Desert Dog Blog

Victorville lays off 20 workers – a story that is being repeated across California

Photo from http://ci.victorville.ca.us

Victorville’s Concrete Repair Team.  (No one knows who’s being laid off, I just found this photo on Google)

Victorville lays off 20 workers, a story that is being repeated across California- As the new fiscal year 2010-2011 approaches in July, many cities are facing massive budget cuts and layoffs in order to be fiscally responsible in the face of the bad economy and the State’s own raids on city governments.

According to the Victor Valley Daily Press, 12 of the positions are going to be full-timers, and the rest part-timers.  There is currently no information available on what positions are being laid off,  so please don’t take the photo I chose as meaning anything.  Last year, 50 employees were laid off because of the budget crisis.

A fiscal crisis is a problem being faced in just about every city in California.  On the one hand, economic problems mean sales tax isn’t being generated to help cities conduct business, and on the other hand the State of California is raping the cities for their funds – often Redevelopment, with no regard for how large the city is or their financial situation.  And so, California cities are often found in a precarious situation.

Of all the levels of government – city, county, state, federal – cities are the ones that are the most fiscally responsible and able to balance budgets.  This is especially the case for smaller cities.  Of course, there’s exceptions but as general rule, this is true.  Think about how large the deficit is for the United States as a whole, then think about the deficit of California, and on down to the county and city levels.

Too bad that the higher levels of government don’t operate with the same level of fiscal responsibility as local governments.  Sometimes, when I’m wandering the desert and I’m not dodging rattlesnake strikes or being skewered by a Joshua tree, I wonder what would happen in a world where the local government had more power than the feds?   What if people paid more taxes to their local government, and created their own little regional socialist/libertarian utopias with their own municipalities?   What if the federal government was responsible, as it was originally intended, for the nation’s defense and keeping a national currency, etc.?

I know.  It sounds a little too Thomas Jeffersonish, doesn’t it?  I admit that I am an admirer of Jefferson’s agrarian philosophy.

New cross erected, then removed by park officials

New cross erected, then removed by park officials – A month ago, a cross in the Mojave National Preserve made national headlines when the Supreme Court ruled that it can be displayed because “the constitution does not oblige government to avoid any public acknowledgment of a religion’s role in society.”  That, and the government has decided to transfer the land where the cross is displayed (Sunrise Rock) into private hands.

Shortly after that on May 8 or 9, and much to the dismay of the nation, the cross was stolen by some greedy fools looking to bag an icon.  Then, on May 20 someone replaced it in the early morning, and park officials removed it, in concordance with a Supreme Court injunction that it not be displayed until the federal land has been transferred.

Is it really necessary, since the land is supposedly being transferred to private owners, to remove the new cross? I also wonder if this begins a trend of people placing a cross, and then someone removing it.

The cross was originally erected in the 1930s as a war memorial for the soldiers and sailors of World War 1.  It has been vandalized a few times in the past, even stolen.

Barstow Company Plans to Make Bank Off Apocalypse

Barstow Company Plans to Make Bank Off Apocalypse – It’s the Cold War all over again!  That’s what it feels like.  Except this time the giver of death isn’t a distant Communist nation.  No, it’s God Himself, along with a host of similarly vague and supernatural bogeymen; like the year 2012, the alignment of the stars, the demise of the nation, the damn liberals, the Muslims, illegal immigrants, and earthquakes.

Meet Vivos, a company who has created a safe-haven under the Mojave Desert complete with an atrium, a gym, a jail, “with Sloppy Joes and pearl potatoes on the menu”, as The Los Angeles Times reports.

If you want to stay safe, the price is quite hefty of course.  $50,000 will get you one bunk in a 4-person room.  As the owner of Vivos,  Robert Vicino says it best.  “There’s a lot of free-floating anxiety out there …”

While he was talking about the problems of terrorists obtaining nukes, I think that statement sums it up quite well.   Or, as P.T. Barnum once said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

In the article, the Times interviewed a 55-year-old San Pedro man who paid $12,500 to reserve spots for him and his family.  He said he’s not crazy; it’s just that we live in “fearful times”.

That’s probably what listening to Fox News, Glenn Beck, and believing every conspiracy theory ever forwarded to your inbox will do.

Vicino is set to have his pockets lined by the conspiracy theorist crowd.  But just think, when 2012 breezes by and you’re sitting on a $50,000 bunk bed next to a man wearing a tinfoil hat, don’t say you’ve never been warned.  The Desert Dogs told you first, and we say you’ve been had.