“Inflate Your Tires or Go To Jail”

Here’s a little regulation with the force of Law dreamed up by our CA Air Resources Board [CARB] [ Hey - whaddya expect when the Tax Board is called The State Board of Equalization, eh?]

See, CA has these Boards.  The members are unelected—appointed by the legislature—and unaccountable to The People; or, for that matter, to the Legislature.  No, rly.  Each Board member is required to attend 4, maybe 5 meetings a year and is paid upward of $120K/year.  With full staff—many of whom make $80K a year for “executive assistant” jobs.  More for “teh specialists.”

These Boards govern things like Air and Water and each Board can write as many dumb “regulations” as it wants.  Each “regulation” has the full force of Law, but, unless you run afoul of one, you’ll never know they’re being considered or passed.  Nifty, eh?

There is a legal requirement of a “public comment period,” but unless you watch ‘em like a hawk—yeah… I got that kind of time—this stuff slides right by. 

Chris Reed of SignOnSanDiego was acting like a journalist and watching like a hawk.  He turned to the John & Ken Show audience who filled the comment forms so vociferously that, within 28 hours of the comment period opening, they shut the dang thing down and re-wrote the “regulation.”

Well—that’s one.

We [by “We” I mean the forces of common sense, physics and the Citizenry] had another victory over the Water Resources Board recently when it wanted to force everyone with a septic system into ridiculous, ineffective annual testing [including your well][all already covered by local Health Boards].  They also wanted to make over half of the folks install a brand new, $48,000 mound system—which, according to the hundreds of septic system professional engineers who “commented”, is the system most likely to fail.  [who know there were hundreds of septic system engineers around?!?] This is the kind of brilliance that is handed to us at least quarterly by $180,000/year “engineers” who “know better” how we should live our lives.

It’s amazing how quickly they back down when the light of day hits them—and about 2,500 spittin’ mad regular folks show up and holler at them.  And laugh at ‘em—which was the part I enjoyed most.  The “engineer” fella said “This is not a tax.” and a hall full of 2500 folks laughed like it was a comedy club for at least a full minute.  Made the “engineer” fella kinda pissy for the next 6 hours of “comments.”

This is what they had proposed for you and your tires: 

By July 1, 2010, all automotive service providers are required to:
(A) check and inflate each vehicle’s tires to the vehicle manufacturer’s recommended pressure with air or pure nitrogen, as appropriate, at the time of performing any automotive maintenance or repair service; and
[note:  *vehicle* manufacturer—not *tire* manufacturer.  hm...]
(B) indicate on the vehicle service invoice that a tire inflation service was completed and the tire pressure measurements after the service was performed.

...

(E) keep a copy of the vehicle service invoice for a minimum of three years, and make the vehicle service invoice available to ARB, [Air Resources Board]

(F) provide documentation of the vehicle service invoice to authorized enforcement personnel upon demand…

...

an automotive service provider need not perform the check and inflate service if:

... the Customer ...provides documentation that the tires
have received a check and inflate service within the preceding 30 days…

The penalty for failure?

one thousand dollars ($1,000) or imprisonment in the county jail for not more than six months, or both.

They rescinded the “documentation” part to make it a “declaration” by the customer, which, presumably, removes the fine and jail term for improperly inflated tires.

Kinda gives a new perspective on O’Bambi’s kerfluffle on the campaign trail about “inflating your tires,” duzzin’t it?  What’s that old saying… As goes California, so goes the Nation Yeah ... that’s the one.

Schoolkids Angry with Obama

check

The White House and labor leaders agreed today on a formula to tax high-cost insurance plans ... union leaders dropped their opposition to the so-called Cadillac tax in exchange for concessions to limit its scope ...

The compromise would postpone the tax’s application to healthcare plans negotiated under union contracts. ...until 2018

...While politically powerful labor leaders support the plan—which Obama considers crucial to controlling healthcare costs the citizenry—rank-and-file workers now must be convinced that it is not a betrayal of Obama’s campaign promise to oppose any new taxes on their health benefits.

Whoinhell cares about the “rank and file”?!??!

A woman accused of trying to kill American soldiers and FBI agents in Afghanistan begged a Manhattan federal judge to give jurors genetic tests to make sure they aren’t Jews. ”If they have a Zionist or Israeli background...they are all mad at me,” said Aafia Siddiqui. “I have a feeling everyone here is them — subject to genetic testing....They should be excluded if you want to be fair.”

Siddiqui — a Brandeis and MIT-educated Pakistani — allegedly picked up an M-4 Army rifle and fired two shots at Americans who tried to question her in Afghanistan in July 2008. According to the Daily News, she shouted “Allah Akbar” and vowed to kill Americans before she was detained. Investigators reportedly found two pounds of poisonous sodium cyanide, notes and documents on how to build chemical and biological weapons, and lists of potential terror targets including the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, the Empire State Building, and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Siddiqui allegedly stated she was “boycotting the trail” because ”there are too many injustices.” She also repeatedly refused to speak to her own lawyers and told Judge Richard Berman: “I don’t trust you either.” After she threw a handwritten note to prosecutors begging for time each day to pray, the judge ruled she could leave the courtroom at 3:30 pm for 15 minutes of prayer. He also ruled that jurors will not see evidence regarding the chemicals or the “mass-produced documents from ‘how-to’ terror manuals,” and tossed evidence about her alleged Al Qaeda connections because it might cause bias.

In the middle of this MS-NBC gigglefest over Sarah Palin’s response to Glenn Beck on which Founding Father she likes best, Mika Brzezinski offers her opinion on the best Founding Father........

James Cameron’s latest blockbuster “Avatar” has garnered universal praise for its eye-popping 3D special effects and the main question now is whether it can top his previous film “Titanic” as the highest-grossing film ever.
Another question, however, has surfaced in Russia. Did Cameron take the ideas of two brothers who wrote a series of science fiction novels in the Soviet Union in the 1960s?

~ * ~
...Komsomolskaya Pravda concludes that Cameron was “clearly not inspired by the Soviet works of science fiction,” despite the similarities. Among the differences they point out are that the Na’vi are “Avatar“‘s only civilization on Pandora, whereas the Nave in the books are one of two peoples on the planet. Living conditions on Earth are also depicted as being miserable in “Avatar,” whereas in “Noon Universe” the planet prospers under communism…

The Haitian presidential palace stands in ruins in Port-au-Prince after an earthquake measuring 7.0 rocked the impoverished nation.

...buildings affected by an earthquake lay in ruins in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010.

...today’s Biden schedule highlight is a meeting with the chief of transparency for economic recovery… the transparency meeting is… closed…

OBB

...It had a very sinister appearance...It had a battery behind it, and wires…

Why do would you ask?  ...again?”

And who do you think will be paying those “fees”, Genius?

“My commitment is to recover every single dime the American people are owed. And my determination to achieve this goal is only heightened when I see reports of massive profits and obscene bonuses at the very firms who owe their continued existence to the American people – who have not been made whole, and who continue to face real hardship in this recession,” said President Barack Obama. “That’s why I’m proposing a Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee to be imposed on major financial firms until the American people are fully compensated for the extraordinary assistance they provided to Wall Street.”

The fee will be in place at least 10 years, but even longer if needed to pay back every penny of TARP. This will not be a cost borne by community banks or small firms; only the largest firms with more than $50 billion in assets will be affected. In fact, 60% of the revenue will come from the 10 largest financial firms.

Ah… Just another Marxist class war move, eh?

“We want our money back,” Obama said. “And we’re gonna get it.”

What this ”we” shiite, Wh... Buddy Boy?

the majority of the $700 billion in TARP money that was originally dished out has been recovered, though the program is still expected to cost taxpayers roughly $117 billion.

..."We’ve now recovered the majority of the funds provided to banks,” Obama said. “As far as I’m concerned however, that’s not good enough.”

And what about the profits the Fed declared recently—the biggest in history?  $52Bn?!? I still can’t figure how to track where, when, how,—or whether—those are being returned to the Treasury.  Maybe via TurboTax?

I was supposed to be allowed to inspect your palace today, but your guards won’t let me enter certain areas*

A former chief United Nations weapons inspector is accused of contacting what he thought was a 15-year-old girl in an Internet chat room, engaging in a sexual conversation and showing himself masturbating on a Web camera.
Scott Ritter of Delmar, N.Y., who served as chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991-98 and who was an outspoken critic of the second Bush administration in the run-up to the war in Iraq, is accused of contacting what turned out to be a Barrett Township police officer posing undercover as a teen girl.

The police affidavit gives the following account… [ warning: NSFW ]

word

Why should dumbass kidz today’s utes listen to this old guy?

“We had come by bus in 1963 to a church in Savannah, Georgia to plan a march to desegregate the city,” Platt writes. “Reverend Hosea Williams and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were our leaders. That particular planned march was canceled and we were singing to raise our spirits before returning home.”

...He got his nickname, “General,” from the Rev. Hosea Williams because of his heroic efforts on behalf of the civil-rights movement.

get these men a beer!

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Scott Brown yesterday accepted the endorsement of the Police Department’s two major unions.

Local 911, New England Police Benevolent Association, and Local 504, International Brotherhood of Police Officers, handed their endorsement to the state senator. The endorsement comes one day after a debate in which Mr. Brown and his main opponent, Democrat Attorney General Martha Coakley, squared off.

Not Another New England Sports Blog via MM