I saw a sign on the freeway today: SEVERE WEATHER ALERT AVOID TRAVEL THRU TUESDAY “Severe weather” in most of Southern California, including where I live, means you’re going to have to turn on the windshield wipers. And I mean turn them on and leave them on, not in intermittent mode. Read more →
EppsNet Archive: California
Pharmacy Deserts — The Struggle is Real?
Drugstore closures are leaving millions without easy access to a pharmacy — washingtonpost.com The nation’s largest drugstore chains — Rite Aid (which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week), CVS and Walgreens plan to collectively close more than 1,500 stores. Public health experts have already seen the fallout, noting that the first neighborhoods to lose their pharmacies are often predominantly Black, Latinx and low-income. That sentence is written in a way that makes the world sound worse to the casual reader than it probably is. How have public health experts “already seen the fallout” of something that hasn’t happened yet? Predominantly Black, Latinx and low-income neighborhoods are “often” the first to lose pharmacies. Not always, but often. Ok, that makes sense. But it’s phrased in a way that sounds like the pharmacies are being closed because of the demographics. If pharmacies didn’t want to be in predominantly Black, Latinx… Read more →
True and False Statements About Trans People
Report: Trans People Seven Times More Likely Than Cisgender People to Experience Violence In California An annual report detailing how many Californians were the victims of violence over the past year finds a slight dip in reported violence among most populations, but a sharp increase in reported violence against transgender people. — sfist.com (emphasis added) Nothing I say here is intended to disparage trans people . . . I’m fine with adults doing what they want, dressing the way they want, acting the way they want, with a few minor restrictions — keep your hands to yourself, that sort of thing. I don’t really care about trans people. But I take exception to being lied to by people advancing an agenda. That said, the report mentioned in the article above is based on the fourth annual California Violence Experiences Survey, conducted by UC San Diego and Tulane University. If you… Read more →
Secretive Transgender Policies in California Schools
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has defied a court order by directing school districts to adopt policies that allow them to hide a student’s claimed transgender identity from parents or guardians, despite a federal judge’s ruling that such policies likely violate the U.S. Constitution, lawyers say. Bonta sent a letter to school districts across California, encouraging them to adopt secretive transgender policies. When my son was younger, my hottest hot button was “Do not fuck around with my kid.” Now that my son is an adult, I don’t know if I have a hottest hot button, but one of my hottest hot buttons is “Don’t fuck around with other people’s kids.” I absolutely believe in the right of parents to direct the education, health and upbringing, and to maintain the well-being of, their children. Do I think a lot of parents do a poor job of that? Yes. But I… Read more →
California’s a Brand-New Game
All the gold in California Is in the bank in the middle of Beverly Hills In somebody else’s name. So if you’re dreamin’ about California, It don’t matter at all where you’ve played before. California’s a brand-new game. — Larry Gatlin, “All the Gold in California” Read more →
Supreme Court Kills Affirmative Action
The Supreme Court Has Killed Affirmative Action. Mediocre Whites Can Rest Easier. — thenation.com The author of that piece really hates white people. I don’t recommend reading it, you will not be a better person for having done so, as it consists solely of sweeping generalizations, broad judgments, unfounded inferences and racial insults. Even if five points (out of a possible 100) were deducted for each verifiable fact, it still scores at least a 95. Grammar and spelling are passable. The only “fact” I remember being cited in support of affirmative action is actually false: In California, which ended its affirmative action policies over 25 years ago, the studies show that, without affirmative action, Black enrollment plummets, Latino enrollment plummets, AAPI enrollment goes up a little bit, and whites flood the remaining opportunities. The article that the author links to doesn’t even say that. Black and Latino enrollment in the… Read more →
What the State of the Union Didn’t Say
The president entered office with a 1.4% inflation rate and spiked it to 7%. 30-year mortgages of 2.7% soared to 6.5% in less than two years. Eggs are $7 a dozen. A thin steak is $15 a pound. A sheet of plywood is $95. Gas averaged $2.39 a gallon when the president took office and even after draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve it is still $3.50 a gallon. In my state, California, gas has recently been over $5 a gallon. The price of natural gas has tripled in less than a year. In two years over 5 million foreign nationals poured into the United States—all illegally across a nonexistent border. The president said that he “lowered” inflation, energy prices and interest rates after sending them to astronomical levels and then seeing them momentarily taper off a bit. Like Nero bragging about rebuilding Circus Maximus after burning it down. He omitted… Read more →
A Parkland Parent on Permitless Carry
Hey Gavin, my daughter Alaina was killed at Parkland and I support permit-less carry in Florida. If my daughter were alive she’d be carrying, because she would be defenseless in a gun free zone. Sit this one out. https://t.co/htDcUnVK73 — Ryan Petty (@rpetty) February 1, 2023 Mr. Petty went on to make some cogent points in a subsequent interview: “California has suffered some horrific tragedies over the last couple weeks in mass shootings and gun control advocates promise that if we just implement their preferred policies, we’ll be safer as a nation. “California has enacted what you could only call ‘the dream’ for gun-control advocates, and it is not proving to make Californians any safer. The reason is simple. “Criminals don’t obey gun laws. “The only thing Gavin Newsom and the California legislature have accomplished is curtailing the rights of law-abiding Californians, and in doing so they have made no… Read more →
California Teacher Helps Change Students’ Gender Identity Without Parents Knowing
California teacher helps change students’ gender identity without parents knowing — torontosun.com The biggest problem in education is too much emphasis on academics and not enough emphasis on teachers changing students’ gender identity without parents knowing. Read more →
Strict California Gun Laws
Gavin Newsom swats down CBS reporter’s Second Amendment question — msn.com That’s not really the way I saw it. Gavin Newsom is not a smart man. He’s not going to win too many forensic scrimmages against another adult. The reason the CBS reporter was talking to Newsom about guns and the Second Amendment is that we had 3 mass shootings in 3 days in California. I’ve heard that California has the strictest gun control laws of any state in the country, whatever that means, but we still had 3 mass shootings in 3 days. What Newsom was responding to was not even a question. He had just finished calling the Second Amendment a “suicide pact” when the reporter pointed out that many people in the U.S. support the Second Amendment. This was Newsom’s swat-down reply: “Yeah, I have great respect. I have no ideological opposition with someone reasonably and responsibly… Read more →
California Just Quit Flavored Tobacco
According to a flyer I picked up in a local convenience store, “a new California law makes it illegal to sell most flavored tobacco products, including vapes and menthol cigarettes — protecting our kids from a lifetime of deadly addiction.” If a kid wants to smoke and vapes are not available, won’t the kid just smoke regular cigarettes like we did as kids? Vapes are probably not good for your health but I have heard that they’re not as unhealthy as cigarettes. I’d rather see kids smoke cigarettes than vape anyway. Not my kid, but your kids and other people’s kids. Smoking is cool. Think Steve McQueen, Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, etc. Vaping is, pardon the expression, gay. Still I’m appalled at the idea that individual rights can be violated by the state using its coercive apparatus in order to prohibit activities to people for their own good or protection.… Read more →
If California Slides Into the Ocean
And if California slides into the ocean Like the mystics and statistics say it will I predict this motel will be standing Until I pay my bill. — Warren Zevon, “Desperadoes Under the Eaves” Read more →
Climate Change: Is There Anything It Can’t Do?
The recent rainstorms here in California are “proof that the climate crisis is real and we have to take it seriously,” according to our governor, Gavin Newsom. Because we never in history had rainstorms until very recently. He’s not very smart. If we got no rain this winter, he would have blamed that on “climate change” too. Read more →
Messaging vs. Reality
I live in California. Gavin Newsom’s main flaw is that he’s very stupid. Democrats are not getting destroyed on messaging. I don’t even know what the Republican message is. I know the Democratic message is “MAGA Republicans, extreme MAGA Republicans, fascists.” Now that is a losing message, I grant you, because Democrats who aren’t insane, for whom politics does not play a destructive force in their life, have friends, neighbors, co-workers, family members, etc., who are Republicans and understand that while Republicans have different political views, they aren’t trying to put Democrats in gulags. Democrats are getting destroyed by reality. Republicans are running on GDP, inflation, lying about inflation, recession, lying about recession, gas prices, food prices, stock market, crime, border security, fentanyl deaths, energy independence, foreign policy, supply chain, social corruption, silencing, lies, pronouns and fucking with children. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe the Republicans could… Read more →
Biden and Gas Prices
I’m seeing that the White House is now taking credit for declining gas prices: I remember the whole time that gas prices were going up to record levels, President Biden was referring to it as “the Putin price hike” or blaming it on COVID, however that was supposed to make sense, while his sycophants kept repeating that “presidents don’t control gas prices.” But he does want to take credit when prices go down. Unfortunately, his timing was a little off because gas prices are going up again. Prices where I live in California had come down to less than $5.50 a gallon but then shot up about a dollar seemingly overnight. This is what our prices look like today: I thought maybe World Was III had started when I wasn’t paying attention. Read more →
Woman’s Body Found in Santa Clarita Clothes Donation Box
Woman’s body found in Santa Clarita clothes donation box — msn.com Maybe she didn’t understand that you’re supposed to remove the clothes before putting them in the box. Actually, she was stuck in the donation slot so it seems more likely that she was there to collect (i.e., steal) the donations. Read more →
Governor Newsom on Bodily Autonomy
It's nice of our governor to take a short break from forcing people to wear masks, stay inside, and get vaccinated in order to lecture us about bodily autonomy. https://t.co/j3VDr7aacf — Paul Epps (@paulepps) May 15, 2022 Read more →
What to Do in a Tsunami
JUST IN: The National Tsunami Warning Center has issued a tsunami advisory is in effect for the entire West Coast and Alaska in the wake of an undersea volcanic eruption near Tonga. https://t.co/6QAUay90w7 — ABC News (@ABC) January 15, 2022 The good news is that on the water side of Ocean Blvd in Santa Monica there is about a 100-ft high bluff, which should be a good tsunami barrier. But a good way to go out of this life would be sitting on the restaurant deck at the end of the pier (in the middle distance below) with a refreshing cocktail and speaking my final words just prior to being crushed by a wall of water: “See you in Hell!” Record the whole thing as a live TikTok. If that doesn’t go viral, I don’t know what will. Read more →
San Fransicko by Michael Shellenberger
From a podcast featuring Michael Shellenberger: Progressives have controlled California for decades. Democrats have a supermajority in Congress. We spend more than any other state per capita on homelessness and mental illness, and we have the worst outcomes. So I wanted to write “San Fransicko” to both get to the bottom of what’s really going on and also figure out what the solutions are because, obviously, we’re dealing with a catastrophe. I mentioned drug overdose deaths rose from 17,000 to 70,000 by 2017. Last year, drug deaths were 93,000, which is almost three times as many people than die from car accidents and four times as many people as die from homicide. Clearly, we are in the midst of a massive drug crisis, and it felt like nobody was offering a particularly clear explanation of it or offering very good solutions. San Francisco remains one of the most spectacularly beautiful… Read more →
A Solution for Abortion Access
From the Los Angeles Times: California law states that people have a “fundamental right” to choose and obtain an abortion before a fetus becomes viable. The governor has vowed to protect that right. But just because abortion has more legal protection in California does not mean it is readily accessible to all, advocates of reproductive choice say. Many Californians struggle to afford the procedure, and some live far from a clinic that provides it. Such practical barriers can make abortion too difficult to access for Californians, despite the legal assurances on the books, advocates say. What a calamity! There are no legal roadblocks to abortion in California, and yet a mother-to-be who doesn’t want to be a mother may still find the procedure inaccessible or unaffordable. What about condoms? Are condoms inaccessible or unaffordable? Read more →