What is intolerable about UC Merced is not its horrendous, on-going and future costs, the incredible number and size of the lies told to the public, the state Legislature and state and federal resource agencies, or its arrogance, condescension and deep anti-intellectualism: what is intolerable about UC Merced is that it is abysmally boring and predictable.

(Merced Mayor Stan) Thurston agreed. "It's going to be the college's magnet that will bring both to this area, eventually, in the long-term," he said. "We know that in time, with UC Merced here, that is going to change, because as the university grows, high-tech companies will relocate to the Merced area to support the university." ...Officials believe those numbers will gradually increase. Aguilar said that before UC Merced was established, students didn't have access to pursue a higher education "in their own backyard." -- Yesenia Amaro, Merced Sun-Star, Jan. 11, 2013

1-13-13
AlterNet 
The Suprising Unknown History of the NRA
For most of its history, the NRA supported gun control laws and did not see government as the enemy.
By Steven Rosenfeld
http://www.alternet.org/suprising-unknown-history-nra?akid=9921.259010.FLGgcn&rd=1&src=newsletter776253&t=2

This U.S. Court of Federal Claims decision ruled that the federal government had no contractual obligation to build a "San Joaquin Drain" to transport ag drainage full of salts and heavy metals from the west side of the Valley to the Delta. While not the end of the legal argument, eventually the issue will be moot because the west side, because of that irrigation it so highly prizes, is salting up. Field by field, it will eventually be abandoned as unfarmable wasteland.