LOS ANGELES — A California law that requires all semi-automatic handguns to be equipped with technology that stamps its identifying information on bullet casings is now in effect after years of delays.

Though signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2007, the law couldn’t take effect as it was supposed to in 2010 because of patents on the technology, including at least one that had been bought up by a gun rights group to delay the law’s implementation.

On Friday, Attorney General Kamala Harris officially certified and announced that patents were no longer an issue. Former state Assemblyman Mike Feuer, who authored the law, hailed it as a “monumental day for law enforcement” and said it was the first such law to go into effect in the nation. Other states, notably New York, have looked at such a law, but have had troubles getting it passed.

“This very important technology will help us as law enforcement in identifying and locating people who improperly and illegally use and discharge firearms,” Harris said.

The law doesn’t impact the more than 1,200 guns already on the state’s official firearm roster. Only new or modified semi-automatic handguns sold in California must be equipped with the technology that “microstamps” a bullet casing with a code identifying a gun’s make, model and serial number whenever the gun is fired.

New guns are not often added to the roster and one is not expected this year, said Lynda Gledhill, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s Office.

Gun rights groups argued that the law was an effective ban on new guns because of the burdens it places on manufacturers.

“Manufactures are not going to create a special run of firearms with all of these very burdensome manufacturing technologies just so they can comply and produce firearms for one market,” said Brandon Combs, executive director of the Calguns Foundation, a gun rights group based in San Carlos, Calif.

The Calguns Foundation extended a patent by paying a $555 fee, Combs said. He said the group was planning to conduct an “audit” of the state Department of Justice to determine whether the patents were truly “unencumbered.” The group has challenged requirements of the state’s handgun roster as unconstitutional in a federal court filing.

Feuer, who is running for LA city attorney, said the law would likely extend to other states which had been “looking to California to see if our law goes into effect.”

About 40 percent of California’s homicides are unsolved each year, most of which involve guns, Feuer said, but “we can do something to change that.”

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/05/18/5430874/calif-law-takes-effect-on-microstamping.html#disqus_thread#storylink=cpy

LAKEPORT, Calif. –  Scott and Robin Spivey had a sinking feeling that something was wrong with their home when cracks began snaking across their walls in March.

The cracks soon turned into gaping fractures, and within two weeks their 600-square-foot garage broke from the house and the entire property — manicured lawn and all — dropped 10 feet below the street.

It wasn’t long before the houses on both sides collapsed as the ground gave way in the Spivey’s neighborhood in Lake County, about 100 miles north of San Francisco.

“We want to know what is going on here,” said Scott Spivey, a former city building inspector who had lived in his four-bedroom, Tudor-style dream home for 11 years.

Eight homes are now abandoned and 10 more are under notice of imminent evacuation as a hilltop with sweeping vistas of Clear Lake and the Mount Konocti volcano swallows the subdivision built 30 years ago.

The situation has gotten so bad that mail delivery was ended to keep carriers out of danger.

“It’s a slow-motion disaster,” said Randall Fitzgerald, a writer who bought his home in the Lakeside Heights project a year ago.

Unlike sinkholes of Florida that can gobble homes in an instant, this collapse in hilly volcanic country can move many feet on one day and just a fraction of an inch the next.

Officials believe water that has bubbled to the surface is playing a role in the destruction. But nobody can explain why suddenly there is plentiful water atop the hill in a county with groundwater shortages.

“That’s the big question,” said Scott De Leon, county public works director. “We have a dormant volcano, and I’m certain a lot of things that happen here (in Lake County) are a result of that, but we don’t know about this.”

Other development on similar soil in the county is stable, county officials said.

While some of the subdivision movement is occurring on shallow fill, De Leon said a geologist has warned that the ground could be compromised down to bedrock 25 feet below and that cracks recently appeared in roads well beyond the fill.

“Considering this is a low rainfall year and the fact it’s letting go now after all of these years, and the magnitude that it’s letting go, well it’s pretty monumental,” De Leon said.

County officials have inspected the original plans for the project and say it was developed by a reputable engineering firm then signed off on by the public works director at the time.

“I can only presume that they were checked prior to approval,” De Leon said.

The sinkage has prompted county crews to redirect the subdivision’s sewage 300 feet through an overland pipe as manholes in the 10-acre development collapsed.

Consultant Tom Ruppenthal found two small leaks in the county water system that he said weren’t big enough to account for the amount of water that is flowing along infrastructure pipes and underground fissures, but they could be contributing to another source.

“It’s very common for groundwater to shift its course,” said Ruppenthal of Utility Services Associates in Seattle. “I think the groundwater has shifted.”

If the county can’t get the water and sewer service stabilized, De Leon said all 30 houses in the subdivision will have to be abandoned.

The owners of six damaged homes said they need help from the government.

The Lake County Board of Supervisors asked Gov. Jerry Brown to declare an emergency so funding might be available to stabilize utilities and determine the cause of the collapse. On May 6, state Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, wrote a letter of support asking Brown for immediate action.  The California Emergency Management Agency said Brown was still assessing the situation.

On Wednesday, the state sent a water resources engineer and a geologist to look at the problem. Sen. Dianne Feinstein sent a representative the next day.

Lake County, with farms, wineries and several Indian casinos, was shaped by earthquake fault movement and volcanic explosions that helped create the Coast Ranges of California. Clear Lake, popular for boating and fishing, is the largest fresh water lake wholly located in the state.

It is not unusual for groundwater in the region to make its way to the surface then subside. Many natural hot springs and geysers receded underground in the early 1900s and have since been tapped for geothermal power.

Read more:  http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/11/one-by-one-homes-in-california-subdivision-sinking/?test=latestnews#ixzz2T7jLU2mE

PNP comment: This is plain ol’ sick. — Editor Liz Bowen

                      Assembly Bill 1266 passed out of the Assembly floor on a party-line vote this morning.  AB 1266 forces all California schools to allow students to participate in sex-segregated school programs, activities, and facilities consistent with his or her gender identity.

“This bill allows children of any gender to participate on any sports team, and enter into locker rooms, showers and bathrooms of their choice based on that student’s private sense of their own gender regardless of their biological gender at birth,” said Karen England, Executive Director of Capitol Resource Institute.

“By imposing this radical policy on all schools in California, the Legislature seeks to take away local control from the school districts, parents, and communities. What this bill is saying is the rights of a few students supersede the rights of all other students. AB 1266 will bring many unintended consequences for students, school districts and communities,” said England. “No student should be forced to share bathrooms or change clothes in front of members of the opposite sex.  AB 1266 mandates San Francisco values on all California schools.”

AB 1266 will now move to the California Senate.

Read AB 1266

Assembly Bill 711 is scheduled to be heard by the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, May 8.  It is crucial that you call AND e-mail members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee and your Assemblyman respectfully urging them to OPPOSE this egregious anti-hunting bill.  Contact information for members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee can be found here.  Contact information for your Assemblyman can be found here.

To assist policymakers and to educate the public, hunters and recreational shooters, Hunt for Truth’s website has all of the facts and science on the lead ammunition debate available for your review. Policymakers and hunters are urged to visit the Hunt for Truth website and to subscribe to the Hunt for Truth e-mail list to receive e-bulletins with the latest breaking news and information on the proposed lead ammunition ban in California (AB 711), and all lead ammunition issues.

Self-proclaimed environmental organizations are trying to prohibit the use of traditional ammunition consisting of lead core components in hunting and recreational shooting.  They claim that some scavenging animals, like the California condor, ingest and are poisoned by small pieces of lead contained in the carcasses of game and gut piles left in the field by hunters.

But there is substantial evidence that the groups attacking the use of lead ammunition have employed faulty science, which uses questionable scientific methodologies and selectively cherry picked, and/or excluded data to support preconceived conclusions in their campaign to ban all traditional ammunition. In fact, some researchers from public institutions who have published studies funded with taxpayer dollars that support the lead ammunition bans are actually thwarting attempts by peers to independently review their work.  They refuse to provide the original data on which their studies were based available for scientific scrutiny.

The real truth is that lead ammunition is an unlikely cause of the alleged poisoning, because the metallic lead used in bullets and shot is relatively insoluble in the digestive tract of birds of prey and scavengers. Scientific studies have confirmed that it is very difficult to poison some birds with lead, even by repeatedly feeding them lead shot mixed with food over time.

On the other hand, lead compounds found in legacy paint, gasoline, insecticides and micro-trash are quite soluble in the digestive tract and are responsible for many of the highly publicized lead poisonings attributed to lead ammunition.  These lead compounds are common in the environment, and should be investigated first in cases of lead poisoning of wildlife.  The anti-lead ammunition researchers, however, typically ignore “alternative sources” of lead in the environmental, because the existence of such sources undermines their “get the lead out” campaign and the anti-hunting agenda.

Lead ammunition ban proponents also routinely ignore the fact that metals proposed for use in alternative ammunition can cause serious environmental consequences.  Alternative ammunition containing bismuth, tungsten or copper coated steel all presents various environmental concerns. Bismuth leaches into the soil and groundwater and interferes with soil bacteria. Tungsten, which is transformed to a soluble form by oxygen, accumulates in the spleen of wildlife and can cause immune system disorders.  Even copper is toxic under certain circumstances, and can do far more environmental damage than lead.  Steel shot does not perform as well as lead on game, leading to higher numbers of crippled game that escape and die in the field, and injuries to humans from ricochets.  Traditional ammunition containing lead is still the best, and safest, alternative.

Everyone needs to learn the real truth behind the all out assault on lead ammunition, not only in the battleground front of California, but everywhere in the United States.  Anti-lead ammunition groups will not rest until all lead ammunition, and perhaps hunting, is banned within the United States.  One of the sponsor’s of AB 711 was recently quoted as saying:  “We are going to use the ballot box and the democratic process to stop all hunting in the United States.  We will take it species by species until all hunting is stopped in California.  Then we will take it state by state.” (Humane Society of the United States President and CEO Wayne Pacelle)

Please don’t wait. Visit the Hunt For Truth website and Facebook page and “like us, “share us with your friends, and anyone else you think may be interested in helping to fight this serious assault on hunting.  You can also follow Hunt for Truth on YouTube.

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Click here to forward to a friend.  Please help get the word out! Forwarding and posting this email in its entirety is allowed and encouraged.

For more information on defending your freedom to hunt, please visit us at NRAHuntersRights.org.

The California State Auditor recently released a report detailing California’s “net worth” as a state.

 California is $127.2 billion upside down.

Holy helplessness Batman!

The Assembly Republicans California Budget Fact Check project explains: “As is a common annual practice in the business world, the Auditor totaled up all of the state’s unrestricted assets and income, and then compared them against the state’s liabilities to determine net worth.  Factoring all of these things together, California had a negative net worth of $127.2 billion in 2011-12.”

Holy dilemma Batman!

The Budget Fact Check found:

* State spending on government activities still outpaced tax revenues, even though overall spending declined.  This resulted in a drop in California’s net worth of $8 billion.

* Half of the state’s negative “unrestricted net assets” are the result of outstanding state bond debt for capital projects for school districts and local governments.

* The decline in California’s net worth does not take into account the nearly $64 billion in unfunded retiree health care costs and upwards of $500 billion in unfunded state pension obligations.

And, despite state spending decreases, the state’s net worth declined.

Holy crucial moment Batman! 

“The Auditor’s report found that revenue was relatively static during the 2011-12 fiscal year, decreasing by just $297 million from the 2010-11 fiscal year – or a 0.3 percent decline,” Budget Fact Check found. “But, even though overall spending declined, spending still exceeded revenues last year.”

Holy ‘here we go again’ Batman!

* Outstanding Debt for Local Projects Decreases State Net Worth

“It is important to note that one of the biggest factors in the state’s $127.2 billion negative net worth are debts incurred by state government for local projects,” Budget Fact Check reported.

The financial report notes that the state held $57.5 billion in “outstanding bonded debt.”

Holy catastrophe Batman!

* Not All of California’s Liabilities Included in Net Worth Calculation

“It is important to note that the State Auditor’s financial report does not include all of the liabilities facing our state, which would negatively impact the state’s net worth even further,” Budget Fact Check said.

Holy diversionary tactics Batman!

Read the Budget Fact Check report here. Imagine how your CPA would react if you played these accounting games with your finances.

Holy sudden incapacitation Batman!

http://www.calwatchdog.com/2013/04/18/pow-california-127-billion-in-the-red/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

PNP comment: Nice to know they are thinning the forest somewhere! — Editor Liz Bowen

April 17, 2013 12:41 pm  •  The World

COQUILLE — Coos County added about $320,000 to its 2013 timber revenue Wednesday with the sale of almost 1 million board feet to Scott Timber.

A second group filed suit today challenging California’s cap and trade carbon auction, calling it a giant tax that wasn’t properly approved by the Legislature.

The lawsuit was filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative organization based in Sacramento, on behalf of a group of businesses.

An affiliate of the California Chamber of Commerce filed a similar lawsuit last fall, as the carbon program was getting underway.

“The ‘cap and trade’ auction program is a new state tax that will generate billions of dollars of revenues for the state on the backs of California taxpayers. Because it was not passed by at least a two-thirds majority vote of the Legislature, it is unconstitutional. Case closed,” said Pacific Legal staff attorney Ted Hadzi-Antich in a prepared statement.

It’s estimated that cap and trade will cost California businesses at least $1 billion in the first year.

The program subjects several hundred big polluters to a yearly “cap” on the amount of carbon they can emit; the cap declines slightly each year. If a company exceeds the limit, it can scale back its pollution or buy additional emissions credits, either from the state or from other companies.

The state is giving away the vast majority of the credits for free, but a small percentage is being auctioned off every three months.

Officials with the California Air Resources Board, which runs the program, weren’t immediately available for comment.

The program is the centerpiece of AB 32, the seven-year-old law aimed at addressing global warming.

Call The Bee’s Dale Kasler, (916) 321-1066. Follow him on Twitter @dakasler.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/16/5346589/second-group-sues-to-stop-californias.html#storylink=cpy

In 1977, during a visit to Japan when he was governor before, Gov. Jerry Brown suggested a side trip to China and hastily made arrangements before abandoning the idea.

“I think it’s too jet-setty,” Brown told Orville Schell, who was traveling with the governor and included the exchange in the 1978 book “Brown.” “I think such a fast trip to China would be too flaky, and I’ve got to watch that.”

Thirty-six years later, Brown has found more time, and China is eager to accommodate him.

In his first official trip abroad since taking office in 2011, Brown leaves for China on Monday to promote California exports, tourism and greenhouse gas reduction policies, and to open a foreign trade office in Shanghai.

“I think we’re going to get billions of dollars in investment coming from China,” Brown said last week. “We’re also going to facilitate billions of dollars in additional exports, not overnight, but over time.”

Brown has been planning the trip for more than a year.

In late 2011, he consulted privately on the matter with Schell, business strategist Peter Schwartz and e-commerce tycoon Jack Ma, one of China’s richest men.

Over dinner at Schwartz’s home, Brown expressed his interest in raising Chinese capital for a range of projects in California, including public infrastructure.

Brown’s dinner companions were encouraging. Schwartz and Schell, director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York, suggested Brown invite China’s then-president-in-waiting, Xi Jinping, to California.

The politicians met in Los Angeles in February 2012, and Brown announced his trade mission the following week.

He will be joined by a handful of advisers and about 75 business delegates. His schedule includes seven days of lunches, forums and signings of government-to-government agreements  in Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Brown’s predecessor, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, visited China in 2010, but the state has not had an official presence there since California closed its 12 foreign trade offices amid controversy in 2003.

At the time, the Legislative Analyst’s Office and other critics questioned the effectiveness and cost of California’s trade offices. The one outpost that remained open for several years on private donations, in tiny Armenia, was widely mocked as less than significant.

The China office Brown will open in Shanghai will be financed by private donations, the Brown administration said. It will be operated by the Bay Area Council, a business group, but it will carry the state’s imprimatur, representing a return for California to the state-managed promotion of foreign trade.

“There are, you know, more formal protocol expectations in foreign countries than there are in the United States,” said Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce. “Having the ability to respect their economy and government by putting an office there is part of the protocol that leads to better relationships.”

‘Big-ticket deals’ sought

China is California’s third-largest trading partner, behind Mexico and Canada. California’s merchandise export trade with China amounted to about $14 billion last year, and China is an emerging – if relatively small – source of foreign direct investment in the United States.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/07/5322194/jerry-brown-heads-to-china-to.html#storylink=cpy