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Elections and debate on a new five-year Farm Bill are upon us. The Bee reported last week that members of the House Agriculture Committee will be visiting Stockton in the first week of March to hold hearings on the Bush administration's proposals.

These proposals include taxing dairymen 3 cents per hundredweight, cutting cotton and rice subsidies and a $200-million annual subsidy to promote American agricultural exports. Recent recipients include Blue Diamond Growers, the California Table Grape Commission and Sunkist Growers, the Bee reported. (1)

Rep. Dennis Cardoza, Shrimp Slayer-Merced, has recently inaugurated a weekly email newsletter to keep his constituents "in the loop." The Shrimp Slayer's loop, however, would not be large enough to rope a heavily drugged alley cat. So, we thought we'd somewhat extend the loop to include the Shrimp Slayer's wider circle of friends.

Taking an advertising tip from the nation's failing auto industry, which just laid off another 60,000 workers, this Sacramento-area home builder is running a house-product sale reminiscent of a year-end car sale or the weekend radio ads for Okie Paul and Mary's furniture sales fifty years ago in Sacramento. Only the numbers appear to be bigger.

Best news of all -- this fine, genuine, California-built developer culture has come right here in Merced, too. Ain't we big now! Ain't we got klass?