Best Hamburgers in San Diego

For my San Diego readers who REALLY like hamburgers – the best are at Bentley’s in Encinitas right on the edge of Rancho Santa Fe. (162 S. Rancho Santa Fe Rd.)

We are talking ½ pound freshly ground Filet Mignon, on  a great bun with mushrooms and two pieces of bacon for $10.95.

(Really good French Fries.)

Because it is freshly ground Filet, they are willing to cook it RARE.

Jean likes the Clam Chowder, and I have had their dinner Filet, and we share a crème brûlée

Highly recommended!

A National “Feel Good” Shopping Spree

This nation is in the “Feel Good” of a Nordstrom’s Shopping Spree.

 

The bills come due in five years. Too far away to be concerned.

 

That is when we may remember those items we bought in glee, and that are now old and used while the bills are new and pressing and…very scary.

Rasmussen Tracking Poll

The Rasmussen Tracking Poll reports today that President Obama is at +2. The percentage rating the President as “Strongly Approve” is 34%, and the percentage rating him  as “Strongly Disapprove” is 32%, leaving the President at +2.

Yesterday, he was at +4.

Latest Field Poll

The latest Field Poll (April 29), shows that five of the six Propositions are heading for failure.

 

Good!

 

I am torn on the one that is passing – it is a good idea, but passing it rewards a turncoat Republican Legislator who got the Democrats to include it in the mix in return for his vote passing the Annual Budget.

 

Had the impasse continued on the Budget, the Governor and the Democrats would have been forced to cut services, services they had increased far beyond the rate of inflation plus the increase in population over the past 10 year.

 

Generally, the first five are going down 49% to 40% or better. Prop. 1A is pretty secure because most voters know that it is a tax increase for two years.  That is good news because the National Educational Association is putting $2 million into the mix, because Prop. 1B cannot pass unless Prop. 1A passes.

 

Liberals HATE The Poor!

Being a Liberal means never having to say, “I’m Sorry.”

 

1. Liberals oppose drilling in ANWR et al, meaning higher fuel prices that hurt the poor.
2. Liberals oppose vouchers, locking poor Blacks in failing inner city schools.
3. Liberals support Ethanol, which raises food prices for the poor, worldwide.
4. Liberals oppose Wal-Mart, which brings cheaper food for the poor.
5. Liberals banned DDT, which means malarial has killed 20 million poor Africans.
6. Liberals fight nuclear power, so high energy prices hurt the poor.
7. Liberals support union work rules, driving Rust Belt manufacturing out, hurting the Rust Belt poor.
8. Liberals oppose enforcing immigration laws, driving wages down and hurting American  poor.
9. Liberals oppose strong criminal laws, loosing criminals to prey on the poor.
10. Liberals oppose new sources of water, and the resulting high water prices hurt the poor.
11. Liberals support higher gas taxes, hurting the poor.
12. Liberals opposed a gas tax holiday, hurting the poor.
13. Liberals oppose coal gasification, hurting the poor.
14. Liberals oppose building freeways, costing jobs, increasing SMOG, which hurts the poor.
15. Liberals support Mass Transit, leaving the poor fewer choices for jobs, hurting the poor
16. Liberals oppose wind power off Cape Cod, a liberal stronghold, raising energy prices & hurting the poor
17. Liberals oppose building dams, causing higher energy prices which hurt the poor
18. Liberals support Global Warming policies that will harm the economy and hurt the poor

 

Note that all of the problems mentioned, and many I have not even thought of, fall disproportionately on the poor. The rich – even the middle class – can withstand the pain. We live in well-protected neighborhoods, send our children to private schools, and compensate for increasing fuel and food prices with fewer double-mocha, skim-cream, single-sweetener lattes with whipped-cream topping.

 

Not ALL liberals support or oppose each and every enumerated item, but their fellow liberals are the leaders in doing so, and they stay silent so they will be accepted into the Liberal fellowship. Their silence is assent to these outrageous policies.

A Historical Footnote

I would like to put in a good word for Alfred Wallace, as many were celebrating Darwin’s birthday.

 

Now you may not have heard about Alfred, whom the Washington Post recently referred to as a “bug collector.” Now, as it happens, that is pretty accurate, and to mention him at the same time and in the same terms as Darwin is deemed presumptive.

 

But actually, while Darwin was wealthy and a true scientist and Wallace was an itinerate bug collector, they both discovered Evolution, or “natural selection” at exactly the same time thousands of miles apart and having never met or communicated.

 

Darwin wrote his paper first (1830), but held off publishing it because he rightly feared the religious outcry and his own wife who was devout.

 

Then, years later in the mail (1858) arrived a post from Wallace, describing his analysis .of a system of natural selection he had observed collecting bugs in the Western Pacific.

 

“Yikes,” or something more British, cried Darwin – I had better publish – but giving credit to Wallace he agreed to have both his paper and Wallace’s both read at the London Linnean Society – to, as I recall, very few scientists: Something fewer than 20 if I recall my reading several years ago of A Short History of Nearly Everything.

 

I had again forgotten Wallace until the recent Washington Post article on a man who bought a cabinet in a Washington, D.C. antique shop in 1976, and many years later he discovered the contents to be a bug collection by Alfred Wallace – a find deemed to be “priceless,” by the Smithsonian.

 

Wallace is one of those people I regularly forget, as does almost everyone else.

 

Now there are lot of lessons from this incident. First, you may recall that both the automobile and the airplane were invented simultaneously in several countries, so there is something to be said for idea whose time has come.

 

Secondly, even relatively unlettered amateurs can challenge the mighty scientists.

 

(Only to be ignored or forgotten by history.)

 

 

.

And The Beat Goes On…

The Reason Foundation is reporting that only 31California teachers have been fired for cause in the past five years.

 

In January, 2009, California reported having more than 310,000 public school teachers.

 

The American Psychological Association reported in 2000: “in 1996, 26 percent of the participants reported feeling like they were having a nervous breakdown” http://www.apa.org/releases/mentalhealth.html.

 

Now, it is not stretching credulity too far to conclude that each year, MORE than six teachers of the 310,000 population go stark raving MAD, but six is how many teachers are fired, on average.

 

Just anecdotal reports in the news tells me that California has more than six teachers a year who molest students! There have to be more than six teachers a year in California who are convicted of assault, and theft, and…

 

Just think of a city with a population of 310,000 and think of the crime that takes place among that population. 310,000 is approximately the population of Escondido and Oceanside, combined, and while I would expect a group of college graduates to have a lower crime rate than those communities, just imagine the size alone of those two cities combined.

 

Now, in a population even of college graduates that size, would you not think that some percentage would be incompetent in their subject matter? Would not some percentage actually go stark, raving crazy?

 

Apparently not, if we only fire an average of six people in the entire state each year. One member of the Los Angeles Unified School District (Tamar Galatzan), proposed examining firing the needed 3,500 reduction in force for budgetary reasons by some methodology other than seniority.

 

That went nowhere. Seniority rules in teachers unions, and no one has more power in this state than teachers unions – that is why so few teachers are fired for cause.

 

The LA Board appointed a committee to study the issue, and appointed only union leaders and union members to the committee.

More on the Proposition Kerfuffle

The Democratic Party California Convention this past weekend in San Francisco failed to muster the 60% vote necessary to endorse Prop. 1A and 1B.  

 

They didn’t do it to avoid the two years of taxes included in the first proposition, they just do not want any limitation on spending, however weak that limitation may be.

 

Whatever the reason, it again demonstrates the division within the Democratic Party. The California Teachers Unions supports Prop. 1A, but unions oppose it.

 

If you read the pamphlet that comes with the voting propositions for next month, you have to go to page 13 under the California Legislative Analyst writings to see that the proposition extends the taxes to support an extra !6 BILLION in taxes.

 

If it was up front, at least we could have a fair vote on it – up or down on whether we want more taxes. In this case, however, Republicans and Democrats in the California Legislature conspired to commit FRAUD on the voting public.       

Flu

It is always dangerous to comment about on-going news stories – about the time one comments, four new and contradictory items hit the news!

 

Still, the “Swine Flu” – or whatever they are calling it in this quarter-hour – looks like a real problem.

 

Starting in Mexico, it spread because of Mexico’s poor medical and sanitation standards.

 

In the United States, 36,000 people die annually from “the flu” (whatever that is), and this “swine flu” is just another flu.

 

We are fortunate that it strikes during what is normally a “non-flu” season, which is to say it happens at a time when people are moving about outside and not in small cramped quarters trying to stay warm.

 

Being so close to Mexico, where there is a LOT of commerce across the border, San Diego is obviously in trouble, but fortunately our much maligned medical facilities and our generally high sanitation standards are SOME barrier to the spread of the disease. 

So, Who IS Running the State?

The radio show John & Ken on KFI, (AM 640) Los Angeles have been beating the drums against the Republicans in the California Legislature dropping their opposition to the Governor’s budget – and more importantly they have been opposing all of Propositions on the upcoming ballot.     

 

So, yesterday the Governor asked:

“Are John and Ken running the state or is the governor running the state? Who is running the state here?”

 

As this is written, the KFI on-line poll is running 95.87% to 4.13% in favor of John & Ken.

 

(That works for me!)