The following links are just news items and opinions that pass my desk throughout the week. I don’t necessarily support or advocate any of the items, they are just interesting reads.
Reid postpones vote on Internet piracy bill – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has indefinitely postponed next week’s vote on the controversial Protect IP Act “in light of recent events,” he announced on Friday.
The move is a resounding victory for online activists, who staged an unprecedented protest against the anti-piracy measure on Wednesday…Just minutes after Reid’s announcement, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said he would shelve the House’s version of the legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
The measures, which seemed set to sail through Congress just a few weeks ago, now appear dead. Read More > in The Hill
Jerry Brown pitches higher taxes, budget cuts and more public works spending - Gov. Jerry Brown, calling on lawmakers and voters to help him prove “the declinists about California are wrong,” on Wednesday launched his campaign for higher taxes and urged billions in spending on infrastructure and schools.
First in his State of the State address at the Capitol and then at a second address at Los Angeles City Hall, Brown said he would press ahead with his ballot measure to raise the state sales tax and income taxes on California’s highest earners…He said a peripheral canal or other ways to move water through or around the Delta is “an enormous project” he would undertake, and reiterated his support for California’s beleaguered high-speed rail project, urging a skeptical Legislature to approve the start of construction in the Central Valley this fall. Brown called the $98.5 billion project a “wise investment” for a growing state. Read More > in The Sacramento Bee
Copper Basin 300 canceled because of ‘impassible’ trail conditions – The Copper Basin 300 sled dog race is the latest victim of Alaska’s weird winter weather pattern as race officials canceled the event Sunday morning, less than a day after the race started.
The race came to a halt when a section of trail was deemed impassible.
A statement by race marshal Greg Parvin said the trail between Meier’s Lake and Sourdough had unusually deep snow conditions, with high winds and bitter cold.
Two Rivers musher Allen Moore, who was one of the race leaders, told his handlers that the trail got bad about 12 miles out of Meiers Lake and snowmachines were getting stuck in attempts to break a trail for the race. Read More > in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Canada will look to China to sell its oil – …In fact, in a sign of warming relations, Harper is scheduled to make a high-profile trip to China in February. Canada is proposing to build a pipeline of its own through western Canada that would make oil exports to China faster and cheaper.
In recent months, Harper has pushed more forcefully for the Northern Gateway pipeline project to get underway, calling it in the country’s “national interest” as it works to develop markets other than the United States for its crude oil exports. Read More > at CNN
California home sales hit highest level in a year – The number of homes sold in California rose for the third straight month in December, according to the California Association of Realtors.
The association said today that single-family home resales statewide hit a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 520,940 last month, a 3.3 percent increase from November’s rate and the highest level since January 2011. Read More > in The Sacramento Bee
Dan Walters: California redevelopment still has a faint pulse – …It could be redevelopment by another name, such as “infrastructure financing district.” Authority for those redevelopment-like entities now exists, but they require local voter approval to be implemented. Two pending bills would remove the voter approval requirement.
Or it could be an entirely new approach to underwriting local economic development and housing projects, as Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg advocates.
He wants the “asset pool” held by local redevelopment agencies to remain with their governments as long as they are used for “high-wage jobs,” low-income housing, and projects that comply with the state’s anti-sprawl, transit-friendly, anti-greenhouse gas standards. Read More > in The Sacramento Bee
Detroit Unsure Over the Future of Green Cars - The U.S. auto industry remains unsold over the future of “green cars” such as electrics and hybrids, as carmakers struggle with the first steps in a market most agree shows promise over the long term.
According to a recent article in Industry Week, automakers wheeled out a variety of new hybrids and plug-in electrics at the annual Detroit auto show last week, touting their great energy savings along with new, freshened designs. But despite that apparent commitment, behind the scenes, the manufacturers remain split between doubts and optimism over their potential. Read More > at Smart Energy Portal
Jerry Brown’s budget depends on $6.9 billion tax hike initiative: LAO – The LAO writes that the governor’s proposed $6.9 billion tax increase, to be put on the November ballot, is the “cornerstone” of the budget. Without it, the budget numbers collapse like a cheap card table. The increase would impose an extra half-cent sales tax, raising the state sales tax to about 8.5 percent in most counties. And it would impose an additional 2 percentage points of income tax on the wealthy, bringing the top state tax rate to 12.3 percent. That would make it the highest in the nation. Read More > at California Political Review
California lawmakers take another crack at ‘single-payer’ health care bill – California’s “Medicare for all” bill goes before a key Senate committee today, the latest chapter in a long-running battle between universal health insurance supporters and business.
Senate Bill 810, introduced by San Francisco Democrat Sen. Mark Leno, would establish a California Healthcare Agency to run a single-payer health care system that would pool employer and employee payments. It would administer the money and negotiate rates with doctors, hospitals and other medical providers.
As a mammoth player in the industry, the thinking goes, a state-operated system would drive down medical costs and insurance premiums while improving access to care.
The bill doesn’t establish any new taxes or fees, preferring to leave that for future legislation. Read More in The Sacramento Bee
REGION: Cities naming redevelopment successors, but many details nebulous – Most Inland local governments have determined who will take over the obligations of their redevelopment agencies, but officials said many aspects of what happens next remain unclear.
How and when must they sell property and other assets? Which obligations will be paid? How many redevelopment employees will lose their jobs?
Cities and counties with redevelopment agencies are struggling to sort out state legislation, upheld by the state Supreme Court last month, that disbands redevelopment agencies and has successors wrap up their work. Read More > in The Press-Enterprise
Universal Flu Vaccine Could Be Available by 2013 – Annual flu shots might soon become a thing of the past, and threats such as avian and swine flu might disappear with them as a vaccine touted as the “holy grail” of flu treatment could be ready for human trials next year.
That’s earlier than the National Institutes of Health estimated in 2010, when they said a universal vaccine could be five years off. By targeting the parts of the virus that rarely mutate, researchers believe they can develop a vaccine similar to the mumps or measles shot—people will be vaccinated as children and then receive boosters later. Read More > in U.S.News & World Report
Discovery Could Lead to an Exercise Pill – Researchers have discovered a natural hormone that acts like exercise on muscle tissue—burning calories, improving insulin processing, and perhaps boosting strength. The scientists hope it could eventually be used as a treatment for obesity, diabetes, and, potentially, neuromuscular diseases like muscular dystrophy.
In a paper published online today by the journal Nature, the scientists, led by Bruce Spiegelman at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, showed that the hormone occurs naturally in both mice and humans. It pushes cells to transform from white fat—globules that serve as reservoirs for excess calories—into brown fat, which generates heat.
Because the hormone is present in both mice and humans, Spiegelman speculates that it may have served as an evolutionary defense against cold by triggering shivering. He named it irisin, after the Greek messenger goddess Iris, who allowed humans to communicate with the gods in Greek mythology, because exercise appears to “talk” to various tissues in the body via irisin. Read More > at Technology Review
