I had earlier posted about the SNAFUed boondoggle also known as the Eastern span of the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge (here and here), but the bad news just keeps rolling in. Yesterday it was revealed that the tower supporting the entire self-anchored suspension bridge rests on bolts that are likely to fail, causing the...
Read More »

I have written before about the amazing saga of the new span for the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge, now 24 years and $6.4 billion in the making...with no end in sight. A full account of its background can be found here. The “signature design” never before built and of dubious seismic stability in one...
Read More »

The school rated “America’s Most Challenging High School” by the Washington Post is about to get an extreme makeover. With the surrounding Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) producing a drop-out rate double that for the rest of California, the American Indian Model Charter School clearly poses an embarrassment to the OUSD’s unionized teachers and...
Read More »

The most obvious way to avoid a huge imbalance between the supply and the demand for medical care (especially primary care) is to abolish the requirement that health plans provide a long list of preventive services with no co-pay or deductible. In addition, nurses, physicians’ assistants, and other paramedical personnel should have greater freedom...
Read More »

The front page of Tuesday’s “Bay Area” section of the San Francisco Chronicle features a story on the latest Field Poll results: “Support Grows for Gun Control,” reporting that a majority of California voters now “view stricter gun control laws as more important than protecting the constitutional right to own a firearm.” Four pages...
Read More »

Today, the AP has an interesting article up about a lawsuit brewing in California. It seems that a private, Christian school asked all its teachers to supply a letter of reference from the teachers’ pastors and to also provide the school with a written statement of their faith. Two teachers have refused to do...
Read More »

Phil Mickelson is being targeted for his comments on California’s and the Feds’ tax hikes. The offending statements, as reported by the Chicago Tribune, are as follows: “Well, it’s been an interesting offseason, and I’m going to have to make some drastic changes,” Mickelson told reporters Sunday after tying for 37th place at 17 under...
Read More »

Among the celebrants at the inaugural balls will be top contributors to the President’s reelection campaign, but their real celebration will be April 15, when they continue to be the beneficiaries of a “tax loophole” Obama pledged to close in 2008—but that remains gaping wide open despite his rhetoric about now making “the rich”...
Read More »

Welcome to the 21st century Hotel California. The number of Los Angeles Unified School District teachers warehoused in administrative offices, also referred to as “rubber rooms,” for alleged misconduct has doubled in the past 18 months to nearly 300 according to the LA Daily News. The cost is staggering: $1.4 million a month just...
Read More »

A dozen ballot initiatives in nine states focused on K-12 education issues. Also making news was the surprise defeat of Indiana incumbent and reformer State Superintendent Tony Bennett by Glenda Ritz, a former teacher backed by the union. Charter schools won big in Georgia and Washington. Georgia voters passed an amendment allowing a statewide...
Read More »