The California Journal notes in the March edition that in the first round of entries, no less than 21 departments and eight agencies submitted 48 entries from among the many state brochures, annual reports, leaflets, newsletters and information packets.
This year's winners are...the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection for its brochure "Homeowners Checklist: Make Your House Fire Safe," which is geared to homeowners living in wild (woodsy) rural areas, and the Department of Industrial Relations for its "Safe Jobs for Youth," bookmarkers which feature safety tips for teens in the workplace.
The awards committee took as their model the 10 Commandments (just 179 words), and the Gettysburg Address (just 286 words).
They noted by contrast, California's regulations on catching trout and salmon take up 18,897 words in the state code book.
It appears there's plenty of work left to be done here!
Many moderate Republicans who supported Riordan may be so repelled by such feelings that come November they may decide not to vote. This when the national party is waiting in the wings to see if the poll numbers in November indicate any chance of reversing the recent trend of the state to go Democratic.
Remember, the GOP lost four congressional seats and their presidential nominee was routed by 1.3 million votes in California in 2000. This after the national party pumped $15 million into the state. If William Simon can win or even come close to unseating Davis in November, it will bring the GOP national party back into play.
But if Davis pulls away and wins easily, the national party will probably write California off in terms of campaign dollars. "Until California Republicans can prove that we are capable of pulling ourself out of this ditch, Washington is going to keep its distance," California GOP strategist Dan Schnur was recently quoted in the California Journal.
What does the GOP have to counter the recent backslide and divisiveness within its ranks? Actually the GOP has two effective weapons. One is the personal popularity of the President. The other is the popularity of Republican former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (who did such positive work for Simon in the recent primary victory). The Davis camp knows in its moments of clarity that the popularity of Bush and Giuliani can not to be taken lightly!
This past week saw extensive repairs and upgrades to the Hubble space telescope. The Hubble, far removed from the distorting lens of our atmosphere, has provided a breathtaking view into our universe. We have now seen how space is filled with clouds of gasses coalescing into stars-literally star nurseries-with groups of stars coming together to form the galaxies which make up our universe.
What we hope the Hubble will do is give us proof of the "Big Bang", or more specifically, suggest where the material came from that went bang. So far the Hubble has brought us more questions than answers. For instance, it is now known that the universe in total shape is essentially flat, flat being a relative term considering the size. If the Big Bang was an explosion of "electrons, positrons and neutrinos" why is the universe not round like a ball? And, of course, it postulates the question: What is the nature of the space outside or beyond the universe? Is it truly empty or are there more universes filled with stars of all ages, some having planets and some even having people. How can we be so naive as to think we are the only ones?
April's Discover magazine has an article by Brad Lemley about this very topic, "Guth's Grand Guess." Alan Guth is a physics professor at MIT and believes our 15-billion-year-old universe started as a vacuum fluctuation where a pair of subatomic particles can appear in the vacuum of space and start the process of universe building, all out of what would appear to be nothing, all following the probability laws of any physical system. There are several things that fit only this model, one of which is that the universe is flat and open-ended because the rate of expansion of our universe is increasing, not slowing down-which is contrary to what we usually see.
This idea of something out of nothing raises all kinds of flags. We must overcome the question of where the material came from for the original Big Bang. If the material is not everywhere, then it is nowhere; this is also called a false vacuum. Guth predicts that "any cosmological theory that does not lead to the eternal reproduction of the universe will be considered as unimaginable as a species of bacteria that cannot reproduce." Cosmologists Linde and Vilenkin "speculate that the decay of the false vacuum-which, according to the inflation theory, created the matter of our universe-does not happen all at once. While some regions decay into universes, other regions keep expanding and creating other universes. Residual false vacuum from the creation of those universes creates still others, indefinitely. Linde and Vilenkin call this 'the eternally existing, self-reproducing inflationary universe.'"
This postulate is increasingly being accepted in the truth of astrophysics because the conservation of energy laws would remain intact. "The positive energy of all matter in the universe could be precisely counterbalanced by the negative energy of all the gravity in the universe."
All this brings us to the question: Is there some sort of divine intelligence guiding all of this "quantum probabilities." Lemley points out that the last great mystery of where these laws of physics came from may be answered in a phrase etched in granite on the Searles Science Building at MIT, built in 1894: "Nature's Laws are God's Thoughts."
After much debate, the House and Senate overwhelmingly approved the Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act. Several versions of this legislation were debated in Congress, and for a while it appeared that political wrangling would kill this bill. In the end, however, a spirit of bipartisanship prevailed, and the end result was a bill that provides real, tangible help as our economy starts to grow again. This legislation will create jobs, help unemployed workers, and help New York City rebuild itself. President Bush signed the bill into law on Saturday, March 9.
The bill extends unemployment benefits for another thirteen weeks. Currently, unemployment benefits normally end after 26 weeks. For many workers, especially those in aviation, tourism, and other industries directly affected by the September 11 attacks, that simply is not enough time to find a new job. In fact, nearly 1.6 million workers have already exhausted their benefits since September 11. The extension of unemployment benefits will help millions of families make ends meet during a rough time that is not their fault.
But unemployed workers need more than extra benefits. They need jobs. Realizing this, the economic stimulus bill helps companies create jobs to get workers back to their old positions or to new ones. It gives companies a 30 percent tax deduction for equipment purchased between September 11, 2001 and September 11, 2004. New equipment means new jobs, not just at the company that purchases the equipment, but also at the company that manufactures it.
Finally, the bill helps New York City rebuild itself, both financially and physically. It provides special unemployment compensation for those who previously worked at the World Trade Center. This is especially helpful for low-income workers in those buildings whose employers have not relocated. It also provides special tax incentives for small businesses located in the so-called "Liberty Zone" made up of the blocks surrounding the World Trade Center, who have suffered tremendous losses since September 11. These extra incentives will help them to reopen their businesses, hire employees and get back to business. These provisions will help displaced workers in New York City get back to work and regain a sense of normalcy.
The passage of the Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act is good news for the country. The economy is showing signs of picking up, but that is not enough. The provisions in this legislation will help kick-start the economy while helping those feeling the crunch of the economic slowdown. The enactment of this legislation is a significant step in the recovery from September 11.