It is anything but a new discovery that unfunded public employee retirement costs — particularly those fast-growing health benefit charges — amount to a looming fiscal crisis in California and nationwide. But at least from now on the politicians will find it harder to play hide-and-seek with the extremely disturbing numbers.
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California has moved steadily away from the economic perils it faced just a few years ago. That progress should be sustained by a state treasurer who’s on board, not jeopardized by a political partisan, which is why The Examiner endorses Claude Parrish over Bill Lockyer.True, Parrish’s wallflower-like campaign has yielded the Southern California businessman little name recognition even this late in the campaign. The race is Lockyer’s to lose. But we’d like to speak up for the fresh thinking the Republican would bring to this vital office.
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The last refuge for some people who suddenly discover themselves in deep, deep trouble in this country is to do what Patrick Kennedy did, then Mel Gibson did and now Mark Foley is doing — check yourself into a rehab program, in effect announcing to the world that alcohol or drugs made you commit your foul deed, despite your protests.
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So why wait?The political season in recent years has grown so long that it seems interminable. Maybe even unendurable. Whatever qualities recommend the candidates, whatever faults argue against these office-seekers, the cases for or against them are so nakedly out there that you want to hand them a raincoat to preserve their modesty.Likewise, the statewide ballot initiatives and local measures. The arguments pro and con have reached flood level. They’re all over the air waves, the Internet, the newspapers — and they might just wash away your mailbox.
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Endorsements is part of The San Francisco Examiner's 2006 election coverage. For a brighter future, The Examiner recommends:State & federal candidatesGovernor Arnold SchwarzeneggerLt. Governor Tom McClintockSecretary of State Bruce McPhersonController John ChiangTreasurer Claude ParrishAttorney General Jerry Brown Insurance Commissioner Steve PoiznerU.S. Senator
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It is by now manifestly clear to anyone who cares about San Francisco’s financial health that we cannot place all our hopes in a thriving tourism industry. Much as we’dlike to keep welcoming the world to its most beautiful city, there are too many risks.A cruise line could go belly up, hospitality workers leave on a protracted strike — each unforeseen event denying The City’s economy substantial sums of visitor dollars. There are earthquakes to consider, and terrorist attacks.
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This is more than a little disturbing. A new national survey of 14,000 students at 50 universities shows that seniors at prestigious University of California, Berkeley, actually knew 6 percentage points less about American history, government, current events and the market economy than the entering freshmen. At equally prestigious Stanford University, seniors’ scores in the 60-question, multiple-choice test were less than 1 percent better than what incoming freshmen knew.
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So it’s here, the much anticipated day when the historic Emporium, done over as a state-of-the-art shopping mall, opens to all its much deserved fanfare. By its nature, the Westfield San Francisco Centre rekindles the spirit of commerce that made The City one of the world’s greatest metropolitan centers.
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Authorities have traced the contaminated spinach that has killed as many as three people and sickened at least 173 to a few counties in California’s Salinas Valley, but let’s don’t stop the investigative work too soon. There’s a lesson to be learned here, an important one about the dangers of superstitious, leftist twaddle, and the threat it poses to human life.
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When a candidate for governor starts running against the president, and on top of that promises to make major foreign policy decisions from Sacramento, it’s a fair guess he’s run out of ideas. So is Democrat Phil Angelides conceding defeat through desperation? You do wonder. Polls show Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger holding a double-digit lead over the state treasurer, and Angelides’ internal surveys could show a hardening of that lead. Just a few days, ago Sacramento’s oracular columnist Dan Walters speculated about a landslide for the former movie action hero.
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URL: http://www.sfexaminer.com/archive/19/19?page=453%2C0%2C0%2C1&L=registration.register
