Various rants

So, was in Alabama over the past weekend for my niece's first birthday. Regardless of party affiliation, recycling is a tough sell- don't even ask about CFLs. Even though the cities that my relatives live in don't have recycling programs (apparently), they still would not make the effort to recycle even though they would then reap the benefits of getting paid to recycle. Growing up, I would separate plastic bottles, glass and aluminium from the regular trash and after a month or so, would have my parents drive me (or drive myself when I got old enough) to a recycling center and come home with like $80 for everything. CFLs would reduce the electricity bill, but that didn't seem to get through either. Oh well, when you get your electricity from coal and nuclear sources, electricity doesn't cost very much anyway.

California state assembly passed a $14.4 billion universal health care bill, even though the state is in a $14 billion deficit. The state senate, of all things, has no plans of voting on the bill, thankfully. How does doing this make any sense in a deficit? Instead of finding ways to balance the budget, the Gov. and state assembly has decided to pass a program that increases government spending even more- even with all the gimmicks that the proponents say will pay for the program, such as increasing the tax on cigarettes. Of course, I have issues with the piling on of cigarette taxes (we tax things that people do to raise money, said thing raises alot of money, state begins to rely on money raised from taxes, policy changes to raise taxes on item to get people to stop consuming item, people stop consuming item, revenue from taxes on item falls, budget not meet, government raises taxes on some other item, rinse and repeat). Which leads me to. . .

S.F. Mayor Newsom wants to add a "fee" onto soda to encourage stores to stop selling them and/or encourage people from consuming them. Once again, Ess Eff looks to control the way people live their life, but only on some activities. So, I'm calling this "Pick and Choose" government. As an example- there is no city law requiring bicycle riders to wear a helmet, despite all the studies showing the safety of wearing a helmet. Instead, it's up to the rider to decide whether or not to wear a helmet. Ok, fair enough. On the other hand, a bar can't decide that it wants to allow smoking. So, the government has decided that some issues are ok for people to have their own choice, and on some issues people are "making the wrong choices" so government should do something to correct them. In other words, it has picked the issues it wants to deal with and choosed (sp on purpose) the result it wants.

Needless to say, I've been keeping these frustrations to myself as they aren't necessarily the most welcome viewpoints in the City by the Bay. The last two elections, both statewide and citywide, have been quite an awakening for me. So, I hope to be more vocal moving into the February primary election and citywide election.

At the risk of bringing attention to myself, I am quite lucky that I have not been contacted by anyone from any Republican candidate due to the congressional district where I live. Thanks to the change in the way delegates are distributed, now on a district-by-district basis instead of statewide, I live in quite an interesting district being so heavily Democratic. I think I will wait until closer to the election to reveal my endorsements (which will cover statewide issues and citywide issues). Maybe I'll even bring in an opposing view.