Badlands Journal

As Merced goes into the holiday shopping season starting next Friday, all economic indicators are thumbs down.

Official unemployment crept up a point from last month to 16.4 percent, with an increase expected for November. This means that actual unemployment is over 20 percent now and will rise toward 30 percent as the winter wears on.

In October 361 Merced homes received notices of default, down 33 from September; there were 459 trustee sales, up 61 from September; 273 homes went back to banks, 36 more than in September; and 50 homes were sold to third persons, up slightly from September and greatly from October 2008, when only nine homes were sold to third parties.

Citing unemployment as the driving force, the Los Angeles Times reported last week: "One in seven U.S. home loans was past due or in foreclosure as of Sept. 30, putting that quarterly delinquency measure at its highest level since 1972, when the Mortgage Bankers Assn. began reporting it. At the beginning of this year, 1 in 10 loans was past due or in foreclosure."

11-09-09
GE News List

From: Laurel Hopwood, Chair
Sierra Club Genetic Engineering Action Team

To: Bill Gates
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
PO Box 23350
Seattle, WA 98102

Dear Mr. Gates

Sierra Club, the world's largest grassroots conservation organization, has
concerns about your statement at the World Food Prize forum last month. You claimed that environmentalists opposed to genetic engineering of farm crops are against anything that increases yields.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Genetic engineering - the artificial splicing of genes into a completely
different species - does not increase crop yields, according to a recent study by the Union of Concerned Scientists. One means to increase crop yields which does not pose risks to the environment is marker-assisted selection (MAS), a high-tech method of speeding up the process of conventional plant breeding.

 The dilemma poses a test for Pelosi: will she stand with her favored Blue Dogs or go with the progressive/liberal majority of Democrats who want to solve the problem?

Are the leaders of the Democratic Party soulless or are they just stupid? Or does the problem lie with the people in these "suburban and rural districts" that keep reelecting Blue Dogs who sell out their constituents to health insurance companies and bankers? Who are these Blue Dogs, always whining about poverty in their districts and voting with the finance, insurance and real estate lobbyists?

Badlands Journal editorial board

11-13-09

The Nation/CommonDreams 
The Blue Dog: Money Man's Best Friend...William Greider
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/13-7

Katherine Hart Johns, well known in Merced County for her unsuccessful defense the County's approval of the Riverside Motorsports Park environmental impact report, has been accused of corruption in her office as Vice Chair of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Shocking!

We sincerely hope that the alleged acts of malfeasance in office, if true, were caused by normal political-appointee exuberance at the public trough and not due to financial problems arising from Ms. Hart's involvement with the insolvent racetrack project.

Badlands Journal editorial board

11-12-09

California Sportfishing Protection Alliance
“An Advocate for Fisheries, Habitat and Water Quality”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Information
Bill Jennings, CSPA Executive Director: 209-464-5067, Cell 209-938-9053, deltakeep@aol.com
Richard McHenry, CSPA Dir. Of Compliance: 916-851-1500, Cell 916-801-1952

CSPA Files Complaint against Regional Board Vice Chair with Fair Political Practices Commission and Attorney General
Alleges violations of Political Reform Act, Water Code and Government Code

11-07-09
Rep. Dennis Cardoza
Congressman Dennis Cardoza
18th Congressional District of California
Congressman Cardoza supports health care reform legislation 
Commitments for UC Merced Medical School funding will ease Valley physician shortage 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:  Mike Jensen
(202) 225-6131 
 http://www.house.gov/list/press/ca18_cardoza/PRHEALTHVOTE.html

 WASHINGTON, DC –  This evening, I voted for H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act. This bill is a historic and positive national step forward and offers the greatest improvement to the quality of health care for all Americans since the creation of Medicare. It will provide health insurance to 96 percent of our citizens. It stops the obscene insurance industry practice of denying people health care coverage due to “pre-existing” medical conditions. In the 18th  Congressional District, an estimated 107,000 more residents will qualify for affordable health care insurance. 

There seems to have been an interesting speaker in town last week, Vaughn Grisham, director of the McLean Institute for Community Development at Ole Miss. The elite was there, led by Bob Carpenter, Mr. UC Merced. According to the local McClatchy Chain outlet, Grisham thought Merced had it made in the shade because of UC Merced. It made us wonder if that was his view, why he was invited at all to the sixth most economically stressed county in the nation with one of the three highest national foreclosure rates. But, apparently, Mr. UC Merced is now leading something called the Tupelo Committee of Merced County.

Prior to looking into Grisham and McLean, the editorial board only knew about Tupelo for two of its famous sons, Jimmy Rogers, the Singing Brakeman, and Elvis Presley, “T for Texas” and “You Ain’t Nothing but a Hound Dog (jest a-cryin’ all the time).”

George McLean was a great man. We’ve included some very inspiring material below about him and what he did in his lifetime in northeast Mississippi.

Merced Alliance for Responsible Growth (MARG), Tom Grave, Kyle Stockard and Joel Knox filed suit against the Merced City Council and  Real Parties of Interest Wal-Mart Stores East, L.P., Wal-Mart Stores East, Inc., and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. on October 28, 2009 in Merced Superior Court, according to the court’s register of actions.

The case number is CV000593.

The case will be heard by President Judge of Merced Superior Court John D. Kirihara.

The law firm of Lippe Gaffney Wagner LLP represent plaintiffs MARG, Grave, Stockard and Knox.

Now, even with new legislation that will determine the future viability of Westlands’ critical import irrigation infrastructure, it seems inevitable that the political clout of the nation’s most powerful irrigation district will somehow prevail to perpetuate this culture of social, economic and natural inequity. – Carter, p. 40.

 

“Reaping riches in a wretched region:  Subsidized industrial farming and its link to perpetual poverty,” by Lloyd Carter, Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal, Symposium Edition, Fall 2009

http://www.ggu.edu/lawlibrary/environmental_law_journal/eljvol3/attachment/Carter.pdf