Pacifica Riptide

Roundabouts Safer Than Traditional Intersections

Myth: Roundabouts are dangerous.

Reality: Roundabouts have less than one-third as many crash-prone spots as traditional intersections and can reduce fatalities by as much as 90 percent.

(VIA magazine, March-April 2010, California State Automobile Association)

Endangered Species Condoms vs. Overpopulation

Through a network of more than 3,000 volunteers, the Center for Biological Diversity is distributing 100,000 free Endangered Species Condoms in all 50 states to highlight how unsustainable human population growth is driving species extinct at a cataclysmic rate. http://www.endangeredspeciescondoms.com/

Why They Call New Orleans "The Big Easy"

Correction of the Week

“I am sorry to disappoint all the readers who wished to apply for the position, but New Orleans does not employ a ‘sex assessor.’ That was a misprint in Wednesday’s column. It should have read ‘tax assessor.’ Slips don’t come much more Freudian than that.” – Times-Picayune http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2010/02/new_orleans_mayor_ray_nagins_m.html

HMB School Budget Cuts Unless Tax Passes

Cabrillo Unified School District in Half Moon Bay will cut high school counselors, librarian, all athletics funding, and all class-size reduction if the proposed parcel tax does not pass. The school board voted to accept Superintendent Rob Gaskill's proposed cuts from the district's budget, designed close to the district's forecast budget deficit for 2010-11 school year, at an increasingly emotional meeting in the Cunha Intermediate School library. The district forecasts a $2.5 million budget shortfall if its proposed five-year $150/year parcel tax does not pass, and $1.0 million if the tax passes. Superintendent Gaskill also noted that the cuts were reduced by a one-time federal stimulus payment of $545,000 and that this money will have to be made up in the 2011-12 school year. The complete list of cuts is at COASTSIDER.COM

Medicare for All

Here are President Obama's health care reform goals and our responses:

1. Expand coverage and provide more Americans health care – Improved Medicare for All will provide comprehensive medical, mental, dental, vision and prescription coverage to all people (everybody in, nobody out) living in the United States from birth to death without gaps. No system based on private insurance can make the same guarantee.

2. End insurance company abuses – Improved Medicare for All will remove the expensive and bloated private insurance bureaucracy from our health care system and effectively end their profit-driven practices of denying and restricting coverage. All people in America will enjoy the same sense of security that those with traditional Medicare currently feel in knowing that necessary care will be covered and that their coverage cannot be taken away. Medicare is accountable to the public, rather than to investors.

3. Control health care costs – Improved Medicare for All is the only solution with built-in cost controls. There will be immediate savings of $400 billion per year simply by removing the high administrative and marketing costs that come with having over 1,300 different private insurance plans. Additional savings will arise through negotiations for fair pharmaceutical prices as Wal-Mart does now.

4. Decrease the deficit – Improved Medicare for All is the only solution which will put the brakes on our health care costs which are spiraling out of control. Further positive effects on the economy will occur as businesses are relieved of the financial burden of paying for health benefits allowing them to focus on building their business, raising wages and competing in the global market. Having less volatility in health care prices will allow businesses to hire more employees, thereby spurring job growth.

5. Stabilize Medicare – Improved Medicare for All will finally relieve the financial stress which is placed on Medicare from providing coverage for those who have the greatest health care needs – those who are disabled or who are 65 years of age and older. Everybody, healthy and ill, will contribute to the Medicare fund throughout their lives knowing that Medicare will be there for them when they need it.

No matter what the Congress and president do, if anything, the time is now to lay the foundation for a real health care reform movement that cannot be ignored. Payer Now is a statewide grassroots advocacy group based in San Francisco. It educates and trains activists to advocate for health care minus the insurance industry. In California, it works toward the enactment into law of SB 810, the California Universal Healthcare Act; and in Congress, HR 676, the U.S. National Healthcare Act. For more information, call Don Bechler at 415-810-5826, email DON BECHLER, or visit SINGLE PAYER NOW

Warning: Roof Repair Scammers Prey on Elderly

Message from a friend: "Caucasian couple driving late 80s or early 90s white car (like a Chevy Cavalier) going to elderly folks' homes posing as roofing company employees checking for leaks. They say they need to check for leaks after the heavy rains, even when roof work has been done recently. One victim was taken for $3,400. When the crooks followed the victim to the bank, the cops supposedly got the surveillance videotape. The scammers took the victim's credit cards to Emeryville and used them there. Warn anybody you know. The bad guy was a little rough, so have folks be careful."

Big Wave Site Visit Postponed @ Moss Beach

San Mateo County Planning Commission has postponed its planned visit to the site of the Big Wave development in Moss Beach. The cost of updating the project's draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) has caused a cascade of delays. Because the consultant requires more money to complete the EIR, release of the final report has been delayed. The Planning Commission has delayed its scheduled March 10 hearing until the final EIR is completed. This led the developer to delay putting up story poles until the minimum 10 days before the hearing, and the Planning Commission has delayed its site visit until the story poles are erected. (Phew, now that's what we call a daisy chain of delays. Did you follow that?) Click COASTSIDER.COM for more on this project and to follow its progress—or lack thereof.

Wall of Blues Kicks Out the Jambs (VIDEO)

WALL OF BLUES ROCKS OWEN HALL

Big Pharma Blocks Basic Health Care Insurance

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123889454&ft=1&f=13
Big Pharma [the pharmaceutical industry) and Senator Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, made a deal to undo any plans for a single-payer health care plan. Last year, Big Pharma met with Baucus and committee in Washington to ensure their cash profits remain in place. This is what they got:

• Americans may not go to 1st world countries such as Canada to fill prescriptions. where they cost at least 3O% less
• Preexisting conditions are still valid reason for denial of coverage.
• No single-payer Medicare-like program for all Americans.
  

Who was involved? Every Big Pharma, including Roche Group and Amgen:
http://assets.sunlightfoundation.com/images/blog/infographics/finance_committee/baucus_sfc_health.html

To change this, contact Senator Dianne Feinstein:
http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUS.EmailMe
Senator Barbara Boxer:
http://boxer.senate.gov/en/contact/  
Congressmember Jackie Speier:
http://speier.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=159&sectiontree=54,159

Ask them why they haven't spoken out about single payer and why they are silent as California's Big Pharma actively works to make sure that all Americans do not have basic health care coverage.
 
  (from a concerned Riptide reader)
 
       

Sacramento Raiders: Economy vs. Environment

State’s main environmental law targeted on broad front
By John Howard 02/23/10 12:00 AM PST SACRAMENTO BEE [sacbee.com]
Years of exemptions from California’s principal environmental protection law are being crafted in the Capitol by the Schwarzenegger administration and lawmakers in both parties, who believe speedy approval of dozens of projects, public and private, will create jobs and spur economic growth. The projects are potentially worth billions of dollars and thousands of jobs -- although just how much money and how many jobs have not yet been identified. "If there is a list, if it exists, nobody has seen it," one Capitol staffer said. "California is going through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression," said Sen. Lou Correa, D-Santa, author of one of the exemption bills. "This continues to provide environmental protection and balances that with the opportunity to create jobs." Environmentalists say the proposed end-run around the California Environmental Quality Act constitutes one of the most significant changes to CEQA since the law was written 40 years ago and inspired environmental legislation across the country. CEQA is a frequent target of lawsuits and legislation. Four bills – two in each house – contain Schwarzenegger’s proposal to exempt 25 projects, selected geographically by county, from court review and CEQA each year through 2014. Two of the bills are regular-session measures, the other two were introduced in the 8th Special Session. All are mirror images of each other. Privately, those familiar with the legislation say there is a scramble among lobbyists to get clients’ projects on the exemption list. The proposals are supported by manufacturers, builders, engineers, developers, business interests and others. They say the proposals will expedite construction of numerous, still-unknown projects and jumpstart the weak economy. They restrict the power of the courts to review the projects and give final authority over the projects to the administration. The projects could range from refineries to commercial development, housing tracts, highways and water works, among others. A fifth bill, which would apply retroactively, would exempt critical infrastructure projects for flood control, highways, port security, disaster preparedness and air quality. The proposal is similar to a plan that was proposed last year and rejected. Funding for the projects was approved by voters in 2006 as Proposition 1B, the $19.9 billion transportation bond, and Proposition 1E, the $4.1 billion flood protection bond. Of the funding that was approved, about $16 billion worth of bond funding remains unissued. The measures containing the administration’s proposals have Democratic and Republican authors. The fifth bill, the infrastructure plan, is authored by Senate GOP Leader Dennis Hollingsworth. CEQA has long been a target of developers, builders, manufacturers, timber and mining interests and others, but the latest series of bills seeking changes is unusual for their number and scope, observers say. They cite the Legislature’s earlier approval of exemptions for air-emission credits for the South Coast Air Quality Management District and a proposed NFL stadium in Los Angeles County as the progenitors of the latest legislation. Those two proposals constituted the most significant environment-related legislation of 2009. "We said at the time that they would encourage more of these proposals, and it’s done exactly that," said Bill Magavern of Sierra Club California. "We’re seeing a stepped-up attack on CEQA this year, and I think we’re seeing development interests using the recession as an excuse for the CEQA rollbacks that they have been gunning for." The administration’s proposal, reported by Capitol Weekly in January, is being carried in the Assembly as AB1805 and AB37 8x by Assemblymen Charles Calderon, D-Montebello, and Brian Nestande, R-Riverside. In the Senate, Sens. Correa and Dave Cogdill, R-Fresno, are authoring virtually identical bills, SB 42 8x and SB 1010. The infrastructure exemptions are contained in SB 56 by Hollingsworth, R-Murietta. The administration’s proposal allows exemptions for at least 25 construction projects located across California. Ten would be chosen from Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties; five from Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Solano and Sonoma counties; five from Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Merced, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Tulare; and five projects located in the rest of the state. The proposal, which includes a provision for at least one public hearing and legislative input, gives final authority over the projects to the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, or BTH, a cabinet-level superagency whose secretary, a gubernatorial appointee, reports directly to the governor. The goal of the governor’s proposal is to expedite projects that would generate jobs and stimulate the sluggish economy. The proposal sets up a timetable for projects to be approved, and allows for approval if the entity seeking the project expects the project ultimately to receive environmental approval. If the project fails the environmental certification, the BTH can choose alternates. The plan calls for BTH to give lawmakers and the public a list of the projects that win final approval. Environmentalists said the governor’s plan would weaken environmental safeguards, and questioned whether the language barring court review would pass constitutional muster. Last year, the governor signed AB 81 3X by Assemblyman Isadore Hall, D-Compton, that streamlined certain CEQA requirements to construct a new NFL stadium in the City of Industry. The stadium proposal, already exempted, would not be covered by the latest legislation. The governor also signed SB 827 by Sen. Rod Wright, D-Los Angeles, with an estimated $4 billion economic impact affecting some 65,000 jobs in the L.A. basin. The bill allows air regulators to distribute valuable emissions credits in the way they did before the courts, responding to environmentalists, blocked them.