Your
budget deficit continues to grow by leaps and billions, and voters are telling
you to stick your plan for closing part of the gap in your ear. What's the next
logical move, state of California?

Continue
defending a law aimed at stopping children from buying violent video games -
litigation that's already cost the state close to $400,000.

Here's one to keep us occupied during the long hot summer as the countdown drones on of days without a budget:

The
problem with a state of emergency is that it sounds so urgent.

So when
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared
a state of emergency last Tuesday due to swine flu, it immediately bestowed the
outbreak a greater sense of urgency than it had at that point. Or has at this
point, for that matter - there still are only 14 confirmed cases in the state.

It now
appears that Sandra Cantu, the 8-year-old who was last seen wearing a
"Hello, Kitty" shirt, didn't die at the hands of the clichéd
shadowy stranger.

Instead,
the person accused of killing the Tracy
girl is the statistical abduction probability: 60 percent of the time when
someone other than a family member kidnaps a child, it's someone the child is at
least acquainted with.