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Posted for 7/18/06One wouldn’t expect the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Rockville, Md., to be the source of a good-news-bad-news scenario. But it is.The institute reported that incidents of drunken driving have declined nationwide in recent years — thanks in part to...
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Comments [7] - Views [299]
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Well I spent the past weekend working on both of my cars. On Saturday my dad and I changed the bushings on the Cutlass. It took all day and was really dirty. But the car rides much smoother now. However, as usual, as we fixed one problem another popped up. This time it looks like the rear freeze...
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Kern County has its share of family owned businesses that have been around for years.A sampling includes:The Bakersfield Californian 1897Dewar’s 1909Karpe Real Estate Center 1926Smith’s Bakeries 1945Would you add...
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Kern County, continuing its reputation as a hot bed of ignorance, is number two and three in the state for its rates of the sexually transmitted diseases of chlamydia and gonorrhea.Thoughout the nation, California is tops in those categories, according to a story written in the July 18...
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Comments [68] - Views [1737]
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A cell phone commercial depicts a wild party in a home, but everyone gets quiet when the teen resident answers to a call from his parents who are away on vacation.A piece of confetti falls to a table. The mother hears it and becomes incensed that her kid is having a party. She announces she...
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Comments [3] - Views [769]
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It appears that instead of decreasing accidents at busy Bakersfield intersections, red-light cameras have actually increased the crunch toll.But according to a story by Californian reporter David Burger in the July 18 edition, serious accidents at those places have delined while fender benders...
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Comments [33] - Views [775]
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Charles Stuart Platkin, also known as the Diet Detective, provided a full report on the phenomenon know as gas.The nice word is flatulance. Pre-teens have other words for it.Turns out most people pass gas 10 to 20 times a day. I don't keep track, but that seems about right.Platkin noted that...
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Comments [21] - Views [556]
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The Kern River Bluffs-General Holding-Mike Maggard mess has taken some ugly twists and turns over the past few years, but the most recent development - a possible move by the city to regulate a chunk of private property out from under its owners - may be the ugliest yet.
The issue was the...
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Comments [15] - Views [729]
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A group of good friends just banded together to get me a Video iPod. They must have been reading all of my posts about getting TiVo shows onto my Treo smartphone and felt sorry for me or something. (It's actually a little more complex than that, but I won't get into it in this post).At any rate,...
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What the heck is this world coming to?Apparently there are swimsuit manufacturers who cover up all the good parts of a woman.They, according to a Washington Post story by Robin Givhan, are called WholesomeWear swimsuits. A picture is attached to the above link.The purported swimsuits are like a...
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PUBLISHED 7-17-2006Still sweating from last weekend’s blistering heat, we deserve a break and a bit of good news. Think snow. Think snowmobiles. Think about normally warring groups actually sitting down and reaching a compromise.Gives you warm fuzzy thoughts, doesn’t it? Or, rather...
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PUBLISHED 7-17-2006A fast-food restaurant advertisement once asked: Where’s the beef? Look no further than Kern’s Democrat Congressman Jim Costa.Costa has a big beef with Japan over the country’s unwillingness to import U.S. beef.Costa has introduced HR 5696, which will increase...
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POSTED 7-16-2006Bakersfield has an image problem. Maybe real. Possibly the result of self-inflicted insecurities.Whatever the case, Greater Bakersfield Vision 2020 members believe a coordinated marketing strategy that includes a new city logo will help.After hiring a consultant and conducting...
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PUBLISHED 7-16-2006Should Bakersfield change its logo? Should city monument signs also be changed? Where should these signs be located? Tell us what you believe the City Council should do about Bakersfield’s image.Representatives of Vision 2020, a communitywide action group that spent...
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So I'm reading the Sports section today and I notice a picture of Danica Patrick at the top of the page. I am drawn to the picture because A) I'm a car guy and B) I'm a GUY.Next to her little semi-glam mugshot is a quote from a fellow IRL driver.
"I think Danica's pretty aggressive in our...
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I met with newspaper union leaders from all over the country and Canada in Las Vegas last week. We had a discussion on the future of the newspapers.It turns out The Bakersfield Californian is on the forefront of changes in providing all-day news updates, video, audio, podcasts (radio type news),...
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Three Bakersfield people are donating their bone marrow to try to save three lives.The California manager of the National Marrow Doner Program is call this "the summer of Bakersfield heroes."They include Doug Black, Catherine Finch and Brad Sturm.Black got his name on the list after...
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This is terrible that we are doing a blog on Roger Ebert when he is recovering from cancer surgery. I feel ashamed. But moving right along, we in the newsroom were wondering if people in Bakersfield feel Ebert's review are too high brow for our audience.He gives four stars to "Akeelah and...
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I'm guessing here, but I think people who trash up city and county parks need a little housecleaning at their homes too.Trash in the parks is a constant problem that small legions of city and county employees try to keep under control.But Californian reporter Julianna Crisalli reports in teh July...
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PUBLISHED 7-14-2006There is little time for voters to push state legislators to put an initiative on the November ballot to change the way political district boundaries are drawn.The redistricting process must be changed to allow truly competitive elections. This political reform is...
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PUBLISHED 7-14-2006The generosity of people who live and work in Bakersfield is remarkable. When they see a need, they step forward to meet it.That has been the case with The Californian’s call to help the Bakersfield Rescue Mission collect school supplies for 500 needy local...
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I was checking out some of my car sites during lunch and stumbled onto this video, featuring four different novelty vehicles (couch, shed, road boat and some unidentifiable fourth)I was ready to move along. Then they decided to race them. And I was hooked.
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Washington Post reporter Amy Joyce wrote a story, inspired by the movie, "The Devil Wears Prada," about crass, rude and self-absorbed bosses who trample on employees for a living.The story says a Monster poll found that 70 percent of workers think they have a "toxic boss" much...
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We all have these small world stories.I was in Vegas with my union goon buddies and we decided to check out the Venetian. Great place. I'm taking the gondola ride when I take my bride to Vegas next.As we walk out a door on the Saturday night when the strip was wall to wall people, I run into my...
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PUBLISHED 7-13-2006A pledge by Kern Medical Center Chief Executive Officer Peter Byran to revise future pay arrangements with county doctors and to resolve existing pay disputes will help restore the county hospital’s credibility.For months, controversy has raged over the county’s...
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PUBLISHED 7-13-2006Kern residents should welcome the naming of Jack Gotcher as their new director of airports.The Board of Supervisors named Gotcher to replace current director Ray Bishop, who is moving to Jackson Hole, Wyo.But Gotcher is no stranger to the county’s network of airports. He...
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I've driven by the Park at River Walk every day since the tragic death of 8-year-old Jamine Korin and every day there are a dozen or so children splashing and swimming in the pond where she drowned.
And every day I ask myself the same question: Now that signs are posted in the park, who will...
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Comments [49] - Views [637]
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The Kern County Board of Supervisors just authorized a measure on the November ballot asking voters if they will approve a half-cent sales tax to improve local roads.God knows our roads need to be improved.And I personally would like to pay a half-cent extra tax every time I buy new golf balls to...
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Looks like Congress is moving closer to banning online gambling.To be honest I just don't understand this. I guess the argument is that gambling ruins peoples lives and leaves them broke.Well so does alcohol. But we're not banning that. Of how about love? Man, if you don't roll the dice...
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Hi folks,By popular demand, we now have a Last 50 Comments page. It's a way for you to stay on top of discussions. This is just a stopgap measure before we launch a much more robust way to track comments and discussions all over Bakersfield.com. If your primary way of interacting with blogs is...
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This will teach me to go out and get married and then go to Vegas to play union goon and golf -- everything has changed on The Californian's website.It seems that instead of having just Californian's blog's on our home page, we've set it up so that anyone can be a blogger and the Californian's...
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PUBLISHED 7-12-2006Allegations of miscounted ballots and fraud continue to swirl around Mexico’s July 2 presidential election. Conservative presidential candidate Felipe Calderon appears to have won the presidency by a scant 244,000 votes out of 41 million that were cast.Liberal...
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PUBLISHED 7-12-2006A joint operation by the city of Bakersfield and Kern County brought a safer and saner Fourth of July to metropolitan Bakersfield.Teams of law enforcement officers and firefighters confiscated illegal fireworks and cited people using them.The stepped-up enforcement action did...
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From the number of downloads I know a lot of you folks listened to the 911 call from the recent Park at River Walk drowning. Here is a 911 call that is a lot less dramatic and sad. This is apparently from a Southern California cop shop and from a few years back. But it illiustrates an issue that...
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We've got a story today about a neighborhood in southwest Bakersfield where a group home for troubled teens wants to expand from six to eight teens. Some of the neighborhood isn't too hot on the idea.Back in my reporting days I remember covering a really fiesty battle over a group home for...
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PUBLISHED 7-11-2006Dare to be GREAT. A gang-resistance program will take the place of the drug prevention prevention program D.A.R.E. in the Bakersfield City and Greenfield Union school districts this fall.The Bakersfield Police Department received a year long federal grant of $206,864 from the...
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Comments [24] - Views [437]
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PUBLISHED 7-11-2006The controversial decision by California Lottery officials to join the multi-state Mega Millions lottery game hasn’t turned out to be the gold mine venture they thought it would be. Combined sales of Super Lotto Plus and Mega Millions tickets are likely to reach...
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I spent the weekend working on my Monte Carlo, installing window felts, lower body trim and some sweet tires and rims.Check it out here.Here's a pic to whet the appetite.
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When I played sports as a kid, I was taught that whether I won or lost, I was to conduct myself with the utmost class.
It's funny how, on the grandest stages in sports, the sportsmanship kids are taught at the lower levels suddenly get thrown out the window.
The incident I'm specifically...
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Does Kern County and/or the City of Bakersfield have a formal plan to handle an earthquake or a serious problem with the Lake Isabella Dam?
— Hanford L. Lee
A. Sort of.
Both the city and the county have old plans drawn up in the unlikely event an earthquake or other problem caused Isabella...
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If you're working on a long blog post entry, you may want to save draft copies. This will make sure that your content isn't lost in the event that your Internet connection goes down. Here's how to do it:
When your writing a blog entry, look at the bottom of the screen for a Save Draft...
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I was just settling down to a bit of writing last Friday when I suddenly realized I had, that very morning, broken the law.
At least that's what my husband told me when I frantically confessed I'd forgotten to check in with the Kern County Superior Court's jury system the night before and, at...
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Comments [19] - Views [420]
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Hi everyone,Some users had trouble signing in to read stories and post entries and comments on blogs this morning. The underlying problem was identified and fixed, and we will be putting changes in place that should prevent this from happening again.We apologize for any inconvenience this may...
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PUBLISHED 7-9-2006Bakersfield’s blistering summer heat combined with a cool body of water, is an attraction too enticing for many people to resist.Bakersfield city officials contend the lakes and stream at the new southwest Park at River Walk were not intended for swimming. They were...
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PUBLISHED 7-10-2006Kern County Superior Court Judge Sharon Mettler is celebrating her 25th anniversary of being sworn in as a judge today.When Mettler was sworn in on July 10, 1981, she became the only woman presiding over a Bakersfield courtroom. She recalls that there were 11 judges in...
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PUBLISHED 7-10-2006Computer maker Dell Inc. is paving the way to solving a growing environmental public health problem — the disposal of so-called e-waste. It is an example more companies need to follow.The largest manufacturer of direct-to-customer sales of personal and business computers...
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PUBLISHED 7-7-2006Anytime, anywhere on-the-go connectivity could launch Bakersfield residents into cyberspace. The city is considering becoming a partner in providing wireless Internet access in Bakersfield.The question should not be whether to proceed with so-called WiFi, but which service...
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A year ago, "Desparate Housewives" and "Lost" were the toast of the Emmys, but no more.They were snubbed for the thriller, "24" and the hospital romance of "Grey's Anatomy."What are you thoughts about the nominations?Below is an Associated Press story...
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Perhaps the way we talk in the workplace affects our corporate ladder abilities.Indianapolis Star columnist Dana Knight brings this topic up in a report on how you talk to your boss. She writes:
"Language can be a way to solidify shared influences," says Latrica Schooley, an...
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On Wednesday, my editor was explaining this whacky new blog system we have and pointed out there was a fly on my computer screen.I gave it a quick back hand and extinguished its life.But the point is, the rather large fly somehow made it up to the third floor of the Californian building. That's...
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