Can I ask you a sincere question? Are you really trying to bag on Cali and Nevada while you live in the land of no rising sun, shit for food, people with teeth that a dentist would be sacred of, no bill of rights, a CC Camera on every street corner watching your every move. being a subject of a some bitch Queen and %60 margainal tax rates? Tell me it ain't so there Nigel
After a morning sessions, we would head up to like Rosarita, which back then (late '60s & early '70's) was pretty sleepy. We would sit in front of a tacaria (sp?) at a little rusty metal card table & they would just hand out ice cold coronas & tacos for like 25 cents a pop. The coolest thing about Hussongs was that when it rained, the power would go out. The Federales inside the bar was a bit scary. Ever been down to Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido?
OMG Iâve just noticed you canât spell Northern either ! Oh well it is a 2 syllable word. Perhaps a little tricky for some. Anyway if you are in Nevada you may care to re-consider finishing ( nearly starting in your case Vodka baby ) your education because the powers that be in Nevada are cutting education and jobs. Not that there is a shortage of cash in Nevada or California but it just doesnât seem to trickle through to essential services very much. Did the politicians get a pay rise last year ? Not that they arenât on huge salary and expenses probably. Why not check it out ! Cali too if you have the time. Well I am trying to return to the theme of the thread. Perhaps if vodka and lover boy could contain their passion for a bit longer. Oh ok vodka, have another slurp if itâs too much trouble and that nasty foreigner is worrying you -
Other than driving through the panhandle on my way to Phoenix as a kid-I've never been in Texas. As you know though I've spent quite a bit of time in L.A. And yea I like it there, a lot. BUT I wouldn't say native Californians are really any less "hickish" than Southerners or Midwesterners-after all most Californians are first or second generation middle-America. I love the O.C. or SD County or the South Bay (i.e. Torrence) but I'd hardly call those places sophisticated. And even in the Valley and the Westside it's not the same as 10 years ago. For every guy like you or me in Encino there's a Persian MD, a Russian flim-flam artist and a Chinese businessman. Nothing wrong with that but hardly the zenith of style. So yes a family man can better create the SoCal "experience" these days in Phoenix, Austin or Atlanta than he can in L.A. and at a fraction of the cost. And as I'm sure you'd admit-L.A. isn't expensive because it's better than anywhere else-it's expensive in good areas because it's worse than anywhere else! L.A., Ventura and the O.C. are FILLED with inexpensive housing but the neighborhoods suck. Hence it costs a left lung in the nice areas because the cost of separation has pigeonholed everyone into about six zip-codes. For every 2.0mil tear down in Brentwood there's a perfectly nice 400k craftsman in Monrovia. But whereas a generation ago an Anglo would be right at home in the SGV these days it's all Asian. Same deal in Montecito, eh? If half of SB wasn't barrio then one wouldn't need to pay up for Montecito.
Schwarzenegger ( who the last time I checked was a Republican ) sowed the seeds of disaster years ago ( along with the do-nothing legislature ) for not having reigned in spending, and yet went ahead and made good on his "gimmicky" campaign promise of cutting the vehicle registration tax. You can't have it both ways. But I'm still not moving from this view: http://scienceview.berkeley.edu/view/
About 10 yrs ago, i met an engineer from So Cal whose house had been shot into 37 times and he was still hanging on. :eek:
It really started rolling downhill with Gray Davis. Ahnold was supposed to go in and pretty much restore sanity & somehow, he went crazy too. Wasn't Ahnold elected in a recall election? If you remember, in late 2008 they were projecting a $4B surplus, which has now morphed into a $40+B deficit - now that is CLUELESS. The legislature is nuts. California is awesome, you can surf Malibu one afternoon and ski Squaw Valley the next morning, but my State taxes here would pay for a home in Reno area - and I can still ski Squaw anytime I want. I see it getting worse, not better as the non-taxpayers vote more benefits & services for themselves at the expense of the taxpayers, who BTW, are leaving Cali in droves. I guess thats why the CHP seems to be swarming all over the freeways lately - trying to fix the revenue shortfall with speeding tix. I have an old GF who owns an estate in Carmel, but she bought a home in Spokane & another in B.C. My ex-partner moved to WA. Its a groundswell.
If I was running Cali I would be so ashamed of the state of the place that I would take a voluntary pay cut ( someone might suggest it to Arnie - there would be some votes in it too I expect ) Here is another exerpt from the Las Vegas Gleaner E-Mail | Print | Save | Post | Get Photos | Get Reprints | Reuse Options May 12, 11:01 PM EDT Higher education budget compromise reached By CATHY BUSSEWITZ Associated Press Writer Advertisement CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) -- After two days of stalled negotiations, Nevada lawmakers voted Tuesday on a compromise that calls for cuts of up to 12.5 percent in state funding for higher education - far below the 36 percent reductions sought by Gov. Jim Gibbons. With possible student tuition increases that are part of the deal, subject to state university and college regents' approval, the cuts for the higher education system would drop to about 10 percent. A core group of legislative leaders worked behind closed doors on the agreement, which brings the total budget for higher education to just under $1.2 billion, compared with Gibbons' $844 million plan. The deal then was brought to a Senate-Assembly budget subcommittee for public discussion and a unanimous vote. The lawmakers' action pushes the overall state spending plan to just under $7 billion for the next two fiscal years. Gibbons proposed a $6.2 billion budget. The action is a major step in the lawmakers' efforts to finalize a budget for all state government operations. The panel's recommendation now will go to full Senate and Assembly budget panels, which are expected to endorse it. "This is the only way," said Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-North Las Vegas. "Doing this work that we've done is the only way we can ensure a bright future for our state and the children of this state and the students of this state that we depend on to make it stronger." "While there are those who will try to find the differences between us, I would like to say without equivocation that this process has helped to unite us, and the result is the common goal toward preserving the funding for all of education." Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, added, "If we don't educate our kids, we will not get anywhere as a state." She said Nevada needs students "trained to move our state forward." Legislative negotiators showed "as Republicans, as Democrats, as senators and Assembly members that we truly believe you can't improve on our state by decimating the educational system," Buckley said. The overall budget reduction of 10 percent for the entire higher education system would result in similar decreases for each of the schools in the system. Under Gibbons' plan, budgets for the two universities in Reno and Las Vegas would have been cut by about 50 percent. And it's not getting better by the sound of it. Bit like the 3 card trick - a shedload of more money for the fatcats and a bit more American dream for Joe Sixpack.
Just to give you all some perspective, the budget for the University of California system of 10 campuses, 5 medical centers and contracts to manage 3 national laboratories is over $18.7 BILLION. 220,000 student, and 170,000 faculty and staff. This is just for the UC system and does not include the California State College system of 23 campuses, 450,000 students, and 46,000 faculty and staff. Budget: $5.1 BILLION The annual budget for California Community Colleges is around $7.5 BILLION. So, in EDUCATION alone in California at the post K-12 grade level you are talking $41 BILLION. This is nearly double the entire budget for the State of Nevada! Note: In the past 7 years, tuition has nearly doubled at UC system campuses.