Anthony Pignataro: Just for fun, see how many cliches, euphemisms, idioms and just plain hackneyed catch-phrases you can find in the following press release, sent out today by the California Plug-in Electric Vehicle Collaborative in honor of their new "strategic plan," which is endorsed by Assemb...

Anthony Pignataro: The United States today has about 2.3 million people in jail and prison -- roughly 754 per 100,000 residents. Put into a global context, the U.S. holds about 5 percent of the world's population but 25 percent of the world's prisoners. This is, according to this new report by th...

Anthony Pignataro: Great news for everyone who thinks that the Great State of California can help balance its budget by selling 11 office buildings for about $1.3 billion and then leasing them back over the next 20 years at a cost of $1.4 billion: today Superior Court Judge Charlotte Woolard rule...

Anthony Pignataro: It's another day of good news and bad news for the California High Speed Rail Authority, that tiny but plucky state, um, entity charged with building an 800-mile network of bullet trains across California. First the good news: the state just received another $624 million in fed...

Anthony Pignataro: Seriously people, what does it take for the Attorney General's office to issue a formal opinion on a simple matter like whether Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle and LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member Richard Katz violate the doctrine of incompatible offices ...

Steven Greenhut: When P.T. Barnum allegedly talked about suckers, he was no doubt referring to the gullible folks who would drop a few bucks on his sideshows. Too bad Barnum couldn't spend some time in modern-day California, where voters -- big-time suckers, as they are -- will gladly spend billions...

Anthony Pignataro: So as I'm sure everyone in the western world knows by now, famed singer Joan Baez fell out of her Woodside treehouse yesterday. She had been up there, according to this San Jose Mercury-News story, "because she wanted to sleep with actual birds" (click here for a 2006 Independe...

Anthony Pignataro: There is great irony in yesterday's Los Angeles Times story on the state Fair Political Practices Commission's recent investigation into alleged undocumented travel by various members of the California High-Speed Rail Authority (click here to see the investigation letters sent ...

Anthony Pignataro: In addition to voting today, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger also asked the U.S. Small Business Administration to declare Placer County a "disaster area." His reason: the Oct. 21 fire that damaged the Westfield Galleria in Roseville. "[T]here will be an overwhelming economic ...