Archive for October 2023

Noël Hallé: The Race between Hippomenes and Atalanta, c. 1764. Image in Public Domain The SF Chronicle reports that while the rest of the U.S. saw reduced violent crime rates in 2022, California’s increased for a second year—our highest numbers since 2008. Since Prop 47 was passed in ’14, serial thieves are now challenging and…

Théodore Chassériau: Spectre de Banquo, 1855. Image in Public Domain The Legislature and Gov. Newsom’s panicked attempt to disqualify the Taxpayer Protection Act from 2024’s ballot only adds to Big Gov’t’s pattern of stifling democratic rights/processes, says the OC Register’s Jon Coupal. He goes on to argue that eliminating Prop 13 protections—which ensure that approving…

Image by Alexey Kljatov Campus Reform reports that in attempts to minimize student discomfort, the University of California’s Ethnic Studies Faculty Council has cautioned to avoid terms like “terrorism” when denoting civilian targeting that defies the International Humanitarian Law. Simultaneously, local Jewish students—including at the Bay Area’s own Stanford University—are seeing heightened discrimination, while institutions…

Phillipe Jacques de Loutherbourg: Coalbrookdale by Night. Image in Public Domain City Journal pipes in on the Bay’s heat pump debate (all gas heaters must be replaced by electric, as early as 2027) and points out: Since the switch will debilitate lower-income residents and could—in tragic irony—actually amplify climate harm, why bother with an all-or-nothing…

Several years ago, San Jose’s Pioneer High School de-recognized its Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) student group because leaders were required to attest agreement with the group’s religious values. This fall, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 9–2 that FCA has the constitutional right to exercise freedom of speech and religion when selecting…

Image by Charos Pix Local media recently celebrated a poorly designed Joint Venture Silicon Valley study, which discovered that people who get free money from universal basic income (UBI) programs (like Santa Clara County’s) are more able to afford things that—hold your breath—cost money. Stanford economics prof John Cochrane provides deeper analysis, noting that UBI…

Girolamo da Santacroce: The Young Mercury Stealing Cattle from the Herd of Apollo, 1540. Image in Public Domain GrowSF analyzes the Golden City’s elevated property crimes post-Prop 47, and explains that reclassifying felonies as misdemeanors has put the onus on eyewitnesses to pursue laborious “citizen’s arrests,” since police now can’t directly arrest folks who steal…

Mark Moses is the author of The Municipal Financial Crisis: A Framework for Understanding and Fixing Government Budgeting. In this interview with National Review, he explains why Mission Creep is systemic in municipal governments, and how it empties city treasuries and leads to crummy services for taxpayers and residents. I spent 30 years in and…

Behind the Black reports on Dr. Tabia Lee’s disputed dismissal from Cupertino’s De Anza College, where she briefly served as faculty director for the Office of Equity, Social Justice, and Education. Today—amidst rampant anti-Jewish hate at higher ed institutions—Lee reflects on DEI’s dangerous oppressor/oppressed dichotomy, and how the ideology has long supported vilifying Israel/Jewish people.…