Word: californiaisms
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...whether conservatives are less intelligent than liberals, but there's evidence that they may be physically stronger. Last year, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a fascinating paper by Aaron Sell, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides of the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The authors measured the strength of 343 students using weight-lifting machines at a gym. The participating students completed questionnaires designed to measure, among other things, their proneness to anger, their history of fighting and their fondness for aggression as a way to solve both individual...
Outside a Target store in Orange County, California, Elbie Birch hawks his wares: ballot propositions. "Excuse me, gentlemen, are you registered voters?" Birch, a tall, burly man with a shaved head, goatee and winning smile, is a professional initiative-signature gatherer. In the past year, he has worked on gerrymandering in Florida, a casino issue in Ohio and affordable housing in Massachusetts before coming to California - the undisputed capital of direct democracy - where he is hustling a stack of nine ballot initiatives. Birch gets 50 cents to $1 for every signature he gathers...
...states such as California, Colorado and Oregon, it is hard to think about politics and government without speaking about ballot initiatives - some of which can come crashing down on a state capitol like a tsunami. The so-called Progressive Era in U.S. history (from the 1880s to the 1920s) bestowed the secret ballot and direct elections for the U.S. Senate and the city manager, as well as the initiative, the referendum and the recall. The latter, of course, transformed Arnold Schwarzenegger the movie star into Arnold the Gubernator when the actor became California governor after voters chose to recall Democrat...
...initiative system, however, may have caused the most havoc in California. In 1978, Proposition 13 imposed strict limits on local property taxes, gutting the budgets of schools and local governments, which have been bailed out by Sacramento ever since. It also requires a two-thirds vote to raise taxes, granting antitax Republicans, a minority in the state ;egislature, great power. Proposition 98 requires California to spend 40% of the state budget on public schools, which places enormous pressure on other state programs, such as higher education and the courts. These and numerous others have put California government in something...
...believes she did fix her boy. A psychological evaluation from UCLA's neuropsychiatric hospital, dated May 10, 2005, was "conclusive for a diagnosis of Autistic Disorder," and yet here, running toward us on a warm California afternoon, is Evan, shouting out, "Are you here to play with me? When are we going to play?" McCarthy's boy is a vivacious, articulate and communicative child who seems to have beaten the condition. He is an inspiration, the fact of him as incontrovertible as any study done in any laboratory in the world. (See pictures of a school for autistic children...