"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday
ordered a loan of up to $150 million to the state's voter-approved stem cell research institute, catapulting California into the lead as the nation's top public funder of the divisive research," reports Lee Romney in the Times.
"The governor's action, a day after
President Bush vetoed expanded federal support for embryonic stem cell science, is expected to kick-start the state's long-delayed program to pay for cutting-edge research projects."
"'We can no longer afford to wait to fund this important research,' Schwarzenegger wrote in a letter that directed his finance director to make the loan. 'I remain committed to advancing stem cell research in California, in the promise it holds for millions of our citizens who suffer from chronic diseases and injuries that could be helped as a result of stem cell research.'"
Phil Angelides "I was there first" response in 3...2...
"'For the past year, while I was fighting for immediate funding for the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, the governor failed to lift a finger to stand up to the anti-research activists,' Angelides said in a statement," writes Kim Minugh in the Bee.
Meanwhile, "State Treasurer and Democratic gubernatorial candidate
Phil Angelides was involved in a vehicle accident Thursday when the car he was riding in was rear-ended on Interstate 80 in Vallejo, according to the California Highway Patrol."
"There were no major injuries and everyone involved in the accident declined to be transported for treatment, said Sgt.
Les Bishop of the CHP's Golden Gate Division."
While Angelides was playing bumper cars, Schwarzenegger was playing in the Bushes. "Nurses and a coalition of other union members rallied outside a Hillsborough home yesterday to protest
a $100,000-a-plate fundraiser attended by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former President George H.W. Bush," reports Dana Yates in the San Mateo Daily Journal.
"The two Republican heavyweights attended an evening event at the home of
Katie Boyd, a major contributor to the 2000 and 2004
George W. Bush presidential campaigns. On the road outside, about 50 protesters heckled event attendees and carried signs supporting Proposition 89, which aims to end private donations to political campaigns."
"'We’re going to take Arnold down and we’re going to take the rest of them down too,' said former CNA board member
Monica Smith-Braun. 'We’re the ones who make California as rich as it is.'”
We can't wait to report on their rally at the
home of Angelo Tsakapoulos at his next fundraiser.
The OC Register's Brian Joseph reports on efforts to
change the state's signature-gathering process for ballot initiatives.
"Proposals by Sen.
Debra Bowen, D-Marina del Rey, and Assemblyman
Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, outlaw bounties, requiring instead that signature gatherers circulating petitions or voter- registration cards be paid hourly.
Bowen also has a bill, introduced before the Register's investigation, to require petitions to include a list of top financial contributors to initiative committees and a statement disclosing whether signature gatherers are being paid.
"The state prison system has
failed to keep track of the hours its employees spend working on union activities, potentially costing the state millions of dollars in salaries that should have been paid by the correctional officers' union and others, the Office of the Inspector General reported Thursday," reports the Bee's Clea Benson.
"The report portrayed a system in which prison employees were sometimes working full time for their unions but had never been required by the state to obtain authorization to be on leave. At the same time, the audit found, the state was not tracking whether workers' salaries were being covered by donated leave time or by payments from the unions."
"'
It was a bit like auditing spaghetti, and our apologies to spaghetti,' said
Brett Morgan, chief deputy inspector general. 'It was a tangled mess, and some parts were just missing.'"
CCPOA's
Lance Corcoran says that his union is tracking the hours, and they don't owe the state anything. "'We've had problems with the department for many years with respect to the accounting of release time bank hours,' he said. 'At least we can track our numbers, whereas it's been very difficult to get any sort of accuracy from the department.'"
Dan Walters looks at the
debate over the proposal to tear down the O'Shaughnessy Dam and restoring Hetch Hetchy. "From a technical standpoint, it wouldn't be rocket science to do what the environmental groups want, if the federal, state and local governments and their constituents were willing to shoulder the costs. Neither are the amounts of water and power involved insurmountably immense. Hetch Hetchy provides about 360,000 acre-feet of water a year, but that's not even 1 percent of the state's total human use of water."
"Its 400 megawatts of power generation are roughly the equivalent of one medium-size generating plant."
"Whether we should do it is another question. Is restoring a pristine mountain valley for scenic and recreational purposes worth the multibillion-dollar price?"
"That's a purely political issue, not one that hydrologists and engineers can settle. And the debate will likely still be raging when O'Shaughnessy Dam celebrates its 100th birthday a couple of decades hence."
In other environmental restoration news, a "plan to restore the San Joaquin River will
cost at least $600 million and possibly much more, prompting sticker shock among some of the lawmakers who must find the money," writes the Bee's Michael Doyle.
"In a private Capitol Hill briefing Thursday, members of Congress started learning about what could become one of the nation's most ambitious environmental endeavors. It would end an 18-year-old lawsuit and return life to a river channel stripped bare long ago. It could also force California to cash in lots of political chits."
"'If all goes well,' Rep.
George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, said Thursday, 'I'd like to get it done this year.'"
Fianlly, from our
Fido's Revenge Files, we get this from our Beijing bureau: "A Chinese headmaster, who
tried to buy off colleagues by cooking dog meat for them after secretly selling off trees around the school, ended up setting fire to classrooms when the meal burst into flames, a Chinese newspaper said on Friday.
Ten classrooms containing televisions, computers, printers and textbooks burnt down, leaving nearly 100 children unable to go to school, the Beijing Youth Daily said."
