California's method of how not to solve a budget crisis

Thanks to The Gainesville (FL) Sun for this.


The state of California is having a budget crisis (not unlike many other states.) How California decided to resolve the problem, at least for the time being, offers a lesson in bureaucratic stupidity.

First off, the guv, the guy you know as movie actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, canned some 10,000 temporary and part-time workers. Secondly, Arnold "ordered the 200,000 permanent employees to be paid only the minimum wage of $6.55 an hour until the legislature passed a crisis-solving budget."

Oops!

About one week after Arnold's drastic moves, John Chiang, the State Controller, told the guv that his plan was in jeopardy. It seems that the "state payroll records could not be changed to accommodate the cut because they were written in the antiquated COBOL computer language."

The only people who know COBOL are to be found among a few of those part-timers that Schwarzenegger had fired.

La Dee Dah.

Atheist billboard taken down

The Freedom from Religion Foundation erected the above billboard in Rancho Cucamonga, in San Bernardino County, California. It was supposed to be in place through January.

A bunch of christianist wingnuts, fearful that their jealous little god would be offended, complained and whined and cried and finally the General Outdoor Advertising sign company took it down.

The administrator of the First Baptist Church of Rancho Cucamonga, Judy Rooze, was very happy. She thought the sign was "unsettling." She said, "I understand people have freedom of speech, but this is taking it too far. It's very jarring."


Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, was not happy that the General Outdoor sign company broke their contract, even if they did promise to refund the money that the foundation paid for the sign.

Gaylor said that the sign's inspiration came from John Lennon's song, "Imagine." It was intended to provoke discussion and also to recruit new members for the foundation. Gaylor thought this kind of censorship was inappropriate, that religious viewpoints are aired all the time but atheists and agnostics are shut out of the marketplace. "There should be some balance," she said.


Gaylor's right and Rooze is wrong. Whether you agree with the Freedom from Religion Foundation or not is irrelevant. This IS a matter of free speech. Just because a billboard offends some religious people should have no bearing on the matter at all. Freedom of speech means the freedom to offend.

And those wingnuts who complained and whined and cried should be very careful. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, so they say. If the Freedom from Religion Foundation cannot put up their billboard, than billboards promoting religion must be dissallowed also.

In fact, we've got a ton of them in the community where I live, consisting of pithy little "god" comments and a bible verse. Very unsettling. Very jarring.

Take the damn things down, now!


And, so far as Rancho Cucamonga goes, the Freedom from Religion Foundation should file suit immediately against General Outdoor Advertising for interfering with their right of free speech.

Republican hate - California style

We've previously ranted about an official Republican hate site in Sacramento, California. And we've pointed out a Republican group that is airing despicable hate-filled anti-Obama ads in other areas of the country. And we've taken notice of all the hate-filled people at McCain and Palin rallies.

But these particular slices of Republican life reveal only the tip of the iceberg -- a small fraction of the kind of hatred that advocates of McCain/Palin harbor in their hearts.

Here's one more incident from the tip.

Back to California. The culprit is Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated, headed by Diane Fedele. The most recent issue of this organization's newsletter featured an illustration of a $10 food stamp with Barack Obama's face on a donkey body. He is shown eating fried chicken, ribs and watermelon - which is, of course, an obvious connect to old, racist smears.

The newsletter warns that if Obama gains the White House, his image will appear on food stamps rather than on one dollar bills like other presidents.

Like most of her cohorts, Fedele claims innocence. Gee whiz, we didn't mean anything bad about it. There was nothing racial about it. "I never connected," said Diane, "It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else."

Nothing like racist, bigoted Republican women who are also inveterate liars!