From Fish to Fools

This article will appear in the October edition of the Buffalo Gap (Texas) News Roundup

Public speakers and comedians call it “the magic of threes.”  Three points tied neatly together make for a compelling speech; three perfectly timed one-liners that lead to a big laugh.  In this month’s column from the Left Coast we have three stories illustrating that my state is run by gaggle of elected kooks.

First there’s the $16 million used to count fish in the ocean.  Over the past 20 years 16 percent of California’s coastline has been put off-limits to fishing.  These laws were pushed by eco-zealots who claimed the Pacific waters were overfished.  Just to make sure the laws were working, legislators created a massive count-the-fish fund that researchers blew though in eight years.  By the way, the brainiacs conducting the count cannot definitively tell us if there are more fish now than there were before the ban.

Ha!

Next we have voting California style—it’s now about to become even easier.  A bill was passed in the state Senate that, if made into law, would automatically register anyone (over the age of 18) getting a California driver’s license or state ID card to vote, unless they opt out.  Pushed by the Democratic Party, the goal is to eventually automatically register anyone filling out any form in any state government office.  Given that the bureaucrat on the other side of the counter is almost always a unionized Democrat, it’s likely that the default political affiliation of all newly registered voters will be—Democrat!  Who would guess?

By the way, there’s also a push in the California legislature to pre-register 16-year-olds to vote immediately upon getting their drivers license.

Bwahaha!

Finally, we have a new law in California that has banned our state’s high school exit examination.  The exam was created in 2004, and was intended to make sure that students have a rudimentary grasp of mathematics and English before being awarded a high school diploma.  The goal was to counter the phenomena of students receiving passing grades while learning almost nothing.  The math portion was essentially 8^th grade material, the English section was equivalent to what one would learn in the 9^th grade.  A student could pass the test with 55 percent of the questions answered correctly.   However, in order to accommodate the hurt feelings of those who passed all their classes but were unable to pass the exit exam, the state changed the law retroactively.  Therefore the 250,000 students who have failed this exam since 2004 will now be able to proudly receive their long overdue high school diplomas.

Bwahaha and badaboom! From fish to fools!  Welcome to the Left Coast.