogynists. They share Muslims' opinion of women, differing only to the extent that liberals also support a women's right to have an abortion and to perform lap dances.

But what is crying out for an explanation is why every bubblehead TV news anchorette from a nice, churchgoing red state ends up adopting the political views of Karl Marx.

From Katie Couric on CBS to Norah O'Donnell on MSNBC, the whole stable of TV anchorettes weirdly have the exact same politics as their liberal masters. It's the ideological burqa women are required to wear to work in the mainstream media. As with a conventional burqa, it enforces conformity and severely restricts the vision.

The only way to protect yourself is to do the liberal male's bidding, as the bubblehead anchorettes do, or stand on the rock of Christianity."
 
Praise Carrie Prejean for refusing to cave in to the liberal pressure to deny her own Christian, wholesome belief in marriage - as most of America believes.
 
Liberals are walking contradictions - they believe in nothing. They honor nothing except instant gratification and "Me." Honesty, discipline, respect, hard work, self-control, trust, morals, ethics... certainly not traits that Perez Hilton is familiar with, but Carrie Prejean is, as are millions of the Americans she spoke to with her answer supporting traditional marriage.
 
 
 
 
 
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Herding Cats

A must see video if you really want to laugh


<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value=" video   funny   cats   herding  
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City Threatens Park Decay

Let me get this off my chest - The City runs a travel agency! And teen health centers... And senior enrichment classes... the waste is staggering. And there is an Executive Director being paid for every program. The Director of Parks & Recreation Department is paid  $113,460.00 - $170,196.00 annually. HERE
 
During a budget crisis such as the one we are currently in the middle of, a typical tactic of government officials is to instill fear in order to manipulate the voters into agreeing to higher taxes... instead of making reasonable cuts to save money. Reasonable cuts? Perhaps looking into the bloated Parks and Rec budget might illuminate the issue... The City of Sacramento Parks and Recreation Department is doing this in a big way.
 
I am on the parks committee of the Land Park Community Association. We are actively working to prevent the demise of our parks. A friend who heads up the Parks Committee for the LPCA, submiteed this to our membership: Last week, the City Manager released a proposed budget which calls for the firing of 50% of all park maintenance workers, as well as dozens of seasonal and part-time workers.  If the City Council approves these cuts, William Land Park this summer will start to look more like the front yard of a foreclosed home in Del Paso Heights than the crown jewel of city parks and the treasured centerpiece of our neighborhood.  Here are the facts:
As reported in the Bee, the layoffs in park workers will, according to City staff, have the following immediate effects on Land Park and other city parks:
    - Grass mowing will be reduced from the current weekly mowing to just once every 2 to 3 weeks;
    - Park trash cans, which are now emptied daily, will be emptied only once or twice a week; and
    - All park restrooms will be closed, except for during special events.
    Park garbage cans will be overflowing much of the time with garbage strewn throughout the park. Mowing park grass every 2 to 3 weeks will make it unsanitary and unsafe for families to picnic or children to play baseball or soccer. Closing all park restrooms will be an unmitigated disaster, as park goers will be relieving themselves in park bushes and in the yards of nearby homes.  Taken together, the proposed cuts will make the park virtually unusable.
 
Without making any cuts in personnel, the park I live near is already starting to look seedy. They haven't mowed the grass since... the day before nancy Pelosi's visit to the Angelides house, along  Land Park street. Hmmm.
 
Letting a park turn into a wasteland is a really stupid idea, but typical of the non-creative government thinking. More than ever, people are turning to parks for weekend outings, entertainment and picnics. Most City parks charge a permit fee for use however, if the parks look like a ghetto, who will use them? Who will visit a park with no bathrooms, hip-high brown grass and putrid ponds?
 
The City is attempting to force Sacramento residents agreeing to increased fees and taxes in order to justify not letting parks decay. But we're not buying it. Most of us work in private businesses and know that they only way to survive during a ecession is to make job cuts, reduce salaries and benefits. No one at the City is proposing cutting the fat middle layer of expensive but worthless management positions.
 
Under the Recreation side of Parks and Rec, are these programs: http://www.cityofsacramento.org/ParksandRecreation/recreation/index.html
 
The 4th R Child Care
Leisure Enrichment Classes
Camp Sacramento
Aquatics/Pools
Community Centers
youth and Teen programs
Sports
Older Adults
Safari Tours (a Travel Agency)
Access Leisure
Neighborhood Block Parties
 
The City of Sacramento is in the child care business, runs a travel agency, and under the heading of Leisure Enrichment Classes is  Aquatics and swim lessons, seasonal programs at the Children's Services (see below for additional publications), Teen Services, Services for Older Adults, City Safari Tours, Access Leisure, Adult Sports Leagues including softball and Special Events. Aquatics and swim lessons, seasonal programs at the Children's Services (see below for additional publications), Teen Services, Services for Older Adults, City Safari Tours, Access Leisure, Adult Sports Leagues including softball and Special Events including running a skate park.  Cover the Kids  states this as their mission: Cover the Kids (CTK), Sacramento Children's Health Initiative believe that ALL children deserve access to affordable comprehensive health coverage. What do they do? They are a service that puts parents in touch with government healthcare... Wait! Don't the government healthcare programs already have outreach services!? What a waste.
It's suspicious that my computer firewall won't let me link onto "Teen Services." And don't forget Safari Tours... the travel agency: http://www.cityofsacramento.org/ParksandRecreation/recreation/safari.htm
 
Am I reading this correctly? $45 million last year, and $38 proposed for 2009/2010? Of that, $Park Maintenance is $9.7 million, down from $11 million, and Park Planning is $767,000 down from $1.3 million. But the whopper is "Children and Community Recreation" is budgeted at $17 million down from $19.8 million.
 
You tell me where we can easily cut the ridiculous recreation department budget instead of picking on Park Maintenance. The City Manager needs to get his head out of his arse and start making some real budget cuts. The threats will only backfire.
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Conservatives Love Animals Too

Be sure to read the touching story of my adopted geese, Click and Clack, that I wrote for the May issue of  Inside The City
 
I am a conservative with a soft spot for furry and fuzzy creatures - and the kid who brought home every stray animal I came across (to my dad's dismay!).
 
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