Flap's Blog – FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog

These are my links for October 3rd through October 4th:

• Jerry Brown vetoes home child-care labor bill – In a major blow to organized labor, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed legislation today that would have let unions organize child-care providers who work out of the home.

  "Today California, like the nation itself, is facing huge budget challenges," Brown wrote in a veto message. "Given that reality, I am reluctant to embark on a program of this magnitude and potential cost."

  The veto was one of six announced today.

  Brown's veto comes after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, vetoed similar legislation three times. But labor unions who have long sought the right to organize California's more than 40,000 family child-care providers considered Brown, a Democrat, more likely to sign it.

  Assembly Bill 101 was sponsored by the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees and the Service Employees International Union and amended at the legislative deadline to include language by Assembly Speaker John A. Perez and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.

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  Kudos to Governor Jerry Brown for vetoing this ridiculous legislation that would organize your local babysitter into a union.

• Dan Walters: California must face hard truth about budget – We should make lowering fixed costs a first priority, meaning some serious pension reforms and a freeze on bond debt, including the tens of billions that have been authorized by voters but not yet sold.

  We should put the high-speed rail project on indefinite hold, since it would consume nearly $10 billion in bonds and lacks a credible financing plan, rewrite and perhaps suspend a pending water bond issue, and sell only those bonds whose need falls into the emergency category.

  Reality bites, but if we don't accept it, California could become the American Greece.

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  Dan, Jerry Brown won't push reform. He will muddle along just like Arnold and then retire in 3 years.

• California’s cost of living going up – A new report out today finds that residents of many California counties have experienced double-digit increases in their cost of living since 2008.

  Dan Walters reports that the report from the Oakland-based Insight Center for Community Economic Development "provides statistical ammunition not only for advocates of raising minimum wages and other steps to aid the poor, but for conservative anti-tax groups, since the center found that taxes are the largest single element in living cost increases."

• foursquare – All checked in and ready to play (@ Rio Poker Room)
• foursquare – Checking in…. (@ Rio Hotel & Casino w/ 3 others)
• Herman Cain rises, Rick Perry slides in new CBS News poll – Political Hotsheet – CBS News – RT @jamiedupree: New CBS poll has Mitt Romney & Herman Cain tied at 17% each in GOP race with Rick Perry at 12%
• foursquare – Almost to the hills and then State Line Nevada (@ Baker, CA)
• foursquare – Stopped at Starbucks in Barstow. On way to Baker then Vegas (@ Mojave Desert)
• President 2012 GOP Poll Watch: Rick Perry Collapses as Herman Cain Gains in Positive Intensity | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012 GOP Poll Watch: Rick Perry Collapses as Herman Cain Gains in Positive Intensity #tcot #catcot
• Flap’s Dentistry Blog: Dentistry is #12 of the 12 Slowest Growing Industries in America – Dentistry is #12 of the 12 Slowest Growing Industries in America
• California Seniors Dependent Upon Social Security Will Face Tough Times » Flap’s California Blog – California Seniors Dependent Upon Social Security Will Face Tough Times
• President 2012: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie – “Now Is Not My Time” | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie – “Now Is Not My Time” #tcot #catcot
• Cainmentum – Public Policy Polling – RT @ppppolls: North Carolina: Cain 27, Romney/Gingrich 17, Perry 15, Paul/Bachmann 6, Santorum/Huntsman 2:
• Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: October 4, 2011 – The Morning Drill: October 4, 2011
• Chris Christie not running for president in 2012, source says – The Washington Post – RT @washingtonpost: Chris Christie not running for president in 2012, source says
• Dilbert October 4, 2011 – Wrong? » Flap’s California Blog – Dilbert's boss discusses indentured servitude with a buy-out….
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• Day By Day October 4, 2011 – Cake | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Day By Day October 4, 2011 – Cake #tcot #catcot
• Mitt Romney’s risky immigration play – Maggie Haberman – POLITICO.com – RT @maggiepolitico: Romney runs hard right on immigration, risks being stuck there. My story today
• Real Republicans Just Aren’t That Excited About Chris Christie – RT @businessinsider: Real Republicans Just Aren't That Excited About Chris Christie by @ZekeJMiller
• GOP 12: Perry continues to fall – RT @GOP12: Romney 25% Perry and Cain 16% Paul 11% Bachmann and Gingrich 7%
• @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-10-04 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2011-10-04 #tcot #catcot
• President 2012 GOP Florida Poll Watch: Romney 28% Vs. Cain 24% Vs. Gingrich 10% Vs. Perry 9% | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Rick Perry has crash and burned in Florida. Here comes Cain!:
• Flap’s Dentistry Blog: Pennsylvania Teenager Tries to Extract His Own Teeth – Father Pleads Guilty to Reckless Endangerment – The court will put a bite into this father…..:
• School pensions: an argument for not bargaining? – As state and local governments in California face soaring public pension costs, unions insist that cost-cutting changes must be bargained, not imposed by legislation.

  But there is one major exception: schools.

  Teachers and non-teaching school employees in California are in unions that do not bargain pensions. Instead, their pensions are in big statewide pools that have some of the lowest costs for employers and some of the lowest pension formulas for retirees.

  Bargaining for pensions is used extensively only in California and a few other states. One of the first pension reform proposals to include ending bargaining came last month in Rhode Island, where bankrupt Central Falls is drawing national attention.

  The Rhode Island auditor general, Dennis Hoyle, said an end to bargaining for pensions and retiree health would make benefits more visible to the public, set a standard and avoid the tendency to save now by pushing employee costs into the future.

  In California, particularly in local government, critics say bargaining tends to result in pensions not based on what retirees need or on what governments can afford, but on pensions offered by other government employers.

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  Read it all

• Koch responds to Bloomberg – Right Turn – The Washington Post – Koch responds to Bloomberg
• Flap’s Links and Comments for October 3rd on 08:00 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Flap’s Links and Comments for October 3rd on 08:00 #tcot #catcot