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PUBLISHED 8-7-2006
By “real lake” standards, Lake Ming is a pond. But the county park facility is a body of water near Bakersfield’s population center that accommodates motor boats and water sports.
For that reason, special interest groups — water skiers, motor...
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PUBLISHED 8-7-2006
Sacramento politicians should butt out of our toilets. A bill by Assemblyman John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, embraces the admirable goal of conserving California’s scarce water. But it is an unnecessary, micromanaging, regulatory scheme that could waste more water than it...
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Whenever I've seen an old guy wearing a T-shirt that declares unequivocally, "Old Guys Rule!" my response was, "Yeah, right!" That was until I heard Thee Majestics last night for the first time, and wondered where I had been for the past 45 years. I heard that they played oldies, so I warmed...
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Arizona is considering a plan to offer $1 million to a randomly selected voter during elections as an incentive to get more people to vote.
A story by Associated Press reporter Paul Davenport says the proposal will be on the Nov. 7 ballot.
No one is being offered $1 million in that...
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Comments [21] - Views [406]
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I wrote this article.
California Laws For Sale…Going Once, Going Twice, SOLD!
Proposition 36, the treatment not jail initiative, was passed by California voters on November 7th 2000.
The price tag: 4 million dollars.
What is an Initiative?
24...
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Comments [15] - Views [351]
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Practices began this week, and I have had the opportunity to see a handful of teams work out so far. As the season draws closer, we will make an attempt to see every school in the area in action, gauging the talent and trying to ascertain who the teams to beat this year will be.
Full pads come...
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Comments [22] - Views [404]
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Proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution
An adult convicted of the molestation of a child will be sentenced to prison for a term of not less than ten years.
If the child dies as a result of the molestation the person(s) convicted of the crime will be sentenced to life in prison without the...
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PUBLISHED 8-4-2006
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recently announced goal of expanding school-based health centers is a good idea.
The services such a program could provide are desperately needed in Kern County and most of the Central Valley.
Depending on local needs and the...
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Comments [0] - Views [136]
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I am in need of a mechanic's stethoscope.
I tightened up the belt on my AC compressor on the Cutlass the other day and now I'm hearing some intermittent noise from the front of the engine. I think the tight belt may be damaging the AC compressor and/or the water pump. But I can't tell where...
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My contact at the air district passed along this graphic, which shows during our heat wave Fresno and Bakersfield had better air quality than the rest of the state.
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Comments [1] - Views [189]
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Seems that advertisers continue to find new places to place ads.
A story by Dan Thanh Dang of The Baltimore Sun says that a laser-imprinted CBS eye logal and slogan will appear on eggs in major markets.
They will be called "egg-vertisements" to promote its fall line-up.
This...
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Comments [4] - Views [203]
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I just came across this story: Attractive parents 'have more daughters.'
The London Telegraph's story says:
"It postulates that differing "evolutionary strategies" lead parents to produce the sex that would most benefit from their own characteristics."
"So while...
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Comments [5] - Views [235]
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Reader: You have one of the best wildlife photographers in Casey Christie that I have ever seen. Some of his work is out of this world. How about printing an insert like Kern Life just filled with the wildlife pictures taken by all of your people. Most people don't even know the amount of...
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Comments [0] - Views [359]
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Reader: I am sure I am not the only parent who celebrates literacy in their children by occasionally having their children read stories in the newspaper.
I can't imagine that the Eye Street editor didn't know that the story "Hey you, dogface!" would be a family interest story. With...
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Our editor Davin McHenry raised a good point about air quality. Usually, when temperatures go up, the air gets worse. But if you look at our 108+ degree days, the air did not get appreciably worse. In some cases, the air was better than it had been when temperatures were cooler.
There are a...
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Reader: The front page of Saturday's Californian reported that we have just concluded a 13-day heat wave. In fact, it was a 15-day heat wave with triple-digit high temperatures each afternoon from July 14th through July 28th. The high on Friday was 100 degrees at Meadows Field, not 99.
This...
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Reader: Your recent editorial supporting stem cell research was misleading. I looked for a differential between embryonic and adult stem cell research. I don't remember seeing one.
President Bush signed two bills supporting adult stem cell research and vetoed the bill concerning embryonic stem...
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Reader: In the Kern cities section of last Sunday's Weather Page, you stated that the high temperature for Pine Mountain on July 22 was 107 degrees. This was approximately 25 degrees higher than the actual temperature here. If you don't have an actual you should state it as NA rather than...
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Reader: Jason Jauch, the man accused of drinking and driving and causing the head-on collision on Highway 58 on the morning of June 30 at 7 a.m. was slandered and his character was defamized by the media. Allegedly, he was drunk, struggled with police, and walked away with scrapes, bruises and a...
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Comments [5] - Views [343]
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Reader: I am writing in response to Robert Price's column concerning the proposed revision to the Hillside Ordinance.
It was represented by Mr. Price that both the BIA and the Nickell family were in support of this proposed Hillside Ordinance, along with the Sierra Club. I wonder whether Mr....
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Comments [1] - Views [439]
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Reader: You do-si-doed around the issue James Doty asked in Sound Off. You dismissed complaints about The New York Times releasing classified material as hysterical political posturing that had little to do with the war on terror. You didn't mention the terrorists this program has taken out of...
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Comments [4] - Views [169]
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Reader: I've been getting The Californian for some time but I'm really becoming more and more irritated with the sticker on the front page, particularly when it's usually on your main story.
When you pull it off, you lose part of the sentences in the story. This morning when I pulled it off,...
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Comments [0] - Views [104]
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Reader: Where was the story in Thursday's paper about Wednesday's leg of the Tour de France? I've searched the Sports section four times. Believe me, that would be far more interesting than the feature article on sports mascots. I'm an 80-year-old female still avidly interested in one of the...
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Comments [0] - Views [111]
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Reader: In Vic Pollard's Thursday column, "Governor reaches a bit too far across the aisle," the Capitol was made to look like a partisan stomping ground where winning an election is more important than policy.
Mr. Pollard was correct in stating that I am working with the governor on...
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Comments [0] - Views [143]
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Reader: In last Thursday's "Sound Off" column, in response to a reader's concern about some members of the media reporting sensitive information important to national security, Editor Mike Jenner, usually measured in his remarks, seemed a bit frantic in defending journalistic icons such...
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Comments [3] - Views [150]
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Reader: I was struck by the phrase in the recent column by Dianne Hardisty that read: "The public and open nature of our court system was designed by our Founding Fathers to prevent abuses." I have had a number of opportunities to observe cases in family court where lawyers and the...
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Reader: Don't you cringe when hearing or seeing "these ones"? Perhaps you recall where you first heard it, but hopefully it was not from a teacher (at any level) or from a respected journalist. Chances are, it was from some unrefined comedian or athlete on "Saturday Night...
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Reader: I have to first say how disappointed I was to wake up on Sunday, June 11, and find a three-page article on the most obnoxious self-centered person in town. I am still trying to figure out how reading basically a list of everything Realtor David Crisp has been able to buy himself is...
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Comments [6] - Views [909]
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I'm sure this must be a bookkeeping error, because I know doctors are too ethical to rip off Californian's health care system for prisoners.
But state Controller Steve Westly reported that in the midst of a 437 percent increase in prison health care spending — $153 million in 2001 and...
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Comments [1] - Views [164]
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Lots of people are talking about elections right now... From the upcoming presidential race, to the recent primary election SNAFU here in good old Kern County, just about everyone seems to have it on their mind lately, which brings up something that is really bothing me...
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I've lived in...
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Comments [17] - Views [348]
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When Travis Barker, Blink-182 drummer joined the all-star tribute to Buck Owens at the 41st Annual Academy of Country Music Awards earlier this year, it was not by accident. I believe that the selection of band members for that performance was a reflection of the broad influence that Buck Owens...
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Comments [0] - Views [210]
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We were reasonably comfortable in all the heat last month.
And it only cost us $500.
Yikes! That made us uncomfortable.
We were a little startled because the last house we had, which had two air conditioners (our new house has only one), had bills that were less than half that amount....
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Curt's been posting wonderful pics - so I had to add mine. See the difference? His are great, mine - well - are for the bugs!
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Either I've gone from a one-man band to one man, banned, or there is some sort of technical glitch preventing me from making comments on other Bakersfield.com blog sites, so I'll say what I have to say here. I've been extraordinarily reasonable and civil in my comments, so I'm thinking it's the...
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Comments [6] - Views [802]
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You can spin the californian anyway you like, but this site SUCKS. I spent an hour on a post about traveling. I clicked on "save draft" and POOF! it was gone! This is the third time this has happened. I thought that, perhaps, I had not listened to the intructions I received awhile back...
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Comments [12] - Views [458]
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So I've had my new iPod for just a few days and I'm already seeing what a different world we're in for in the future. So far I've uploaded about 2,000 songs from my CD collection and I'm less than halfway done.
I'm starting to think it's way too much content to choose from. On my drive...
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Comments [1] - Views [227]
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When you're a kid, health insurance never was one of those "perks" you thought about when you dreamed about your "grown-up" job. Or at least, it wasn't for me. Even in college, talking about the finer sides of health coverage seemed weirdly adult, like talking about a 401k....
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Comments [9] - Views [299]
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To answer a comment from my previous post, yes, I know our environmental reporter Sarah Ruby. We're good friends who happen to live about two blocks from each other and often walk home from work together after a long, deadline-crazy day at work.
Here's a podcast Sarah did about walking to work...
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Comments [1] - Views [182]
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Congrats! You just found the Californian's health and medicine blog.
On this blog, you'll find interesting stories that are all the buzz in medicine, fun facts, sources for debate, some health stories from the newspaper and, from time to time, other random bits of goodness.
I must admit I'm...
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Comments [4] - Views [473]
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Personally I like Mel Gibson, but I feel he knew perfectly well what he was saying when he made his remarks. I feel he is trying to hide behind the skirt of alcohal. His blood alcohal level was not that high, but it was high enough for him to be comfortable enough to speak his mind when he was...
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Comments [18] - Views [498]
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PUBLISHED 8-3-2006
Nothing must be allowed to compromise the integrity of lawmaking, including the mere appearance of corruption of California’s initiative process.
It is in the interest of both the Legislature and the public that legislation to help ensure the integrity of the...
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Comments [30] - Views [321]
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PUBLISHED 8-3-2006
Kern County residents owe Rep. Bill Thomas a huge “thank you” for his latest service to the district — helping to make Isabella Dam and everybody downstream safer sooner.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dropped a bombshell earlier this year by putting...
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Comments [2] - Views [149]
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Some thoughts were jolted in my mind after seeing a trailer for a docu-movie called "who killed the electric car". Do you think it would work in a town like Bakersfield if we had electric cars for in town, and then for longer distances, had better forms of transportation like trains...
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Comments [2] - Views [140]
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My Mom's new Malti-poo puppy needs a name! Please help! I'm going crazy! She is calling me every few minutes, "what about this name, what about that name". My whole family is participating, making phone calls, sending emails... there are about six of us working on this. We can't...
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Comments [17] - Views [469]
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Where is Paul Willett these days?
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Comments [2] - Views [148]
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I heard from a local Vietnam veteran the other day. He was angry over a story that's making the rounds on the Internet. He wants others to be angry about it, too.
It's one of those stories that seem to live forever in cyberspace, a tale so unbelievably unAmerican you want to dismiss it as urban...
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Comments [48] - Views [1038]
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Here's a place I used to go a lot, say 2 times a week walking my Akita dog named Kita. Padaro Lane just before Carpinteria from Santa Barbara CA. It's out of the way, a nice beach and somewhat free of tourists.
Something caught my eye as I read the local paper from my old town the other...
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Q: Just about every night when you look up in the sky, you see the Kern County Sheriff’s Department helicopter with its bright light looking for crimes and assisting ground units. I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure that helicopters help ground officers out a lot with various...
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Comments [5] - Views [397]
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Q: What’s going on with the median directly across from Centennial High School on Hageman? For months it’s looked as if dirt was dumped inside the concrete curbing, then abandoned. Are there plans for landscaping or bricking over?
— Melissa Howard
The dirt was left there a couple of...
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Wow! Thanks for reading my babble! I wish I could have that kind of a response to my ha ha Internet campaigns. Well, thanks for reminding me, it's true snopes has some good info. Thanks for that-twice.
Just for fun and to use up the offending carbonated beverages tried a little research on my...
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