Couple tries to sell baby at Walmart; 'Save More, Live Better?'

A couple, possibly feeling they could "live better" without their baby, and with some extra cash, tried to sell their baby outside a Walmart on Tuesday. Unlike Walmart's always falling prices, they raised the price after an initial rebuff.

The incident happened on Tuesday around 7:20 PM. PDT outside a Walmart in Salinas, California, when a Patrick Alan Fousek, 38, approached two women and asked if they'd like to buy his child for $25. Samantha Tomasini, 20, was reportedly in a car nearby.

The women rebuffed Fousek, who then raised the price to $75, and shoved the child into the arms of one woman. The women then called 911.

However, the couple had left before police arrived, but based on the description provided by the women, police eventually found the couple, with baby all right, but her parents high on meth.

The defendants are charged with felony child endangerment, which carries a four-year maximum sentence, and misdemeanor charges of being under the influence of a controlled substance and possession of a meth pipe.

The couple was arraigned on Friday, but both are being held in segregated, lockdown cells at the Monterey County Jail. Reportedly, Fousek was attacked by fellow inmates Thursday night after details of the incident were shown on TV. Fousek was transported to Natividad Medical Center, where he was treated for his injuries, including two cracked ribs, before being returned to jail.

Watch a video report:

Man Looks To Ban Divorce In Califonia

John Marcotte, a Sacramento, CA web designer, is attempting to put a measure on the ballot next year that would ban divorce in California. You read that correctl, although the effort is meant to be satirical. The married, heterosexual father of two said:

"Since California has decided to protect traditional marriage, I think it would be hypocritical of us not to sacrifice some of our own rights to protect traditional marriage even more."

The measure is meant as a sort of protest against Proposition 8, which in 2008 banned same-sex marriage in the state of California by amending the state constitution. Since the provision was intended, it was said, to protect traditional marriage, Marcotte sees no reason why his measure would not pass. Divorce rates nationwide hover around 50 percent.

Marcotte needs to collect 694,354 signatures by March 22nd if it measure is to reach the ballot. The initiative's Facebook fan list has reached more than 1,100 in number.

The California Family Council, which led a coalition of religious and conservative groups to qualify Proposition 8, showed it had no sense of humor. Ron Prentice, their executive director said that while everyone would like to see fewer divorces (except, perhaps for lawyers), making it illegal would be "impractical." No, really?

Happy California Cows Actually From New Zealand

You've probably seen those "Happy California Cows" ads from the California Milk Advisory Board. They advertise that better milk and cheese comes from happy cows, and happy cows come from California.

Thing is, those cows in those ads: they not from California, or at least they won't be soon. The Los Angeles Times reports that the California Milk Advisory Board has decided to outsource their ads, for cost reasons.

As the Times says, in perhaps the best bit of journalism in some time, "Local union officials were cheesed off to learn that the state milk board was farming out TV work to foreign locales."

The report goes on to state, however, that all post-production work will be done in California. One has to wonder if the substitute cow actors will appear as happy as real California cows.

Watch one of the old ads:

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished As PG&E Seeks Higher Rates for Frugal Customers

Energy-sipping customers of PG&E may face higher rates, if the California utility has its way. One might think it would be good if people cut down on their energy usage, but PG&E apparently doesn't agree.

PG&E, has filed documents with the state asking for a 5% rate increase for its most energy-efficient customers. The increase would allow PG&E to give price cuts of 2.5 to 5.7% to their largest customers. These are those who use between 131 and 300% of the monthly baseline average.

The document says:

PG&E proposes to increase Tier 1 and Tier 2 rates on all non-CARE residential rate schedules by 5.0 percent and to decrease non-CARE Tier 3, 4, and 5 rates commensurately.

CARE refers to a financial assistance program for low-income homes and housing facilities. So this would refer to those customers not in that program. The tiers are based on usage. Tiers 1 and 2 use the least. They are as follows:

Tier # Description
Tier 1 Up to the Baseline amount
Tier 2 Electricity usage from 101% to 130% of Baseline
Tier 3 Electricity usage from 131% to 200% of Baseline
Tier 4 Electricity usage from 201% to 300% of Baseline
Tier 5 Electricity usage in excess of 300% of Baseline

PG&E saw profits rise 4.6% in the third quarter of this year. This is reminiscent of what happened to East Bay Municipal Utility Customers earlier this year. After a year of drought-induced water rationing, EBMUD said customers were saving too much, and they were losing too much money. So not only did EBMUD remove rationing, they hiked rates.

SJPD To Be First In Nation With Uniform Cameras

Dashcam footage is something most people are aware of, due to the proliferation of reality TV shows with that sort of footage. Sometimes, however, the action drifts off camera, and this development, the first in the nation, aims to fix that.

The San Jose (CA) Police Department is becoming the first in the nation to try new uniform cameras. The cameras, developed by Taser International, are being provided free to the SJPD for the first year, for being part of the trial.

This sort of footage would have been particularly handy for the SJPD recently. Cellphone footage appears to show unnecessary beating of an unarmed suspect in a recent incident. The SJPD has said both that the video is too grainy, and that it does not show the "full story."

Axon, as it is called, runs in buffering mode, until a button is pressed. At that point, the last 30 seconds of footage is saved and the recording begins. 72 SJPD officers will be outfitted with the camera. The cameras will be deployed in the middle of November.

Watch a video report from late last month below:

Skywest Airlines Accused of Discrimination Against Same-Sex Couples

Skywest Airlines gives spouses free fares, but a Skywest Airlines baggage agent who married his partner last year after the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex unions, and before Prop. 8 banned them again, says the airline is refusing to recognize his legally sanctioned same-sex marriage.

While Prop. 8 amended the state Constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman, those 18,000 or so same-sex couples who married before the November election are still legally recognized as married. The state Supreme Court upheld Prop. 8 this past May, it also ruled that couples who wed before the election could remain legally wed.

Gilbert Caldwell, 56, who has worked for SkyWest in Palm Springs since September 2004, married David Farrell, 72, his partner of 34 years, in June 2008. They had been registered domestic partners since 2002. Skywest says that "travel companion," entitled to fly at a discount but not for free, as spouses are.

Interestingly, even with same-sex marriage, California law entitles same-sex spouses and domestic partners to be treated the same as heterosexual married couples in employment, housing, insurance and commerce. As Caldwell and Farrell were already domestic partners, they should have been eligible for this free fare discount already.

Tara Borelli of the gay-rights organization Lambda Legal is Caldwell's attorney. She said Skywest's position for the last year has been that Delta Air Lines, its partner in regional flights in the West, insisted on denying equal benefits to same-sex couples. Howeever, Borelli added that SkyWest's explanation is hard to believe: Delta has a policy of treating its own gay and lesbian employees equally.

She said Caldwell would sue for damages unless SkyWest changed its policy.

Schwarzenegger Signs "Harvey Milk Day" Into Law

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill into law, creating an annual day of recognition for pioneering gay rights activist, the late Harvey Milk, officials said on Monday. May 22 will be designated as "Harvey Milk Day." It was Milk's birthday.

Harvey Milk was a San Francisco supervisor and California's first openly gay official. On November 27, 1978, Milk and San Francisoo Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a former city supervisor.

White was later convicted of manslaughter, and after service two years of a five-year sentence, returned to San Francisco and later committed suicide.

Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar bill last year, saying Milk's legacy "should continue to be recognized at the local level," so it's interesting that he signed his bill.

Harvey Milk's life was the subject of the Oscar-winning 2008 film "Milk." It won Academy Awards for Best Actor (Sean Penn), and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.

Rep. Saves Urine at Town Hall; Refuses to Pee on Man's Leg

Well, at least we know the rather crass behavior at health insurance reform town halls isn't just coming from one side of the aisle. In this case, the latest incident involves Rep. Don Stark, (D-CA).

It was a town hall in Fremont, CA, in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a constituent stood a few feet away from Stark relating why he was opposed to the "smoke and mirrors" in President Obama's health care plan, he closed his remarks by saying to Stark:

"Mr. Congressman, don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining."

Showing it's not just the GOP who have been engaging in this less than polite discource, Stark replied:

"I wouldn't dignify you by peeing on your leg. It wouldn't be worth wasting the urine.

Ouch!

Watch it, about 1:30 into the video:

Elite Skydivers Die After Chutes Tangle

Two members of the Red Line jumping team, an elite eight-member group, died on Sunday when their lines became entangled during a jump. The team was practicing for the U.S. Parachute Association national skydiving championships next month.

Bill Dause, owner of the Parachute Center near Lodi in Northern California, said the men the Red Line team was jumping in close formation when the parachutes of three members became entangled.

One of the three was able to work loose of the tangle, but the other two, Barbara Cuddy, 48, and Robert Bigley, 40, could not. Both were extremely experienced, with more than 4,000 jumps each.

They were unable to deploy their backup parachutes.

Cuddy was part of a skydiving team that set a world record in 2007 with a 100-person canopy formation in Lake Wales, FL. Meanwhile, Bigley won national sky-diving titles in two formation events in 2008.

Forty Percent of Working-Age Californians Jobless: Study

It's been said that official unemployment numbers undercut the true unemployment numbers, with many dropping off the radar as their unemployment benefits expire, and with many taking jobs that "underemploy" them. Still, this study comes as a shock, saying that 2/5 of Californians of working age are out of work.

The report, "In the Midst of the Great Recession: The State of Working California 2009," by the California Budget Project, states that less than 3/5 of California's working age adults had jobs in July 2009.

That contrasts to the official unemployment rate, which says that California's jobless rate is 11.9%.

Other highlights (or lowlights) of the report:

• California has approximately the same number of jobs as it did nine years ago, when the state was home to 3.3 million fewer working-age individuals.

• Nearly 178,000 Californians are expected to exhaust their jobless benefits, even though they have been extended, by the end of 2009.

• The number of underemployed Californians has more than doubled in the last two years.

• On average, more than one out of four unemployed Californians (28.2%) had gone without work for 27 weeks or more during the 12 months ending in July 2009, the highest level ever recorded.

• Nearly half (47.9%) of the state’s unemployed had been jobless for at least 15 weeks.

• Workers’ hourly wages lost purchasing power across the earnings distribution as the recession deepened. The inflation-adjusted hourly wage of the typical California worker (the worker exactly at the middle of the earnings distribution) declined by 0.5% between the first half of 2008 and the same months of 2009, while that of the state’s low-wage earners fell by 1.6%.

• One-quarter (25.2%) of total adjusted gross income (AGI) went to the wealthiest 1% of taxpayers in 2007, nearly twice their share (13.8%) in 1993.

• The share of income going to the top 1% of US taxpayers is at a 79-year high; the only higher share (ever) was in 1928.

In an op-ed piece, Alissa Anderson, deputy director and Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project wrote that another extension of jobless benefits should be "Job One" for Congress when they return from their recess.

It's amazing, however, how many people are against extending UI further. Some call the unemployed "slackers," and it should be obvious in this "Great Recession" that corporations, rather than cutting the multi-million dollar salaries of their CEOs, many of which got us into this mess, are cutting workers left and right. Why so few, in these sorry times, thinks of the Golden Rule, is beyond me.

California's Real Death Panels Exposed: Insurers Deny 21% of Claims

On Friday, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) issued a press release analyzing data reported by the insurers to the California Department of Managed Care. More than 1/5 of all claims were denied, according to the report.

From 2002 through June 30, 2009, the six largest insurers operating in California rejected 31.2 million claims for care or 21% of all claims. The press release goes on to detail examples:

Kaiser Permanente (28% denial rate in the first half of 2009): one of two systems to reject options for radiation and chemotherapy for 57-year-old Bob Scott of Sacramento after his diagnosis of a brain tumor in 2005. The reason cited was his age, according to wife Cheryl Scott, RN.

Cigna, famously denied a liver transplant for 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan of Northridge, CA and then reversed itself, albeit too late to save her life, in 2007. They are still rejecting one-third of all claims for the first half of 2009.

PacifiCare denied 40% of claims in the first half of 2009. It denied a special procedure for the treatment of bone cancer for Nick Colombo, a 17-year-old teen from Placentia, CA. as in Sarkisyan's case, PacifiCare reversed its decision after much bad PR. Also like Nataline Sarkisyan, the delay cost time, and he ultimately died.

California Blue Cross rejected 28% of claims in the first half of 2009. In 2008, six days before RN Kim Kutcher of Dana Point, Calif., was scheduled to have special back surgery, the company denied authorization for the procedure as "investigational" even though the lumbar artificial disc she was scheduled to receive had FDA approval.

Deborah Burger, RN, CNA/NNOC co-president said (emphasis mine):

"The routine denial of care by private insurers is like the elephant in the room no one in the present national healthcare debate seems to want to talk about. Nothing in any of the major bills advancing in the Senate or House or proposed by the administration would challenge this practice.

"The United States remains the only country in the industrialized world where human lives are sacrificed for private profit, a national disgrace that seems on the verge of perpetuation."

CNA/NNOC has long supported expanding Medicare to cover all Americans. According to dData released in late August by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which tracks developed nations, among 30 industrial nations, the U.S. ranks last in life expectancy at birth for men, and 24th for women.

Former Miss California Carrie Prejean Files Suit for Religious Discrimination

According to the Miss California pageant, and its parent the Miss USA pageant, Carrie Prejean was "fired" because she was missing events that she was supposed to attend. Prejean disagrees, and her newly-filed lawsuit says it was all about religious discrimination.

Carrie Prejean filed the suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The filing accuses Miss California USA officials Keith Lewis and Shanna Moakler, as well as publicist Roger Neal of religious discrimination, defamation, public disclosure of private facts, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

Carrie Prejean's attorney, Charles LiMandri, said in a news release, "We will make the case that her title was taken from her solely because of her support of traditional marriage."

Carrie Prejean made a big splash when, in the Miss USA pageant, she responded to a question by Perez Hilton about same-sex marriage by saying:

"Well, I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anyone out there, but that's how I was raised, and that's how I think it should be between a man and a woman."

Interestingly, Donald Trump, who owns the Miss Universe Organization, and thus Miss USA and Miss California, is not named in the suit.

In her suit, Carrie Prejean says the Miss California people "fabricated a fraudulent list of some 50 public appearances allegedly missed by Prejean which they released to the media in order to justify her termination as Miss California USA." Additionally, Prejean claims officials also tried to "set up Prejean to have her dismissed as Miss California USA by asking her to do a Playboy photo shoot for $120,000."

The Great California Garage Sale Shows the Extent of the State's Woes

It's a page out of the book of struggling families, or families with a junked-up garage. It's a garage sale, and on Friday begins what's being billed as the Great California Garage Sale.

The Great California Garage Sale runs Friday, Aug. 28th from 8 AM to 6PM, and Saturday, August 29th from 7 AM to 12 PM. The location is the state's huge warehouse at 1700 National Drive, Sacramento, CA.

The idea of the Great California Garage Sale is to sell of surplus items to try to ease California's budget crunch. As you probably know, California is facing a budget crisis. Rather than raising taxes, the state has trimmed enormous amounts from the budget, affecting schools and other services.

The state has also made state workers take furloughs as well, 3 days a month. This cuts their wages, effectively taxing them with the extra that the rest of California does not want to pay. Hardly seems fair, does it.

Back to the Great California Garage Sale, The State and Consumer Services Agency says close to 6,000 items are up for grabs. They include furniture, computers, office equipment, government cars, police motorcycles and more.

Some of the cars even come with a star's signature. There are numerous Chevy Cavaliers, which for some reason appear to be California’s governmental car of choice, and a few bear Gov. Arnold Schwarzennegger's autograph, in an attempt to jack up the price and move them quicker.